by Qiu Xiaolong
“How could you tell?”
“Wu registered for both of them in our office. He had to change a character stroke in his signature.”
“You’re very observant,” he said. “No one makes a mistake with his own signature.”
“What’s more, they registered as a couple, asking for a double room, but instead of showing their marriage license, he only provided me with a statement on official letterhead. Normally, it would be much easier to show the license.”
“I see.” He nodded. “Did you talk to your boss about your suspicion?”
“No, it was just an idea that crossed my mind. In the mountains, I noticed something else.”
“What’s that?”
“It was the second morning, I think. I happened to pass by their room. A perfect day, and everybody was having a wonderful time outside. I saw something like continuous flashing inside their room through the blinds. I felt curious-and a bit responsible too. So I peeped in. I was shocked to see Guan posing nude, on all fours, her legs wide apart, her forehead pressing against her forearms on the ground, like a kneeling dog. He was taking pictures of her. Now why should a couple come all the way to a mountain hotel room to take those pictures?”
“Um, you may have a point there,” Chen said. “Did you speak?”
“Of course not. But later Wu approached me.”
“How?”
“In his professional way, of course. He showed me the advanced equipment he carried in his camera bag. Imported pieces. Very expensive. There was also an album containing center-fold-size photographs of beautiful women, including a notorious actress, and some fashion models and some clippings from well-known magazines.”
“Why did he want to show all that to you?”
“He said that as a professional photographer, he was hot. These women were all eager to have pictures taken by him and published. And he offered to take pictures of me.”
“I see,” he said. “So you accepted his offer?”
“No, not at first. It made me sick, the sight of Guan kneeling at his feet like a groveling dog. Nor did I like the idea of posing for a stranger.
“Right, you cannot be too careful nowadays. What did he do then?”
“He showed me his business card. Only then did I come to know who he was-his real name. Of course, he told me about his family background. I asked him why he had chosen a nobody like me. He said he saw in me what he had never seen before. Lost innocence or something. With his photos, he might be able to introduce me to directors.”
“A trick he must have played with many people.”
“He also promised I could keep all the pictures. A set of fashion pictures taken at a studio on Nanjing Road would cost a fortune, but I would not have to pay him a penny.”
“Well, how was he as a photographer?”
“A real pro. He used up five rolls of film in the first hour. He kept changing the lighting and angles, and kept me changing clothes and poses, too. He said he wanted to capture my most beautiful moments.”
“That sounds romantic.”
“Before I knew it, he wanted me to pose with a towel around my body. He arranged the folds for me, adjusted my positions, and touched me here and there. One thing led to another, and to the bed. I think I’ll spare you the details.’’
“So you were together quite a number of times?”
“No, only twice, if that’s what you mean. During the day I was busy, meeting all the customers’ requests. There were about twenty people in the group. And he could come to me only in the evening-only after Guan fell asleep.”
“And what was he like in bed?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sexually.”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes, details can be crucial in a case like this.”
“As far as I could judge, he was just average, and me, too.”
“Can you try to be a bit more specific?”
“More specific? All right, I want a man to take me up and down until I don’t have anything left. He happened to be that kind. Bang, bang, bang, till the end of the world.”
“Did he show any perversity?”
“No, he always had me lie on my back, with a pillow under my hips, and my legs spread wide apart. Thorough-going, no digression or deviation.” She added, in a sarcastic tone, “We should have stayed in the massage room, where I could demonstrate to your satisfaction.”
“No,” he said, “that’s not what I want. I’m a cop, so I have to ask you these questions. I’m sorry.”
“No, you don’t have to feel sorry. What am I? A trashy massage girl. A high-ranking police officer can do anything with me.”
“A different question-” he said, catching a note of hysteria resurfacing in her voice, “how did Guan come to fight with you?”
“She must have suspected something. Wu came to my room more than once. Or maybe she had seen a Polaroid of me.”
“When did it happen?”
“Two or three days after the photo session, I was alone in my room, taking a break when she burst in. She accused me of sleeping with her man. But she’s not his wife. Wu had told me. It was the pot calling the kettle black.”
“What did you say to her?”
“‘Pee your chaste pee, and see your own reflection in it,’ and she fell on me like a tigress. What a fury. She screamed and scratched, with both hands and all her fingers.”
“Did the hotel security people come?”
“No, but Wu did. He took her side, trying his best to calm her down. He did not say a single kind word to me, as if I were an old piece of mop cloth discarded on the floor. And she was mad, shouting and screaming at him, too.”
“Do you remember what she said?”
“No, I was devastated. Even to think about it now… Give me a cigarette.”
She screwed her eyes shut against the smoke.
Through the smoke, he was studying her carefully, waiting.
“What did she want him to do?” he said.
“Be nice to her, I guess, like a husband-or to be her husband, I think. She was not coherent. She screamed like a jealous wife catching an unfaithful husband in the act.”
“Let me ask one more question,” he said. “Did the fight lead to your quitting the travel agency job?’
“No, not really. It took place behind a closed door. Even if people had overheard, it was none of their business. Guan threatened that she would approach my boss, but she did not do anything.”
“She would not,” he said, “not in her position.”
Her napkin fell to the floor. Courteously he stooped to pick it up for her. Under the table, he saw her bare feet hooked over the bottom rung of her chair, as if cut off by the white tablecloth.
“Thanks,” she said, wiping her lips with the napkin. “I think that’s all I can remember, Comrade Chief Inspector.”
“Thank you, Xie Rong. You’ve given us some very important information.”
The bill was larger than Chief Inspector Chen had expected, but Xie’s information was definitely worth it. The waitress walked out with them, holding the door open.
As they started back to her house, a silence fell between them. She said little until they came in sight of her building.
“You don’t seem old enough to be a chief inspector,” she said, slowing her steps.
“I’m older than you,” Chen said. “Much older.”
A ray of sunshine spilled over her loose hair, illuminating her clear profile. They stood close, her head nearly touching his shoulder.
“It’s one of my mother’s favorite stories. A gallant knight on a white horse comes to rescue a princess from a dungeon guarded by black demons,” she said. “For her, the world’s black and white.”
“And for you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Nothing’s ever been that simple.”
“I understand,” he said. “But I’ve promised your mother to bring her message to you. You’re her only daughter, and
she wants you to come home.”
“That’s nothing new,” she said.
“If you move back, and want to find a different job, I may be able to help.”
“Thank you,” she said. “But I’m making money now, in my way. I’m my own boss here, and I don’t have to put up with any political shit.”
“You’re going to make it a life-long career?”
“No, I’m still young. After I’ve made enough money, I will start something different, something after my own heart. I don’t think you want to come to my room again.”
“No, I have to leave. I have a lot of work.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
“I hope we will see each other,” he added, “under different circumstances.”
“I was-straight-until two or three months ago,” she said. “I want you to know.”
“I know.”
“You know that as a chief inspector?”
“No, but I also want you to know,” he said, “you are an attractive woman.”
“Do you think so?”
“I do, but I’m a cop. And I have been one for several years. That’s the way I live.”
She nodded, looking up at him, ready to say something, but she didn’t.
“As for the life I lead, it is not so good either,” he went on.
“I see.”
“So take care of yourself,” he said. “Bye.” He started walking away.
The smell of rain was in the air as he boarded a bus back to the Writers’ Home. The bus was packed, and he felt sick, covered with sweat all over again. The moment he got to his room, he took a shower. It was the second of the day. And the hot water ran short again. He hurried out of the bathroom. Sitting on the bed, he lit a cigarette.
That earlier shower at Xie’s room was much better. He felt sorry about Xie’s way of life, but he was in no position to do anything about it. It had been her choice. If the job was no more than a temporary one, as she had said, there could still be a different future for her. One thing he was supposed to do-as a cop-was to report her illegal practice to the local authorities. But he had decided not to.
Ouyang had not returned yet.
Chief Inspector Chen realized it was time for him to leave Guangzhou. His mission accomplished, he should have taken Ouyang for a farewell dinner as his treat. But it would make him feel guilty if he kept his nonpoetic identity a secret any longer from Ouyang, whom he had come to regard as a friend. So he wrote a short note, saying that he had to go back to Shanghai onurgent business, and that he would keep in touch. He also left his home phone number.
He added two lines of Li Bai to the note to him: Deep as the Peach Blossom Lake can be, But not so deep as your song you sing for me.
Then he checked out.
Chapter 25
“Chief Inspector Chen,” he said, picking up his office phone. It was Chen’s first morning in the office after his return from Guangzhou. He had hardly had time to make himself a cup of the Black Dragon tea which was Ouyang’s gift.
“This is the office of the Shanghai Party Discipline Committee. Comrade Director Yao Liangxia wants to see you today.”
It was an unexpected call, and the voice from the other end of the line was unfriendly.
“Comrade Director Yao?” he said. “What’s it about?”
“That you need to discuss with Comrade Yao. You know where our office is, I believe.”
“Yes, I do. I will be there shortly.”
Yao Liangxia, whose late husband had been a deputy politburo member in the sixties, was herself an influential Party figure. Why should Director Yao want to see him?
Chen glanced out of his cubicle. Detective Yu had not come in yet. Party Secretary Li would not show up, as a rule, until after ten. He could make his Guangzhou report after coming back from the Party Discipline Committee.
The committee office was in Zhonghui Mansion, one of the impressive colonial-style buildings at the corner of Sichuan and Fuzhou Roads. He had passed the building many times, but he had not realized that there were so many institutions headquartered there-Old Men’s Health Society, Women’s Rights Committee, Consumers’ Rights Association, Children’s Rights Committee… He had to study the lobby directory for several minutes before locating Director Yao’s office on the thirteenth floor.
The bronze elevator had been sprayed with some supposedly high-class air freshener; the air inside felt inexplicably close. He was unable to shake off the sense of being caged even as he left the elevator, which deposited him just in front of Yao’s office.
The Party Discipline Committee had been founded in the early eighties, with its central office in Beijing and branch offices in all large cities. After the Cultural Revolution, it was realized that the Party, with its unlimited, uncensored power, was unable to resist corruption, which would eventually lead to its downfall. So the committee, mainly consisting of retired senior Party members, came into existence to prevent and punish Party members’ abuses of power. Its main responsibility as a watchdog was to exercise a sort of censorship but the committee was not an independent institution. While it had conducted several intra-Party corruption cases, most of the time it barked rather than bit. However, the committee, which was authorized to perform background checks on Party members, was influential in the process of young cadre promotion.
Chen’s knock on the office door brought out a middle-aged woman with an inquiring look. When he handed over his card, the woman, whose voice he recognized as that of the secretary on the phone, led him into an elegantly furnished reception room containing a large oyster-colored leather sofa, flanked by two mahogany chairs and a tall antique hat stand.
He had anticipated that Director Yao would keep him waiting for a while. To his surprise, Yao came out immediately and shook his hand firmly. She led him into her office and had him sit in a leather club chair in front of a huge oak desk.
Yao was an impressive-looking woman in her late sixties, squared-faced with thick eyebrows, wearing a dark suit, which was immaculate, without a single wrinkle. No jewelry. Minimal makeup. She sat straight, appearing unusually tall behind her impressive desk, perhaps due to the combined impression of her starched collar, the splendid view from the office window in back of her, as well as his seat. Sitting in a chair much lower than Yao’s, almost as if he was a witness at an inquisition, he was nervous.
“Comrade Chief Inspector Chen, I’m pleased to meet you today.” Yao spoke with a pronounced Shandong accent, which also fit the image of an “old Marxist woman,” a notorious character in the movie Black Cannon Incident, in which a Marxist bureaucrat made a fool of herself by punctuating her every speech with quotations from Marx and Mao. Chen had seen it with Wang, who joked about his becoming a “young Marxist man.”
“It’s an honor to meet you, Comrade Director Yao.”
“You’re probably not surprised to learn that you are highly regarded by us old comrades, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen. I’ve spoken to a number of people, and they all praise you as an intelligent and dedicated young cadre. You are on the seminar list of the Central Party Institute, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m still young, inexperienced. So I have so much to learn from old comrades.”
“And you are working hard, too, I know. You’ve been quite busy recently, Comrade Chief Inspector?”
“Yes, we’re short-handed.”
“Is there some important case you are responsible for?”
“Several. Every case is important-to us.”
“Well, I have heard that you are investigating the case of Guan Hongying, the national model worker.”
He didn’t know whether that was a statement or a question, so he just nodded. But how could she have heard of it, he wondered.
“Is there any result so far?”
“A few promising leads, but nothing definite. A lot of questions are unanswered.”
“What are they?”
“Such as evidence, motive, and witnesses.” He was gr
owing uneasy, as it was beyond the scope of Yao’s office to be concerned with a homicide case. “At present, everything is just hypothetical.”
“I have asked you to come here,” she said with a stern quality in her Shandong-accented voice, “because I want to know how you are conducting the investigation.”
“It is a homicide case. We are following routine procedure.”
“You have targeted your suspect, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” He saw no point withholding the information. “At this stage, Wu Xiaoming is our main suspect.”
“Comrade Wu Bing’s son?”
“Yes.”
“How could that be? Wu Bing and I were colleagues in the early fifties, in the same office, and Wu Xiaoming used to play with our kids in the same kindergarten. I haven’t seen him lately, but he is doing a good job, I’ve learned from a cadre recommendation report from the Red Star. People have a very high opinion of him.”
“Wu might be doing a good job at the magazine, but he had an affair with Guan. In fact, he called her on the very night of her death.”
“Really!”
“Yes, we have evidence.”
“What kind of evidence?”
He chose to be vague: “At present, circumstantial evidence.”
“So from this circumstantial evidence you conclude,” she said sharply, “that Wu Bing’s son has committed the murder.”
“No, we are not jumping to any conclusion. It’s still under investigation.”
“Still, the news would be a terrible blow to Wu Bing, and he’s in such poor health.”
“Comrade Wu Bing is an old comrade I have always respected. We know he is in the hospital. We know that. So we are being very careful.”
“Whatever Wu Xiaoming’s family background, I am not going to shelter him. Far from it. If he is found guilty, he should be punished. That’s Party policy.”
“Thank you for your support, Comrade Director Yao.”
“But, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen, have you thought about the people’s reaction to your investigation?”
Director Yao was surrounded by walls of thick, gold-edged government books. All the furniture in her office was massive. Everything bespoke the solidity of authority.
