Citizen One

by Andy Oakes

  “Trial. There will be no trial, Senior Investigator. I will be leaving your fen-chu shortly, very shortly.”

  From a bulky file, pictures, copies of notes, a witness statement, a copy of a CCTV recording. Piao placing them precisely on the table.

  “Yes, Comrade Colonel, there will be a trial. Such compelling evidence demands it. The murder of citizens of the People’s Republic demands it. You are not beyond the law.”

  The tai zi’s eyes turning upon him.

  “Your evidence will not be enough, Senior Investigator Sun Piao.”

  His voice a low rasp. A whisper, surely too soft for the reel to reel to have picked up. Piao craning forward. Even at some distance the princeling’s sweet breath sickening him.

  “I do not understand, Comrade PLA. Do you care to elaborate? Do you care to speak up?”

  Across the tai zi’s face a shadow of a smile.

  “Your evidence will never be enough.”

  Piao, anger in a hot flood, on his feet, circling the princeling. Only the thought that his fist would leave a mark preventing him from giving his anger physical form.

  “The Comrade PLA has said, ‘Your evidence will never be enough’. Comrade PLA, let me remind you that the laws of the People’s Republic of China govern all of its citizens.”

  “Fine words, good Communist words, but you are out of your depth, Senior Investigator.”

  Close to the tai zi’s cheek, Piao, but loud enough for the tape machine to pick-up.

  “ ‘Our point of departure is to serve the people whole-heartedly and never for a moment divorce ourselves from the masses, to proceed in all cases from the interests of the people and not from one’s self-interest or from the interests of a small group, and to identify our responsibility to the people with our responsibility to the leading organs of the Party.’ ”

  “Your knowledge of Mao will not help you, Senior Investigator. The old ways are dead. I, and others like me, we are the new way. We work to a higher purpose.”

  Piao sitting once more, his anger now cold, focused and tactical.

  “You are a very unattractive Comrade, Zhong Qi. Every time you look in the mirror, the mirror confirms it. Confirms it to the point that you now avoid any reflective surface, which is why you have turned your back to our window.”

  For the first time the princeling showing signs of discomfort.

  “You are a freak of nature. No amount of plastic surgery can disguise the ugliness of your face, or your soul.”

  Through the Cologne, his smell, the PLA … animal, feral.

  “That is why you kill so freely. Your anger at your own ugliness is a a self-loathing that spills from within you. We have an excellent psychiatrist at our fen-chu, Comrade PLA. I will recommend you to him. He will make you more at ease with your ugliness, although he cannot take it away from you. He is only a psychiatrist, he is not a god. Your ugliness will still remain, but your anger about it may not.”

  Violence, sudden and without warning. The tai zi exploding from his chair, throwing it at the wall in thunderous concussion, then grabbing the table, heaving it onto its side. The reel to reel tape recorder crashing to the floor. Picking it up, the princeling, and hurling it against the door.

  Turning, his face clammy, his breath laboured, words fractured.

  “How dare you insult me, you Ankang scum! I work for a higher purpose, for a new and better People’s Republic. If other scum like those whores or your interfering Detectives get in the way of such progress, then they are casualties of war. I make no apologies for serving the interests of our great nation.”

  Kicking the reel to reel recorder.

  “Casualties of war and there will be many more before this progress has been completed.”

  Calming himself, then wiping his face with a pristine white monogrammed handkerchief.

  “You need a sign to show you the path, the new shining path, Senior Investigator Sun Piao. Have you checked your post lately?”

  Footsteps approaching. Straightening his jacket, the tai zi. Smoothing back his hair.

  “Your time, it is up, Senior Investigator.”

  Already walking to the door the tai zi. Footsteps closer. The interview room door thrown back on its hinges. Detective Yun handing Piao the release papers. The PLA smiling, as he moved into the corridor, toward his freedom. Piao kicking the door closed. On the floor the shattered remnants of the reel to reel still emitting a deep guttural buzz. Pulling the electric plug from the socket, the noise fading, dying. Only the sound of distant footsteps left, keeping company with the beat of his heart. Piao on his knees gathering up papers, photographs, the faces of murderers and the murdered. Throwing a broken leg of the chair heavily against the wall.

  I should have taken you to a dark, high bridge over the Huangpu River, Comrade Princeling. Not the fen-chu. Never to the fen-chu.

  *

  Zoul pacing, shouting. Featureless eyes glaring at Piao.

  “Stupid. Stupid. You were to carry out an un-official investigation. Un-official. To arrest such a cadre, such a tai zi. Do you have a death wish, Senior investigator? Do you?”

  Not waiting for an answer.

  “And the possible impact on the fen-chu. Your Comrade Officers. Me, your Comrade Chief Officer. A man like Qi, he will have long arms. He will know others, many others, who have even longer arms.”

  “He is guilty, Comrade Chief Officer. Here is the evidence.”

  File, envelope, held out at arm’s length. Zoul ignoring them.

  “Evidence, evidence.”

  Words spat with disdain.

  “This is what matters. This is what matters, Senior Investigator, not evidence.”

  The desk, oak with leather and gold tracery, on it a pile of papers, faxes, emails, telephone messages, couriered letters. The Comrade Chief Officer’s hands scooping them up. Zoul reading as he walked.

  “This email from the Ministry of Security insisting that Colonel Qi be released. Immediately released. Two telephone messages. Two chairmen of danweis both ordering that the questioning of Colonel Qi be halted immediately.”

  Papers in a fluttered fall to the desktop.

  “Ten, twenty faxes: the Central Political Bureau, the Central Secretariat, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the Guard Army of Shanghai Garrison Headquarters, the People’s Liberation Army Central Command.”

  Picking up another pile.

  “Telephone messages. These from the local Party. These from Beijing, the Central Committee, the Political Bureau. These from the All China Youth Federation and the Communist Youth League Central Committee.”

  Zoul shaking his head.

  “Why here? Why bring these PLA here? You were to do this away from the fen-chu, undercover. We are all tainted by this act, all tainted.”

  Circling the Senior Investigator twice before he replied.

  “Cao-mu jie-bing.”

  Zoul laughing. No more than a sparse grunt.

  “ ‘The dead cat turned.’ Naïve, Investigator. With men such as these, you will be that cat, that dead cat that they turn.”

  Another grunt. His face creased with it.

  “You used the power of the fen-chu to treat these men as common criminals. You humiliated them by arresting them, photographing and fingerprinting them. Worst of all, you subjected them to a DNA test. And in return for all of this shit …”

  Faxes, emails, telephone messages, falling through his fingers.

  “What did you get out of them? Three names, ranks and numbers. As for Qi, even his words are lost to us with the smashing of our reel to reel recorder. You have nothing, Piao. Nothing. Just words said to you only, and to the walls of interview room 4. Bricks, Senior Investigator, they do not speak.”

  From Piao’s tunic pocket, a small silver tape recorder.

  “I took an additional precaution, Comrade Chief Officer.”

  Zoul surprised.

  Piao placing the tape recorder on the desk. The tape rewound. Words … spurting, compressed,
inverted. A button pushed, words fast forwarded. A shunt of sound, another button, the sound of a chair colliding with a wall, followed by that of a table thrown to the floor. Plastic splintering as the reel to reel violently met the concrete of the wall. And then a voice, breathy and angry.

  ‘How dare you insult me, you Ankang scum! I work for a higher purpose, for a new and better People’s Republic. If other scum like those whores or your interfering Detectives get in the way of such progress, then they are casualties of war. I make no apologies for serving the interests of our great nation.’

  The sound of Qi kicking the reel to reel recorder. More words loaded with anger.

  ‘Casualties of war and there will be many more before this progress has been completed.’

  The voice calmer now. Words less fractured.

  ‘You need a sign to show you the path, the new shining path, Senior Investigator Sun Piao. Have you checked your post lately?’

  The sound of feet in the corridor beyond the interview room.

  ‘Your time, it is up, Senior Investigator.’

  A door opening, feet in the interview room, then the sound of the interview room door being violently kicked closed and Piao switching off the recorder.

  “Good evidence, Senior Investigator, but you will need more, much more than this to pin a cadre like Qi in place.”

  But the Senior Investigator only half listening to Zoul as he replayed the tape. Concentrating on Qi’s words, every one of them. Not just the answers that he wanted to hear.

  “It is an unfortunate reality of life in our People’s Republic that these tai zis’ excesses go unchecked and unpunished. We must all learn to play a game, Piao. A very precise and careful game, or suffer the dire consequences.”

  Listening. The tape slowly revolving. Qi’s words, dull-edged.

  ‘You need a sign to show you the path, the new shining path, Senior Investigator Sun Piao. Have you checked your post lately?’

  The Comrade Chief Officer with his back to Piao, staring out of the window.

  “What is it, Senior Investigator?”

  A button stabbed. Another. Another.

  “What’s wrong, Piao?”

  ‘Have you checked your post lately?’

  Again.

  ‘Have you checked your post lately?’

  “Is there a problem, Senior Investigator Piao?”

  Zoul turning, but his office door already open. In the corridor outside, just the sound of a cleaner going about her business and the sound of feet. Running feet.

  *

  A box, perhaps 18 inches square, heavily wrapped in brown paper and white string. Carefully, as if holding a baby, Piao carrying it into the bathroom. His instincts and the PLA’s words leading him to the bath where he set the parcel at its very heart.

  “When did it arrive?”

  “About two hours ago by courier. I signed for you.”

  Only now Rentang noticing the sheen of sweat across the Senior Investigator’s face. The heavy rise, the plummeting fall of his chest.

  “What’s wrong, Piao?”

  String untied and falling. Fingers under tape sealed seams. Brown paper, slipping away like onion skins.

  “Leave the bathroom. Call the PSB. I want a forensic officer here. Now.”

  “What is it? A fucking bomb?”

  “Just call them. Now. Go now.”

  Piao already knowing, the worst part of it all.

  Rentang leaving the bathroom, almost running. the Senior Investigator pushing the door to. A sudden urge, almost uncontrollable, to run. To escape.

  Pulling the tape from the plastic and from the tight bubble-wrap. Suddenly aware of the hue that blood has, seeping onto the chipped enamel of the bath, pooling in puddles of old tap water. And, through a gap in the bubble-wrap, a shock of hair, matted, bloodied. And smells … smells of a butcher’s stall, of meat past its sell by date.

  Gently setting the severed head in the bath. Smoothing down the wild tumble of hair. Windows to the soul, his fingers across the old papa’s eyes. Slipping to the floor, Piao. But his gaze never away from the old vagrant’s face. The forensic team would be on their way. Latex and powder, self-sealing evidence bags and professional detachment. On their way, but at least thirty minutes to sit, wait, watch.

  His fist, twice in violent concussion with the bath’s rolled cast-iron top.

  “Fuck. Fuck.”

  Pain, the purge of righteous pain, partly assuaging the guilt of realizing that he was not mourning the death of a good comrade, but regretting the loss of a witness, the only witness. Fuck the life that his job had foisted upon him. Always the job. He would have cried, cried for the old comrade, cried for himself. But he wasn’t sure how to. The job, a robber of even his tears.

  Chapter 21

  Crows everywhere are equally black.

  Do not leave your daughter alone. Out of your sight. Out of your reach. Out of your influence. Even though a girl might be ‘spilt water’, she has her value.

  Dusk to dawn, work her hard in the rock strewn fields. And then there is the housework to finish. And laundry, always laundry.

  Your daughter, she could bring a dowry. Perhaps become a concubine of a Party official if she is pretty enough. Gifts, perhaps a car, a small apartment, even if he should smell and show you disrespect, you think of the family and your part in providing for it.

  Or perhaps a yeh-ji? There are many tourists, much money in their perfumed pockets. Dollars, yen, euros. Again, so much for so little. You do as you are told. You close your eyes, if you should need to. You belong to men for that hour, they own you. For the hours beyond that, you are the property of the family. Yes, a ‘wild pheasant’. Such a daughter could bring you money: crumpled and torn yuan by the bucket load.

  Do not leave your daughter alone. As you can see a daughter can have much value. Watch her, guard her, or a shadow might peel from a shadow, and steal your daughter into the night.

  *

  The ‘four olds’. Habits, ideas, customs, beliefs. Mao Zedong wanted to forge a new national Chinese identity, free from the past constraints of the ‘four olds’. His Red Guards eradicating other ‘olds’: prostitution, concubinage, bride selling, slavery. All abolished. But time passes. Not only in the movement of hands around a clock face, but also in the hearts, the minds of the people. Time passes. Now two Chinese schoolchildren in every four have never even heard of Mao. Show his face on a mug, a badge, a grainy monochrome print, and they blink at you.

  ‘From the Red East rises the sun,

  There appears Mao Zedong.’

  Time passes. A blink. New economic incentives arrive. New laws come into being.

  Go to the poor areas, not the spikes of hotels looking over the Bund. Not the chrome, the neon and Aramis smelling bars around the riverfronts. Go to Guizhou province. Thirty-seven million souls trying to scratch a living. The Miao, Dong, Bai, Shui, Yi, Bouyei. The patches of soil between the craggy high karst formations, dirt between toes, being worked to provide for so many ‘stomachs with two hands attached’. Go to the poor areas. The ‘four olds’ are the ‘four news’. Having cash, and one less ‘stomach with two hands attached’ is a tempting inducement to sell one’s daughter as a bride, as a prostitute, as a slave.

  Go to the poor areas. Not a street or long in them that does not know of a girl being stolen. Taken as she made her way to the market, to the next town or to the house of a grandparent. Transported beyond the mountains that seem to obstruct every exit from Guizhou. Taken to be a bride for 8,000 yuan, a slave for 10,000 yuan. A prostitute, now that comes a little more expensive. She will work long and hard for you. And when the tourists have gone home in their silver jets, back to their prune-mouthed wives. And when the migrant workers have no yuan … she will bring you cigarettes. A half a pack for a hand-job. A full pack for a suck-off. No shortage of takers. Never a shortage of takers. You shall live well with such a daughter, with such a whore as this to work for you.

  *

  In
one year alone 110,000 women found by the authorities and returned home. In the small town of Zunyi, where Mao established his vice-like grip on the Communist Party in the 1930s, 84 women freed from a gang that had abducted them. The gang leaders executed. How many, you think, would have known the Great Helmsman’s words about the equality of women on the new shining path of the People’s Republic?

  ‘Women hold up half the sky …’

  In one year alone, 1999, 1,800 stolen children returned to their families.

  In one year alone, 2003, 13,000 rescued children, and this, from a central government reluctant to even acknowledge the problem. The poverty stricken province of Guizhou, never known for exporting anything of note, now known as the centre of the kidnapping industry.

  Do not leave your daughter alone. ‘Spilt water’, hard to find once they are in the hostess bars of Hong Kong, the brothels of Shanghai. Hard to find. One whore looks like another. Ask any PSB Chief. They will be unanimous in what they say and how they say it.

  ‘Crows everywhere are equally black’.

  Chapter 22

  Four reports. One tape …

  Xunhuacha, rose petal tea, tasting of plums fallen to ground and late afternoon rains. Another cup, then another. Spread out before him, four reports, four young women, three dead, one still living. But all mapped by the tai zi’s cut-throat glide.

  Piao looking for what things have in common. Sometimes small things, but big in consequence.

  One prostitute, Lan Li, and three other girls anything but. Expensive, private educations. Good students, good girls with nothing in their lives of the alley’s shadow. Nothing that should have drawn the attention of the PLA tai zis to them.

  Dates and places of birth, different. No shared schools, neighbourhoods, friends or colleagues. No shared interests or political history. All had been members of the Party’s Youth League, but in different cities or neighbourhoods. All good communist girls who would have made Mao’s red lips smile.

  Shaking his head.

  Another cup of xunhuacha, another China Brand. Reading until his eyes bled with the need of sleep. But not wanting to sleep. Knowing that there would be something here that would hint of links. Something here that had drawn a tai zi’s blade to their soft skin.