by Xiaolong Qiu
As if on cue, Professor Zhong’s cellphone started dinging.
‘Oh, it’s a message from the head of our institute. He wants me in his office.’
‘Of course, you go there now, and it’s time for me to go somewhere else too.’
‘Fine. I’ll call after the talk with the producer. China’s movie market is huge. Western producers are trying to squeeze in like crazy. This is a safe topic. Chinese Sherlock Holmes.’
It took Jin less than twenty minutes to arrive at Min’s neighborhood, but quite a while to locate the neighborhood committee tucked in the intersection between Jinling and Madang Roads.
It was not an uncommon scene for the dramatically changing city of Shanghai. One section so crowded with the new high rises, but half a block away another section still scattered with shabby shikumen houses in which the neighborhood committee office looked like a time-yellowed postcard kept by her parents.
The front of the neighborhood committee office was partially obscured by a mobile food stall sporting rows of uncooked dishes beside a coal stove and several woks. The chef was busy stir-frying for the customers sitting on benches around the rough, unpainted wooden tables.
She stepped into the office, where she introduced herself to a silver-haired woman half-dozing on a chair near the door. Taking out her business card as the secretary for the Shanghai Judicial System Reform Office, she thought she had a perfect pretext to learn some background information regarding Min.
‘My office is in the city government building at the People’s Square, it’s so close—’
‘The head of the neighborhood committee is not in the office. It’s lunch time. I’m just a retiree sitting here for the moment,’ the old woman said without showing any interest, her face shrunk like an aged walnut.
‘An office in the city government building at the People’s Square?’ an old man exclaimed excitedly, emerging from a back room carrying a plastic food container and leaning over for a closer look at the business card in Jin’s hand.
‘Yes. We’ve heard about the Min case in your neighborhood. I’m not a cop, but I just want to do some background research for my office.’
‘About Min, you have come to the very man for information, Secretary Jin. I’ve lived in the same lane with her for years, watching her growing up as a little girl still wearing a short pigtail. She was with her parents in that small tingzhijian room at the time, not in the multi-million yuan shikumen house of nowadays. Everything you want to know—’
‘You’re opening your big, reckless mouth again,’ the old woman said in apparent disapproval, her silver hair glaring in the sunlight.
‘Don’t worry. I am not a journalist, and whatever you’re telling me here, it won’t be put into a report,’ Jin said to the old man. ‘And you’re doing a great service for the government. So your name, old comrade?’
‘Bao Guoqing. I’m here just to warm my lunch in the microwave. I used to be a neighborhood patroller.’
She was surprised that Bao had to go to the neighborhood committee office for the use of the microwave. Evidently, he was not a well-to-do one. Then she thought of the food stall outside, recalling the stories she had heard about Chen’s interviews as an inspector – done over the dishes and cups with interviewees. Why not? Bao too could talk more freely out there, not worrying about any interruption from the old woman. ‘How about having a simple lunch with me outside?’
‘But I have my lunch box with me.’
‘You can save it for the evening. My treat.’
Bao readily moved outside with Jin, grinning from ear to ear. The old woman looked at the two of them, shaking her head without getting up from the chair.
Outside, there was not much for them to choose at the food stall. She had a portion of Crispy Bells – fried tiny tofu-skin-dumplings – which were supposed to be crunchy and delicious, though she was concerned about the repeatedly used oil at the place. He fell to a full platter of double steaks braised in reddish soy sauce with green cabbage heaped on top of white rice.
‘Not bad at all,’ Bao said with a satisfied sigh, finishing the first steak and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I used to be an activist here, patrolling the neighborhood. Those days, those peddlers stood in awe of a neighborhood patroller. It’s really a changed world now. And it’s not for nothing, I know, for a young office lady from the city government to treat a poor old retiree like me. So you just go ahead with your questions.’
‘Thank you.’ She took out her cellphone and pressed record, as if checking a message.
It was not going to be used as evidence. She did not have to worry about its legality.
Emerging from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Chen did not have any idea about where to go, but he turned left on Huaihai Road.
Half a block away, he saw a long line of people waiting, leading to a delicatessen window of an old-brand restaurant, Happy Village. The delicacies were cooked in the traditional Shanghai style, such as chicken immersed in yellow rice wine, smoked fish head, pork belly braised in red sauce, all of them quite palatable, sold at the delicatessen window at half the price of what was charged inside the restaurant.
He did not feel hungry, even with his breakfast so early in the morning. He decided to walk on for a while. He thought he needed a little more time to digest what he had just learned from Professor Zhong.
The visit to the academy had turned out to be a random harvest in several respects. For starters, he had spread the word about his being busy collecting material for a Judge Dee project. It could have taken him months to learn by himself what he had learned from Professor Zhong in one morning, if he was really going to write something about Judge Dee. It was also a good idea, incidentally, for him to work on a Judge Dee story instead of an academic paper, which he had not done for years. Nor could he afford the time for the research needed for it. A story would be different. With the material obtained through the shortcut, he should be able to put together a piece with fairly reliable historical details.
And the prospect of a bestselling book, and then of the movie adaption, as Professor Zhong had presented, was not without temptation. The ex-inspector had to think about his mother, if not himself. She should want for nothing in her last years at the nursing home.
At the same time, he was ambitious about creating a truly worthy book, like Gulik’s, which people would read for years and years, as in a line by the famous Tang poet Du Fu, ‘Writing is for thousands of autumns.’
Then his thoughts began to wander, jumping from Gulik’s treatment of Xuanji’s efforts to protect her secret lover, to Min’s statement about her not being with anyone during the night despite her sleeping naked.
He moved past the restaurant-circling line, in which one of the customers was absorbed with an e-book instead of talking to others, tapping on the tablet, as the line edged forward to the delicatessen window at a snail’s pace.
And he turned round, walked several steps back, and went into a bookstore. It was perhaps coincidental that he found on the front shelf three Judge Dee stories in Chinese: The Lacquer Screen, The Phantom of the Temple, The Chinese Lake Murder. Judge Dee had become so popular in China. Chen was not sure about the translation quality, but it could be faster for him to read skipping one page after another in the Chinese translation.
Carrying the books, he then found himself moving in the direction of the New World, and thinking about a Starbucks there, when his special cellphone started ringing.
‘Something new …’ Old Hunter said in a hurry.
‘Something new …’ Chen responded, repeating. ‘Yes, we should try something new. How about the Starbucks in the New World? They serve green tea too.’
‘Green tea in Starbucks?’
‘Yes, green tea latte, among other varieties. The café is located near the northern entrance of the New World. It may not be up to your tea standard, but worth trying for a change.’
‘OK, see you there in fifteen to twenty minutes.’
So Old Hunter must be somewhere nearby. It would take Chen less than ten minutes to walk from the bookstore to the café.
The Starbucks appeared to be packed as always, extremely popular among the young white-collar workers in the area, but compared to other bars and restaurants in the New World, the price for a cup of coffee there seemed to be reasonable.
He was lucky enough to find a table outside, ordered a tall cup of black coffee, and opened The Lacquer Screen. It was not a cold day. Sitting there with the book in his hand, he thought he looked just like one of those regular customers at the café.
He had just finished the first ten pages of the novel, sipping at the coffee, when Old Hunter strode over to him and slumped in the chair opposite.
Not too surprisingly, the green tea latte ordered for the old man did not appeal to him; he appeared to be frowning at the first sip, though without saying anything about it.
As it turned out, Old Hunter had intended to invite him to another café, much more fashionable and expensive than Starbucks.
‘How about the garden café of the Moller Villa Hotel. People say its coffee is excellent, very black, and very strong. Expensive, but it’s worth the money. The atmosphere of the garden is absolutely mesmerizing. And we can have privacy in a small tent, if you prefer. With the new expense allowance from our client Sima, it won’t be a problem.’
‘So it’s the café in the garden of Moller Villa Hotel on the corner of Yan’an and Shanxi Roads,’ Chen said, his heart sinking with the knowledge.
The hotel, meticulously preserved because of its singular history, was a rediscovered legend among the rich and successful of the city. It was said that Eric Moller, a businessman who had made his fortune through horse and dog racing in Shanghai, had this fairy-tale-like mansion built in the 1930s. Originally designed in accordance with a dream of his little daughter’s, it proved to be an architectural fantasy. After 1949, it was used as a government office for years before being turned into an elite hotel, redecorated and refurbished, with its interior design and original details meticulously restored, and with a new building in the same style added next to it.
But what worried Chen was something else about the hotel.
‘When did you become so picky about cafés, Old Hunter?’
‘You’ve been to the hotel before?’
‘Yes, for an investigation a few years ago.’
‘So you know …’
Old Hunter did not have to go on. He knew Chen knew what it really meant.
Min was shuangguied in that hotel under the government surveillance, which came as no surprise to him. In an earlier investigation, a high-ranking Party official had been kept in the hotel, and then murdered. A complicated case that had led to the downfall of the then Party Secretary of Shanghai.
It was ironic that the building, originally built out of the fantastic dream of a little Norwegian girl, symbolic of unbelievable wonders of the brave new world, had turned into the secret detention place of the shuangguied, under the twenty-four-hour surveillance of the Shanghai government, with its staff members trained and experienced with the workings of the shuanggui system.
Perhaps there was just one thing new in Old Hunter’s description of the garden café. During that investigation, Chen had noticed only the in-house hotel guests drinking coffee in the garden. Nowadays visitors could also enjoy the service, as well as the view of the mystery-wrapped garden.
‘For a veteran tea drinker like you, how did you manage to find out about the hotel garden café?’
‘It’s through Mr Sima. He’s really well connected, you know. We have no clues about where Min is kept.’
The case must have had a higher political stake than they knew of, something more than making an example of a Republican Lady.
What was Old Hunter able to achieve by going there in the company of Chen? Some reconnaissance around the hotel, probably. But no possibility of their sneaking in for contact with Min. The hotel was so closely guarded by its well-trained staff, who would recognize Chen whether in a garden tent or not. Not to mention the many surveillance cameras installed there. According to the latest report online, the number of surveillance cameras was catching up with that of China’s entire population. It was getting worse than in 1984.
No point taking the risk, he concluded. He had been lucky so far, but the luck could be running out at this very moment.
‘Sorry, Old Hunter. The city government has just requested an office statement about a Party-member judge scandal. I have to be really busy for a while.’
‘But you’re on leave, Chief.’
‘After our visit to the matching corner in the park, my secretary came to my apartment with the urgent instruction from the city government. She is working hard on it, and I’m waiting for her phone call right now. But I’ll give you a call in a day or two. Don’t worry. The strong black coffee in the hotel garden may be too much for my stomach, but we’ll go to the hot water place you recommended. Black tea agrees with me more.’
As Old Hunter disappeared out of sight, dragging his feet, Chen kept stirring the lukewarm coffee with the spoon.
What difference could he possibly make? It was a question to be asked not just of this investigation in the company of Old Hunter. For years, he had been holding on to the belief that he was capable of making a difference by doing a conscientious job as a cop within the system.
With all those years wasted, he finally came to the realization that such a difference existed largely in his imagination. What’s more, he was not a cop any more.
But what else could he have become?
And what could Judge Dee have really become?
It then occurred to him that he should check with Jin, who might tell him something more about the real Judge Dee in the Tang history, in addition to any developments at the office. Talking with her about the Judge Dee project might serve as the mountain path too. It was not unimaginable that some people could try to ferret out things about him through her.
Chen took out his cellphone. But just before he pressed the number, the screen showed a WeChat message with the emoji of a young girl in a mandarin dress saying ‘Hi,’ waving coquettishly, her bare, slender arm as white as the lotus root in a Tang dynasty poem. He knew nothing about the use of emojis, and he texted back: ‘Oh, what’s up, Jin?’
‘We got some feedback from the city offices and media about the statement made by our office. Very positive.’
‘That’s good. It’s to your credit.’
‘No, it’s all under your guidance, Director Chen.’ She added another emoji of a girl covering her face in embarrassment before she typed, ‘Let me call through the WeChat phone. You just need to press “accept”.’
‘That’s fine.’
Perhaps she had a hard time trying to reach him through his ordinary phone. But he was not in a hurry to give her his special phone number.
It turned out to be a video call. He was pleased to see her young, animated face flashing across the phone screen. It appeared she was not in the office.
‘For the office statement, the footnote-like comment was added by the Minister of the City Propaganda Ministry. He insisted on it, as if the inadmissibility of the evidence had been its one and only merit.’
‘For the Party newspapers, they have to worry about a lot of things. Pang’s success may inspire copycats, and that’s something the government authorities want to prevent. Any news about the development of the case?’
‘Judge Jiao was officially shuangguied. It’s a matter of time for him to be charged. In the meantime, Pang said in an interview to the Liberation Daily that he saw justice finally being done, and that he would not do anything like that in the future.’
‘That’s good. Thank you so much, by the way, for the links to the Judge Dee movies too.’
‘After our talk yesterday, I’ve watched another Judge Dee DVD, and gathered some information about the judges we discussed.’
‘The TV movies are r
eally interesting,’ he responded, noting the plural ‘judges’ in her comment, wondering whether she had gathered some info about the other judge as well.
‘And there’re some more, not about Judge Dee, but about the case similar to the one in the Judge Dee novel. It’s so heated on the Internet. I collected some of them through a VPN, as people put it, by “climbing the firewall”.’
‘Ah,’ he said, surprised by her going out of her way for him.
‘I’ve printed out a bunch of them for you – but where are you? The background is noisy.’
‘At a café in the New World. This morning, I too did some research at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. About Judge Dee, you know. Now I am reading another Judge Dee novel in the Starbucks here.’
‘Really! I’m near the intersection of Madang and Huaihai Roads. Really close to the New World. I would like very much to make a detailed report to you about the office statement – and about something else.’
‘But—’ he cut himself short. ‘You’re welcome to join me at the Starbucks.’
‘Then I’ll be over in about twenty minutes. You just wait for me there. Twenty minutes at the most.’
‘That will be fine with me. No hurry. I’m enjoying the novel.’
Jin’s insistence on coming to the café came as another surprise for the day, but it more or less supported a well-meant fib he had just told Old Hunter.
Walking through the tables outside the café, Jin appeared more like a young fashionable office lady in a well-tailored light gray dress and black high heels.
‘What would you like to drink, Jin?’ he asked as she took the chair opposite. ‘My treat today.’
‘A green tea latte with ice for me, Director Chen.’
‘That’s original.’
‘Why?’
It was more coincidental than anything else. At this same table, Old Hunter had just frowned at the green tea latte. For the old man, the way to enjoy tea was, invariably, by pouring hot water over it, breathing at it vigorously, watching the green leaves rising to the surface and sinking back to the bottom, before taking a slow, small sip.
