Singh bared his teeth at the mirror. It didn’t seem fair that even when he was away from his wife she remained noisily in his head like a tune for which he couldn’t remember the name. He’d bet the reverse didn’t happen. Mrs Singh was probably gossiping with her sisters or the neighbour without a thought to what he might say, not that surprising as he hardly ever got a word in edgewise. However, her monologue in his brain had reminded him that he fancied a smoke.
“Even before breakfast, you must have cigarettes, isn’t it? If you were a Muslim you would probably eat bacon sandwiches.”
There she went again – at least when he was at home, he could walk away. Or go to the office or lock himself in the loo with the newspapers. Her presence in his mind was much more insidious.
“And then the fatwa police would come looking for you!”
Mrs Singh had a point – he had to be grateful that Sikhs weren’t so militant about punishing deviants. He decided to eschew the smoke and hasten to breakfast. Li Jun was due to meet him that morning and he wanted to make sure he was well nourished before embarking on the fool’s errand that was this investigation.
He stuffed his mobile in his pocket and hurried to the buffet breakfast. To his surprise, it was so crowded he couldn’t get near the food. And the food looked most unpalatable. Singh helped himself to a small pile of bread and returned to his table. He’d barely sipped his first cup of coffee when he looked up over the rim and saw a waiter indicating his table to Li Jun. He wondered how he’d been described – the Indian? Singaporean? Sikh? Short fat guy with towel over his head? It needed to be something pretty definite, the restaurant was more crowded than a Mumbai train station.
Li Jun was wreathed in smiles as he approached. Singh decided he was wearing the same clothes as the previous day. Either that or he had a cupboard full of tatty Mao suits. It was possible, he supposed. He himself had a wardrobe of dark trousers and white shirts circumnavigated by an old belt whose creases marked each year like the rings of a tree.
“Comrade Singh, you are enjoying your breakfast?”
“Come join me.”
“I have already eaten,” explained Li Jun. “But I will have some green tea,” he continued. “It is very good for the digestion when you have reached our age.”
The inspector was not impressed by the slur upon his age or his digestion but he held his peace.
“Susan Tan called with some information. There’s a witness, by the name of Qing, offering information for the reward.”
“That is a good development.”
“Not so fast. She called off before she told the First Secretary anything. We need to wait for her to make contact again.”
The face of the other man conveyed disappointment.
“There’s someone else we need to track down,” said Singh. “Jemima mentioned a girlfriend, suggested we talk to her as well.”
Li Jun nodded his agreement. “What was Jemima like?” he asked.
“Thin,” said Singh. It did not sound like a compliment coming from the man with the heaped plate. “She seems distraught over her brother’s death.”
“How do we find this girlfriend?”
“I asked Benson to track her down.”
“Good idea,” said Li Jun.
“In the meantime, let’s go and chat to the famous Professor Luo Gan!”
♦
Professor Luo Gan was not entirely surprised to find that he was to be strapped to his hospital bed. He was grateful that the leather bands that bound his wrists were sufficiently long that he could raise his head and shoulders a little and look around from time to time. The ward was long and narrow. The lighting was not as bright as he would have expected in a hospital and the distant ends of the room were shrouded in darkness. It had the smell of a hospital, the sharp scent of cheap and powerful disinfectants and the underlying smell of blood and urine. He noted that the personnel, nurses and doctors, all wore military uniforms. This was to be expected; there was no way he would have been taken to a civilian establishment. He lay back down again and turned his head. His sheet, thin and worn, smelled musty and he could see washed-out stains, he didn’t even want to think what they might be. He wondered again why this sudden solicitousness for his health. What was the use of beating him half to death and then sending him to hospital? The authorities moved in mysterious ways, that was for sure. It suggested that they expected to release him some day, no doubt after he had recanted. Luo Gan bit down on his lip so hard that he could taste the sharp iron of blood. He would not do that, not ever. This was his penance.
“I need a sample of your blood.” The nurse – he had not noticed her approach – held up a syringe in a bare hand; safe medical practices were not widespread in China.
“I feel fine,” he responded. This was not entirely true – his body was still throbbing with pain, sporadic bursts as if his body was a strobe light. However, he was well enough to know that given his freedom, he would be able to walk away under his own steam.
“I have to follow orders,” she said, not even looking at him, just gripping his wrist and slapping the inside of his arm, just below the elbow to identify a suitable vein.
“Who are the others?” he asked. “Are they all prisoners?”
She looked around as if noticing the other beds and their occupants for the first time. “Yes, this is a ward for prisoners only.” She extricated the needle from his arm and snapped her finger at the syringe as if unconvinced that he’d produced real human blood.
The professor almost smiled. He was distracted by an orderly who hurried in and said to the nurse in an undertone, “We are looking for blood type A-negative. Anyone here with that?”
Luo Gan lay back against the hard bed and pretended that he’d lost interest.
His nurse was flipping through her charts. “We have two,” she answered. “Bed thirteen and forty-nine.”
“Age?”
“Both are over forty.”
“That’s not good. The director was clear that the request is for a young one.”
The orderly sounded worried, as if failure to obey this instruction might have consequences.
“There is a new batch but we have not identified blood type yet.”
“Better hurry,” said the orderly. “In the meantime, let us go with the younger of the two men.”
Luo Gan listened to the footsteps as they marched away and then turned over on his side as far as his tethers would allow. He noted that the two had approached a bed and were wheeling it towards the double swing doors. He heard the prisoner ask, “Where are you taking me?” as they passed his bed, the voice barely audible over the reluctant squeaking wheels. They didn’t bother to answer him, didn’t even appear to hear him.
“There goes another,” muttered a rasping voice.
It was the prisoner on the next bed, restrained exactly as he was.
“Are you falun gong?” he asked.
Luo Gan nodded.
“Most of us are,” he explained. He raised a hand as far as it would go in greeting. “They call me Xiao Ma.”
Little Horse. It was an ironic name for such a large fellow.
“Why are you here?” asked the professor, noting that the other man was younger than him by a good thirty years and didn’t bear any signs of severe injury. “Were you beaten?”
The other man laughed and Luo admired his ability to maintain good spirits. “Of course, isn’t that part of re-education? How else will we learn the error of our ways.”
“You make a valid point, my friend,” responded Luo Gan.
“How did they find out about you?” asked Xiao Ma.
“I performed the routines under the picture of Mao at Tiananmen Square.”
“So you are a martyr!”
“A martyr is an innocent,” said Luo Gan. “I have blood on my hands.”
Seeing the other man’s puzzled frown, Luo Gan changed the subject. He had no desire whatsoever to explain himself. “Where did they take the other fellow?�
� he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Xiao Ma. “Every now and then they cart one of us away. We don’t see them again. Maybe they have been released back to their families. I myself am waiting to go home.”
“Then why should they care about blood types? I heard the orderly ask for A-negative type.”
“For surgery?” suggested Xiao Ma.
A sense of foreboding descended over Luo Gan. He tried to blank the thought, to erase the sudden fear from his mind.
Xiao Ma must have noticed the death mask that descended over his new companion’s face, thrown into harsh relief by the bare fluorescent tube on the ceiling above them. “What is it? Why do you look like that?”
Luo Gan lay back and stared up, noting the patterns formed by water stains in the same way, as a child, he had looked up and detected glorious shapes in the clouds. He had an overwhelming longing for his daughters, for his home.
“I think I know what they’re doing,” he whispered. “I think I know where they took him.”
♦
“If you do not agree to make this payment, I will not be silent about what I know.”
Qing knew she was playing with fire. Her hands shook even as she tried to keep her voice firm, to project an age and a competence she did not feel.
“What can you do? Who would believe you? I myself think that you are just a lying fool who does not know that it is foolish to meddle in the business of others.”
“I know what I saw, and I am sure that there will be someone who is interested in the news even if you are not.”
Qing knew she sounded like she was reciting television dialogue. On the other hand, what other source did she have to give her guidance on how to arrange this transaction? Indeed, if it wasn’t for her television habit, developed over the long winter months when there was nothing else to do back home, she would not have realised that her luck had turned so decisively for the better.
“What did you see? A man in a car? You are very naive if you think that this is worth any money to me.” His voice was deep and intimidating.
Qing was angry now. There was no way that she was going to be deprived of her windfall. And it gave her courage. “Very well, I will take my information elsewhere. I am sorry to have taken up your time. I know you are a busy man.”
“Wait a minute,” said the man. “Let us not be hasty. Although I think your tale is nonsense, perhaps it is better that I give you some money…as a donation towards improving your standard of living.”
She spotted the opening that he’d left her. “Exactly. It is better that we agree to a solution. After all, you are a wealthy man and I am not asking for much. As you say, a donation.”
“But how do I know that you will not ask for more after I have paid you this amount? Even a deep well will run dry.”
“This is all I will ask for,” said Qing, as convincingly as she could. And she meant it as well. Only a fool would cross swords with this man on a regular basis. She would take the money and disappear forever.
He seemed to believe her because after a short pause, he said, “Will you come here to collect the funds?”
How stupid did he think she was? She had given the practical elements of her plan careful thought.
“I need you to put the money in a carryall and leave it by the bin on the first floor next to the elevator of the Silk Market this afternoon at two pm. The bin is directly outside the shop selling fake basketball shirts. I will be watching. Once you have left, I will collect the money and you will never see or hear from me again.”
She hung up, not waiting to hear his assent. That way he would know that she meant business. Her knees, which had been locked in position to try to keep her upright, gave away suddenly and she sank to the ground. Qing leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to convince herself that what she had just proposed was the right thing to do. It had not been easy to get through to her target, to convince the lowly staffer that she had something to say that merited the attention of the big man himself. But she had succeeded by using the traditional Chinese method of warning the underlings that the buck would stop with them if they got in her way and the boss heard of it. In the end, the secretary had acquiesced.
Qing knew it would be a risk to collect the money, but the Silk Market, six storeys of small stalls selling fake designer goods, would be packed with people. She would be able to disappear into the crowds in a twinkling. She grinned suddenly, her youth asserting herself – maybe she would even be able to do a bit of shopping with her new-found wealth.
Qing rose to her feet and reached for the phone that she had bought just that morning with the ubiquitous disposable SIM card. She was about to throw it into the bin when she had second thoughts. She walked quickly down the street, a young girl, indistinguishable from the rest of the teeming hordes going about their business. When she reached a park bench, she sat down and placed her phone by her side. After a few seconds, she stood up and hurried on. She left the phone behind. She didn’t doubt that someone would find it and think it was his or her lucky day. And if the call had been traced, as she had seen happen on the television, her trackers would be on a wild goose chase.
She walked directly to a small hole-in-the-wall shop selling mobile phones and purchased the cheapest available model. She took the reward poster out of her bag and re-dialled the number she had called that morning.
“Yes?”
“It’s me, Qing. I called you earlier.”
The woman’s voice came back loud and clear, an edge of longing running through it. “Yes, you have information about my son’s death.”
“I do. I think you will find what I have to tell you very interesting.” Qing knew she sounded different from that morning, more confident, more assertive. But she doubted that the mother of the boy would notice. She was fixated on the words, not the tone.
“Where can I meet you?”
“At the Silk Market, at two pm. The pizza place on the ground floor.”
♦
Singh was impressed by the sheer size of the campus. The University of Peking was not short of either space or students. However, when they reached the offices of the language institute they were told that Justin’s teacher, one Professor Luo Gan, was on medical leave.
Singh eyebrows met. “When will Professor Luo be back?” he demanded and Li Jun dutifully translated.
“Not sure,” replied the clerk. She looked harassed; glasses perched on the end of her nose, wide cheekbones flushed along the ridges and long hair hanging loose.
“Everyone is looking for him,” she continued, “asking me when he will be back. But I am not his wife to know such things.”
“But surely you must have spoken to him?” asked Singh. “Didn’t he give any indication?”
An impatient shake of the head accompanied her words. “The daughter is the one who has been calling me each day to say her father is not well. But she has not told me what is wrong with him. Only that he is too sick to come to the office. For three weeks! Lucky it is the semester break, but even so the work is piling up.”
It was a peculiar approach to medical leave, thought Singh. One usually had a rough idea, depending on whether one was suffering a bad cold or a mild heart attack, how long the absence would be. Calling everyday with updates? What sort of ailment lent itself to a recovery schedule that had to be gauged on a daily basis?
“And who will mark the test papers? The dean is getting very impatient.”
Singh reminded himself he was looking into the death of a Singaporean boy, not his professor’s work ethic. It was peculiar though and his long experience working murder cases suggested that anything out of the ordinary might have a bearing on the investigation.
He looked around the office. It was typical of any bastion of academia. Files were piled high. Calendars dominated, two hanging on the walls and at least one on each desk. Dates were circled in red and asterisks were in abundance. What events did they mark? he wondered. End of term dates? Exams? There were grey
filing cabinets along the wall. An open drawer was full to the brim.
“Are you the professor’s personal secretary?” he asked.
The woman looked scandalised, although Singh was pleased to see that she was glaring at Li Jun, still translating quickly. ‘Shoot the messenger’ was fine with him.
“I work for the whole department. But everyone thinks that I am their servant.”
“Did you know Justin Tan?”
“The dead boy? Do you think I am like these professors who do not know what goes on in the real world? That was very bad for the university’s reputation.”
She sounded aggrieved. Getting killed while studying at the university was a sin on par with not informing her in a timely manner when intending to take a few days off sick.
“At least he was not murdered here,” she added.
Singh was forced to admit an unwilling admiration. This creature was a real piece of work. The nicest thing she could say about Justin was that his death had occurred elsewhere. It was quite an epitaph. He hoped he merited better someday.
“You knew him?”
“I saw him sometimes, he was in Professor Luo’s class.”
“Your professor is quite a well-known figure – a crusader on behalf of the people in these land grabs?”
“He is too much of a big shot to talk to me about something like that.”
“But Justin used to work for him on these matters?”
“Yes, he was the blue eyed boy.”
“So the professor must have been really upset when he died.”
“He was distraught. It was as if his own son had been killed.” She smiled slyly. “And maybe it was exactly like that?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Both eyebrows, plucked almost to invisibility, were raised in a knowing way. “The daughter, of course!”
“Professor Luo’s daughter?” Singh was convinced that only his tightly wound turban stopped his head from exploding. He suddenly remembered Jemima’s cryptic parting remark.
“Professor Luo’s daughter was Justin’s girlfriend?”
A Calamitous Chinese Killing Page 13
