Dragon's Eye

by Andy Oakes

  “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.

  “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 gro
tesque 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.”

  Chapter 28

  Six ten by eight inch prints … black and white.

  One A4 typewritten sheet.

  One brief, hand-written note.

&nb
sp; 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.