Chinese Whispers

V

They were holding Xiao Ling in the detention centre at Pau Jü Hutong, a white multi-storey block next to the forensic science building. It was the home of the Section Six interrogation unit. The light was fading, along with Li’s confidence, as his taxi pulled up in the hutong outside the centre. He could see fires burning in siheyuan courtyards, and smelled the sulphurous smoke of the coal briquets which were the standard fuel of the Beijing household. The hutong was busy, cyclists returning home from work, motorists inching their way along its crowded length, schoolkids with satchels chatting together in groups, spilling into the roadway and causing a chorus of bells and horns to sound. Their world kept turning, while Li’s had frozen on its axis. It was this constant reminder that while other people’s lives continued unaffected, he had become like a ghost moving amongst them, unseen, unable to make a difference, trapped somewhere between heaven and hell.

He had expected implacable faces, a thousand reasons — legal and bureaucratic — for not being allowed to see his sister. But the duty officer had nodded unhesitatingly and told Li to follow him down to the cells. He could have fifteen minutes, he was told.

Xiao Ling rose to her feet when Li walked into her cell, but the light of hope that burned briefly in her eyes died again when the door slammed shut behind him. They had given her white overalls and black canvas shoes to wear. She had no make-up on her face, and her complexion was pasty white, dark shadows smudging her eyes. She searched his face for some clue, some hope. And found neither.

‘Why am I here, Li Yan?’ she asked quietly.

‘You know why.’

‘No.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘I know that they found cocaine in my locker, and that’s what gave them their excuse. But that’s not why I’m here, is it?’ Li could not find the words to answer her. So she provided them herself. ‘I mean, you don’t frame up some nobody worker on the production line of a car plant unless you have a good reason.’ She paused. ‘Like she’s the sister of the top crime cop in Beijing.’ A pained expression fell across her face like a shadow as she tried to understand. ‘Why, Li Yan? What have you done? What have I done?’

He said, ‘Did they search anyone’s locker other than yours?’

‘They didn’t need to. They said they had received a tip-off.’

He nodded. ‘I know the answer, but I still have to ask you …’

‘No!’ She cut him off, and he saw the hurt in her eyes. ‘Of course not. Do you think I would waste money on shit like that at the expense of my little girl? I nearly lost her once. I won’t do it again.’ Her eyes shone in the harsh fluorescent light, and she blinked to squeeze the blur of the tears out of them. ‘Where is she?’

‘Margaret has taken her to our apartment. Dad is staying with Lao Dai.’

She wiped her wet cheeks with her sleeves, and he saw the resentment in her face. ‘You still haven’t told me why.’ She thrust her chin out defiantly, determined not to let her emotions get the better of her.

‘Because I’m close to discovering the identity of a killer high up in Public Security. And he’s trying to destroy me before I can get any closer.’

She drew a deep, faltering breath. ‘It’s always about you, isn’t it? You have always put yourself ahead of us. Always.’

‘Xiao Ling, that’s not true.’ Li felt the sting of her accusation more acutely because perhaps there was a grain of truth in it.

‘You went off to Beijing to make your career and left me to look after Dad.’

‘And you got married and left him to go off and live with some brute farmer.’

‘It wasn’t my place to stay at home!’ Xiao Ling bridled with righteous indignation. ‘It was my duty to go and live with the parents of my husband.’

Li bit his tongue. He could have accused her of deserting her daughter for the chance of a son. He could have charged her with running away from her husband, and abandoning her father. He could have denounced her as selfish and deceitful. All of which would have been true. None of which had led her to a cell in the detention centre in Pau Jü Hutong. He swallowed his anger. ‘I’m going to try to get you out of here,’ he said. ‘But it won’t be easy. They’ve suspended me from my job, and they’re trying to discredit me.’

She looked at him in disbelief. ‘If they can do that to you, then what hope in hell do I have?’

‘Not much,’ he said, his anger finally getting the better of him. They were as different as two people can be who came from the same womb. They had always fought, and she had always infuriated him. ‘But I’m the only fucking hope you’ve got. So don’t fight me, Xiao Ling, don’t blame me. Help me!’

She glared at him defiantly before the little girl in her bubbled to the surface and her lower lip quivered. ‘Just get me out of here, Li Yan. Just get me out.’

* * *

By the time he came back down the ramp into the hutong, it was dark. The temperature had dropped, and there was a mist rising from the land. Headlights caught it in their beams, and raked the treelined alley, catching icy cyclists and hunched pedestrians in their frozen light. Li slipped his cellphone from his pocket and flicked through its address list. The battery was low, and the light which illuminated the tiny screen flickered in the dark. He found the number he was looking for and pressed the dial button. He put the phone to his ear and listened to the musical sequence of digital numbers, and then the long, single rings. It was answered on the third, and he asked to speak to Pi Jiahong. The girl asked for his name and told him to hold. After a long wait he heard Pi’s voice. ‘Hey, Li Yan. Long time.’ They were old friends. But his voice did not carry an old friend’s warmth. He sounded strained and cautious. They had spent their first two years at the University of Public Security together before Pi dropped out to take a law degree at Beida. Now he was one of the most dynamic of Beijing’s new breed of criminal lawyer.

‘I need your help, Pi.’

‘What?’ Pi tried to sound jocular. ‘The chief of Section One needs my help?’

‘I’ve been suspended, Pi.’

There was a brief silence. Then, ‘I heard,’ Pi said quietly.

Li wondered why he was not surprised. He remembered Dai, in the park, saying, A word whispered in the ear can be heard for miles. ‘They’ve arrested my sister for possession of cocaine. They found it in her locker at work. It was a plant, Pi. They’re holding her at Pau Jü. She needs legal representation.’

There was a longer silence at the other end. ‘I’m kind of busy right now, Li. A heavy case load.’

‘I need someone to bail her out,’ Li said.

‘I can recommend someone …’

‘I’m asking you.’

Another long silence. ‘Li, I’ll be honest with you. I’m hearing stuff about you. I don’t know whether it’s true or not. Probably isn’t. But you know how it is. Shit sticks.’ He paused. ‘And it rubs off.’

Li felt a band of tension tighten around his forehead. His throat was dry and swollen. ‘I’ll bear that in mind, old friend,’ he said.

‘Aw, come on, Li, don’t be like that…’

The cellphone battery gave out and cut him off, saving Li the trouble. Li thrust the phone in his pocket, wrapped his coat tightly around himself, and set off north towards the Yong Hegong Lamasery and East Andingmen Avenue, where he could get a taxi. It was a long walk in the cold and the dark. Long enough to reflect upon betrayal and lost friendships, upon tears and hopelessness. Long enough to think about Margaret’s deportation, about his son, his family, his own powerlessness to alter this course of events. It was far, far, too long a walk.

* * *

It took Li another half-hour to get back to the apartment. Conscious of his dwindling resources, he took the subway from Yong Hegong. Three yuan instead of thirty in a taxi. The underground train was jammed to capacity, and Li stood clutching the plastic overhead handle, pressed on all sides by fellow Beijingers on their way home from work, some reading papers or books, others listening to music on their iPods, a young couple holding hands. But he didn’t hear them or feel them or smell them. He was isolated and insulated, trapped in a bubble, removed from real life. And it was almost as if he was invisible to them. No one looked at him. No one thought twice about a tall Chinese in a black coat, swaying with the crowd in the Beijing metro. He was just one of more than a billion. What difference could he possibly make? He might as well not exist.

He got off at Wangfujing and walked down to the Grand Hotel. The subway beneath Changan Avenue was deserted. Several of the lights were not working, and it was dark. He heard a sound behind him and turned quickly. But there was nobody there. Just an echo from the far stairway, and his own feeble shadow on the wall. But, still, it left his heart pounding, and he realised just how far he had fallen that he was scared now of his own shadow.

When he turned into the ministry compound, just past the Chung Fung restaurant, he thought that the guard cast him an odd look. Did they all know? Even down to the lowest ranking guard on night shift? Had he really become such a pariah? Or was he just being paranoid? He glanced up the street towards his apartment block and saw a familiar vehicle parked outside the main entrance. It was a Section One Jeep. A panic gripped him, and he started running. He stopped briefly as he reached the Jeep, but there was no one inside. He ran up the steps and into the lobby. The elevator was there, its door standing open, the floor littered with cigarette ends, the smell of stale cigarette smoking clinging to every porous surface. The ride to the fourth floor took an eternity. He fumbled to get his key in the lock, and when he got into the apartment found Margaret already halfway to the door.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ he said.

‘It’s alright,’ she said. ‘Qian is here. He just arrived.’

Li looked beyond her into the sitting room and saw Qian standing awkwardly by the window. Xinxin was sitting on the floor with baby Li Jon propped between her legs watching television.

‘Are you alright?’ Margaret said. ‘You’ve been away for ages.’

Li nodded. ‘I’m okay. My father’s with Lao Dai.’ He did not want to get into the whole credit card thing right now. He looked again at Qian and stepped into the room. ‘What’s happening?’ he said.

Qian looked grim. ‘William Hart has been found dead in the gardens of his apartment building. Apparently he fell from a window on the twenty-third floor.’