Qiu Xiaolong - Death of a Red Heroine

“Yes, it’s been four days,” Yu said. “We haven’t made any progress. No evidence. No suspects. No theory.”

“Still no one reported missing?”

“No one matching her description.”

“Last time you ruled out the possibility of her being someone from the neighborhood. What about her being one of those provincial girls who come to Shanghai?” Chen said, “Since they have no family here, it would take a long time before a missing persons report came in.”

With new construction going on everywhere, new companies being founded every day, the so-called “provincials” formed a cheap mobile labor force. Many were young girls who came to find jobs in the new restaurants and hotels.

“I thought about that, too,” Yu said. “But have you noticed her fingernails? So professionally manicured, polished. And her toenails, too.”

“But she might have worked in one of those fancy hotels.”

“Let me tell you something, Comrade Chief Inspector. Last month, I saw a painting by Cheng Shifa,” Yu said, shaking his head. “It shows a Dai girl walking along the rough Yuannan mountain path, her bare feet flashing white under her long green skirt. Well, one of my colleagues in Yuannan married a Dai girl. Afterward, he told me he was shocked to see how calloused and cracked her feet were in real life.”

“You may have a point, Comrade Detective Yu,” Chen said, not too pleased with the way Yu delivered his lecture, “but if she had stayed long enough in one of those foreign hotels, been totally transformed, so to speak, that would still be possible, right?”

“If so, we should have had a report already. Those foreign general managers have a way of running their business, and their people, too. And they keep in close contact with the police.”

“True,” he said, nodding, “but we have to do something.”

“Yes, but what?”

The conversation left him disturbed. Was it true that they could not do anything but wait? Once more he took out the picture of the dead girl. The enlarged one. Though the image was not clear, he could see that she must have been an attractive woman. How could such a woman not be missed after almost a week? She should have had some people who cared for her. Friends, colleagues, parents, sisters and brothers, maybe lovers, who were anxious about her. No human being, particularly a young attractive woman, could be so alone that no one missed her when she disappeared for a week. He could not understand it.

But maybe she had said that she was going away on vacation or business. If so, it could take a long time before someone started wondering where she was.

He had a vague feeling that there was something about the case, something complicated, waiting for him. Something like a parallel to his writing experience…

A glimpse of a veiled face at the entrance of Beijing subway, a waft of the jasmine blossom fragrance from a blue teacup, or a particular rhythm in an attic with a train rumbling into the distant night, and he would have the feeling that he was on the verge of producing a wonderful poem. All this could turn out, however, to be a false lead, and he would end up crossing out fragments of unsatisfactory lines.

With this case, he did not even have such an evasive lead, nothing but an ineffable feeling. He pushed open the window. The early chorus of the cicadas assaulted him in hot waves.

“ Zhiliao, Zhiliao, Zhiliao…”

It was a homophone for “understanding” in Chinese.

Before he left for a meeting, he made a call to Dr. Xia, who had examined the victim’s body.

“Dr. Xia, I have to ask a favor of you,” Chen said.

“Anything I can do, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Remember the young woman found in the canal in a plastic bag-case number 736? The body has not yet been disposed of, I believe. Maybe the plastic bag is still there, too. Check it for me, and more importantly, write a description of the victim for me. Not a report but a detailed description. Not of a corpse but of a human being. Vivid. Concrete. Specific. What would she have looked like alive. I know you’re busy, Dr. Xia. Please do it as a personal favor for me.”

Doctor Xia, who loved classical Chinese poetry and was aware that Chen wrote poems in the so-called modernist style, said, “I know what you want, but I cannot promise my description will be as vivid as a modernist work, including every possible detail, ugly or not.”

“Don’t be too hard on me, Dr. Xia. I’ve been incorporating a streak of Li Shangyin’s lyricism into my lines. I’ll show some to you over our next lunch together. It will be my treat, of course.”

Afterward, during the routine political meeting whose agenda was ”Studies of Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s Selected Works,” Chen found his thoughts wandering, unable to concentrate on the book in his hands.

Dr. Xia’s response however, came faster than he had expected. At two o’clock, there appeared a two-page fax in Dr. Xia’s neat handwriting: The following can be said about the woman who has been occupying your thoughts day and night: 1) She was thirty or thirty-one years old. She was five feet, four inches tall, and weighed about one hundred and ten pounds. She had a straight nose, small mouth, large eyes, and unplucked eyebrows. Her teeth were good too, even, white. She had an almost athletic build. Her breasts were small and slack, but her nipples large. With her slender waist, long, shapely legs, and round hips, she could have been a stunner-”so beautiful that the fish and the geese dive in shame.” 2) She must have taken good care of herself. Her body skin was soft and resilient, probably resulting from extensive use of lotions and creams. Her hair was black and shiny. Not a single white hair. There were no calluses on her hands or feet. Not a mark or blemish. Both her fingers and toes had been well-cared-for. 3) In the record of the autopsy I emphasize the following: She had not had a child and never had an abortion. She had no scars from operations, nor any other marks on her body. 4) She had sexual intercourse shortly before death. She could have been raped, but there were hardly any bruises on her body except a light abrasion on her collarbone, which could have resulted from passionate love-making. No blood, dirt, or skin under her nails, and her hair mostly in place. At least she did not struggle much when her clothes were taken off. She was not wearing an IUD. 5) She had had a meal about forty minutes before she died: pork chops, mashed potatoes, green beans, and caviar.

After having read this memo, Chen worked out a new description, attached a photo, faxed it to a number of large work units, and had hundreds of copies ordered for delivery to Detective Yu, who was to post them in public places like store bulletin boards or bus stop signs where people might see them. That was all Chief Inspector Chen could think of.

The question was: How long would it take before he got a response?

T he response came before the end of the week.

Thursday afternoon, the same week the new notice was posted, a call came in from Shanghai First Department Store. A store security man had received a copy of the detailed description, which reminded him of a section manager who had not yet returned from vacation. Her colleagues had not been worried since it was common for people to spend a couple of extra days on vacation. When the security man showed the picture to the people who worked with her, she was immediately recognized.

“The picture is not clear, but they are all positive.” According to the security man, this was because she was a well-known woman. “Her name is Guan Hongying. Guan, you know, for closing the door. Hong for the color red, and Ying for heroine.”

“Red Heroine. What a revolutionary name! Guan Hongying,” Chief Inspector Chen said. “It sounds familiar.”