David Rotenberg - The Hamlet Murders

Again something missing. The visual aesthetic of the room was consistent, consistent, consistent, then absent.

Then he noticed a slight area of brightness peeking out from behind the scroll painting. It was like the section of wall in his room that at one time had been covered by Lily’s antique frescoed sculpture. He got up and moved the scroll painting aside. An eight-byten- inch rectangle showed brighter on the wall than the surrounding area. Da Wei’s cubicle was extremely clean but uncovered walls collected dirt in Shanghai; the pollution is inescapable. So an area that was covered then uncovered would show bright against the rest of the wall.

Fong looked from the eight-by-ten brightness to the round black rubber disk with the logo on Da Wei’s night table.

Then he looked at the theatre posters. “Don’t you have any posters from the shows you worked on with Mr. Hyland?”

“I do. Several.”

“May I see them?”

“They’re in communal storage. You may notice that I have no closet space here.”

Fong nodded and said, “Ah,” then he glanced at the blank brightness on the wall again. He crossed over and picked up the rubber object from Da Wei’s night table. He held it close to read the writing on the logo. “What’s a Canuck?” he asked.

“A hockey player from Vancouver, I believe. That’s called a puck. Do you know about hockey, Detective Zhong?”

No, he didn’t, but he knew about someone who did. He remembered Geoff’s reference on the CDROM and an incident years ago when Geoff was directing in Shanghai and frantically tried to find a newspaper that would tell him who won the Larry Cup – or Gerty Cup – some kind of hockey cup. “So Mr. Hyland gave you the puck as a souvenir?”

She nodded. Then poured herself more tea and hid her face in the mist from her cup.

“Not a particularly romantic gift, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t understand you, Detective Zhong.”

“Should we speak in the Common Tongue? Would that help you understand me?”

She was instantly on her feet, no doubt about to demand he leave her room, but before she could speak, Fong pulled down the scroll painting and pointed at the eight-by-ten inch brightness on the wall. “So was this where you kept Mr. Hyland’s picture?” She stared at him. Her mouth was open, revealing cracked teeth. “Did he sign it for you? Maybe with the words: With all my love, Geoff?”

“No,” she said and sat heavily. “Not those words. ‘I couldn’t do it without you, Da Wei’ it said.”

“You cared for him,” Fong said.

She nodded slowly.

“But he didn’t reciprocate your affection? Is reciprocate the right word?”

“You know it is,” she snapped. Then she took a deep breath and let her air out slowly. “No, Detective Zhong, he did not reciprocate. I was not blessed with . . . ” The words failed her. She just shook her head and tears began to well in her round eyes as she contemplated the whole injustice of beauty. “I am not beautiful like your wife or Yue Feng.”

Fong stood very still. “Mr. Hyland was seeing Yue Feng, the actress who plays Ophelia?”

“Now it is I who must ask about word selection. What do you mean by ‘was seeing’?” She reverted to Mandarin. “Do you mean being attracted to – yes. Touching her backstage – yes. Having her in his rooms – yes. Fucking her – that, not having been there, I wouldn’t know.” She smiled wanly. “If you follow my meaning, Detective Zhong.”

“I do.” He got to his feet. “Have you got a passport, Da Wei?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll need to hold that for you.”

She balked for a moment then opened a small drawer in the table and handed over her way out of the Middle Kingdom.

Visitation rights don’t exist in Chinese jails. So when Fong, through Captain Chen, demanded access to the woman who murdered the man she loved, the penal system first had to find the woman then arrange how the meeting could take place. While the authorities worked things out, Fong tried to find a transcript of the woman’s trial. But despite his best efforts he couldn’t even find a record of the verdict. Fong had no doubt she had been found guilty but access to court records, like jail visitations in the People’s Republic of China, are not guaranteed.

The call finally came through. A place. A time.

The woman who murdered the man she loved sat quietly on a small three-legged bamboo stool and did not rise when Fong and Joan Shui entered the dank room. When the jailor began to close the door, Fong turned to him, “Don’t.”

The woman who murdered the man she loved sat looking at her hands. Fong looked at them too. Her slender fingers were now capped by ragged bitten nails. Only the false nail of her right ring finger remained from her fashionable French manicure. She pushed up the sleeves of her prison blouse and lifted her head. Immediately she saw the way he was looking at her. “Wait till they cut off my hair, then I’ll really be a treat to look at. Like her,” she said pointing to Joan, “a real fashion statement.”

Fong had actually been surprised that they hadn’t cut off the woman’s hair. It was pretty much common practice. They claimed it was to keep down the lice but Fong knew otherwise. Like so much of prison life it was to break down any sense of anyone being special, being other than a prisoner at the total behest of the state.

“You’ve been in prison,” she said. It was a statement not a question.

Fong nodded. “This woman knew that I had been in love. Now she knows that I have been in prison,” he thought. He looked more closely at her. But she looked away saying, “Don’t.”

He began to apologize then decided against it. Beauty was to be shared. It was just one of the many talents. Fu Tsong had told him that, then quoted some parable or something from the West’s Bible about hiding money under apple carts or some such nonsense. As with so many things from that most questionable of books, Fong had no idea what it meant – if in fact it meant anything.

“Why are you here, Detective Zhong?” she asked. But he heard the waver in her voice. The inherent pause. The uncertainty that prison had already implanted in her.

“How long is your sentence?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. As someone who has been in a place like this, yes, it matters. On that, trust me.”

“Well, they haven’t decided yet.”

“When are they going to decide?”

She made a sound that in the time before the murder would no doubt have been called a laugh. Now, prison had modified the sound and it was little different than the sound made to clear the throat before spitting up phlegm.

Fong made himself go over the timeline. The murder had taken place only ten days ago so it was possible that she would be sentenced shortly but it was not likely. If they were going to sentence her it should have happened by now. If they were going to execute her he wouldn’t have been allowed to see her. Likely she would be imprisoned as long as the authorities thought it useful. That could be as little as three years or as long as her life.

“What are you doing here, Detective Zhong?” she asked again.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Well, that’s good because if you came here to fuck me that could prove above even your ingenuity.” She looked at Joan Shui for a second then said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Joan said.

“Have you got a cigarette?”

“Sorry,” said Joan.

“I do,” said Fong.

He had brought cigarettes for precisely this situation but now he hesitated. He didn’t want to bribe her to talk to him. He wanted her to want to talk to him.