Authors: Andy Oakes
“Trouble?”
The driver stopped picking at his teeth, wiping his finger on the underside of the dashboard; straightening his posture.
“Not for us, Comrade Officer.”
“Then for who?”
“Wang, him and two others. Today’s the day they collect their prizes. It’s in an hour’s time in the stadium.”
Piao thumped the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.
“Shit.”
The driver smiled. Investigators … all braid and balls. Awake only when it was pay-day.
“Where have you been Comrade Officer, on the moon? Wang’s is the execution of the year.”
There was no room to turn. They would have to park and walk until they were free of the crowds and could get a taxi or pedicab. He revved the engine in anger, his eyes hard into the driver of the Liberation Truck.
“I have been investigating murders, Comrade Officer … and what have you been doing, investigating the cracks between your teeth?”
The driver smiled and wound up the truck’s window, continuing to pick at his teeth. Piao parked and guided Barbara through the crowds, away from the stadium.
“What’s wrong, where are we going?”
By now they should have been back at the Jing Jiang. Drinking coffee. Drinking Dukang. Her, him, away from everything else. The rest of the world beached and neatly hung on a hook.
“We must go, it is bad to be here.”
“But why, it doesn’t look dangerous. Look around, people seem to be having fun. There’s a real buzz about the place.”
The Senior Investigator increased his pace, pulling her behind him.
“No, no. It is not good. We must leave.”
“But why?”
“We must leave. We must.”
Barbara stopping dead. Wrenching her arm from his grip. A gap between them, the crowd pushing through it.
“What’s going on? You’re blocking me. We’re having a great day and then you pull something like this on me.”
Hurt in her eyes. Piao pushed his way toward her. Lowering her arms, placing them by her sides.
“The covered stadium, that is where they are going …”
His eyes leaving hers and looking over her shoulder at the reflection of his face in a shop window, the carnival passing by behind him.
A real buzz … people having fun … nothing dangerous.
“… they are on their way to see a public execution.”
*
The stadium was full, a capacity of twenty-five thousand seated. The Senior Investigator showed his badge once more. It was met by a salute.
“We can still leave. We do not have to be here.”
Barbara shook her head. She was close to him, he could almost taste her lipstick; wanting to taste her lipstick.
“I need to see this,” was all that she said.
“But why, when you do not have to see it?”
“I need to see this …” she said again. And Piao knowing, that sometimes truly to know death, it must be tasted. Not read about. Not studied. Not viewed on a cinema screen. But tasted. He nodded, and firmly taking her arm, they moved forward. They stood in the tunnel, in the shadow, away from the blind of spotlights. In the centre of the arena, a raised stage pooled in arc light and already studded with dark suited high cadre and polished and preened PSB. An open-topped lorry moved up the tunnel from the road. A deep throb of engine, belching diesel exhaust. It passed right beside them, filled with olive green uniforms. High cheek boned impassive faces, some fixed with black lensed glasses that offered back no reflection. At the top front, three figures. Two in white shirts, eyes looking down. Between them a taller man. Handsome, black jacket buttoned to the neck. Its cut sophisticated, not Chinese. On his shoulders, the white gloved hands of the PSB officers. The lorry plunged into the arc light. The officer’s black lenses blazing white.
“His name is Wang Jianye. He was a high cadre, the planning chief of Shenzhen in the south. He accepted bribes of one and a half million dollars while he was a director of a municipal planning bureau. He was also keeping a mistress. They extradited him from Thailand to stand trial.”
The lorry approached the stage and stopped, the PSB filing out. The three brought forward, marched from the vehicle; one of them supported under his arms, his legs folding beneath him. Wang moving more confidently. A sense of resignation glimpsed in each footstep.
“Who are the other two in the white shirts?”
“Officials. Tiny fish. Minor cadre. Wang is the big one. The highest ranking official ever to be tried and sentenced. Beijing is involved in an anti-corruption drive. There is much concern in the continued rise of economic crime. Senior officials have ordered that the campaign is to be pursued with a renewed vigour. Wang, he is the example that shows that the campaign is working …”
Piao lit a cigarette, offering one to Barbara. She declined.
“… I have never seen an execution before. I have always been able to transfer to other duties.”
She reached across and held his hand. His fingers, cold, rigid. Wang was pulled forward, flanked by two officers. An official rose and read out a list of his crimes in a voice that was harsh and over-amplified, pumped out over loudspeakers for the benefit of the crowd.
“Injustice! I am innocent!” Wang shouting out, his voice small. The crowd starting a chant of ‘kill, kill.’ And then it all moving so fast. Two PSB Officers forcing Wang’s arms back, like flimsy black wings. Throwing him down onto his knees. The officers stepping back, but Wang remaining in position as if transfixed by the moment; the unfurling of the seconds that would end his life. A third officer marching forward, stubby rifle in hand. Bracing himself. The end of the barrel pushed firmly to the base of Wang’s skull. Steel … so cold, kissing skin. A plume of smoke, silver-white, in a lazy twirl. Wang pitching forward. And then the sound. Not the sharp crack that Barbara had expected, more a thud that seemed to slam into her. That seemed to pinpoint, to package, every act of violence that she had ever witnessed.
“Jesus.”
She felt herself jump. A numbness working its way up from her legs. Piao’s hand tightening around hers. His other arm around her waist, leading her back down the dark tunnel, through the barriers, towards the road. Her face looking back across her shoulder towards the arena. The puppet limp body of Wang being loaded onto the lorry. A dampness spreading down the back of his jacket. A vomit of blood, scarlet, falling to green … dripping from his mouth and onto the grass. He would be cremated within two hours.
They were out of the stadium and into the road. The loudspeakers calling to attention the list of economic crimes of the next criminal to be executed. That he was an, ‘obstacle to the progress of the economy … a maggot in the rice sack.’
The world had turned, night swept in on a wave of car lights. Everything different now.
Barbara’s eyes narrowed in their glare.
“How many do they execute?”
“It is not known …”
Piao pulled his collar up. There was a chill in the air, the weather on the turn.
“… but it is many. We have sixty-eight offences that are now punishable by death. Fraud, hooliganism, illegal share speculation, spreading superstition. The offences increase; the executions increase. At this time of the year we have many public executions at mass rallies.”
“Why at this time of the year?”
The Senior Investigator led them into Xietulu, moving east. Snatches of PSB in doorways, readying themselves for the crowds to decant onto the streets. Piao hailed a pedicab and they seated themselves in the rear. Petrol and piss smelling cushions. Barbara’s hand seeking his as the motorised rickshaw struggled to build up speed.
“You said this time of the year … there are more executions around now?”
The Senior Investigator removed his hand from hers and lit another cigarette, his features shunted sideways by the brilliance of the flame.
“It is nearly the Lunar New Year. It is a time for traditions. New clothes are bought, hair is cut, bills are paid. Lucky characters are pasted everywhere. Families will gather for a feast. Special dumplings and
niangao
, ‘rising higher every year cakes’ …”
He drew closer. Barbara could see the orange tip of his cigarette reflected in his eyes. His skin the colour of copper.
“… the New Year is also a traditional time for settling outstanding scores. A traditional time for seeking vengeance.”
A passing Pedicab backfired and she was back there, at the stadium. Wang falling forward, shadow shortening. The crowd silent. The PSB Officer stepping back. The smoke tumbling from the rifle’s barrel. The tears fell and she could not block them, streaming down her cheeks as Piao’s arm encircled her, his rough jacket smelling of loneliness and hope.
A traditional time for seeking vengeance.
How could such cruelty ever have become so institutionalised?
The Pedicab had built up speed. She closed her eyes. The flick of street light to street light, melting velvet through her eyelids. Each pulse taking her further from the stadium. How she wanted to be taken further from the stadium …
*
The Jing Jiang seemed as if it were another world; perhaps it was. Tourists, with their smells of soap, leather, perfume … and black market currency deals. Attentions already focussed to the next destination on their twenty-one day itinerary. Piao walked her to her room.
“Tomorrow, your visit to Gongdelin prison. I want to go with you.”
He felt the weight of her request immediately burden him. Understanding the words, but not understanding the reason behind them.
“Why would you want to see such a place as this?”
“I need to put Bobby’s death in some kind of context …”
A hundred reasons to say no. Barbara placing two fingers across his lips.
“… you’re not going to block me are you? We agreed to help each other, not cut each other out.”
The coolness of her fingertips on his lips. He wanted to kiss them, bite them. She only removed them when he smiled. She unlocked the door. Switching the light on and slipping inside. Closing the door between them, a gap of a foot spilling pink light. Her head resting on the door frame.
“If you really want to help me, you’ll do this for me …”
The door closing to a fine thread. Pink on pink. Her lips. Her cheek. Her fingertips.
“… you’ll do this for me and then dry my tears.”
He didn’t have time to answer; the door closed.
*
He was at the elevator when her door opened and she called his name; the smile still haunting her mouth.
“Thank you for a very special day, Sun. It meant a lot to me.”
She opened the door a little wider. The side of her face stroked in pastels.
“The execution. It was just something that I had to see. Can you understand that?”
He nodded. Knowing. Sometimes you must give horror a reference point to know its face again in your life, or in the lives of others. She reached out, a hand moving to his arm, his shoulder, the back of his neck. Pulling him closer. Her lips on his. Strawberries brushing stone. A long kiss. A thank you? Friendship? It felt like more … he knew that it was more.
The door closed. He walked back to the open mouth of the elevator … already mentally drying her tears.
Black Shanghai Sedan on the corner of avenues … the junctions of streets meeting as one.
Black Shanghai Sedan … everywhere that they were. Engine running in a lazy pant.
He’d seen it, she’d seen it.
By the Temple of the Jade Buddha. Following them in a slow stretch from Zhongshandong Lu, as they had cruised the Huangpu until it became the Yangtze. As they had eaten lacquered duck at the Xinya, rolling it in a cigar of fine pancake, spring onion and earth red plum sauce … the black Shanghai Sedan, opposite, in the shadows. In the park next to the Longhua Pagoda as they had drunk tea, jasmine on her lips and on her breath … through the trees, the outline of the Sedan broken in a green on green melt.
He’d seen it, she’d seen it.
But no words. No questions, why?
*
Four telephone booths in the lobby of the Jing Jiang hotel …
EENEY … MEENY … MINEY … MO …
The more random the choice, the less the chance of it being bugged?
IF IT WRIGGLES LET IT GO …
The lobby telephones. They wouldn’t bug the lobby telephones … would they? What would be the point, so many use them. How would they identify one caller from another?
EENEY … MEENY … MINEY … MO …
Cursing inwardly. The satellite phone that Carmichael had offered her, why hadn’t he insisted?
Why hadn’t she accepted?
MO …
the booth on the far right.
MO …
the second on the left.
MO …
the first booth.
Waiting until the middle-right booth was vacant. Its mouthpiece still warm … pin beads of condensation on Bakelite. Mouthing Carmichael’s private number to herself. Dialling direct. A bag full of yuan coins in her pocket, and a tight agenda in her head …
“Where are you telephoning from?”
“The hotel. The Jing Jiang.”
“Jesus. Put the receiver down.”
“Why?”
“Put it down, it will be tapped.”
“I’m in the lobby, it’s safe. It must be safe.”
“ Not safe. Safer.”
“So its safer … and I need to talk and you need to listen.”
Silence … in the background, an electronic beat pacing out the half seconds.
“So talk. Talk fast. No names. No precise details. Just generalisations. Got it?”
Silence … the beat stronger … quicker. A snare drum rim hit at double time.
“I want your unseen friends off my back. Understand?”
Silence.
“Was it your idea? It feels like your idea.”
“You need support. There could be more to going missing than there appears. The other party could be trying to apply pressure. They know you’re a mother.”
“I’m a politician first.”
“They know you better than you do. You’re a mother first.”
“ I know what I am.”
“Okay. If that’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want. Also, there’s others involved … watching. I want to prepare for any eventuality. Know what I’m saying? My friend, the comrade. Let’s dig a little. Honey and shit, okay? And then prepare some packages for me to take to the picnic.”