by Qiu Xiaolong
She walks in a red jacket
like a bright sail through the dust
under the network of pipes, long
in disrepair, spreading cobweblike,
dripping with contaminated water.
A mud-covered toad jumps up
at the dew-bespangled report in her hand
opens its sleepy eyes, seeing
all around still murky, slumps back into sleep.
There was something contagious about her youthful idealism. For a long while, he’d thought he was no longer capable of being genuinely lyrical. But it might not be too late for him to start all over again. He thought of her, and kept pounding at the keys.
The broken metal-blue fingernails
of the leaves clutching
the barren bank of the lake,
the dead fish afloat, shining
with the mercury bellies trembling,
their glassy eyes still flashing
with the last horror and fascination,
still gazing up at the apparition
of a witch dancing in a black bikini,
her raven hair long, streaming
on her snowy white shoulders, jumping
into the dark smoke from the chimneys,
against the dark waste currents
across the lake, a dark wood of
nightmare looms up.
A dog is barking the cell
in the distance.
Who’s the one walking beside you?
The moonlight streaming like water,
and worries drifting like a boat …
who’s whistling “The Blue Danube”?
So close, yet so far away.
All the joy and sorrow of a dream.
A snatch of the violin sweeping over,
a water rat creeps along the bank.
The city wakes up sneezing in the morning,
and falls asleep coughing at night.
Who’s the one walking beside you?
The lines kept pouring out, as if rolling up on wave after wave. He worked on with intense concentration, pouring himself another glass of the red wine, until the spell was broken by the ringing phone. It was Detective Yu in Shanghai.
Apparently, Yu wasn’t calling from home, but from somewhere in the street. Chen could hear traffic in the background, and occasionally, Peiqin’s excited voice.
Yu began relating to him what he and Peiqin had learned.
It turned out to be a fairly long narrative. Yu made a point of including Peiqin’s analysis, sometimes even quoting her directly. Chen listened without interruption, sipping at his wine, until Yu finished relaying the part about Mrs. Liu.
“So what’s your take on her frequent trips back to Shanghai?” Chen asked.
“It’s difficult to say, Chief. According to Peiqin, it may be complicated. It might be more than just an escape from the unpleasantness in Wuxi. Only in Shanghai could she afford to keep up her image as a successful woman. She’s surely a character, desperate to keep up appearances—to preserve face—in the eyes of others.” Yu then added, “Oh, Fu, it seems, is another character.”
“How so?”
Yu summed up what he and Peiqin had seen while sitting at the café on Nanjing Road.
“I took a number of pictures of him and the girl,” Yu said. “Peiqin calls me a private eye. Which is, you know, a fashionable profession in the city now. Old Hunter is thinking about making it his new career.”
“That would be a good idea. Nowadays, there are quite a number of rich wives looking to find out about their husbands’ infidelities. Your father is experienced and energetic—an old hunter indeed. So why shouldn’t he?”
“Oh, before I forget, one more thing. Peiqin and I contacted Gu, the chairman of the New World Group. As far as he knows, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about the IPO plan for the Wuxi Number One Chemical Company. The top Party boss always gets most of the shares when a company goes public. It’s something that is taken for granted, but Gu promised that he would ask around.”
“Thanks for everything you’ve done, Yu, and of course, thank Peiqin for me too.”
After Chen hung up, he tried to fit this latest information into the puzzle, but without success. Instead, he found himself worn out by the fruitless speculations. To his surprise, he felt a little sleepy. Perhaps he really had needed this vacation.
After another futile call to Shanghai, he made for himself a cup of Cloud and Mist tea, hoping that it might revive him a bit. It didn’t work. So he brewed himself a fresh pot of coffee as well. It wasn’t a day for him to go to bed early. Internal Security was already reaching their conclusions. He had to be up and doing, he told himself, pouring out a cup.
Then a thought struck him. The night he was murdered, Liu, too, had tried to work. Of course, he might have dozed off while he was there all alone in the apartment. There was nothing really inconceivable about that scenario. But he probably wouldn’t have taken sleeping pills, certainly not that early. Allowing a half an hour for them to take effect, Liu would have to have swallowed the pills around nine, or even earlier. That was inexplicably early for a man who planned to work late into the night on an important document.
Another argument against Liu’s having taken pills was the missing cup in the apartment. Occasionally, Chen swallowed pills without water, but that was due to specific circumstances, like being on an overcrowded train. It was hard to imagine that Liu, in his own apartment, would have chosen to swallow the pills dry rather than getting a glass of water.
In a case of unpremeditated murder, the perpetrator was likely to have killed with whatever weapon they had found there and then left the apartment with it. A missing cup would have been too light for such a fatal blow. According to the autopsy report, the blow was definitely inflicted with a heavy object. So what else—heavy, blunt—was now missing and could have been used?
Again, he tried to fit Jiang into the details. The unpremeditated murder scenario could work, but could he have entered without being stopped by security? As for the missing murder weapon, Chen had no clue about that at all.
Chen started to feel slightly queasy, his head swimming. Perhaps it was the result of too much coffee and an empty stomach. He tried to take another short break. Leaning against the window, he looked out it again. This time of year, the light lasted long into the approaching dusk. He was fascinated by the scarlet clouds beyond the distant ragged lines of the hills, which seemed to be spurting out a huge flame, gilding an immense area of the lake. The lake had never looked so fantastic, as if sporting its natural grace in an unappreciated effort to keep itself from being contaminated.
Turning his attention back to the laptop, Chen found himself unable to settle into the unfinished poem. The fragmented lines could be saved on the laptop, but he had no idea when he would experience another impulse to complete the whole piece.
It might not matter that much. He thought of what Shanshan had said about the irrelevance of poetry in today’s China. He pressed the save key and went off to take a shower.
After the shower, he wrapped himself in a gray robe provided by the center, lit a cigarette, and settled on to the couch before turning on the TV.
There was nothing worth watching, except perhaps a “much-awaited” football game. But Chen wasn’t a sports fan. A faint breath of cool air, barely noticeable, came wafting in from the lake. He fetched a bath towel. Chen sometimes drifted off to sleep more easily with the TV on. He didn’t want to go to bed for the night, but a nap might refresh his mind.
SIXTEEN
THERE CAME A LIGHT knock at the door.
He must have dozed off. It was an evening when most of the people in the center would be watching football on television. Rubbing his eyes, he wondered who the visitor could possibly be.
He opened the door and standing there was Shanshan. She was wearing a short-sleeved white blouse, jeans, and sandals, with a light-green satchel slung across her shoulder. She looked casual, as if she’d just
come back from a leisurely walk by the lake. A few loose hairs curled down at her cheeks, giving her a vivacious look despite the suggestion of dark rings under her eyes.
“I sneaked in by taking the shortcut through the fence door you showed me the other day,” she said. “No one stopped me or asked any questions.”
The security people must be watching the football game, he realized.
“Welcome, Shanshan. But you’ve caught me by surprise. Come on in. I’m sorry that the room is in such a mess.”
“I wanted to see you when you weren’t expecting a visitor. Now we’re even.” She stepped in. Still smiling, she added in a low voice, “You mentioned the possibility of the phone being bugged. So I thought I’d better come over without calling you first.”
“Yes, we can’t be too careful, but—”
“What have you been doing this evening?”
“Oh, nothing in particular, I’ve been watching TV. But there’s nothing good on.”
Shanshan turned her head left and right, taking in the villa.
“What a place—and you have it all to yourself!”
“It’s not too bad, I daresay. Please, take a seat.”
“It’s a place for a high-ranking cadre indeed,” she said. She pulled a scarlet swivel chair over opposite the sofa, but she didn’t sit down immediately.
“You’re being sarcastic, Shanshan. Yes, staying here is a special treat. As I’ve said before, it wasn’t originally intended for me.”
She let her eyes roam around the room, and they came to rest on the empty instant dumpling bowl on the desk and the plastic wrapper crumpled into a ball next to it.
“You should have someone taking care of this place.”
“They provide room service here, but I don’t like it, especially not when I have to concentrate.”
She picked up the bowl and wrapper and threw them into the trash can under the desk, her hand inadvertently brushing the keyboard. The monitor lit up in response, displaying Chen’s unfinished lines.
“Oh, you’re writing poetry.”
“Just some fragments,” he said, then added on impulse, “They were inspired by you.”
“Come on,” she said, leaning down. “Can I take a look?”
“Of course, but the poem is unfinished and unpolished.”
She settled down to read, picking up a red pencil as though she were going to make some comments. He pushed a notepad over to her.
She didn’t write anything down. Nibbling at the top of the pencil, she read intently. He stood behind her, taking in the fragrance from her hair.
It took her a while to read through to the last line. She looked up. “It’s fantastic, Chen.”
“No, it’s only a part of it, and a rough draft. It’s completely disorganized.”
“You’ll finish the poem and publish it,” she said earnestly. “Environmental protection remains an extraneous issue to a lot of Chinese. It’s too technical for some and too impractical in this materialistic age for others. But they’ll read your poem and think about it.”
“I hope so,” he said. “Oh, I left a message on your phone this afternoon.”
“Sorry, I didn’t get it until about an hour ago. What a lousy day!”
“Tell me about it.” He took a can of Coca Cola from the refrigerator and handed it to her.
“What a day!” she repeated, staring at the can in her hand. She continued, “But once in a while you want to forget about all your worries and do things you haven’t been able to do.”
“Yes, me too,” he said, wondering what she meant by “once in a while.”
She started telling him what had happened to her today. It didn’t really surprise Chen to learn that Internal Security had made such a move. Shanshan was no longer being vague about what had happened between her and Jiang. Chen should have figured out long ago how close the two were, but people see only what they want to see. Still, he was a cop. He should have known better.
Was it possible that she came here for Jiang’s sake? Chen stopped himself from thinking along those lines.
Shanshan continued on and declared that she was concerned about Chen, giving him a detailed description of how Internal Security talked about “someone in the background” who was helping her.
So it was equally possible that she came here for his sake.
“You have to look out for yourself, Chen,” she concluded.
“Don’t worry about me,” Chen said. “I don’t think they can touch me that easily.”
“But I’m worried sick about you. All the way here, I kept looking behind me. I had to make sure I wasn’t being followed.” Visibly shaken after the encounter with Internal Security, she went on, “In your phone call, you asked me to think about unusual things going on at the company. And I’ve thought really hard. There is something I’ve been going over in my mind, but I’m not sure.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Liu’s dead. People shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
“I understand,” he said, “but the life of another man—possibly an innocent one—is at stake.”
“Also, as a woman, I hate to speak against another woman behind her back.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Mi, the little secretary. It’s an open secret that Liu used the home office as a convenient place to have sex with her. But Mi never worked late in the company office—I’ve confirmed this with her colleagues. That night of all the nights, however, she said that she stayed late.”
“That’s a good point, Shanshan. But Mi has an alibi. Fu saw her working late that evening. They were really busy working on the IPO.”
“That seemed possible. I’ve double-checked on that, too. The office staff were busy working out a restructuring plan, something that would go into place prior to the IPO. I don’t know what the plan will involve exactly, but some employees might be let go. At least, I have been warned about it, as you might imagine.”
“This may be very important,” he said. “Can you tell me something about Mi, either in connection with the IPO or the restructuring plan?”
“She won’t get fired. Whatever the final restructuring plan, she’ll stay and get her shares when the IPO goes through. That much I’m sure of. Even someone like me, if I haven’t been fired by that time, may get a couple of hundred shares. This is nothing, of course—it’s two or three hundred shares for an ordinary employee versus two or three million shares for Liu. The number of shares will be determined by the position held. As for Mi, what Liu might have given her privately is another story.” After a short pause, she continued. “But back to that evening in question. According to what I’ve learned from the others in the office, Mi has never been involved with real business decisions. She’s nothing but a little secretary, and you know what that means.”
“But now as the office manager, she may take on more responsibilities.”
“That’s true. Interestingly, Fu gave her that job only a couple of days after Liu’s death.”
“Did Fu offer any explanation for the appointment?”
“He said that it was a promotion that Liu had decided on long before and that Fu was just carrying it out. Of course, he might need her help. There might be things in the company known only to Liu and her.”
“Yes, he needs her help.” Chen went on, “By the way, I’ve just heard Fu has a girlfriend in Shanghai.”
“How could you—” She didn’t finish the sentence, saying instead, “I didn’t know that. He never told anybody about it. What’s the point of keeping it a secret?”
Fu’s companion could have been one of “those” girls that get picked up in front of a sleazy hotel, Chen thought, but Yu’s description didn’t make her sound like one.
“Are you sure he kept it a secret, Shanshan?”
“Fu himself told me that he didn’t have a girlfriend, as he was sort of making a pass at me. It wasn’t too long ago, though it was before I got into trouble.”
“Well, I’m
not surprised that he made a pass at you or that he told you what he did. As The Book of Songs says, ‘A man cannot but go / after a beautiful girl.’”
“Come on, Chen, you don’t have to say such things to me. To be fair to Fu, he didn’t push it too far,” she said with a slight frown. “Sorry I’ve digressed. There’s something about Mi I need to discuss with you.”
“It’s my fault, Shanshan. Please go on.”
“Let’s say she happened to have worked late that evening, which I doubt. Still, she lied about something else.”
“What’s that?”
“You told me that she witnessed Jiang arguing with Liu in the office on March 7, the day before the Women’s Day. That’s what she remembered, right?”
“That’s right.”
“But that’s not true,” she said. “I checked both the company calendar and the company Web site. According to them, Liu was in Nanjing that day, and he didn’t come back until late that night.”
“Hold on—Fu backed up that statement, I think.” He stood to go get the folder provided by Sergeant Huang and started checking through it. “Let’s see. Here, Fu didn’t say anything about the particular date, just that it was early March. He said that he saw Jiang in the office without knowing who he was, and Mi told him it was Jiang later that day.”
He was aware that Shanshan was paying close attention to the folder marked “confidential.” The sight of the label on the folder could add to her suspicion of his identity. It wasn’t the time, however, for him to worry too much about it. Instead of sitting down, he remained standing with the folder in his hand. After all, the folder might contain something that she shouldn’t read.
“I don’t know why Mi made that statement about Jiang. But with your connections, you might be able to find out.”
“Yes, I’ll ask Officer Huang for help,” he said, still standing. “We’ll double-check Liu’s itinerary on March 7. If need be, I can also call the Nanjing police bureau. No stone will be left unturned.”
Shanshan then stood up, a serious look on her face silhouetted by the soft light through the window.