A Calamitous Chinese Killing
Page 12
In the car, Li Jun said, “Would you like to hear about the things I found out today?”
Singh rested his folded hands on his belly. “Dinner first?”
“It is true that the brain works best once the stomach is full and the heart content but procrastination is the devil’s tool.”
“Is that a Chinese proverb?” asked Singh. “Confucius?”
“I just made it up,” confessed Li Jun.
“Fine – tell me what you found out.”
“I met a former colleague who is now quite senior in the police department.”
“And?”
“He said that the investigation into the murder was handed to a senior officer named Xie. He’s the son of a Politburo member.”
“The First Secretary must have been pleased that the Chinese authorities took the case seriously.”
“You should know that in the Beijing police, Detective Xie only gets the cases where the outcome is not valued.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has to be kept on the force because of his father’s influence, but he is known to be incompetent.”
“Who would have authority to make such a decision, to assign the case to Xie?”
“Someone senior – like Fu, the deputy head of the Bureau.”
“So the Chinese police don’t want the case solved?”
“That is my preliminary conclusion,” said Li Jun primly, steepling fingers with close-cut spotless nails together.
“Great,” muttered Singh. “Anything else?”
“There are rumours that Anthony Tan is in some sort of business relationship with Dai Wei, the deputy mayor of Beijing. My contact promised to investigate further and let me know details,” continued Li Jun.
“Still don’t see how that can have a bearing on the case,” complained Singh. “Did you ask about the earlier attempted assault? The one you prevented?”
“I forgot,” he confessed. “I will follow up on that tomorrow.”
“Which means you have more information,” said Singh.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you would not have forgotten unless you were distracted by something really interesting!”
“There is more,” said Li Jun, rabbit grin front and centre. “Anthony Tan is having an affair with Dai Wei’s wife.”
♦
Forty-five minutes later, Singh was sitting in a modern, well-lit restaurant with the ubiquitous red pillars, gold lining, paper lanterns and bamboo frescos. The tablecloths were sparkling white, as were the napkins. They were ushered to the table by a waitress who spoke no English but whose cheongsam was slit high up her thigh. She was full of smiles and immediately unloaded a bunch of small appetisers from roast peanuts to seaweed in dainty porcelain dishes. Singh eyed the offerings dubiously. He hoped nothing was endangered – or poisonous. He was handed a menu entirely in Chinese, which he handed back just as promptly, grateful for the presence of his companions. Without them, the only safe way of ordering duck would have been to flap his arms and quack. The dignity of the Singapore police force would not have survived the posting of the clip on YouTube. He pictured Superintendent Chen’s face when the video was brought to his attention and smiled. Wasn’t that what the chief feared the most? That Singh would find some way to humiliate himself and the force? Justice wasn’t at the forefront of his mind. It never was with the bureaucrats.
Li Jun was talking to the headwaiter, a tall and very thin man in a smart black suit. Apparently the girl in the revealing dress was only authorised to show them to their table and hand out titbits.
“So what are we having?” asked Singh.
“Duck!”
He wondered why it had taken so long to order.
“And beer?” he asked hopefully.
Li Jun summoned the tall waiter back with a waved hand and launched into a further order. Apparently, beer was as complicated as duck.
“So why did you leave the police force?” Singh needed to fill the time with small talk since the small snacks were unpalatable.
“It was an unfortunate misunderstanding,” explained Li Jun.
The inspector waited for clarification.
“I was investigating the murder of a woman – she was quite well known, a model worker and member of the Party.”
“You couldn’t solve it?”
“Quite the opposite! I realised that the killer was an H.C.C., a discarded lover of the woman.”
“An H.C.C.?”
“A high cadre child.”
“What in the world does that mean?”
“The children of the Party and business elite,” explained Li Jun. “They are usually considered to be untouchable, above the law. That is certainly how most of them see themselves.”
“So you were not allowed to arrest this murderer?”
“I did not ask for permission.”
“Oh!”
“Also, the press got wind of the situation.” Li Jun smiled a little wistfully.
“What happened?”
“I…er…opted for early retirement.”
Singh grimaced. Wasn’t that what his superiors would dearly love him to do? However, to be fair to Superintendent Chen, he’d never actually prevented Singh from arresting a murderer – usually they just didn’t like his shoes.
“And the H.C.C.?” he asked, gulping his beer and then wiping his frothy upper lip with the back of his hand.
“Because of the press interest, the authorities had no choice but to prosecute him. He was found guilty and executed by firing squad.”
“At least justice was done,” murmured Singh.
“I take some comfort from that,” agreed Li Jun. “But things that are done, it is needless to speak about…things that are past, it is needless to blame.”
“You made that up too?”
“Confucius.”
The waiter arrived with a large, red, crispy creature on a tray. As he watched in awe, the waiter sliced and diced the duck, extricating slivers of skin and slices of meat and arranging them neatly in a bed of fresh lettuce. Singh was glad he had not received the duck’s birth certificate or whatever they were offering. The lettuce was so green that he wondered whether the chefs had spray-painted the leaves as the organisers had done to brighten the grass during the Beijing Olympics.
Copying Li Jun, he placed a white round pancake on his plate, dipped some skin and tender flesh into the dark sauce and placed them in the centre. Singh added some spring onions, garlic and cucumber sticks, rolled it neatly, fumbled with his chopsticks, which were resting on duck-shaped porcelain holders, abandoned them, picked up his roll with his fingers and took a huge bite.
“Good?” asked Li Jun.
“Mmmm,” agreed Singh, mouth gummed shut by the duck sauce.
A waiter, waved over by Li Jun, took a photo of the two of them with Singh’s phone. Apparently, a really good meal had to be recorded for posterity. Singh couldn’t disagree with the principle although if he’d photographed every satisfactory meal in his long years as a connoisseur of curries, he’d have a few albums worth.
Singh scanned the round tables packed into the room – the Chinese were positively Arthurian in their fondness for a circular top. There were a number of prosperous-looking men with fat bellies, accompanied by women with low-cut dresses. By the look of things, Da Dong appealed to only two types of clients: foreign tourists and wealthy Chinese. Even the clink of glasses and the rattle of chopsticks suggested prosperity. The pitch was of fine China and thin glass.
“As you see, only tourists and businessmen can afford this place,” remarked Li Jun.
“The majority of foreigners seem to be white men in business suits,” noted the inspector. “How do they feel, I wonder, kowtowing to China for the first time in history?”
“I think entrepreneurs are happy to do what it takes to make money,” said Li Jun. “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.”
Singh raised an enquir
ing eyebrow.
“Deng Xiaoping,” clarified Li Jun. His eyes narrowed. “It seems that politicians can also afford this place.” He continued in a lowered tone, “That man over there, in the red tie, is Dai Wei.”
Singh stared openly across the room. Dai Wei, deputy mayor of Beijing and cuckold, looked like he needed a couple of cushions to sit on to reach the table. From his pink, shiny face, it seemed that he was eating fast and well. A nubile young woman sat on his right, occupying herself with placing morsels on his plate. Even from the distance, Singh recognised the shape of a Remy Martin bottle. Every now and then the group around the table would laugh out loud and long, usually when Dai Wei had regaled them with some apparently amusing tale.
“And the one pouring his drink is the deputy head of the Beijing security bureau, Fu Xinghua. Together they have spearheaded the crackdown on organised crime in the city.”
It was poor casting, decided Singh, when Robin was the tall, good-looking one and Batman short and dumpy.
“The same Fu Xinghua who appointed Inspector Clouseau to the case?” At Li Jun’s puzzled expression, he clarified, “Detective Xie?”
“Yes,” agreed Li Jun.
As he watched, Dai Wei rose to his feet and left with his entourage, nodding to individuals at various tables on his way out. A man with a very keen sense of his own importance, decided Singh.
He turned his attention back to Li Jun. “There’s another thing. Jemima told me that Justin’s professor was well known for standing up to these land grabs on behalf of villagers,” said Singh.
“Is he Professor Luo Gan?” asked Li Jun.
Singh was impressed. “Yes, that was the name. Jemima also said that Justin used to help this professor out with his work.”
“That could have been dangerous, I suppose,” remarked Li Jun. “There is a lot of money involved in those transactions.”
“We can ask the professor tomorrow,” said Singh, chewing vigorously on a piece of duck and washing it down with beer.
♦
He stroked her hair and wished that he were anywhere in the world but in the bedroom of another man. The silk bedding was too smooth, too cool, for his tastes. He wondered that her husband didn’t mind such a feminine boudoir. The whole room was like an opium den, opulent, dark and scented.
“You seem distracted today.” She pouted.
He turned his attention back to her with an effort – and a warning to himself to be careful. She was very quick to feel a slight and he couldn’t afford that. He really couldn’t afford that. She was his last hope.
“I’ve had a rough time recently.”
“Of course, the business with your son.” She made a moue of sympathy with the painted red lips but Anthony Tan felt sick with distaste. “The business with your son” – was that the way she saw the death of his boy? This narcissistic woman wasn’t able to feel or show genuine emotion. He didn’t know how he’d fallen into her clutches. Anthony Tan amended the thought – he knew exactly how he’d fallen into her clutches. The signals had been unmistakable and he’d felt complimented and valued to have caught her eye. There had been something genuinely thrilling about having the wife of such a powerful man at his beck and call, didn’t that demonstrate that he too was destined for greatness? It had been easy too as Dai Wei’s temperament did not allow him to suspect that he was a cuckold.
“I need your help,” he said, throwing caution to the wind. He sat up in the bed, drew the covers up to his waist and propped himself up against the deep purple velvet backboard.
She tried to drag him back down but he resisted. Instead, he gripped her narrow shoulders firmly, forcing her to turn and look at him. In the low light from a single lamp, her eyes were pools of darkness.
“What is it?” she asked. “What do you want from me?”
“You say that you care about me…”
“Of course I do!” She giggled and then put thin fingers to her lips. “Do you think I cheat on my husband with just anyone?”
Anthony wouldn’t have been in the least surprised to discover that he was only one in a long line and perhaps not even the only one at that moment. Her porcelain skin, tracings of blue veins visible like fine strokes on a Ming vase, her bow-shaped mouth, the unexpectedly large eyes that suggested a depth of understanding of weakness and pain – these were all a disguise. She was as cold-blooded as a reptile. Her only interests were her face, her wardrobe and a deep desire to betray her husband on whom she depended for everything and whose generosity and wealth she flaunted like a peacock.
“No,” he said. “I believe that you and I share a destiny.”
She leaned in closer to him and he felt his body react. He was disgusted with himself, unable to control his urges, no better than an animal.
“So will you help?”
“What do you need? I hope it’s not money.” Suddenly, she was distant, the voice like a cold wind from the Mongolian plains.
Anthony guessed that a few of her outside interests had probably sought to feather their nests before she lost interest, desperate to make the relationship count where it mattered, in their wallets.
“Of course not,” he said, gripping her hands in his and trying to look as if he cared about her, about a single thing in the world other than the safety of his remaining child. The voice again in his head – ‘ you still have a daughter’. He would do anything to keep Jemima safe from threat. For now, he would not even consider the possibility that his actions had contributed to Justin’s death.
“What is it then?” The wariness was apparent in the stiffness of her usually languid form.
“I just need you to ask your husband to…to get me that planning permission I need. I told you about the project some time ago.”
She wasn’t interested, he could see that. The eyes were inward looking, bored. She was tugging at the sheet with thumb and forefinger.
“Those are business matters, nothing to do with me,” she said. “Do you not find it peculiar that you are asking me to intercede with my husband whom we both betray in this manner?”
He was silent for a moment, trying to formulate a response that would get her on his side.
“I am concerned that you have just been using me,” she continued.
“You don’t understand my motives, my darling. If I can complete this deal, then nothing can stand between us. I will be able to keep you like a precious songbird in a gilded cage. Surely that is the future we have dreamed of together?”
She smiled and reached for him although he knew very well that she would never leave a piggy bank like Dai Wei; she just enjoyed role-playing the great romance. “Very well then, I understand that you have our interests at heart. I will see what I can do to influence my husband to help my lover.” She found the thought amusing because the tinkling bell-like laughter rang through the room.
♦
Singh awoke early the next morning because his phone rang.
He reached for it with a sleepy hand and growled a ‘hello’.
“Inspector Singh?”
“Yes.”
“This is Susan Tan.”
He sat up straight in bed, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. What was he to tell her? So far he had intimations, no more, that all was not well. Nothing substantive enough to report to a grieving mother. How to tell her that he suspected her husband to be a crook and an adulterer? Or that the daughter was unhappy and had secrets, but whether they pertained to the case was anyone’s guess?
“I had a call…”
This time he was awake enough to pick up the tension in her voice.
“And?”
“It was a woman, she said her name was Qing. She claimed to have some information about the murder.”
“What sort of thing?”
“She wouldn’t say. She called to make sure the reward was still being offered. She saw the poster we put up at the hutong. I said it was, of course.”
“Did you get her contact details,” demanded Singh.
Singh paused to ponder this latest development. He reminded himself that callers for a reward were often the least credible witnesses, prepared to say anything for a fast buck. And how would a factory girl have stumbled upon important information about a killing?
“So you made an appointment?”
“She called off in a hurry, someone was coming and she had to go. She said she’d contact me again to make arrangements for payment and to hand over the information.”
“It might just be someone after the reward money, making things up,” warned Singh. It was one of the reasons he didn’t like offers of compensation for information. Every crook and kook crawled out of the woodwork claiming to have seen something, heard something, done something. And Susan Tan’s hopes had been raised; he could hear the eagerness in the higher pitch of her voice.
“I was sceptical as well at first,” said Susan.
“What changed your mind?”
“Her voice was trembling. I’d always assumed that was a figure of speech, but she was terrified.”
“I guess we’re just going to have to wait until she calls back,” sighed Singh. “Contact me the moment she does. Make sure you insist on meeting her and hearing the information she has in person. We need to get our hands on this girl.”
“What will you do in the meantime?” asked Susan Tan.
“Follow up other leads,” replied the policeman.
♦
Singh had a quick shower, scrubbed his teeth with a frayed toothbrush, new ones made his gums bleed, and carefully tied his turban around his head. He’d chosen a dark blue for the day, a neutral colour signifying nothing. It was his usual choice. Singh was nothing if not a creature of habit. Why would he want to wear white and show the dirt or orange and look like his head was on fire? The six yards of dark cloth went around his head neatly. No woman swaddled a baby as efficiently as he cocooned his head. Feeling relaxed now that his head was swathed – his wife had once referred to his turban as his comfort blanket – “Why else would you wear it? It is not as if you practise our religion! Always smoking.”