Death of a Red Heroine

Chapter 23

Detective Yu hesitated before pressing on the owl-shaped door bell as he stood on the landing overlooking an upper-class neighborhood just a few blocks north of Hongkou Park. The front door was locked, so he had come up an iron back staircase.

He was not comfortable with his share of the division of labor. Yu was to visit Jiang Wehe, an emerging artist, while Chen was away in Guangzhou. It was not that Yu had wanted to go to Guangzhou, which was most likely to be a tough trip-a wild goose chase. It was just that Detective Yu had never dealt with an artist before.

And Jiang Weihe happened to be a well-known one, and avant-garde enough to pose nude for Wu Xiaoming.

Before he placed his finger on the bell, a woman opened the door, and stared inquiringly at him. She was in her early thirties, tall, well-built, with a long graceful neck, a narrow waist and terrific legs. A nice-looking woman, with a sensual mouth, high cheekbones, and large eyes, her hair in an unruly mass of tangles. The smooth flesh beneath her eyes was smudged with black shadow. She was wearing a paint-smeared coverall drawn in at the waist by a black leather belt, and standing barefoot.

“Sorry to interrupt you at your work,” Yu said, quickly taking inventory and producing his I.D. “I want to ask you a few questions.”

“The police?” She put her hand up to the door frame and studied him intently without making a gesture of invitation. There was a look of confident maturity about her. Her voice was deeply pitched, bearing the trace of a Henan accent.

“Yes,” he said. “Can we talk inside?”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No.”

“Do you have a warrant or something?”

“No.”

“If not, you’ve no right to push your way in here.”

“Well, I’ve just a few questions, Comrade Jiang, about somebody you know. I cannot force you to talk, but your cooperation will be greatly appreciated.”

“Then you cannot force me.”

“Listen. Comrade Chief Inspector Chen Cao-you know him-is my boss. He suggested I come to you this way first. It is in our common interest.”

“Chen Cao-why?”

“The situation’s quite delicate, and you are well known. It would not be a good idea to draw publicity to you. Unpleasant publicity. Here’s a note from him.”

“I’ve had plenty of publicity,” she said. “So why should I care?”

But she took the note and read it. Then she frowned, standing with her head slightly bowed, gazing at her bare feet, which were spotted with paint. She must have been working.

“You should have mentioned Chief Inspector Chen earlier. Come in.”

The apartment was a studio but also served as a combination bedroom, dining room, and living room. Apparently she did not care much about the appearance of her room. Pictures, newspapers, tubes of paint, brushes, and clothes lay scattered all over the place. Dozens of books were shelved against the wall in different positions and at various angles. There were also several books on the nightstand, with a bottle of nail polish among them. Shoes, most of them separated from their mates, had been abandoned around the bed. The other furniture consisted of a large working table, a few rattan chairs, and an enormous mahogany bed with tall posts. On top of the table were glasses of water, a couple of containers filled with wilted flowers, and a shell ashtray containing a half-smoked cigar.

On a pedestal in the center of the room stood a half-finished sculpture.

“I’m having my second cup of coffee,” she said, picking up a mug from the table. “What would you like to drink?”

“Nothing. Thank you.”

She pulled over a chair for him, and another for herself which she set opposite him.

“Questions about whom?”

“Wu Xiaoming.”

“Why me?”

“He has taken pictures of you.”

“Well, he has taken pictures of a lot of people.”

“We’re talking about those-in the Flower City-”

“So you want to discuss the art of photography with me?” she said, sitting up in her chair.

“I’m a common cop. So I’m not interested in talking about these pictures as art, but as something else.”

“That I can understand,” she said with a cynical smile. “As a cop, you must have done some research work.”

The shadows beneath her eyes somehow gave her a debauched look.

“Well, it’s to Chief Inspector Chen’s credit, I have to admit,” he said.

But how Chief Inspector Chen recognized her, Detective Yu did not know.

“Really?”

“Yes. So we believe you may want to cooperate.”

“What do you want to know about Wu?”

“What you know about him.”

“You are asking for quite a lot,” she said. “But why?”

“We believe Wu’s involved in a murder. It’s the case of Guan Hongying, the national model worker. There’s a special investigation under way.”

“Ah-I see,” she said, without registering too much surprise on her face. “But why does your Chief Inspector Chen not come to interrogate me himself?”

“He is away in Guangzhou, interviewing a witness.”

“So you are serious?”

“Yes, we are.”

“You must know something about Wu’s family background?”

“That’s why we need your help.”

Detective Yu believed he detected a change in the artist’s tone, and also a subtle sign of it in her body language, as she slowly stirred her spoon in the coffee mug, as if measuring out something.

“You’re so sure?”

“Chief Inspector Chen has made a point of excluding your name from the official file. You will be an understanding woman, he says.”

“Is that a compliment?” She took a long swallow of the coffee, the cream leaving a white line along her upper lip. “By the way, how is your chief inspector? Still single?”

“He’s just too busy, I think.”

“He had an affair in Beijing, I’ve heard. It broke his heart.”

“Well, that I don’t know,” Yu said. “He has never talked to me about it.”

“Oh, I don’t know much about it, either. It was such a long time ago,” she said with an unfathomable smile on her lips. “So, where shall we start?”

“From the very beginning, if you please.”

“First, let me make a point. The whole thing’s in the past tense. I met Wu about two years ago, and we parted one year later. I want to emphasize this, not because of his possible involvement in a murder case.”

“Understood,” he said. “Now, how did you get to know him?”

“He came to me, saying that he wanted to take my picture. For his magazines and newspapers, of course.”

“Few would turn down such an offer, I bet.”

“Who would say no to have one’s own picture-free and published?”

“So the pictures were published?”

“Yes, the pictures turned out to be of high quality,” she said. “To be fair, Wu’s a gifted photographer. He’s got the eye for it, and the instinct, too. He knows when and where to get the shot. A number of magazines are eager for his work.”

“What happened afterward?”

“Well, as it turned out, I was his personal rather than professional target-that’s what he said to me over a lunch. Believe it or not, he posed for me, too. One thing led to another. You know what happens.”

“A romantic involvement?”

“Is that a sort of euphemism?”

“Is it?”

“Are you trying to ask if we slept together?”

“Well, was it a serious relationship?”

“What do you mean by ‘serious relationship’?” she said. “If it means that Wu Xiaoming proposed to me, then it wasn’t, no. But we had some good times together.”

“People have different definitions,” he said, “but let’s say, did you see each other a lot?”

“Not a lot. As a senior editor for Red Star, he got assignments from time to time, to go to Beijing or other cities, even abroad on one or two occasions. I am extremely busy with my work, too. But when we had time, we were together. For the first few months he came to my place quite frequently, two or three times a week.”

“Days or nights?”

“Both, but he seldom stayed overnight. He had his car-his father’s, you know. It was convenient for him.”

“Did you ever go to his place?”

“Only a couple of times. It’s a mansion. You must have been there. You know what it is like.” She continued after a pause, “But when we were together, I wanted to do what we were together for. So what was the point of staying somewhere without any privacy? Even if we could shut ourselves up in one of the rooms, I wouldn’t have been in the mood-with his people walking around there all the time.”

“You mean his wife?”

“No, she actually stayed in her room all the time-she’s bedridden. But it’s his father’s house. The old man was in the hospital, but his mother and sisters were there.”

“So you knew he was a married man from the very beginning.”

“He did not make a secret of it, but he told me that it had been a mistake. I believe it was true-to some extent.”

“A mistake,” he said. “Did he explain it to you?”

“For one thing, his wife’s been sick for several years,” she said, “too sick to have a normal sex life with him.”

“Anything else?”

“Marriage in those years could have been a matter of convenience. The educated youths were lonely, and life in the countryside was extremely hard, and they were far, far away from home.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” he said, thinking of his years with Peiqin in Yunnan, “but you had no objection to an extramarital relationship?”

“Come on, Comrade Detective Yu. We’re in a new decade, a new time. Who lives any longer like in the Confucian books? If a marriage is a happy one, no outsider could ever destroy it,” she said, scratching her ankle. “Besides, I never expected him to marry me.”

Maybe he was an old-fashioned man. Yu certainly felt ancient sitting beside the artist, to whom an affair could be just like the change of her clothes. But he also felt it tempting to imagine the body under her loose coverall. Was it because he had seen it in the picture? And he also noticed the black mole on her nape.

“But if he’s so unhappy with his marriage, what kept him in it?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t think a divorce would do him any good, politically, I mean. I’ve heard that somebody in his wife’s family is still influential.”

“That’s true.”

“I also had the feeling that he cared about her in his way.”

“What made you think so?”

“He talked to me about her. She had come to him in his most miserable days-as an educable educated youth of a capitalist roader family. She took pity on him, and she took good care of him, too. But for her, he once said, he could have fallen into despair.”

“She might have been a beauty in her day,” he said. “We have seen some pictures of her in earlier years.”

“You may not believe it, but part of the reason I came to care for him was that he showed some loyalty to his wife. He was not a man devoid of responsibility.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “But I’ve got another question about him. Does he earn a lot from these pictures-not of his wife, of course.”

“As an HCC, he probably has his ways to get his money. Some people would pay him handsomely, for instance, to have a picture published in the Red Star. He does not have to make a living by selling the pictures. As far as I know, he spends generously on himself, and he’s not mean to his friends.”

“What kind of friends?”

“People of similar family background. Birds of a feather, if you want to put it that way.”

“A pack of HCC,” he grumbled. “So what do they do together?”

“They have parties at his place. Wild parties. It’s a shame, they would say, not to have parties in such a mansion.”

“Can you give me the names of his friends?”

“Only those who have given me their cards at those parties,” she said, turning toward a plastic box on the shelf.

“That will be great.”

“Here they are.” She spread out several cards on the table.

He glanced through them. One was Guo Qiang, the man who had confirmed Wu’s alibi for his whereabouts on May tenth. Several cards bore impressive titles under the names.

“Can I borrow them?”

“Sure. I don’t think I’ll need them.”

Taking out a pack of cigarettes, he lit one after she nodded her approval. “Another question, Miss Jiang. Did you know anything about Guan Hongying while you were with Wu? For instance, did you meet her at his mansion, or did he mention her?”

“No, not that I remember,” she said. “But I knew there were some other girls.”

“Was that the reason why you broke things off?”

“Well, you may think so, but no,” she said, taking a cigarette from his pack. “I did not really expect anything out of that relationship. He had his life, and I had mine. We had made it clear to each other. A couple of times I confronted him about his other girlfriends, but he swore that he only took pictures of them.”

“So you believed him?”

“No, I didn’t-but ironically, we parted because of his pictures.”

“Pictures of those girls?”

“Yes, but not like those-artistic work-you have seen in magazines.”

“I understand,” he said, “but how did you find them?”

“By accident. During one of those parties, I was with him in his room when he had to answer a call on the telephone in his study. It was a long conversation, so I looked into his drawer. I discovered a photo album. Pictures of nude girls, you would expect, but much more than that-so obscene-and they were all in a variety of disgusting positions-even in the midst of sexual intercourse. I recognized one of the models. A well-known actress, now living abroad with an American millionaire, I’ve heard. She’s gagged in that picture, lying on her back with her wrists handcuffed, and buried between her breasts was Wu’s head. There were quite a number of such terrible pictures, I did not have the time to look at them all. Wu had printed them out like professional fashion photographs, but there was no use his protesting that they were artistic work.”

“Outrageous!”

“Even more outrageous was the way he kept records on the back of those photos.”

“What kind of record?”

“Well, in a Sherlock Holmes story, a sexual criminal kept pictures of the women he had conquered, along with descriptions of their positions, secrets, and preferences in bed-all the intimate details of the sexual intercourse he had with them-oh, come on, Detective Yu, you surely know the story well.”

“Chief Inspector Chen has translated a few Western mysteries,” Detective Yu said equivocally, having never read the story himself. “You can discuss it with him.”

“Really, I thought he wrote only poems.”

“Now what could Wu have wanted to do with these pictures?”

“I don’t know, but he’s not just a Don Juan who wants to satisfy his ego by looking over his naked conquests.”

“That S.O.B.,” Yu cursed, not familiar with Don Juan either.

“I could live with a Don Juan, but that kind of cold-blooded cynicism really put me off. So I decided to part with him.”

“You were wise to make that decision.”

“I’ve got my work to do,” she looked down somberly. “I did not want to be involved in a scandal. Now I’ve told you all I know.”

“That’s really important information. You’re helping us a lot, Comrade Jiang. We’ll make sure that your name will never be mentioned in the official investigation record.”

“Thank you.”

She stood up, accompanying Yu toward the door. “Comrade Detective Yu.”

“Yes?”

“I may have something else for you, I think,” she said, “but I need to ask you a favor.”

“As long as it’s in my power.”

“Wu and I have parted. Whatever grudge I have against him, I should not throw stones into the well where he is drowning. So I won’t tell you anything I’ve not seen or heard myself. But I happened to know one of Wu’s girls at the time we parted.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Ning Jing. How Wu had picked her up, or what he saw in her, I’ve no idea at all. Perhaps just another object for his camera’s eye, to be focused, shot, and pasted into his album. I’m mentioning her because she may know something about Wu and Guan. Guan could have been the next girl after her.”

“Yes, that may be an important lead, Comrade Jiang. I’ll definitely check it out. But what can I do for you?”

“If it is possible, please try not to involve her in any publicity. That’s the favor I’m asking. I have had my share, and a column more or less in tabloid magazines does not make much difference to me. But she is different. She’s going to get married soon, I’ve heard.”

“I see,” he said. “I will do my best. Do you have her address?”

“She has her name listed in the phone book,” she said, taking down a directory. “Let me find it for you.”

He got the name, address, and phone number.

“Thank you. I’ll tell Chief Inspector Chen about all the help you’ve given us.”

“And say hello to Chief Inspector Chen.”

“I will. And good-bye.”

At the foot of the stairs, Yu turned around and saw her still standing barefoot on the landing. But she wasn’t looking at him. She was gazing at the distant horizon behind the multi-colored roofs.

A nice woman, though her philosophy of life was beyond him. Perhaps it was the price one pays for being an artist, Detective Yu suspected. Being different.

Just like Chief Inspector Chen-who was nonetheless a capable cop.

With Wu Xiaoming, however, it was more than being different.

Yu decided to go to Ning Jing’s place immediately. It would not be a pleasant visit, nor would it be easy.

Jiang Weihe had been cooperative, but only after the combined pressure of “the hard and the soft.” The threat of revealing her identity as the nude in the magazine, and the note from Chen. But with Ning, Detective Yu had nothing to use. Nothing but the scanty information from Jiang who, despite her declaration, might well have harbored a personal grudge against Ning. So the only card he could play would be that of bluff, one of the effective tactics to bring a potential witness around, especially with the possibility of a “peach-colored scandal.” A phone call to her work unit from the Shanghai Police Bureau would be enough to start a wildfire of gossip, finger pointing, head shaking, saliva spitting on her back, and whatnot. It need not take a formal investigation to put her under suspicion.

Ning’s apartment was on Xikang Road, close to the Gate to Joy, a nightclub that had been rehabilitated and reopened.

A young woman appeared at the door where he rang the bell. “What do you want?”

Ning wore a white T-shirt several sizes too large that completely covered her shorts. It was difficult to guess her age. The way she dressed was almost like a teenager, or else it was too fashionable for him. She had wide black eyes and a straight nose; her hair was pulled back and held in place by a kerchief. Her full lips were moist, sensuous, even somewhat wanton.

“I’m Detective Yu Guangming, of the Shanghai Police Bureau. I need to ask you a few questions.”

“What have I done?”

“Not about you, but about someone you know.”

“Show me your identification,” she said. “I’m on my way out.”

“It won’t take long.” He produced his I.D. “We’d appreciate your help.”

“Okay, come in.”

It was a small, cozy apartment, but unkempt for the home of a young single woman. A creased bedspread lay over the unmade bed. On the table was an empty but unwashed ashtray. There were no framed pictures, but a number of magazine photographs of cars and movie stars were taped to the wall. On the floor were two pairs of shoes, peeping out from under the bed. There was one thing in common between Jiang and Ning. Each had an apartment to herself.

“What do you want from me?” she said after he seated himself on a rattan chair.

“A few questions about Wu Xiaoming.”

“Wu Xiaoming-why me?”

“You’re his girlfriend, right?”

“No, he’s just taken a few pictures of me. For his magazine.”

“Really?”

“Yes, that’s all.”

“Then you don’t have to worry about answering my questions. If you cooperate, everything you say will be kept off the record.”

“Now what do you mean, Comrade Detective?”

“Wu is involved in a murder case.”

“Heavens, what…” Her black eyes grew even wider now. “How?”

“We don’t know everything yet,” he said. “That’s why your help would be appreciated.”

“But I cannot help you. I hardly know him at all.”

“You can refuse to cooperate, but then we’ll have to go to your work unit,” Yu said. “ Huanpu Elementary School, right?”

“Go there if you want to. That is all I will say,” she said, standing up and making a gesture toward the door.

She was beginning to irritate him with her attitude, so damned antagonistic. And he did not like this way of conducting the interview. There was some hard object on the rattan chair beneath him, which made him feel even more uncomfortable as he sat opposite her.

“But there is more than that, I’m afraid,” Yu said. “We’re not talking about your pictures in magazines, but about the ones in his album. Surely you know them better than I.”

“What are you talking about?” She flinched involuntarily but she covered it well. “Show them to me.”

“We will show these pictures to your principal, every one of them.” He was bluffing now. “They’re by no means decent for a schoolteacher. And a number of other people will see them, too.”

“You’ve got no right.”

“Yes, we have every right. We’re here in socialist China. The Party authorities are calling on the people to fight Western bourgeois decadence. These pictures will serve as a good example.”

“How could you do that!”

“We can do whatever we want with them,” he said, “as evidence in a criminal investigation. We also have a witness who can testify to your relationship with Wu. Since you’re obstructing our inquiries, we’ve no choice.”

She sat completely straight on the edge of the sofa, her knees tightly together. She was not only red in the face now. There were small drops of perspiration along her hairline in spite of her effort to hold herself together.

“What do you want me to do?” she finally said with a note of panic in her quivering voice.

“Tell us everything about your relationship with Wu,” he added, “including all the details, like a paperback romance.”

There was a bit of sarcasm he could detect in his own voice. No point, he told himself, to putting her through too much of an ordeal.

“Where shall I begin?”

“At the very beginning.”

“It was about a year ago, I think. Wu came to me as a photographer from the Red Star. He asked if he could photograph me, claiming that I had a typical high-school teacher’s face, and that he was working up a proposal for People.”

“A typical highschool teacher’s face,” he repeated.

“It’s not very flattering, but he had his ways of pursuing people.”

“So the pictures were published?”

“Yes, but actually he had little interest in the publication, as he told me later. He just wanted to meet me.”

“The same old dirty trick,” he said. “And everybody fell for it.”

“But he had talent and kept his word. These pictures in People helped my position at school. So we came to know more of each other.”

“And it began to develop into an affair?”

“Yes, we started dating.”

“You did not know that he was married?”

“I did not know at first, but he did not try to cover it up. On our third or fourth date, he told me about his marriage, saying he was not happy with it. I could understand why-with his sick, neurotic wife. What mattered most, he said, was the time we shared. So I believed we might work something out eventually.”

“Did he take the initial step in the sexual relationship between you?

“Do I have to answer that question?’’ she said, twisting her fingers.

“Yes. If you answer now, it will save you a great deal of unpleasantness later.”

“Well, he invited me to a party at his place, and afterward he asked me to stay on for a while. I agreed. I was a bit drunk.”

“Then he took advantage of you while you were drunk.”

“No, he did not force me.” She hung her head low, wringing her hands in a helpless gesture. “I was willing, hoping that sooner or later he would change his mind.”

“Change his mind?”

“Yes, I hoped he would choose to marry me and divorce his wife.”

“How long were you together?”

“A couple of months.”

“Were you happy… with him?”

“At first, when things went smoothly.”

“How often were you together?”

“Two or three times a week.”

“What kind of man was he?” Yu asked. “Sexually, I mean.”

The question came as a shock to her. She pulled at the hem of her T-shirt as she said in a whisper, “ Normal.”

“Weren’t you afraid of becoming pregnant?”

“Yes, but I was always careful.”

“Then why did you end it?”

“He chose not to divorce his wife.”

“Did you discuss the issue with him?”

“Yes, but to no avail.”

“You could have sued him, or approached his work unit.”

“What’s the point?” she said with a tear trickling down her cheek. “With his family background, who would have listened to me? Besides, I was a ‘third party’ to begin with.”

“So you just let him get away with it?”

“I argued with him, and he did the most horrible thing. Those pictures-you have seen them, haven’t you? If I continued to harass him, he threatened to show them to other people.”

“That HCC bastard!” He stood up. looking over her head toward a dismal, gray sky out the window, taking a cigarette out of his pocket, lighting it, before he seated himself again on the hard rattan chair. “But how could you have let him take those photos?”

“I had posed for him on a professional level,” she said sobbing. “Later on, I allowed him to take more intimate… He had his own darkroom and equipment, so I was not worried. But those horrible nude photos, those were taken while I was sleeping. And he posed on top of me without my knowledge.”

“Oh, I see.” So those pictures were not just of Ning herself, but of her and Wu together. Yu needed some time to think about this new information. Apparently Wu had taken and kept the pictures for a purpose: to get rid of somebody when he no longer desired her.

“So that was the end of your affair?” Yu asked.

“Yes. He never contacted me again.”

“Just one more question: Was Wu Xiaoming seeing somebody else when you parted with him?”

“I was not sure, but there were other girls at those parties.”

“Did you know someone named Guan Hongying among them?”

“No. Guan Hongying-isn’t she the national model worker? Heavens.”

Yu took a picture of Guan out of his pocket. “Do you recognize her?”

“Yes, I think so. I saw her only once at Wu’s place. I remember her because she clung to him all the evening, but I did not know her name at the time. Wu did not introduce her to anybody.”

“Wu certainly would not have done that,” he said. “Do you know anything else about her?”

“No, that’s all.” She fumbled in her bag and found a handkerchief.

“Contact me if you can think of anything, Comrade Ning.”

“I will.” She then added, “You won’t tell other people?”

“I’ll try my best,” he said.

She accompanied him to the door, her face streaked with tears, her head hung low, no longer the hostile antagonist of an hour ago, her hands nervously pulling again at the lower edge of her oversized T-shirt.

Detective Yu had succeeded in bluffing her and getting information he had not expected. But he was not elated. Ning, too, was a victim.

He began the long walk home. The new facts, instead of diminishing the puzzle, seemed to add to its complexity.

What an HCC monster! So many women in his life. Even in his most intimate moments with a woman, Wu had not forgotten to take those horrible pictures for his ulterior purpose. But what was the point of conquering so many women if there was no future with any of them? What was the point?

There had been only one woman in Yu’s life-Peiqin. But Yu was a happy man because of it.

Was there a woman in Chief Inspector Chen’s life? There had been one-according to Jiang-in Beijing, years earlier. Yu had never heard anything about it, but it was said that of late there was a female often seen in Chen’s company. According to the bureau housing committee, however, there was no one. Otherwise Chen would surely have tried to make a point of it when applying for an apartment.

Even Jiang seemed to have a soft spot for the chief inspector. At least she changed her attitude abruptly because of his note. The fact that Chen had recognized her in the picture also intrigued him. Nothing but her bare back showed in that photograph. Was it the black mole on the nape of her neck that had revealed her identity to him?

Could there be something between the two? Immediately Yu hoped he was wrong. He had come to think of Chen as a friend. It was time for Chen to settle down, but not with somebody as modern as Jiang.