by Andy Oakes
“Why fucking us, Boss?”
Piao spitting a shred of tobacco from his tongue.
“Why not?”
*
Chief Comrade Officer Zoul’s visit brief, lasting only for the time that it takes for ten steel spikes to be levered back through flesh, bone, skin, and for triple ply nylon body bags to be burdened with their cargo and loaded into an un-marked ambulance.
Wiping his hands, finger by finger, on a monogrammed handkerchief.
“Piao, what are you doing here? This is Homicide Squad business.”
“I was informed by the Homicide Squad, Comrade Chief Officer. They thought that I might have an insight into what was found.”
Dabbing his mouth. Piao watching, thinking that it was the whitest handkerchief that he had ever seen.
“An insight. An insight, eh? Dangerous things insights, especially in a case such as this.”
Watching him. His eyes, crow black with no reflection.
“You did well, Senior Investigator. I can see why you are so highly regarded. To limit observation of what was found, the bodies in the warehouse. Sensible, extremely sensible.”
“And what now, Comrade Chief Officer, Sir?”
Zoul’s handkerchief to his forehead. Cold, but the Comrade Chief Officer sweating.
“Now. Also a dangerous word, Senior Investigator. You make a habit, Sun Piao, of using dangerous words. Such words could lose one the power of speech.”
“Is that a threat, Comrade Chief Officer Zoul?”
“No, Senior Investigator Sun Piao. I am stating a fact. There are things that I, that you, cannot speak of. For risk of losing our tongues. You, me, we are men of the world. We know the system. How we play it, how it plays us. There are things that I cannot say. There are things that you cannot ask.”
“But you wish to speak, Comrade Chief Officer. You also wish me to ask. In a fashion. I see it in your manner. I see it in the hushed conversation that you had with Yun as you entered the warehouse. You knew that Yun would contact me, Comrade Chief Officer. You are a good officer, you know your men.”
His eyes filled with the blackness of the Huangpu’s waters.
“You wish to have a conversation with me, Comrade Chief Officer, Sir. You wish us to have an understanding. An understanding that will be binding, but which you would deny existed within seconds of us parting.”
“Very perceptive, Piao. No wonder there are those that would fear you.”
“I will do the talking, Comrade Chief Officer, and you can remain silent for risk of losing your tongue. Yes?”
A nod, slight and un-reassuring.
“Di and his Deputy, the ambulance was unmarked, they will be cremated this night. By morning their families will have received their ashes in an urn.”
Again, a nod.
“There will be no autopsy. No forensic examination. No investigation. No report. No file.”
Coughing, Zoul. A nod stitched into its spasm.
“There are other agendas at work here. Di, his Deputy, they are a side dish, not the main course …”
No reaction.
“Di, I knew him well. I knew his family. His children have sat on my lap. I will not allow his death to go unmarked, unnoticed. I will not allow his widow to wear the colour of death, without knowing why.”
Tears to the corners of Zoul’s eyes. Surely from the breeze across the river’s broken back?
“I understand, as you say, that which can be said and that which cannot. But this investigation, it will go ahead. It will be an un-official investigation. The act of a friend for a friend.”
“An investigation, official or not, is not a good idea, Piao. Not a good idea at all.”
“And you will stop me, Comrade Chief Officer?”
On the river a black ghost of a ship passing. Only its running lights visible; shivering to the engine’s roll.
“I did not say that, Senior Investigator. I am only stating that the support that I, the support that the fen-chu can provide, will be …”
“Limited?”
“Extremely limited, Senior Investigator.”
“I will need some resources, Comrade Chief Officer. I will need money for guan-xi. I will need computer equipment. Private access to the Internet, no restrictions.”
Zoul, accepting with a reluctant nod.
“Why the Internet?”
Knowing that he would get no answer. No answer coming.
“There are many restrictions, Senior Investigator. Laws. Permits to obtain. Personal use of the Internet with no restrictions is, is as rare as a woman without an opinion.”
Piao, his eyes bright with fierceness. Zoul nodding.
“But it can be arranged.”
Buttoning the collar of his coat, the Comrade Chief Officer. Piao envying him having someone to sew his buttons for him. Moving with Zoul toward the Red Flag. A sleepy-eyed chauffeur throwing his cigarette onto the cobbles. The door opening, and with it a smell of antique leather and fat septuagenarian arses.
“Comrade Chief Officer, did Di express any concerns to you, or to any other comrade officer?”
“No.”
“Did he produce any reports that would throw any light on the horrors that we have just witnessed?”
“No.”
The door closing.
“But there is a file, Senior Investigator. Tomorrow you shall have that file.”
And through the small gap at the top of the side window.
“This file, it did not come from me. It is a door. Nothing more, Piao. A door. You understand?”
Slowly pulling away, the Hong-qi, its window gliding fully closed.
“Yes, I understand,” said the Senior Investigator, walking back to the river.
Chapter 8
Heaven lends us a soul. Earth will lend us a grave …
Obey the customs, the rites. Not to do so can bring ill fortune. Can wreak disaster upon the family of the deceased.
If you are old, respect cannot be shown to a younger person whom life no longer possesses. Especially a bachelor. A guan guan, a ‘bare branch’. His body should not be brought into the house, but left in the funeral parlour. No prayers should be said for him, not even by his parents. If it is a baby that should die, your baby … no funeral rites can be performed. No prayers whispered. Your little one will be buried in complete silence.
There is much to do in the house of one whom life no longer possesses. All statues and deities covered with red paper, so as not to be exposed to the body or the coffin. Mirrors removed from sight. One who sees the coffin in the reflection of a mirror will surely have a death occur in their own family. Shortly they will be removing the mirrors in their own house.
A white cloth will be hung in the doorway of the home. If the deceased is male, a gong placed on the left-hand side of the entrance. If the deceased is female, a gong placed on the right-hand side of the entrance. Do not dress the deceased in the colour red, as this will surely cause them to become a ghost. Clothes should be white, brown, black, or blue. Their faces to be covered with a fine yellow cloth. Their body with a light blue cloth. Their hair comb, broken in two. One half placed within the coffin. The other half retained by a family member.
During the wake do not wear jewellery.
Do not wear red, the colour of happiness.
Do not cut your hair for 49 days. During mourning, wail and cry. It is a sign of respect, of loyalty. The wails, the cries, to be louder the larger the fortune that has been left.
Do not be late to the mourning, or you will have to crawl to the coffin on your knees.
Burn the joss paper, the prayer-money, throughout the wake or your deceased loved one will not have sufficient income in the afterlife.
Provide for the monk who, with his chanted Taoist scripts, through the long night will smooth the path of the deceased soul into heaven. Provide for the musicians; music played on flute, gong, trumpet, smoothing the passage to the afterlife. The souls of the dead face many obstacles, tri
als, torments, torture. They must pay for the sins that they have perpetrated in life. Death, no easy journey.
A crescendo of wailing, the coffin lid nailed in place. Separation of the dead from the living. All faces turned away. To see a coffin sealed, very unlucky. Yellow, white, the holy papers pasted to the coffin. Protection from malign spirits.
Be a volunteer to carry the coffin to its resting place. A blessing bestowed by deceased to pallbearer.
Be attentive. The long lit joss stick that symbolises the soul of the deceased … sometimes the wind will extinguish its orange flame. Be sure to relight it immediately.
Be attentive. The paper models of cars, houses, ships, that are carried to symbolise the wealth of the deceased’s family, sometimes the wind will blow them away. Be sure to retrieve them from the ground and place them back into the hands of the family members.
Be attentive. If the procession needs to cross water, the deceased must be informed. Not to speak of this will cause the soul of the dead to be left behind on the other side of the river.
Feng shui demands that the cemetery be located on a hill. Your plot should be high. As close to the peak as finances allow. As the coffin is lowered into the grave, all faces must be turned away, or ill fortune will surely follow. Ill fortune will also follow if all items of clothing that have been worn for the funeral are not burnt.
Red packets are distributed to relatives. Inside, money, a sign of gratitude. Money that must be spent, not saved. Also distributed, towels. White towels. Another sign of gratitude. But also to wipe away the sweat, the dirt from hands that have been used to help fill the grave.
Be sure to mourn your loved one for 100 days. Be sure to wear the appropriate piece of coloured cloth on the sleeve of your jacket to signify this mourning. Black for the deceased’s children. Blue for the grandchildren. Green for the great-grandchildren. For up to 3 years you will wear these pieces of cloth.
If a child should die, do not mourn. If your wife should die, do not mourn. Wait for the seventh day. On the seventh day the soul of your departed one will return to your home. You will place a red plaque with a suitable inscription outside the house. The souls of the dead are easily lost. On the seventh day all family members shall remain in their rooms. Give yourself comfort on this day. Dust the floor of your home with talcum powder. Dust the floor of your home with flour. After the seventh day, when your room is left behind, witness the visitation of your loved one’s soul on a field of white.
So serious, death. Treat it as you would a ripe peach. A peach, yes. Treat death as a very delicate peach.
Chapter 9
SOONG CHING-LING MAUSOLEUM, THE HONGQIAO ROAD.
White, the colour of death.
Dove-white clad mourners moving across delineations of brown. Earth scratched to darker earth. And smells that graveyards have, of rust, dripping out its iron life, and freshly dug sods with worms wriggling.
A view over shoulders, of shoulders. The urn, interned, bricked up. A plaque fixed in place. A chiselled name with the year of birth and of death. Stone letters carved in stone. A darker grey set in grey. Generous, the PSB. Looking after its own and meeting all of the substantial costs.
Through the graveyard, back to the house, the walk colder than when coming. Funerals, always colder on the walk back.
“This investigation, you do not have to …”
Ahead, Di’s widow. Hands, knuckle white in the clasp of her children’s hands.
“Don’t worry, Boss, I’m in. What the fuck, I’m not going to wait around to get what Di got.”
Ahead, tears and comforting words. Prayers and cold feet.
Piao, hand to pocket, passing a note. The Big Man unfolding it. Reading.
“Zoul agreed to help …”
“Shit, he said he’d give you all these American dollars?”
Reading.
“5,000 Panda Brand. 2,000 Marlboro. 20 bottles of Southern Comfort. 20 bottles of Teacher’s whisky.”
“Guan-xi. We will need to grease a few palms.”
“And a few throats, eh Boss?”
“They will know our Shanghai Sedan. We will need the use of another vehicle.”
“Difficult, but leave it to me, Boss. Nothing that a handful of those dollars and a few bottles of Southern Comfort won’t sort out.”
“On which subject, how far have you got with Nie? Has he got anything for us?”
“He’s got stuff, Boss. Told me. And I’ve already arranged a meeting in two day’s time.”
“He is safe?”
Outside the flat, mourners cleaning their shoes. Washing their hands in bowls of water. Remnants of the cemetery washed adrift. But not the tracks of tears down their cheeks and not their memories.
“Sure, but he didn’t like it, Boss. Didn’t want to leave work. Didn’t want to leave his house and go to a safe address. Didn’t want to do anything …”
“Until?”
“Until I told him what they had done to Detective Di. Soon changed his mind. Packed in two minutes flat. What about this file that Zoul was talking about, Boss? Any good?”
“A door. There were four reports in the file. Four investigations. Di had worked briefly on all of them. Four young women. The reports state that they were all prostitutes. All were attacked, cut up, mutilated. Three were found dead in the waters of the Wusongjiang. No leads. Not one. There were no witnesses. Or no one willing to say that they were a witness.”
“And this is a ‘door’, Boss? Sounds more like a fucking wall.”
“The last attack was a week ago. The yeh-ji is still in the First People’s Hospital on the Wu Jin Road, Hongkou. We are seeing her tomorrow.”
“So we do have a witness, Boss?”
“If she survives and is willing to talk. Someone played a game with her, with a razor. She was then dumped in the river at Suzhou Creek. She only just survived.”
Moving up the communal staircase with its smells of cooking, babies and sadness. A queue of tears. Mourners in a slow moving staggered line. Whispered words to a widow and to fatherless children.
“What do I say, Boss, to Di’s widow? What do I fucking talk about?”
A hand on the Big Man’s shoulder. Words in solemn whisper.
“What you do not talk about is a crucifixion, an oxyacetylene torch, or steel spikes.”
Images stacked in Piao’s head, never far from being summoned up. Layer over layer.
“You speak of other truths. What a fine comrade he was. What a good man, fine husband and loving father.”
Closer, the front of the queue to the widow. So close. Able to smell her tears of sweet honey and the most bitter of lemons.
“You speak of other truths.”
*
In aspic, that instance of time that stands on tiptoes still. Day turning off, lights switching on.
Moving through Xietulu where it intersects Jihueilu. Piao, shielding his eyes; a black shadow stripe over a face slowly being gilded.
“If you were going to crucify somebody, how many spikes would you use?”
“Fuck me, Boss, what a question. Di’s widow’s tears are still warm on my face and you ask me something like that.”
“How many?”
A blast on the horn. A shoal of quicksilver Forever Bicycles parting, like a carp’s belly to a sharp knife.
“Two, Boss. I wouldn’t want to waste any time, so I’d double over the hands and use one spike through the two of them. I’d do the same to the feet.”
“The one through the forehead?”
Turning sharply into Fuzingdonglu. Red lights in a smear across the windscreen.
“Unnecessary. Too much stuffing to the dumpling, Boss. If the spike to the forehead was to kill them, it could have been done a lot simpler. What about you, Boss, how many spikes would you use?”
“Two.”
Laughing, the Big Man.
“Practical bastards, the two of us, eh Boss? Children of the hardships following the Cultural Revolution.”
> Green flooding the Sedan’s interior.
“So why did they use five, Boss?”
“I do not know. To guess is cheap. To guess wrong is expensive.”
The windscreen wipers stuttering to life. An end in view, an end of sorts. The apartment, home, clenched in shadow, squeezed in premature nightfall. A place where life was lived with the vitality of a coat hanging on a coat hook. Stepping out of the Sedan, fending off the rain’s insistence. Through the open quarter window hurried words.
“Who can guess what it is that is in the heads of such murderers.”
Pulling up his collar.
“They are as the rain, unpredictable.”
Piao’s whisper, at one with the snare beat rhythm of the rain falling on his head, as he walked toward his apartment.
“Five spikes. Five. As the points of the People’s Republic’s star. A message there?”
*
Public Security Bureau, Divisional Headquarters, Hongkou. 9.30 a.m. the next day.
In the tray holding the in-coming mail, a fastidiously wrapped package, marked for the personal attention of Comrade Chief Officer Zoul. A tick, irregular but persistent, kicking off above Zoul’s left eye. Slowly peeling the layers away, as with a large gold onion. Not daring to rip the paper. Not daring to hurry the process. Last layer, gently slit and slipping aside. The Comrade Chief Officer falling back in his chair. Perspiration beading his forehead. Trembling fingers pulling the small plastic bottle from his tunic pocket. Fumbling the lid off with sweaty, panicked fingers. The pill to his heavily coated tongue; a taste of sugar giving way to an all-consuming bitterness. And all of the time his eyes never leaving the exposed contents of the package.
Slowly, the panic abating. Rising, head swimming, legs uncertain. Pulling open a deep filing-cabinet drawer. So many deep filing-cabinet drawers. So many things hidden in their locked, pressed steel innards. From its depths, removing a report, brief, sketchy, hastily compiled. Across its print, across the name signed at its bottom, Senior Investigator Di … fingerprints of concrete dust.
Moving to the small grey cabinet in the corner of the office. A flick of a switch. Print, signature, all shredding to meaningless tatters. A sigh, but lost in the shredder’s bite.