by Xiaolong Qiu
It was in the impressive building of Huangpu District government, towering over Fuzhou Road. Despite his knowledge about his being kept under watch, the ex-inspector knew he had to step out in the open. He could not afford to leave any stone unturned.
He had thought about turning to Old Hunter or Detective Xiong for help. For a private investigator, however, Old Hunter was in no position to do anything about an unrelated case. As for Detective Xiong, there was little he could do about the death at the Moller Villa Hotel with Internal Security in charge, no matter how intent he might have been on avenging Wanxia, a young officer working under him.
So Chen had no choice but to pay a visit to Judge Liu in person.
Judge Liu was a youngish-looking man in his mid-thirties, who appeared pleasantly surprised with Chen’s visit to his office.
‘It’s such an honor for me to have you as a visitor in the office today, Chief Inspector Chen,’ Liu said with sincerity in his voice. ‘I still remember the day you came to give a lecture at our university. What a wonderful speech!’
‘Thank you, Judge Liu. But I’m no longer a cop, as you know. At the Judicial System Reform Office, the job is so new to me. Working on one case after another through these years, I’ve not done any systematic study of our judicial system. So there’s a lot of research work I have to do for the new position. A friend of mine at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences has recommended you to me, saying: “Judge Liu is not just a capable young judge, but also an emerging scholar with a considerable number of publications in the field.” In my effort to learn the ropes, I hope you will offer me help and suggestions, Judge Liu.’
‘Just call me Liu or Little Liu, Chief Inspector Chen. For me, you’re always the one and only Chief Inspector for the city of Shanghai. A true legend. Indeed, it’s such an honor, as I’ve said, if I can possibly do anything for you, I will.’
‘Yes, there’s been all kinds of talk about our judicial system reform. For instance, one of the heated topics online of late is whether the Chinese Communist Party is bigger than law or the other way around. In other words, shall judges prove to be loyal to the law, or to the Party? In People’s Daily, it is simply brushed aside as a bogus question – “In the last analysis, our judges uphold the law under the leadership of the Party.” But to a number of people, that does not answer the question at all. There will be such an amount of work for the new office, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s true, Chief Inspector Chen,’ Liu said, nodding. ‘I was particularly impressed with one point made in that lecture of yours. You said that for all the tremendous progresses made in recent years, there’s still a lot of room for improvement in our system. So let each of us do his or her job conscientiously in China’s unprecedented reform, and one’s self-realization may eventually be achievable in something larger than one’s self.’
He could have said that at the time, when he still believed in China’s reform under the leadership of the Party, but could he say the same thing today?
‘I had just graduated then, but I went back specially for your talk. I was the one sitting in the front row of the audience, applauding non-stop.’
‘Really! Sorry I did not know that, Liu.’
‘Of course you could not have known the people sitting down there that day. It truly means a lot for you to come to my office today. Whatever I can do for your research, you just name it.’
‘Thank you. I surely appreciate your offer to help.’
‘You are still on convalescent leave, aren’t you?’ Liu said, having obviously heard stories about the trouble for the ex-chief inspector.
‘I’m still on leave, you’re right about it, but I have to do something to prepare myself for the new job.’
‘But I’ve just read your office statement regarding Judge Jiao’s scandal. And your point about the inadmissibility of the illegally obtained evidence is a much-quoted one in the newspapers.’
‘I cannot claim credit for the statement, which was mostly done by my secretary, Jin. She’s been doing most of the work for the office, and I’ve stayed at home for weeks.’ Chen added in afterthought, ‘You have heard the interpretations about my convalescent leave, I presume.’
‘There are interpretations and interpretations. The latest one I have heard, for instance, is that the Beijing government wants to set up a judicial system reform committee, like the one under you in Shanghai, but at a much higher level, directly under the Central Party Discipline Committee. And you are shortlisted as one of the candidates for that Beijing position.’
Chen shook his head without saying anything. He too had heard of it, but he did not think it likely. The Red Princes nowadays proved to be too powerful even for someone like Comrade Zhao, the ex-secretary of the Central Party Discipline Committee, who had been something of a patron for the ex-chief inspector. Still, he did not have to explain it to Liu.
‘Anyway, I’m trying to write a novella about Judge Dee in the Tang dynasty – by way of preparation for the work in the office. How the judicial system worked in the Tang dynasty, and how it works today. A comparative study with a historical perspective may help with the job.’
‘That will be nice, really nice.’ Liu was surprised, at a loss about what to say in response.
‘And I’ve just finished reading Van Gulik’s Poets and Murder. It’s a Judge Dee novel based on a real Tang dynasty murder case, of the well-known poetess Xuanji killing her maid in a fit of jealousy. But there were a lot of things that did not add up. Gulik made a clever change, turning a poet/official into an accomplice, and moving the poetess to the background of another hardly related murder case. But things in his treatment remain inexplicable. For one, Xuanji did not have a credible motive for the murder.’
‘That’s inexplicable …’ Liu said, sort of echoing, still unable to say anything proper in response.
‘What’s more, in the source material for Gulik’s novel, the Tang dynasty magistrate, or I should say mayor in charge of the trial with no separation between the executive and the judicial power, was no judge in today’s sense of the word at the Tang time – was said to have been rejected as an admirer by Xuanji. So people came to see the trial as an unfair one. Such a twist of revenge on the part of the magistrate was probably concocted just to make the story spicier. Gulik did not include the hearsay in his book, and I don’t believe it either. In the Tang dynasty, affairs were common between courtesans and poets or poet/officials, but were not taken seriously. What the magistrate wanted with her was just something like a one-night affair, or even less, and it was no big deal for either of them.
‘After all, the magistrate was a high-ranking official at the time. Unpleasant as her rejection might have been, it would be unlikely for him to risk his reputation by retaliating like that. He had to take into consideration the public opinion about his handling of the case. Also, the early Tang period was marked by the relentless fight between the Li and the Wu factions at the court, and the magistrate might have been under untold pressure to take over the case, so he had to be extra careful.’
‘You’re really insightful, Chief Inspector Chen!’ Liu could not help exclaiming.
By now Liu must have come to understand the real purpose of Chen’s unannounced visit. All his talk about the Xuanji case in the Judge Dee novel served merely as a pretext, a Tang dynasty case in parallel to a present-day case, which was assigned to Judge Liu. Liu stood up, paced a few steps as if looking for something, and sat down without finding it.
‘You may have heard something about the Min case, Chief Inspector Chen,’ Liu said, with a sudden serious edge to his voice. ‘About those speculations online about me as the judge assigned for the case.’
‘Let me say this first, Liu,’ Chen said, looking Liu in the eyes. ‘I’m not doing any investigation. I have to take care of things at my new office. Not to mention my so-called convalescent leave. Frankly, I know better than to get myself into more trouble at the moment.’
It was true, and he thought
he sounded candidly convincing – perhaps even to himself. The noise of busy traffic along the street seemed to be surging up through the office windows on the twentieth floor.
Liu looked up and took a pack of cigarettes, lighting one for himself after and offering another to Chen, who declined, waving his hand.
‘So what do you want with me, Chief Inspector Chen?’
‘Make no mistake about it, Liu. I’m not here as a chief inspector. It’s just that the Min case bears a number of similarities to the Xuanji case in the Judge Dee story. As people often have a joke about it: once a cop, always a cop. I simply cannot help being curious about it.’
‘Curious about what particular aspects of the Min case in relation to the Xuanji case?’
‘How about telling me what you know about the Min case, Liu?’ Chen added after a short pause, ‘Of course, there’re also dissimilarities between the two cases. For one, in a week after the death of Qing in the shikumen house, two more murders happened – of Huang and Wanxia – both of them possibly related to it.’
‘You may be disappointed, Chief Inspector Chen. As a matter of fact, I know very little about the Min case. As for those speculations online about my “having a grudge” against Min, they’re totally groundless. For an internet celebrity like Min, she was much discussed, as you may imagine. I think it’s about half a year ago. I had a cup of beer too much and joked with friends that I might be a judge known in the circle, but I would have been put on the waiting list of her private kitchen dinner forever, even if I had tried with all my might. It was nothing but a joke in a bar, but it turned into a story that I was snubbed by her. When the Min case broke out, I did not want to take it, but it’s in the hand of Internal Security. What could I possibly do?’
‘Yes, I’ve heard about the involvement of Internal Security from the very beginning.’
‘But there’re some things a bit unusual about the Min case. Usually the practice of shuanggui is adopted for damage control in the cases of corrupt Party officials, and those shuanggui cases come to judges at the end, just like a show – with the arrangement made by the government people beforehand about what the shuangguied is supposed to say or not say in the courtroom. The only thing for a judge to do is to read the pre-written script with the deal cut and dried in the closed room. Consequently, there is no damage to the image of the Party authorities. But this time, as soon as I was given the case, phone calls started coming in, seemingly with different, even contradictory, messages from people above telling me what to say as the judge.’
‘That’s unusual. Tell me more about what people above want you to do, Liu. Leave out nothing, whether you think it important or not.’
‘Of course I’ll leave nothing out for you, Chief Inspector Chen.’
Then Liu started telling him about what he knew about the Min case, with some details.
It did not surprise Chen that Internal Security were trying so hard to make Min talk, for which they also wanted Liu to put pressure on her, though the judge had no idea about what exactly they wanted to hear from her. It was a matter of course that they chose not to tell him everything. What they really wanted to learn from Min, Chen became more convinced, involved people high above, possibly at the very top.
And at the same time, some other people in Beijing had also called Liu, wanting him to report the progress of the case in detail, and to ‘abide by a judge’s principle’. Naturally, they did not tell him anything about the real reason either. It was probably for the same reason that the mysterious client Sima, while seeking the help from Old Hunter’s agency, had chosen not to tell the truth either.
As Liu lit another cigarette, Chen took one too, to the judge’s surprise.
Obviously, Sima and the people in Beijing cared not about what might have happened to Min, but about what she might say under pressure. The murder of Huang must have thrown them into a panic. It had dawned on them that Min would not be released any time soon, with the case getting more complicated. And with her remaining in shuanggui indefinitely, they had to worry about the worst-case scenario. As it seemed to them, it was only a matter of time for her to talk under the mounting pressure.
That suddenly shed light on a number of aspects of the case. And on those of the related cases too.
‘From a cop’s perspective, the heart of the matter is to have the real murderer caught as soon as possible,’ Chen said at the end of Liu’s account. ‘As long as Min remains in her vulnerable position under shuanggui, some people above may continue to put pressure on her, and others may push in a different direction – for whatever reason, we don’t know. Hence the possibility of more victims like Huang and Wanxia. In other words, only with the true criminal put away could the vicious cycle come to an end.’
‘You’re so right about it, Chief Inspector Chen.’
Still, he tried to get something more specific from Judge Liu.
‘Between you and me, Internal Security is not that experienced in investigating a homicide case. I’m on leave, but I may still be able to see something they do not see, and say something to my former colleagues in the police bureau, and to some of my connections above too. After all, Wanxia was a colleague of mine.’
‘She was a very young policewoman, I know.’
‘And I’m truly worried about the possible development of the case. The longer it drags on, the more the collateral damage. Not just for people like Huang and Wanxia, but also for those not directly related. It’s like in a proverb: the fire devouring the city gate could prove to be a disaster to the fish in the small pond.’
‘Yes, I may be like the fish in the small pond. But what else can I possibly do, Chief Inspector Chen?’
‘What else can you remember about things those people said to you? Things that struck you as strange, unusual.’
‘Now you mention it, there’s something puzzling me. I know nothing about Wanxia, the young policewoman killed at the hotel. Nothing from Internal Security. But some people in Beijing called me, asking for a report about it.’
‘Who are those people?’
‘Not Internal Security, but people really high up there, that’s about all I can say, Chief Inspector Chen.’
That’s what he had suspected, and it was about all he could get out of Judge Liu. It was useless pushing for more.
Like in another Chinese proverb, when the roof starts leaking, it must keep on raining all night long.
The moment Chen got back to his apartment, he received a phone call from Old Hunter with Zhangzhang in the background, chipping in with a word or two, and coughing uncontrollably. The cry for help proved to be too much for the ex-inspector, who, with no time even to digest what he had just learned from Judge Liu, was astounded with the latest from the PI agency.
Sima, the mysterious client, already knew Chen had been to the Moller Villa Hotel. So he’d demanded to meet with Chen in person; failing that, to know what Chen had discovered there.
But how could Sima have learned about his visit there so fast? In fact, Chen went to the hotel because of the unexpected request for help from Detective Xiong. He had not told anybody else about it.
And ‘what Chen had discovered there’ mattered a lot to Sima, apparently, but why? It reminded Chen of what Judge Liu had told him. The people in Beijing had also requested a report about what had happened at the hotel.
Sima seemed to be like ‘ants crawling on the hot wok’, raising the amount of the bonus by twenty percent if the agency could succeed in getting Min out, but at the same time warning them that the agency might as well be closed overnight if they failed to deliver.
It was a serious threat. For a client like Sima, with his official background and his connections, it would be a piece of cake to have a PI agency shut down.
Chen decided not to tell Old Hunter about what he had done so far. Possibilities here and there, but nothing definite for a breakthrough. It was out of the question for him to meet with Sima. Or to tell Sima about his discussion with Detective Xiong in t
he hotel.
For whatever undisclosed reason, it might be justifiable for Sima to engage the agency to clear Min’s name, but not for him to be so anxious about Chen’s findings in the hotel.
Unless Sima and the people behind him were related to the murder in the hotel.
But what was the point in paying the agency such an incredibly high fee in the first place?
For the incredibly high stakes involved in the Min case, which explained the huge amount paid to the agency to get Min out, but failing that, possibly even higher stakes for Sima and the people behind him if Min broke down under the pressure.
Exhausted with those speculations, he made himself another cup of black tea.
After half an hour of tossing and turning in bed, and still failing to put the pieces together, Chen knew he would be unable to fall asleep, but he did not want to take sleeping pills. He got up instead, lighting a cigarette.
Was it possible that some of the pieces might not have belonged to the one and same puzzle, he contemplated in the spiraling smoke rings? If so, he might as well shift to focusing on just one piece – the latest one.
He checked his emails and printed out the case report about the murder in the hotel. It had been forwarded over by Detective Yu. Detective Xiong had made no progress. Still too reluctant to openly seek Chen’s help, he’d shared the report with Detective Yu. After all, it involved one of their colleagues.
But Chen had a hard time relating it to the other two murders. The murderer of Wanxia must have known the hotel inside and out, most likely via inside information. It had been done in a way that was so different from the first two murders.
While all of the three victims could have been seen as related to Min, he could not lose sight of the fact that the hotel murder could have been done by a professional with a government background, which made the situation even more politically sinister than he had first imagined.
A street mugger, who could have run across Huang at an unlikely moment, at an unlikely location, would not have obtained any clues regarding the whereabouts of Min. The hotel might have been known in the circle as a special place for the shuangguied Party officials, but no one could have suspected that someone like Min would actually be put there.