A Perfect Crime

by A. Yi

  ‘I need a pee!’ I shouted at one point, the response to which was the sound of clanging from outside and then, ‘Go on then.’

  The urine ran down my trousers and thighs and out between my toes, like a bottle of warm, spilt milk. There must have been a camera. I was being watched. I figured I might as well fart a few times, spit on the wall, talk to myself. I wasn’t going to get to sleep. I was starting to feel jealous of people who were free to hang themselves from bridges, or get beaten up.

  As the light disappeared, they came to undo my handcuffs. I flopped to the ground. They dragged me into a dark room, placed me on a low chair and then disappeared. Just as I drifted into sleep a terrifying light shone in my face. It looked like one of those lights photographers use that burn your skin. I squinted. A fluorescent lamp above followed, its dim light falling like a waterfall onto a head of dense silver hair before me. I could only make out an outline of the man, sitting proudly. He was chewing. I could hear the sound of his tongue slurping as he licked his fingers.

  ‘You should always eat chicken wings while they’re still hot, or the fat coagulates as they cool and they lose their taste.’

  I wasn’t unsympathetic to this opinion.

  I felt the heat pulsing through my brain like an electrical current, but I wasn’t sweaty. I just wished I was dead, to be honest. I tried to ask a few times when we could start, but it was no good. That was like a woman asking a thug, ‘When are you going to start raping me?’

  He ate twelve chicken wings in all (he was definitely going to have a case of the runs when he got home). Then, finally, he spoke.

  ‘Name.’

  Then the questions came ringing out one after another.

  Date and place of birth.

  Address.

  Qualifications.

  ‘Date of birth,’ he repeated.

  I told him again.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I realised that he was checking to be sure I had turned eighteen. He picked his teeth with a toothpick. I was about to collapse when he broke the silence again.

  ‘You must know that resistance is futile.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So you know why we were looking for you?’

  I’d never heard such a stupid question. They’d called on the general public, arranged planning meetings, brought in experienced cops, investigated my background with the help of psychologists. And, of course, they designed their interrogation. This was the way to do it, apparently. Little did they know, all they had to do was ask.

  ‘I killed Kong Jie,’ I fired back. ‘I killed her ruthlessly, stabbed her over and over until her blood ran like a river.’

  ‘Write it down.’

  Only then did I realise there was another policeman in the corner. I could tell from the rustle of his pen that they were excited beyond their wildest dreams. I was desperate to sleep, so I answered their questions quickly, including how I’d convinced her to come over, how I killed her, what I did with the body and how I ran away. I was like a rich landlord handing out charity parcels to his poor tenants.

  Then I said, ‘Water.’

  ‘Why did you kill her?’

  ‘Water.’

  ‘We’ll give you water after you answer.’

  This was a stinking deal, it struck me. I still had my dignity after all.

  ‘Please continue,’ they said.

  But I turned my head and waited, without looking at them. They took the lid off the jar and were about to water me, when I raised my head up high.

  ‘We can convict you with the evidence, we don’t need your confession,’ the old guy said.

  ‘Then get to it.’

  He tapped his pen awkwardly and waved his hands. The other policeman gave me his notes.

  ‘No need,’ I said, and signed it.

  He told me I still had to read it, but I just wrote: I hereby declare that I have read and confirm there are no mistakes.

  Not long after, they took me back to the military academy apartments. The police had cordoned off the area, but that hadn’t stopped a crowd gathering. Wherever I went, they swarmed after me. I was an animal in a zoo. I looked out at them and smiled. This provoked a middle-aged man, who moved through the crowd holding up a stick as if to hit me, to beat me with the morality I had been missing all along. I struggled, wanting to hit him back. The others retreated. Only he stood firm.

  The trees had turned yellow.

  In the past, I never took any notice of the cycle of leaves growing and wilting. But now they were yellow. The last time I would see them turn yellow. My neighbour, Mr He, led the way, resolute but silent. I could almost see the dust rising beneath his feet. In the event of corners or stairs, he would extend his right hand as a signal to the rear. Once his duties as public security activist were completed, he hung around watching, following. As if they might consult him at any time for his expert opinion. But there was no need to trouble him with such matters.

  I went to the door of Auntie’s apartment and looked out at the sky. It was empty, peaceful in its deepest reaches. A death omen, I said to myself.

  The windows on both sides of my old room were sealed shut and the washing machine had been placed by the door. The tape had been removed and stuck to the wall. They pulled the light switch, gave me a plastic doll and knife and asked me to begin. But I didn’t know how.

  ‘Kill her,’ they said.

  My uniform didn’t have pockets, so I stuck the knife into my waistband. I held the model from behind, covered her nose and mouth. I stood still.

  ‘Keep going,’ they said.

  ‘She fought back.’

  ‘Move her yourself.’

  I swayed her in my arms, whispered in her ear, let go and pulled out the tape. I covered her mouth and then tore it away. I started screaming.

  They shrank back at first, then surrounded me.

  ‘That’s her screaming,’ I said.

  ‘That bit you can leave out.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  I started screaming again, quite the actor. I covered her mouth, took the knife from my waist and jabbed it at her abdomen. Unfortunately the blade just slid, rather than piercing. But I kept stabbing her. I pushed her over to the window and drew back the curtain with the knife. I let go of the model again and began retching against the wall. I then crouched, scratched her face and held her down.

  At that moment everything felt blurry (like when the washerwoman stops what she’s doing and stares into space). A large shadow on the wall. Crazed blows, as if I was really stabbing her. They were replaying everything, the shadows, and I felt a twitching in the darkest recesses of my memory.

  I took her into my arms, tipped her updside down into the washing machine and said, ‘It was a switchblade, I seem to remember.’

  I thought they might ask me to show them some other locations in this pongy city, but they said there was no need. The policeman who’d fallen from the motorbike was lucky, he was doing fine now.

  The next day we moved to a meeting room, which consisted of a red table reflecting the afternoon light. A female officer brewed some tea for me while the others set up a camera and opened their notebooks. They took their seats opposite. As if we were all sitting down to a plain old meeting. The old man’s face was like stone, his skin lumpy and his features sunken (especially his nose, which was nothing more than two nostrils). Maybe he’d had leprosy. He was hideous; his cold eyes were pulverising my insides. Just like the first time, I’d tell them everything calmly.

  I looked down, the tea cup gripped in my hands, and examined the links between the handcuffs.

  ‘Head up.’

  I looked up.

  ‘Look at me.’

  The old man was forcing me to look him in the eyes and it felt like I was disappearing. I was a pile of burning firewood, my body crackled, the cup shook and the boiling water splashed out and scalded me.

  It’s hard for me to describe what happened that day. You
probably won’t believe me. I felt like I was walking into a tunnel, while the old man retreated, beckoning me towards the light at the other end. I followed in silence, I had no choice. If he asked the same questions as the last time, I would tell him everything. But he only prompted me to go through the incident again. So I started from the beginning. The texts, the whispers, the struggles, the tape, the switchblade, the curtain, the washing machine. He kept nodding, while the man next to him solemnly made notes, his eyes soft and encouraging. But I was fed up. I hate having to repeat things.

  ‘Then what?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  I’d done my duty, so I leaned down on the table to sleep. One of the officers grabbed my head and I wrestled free. The old man kept gesturing for me to continue.

  ‘Let’s talk about why. You say you put her upside down in the washing machine. Why did you do that?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘OK, then when you let go of her in front of the window, was she already dead?’

  ‘Must have been.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I can’t be sure, but I think she must have been.’

  ‘So if she was already dead, why did you stab her thirty-seven times?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘You know what? Our old medical expert has never vomited at a crime scene. But after seeing what happened to that girl she was such a nervous wreck she went into hospital. The girl lost enough blood to fill the washing machine half full. The medical examiner said she’d never seen anything like it – the murderer must have been completely consumed with hatred.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Why did you hate her so much?’

  ‘I didn’t hate her.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem possible.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘If that’s the case, why do something so brutal, so ruthless?’

  ‘No reason.’

  He threw his tea cup to the floor, making his colleague jump. He leaned forward and banged on the table. ‘No reason?’ he roared.

  I looked down and said nothing. The direction he was taking and his methods were all wrong. He was making a big mistake.

  ‘Speak,’ he said, thumping the table.

  ‘I have nothing to say.’

  He walked over, grabbed my collar and raised a clenched fist. But I wasn’t scared. If he hit me on the left cheek, I’d give him my right as well. Winners don’t get so easily flustered. His colleague kept telling him to stop, but it took some time for him to calm down. Then he started telling me about his son who was about my age. His tone changed, as if talking to a friend. After having flunked his college entrance exams his son ran away. When the old man found him, he beat him. But beating his son was like beating himself.

  ‘After that I realised there was nothing I could not forgive. There is nothing in life too big that it cannot be forgiven.’

  He was in a world of his own emotions and, with tears in his eyes, he looked at me.

  ‘We’ll get through this crisis together. Kid, was there really no other way to solve your problems with Kong Jie?’

  ‘We didn’t have any.’

  ‘And yet you stabbed her another thirty-seven times, after she was already dead?’

  ‘You don’t get it.’

  ‘You liked her but she didn’t feel the same way, is that it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she humiliate you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why?’

  I looked straight at him. ‘I’d like to know the answer to that too.’

  Blood pumped into his cheeks and he looked as sombre as a stick of dynamite. He walked over to the TV screen, trembling, and picked up a photo frame. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

  ‘Who is he?’ he said in a stutter.

  ‘My father.’

  Pa looked exhausted, his skin barely stretched over his skeleton. He was in the last stages of his cancer, but still he managed to smile at the camera. I thought about his birth, his childhood, where he went to school, his work at the mine and finally marriage, a kid, sickness and death. To put it bluntly, he was born and then he died. Just like everyone else. Just like the old investigator who was getting nowhere. Just like the kid sitting in front of him.

  ‘Do you know who provided for you, brought you up?’ he said, waving the frame.

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Do you know what he went through?’ He answered himself: ‘Cancer.’ He then started on the poor-parents-and-all-they-go-through routine. ‘Don’t you feel sorry for what you’ve done to him?’

  ‘Immensely.’

  He turned to the others.

  ‘Am I right? We all have parents who have sacrificed themselves?’

  At first they were stunned, looked at each other and murmured their agreement. It was a vulgar game. He placed the picture of my father in front of me, hoping for remorse.

  ‘How about telling him, from your heart?’

  ‘Nope.’

  The other policemen were at least amused with my reply.

  I smiled and repeated, ‘I’m not going to do that.’ The inspector stood up, overturning his chair, and blew like a steam engine.

  ‘You animal! You animal! Get out of my sight!’ he roared with a wave of his hand.

  And with that the interrogation was over.

  The Game

  The mystery of why I had killed Kong Jie attracted much attention among the general public. Speculation provided an opportunity for people to prove themselves more intelligent than their peers. Discussions were animated. Nothing was taken for granted: some read my letters and the notes scribbled in my textbooks; others interviewed my classmates, teachers and relatives. But I united them all in feelings of frustration when it came to the question of motive. I was holding the cards, after all, so why not play for a bit?

  It also made the other inmates jealous.

  Guys in prison are usually society’s weirdos and with that reputation comes their own private sense of dignity. They don’t talk about their crimes, like the stupid stuff you do when drunk. But different crimes demand different levels of respect. The murderers, for example, were consistently more arrogant than the petty thieves. They asked me what I was in for, but once I told them I’d killed a girl, stabbed her thirty-seven times leaving her innards spilling out and head down in a washing machine, they never spoke to me again.

  Every time I was called out for questioning, they whistled in anger. ‘Off for another spanking!’ It was all to do with saving face. Their crimes had been explained away long ago.

  One night I crept into a corner, a ghost, while the others snored under their blankets. But just as I was about to take a piss they surrounded me, putting me in a headlock. I’d heard of this before. I jumped and screamed.

  They were suffocating me.

  I don’t know how many times they punched and slapped me, like a farmer beating the ground with his threshing paddle. They then emptied the communal bucket of piss over my head. It didn’t feel like liquid, but more like solid fat. It knocked my head to one side. One of the prison officers grabbed me by the hair and nearly twisted my neck off.

  ‘Making a scene, huh?’ he said.

  ‘Why did you kill her?’ he continued.

  I refused to give an answer. Just as his fist was about to smash into my cheek, I caught a whiff of its meaty smell. My body shook and I began howling.

  ‘My aunt! Because of my aunt!’

  ‘Your aunt?’

  ‘My aunt abused me.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with the girl?’

  ‘I wanted her to know I’m not a pushover.’

  His voice was raspy, fierce and uncontrolled, as if his vocal cords had been scraped against an iron file. Everyone else started laughing, their voices like flowers in a country meadow. My answer may have been amusing, but at least it satisfied them.

  ‘You could’ve killed your aunt. Why the girl?’ the prison officer said.

  ‘My aunt’s strong. It was e
asier to kill the girl.’

  The officer gestured to the others not to laugh.

  ‘And to think I thought you might have been someone.’

  The others bent over, gasping, ‘strong’, ‘easier’, jumping around in their laughter. This lasted for some time. I decided to take a lesson from my favourite Hong Kong films. It was all a matter of patience. I could spend years grinding down my toothbrush, until it was sharp enough to murder them. Then I’d take them, one by one.

  I looked at the overturned piss pot lying on the floor and tears of humiliation ran down my cheeks. The officer was yawning and flapped the blanket over his flabby belly. I tossed the wet towel on the floor, picked up the piss bucket and smashed it down on his head. He fell to the ground. Then I started smashing his face as if it was a stone. I nearly pulverised him.

  Thinking he was dead, I turned to my fellow inmates, now trembling. But at that moment, the officer grabbed hold of my trouser leg. I heard him spit blood, then he spoke.

  ‘Go on, kill me.’

  I picked up the bucket and hit him again. He gasped, his limbs twitched out and he fell unconscious.

  ‘He asked me to kill him,’ I said to the others, quietly. But it sounded too soft. ‘I’ve already murdered one person. Doesn’t make much difference now,’ I snarled.

  The inmates seemed to realise that something was up and started beating at their washbasins. The officers came rushing and tried to bring order, but the cells were rowdy, like the boys’ changing room after PE.

  I was put into solitary.

  Again, the investigator asked me, ‘Why did you kill Kong Jie?’

  ‘Because I hate my aunt.’

  ‘But why kill Kong Jie if the person you hate is your aunt?’

  ‘I couldn’t kill my aunt, but I wanted her to know I’m not a pushover.’

  It was a forced kind of logic, I know, but it was good enough. In order to make it more persuasive, I added something about wanting to rape Kong Jie, and then I decided to implicate old Mr He next door by making up something about how he and my aunt had hurt me badly. That they were in cahoots. I finished with some bull about my aunt being a country woman with the mindset of a petty capitalist. This made their eyes light up. The loose links of my logic had now become tight and unbreakable, all because of these buzzwords. I was feeling pretty satisfied.