by Qiu Xiaolong
“You had better check on his calls on April fifth. We would certainly like to know exactly what was said.”
“I will find out what I can, but what are you going to do, Chief Inspector Chen?”
“The Fujian police are looking for her. Checking all the hotels and buses there. No leads yet. It is important to find her as soon as possible, we understand. A special group has been formed. I’m in charge of it. My partner, Detective Yu, went to Fujian last night. In fact, I got the tip about this phone call just five minutes ago. He will keep us informed with respect to developments there.”
Catherine Rohn’s response was quick. “For several months, Wen has been applying for a passport so she can join her husband. Suddenly, she disappears. A pregnant woman could not have gone far on foot, and you have no information about her taking a bus or a train, right? So she’s still in Fujian, or someone has abducted her. You’re the head of the special case group, yet you’re here in Shanghai—with me. Why?”
“When more information reaches us, we will decide what steps to take. In the meantime, I’m going to conduct the investigation here. Wen is an educated youth from Shanghai who left for Fujian twenty years ago. She may have come back to this city.”
“Do you have any other leads?”
“Not at present. I’ll talk with Detective Yu and other people tonight,” he said, trying to produce a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Inspector Rohn. Wen wants to join her husband, so she will have to get in touch with him.”
“You are assuming that she is able to do so. No, Feng cannot reveal his whereabouts. Not even his phone number. Or he will be kicked out of the witness protection program. That is the rule. There’s no way she can get in touch with him directly. All she can do is telephone a bureau number and leave a message to be passed on.”
“Feng may know where she is hiding. Or if she has been kidnapped, the kidnappers must contact Feng. So I have a suggestion for you. Call your office and put your people on the alert for any phone calls Feng gets or makes. Perhaps we can trace her that way.”
“That’s possible, but you know how crucial time is. We cannot be like that farmer in the Chinese proverb, who waits for a rabbit to knock itself out against the old tree.”
“Your knowledge of Chinese culture is impressive, Inspector Rohn. Yes, we are pressed for time. Our government understands it well, or I would not be here with you today.”
“If your government had cooperated effectively earlier, I would not be here with you, Chief Inspector Chen.”
“What do you mean?”
“I cannot understand why it took so long for Wen to get her passport. She started the application process in January. Now it is mid-April. In fact, she should have been in the United States long since.”
“January?” He did not have that date in mind. “I do not know too much about the process, Inspector Rohn. In fact, I did not get the assignment until yesterday afternoon. I’ll look into it and give you an answer. Now I must leave so I can talk to Detective Yu when he calls me at my home.”
“You can call him from here.”
“He arrived in Fujian this morning and started working at once with the local police. He has not checked into a hotel yet. That’s why I have to wait at home for his call.” Chen stood up. “Oh, I have something else for you. Some information about the Fengs. Perhaps the part about Feng is not new to you, but Wen’s dossier may be worth reading. I have translated some of it into English.”
“Thank you, Chief Inspector Chen.”
“I’ll return tomorrow morning. I hope you sleep well your first night in Shanghai, Inspector Rohn.”
In spite of the awkwardness of their conversation, which he had anticipated, she walked him down the crimson-carpeted corridor to the elevator.
“Don’t stay up too late. We will have a lot to do tomorrow, Inspector Rohn.”
She tucked a strand of her golden hair behind her ear. “Good night, Chief Inspector Chen.”
* * * *
Chapter 6
C
atherine could not fall asleep despite her travel fatigue and the hands of a cloisonné clock on the nightstand indicating the beginning of a new day.
Finally, she threw off the sheet, got up, and walked to the window. The lights of the Bund surged up to greet her.
Shanghai. The Bund. The Huangpu River. The Peace Hotel ... It was a pleasant surprise that the Shanghai Police Bureau had chosen this hotel for her. She was not in the mood, however, to marvel at the scene spread out beneath her. Her mission in China had totally changed.
Originally, it was to have been simple. To accompany Wen to the local offices for a passport, to fill out the visa forms at the American Consulate, and to escort her onto the airplane at her earliest convenience. According to Ed Spencer, her supervisor in Washington, all she was to do was to apply a touch of pressure when needed, to make the U.S. Marshals’ presence felt, so the Chinese would expedite the matter. Ed joked about buying lunch for her in D.C. this weekend. Even allowing for minor delays, it should have taken her four or five days at most. Now she did not know how long she would have to stay in Shanghai.
Was the report of Wen’s sudden disappearance simply a lie? It was possible. The Chinese had not been enthusiastic about Wen joining her husband in the United States. If Jia Xinzhi, the head of the smuggling ring, was convicted, that might make international headlines. The sordid details of this notorious business would not improve the image of the Chinese government abroad. Involvement of local law enforcement officials in the human smuggling trade had been suspected. In such a well-policed country, how could smugglers have succeeded in transporting thousands of people out of the country without the notice of the authorities? According to one report she had read on the plane, hundreds of illegal immigrants had traveled on military trucks from Fuzhou to a seaport for embarkation. To cover up their complicity, the Chinese authorities might be trying to prevent the witness’s wife from leaving the country, so as to forestall the trial. First the inexplicable delay, now Wen’s even more inexplicable disappearance. Was this a last-minute effort of the Chinese to wriggle out of the deal they had made? If this was the case, her mission would be impossible.
She scratched at a vicious mosquito bite on her arm.
Nor did she feel very compatible with Chief Inspector Chen, though his being assigned as her partner suggested that the Chinese were seriously trying to honor their commitment. Not merely because of his rank. There was something else about the man; he seemed sincere. But he could have been chosen to play a deceptive role. In fact, he might not even be a chief inspector. Maybe he was a secret agent with a special assignment: to string her along.
She called Washington. Ed Spencer was not in the office. She left a message, giving him the hotel phone number.
Putting down the phone, Catherine started to read the files Chen had left. There was not much about Feng that was new to her, but the information about Wen was fresh, plentiful, and well-organized.
It took her almost an hour to read it through. In spite of her background, she found several recurring Chinese terms hard to understand. She underlined them, hoping she might dig out definitions in a large dictionary the next day. Then she tried to frame her report to her supervisor.
What was there for her to do in China now?
She could simply wait, as Chief Inspector Chen suggested. Alternatively she might offer to join the investigation. It was an important case for them. Feng’s testimony was needed and, to obtain it, they had to reunite him with his wife, if she was still alive. She decided it would be best for her to take part in the investigation. The Chinese had no reason to refuse the request unless there really was a cover-up effort on their side. Chen seemed certain that Wen was alive. But if she had been killed, no one could know how that would affect Feng’s testimony.
Inspector Rohn had not been pleased with her special status as something of an expert on China in the Marshals Service, though it was that status that brought her here. Taki
ng part in the investigation would be an opportunity to prove that her major in Chinese studies was not irrelevant to her position, and would also give her an opportunity to learn about the real Chinese people.
So she started writing a fax to Ed Spencer. After briefing him on the unexpected development, she requested that he look for a tape of Feng’s phone call on April fifth, being especially alert to a possible coded message. She then asked his approval for her joining the investigation. At the end, she made a request for information about Chief Inspector Chen Cao.
Before she went down to the hotel’s fax room, she added one sentence, asking Ed to send his reply to the hotel around 10 a.m. Shanghai time, so she could be waiting by the fax machine. She did not want anybody else to look at the contents, even if written in English.
After the fax went through, she had a quick meal in the dining room. Back in her own room, she took another shower. She was still not sleepy. Wrapped in a bath towel, she looked out again at the illuminated expanse of the river. She caught a glimpse of a ship bearing a striped flag. At that distance, she could not make out its name. It might be an American cruise ship anchored for the night in the Huangpu River.
Around four in the morning, she took two tablets of Dramamine, which she had brought with her in case of motion sickness. Its soporific side effect was what she needed. In addition, she took a bottle of Budweiser out of the refrigerator; its Chinese name was Baiwei meaning—”a hundred times more powerful.” The Anheuser-Busch brewery had a joint venture in Wuhan.
As she turned from the window, she thought of a Song dynasty poem she had studied in a class. It was about a traveler’s loneliness, in spite of the marvelous scenery. Trying to recall the lines, she fell asleep.
* * * *
She was awakened by the bedside alarm clock. Rubbing her eyes, she jumped up, disoriented. It was 9:45. She had no time to take a shower. Pulling on a T-shirt and a pair of old jeans, she left her room wearing the hotel’s disposable slippers which were almost paper thin, and seemed to be made of the same material as that used for transparent plastic raincoats. Hurrying down to the hotel fax room, she straightened her hair in the elevator with a pocket comb.
The fax for her came at the time she had specified. The feedback was more substantial than she had expected. First, the fact of Feng’s phone call on April fifth was confirmed, and there was a tape. Ed was having its contents translated. As a potential witness, Feng was not allowed to disclose anything about his status in the program. Ed had no idea what he might have said to precipitate Wen’s disappearance.
Second, her proposal to join the investigation was approved.
In response to her request for the background information on Chen, Ed wrote: “I’ve contacted the CIA. They will send us Chief Inspector Chen Cao’s file. From what they told me, Chen is someone to watch. He is associated with the liberal reformers in the Party. He is also a member of the Chinese Writers’ Association. He is described as an ambitious Party cadre, on the rise.”
As she stepped out of the room with the fax in her hand, she saw Chen seated in the lobby browsing through an English magazine, a bouquet of flowers lying on a chair beside him.
“Good morning, Inspector Rohn.” Chen stood up, and she realized he was taller than the other people in the lobby. He had a high forehead, penetrating black eyes, and his expression was intelligent. Dressed in a black suit, he looked more like a scholar than a policeman, an impression enhanced by the information she had just read.
“Good morning, Chief Inspector Chen.”
“This is for you.” Chen handed the flowers to her. “There were so many things happening at the bureau yesterday, I forgot to prepare a proper welcome bouquet for you in my rush to the airport. For your first morning in Shanghai.”
“Thank you. It’s beautiful.”
“I called your room. No one answered. So I decided to wait for you here. I hope you don’t mind.”
She didn’t mind. The flowers were a surprise, but as she stood beside him in her plastic slippers, with her hair in such a mess, she couldn’t help a feeling of annoyance at his formal courtesy. This was not behavior she expected from a colleague, and she didn’t quite care for the veiled reminder that she was “just” a woman.
“Let’s go up to my room to talk,” she said.
As they entered her room, she gestured for him to sit and picked up a vase from the corner table. “I’ll put the flowers in water.”
“Have you enjoyed a good night’s sleep?” Chen asked, glancing around the room.
“Not really, but it should be enough,” she said. She refused to be embarrassed by the disarray of the room. The bed was not made, her stockings were thrown down on the rug, pills were scattered on the night stand, and her rumpled suit had been tossed over the back of the chair. She made a curt excuse, “Sorry, I had to pick up a fax.”
“I should have given you notice. My apologies.”
“You are being very polite, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen,” she said, trying to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “Last night you were up late too, i imagine.”
“Last night, after I left you, I discussed the case with Superintendent Hong of the Fujian police. It was a long discussion. Early in the morning, my assistant, Detective Yu, phoned me. He explained that at his hotel, there’s only one telephone at the front desk, and after eleven o’clock the night manager locks up the telephone and goes to bed.”
“Why lock up the phone?”
“Well, a telephone is a rare commodity in the countryside,” Chen explained. “It’s not like in Shanghai.”
“Is there new information this morning?”
“About your question concerning the delay in our passport approval process, I’ve got an answer.”
“What is that, Chief Inspector Chen?”
“Wen would have received her passport several weeks ago, but she did not have her marriage certificate. No legal document to prove her relationship with Feng. She moved in with Feng in 1971. Government offices were all closed at the time.”
“Why were the government offices closed?”
“Mao labeled a lot of cadres as ‘capitalist roaders.’ Liu Shaoqi, the head of the People’s Republic, was thrown into jail without a trial. The offices were shut. The so-called revolutionary committees became the only power.”
“I’ve read about the Cultural Revolution, but I did not realize that.”
“So our passport people had to search the commune records. It took time. That’s probably why the process has been so slow.”
“Probably,” she echoed, tilting her head slightly to one side. “So in China, every rule is to be strictly followed—even in a special case?”
“That’s what I learned. Besides, Wen only initiated her application in mid-February, not in January.”
“But Feng told us she applied in January—mid-January.”
“That’s my information. Even so, it has taken a long time, I have to admit. There may have been another factor. Wen does not have any guanxi in Fujian. This word may be translated as ‘connections,’ only guanxi means far more than that. It’s not merely about the people you know, but about the people who can help you with what you want.”
“The grease that keep the wheels turning, so to speak.”
“If you like. Perhaps, like anywhere else in the world, the wheels of bureaucracy move slowly, unless there is some lubrication for the bureaucrats. That’s where guanxi comes in. Wen has remained an outsider all these years, so she had no guanxi whatsoever.”
She was astonished by Chen’s frankness. He made no attempt to gloss over the way the system worked. This did not seem to be characteristic of an “emerging Party cadre.”
“Oh, there is something else. According to one of Wen’s neighbors, there was a stranger looking for Wen on the afternoon of April sixth.”
“Who do you think that might have been?”
“His identity is still to be determined, but he was not local. Now, any news from your side, Inspec
tor Rohn?”
“Feng did make a phone call to Wen on April fifth. We’re having it translated and analyzed. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear more.”
“That may contain the answer to Wen’s disappearance,” Chen said, taking a look at his watch. “Tell me, what’s your plan for the morning.”
“I have no plan.”
“Have you had your breakfast?”
“No, not yet.”
“Excellent. My plan is to have a good breakfast,” Chen said. “After my long discussion with Detective Yu this morning. I hurried over without having had a bite.”
“We can have something downstairs,” she proposed.
“Forget the hotel dining room. Let me take you to another place—genuine Chinese flavor, typical Shanghai atmosphere. Only a few minutes’ walk away.”
