Authors: Andy Oakes
“Shit. What the fuck’s that, Boss?”
Piao feeling as if barbed wire had been wound tightly around his stomach, around his heart. The nausea tearing at the back of his throat and across his forehead and chest, a sweat as cold as ice water.
“Get me a bag Yaobang.”
“But what is it?”
“Just get me a fucking bag …”
Piao turned his head to look directly into the Big Man’s eyes, voice lowered. The shock etched into his stare and instantly contagious.
“… it’s his nose. It’s his fucking nose.”
He dropped it into the bag and sealed it. The terror peaking and now coming down. Adrenaline spent … its loose change, a chill filling his chest, spreading across his body in a glacial fever. The Senior Investigator held the bag up to the light; blood smeared over the inside of the polythene in a grotesque mimic of a stained glass window. Another still to be added to the loop of film that would replay through the desolation of his nights. Reluctantly he placed the bag in his pocket.
“I think that you can take it that we have been warned.”
The bar was chrome and glass. You ordered a drink, drank it, paid for it, moved on. No risk of getting comfortable. The beer was chilled, Thai beer, Tiger. As bitter as tears. The waitress’ smile, chillier.
“This is it then Boss, you’re dumping the case …”
His eyes avoiding Piao’s, thinking that he knew what they said, but still not wanting to admit it.
“… you said we’ve been warned.”
The Senior Investigator stared across Yaobang’s shoulder, out of the window. Everywhere feeling uncomfortable. Nowhere was home.
“They were giving me a message. Pulling Zhiyuan’s nose out of his mouth made me hear it more clearly.”
“So that’s fucking it?”
The Senior Investigator finished his beer, catching the waitress’ attention, within seconds, another bottle of Tiger placed next to his elbow.
“The eight from the river. The student …”
He tipped half of the Tiger into the Big Man’s glass.
“… Pan and my cousin, Cheng. Do you really think that I could dump the case?”
He shook his head.
“I was just saying that we had been warned. Nothing else. To be warned is to be told that you are close and getting closer. It is a good sign.”
Across his teeth, the beer as cold as a corpse.
“Nobody saw us at Liping’s zhau-dai-suo. I don’t know how they found out about Zhiyuan, but I do know that if they knew about me, then I to, would be in the city morgue.”
“But where the fuck do we go now?”
Piao looked into the beer, his own reflection distorted. Reaching to his pocket, pulling out a small, well thumbed book.
“We get some tests done on this, it’s a telephone call log book from Zhiyuan’s room. A page is missing, ripped out. Forensic might be able to pick out some details from the indentations on the following page. Beside that, I don’t know …”
He hadn’t eaten; the alcohol setting upon him with claws of velvet.
“… I suppose we try to piece together the pieces that won’t be pieced. Nothing makes sense at the moment, we must live with the chaos of not knowing so many things.”
“Fucking Liping …”
Yaobang spat on the floor. Thick. White.
“… the bastard’s behind it all, Boss. The smuggling, the bodies in the river … the whole fucking lot, I know it. We should march into his office, now. Grab him by the balls and yank him all the way to Beijing to face the Politburo …”
He threw the glass of Tiger into his mouth.
“… he’s a fucking murderer. It’s down to him that Pan’s dead.”
Looking deep into Piao’s eyes.
“… I want him screwed, Boss, you understand that, don’t you?”
He could understand that, but he could understand other things also.
“Walk into Liping’s office now and within ten hours they would be fishing us out of the Huangpu and putting our noses into tiny plastic bags. You know that, don’t you?”
The Big Man nodded, a reluctance running through it like a vein through marble.
“I know, I fucking know Boss. It’s just that it’s so difficult. I miss Pan. I never thought I’d ever say it about the skinny little wanker, but I miss him.”
Piao said nothing. It was a time to be silent, to drink beer. Words only coming when, his arm around the Big Man’s shoulder, they had left the bar and the night air had hit him.
“We live with chaos and pray to the ancestors for some luck … just a little bit of luck.”
*
A day off … but you’re never quite off duty. Trying your best to trick yourself. Doing the ordinary things that others do, but in extraordinary ways. Sleeping, eating, shopping, walking, talking. But all of the time the case in the background. Everywhere, and in everything. A jolt of fear every time a black Shanghai Sedan passes by. Tracking it. Expecting the car to mount the kerb, come at you across the cracked paving stones.
A day off.
*
Liping was already waiting for him.
“A holiday does not seem to agree with you Senior Investigator?”
“My mind was preoccupied with the Huangpu River case. I thought that I might as well be in here working at it.”
Speaking the words, but all of the time, remembering … the smoke drifting over the wall and low across the lake water.
“A complaint from Detective Yun. You’re interfering in his case, the homicide of Comrade Zhiyuan. You have an interest in the case?”
The Chief adjusted his jacket, pulling it taut. Eyes cast down.
“Haven’t we all got an interest in the investigation, Comrade Officer Liping? Comrade Zhiyuan was an honoured member of the Party and was killed, apparently, for no reason and in an extremely gruesome manner.”
“I know how he was murdered, Detective Yun has submitted his report to me. What is your interest in this case, Senior Investigator?”
Impatience tingeing his words.
“I have no particular interest in the case. I was just passing, Comrade Officer, and was able to offer Detective Yun my assistance.”
“The death of Comrade Zhiyuan has complications attached to it. For you, Senior Investigator. For you …”
His lips clamped together, puckering, like a paper cut.
“… the formal charges against you as lodged by Comrade Zhiyuan with the Danwei, these are to be dropped. He was the primary witness in the case. No Shiqu Chairman. No charges …”
The formal charges swept away. The danwei’s hearing swept away. His career saved and all from one man’s blood. But there would be more words … that was life. That was Liping.
“… you will hand me your documents of authority. Your pistol. With immediate effect you will cease all of your duties. You will assure a swift handover of all of your current investigations …”
Out of the window, down the corridor, Piao could see Yun walking to his office. His acne blazing. His shoes dirty.
“… Detective Yun will immediately take full responsibility for all of your cases. All files, material evidence, anything that relates to these investigations will be returned. You will not enter the kung an chu unless invited. And Piao, I assure you, you will be invited …”
Each word delivered as a hook, barb deep.
“… your privileges as a Senior Investigator with the Public Security Bureau are withdrawn. You will assume the position of an ordinary citizen of the People’s Republic of China. You will not travel beyond the city limits. Your car, Senior Investigator Piao, keep it. Where is there to run? Where is there to hide? The Street Committees will be my eyes. The processes of the danwei, the motivations of the Party and its servants, my fingers. Freedom within a bottle, Sun Piao. Freedom within a bottle. Enjoy it while you can …”
Yun stood at the door, smelling of mothballs and shit.
“… Detective Yun will take detailed statements from you.”
“I do not understand what is happening Comrade Officer Liping? If the danwei’s hearing has been halted and the formal charges are not to stand, what is this all about?”
Chief Liping moved from the window. Monochrome melting into colour.
“You do not know what this is about, and you, a Senior Investigator?”
He smiled.
“This is about you being suspended from duty. This is about you needing a very solid and fully sustainable alibi for where you were and what you were doing on the night before last. This is about you being the prime suspect in the murder of our esteemed Shiqu Chairman, Comrade Zhiyuan.”
Six ten by eight inch prints … black and white.
One A4 typewritten sheet.
One brief, hand-written note.
They’d arrived in a thick woven manila envelope …
PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL.
… the manila envelope in a cracked leather Diplomatic Pouch. Barbara popped the seal, removing the material. Fanning it across the coffee table. Averting her eyes from the courier, McMurta. He looked anxious, edgy. In turn, she picked up each print. The images, mosaic grained. Definitions in grey. Photos taken in low light with an exotically high ASA film. The apartment on Dong Hua Men Street … a few blocks east of the Forbidden City, Beijing. Other images, their lines as sharp as honed razors. High definition. Photos taken through a fine fibre-optic enderscope. The Xinqiao Hotel on Dongjiaominlu. A fine gauge hole drilled through the picture rail of room number 92 to the suite next door.
“Oh comrade.”
A whisper. Perfumed breath across her nails. As she read the type. As her gaze returned to the photographs.
“Oh comrade.”
Gathering up the material, slipping it back into the envelope. The type, the name on the bottom of the page and on the note, Carmichael … eclipsed in a manila shadow. The envelope placed back into the diplomatic pouch. He’d done well. Tough talking. Private arrangements. Shit and honey. Very well. She stood, handing McMurta the pouch.
“Pass a message on through your channels. Tell Carmichael that he did well. Tell him that we’ll talk. He’ll know what that means.”
Sure he’d know what that meant. And as McMurta left.
“Tell him not to worry, that we’ll talk sooner than he thinks.”
He left. An all-encompassing reek of tabac, slowly withdrawing its fingers. Barbara sat at the desk, finding the heavy cut glass of scotch in her hand. Across the mahogany grain of the coffee table, Bobby’s postcards … read, re-read.
Yeah, tell him that he did real well …
Not reading them again. Going to bed. Sleeping. Dreaming. Dreaming of six ten by eight inch prints, with a comrade drowning in a wave of broken monochrome reticulation.
“You look tired.”
You look beautiful … thinking it, but not daring to say it.
“It is me who is the detective. How did you know where I live?”
Barbara winked.
“An American government official in China is not without influence Senior Investigator Piao. Now are you going to invite me in or do you really want me to cook this meal on the doorstep?”
She held out two shopping bags from the Jing Jiang’s supermarket, neat, crisp, glossy and sharp cornered. Inside, a series of packages too perfect to want to open. He took the bags, hands brushing … aching to take each of the tips of her fingers, one by one, into his mouth.
“I never refuse a meal. Come in, I will try to find us two clean plates.”
She stepped over the mosaic of letters and followed Piao into the kitchen. A room to inspire nightmares.
“I can see that you don’t believe in wasting time over housework.”
“Housework?”
“Yes, housework. Cleaning. Tidying up. Washing plates.”
She handed Piao a dirty dish, grease on her fingers. Eyes searching for a tea towel that didn’t exist.
“Housework, yes, now I understand housework.”
He smiled, strategically placing the dish back into the sink that was piled precariously high.
“I am sorry. The mess. At my job I am very ordered. Every minute, every day. At home I have no order at all.”
“I did notice.”
She took his hand and pulled him to the sink.
“You wash, I’ll prepare the food. If I can find a space.”
Barbara cleared the table of empty bottles of Tsingtao, opened mail, unopened mail, reports, a half eaten mooncake. Unpacking vegetables from one of the bags … peppers, baby sweet corn, water chestnuts, chillies, cabbage, mushrooms, bamboo shoots. To cook for a Chinese, Chinese food. She was taking a risk. Coming here was a risk. Better to have cooked him a steak. Better not to have come here at all. To leave without telling him.
Again, the question that he had ignored earlier.
“You look tired.”
His face away from her. The water from the hot tap almost drowning out the words of his answer. The steam across the window, blistering into tears. Never ask for anything; never show anything. So hard to change the scripts that our lives are built upon.
“I am being investigated. A Senior Investigator. Investigated.”
Her knife slicing through the mushrooms. The hint of resistance and then the blade moving through the skin, the flesh … unobstructed.
“What for?”
“The tong zhi who raised charges against me, he was murdered. I am considered to be the main suspect.”
Reaching for a red pepper. The knife inserted into its body, cutting around the green cap of its umbilical cord. Cutting away its base. Slicing its torso into equal-sized matchsticks. Juice … watery red, staining the chopping board.
“That’s ridiculous. They’re nuts. Once you give them your statement, where you were, what you were doing, they’ll see for themselves just how stupid it is.”
“You make it sound without complications. Americans do this. It is not like that, not in China. Not for me, not now.”
Layer after layer … dark green falling, lighter … lighter. Steel edge moving through the heart of the cabbage.
“But it is uncomplicated. There was a murder. You were somewhere else. You didn’t do it. See. Uncomplicated?”
Uncomplicated, the word sounded good. Something to crave for. Something that he had never known. A breath heaving, catching across his chest. Like when you were a child, the breath before you sobbed, whilst struggling to hold it all back. Piao turned both taps fully on. Torrents of ice cold and boiling hot water meeting on stained enamel. A shifting gate of steam moving upwards against his face.