Qiu Xiaolong - Enigma of China

He wasn’t sure if that was the lighter Zhou had used that night. After all, a heavy smoker might have kept several of them around. Chen went over and picked it up. It wasn’t a fancy, expensive lighter, but it was intriguing due to its torchlike shape, bright red color, and a Mao quote engraved in gold: “A spark can set the whole prairie ablaze.”

He struck the tiny wheel atop the lighter. No spark. He tried harder. Still no luck.

It was probably another sign that he shouldn’t smoke in the office. He shrugged his shoulders and slumped back down in the swivel chair with a thump.

He stroked the lighter again distractedly.

Why would Zhou have kept a useless lighter in his office?

A hunch gripped him.

Chen jumped up and started pacing around, and then sat back down again with the lighter clasped in his hand.

Setting the lighter down on the desk, he took out his Swiss knife, and with the screwdriver blade, he managed to open up the bottom part of the red lighter.

As the bottom fell off, Chen glimpsed an object inside.

Not a butane reservoir but a flash drive, with part of the plastic shell cut off to fit it in.

Finally, one of the crucial missing pieces had appeared.

That night Zhou had still wanted to fight-like the King of Chu-with something in hand that might save him from total destruction. Something that could ensure that people above him, far more powerful, would provide enough help to enable him to survive the engulfing storm.

“A chain of crabs bound together on a straw rope-” What Fang had said to him in Shaoxing came back to him.

What she said was an idiomatic expression that referred to a common sight in the food market. A peddler would bind live crabs together with a thick straw rope, making it easier for customers to carry without worrying about any of them escaping. As a figure of speech, however, it meant something quite different. “Crabs” usually meant evildoers. What bound them together wasn’t a straw rope but their common interest-the schemes or secrets they shared. They had to protect or shield each other; no one could betray another, or one fallen would bring everybody else down.

Zhou must have threatened the people above him by telling them that the bell wouldn’t toll for him alone. Zhou had in his hands evidence, which he hid in a place known to no one else, in the lighter in his office. However, Jiang came earlier than expected, surprising him in the canteen and taking him into custody there. In all the confusion, the lighter had been left behind in his office.

Eventually, the threat he posed led to his death in the hotel. He might have said something, and his coconspirators had had to silence him once and for all. But they still had to find the evidence he’d left behind, or they’d never be able to sleep in peace.

The arrival of the Beijing team at the hotel, with the possible showdown looming in the Forbidden City, only served to make them more desperate.

What Fang saw in the trash bag that morning, the tiny pieces of broken plastic, could have either been parts of the broken butane reservoir, or parts of the shell of the flash drive.

Chen didn’t think he had to read the flash drive there and then. He had to get out of the office immediately.

Luckily, there was still no one in the hallway. He made it to the elevator and then to the lobby without anyone seeing him. He walked by the security guard with barely a nod.

Outside, it was surprisingly warm in the People’s Square. Chen again began sweating profusely.

The square was swarming with people, as always. Several groups of people in their fifties or sixties were dancing or exercising to music blaring from CD players on the ground. They were enjoying the moment, with the sun setting and the City Government Building still shining in the fading light.

Behind the people filling the square, there was a line of limousines waiting patiently along the driveway in front of the magnificent City Government Building.

Amidst them all, a lonely figure was standing in a corner, absentmindedly clicking a red lighter in vain.

Chief Inspector Chen knew that the investigation had reached a critical point and that he had to make a decision.

But, instead, he decided to visit his mother.

At least for the moment, he wanted to put aside all the confusing and conflicting thoughts that were plaguing him, no matter how urgent the situation was. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this would be his last case. The people involved were far better connected and more powerful than a chief inspector could deal with. This was a feeling that was intensified by the bits and pieces he’d been picking up over the last few days including, paradoxically, the conversation he’d had with Sheng, the Internal Security officer he’d met with at the City Hotel. The scenario he’d spun out for Sheng turned out to be almost self-fulfilling.

Whatever the flash drive contained, the chief inspector could choose to do nothing. No one knew about his discovery in Zhou’s office. Chen was only consulting on the case; he wasn’t really expected to make any breakthroughs on it. He wasn’t supposed to carry out any secret missions for Comrade Zhao, despite the poem he cited for Chen. The power struggle going on in the Forbidden City was way beyond his grasp and his interest. It might be just as well to be nothing more than an ordinary cop.

But would that work? He wasn’t sure. Others might not even let him keep his position as chief inspector.

As an alternative, he could give the flash drive to his immediate superiors, like a loyal Party member who believed in the system. But he shuddered at the thought in spite of himself.

For the early summer, it was an extraordinarily warm day. He looked up to glimpse a spray of red apricot blossom stretching out over a white wall on Zuzhou Road, trembling in a fitful breeze.

With so many details unknown to him, he couldn’t properly analyze the situation. He thought once more of the metaphor of a blind man riding a blind horse toward a deep lake during a dark night. Any move he might make felt risky, unguided. What’s worse, any move could play right into a political situation beyond his control, and out of his depth.

Even if he did decide to do what was expected of him in his position as a chief inspector, taking all the risk on himself, what about the people close and dear to him-particularly his old, sick mother?

He found himself walking over to the old neighborhood. Like the rest of Shanghai, it had been changing as well, though not much beyond new food stalls, restaurants, and convenience stores appearing here and there. Near Jiujiang Road, he saw a new whiteboard newsletter standing at the corner of the side street, on which was written, “To build a harmonious society.”

It was another reminder that, as a Party member police officer, his job was supposed to be nothing more than damage control. As repeatedly urged in the People’s Daily , everything he did was supposed to be for the sake of a “harmonious society.”

But how was he supposed to do that?

He took a shortcut through a lane once familiar to him. He wasn’t particularly surprised to feel a drop of water splashing on his forehead. He tilted his head to see a line of colorful clothing, freshly washed and dripping from bamboo poles overhead. It was another ominous sign for this assignment. According to a folk superstition, it was bad luck to walk under women’s underwear, let alone under ones dripping from above-

“Damn! What a shitty taste!”

Chen was startled by a curse echoing from a middle-aged man who was eating from a large rice bowl, shaking his head like a rattle drum over a shrimp that he’d spat out onto the ground.