Qiu Xiaolong - Enigma of China

“No, I don’t. It looks like everybody is trying to blackmail or threaten me.”

“Everybody? Tell me about it.”

“The day I got these pictures, Jiang and his people came to talk to me, saying that the consequences would be too much for me if I didn’t cooperate. And then, that evening, Dang also called, telling me I would have to give up.”

“Give what up?”

“I don’t know what he meant. Tell Jiang’s people everything? Give them something that they believed Zhou had given to me? But the message I got was that if I didn’t do what they told me to do, then the pictures would come to light. That’s why I ran away.”

“Can you guess where I found the pictures?” Chen asked deliberately. “On Dang’s computer.”

“What?!”

“He’s after something, but what it is, I don’t know.”

“Zhou had already had his name dragged through the mud. I didn’t want that to happen again, not because of me. He told me he’d kept this property a secret, so I came here.”

“But you can’t hide out for long. What then?”

“I don’t know. I’ll be able to eke out an existence, I think, for two or three months on my savings. The storm may have blown over by then, and I’ll be able to turn a page somewhere else.”

So the pressure Dang and Jiang were putting on her wasn’t to get her to speak out against Zhou but for her to give them something they thought Zhou had entrusted to her.

Her story was so unlikely that Chen believed it was actually true, whether or not she was innocent. But what could Dang be after? For that matter, what could Jiang and his team want so desperately? This opened up totally new possibilities.

“Hidden treasure?” he murmured, almost to himself.

Zhou was said to have amassed a huge fortune, and what had been exposed on the Internet was merely the tip of the iceberg. Dang must believe that Fang knew about it.

Was that what Jiang was after, too? It wasn’t likely. It could be a huge amount but not so much that it would be worth such an effort on the part of the city government. If any more details about such corruption were to leak out, it wouldn’t do the city government any good.

“Those people are capable of anything,” she muttered, though not in response to Chen.

Jiang’s continuous presence at Moller Villa could possibly backfire on him now, with the Beijing team stationed at the same hotel. Even though Fang might not have told him everything, hemming and hawing as she had about details, her fear was genuine. If Zhou had been murdered for something-whatever that might be, Chen had no clue and too little knowledge to speculate-that something was still out there, and Fang wasn’t an unlikely next target on the list. That was the real reason she’d run away.

She hadn’t said that in so many words, but she didn’t have to.

Zhou might have hidden the something away-this crucially important “something”-but could it possibly be in her possession? From what Chen could see, while it might have been a matter of life and death to Zhou, it wasn’t to Fang. There was no point in her holding on to it, particularly at the expense of becoming a fugitive.

At the same time, it had to be something that was a fatal threat to Jiang and his people, and something Zhou believed would provide him protection. Nothing like that had come to the surface yet-not as far as Chen could see.

Then how could he help Fang? With others watching and plotting for reasons unknown-to him, and perhaps to one another-it’d be better not to reveal her whereabouts to any of them. Otherwise, before he was capable of making a move, she’d be snatched out of his hands.

He dipped a piece of stinking tofu in the hot sauce. It was slightly cold yet still crispy, but the hot sauce wasn’t spicy enough, just as Lu Xun had deplored in a story. It was probably titled “In the Tavern.”

Fang’s staying here wouldn’t harm anybody, he decided. Nor would it obstruct the investigation of Zhou’s death. Turning to Fang, he said, “Things are complicated. Because of Zhou’s position and because of his connections, you might as well stay here for a while, for your own safety. You’ll have to avoid contacting others. Do your parents have any idea where you are?”

“No, they don’t. They’re old-fashioned people. They would be upset that I have a villa given to me by Zhou, so I’ve never told them anything about it.”

“That’s good. Don’t contact them, either-not until I tell you it’s okay. It won’t be too long. Soon there may be a drastic change in the situation,” he said, not saying more than was necessary. “In the meantime, if you can think of anything that might have caused Zhou’s death, or about things he might have left behind-anything at all-let me know immediately. You have my cell number. But make sure that you call from a public pay phone, one that’s not near here. You’re right about one thing. Those people are capable of anything.”

It never rains but it pours.

Lianping thought this as she sat in a Shaoxing taxi, toying with the cell phone in her hand.

While on the way to Lanting Park, where she was going to meet Chief Inspector Chen, she’d received an unexpected call from Xiang.

Xiang offered no explanation about why he had left Shanghai so abruptly and had neglected to call her for almost two weeks, except to say that he’d been extremely busy. Not just during the day but also late into the night. It was no secret that a lot of business deals were done at the dinner table, by the karaoke machine, or in the massage room at the baths. These were all characteristic of China’s socialism, and she knew better than to probe or protest. For a young man of the so-called “wealthy second generation,” his devotion to business was commonly seen as a plus.

The reason he finally called her was that, according to him, he’d just signed a major deal crucial to the future of his company and he wanted to celebrate with her. He also said that he would have a huge surprise for her when he returned early next week.

She was reminded of a Tang dynasty poem from the collection translated by Chen.

How many times / I have been let down / by the busy merchant of Qutang / since I married him! / The tide always keeps its word / to come, alas. / Had I known that, / I would have married the tide rider.

She hadn’t expected the call from Chen, either. For that matter, Chen was just as busy, if not more. She’d invited him to the Shaoxing festival in an impulsive moment. He promised he’d think about it, but that usually meant no, especially considering how overwhelmed he was by the investigation.

Still, she was amazed at how many times he’d seen her the past week. That could be because of his work, she told herself. His visit to the Wenhui office might have been mainly because of the cop killed on a nearby street, and his last-minute request that she join him at the temple because Detective Yu was a close friend and coworker. But to her surprise, Chen had come to Shaoxing, even though he’d missed the major event of the festival-the meeting at Lu Xun’s residence.

Could that have been deliberate? She had to be at that meeting for her article, but there would be no point in his wasting his time with those empty political talks. Unlike her, he didn’t have to worry about the expense involved in coming to Shaoxing. So it was possible he’d come there because of her.

The taxi was pulling up along a quaint street. Looking out, she saw Chen standing near the park entrance and waving to her, tickets in hand. However she might interpret the motives for his trip to Shaoxing, he was here, waiting for her, and that was what really mattered.

He came over and opened the taxi door for her.