Qiu Xiaolong - Death of a Red Heroine

Life’s not fair to everybody, a fact Detective Yu had long accepted. Family background, for one thing, made a huge difference everywhere, though nowhere so much as in China in the nineties.

But now Wu Xiaoming had committed a murder. Of that, Yu was convinced

Staring up at the ceiling, Yu thought he could see exactly what had happened on the night of May tenth: Wu made the phone call, Guan came to his house, they had caviar and sex, then Wu strangled her, put her body in a plastic garbage bag, took it to the canal, and dumped it there…

“Your chief inspector has a lot on his mind,” Peiqin said, cuddling against him.

“Oh, you’re still awake?” he said, startled. “Yes, he does. The case is tough, involving some important people.”

“Perhaps something else.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m a woman,” she said, her lips curving into a suggestion of smile. “You men do not notice things written on each other’s faces. A handsome chief inspector, and a well-published poet, too-he must be a highly eligible bachelor, but he looks lonely.”

“You, too, have a soft spot for him?”

“No. I already have such a wonderful husband.”

He hugged her again.

Before he fell asleep, he heard a faint sound near the door. He lay listening for a moment, and he remembered that several live crabs remained unsteamed in the pail there. They were no longer crawling on the sesame-covered bottom of the wooden pail. What he heard was the bubbles of crab froth, bubbles with which they moistened each other in the dark.

Early the following morning, Detective Yu and Chief Inspector Chen arrived at the Shanghai office of Red Star. The magazine was housed in a Victorian building at the intersection between Wulumuqi and Huaihai Roads, one of the best locations in Shanghai. No wonder, Yu thought, considering its political influence. Red Star was the voice of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Every staff member working there seemed highly conscious of the prestige of his position.

Sitting at a marble reception desk was a young girl in a neat polka-dot dress. Intent on her laptop, she did not stop vigorously punching at the keys on their arrival. The two police officers’ introductions made little impression on her. She told them that Wu was not in the office, without asking why they wanted to see him.

“You must know where the Zhou Mansion is-the Wu Mansion nowadays, needless to say,” she said. “Wu is working at home today.”

“Working at home?” Yu said.

“At our magazine, it is not unusual.”

“Everything at Red Star is unusual.”

“Better call him first,” she said. “If you want, you can use our phone here.”

“No, thanks,” Yu said. “We have our car phone.”

Outside, there was no car waiting for them, let alone a car phone.

“I could not stand it,” Yu grumbled. “She gave herself such airs.”

“You’re right,” Chen said, “Better not to call Wu beforehand, so we can take him by surprise.”

“Well, a surprised snake will bite back,” Yu said. “The Wu mansion on Henshan Road is not too far away. We can walk there.”

They soon came to the midsection of Henshan Road, where the Wu Mansion stood looming behind high walls. Originally it had been owned by a tycoon surnamed Zhou. When the Communists took over in 1949, the Zhou family fled to Taiwan, and Wu Bing’s family moved in.

The mansion and the area of Henshan Road around it was in a part of Shanghai Yu had never come to know, even though he had lived in the city for so long. Yu had been born and brought up in the lower end of Huangpu District, an area mainly inhabited by mid- and low-income families. When Old Hunter moved there in the early fifties, an era of communist egalitarianism, it was a district considered as good as any other in Shanghai. Like the other kids there, running in and out of those small lanes, playing games on the narrow cobblestone paths, Yu believed that he had everything possible in his neighborhood, though he knew that there were other better ones in Shanghai, where the streets were broader and the houses larger.

In his high-school years, often after a day’s class of Chairman Mao’s Quotations, Yu would join a group of his schoolmates in their campaigns-roaming the various areas of the city. Sometimes they would also venture into stores, though they did not shop for anything. Occasionally they would end their excursion by treating themselves at some cheap snack bar. Most of the time, however, they just wandered through one street after another, walking aimlessly, talking energetically, and basking in their friendships. So they had become familiar with various parts of the city.

Except one area. That was the one around Henshan Road, which they had seen only in the movies before 1949-movies about the fabulous rich capitalists, imported cars, and uniformed chauffeurs, young maids in black dresses with white aprons and starched caps. Once they actually ventured into the area, but they felt out of their element immediately. Visible behind high walls, the mansions appeared the same as in the old movies, so impressive, but so impersonal. In front of them, Henshan Road stretched out silent, solemn, and almost soulless-except for some armed PLA soldiers standing still at the iron gates. It was a residential area for high cadres, they knew, a level of existence way above theirs. Still it came as a shock to them that in such a large mansion, there lived only one family, while in their own neighborhood, a much smaller house could be partitioned out to accommodate a dozen families. The environment struck them as the setting of an unfriendly fairy tale. Perhaps they lingered, wondering a bit too long. An armed soldier came over, asking them to leave; it was not an area they belonged in. The realization dampened their interest in going there again.

Now on an early June morning, Detective Yu found himself there again. He was no longer a school kid, but the atmosphere of the area was still oppressive. A PLA soldier raised his hand in salute as they passed through. Not the same soldiers as so many years ago, of course. But these people now living behind the high walls were not entirely different.

The white wall enclosing the Wu mansion appeared unchanged too, except here and there it was ivy-mantled. Out on the street, people barely glimpsed the red-tiled roof shining among treetops. The lot on which the house stood was immense. Now there was no soldier standing at the wrought-iron gate embellished with spiraling pinnacles, but it seemed to correspond all the more closely to the impressions of Shanghai seen in old movies.

Detective Yu placed his hand on the bell at the side of the gate and rang.

Presently a woman opened the gate a couple of inches. She was probably in her mid-thirties, dressed in a black-and-white top with a brief matching skirt. Her eyelids were adorned with false eyelashes and powder-blue eyeshadow, and she stared at them questioningly. “Who are you?”

“We are from the Shanghai Police Bureau,” Yu said, flashing his I.D. “We need to talk to Wu Xiaoming.”

“Does he expect your visit?”

“No, we don’t think so. We are investigating a murder.”

“Come with me. I’m his younger sister.”

She led them through the gate.

So Detective Yu saw the mansion in its entirety for the first time. A magnificent three-story building, it looked like a modernized castle, with the pinnacles and towers of its original design, and the porches and glass verandahs added in recent renovations. The lawn was immense and well-kept, sporting several flowerbeds. In the middle, a shell-shaped swimming pool of clear blue water shimmered against light blue tiles.

Following her up a flight of steps, they crossed a large hall and came to a colossal living room with a staircase curving up to the left. Opposite a green marble fireplace, there was a black leather sectional sofa, and a coffee table with a thick plate-glass top.