Qiu Xiaolong - Death of a Red Heroine

“I took a piece of paper with the company’s letterhead on it. I typed a short statement to the effect that we were married. That’s all. We did not have to show a marriage license. Those travel agencies are after profits, so such a statement is enough for them.”

“It is a crime to fabricate a legal document.”

“Come on, Comrade Detective Yu. Just a few words on an office letterhead, and you call it a legal document? A lot of people do it every day.”

“It’s nonetheless illegal,” Chen said.

“You can talk to my boss if you want. I did play a little trick, using a piece of paper with the official letterhead. It’s wrong, I admit. But you cannot arrest me for that, can you?”

“Guan was a national model worker, a Party member with high political consciousness, and an attendant at our Party’s Tenth National Congress,” Yu said. “And you want us to believe she did it just to save a couple of hundred Yuan?”

“And at the cost of sharing herself, an unmarried woman,”

Chen added, “with a married man for a whole week.” “I’ve been trying my best to cooperate with you, comrades,”

Wu said, “but if all you want is to bluff, show me your warrant. You can take me to the bureau.”

“It’s an important case, Comrade Wu Xiaoming,” Chen said, “We have to investigate everyone related to Guan.”

“But that’s all I can tell you. I took a trip to the mountains in her company. It did not mean anything. Not in the nineties.”

“It’s definitely more than that,” Yu said. “Now, what is your explanation for your phone call to her on the night she was murdered?”

“The night she was murdered?”

“Yes, May tenth.”

“May tenth, uh, let me think. Sorry, I cannot remember anything about the phone call. Every day I make a lot of calls, sometimes more than twenty or thirty. I cannot remember a particular call on a particular day.”

“We’ve checked with the Shanghai Telecommunications Bureau. The record shows that the last call Guan got was from your number. At nine thirty P.M. on May tenth.”

“Well, it’s possible, I think. We did talk about taking another set of pictures. So I might have called her.”

“What about the message you left for her?”

“What message?”

“‘We’ll meet as scheduled.’”

“I don’t remember,” Wu said, “but it could refer to the photo session we had discussed.”

“A photo session after nine o’clock in the evening?”

“I see what you are driving at,” Wu said, flicking cigarette ash at the desk.

“We are not driving at anything,” Chen said. “We’re just waiting for your explanation.”

“I forget the exact time we scheduled, but it could be the following day, or the day after that.”

“You seem to have an explanation for everything,” Yu said. “A ready explanation.”

“Isn’t that what you want?

“Now where were you on the night of May tenth?”

“May tenth, let me think. Ah, I remember. Yes, I was at Guo Qiang’s place.”

“Who is Guo Qiang?”

“A friend of mine. He works at the People’s Bank in Pudong New District. His father used to be the deputy director there.”

“Another HCC.”

“I don’t like people to use that term,” Wu said, “but I do not want to argue with you. For the record, I just want to say that I stayed at his place for the night.”

“Why?”

“Something was wrong with my darkroom. I had to develop some films that night. I had a deadline to meet. So I went there to use his study instead.”

“Haven’t you got enough rooms here?”

“Guo likes photography, too. He dabbles in it. So he has some equipment. It would be too much of a hassle to move things around here.”

“A convenient answer. So you were with your buddy for the whole night. A solid alibi.”

“That’s where I was on May tenth. Period. And I hope it satisfies you.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Yu said. “We will be satisfied when we bring the murderer to justice.”

“Why should I have killed her, comrades?”

“That’s what we’ll find out,” Chen said.

“Everybody’s equal before the law, HCC or not,” Yu said. “Give us Guo’s address. We need to check with him.”

“All right, here it is. Guo’s address and phone number,” Wu said, scribbling a few words on a scrap of paper. “You’re wasting my time and yours.”

“Well,” Yu said, standing up, “we’ll see each other soon.”

“Next time, please give me a call beforehand,” Wu said, rising up from his father’s leather swivel chair. “You won’t have any problem finding the way out, I believe?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Wu mansion is huge. Some people have lost their way here.”

“Thank you for your important information,” Yu said, looking at Wu squarely. “We’re cops.”

They had no problem finding the way out.

Outside the gate, Yu turned back for another look at the mansion still partially visible behind the tall walls, and set off without saying anything. Chen walked beside him, trying not to break the silence. There appeared to be an unspoken understanding between them: The case was too complicated to talk about on the street. They continued to plod in silence for several more minutes.

They were supposed to take Bus Number 26 back to the bureau, but Chief Inspector Chen was not familiar with this area either. At Chen’s suggestion, they attempted to take a shortcut to Huaihai Road, but found themselves turning into one side street after another, and then to the beginning of Quqi Road. Huaihai Road was not visible. Quqi Road could not be far from Henshan Road, but it appeared so different. Most of the houses there were the cheap-material apartment buildings from the early fifties, now discolored, dirty, and dwarfed. It was there, however, Detective Yu was finally able to shake off his feeling of oppression.

The weather was splendid. The blue sky above seemed to transform the sordid look of the back street through which they were passing in silence. A middle-aged woman was preparing a bucket of rice field eels by a moss-covered public sink. Chen slowed his step, and Yu stopped to take a look, too. Having slapped an eel hard like a whip against the concrete ground, the woman was fixing its head on a thick nail sticking out of a bench, pulling it tight, cutting through its belly, deboning it, pulling out its insides, chopping off its head, and slicing its body delicately. She might be an eel woman for some nearby market, making a little money. Her hands and arms were covered with eel blood, and her bare feet too. The chopped-off heads of the eels lay scattered at her bare feet, like scarlet-painted toes.

“No question about it.” Yu came to an abrupt halt. “That bastard’s the murderer.”

“You handled him quite well,” Chen said, “Comrade Young Hunter.”

“Thank you, chief,” Yu said, pleased with the compliment, and even more so with the invention of this nickname by his boss.

At the end of the side street, they caught sight of a dingy snack bar.

“Can you smell curry?” Chen sniffed the air appreciatively. “Oh, I’m hungry.”

Yu nodded his agreement.

So they made their way into the bar. Pushing aside the bamboo bead curtain over the entrance, they found the interior surprisingly clean. There were no more than three plastic-topped tables covered with white tablecloths. Each table exhibited a bamboo beaker of chopsticks, a stainless steel container of toothpicks, and a soy sauce dispenser. A hand-written streamer on the wall limited the menu to cold noodles, cold dumplings, and a couple of cold dishes, but the curry beef soup was steaming hot in a big pot. It was two fifteen, late for lunch customers, so they had the place to themselves. A young woman emerged from the back-room kitchen at their footsteps, wiping her flour-covered hands on a jasmine-embroidered white apron, leaving a smudge on her smiling cheek. She was probably the proprietress, but also the waitress and chef in one. Leading them to a table, she recommended the special dishes of the day. She brought them a complimentary quart of iced beer.