by Qiu Xiaolong
‘So you went to the evening talk again?’
‘No. But Zhang had mentioned that he knew Pei well. So I went to have a talk with him at his home. From what he told me, several things seemed to not add up. For one, he ran into Pei in that eatery on Yunnan Road shortly after Pei was seen arguing with Fu in the lane. Curious, Zhang bought a cup of beer for Pei, who immediately started talking with a loose tongue. As it turned out, Pei’s son had a bad flu, but nothing serious. Pei simply used that as a pretense to get money from Fu. As it seemed to the ex-Red Guard Pei, he could have succeeded but for the intervention of the maid. So he would try again. For a soft-hearted old man like Fu, Pei believed it was just a matter of time to bring him around.’
‘According to you, Pei does not sound like he bore any real hatred against Fu?’
‘According to Zhang, when Pei was drunk like a skunk, which was quite common, he would curse Mao and the Cultural Revolution, but not Fu. Deep down, the ex-Red Guard knew better. So not too much of a murder motive for Pei, you’re absolutely right about it.’
‘I’ve thought about it too. But drunk or not drunk, he might have chosen not to tell everyone about his grudge against Fu,’ Ding said, rising to pull out a chair for Chen.
‘Thanks, Detective Ding. Supposing Pei had the motive, how would he have come to kill Fu at that particular locale?’
‘He could have ambushed him there. The area is largely in ruins, with few people moving around late at night.’
‘But he knew nothing about Fu’s plan for that night. Meihua alone knew something about it, but she had no idea of the exact location of the restaurant, nor the route Fu was going to take. So we can rule out the possibility of her having told Pei anything about it. For another more likely scenario, the murderer could have followed Fu from Red Dust Lane, all the way to the neighborhood of that restaurant of imperial recipes, where he waited for Fu to come out after dinner and deliver the fatal stab with no one visible around at night, as you recounted the scene to me.’
‘That’s a possible hypothesis, Chen. Go on.’
‘With that in mind, I asked Zhang whether he had seen some suspicious people lurking around the neighborhood in the days before Fu’s murder.’
‘Come on, Chen. There’re several entrances to the lane. I too walked around there a couple of times. How could anyone have managed to keep an effective stakeout for that purpose?’
‘Zhang lives in a shikumen opposite to Fu’s, in the mid-section of Red Dust Lane. If someone had positioned himself near the mid-entrance, he could have easily kept in sight of the people moving in and out of the shikumen houses in that section.’
‘Did Zhang see someone suspicious?’
‘Yes. Just one or two days before Fu’s death, as Zhang was walking out, he saw a stranger prowling there, and when Zhang came back about an hour later, the man was still there, stealing furtive glances toward the direction of Fu’s house. Zhang remembered it because he had a feeling he looked like someone he had seen before, though Zhang failed to recognize him. Definitely not Pei, Zhang was positive about that. And I raised the same question to the maid named Meihua, whose response was similar. Someone was lurking around the mid-entrance and looking at the shikumen houses there in a stealthy way. It was not Pei, she was adamant about that too, and it was possibly the same person that she had noted on two different occasions. She too thought that it could have been someone nervous about being recognized; both times, he hurried away at the sight of her.’
‘So you interviewed the maid too, Inspector Chen.’
‘I was coming out with Zhang, and she happened to be walking out of the opposite shikumen,’ Chen said, taking note of Detective Ding’s sarcasm in calling him an inspector, which he was not. He was determined, however, not to mention the talk with her in the eatery. For some reason not exactly understandable to himself, he wanted to keep Meihua out of the investigation as much as possible. ‘So Zhang introduced me to her. We said just a few words in the lane. But what she told me made sense. Whoever the mysterious man was, with no knowledge about Fu’s movements that night, he had to have waited around the mid-lane entrance for days, or even weeks, before he succeeded in following Fu all the way to the murder scene.’
‘This could be a wild, wild goose chase, you know, the more so as we’re short of men and time. Besides, your scenario is at best supported by circumstantial evidence.’
‘Now let me bring up something else in the crime scene report you’ve made,’ Chen said, taking it from the folder. ‘It’s so detailed, that report of yours. It’s an area designated for housing reconstruction, as you noted, but it’s not far from the restaurant in question, nor from the railway station. And your report also touched on, among other things, some cigarette butts scattered near a toppled wall. You would not have included those details, evidently, if they were totally irrelevant. So you must have thought about the possibility of someone hiding himself behind the wrecked wall, smoking in the dark, waiting for Fu to come out, and to deliver the blow.’
‘About the cigarette butts – they’re just evidence we had to collect, but that detail supports your scenario, I have to say. You have your point, but …’ Detective Ding pulled open a drawer and produced another cup of instant noodles. ‘But we must have something to eat first, Chen.’
‘That’s fantastic. I’ve seen such an instant cup only once before. Wow, made in Japan too.’
‘My wife works in a joint venture instant noodle company. So that’s a benefit for me.’ Ding rose to pour hot water into the two cups, and find a plastic spoon. ‘Now go on, Chen.’
‘To my surprise, Zhang also told me something that may account for why Pei made up the alibi for that night.’
‘That can be important. Pei has denied any criminal activity, but he has failed to explain why he made up the alibi.’
‘In the evening talk, Zhang mentioned something about a waitress taking pity on Pei at the eatery, and saving the leftover liquor from other tables for a penniless alcoholic like him, so I asked Zhang more pointedly about that at his home. The waitress turned out to be Pei’s girlfriend. She’s married, but with her husband working on an ocean liner, coming back home only once a year – for no more than two or three weeks – it’s Pei who warmed her otherwise cold bed the rest of the time. She usually worked the night shift, and he went there after ten or eleven, enjoying whatever she had gathered for him from other tables. And then he left about the same time with her, more often than not to her home not too far away. Supposing that’s the case, he could have tried to keep her out of trouble by making up the movie story for that night. After all, when you first questioned him on the phone, he might not have known anything about Fu’s death, nor about himself being a possible suspect.’
‘We can certainly check with the waitress. But if Pei—’
But if Pei was not the one, Detective Ding would be back to square one. And the pressure from the city government all over again. It was an idea not that pleasant for Detective Ding.
‘What’s more, you have inspired me in another aspect, Detective Ding. It’s in the lists you have made.’
‘The lists of possible suspects?’
‘Exactly, Detective Ding. To paraphrase an old proverb: Studying your list for one night is more beneficial than studying textbooks for ten years.’
It was another bogus, disarming statement Chen thought he had to make, though Detective Ding no longer looked that displeased, sitting opposite, sipping at the noodle soup contemplatively.
‘The list of those who may benefit from Fu’s death, Detective Ding. It comes down to Fu’s two children at the top, and some others related to them in the list. Regarding Xiaoqiang and Hongxia, you did not push too far after them, as you said to me, because they just needed to wait for a few more years. At the old man’s demise, the huge fortune would inevitably go to them. It’s true they might have been worried about the maid taking their place in the line of inheritance, but they were not aware of anything like that really
happening. In fact, they looked totally flabbergasted when Meihua showed them her name in the family residence register – thanks to the city residence permit obtained by him for her. That’s serious, but even that did not make a genuine threat to their status as the legitimate successors to Fu.’
‘No, they did not have to be that desperate, not unless they became aware of some possible status change in terms of inheritance.’
‘That really puzzled me. Last night, unable to sleep, I was rereading your list for the sixth or seventh time, still with no clue, and then moving on to read a novel. A leitmotif of the book – Es muss sein – galvanized me. And that’s a point exactly the same as you have made to me.’
‘A leitmotif of a novel?’
‘It suddenly enabled me to see the light in the direction you have shown me,’ Chen said, hastening to check himself from going too far. ‘The heart of the matter is, as we have discussed, Fu’s immense fortune. If someone became aware of the possibility of his inheritance being jeopardized, that could be a genuine motive for the murder.’
‘What are you talking about, Chen?’
‘To put it another way, the murderer believed he had no choice but to commit the crime at the present point in time. Any delay could possibly mean the disappearance of his claim to Fu’s money.’
‘That’s a novel way to work for a police investigation.’
‘But it’s a possible scenario, isn’t it?’ Chen paused for another sip of the spicy noodle soup before going on. ‘With Xiaoqiang and Hongxia ruled out, who else could benefit from Fu’s death at this moment?’
‘You mean someone else on the list?’
‘Yes, someone else on the list. And there’s something else I’ve learned from the evening talk, and from your interview tapes, too. Hongxia’s miserable marriage with her second husband, Song.’
‘Song is a good-for-nothing guy. I took a look into his file. Their marriage has been bad for years, but it’s not that uncommon for some Shanghai couples to muddle along like that to the bitter end.’
‘Well, I invited Hongxia out this morning. To a breakfast in a traditional eatery in the City God’s Temple Market, where she told me a lot about Song.’
‘You have dined out well for the investigation, Chen, with your gourmet friend, and now with Hongxia as well.’
‘According to her, Song gambles not only on cricket fighting, but on practically everything. As a result of the heavy debt incurred, there’re debt-collectors frequently knocking on their door—’
‘The gambling debt,’ Detective Ding cut in with a frown. ‘I should have looked into that.’
‘But it’s more than that. A couple of months ago, she came back home earlier than usual and overheard the talk between Song and a triad-connected collector. As it turned out, Song had borrowed using his taken-for-granted prospect of inheritance as a sort of mortgage. The lender was getting impatient, so Song had to make up a story of Fu being terminally ill with his days numbered. That became the last straw for her. Things have long been rotten between the two, but she’d still wanted to keep up the appearance for the family. Though continuously gambling and losing money, Song managed to provide for the family in his way, even buying some small gifts for her, occasionally, to show his affection. The overheard speech proved, however, that he had her living in a deliberate lie all these years. From the very beginning, Song had married her with his eye on Fu’s money. So devastated, she declared to him that night that she was going to file for divorce, and that he’d better not dream of getting a single penny from Fu’s huge fortune.’
‘Yes, that could be a real motive. It may take some time for the divorce to go through, but it’s just a matter of time if she’s determined.’
‘Es muss sein, right? Then I asked Hongxia about Song’s whereabouts that night. She remembered he did not come back until long after midnight, telling her that he’d played mahjong with his usual buddies in the Zijin Building, and winning a lot at the table. I asked her for the names and addresses of his mahjong associates, which she gave to me, all of them in the same building.’
‘I know where the Zijin Building is. An old, ugly concrete one near the Renming Road,’ Detective Ding said, taking from Chen a piece of paper with the names written on it. ‘By the way, you must have bought her a huge breakfast for her to tell you such a lot.’
‘Not that huge. A bamboo steamer of soup buns, two bowls of shrimp dumpling soup and a portion of spring rolls.’
‘Wow, I hope she has not bankrupted you.’
‘No, but I have to be really careful with my budget for the next two months. From what Red-nosed Zhang told me, she has inherited, if nothing else, the epicurean genes from Fu, except she’s more of a gourmand than a gourmet. That’s why she accepted my invitation without any hesitation,’ Chen said, picking up the last piece of the dried cabbage stuck at the bottom of the noodle cup.
‘Oh, something else, Detective Ding. Whether Pei smokes or not, I don’t know, but I know if he has any money it immediately goes into his cup. In contrast, Song’s a heavy smoker, and a swaggering one too. He could have been losing a huge amount of money while still chain-smoking those brand cigarettes, Double Happiness. I think you mentioned that particular brand in the crime scene report. Hongxia confirmed that it’s his favorite. The cigarette butts must be kept here as evidence. So we may be able to check the fingerprints or DNA. But I’m not so sure about the proper procedure. I’m just beginning to translate the booklet, you know.’
‘I know what we’re going to do, Chen. With his gambling history, we can easily put him into custody first. In the meantime, I’ll check with the waitress about Pei’s alibi, and with Song’s mahjong buddies too,’ Detective Ding said, rising and glancing at his watch. ‘The canteen must be closed. But I owe you a lunch, Chen. The instant noodle cup does not count.’
It never rains but it pours.
Chen was stepping into the reading room the next morning when Detective Ding came to him.
‘Song has made a full confession, Chen. At first he tried to keep up the same old mahjong story, but as soon as I showed him the testimony of his mahjong mates in the Zijin Building and the fingerprint report, he knew he was finished. He spilled out. According to him, his relationship with Hongxia has been on the rocks for years, but he made do with it because he needed his chance at the inheritance. Up to his neck in gambling debt, he managed only with the pledge to lenders that he would pay back upon Fu’s death. A couple of months ago, to his consternation, Hongxia suddenly turned serious about filing for divorce, which drove him up the wall. And like in a proverb, when really desperate, a dog will jump over the wall. In his calculation, only with Fu dead before the divorce went through could he keep his claim to Fu’s money. With no children from their marriage, as Hongxia’s spouse he should be able to have half of her share, an incredibly huge sum, more than enough to cover all his debts. He knew for a fact that Fu dined out from time to time. And he also knew better than to strike somewhere close to Red Dust Lane, where he could have been seen and recognized. So he waited for an opportunity to follow Fu to a locale at quite a distance, deep in the night. The rest of the story, I think you know only too well for me to tell,’ Detective Ding said, taking out a pack of cigarettes. ‘Phoenix, a more expensive brand than Double Happiness. That’s for celebration, Chen.’
‘Thank you, Detective Ding. It’s really worth celebrating.’
‘I’ve tried to tell Party Secretary Li about your help with the investigation. He may have been too busy in discussions with the city government to pay much attention to it. But let me say something to you, Chen, you have the making of a cop despite your English major at college. No question about it.’
For such a political case, Detective Ding might not have been too eager to share the credit with a young novice, which Chen understood. Whether it had caught Party Secretary Li’s attention or not, such a speedy conclusion appeared to be enough of a reward in itself.
‘Thank you, Detective Din
g. I have truly learned a lot from you during the course of the investigation.’
‘For your help, you have made quite a number of trips, and paid for breakfast and stinking tofu and what not. At least you should have your expenses covered. Here is three hundred yuan from our squad’s special fund.’
‘Wow, that’s about three months’ salary for me!’
Whatever it could have possibly meant, it was not a small sum. That was something worth celebrating too.
After the conversation with Detective Ding, Chen found in the mail a letter from Lijiang Publishing House. It contained an offer of quite a generous advance for his translation of Roseanna. That was another piece of good news.
In a moment of impulse, he dialed the Red Dust Public Phone Service, waiting, pacing about the room with the phone clutched in his hand, till Meihua’s voice came over the line, almost breathless. She must have run over in her wooden sandals.
‘Any news, Comrade Chen?’
‘Good news. The criminal was caught. He confessed.’
‘Who?’
‘There’re some details we’re still working on. I’ll tell you all about it this evening. Now I’ve to ask a favor of you. Please prepare a good meal in the shikumen house tonight. I’ll come over with two other people who have helped a lot with the investigation.’
It could come close to an imitation of the dramatic ending of a classic detective story: with the people gathered together, the brilliant detective reveals how he managed, step by step, to solve the case, pointing his finger at the real criminal in conclusion. The only difference would be that Song would not be present at the climactic scene. In real life, however, such a coup might have appeared to be too melodramatic.