Qiu Xiaolong - Enigma of China

So Dang had motive, but he also had an alibi: Dang had been at a hotel in the county of Qingpu for a business meeting, where he then spent the night, at least according to the hotel register. Still, Qingpu was not far-he could have sneaked out after dark, if he’d known which hotel Zhou was in, or he could have hired a professional.

Passing Zhou’s office, which was still locked with an official seal, Chen came to Dang’s, which was right next door.

Dang was a tall, robust man in his early forties with beady eyes, bushy brows, and a ruddy complexion. He greeted Chen affably, then, after an exchange of a few polite words, came to the point.

“You’re not an outsider, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen, so I won’t give you the official response. Zhou meant well. It’s easy for people to complain about the housing bubble, but once the bubble bursts, the economy will collapse. So when Zhou saw signs of instability in the market, he tried to forestall them. Unfortunately, he underestimated the pent-up frustrations of those who couldn’t afford housing. In a pack of cigarettes, they found a convenient outlet for their anger. We certainly can’t rule out the possibility that some people used this as an opportunity to smear our Party’s image.”

“Yes, we are looking into all the possibilities,” Chen responded, almost mechanically.

“I don’t know about Zhou’s other problems under shuanggui investigation. If all that was exposed on the Internet was real, then it served him right. In the office, Zhou alone had the final say, making most decisions without discussing them with any of us,” Dang said casually, picking up Chen’s card. “Oh, you’re deputy Party secretary. Then you know how things can be. A lot happens in the office without my knowledge. As far as the pack of 95 Supreme Majesty is concerned, however, that was just Zhou’s luck. You’ll have to find the root of the trouble, Chief Inspector Chen. It wasn’t anything directed against Zhou personally, but against the Party instead. We can’t allow those people on the Internet to go rampaging like that anymore.”

Chen nodded. Such a demand from Dang made sense. The Internet couldn’t go on uncontrolled like that: the next target could be Dang.

“Now, I have a question about the actual photo, Dang. Do you have any idea who took it?”

“Jiang asked me the same question,” Dang responded with a sigh. “During the meeting, several of us were sitting with Zhou next to the podium. It would have been out of the question for any one of us to disturb the meeting by taking pictures. There were many other people sitting in the conference hall who could have taken photos, though. So the short answer is that we don’t know. We do know, however, that Zhou himself e-mailed the picture to his secretary, Fang, who wrote the press release and sent it with the picture. It’s possible that Zhou had someone taking the pictures with his own camera, and then downloaded them onto his own computer. If it had been e-mailed to Zhou from somebody else, Jiang would have discovered the sender when they searched his computer.”

Chen nodded, noting the subtle subject change from “I” to “we” in Dang’s explanation, without making any comment. Still, Dang had basically confirmed Wei’s account.

“Needless to say, none of us here had access to his computer before the scandal broke,” Dang went on. “Then Jiang’s team took it away, along with all the CDs and disks in his office.”

“Is it possible that Zhou had several e-mail accounts, some of them unknown? Or perhaps he deleted some e-mails or files?”

“That’s possible, but I don’t see how. Jiang’s people wouldn’t have discovered that. They are computer experts. If Zhou had received the picture from somebody else, they would have ferreted that out one way or another.”

“So his secretary sent the text out to the media along with the picture per his instruction.”

“That’s correct,” Dang said, then added, “as far as I know.”

“Is that a rule-that all press releases and attachments have to be approved by this office?”

“Anything about the housing market can be extremely sensitive. A careless remark from someone in our office can cause panic among the sellers and buyers. That’s why a rule was instituted: for an important speech like Zhou’s, Zhou himself would review the text, and sometimes the pictures as well, before his secretary sent them out to the media.”

“Can I talk to her-the secretary, I mean?”

“Fang’s not in today. She called in sick early this morning. Jiang talked to her, though, and she told him that she merely sent out the things Zhou gave her, and only under his specific instruction. She’s just a little secretary.”

“A little secretary,” Chen repeated reflectively. The term could mean a mistress-usually much younger-serving under the guise of being a secretary. There was nothing about that in Wei’s folder. Chen didn’t push. Dang didn’t elaborate. Still, Chen asked for her name, address, and phone number before he took leave of Dang.

Back out in the People’s Square, Chen saw a group of elderly people exercising to loud music blaring from a CD player. It was a song that was familiar to him, played often during the Cultural Revolution. “Generation after generation, we will always remember the great deeds Chairman Mao has done for us.”

It was one of the rediscovered “red songs,” popular again because of the dramatic change in the political environment. But for these people, it was perhaps just a melody they could energetically dance to.

Chen hailed a taxi back to his own office, feeling exhausted.

It wasn’t until five past nine that evening that Chen got back home.

The hours spent in front of his office computer had yielded little. He was worn-out, and his muscles were sore, as at the beginning stages of the flu. He rubbed his eyes, yet felt far from sleepy.

He opened his notebook to the page he’d been working on, which had a list of details, like a jumble of dots awaiting connection to point in possible directions. But he couldn’t see how to connect those dots.

Chen hadn’t learned anything new from the interview with Dang that afternoon, though it was possible that Dang was involved in some way that no one was aware of.

What puzzled Chen wasn’t the fact that Zhou himself gave the picture to his secretary for the press release but rather who had taken the picture and how Zhou had obtained it.

There was no record of anyone sending him the picture after the meeting. Jiang had checked Zhou’s computer, as Dang had just confirmed.

Zhou might have downloaded the picture from a camera, his or somebody else’s. Apparently nothing found on his camera either confirmed that possibility or ruled it out.

A more plausible scenario was that the picture came from a camera that belonged to somebody else. But if so, who could have put it onto Zhou’s computer-or given Zhou a camera or something else for Zhou to save the picture on the computer himself?

The people in the Housing Development Committee. Dang in the office next door, and others on the same committee. Possibly the secretary, or the “little secretary” too.

Chen glanced at his watch, felt the beginnings of a throbbing headache in addition to the muscle pain, and dialed Wei’s number.

“I’ve thought about that, Chief,” Wei responded readily, “I’ve talked to the secretary-her full name is Fang Fang. I’ve also done some research on her.”

Wei then launched into a detailed narrative about Fang, checking his notes from time to time. Listening, Chen could also hear the occasional rustle of Wei turning pages.

“Fang started working for Zhou about two years ago. Quite different from the conventional little secretary, she’s middle-aged, already in her early thirties, and a bit too thin to be really considered attractive. An official of Zhou’s rank could easily have hired one prettier and younger. There were stories around the office that Zhou went out of his way to give the position to her. It was considered a fantastic position, secure and well paid, not to mention all of the possible gray money, and more than a hundred candidates applied. Zhou, giving his reasons for choosing her, said he hired her because Fang studied in England for three years, majored in communication, and spoke English well, which would be important in her work for the city of Shanghai, a major international city. Fang was very grateful for the position, having failed to find a job in England after she graduated and having remained unemployed for more than a year after she came back to Shanghai. At the Housing Development Committee, she was soon promoted to the position of director’s assistant, responsible for all the clerical work, including the press releases. On that particular occasion, Zhou reviewed the material before turning it over to her. She declared that she didn’t pay any special attention to either the text or the attached picture. It was merely part of her daily routine, and the photo didn’t stand out. After all, Zhou smoked that particular brand most of the time. As for the other corruption charges, she didn’t know anything. Zhou never really discussed those deals or decisions with her. So far, Jiang and his team don’t consider her a likely suspect, but they seem to have put a lot of pressure on her to speak out against Zhou.