Authors: Andy Oakes
“For them it is uncomplicated. I will be their murderer. I will have killed the comrade who could have dug a hole for them. They will be my executioners, another who could have dug a hole for them. They will have slit two chickens’ throats with one slash of the knife.”
He turned the taps off. Only the sound of her chopping the cabbage filling the room. She hadn’t heard. Perhaps she wasn’t supposed to.
“When you’ve finished the washing-up you can peel these onions,” she said.
The Senior Investigator turned, foam across his forearms, the hairs swept into mimics of the traces that waves leave upon the wet sand of a beach.
“All of them, do we need so many?”
Barbara looked up, mischief plaited into her smile.
“No, but I just like to see a grown man cry.”
*
Barbara’s finger traced the outline of the face in the photograph. A heart shaped trail of hard colour through the dust. The face beautifully austere … a jigsaw of perfect features held in perfect unison. Suddenly feeling that her own reflected looks were the photograph’s negative.
“Your wife?”
“My wife. Lingling.”
Pulling her toward him. Pressing her against the wall. Fast, violently, as if anything less powerful would lose her. Let her slip away. Barbara’s breath, five spice and lemon grass. Pepper sauce on her lips. Silk, cotton, her clothes … still warm, across the floor. Again, entering her to secret words. Breath on his shoulder, his neck. A tattered perfumed warmth. Earlobes pinched between teeth. Chest to chest. Sweat to sweat. The second time had been even better. He’d thought about it, planned how he would touch her, rob her body of its treasures. How he would regain the territories that she had claimed on the first occasion that they had made love. She kissed him, as if it were a first kiss, a last kiss. Giving everything. With Lingling it had been so different, as if she was relenting, giving into something that was a part of a contract. Hard ink on hard paper.
“What you wrote about going back to America. I know that it looks impossible that we will find the killer of your child …”
His mouth against her neck, moving up to brush the outline of her jaw. The sweet fruit of her earlobes.
“… but we will find out who was responsible. It is my promise to you.”
Barbara’s finger across his lips. A dam on the trickle of words. A sudden sense that they would be the last that he would ever speak to her. The last that they would ever share.
“Don’t make promises that you can’t keep Sun. They’ve got this case screwed up tight and both of us with it. Bobby’s killer will never be found. We both know that.”
Removing her finger. Replacing it briefly, too briefly, with her lips. But their taste had changed. Salt and airport lounge coffee. She had already said goodbye.
“I’m leaving for New York on Saturday with Charles Haven.”
… just a little luck.
Suspension … the shit on the sole of the shoe. The sandwich without the filling. Living as if his oxygen was slowly being turned off, starved. The strings that held him up, snipped one by one … collapsing. And then the shadow of Liping slowly showing itself in a campaign of victimisation. Spite. Piao, a Senior Investigator one day … the next being shaken down in the long by a group of PSB officers. Eyes hiding in the shadows of their peaked caps. Curses, jokes … on the tails of their bad breath. The shake downs soon becoming a daily occurrence every time that he left the flat. And then there were the unmarked cars following him. Faces that he didn’t know. Eyes squinting under heavy brows. And then the litter, the shit … stuffed through his letterbox. The telephone ringing, day and night … all hours. Answering it to no reply. Or to the acidic chanting name calling,
Half breed … tell us stories of your wife.
Small cocks can only hold onto women for a short time.
before the telephone was slammed down. And then the silence. Silence like he had never known before. As if buried under a deep, deep fall of snow. And then the regular searches of the flat, day or night. The knock, harsh and invasive. Men in identically cheap linen suits. Concertina trousered. Hands that had been fiddling with their cocks minutes before, touching his belongings. Tipping his clothes onto the floor. Pulling pictures from frames. Papers from files. But through it all, they never finding what he didn’t want them to find. They never would, never could. And in all of it … the last laugh. And then spaces, gaps, the uncertain, tricky freedoms that living in a bottle fool you with. Suddenly, no unmarked cars. No shake downs. No watching eyes. As if the world had turned a corner and had left you behind standing on the kerb. Left you, paranoid about feeling paranoid. A sudden sense of freedom. Freedom. But picked into its rich material, a constant sense of nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
*
The courier would not be questioned. No ordinary Bureau courier. No uniform. No obvious I.D. No words. Everything about him saying … ‘don’t even fucking bother asking.’ Just the knock on the door. The parcel. The measured retreat back down the stairs.
Piao pushed the dirty plates to the far end of the table. The packaging of the parcel showing no indications of its origins … its contents, every indication. Ten spools of reel to reel audio tape. Dated, plus a coding of numbers from an anonymous government department at its centre. And under the word SUBJECT in thick black marker pen, a name …
YE YANG
It felt extreme, melodramatic, but he checked the telephone, the room, for listening devices before making the call. The flat had a smell, an atmosphere … a delicate balance of nuances that without being fully aware of he sensed and knew intimately. He would know if they had been into the flat, however careful they had been. But why take a risk? A risk is only worth taking when it was so calculated that there was no risk left within it.
“Boss, I’ve been trying to see you, but it’s difficult. I managed to get my hands on a carton of Panda Brand. Don’t ask any questions …”
A pause. An electronic flutter down the vertebra of the silence.
“… that bastard Yun has been grilling me like a fucking lump of pork for two days, so I’ve not had a chance to get to you. Also, I’m being followed. I go for a shit, they go for a shit. I fart, they fucking fart …”
Yaobang lowered his voice, a hand shielding the mouthpiece.
“… he’s out to get you, Boss. The word is that it’s worth a promotion to him. The Chief and Yun are as close as two turds in a toilet.”
Piao closing his eyes for an instant. Pushing the panic down from his head, his chest, his stomach. His legs aching with the cost.
“The alibi?”
“Yun didn’t like it, but I think he’s swallowed it. All that he said when I told him that you were with me at my house with my two cousins that night playing mah-jongg was, ‘why don’t I ever get invited?’ The wanker.”
A laugh as thick as banana toffee. Its freedom making Piao feel envious.
“I need a reel to reel and a set of headphones.”
“Sure Boss. I won’t get them from the kung an chu, but my neighbour will help, I’ll use his. And I’ll bring up the Panda Brand. Why do you need the equipment?”
The telephone receiver slipping toward the cradle. Yaobang only picking up the words as a whisper before the line died.
“Just a little luck.”
*
Piao let the smoke drift from his lips. Pouring the last of the Tsingtao, a glance at the four empty bottles that the Big Man had left behind. And two more packs of Panda Brand remaining … they would sweeten the hours, tame the boredom. He put on the headphones. Laced the tape. Flicked the switch. Adjusting the volume knob. The reels revolving, one slower than the other. Mud coloured tape across the quicksilver of the heads. And he was in the suite at the Heping … the Hotel of Peace. August 11th 09:30am … a sharp metallic click as the line connected. The UXT wire-tap triggered live. Ye Yang, a girl far from home telephoning her family. The Senior Investigator at first listening to everything. Every call, every movement in the suite as the tape switched automatically from wire-tap to the UHF transmitters housed behind the electrical points in two of the rooms. Everything. Ye Yang … showering, shitting, singing. He was there, right now, a part of the dead girl’s past. Beside her as she soaped her back, flushed the toilet. He lit a cigarette and then another, as her routine was laid bare, cut to the bone. Developing a sense, after awhile, of when to fast forward, when to dwell. A sense of when to allow your mind to wander and when to focus. Listening in on her life. An electronic rape … with his finger on the pause button.
At 2:45 he switched the tape off and removed the headphones. Sweat orbiting his ears in sticky bands. For the first time in five hours, aware of the traffic noise. Music from next door. An argument in the street below. All were normal, but now seemed new and louder. He walked to the Park of the People. Groups of fat girls practising their dance for the New Year’s celebrations. Blue knickers peeping from red leotards. Damp patches under armpits. Smiles stamped onto lips clawing for breath. He ate ice cream and drank tea … a constant and nervous desire to get back to the tapes. The rest of the afternoon and evening, a blur of wearying voices and fast forwarded silences. Vast gaps in the tape … blank days that corresponded with the periods that Ye Yang was out of the country on business.
Night came, headlights moving across the flat’s far wall. A pack of Panda Brand finished. The ashtray, overflowing. He’d burnt holes in the cigarette carton with each, before stubbing them out. The rough shape of a star … a five pointed star.
*
“Hi, how are you baby? I’m coming in on the five-thirty plane from Xianyang. Can you pick me up, I’m shattered?”
October 24th 1:35pm. … for the first time, Bobby’s voice. Bubble gum and red Xian dust. Piao listened on for another hour; sleep weighted across his eyelids. At midnight, sleeping for two and a half hours. Reviving himself with a basin of ice cold water. Holding his face below the surface until his lungs were fire … his nose, cheeks, eyelids, numb with cold. Turning on the machine, the tape slowly unloading its cargo from one spool to the other. Call after call … they never stopped speaking now that Bobby was back in Shanghai, back at Fudan. But always a care about what they said. Bobby never talking about his work. Ye Yang never talking about her work. Did they know that they were being taped? Had they been briefed about how to deal with it?
Nothing on the tapes that would get them a parking ticket. Nothing on the tapes that deserved death.
*
The morning sun was luke warm. Looking like a peach that had been squashed by a lorry tyre in the centre of the road, it spread across the sky in an orangey-yellow mash. Piao washed and changed his underwear and shirt. Pulling a jacket across his chest … a new cough, unfamiliar in his repertoire of many, tugging at his lungs. A cold, too many cigarettes? Whatever it was, the air made it worse. He stopped at a noodle shop, stumbling through breakfast … a bowl of rice soup, pickled vegetables, some potato noodles. Still feeling cold, his arms folded across his chest for warmth as he walked around the park opposite. Not enjoying the exercise, but doing it because he thought that he should. Under the trees old people were practising
tai ji quan
exercises. Slow measured movements. Septuagenarian alley cats stalking prey. He turned for home, aching. Buying a brace of Tsingtao on the way.
Through the hours, the measured orbits of the spools, through the taped conversations and telephone calls … a vocabulary emerging. Piao noting it down amongst the doodles and cigarette ash. Pulling the headphones off, angry with himself as he noticed the time. Eight hours without a break. The wall of electronically trapped words only breached by the flow of tea; his tongue coated in tannin, as sour as Sundays without children. He washed his face, returning to the table, eating a stale mooncake. Flakes, sugar brown, falling onto his notebook, across the words … ‘the usual place’. References to the … ‘gift being ready.’ ‘The gift can now he picked up.’ ‘The money for the groceries has arrived.’ ‘The van will arrive at the shop today for the groceries.’
Early December, and a flurry of such calls between Ye Yang and Bobby. A third American voice also taped … Heywood? Telephoning to confirm … ‘that the gifts have been repaired. It took longer than anticipated.’ And to, ‘tell the owner that they will be sent within the next two days.’ Constant references to the van delivering, the van picking up. Qingde … the courier? The Senior Investigator brushed his hand over the notebook, flakes of mooncake in a cascade to the floor. The conversations taken separately, as a string of sometimes just a few words, sounding natural and innocent enough. When put in context, placed together with a couple of dozen other such calls over a period of just a few weeks … taking on a pattern. A totally new feel. Piao now seeing them for what they were, clumsy and unsophisticated codes. Polished veneer over rotting timber.
*
“Ma … Happy Christmas.”
Barbara’s voice riding in the storm of a bad line in response. Talking about turkeys, presents, snow. Even in the fury of the electronic blitz, Piao recognising the closeness of Barbara’s tears as each sentence tailed off. Another flurry of calls in early January, again in the middle of the month. More gifts ready. More groceries to be picked up and delivered.
Tape whipping against steel. The feed spool empty, the take-up spool spilling spirals of tape across the tabletop. Piao loaded the last spool and ran it … ears full of words, mouth full of mooncake. A different tape. A different atmosphere. Too different. Checking the label. A gap between the start of the new tape and the end of the last tape of two weeks.
Fuck it … games.
He was being jerked along, a dog on a lead. Spoon fed hours of tape that said nothing that he didn’t know. And where there might be new material, important material … fucking gaps. Piao ripped the headphones off and threw them across the table. Grabbing a jacket and a pack of Panda Brand as he slammed the front door shut.
*
A wooden floored open air pavilion and dance floor had been erected in the heart of the Park of the People. A jazz band of six musicians, their average age sixty-eight, playing … ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’ Strings of light bulbs. Red, white, blue, yellow, hanging in the breeze above them. And with it, the smell of beer and mothballs. A thick collar of onlookers crowded around the floor watching the dancers. The weaves, feints, sweeps and dips of the ballroom. Heads swivelling sharply, snapped back on long necks. Hands held high in steeples of rigid fingers. Piao bought a beer and watched the sharp profiles cut shadows from the pools of coloured light. Dancing … everything about it fascinating him. He was a child of the Cultural Revolution, dancing had been forbidden.