Apricot's Revenge

by Song Ying

  The congee the two men ordered was basically steamed rice in soup; unlike the more common slow-cooked congee, which is a sort of gruel, the kernels here had not lost their shape or texture. A few slices of crunchy fish belly floated on the surface, which convinced Nie that the people in Chaozhou had good, strong teeth. He was enjoying his meal.

  The exterior and much of the diner’s walls were painted red, highlighted by black and brown squares. The furniture and suspended lights were all made of wood, which, along with the substantial ceramic bowls and plates, as well as the black chopsticks, created a warm, natural atmosphere.

  The two men talked as they ate.

  “My editor-in-chief’s deadline is fast approaching,” Nie told Xiaochuan. Eight of the ten days he’d been given had passed.

  “Can’t you extend your stay?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Xiaochuan proceeded to tell Nie about their visit with Hong Yiming.

  “Mr. Hong seemed evasive. Even my boss couldn’t figure out why he wanted us there and what he planned, but failed, to tell us.” Xiaochuan was hoping Nie could be of some help.

  “Did you say he told you ‘it might help you solve the case’?” Nie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then obviously he was trying to tell you that a murderer is out there somewhere.”

  “Could be.”

  “Also, it seems as if he has a feeling that the murderer is closing in on him, too.”

  “You mean, he thinks he’s in danger?”

  “Right. He even knows something about the murderer, but for some reason can’t, or won’t, tell the police.”

  “Do you think he’s feeling guilty?”

  “I can’t say for sure. Remember, I’m just guessing. Did you bring the sheet of paper?”

  “Here it is.” Xiaochuan carefully removed the paper from a clear plastic folder.

  “I’m sure you checked for fingerprints.”

  “Yes, only Hu’s prints were on it.”

  “That means the person knew how to cover his tracks,” Nie said while scrutinizing the contents and considering what the red “山” could possibly mean. He recalled how Ah-ying had told him that the curved bottom line made it look like a traditional Chinese ingot, but not the top.

  “Yao Li says it looks like ‘red tower mountain,’” Xiaochuan said.

  “‘Red tower mountain’? Sounds interesting.” Nie took out the pictures of Hu’s corpse to check against the symbol. It did resemble the scratch marks on Hu’s chest.

  Could they be the same? If so, what did it mean?

  Next he turned his attention to the string of numbers: 42602791. Just as Ah-ying had said—printed in a bold, dark font, they jumped out at you.

  “How did you know the last three numbers were 791?” Xiaochuan asked.

  “Hu wasn’t the only person who saw this before you found it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. So did Hu’s personal assistant, Feng Xueying.”

  “We’re still trying to figure out what they mean.”

  “Eight numbers,” Nie muttered.

  “Most likely a telephone number.”

  “Right.”

  “But we checked; there’s no such number anywhere in the country.”

  Nie Feng frowned. Was it really a phone number, or could it be something else? He took out his cell phone and dialed the number, only to hear, “We’re sorry. The number you dialed is not in service.” He tried again, this time dialing 02-42602791. “We’re sorry. The number you dialed is not in service.”

  “We checked with the telecommunications office. No Guangdong phone numbers begin with a four, and, remember, only six cities have eight-digit phone numbers: Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Chongqing.”

  “You’ve been very thorough,” Nie commented before calling the six cities, and sure enough, no numbers beginning with a four. Some of the recorded messages were exactly the same, with identical tones and voices. End of trace.

  An eight-digit puzzle. A secret code? The beginning or ending of an ID number?

  Nie was reminded of his conversation with Ah-ying. That was when he had begun to doubt that Hu’s death was an accident. Why had Hu reacted so strongly to the paper only days before he died? Instinct told him it could have been “a calling card from the Angel of Death.”

  “What do you think?” Xiaochuan interrupted his musings.

  Nie finished his fish soup and wiped his mouth.

  “Criminal psychology shows that a perpetrator’s MO often reflects his inner workings. So we can assume that the information transmitted through this piece of paper was meant to terrorize the victim, as a threat or some sort of intimidation. That’s a common strategy by someone set on revenge, since it affords the avenger psychological gratification. The revenge will be meaningless if the victim doesn’t understand the reason behind his death.”

  “So you think this must be premeditated murder?”

  “I can’t be sure yet, but it’s possible.” Nie’s phone rang. It was the maid at home.

  “Hello, Big Brother Nie, where are you?” She sounded worried.

  “I’m having dinner with a friend. Is something wrong?”

  “Mr. Wu, your editor-in-chief, just called; he wanted to know if you’re back.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “Not much. He just said to tell you to call him as soon as you’re back.”

  “OK, I will.” He closed his phone. “The old newshound is after me,” Nie complained.

  “You still have two days left, don’t you?”

  “I know, and I have to take advantage of those two days. I’ll sniff around the crime scene once more.” Nie cracked a smile, making Xiaochuan laugh. A good reporter must be a good hunting dog.

  — 2 —

  Greater and Lesser Meisha were like a pair of jewels inlaid on Dapeng Bay, two crescent-shaped emeralds, one big, one small. The Greater Meisha beach was longer and wider than Lesser Meisha’s.

  Shoes in hand, Nie Feng felt like he was in a different world as he walked the length of Greater Meisha, whose blue waters and golden sand were visited by throngs of people. A symphonic movement was created by the whistling wind through the coconut palms and the waves lapping against the shore overlaid by the frolicking laughter of the sun- and ocean-bathers.

  As a public beach, free and open to all, Greater Meisha’s Ocean Park drew crowds that stretched its capacity to the breaking point. The vast numbers of visitors created problems of personal safety, public security, and environmental protection, which seriously displeased local residents.

  After taking a walk along the beach, Nie finally understood why it was so hard for the police to find even a single eyewitness. June twenty-fourth had fallen on a weekend, when, he’d heard, more than forty thousand people had shown up at Greater Meisha, filling the beach and the shallow water with visitors. One tourist told him, “You had to look between people to see the ocean, let alone actually step foot in it.

  No wonder he felt as if he’d been swallowed up by a sea of humanity. He managed to free himself from the crowd and the heat, and rinsed his feet at an outdoor shower so he could put his shoes back on.

  The gate to Greater Meisha’s Ocean Park was left open, with neither a ticket booth nor a guard post. Shops selling swimming paraphernalia and snacks lined the entrance. A hundred meters beyond the entrance was the Seaview Hotel; Nie decided to take a look around.

  Seaview, a resort hotel with a Southeast Asian flavor, catered to tourists, vacationers, and businessmen. It had three hundred deluxe rooms, including several seaview suites with dark teak wood highlighted by gold-traced designs as their dominant decorating theme. Elegant and unique, it seemed right out of a Thai resort.

  At the Oceanview Restaurant, Nie ordered a fish head soup that was quite filling. When he asked about Miss Bai, the waitress told him she was on a leave of absence. But the other waitress, Ah-yu, a short girl whose face was flushed, was there. Nie a
sked her about the evening of the twenty-fourth, when Hu and Hong had dined at the restaurant. He learned nothing new from Ah-yu, whose recollection squared with what he’d learned from the police. Hu had left first, around seven o’clock, followed by Hong, some ten minutes later. Miss Bai had charged the dinner to Hu’s account.

  As he was finishing his lunch, he saw Ah-yu and a few waitresses standing off to the side, whispering and smiling at him. They must think I’m somebody else, he thought with a laugh. The girls’ gaze followed him out the door when he left.

  Taxicabs queued at the entrance. Tourists were waiting for buses at the station across the street. Lesser Meisha was due east.

  About a hundred meters down a paved path, he came upon the Ocean Pearl Hotel, nestled among white apartment buildings. It fronted two rows of newly completed duplexes with tiled walls and low fences. The typical Guangdong residences were all alike, decorated with strips of yellowish-brown ceramic tiles, a favorite among the locals. They created a rural ambience. Nie preferred the clean Western Sichuan style of white walls and green tiles.

  The owners of these small buildings were wealthy Greater Meisha residents, made rich by their proximity to the beach resort. A soaring banyan tree towered over the buildings, its trunk so thick it would take several people to link arms around it. A small, round stone table surrounded by eight stone stools were arranged beneath the tree. Nie stopped to rest on one of the stools, over which strips of red or yellow paper hung down, some inscribed, probably good luck prayers.

  A bus and a minibus stopped to pick up passengers and then took off.

  He waited for an air-conditioned bus for Lesser Meisha. According to the sign, the number 103, 360, or 364 lines all went to Lesser Meisha. The driver told him that the 360 bus ran twenty-four hours a day.

  The bus followed the contours of Qitou Cliff, and as it rounded a corner, he looked out onto the rocks of Chao Kok. When the bus pulled up, he checked his watch; it had taken five minutes to get there from Greater Meisha by bus. If Hu Guohao had wanted to come here after leaving the Seaview Hotel, he could easily have walked.

  Restaurants selling Sichuan and Hunan cuisine, as well as fast food, lined the street by the bus stop. Like Greater Meisha, there were also shops selling swimming paraphernalia and life preservers. The entrance to the Tourist Center faced a gentle slope that served as a parking lot, behind which vacation villas dotted the hill. There were even some trendy hair salons, with red-and-white swirling lights.

  For Nie Feng, coming back to Lesser Meisha was more than just “repeatedly returning to the scene of the crime.” He couldn’t help feeling that they’d all missed something here. It was just a hunch, a reporter’s gut instinct that there might be undiscovered clues at Lesser Meisha. Then again, he had another reason to come back—the beautiful beach had a special pull on him.

  He walked along the shop-lined street until he reached the famed Lesser Meisha Hotel, a landmark structure formed by two white, stepped buildings facing each other; the unique architecture came into view as soon as you entered the tourist area. Like two white sails, the buildings invited fanciful thoughts, and the more than 150 well-appointed rooms and suites provided guests with a luxurious, comfortable home away from home.

  A casual look at all the cars in the hotel’s parking lot and outlying area told him that there couldn’t be many vacant rooms in the hotel. He decided to first check out the lobby, with its light green marble floor and mirrored pillars. The room rates at such an elegant hotel had to be astronomical. Sure enough, a cursory inquiry at the front desk told him they started at 480 yuan a night on weekdays (660 on weekends and holidays), while rooms with an ocean view went for 560 on weekdays (740 on weekends and holidays).

  The registration desk was located to the immediate right, where a visitor’s attention was drawn to a gigantic photo behind the desk of coconut palms against the ocean. A bar, a lobby shop, and jewelry store were on the opposite side. Owing to the unusual layout of the lobby, with its many pillars and winding verandas, the services provided for guests were not immediately apparent. It was a quiet refuge from the bustle outside, accessed through several entrances.

  Nie passed a spa and sauna on his way to a tennis court in the rear. Rows of cars were parked on the far side of the court’s chain-link fence. Another passageway took him past the jewelry store, and, skirting the veranda by a tea shop, he came to a door with frosted glass. He pushed the door open and was greeted by the sight of an outdoor freshwater swimming pool. The jewelry store, like those at hotels everywhere, had an 80% OFF SALE sign by the door, which was flanked by two wood carvings of ferocious-looking creatures, a hawk and a tiger.

  A space toward the rear of the lobby, reached by a circuitous corridor, served Western tea. It had brown wicker chairs, black granite tabletops, and a green carpet. Patterns of ocean fish and seaweed were etched into the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Soon after he sat down, a waitress in a short, light green skirt walked up.

  “What can I get you, sir?”

  Nie hesitated before ordering, knowing it would cost him at least twenty yuan. He was quickly running out of funds. But he ordered anyway. “A lemon tea.” The tea came and he took a sip. Not bad.

  “I hear a dead body was found on the beach a few days ago,” Nie ventured.

  “Uh-huh,” Green Skirt said ambiguously, perhaps because she’d been told to.

  “I heard it was the CEO of a major realty company.” Nie switched to a blunt strategy.

  “So you know.”

  “It’s in all the papers. I interviewed the man only last week.”

  “Really!” Now he had Green Skirt’s full attention.

  “Did anyone at the hotel see him the night before it happened?”

  “No. Some other people were asking the same question a couple days ago.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Two police officers, a man and a woman.”

  “Was he sort of heavy and she quite slender?”

  “That’s right.”

  So Xiaochuan and Yao Li have been here asking questions, Nie said to himself.

  He looked around; the lobby, with its mirrored pillars, gave the feeling that he was in a glass jungle. The tea shop’s counter, blocked by a post, was not in full view. Artificial hills dotted with lush trees and flowers spread beyond the window behind him. On the other side of a white pillar, he saw a small swimming pool.

  As he exited the hotel, he examined the surrounding area carefully—the lobby and the front entrance, the tennis court by the side entrance, and the small pool in the back, all under the shade of coconut palms and plenty of lush vegetation. A breakwater, probably six feet high, encircled the rear of the hotel; beyond that, the golden beach and rippling blue waters of Lesser Meisha. He walked down a small path to a second entrance to the Tourist Center. He learned from the ticket taker that it was manned twenty-four hours a day, as was the main entrance.

  He walked through the gate, passed a coconut-lined path, and headed east along the beach, until he was in the natural reserve, beyond the swimming area. He took a careful look at the place, and was surprised by several egrets flying overhead. Their long, thin legs were parallel to the ground, their necks stretched out ahead, pointed bills cutting through the air. There was something slightly comical about them. But he was reminded of his childhood, when his sister had taken him to a park on the outskirts of southern Chengdu, where he’d first seen egrets. Dozens of the crane-like white birds were perched on stately cypress trees. His sister even taught him a line of poetry by Du Fu: “Two yellow orioles sing among the emerald willows/A line of white egrets soars into the blue sky.” Later, the egrets all but disappeared from the park, thanks to environmental pollution.

  No one told him he might actually see the rare birds perched in trees at Dapeng Bay. He recalled reading a travel article that said egrets are spotted only in the Hainan mangroves these days. What a surprise to see them at a place where seagulls prevailed.

 
The beach ended at a backwater, where the waves surged, each higher than the one before. He turned to walk back and spotted a botanical garden beyond the embankment. A profusion of flowers peeked out from under a canopy of subtropical trees. His curiosity piqued, he hoisted himself up onto the embankment and rested his chest against the low wall of what was a seedling garden; it was like a different world. The garden abutted the lawn of the Lesser Meisha Hotel.

  His thoughts turned to the events on June twenty-fourth and the paths of Hu Guohao, Hong Yiming, and Zhong Tao. All three had shown up at Greater and Lesser Meisha, but what did that mean? And then there was Zhou Zhengxing, who had been at Nan’ao Village, on the southernmost end of the same coastline.

  He backtracked to the western part of the beach and walked around the barbecue ground, which was filling up quickly as dusk began to settle. Groups of seven or eight sat around barbecue pits, talking and laughing, their smiling faces brightened by the smoldering charcoal. The place was infused with the enticing aroma of roasting meat and fish. He paused, besieged by a sense that something felt different this time. A question popped into his head: why had Zhong Tao and his friends held their reunion here, instead of at Greater Meisha, where barbecue was available at a comparable cost, but which provided a much livelier ambience?

  That night, Nie spent eighty yuan to rent a yellow-and-green tent, which was actually no cheaper than a guesthouse room. Lying alone in the tent, he looked through the flap at the black water and flickering lights in the distance. The sound of waves lapping against the shore was loud enough to increase the turmoil in his mind.

  It began to rain around midnight, light at first and then heavier, as if the sky had opened up. Two years before, he’d traveled with a group of journalists to Thailand, ostensibly to study newspaper publication. He was working for an evening paper back then. The tour leader was the overweight, happy-go-lucky Mr. Wu, editor-in-chief of Western Sunshine. He recalled the night he went swimming at Pattaya, how lightning danced and thunder crackled amid the downpour. He and the other young journalist had stayed in the water, exposing only their heads for the baptism of rain; it was tantalizingly frightening and irresistibly exciting. Later he wrote a piece titled “A Frightful Night in Pattaya,” which won a prize. Shortly after the trip, Mr. Wu poached him to work for his magazine. Now, on Lesser Meisha beach in the midst of a thunderstorm, history was repeating itself. His peaked-roof tent—they’d run out of the wind-resisting rounded models—was useless against the assault of the rain; even as water began to leak in, he had no choice but to stay put.