by Qiu Xiaolong
“Oh, Li Park,” Chen said, pointing to a colorful billboard with a representation on it of a beauty in ancient costume sitting in a boat. “The Li Lake is a tributary of the Tai Lake, right?”
“Yes, but some locals consider it a different lake.”
“It’s also the lake where, after a decisive battle between the Wu and Yue in the Spring and Autumn Warring Period, Fan Li and Xi Shi spent their idyllic days in a boat, living happily ever after. I read about it in a brochure at the center. However, it’s nothing but a story meant to attract nostalgic tourists.”
The idiosyncratic chief inspector could be impossible, Huang thought, talking about a legendary beauty from more than two thousand years ago while on the way to interview a possible suspect. Huang had been to Li Park many times, looking at a number of paintings and poems about Xisi, but he never cared whether the ancient story was true or not.
“We’re close,” Huang said. “Their home is just behind Li Park.”
Sure enough, they soon came to a villa complex. It was a high-end area, where the new construction bordered the lake, yet boasted of convenient access to downtown. That morning, to Huang, it didn’t seem that far from Liu’s office, particularly not with a company car at his disposal.
Liu’s house was a three-story building located in a cul-de-sac of the complex, with a large yard in the back and a three-car garage at the side. There was a car parked in the driveway. It wasn’t a company car, Huang noted.
“It’s larger than the villa at the center,” Chen commented, walking up the stone steps.
“The center was built in the early fifties,” Huang said, as he pressed the doorbell, not sure about Chen’s point.
The woman who answered the door appeared to be in her early fifties. She was slender and quite nice-looking for her age, her hair slightly streaked with silver. She was wearing an elegant silk house robe and soft-heeled slippers, and beside her were several pairs of slippers spread out on a wool mat inside the door.
“Mrs. Liu, I’m Sergeant Huang of the Wuxi Police Bureau,” he said, showing his badge, “and this is a colleague of mine.”
“My name is Chen,” Chen introduced himself. “Shall we remove our shoes, Mrs. Liu?”
“I don’t think the police have to do that,” she said indifferently.
“Of course we want to do that,” Chen said, bending to untie his shoelace. “It’s such a magnificent house.”
She led them to an immense living room with tall windows overlooking a well-maintained meadow and flowerbeds in the back. There appeared to be something of a small pond in the distance, but Huang couldn’t see clearly. She motioned them to a beige sectional sofa and offered them tea, before she perched herself on a leather chair opposite them.
“Your people have come here before, officers. So what else do you want with me?”
“First, I want to express my sincere condolences,” Chen said. “General Manager Liu did a great job for the Party, for the people, and for the company. We will do our best to bring him justice, Mrs. Liu. At the present, however, our investigation has made little progress, so I would like to talk with you. Anything you can tell may be valuable to us—about him, about his work, or about the people close to him.”
“Liu was busy, working like crazy all the time. When he made it home at night, more often than not, he was beat. He had no energy left to talk to me about things that were happening at the company, or about the people working for him.”
“Well, what about that evening? Did he tell you that he was going to meet someone at his home office?”
“No, he didn’t. He didn’t discuss his work with me, as I’ve told you.”
“Did you notice anything unusual about him before that evening?”
“He was getting busier all the time. Other than that, no, nothing.”
“A different question: was he sleeping badly of late?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did he have trouble falling asleep and, as a result, was he taking sleeping pills?”
Chen must have read through the autopsy report closely, Huang observed without making a comment, but that’s something confirmed by Liu’s colleagues.
“Occasionally, I think, but he was a healthy man for his age.”
“So you knew that he wouldn’t be coming back that evening, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. He mentioned that he had to work on something important in the office that evening.”
“So he always told you his schedule, Mrs. Liu?”
“It really depended on his work. If it wasn’t too late, he’d try to come back home and he wouldn’t call. But I never knew.” She added wistfully, “When he first got his home office, he would always call with his plans for the evening. But then he got so busy, he didn’t—not every time.”
“You go back to Shanghai frequently—practically every weekend, I’ve heard.”
“Not every weekend.”
“But when you heard that Liu wouldn’t be coming home for the night, you left for Shanghai that afternoon. Was that Saturday or Sunday?”
“Sunday—” She looked a bit uneasy. “I got back to Wuxi Sunday afternoon, but I was disappointed with his ever-busy work arrangement, so I went back to Shanghai again the same day.”
“In other words, you made two trips to Shanghai that last weekend.”
“I didn’t like the idea of being all alone in this big house.”
“So you weren’t worried?” Huang cut in. “Leaving such a successful Big Buck all alone, if you know what I mean.”
“He was a family man. Our son is graduating from Beijing University this year where he is a literature major, but Liu arranged an internship for him at the company last year, and talked to me about his plan to get him a good position there.”
“He was a really good father,” Chen said, echoing her implied meaning.
The conversation seemed to be leading nowhere. She spoke cautiously, defending her late husband’s image. As a result, she gave up very little. Huang thought that Chen exchanged a glance with him.
“So, the evening of last Saturday, you were with some friends in Shanghai, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was there with several friends.”
“Where were you the next morning?”
“I was at a church in Shanghai, also with a friend.”
“Which one?”
“Moore Memorial Church. Why are you asking?”
“Oh, the one at the intersection of Xizang and Hankou Road. I know it. I’ve been reading a book about the Protestant influence on the development of capitalism.”
Mrs. Liu looked confounded. So did Huang.
“Well, our church is Methodist.”
“Last Sunday evening, what were you doing?”
“I was also with my friends. I’ve told your colleagues about them.”
“Who else do you think might know about his schedule that evening?” Chen went on, unruffled.
“How would I know?”
“For instance, perhaps people who worked for him at the office?”
“What about Mi, the secretary?” Huang chipped in, picking up the cue from Chen.
“I don’t want to talk about her,” Mrs. Liu said, the lines hardening on her brow.
Chen didn’t push, waiting patiently, letting a silence build up in the living room.
“You should have talked to her,” she finally said.
“Oh, by the way,” Huang said, “Mi was named office chief today. That’s quite a promotion for her.”
“She’s a shameless slut, I’m telling you,” Mrs. Liu snapped. “She has only a middle school education. How could she possibly be qualified to be the head of the office staff?”
“Well, she’s been Liu’s confidential secretary for a long time,” Chen said. “He, too, must have trusted her.”
“She was nothing to him. She cares for nothing but money, he told me. How could she have been promoted so quickly? The whole world is turned upside down!”
; It would have been hard for her to say anything more explicit. After all, it was Liu who made her a secretary in the first place. It was little wonder that Mrs. Liu got so upset with her being promoted so shortly after Liu’s death. It might be nothing but a gesture, however, on the part of Fu, the new general manager. Perhaps he was appeasing Liu’s staff, before he started building his own power base.
Huang’s cell phone rang, and he checked the number. It was the head of his team, and the call was marked urgent. He had to pick up. So he excused himself and left the living room. He hurried out of the house, closing the front door, but leaving it unlocked. It wouldn’t do for him to talk in Mrs. Liu’s presence.
The call was a long one about the latest developments in the investigation. Another move had been initiated under pressure from Internal Security. Huang frowned, listening, and said little in response.
When he made his way back to the living room, Chen was still conversing with Mrs. Liu. Huang had no idea what the two had talked about during his absence, but she looked cantankerous.
Presently, Chen rose and said that he had to leave. Huang echoed this without further ado.
She showed them the door curtly and banged it closed behind them.
They walked in silence for several minutes, each lost in his own thoughts. Chen had learned little from the talk with Mrs. Liu, Huang supposed, and that wasn’t too surprising. After all, what would be her motive to reveal anything?
“How about a drink in Li Park?” Huang said, wiping sweat from his face. It was a warm day.
“Yes,” Chen said. “We need to eat too. It’s quite late. Let’s find a good place in the park.”
That was another characteristic of the enigmatic chief inspector Huang had heard about. Chen was an impossible epicurean with an unfailing appetite even in the midst of a homicide investigation. Still, Huang suspected that Chen wanted to discuss something with him. It was quite late in the afternoon, so there wouldn’t be too many tourists in the park.
They entered the park and instead of heading to an antique-style restaurant tucked behind a verdant bamboo groove close to the entrance, Chen chose a shabby food stall near the foot of a barren hill. He ordered two lunch boxes with Wuxi-style ribs on top of white rice for both of them.
Holding the boxes, they sat on an isolated wooden bench against the hill. There were no other seats nearby, and no other people around. They didn’t have to worry about people overhearing them.
“Excellent choice, Chief.”
“In my childhood, it wasn’t common for people to go to a park. There was the bus fare and the entrance fee, you know, let alone the cost of a meal there. One day, my mother took me to Xijiao Park and bought me a lunch box. It was the best meal I’d ever had, and it remained so in my memory for several years. Of course, things were different in those years. I’ll buy you a Wuxi rib dinner at the conclusion of our investigation,” Chen said, chopsticking into his mouth a small piece of the juicy sweet and sour rib. “What do you think of Mrs. Liu?”
“You’ve touched on something we’ve overlooked. She actually went to Shanghai on Saturday, and then back again on Sunday. That’s strange. Do you think—”
“It would be too conspicuous for it to be something premeditated,” Chen said slowly. “By the way, that was a long phone call you got there, Huang.”
“Yes, it was from our team leader. About Jiang.”
“Jiang—the new person on Internal Security’s radar?”
“Yes, that’s him. He was officially detained this afternoon. They seem to have gathered new evidence against him.”
“What have they got?”
“According to Internal Security, he was blackmailing Liu. When Liu tried to bring in the authorities, he murdered Liu.”
“Oh, really? Tell me about Jiang. Whatever details you may have. ”
“I don’t know much about him. Jiang was an entrepreneur here in Wuxi before he became an environmental activist several years ago. Because of his business background, he knows about the pollution problems firsthand. So he started to speak out about them. Those he publicly named as polluters of the lake became infamous in Wuxi. Then he started to blackmail others with the information he had. They were forced to buy his silence, so to speak. He must have gotten hold of something about Liu’s company.”
“Do they have any evidence?”
“Not much so far, but that’s their theory. Jiang blackmailed Liu for a large sum. Any public exposure of the pollution caused by the chemical company at this juncture could jeopardize the IPO plan.”
“So they have nothing but a theory?”
“Well, one local factory has a record of paying Jiang a specific sum, under the guise of hiring him as an environmental consultant. The agreement is a bit ambiguous. It could have been compensation for his help with environmental protection, but it could also be money meant to silence him.”
“But in that case, why should he have murdered Liu?” Chen said, shaking his head. “On the contrary, it is usually the person being blackmailed who has the motive to murder.”
“Sometime before the murder, the two were heard arguing in Liu’s office. According to Internal Security, Jiang threatened Liu with information about the chemical company, and Liu fought back by counter-threatening to report him to the police for blackmail. The local authorities could have easily locked Jiang up, so that’s why he murdered Liu.”
“What did Jiang say?”
“Of course he denies everything.”
“Well, we can’t rule out such a scenario, but it’s only one scenario and it’s not supported by evidence.”
“That’s about all I can tell you,” Huang said, shrugging his shoulders.
But was there something else behind it? Huang thought he could read the question in Chen’s eyes.
“Can you find me some more information about Jiang?”
“I’ll do my best, Chief. By the way, I’ve heard that Shanshan knows Jiang.”
“Not surprising. They’re both dedicated to environmental protection, it seems.”
Once again, Huang decided to wait until he found out more before saying anything else.
They finished their box lunches, and Chen got up to throw the empty boxes into the trash bin. Huang took a look at his watch. His team members might start wondering about his long absence.
“One more question, Chief,” he said, taking the paper napkin Chen handed him. “What kind of a book are you reading?”
“Which book?”
“The one you mentioned to Mrs. Liu. Something about the relation between religion and capitalism.”
“Oh, it’s a book by Max Weber. I happened to find a copy in the library of the center.”
“But why did you bring up the topic?”
“I wanted to find out whether she’s a regular at that church. She hasn’t read the book, but at least she knew that Moore is a Methodist church.” Chen added pensively, “But there’s also a question that I’ve been thinking about. Why are people capable of doing anything just for the sake of money? A partial answer might be the collapse of the ethical system. Chinese people used to believe in Confucianism, and then in Maoism, but what now? Our newspapers are full of ‘new honors and new shames’ in this new materialistic age. But who believes in them anymore?”
This might well turn into a lengthy philosophical discussion, which was another characteristic of the inscrutable inspector. Huang had heard about this quirk of Chen’s, but he had no idea how to respond. So instead he excused himself on the grounds of having to hurry back to work. No one knew about his collaboration with Chen, so it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to be away for too long.
EIGHT
AS THE NIGHT TURNED toward the morning, Chen had a weird dream. He saw himself waking up in the morning as a television weatherman, who shut off an alarm clock and went to work. The nightmare repeated itself over and over: the language of a weather forecast, him speaking in the inevitable tone and manner, before the cameras, morning after mo
rning …
Finally, he awoke for real and in confusion, reached out to the alarm clock on the nightstand. He then lay back on bed, trying to figure out what the dream signified, before he remembered that it was a scene from an American movie, Groundhog Day, that he’d seen a couple of years ago. But why such a dream would come to him this morning, he had no clue.
Getting out of bed, he walked to the living room and pushed open the window. The lake was enveloped in a morning mist, with a soft, flutelike sound floating over from the opaque mass. What could it be? He listened for two or three minutes without catching the note again.
He then moved to the adjoining breakfast room and sat down at the glass-topped breakfast table that he had been using as a desk. He didn’t like the view from the study, though the desk in there was larger. He started reading the new material Huang had faxed over the previous night, making notes for himself.
Around seven thirty, a young attendant delivered breakfast. Placing the tray on the table, along with the morning’s Wuxi Daily, she withdrew without uttering a single word, lest she break his concentration.
He sipped at the black coffee, which he hoped would help clear his head, taking in the pleasant smell of the fresh-baked goods in the room. He left the croissants and fruit cup untouched, to eat later, during a break, along with a second cup of coffee. It was a sort of routine that he had set up here, a working pattern during his vacation.
Like the weatherman in the movie, he had been playing a role too much, and now it was beginning to play him, in the ever-recurring pattern from the dream, a dream from which he’d had such a hard time waking up.
He was playing a role at the center, that of a hardworking Party cadre, the same role that everybody else here was playing.
Sergeant Huang had agreed to play Dr. Watson to Chen’s Sherlock Holmes, though Huang had been going out of his way to do much more than that.
The latest information from the young cop highlighted the noose that was being tightened around Jiang’s neck by Internal Security. They had gathered a bunch of new statements from local businessmen, who had sworn that Jiang had blackmailed them with threats that he would expose their problems.