Chinese Whispers

VI

CID headquarters was housed in the new grey marble building sandwiched between the old redbrick HQ and the police museum. High, arched windows flanked a romanesque entrance between ornamental pillars. The frontage was still shaded by the dusty trees that lined each side of Jiaominxiang Lane.

Li drove past armed guards into the compound at the rear of police headquarters and stepped out into the midmorning sunshine. His mood was bleak as he mounted the steps to the lobby and climbed up to the top floor.

Commander Hu’s new office was dominated by one of those arched windows on the building’s facade. It rose from floor to ceiling, divided into Georgian oblongs, and gave on to a view, through the trees, of the Supreme Court — still clad in green construction netting. His mahogany desk was inlaid with green leather, and he sat behind it resplendent in his black uniform with its silver badges and buttons, and the number 000023 above the flap of his left breast pocket — which made him twenty-third in the Ministry pecking order. He was not a tall man, but he had an imposing presence, a full head of grey-streaked hair swept back from an unlined forehead and a handsome face for a man of his years. He did not invite Li to sit, gazing at him instead, from behind his desk, with the look of a man disappointed by the failures of his only son. He shook his head sadly. ‘I am glad that Yifu did not live to see this day.’

Li felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.

‘I don’t know what’s going on Li, but someone up there doesn’t like you very much, and you’ve been giving them all the ammunition they need to shoot you down. I only regret that it has fallen to me to be the one who pulls the trigger.’

‘Commander …’

Hu raised a hand to stop him. ‘I don’t want to hear it, Section Chief. I really don’t.’ He opened a drawer in his desk and reached in to pull out the previous day’s copy of the Beijing Youth Daily. He dropped it on the desktop, with the headline facing Li. ‘The journalist who wrote this has provided a statement implicating you in the leaking of the story.’

Li felt the first pricklings of anger. ‘It’s a lie.’

Hu regarded him thoughtfully for a long time. ‘Actually, I’m inclined to believe you. But that doesn’t alter the fact that it’s your word against his.’

‘And you would take the word of a journalist over that of a senior police officer?’

Hu sighed deeply. ‘If that was all it was …’ He opened a folder on his desk. ‘I have copies here of an official complaint registered by a serving police officer in the Beijing East district. In it he claims that you assaulted him in the course of his duties.’

Li frowned, wondering what Hu was talking about. And then he remembered the pushy community cop at the antiques market at Panjiayuan who had dealt so insensitively with the mother of Sunday’s ripper victim. You’re lucky I don’t break your neck, Li had told him, and he had a sudden recollection of the officer’s hat rolling away across the cobbles. ‘That officer was interfering directly with a murder investigation and got physical with one of my detectives.’

‘Which one?’

‘Detective Wu.’

‘Well, we’ll talk to Wu in due course, no doubt. Meantime we have several sworn statements from witnesses at Panjiayuan that you physically assaulted the complaining officer, knocking off his hat and threatening him in full public view.’ Hu breathed stertorously through his nose. ‘Is it true, Li?’

Li sighed. ‘He was out of line, Commander.’

‘No, Section Chief. You were out of line. If this community cop was overreaching his authority or behaving badly, then there are proper channels for dealing with that. But to assault a fellow police officer in full public view does nothing but bring disrepute on Public Security, and undermine the authority of police officers in the eyes of the masses.’ He shut the folder and reached out a hand. ‘I’ll require your Public Security identity card.’

Li’s heart was pounding. ‘What for?’

‘You’re being suspended, Li, until such time as an inquiry into your conduct is held by an investigating group of senior officers.’ He paused. ‘Your ID.’

Li made no move to give it to him. He said, ‘Commander, we’re in the middle of a serial murder investigation. Someone out there is killing young women. And he’s going to do it again if we don’t stop him.’

‘You’re not a one-man band, Li, even if you think you are. You have a perfectly capable deputy in the section who can take over.’

‘You’re being used, Commander. You said it yourself. Someone up there doesn’t like me. Have you wondered why?’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘Because he’s a murderer, that’s why. And he knows if he doesn’t get me out of the way I’m going to expose him.’

Commander Hu looked at him with something close to pity in his eyes. ‘Now you’re just being ridiculous,’ he said. ‘Give me your ID!’ His raised voice heralded the end of his patience.

Li stood for a moment, furious, frustrated. Helpless. Then he reached into his pocket for the well-worn maroon wallet that held his identity card and dropped it on the commander’s desk. He turned without a word and walked out of the office.

* * *

Li paced slowly back and forth across the compound for a long time, thinking furiously. He had no doubt that the misappropriation of his son, albeit temporarily, had been a warning. He was being threatened and outmanoeuvred at every turn. Either Commissioner Zhu had confided in more than just the Director General of the Political Department, or … the thought coagulated in Li’s head like an embolism … or the killer was Zhu himself. Or the Director General. He held his hands out and saw that they were shaking. The guard on the gate was looking curiously in his direction, and he quickly thrust them back into his coat pockets. He had no idea what he was going to do. Where he was going to go. He was no longer Section Chief Li Yan. He was a disgraced officer awaiting internal investigation. How quickly the hero had become the villain. He glanced towards the guards at the gate again and knew that once he went out he would not be able to re-enter without his ID. There didn’t seem anything else for it but to confront the dragon in his lair.

He let anger fuel his determination as he crossed the compound to the main building and rode up in the elevator to the fifth floor. He strode with long, decisive steps, down the hush of the carpeted corridor which led to the Commissioner’s inner sanctum. The armed policewoman with her gun pressed against her cheek stared sternly at him from the poster on the wall of the reception room. Commissioner Zhu’s formidable secretary guarded the entrance to his lair. She was a dominating presence.

‘I need to see the Commissioner,’ he said.

‘He’s busy.’ Her response was intended to be a full stop on their conversation. It was clear she did not expect a reply.

‘I’ll wait.’

She glared at him. ‘You will not. Your section secretary will require to make an appointment.’

It was obvious to Li that she knew perfectly well that he had been suspended and no longer had access to his section.

Li took a step towards the Commissioner’s door. ‘Is he in there?’

She rose to her feet in order to put her full weight behind her threat. ‘If you go in there,’ she said, ‘I shall have you arrested.’

He glared back at her, but knew that it was pointless to do anything other than accept that he was beaten. He could do nothing if he gave them the slightest excuse to put him under lock and key. He turned away in disgust, and his eyes fell on something in the trash that stopped him in his tracks. Amidst the screwed up sheets of paper and cellophane wrappings in the bin lay the dark red and gold of an empty pack of Russian cheroots. Icy fingers wrapped themselves around his heart. He looked at her again. ‘You shouldn’t smoke,’ he said to her. ‘It’s bad for your health.’

She looked at him as if he were insane. ‘I don’t,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘I didn’t think so.’