by Qiu Xiaolong
“Why?”
“So that the girl could walk down from the poster,” she said good-humoredly, “to keep you company at night.”
“Oh, that!” he laughed. “The same old story you told me thirty years ago. I’m busy today, but I’ll see you tomorrow. You can tell me the story again.”
Chapter 5
S everal days had passed since the housewarming party. At nine o’clock in the morning, grasping a Shanghai Evening Post in his hand, Chen had a feeling that he was being read by the news, rather than the other way round. What engaged him was the report of a go game between a Chinese and a Japanese player, with a miniature map of the go board showing all the movements of black and white pieces, each occupying a position full of meaning, and possibly of meanings beyond the surface meaning.
This was nothing but a last minute self-indulgence before the invariable bureau routine.
The phone on his desk rang. “Comrade Chief Inspector, you’re such an important high official.” It was Wang’s satirical voice. “As the old Chinese saying goes, an important man has an impoverished memory.”
“No, don’t say that.”
“You’re so busy that you forget all your friends.”
“Yes, I’ve been terribly busy, but how could I put you out of my mind? No. I’m just so busy with all the routine work plus the new case-you know, the one I got the night of the party- remember? I apologize for not having called you earlier.”
“Never say sorry-” she changed the topic before finishing the sentence. “But I have some good news for you.”
“Really?”
“First, your name is on the list of the fourteenth seminar sponsored by the Central Party Institute in Beijing.”
“How did you learn that?”
“I’ve got my connections. So we will have to throw another party for your new promotion.”
“It’s too early for that. But what about having lunch with me next week?”
“It sounds like I am asking for an invitation to lunch.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what. Last night it rained, and I happened to be reading Li Shangyin-’ When, when can we snuff the candle by the western window again, / And talk about the moment of Mount Ba in the rain?’ And I missed you so much.”
“Your poetic exaggeration again.”
“No. Upon my word as a police officer, it’s the truth.”
“And a second piece of good news for a poetic chief inspector.” She switched the subject again. “Xu Baoping, senior editor of our literature and art section, has decided to use your poem- ’Miracle,’ I believe that’s the name of it.”
“Yes, ‘Miracle.’ That is fantastic.”
That was indeed a piece of exciting news. A poem in the Wenhui Daily, a nationally influential newspaper, could reach far more readers than one in some little magazine. “Miracle” was a poem about a policewoman’s dedication to her work. The editor might have chosen it out of political considerations, but Chen was still overjoyed. “Well, at the Shanghai Writers’ Association, few know that I’m a detective by profession. There’s no point talking to them about it. They would probably say, ‘What, a man who catches murderers should also try to catch muses?’”
“I’m not too surprised.”
“Thanks for telling me the truth,” he said. “What my true profession is, I’ve not decided yet!”
Chief Inspector Chen had tried not to overestimate his poet- ic talent, though critics claimed to discover in his work a combination of classical Chinese and modern Western sensibility. Occasionally he would wonder what kind of a poet he might have become had he been able to dedicate all his time to creative writing. However, that was just a tantalizing fantasy. In the last two or three weeks he had so much work to do during the day that evenings had invariably found him too exhausted to write.
“No, don’t get me wrong. I believe in your poetic touch. That’s why I forwarded your ‘Miracle’ to Xu- ’The rain has washed your shoulder length hair green -’ Sorry, that’s about the only line I remember. It just reminds me of a mermaid in a cartoon movie, rather than a Shanghai policewoman.”
“The poetic touch indeed-but I’ll let you in on a secret. I have turned you into several poems.”
“What! You are really impossible,” she said. “You never quit, do you?”
“You mean washing my hands in the river?”
“Last time,” she said laughingly, “you did not wash your hands, I noticed, before the meal in your new apartment.”
“That’s just another reason I should treat you to a lunch,” he said. “To prove my innocence.”
“You’re always too innocently busy.”
“But I will never be too busy to dine with you.”
“I’m not so sure. Nothing is more important to you than a case, not even whirling around with me.”
“Oh-you’re being impossible now.”
“Well, see you next week.”
He was pleased with the call from her. There was no denying that he had been in her thoughts, too. Or why should she have cared about the news of the seminar? She seemed to be quite excited about it. As for the poem, it was possible she had put in a word on his behalf.
Also, it was always pleasant to engage her in an exchange of wit. Casual, but intimate beneath the surface.
It was true that he had been terribly busy. Party Secretary Li had given him several topics for possible presentation at the seminar sponsored by the Central Party Institute. He had to finish all of them in two or three days, for the Party Secretary wanted to have someone in Beijing preview them. According to Li, the top Party leaders, including the ex-General Secretary of the Central Party Committee, had been invited to attend. A successful presentation there would get attention at the highest level. As result, Chief Inspector Chen had to leave most of the squad work to Detective Yu.
Wang’s call, however, once more brought the image of the dead woman to his mind. Little had yet been done about the case. All their efforts to learn the identity of the young woman had yielded no clues. He decided to have another talk with Yu.
“Yes, it’s been four days,” Yu said. “We haven’t made any progress. No evidence. No suspects. No theory.”
“Still no one reported missing?”
“No one matching her description.”
“Last time you ruled out the possibility of her being someone from the neighborhood. What about her being one of those provincial girls who come to Shanghai?” Chen said, “Since they have no family here, it would take a long time before a missing persons report came in.”
With new construction going on everywhere, new companies being founded every day, the so-called “provincials” formed a cheap mobile labor force. Many were young girls who came to find jobs in the new restaurants and hotels.
“I thought about that, too,” Yu said. “But have you noticed her fingernails? So professionally manicured, polished. And her toenails, too.”
“But she might have worked in one of those fancy hotels.”
“Let me tell you something, Comrade Chief Inspector. Last month, I saw a painting by Cheng Shifa,” Yu said, shaking his head. “It shows a Dai girl walking along the rough Yuannan mountain path, her bare feet flashing white under her long green skirt. Well, one of my colleagues in Yuannan married a Dai girl. Afterward, he told me he was shocked to see how calloused and cracked her feet were in real life.”
“You may have a point, Comrade Detective Yu,” Chen said, not too pleased with the way Yu delivered his lecture, “but if she had stayed long enough in one of those foreign hotels, been totally transformed, so to speak, that would still be possible, right?”
“If so, we should have had a report already. Those foreign general managers have a way of running their business, and their people, too. And they keep in close contact with the police.”
“True,” he said, nodding, “but we have to do something.”
“Yes, but what?”
The conversation left him disturbed. Was it tr
ue that they could not do anything but wait? Once more he took out the picture of the dead girl. The enlarged one. Though the image was not clear, he could see that she must have been an attractive woman. How could such a woman not be missed after almost a week? She should have had some people who cared for her. Friends, colleagues, parents, sisters and brothers, maybe lovers, who were anxious about her. No human being, particularly a young attractive woman, could be so alone that no one missed her when she disappeared for a week. He could not understand it.
But maybe she had said that she was going away on vacation or business. If so, it could take a long time before someone started wondering where she was.
He had a vague feeling that there was something about the case, something complicated, waiting for him. Something like a parallel to his writing experience…
A glimpse of a veiled face at the entrance of Beijing subway, a waft of the jasmine blossom fragrance from a blue teacup, or a particular rhythm in an attic with a train rumbling into the distant night, and he would have the feeling that he was on the verge of producing a wonderful poem. All this could turn out, however, to be a false lead, and he would end up crossing out fragments of unsatisfactory lines.
With this case, he did not even have such an evasive lead, nothing but an ineffable feeling. He pushed open the window. The early chorus of the cicadas assaulted him in hot waves.
“ Zhiliao, Zhiliao, Zhiliao…”
It was a homophone for “understanding” in Chinese.
Before he left for a meeting, he made a call to Dr. Xia, who had examined the victim’s body.
“Dr. Xia, I have to ask a favor of you,” Chen said.
“Anything I can do, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen.”
“Remember the young woman found in the canal in a plastic bag-case number 736? The body has not yet been disposed of, I believe. Maybe the plastic bag is still there, too. Check it for me, and more importantly, write a description of the victim for me. Not a report but a detailed description. Not of a corpse but of a human being. Vivid. Concrete. Specific. What would she have looked like alive. I know you’re busy, Dr. Xia. Please do it as a personal favor for me.”
Doctor Xia, who loved classical Chinese poetry and was aware that Chen wrote poems in the so-called modernist style, said, “I know what you want, but I cannot promise my description will be as vivid as a modernist work, including every possible detail, ugly or not.”
“Don’t be too hard on me, Dr. Xia. I’ve been incorporating a streak of Li Shangyin’s lyricism into my lines. I’ll show some to you over our next lunch together. It will be my treat, of course.”
Afterward, during the routine political meeting whose agenda was ”Studies of Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s Selected Works,” Chen found his thoughts wandering, unable to concentrate on the book in his hands.
Dr. Xia’s response however, came faster than he had expected. At two o’clock, there appeared a two-page fax in Dr. Xia’s neat handwriting: The following can be said about the woman who has been occupying your thoughts day and night: 1) She was thirty or thirty-one years old. She was five feet, four inches tall, and weighed about one hundred and ten pounds. She had a straight nose, small mouth, large eyes, and unplucked eyebrows. Her teeth were good too, even, white. She had an almost athletic build. Her breasts were small and slack, but her nipples large. With her slender waist, long, shapely legs, and round hips, she could have been a stunner-”so beautiful that the fish and the geese dive in shame.” 2) She must have taken good care of herself. Her body skin was soft and resilient, probably resulting from extensive use of lotions and creams. Her hair was black and shiny. Not a single white hair. There were no calluses on her hands or feet. Not a mark or blemish. Both her fingers and toes had been well-cared-for. 3) In the record of the autopsy I emphasize the following: She had not had a child and never had an abortion. She had no scars from operations, nor any other marks on her body. 4) She had sexual intercourse shortly before death. She could have been raped, but there were hardly any bruises on her body except a light abrasion on her collarbone, which could have resulted from passionate love-making. No blood, dirt, or skin under her nails, and her hair mostly in place. At least she did not struggle much when her clothes were taken off. She was not wearing an IUD. 5) She had had a meal about forty minutes before she died: pork chops, mashed potatoes, green beans, and caviar.
After having read this memo, Chen worked out a new description, attached a photo, faxed it to a number of large work units, and had hundreds of copies ordered for delivery to Detective Yu, who was to post them in public places like store bulletin boards or bus stop signs where people might see them. That was all Chief Inspector Chen could think of.
The question was: How long would it take before he got a response?
Chapter 6
T he response came before the end of the week.
Thursday afternoon, the same week the new notice was posted, a call came in from Shanghai First Department Store. A store security man had received a copy of the detailed description, which reminded him of a section manager who had not yet returned from vacation. Her colleagues had not been worried since it was common for people to spend a couple of extra days on vacation. When the security man showed the picture to the people who worked with her, she was immediately recognized.
“The picture is not clear, but they are all positive.” According to the security man, this was because she was a well-known woman. “Her name is Guan Hongying. Guan, you know, for closing the door. Hong for the color red, and Ying for heroine.”
“Red Heroine. What a revolutionary name! Guan Hongying,” Chief Inspector Chen said. “It sounds familiar.”
“She was a national model worker, thirty-one years old, single, who had worked in the store for more than ten years. A Party member, of course.”
“What! A national model worker-Oh now I remember,” Chen said. “Thank you. We appreciate your help, comrade. Contact us when you have any new information.” In spite of his morning headache, Chen began to feel more hopeful than he had for a long time. Shanghai First was the largest department store in the city. A handful of security men in plainclothes were stationed there. While their main job was to deal with shoplifters, they knew how to gather information.
Sure enough, before lunchtime more information rolled in. The dead woman’s identity was confirmed. Her dental records matched her medical history. Guan Hongying, thirty-one, unmarried, head of the cosmetics section, Party member for eleven years, national model worker and attendant at the Party’s Ninth and Tenth Congresses. She had left home on May tenth for vacation and had since contacted no one.
At one o’clock, Chen got the first picture of Guan from a courier. Then the fax machine received a dozen more, as well as a huge amount of writing about her. Most of the pictures were clippings from newspapers and magazines. And all the writings were propaganda, about her commitment to her work, her noble spirit in serving the people, and her selfless dedication to the communist cause-all the familiar rhetoric of the Party’s newspapers. As he read on, Chief Inspector Chen had second thoughts about taking the case. The rape and murder of a national model worker! Such a case, if solved, might still be hushed up for political considerations, but if it were not solved, political pressure could be expected from higher authorities. Still, he started to put some data together for a new case report. NAME: Guan, Hongying DATE OF BIRTH: December 11, 1958 RACE: Han ADDRESS: Lane, Number 18, Lane 235, Hubei Rd. (Dormitory of the First Department Store) STATUS: Single OCCUPATION: Cadre (Head of cosmetics section, Party member, National Model Worker) NEXT OF KIN: (mother, Alzheimer’s patient in Ankang Nursing Home) WORK HISTORY: From 1979 to 1990
At five thirty, an emergency meeting was called in the Number 3 Conference Room of the Shanghai Police Bureau. The meeting was presided over with exacting authority by Party Secretary Li, a stout man in his late fifties, whose face was dominated by the heavy bags under his eyes. He sat upright at the head of the long oak desk. Chen arrived first. Yu came
to sit beside him. Sitting at the other end of the table, Commissar Zhang Zhiqiang made an unexpected appearance. A man of Zhang’s high rank did not have to attend such a meeting. Nor was he a member of the special case squad.
“Thank you for coming, Commissar Zhang,” Party Secretary Li said, paying his tribute to the old man before he started his speech.
Commissar Zhang had joined the Party in the early forties and received an 11th ranking in the system after 1949. Party Secretary Li, on the other hand, had become a Party member in the fifties, so his ranking was much lower. As always, Chen greeted Commissar Zhang respectfully. Zhang did not think too well of Chen, and on several occasions had come close to labeling him a liberal.
“This is a case of paramount political importance, comrades,” Party Secretary Li began. “That’s why we are having the meeting today. The mayor himself has just telephoned. He believes that it could be a serious political case. This is his instruction to us: ‘Do your best, and solve the case as soon as possible. The city government is behind your work. Hold no press conferences. Do not reveal any details concerning her death’.”
Chen was amazed. The dead woman had been somebody, her name frequently mentioned in newspapers, her image often seen on TV, but she had not been so important that the mayor himself should have made a call to the bureau, and so soon.
“But it’s a homicide case,” Detective Yu said.
The Party Secretary went on, “Comrades, we must realize, Comrade Guan could have been murdered out of political considerations. She was a well-known role model for the whole country-her tragic death is a significant loss to our Party, and a symbolic blow to the public security of our socialist society.”
The Party Secretary was going too far, Chen reflected. As a party official, Li did not know much about homicide. But then, that might be the very reason Li, rather than anybody else, was the Party secretary; he was capable of seeing politics in everything.
“Besides, the way she was so brutally murdered could damage the pure image of our great Party.”