A Calamitous Chinese Killing

by Shamini Flint

  “What do you mean?” she asked Wang Zhen.

  “I understand that your father’s performance review at the university is coming up soon.”

  Dao Ming exhaled, a quiet sound of relief, but Wang Zhen did not hear it. He did not know the situation with her father – not yet – so secrecy was still an option.

  “My father can ensure that he never holds a post in a university in China again.”

  She realised that Wang Zhen meant it. She was also sure that her father would not want her to cave in to threats, wherever he was, he would not want her to succumb to such pressure.

  “Do you want to be responsible for the end of your father’s career? He is a well-respected man. The scandal would destroy him.”

  She knew that what he said was true. Her father loved his job almost more than his two daughters. But where was her father? What was the use of sacrificing herself for his job, for his happiness, when he would soon lose everything anyway, probably already had, with his long unexplained absence? A thought came to her, an idea. Was it worth the risk? She remembered Justin, the big smile and the big heart – willing to do what was right regardless of the consequences. She would honour Justin’s memory in her own way, using the assets and advantages that she had. She pretended to think, turned away from Wang Zhen so that he could not see her face, the sudden hope that brightened her features like the sun coming round a mountain.

  “Very well, Wang Zhen, you give me no choice.” She could not look at him, could not meet his eyes. This man who would rather have a songbird in a cage and silent than free to fly away and sing. “I will be with you again. You have convinced me that your feelings are genuine. It is the best decision for my whole family.”

  His voice throbbed with happiness. “We will be so happy together, Dao Ming. I promise you that!” He really meant it as well. She could almost marvel at his inability to understand the human heart.

  She said, trying to stop her lip from quivering, trying to project calmness and determination, “However, there is something you must do for me in return.”

  ♦

  Singh focused on the autopsy report. He sat in the cool interior of the limousine and spread papers all over his ample lap. Benson glanced at him once and then left him to his own devices. The original report was in Mandarin, a sheaf of papers stapled together down the left-hand margin. The Chinese characters were tight complex works of art – they reminded the inspector of an Escher painting. Geometrical, repetitive, complex, and essentially pointless. Human beings had devised an alternative system in which a twenty-six-letter alphabet did the work of thousands of characters. As if to prove his point, the English summary was a good few pages shorter than the original. He hoped it didn’t mean that information had been left out. “Benson!”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Do you read and write Chinese?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Good – I’ll need you to check a translation for me later.”

  “Do you mean the autopsy result?”

  “Yes.”

  “I did the first translation.”

  “Oh.” Singh pondered this for a moment. “Left anything out?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then how come your version is so short?”

  “Chinese is an unwieldy language by comparison.”

  The inspector’s full bottom lip stretched into a smile. “That’s what I thought. So how come the whole world is learning Mandarin? Why don’t we wait for the Chinese to learn English?”

  “It’s true that the Chinese are working very hard at their English. Every second building in Beijing is an English tuition centre.”

  Singh stared out of the window and read the nearest signboard out loud, “‘Traveller from to get into by bus’.”

  “The quality of English is very mixed,” explained Benson.

  Singh noted another sign on a construction fence which read, SLIP AND FALL DOWN CAREFULLY. It was good advice, he supposed.

  Singh resumed his perusal of the report. He’d had enough of this discussion on linguistics. As always, when he was in some corner of a foreign field, he would have to rely on translators and hope they’d caught enough of the substance not to obstruct the hunt for the truth.

  Even in English, the language was complex but the conclusions were simple. Justin Tan had suffered multiple injuries including lacerations, bruising, broken bones and internal injuries. It was difficult to be certain which injury had ultimately been the proximate cause of death but the examiner speculated that a number of the blows to the head with the proverbial blunt instrument might have been fatal on their own. Also, a punctured lung, pierced by a snapped rib, would have led to death, but not immediately. Turning the page over, Singh noted that a number of blows had been post-mortem, the kicking and punching had continued after Justin’s death. Some of the wounds had bled less than would have been expected if the victim had still been alive. Certain blows had not bruised despite the force used. In other words, his heart had stopped but his assailants had not. It bore out what he’d said to Susan Tan – it had the hallmarks of a drug-fuelled rage.

  The inspector turned back to the file, looking for hints of the attacker or attackers. The pathologist had been convinced there was more than one. Singh couldn’t disagree. The blows had been of different strengths, from different angles. The indentation of shoe prints on the flesh suggested at least two men, probably more. The pathologist was a diligent fellow; he’d carefully photographed the marks and then attempted to draw them as well. Singh wondered whether any progress had been made identifying the type of footwear. It wouldn’t be much use until a suspect was identified, but at such a point, it might amount to one more strand of circumstantial evidence. No foreign DNA had been recovered from the body. He read the detail on Justin’s hands. They were bruised and battered, he’d warded off the first few blows. But he’d never got his hands on any of his opponents. There was nothing under the fingernails that would lead directly to a killer or killers.

  Singh leafed through the pile and found what he was looking for – an inventory of what had been found on or around Justin’s body. A Tag Heuer watch with the inscription, ‘Congratulations to my beloved son’. Perhaps it had been a present on his passing out from the army. Not graduation certainly as the young fellow had taken a year out. A wallet, leather calfskin Versace containing ten thousand yuan, various credit cards and a Singapore identity card. Singh assumed the credit cards – Visa, Amex and Mastercard – were supplementary to the ones of his parents. Susan Tan hadn’t been concerned that Justin might go on an uncontrolled spending spree. Or maybe she and the father were just naive. It wouldn’t be the first time successful parents had been blinkered about their own offspring. Singh stopped to wonder if he would have been foolish about a child – assuming the best, never suspecting the worst. He doubted it. He was too much of a cynic by nature.

  The only other object that had been in Justin’s possession was a ticket stub for a subway ride. From the East Gate of Peking University station to Beijing West Railway Station.

  “Where are these stations?” he asked Benson.

  “The first one is close to Peking University. The other is a few streets down from where Justin was killed. I would guess that he caught a train at the university and headed there.”

  “How have they come up with such an accurate time of death,” demanded Singh, noting for the first time that the time of death had been set at twelve minutes past midnight.

  “The watch was broken.”

  “And they assumed it was broken in the assault?”

  “It seemed a sensible conclusion.”

  “Or he fell over the previous evening while going for a piss at night?”

  Benson shrugged. “Tiananmen Square is on your right,” he said, changing the subject.

  Singh turned to stare out of the darkened window with interest.

  “Pull over,” he said and Benson complied. Singh hauled himself out and took a deep breath despi
te the oppressive humidity. The place was an ode to grey cement. A few children flying kites in the foreground lessened the sombre appearance of the place but not by much. There were hundreds of tourists around, almost entirely Chinese. He wondered if they were from overseas, part of the Chinese diaspora, or local. He stared at a few tourists and they stared back open-mouthed. A few stopped so suddenly at the sight of him that others walked into them. A small girl in a party frock pointed at him and stuck out her tongue. Locals, he deduced. The diaspora was familiar with the turban-wearing segment of the population while these folk reacted as if they’d stumbled upon their first inter-planetary visitor.

  “Tourists from the provinces,” explained Benson. “They’re…umm…not used to foreigners.”

  Singh cast his mind back to 1989 and the television footage of angry students at Tiananmen Square, thousands of them demanding freedom and democracy. The inspector had been rooting for the students. He had watched with the rest of the world as soldiers from outlying regions were shipped in to quell the rebellion in Beijing. They had opened fire on Beijing residents without thinking twice. And now, more than two decades later, they and their children were back in the square as tourists.

  The inspector’s thoughts turned to Justin. He’d died alone – not part of a movement, not in pursuit of an ideal, not as a hero. Maybe the kids in Beijing in 1989 had the right of it. A life given for a cause was surely a death more worthwhile than the victim of a robbery gone wrong? Maybe even some cold comfort to the parents.

  “That’s Mao,” said Benson.

  Singh stared at the portrait in the distance. He could make out the fleshy face and the swept-back pitch-black hair. The Great Leader wore a grey buttoned-up jacket of the type that had come to be known as Mao pyjamas.

  “Do people still respect him?”

  “The government pays lip service to his memory, but the hero worship of past eras is over.”

  “And what about the ordinary people?”

  “The so-called proletariat?”

  “Yup.”

  “They’ve found another god to follow.”

  “Xi Jinping?” asked Singh, referring to the current leader.

  “Money,” said Benson, as the two men continued to look across the vast grey blank towards the man who had been China’s first communist leader.

  Four

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “Don’t you want to know what happened to our son?”

  “What’s the point? It’s not going to bring him back!” Susan Tan looked at her husband and tried to remember a time when she had loved him. She’d met him at university all those years ago and been swept off her feet – he was so tall, so handsome, so confident. She’d married him and they’d had two children in quick succession, Justin, now dead, and his sister Jemima, lurking in the residence somewhere, red-eyed and miserable over the loss of her brother.

  “I need to know what happened,” she insisted, wondering whether all conversations on sudden death turned into cliches.

  “I know what you need,” said Anthony. “You need to think you’re in charge, that this is just another problem that will go away if you bring that famous determination and hard work to bear. Well, I’ve got news for you, honey – there is nothing you can do to make this particular problem go away. Justin is not coming back.”

  Looking at his mouth twisted in anger, Susan realised with a sense of mild surprise – and strangely, relief – that her husband did not care about her either. At least, she didn’t need to feel guilt about the breakdown of their relationship. It wasn’t just her, it was both of them. The closeness was long gone, the barriers between them as solid as the Great Wall. She wondered suddenly whether he’d had affairs, betrayed her with other women. He was still a good-looking man, had aged well. Greying temples and laugh lines down his cheeks. A number of colleagues had said to her that he looked like an ambassador. Was it just humour or had it been intended to hurt? She didn’t really care, a career trajectory like hers was always likely to provoke envy.

  She gazed at her husband as if he were a stranger. Was she naive to expect that he’d remained loyal to her? She’d never strayed, of course. She was one of those women married to her job. Working all hours, even weekends, missing children’s sports days and prize-giving days – her country had needed her and she’d put it first. She realised now that she’d happily have binned every trade agreement she’d negotiated, every peace plan concluded, every diplomatic coup and newspaper headline for one more hour with her son. An hour to hear how he was doing at his lessons, to gossip about his new girlfriend, to find out what he thought about the world. Maybe just to give him a hug.

  “Who is this policeman you’ve dragged down from Singapore?” demanded her husband.

  “An Inspector Singh – he came highly recommended.”

  “He won’t have the first idea how to get anything done in this town.”

  “You think we need someone Chinese? I have to admit I thought the same thing.”

  “You’ve changed your mind?”

  “Singh’s a bit of a character, he might be able to see things that we can’t.”

  “You’re talking nonsense.”

  “I was reading about him, he has a nose for trouble and no respect for authorities.”

  “In that case he’ll be lucky not to wind up in prison.”

  “I need to know what happened,” she repeated in a low whisper, as if reminding herself, not him, why she had summoned the inspector.

  Anthony walked over to the raised kitchen table and sat down on a tall stool. He buried his face in his hands. His grey suit blended into the background. The whole residence was decorated in soothing tones of grey and white. Zen, Susan had explained, when she’d selected the design for their residence. Something minimalist. Looking around her, the First Secretary realised suddenly that the place was sterile. It lacked any colour, any sense that it might be the abode of a family. Even the paintings, selected by the highly paid interior decorator, were in grey tones – Chinese brushstrokes of mountains and cranes, a sop to their location. No doubt the embassy residences in India had Moghul miniatures. Had Justin found a home here? Did Jemima? She knew that she could not ask the latter, did not want to hear the answer. Susan Tan pressed her temples with her forefingers.

  “He wants to see you.” She addressed her husband’s back.

  “Why?” He swivelled round to face her. His fingers had left white streaks on his cheeks where the pressure had driven away the blood under the skin.

  “I don’t know. He says he needs to talk to everyone who knew Justin well – who might be able to shed some light on this…business.”

  “How can I possibly shed light on why our son was unlucky enough to be set upon by thugs and killed in some filthy Chinese alley?”

  “Is that what you really believe?”

  “What else is there to think?”

  Jemima sidled into the room. She was a thin shadow, flitting around the residence in a sort of sideways crawl with her eyes darting from side to side as if expecting trouble from any direction. Her mother felt her eyes grow wet with tears. She blinked quickly, her practised response to a thousand emotional situations. Don’t let anyone see weakness. Keep your feelings inside where no one can exploit them.

  “Is the policeman here?” asked Jemima.

  Both her parents looked at her in surprise. A sixteen-year-old with only the lightest grasp of daily reality at the best of times, she had completely shut down after Justin’s death.

  “Yes – he’s gone to the hotel,” said Susan.

  “Where is he staying?”

  “The Hyatt.”

  “Will he find out what happened to Justin?”

  “We hope so,” said her mother.

  “The Chinese police have already done that,” insisted Anthony.

  Jemima shook her head. “They didn’t try very hard.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “They didn’t even come
here, talk to us, search his room, anything!”

  “There was no reason to,” insisted Anthony Tan. “This isn’t a television show.”

  Susan Tan said gently, “Inspector Singh might want to speak to you, Jemima. He’s trying to understand a little more about Justin.” Would Jemima be able to cope? She’d always been fragile, now she was brittle.

  Again her daughter surprised her. “Of course he must speak to all of us. He can’t find out what happened unless he knows as much as possible about Justin.”

  Anthony walked over to his daughter and put an arm around her. She flinched like a nervous foal but did not withdraw.

  With a pang, Susan realised that the last of his family feeling, the last of his protective instinct, was available only for Jemima. Despite this, she felt her own attitude to him soften. It was something, after all, that Anthony cared for his children, although his reaction to Justin’s death had been to bottle up his emotions inside. Not so different from her, really.

  “I hope he finds out what really happened to Justin,” said Jemima as she extricated herself from her father’s embrace. She spoke in a whisper but the strength of her feelings came through.

  “What do you mean?” asked Susan, but Jemima had already slipped out of the door.

  It seemed that her daughter, like herself, thought there was more to Justin’s death than had been revealed so far. She wondered whether her surviving child had any evidence to back up the feeling and dismissed the thought. Jemima, inhabiting a world that existed almost entirely in her head, was not the sort to know anything useful.

  ♦

  The traffic gave him the opportunity to count every Starbucks and McDonald’s – the advancing forces of capitalism sweeping Chinese food away? – that lined the major roads. Indeed, if these highways were the arteries of Beijing, the city was due a massive heart attack. By the time they reached the hotel and inched their way past luxury vehicles and dilapidated taxis to the entrance, Singh only had half an hour before he was due to meet the Chinese ex-policeman. He followed the circuitous corridor until he found his room. It was large and luxurious and the bed looked firm and inviting, but he regretfully eschewed such pleasures for later. Instead, he showered quickly. The water was steaming hot and refreshing, but the water pressure was not to his satisfaction. The inspector liked a shower to double as a massage and this one was more of a tickle. He wrapped a towel around his waist and then the turban around his head at lightning speed – his wife wasn’t there to criticise the construction and the Chinese wouldn’t know any better if it was more beehive than avatar of a warrior. He ate an apple from the fruit display without washing it and then hurried down and out the main entrance of the hotel, mentally urging the revolving door to move a little faster.