Yoyo’s shared flat was on Tibet Lu in a neighbourhood of identical-looking concrete towers. Just a few years ago there had been a night market here. Crouched gabled houses had thronged alongside one another in the shadow of the skyscrapers, an island of poverty and decay on just four square kilometres, with insufficient water supply and continual blackouts. Traders used to spread their wares out on the pavements, opening shops and doors so their living space took on the function of a stockroom and salesroom in one, or simply transforming their entire house into a street kitchen. Practically everything was for sale: household goods, medicinal herbs, roots to strengthen the libido, extracts to combat evil spirits, and souvenirs for tourists who had stumbled across the market accidentally and couldn’t tell the difference between plastic and antique Buddhas. Pots steamed in every corner, a smell of fried fat and broth filled the narrow passageways. In no way unpleasant, as Jericho remembered from having strolled through there shortly after his arrival. Some of the things which had changed hands in exchange for a few coins had tasted incredibly good.
And yet a life was considered wretched if the people living it were forced to share a chronically blocked-up toilet between ten, assuming, that is, that their building even offered the luxury of a toilet. Logically then, when the real estate companies and representatives of the town planning department rushed in with their offers, one might have expected collective joy. There was talk of light and airy apartments, of electronic hobs and showers. But none of the residents’ eyes had reflected the sparkle of sanitary promise. There was neither excitement nor resistance. They just signed the contracts, looked at one another and knew that their time had come. This life would come to an end, but it had still been a life nonetheless. The simple houses had seen better times, back before China’s economy had started to accelerate in the early nineties. They were run-down, without a doubt, but with some good will they could still be called home.
Months later, Jericho had gone back there. At first he thought there must have been a bomb attack. A troupe of workers had been busy razing the entire quarter to the ground. His initial surprise had turned into disbelief when it dawned on him that a good half of the inhabitants were still living there, going about their usual business as wrecking balls swung all around, walls collapsed and dumper trucks transported off tonnes of rubble.
He had asked what would happen to the people once the whole quarter had disappeared.
‘They’ll move,’ one of the builders enlightened him.
‘And where to?’
The man’s answer never came. Jericho, filled with consternation, had wandered around as darkness crept in and the stage was set for an amputated night market, its protagonists seeming to stubbornly deny the destruction taking place around them. Whenever he asked someone about it, they simply assured him, calmly and politely, that it was just the way it was. After a while Jericho became convinced that it couldn’t solely be down to the broad Shanghai dialect that he only ever understood that one sentence, and that it must actually be the standardised reaction to every kind of catastrophe and injustice. Mei you banfa: There’s nothing one can do.
Once night fell, a few people became more talkative. A plump old woman, preparing delicious little dumplings in broth, told Jericho that the compensation from the building authorities wasn’t anywhere near enough to buy a new apartment. Nor was it enough to rent one for any considerable length of time. A second woman who came over said that each of the inhabitants had been offered a much higher sum to start with, but that no one had received the amount they had been promised. A young man was considering making a complaint, but the plump woman dismissed that with a subdued flick of her hand. Her son had already complained four times. Every complaint had been rejected, but on the fourth time they had locked him up in a cell for a week, only showing him the door after they had administered a number of kicks.
Jericho ended up leaving as clueless as he had come. Now he had returned for a third time, and there was no indication that there had ever been anything here but towers with air-conditioning in front of the windows. The blocks were numbered, but in the advancing dusk the numbers blurred against the background. Some idiot had clearly thought it would be chic to paint pastel on pastel – in huge numbers, admittedly – but in poor light they were as hard to make out as snow-white mountain hares in a snowstorm. Jericho didn’t waste time marching up and down the streets. He pulled out his mobile, entered in the number and let the GPS figure out his location. A grid-section of the city from satellite perspective appeared on the screen. Jericho projected the map onto the wall of a nearby house. The beamer was strong enough to generate a brilliantly clear image measuring two by two metres. The street he was standing on ran diagonally over the wall, along with a number of side and parallel streets. He zoomed in. One blinking signal pinpointed his current location down to the nearest metre, another marked out Yoyo’s address.
‘Please walk straight ahead for thirty-two metres,’ said the mobile in a friendly tone. ‘Then turn right—’
He deactivated the voice and set off. He had found out all he needed to know: that Yoyo’s building was just around the corner and easily reached.
Within two minutes he was ringing the doorbell.
It was a surprise visit and therefore an investment of sorts. The relative slimness of the chance he’d find someone at home was cancelled out by the benefits of the surprise attack. The recipient of the visit, if there were one, had no chance to prepare himself, hide things or rehearse lies. According to Jericho’s research, Yoyo’s flatmates had never had a criminal record, nor had they ever attracted the attention of the authorities. One of them, Zhang Li, was studying Economics and English, the other was enrolled in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. As far as the authorities were concerned he was called Wang Jintao, but called himself Grand Cherokee. That was nothing unusual. In the nineties, young Chinese people had begun to put Western names before their family ones, a practice that wasn’t always carried out that tastefully. It wasn’t uncommon for men, in ignorance of a word’s associations, to name themselves after sanitary towels or dog food, whilst on the women’s side it wasn’t unusual to meet a Pershing Song or White House Liang. Wang, for example, had even selected himself an American four-by-four as a forename.
If Tu was to be believed, neither Wang nor Li was a stay-at-home type, which meant he could have made the journey here in vain. But after he’d rung for the second time, something surprising happened. Without anyone bothering to use the intercom, the buzzer sounded and the door was released. Walking into a bare hallway which stank of cabbage, he took the lift up to the seventh floor and found himself on a whitewashed landing where the neon lighting was flickering nervously. A little further along, a door opened up. A young man came out and looked Jericho up and down coolly.
There was no doubt it was him!
His forehead and cheekbones were adorned with metallic applications, highly fashionable right now. Their arrival had ended the era of piercings and tattoos. Anyone who still dared to have a ring through their eyebrow or silver in their tongue was seen as an embarrassment. Even the hairstyle, smooth and long, fitted in with the trend. It was known as Indian style, as currently worn by the majority of young men around the globe, apart from the Indians themselves of course, who rejected all responsibility for it. A spray-on shirt emphasised Wang’s muscles, his wet-look leather trousers gave the impression that they were on duty both day and night. All things considered, the guy didn’t look bad, but he didn’t look great either. The warlike appearance was lacking about ten centimetres in height, and the edgy quality of his features might be quite pleasing, but they were devoid of any proportional elegance.
‘And you are?’ he asked, suppressing a yawn.
Jericho held his mobile phone out under Wang’s nose and projected a 3D image of his head, along with his police registration number, onto the folded-up display.
‘Owen Jericho, web detective.’
Wang squinted.
‘So I see,’ he said, trying to sound ironic.
‘Could I have a moment of your time?’
‘What’s up?’
‘This is the apartment of Chen Yuyun, is that correct? Yoyo for short.’
‘Wrong.’ The guy seemed to chew the word before spitting it out. ‘This apartment belongs to me and Li, and the little one just dumped her books and clothes here.’
‘I thought she lived here?’
‘Let’s get one thing clear, okay? It’s not her apartment. I let her have the room.’
‘Then you must be Grand Cherokee.’
‘Yeah!’ The mention of his forename made its owner suddenly switch into friendly mode. ‘You’ve heard of me?’
‘Only good things,’ lied Jericho. ‘Would you be able to tell me where I can find Yoyo?’
‘Where you could find—’ Grand Cherokee paused. For some unknown reason the question seemed to take him by surprise. ‘That’s—’ he murmured. ‘That’s really something!’
‘I need to speak to her.’
‘You can’t.’
‘I know Yoyo has disappeared,’ Jericho added. ‘That’s why I’m here. Her father’s looking for her, and he’s very worried. So if you know anything about where she is—’
Grand Cherokee stared at him. Something about the boy, or rather about his attitude, irritated Jericho.
‘As I said,’ he repeated, ‘if you—’
‘Just a moment.’ Grand Cherokee raised his hand. For a few seconds he paused like that, then his features seemed to smooth out.
‘Yoyo.’ He smiled jovially. ‘But of course. Don’t you want to come in?’
Still confused, Jericho entered the narrow hallway, which branched off into a number of other rooms. Grand Cherokee hurried ahead of him, opened the last door and nodded inside with his head.
‘I can show you her room.’
Suddenly, Jericho understood. This much cooperation was bordering on calculation. Slowly, he walked into the room and looked around. It didn’t say much. There was hardly anything to suggest who lived here except for a few posters of popular figures from the Mando-prog scene. One of the pictures was of Yoyo herself, posing on a stage. A note fluttered around on a pinboard above a cheap desk. Jericho walked over to it and studied the few symbols.
‘Dark sesame oil,’ he read. ‘300 grams of chicken breast—’
Grand Cherokee cleared his throat discreetly.
‘Yes?’ Jericho turned round to him.
‘I could give you some clues about where Yoyo is.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Well.’ Grand Cherokee spread his fingers meaningfully. ‘She told me a lot, you know? I mean, the little one likes me. She got quite friendly in the last few days she was here.’
‘Were you friendly too?’
‘Let’s just say I had the opportunity to be.’
‘And?’
‘Well, come on, that’s confidential, man!’ Grand Cherokee was clearly making a great effort to look outraged. ‘I mean, of course we can discuss everything, but—’
‘No, it’s fine. If it’s confidential.’ Jericho turned away and left him standing there. A wise guy, just as he’d feared. One after another, he pulled open the drawers of the desk. Then he went over to the narrow wall cabinet next to the door and opened it. Jeans, a pullover, and a pair of trainers which had seen better days. Two cans of disposable clothing spray. Jericho shook it. Half full. Clearly Yoyo had packed the majority of her things in a great hurry and left the flat in a rush.
‘When was the last time you saw your flatmate?’
‘The last time?’ echoed Grand Cherokee.
‘The last time.’ Jericho looked at him. ‘That’s the time after which you didn’t see Yoyo any more, so when was that?’
‘Ah, yes, er—’ Grand Cherokee seemed as though he was just emerging from deep water. ‘On the evening of 23 May. We had a little party. Li went off to bed at some point, and Yoyo hung around with me for a while. We chatted and had some drinks, and then she went off to her room. A little later I heard her crashing around and opening drawers. Shortly after that the house door slammed in the lock.’
‘When exactly?’
‘Between two and three, I guess.’
‘You guess?’
‘It was before three for sure.’
Given that Grand Cherokee seemed to be making no effort to stop him from doing so, Jericho carried on searching through Yoyo’s room. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the student skulking around hesitantly. Jericho’s lack of interest in him seemed to be confusing him.
‘I could tell you more,’ he said after a while. ‘If you’re interested.’
‘Out with it.’
‘Tomorrow maybe.’
‘Why not now?’
‘Because I need to make a few calls to— I mean, I already know where Yoyo hangs out, but before that—’ He stretched out his arms and turned his palms to face upwards. ‘Let’s just say, everything has its price.’
That was clear enough.
Jericho finished his search and walked back into the hall.
‘As long as it’s worth its price,’ he said. ‘By the way, where’s your flatmate?’
‘Li? No idea. He doesn’t know anything anyway.’
‘Is it just my imagination, or do you not know anything either?’
‘Me? Yes, I do.’
‘But?’
‘No but. I just thought perhaps you might think of how someone might be able to release trapped knowledge?’ Grand Cherokee grinned up at him.
‘I see.’ Jericho smiled back. ‘You’d like to negotiate an advance.’
‘Let’s call it a contribution towards expenses.’
‘And for what, Grand Cherokee, or whatever you’re called? So that you can mess me about with your garbled imagination? You don’t know shit!’
He turned round to go. Grand Cherokee seemed filled with consternation. Obviously he had seen the conversation as going a little differently. He held Jericho back by the shoulder and shook his head.
‘I’m not trying to rip anyone off, man!’
‘Then don’t.’
‘Come on! The kind of course I’m on doesn’t pay for itself! I’ll find out whatever you want to know.’
‘Wrong! You have nothing to sell me.’
‘I—’ The student searched for words. ‘Okay, fine. If I tell you something, right here and now, that helps you to make some progress, will you trust me then? That would be my advance, you see?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘So, there’s a biker gang that she hangs out with a lot. She rides a motorcycle too. The City Demons – that’s what it says on their jackets at any rate.’
‘And where can I find them?’
‘That was my advance.’
‘Now you listen to me,’ said Jericho, jabbing a finger at his adversary. ‘Here and now I’m paying you nothing. Because you have nothing. Nothing at all. If you should happen to get hold of some real information, driven by the goodness of your heart – and I mean real information! – then we may be able to do business. Is that clear?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘So when shall I expect your call?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’ Grand Cherokee plucked at the tip of his chin. ‘No, earlier. Perhaps.’ He gave Jericho a penetrating look. ‘But then it’s payday, man!’
‘Then it’s payday.’ Jericho smacked him on the shoulder. ‘An appropriate amount. Did you want to say anything else?’
Grand Cherokee shook his head silently.
‘Then I’ll see you tomorrow.’
* * *
Then I’ll see you tomorrow—
He stood in the hallway as if he were rooted to the spot, even once the detective was already on his way downstairs. As he heard the lift door rattle lightly in the shaft, his thoughts came thick and fast.
Well, this was incredible!
Deep in thought, he went into the kitchen, fetched a beer from the fridg
e and raised the bottle to his lips. What was going on here? What had Yoyo done to make everyone so interested in her disappearance? First that smart guy and now the detective. And, even more importantly:
How could he profit from it?
It wouldn’t be easy, that’s for sure. Grand Cherokee was under no illusions: his knowledge of her whereabouts was nonexistent, and the next few hours would do little to change that. On the other hand it would be a real stroke of bad luck if he couldn’t come up with a few juicy lies by the next morning. The kind of lies that no one could prove, along the lines of: my information is first-hand, I don’t know either, clearly Yoyo got wind of something, it was right under our nose, and so on and so forth.
He would have to push the price right up. Play them off against one another! It was a good thing he hadn’t told the detective about Xin’s visit. People could say what they wanted about him, but certainly not that he was dumb.
I’m too on the ball for the two of you, he thought.
He was already counting the notes in his mind.
26 May 2025
THE SATELLITE
Arrival
As if there hadn’t been dozens of pairs of boots marking the surface of the Moon with the imprint of mankind’s heroism since 2018, Eugene Cernan – the commander of Apollo 17 – was still regarded as the last man to have walked on its surface. The years between ’69 and ’72 were monumental in the landscape of American history: a short but magical epoch of manned missions which were strangely counteracted by Nixon bringing the space programme back down to earth with a bump. As a result, Cernan became the last one up there to turn off the light. He was, and remained, the last of his century. The eleventh Apollo astronaut on the Moon, he walked around the Mare Serenitatis and made hundreds of those small steps that Neil Armstrong had declared to be such a giant leap for mankind. His team collected the biggest sample of lunar rocks and completed more moon surface trips than any other before them. The commander himself even managed to cause the first ever automobile accident on a celestial body, smashing up the rear left wing of his Lunar Rover, before – with a talent for improvisation reminiscent of Robinson Crusoe – patching it back together again. Yet none of this was enough to re-enliven the public’s interest. It was the end of an era. Cernan, presented with the opportunity to immortalise himself in encyclopaedias and textbooks with a thunderous obituary, instead offered words of remarkable helplessness:
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