Authors: Andy Oakes
“Lili, my sister-in-law. You remember?”
Candy floss. Baby pink chiffon. The puffball. Yes, he remembered Lili.
“The New Year dance at the Shanghai Mansions, very prestigious. We had wished to invite you, with you escorting Lili. But of course, under the circumstances, you understand?”
Perhaps clouds did have silver linings? The Senior Investigator pulled the door open, stepping into the disinfectant tainted air of the corridor. How long would it be before he wouldn’t be allowed to open a door at all? Saying nothing to Detective Yun as he left the interview suite. Walking out of the kung an chu and into a midday devoid of any clouds at all.
The package was small, fastidiously wrapped. Just Piao’s name handwritten on the tight brown paper. He slit the tape and carefully unfolded it. She had saved everything, packaging, string, paper … why was he still saving rubbish for his wife? He screwed the wrapping into a tight ball, throwing it against the far wall. It felt good.
At the heart of red and gold marbled paper and the fine layers of tissue … a box. Rectangular, polished wood, as pink as a woman’s lips. Inside, velvet. At its centre, a cigarette lighter. Recognising immediately that it was identical to Haven’s. Running a finger across its flawless solid gold sky. Underneath the base of the velvet lining was a chamois leather pouch and a simple buff message card. It was written in black ink. Each letter a flourish of serrated edges.
A gift. For someone who also appreciates perfection in all of its forms.
The Senior Investigator held the lighter, flicking it on a half a dozen times. A half a dozen dull clicks, in a rapid volley. Studying the flame. Almost white, almost invisible. It would be easy not to see the flame at all; a man could get badly burnt. Watching it die, the instant that he removed his fingertip from the flush gold button. Reverently placing it back in its box. Closing the lid. Walking to the high cupboard of spilling drawers; the very bottom one jerkily pulled open. Inside, pictures of his wife. Mementos of their wedding. Her letters to him. The whole drawer holding her smell, as the mind holds the memory.
“Perfection,” he whispered, as he placed the box deep into the drawer and closed it.
He pulled his jacket on and walked down the stairs and into the long. A cerulean mid-morning. Clouds scant, like spilt rice. A day for parks. Bottles of
Jiu
… and a niece’s and nephew’s warm hands.
The Big Man was drunk and ecstatic. His words, slurred skid marks, fuelled by a complimentary fusion of pre-New Year celebrations and good news. Good news that had been worked for, nothing better.
“Wu, I’ve tracked the scrawny little shit down. It’ll cost four packs of Panda Brand Boss.”
What didn’t cost two packs of Panda Brand?
Piao said nothing. Listening to the voices, the laughter, the words of the drinking song in the background of the telephone call,
‘If wine were not beloved of the Heavens, Those Heavens would not contain the star of wine.’
“The day after we pulled those bodies from the mud, when the doctor was so fucking helpful, he was driven to a government zhau-dai-suo in Jiading District, near the Dachang Airfield. He’s been moved around regularly ever since …”
The Big Man stopping to overfill his mouth with beer. Piao could picture its foam dripping from the young detective’s series of chins.
“… they’ve even provided the doctor with his own fucking car and chauffeurs. The car’s a black Shanghai Sedan.”
A sudden sense of a bottomless disappointment, almost palpable. Piao almost having to steady his feet.
“If Wu has been entrusted to them he will be dead by now.”
Yaobang laughed. In the background of the call, the drinkers, their song, reaching a climax of premature ends,
‘If wine were not beloved of the Earth, Its fountainhead on earth would not exist.’
“But that’s why I needed to talk, Boss. I saw the little shit myself two hours ago. Wu isn’t dead, they’ve got him in another government guesthouse north of the city in Baoshan …”
The Big Man halting briefly to drink again. Piao could hear the beer gurgle to the back of his throat, the rough material of his cuff wiped across his mouth and stubble.
“… for them to do that, Boss, the doctor must be fucking important. Too important to kill, too important to let loose.”
The Senior Investigator losing the rest of Yaobang’s words in the swell of drunken singing,
‘Only when draining all the pleasures of the moment is a man happy; therefore never leave the golden goblet standing empty in the moonlight.’
Piao put down the phone. He would have joined them, but he’d run out of beer.
In the crowd, a man … static in a swim of torsos. His back, hard against the shop window; the glass as grey as smoke, twisting with a flow of reflections. The crowd thinning.
“There, crossing the road.”
Tight against the shop fronts, following him through the growl of traffic. Bumper to bumper. A metal corridor, shape shifting, edging forward in exhaust fumes. Catching him at the junction of Changshou Lu and Jiangning Lu. Yaobang taking the old man’s arm by his skinny wrist, forcing it behind him and up to just below the nape of the neck.
“Very unprofessional them letting you go out shopping by yourself …”
Doctor Wu’s lips twisted to form a shout, the Big Man’s other hand coming around, clamped across his mouth, forcing it back down his throat.
“… make a sound and I’ll break your fucking arm.”
Wu’s head snapping around, seeing Piao; questions and pleadings in the pale amber of the old man’s eyes. The Senior Investigator answering at least one of the questions.
“It’s true, doctor, he will break your fucking arm.”
The long was dark, sunlight never entering it. Just impressions of shadow, chrome, and birdshit. The car couldn’t be seen until you were almost upon it.
“Fucking dogs.”
The Big Man kicked out at the stray that was pissing against the front wheel of his car. Missing it, but it yelped out of the long as if he hadn’t. Wu was pushed into the front seat beside Piao and handcuffed to the inside of the door. Exhaust fumes choked the alley, the Big Man lighting a cigarette, handing one to Piao.
“Hey, Boss, why is it always my car that dogs piss on.”
The Senior Investigator engaged the gears. The car in a death rattle.
“Why not,” he said in China Brand smoke, as he drove out of the long, piercing the heavy traffic on Haifang Lu.
*
Night folded in … the windscreen scrolling midnight colours. Across the clasp of Wu’s lined face, beats of yellow street light. Yaobang in the back, examining his tie in the pulses of available lamplight. Breakfast stains. Lunch. Supper stains. Piao driving, always knowing the plan. Always knowing that Wu wouldn’t talk, but firing the questions anyway. Always knowing that the old man would need an incentive. Now moving south and then east. Dangerous thoughts. Dangerous games. That incentive, nearing.
“That night on the foreshore, there was something that you recognised.”
Moving across the Wusongjiang, scarred in bridge light reflections. Ripples stitched in mercury.
“Only that you are dangerous, Piao. I said it that night, didn’t I? A rogue. Now take me back, I will be missed. They will come for me. They will come for you.”
“They will not come for you yet, doctor. Whoever ‘they’ are, only call at the zhau-dai-suo every two days. We have eyes also …”
Headlights, full beam, spearing the shadows.
“… forty-eight hours, doctor, and I will only need forty-eight minutes with you.”
In the back, the Big Man flexed his fingers, joints popping.
“And I will only need forty-eight seconds.”
From Hongkou, stealing into Yangpu. The refineries south of the Zhonghua Shipyard burning off their gases. Through the gap in the window, a taste of its heat on air. The sky singeing to a deep copper hue.
“Was it the identities of some of the bodies that you recognised, or what had been done to them?”
A smile. A nervous cough from the old man.
“What were you telling me that night in refusing to examine them, Mr Senior Police Scientist?”
“Walk away Piao, while you still have the legs to do so. I also said this to you. Walk away. It is not yet too late.”
Above the steelworks, black spanning into black … arms reaching from both sides of the Huangpu in a proposed handshake of girders, rivets and concrete. The New Yangpu Bridge, unfinished. Between the wide gap where the stretching spans had not yet arced and embraced, a spit of cold ivory stars. Piao moved onto the highway, just constructed, just opened. The slip road for the bridge twisting up and away to the left. A puzzle of barriers, cones, heavy plant, workers’ huts, pre-fabricated site offices, fenced stock depots.
“The name of Haven, do you know it … Doctor Charles Haven?”
“It is not too late Senior Investigator. Walk away, go home to your bed and bury your head under the sheets.”
At speed, spinning the wheel, taking the long curve up onto the slip road. The bridge nearer. The stars nearer.
“But it is too late, doctor.”
Wu’s eyes in the slashes of floodlight … panic tethered in sepia. Pulling hard on the wheel as the slip road uncurled onto the concrete surface of the bridge. An arc-lit racetrack, sprouting a forest of cones. Far ahead, picked out by the headlights like white sutures piercing in and out of raw flesh, a double barrier marking the point where steel and concrete became chilled air and a deep drop to the Huangpu’s invisibly black wash.
“Are you mad Piao? The bridge is not yet complete. You cannot pass over it.”
The accelerator floored. Steel screaming. The parapet racing past in a thudding strobe of grey pierced with dark grey. The old man pulling on the taut handcuff chain, fear breaking through the flimsy material of his calmly delivered words.
“What are you doing, Piao? You will kill us, don’t you understand … you will kill us all.”
The Senior Investigator catching Wu’s stare, that of a rabbit in the centre of the road the instant before the wheel comes down. And the old man catching the look anchored at depth in Piao’s eyes. Chilling him to the heart. The doctor’s voice, a scream above the shriek of engine.
“Pull over … please, please. What do you want of me?”
City lights running between the braces of the parapet. Cold, so cold.
“I want you to talk. To tell me what it is you know.” Wu, one eye on secrets. One eye on truths. Screaming now,
“They are powerful, too powerful for you. I cannot talk. I am a man of principles. What they are doing has gone too far. I do not agree with it, but I cannot talk.”
“That is something that I have heard before. Tell me something new, old man.”
“For me to say will mean my death. Your death.”
Double barriers marking the edge of the span, a gash in the night … dominating the horizon. Slicing towards them.
“Sometimes I feel as if I am already dead, don’t you, doctor?”
Piao pulled the wheel, skewing the car around the first barrier. Blurs, the night cut in long knives. Tortured rubber. A city running distant. A swerve, a skid … violent and set in snatches of Wu’s face, glistening sweat. The second barrier sprinting in elongated whites, extruded, luminous reds. Brakes floored. Headlights finding blackness only, as they thumped to a halt. Engine stalling. A silence that pressed on the ears with a cold and certain firmness; broken only by the rhythmic tears of breath across the old man’s teeth. Fishing in his pocket, throwing the keys to the cuffs onto the Big Man’s lap. Yaobang untangling himself, straightening his uniform. Making his fingers work. Finding the lock in the handcuffs with shaking fingers. Pulling Wu from the car, onto the bridge. It was cold. Breaths from lips. In an instant, sweat drying. The doctor adjusting his tie.
“A wise decision Senior Investigator. At last, a wise decision on your part. Nothing could have been gained by such a foolhardy act.”
“Bring him.”
Piao already rounding the front of the car. His shadow thrown across the rutted span and into darkness. The Big Man tugged on the chain, Wu stumbling after him. Ridged concrete grafted over rusted steel rodding and girders. The edge of the span, its very lip … five metres away. Knowing that the river was far below, but unable to see it. As if it didn’t exist. Just a hole. Deep. Black.
“His legs.”
Yaobang pulled the doctor toward him, removing the handcuffs. Picking him up bodily. Cradling him. So light … just a bag of bones. And with it, remembering his own grandfather. Carrying him, bed to toilet. Bed to toilet. The cancer holding him in its grip. Wasting him. Ravaging him. So light … just a bag of bones.
The edge of the span. Taking one of the doctor’s legs each. Piao, Yaobang, on their knees; the coldness of the concrete running up their thighs. A weak struggle as they held him by his ankles over the edge of the span. His body in a violent swing. Shirt, vest … riding up over his stomach, his chest. Behind his head, jacket flapping. Loose change, in a fall into blackness.
“That night on the foreshore, what did you recognise, their identities or what had been done to them?”
Nothing. Just dribble in a long thin spit from his lips, set against the backdrop of city … a necklace of living light.
“Talk. I will drop you, doctor.”
Wu, forcing his head up. Eyes locked with Piao’s. Finding the words. The breeze as sharp as a splinter, stealing some of them away.
“You … a dangerous fool, Senior Investigator. I am old … not drop me. You would not dare … execute you … be finished. Stop. Think. I am … city’s Chief Medical Exami …”
His head dropped with an exhausted snap. The lights of Padong hurtling, streaking in a violent barcode.
“Talk. Tell me what you know?”
A sound. A laugh? Humour in even this, or the escape valve of horror?
“Nothing to say. Do not … stupid, Senior Investigator … immediately … pull me up.”
The world in a violent lurch. A half scream, choked, snatched by the wind. Piao letting go of the doctor’s leg and standing. A groan of effort as Yaobang took the full weight of the old man.