Authors: Andy Oakes
*
A quarter bottle of brandy … Greek. Four cheroots. Countless pisses. Three abortive attempts at sleeping. At last Zhiyuan gave up, the smoke in his eyes, on his tongue, in his brain. He searched for his black book, its corners worn, polished … a smell to its leather covering of dried sweat, wood panelled committee rooms, powerful cadres. Fumbling for his half glasses. Index finger leafing through dog-eared pages and down the lists of numbers. A Beijing code. A prefix … 39. Mis-dialling twice. The third time it connecting immediately. Ringing over and over again. When it was finally answered, the crystal clarity of the line was unmistakable, unlike any other in the country that didn’t go through a special exchange.
3:30am … a voice soaked in tiredness.
“Wei …”
“Zhang Chunqiao, comrade … this is Zhiyuan telephoning from Shanghai. I apologise for the hour, but my call is of the utmost importance. Very serious, comrade. Very serious.”
“What time is it?”
Coughing. A flap of bedsheets. A sense of movement at the Beijing end of the line. The Politburo member sitting on the edge of his bed.
“It is 3:35 Comrade Chunqiao …”
The Shiqu Chairman breathless. Wiping the sweat from his palms on the arms of his chair.
“… it is late, I know, but I have news that could not wait. Very important, comrade. I could not sleep.”
“It had better be important Zhiyuan, I have a Politburo committee meeting at 9:30 …”
Coughing again, this time with the tiredness shaken adrift.
“… so, you could not sleep and decided that I should not sleep also. Well, I think that you had better tell me what this is all about.”
The smell of urine, its acidic bite watering his eyes … Zhiyuan pushing the chamberpot under the bed with the side of his foot.
“It is Liping, Chief Liping of the PSB. I have undeniable proof that he is implicated in the murders of eight people, possibly more.”
*
The old comrades telephone was official property, owned by the Shiqu. Religiously Zhiyuan logged his call into the book beside it. His writing shaky, too much brandy, too much adrenaline, too little sleep. Every detail of the call noted. Duration, telephone number, who to, why?
To report concerns regarding Chief Liping of the PSB, and to demand an immediate emergency meeting with senior officials with the view to his arrest and charge for multiple homicide.
Comrade Chunqiao would move swiftly. He had an immediate grasp of the magnitude of what Zhiyuan was telling him. He talked of the implications, the outcomes to Liping and possibly others. He thanked Zhiyuan. He would act on the information forthwith. Telephone calls would be made; insistent that meetings would be held. Liping’s arrest would be swift. A show trial would ensue. A trial that would clearly state to all, that the laws and expectations of the People’s Republic of China applied to all … from peasant to Politburo member. Factory worker to the highest of cadre. It would end in a high profile execution.
The Shiqu Chairman felt a wave of relief wash against the anchors that tethered his soul. Perhaps, after all, the tune that he danced to was still the same. Perhaps the dance steps that had punctuated the doctrines and tenets that his life had been built on for so long, would not need to be re-choreographed.
Zhiyuan was to tell nobody else of Chief Liping’s crimes and indiscretions. It could jeopardise the outcome of the arrest … put at risk the final decision of such a trial. Comrade Chunqiao thanked the Shiqu Chairman once more. Zhiyuan, once more, had carried out his duty to the Party, his duty to the People’s Republic. It was now to be left to him and other members of the Politburo. Zhiyuan could rest assured that all outstanding matters would be dealt with. The telephone line went dead.
Zhiyuan had another brandy before he went to bed. Its fire on his tongue, its fire in his belly. He slept easily, the ghosts unpacked and passed on. Sleeping until 6:30am. A deep sleep. A sleep of celebration. Waking only to the firm knock on the door.
Ivory satin. Black hair.
She was called to the telephone by the a-yi at 3:50am. Moving from the side of the Minister, not disturbing his sedated sleep. Down the large flight of stairs, crossing the marble hallway and into the study in what seemed like a single flow of motion. Slight, almost insignificant of stature, but charismatic in every movement that she made. As if the simplest act had been choreographed meticulously and needed to be performed to perfection. The telephone to her lips, naturally red. Lips that changed their shape with the turn of the minutes, barometers of her mood. Pouting, dripping honey and kisses one instant. The next, whispering shards of glass, spitting nails.
“Comrade Chunqiao, Zhang. I had always assumed that you were the sort of man who had better things to do at this time of the morning than to make telephone calls to other comrades?”
He laughed. A laugh not too short to be interpreted as false, not too long to be experienced as vulgar.
“We missed you at the reception, Lingling.”
“I missed being there and so did the Minister, his health would not allow it, as you know.”
There was a respectable pause.
“How is the Minister?”
Another pause, the question left in the dust. It said everything and more.
“So Comrade Zhang, why do you telephone so early. Can’t your lovely wife keep you in her bed?”
“I was wishing to talk to the Minister. A matter of great urgency and personal importance to him.”
“I am afraid that to talk to him would be impossible, he is unable to take any calls at present. You may tell me. I have his full authority to deal with all matters that do not relate to direct Politburo issues and agendas.”
A long pause, his breathing rapid. The line as clear as iced water. Lingling sensing the importance of what was locking his lips. She had the key to unlock lips, she always had. Totally confident in its ability to slip any lever. She laughed, more of a giggle. It sounded natural. It should, it had been practised often enough.
“Come comrade, you are not usually so reticent. So shy. One of your words is worth ten from any of the Minister’s other colleagues …”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. Mischievous, like a game that children play in the dark.
“… and if it is of great urgency and personal importance to the Minister, then it is of great urgency and personal importance to me also. Surely your silence is not an indication of your lack of trust in me?”
The key inserted, turned, levers slipping aside. And with it, certain, as night follows day, that his words would now flow. So certain, that she would have bet the life of her unborn child upon it being so.
Comrade Chunqiao spoke for ten minutes; there were gaps, silences, but she never invaded them. She had learnt long ago to manage silences, to hold them and nurture them for what they were potentially worth. The rewards coming in words that hadn’t wanted to be spoken. Sticky words, sharp words, secret words …
“Thank you for your honesty Zhang. The Minister will be informed and I am sure will be most grateful. When the position of Deputy Minister is discussed, as it will be in the New Year, I know that it will be your name that will be at the top of his list. A good comrade such as you will not be forgotten …”
She laughed once more. Disarming. The threat hidden in scattered petals.
“… and of course, I take it for granted that the Minister can rely completely on your total discretion regarding the issue that we have discussed?”
“Of course Lingling, of course.”
“Then we have an understanding. Good. Please send my good wishes to your wife and you must come to dinner when the Minister is more himself.”
“Thank you, we would like that very much. And please send the Minister our good thoughts for his full recovery. And our good health to you to, Lingling. How are you feeling, not overdoing it I hope?”
For the first time she sat, her hand crossing ivory silk to the slight swell of her stomach.
“Life, it is a wonderful thing. Sacred. To have a new life beating inside of you … I cannot find the words to really describe it …”
Life. Death. She had the rare ability to separate their intrinsic cycle. Owning one, discarding the other.
“… thank you for your wishes, Comrade Zhang, and I can assure you that I intend to take it very easy indeed.”
She waited for a few minutes after Chunqiao’s call before pressing the two buttons; the telephone number programmed into the unit’s memory. Drinking in the view, the moonlight fanning through the branches of the trees and spilling across the garden. The line connected, ringing just three times before it was picked up. To be answered so quickly, he could not have been asleep. Her words, few. To the point. No niceties. And then the call was over. Life. Death. Separate issues, but both breached within minutes of each other. The words of each still warm in her mouth. It was 4:00am. She would go back to bed now, sleeping to as late as she pleased. She intended to take it very easy. Her hand passed over her stomach. Life, it was a fragile weave that needed to be nurtured.
*
He placed the receiver gently back on its cradle and walked out onto the balcony. A rip at the base of the sky where the clouds ate into it; as red as bull’s blood. The glow beginning to tinge the surface of the lake. Texture pulling from the darkness. Detail coming into focus. His hand moving over the close crop of hair, the air refreshingly cold against his skull. Eyes moving to the fire, the pit of white-grey ash. Embers winking orange. And the smell … there was nothing quite like the smell of a fire in the morning’s early hours. Some basic quality about it that travelled down the millennia and which sat at the primeval core of all of us. He stood on the balcony for some time, Lake Taihu dancing to a pale pink wash. The colour of his secretary’s knickers. Chilled by the time that he stepped back into the room. Picking up the glass of Dukang and the telephone receiver … knowing by heart the number that he would dial. A man’s voice at the other end of the line, instantly alert.
“It’s Liping. I have another job for you.”
*
Hot steel and horns, the traffic fixed motionless in exhaust fumes. Changle Lu closed where it joined Fumin Lu. Between the bumpers and the shimmer of heat from radiators, glimpses of blue print on shiny white tape. Police incident tape strung out across the intersection.
“Fuck it … Zhiyuan!”
The Senior Investigator threw open the car door, dodging between the cars under the tape. The Shiqu Chairman’s room fifty metres away; between it and Piao, at least six patrol cars across the road, over the kerb and straddling the pavements. Some with headlights on. Blue lights lazily revolving. A scattering of PSB officers, photocopied from the same original. Olive green and brass. Peaks over eyes. China brands in the corners of their mouths; old jokes pissed from the opposite corners of their mouths. Piao running between them, his badge held high above his head, the Big Man already twenty metres behind. His cheeks, red balloons about to burst.
On the stairs the smell of blood, rust and honey, all mixed up with the aromas of cooking. Detective Yun was leaving the room. He looked pale, his acne bled to the colour of paper.
“Senior Investigator Piao. I have been trying to see you for many days now. Your cases, Chief Liping would like me to familiarise myself with them.”
“Zhiyuan, what’s happened?”
“Are you alright, you look terrible?”
The Senior Investigator pushed past, Yun reeling against the door.
“Don’t go in there, it is a terrible mess and this is my investigation. I said that it is my …”
“Fuck your investigation.”
Nothing in the room had been touched. A brandy bottle, top unscrewed. Half glasses beside the bed on the table. Orange piss in a chamberpot, pushed half under the bed. It was dark, the curtains were still closed, the room lit only in fierce bursts of bluey-white. A Bureau photographer in a dance of half bends and stoops. A high pitched whine as the flash gun re-charged … a thump, a jolt as it discharged. Skin-tones blasted to the hue of ice. A spray of arterial blood across the hearth, the fireplace, over the mantelpiece … spotting the gallery of photographs. And against a bed leg, the back of Zhiyuan’s skull.
The Shiqu Chairman lay in the centre of the room, on his back. A pool of blood, around what was left of his head … still soaking into the carpet. Glistening as each flash discharged. So much blood, so impossibly much. The two entry holes, an inch apart, in the centre of Zhiyuan’s forehead … re-defined. Neat, incredibly neat. 7.65mm … type 64 rounds, rimless. Standard security issue. Their exits, wildly ragged, obscene. The rear of the cranium, a hole that Piao could have plunged both of his fists into. But it was the Shiqu Chairman’s nose that held the attention in pincers. It wasn’t there. It was missing. In its place, a rude black crater. Edges neat. A solid river of dried blood tethered from it in a deep flow across the lips, mouth, chin. A thick stripe of life flowed away, pooling in the shallow of the neck and across the chest in a ruddy reservoir.
“They’ve cut his fucking nose off. Shit Boss, why would they do that? Why the fuck would they do that.”
Piao shook his head. So many questions, so few answers. A lump of bile in his throat the size of a mooncake. The photographer closed in … a flash thumped into the Shiqu Chairman’s face. The Senior Investigator falling to one knee, palm across the twin lenses, pushing the camera aside.
“I need a torch, has anyone got a torch?”
An officer stepped smartly forward. Piao took the rubber sheathed torch and handed it to the Big Man.
“Hold it steady.”
From an inside pocket he took a pair of tweezers, inserting them into Zhiyuan’s mouth. Stainless steel rattling against enamel. Blood across his tongue … his teeth pink with it. The passage of the mouth stopped with blackness, solid. Piao poking his tweezers at it; the mass retreating further into the Shiqu Chairman’s throat until he was able to, with a thrust, half impale it, half pinch it. Drawing it out slowly, carefully. Black becoming brown, becoming an angry butcher’s shop red in the bright cut of the torches beam.