When Red is Black

by Qiu Xiaolong

  The few other underlined sections were largely about politics. There was one long paragraph about the head of the cadre school, another about the worker propaganda team. Yu could imagine how some people might feel uncomfortable about this book. It would be easy for them to believe that the characters in the book were based on themselves.

  He did not know why Peiqin wanted him to read those parts. And he was not able to read for long. He was rung up by Party Secretary Li, who had traced him to the neighborhood committee office. This phone call had been provoked by a fairly long article in the latest issue of a popular magazine, published under the pretext of commemorating Yin’s death, but actually more about the death of Yang. It also contained several long quotes from Death of a Chinese Professor. One was a statement, made at the professor’s deathbed, toward the end of the novel: “From this moment on, she would live for him, and die for him too.”

  That was a subtle insinuation that Yin’s death might be politically complicated.

  The magazine had sold out immediately, which served as yet another reminder of the mounting popular interest in this murder case. Such interest was far from pleasant to the Party authorities.

  “The case has to be solved as quickly as possible,” Party Secretary Li declared once again.

  In a non-political case, it might not matter much if the investigation took a few weeks longer. Some of them remained dormant, with no clues and no solution in sight, for many months, or longer, sometimes forever. But this particular case needed a quick resolution. As a member of the special case squad, Detective Yu was not unfamiliar with the usual arguments.

  “If unsolved, the case may keep on feeding wild speculation,” Li continued sternly, “and that will bring too much pressure to bear on the city government, and the bureau too.”

  “I understand, Comrade Party Secretary Li,” Detective Yu said. “I will do my best.”

  “What is Chief Inspector Chen up to? It’s hard to understand. He insists on taking his vacation in spite of the urgency of solving this important case. And I don’t know how long his vacation will last.”

  “Nor do I,” Yu said, knowing that Chen had not told the Party boss about his translation project. But he did not like the implication-whether Party Secretary Li really meant it or not-that he would not be able to handle a “special case” without Chief Inspector Chen supervising him.

  In the special case squad, the spotlight usually was on Chen, and the credit went to him too. It was little wonder since Chen was an emerging Party cadre with connections stretching as far as Beijing. It was plain that he was being groomed to succeed Party Secretary Li and it would be good for the bureau to have a party secretary who actually knew something about policework, even if he had not been trained for it. And to be fair, Chen did a good job. It did not matter to Yu how much credit he personally received for an investigation he conducted together with Chen. It was all the work of their special case squad. Yu had not complained about staying in Chen’s shadow. Not too many bosses like Chen were left in the police force. Yu sometimes considered himself lucky to be Chen’s partner. Nevertheless, this did not mean that only Chief Inspector Chen was up to the job.

  Yu did not care much what others might think, or say, behind his back, but he could not help feeling upset when his colleagues, and now Party Secretary Li, brought the issue up to his face, as if the special case squad was nothing but Chen, as if Yu deserved no recognition.

  Even Peiqin had once mentioned something to that effect, he remembered.

  What Party Secretary Li said hurt him, Yu realized somberly. It was as if the earth stopped moving with the absence of Chief Inspector Chen.

  But what else could Chen possibly have done if he had been involved with the investigation? In fact, Yu and Chen had discussed every aspect of the case.

  “Don’t worry, Party Secretary Li. I’ll take care of it,” Yu said. “The case will be solved shortly.”

  “I have given my junlingzhuang to the city government, Comrade Detective Yu.” Junlingzhuang was a pledge an ancient Chinese general gave: something would be done or he would be removed from his position.

  “Then I give mine to you, Party Secretary Li.”

  Afterward, Yu regretted his impulsive response. Perhaps something had been going on in his subconscious for a long time. Perhaps it was the time for him to think about a career change. For him, the case of Yin Lige was taking on a new dimension. It was no longer simply that he was determined to solve it all on his own, with Chief Inspector Chen on leave. It was also an investigation that might testify to the meaning of his profession, his career. He had believed that, even though only a bottom-level cop, he could make a meaningful difference to society. In addition, his was a meaningful task because it was significant to Peiqin, as Yang’s writing had meant such a lot to her.

  The political aspect of this investigation was not his concern. If anything, it only highlighted the fact that nothing was free from politics in China, a fact he had known for a long time. The problem was how to make a breakthrough at the shikumen house. Instead of continuing the interviews of the shikumen residents, he decided to review his strategy with Old Liang first.

  They had concentrated on the possibility that someone who lived in the building had killed Yin. They seemed to have excluded the possibility that an outsider had committed the crime because no stranger had been seen entering or exiting, either through the front or the back door. But what about the possibility of a cover-up? What if one witness, or more than one, was not telling the truth?

  A problem immediately presented itself. There were three people in the courtyard who came from three different families. While the neighbors’ relationships-with the exception of those with Yin-might have been as wonderful as Old Liang declared, it was hard to imagine that three different families were involved in a conspiracy to commit or cover up a murder. That someone had left through the front door was therefore practically impossible. As for the back door, the shrimp woman was positive about her statement: she had never budged. But was she telling the truth?

  While Detective Yu made this analysis, Old Liang clung to his insider theory.

  “You should keep interviewing the shikumen residents,” Old Liang maintained. “If you want me to participate in the interviews here with you, that’s fine, but I think it’s worthwhile for me to continue making background checks.”

  “Your background checks are important, but we really need to speed it up. There are more than fifteen families in the building. Party Secretary Li is pushing me for results.”

  “So we are running out of time.”

  “We have to be more selective in choosing our interviewees. Let’s take a look at the next name on the list.”

  Lei Xueguang was the fifth suspect listed.

  “Oh, that Lei! Believe it or not, Yin helped him, in her way,” Old Liang began, in a most dramatic tone that reminded Yu of his father, Old Hunter. “But you know what they say, No good deed goes unpunished.”

  In the early seventies, Lei, then a high school student, had been caught in the act of stealing from a district government van and sentenced to ten years. It was his hard luck that this particular year there was a “strike-hard-against-crime campaign.” As a result, those caught were punished much more severely than in other years. When Lei was released, he was jobless. There was no possibility of his finding work in a state-run company. Private business was then just beginning to be allowed, but only in a very limited way, as a “nonessential supplement to the socialist economy.” If Lei had a first-floor room with a door opening onto the street, he might have been able to turn it into a tiny store or eatery. Several people in the area had done that, converting most of their living space to business use. Lei did not have such a room. Nor any connections. His attempt to obtain a business license proved to be fruitless.

  To the surprise of everyone in the lane, Yin mentioned Lei in an essay published in Wenhui Daily, as an example of the insensitivity of the neighborhood committees. �
��A young man has to find some way to support himself, or he may get into trouble again,” she wrote. The local committee members must have read the newspaper; Lei was granted a business license to run a green-onion-cake booth at the head of the lane. Nobody had any real objection, except those reckless bike riders who tore in and out of the lane all the time. The new onion-cake maker must have heard about the newspaper column. The first time Yin came to the booth to buy food, he refused to accept any money from her.

  Business was not bad. Lei soon had a local girl working with him, and she became his girlfriend. Nor did it take long for him to begin to plan to expand. In addition to the onion cakes, he began a lunchbox service, offering a variety of popular specialties such as pork steak, beef in oyster sauce, dry-fried belt fish, or Aunt Ma’s spicy tofu, each choice served on top of steamed rice, plus a small cup of hot and sour soup. Since his space was rent-free, Lei was able to provide fairly good food at low prices. The plastic boxes and disposable chopsticks especially appealed to white-collar workers from the new office buildings nearby. The fame of Lei’s lunch boxes spread. Customers had to stand waiting in long lines to order. He set up a second big coal stove at the lane entrance, and hired two provincial girls to help him.

  “In misfortune, there is a fortune; in fortune, there is a misfortune. That’s exactly what Laozi said in Tao Te Ching thousands of years ago,” Old Liang commented. “How true it is, even today, even for Lei in our lane.”

  “Someone with a new girlfriend and a fresh business plan,” Yu said, interrupting Old Liang’s narrative, “is unlikely to have murdered a neighbor.”

  Old Liang argued, “But he needs money more than ever for business expansion. Where can he get capital? Judging by his tax return, Lei hardly breaks even.”

  “Oh, his tax form. Have you talked to him about that?”

  “Yes, I have. He denied having anything to do with the murder, of course, but he offered no explanation about where he plans to get capital for expansion.”

  “What about his alibi?”

  “Lei starts the coal stove fires around five thirty every morning. Several people recall seeing him at work at the stoves that morning.”

  “So his alibi is solid.”

  “Still, I don’t think we can rule him out. He could have dashed back home for a minute or two. No one would have noticed. He keeps most of his supplies in the courtyard, or in his room, so he often goes back and forth.”

  “It’s possible,” Yu said. “Still, I think he must be grateful for Yin’s help. Her comment changed the course of his life.”

  “Gratitude from such a man? No, no way.” Old Liang shook his head vigorously. “In fact, there’s something else about him. Of all her neighbors, Lei alone has entered Yin’s room a couple of times to deliver lunch boxes. Heaven alone knows what he might have noticed there.”

  “You have a point, Old Liang. I’ll talk to him,” Yu said. “Now, the next one?”

  “As for the next one, his name is Cai. Not exactly a resident here, at least not registered as a resident. So you see, we have not excluded other possibilities.”

  “Okay, but why have you picked him out?”

  “It’s another long story.” Old Liang lit a cigarette for Yu, and then another for himself. “Cai is Xiuzhen’s husband. She and her mother, Lindi, and her brother Zhengming live in a room at the end of the north wing. When Cai and Xiuzhen got married, he ran one of the few private hotels in Jinan District and talked a lot about buying a high-class apartment.”

  “So he was a Mr. Big Bucks,” Yu said.

  “Perhaps, at the time. Xiuzhen was then only nineteen years old. Most people believed that she had made the right choice, even though Cai was eighteen years older, and had served several years in prison for gambling. On their honeymoon, they stayed in a suite in the hotel because he was registered at home with his mother in the slums in the Yangpu District. Cai did not have time to look for a new apartment, Xiuzhen explained to her neighbors.

  “But things with him were not as rose-colored as he had described them, she soon found out. The hotel business was in terrible shape, running into debt, and she was already pregnant. The rice is cooked, nothing that is done can be undone. When her baby was born, the prospect of moving into a nice apartment totally disappeared. Not long afterward, the hotel went out of business.

  “His slum home is in an area designated for a new housing project, where most the buildings had already been torn down. A few families have refused to move out unless their demands are met, and they are still there. They are called ‘nail’ families, in the sense that they have to be forcefully pulled out, like nails. The district government has made it hard for those nails to stay there, cutting off their water or electricity from time to time, and when that happens, Cai comes to stay with Xiuzhen in Treasure Garden Lane.”

  “That’s a different love story,” Yu said, anxious to bring Old Liang to the point. “So what does Cai do now?”

  “Nothing. In the summer, he makes money as a cricket fighter. A cricket gambler, to be more exact, betting on the cricket fights. People say he has triad ties, which must help him greatly in this kind of business. For the rest of the year, heaven alone knows what he is really up to. He does not appear to be unemployed, like his brother-in-law Zhengming, who loiters about all day in the lane. As for Xiuzhen, still a young, pretty girl, she is like a fresh flower growing on top of a dung heap.”

  “You can say that again,” Yu said, wondering at the appropriateness of the ancient proverb, for manure would be nutritious to a flower. “Does Cai gamble on crickets in the lane?”

  “No, he does not fight crickets in the neighborhood. To make a living out of this, he has to mix with those nouveau-riches who will bet thousands of Yuan on a tiny cricket,” Old Liang said. “Once a Mr. Big Bucks, always a Mr. Big Bucks. People believe he still earns more than most of the others in the lane.”

  “What about Zhengming?”

  “He is good for nothing. He has not worked at any real job since high school. I don’t know how he manages to muddle along. Now he actually has a live-in girlfriend, and she doesn’t work either.’’

  “Does he depend on his mother?”

  “Yes. I cannot make out these young people. The world is really going to the dogs.” Old Liang added “But we don’t have to worry about him. He broke a leg ten days ago, and can hardly move out of the attic.”

  “Then what about Cai-apart from his history?”

  “History is like a mirror, capable of showing what a man really is. Once a criminal, always a criminal.”

  “That is another quote from Chairman Mao,” Yu observed in a matter-of-fact way.

  “Cai says he was not here that morning, but with his mother in that ‘nail’ room. That’s just what he says, of course.”

  “Yes, we will check on that.”

  But he was not so sure whether the interview of either of these two suspects would lead to anything. When Old Liang left to pursue background checks, Yu decided to do something different. He made a telephone call to Qiao Ming, the ex-dean of the cadre school, upon whom Yin had spat at the memorial service.

  Peiqin and he had discussed the possibility that Qiao might have had a motive to murder Yin. In view of the autobiographical nature of the novel, even though Yin had named no names, many people might have been nervous or indignant. Wan, the upstairs neighbor, was only one example. Those who had been at the cadre school must have been panic-stricken. Furthermore, no one could predict whether Yin might produce a second book, containing even more embarrassing realistic details. Anything was possible.

  “Don’t believe anything you read in Death of a Chinese Professor,” Qiao began. “It’s a pack of lies.”

  “Death of a Chinese Professor is a novel, I understand. But I’m working on a homicide case, Comrade Qiao, so I have to investigate every possible aspect.”

  “Comrade Detective Yu, I know why you want to talk to me, but let me make one point first. With respect to what happen
ed during the Cultural Revolution, we must have a historical perspective. No one was a fortune-teller, capable of foretelling all the changes in the future. At that time, we simply believed in Chairman Mao!”

  “Yes, everyone believed in Chairman Mao, I have no question about that, Comrade Qiao.”

  “The book makes a selling point of the persecution they suffered in the cadre school. Now, that was no place for people to fall in love-not at the time. The top priority was, according to Chairman Mao, for people to reform themselves there. Because of that phone call from Beijing about Mao’s poems, the cadre school actually made a point of allowing Yang books and dictionaries. That was a real privilege at the time. Someone reported he was writing a book, and we did not even try to interfere at first. You see, for Yang, those years were not totally wasted.”

  “Did you find out what kind of book he was writing?”

  “Later, when we put him into the isolation room, we searched his dorm room, but we did not find anything. It might have been a manuscript in English.”

  “Please tell me about the circumstances of Yang’s death.”

  “It was a sweltering hot summer. We all worked in the rice paddy, just like the local farmers. It was not Yang alone who had to work there. In fact, a lot of people were sick. As for any possible negligence, now by hindsight, if we had known he was so seriously ill… But perhaps he was not aware of it either. The cadre school was located in Qingpu. Transportation then was not like it is today. There wasn’t a single taxi in the area in those years. How could the cadre school be possibly held responsible for his tragic death?”

  “It may be too much to say that he was persecuted to death, but we can understand Yin’s reaction. She suffered a lot those years.”

  “So did I!” Qiao snapped. “All those years, I stayed at the cadre school, working there. Have I gained anything? No, nothing. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, I was subjected to ‘political examination’ for two years. And my wife divorced me, discarded me like a dirty sock.”

  “Just one more question. Where were you on the morning of February seventh?”