A Yi - A Perfect Crime

‘Then get to it.’

He tapped his pen awkwardly and waved his hands. The other policeman gave me his notes.

‘No need,’ I said, and signed it.

He told me I still had to read it, but I just wrote: I hereby declare that I have read and confirm there are no mistakes.

Not long after, they took me back to the military academy apartments. The police had cordoned off the area, but that hadn’t stopped a crowd gathering. Wherever I went, they swarmed after me. I was an animal in a zoo. I looked out at them and smiled. This provoked a middle-aged man, who moved through the crowd holding up a stick as if to hit me, to beat me with the morality I had been missing all along. I struggled, wanting to hit him back. The others retreated. Only he stood firm.

The trees had turned yellow.

In the past, I never took any notice of the cycle of leaves growing and wilting. But now they were yellow. The last time I would see them turn yellow. My neighbour, Mr He, led the way, resolute but silent. I could almost see the dust rising beneath his feet. In the event of corners or stairs, he would extend his right hand as a signal to the rear. Once his duties as public security activist were completed, he hung around watching, following. As if they might consult him at any time for his expert opinion. But there was no need to trouble him with such matters.

I went to the door of Auntie’s apartment and looked out at the sky. It was empty, peaceful in its deepest reaches. A death omen, I said to myself.

The windows on both sides of my old room were sealed shut and the washing machine had been placed by the door. The tape had been removed and stuck to the wall. They pulled the light switch, gave me a plastic doll and knife and asked me to begin. But I didn’t know how.

‘Kill her,’ they said.

My uniform didn’t have pockets, so I stuck the knife into my waistband. I held the model from behind, covered her nose and mouth. I stood still.

‘Keep going,’ they said.

‘She fought back.’

‘Move her yourself.’

I swayed her in my arms, whispered in her ear, let go and pulled out the tape. I covered her mouth and then tore it away. I started screaming.

They shrank back at first, then surrounded me.

‘That’s her screaming,’ I said.

‘That bit you can leave out.’

‘No, I can’t.’

I started screaming again, quite the actor. I covered her mouth, took the knife from my waist and jabbed it at her abdomen. Unfortunately the blade just slid, rather than piercing. But I kept stabbing her. I pushed her over to the window and drew back the curtain with the knife. I let go of the model again and began retching against the wall. I then crouched, scratched her face and held her down.

At that moment everything felt blurry (like when the washerwoman stops what she’s doing and stares into space). A large shadow on the wall. Crazed blows, as if I was really stabbing her. They were replaying everything, the shadows, and I felt a twitching in the darkest recesses of my memory.

I took her into my arms, tipped her updside down into the washing machine and said, ‘It was a switchblade, I seem to remember.’

I thought they might ask me to show them some other locations in this pongy city, but they said there was no need. The policeman who’d fallen from the motorbike was lucky, he was doing fine now.

The next day we moved to a meeting room, which consisted of a red table reflecting the afternoon light. A female officer brewed some tea for me while the others set up a camera and opened their notebooks. They took their seats opposite. As if we were all sitting down to a plain old meeting. The old man’s face was like stone, his skin lumpy and his features sunken (especially his nose, which was nothing more than two nostrils). Maybe he’d had leprosy. He was hideous; his cold eyes were pulverising my insides. Just like the first time, I’d tell them everything calmly.

I looked down, the tea cup gripped in my hands, and examined the links between the handcuffs.

‘Head up.’

I looked up.

‘Look at me.’

The old man was forcing me to look him in the eyes and it felt like I was disappearing. I was a pile of burning firewood, my body crackled, the cup shook and the boiling water splashed out and scalded me.

It’s hard for me to describe what happened that day. You probably won’t believe me. I felt like I was walking into a tunnel, while the old man retreated, beckoning me towards the light at the other end. I followed in silence, I had no choice. If he asked the same questions as the last time, I would tell him everything. But he only prompted me to go through the incident again. So I started from the beginning. The texts, the whispers, the struggles, the tape, the switchblade, the curtain, the washing machine. He kept nodding, while the man next to him solemnly made notes, his eyes soft and encouraging. But I was fed up. I hate having to repeat things.

‘Then what?’ he said.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

I’d done my duty, so I leaned down on the table to sleep. One of the officers grabbed my head and I wrestled free. The old man kept gesturing for me to continue.

‘Let’s talk about why. You say you put her upside down in the washing machine. Why did you do that?’

‘No reason.’

‘OK, then when you let go of her in front of the window, was she already dead?’

‘Must have been.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I can’t be sure, but I think she must have been.’

‘So if she was already dead, why did you stab her thirty-seven times?’

‘No reason.’

‘You know what? Our old medical expert has never vomited at a crime scene. But after seeing what happened to that girl she was such a nervous wreck she went into hospital. The girl lost enough blood to fill the washing machine half full. The medical examiner said she’d never seen anything like it – the murderer must have been completely consumed with hatred.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Why did you hate her so much?’

‘I didn’t hate her.’

‘That doesn’t seem possible.’

‘Really.’

‘If that’s the case, why do something so brutal, so ruthless?’

‘No reason.’

He threw his tea cup to the floor, making his colleague jump. He leaned forward and banged on the table. ‘No reason?’ he roared.

I looked down and said nothing. The direction he was taking and his methods were all wrong. He was making a big mistake.

‘Speak,’ he said, thumping the table.

‘I have nothing to say.’

He walked over, grabbed my collar and raised a clenched fist. But I wasn’t scared. If he hit me on the left cheek, I’d give him my right as well. Winners don’t get so easily flustered. His colleague kept telling him to stop, but it took some time for him to calm down. Then he started telling me about his son who was about my age. His tone changed, as if talking to a friend. After having flunked his college entrance exams his son ran away. When the old man found him, he beat him. But beating his son was like beating himself.

‘After that I realised there was nothing I could not forgive. There is nothing in life too big that it cannot be forgiven.’

He was in a world of his own emotions and, with tears in his eyes, he looked at me.

‘We’ll get through this crisis together. Kid, was there really no other way to solve your problems with Kong Jie?’

‘We didn’t have any.’

‘And yet you stabbed her another thirty-seven times, after she was already dead?’

‘You don’t get it.’

‘You liked her but she didn’t feel the same way, is that it?’

‘No.’

‘Did she humiliate you?’

‘No.’

‘Then why?’

I looked straight at him. ‘I’d like to know the answer to that too.’