Enigma of China

SEVENTEEN

On the evening of the next day, Chief Inspector Chen left the bureau and walked out into the gathering dusk, still lost in thought.

Walking sometimes helped him think, especially when he was confronted by many possible directions. It was like an English poem that he’d read back in college. The poet could afford to speculate about the consequences of a road not taken in the yellow wood; a cop could not.

That afternoon, after the routine bureau meeting, he’d once again tried to shift his investigation in a new direction.

First, he tried to look into what Zhou had done during the last days of his life. But soon Chen gave up. What if the pack of 95 Supreme Majesty was just a trigger? Zhou might have been involved in something long before that. The presence of the city government team at the hotel pointed to such a possibility. Then Chen tried to figure out what Detective Wei had been doing on the last day of his life. Chen made several phone calls, reaching out to every possible contact, but it would be days before he learned anything useful.

Finally, Chen tried to find out the reason the Beijing team had been dispatched to the hotel. Comrade Zhao hadn’t written back yet, and there were all sorts of whispered stories, but none of them proved to be substantial.

Ultimately, he was exhausted, with nothing really accomplished. He decided to call it a day and go pay a visit to his mother. She was back home and living alone, where only an hourly maid who could hardly speak Shanghainese came by occasionally.

He kept walking, absentmindedly, until he found himself at Yunnan Road, a street he’d known well back in the days when he still lived with his mother. It was a street known for its ramshackle eateries with a variety of cheap, delicious specialties. Smelling the familiar scents, he thought it would be a good idea to buy some cooked food for his mother.

Nowadays, it was called a “gourmet street,” with a number of new, tall buildings and splendid restaurants in place of the old shacks. He walked over to Shenjiamen, a recently opened restaurant that sported an impressive array of basins near the entrance, plastic and wooden containers of various colors and sizes and shapes, each containing sea and river delicacies. He came to a stop at the sight of crowding squid, squirting clams, squirming trout, jumping frogs, and crawling crabs, as if they were still scuttling along the silent floors of rivers and oceans. A snakelike hose dipped in and out of the basins, pumping air into them in a bubbling appearance of life. There were several people lingering, likely or unlikely customers, squatting or standing around. A young mother looked down at the little boy tugging at her hand, her face radiant under the neon light that flashed: Private Room, Elegant Seat.

His phone rang and interrupted his reverie. It was Jiang of the city government.

“Fang has disappeared, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Fang?”

“Zhou’s secretary. Nobody knows where she is. Not even her parents.”

“I’ve not met or interviewed her. Detective Wei told me that you didn’t see her as a potential suspect.”

“Not a suspect in Zhou’s death, no, but she might have been privy to his corruption. We talked to her quite a few times, and she denied any knowledge of his criminal activities.”

“She’s just a secretary. On the list of people privy to Zhou’s problems, she might not be at the top.”

“She wasn’t just a secretary-she was a little secretary, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen.”

“I didn’t know, Jiang,” Chen said, though he recalled both Wei and Zhou’s colleague Dang using the term. He ignored Jiang’s sarcastic tone. Trying to find out more, Chen said, “In fact, you didn’t tell me anything about her.”

“It was Zhou who brought her into the office. She studied in England a couple of years ago, and she still has a valid passport, as well as a valid visa that would allow her to travel to England and Europe. We have to prevent her from slipping out of the country. I’ve already informed customs and provided them with her picture.”

“I see.” But something didn’t add up. She might know something about the details of Zhou’s shady schemes, but that wouldn’t be a “state secret.” It was certainly nothing for Jiang to panic over.

“You have to find her as soon as possible, Chief Inspector Chen. I’ve discussed it with your Party Secretary Li, and you’re the one with experience in searching for a missing person.”

“Please fax or e-mail me all the information you have about her immediately. Send the photos you have of her as well. At the same time, inform Liao of the homicide squad that I’ll do my best,” Chen added before hanging up.

This was another twist, although Chen didn’t see anything particularly surprising about Fang’s disappearance. Jiang had, by his own admission, talked to her quite a few times, undoubtedly bringing a lot of pressure to bear on the secretary-or little secretary-so much so that it was very possible that she couldn’t take it anymore and ran away. An understandable reaction on her part, and she might come back before the police even started looking for her. It was very apparent that Jiang wasn’t telling him everything. Why would Jiang have bothered notifying customs?

He decided not to visit his mother right now. Instead, he stepped into a small Internet café across the street. Like in the one near the concert hall in Pudong, it had a plastic sign marked Registration on the front desk. This time, he produced his ID without being asked.

Perching on the chair in front of his assigned computer, he had a free cup of tea, which tasted like it had been rebrewed, and then started looking through his e-mail. The first batch of material had already come in from Jiang, including several photos. The photos were of Fang when she was still in her twenties. They showed a handsome, spirited girl, and there was nothing that suggested she was or would become a little secretary. He glanced through some of the background information, but there was nothing really new or useful, either. It might take him hours to sort through everything.

His cell phone rang. Caller ID showed that it was Lianping, so he picked up. After exchanging greetings, Chen asked, “What’s up?”

“I’m going to the Shaoxing Literature Festival tomorrow.”

“That’s nice-have you ever been there?”

“No, this will be my first time. It’s only one hour outside of Shanghai, and the sponsor is providing me a ‘journalist’s package.’ It includes a ticket to tour Lu Xun’s residence, meal coupons, and if I stay over, accommodations at a four-star hotel.”

“What a nice package!”

“I mentioned your name to the sponsor and they would love to invite you to come and speak. Everything would be covered, and it would also include a handsome speaker’s fee.”

“Thank you, Lianping. I might not have the time to attend the festival or to give a speech, but I’ll think about it.”

“Please do. If you decide you can come, I’ll put you in touch with the organizers. I’ll be there, you know.”

After hanging up, he thought about it. For a brief moment, he felt drawn to the city of Shaoxing, if only for the chance to take a short vacation there. Oh, a “vacation” is the draw, is it? he joked with himself-surely not the one who invited you? He tried to mock himself out of thinking about a possibly romantic vacation. Shaoxing was a city with a long cultural history, he reflected. It was known for its association with many celebrated men of letters, and particularly with Lu Xun, a modern Chinese writer whom Chen passionately admired.

With the investigation in the state it was, however, he didn’t think he could spare the time for the trip. So he started to settle back into the various files about Fang when another call came in, this time from Melong.

“I have something for you, Chief Inspector Chen. Where are you?”

“I’m on Yunnan Road.”

“Ah, you’re on the gourmet street. It’s quite close to me. How about I meet you there in ten minutes? I have something to show you.”

“That’s good. I’ll wait here for you,” he said, looking across the street at a restaurant on the corner near Ninghai Road. “I’ll be at the Four Seas Cross-Bridge Rice Noodles.”

Chen left the Internet café and walked over to the noodle restaurant. To his surprise, it wasn’t crowded. He sat down at a corner table. He had hardly finished looking through the menu when Melong stepped in with a large envelope in his hand.

“This is one of the few places around here that hasn’t really changed,” Melong said, sitting down opposite. “An excellent choice.”

But even this noodle place had changed some, the service fancier and the menu more varied than Chen remembered. The waiter put down on the table more than a dozen tiny saucers of fresh toppings, including thin-sliced pork, beef, lamb, fish, shrimp, and vegetables, before bringing over two large bowls of noodles immersed in steaming hot soup covered with a thin layer of oil. They were supposed to immerse the toppings in the soup, then wait for a minute or two before eating. They were the same cross-bridge noodles Zhou had had for his last meal.

The moment the waiter stepped away Melong pushed the envelope across the table to Chen.

It contained a bunch of pictures of Zhou and Fang in the office, the two touching and kissing each other there. One picture showed Zhou sitting on the desk with his trousers half removed, and her kneeling in front of him on the carpet, naked to her waist, her hair cascading down over her bare back. Then there were several more explicit ones showing the two of them in bed, totally naked, engaged in the entangling ecstasy of rolling cloud and rain. The pictures were of low quality, and most of them were rather blurry.

“Where did you get these?”

“You know a thing or two about my work, don’t you? These photos were found on Dang’s computer.”

“Dang’s computer-how?”

But Chen didn’t have to wait for the answer. One of the angles he’d discussed with Detective Wei was who would benefit from Zhou’s murder, an approach he had mentioned when talking with Melong. While the relationship between Zhou and Fang was not unanticipated, the source of the pictures put Dang in a new light. Figuring out why Dang had taken them was a no-brainer. They were evidence he could use against Zhou, having secretly installed a video camera in Zhou’s office.

The pictures would have been enough to bring down Zhou and for Dang, the second in command, to succeed to Zhou’s position. Dang might have simply been biding his time until the 95 Supreme Majesty scandal broke out, making it no longer necessary for him to release those photos.

Alternatively, he could have been blackmailing Zhou with these pictures.

“The other day you mentioned that people in Zhou’s office were on your radar,” Melong said. “I checked into each of them, and this is what has come up so far.”

He didn’t have to explain further. Chen nodded.

But that led Chen back to a question that had occurred to him earlier in the day.

He wasn’t interested so much in Fang’s appearance in these pictures as he was in Jiang’s panic about her sudden disappearance. A clandestine relationship between a boss and his little secretary wasn’t really surprising in China. Jiang must have known something about it before Fang disappeared: but was he now worried about these graphic photos coming to light? Was Jiang just irrationally panicky?

Or was it something else?

When Chen pulled himself back into the present moment after being so lost in thought, he realized that Melong was looking at him with a wry smile.

“What is it?”

“The noodles are now cold and taste like glue with all the soup soaked in.”

“I’m sorry. It’s my fault entirely.”

“No, it’s my fault. I should have shown you the pictures after we’d finished eating.”

“Let’s order something else.”

“No thanks. I’m not really hungry.”

“I owe you one, Melong. I’ll treat you to a better meal another day.” He added belatedly, “How is your mother?”

“She’s already in the hospital. The doctor is taking special care of her. I should go over there now. The hospital won’t admit visitors after eight.”

Watching Melong get into a taxi, Chen felt a twinge of guilt about not visiting his mother. In a somber mood, he pursued his plan to have some cooked food delivered to her. He walked over to Little Shaoxing Chicken Restaurant and settled on the Shanghai-style smoked carp and half a three-yellow chicken.

Even though it was getting late, Chen contemplated, perhaps it wasn’t too late for him to go and interview Fang’s parents.

So he walked back over to the Internet café. The attendant recognized him and led him to a computer without asking to see his ID again. He logged on and retrieved the file Jiang sent, then copied Fang’s address.

He couldn’t shake the feeling, however, that there was something else, something dancing just on the edge of his thoughts. Was it in Lianping’s call about the festival in Shaoxing, something possibly connected to the investigation, that slipped away when he was distracted by Melong’s call?

Then he got an idea.

He took a folder out of his briefcase and looked through it. It turned out to be just as he remembered.

Last year, Zhou had made two trips to Shaoxing. Born and raised there until he was seven, he left for Shanghai when his father’s job was transferred. Zhou hadn’t been back there even once until last year. The information gathered by Detective Wei was quite detailed, including all of the trips Zhou had taken in the last several years and their purpose, as well as the people, especially the local officials, he met with. But that wasn’t the case with his trips to Shaoxing. Wei had no details on them. So Zhou had gone to Shaoxing for some unrevealed personal reason.

There was a note in the folder stating that Zhou had no property under his own name in Shaoxing. Wei had done a thorough job, taking into consideration Zhou’s position and connections.

Of course, a man could suddenly be so nostalgic as to decide to visit his old home, even going there twice in one year. But that wasn’t likely, particularly not for a busy official like Zhou.

Chen took out his phone and made a call to Party Secretary Li, saying that he might have to make a speech at a literary festival outside of Shanghai but that he’d be back in a day.

“Of course you need to go, Chief Inspector Chen.”

Li didn’t even ask where the festival was, or about the ongoing investigation.

“If there’s anything urgent, just call me, and I can be back in an hour or two.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just go. After all, you’re a celebrated poet.”

After hanging up, Chen checked the Shanghai-Shaoxing train schedule online. There were several fast trains going there the next morning. He’d take one, even though this trip was nothing more than a long shot.

He stood up and left the Internet café.

Outside, there was a lone black bat flittering about in the evening that was spread out against the somber sky.