Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man from Beijing

‘I’m hanging up now.’

She wondered how much longer Lars Emanuelsson would continue pestering her. But perhaps she would miss his persistence when it finally stopped.

That morning shortly before midsummer she came to her office, gathered together all the documents relating to the case, spoke to one of the court secretaries about a date in the autumn for sentencing, then headed for the courtroom. The moment she entered it she noticed Ho sitting in the back row of the public gallery, in the same seat as the last time she’d been in Helsingborg.

She raised a hand in greeting and could see that Ho smiled back at her. She scribbled a couple of lines on a scrap of paper, explaining to Ho that there would be an adjournment for lunch at noon. She beckoned to one of the ushers and pointed out Ho. He took her the note; Ho read it and nodded to Birgitta.

Then Birgitta turned her attention to the sorry-looking rabble in the dock. When it was time to pause for lunch, they had reached a stage in the proceedings that indicated there would be no problem in concluding matters the following day.

She met Ho in the street, where she was waiting under a tree in full blossom.

‘I take it something’s happened and that’s why you’re here?’ she said.

‘No.’

‘I can meet you this evening. Where are you staying?’

‘In Copenhagen. With friends.’

‘Am I wrong in thinking you’ve got something important to tell me?’

‘Everything is clearer now. That’s why I’m here. And I’ve brought something for you.’

‘What?’

Ho shook her head. ‘We can talk about that this evening. What have they done? The gang on trial?’

‘Robbery. Violent assault. But not murder.’

‘I’ve been observing them. They’re all frightened of you.’

‘I don’t think so. But they know that I’m the one who’s going to decide their sentences. Given all the trouble they’ve caused, that probably feels pretty scary.’

Birgitta suggested they should have lunch, but Ho declined, saying she had other things to do. Afterwards Birgitta wondered what Ho could have to do in a town like Helsingborg that was totally unknown to her.

The trial continued slowly but relentlessly, and when Birgitta closed proceedings for the day they had progressed as far as she had hoped.

Ho was waiting outside the courthouse. As Staffan was on a train to Gothenburg, Birgitta suggested that Ho should come home with her. She could see that Ho was hesitant.

‘I’m on my own. My husband’s away. My children live in other towns. So you needn’t be afraid of meeting anybody.’

‘But I’m not alone. I have San with me.’

‘Where is he?’

Ho pointed to the other side of the street. San was leaning against a wall.

‘Call him over here,’ said Birgitta. ‘Then all three of us can go to my house.’

San seemed to be less disturbed now than he had been in the chaotic circumstances of their first meeting. Birgitta could see that he took after his mother: he had Hong Qiu’s face, and something of her smile.

‘How old are you?’ she asked him.

‘Twenty-two.’

His English was just as perfect as Hong Qiu’s and Ho’s.

They sat in the living room. San wanted coffee, while Ho drank tea. Set up on the table was the board game Birgitta had bought while in Beijing. In addition to her handbag, Ho was holding a paper bag. She produced from it several pages of handwritten Chinese. And she also took out a notepad with an English translation.

‘Ya Ru had a flat in London. One of my friends knew Lang, who was his housekeeper. She prepared his meals and surrounded him with the silence he craved. She let us into the flat, and we found a diary, which is where these extracts come from. I’ve translated part of what he wrote, which explains why most of this business took place. Not everything, but all the aspects we can understand. There were some motives that only Ya Ru could explain.’

‘He was a powerful man, according to what you’ve told me. That must mean that his death has attracted a lot of attention in China?’

San, who had said little so far, was the one who responded.

‘Nothing. No attention at all, just silence — the kind of silence Shakespeare writes about. “The rest is silence.” Ya Ru was so powerful that others who were just as powerful have succeeded in hushing up what happened. It’s as if Ya Ru never existed. We think that a lot of people were pleased or relieved when he died, even among those regarded as his friends. Ya Ru was dangerous. He collected knowledge that he used to destroy his enemies, or those he regarded as dangerous competitors. Now all his companies are being wound down, silence is being bought, everything is stiffening up and turning into a concrete wall separating him and his fate from both official history and those of us who are still alive.’

Birgitta leafed through the papers lying on her table. ‘Shall I read them now?’

‘No. Later, when you’re alone.’

‘And I don’t need to be afraid?’

‘No.’

‘Will I understand what happened to Hong Qiu?’

‘He killed her. Not with his own hands; somebody else did it for him. And was killed in turn by Ya Ru. One death covered up for the other. Nobody could believe that Ya Ru had killed his sister — apart from the most astute observers, who knew how Ya Ru thought about himself and others. But what’s remarkable and incomprehensible is how he could kill his sister and yet at the same time value his family, his forefathers, above all else. There’s something contradictory there, a riddle we’ll never be able to solve. Ya Ru was powerful. He was feared for his intelligence and his ruthlessness. But perhaps he was also ill.’

‘In what way?’

‘He was possessed by a hatred that corroded his personality. Perhaps he really was out of his mind.’

‘There’s one thing that has puzzled me. What were they actually doing in Africa?’

‘There’s a plan that involves China sending millions of its poor peasants to various African countries. Political and economic structures are currently being put in place that make some of these poor African countries dependent on China. For Ya Ru this was a cynical repetition of the colonialism practised earlier by the Western world. For him this was a farsighted solution. But for Hong Qiu, and for me and Ma Li and lots of others, this is an attack on the very foundations of the China we have helped to build up.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Birgitta. ‘China is a dictatorship. Freedom is limited at every turn; justice is weak. What exactly are you trying to defend?’

‘China is a poor country. The economic development everybody talks about has only benefited a limited part of the population. If this way of leading China into the future continues, with a gap between the rich and the poor growing wider all the time, it will end up in catastrophe. China will be thrust back once more into hopeless chaos. Or fascist structures will become dominant. We are defending the hundreds of millions of peasants who, when all’s said and done, are the ones whose labour is producing the wealth on which developments are based. Developments they are benefiting from less and less.’

‘But I still don’t understand. Ya Ru on one side, Hong Qiu on the other? Suddenly discussion is cut short, and he kills his own sister?’

‘The battle of wills currently taking place in China is about life and death. The poor versus the rich, those without power versus those with it all. It’s about people who are growing more and more angry as they see everything they have fought for being destroyed, and those who see opportunities to make their own fortunes and achieve positions of power they could previously never dream of. That is when people die.’