Dragon's Eye

by Andy Oakes

  “The key to your door. I will not need it anymore.”

  He watched her glide down the flight of stairs. Across the long to the Red Flag, its door being opened for her. Watching it drive away. Rain bleeding across the black desert of its roof. Not once did he see her look back. It was only when the limousine was out of sight, Piao opening the flat’s windows wide to purge the smell of her perfume, the odour of a septuagenarian’s mouth across hers … that he realised that he had not wished her well in her pregnancy. He closed the windows, shaking from the coldness that was inside him. The tears cutting down his face with the intensity of a welder’s neat beading. And with them, the words repeated, like an endless river of pain.

  “It should have been my fucking baby … it should have been my fucking baby.”

  *

  He sat for an hour, still in his towel. Drained, as if a plug had been pulled on him. Unable to move. File on his lap. Key in his palm, piercing the flesh white with a reassuring pain. Calm while she had been there. Only now being washed by a tidal wave of emotion. Finally he moved, with speed, with resolve. Discarding the file on the bed and the towel on the floor. The shower water, as cold as good-byes. Shaving, beard stubble peppering the soap. Scrubbing his face, his body, with unnecessary force. Watching the foam run down his legs to the discoloured plug-hole. It washing away … her with it. His wife.

  He dressed, nearly putting on his uniform until he remembered, with a painful nudge of reality, that he was still suspended from the Bureau. For breakfast, four cigarettes and a Tsingtao. Reading the file until he had finished another two. One hundred and four entries and exits in and out of the People’s Republic of China within the last five years. Haven was a busy man with a penchant for airline food and terminal queues, as well as gold lighters. The Senior Investigator’s finger trailed the computer data. Characters … times, dates. Matrix dotted meaningless information … structures built from precarious black specs. His attention drifting to the top of the page; darker print, larger dots.

  CENTRAL INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT.

  A name that he’d only come across once before. West of Beijing, driving to the Fragrant Hills during a brief secondment to the City Central PSB on Beichizi Dajie. An old colleague pointing with a cigarette, at a drab unmarked building just beyond the old Summer Palace.

  “The Institute of International Relations …”

  With the words he had spat a shred of tobacco from his lip. It had stuck to the inside of the windscreen. Piao remembering how he had been unable to tear his attention away from it.

  “… it belongs to the Central Investigation Department. Top Secret. So secret that most of us Chinese don’t even know that it exists. They spy on foreign countries. Send operatives abroad under the cover of diplomats, journalists, businessmen, attachés. They do special jobs.”

  The car had turned, the building pirouetting behind Piao’s shoulder. It had been a summer’s day, the sun cutting across his eyes in a shutter of incandescent white.

  “… they say that the Central Investigation Department is so important that it comes directly under the Party Central Committee, not the government. And if they want you they can get you transferred out of any Danwei.”

  He had spat more shreds of tobacco, Piao hearing the sound only.

  “… it’s obvious that they don’t fucking want us.”

  Piao remembered having nodded … and waiting. Waiting for the sound of his colleague’s next spit.

  The Senior Investigator’s finger trailed off the side of the page. Moving to the next report … typed. This time prisons, lao gais. Prisoners’ names, numbers, crimes. The dates, times, locations of their executions. Piao’s eyes following his finger back and forth, from the report to the computer data on Haven. Thousands of executions across the whole of the Republic … Haven in China for every one that had occurred in the Shanghai and Beijing city areas. Coincidence. Narrowing it down … finger moving through the lists of internal travel visas extended to Haven. He had been in the city of Shanghai or Beijing as each execution had been carried out. Not one missed. Coincidence?

  Last entry in the report. Four executions. Location, Virtue Forest. The prisoners … Yongshe, Feng, Decai, Ziyang. Piao closing his eyes, just an instant as he exhaled. Checking the computer data for an answer that he already knew. The Englishman was in the Republic, in Shanghai when all four had been executed.

  *

  The reel to reel tapes confirmed only what Piao had already assumed … informing his assumptions. Haven was Ye Yang’s buyer of the Men of Mud. The girl, squeezing the pips and raising the price with every telephone conversation. The Englishman’s silence, a threat that could be cut with a steel wire. But the material from the Minister Kang Zhu’s office, his and the Central Investigation Department’s involvement, Haven’s frequent periods in the Republic slotting into the lists of state sanctioned executions … what of these? What meaning did they hold?

  At the bottom of the file a few more papers remaining. Haven’s, passport details. Financial profile, long, anonymous lines of figures. Intimidating. Coldly powerful. More than a hint of how wealthy he was. A single A4 sheet rested, creased, at the base of the file. Computer print. Grey, on almost see-through paper. A list of state hospitals, most of them well known; spread throughout the whole of the People’s Republic. In thick cuts of biro, four firmly underlined. Two in Shanghai. Two in Beijing. Hospitals of excellence, teaching hospitals, whose rigours and skills fed the rest of the People’s Republic. At the bottom of the page, indented in black upper case bold and also underlined. A name. A title that he didn’t recognise, towing it into position, midpage …

  CONSULTANT SURGEON CHARLES HAVEN.

  Picking up another Tsingtao. Warm to the touch. The concentration seeming to press itself on the inside of his skull.

  “Fuck. Fuck.”

  Executions. Shanghai, Beijing. Haven’s movements. Teaching hospitals … also in Shanghai and Beijing. The Englishman … a surgeon, a consultant. A jigsaw of important things, only of important things. How he hated jigsaw puzzles. He finished the beer, thinking of refrigerators that would really chill a Tsingtao. Thinking also of what his grandfather had once told him … ‘important things, they only become important when you discover their importance for yourself.’

  *

  The Senior Investigator’s interview with Detective Yun was harrowing. Pushed and guided by Comrade Officer Chief Liping’s unseen hand. Meticulously, a frame-up being swung and manhandled into place. Piao being shunted to the dark edge of the abyss, in a meeting punctuated by lukewarm tea and snatches of the acned detective’s views on the rumba, the polka … and the tango. It was all very friendly, almost jovial. But it was obvious in which direction the current was flowing. New witnesses had ‘unexpectedly’ come forward from Zhiyuan’s neighbourhood, people of good reputation and fully paid-up Party cards. They placed the Senior Investigator in the vicinity of the old comrade’s flat in the early morning of the day that he was murdered. One even had Piao running to his car and driving off at speed.

  The result, for the time being … he was to remain suspended. Not allowed to go beyond the city limits. Serious charges were in the process of being drawn up. Yun ended the interview, standing, his finger snapping down on the tape recorder. Walking to the door. The light reading the Braille of his acne like a barcode.

  “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 clo
uds at all.

  Chapter 32

  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.

  Chapter 33

  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.

  Chapter 34

  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?”