The Hungry Ghost Murder

by Chris West

  5

  Fei Huiqing and her father, Fei Duan, lived in a compound on the outskirts of the village. It was reached by a long muddy path that led at first between high walls then out across small, old-fashioned chessboard fields.

  ‘We share our home,’ Huiqing told Rosina as they crossed a stream and came in sight of the dark brick walls. ‘They moved in two poor peasant families back in the fifties. Now we’ve just got the Lus in the west rooms. The Tais got so rich they built themselves a house on the hillside.’

  Rosina nodded sympathetically.

  ‘Lao Lu was on the Neighbourhood Committee,’ Huiqing went on. ‘One of his jobs was to spy on us. Reports, once a month.’ She sighed. ‘Of course, everyone with a black background – rich peasant or landlord – suffered the same. And Lu was only doing what he was told. He never lied about us, like a lot of vigilantes did. And when I went for that job at the clinic, he put in a report saying I was of good character.’

  Huiqing led the way up a stone-flagged path and reached for a key. ‘That’s my room, there,’ she said, pointing across to a window, which had yellow curtains, as bright as the rest of the compound was drab. She smiled. ‘It’s crazy! People are coining in money now, yet I feel privileged to have a room of my own. Can you believe that? Four walls and I feel like a princess.’

  They crossed to the main, northern door, and entered the apartment. There was no carpet, an old armchair, a table with two unmatched chairs. There was no TV or even a Chinese-made cassette player. On a shelf was a photograph, not as one might have expected of family ancestors, or even of Huiqing’s dead mother, but of Huiqing herself. Beneath it, a stocky middle-aged man in a blue denim jacket and grey nylon trousers was sitting reading a farming magazine.

  ‘Father, this is Lin Xiangyu,’ Huiqing began.

  The man looked up from his magazine but did not get to his feet.

  ‘She’s interested in our campaign,’ Huiqing went on.

  ‘Is she? In what way?’

  Huiqing told her father about the figwort, and about Rosina’s more general enthusiasm for environmental matters.

  ‘From Beijing, eh?’ he said at the end.

  ‘That’s right,’ Huiqing replied proudly.

  ‘I appreciate your interest, Lin Xiangyu – but if you’re visiting, I’d stick to the scenery. Enjoy it while it’s still here.’

  ‘Xiangyu might be able to – ’ Huiqing began.

  ‘It’s a Nanping matter, and must be sorted out by Nanping people.’ He went back to his magazine.

  Huiqing’s room was no less spartan, but somehow it was as alive as the other one had been dead. There were books. Wall-hangings made of collages cut from magazines. Those curtains.

  ‘My father can be gruff,’ said Huiqing. ‘He’s been through a lot. He finds it hard to show affection to me, let alone anyone else. But he has a good heart. He helped my buy these when he didn’t really have any money,’ she added, pointing to the curtains. ‘My one luxury. They still cheer me up every day.’

  ‘They’re lovely,’ Rosina replied.

  ‘Thank you.’ Huiqing paused, then pointed to the room’s one chair. This had yet to receive an upgrade. ‘Make yourself at home. Please.’

  ‘I shall.’

  *

  Bao listened quietly as Rosina described her encounter with the young local nurse.

  ‘All those horrible things that happened to her family … ’ she said at the end.

  ‘They happened to people all over China,’ Bao replied.

  ‘We did that to them. Us, Party members.’

  ‘Mistakes were made – ’

  ‘Mistakes!’

  Bao sighed. ‘You have to understand how bad things were before the Revolution,’ he began, but his heart wasn’t in it. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  *

  When they got back, Mrs Li greeted them at the door. ‘I have a message for you from Party Secretary Wu Changyan. He wants you to go and see him tonight.’

  ‘Oh. I wonder what for.’

  ‘He’ll send a car. At eight o’clock. You’re to come alone.’

  *

  The VW Shanghai pulled up by the high white walls of Secretary Wu’s villa. Bao got out, watched the driver turn the car then lit a Panda cigarette, which he smoked wondering what the local Party boss wanted to see him about so urgently.

  The recent robberies? Station Chief Huang seemed to be doing as much as he could, given his limited resources. Bao would have had someone searching lorries leaving the village – but maybe there was no manpower to spare. There would be complaints from local businesses, too. Years ago, that would not have mattered. Now …

  Maybe Wu wanted some advice about the fish farm. ‘What would your father have done?’ A nice thought. But why so suddenly?

  A thought struck him: maybe Mrs Li had overheard Rosina’s disloyal comments about the Party and his own lack of interest in correcting them, and reported the matter to her boss. He felt a momentary chill of primal terror: the ghost of the Zedong Emperor will never quite leave those who lived through his reign. Then he composed himself. Most likely the Secretary wanted some business favour done via contacts Bao might have in Beijing.

  The inspector took a drag, recalled Rosina’s perpetual reminders that the last third was the most poisonous, then smoked his Panda properly, right down to the stub. Then he opened Wu’s iron gate and made his way up the path to the Secretary’s front door.

  As he rang the bell, Bao cast a quick eye over the main lock – a simple affair, unlike the fortress that had been the home of Chu Youming.

  The door opened. ‘Come in!’

  Secretary Wu’s home was a contrast to Chu’s, too. There was a simple hallway; the sitting room contained a few pieces of mahogany furniture, a rug in the middle and scrolls of calligraphy or classical landscapes on the walls. Nice stuff, especially that river scene. Wu pointed to a chair beneath a shelf with a marble bust of Karl Marx on it, and told his guest to sit down.

  There was a coldness in his voice that did not suit the occasion, and no offer of refreshment, which Bao felt was very inhospitable.

  ‘Inspector Bao Zheng, when we welcomed you to Nanping, we did so in good faith,’ Wu began. ‘Your father was a man of outstanding integrity and loyalty. You had a good record of service to the country, both in the People’s Liberation Army and the Public Security Bureau. We thought – well, never mind what we thought. It seems we were wrong. We are bitterly disappointed in your conduct. I’m afraid I must ask you and your wife to leave the village as soon as possible.’

  Bao was so taken aback that he couldn’t find any words.

  ‘If you have business to conclude here,’ the secretary went on, ‘do so in the next two days. If you and your wife are not out of the vicinity by Friday at ten hundred hours, I shall contact your superiors in Beijing and lodge a formal complaint. I shall do the same if either of you have any further dealings with subversive elements in our village. Naturally, you cease to be the guest of the local Party as from now. I don’t know what the tourist rates are at the guesthouse; you’d better ask Mrs Li tomorrow morning.’ He paused. ‘That’s all I have to say. You can go now.’

  Bao got slowly to his feet. ‘I don’t know how you dare … ’ he began, then gave a sigh. Lose temper, lose face.

  ‘I’m expecting further company this evening, so I’d be grateful if you would leave promptly,’ Wu went on. ‘Once again, I must say how disappointed I am that you have abused our hospitality. The driver will take you back. Goodbye, Inspector.’

  Bao stood and stared at his host. Then he turned and walked out of the room, the house and the compound.

  *

  ‘It’s my fault,’ said Rosina, when Bao told her. ‘Huiqing said I shouldn’t associate with her.’

  ‘There’s more to it than that. There has to be.’

  ‘How? Did you upset the local Station Chief? Is it something to do with Ming?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘I
hate this place,’ said Rosina suddenly. ‘So much pettiness. That poor woman has been harassed for years because of her class background. And now that jumped-up little shit-shovelling nobody starts treating you like that.’

  Bao loathed that term, shit-shoveller, for a peasant. But now he just nodded agreement.

  ‘I’m damned if I’m running away,’ he said finally. ‘We sit this one out. Wu can complain as much as he likes. Beijing won’t take any notice of a – well, what you called him.’

  He walked out onto the verandah and looked over the visible lights of the village. He felt a lump in his throat. He could hardly cry in front of his wife, and once he was outside, what he felt was not sadness but rage.

  ‘My father worked himself to an early grave for you bastards,’ he muttered. ‘When I get back, I’ll see that your bloody fish-farm never gets beyond the planning stage,’ he muttered. ‘Never.’

  Then thoughts came into his mind about how inferior people could drag superior ones down to their level, and he simply stood and stared out over the village. After a while, Rosina came out and joined him. No words were said. She put an arm round his waist and he let his head rest against hers.

  ‘Let’s go to bed,’ she suggested finally.

  ‘That’s the first sensible idea I’ve heard all day.’

  *

  Next morning, Bao sat eating his breakfast steamed rice on the verandah. While part of him wanted to stay here, to challenge Wu and show he wasn’t going to be pushed around by that pompous bastard, the rest of him had decided they should leave quickly and quietly. Anything else might stir up trouble for Ming.

  He and Rosina would go to Qufu to see the hometown of Confucius and then spend a few days by the sea at Qingdao. That would be a proper holiday for a hard-working, respectable couple, not messing around with idiots like this.

  The noise of a motor-bike cut into his thoughts. The vehicle emerged from the trees. It belonged to Station Chief Huang.

  Bao was more amused than anything else. Had this clown come to arrest him? He contemplated giving the overweight peasant a physical hiding, and the thought gave him a frisson of pleasure. But, again, the thought of Ming’s well-being came to mind.

  The bike pulled up outside the house. Huang spotted Bao and called up to him. ‘Inspector Bao!’ His voice sounded nervous.

  See, he was scared already!

  ‘Yes,’ Bao replied calmly.

  ‘You must come! Quickly!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because – you must. There’s been another robbery.’

  Bao couldn’t resist. ‘How difficult for you.’

  ‘They got it wrong. The victim was at home. They killed him.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s not convenient to – ’

  ‘This is serious, inspector. The victim was Secretary Wu.’

  6

  The scene was depressingly familiar: papers strewn across the floor, rectangles of dust on the walls where Wu’s scroll-paintings had been, and in the middle of it all, the victim lying face down on a rug in a pool of dried black blood.

  The Beijing detective pulled on the rubber gloves that Huang had provided – they were pretty brittle, clearly from disuse – bent down over the body and lifted an arm. It was stiff. The parts in contact with the floor had become purplish, the upward-facing parts cream-coloured. Bao pressed his fingers into one of the lower parts, watched what happened and nodded.

  ‘Lividity’s pretty fixed,’ he said.

  ‘I noticed that,’ said Station Chief Huang. He wrote ‘lividity fixed’ in a notebook.

  ‘Rigor’s pretty complete, too,’ Bao went on.

  ‘Naturally. Rigor … complete.’

  ‘Got a thermometer?’

  ‘Er … ’

  ‘Body temperature’s the best informal time-of-death indicator. I think my wife’s got one back at the guesthouse. Done a full crime-scene description?’

  ‘Er … ’

  ‘Nothing’s been touched?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘And a photographer’s on his way?’

  ‘Of course.’ Station Chief Huang scribbled in his book again. The inspector looked around the room and began scratching his head.

  ‘It’s obvious though, isn’t it?’ the chief went on.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thieves.’

  ‘I thought your thieves were after electrical goods. Wu doesn’t appear to have had any. Apart from that ancient TV and a radiogram, neither of which were portable or worth much, and both of which are still here.’

  ‘They must have thought he had stuff worth stealing. Then they got here, realized there wasn’t much, took down the art – then were surprised by the Secretary!’

  Bao kept on scratching his head. ‘You said they always made sure a house was empty before entering it.’

  ‘Well, yes. But … they must have made a mistake this time. Wu must have been working late – he often did, you know. Maybe he fell asleep at his desk.’

  ‘I didn’t see the office light on when I arrived.’

  ‘The kitchen window was smashed,’ the chief continued. ‘That’s evidence of how they got in.’

  ‘Or it’s evidence of what the killer or killers want us to think. One mustn’t jump to conclusions. We – I mean you – should get on with interviewing all possible witnesses. Secretary Wu’s driver, anyone seen in the area, people who saw Wu shortly before his death. You can start with me.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘I was here for about ten minutes last night. Secretary Wu invited me over.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘We had a brief conversation, and during it he said that he was expecting further company. Perhaps that further company was the killer.’

  The chief shook his head. ‘The Secretary was very choosy about who he allowed to enter his house. You were quite honoured, you know, to be invited.’

  ‘Who else used to share this honour?’

  ‘Senior Party members: Deputy Yao or his wife, Factory-manager Wei, Wang Shaobing, er, myself.’

  ‘Who’s Wang Shaobing?’

  ‘Head of Agriculture. He lives a few houses away.’

  Bao said the name to himself to memorize it. ‘Wu was unmarried, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Divorced.’

  ‘Did he have a lover?’

  The chief looked shocked. ‘The Secretary was a model of Socialist morality!’

  Possible mistress, Bao thought. Maybe even a male lover. Country people always said ‘that sort of thing’ only went on in cities. Bao didn’t believe them for a moment.

  The sound of a siren became audible: soon after, two men in white coats and round white caps entered, and rolled the body on to a stretcher. One of them looked round at the room with a ghost of a grin on his face. The other man, his senior, handed the chief a form to sign.

  ‘Where are you taking him?’ Bao asked.

  ‘Wentai,’ the man replied.

  The inspector nodded. He would have preferred them to take Wu’s body to the state capital, Jinan, rather than the local county town. But what could he do? He consoled himself with the thought that any doctor should be able to ascertain that the victim had been hit over the left temple with a heavy object – almost undoubtedly the bust of Marx, which had gone missing. A proper time of death would be established. They would find out if there were other wounds. They would check things like nail-scrapings and fibres from Wu’s clothes.

  In Beijing, of course, it would all be done properly.

  *

  Party Secretary Wu Changyan left his house for the last time feet-first beneath a white blanket. Bao watched him depart, then turned to his local colleague. ‘You’re setting up an incident HQ, I take it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Er, here.’

  ‘In this room?’

  ‘No. Er… Upstairs?’

  ‘Excellent idea.’

  The chief led the way up to the landing, and tried various doors. A
big bedroom, a smaller bedroom – both beds made up, neither slept in. Wu’s office, which needed to be sealed off and searched. A boxroom, virtually empty. ‘Here, of course,’ he said.

  ‘Do you want me to assist with the interviews?’

  Station Chief Huang looked doubtful, then nodded. ‘In an advisory capacity, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  *

  ‘Tell me about your movements from, let’s say, six o’clock yesterday evening,’ said Station Chief Huang.

  Wu’s driver pondered. ‘Six o’clock? Well, I must have driven the Secretary back from his office about then. Then I cleaned and checked the car. He was very particular about maintenance. He said the car belonged to the People and should be kept in perfect condition. Then I went home and watched TV with my wife and child. At a quarter to eight, I drove to the guesthouse, collected Inspector Bao and brought him over here. Shortly afterwards, the inspector left the villa. I drove him back to his lodgings, then returned the car to its garage and walked home. I watched a little more TV, then went to bed.’

  The chief nodded. ‘Did you see anyone about, while you were waiting for the inspector or on your final trip back home?’

  ‘No. You know how quiet it is up here after about seven.’

  ‘You saw no one?’

  ‘I saw two men walking up the hill when I was on my way to the guesthouse. And, on my way back, I saw Teacher Hu, also walking in this direction. ’

  ‘Can you give descriptions of the men?’

  ‘Not really. I was concentrating on the road. I just saw outlines. They could have been anyone.’

  ‘But you recognized Teacher Hu,’ Bao put in.

  ‘He taught my son. He’s a well known figure round here.’

  ‘Teacher Hu is a respected Party member,’ cut in Huang. ‘I can’t see him indulging in robberies, let alone murder.’

  ‘All information is useful. Did Teacher Hu seem agitated in any way?’

  ‘No. He was more lost in thought. I … waved at him and he didn’t acknowledge me.’

  ‘A man like him is often lost in thought,’ Huang put in.