Chinese Whispers

II

The sun was dipping fast in the west now, pink light catching the particles of pollution along the horizon, turning them orange beneath the darkening blue above. Li pulled up on to the sidewalk in front of the main gate of Yuyuantan Park. Red lanterns spun lazily in the dying breeze. A shady character wearing a dark suit and smoking a cigarette cupped in his hand was doing his best to impress a pretty girl leaning against the railings. She was dressed all in white — white coat, white bootees, white handbag clutched demurely in front of her in both hands. Seemingly he was succeeding, because she was staring up at him adoringly, apparently oblivious to the fact that his eyes were constantly on the move, above and beyond her, left and right. He spotted Li’s car the moment he parked it by the gate. And he watched suspiciously as Li got out of the driver’s side. His eyes flickered towards the registration plate, and Li could see that he recognised the jing character followed by O as the trademark police registration it was — something only someone with previous experience of the police was likely to know. Li wanted to tell the girl to go home, to have nothing to do with this wide boy. He was bad news. But it was none of Li’s business.

He circumnavigated the barrier at the gate of the gardens outside the park. It was here that all the old men came to play cards and chess and chequers and dominoes. In the summer, there was shade from the trees. In the winter there was the warmth of companionship. And it saved them the two yuan payable for entry to the park itself. A path overhung by the naked branches of gnarled trees, and lined by bicycles parked three deep, led into the main garden where a statue carved from white stone watched the men in dark clothes huddled around their games. Beyond the trees, the roar of the traffic had become a distant rumble. A woman with short hair and a red jacket sang Peking Opera to the accompaniment of a wizened old man drawing his bow across the two strings of an ancient erhu. The evening sky reflected a cold blue off the canal which ran south out of Yuyuan Lake, a body of water which would be frozen solid in under a month, attracting skaters from all over the city. The last golden beams of sunlight warmed a silver-haired old man practising his tai chi as he gazed out over the water.

Groups of men were dotted about all over the central concourse, gathered around the benches where the games were being played. Dai Yi was playing chess in the centre of one of the huddles. Li’s Uncle Yifu had always called him Lao Dai — old Dai — even though he was several months younger. He was a short man, stocky, with a round, smiling face. His head was completely bald and he always wore a black baseball cap with an unusually long peak. He had very round eyes that always smiled, even when the rest of his face bore a grave expression. He was absorbed in his game, as were the spectators — about half a dozen of them. His opponent wore a battered fawn hat with a short brim above a lugubrious face with deep lines chiselled out of folded lava rock. He was rigid with tension, the knuckles on his left hand glowing white as it tightened around his pack of cigarettes. The remains of a cigarette between his lips bled smoke into streaming eyes. But he seemed oblivious. It was obvious to Li as he eased through the group and took in the board, that Lao Dai was one move away from checkmate. The man with the cigarettes was desperately seeking a way out. Finally he slid a wooden disc with a red character, marking it out as his Horse, on a zigzag move and shouted, ‘Jiang!’ It was a last act of pure defiance. For Lao Dai ‘ate’ it with his Cannon and pronounced, ‘Jiang si li’ Checkmate. There was a collective sigh as Lao Dai sat back, and the two opponents traded a cursory handshake. The man with the cigarettes threw away the one that was in his mouth and lit another. There was a brief exchange of goodbyes and the gathering began to disperse. The sun was sinking fast now and it was getting colder. Time for something to drink, and something hot to eat.

‘Life is no fun any more, Li Yan,’ Lao Dai said without looking up, his attention focused on gathering up the discs and putting them in their box along with their embroidered cloth board. Li was surprised that the old man had even seen him arriving. ‘It is boring when you win all the time.’

‘As boring as it was when you lost all the time to my uncle?’

The old man grinned and looked up at him finally. ‘Ah, but when you always lose, you can still look forward to the day when you will win. But when you always win, you can only ever look forward to defeat. It is better to win some, and to lose some. Your uncle always used to say, ten thousand things find harmony by combining the forces of positive and negative.’ The old man examined his face. ‘I see him in you tonight. I have never seen him there before.’

‘I wish there was more of him in me,’ Li said. ‘Then I might know better what to do.’

‘Ah, but you are young still. How can you always know what to do? Wisdom only comes with age.’

And Li remembered another of his uncle’s sayings. ‘The oldest ginger is the best.’

Lao Dai’s smile widened, but was touched by sadness. ‘It’s hard to believe he’s been gone five years. There is not a day goes past that I do not think about him.’

Li nodded. He did not want to get into a discussion about his uncle. The memories that would resurrect would be too painful. ‘I came to see if you needed a taxi to take you to the Great Hall tonight.’

The old man waved his hand dismissively. ‘No, no, of course not. I will take my bicycle, as always. The day I stop cycling is the day I will die.’ He stood up and lifted his precious box of chessmen. ‘Walk with me to the subway.’ It was too far now for Lao Dai to cycle from his home in the south-east of the city, to the garden outside the park. And the traffic was too dangerous. So he took the subway and the bus, and would be home in just under an hour. It never occurred to him not to come.

They walked past the bristle-headed old man still performing his tai chi and on to the path that followed the canal. Lao Dai took small, shuffling steps, and seemed always on the point of overbalancing. The sky above them soared from pale lemon to the deepest, darkest blue. A splinter of moon was visible rising on the far horizon, and the last of the sun, even though they could not see it, glanced its light off countless windows in dozens of high-rises.

‘So what troubles you?’

Li said, ‘What makes you think I am troubled?’

The old man shook his head. ‘To answer a question with a question is evasion. Your uncle could never hide his worries from me either. Which is why he would never meet my eye when we played chess. He would have made a lousy poker player.’ Lao Dai stopped and put his hand on Li’s arm. ‘I could never fill Yifu’s footsteps. Nor would I try. But I knew him well, and I know he would want you to come to me if you were in trouble.’

Li was embarrassed and moved at the same time. He wanted to hug the old man, but it was not the Chinese way. Dai and Yifu had served together for many years in the criminal investigation department of the Beijing Municipal Police, Yifu rising to high office before his retirement. Although Dai had not reached the same dizzy heights, he had nevertheless been a Section Chief. He was a good man, clever and principled. Both had been widowers and were inseparable after retirement. Yifu’s death had left a huge hole in the old man’s life, and with no children to fill the void, Li was the closest thing to family that he had left.

‘I am responsible for the murders of young women,’ Li said finally.

Lao Dai chuckled. ‘You are killing them yourself, I take it?’

‘I am failing to catch the man who is,’ Li said. ‘The longer I take, the more he will kill.’

Lao Dai sighed. ‘It is easier to carry an empty vessel than a full one. If you fill your mind with guilt for the actions of another, you will leave no room for the clear thinking you will need to catch him.’ He set off again along the path, and Li followed. ‘You had better tell me all about it,’ he said. And Li did. Everything from the first victim to the last, from the discovery of the Ripper book to the letter from the killer himself. Dai listened without comment. A faraway look glazed his eyes, and concern clouded the smile that usually lit them. ‘You have an enemy, Li Yan,’ he said at length.

Li was startled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘This man is not killing these girls only for the pleasure of it. He is constraining himself by following a prescribed course of action. Therefore there is a purpose in it for him beyond the act itself. You must ask yourself what possible purpose he could have. If he does not know these girls or their families what else do all these murders have in common?’

Li thought about it for a moment, and then saw the old man’s reasoning. ‘The police,’ he said.

‘More specifically …’

‘Me?’

‘It was you he wrote to, was it not?’ He regarded Li with some sympathy. ‘By making a hero of you they have made you a target, Li Yan. Where once you were known to only a few, now you are known to all.’ And Li remembered Elvis’s words at the meeting: You’ve been splashed all over the papers ahead of this award thing tonight. You’re a hero. Dai added, ‘Their ignorance was your strength, now their knowledge is your weakness. Yifu would have been proud of you tonight, but he would also have opposed this award with all his might.’

‘But what possible motive …?’

Old Dai raised a hand to stop him. ‘Jealousy, revenge, any one of many twisted things. But you cannot know this, Li Yan. You cannot know who or why, not yet. It is too big a leap. Remember Mao’s Great Leap Forward, which was in truth a great fall back. Your knowledge is your strength. Take small steps and keep your balance. He who stands on the tips of his toes cannot be steady. He who takes long strides will not maintain the pace.’ And Li realised that it was a philosophy Lao Dai applied to his own life, not just in metaphor, but in fact. Dai smiled. ‘You know what Yifu would have said?’

Li nodded. ‘The answer lies in the detail.’

They had reached the steps of the Muxidi subway. Lao Dai stopped and poked a finger in Li’s chest. ‘One step at a time, Li Yan. One small step at a time.’ And then he patted his arm. ‘I will see you tonight. I will be Yifu’s eyes and ears. I will be his pride.’ And he turned and headed carefully towards the escalator, one small step at a time.