by Qiu Xiaolong
What’s more, the man didn’t know Chen’s identity, but he did have some knowledge about him, such as the name he’d given her, Cao; that he was from Shanghai; and that he was fond of noodles.
The specificity of his knowledge suggested that the man had been stationed in her apartment to ambush Chen.
That confirmed Chen’s earlier suspicion that the phone call she made to him was tapped. It was very likely that that call had led to this tragedy.
While he hadn’t said much during that phone conversation, it was only a matter of time before whoever was behind the murder figured out who “Cao” really was.
NINETEEN
AT SIX FIFTY IN the morning, Chen stepped out of the Suzhou-Shanghai train, looked around, almost casually, before he walked into the subway.
At this hour, the subway was already crowded with sleepy-eyed commuters. The subway was a necessity for many, given the perpetual traffic jam in the ever-expanding city. Standing next him, a slip of a girl started dozing off, her head bobbing against his shoulder. He stood still to avoid disturbing her.
He left the station via the number 3 exit, the exit Peiqin had mentioned the other day. It was the one closest to her new restaurant. But it was still too early. He decided to stroll around the neighborhood while he waited. Clustered nearby were a number of convenience stores. A block further east, he glanced down a side street as he walked past, and he came to a stop.
There was a neon sign shining pale, listless in the morning light.
He traced his steps back to the subway, buying a copy of Wenhui Daily on the way. Standing under the subway sign, leaning against a strangely barren tree, and unfolding the newspaper in his hand, he looked like all the others waiting there. Opposite him, a young man planted himself next to a green-painted lamppost, clutching a smartphone.
If this was indeed the exit Peiqin used, he couldn’t miss her. The train she usually took arrived at eight fifteen, she’d said, and the subway was fairly reliable. He glanced at his watch again. He was still fifteen minutes early. He might as well stay put jotting down something on his notebook.
It was almost nine fifteen, however, when Peiqin emerged from the station, walking up the stairs, biting into a rice ball that she might have just bought from one of booths down in the subway station.
She was surprised at the sight of him, “Oh—” she said, one hand instinctively going up to her mouth. Her other hand was still clutching the rice ball, a tiny grain of rice stuck to her upper lip. Instead of saying anything more, she looked around, nodded at him, swung around, and walked back down the subway steps.
He followed her in silence, the crowd swirling around them like waves. No one seemed to be paying them any attention.
A couple of minutes later, she led him out through another exit. She led him away from the station for more than two blocks before she stopped, turned around, and spoke to him.
“Morning, Chief,” she said. “Sorry, but if we’d stayed near that exit some of my coworkers might have seen us.”
“I know. Let’s find a place where we can talk.”
This time he took the lead. He rounded the corner, circling back to the storefront he’d spotted earlier. It was a neighborhood karaoke club. It looked deserted, even though the neon sign out front was still blinking “Open for Business.”
With more fancy and not-so-fancy hotels having opened in the city for customers looking to rent a room at an hourly rate, a KTV private room didn’t seem to be a popular choice among the young and the well-to-do anymore. The rooms weren’t exactly private, either, since the KTV attendants came in frequently to serve food and drink.
“The morning hours are the cheapest time at a KTV,” he said, speaking like a regular customer.
For a karaoke club, the golden period was from seven p.m. to midnight. During that time, a room could cost as much as five or six hundred yuan, not including the fee for the K girls. After midnight, the price went steadily down.
Chen and Peiqin went in, and Peiqin waited while Chen made arrangements at the front counter. They then followed a sleepy waitress to a private room, where she left the song menu on a coffee table in the room.
“Let’s pick some songs,” he said wryly. “Or people might think we’re odd customers—even suspicious.”
“Choose whatever you want, it’ll just be background music. It’s common for people to come here without ever singing or even being particularly interested in karaoke. It’s simply a convenient excuse to get some time alone. The attendants never worry about these things.”
The first few pages of the menu were full of red songs, and Chen kept flipping pages in frustration. “Just the other day, in the cemetery bus, the driver said he had to play red songs. It was a city government regulation, and it’s probably the same here,” Chen said.
“As background noise, those red songs might be just as good as any others. You don’t have to listen to them,” Peiqin said, inputting the number for a song on the remote control. “For some, those songs bring back memories of their lost youth. But I get the chills every time I hear that one.” She pointed her finger at a title. “‘The Cultural Revolution Is Great. Is Great. Is Great…’ The first time I heard that song was during a mass criticism session, where my father was shaking uncontrollably as he was being beaten, struck by the ‘revolutionary blows’ of Red Guards. It was totally crazy.”
“The same thing happened to my father, Peiqin. But it’s not politically correct to talk about what happened during those years. For the younger generation, the Cultural Revolution is totally forgotten, almost like a myth. In school textbooks there’s no mention whatsoever of the atrocities committed under Mao.”
“As a result, red songs are coming back with a vengeance under Party Secretary Lai. It serves his political goals for him to have a chorus of Maoists,” Peiqin said, frowning. “Ironically, Lai’s own father was denounced as a ‘capitalist-roader’ at the very beginning of the Cultural Revolution. As a young passionate Red Guard, Lai beat his own father as part of a ‘mass criticism,’ breaking several of the old man’s ribs. Guess what the father said afterward? ‘A communist successor should be like this!’”
“Where did you learn all this, Peiqin?”
“On the Internet. Usually, this sort of information about top Party leaders is instantly blocked, frequently in less than two or three minutes, but that piece was up for a couple of days.”
It sounds like both the father and the son made enough political enemies that this piece must have been left unblocked on purpose. Chen chose not to say it out loud.
As Peiqin pressed the number for another red song, he tried to change the subject.
“Neither of us likes these songs, so why waste time talking about them?”
“Sorry, I got carried away,” she said. “How are things with you?”
Chen began to recount what had happened in the last few days, focusing on Qian’s death, while avoiding personal details. He summed everything up by going through what continued to mystify him.
“As a cop, I’ve ruffled plenty of feathers, and some of them have tried to retaliate. So the attempted raid at the Heavenly World makes sense. But why would they drag an old, helpless woman like my mother into this horrible mess? Why go after a young powerless woman like Qian? I don’t think I’m worth all this trouble.”
“The burglary might have been a coincidence. An old woman living alone makes for an easy target.”
“What about the murder in Suzhou?”
“That, possibly, was a robbery that went wrong.”
“But what about the man who was in her apartment afterward?”
“What about him?”
“It couldn’t have been her father. I’m positive of that. What’s more, anyone who was in her apartment when I called would have already known about her death, yet he kept asking me to leave a message for her. He was trying to set a trap for me.”
“You have a point,” Peiqin said slowly. “But how could he have known abou
t you? Did he find out from Qian?”
“She wouldn’t have discussed what she wanted from a private investigator with anyone. I made a point of calling her from a public pay phone, but she did call my cell phone once. So it’s possible that her phone was tapped.”
“But why would they do that? They didn’t know she’d gone to a private detective. They didn’t even know your identity.”
“They might have suspected somehow. Or her phone was being tapped for some other reason. For a man in Sima’s position, it wouldn’t be difficult to arrange. Then perhaps something in her conversation with me triggered her killing.”
“The conversation was just about her, wasn’t it?”
“No, she had made inquiries for me as well, and she mentioned things that she’d learned about the nightclub.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know anything about that. Yu and I assumed it was just another of your budding affairs.”
“Come on, Peiqin. An affair now? With everything that’s going on? But if it was just about her, then after she was dead, why was the man still in her place, waiting by her cell phone, trying to get information about me?”
“No, you’re right, that doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps the stakes for them were much higher, for reasons still unknown to me.”
“But how can you find out what those stakes are?” She added deliberately, “If they are using whatever dirty means possible, I don’t think you have to play by the rules, either. You’re no longer a cop—”
There was a knock on the door.
“Free buffet time,” an attendant said from outside, her head partially visible through the glass panel in the door.
“Thank you,” Peiqin said. “We’ll be there in a minute.”
“A free buffet. That’s not bad,” Chen said.
“It’s bad for our restaurant. The management here uses it as a gimmick. Some of the overnight customers might stay a couple of hours longer just for the buffet. It’s convenient for the customers, and it costs the karaoke club practically nothing.”
“You know a lot about this karaoke club, Peiqin.”
“Only that the buffet here is terrible. A number of their customers have told us about it. Anyway, we’re not here because of the buffet.”
“Yes, what you were saying before the knock on the door?”
“We have to hit back, and by whatever means possible, too.”
“Well, there’s one thing we have to do first,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “We have to change the SIM card in our cell phones. I’ve already changed mine. You need to give one of these new SIM cards to Old Hunter as soon as possible. I’ve got one for you, and one for Yu too. But don’t contact me unless it’s absolutely necessary. And if you do, use a public phone.”
“I see. So these are just for receiving calls. I’ll give the SIM card to Old Hunter today. Don’t worry about it.” She then said emphatically, “If only we could find out who they are, and why they are so anxious to get you out of the picture.”
Chen had been wishing the same thing for a long time, but he chose not to respond to her statement, instead pressing the buttons to play another red song.
“Is there anything new in the case Yu’s investigating?”
“He visited Liang’s company and the law firm that represents it.”
“The law firm?”
“Yes, Kaitai. It’s a very powerful firm.” She added, “With the construction of the new high-speed train being seen as symbolic of China’s economic reform, it is also a highly political case.”
Peiqin then briefed Chen about what Yu had discussed with her about the case.
“Yu has quoted an old saying a number of times,” she said. “‘To treat a dead horse like a living one.’ I think that’s something he picked up from Old Hunter.”
“Like father, like son.”
It meant Yu didn’t think the investigation was going anywhere or had any relevance to Chen’s troubles.
“Based on what Yu told me about these latest cases for your squad, I tried to comb through the Internet as much as possible. With the firewall-climbing software Qinqin installed for me, I was able to look at some forbidden ‘hostile Web sites.’”
“What did you find?”
“With regard to the dead pig scandal, they don’t see it as an isolated incident. To them, it’s just a part of the general moral landslide resulting from the uncontrollable corruption rooted in the one-party system.”
“The moral landslide. That’s a term that was used by the premier, but the day after he said it, the People’s Daily ran an editorial denying the very idea.”
“There’s something unusual happening at the top. Several of the overseas Web sites touch on the idea that there’s a power struggle in the Party between the left and the right wings,” Peiqin said. “But back to the dead pigs. People have been bringing powdered milk in from Hong Kong and elsewhere ever since the scandal about the contaminated powdered milk. Now some are talking about bringing in pork from other countries too. It’s a devastating blow to the Shanghai government’s image.”
Chen thought about his meeting with Sima the other day and nodded.
“Also, a Chinese meat company is trying to buy an American meat company as a kind psychological assurance. ‘Only the Communist Party can save and rule China’? Surely you remember that red song. Well the netizens—the people who post and comment frequently on various newsgroups and Internet sites—have posted a parody version of it: ‘Only the Americans can save and rule Chinese pork.’ It’s another slap at the city government. Lai is said to have been livid when he heard the parody.’”
“What black humor!”
“And it’s related to another matter too. In the eyes of the Maoists, the netizens are being hard on Shang’s son because Shang is a symbol of those red songs. So the Maoists believe that investigation of Shang’s son is being carried out for political reasons,” she said. “That may be true to some extent. By the way, did you quote the old saying that ‘A prince, if found guilty, should be punished like an ordinary citizen’ in a recent article?”
“Yes, but that was just an old saying. I wasn’t using in reference to anybody in particular.”
Once again, he was surprised. In an interview for Wenhui, Chen had indeed said something about everybody being equal before the law, along with quoting the old saying Peiqin had noted. The interview wherein he made that statement had been conducted a couple of days before the scandal involving Shang’s son broke. But the son was hardly a prince in any real sense, and Shang was just nominally a general. Nevertheless, some people might have been enraged by Chen’s remark.
That was a direction Chen hadn’t considered before, and it was even more alarming in the light of what White Cloud had said regarding Shang’s well-connected wife.
Any one of these cases, when examined under the magnifying glass of Chinese politics, could have been enough to have Chen removed from his position, but none seemed to warrant what had happened to his mother and Qian.
“There is also some discussion in social media about the mysterious death of an American in Shanghai. But that seems to be very vague. My English is not good, and as far as I can make out, it’s about how the American didn’t drink at all, and yet the authorities concluded that his cause of death was alcohol poisoning.”
White Cloud had mentioned that death too, Chen remembered.
“But all these individual events might be neither here nor there. I have no idea which, if any, could be the cause of your trouble.”
“What you’ve learned by searching the Internet really helps, Peiqin. In the meantime, I’ve been listening to the tapes—your family’s conversation, the talk in the ernai café, and the discussion between Old Hunter and Tang. They open up possibilities that I would never have imagined. It may take some time to narrow down the list.”
“Yu said these are like a lot of dots that refuse to be connected. And Old Hunter plans to keep going back to the ernai café, but
as he puts it: it’s like standing by the tree, waiting for a rabbit to run by and knock itself out against the trunk. We can’t afford to keep waiting.”
“Has Old Hunter exchanged e-mails with Jin?”
“I don’t think so. He knows very little about the Internet. He’s only just now learning to listen to Suzhou opera online.” She went on after a pause, “I just thought of something.”
“What?”
“Qian’s phone was tapped. Most likely, yours was too. But you can do the same to them. You have some idea of who could be involved, directly or indirectly, don’t you?”
“Sima could be one. And Shen, of the Heavenly World, as well. Tapping their lines could help, but I’m not cop anymore. I’m not capable of doing anything like that. I could try to approach some of my connections, but any indiscreet move on my part could get them into trouble.”
“What about their e-mails, then?” she said, “I’m no computer expert, but I know some people in that field who are fighting the uphill battle against corruption. I knew someone who is really good at hacking, but he went abroad half a year ago.”
Earlier, White Cloud had given him Shen’s e-mail address with the idea that Chen could access his e-mails. Peiqin was thinking along the same lines.
“You did an investigation where you got some help from a hacker,” she said. “I remember Yu telling me about that.”
“That’s true, but I’ve lost touch with him. He changes his phone number every two or three weeks. Given his position, he has to be really careful,” Chen said, then added, “Remember the Wenhui journalist at the temple? She introduced him to me. I think his name is Melong.”
He hadn’t contacted Melong for months, in spite of the crucial information he’d provided in one of Chen’s anticorruption investigations. But it was different asking for help when it’d been a chief inspector asking for it. Now, professional scruples aside, it wouldn’t be advisable to approach the hacker. Melong might be under surveillance, too.
“Of course I remember,” Peiqin said. “It meant a lot to us, first your presence with your journalist friend at the temple, and then the pictures that ran in the Wenhui Daily. Our relatives talked about it for days.” She added abruptly, “Lianping, that’s the name of the journalist. What has happened to her?”