by Chris West
Progress?
The car put them down by the gate of the guesthouse, and the visitors walked arm-in-arm up the path. On entering their suite, Rosina went straight over to the bed and stretched out on it. Bao fetched glasses of water from the bathroom. All that maotai!
‘Thanks,’ said Rosina, draining her glass in one. She looked at her husband. ‘You must have been proud with all the things they said about your father.’
‘I was. I’d like to have heard more about modern Nanping, though.’
‘They’re still too busy arguing about it.’
Bao laughed. ‘I guess we’ll find out what that was all about in time.’
‘I’m sure we will. Right now … ’ Rosina patted the space beside her. The inspector lay down and they kissed; Bao held her close and felt that amazement yet again, that such a beautiful intelligent woman really loved him. He began to run his hand down her back.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Rosina said suddenly.
‘Why not?’
‘Party members have to set an example,’ she said, doing a cruel but rather good imitation of Mrs Yao.
Bao laughed, slightly uneasily. Then he looked at Rosina, who was grinning, and any unease disappeared.
3
The crowing of a rooster awoke Rosina at half past five.
‘My head … ’ she moaned.
Bao, who wasn’t feeling too good either, grunted in sympathy.
Another crow.
‘That bloody chicken,’ Rosina went on. ‘I’d like to wring its neck.’
‘I’ll ask Mrs Li if we can have it for dinner tonight,’ said Bao.
Rosina tried to smile, but it was too painful.
Soon after, noise came through from the adjoining rooms: an old-fashioned bell alarm clock, the sound of someone shuffling about, a door slamming. Then, finally, there was peace. Rosina had just drifted back to sleep when their own bedside telephone rang. Bao fumbled for it, dragging the receiver off its cradle to his ear.
‘Inspector Bao Zheng? Station Chief Huang here. You expressed an interest in visiting us.’
‘Yes, er … ’
‘I haven’t got you out of bed, have I?’
‘Of course not. Been up for ages.’
‘Good.’ There was a silence. ‘Would this morning be suitable?’
‘Not really.’
‘This afternoon? Four o’clock?’
‘Who the hell was that?’ said Rosina as Bao replaced the phone.
‘That policeman.’
‘Ah. Remember your promise.’
‘I will.’
The rooster decided it was time for another round of crows. Rosina moaned and hid her head in the pillow.
*
Bao got up around ten thirty and walked into Nanping alone. He turned off the main street into the old village, wandering down the narrow, half-paved alleys between the grey-brick courtyard walls and the old-style houses with their overhanging eaves and wooden latticework doors. His nose puckered at the smell of rotting vegetation and drains. The sight of children in tatty clothes saddened him, though they seemed happy enough. More than anything else, he felt shame at his brother, who lived here not out of idealistic commitment to sharing the life of the poor, but because he couldn’t afford anywhere better.
He wondered if he would remember the way to Tinker’s Alley. He didn’t. After passing the same noodle house twice, he went in and asked. A teenager cleaning tables to a tape of Japanese rock music mumbled some instructions. Incorrect ones, but they led him to a spot Bao did recall, from which …
Courtyard Four had a blackened oak door. Bao knocked, and an old woman answered.
‘Bao Ming? Who wants to see him?’
‘His brother.’
She looked at him. ‘Oh. Yes. I can see the resemblance. Come in.’
Ming lived on one side of a courtyard which would have belonged to one family years ago, but which was now divided between three. The quad would have then been full of beautiful flowers or practical vegetables, but was now littered with rubbish. Would anyone really need a broken bedstead, a tea-chest with a hole in it, a rusty steam-iron or an eviscerated Panda TV?
‘That’s his place over there,’ the woman went on, pointing at the shabbiest-looking rooms. ‘But he’ll be at work now: I heard him get up for the early shift.’
Bao smiled in admiration of his brother’s constitution, then reminded himself that seasoned drinkers seem to have incredible powers of recovery. For a while, anyway. He crossed to his brother’s window and looked in through the dusty pane. Just as he’d expected, it was a mess. But it was a mess that Bao could in some way admire. There were piles of books everywhere: he was relieved to see that his brother hadn’t abandoned culture and reading.
‘So you’ve come all the way from Beijing?’ said the woman.
‘Yes.’
‘Families should be like that.’
Bao grinned with guilty embarrassment.
‘He’s a good neighbour,’ the woman went on. ‘He’ll do anything to help out – if you ask him, that is: he keeps himself to himself otherwise. Well, you know him already.’
‘I ought to know him better. He … enjoys his drink, doesn’t he?’
‘We all have our faults.’
‘Tell me, does he always drink too much, or is it just in bouts?’
She showed no surprise at his directness. ‘Bouts. He’ll stay off the stuff for weeks, then suddenly he’s back on it again. It’s a terrible thing, Mr Bao.’
‘I know. Any idea what sets him off?’
‘My husband reckons it’s something to do with the moon. I say it’s just different things each time. Problems: we all have them.’
‘And he’s in a drinking phase now?’
‘I’m afraid so. A bad one – it’s been several months now.’
Bao’s spirits sank. ‘Any idea why?’
‘No.’ She glanced away as she said this, which meant she was probably lying.
‘You have no idea at all?’
‘No.’
Bao had a look that he turned on suspects under interrogation. It wasn’t threatening, but made it quite clear he didn’t believe whatever he had just heard.
‘Well, yes,’ the woman went on. ‘Seeing as you’re family … It was that girl.’
‘Girl?’
‘Young woman: when you get to my age everyone under about thirty looks like a child. She came to visit him here. Quite often. And then she stopped. I think they had a row.’
‘He had a love affair?’
‘I assume so. When she stopped visiting, the drink moved back in. He hasn’t stopped since. It must have been serious. Poor man.’ There was genuine sympathy in her voice: Ming was lucky to have such a neighbour.
‘And you’ve no idea who this visitor was?’
‘No.’ This looked to be a truthful reply.
‘Describe her for me, please. Height. Build. Clothing.’ The inspector paused to remind himself that this wasn’t a formal police interview. ‘Sorry. It might help me to help him.’
‘Ordinary height. Build? Slim. Healthy-looking. Attractive,’ the neighbour added with a note of envy. ‘Western-style clothes. A city girl, I’d imagine. Not from round here, anyway.’ She paused. ‘Your brother has a right to run his own life – but we’re fond of him, and we don’t like to see him in a bad way. Maybe he’d listen to you. Tell him to find someone his own age: a nice widowed lady or someone who missed out first time around. With these marriage quotas, there are some good women going to waste. All that stuff is being relaxed, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bao admitted. ‘And I’m not sure he would listen to me, either. But I can try. Did his visitor ever speak to anyone here?’
‘Not to me. I don’t know about anyone else. She seemed suspicious of us. But I guess if you were having an affair, especially with a much older man, you would be.’
Bao pondered some other questions, but decided they would be too intrusive.
<
br /> *
As he walked slowly back through the smelly alleyways, various emotions ran through the inspector’s mind. First was curiosity. Who was this woman? What had she been doing here? How had they met? Then, a pang of anger. For an instant he was a teenager again, at that odd age when your elder brother can charm girls but you can’t. Then sympathy. Poor Ming. All that charm had never done him any good. Then anger again. Bugger ‘poor Ming’! It was typical of his brother to find a woman way out of his reach, someone who was a whole lot of things he wanted to be but wasn’t. The rest of mankind had to settle for what they were!
Finally, a kind of calm settled. He, Bao Zheng, hadn’t settled for what he was. He’d always wanted to be the best. But he had gone about his self-improvement practically, playing by the rules. And it had worked. Part of him moaned about lack of promotion at Qianmen East Street and how arse-patters or cadres’ kids got all the top jobs, but he was a respected member of an elite force in the nation’s capital – a man with so much status, in fact, that a woman like Rosina regarded him as a worthwhile husband.
So maybe it was time to give a little back. But how could he, in practice? This visit apart, he had no time. In the end, Ming would have to fend for himself. As their sister Chun was always at pains to tell him.
*
Rosina was waiting back at the guesthouse, sitting on the verandah reading one of those novels that the Party disapproved of, so restricted readership to members only (Bao’s slight disapproval of this was more than counteracted by his admiration for her intelligence). They took a light lunch, then walked up to the pass again and stood looking down at the winding track they had taken last night into Snake Valley.
‘You don’t have to go there again if you don’t want,’ said Rosina.
‘That’s silly,’ Bao replied determinedly. ‘There’ll always be a few bad memories among the good ones.’
It was now a beautiful day. A lark sang in the pure blue sky. One of the numerous irrigation channels chattered back a reply.
‘It was cold-blooded murder!’ Bao exclaimed suddenly.
‘What was?’
‘What happened to Xu and his son. And his daughter, Yifeng – well, they didn’t actually kill her, just sent her away to a labour camp in Heilongjiang to freeze to death.’ Bao shivered at the thought of the northern province, with nothing between it and the Arctic Circle except Siberia.
‘This was during the Cultural Revolution?’ Rosina asked.
‘Yes. 1968. I was away. I got a letter about it from Chun. She was shocked: someone had just taken the two men out of their cowshed and bashed their heads in.’
Rosina winced.
‘And then they accused Xu Yifeng of it,’ Bao went on. ‘I mean, have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? She was a slight, gentle girl. Artistic. Sensitive.’ He shook his head. ‘The more I think about it, the more angry I feel.’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Yes. But it was still a vile accusation. Vile!’
Rosina nodded. ‘Was Xu Yifeng beautiful?’
‘She was, actually. The most beautiful … ’ Bao’s voice tailed away.
‘Were you in love with her?’
‘No!’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not jealous. Just interested.’
‘Well, OK, I did have a kind of teenage thing for her. But I was more in love with the Army than Xu Yifeng.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose you think I ought to have done something to help her. But I couldn’t. I was away when it happened. I came back on my first leave and she’d gone … Ai, even if I had been around, there’d have been nothing I could have done. You don’t remember those days. The old Party Secretary in Weipowan had been paraded through the streets in a dunce’s cap a few weeks before. Father had made enough enemies to make us a prime target, too. Coming to the defence of Xu Yifeng would have got us all locked up, maybe even killed: Mother, Chun, me – even the good Red Guard, Bao Ming.’
‘Your brother was a Red Guard? You’ve never told me that.’
‘It never seemed important. But he was a proper little Lei Feng. He’s always been weak, really.’ Bao’s voice was suddenly full of disdain. His pace quickened, as if he were eager to escape this place again, then suddenly paused. ‘Here it is. The path to that memorial. I’d like to go and see it.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, very much. Let’s go.’
They made their way across the rocky ground to a circle of pine trees, in the middle of which was a square of concrete, now cracked and sprouting grass. At one end was a stone bench, at the other a small obelisk topped by a five-pointed star with traces of red paint on it. Rosina could still read the inscription on the front of the obelisk. Revolutionary heroes will never perish. Then there was a list of names on the plinth, and a note: ‘Killed in Ambush, July 23rd 1947’. She knew the patriotic sadness she should feel in such places, but somehow rarely felt in such a mood nowadays.
‘Why have they let it get into such a state?’ Bao muttered. He bent down, and began wrenching grass out of the cracks. ‘I mean, look at those bloody weeds over there!’
‘They’re figwort,’ said Rosina.
‘What?’
She picked a stem up and examined it. ‘Zhejiang figwort. A medicinal plant. It grows a lot in the south, but must be rare this far north. It has a wide range of uses. I wonder if the local medics know about it?’
‘Perhaps you’d better tell them. If I’m going to be visiting the local police station, you might as well see the village clinic. It’s down the end of the main street, near the bell tower.’
Rosina pulled up a piece of the plant and examined its root. ‘I’ll do that,’ she said with sudden determination.
*
‘Inspector Bao Zheng!’ Station Chief Huang shook his visitor vigorously by the hand and led him into his office. ‘Constable Kong, get our visitor some tea!’
A young man writing a report in very slow, deliberate characters stood up and left the room. Bao sat down on a wooden chair and looked round him.
‘I expect this is all rather primitive compared to Qianmen East Street,’ Huang went on.
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
Huang looked disappointed. ‘But you all have computers on your desks, don’t you?’
‘No.’
‘And videolinks?’
‘No. I have a telephone. It’s black and made of Bakelite, exactly like this one.’
‘Oh. But there’s a central mainframe? For records, fingerprints, blood types and so on?’
‘Yes. An expert can get a lot of information out of it. The rest of us have to be nice to the experts.’ Bao smiled and pointed out of the window. ‘Your motorbikes are newer than ours.’
‘They’re Chinese. I bet you have Japanese ones.’
The constable returned with two mugs of tea.
‘Here’s one area where we can match you Beijing boys,’ said the chief, handing over a mug with a proud smile. ‘This stuff is grown and processed locally.’
Bao took a sip.
‘Like it?’ the chief asked.
It was revolting. ‘Delicious!’ said Bao. ‘Now tell me about these robberies.’
The chief crossed to a map of the area with pins in. ‘There have been four thefts in the last couple of months. All from villas on the hillside. Entry is by various means – a window forced open, a door-lock picked. They know when the houses are going to be unoccupied. And because those villas are so far apart and have private gardens, the thieves can take their time. No one’s watching or listening.’
‘Found any prints?’
‘Not so far.’
‘Tool marks?’
‘No.’
‘They must have left some traces: soil from shoes, animal or human hairs.’
‘The soil is all local. Hairs … ’ The local policeman grinned with embarrassment. ‘We don’t really have the means to analyse that sort of evidence. I suppose in Beijing, you just do a quick DNA test, check the result on com
puter – ’
‘And send a robot out to make the arrest. That’s right. You’ve got files on the crimes, of course?’
‘Of course.’
‘May I see?’
As Huang produced the well-thumbed files, Bao reminded himself that this was just a courtesy visit. Nothing more. But it would be rude not to look at this material.
The burglars (or burglar: Huang seemed to have assumed more than one person was involved) had stolen the usual stuff: videos, cameras, money, jewellery and, in one case, a piece of calligraphy. There were photographs of some of the missing items: presumably the owners had thought this was a precaution against theft.
‘That’s nice,’ said Bao, holding up the photo of the calligraphy.
The chief grunted.
‘It looks genuine Qing dynasty,’ Bao went on. ‘Does anyone know how much it was worth?’
Another grunt.
Bao looked at the calligraphy more closely. He would love to collect traditional Chinese art, but such hobbies were beyond the pocket of an honest policeman. But he was not jealous of the former owner. Nowadays plenty of people had money and wasted it on ridiculous ostentation. Bao admired anyone who spent what they had on decent things.
‘I’d like to meet the person it belonged to,’ he said.
The local policeman looked surprised. ‘Do you think it is significant? I think it was taken as an afterthought. Who wants an old scroll? It’s electrical goods they’re after.’
‘Maybe.’
Station Chief Huang stared at him for a moment, then gave another grunt. If that was what his guest wanted … He riffled through the file, wondering as he did so if the Beijing high-flyer was as bright as he’d thought. ‘Inspector’ Bao probably spent all his time behind a desk. And it was a known fact that city living rotted the brain.
‘Here we are. Seven six nine. I can call him, if you like,’ said Huang.
‘That would be kind.’
Huang dialled the number.
‘He says come over right now.’
‘Oh. Thank you.’