Authors: Andy Oakes
“And then we get the fuck out of here, Boss?”
Piao nodded, their gaze welded together in the raw horror of it all.
“You don’t think we should look for the others …?”
Piao closed his eyes. The fires raging behind the purple midnight of his eyelids
Your eight bodies … little will be left.
“We’d never get out alive.”
The Big Man nodded, reaching up, averting his eyes, his face almost pressed against a charred body. Trying not to breath, trying to fill his mind with nothingness. He took the weight of the first corpse, the blackened body of the man who had been Wenbiao. Steel grating against steel. Piao released the first meat hook from the top of the rail and then the second, of the body of the man who had once been known as Cheng. Thinking of nothing, only the shards of questions from sweet mouthed children filling his head. How to answer such questions? How to wipe away such tears? He laid Cousin Cheng gently on the cold store floor, a single plume of foul black smoke winding from the coal hole that was now his mouth, and with it, a stab of realisation that he would have to learn ‘how’, shortly … very shortly.
And knowing that the questions that children ask do not soften and fade like smoke as it is taken up by the sky.
*
Leaving the warehouse. No memories, just a mosaic of slow and laboured paces matched with slithers of mirage and madness. Light skewering darkness. Water piercing fire. Voices, as the fire crew reached them just inside of the warehouse loading bays. A blaze of sky spiked by a blunt needle of filthy smoke and falling from it a powdering of black snow. Everywhere, black snow.
Piao’s eyes searched the alleys as they carried him on the stretcher, his vision, a constellation, a universe of fiercely bright pin-pricks. They were still searching as the ambulance doors met in a comforting clasp of steel on steel, but the Shanghai Sedan that had slouched against its scarred brickwork wall was gone.
Unconsciousness wrapped him in its soft dark glove. He gave in to its gentle embrace.
*
The Fire Chief had known fire well, but not intimately … by morning the warehouse was still standing and now cool enough for it to be searched. Inch by inch. Checked and rechecked. Amongst the incinerated animal carcasses in the Yangpu Bridge Import Export Meat Corporation’s cold store, no evidence was found of any other human remains.
The CIA Officer, McMurta, had resembled a ballistic missile … bullet headed, steel chinned, wire haired. The eyes, seemingly frozen behind the black glass blinds of the obligatory Ray Ban’s.
The interview had lasted for a full three hours. … 180 minutes of unquenched, undiluted pain. Each detail of Bobby being ripped from her like a brace of ingrowing toenails. McMurta had worked to his own agenda, on the pretext of working to hers and Bobby’s. It had left Barbara feeling raped, violated. And between each question, each answer, the only thing that made the experience bearable, sips of Xunhuacha … green Lucha tea, perfumed with chrysanthemum and rose petals. Served in cups that looked too delicate to hold. Its instant bouquet of rain soaked cottage gardens, of fruit lying in wet grass … in collision with the toothpaste and tabac, that was McMurta. Questions run out, he closed the folder and replaced his pen in an inside pocket, next to three identical pens of the same style, the same colour.
“I can smell a woman in all of this. There are lots of interesting diversions for a young man in China nowadays. Take it from me, he’s gone native, nothing more than that. Right now he’s probably locked away in some cosy little hotel room in the former French Concession, with a cute little
yeh ji
.”
She put the cup down. Lipstick on bone china. Asking the question to an answer that she already knew.
“A cute little yeh ji, what the hell is that?”
“A yeh ji, a wild pheasant. A hooker. Christ, it’s almost an obligatory part of the package deal.”
Barbara poured more tea. Not wanting more, just needing to do something with her hands.
“Bobby isn’t like that.”
McMurta walked to the window.
“All men are like that, take it from me …”
The sky, a jaundiced yellow. River, cars, windows, reflecting back the same polluted hue.
“… anyway, whatever’s going on, you don’t have to worry, ma’am. We’re looking after you.”
Anger in an instant blaze. Thumping the cup down on the table. Tea, across the saucer, her fingers, the train track grain of the chocolate mahogany.
“We’re looking after you’. What the hell does that mean?”
Still looking out of the window, McMurta blanching, his neck tightening with shock, wondering if it was right for a government official to swear. If a woman should swear. The shell of the ‘new man’ wrapped around the same Puritanism as a Pilgrim Father.
“The Agency. We’re looking out for you. Making sure you’re safe.”
“I don’t need ‘looking out for’. I don’t need the Agency making sure that I’m safe. Read my lips … I’ll look out for myself. I’m safe.”
“Well excuse me, ma’am, but you’re an American governmental official and a vulnerable woman in the People’s Republic of China. You’re a long way from DC. You’re involved in important negotiations with the representatives of this country. And now your son has gone missing. Maybe these are linked, maybe not. Personally speaking, I think your son’s screwing around and will re-surface in a few days time. The US dollar goes a long way with a yeh ji. But whatever, the Agency are there to look after you Ma’am, whether you like it or not … that’s what you pay your ‘greenbacks’ in taxes for.”
His eyes followed the Huangpu to the east … a dull metal gash, splitting the old city from the new city. A division that no sutures of black brooding bridges could ever pull together. He placed his hands on the window ledge, drawing in a deep breath.
“I love Shanghai in the morning. Its smell. Its bustle. From ten floors up it’s the greatest city in the world.”
Barbara joined him. Below the city was alive. The heavily strung cord roads of black bead cars. A million dots picking their way along the Nanjing Road; a buzzing hive of pedestrians. Life … seething, bubbling over. Reaching out and up. Grabbing at her by the throat. Choking on its vibrancy; with a chill, feeling that she might never be a part of it again. She turned away.
“Bobby, I know he’s dead. It’s not true what they are saying … he was here. This was his room. I know from his letters what they serve for breakfast in the hotel restaurant on the eighth floor. I knew this room before I ever stepped into it. It’s not true what they are saying. He was here. He’s not with a hooker. He’s dead.”
*
As McMurta left the hotel room, she had noticed that he had a huge and flat arse: like Clinton’s in those unflattering jogging pants.
Never trust a man with a flat arse …
had been a homespun philosophy that had been bequeathed to her by her ma. Her ma had never been wrong yet. McMurta. Barbara had seen tampons with more … more get up and go. She would get diddly, she knew it. He knew it. The door closed.
“Arsehole,” she said.
*
Ambassador Edward Candy’s voice was instantly recognisable. Its lazy drawl as welcome, as familiar as a bottle of Bud or a slice of pecan pie. The Ambassador talked about the weather, the primaries and the World Series back in the States. The States, it already seeming like a stranded shell of a past life. It was clear that he had no information on Bobby … she knew it. Candy was building up to say a huge zero. Barbara feeling a wave of panic wash over her. She stifled a scream and managed to twist it into …
“Edward, what about Bobby?”
… and then the steel shutters crashing into place.
“I’ve had two other agents on the case besides McMurta, but they’ve drawn a blank. Zilch. Their investigations show no record of Bobby ever having entered China. No visas issued. No internal travel documents authorised. No registration ever made at any Shanghai hotel. According to McMurta’s report, and the contacts that we have in the municipal Party machine and in the Luxingshe, your son has never been to Fudan University. Your son has never been in Shanghai …”
Candy paused, she could hear him sigh.
“… officially Barbara, Bobby has never been in China …”
She wanted to respond, but nothing came out.
“… we’ve taken it about as far as we can at this unofficial level, Barbara. Remember, we’re in China and very limited as to where we can tread. My suggestion is that we involve the PSB. I have spoken to the Minister … he has arranged through Chief Liping, the head of police in the city, for you to see one of his best investigators … his name is Detective Yun. You will find him at the Hongkou Divisional Headquarters … that’s near the corner of Sichuanlu and Haininglu. Lu means street. Take a taxi and be there for ten. I’ve already released some details of Bobby’s file to Chief Liping, so they should be thoroughly briefed …”
The pen slipped from her fingers, the details of the meeting scrawled across the hotel notepaper. The Ambassador’s voice trailed off, waiting for a response that she felt unable to give.
“… but I’m sure that it’s all explainable, Barbara. Just a series of bureaucratic mistakes, each one compounding the last. You know how it is?”
No response.
“Bobby will turn up, and when he does, you put a flea in his ear and then join me in Beijing for a celebratory drink. I’ll put a bottle or two on ice … just like old times, eh?”
The call was ending and still she was unable to utter a word, only think them. And at the same time, picturing Candy straightening his tie, checking his breath as he spoke … an eye admiring a woman seated in the inner lobby of the penthouse suite, just out of reach. Checking her make-up in the reflection from the VDU. Pausing in mid-pout to give the Ambassador a half wave of pale perfumed fingers. Their tips, wriggling cerise fishes. Returning the wave … her signal to stand up, shimmy her tight skirt straight. She would be a Washington wife on the loose. A perfect bob-permed pink mannequin wrapped in Ralph Lauren. Smart, beautiful … with all of the weapons to win the war.
A host of questions suddenly crowding into Barbara’s mind. In panic selecting one almost at random.
“What about Lazarus Heywood at Fudan, at the university? For Christ sake, he brought Bobby to China. He’s worked with Bobby in the same department. Heywood can prove that he was in Shanghai, and that some sort of conspiracy is going on.”
“Barbara, there is no conspiracy; your son is an archaeologist. Conspiracies do not stretch to include estate agents, tax inspectors, or archaeologists. Except, of course, in Hollywood.”
“But Professor Heywood, has McMurta seen him, talked to him?”
The silence was long. A shiny bright barb of silence. Edward Candy, a fish hooked onto it. She could feel him wriggling. The mercury flash of the scales.
“Edward?”
Silence.
“Edward?”
The strike. Taught catgut, a whistle as it bit water. And then the words …
“Heywood’s not been seen for two weeks. He’s missing Barbara … he’s also missing.”
The
fen-chu
, PSB Divisional Headquarters of Hongkou, sat on Sichuanlu … a frantic junction of whirring bicycle spokes, pissing dogs and belching traffic. The building was indented into a fussy parade of 1930s edifices. A mute, shadowed dimple of chipped marble and blind windows that shyly stood a step back … its posture stranded between defence and offence.
*
Polish … piss … testosterone.
The smell of the place reminded Barbara of home, of every police precinct that she had ever entered. Male territory. The kind of complex odour that lingered in the memory of every retired cop long after the faces of the framed, threatened and fearful, had long since faded.
“Detective Officer Yun is expecting me …”
The young policeman winced with discomfort.
“… I have an appointment for ten o’clock.”
Confusion knotted his eyebrows. He simply shook his head as if attempting to untangle them.
“Jesus Christ! What do I have to do to make myself understood in this country, hire a loudhailer?”
Her voice was growing. Rows of faces appeared staring from behind glass office partitions.
“Now get me Detective Yun before I really have to shout. I’m not nice when I shout.”
“Yun, Yun … not nice?”
Barbara smiled.
“Get me Yun.”
Still smiling, and almost as a whisper.
“Jesus, this is going to be hard.”
The policeman also smiled. It was a living advertisement for the need for regular dental hygiene.
*
A book by its cover …
The man who followed the young policeman to Barbara’s side was also young. Too young. A smile on his acne ravaged face.
“Detective Officer Yun?”
The Detective Officer nodded with a vigour that Barbara had come to realise meant that his name would be one of the few words whose meaning they would be able to share.
“You don’t speak English, do you?”
The detective nodded.
“Yun, Yun.” He tapped his chest.
“Yes, I know, I get the picture. You’re Yun. Do you also know the word interpreter.
Interpreter
?”
“Yun.”
Barbara felt the last vestiges of humour drain from her. All the tools that she possessed to lever, slide, oil information out of people, move situations along … seemed blunt.
Her voice rose. …
“What about the words sit on it, do you understand those?”
The veneer of control split. Words spilling from her lips, and all the time, the loose threaded stitches of Yun’s smile, snagged and pulling from the seersucker complexion of his face.
*
Gauzed fingers lifting a chipped cup to cracked lips.
Piao sat in the canteen of the Divisional Headquarters. He had entered with a hunger, but his appetite now lay with its back broken, from the reek of old fat and earthy Panda Brand cigarettes. He scanned the report. Twenty-one pages to say fuck all. Twenty-one pages to point a finger at no one. Twenty-one pages to say that there had been a fire and that two had died. He already knew that two had died. The funerals would claim his Tuesday morning and his Friday afternoon.