by Qiu Xiaolong
“Have you discussed it with Party Secretary Li?”
“No, not yet,” Chen said. “Li’s still in Beijing.”
“Then we can go ahead without having to report to him.”
“Yes, we can, but we have to move carefully.”
“Is there anything else you know about Wu?”
“Just these official files.” Chen produced a folder out of his brief case. “Not much, general background information. If you want, you can read it tomorrow.”
“I would like to read a few pages now if you don’t mind,” Yu said, lighting a cigarette for Chen and then one for himself.
So Yu began to read the documents enclosed in the folder. The most comprehensive one was an official dossier Chen had obtained from the Shanghai Archives Bureau. The dossier did not offer much of immediate interest, but it was more thoroughly compiled than what Yu had been used to seeing in ordinary bureau files. Wu Xiaoming was born in 1949. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father Wu Bing was a high cadre in charge of the Party’s ideological work, living in one of the most luxurious mansions in Shanghai. Wu Xiaoming grew to be a “three good” student in his elementary school. A proud Young Pioneer with the streaming red scarf and then a Communist Youth League member with a golden badge shining in the sunlight of the early sixties. The Cultural Revolution changed everything. Wu Bing’s political rival, Zhang Chunqiao, a Party politburo member, was merciless toward his opponents. Wu Xiaoming saw his parents dragged out of the mansion, handcuffed, and thrown into prison, where his mother died a miserable death. Homeless, Wu and his sister were left struggling on the streets. No one dared to take care of them. For six or seven years he labored as an educated youth in Jiangxi Province. In 1974 he was allowed to move back to Qingpu County, Shanghai, on the grounds of his father’s poor health. In the late seventies, the old man was let out of jail, and rehabilitated—more or less symbolically, since he no longer had the strength for his office. Wu Xiaoming, too, had been assigned a good position. As a photographer for Red Star, he had access to the top Party leaders and made several trips abroad. With praiseworthy diligence, the report went on in some detail about Wu Xiaoming’s own family. Wu was married in Jiangxi province in his educated youth years. His wife, Liang Ju, was also from a high cadre family. They came back to Shanghai together. Liang had a job in the city government, but suffering from some serious neurosis, she stayed at home for several years. They had no children. As Wu Xiaoming had to take care of his father, he and his wife lived in his father’s mansion.
In the part about Wu’s work, Yu found several pages of more recent date, the “cadre promotion background checkup” filled out by Wu’s current boss, Yang Ying. Wu was described as the magazine’s photo editor and “ace photographer,” who had produced several pictures of Comrade Deng Xiaoping in Shanghai. The report highlighted Wu’s dedication to his work. Wu had demonstrated his political commitment by giving up holidays to carry out special assignments. At the end of the report, Yang Ying gave his “full recommendation for a new important position.”
When Yu finished reading, he found his cigarette totally burnt out in the ashtray.
“Not much, eh?” Chen said.
“Not much for us,” he said. “What will his new position be?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“So how shall we proceed with our investigation?”
“A difficult investigation, even dangerous,” Chen said, “with Wu’s family connections. If we make one mistake, we’ll be in serious trouble. Politics.”
“Politics or no politics. Do you have a choice?”
“No, not as a cop.”
“Then neither have I,” Yu said, standing up. “I am your assistant.”
“Thank you, Comrade Detective Yu Guangming.”
“You don’t have to say that.” Yu moved over to the cabinet and returned with a bottle of Yanghe. “We’re a team, aren’t we? Drink up. It’s a bottle I’ve saved for several years.”
Yu and Chen drained their cups.
In The Romance of Three Kingdoms, Yu remembered, the heroes would drink wine when vowing to share wealth and woe.
“So we have to interview him,” Chen said, “as soon as possible.”
“It may not be too good an idea to startle a snake by stirring the weeds. And possibly a poisonous snake,” Yu said, pouring himself another cup.
“But it’s the route we must follow, if we make him our main suspect,” Chen said slowly. “Besides, Wu Xiaoming will get wind of our investigation one way or another.”
“You’re right,” Yu said. “I’m not afraid of the snake’s bite, but I want to finish it at one blow.”
“I know,” Chen said. “So when do you think we should act?”
“Tomorrow,” Yu said. “We may be able to take him by surprise.”
By the time Peiqin returned with Qinqin, Yu and Chen had finished the bottle of Yanghe and agreed on the steps they would take the following day.
The dessert Peiqin had promised was an almond cake.
Afterward, Yu and Peiqin accompanied Chen to the bus stop. Chen thanked them profusely before he boarded.
“Was everything okay this evening?” Peiqin said, taking Yu’s arm.
“Yes,” he said absentmindedly. “Everything.”
But not quite everything.
Once back, Peiqin started cleaning up the kitchen area. Yu moved out into the small courtyard, lighting another cigarette. Qinqin was already asleep. He did not like smoking in the room. The yard presented an unlovely sight—like a battlefield with each family trying to occupy the maximum space. He stared at the mound of coal briquettes, twenty at the bottom, fifteen above, and then seven at the top, confronting him like a large letter A.
Another achievement of Peiqin’s.
She had to carry all of them from a neighborhood coal store, to store them in the yard, and then, every day, to carry a briquette in her hands to the stove. In The Dream of the Red Chamber, Daiyu carried in her hand a white basket full of fallen petals.
And he turned to find Peiqin scrubbing the pots over the sink under the glaring light. It was hotter there. He could see the perspiration on her brow. Humming a tune, though off-key, she stood on tiptoe to put the dishes back in the makeshift wall cabinet. He hurried over to help. After closing the cabinet door, he remained standing close behind her, slipping his arms round her waist. She nestled back against him and made no attempt to stop him as he slid his hands up her back.
“Strange, isn’t it,” he said, “to think Chief Inspector Chen should come to envy me.”
“What?” she murmured.
“He told me what a lucky husband I am.”
“He told you that!”
He kissed the nape of her neck, feeling grateful for the evening.
“Go to bed now,” she said smiling. “I’ll join you soon.”
He did, but he did not want to fall asleep before she came to bed. He lay there for a while without turning off the light. Out in the lane, all sorts of vehicles could be heard moving along Jingling Road, but once in a while came a rare minute when all the traffic faded into the night. A blackbird twittered nostalgically in the maple tree. His neighbor’s door slammed closed across the kitchen area. Somebody gargled at the concrete common sink, and he heard another indistinct sound like swatting a mosquito on the window screen.
Then he heard Peiqin snapping off the kitchen lights, and stepping lightly into the room. She changed into an old robe of shot silk that rustled. Her earrings clinked into a dish on the dresser. She pulled a plastic spittoon from under the bed and put it in the corner partially sheltered by the cabinet. There was a gurgling sound. Finally she came over to the bed and slid under the towel blanket.
He was not surprised when she pressed herself against him. He felt her moving the pillow to a more comfortable position. Her robe fell open. Tentatively, he touched the smooth skin on her belly, feeling the warmth of her body, and pulling her knees against his thighs. She looked up at him.
Her eyes mirrored the response he had expected.
They did not want to wake up Qinqin.
Holding his breath, he tried to move with as little noise as possible; she cooperated.
Afterward, they held each other for a long time.
Normally he would feel sleepy afterward, but that night he found his mind working with intense clarity.
They were ordinary Chinese people, he and Peiqin, hardworking and easily contented. A crab dinner like tonight’s could make them happy, excited. In fact, little things went a long way for them: a movie on the weekend, a visit to the Grand View Garden, a song on a new cassette, or a Mickey Mouse sweater for Qinqin. Sometimes he complained like other folks, but he counted himself as a lucky guy. A marvelous wife. A wonderful son. What else mattered that much on this earth?
“Heaven or hell is in one’s mind, not in the material things one has in the world,” Old Hunter had once told him.
There were a few things, however, Detective Yu would like to have. A two bedroom apartment with a bathroom, for instance. Qinqin was already a big boy who needed a room of his own. He and Peiqin would not have to hold their breath making love. A propane gas tank for cooking instead of coal briquettes. And a computer for Qinqin. His own school years were wasted, but Qinqin should have a different future . . .
The list was quite long, but it would be nice to have just a few of the items at the top.
All of these, it had said in People’s Daily, would come in the near future. “Bread we will have, and milk, too.” So said a loyal Bolshevik in a movie about the Russian Revolution, predicting to his wife the marvelous future of the young Soviet Union. It was a movie seen many times in his high-school years—the only foreign movie available at the time. Now the Soviet Union was practically gone, but Detective Yu still believed in China’s economic reform. In a few years, maybe, a lot would improve for the ordinary Chinese people.
He dug out the ashtray from under a heap of magazines.
But those HCC! That was one of the things making life so hard for the ordinary Chinese. With their family connections, HCC could do what other people could not dream of doing, and rocketed up in their political careers.
A typical HCC, Wu must have thought the world was like a watermelon, which he could cut to pieces as he pleased, spitting other people’s lives away like seeds.
Life’s not fair to everybody, a fact Detective Yu had long accepted. Family background, for one thing, made a huge difference everywhere, though nowhere so much as in China in the nineties.
But now Wu Xiaoming had committed a murder. Of that, Yu was convinced
Staring up at the ceiling, Yu thought he could see exactly what had happened on the night of May tenth: Wu made the phone call, Guan came to his house, they had caviar and sex, then Wu strangled her, put her body in a plastic garbage bag, took it to the canal, and dumped it there . . .
“Your chief inspector has a lot on his mind,” Peiqin said, cuddling against him.
“Oh, you’re still awake?” he said, startled. “Yes, he does. The case is tough, involving some important people.”
“Perhaps something else.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m a woman,” she said, her lips curving into a suggestion of smile. “You men do not notice things written on each other’s faces. A handsome chief inspector, and a well-published poet, too—he must be a highly eligible bachelor, but he looks lonely.”
“You, too, have a soft spot for him?”
“No. I already have such a wonderful husband.”
He hugged her again.
Before he fell asleep, he heard a faint sound near the door. He lay listening for a moment, and he remembered that several live crabs remained unsteamed in the pail there. They were no longer crawling on the sesame-covered bottom of the wooden pail. What he heard was the bubbles of crab froth, bubbles with which they moistened each other in the dark.
Chapter 20
Early the following morning, Detective Yu and Chief Inspector Chen arrived at the Shanghai office of Red Star. The magazine was housed in a Victorian building at the intersection between Wulumuqi and Huaihai Roads, one of the best locations in Shanghai. No wonder, Yu thought, considering its political influence. Red Star was the voice of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Every staff member working there seemed highly conscious of the prestige of his position.
Sitting at a marble reception desk was a young girl in a neat polka-dot dress. Intent on her laptop, she did not stop vigorously punching at the keys on their arrival. The two police officers’ introductions made little impression on her. She told them that Wu was not in the office, without asking why they wanted to see him.
“You must know where the Zhou Mansion is—the Wu Mansion nowadays, needless to say,” she said. “Wu is working at home today.”
“Working at home?” Yu said.
“At our magazine, it is not unusual.”
“Everything at Red Star is unusual.”
“Better call him first,” she said. “If you want, you can use our phone here.”
“No, thanks,” Yu said. “We have our car phone.”
Outside, there was no car waiting for them, let alone a car phone.
“I could not stand it,” Yu grumbled. “She gave herself such airs.”
“You’re right,” Chen said, “Better not to call Wu beforehand, so we can take him by surprise.”
“Well, a surprised snake will bite back,” Yu said. “The Wu mansion on Henshan Road is not too far away. We can walk there.”
They soon came to the midsection of Henshan Road, where the Wu Mansion stood looming behind high walls. Originally it had been owned by a tycoon surnamed Zhou. When the Communists took over in 1949, the Zhou family fled to Taiwan, and Wu Bing’s family moved in.
The mansion and the area of Henshan Road around it was in a part of Shanghai Yu had never come to know, even though he had lived in the city for so long. Yu had been born and brought up in the lower end of Huangpu District, an area mainly inhabited by mid- and low-income families. When Old Hunter moved there in the early fifties, an era of communist egalitarianism, it was a district considered as good as any other in Shanghai. Like the other kids there, running in and out of those small lanes, playing games on the narrow cobblestone paths, Yu believed that he had everything possible in his neighborhood, though he knew that there were other better ones in Shanghai, where the streets were broader and the houses larger.
In his high-school years, often after a day’s class of Chairman Mao’s Quotations, Yu would join a group of his schoolmates in their campaigns—roaming the various areas of the city. Sometimes they would also venture into stores, though they did not shop for anything. Occasionally they would end their excursion by treating themselves at some cheap snack bar. Most of the time, however, they just wandered through one street after another, walking aimlessly, talking energetically, and basking in their friendships. So they had become familiar with various parts of the city.
Except one area. That was the one around Henshan Road, which they had seen only in the movies before 1949—movies about the fabulous rich capitalists, imported cars, and uniformed chauffeurs, young maids in black dresses with white aprons and starched caps. Once they actually ventured into the area, but they felt out of their element immediately. Visible behind high walls, the mansions appeared the same as in the old movies, so impressive, but so impersonal. In front of them, Henshan Road stretched out silent, solemn, and almost soulless—except for some armed PLA soldiers standing still at the iron gates. It was a residential area for high cadres, they knew, a level of existence way above theirs. Still it came as a shock to them that in such a large mansion, there lived only one family, while in their own neighborhood, a much smaller house could be partitioned out to accommodate a dozen families. The environment struck them as the setting of an unfriendly fairy tale. Perhaps they lingered, wondering a bit too long. An armed soldier came over, asking them to leave; it wa
s not an area they belonged in. The realization dampened their interest in going there again.
Now on an early June morning, Detective Yu found himself there again. He was no longer a school kid, but the atmosphere of the area was still oppressive. A PLA soldier raised his hand in salute as they passed through. Not the same soldiers as so many years ago, of course. But these people now living behind the high walls were not entirely different.
The white wall enclosing the Wu mansion appeared unchanged too, except here and there it was ivy-mantled. Out on the street, people barely glimpsed the red-tiled roof shining among treetops. The lot on which the house stood was immense. Now there was no soldier standing at the wrought-iron gate embellished with spiraling pinnacles, but it seemed to correspond all the more closely to the impressions of Shanghai seen in old movies.
Detective Yu placed his hand on the bell at the side of the gate and rang.
Presently a woman opened the gate a couple of inches. She was probably in her mid-thirties, dressed in a black-and-white top with a brief matching skirt. Her eyelids were adorned with false eyelashes and powder-blue eyeshadow, and she stared at them questioningly. “Who are you?”
“We are from the Shanghai Police Bureau,” Yu said, flashing his I.D. “We need to talk to Wu Xiaoming.”
“Does he expect your visit?”
“No, we don’t think so. We are investigating a murder.”
“Come with me. I’m his younger sister.”
She led them through the gate.
So Detective Yu saw the mansion in its entirety for the first time. A magnificent three-story building, it looked like a modernized castle, with the pinnacles and towers of its original design, and the porches and glass verandahs added in recent renovations. The lawn was immense and well-kept, sporting several flowerbeds. In the middle, a shell-shaped swimming pool of clear blue water shimmered against light blue tiles.
Following her up a flight of steps, they crossed a large hall and came to a colossal living room with a staircase curving up to the left. Opposite a green marble fireplace, there was a black leather sectional sofa, and a coffee table with a thick plate-glass top.