Qiu Xiaolong - Red Mandarin Dress

“Yes, I read about it here in a Beijing newspaper.”

“I have a favor to ask of you. Supposing the dress is an image some people may have seen, can you try to gather information about it from your members? Send a fax of the mandarin dress to the branch offices all over the country. Any information will help.”

“I’ll contact all the people I know, Chief Inspector Chen, but who has not seen a mandarin dress or two, in pictures or in movies or in real life? It’s neither here nor there.”

“There are three things unusual about the dress. First, as you may have read in the newspaper, the red mandarin dress is of high quality and craftsmanship, but in an old fashion, possibly from the fifties or sixties. Secondly, the woman wearing the mandarin dress was barefoot, and finally, she had a possible connection to a flower bed or a park.”

“That may narrow down the range,” Wang said. “I’ll have my secretary contact every provincial branch, but I can’t promise you anything.”

“I really appreciate your help, Chairman Wang. You are going out of your way for me, I know.”

“You would do the same for me,” Wang said, “like last time.”

Not like last time, Chen groaned. That was a real headache, even thinking about it.

Closing the phone, he was about to light a cigarette when he saw Yu enter the bar, walking in big strides.

“A quiet place, Chief,” Yu said, seeing they were the only ones in the café section.

“Any new developments?” Chen asked, pushing the menu toward his partner. “Anything from the neighborhood committees?”

“No, nothing substantial or useful.”

A waitress came over to their table, eyeing the two curiously. Stiff in his cotton-padded uniform, his hair rumpled and his shoes dust-covered, Yu cut a contrasting figure to Chen, who looked more like a regular customer at such a café, in his black blazer and khaki pants, a leather briefcase beside him. The young lovers in the pottery section were standing up to leave, a decision possibly prompted by the arrival of a cop.

“Tea,” Yu said to the waitress before turning to Chen. “I still can’t drink coffee, boss.”

“I am not too surprised about the neighborhood committees,” Chen said after the withdrawal of the waitress. “If the murderer could have succeeded in dumping two bodies at those locations without being seen, it wouldn’t be realistic to expect that his neighbors saw anything either.”

“Liao thinks that he must have a garage, but Li is against searching each and every garage in the city.”

“No, I don’t think the murderer has to have a garage.”

“Oh, the identity of the second victim has been established. Qiao Chunyan. An eating girl. Usually at a restaurant called Ming River.”

“One of the three-accompanying girls?”

“Yes, that’s how she lived, and how she died too.”

Yu did not have to elaborate. The three-accompanying girls-the girl who accompanied customers in eating, in singing, and in dancing-was a new profession and a new term in the Chinese language. Sex business was still officially banned, but people managed to carry on under all kinds of guises. So the “three-accompanying” business flourished. There was no law against girls eating, singing, and dancing with customers. As for the possible service afterward, the city authorities acquiesced, with one eye open and one eye closed. The girls had to face occupational hazards, of course, including a sex killer.

“So they both worked at low-end jobs,” Chen said.

“That suggests a new direction for Liao. He thinks the killer might have a grudge against those girls. That’s how he started the serial killing,” Yu said. “But I don’t see a real connection between the two. For the second, there was a possibility of her falling into the killer’s hands because of her job. For the first victim, however, it’s a different story.”

“Yes, you’ve done a thorough job on her.”

“A hotel attendant is not a three-accompanying girl. From what I’ve gathered, she was a decent, hard-working girl. She helped at her hotel canteen too, but it’s too small for Big Bucks or eating girls. If she were an unscrupulous gold digger, she wouldn’t have chosen to work at a small hotel.”

“I think you’re right,” Chen said. “So what do you think is the connection between the two?”

“Here is a list of what the two have in common,” Yu said, producing a page torn from a pad. “Liao has checked most of the points.”

“Let’s go through the list,” Chen said, taking the page.

1. Young, pretty girls in their early twenties, unmarried, not highly educated, of poor family background, working at low-end jobs, possibly engaged in some indecent business.

2. Each in a red mandarin dress. Torn in the side slits, several bosom buttons unbuttoned, thigh-and-breast-revealing, erotic or obscene in the effect, though the dress appeared exquisite and conservative in style. No underwear or bra, either, in contradiction to the common mandarin dress code.

3. Bare feet, Qiao with red-painted toenails, Jasmine’s unpainted.

4. Neither of them was sexually assaulted. While the first body showed bruises possibly from resistance, no trace of penetration or ejaculation was found. As for the second, no bruises suggesting sexual violence. The first body was washed, but not the second body.

5. Public locations. Highly difficult and dangerous to dump the bodies unseen.

“Have you got any new pictures that tell us more about who they were and how they lived?”

“Yes, mostly Qiao’s pictures. She had a passion for them.”

“Let’s take a look at them.”

Yu arranged the photographs in a line on the table.

Chen studied them, like a man examining possible dates suggested by a matchmaker. It might be sheer coincidence, he noted, that each of the girls had a picture taken at the People’s Square, in the summer. Jasmine wore a white cotton summer dress, and Qiao had on a yellow tank top and jeans. Chen put the two pictures side by side. Jasmine appeared to be the slimmer of the two, and possibly taller as well.

“Do you notice the difference in their build, Yu?” he said, gazing at the pictures.

Yu nodded without speaking.

Chen placed two pictures taken at the crime scenes underneath the two taken at the People’s Square.

“According to Shen, a good mandarin dress has to be customer-tailored, tight-fitting, so it brings out all the curves. Look at the two-crime-scene pictures. In both, the dress really clings to the body. We should check the dress sizes. See if the two are slightly different.”

“I’ll check.” Yu added, “But if it is so-”

“It means that he has a supply of expensive, vintage mandarin dresses-identical in color, material, and design, but in different sizes for him to choose from.”

“He could have made them for someone he loved or hated,” Yu said, “but why in different sizes?”

“That puzzles me,” Chen said. It was yet another contradiction, like in those love stories he had been analyzing.

“What else has Shen told you?”

Chen recounted his discussion with the elderly scholar.

“In the light of Shen’s analysis,” Chen said, “the murderer could have had these made in the eighties, after a particular fashion from even earlier, and kept them in a closet all these years until the first strike two weeks ago.”

“Why the long wait?”

“I don’t know, but that may explain your failure to find any clues about the mandarin dress. It’s such a long time ago. In the early eighties, the mandarin dress was not yet back in fashion, so no mass production. They were possibly made by an individual tailor, who could have since passed away, retired, or moved back to the countryside.”