Authors: Andy Oakes
Liping tapped the paper, the rundown of figures in front of him.
“… and this is not good enough Senior Investigator.”
“I was pursuing the known perpetrators of a planned hit and run … a murder, Comrade Officer Chief Liping. I believe the occupants of the vehicle to be also responsible for the murder of Officer Yaobang’s brother, our Comrade Officer Wenbiao … my own cousin and possibly the eight victims that we found in the river. It is all in my reports, Comrade Officer Chief Liping.”
“Yes, Senior Investigator, all in your reports …”
His hand across the typed pages. Hard fingers. Cruel.
“… all in your reports, Piao, except for a single description of any of the three occupants who were in the black Shanghai Sedan …”
On Liping’s face, the jigsaw pieces of a smile. He stood and moved around the desk surveying his office. Dark wood. Brass. A marble bust of Mao. No sound, except for his footsteps on the polished wood floor.
“… I am underwhelmed, Piao. You still believe in the conspiracy theory? I know of your stubbornness. I did not expect stubbornness to extend to stupidity.”
He walked slowly toward the desk, rounding it; the ease of a big cat who had just made a kill. Hands braced on the back of his chair, taking his weight. Everything about him immaculate, preened. His uniform of standard design, except its cut, the quality of its material, its hand stitching. It would be custom tailored at the Paramount on the Nanjing Road. Expensive. Beyond even Liping’s pocket, surely? Unmistakable quality. Quality for the highest of cadre. Piao feeling dull, grubby. Aware of the mud on his shoes. The hole in his trouser pocket. The taste of shit in his mouth.
“You are off the case, Investigator Piao. You are personally involved. Unsound. You have no proof to substantiate any of your assertions …”
The Chief sat. The heavy leather bound upholstered chair creaking. His jacket taut against his bulky shoulders. The muscles grouped, flexed, in some anonymous anticipation.
“… you are no nearer than you were a week ago. The trail is cold, Piao. You are getting nowhere.”
“With respect, Comrade Officer, there have been recent developments which I feel justify my continued involvement in the case. I do not believe that the trail is cold and feel assured that we can move forward with certainty. It is all in my reports.”
The temperature rising around his collar. His palms, his feet, itchy … wanting to scratch them until they bled. He had said little, but with a lot of words. Liping was no fool, he would recognise what was water and what was silt cupped between his hands.
“Recent developments. Continued involvement. Moving forward with certainty …”
The Chief nudged the reports away with his knuckles.
“… you sound like a politician. You say much with little content. That is my job, Senior Investigator. Your job is to say little and provide results. Is that understood?”
Liping’s eyes fixed on him. Black burning into blue. Piao nodded.
“You speak of recent developments. What recent developments, Investigator?”
“Three of the bodies that were found in the Huangpu have been identified, Comrade Officer.”
“And?”
“Two are Americans. One, Professor Lazarus Heywood of Fudan University. The other was an archaeologist involved in a research project at the same university. His name was Bobby Hayes …”
Liping’s face as still as the waters of a lake. His hands at rest, fingers interwoven.
“… the third is a female by the name of Ye Yang. Nationality unknown at present. She was the lover of the American, Bobby Hayes. She was pregnant, three months pregnant.”
The Comrade Chief Officer’s gaze not weakening its hold. The words female, pregnant, not causing a ripple across the waters.
“The identification of the Americans is positive?”
“Yes Comrade Officer. Dental and positive witness identifications.”
The hands parted. One moving to his scalp, across the bony roof of his skull. The bristle of hair bowing to the palm and then flicking back to attention.
“Is that all?”
“The girl, Ye Yang, she was staying at the Peace Hotel. The room and telephones were wired. The hardware was very sophisticated, expensive.”
“Bureau Six?”
“I believe so, Comrade Officer.”
“And you want the tape recordings?”
Piao nodded.
“You are aware of how many hotels in the city the Bureau would have an interest in?”
“Eleven Comrade Officer.”
“Over five thousand hotel rooms. Half of these would be fitted with listening devices. Only ten per cent of these monitored and transcribed. And you still want the tapes, if they even exist?”
“It is vital to the investigation, Comrade Officer. They could provide links to the other victims. Possibly a motive for the murders.”
“I am aware of what such tape recordings could provide, Senior Investigator …”
He was on his feet, thumbs tucked into his pockets. A strength permeating from every aspect of his posture.
“… it will take time, it will take effort also, but I will make sure that you have the tape recordings that you require …”
He said nothing for several minutes. The silence as sharp as razor wire. Piao counting each second.
“… you have a reprieve, Senior Investigator. Make sure that you ‘move forward with certainty’. You may go.”
*
It was only when he was outside that Piao realised that he had not taken a breath since leaving Liping’s office. His lungs a brazier of amber coals. When the breath came it was long and ragged, like that of an old cadre snoring through a Politburo committee meeting.
Liping, the man was deceptive, reminding the Senior Investigator of the old saying:
The buffalo of the County of Wu does not suffocate under moonbeams.
In other words, he was not what he seemed. Piao had expected a fight about the tapes. A struggle over every detail of his reports. Perhaps even an official investigation into his own theories of Pan Yaobang’s murder and the killing of the student. The Senior Investigator pulled in a deep and ragged breath, purging the Chief from out of his nostrils.
Liping was not what he seemed. Ye Yang, the tapes from her hotel room … would they be?
*
As he walked, he smoked … half a pack before he even realised it. The tasteless smoke becoming his breakfast, his lunch, his evening meal. And thinking, and replaying every word that Liping had uttered. Only when he found a substantial enough bone to gnaw upon, did the smoking stop … crumpling the packet into a tight ball as he replayed the words. The Chief …
‘… all in your reports Senior Investigator, except for a single description of any of the three occupants of the black Shanghai Sedan.’
How did Liping know what was not known? Not known to Piao and not hidden in the turned and re-turned pages of any of the reports that he had submitted to the Chief? That there were ‘three’ occupants in the black Shanghai Sedan?
The buffalo of the County of Wu does not suffocate under moonbeams.
A second time to know what was not known. A first time … a mistake, a guess? But a second time? The Comrade Chief Officer Liping, he was not what he seemed. He knew things that he should not know.
Ni nar – “Where are you?”
Chinese telephone conversations will always start with this. A Chinese will be asked this rather than his name when he goes somewhere new; a place in which he is not recognised. It will be the first question at the top of any hotel registration form.
Ni nar –
“Where are you?”
“What is your unit, your Danwei.”
Every Chinese belongs to a Danwei; through the place of work, the office, the commune, the factory, the school. The Danwei are the building blocks of Chinese society. A second citizenship braced firmly in tandem with the first. The Danwei can be so well equipped as to provide a cradle to the grave service. It can furnish every need. Where you live, where your children are educated, the clinic for when you are sick, the authority to purchase food, ‘industrial goods’ … bicycles, radios, tvs. But the Danwei is not just a provider. It has a hunger too. It has needs that must be met. When you want to marry, you are requested to apply to the Party Secretary of the Danwei for their permission. They will run a security check. Depending upon its result, you will be given permission, or denied it. If you wish to transfer to another job … the Danwei have to give their consent. As a Chinese, if you wish to meet with a foreigner, you are supposed to seek permission and then report back to the Danwei about what was discussed. Before taking a journey or leave of more than a day’s duration from your place of abode, approval from the Party Secretary of the Danwei must be sought and given. When you die, it is the Danwei who will bury or cremate you. It is a womb that you can never be born from. A level of control by the authorities over the Chinese people that could never be understood by the
yang-gui-zi
… ‘the foreign devil’.
Each personnel department of each Danwei holds a sealed envelope on every employee; biographical information, work records, educational records. But the sealed envelope will hold much beyond this. The stains of any political accusations made by neighbours, however unfounded. The Party’s evaluation of the individual as an activist, or as a possible or suspected counter-revolutionary. The Party’s ‘Bloodline Theory’ committed to type … a dissection, a family tree of the Danwei member going back three generations. Were the fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers … landlords, capitalists, or peasant workers? Only the high cadre can know the contents of the dossier on the individual. Your eyes will never read it. Theirs will.
Only the high cadre, through the Danwei, can map out your life before it even arrives. Can escort you through that life, their traffic lights showing red at every major intersection of that life … if they so deem it. Your funeral planned from the day that you were born.
The cradle to the grave. Their shadow across yours.
“Ni nar” – “Where are you?”
You know where I am … you are always with me.
*
“You look like shit.”
Yaobang pulled on his cigarette butt.
“Thanks Boss, nice to see you too.”
“When did you come in?”
“Six. Since Pan got shot it’s fucked up my sleep.”
Piao sipped his tea. It was already cold.
“Doctors have pills for everything.”
“I tried them. They gave me wind and the constant shits. I’d rather have no sleep.”
“I’d rather you had no sleep as well. I appreciate your social conscience.”
The Big Man smiled. Teeth as grim as the inside of a tea pot.
“They didn’t fix your teeth while you were in then?”
“I asked. Fucking doctors …”
He opened his mouth, a black coal chute. Prodding the decayed back teeth with a finger.
“… not economical. How can a citizen’s health be ‘not economical’. Fucking doctors.”
Piao poured the remains of the tea into a sorry looking pot plant. It seemed to wilt even further.
“You shouldn’t be in. You should be anywhere but here.”
“There isn’t anywhere but here.”
The Senior Investigator recognised the words, the feelings, the sense of belonging nowhere. He didn’t pursue the subject.
“Luxingshe, Bureau Six. Have they reported back to us yet?”
“Yes, for what it’s worth. The reports are on your desk. Only standard stuff on that Heywood. Visa documentation. Entrances, exits, internal travel permits. Shit all on the others.”
“What about Mai Lin Hua at Gongdelin and the Chief Warden at the Municipal Prison?”
“On your desk with the others.”
“Anything positive?”
The Big Man rifled through the stack of files, smiling. His tongue caught between his teeth, like a mouse trying to squirm from the trap.
“Here it is …”
He held the paper aloft in triumph.
“… a handwritten note from Hua inviting you to tea at Gongdelin. Besides that, fuck all.”
He let the note drift from his fingers and into the bin.
“… I’ve got the old dog Xin and three others that were drafted in by the Chief going through the files of prisoners that have been released over the past month. It’s endless, but you never know … something might even come up on some of those tattoos that the victims had …”
“The three that Liping drafted in, do you know them?”
“No, but they’ve all got dirty shoes. It’s normally a good sign.”
Piao slid open a desk drawer, placing his cup into its depths. Four other cups were already in there.
“Let them do the spade work …”
He closed the drawer and pushed over the pile of reports. They spilt across the desk in buff landslip.
“… but don’t let them know too much of what they’re digging for.”
“Sure boss. Give them the fucking spades, but not the seeds …”
Yaobang pulled a creased slip of paper from his pocket.
“… and Boss, you got a call. No name and from a public call box. He said to meet him at the Huxingting Tea House, Yu Gardens.”
“What time?”
“Half an hour ago, Boss.”
Piao hurriedly took the paper and pushed it into his pocket.
“Yaobang, do a bit of spade work at Fudan, eh? I want the names and details of any students who were friends with Bobby Hayes. Anyone who was close to him. Hung out with him. Anyone who shared a tea with him.”
The Big Man rubbed his hands together and tested his breath. As sour as a bull’s bladder.
“Just my sort of fucking job, Boss. Student girls are my favourite …”
He tightened the greasy knot of his tie.
“… what do you want them for, onto something?”
Piao moved from the desk, buttoning his jacket. It was cold outside, unseasonably cold.
But whatever season, he always felt cold.
“No, not really. You just never know …”
He tapped the side of his nose.
“… I just have a feeling that they might be of use at some point …”
He was halfway through the door when he stopped and looked back.
“… your brother, Pan …”
“There’s no need Boss, we’ve already said it all.”