The Hungry Ghost Murder

by Chris West

  ‘You can’t say that.’

  ‘Why not? I could have done something to help her.’

  ‘You’d have brought great suffering on your family.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Other people broke the rules and got away with it.’

  ‘You were a teenager. A boy.’

  ‘I was old enough to destroy things. And people. Why not old enough to save people, to help people?’

  ‘Maybe that’s harder.’

  Bao Ming nodded, but didn’t seem convinced. ‘There is justice, Rosina. Not human, not divine. I’ve got what I’ve deserved – plus a little clemency, really. I’m alive, in my home, in Shandong, not a frozen carcase in a nameless prisoner’s uniform, a thousand li north of here. No wonder the ghosts have come back!’

  ‘Ghosts?’ Rosina tried to keep the superiority out of her voice, but failed.

  ‘You don’t believe in ghosts, then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, trying to backtrack.

  ‘Everyone believes in them round here. Ghosts come back to right wrongs. The deeper the wrong, the hungrier the ghost. Ai, I know what you’re thinking. Peasant superstition. You’re wrong, Rosina.’

  Rosina began to stammer an apology.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Ming. ‘I’ve embarrassed you, haven’t I?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘Going on about stuff like that … ’

  ‘It’s good for you.’

  He looked her in the eye. ‘I think you mean well. So, thank you. I don’t think talk will do any good. Some hurts are just too deep.’

  ‘You can fight, you know, Ming.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You can live a good life. A life that defies the false principles drummed into you as a teenager.’

  ‘Defy the Party? My brother’s wife is telling me to do that?’

  ‘The Party doesn’t preach that kind of hatred any longer.’

  ‘Maybe in Beijing it doesn’t. Here, I’d still have difficulties marrying a woman if she came from a bad class background.’

  ‘You could do it if you really wanted.’ Rosina looked at him. She wondered if he had anyone in mind. A thought popped into her head – but it would be wrong to interfere. ‘Be a man. Stand up to them.’

  Ming nodded thoughtfully. ‘You won’t tell your husband any of what I said, will you?’ he said after a long pause.

  ‘You know I won’t.’

  *

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ said Rosina.

  ‘He’s my brother.’

  ‘What he said was in confidence.’

  Bao scowled. He knew she was right. But he had to know. ‘He’s ill, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then we have to help. I must know what the problem is.’

  Rosina paused. Her mind went back to her training, and the stress that her teacher had laid on the confidentiality of anything spoken in a therapy session. There had been an argument about it, with the oldest lady on the course asking if the Party wanted to know something, was one not under a higher obligation to tell them? The teacher had said no, but Rosina had detected hesitation in her voice, and had, at that moment, sworn that if such a dilemma faced her, she would not waver, but put her loyalty to the client first.

  But this was different, surely. Not Party but family.

  She looked Zheng in the eyes. ‘You must promise never to tell Ming I told you this. Promise by all you hold dear.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘He thinks he sees ghosts. Like that crazy old man.’

  She expected her husband to be surprised, but he wasn’t.

  ‘This is the countryside. Everyone sees ghosts.’

  ‘Hallucinations can be an early symptom of serious mental collapse. Brought on by alcohol abuse. He’s in trouble, Zheng.’

  Bao sighed. ‘What can we do? We can’t watch over him the whole time. Or even visit that often: Beijing’s a day’s journey away.’

  ‘Get him a course of treatment, then pay someone here to look after him.’

  ‘Full time?’

  ‘No. But regularly.’

  ‘How much would that cost?’

  ‘Not too much. Especially by Chun’s standards.’

  ‘Ah! The female mind at work!’

  ‘I sometimes think that’s the only type of mind that does work. Chun makes a fortune at that bank of hers. You must persuade her to come up with some money.’

  ‘That won’t be easy.’ Bao sighed. ‘I’ll call her.’

  Rosina nodded eagerly. ‘Do it now.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘If she says yes, we can get things moving.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Bao did so.

  Chun seemed surprised that he had gone back to Nanping. One had to move on in life, not go backwards. She said she’d have a think and let him know: right now, she had to go, as she was off to the opera. ‘Mozart, not that dreadful screechy old stuff you like, Zheng.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have played those frog tricks on her,’ said Rosina, once he had put the phone down and told her about the conversation.

  ‘I should have played more,’ Bao said angrily, then took another sip of cordial. ‘Ghosts, Ming sees, does he?’

  ‘Hungry ones,’ Rosina added.

  ‘Aiya, now you see what a family you have married into, Lin Xiangyu!’

  *

  The man in the green jacket had been practising his oratory.

  ‘Fellow fighters,’ he said. ‘Thank you for coming at such short notice. Your presence is a true sign of loyalty, of seriousness of intent.’

  The large crowd that had gathered in the barn gave a collective purr of pleasure.

  ‘I’m sure you know what I have to say,’ the orator went on. ‘Our protests have, so far, been ignored. Why? Because we’re not forceful enough in our demands. Are we afraid? Are we just going to lie down and let our land be stolen from us?’

  ‘No!’ the audience cried.

  ‘Yes. If we let things go on as they are. Last meeting, I suggested replacing our chairman with a new candidate. This man, if I can call him that, was not up to it.’ There were a few mutterings of approval. ‘I’m proposing that at the next meeting, I am formally put forward as chairman. I want to enlist your support, and to consult you about exactly what courses of action we should follow.’

  Huiqing, who as usual was standing at the back, shook her head. ‘He’s crazy,’ she muttered, as if Rosina were there with her (her heart felt so heavy that she was not, despite the visitor’s deceptions).

  ‘Ah! Do I detect some dissent at the back there?’

  Silence fell.

  ‘Fei Huiqing, please share your thoughts with the rest of us.’

  Huiqing froze.

  ‘Where’s your father this evening, Fei Huiqing?’ the man went on.

  ‘He’s … not well.’

  ‘He looked all right the other day when I saw him. I wonder if he isn’t losing some of his enthusiasm for our cause. He used to be such a keen supporter. I happen to know that someone in our group has been making overtures to our masters. I wonder if he is the traitor.’

  ‘Never!’ shouted Huiqing. ‘That’s the last thing he’d do!’ She began trembling – with anger, though clearly some people misinterpreted that as fear.

  ‘Not so confident now, eh?’ the orator began, but before he could continue, a new voice had joined the debate.

  ‘Fei Duan has been a loyal supporter of our cause since the beginning.’ It was Bao Ming. ‘What right have you got to insult him like this? Behind his back, without the tiniest piece of evidence?’ He turned to the people. ‘Is this the kind of leader you want?’

  ‘Yes!’ cried someone.

  ‘At least he’s sober,’ said someone else.

  Ming nearly slumped into his seat, but other voices began to take his side. It soon became clear that opinion in the old barn was divided.

  ‘You should apologize,’ said Ming, once the tumult had died down.

&nb
sp; ‘Go on! Apologize!’ called out the crowd.

  The orator scowled, turned to Huiqing and said: ‘I apologize.’

  ‘You take those comments back?’ said Ming. ‘Every word?’

  ‘Yes,’ the orator said grudgingly. ‘Till I get more evidence,’ he added under his breath.

  The meeting continued.

  When it was over, Huiqing went to thank Ming.

  ‘It was only right after what you did for me last time,’ Ming replied. ‘And anyhow, I can’t stand injustice.’

  Huiqing looked at him. This man was the son of a Party Secretary – the kinds of people who had been meting out injustice to her family all her life. But maybe he had chosen not to follow their path. In which case, she could admire him.

  ‘I see that,’ she said slowly.

  *

  Constable Kong lit another cigarette. He was on the late watch. Cutler’s Alley was largely empty this time of night. It was especially empty of members of the Ma family, who knew they were suspects for the robberies and had hardly ventured out of their home, except for the old grandma who went shopping and Ma Fen, the only family member with an honest job.

  But at that moment, the door of Seven, Cutler’s Alley opened, just wide enough to let a figure emerge. The figure glanced up and down the street, then began to walk down the street towards the outskirts of the village. Kong picked up the short-wave radio he’d been given, fiddled with it and chucked it into a corner. Follow in person, the only way.

  They were soon out of the village. Kong cursed under his breath. The fields were criss-crossed with bumpy raised pathways that people never used at night without illumination. Tonight, it was cloudy; there were no stars and only the ghost of a moon.

  Don’t lose him.

  Don’t get too close, and give yourself away.

  Aiya! Kong tripped on a jutting stone and tumbled down a bank into a bed of wheat-stubble.

  *

  Bao was woken early next morning by an enthusiastic Station Chief Huang.

  ‘The suspect’s made a run for it!’ Huang told him. ‘Come down to the station, now!’

  Such was the Chief’s enthusiasm that Bao couldn’t resist.

  They walked out through the village into some fields, then Huang stopped. ‘This is where Kong lost him,’ he said.

  ‘What was he doing here?’ asked Bao. The fields continued level for a few hundred yards, then the sides of the valley began to rise, at first through man-made contours, then into rock-faces. The only obvious place the fugitive could have been headed for was a tumbledown barn at the foot of the slope.

  ‘Running away.’

  ‘It’s hardly the obvious escape route to the world outside,’ Bao replied, then checked himself. ‘But maybe that was the point. Avoid the obvious. Why not? That’s the old Xu clan temple, isn’t it?’ he added, pointing at the old barn.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s it used for now?’

  Before 1949, any clan of any size would have a temple to its ancestors. After the Revolution, Mao had ordered these to be gutted and put to more practical, public use.

  ‘A maize store,’ the chief replied.

  ‘Let’s have a look at it.’

  The old temple retained few traces of its former splendour. The carved eaves had lost all their paint and were rotting. The tiles – which would once have been expensive ceramics in blue or orange – had been taken away and replaced with plastic sacking. Only one horned monster remained from the troop that once guarded the roof-ridge, a solitary sentinel abandoned by a retreating army. The door, once fine latticework, was now a rectangle of cheap timber. It was padlocked.

  ‘We haven’t got a key,’ said the chief, with a trace of pleasure in his voice.

  ‘Who has?’

  ‘Wang Shaobing. Head of Agriculture.’

  ‘I don’t know him.’

  ‘Good Party man. In the running for Wu’s old job, actually.’

  Bao nodded. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘A couple of local farmers – I’m not sure which ones, though.’

  Bao felt for the key-picks in his pocket, then thought better of it. ‘You put the pressure on, I’ll kick,’ he said instead.

  ‘That’s vandalism!’

  ‘This is a murder investigation.’

  Station Chief Huang put all his weight on the door. His urban colleague aimed a hard wushu kick at the wood just by the padlock’s plate. The combination of pressures yanked the screws from the wood, leaving the lock hanging unconquered but useless.

  ‘Come out with your hands up, Ma Kai,’ shouted Huang.

  Nobody did.

  ‘Now! Or we’re coming in!’

  After more silence, Bao and the chief walked in. The store had the sharp dry smell of dust. Maize-cobs hung from the rafters like bats or lay piled up on lattice shelves like ammunition. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed for months.

  ‘What are those for?’ Bao asked, pointing at some iron rings set in the walls.

  ‘Oh, they’re from the Cultural Revolution. This was the cowshed.’

  Bao grimaced. ‘Did they attach people to them, or cows?’

  ‘Both. But not at the same time.’

  Bao began pulling at any uneven flagstones. None gave. He shone a torch round at the once-bright rafters, now grey with spiders’ webs. He crawled under the lowest maize-shelf. He bashed at the wall-timbers: one came away.

  ‘Anything there?’ asked Huang.

  ‘Yes. Come and look at this.’

  The chief got down on his stomach, and began to crawl. ‘Oof! Aiya! I think I’m … stuck.’

  Bao gave a pull on his fellow policeman’s boots, and he came free.

  ‘There’s a cavity behind this timber,’ Bao said. ‘It seems to run down the whole length of the wall. It might go further – it’s hard to see.’

  ‘We know you’re in there!’ bellowed the Station Chief. ‘Come on out!’

  Silence again.

  ‘One of us better have a look down there,’ said Bao.

  ‘Yes. I think ... Maybe … Seeing as you made the discovery, inspector … ’

  Bao smiled. ‘I’ll do it.’ He wriggled through the hole and dropped down onto a brick floor. Then he took out his pen-torch and flashed it round the underground chamber.

  The sheets over the items made them look like ghosts. But removal of the sheets revealed them to be items of electrical equipment.

  15

  Ma Kai stared out of the bus window as it came to a halt. The windows were all open, and usual crowd of vendors surrounded it – teasing one of their number, on whom a big-nose, unused to rural buses, had thrown up a few days ago.

  That’ll be me probably, Kai told himself. Scraping a living, selling crappy food or shit souvenirs. Imploring people to buy them, like a dog.

  He shook his head.

  A vendor shouted in his ear. Kai told him to fuck off. The guy didn’t even answer back.

  No, the young man said to himself, I won’t be like them. I’ll be bigger. I’ll join a Triad — they’re real men. For a moment, a smile crossed his face. He’d have proper brothers, not like the crowd back in Nanping, none of whom had had the guts to join in his robberies. He’d get rich. And he’d find a decent woman again, someone with brains as well as a good body. Kai hated the stupid conversation of the sanba who hung round the Nanping snooker hall. Now he knew better … One day, maybe, he’d come back to Nanping, buy one of those villas and live there with his clever, beautiful wife.

  ‘No,’ Kai muttered to himself. He’d never see the village again, because the dogs there were not accusing him of robbery but of murder. Whoever had killed that big boss man had set him up. Made it look like one of his jobs … They’d kill him if he went back.

  So he should start getting used to the fact. Now.

  Ahead, in Jinan, a new family would be waiting. One he could choose for himself. He’d find out who the hardest guys were and join them. There would be tests, of course, but he’d pass them.
Mei wenti, no problem.

  A sudden hushing of the conversation on the bus broke into Kai’s thoughts and made him look up. A policeman was getting on the bus.

  Kai’s stomach seemed to melt with terror.

  Be calm, he told himself. This was the first test.

  The policeman was walking down the aisle, looking each passenger in the face.

  The terror seemed to spread to Kai’s whole body. It transfixed him, stranger and more powerful than any of those drugs he’d tried. The dog was approaching, row by row, innocent aggrieved face by innocent aggrieved face.

  Keep calm.

  No. If I stay, I’m dead.

  Suddenly Kai was on the window ledge, then rolling in the dust beside the bus. People began to shout; he was on his feet and running. Someone tried to stop him. He thumped the fucker in the ribs. The rest kept out of his way. If he could just make the wall ahead of him …

  A shot rang out. Kai felt a stab of pain in his leg, and his balance deserted him. He fell, then someone was upon him, then several people.

  He screamed insults till his head was forced into the dirt.

  *

  The chief had rung through to the guesthouse the moment the news had broken, and invited Bao to come and see the young man brought in.

  Ma Kai’s face was cut and bruised, and he could hardly walk.

  ‘We had to use a little force to restrain him,’ explained the officer from Wentai.

  Huang sat the young man on a wooden chair and handcuffed him to it. ‘Tell me how you killed Secretary Wu,’ he demanded.

  Ma Kai looked up at his interrogator then closed his eyes. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘We know you did.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You did!’

  ‘No!’

  Huang paused. ‘And the robberies. What about them?’

  ‘You can’t prove anything!’

  ‘Oh, yes, we can. Confess now, and you will make things a lot easier for yourself.’

  The young man opened his eyes again. ‘I won’t confess. You can kill me if you want, but you’ll not get a word out of me.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ said Huang. ‘Constable Kong, take him away. Give him some time to think.’