When Red is Black - [Chief Inspector Chen Cao 03]

by Qiu Xiaolong

  Chen caught himself shaking his head in resignation. The theoretical possibilities seemed to be unlimited. He could go on conjuring up one motive after another, but they remained nothing but theories; he did not have any facts to support them.

  On the corner of Shandong Road, Chen came in sight of the New China Bookstore. To his surprise, the portion of the store devoted to books had been reduced, and now one large section was devoted to tawdry art and craft products, while another portion, under an impressive array of red paper lanterns, was selling Japanese noodles. He had not been to the bookstore for several months, and it had changed almost beyond recognition. It was like seeing an old acquaintance after he’d had plastic surgery: recognizable, yet different.

  He decided not to go inside, for he wanted to focus on the case. He merely took a look at a bunch of new magazines and newspapers near the entrance: One Week in Shanghai, Shanghai Culture, Bund Pictorial, One Week’s Life. All of them featured big color photos of stars. He did not read any of these new trendy magazines, and only recognized one picture, that of a Hong Kong actress, on one cover.

  Things had been changing very fast in the city.

  Chen then tried to tackle the case from another perspective. Motive aside, what would an outside murderer have done after committing the crime?

  Surely he would have tried to escape immediately.

  In his attempt to get away, there was a possibility of his being seen by someone in the building. But that would not be too much of a risk. In a shikumen building, people might have relatives or friends staying over or visiting early, and a stranger’s presence would not have caused instant alarm. No one would have taken drastic action to stop him from leaving. In the worst-case scenario, if Yin’s body was immediately discovered, one of the neighbors might be able to produce a rough sketch of the suspect for the police bureau later, but such a sketch alone would not be much help to a homicide investigation.

  To stay in her room with the dead body, with the growing possibility of a knock at the door, would have presented a much greater risk. The longer the murderer stayed in the room, the more people would go upstairs and down, passing by the closed tingzijian door, and the more suspicious they would grow if Yin did not emerge.

  According to Yu’s hypothesis, the murderer could have waited in hiding, either in the tingzijian room or somewhere else, until an opportune moment to leave the shikumen building.

  In terms of hiding places, Chen did not think it totally impossible for someone to hide briefly amidst the broken furniture pieces and other junk stored here and there in various nooks and crannies in the building; he might have hidden behind the open back door, for instance, or behind the tapestry under the staircase.

  So either when the shrimp woman stepped away from her position, or when all the neighbors rushed upstairs, the murderer could have escaped in the confusion if he had been waiting in hiding.

  But hiding and waiting involved another risk. If he were found lurking, he would instantly be seen as a suspect and grabbed, or at least questioned.

  Why would the murderer have taken that risk? And why kill Yin? For what?

  Those were questions to which he did not have answers.

  * * * *

  In the afternoon Chen threw himself into his translation work. He had told White Cloud that he would spend the day in the Shanghai Library. Whether she believed him or not, she neither called nor came to his door.

  He had told himself that he had probably done all he could in the criminal investigation. Cops may spend days, or weeks, on a case without getting anywhere. And he could not afford, despite his determination to do his best, to spend any more time on it.

  Toward the evening, he got a phone call from Overseas Chinese Lu. As always, Lu started by referring to a loan Chen had made to him in the early days of his restaurant, Moscow Suburb, and then Lu repeated his usual dinner invitation.

  “Now I have several Russian waitresses dressed in white, tightly laced corsets and garters, as if they were walking out of those posters of old Shanghai. Absolutely sensational. Customers have come pouring in. Particularly young customers. They say the atmosphere is full of xiaozi.”

  “Xiaozi—petty bourgeoisie?”

  “Oh, yes, it is a fashionable new term. Xiaozi—petty bourgeoisie, a sort of trendy, highly cultivated, status-conscious consumer. It is particularly hot among those white-collar workers employed by foreign joint ventures. ‘If you are not a xiaozi, you are nothing.’”

  “Well, the language surely changes,” Chen said, “and it changes us too.”

  “Oh, by the way,” Overseas Chinese Lu said at the end of the conversation, “I called your mother yesterday. She had some stomach problem. Not serious. Nothing to worry about, I trust.”

  “Thanks. I’ll give her a ring. I talked to her two days ago; she didn’t mention anything to me.”

  “She talks about a lot of things to me, you know, about your ginseng, about your work, and about you, too.”

  “I know, my dear old pal. Thank you so much.”

  Putting down the receiver, Chen thought that if he were going to take White Cloud out to dinner one of these evenings, it would not be to Moscow Suburb, even if Overseas Chinese Lu insisted, as always, on treating.

  His buddy and his mother had in common an overanxiety about what they both called “the most urgent matter” in his personal life, what Confucius regarded as the most important duty of a filial son. The worst unfilial thing is not to provide offspring for the family. Overseas Chinese Lu had somehow become his mother’s loyal and enthusiastic consultant on that particular aspect of Chen’s life. Any girl seen in Chen’s company, however unlikely, would immediately give rise to fantasy, no matter how unsubstantiated, on both their parts.

  For one second, Chen almost envied Overseas Chinese Lu—a successful businessman, and a good family man too. Lu managed to keep up with the newest fads, but at the same time he remained conservative, traditional in his concern about his friend.

  Perhaps Lu had adapted better to the times, combining the old in his personal life and the new in business.

  Chen cracked his fingers, and moved back to his desk. Back to work, which alone did not disappoint him. In fact, his work often gave him a place to hide.

  A new idea occurred to him. Even if he could not uncover the murder motive, he could speculate as to why the murderer chose to hide and wait, in accordance with Detective Yu’s hypothesis. A possibility at once suggested itself. The murderer might have been afraid—not of being seen, but of being recognized by the neighbors in the shikumen building. That opened up a number of new possibilities. The murderer could be someone who had once lived in the house, someone who had stayed there, someone who had been there before, even though not as a resident, someone who had met other residents in the shikumen building—or even in Yin’s company. When Yin’s body was discovered, he might be found easily because his identity was known. That’s why he had to hide himself at such great risk.

  Soon, however, Chen’s excitement began to fade. He realized that this way just another possibility, like all the other possibilities in his mind. There was no evidence to back them up.

  * * * *

  Chapter 16

  C

  hen the investigation took a surprising turn. Wan Qianshen turned himself in to the police for the murder of Yin Lige.

  This happened on February 14, a week after Lanlan had discovered Yin’s body in the tingzijian room and two days after Old Liang had taken Cai into custody. According to his own statement, Wan had murdered Yin not for the sake of money, but out of a long-held, class-conscious grudge against her.

  Initially, Old Liang was nonplussed, but then he readily embraced the surprising turn of events which, after all, fit his original inside-murderer theory. Wan had been on his list of suspects from the very beginning. Yu, too, should have been pleased with the breakthrough, but he was not. In fact, as he sat in the company of Old Liang and Wan in an interrogation office of the district
police station, he was confounded.

  “Yin Lige deserved it,” Wan said in a low controlled voice. “She had slandered the Party and our socialist country. Indeed, her death was long overdue.”

  “None of your political lectures,” Old Liang said.

  “Tell us how you did it,” Yu asked, taking out a cigarette but not lighting it. “Give us all the details.”

  “I did not sleep well the night before. That is, the night of February sixth. So I got up later than usual on the seventh, but I still wanted to go to the Bund. As I went downstairs, Yin came up. By accident, I brushed against her on the stairs. I did not mean anything by this; the stairs were narrow. She snapped, ‘Still a Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Worker Team Member?’ That was way too much. She had the damned nerve to insult the working class to my face. In a moment of uncontrollable rage, I turned back, followed her into her room, and smothered her with the pillow before she could shout or struggle.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I realized that I had killed her in a moment of blind anger. I had not intended this. So I pulled out the drawers and tossed the contents around, so that people might suspect a different motive.”

  “Now, the first time I talked to you,” Yu said, “you told me you had been out on the Bund practicing tai chi. Why this sudden confession?”

  “What would have happened to me if I had told you the truth? I knew. Besides, it was not premeditated. If she had not provoked me that morning, I would not have lost control. Why should I suffer for this?” Old Wan said.”But now that you have taken Cai into custody, the situation’s different. I had to do some serious thinking. Cai is a criminal, perhaps, but he should not be punished for something he did not do.”

  “So you are no longer worried about what will happen to you?”

  “I did what I did, and, as a man, I take responsibility.”

  “Now, what did you do after you killed Yin?”

  “I went back to my room. I saw no one on the stairs, but it was touch-and-go; the moment I stepped back into my room, I heard somebody coming up, and then shouting for help. I waited in my room for a couple of hours. I did not leave it until nine, the hour I usually come back from the Bund.”

  In view of all their theorizing and the work they had put in, this sudden confession seemed to Yu like an anticlimax, but Wan’s statement seemed to make sense. Some of the details fit.

  “One question for you: you said you pulled out the drawers and tossed the contents around, right?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Do you remember what was inside the drawers?”

  “No, I do not remember. It all happened so fast, like in a movie, I did not have time to think.”

  “Surely you can remember something,” Yu said slowly, patiently, “if not every item.”

  “Well, there was some cash, I now remember, some ten-Yuan and five-Yuan bills.”

  “Did you take the money?”

  “No, of course not. What kind of man do you think I am?”

  “Well, we will find out. We will talk to you again.”

  Yu signaled for Wan to be taken out of the interrogation room.

  “Wan might have a motive,” Yu said to Old Liang when they were alone. “But what prompted his confession? Cai has not even been charged; he’s only in custody. What is the relationship between these two, Cai and Wan? “

  “Come on, Detective Yu. They are neither relatives nor friends. Wan might do anything but cover up for Cai. Wan had a fight with Cai not too long ago.”

  “Oh? What was that about?”

  “Neither Lindi nor Xiuzhen makes much money, and they are a family of six, including the son’s live-in girlfriend. If Cai did not help financially... in fact, that’s one of the reasons Xiuzhen married him, so the family could eke out a living. Wan urged Cai to give his family more support, and Cai retorted that it was none of Wan’s business.”

  “Well, neighborhood squabbles are not surprising.”

  “There’s another thing, Detective Yu.”

  “What?”

  “Both you and I have questioned him about his alibi, and asked him to name someone who could support his statement. But he never did.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So Wan is the murderer. It’s obvious. There’s no need for us to continue to investigate.”

  “But there are still some things for us to do before we can conclude the investigation.”

  “For example?”

  “Wan touched a lot of things in Yin’s room, according to his own account. So he must have left his fingerprints there. The initial report about the fingerprints is not conclusive, as there were so many blurred or indistinct prints on every surface, but I don’t think Wan’s fingerprints were listed. We should double-check the fingerprint report. “

  “Yes, we can do that.”

  “Also, Wan mentioned some cash, five- and ten-Yuan bills, in a drawer, but we only found some coins. That’s suspicious.”

  “Well, Wan may not have remembered so clearly.”

  “At the moment, we have only what Wan himself says. If that’s true—I mean, about his getting up and moving about after six on that morning—some of his neighbors might have seen him, though they did not pay him any special attention at the time.”

  “We may check that too, but I don’t think you have to worry. In addition to his words, we do have some hard evidence,” Old Liang said in a suddenly boastful voice. “In Wan’s loft, I found a train ticket to Shenzhen for next week.”

  “Have you already searched his room?”

  “Yes, as soon as he made his confession. This is the ticket. I came across it in a notebook in his desk drawer. I had not really expected to find the murder weapon, but the ticket speaks volumes.”

  “So—” Yu had intended to ask if Old Liang had obtained a search warrant from the police bureau, but the question might have sounded pedantic. In the years of class struggle, Old Liang could have searched any home in the neighborhood without bothering about a search warrant. “Let me take a look at the ticket.”

  “It means that Wan planned a trip to Shenzhen,” Old Liang said as he turned the ticket over. “I have double-checked with the neighborhood committee. Wan does not have friends or relatives there. He is a retired worker, and he has no business there. The answer is self-evident. From there, he could try to sneak over to Hong Kong. A lot of people have done that. Wan knew that if he did not make his getaway, it was only a matter of time before we got to him.”

  It sounded logical, except that the ticket was for a soft sleeper, a detail Old Liang had overlooked, Yu thought, as he studied the piece of paper that he held. Why should Wan have paid the extra money for a soft sleeper if he were going to Shenzhen for the purpose suspected by Old Liang?

  “What did he tell you about the ticket?”

  “That’s more or less what he said.”

  “Can I keep the ticket?”

  “Sure.” Old Liang looked up at him in surprise. “When you think about it, there’s something else suspicious about him. As a residence cop, I should have noticed it earlier. About half a year ago, Wan started going out early in the morning—allegedly for tai chi exercise on the Bund. Yin also went out for tai chi in the morning. But there’s one marked difference. She practiced not only in the park, but in the lane too, especially on rainy days. Wan has never practiced here. That’s not like a tai chi devotee. No, I don’t think he told us the truth.”

  “Well, Wan may not be such a wholehearted exerciser. He only turned to tai chi, he told me, because the state-run company he had worked for can no longer cover its retirees’ medical insurance.”

  “That old die-hard still lives in the days of the Mao Zedong Thought Team, and he grumbles all the time. That’s why he committed the murder. Tai chi or whatever is just an excuse. He followed her around, to become familiar with her routine. Then he acted.”

  “Did he have to follow her around for months in order to kill her at home early that morning
?”

  “Is it so impossible?” Old Liang said, becoming impatient with these questions from Detective Yu.

  “Let me make a phone call to Dr. Xia first, Old Liang, to ask about the fingerprints.”

  “Whatever you want, Comrade Detective Yu.”

  * * * *

  Afterward, alone in the office, Detective Yu admitted to himself that it was not absolutely impossible.

  Wan’s entire life—or most of it—had been the product of a totally different society. In the sixties and seventies, Chinese workers had been praised to the skies as the masters of society, the makers of history. People like Wan committed themselves unreservedly to Mao’s revolution, believing in their contribution to the greatest social system in human history, which, in turn, promised them a lot too, including retirement benefits: a generous pension, full medical coverage, and the political honor of being retired masters basking in the warm sunlight of communist China. Now these retired workers found themselves, helplessly, at the bottom of the heap. The praise for them as the “leading class” was irrelevant. They had a hard time making the ends meet. What was worse, state-run companies, going downhill, could keep few of their earlier promises.