The Ghost Marriage

I

Li gazed from his office window, down through the dusty leaves of the trees into the narrow Beixinqiao Santiao below. Faded gold characters spelled out the name of the All China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese on brown marble across the street. The air was filled with the roar of traffic on the new boulevard that cut through what had once been a quiet, residential neighbourhood, and air pollution reduced the apartment blocks which had appeared all around to carbonized shadows.

The square, four-floor, flat-roofed building that housed Section One was one of the few left standing in an area redeveloped beyond recognition.

Li blew smoke out through the open window, taking another pull on his cigarette before turning at the sound of his door opening. Detective Wu leaned in and forced a smile. He had not been happy to be sent on a commission to the Missing Persons Bureau, like some messenger boy. He was a homicide detective, and above such things. The only thing that pleased him was the message he had brought back. ‘Bureau Chief Chen says if things are quiet in serious crime, he would be happy to pass some of his missing persons over to you.’

Li was not amused. The minimum he expected from an inferior officer like Chen was a little respect. But respect was a rare commodity in the brash new China. ‘What did he tell you about the girl?’

Wu shrugged his shoulders, working his chewing gum from one side of his mouth to the other. He had not changed in all the time Li had known him, and the moustache he’d been trying to grow for the last fifteen years was still no thicker now than then. Ubiquitous sunglasses were pushed high up on his forehead. ‘Nothing, Chief. Her folks reported her missing about five days ago. They opened a dossier, and since then... nothing.’

Li knew that in all probability the dossier had never been opened beyond that first entry. The bureau had neither the time nor the manpower to go chasing every missing teenager. ‘Okay, thanks, Wu. Oh... and you can tell Bureau Chief Chen that if he ever wants to work in serious crime, he’s going to have to improve his success rate and find a few missing persons first.’

Wu smirked ironically and closed the door behind him.

Li sat down and gazed at the paperwork accumulating in piles on his desk. In normal circumstances he would have let the matter drop there. But he knew that Margaret would press to know what action he had taken. He sighed and checked his diary. He had a dental appointment later that afternoon in Haidian District, not far from where the girl’s parents lived. He determined to visit them on his way home.

II

The girl’s family lived in one of those Soviet-style apartment blocks thrown up in the Seventies in an attempt to solve Beijing’s housing problem. It was one of the few remaining in a derelict quarter of Haidian marked for demolition. The sombre, weathered exterior was disfigured by lines of decrepit air-conditioning units, most of which no longer functioned.

Li chained his bicycle to a crowded stand beneath a rusted metal roof. In these days of dense traffic, bicycle was still the most efficient way to get around. The elevator in the block was broken, and he climbed to the fourth floor up a graffiti-covered stairwell that smelled of stale urine.

The narrow hall of the Jiang family’s apartment gave access to the single room in which they lived and slept, a bathroom in which it was nearly impossible to turn around, and a tiny kitchen with a single gas ring, a microwave and a stone sink.

Jiang Ning greeted him at the door. It was her day off work, and she was both startled and overjoyed to see him, grateful nearly to the point of tears. She guided him into the disorderly room shared by mother, father and daughter. A double bed was pushed into one corner, a single bed diagonally opposite. A small TV sat on a wooden cabinet behind a square table covered with an impermeable tablecloth. There was an old, worn divan, a single armchair, and almost no room to move. An emaciated, dark-skinned man with thinning black hair brushed across a narrow skull sat at the table playing solitaire with a pack of soiled playing cards. He wore grey shorts and a dirty white singlet.

‘My husband, Jin,’ Ning said, and the man nodded cautiously in Li’s direction. ‘That’s Meilin’s bed over there.’

Li looked at the tiny single bed, and the posters taped to the wall above it. Chinese sports stars. Runners. Faces and names that had become familiar in every home during the Games. Medals and ribbons were carefully exhibited in a glass-doored cabinet beside the bed, along with several photographs of a teenage girl smiling at the camera.

Ning followed his eyes. ‘That’s her,’ she said. ‘The best daughter a mother could hope for. Not hanging about on street corners, or out at clubs and bars downtown. She’s an athlete, Section Chief. A junior champion. One day she will run for China, I know it.’

Li wandered over to look at her victor’s medals. Meilin was a middle-distance runner — 800 and 1500 metres. She had won an impressive number of events. He turned to face her parents. ‘When did you first become aware she was missing?’

‘When I returned from visiting my family in Shaanxi last weekend she was gone,’ Ning said.

Li’s gaze moved to the girl’s father. Jiang Jin shrugged. ‘She was in and out over the weekend. I was out a lot myself, and back late Sunday night. She wasn’t home yet. But I didn’t think much of it. She’s been seeing some boy over at Dahuisi. Coming home later and later.’ He glanced at his wife. ‘She’s not the angel her mother thinks she is.’ And Li sensed the tension between them. ‘Anyway, I went to sleep, and didn’t start to worry till I woke up in the morning and she still wasn’t here.’

‘She’d been gone more than twenty-four hours by the time I got back,’ Ning said. ‘That’s when I reported it to Public Security.’

The name ‘Ning’ meant ‘tranquillity’, but there was very little tranquil about the missing girl’s mother now. Her hands trembled, and she seemed always on the point of tears.

Li looked at her husband again. ‘What is it you do, Mr Jiang?’

‘Plays cards!’ Ning’s voice was heavy with resentment.

But Jiang Jin ignored her. ‘I start a new job with the city parks division next week.’

Li nodded. ‘Tell me about Meilin’s boyfriend.’

III

Lao Rong lived with his parents in one of the few remaining hutongs in Dahuisi, just north of Beijing Zoo, in one of four small houses enclosing a traditional siheyuan courtyard. Slate roofs descended toward a locust tree that shaded the paved yard. In among the carcasses of long-dead bicycles, coal briquets were already piled high in preparation for the winter. A white-painted sign on the wall outside gave notice that the property was to be demolished.

A call to Wu from his cellphone had pre-armed Li with the information that Lao, although just nineteen, already had a criminal record. For theft. The boy was alarmed by Li’s visit. A tall, thin lad, with long hair that fell into his eyes, he directed the Section Chief away from the house to a dark corner of the courtyard. ‘What do you want? I ain’t done nothing wrong.’

‘I never said you had. But when you act this nervous it makes me wonder.’

‘My father’ll kill me if I get in trouble with the police again.’

Li looked around the courtyard, at all the doors and windows that stood open, and wondered how many ears were listening from the dark beyond. ‘I wanted to ask you about Jiang Meilin.’

Concern immediately inscribed itself on the young face. ‘What’s happened to her?’

‘I was hoping you might tell me. Her parents reported her missing five days ago. Have you seen her?’

The boy paled visibly. He shook his head. ‘Not since Sunday. She came here to the house. My folks like her, but they were out. She stayed quite late and went home about twelve.’

‘You didn’t think it was strange that she hasn’t been in contact since then?’

‘Well, yes. Normally she would call me. From a public telephone. She doesn’t have a cellphone, so I can’t call her. And she wouldn’t ever let me go to the house. Said her parents wouldn’t like it. Usually I only see her at weekends.’

‘So you wouldn’t have any idea where she might have gone?’

‘No.’

‘And she never talked to you about leaving home? Running away, maybe?’

The young man’s hesitation was almost imperceptible. ‘No, she didn’t.’

Li took a fresh business card from his maroon Public Security ID wallet and handed it to the boy, holding it at each corner and facing towards him. Lao Rong looked at Li’s name and rank before glancing up, open-mouthed. ‘Section Chief?’

‘Just call me if you hear from her.’

He was almost at Dahuisi Lu when he heard a woman’s voice calling after him. He stopped his bicycle and looked back to see a middle-aged woman in a black skirt and cardigan and pink running shoes hurrying after him. In spite of the heat, she wore a headscarf, as if somehow that might hide her identity. When finally she reached him it took her a moment to catch her breath.

‘I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Lao Rong in the siheyuan,’ she said. One of the many ears listening in the dark, Li surmised. ‘He told you that Meilin went home around midnight.’

‘Did she not?’

‘It was later, Section Chief.’ She glanced over her shoulder, back along the hutong. ‘He’s a bad lot, that boy. Been in trouble with your people a few times.’

‘Are you telling me he lied?’

‘Not exactly. But it was nearer one o’clock when she left. And in tears.’

Li cocked his head, interested for the first time. ‘Do you know why?’

She shook her head. ‘I just know they had a big argument. Raised voices. I heard him shouting, her crying. But I don’t know what it was about.’

Li pursed his lips thoughtfully.