Qiu Xiaolong - Death of a Red Heroine

“So you’re not sure that she had never had an affair?”

“I’m telling you everything I know, but I don’t like to gossip about the dead.”

“Yes, I understand. Thank you so much for your information.”

As he stood up, he took one more glance around the room, noticing a variety of perfumes, lipsticks, and nail polish on the dresser, some of the brands he had seen on glamorous movie stars in TV commercials. They were obviously beyond her means.

“There’re all samples,” she said, following his gaze, “from the First Department Store.”

“Of course,” Yu said, wondering whether Comrade Guan Hongying would have chosen to keep all her cosmetics more discreetly hidden in a drawer. “And good-bye.”

Detective Yu was not happy about his day’s work. There was not much to talk about with Commissar Zhang, but he had never had much to talk about with the commissar. He called from a public phone booth, but Commissar Zhang was not in the office. Yu did not have to listen to a political lecture delivered by the old commissar, so he went home.

No one was there. He saw a note on table, saying, “I’m with Qinqin at his school for a meeting. Warm the meal for yourself.”

Holding a bowl of rice with strips of roast duck, he stepped into the courtyard, where he had a talk with his father, Old Hunter.

“A cold-blooded rape and murder case,” Old Hunter said, frowning.

Yu remembered the frustration his father had suffered in the early sixties, dealing with a similar sex murder case, which had taken place in the Baoshan rice paddy. The girl’s body had been found almost immediately. The police arrived on the scene in less than half an hour. One witness had glimpsed the suspect and gave a fairly recognizable description. There were some fresh footprints and a cigarette butt. Old Hunter worked late into the night, month after month, but all the work led to nothing. Several years later, the culprit was caught in the act of selling pictures of Madame Mao as a bewitching second-class actress in the early thirties-a wanton goddess in a low-cut gown. Such a crime at the time was more than enough cause to put him to death. During his examination, he admitted the murder years earlier in Baoshan. The case, as well as the unexpected solution-too late to be of any comfort-had left an indelible impact on Old Hunter.

Such a case was like a tunnel where one could move on and on and on without hope of seeing the light.

“Well, there could be a political angle, according to our Party secretary.”

“Look, son,” Old Hunter said, “you don’t have to give me the crap about political significance. An old horse knows the way, as the saying goes. If such a homicide case isn’t solved in the first two or three weeks, the solution probability drops off to zero. Politics or no.”

“But we have to do something, you know, as a special case group.”

“A special case group, indeed. If a serial killer were involved, the existence of your group would be more justified.”

“That’s what I figured, but the people high up won’t give us a break, especially Commissar Zhang.”

“Don’t talk to me about your commissar either. A pain in the ass for thirty years. I’ve never gotten along with him. As for your chief inspector, I understand why he wants to go on with the investigation. Politics.”

“He’s so good at politics.”

“Well, don’t get me wrong,” the old man said. “I’m not against your boss. On the contrary, I believe he is a conscientious young officer in his way. Heaven is above his head, the earth is under his feet-at least he knows that. I’ve spent all these years in the force, and I can judge a man.”

After their talk, Yu stayed in the courtyard alone, smoking, tapping the ash into the empty rice bowl with roast duck bones forming a cross at the bottom.

He affixed a second cigarette to the butt of the first when it had been smoked down, and then added another, until it almost looked like an antenna, trembling in its effort to receive some imperceptible information from the evening sky.

C hief Inspector Chen, too, had had a busy morning. At seven o’clock he’d met with Commissar Zhang in the bureau.

“It’s a difficult case,” Commissar Zhang said, nodding after Chen had briefed him. “But we mustn’t be afraid of hardship or death.”

Don’t be afraid of hardship or death- one of Chairman Mao’s quotations during the Cultural Revolution. Now it reminded Chen of a faded poster torn from the wall of a deserted building. Being a commissar for so many years had turned Zhang into something like an echoing machine. An old politician, out of touch with the times. The Commissar was, however, anything but a blockhead; it was said that he had been one of the most brilliant students at Southwest United University in the forties.

“Yes, you’re right,” Chen said. “I’m going to Guan’s dorm this morning.”

“That’s important. There might be some evidence left in her room,” Commissar Zhang said. “Keep me informed of anything you find there.”

“I will.”

“Have Detective Yu contact me, too.”

“I will tell him.”

“Now what about me?” Zhang said. “I also need to do something, not just be an advice-giving bystander.”

“But we have every aspect of the initial investigation covered at present. Detective Yu’s interviewing Guan’s colleagues, and I’m going to check her room, talk to her neighbors, and afterward, if I have the time, I will visit her mother in the nursing home.”

“Then I’ll go to the nursing home. She’s old, too. We may have things to talk about between us.”

“But you really don’t have to do anything. It is not suitable for a veteran cadre like you to undertake the routine investigations.”

“Don’t tell me that, Comrade Chief Inspector,” Zhang said, getting up with a frown. “Just go to Guan’s dorm now.”

The dormitory, located on Hubei Road, was a building shared by several work units, including that of the First Department Store, which had a few rooms there for its employees. Considering Guan’s political status, she could have gotten something better-a regular apartment like his, Chen thought. Maybe that was what made Guan a model worker.

Hubei was a small street tucked between Zhejiang Road and Fujian Road, not too far away from Fuzhou Road to the north, a main cultural street boasting several well-known bookstores. The location was convenient. The Number 71 bus was only ten minutes’ walk away, on Yan’an Road, and it went directly to the First Department Store.

Chen got off the bus at Zhejiang Road. He decided to walk around the neighborhood, which could speak volumes about the people living there-as in Balzac’s novels. In Shanghai, however, it was not up to the people to decide where they would get a room, but to their work units, Chen realized. Still, he strolled around the area, thinking.

The street was one of the few still covered with cobblestones. There were quite a number of small, squalid lanes and alleys on both sides. Children raced about like scraps of paper blowing in the wind, running out of one lane into another.

Chen took out his notebook. Guan Hongying’s address read: Number 18, Lane 235, Hubei Road. But he was unable to find the lane.

He asked several people, showing them the address. No one seemed to have heard of the lane. Hubei was not a long street. In less than fifteen minutes, he had walked to the end and back. Still no success. So he stepped into a small grocery store on the corner, but the old grocer also shook his head. There were five or six hoodlums lounging by the grocery, young and shabby, with sparse whiskers and shining earrings, who looked at him challengingly.