by Qiu Xiaolong
The time of death was established to be between 9:30 P.M. and 10:30 P.M. the previous night. The crime scene people found no sign of forced entry, nor of any struggle. There was no murder weapon or fingerprints found—except for one on the mirror in the bathroom, left by his secretary, Mi. That didn’t mean anything, though, since Mi sometimes worked there as well.
There didn’t appear to be anything valuable missing from his apartment, either. Both Mi and his wife checked and confirmed this.
The police suspected that the murderer was no stranger to Liu. The home office was in an expensive, well-guarded apartment complex. According to his neighbors, Liu didn’t stay there often, and he barely mixed with them. Occasionally, he was there with Mi, working late into the night with the door shut tightly. As far as the security guard could recall, however, Liu was alone that evening, and no stranger came to visit him later. Non-residents had to check in with security and leave the name of the resident they were visiting.
The local cops had also interviewed a number of people close to Liu. There were hardly any promising leads there, either.
Mi maintained that Liu hadn’t mentioned expecting a visitor that evening. Mrs. Liu reported that Liu had called earlier in the day and told her that he was going to work on some important documents and wouldn’t be coming home. After speaking to him, she went to Shanghai in the late afternoon and didn’t return until the next day. Fu Hao, the associate general manager of the company, now the acting general manager, said that Liu had been so busy of late that they’d hardly talked during the day.
At the end of his briefing, Huang took a sip of the lukewarm tea and leaned over across the table.
“You’re no outsider, Chief. There’s something about this case. Not only was a special team formed, but that the governmental authorities—not just at the city level—have been paying a lot of attention to the investigation. We’ve gotten several phone calls from the city government. I’ve heard that even Internal Security is looking into it, working sort of parallel investigation.”
“Internal Security,” Chen repeated. “Have they done anything?”
“For one thing, Liu’s phone records were snatched away before we could examine them.”
“That’s something. You’re very perceptive, Huang.”
“But I haven’t met with any of them—face to face, I mean. So I’m not sure how involved they are.”
“Yes, find out for me,” Chen said before he realized that he had unwittingly slipped back into his familiar role, talking as if he were in charge of the case and Huang his subordinate. While he hadn’t yet decided whether he would attempt to do anything about the investigation, it wouldn’t hurt, he thought, for him to take a look. “I’ve heard about the company. About its success at the expense of the environment, with the lake water and food around here being badly contaminated. ”
That enquiry, suggested by his talk with Shanshan, could also be seen as being in line with Comrade Secretary Zhao’s instructions. It was time for Chen to start paying attention to the problem. Still, he thought he had better not ask too many questions at this stage, or he could raise unnecessary alarm.
“Well, it is said that some people are getting sick by drinking the water or eating the fish, but nothing is really proven,” Huang said, scratching his head. “I don’t think it’s something relevant to the murder. There are many factories like Liu’s here. Wuxi has been developing rapidly, and as Comrade Deng Xiaoping put it, ‘Development is the one and only truth.’”
It wasn’t up to Chief Inspector Chen, coming from Shanghai, to debate economic development in Wuxi. And he wasn’t an environmental expert like Shanshan.
“Oh, another thing, Huang,” he said, on the spur of the moment. “Someone I know here has been getting threatening calls. Can you check on it for me?”
“What’s his name and number?”
“Her name is Shanshan, and here is her number.” He copied her number onto a scrap of paper and handed it to Huang.
“Shanshan?”
Chen thought he caught a fleeting hint of surprise in Huang’s expression. “Do you know her?”
“No, I don’t. You know her well?” Huang asked.
“No, I met her yesterday.”
“I’ll check it out for you, Chief,” Huang said, glancing at his watch as he stood up. “I think I have to go back to the team. It’s almost five.”
“Thank you so much, Huang. Call me when you learn anything new.” He added, almost as an afterthought, “Send me some information about the case.”
He watched Huang’s retreating figure disappear into the crowd, which began to thin out with the approaching dusk. Chen remained sitting there, brooding, and staring into his empty cup of tea.
After several minutes, he looked up at the bronze turtle statue, which must have overheard—if endowed with supernatural powers as in those folk tales—just another tale of human tragedy. But the brown turtle remained squatting, meditating, impervious to human suffering. What kind of a man was Liu? Chen hadn’t even seen a picture of him, but Liu might have come here himself, sitting, sipping at his own tea, and staring at the turtle statue.
Chen swept his gaze over to the tilted eave of a multistory wooden tower silhouetted against the evening spreading in the distance. The time-and-weather-worn tower suddenly appeared melancholy. He was struck with a sense of déjà vu—possibly from recollecting more lines by Su Shi, his favorite poet from the Song dynasty.
It is nothing but a dream, / for the past, for the present. / Whoever wakes out of the dream? / There is only a never-ending cycle / of old joy, and new grief. / Someday, someone else, / in view of the tower at night, / may sigh deeply for me.
FIVE
THE CENTER WAS A nice place, after all.
Chen took a walk around early Tuesday morning and began to get a better sense of the layout. The location spoke volumes for the center. Originally a huge lakeside area of the park, it had been converted into the Cadre Recreation Center for the benefit of veteran cadres, so they could enjoy the lake in peace and quiet without having to mix with the noisy tourist crowd.
There were several others like him walking around at a leisurely pace. Every one of them must have led a quite different life somewhere else, in a provincial town or in a large city, each powerful and privileged in their respective ways. In the blue-and-white-striped pajamas of the center, however, they appeared anonymous for the moment.
Even here, though, there was a sort of recognizable hierarchy. In the two gray multistory buildings near the entrance, the rooms were probably like those in a hotel; though still quite nice, each of them boasting a small balcony, they were probably not for very high-ranking cadres. In contrast, there was another building close to the center of the complex, and the size of the balconies indicated much larger rooms inside. Looking up, Chen saw a white-haired man step out onto a balcony on the third floor, stretch, and nod at him. Chen nodded back and moved on.
Soon, he saw a teahouse built in the traditional architectural style. It was much like the one he had seen in the park, but it stood embosomed in green foliage on the top of a raised plateau, adjacent to a modern-style building. From the distance, he could see several elderly people sitting outside by the white stone balustrade, drinking tea, talking, and cracking watermelon seeds.
It might be a good place, he reflected, for him to sit and study the initial report Sergeant Huang had faxed him that morning. The chief inspector was still debating as to whether he should get actively involved in the investigation.
He was surprised at the sight of a waterproof escalator stretching up the hill, leading directly to the teahouse. It wasn’t so much the technology of the escalator that surprised him but the fact that it was installed on the slope in the first place. Anyone who couldn’t walk up the flight of stone steps nearby could easily use the elevator inside the building next to it.
He turned away and walked to the clinic attached to the center instead. According to the brochure, the cli
nic provided convenient medical checkups for high-ranking cadres. Chen didn’t think there was anything wrong with him, but since he was there, he decided to see a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine.
Chen’s experience at the clinic proved to be quite different from that at a Shanghai hospital, where he usually had to wait a long time, standing in line, going through a lot of paperwork. Here, the nurses were practically waiting on him, not to mention that there was so much advanced equipment—all imported here for those high-ranking cadres.
The doctor felt Chen’s pulse, examined his tongue, took his blood pressure, and gave his diagnosis in a jumble of professional jargon spoken in a strong Anhui accent:
“You have worked too hard, burning up the yin in your system. Consequently both the qi and blood are at a low ebb, and the yang is insubstantially high. Quite a lot is out of balance, but nothing is precisely wrong, just a little of everything.” He dashed off a prescription and added thoughtfully, “You’re still single, aren’t you?”
Chen thought he knew what the doctor was driving at. According to traditional Chinese medical theory, people achieve the yin-yang balance through marriage. For a man of his age, continuous celibacy wouldn’t be healthy. The old doctor in Wuxi could be an ideal ally, Chen thought with a sense of amusement, for his mother in Shanghai, who worried and complained about his failure to settle down.
The prescription specified that the medicine be brewed fresh every day and then taken while still hot. The pharmacist at the clinic said that it was no problem to fill the prescription; Director Qiao had given specific instructions to provide whatever Chen needed.
Leaving the clinic, Chen continued walking instead of going back to his villa. He wasn’t entirely comfortable getting special treatment under the assumption that he was a high-ranking cadre. He’d noticed that some of the old people were looking at him with curiosity. It wasn’t likely that they recognized him. Still, at his age, he was quite conspicuous in this place.
Cutting across a small clearing with hardly any people around, he found himself walking up a flight of stone steps. He ended up at the back of the center, where he discovered a trail that wound down the hill. He followed the path, which was dotted with nameless flowers, and after a couple of turns it took him to a wire fence that separated the center from the lake, with a deserted road between the two.
He perched on a rock close to the foot of the hill and pulled out the fax. There didn’t seem to be anything really new or different from what Huang had already told him. After reading it a couple of times, he pondered what he could possibly do while still staying in the background. He didn’t think it would be a good idea for him to visit the crime scene or to interview any possible suspects. Still, something like an informal talk with people not being targeted by the local police might not be a problem. Perhaps a visit to Mrs. Liu. He didn’t see anything exactly suspicious about her. He was just a little bit curious about her decision to travel to Shanghai right after learning that her husband wouldn’t be back home that night. At the very least, she’d be able to tell him something about Liu.
Of course, another possible source of information would be Shanshan. For that interview, he’d better not reveal that he was a cop. He took out his cell phone, yet didn’t dial it. Deep down, he felt uneasy about not telling her he was a chief inspector, but he reassured himself that he was doing it for a good reason. And he wondered if the threating calls she had been getting had anything to do with the case.
He underlined several lines in the fax. There were some other points possibly worth looking into further. The timing of the murder, for one, and he scribbled a couple of words in the margin of the fax, though he was not sure about it.
Then to his surprise, he felt rather tired, and he rubbed his eyes. It was still quite early in the day. He couldn’t tell if the doctor’s diagnosis had had a psychosomatic effect on him.
He looked up, shaking his head. A little further to the north, he noticed a fence door had been left unlatched, which was probably unnoticeable from outside. Someone could have stepped out, having forgotten to lock the door behind them. He stood up to peer about, believing he must be close to the tourist area called Frost-Covered Goshawk Islet on his map.
As he started making his way back, a quietness unexpectedly enveloped him. He thought of several Tang dynasty lines: Only the sound / of a tiny pine nut / is heard dropping here / in the secluded hills … / There, a solitary one, / you must lie awake, thinking.
He tried to ridicule himself out of the mood. The Tang poem was about a night scene in the hills. Besides, who could be the “solitary one”?
Shortly after he got back to his villa, a young nurse appeared with freshly brewed medicine in a small thermos bottle.
“You’d better drink it quickly,” she said with a sweet smile. “A hot fresh dose could make a huge difference. There will be another dose delivered here in the afternoon.”
Afterward, he was rinsing the bitter herbal taste out of his mouth when a phone call came in from Director Qiao.
“You have to have lunch with us today, Chief Inspector Chen.”
“You don’t have to do that, Director Qiao. You’ve already done so much for me.”
“But we’d like to consult with you over lunch.”
“About what?”
“The center has been funded by the state up to now, but we’re considering possible reforms. Unlike hospitals, we don’t have our own way of making money. So we are thinking about opening part of the center to the public. Of course, service to Party cadres like yourself will remain our top priority. Our clinic and its location, however, may prove an attractive alternative to tourists, especially for those from Shanghai. They can stay here, just like staying in a nice, quiet hotel, and at the same time, enjoy a convenient and comfortable physical checkup. Now, you’re from Shanghai, where you are a celebrity. So you would be the very man to bring this message back to Shanghai.”
There might be something to this logic, Chen thought. The center was huge but far from fully occupied. Watching from his window, he had seen buildings with a considerable number of unlit windows at night. In recent years, state-run institutions like hospitals had resorted to charging their patients ever-increasing fees and getting “red envelopes” from them too, but the center was not in a position to do the same. They had to get by with the limited funds they received from the state.
But it was none of his business. Nor was Chief Inspector Chen here in Wuxi for business consultation. Still, Director Qiao seemed sincere in his approach, and Chen could not politely refuse.
He agreed to a late lunch, with the bitter taste of the herbal medicine lingering on his tongue.
There was still more than an hour before the lunch, so he sat himself in front of the laptop in the study and fumbled for an Internet connection. In spite of the instruction sheet beside the computer, he couldn’t get it to connect. It was an imported laptop loaded with Chinese software. At least he could try to write something. So he hunched down over the keyboard, though nothing came to mind for several minutes.
He took the laptop into the living room and sat where he could see the lake view outside the tall window. Then he thought of the unfinished poem he had started the day before—about one’s identity in others’ interpretations. The image of Shanshan walking along the lake shore with him started to intrude. What kind of man could he have been in her interpretation or imagination?
The phone on the table rang. He picked it up, heard the operator saying something indistinctly, and then Uncle Wang’s voice rushing over it in agitation.
“I know you’re vacationing at the center, Mr. Chen, but I had to call you. Shanshan is in trouble.”
“Oh—how?”
“This morning she came by, as usual, to put her lunch in my refrigerator, but before she stepped in, a couple of fierce-looking strangers appeared out of nowhere, intercepted her, and walked her into a car waiting outside. Afterward, I tried to call her at work. Someone there told
me to keep quiet, that she’s been detained for interrogation.”
“Really! Do you know why?”
“She had some sort of an argument with Liu, her boss. That’s about all I know. Now that Liu’s dead, people must suspect her.”
“Just because of an argument about work? That’s outrageous. Do they have any evidence?”
“I have no idea. But Shanshan’s incapable of doing anything like this. I know her, Mr. Chen. I’ve known her since she was a child. ”
“I’ll look into it, Uncle Wang. Don’t worry. In the meantime, if you think of anything else, call me. Here is my cell number—” He paused, changing his mind, “No. I’ll come over and see you. Don’t move.”
He must have sounded like a cop, he thought, placing the phone back in the cradle. And it was true that he was preparing to act like a cop, though only the day before, he had reassured Sergeant Huang that the murder wasn’t his case and that he was just curious, only someone bored while on vacation.
His change in attitude was because of her. That much the chief inspector would admit to himself.
He left a short message for Director Qiao at the center office, apologizing for being unable to meet for lunch, then hurried out.
The road was just as attractive as before, but he was in no mood to look around like a tourist this time. It only took him about ten minutes to reach the eatery.
“She’s in trouble, I know,” Uncle Wang kept repeating. “I knew this was going to happen long ago. She stood in their way.”
“In whose way?”
“She was responsible for environmental protection, a job that made her ‘a nail in the eye’ to the people in power. It wouldn’t have been that bad if she didn’t take her job seriously. But she did. It wasn’t just Liu, but also those associated with him, who made things difficult for her. She told me about it. That’s one of the reasons she comes here for lunch. They don’t even let her eat a meal in peace there.”