Hold Your Breath, China Page 11

  ‘So you mean he did all the killings as a sort of prelude for the killing of Xiang? But he could have been caught in one of the earlier murders, then his revenge plan would have been totally finished even before it had started. Zhou would have known better.’

  ‘For a serial murderer, he knows only the logic of his twisted mind. Twisted mind, isn’t that your Inspector Chen’s phrase? His choice of those central locations could have been made out of the same consideration. The more sensation, the more devastating to the Gengs.’

  Qin was apparently so deep into the scenario pushed by Internal Security, Yu saw no point arguing any more. It was pointless. With no other leads or clues, Internal Security’s scenario could have appeared like a life-saving straw to Qin.

  But Yu was far from convinced.

  Back in his apartment after meeting with Old Hunter in People’s Park, carrying with him a flash memory stick from the old man who had got it from Peiqin the night before, Inspector Chen did not even have the time to really check into the contents of it before he got a text message from Zhao. It was unexpected from the senior Party leader.

  ‘You are moving in the right direction. Good job, Chief Inspector Chen. Keep at it.’

  He wondered at Zhao’s comment about ‘the right direction’. The trip to Wuxi? Nothing like any breakthrough was reported as far as Zhao’s inquiry was concerned. Was it in relation to the mention of the petroleum industry in the earlier message from Chen? It did not take a chief inspector to point a finger at its contribution to the air pollution.

  The message was too vague.

  Again, Chen felt like walking out for a while. The apartment suddenly felt suffocating as he recalled the fresh air machine in Zhao’s hotel suite, as well as all the other types of machine Bian had told him about the day before.

  He too should have one installed at home – perhaps at his mother’s small room first in that old shikumen house. He wondered whether he would have the time to visit her the next day, feeling pretty bad about having given away the Wuxi specials to Qiang.

  On the street corner, Chen joined a line of people edging toward a Shanghai snack stall. When his turn came, he bought for himself a sesame-covered sticky rice ball, which the peddler ladled out of the sizzling oil in a large wok.

  The sticky rice ball tasted hot, soft, sweet with red bean paste inside, but somehow not as tasty as before. Possibly because of the ‘gutter oil’, he speculated. So many things turned out to be toxic or unhealthy in today’s society. Still nibbling at the golden-colored sticky rice ball, he did not want to worry too much about it for the moment, walking aimlessly and thinking.

  Then he noticed the young, slender girl who had stood wearing a large mask in front of him in the line at the snack stall. She was now biting a sesame-covered earthen oven cake in her hand, walking abreast of him. The mask off, she looked strikingly vivacious in spite of the sesame stuck to her lips and cheeks in the gray morning.

  Was there something youthful about her, reminiscent of Shanshan?

  Slender, supple, she’s just thirteen,

  the tip of a cardamom bud

  in the early spring …

  Chen found his mind helplessly wandering away into Du Mu’s lines in the Tang dynasty.

  Peiqin was on the way from the state-run restaurant to the private-run eatery, wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead, when she got a text message from Lianping.

  ‘Some people came to talk to Zhou this morning. Zhou worked with Xiang that evening, but he left the office shortly after, around twelve.’

  Apparently, it was not a convenient moment for Lianping to talk on the phone in the office. So Peiqin typed a question in response.

  ‘The people from Yu’s bureau?’

  ‘No. Not in police uniform.’

  ‘They have found something about Zhou during that night shift, haven’t they?’

  ‘That I don’t know. For the night shift, usually it requires only one person in charge to stay there. When things get too busy, two or three may stay on in the office. Zhou worked a couple of extra hours that evening before going back home, leaving her alone there.’ Lianping then added, ‘At least that’s the version Zhou gave us about that night. Nothing has been announced in the newspaper, but Zhou left with those men. He looked ghastly pale according to the doorman who saw them walk out. Not handcuffed, though.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll let Yu know.’

  Chen was still reprimanding himself for getting lost in Du Mu’s Tang dynasty again when he had a phone call come in from Ouyang.

  ‘Something happened, Inspector Chen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Qiang disappeared. Mrs Qiang called into the association in the morning. Qiang is a family man, having never stayed out overnight without calling back home. She had dialed his cellphone numerous times, but it remained turned off. That’s strange. Because of the nature of his job, he made a point of keeping his phone on all the time. By this morning she got so frantic that she contacted us. People in the association started calling around, too. However, his cellphone is still shut off.’

  ‘That’s really strange. What did his office assistant Meiling say?’

  ‘According to Meiling, Qiang had never mentioned any activities scheduled that afternoon or that night.’

  ‘When was Qiang last seen?’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon, shortly after your visit to him, as Meiling recalled.’

  ‘Well, Qiang and I moved down to the café for tea. It was about one thirty, and after twenty minutes or so, he went back to his office.’

  ‘Yes, Meiling saw him coming back to the office, but then he got a phone call and hurried out. He did not say anything to her about it.’

  ‘He could have left for something urgent.’

  ‘He’s retiring. For the last several months Meiling was practically in charge of the office work. There was nothing urgent or important scheduled yesterday. Besides, he would have told her if he had to leave because of something related to the office.’

  ‘That beats me, Ouyang. But don’t worry too much. I’ll try to come over to the association today. By that time, Qiang might have come back with an explanation.’

  But Inspector Chen was truly worried about Qiang turning off his phone.

  Could his disappearance have had something to do with his talk with the inspector at the café?

  If that were the case, the net could be tightening around the inspector, relentlessly, for something still beyond his knowledge.

  He must have been followed. His visit to Qiang’s office and then to the café downstairs raised the alarm for some, most likely Internal Security, who kept watching for each and every move he was making.

  Because of that, Qiang had received ‘the invitation out for a cup of tea’.

  ‘The invitation out for a cup of tea’ was a newly coined Chinese expression, meaning that people were detained by Internal Security at an unknown location for questioning – for days, or even longer if the ‘tea drinker’ in question was believed not to have come out with everything useful. It was not seen as formal police procedure, nor acknowledged or reported in the official media. The invitation was carried out without a warrant or anything like that, and the ‘tea drinker’, usually scared to death by the ‘tea experience’, would never talk about it afterward.

  For Qiang, the questioning possibly revolved around the contents of his talk with Chen in the café.

  But both of them had talked carefully. As far as Qiang was concerned, there was nothing but an old man’s concerns about a younger colleague, even though some of his words could have been taken as oblique hints, open to different interpretations. On Chen’s part, he had not given away anything involving sensitive information. Still, Internal Security would not have believed it. Consequently, Qiang remained detained until he would start telling them what they wanted to uncover.

  For an alternative scenario, Qiang could have known much more about Chen’s trouble. In order to make sure of his not leaking anyth
ing else to Chen, he was detained. That made sense, however, only if something catastrophic was going to happen to Chen really soon – within a matter of days. Until then, would Qiang have to remain in an unknown location holding his cup of tea?

  Then Chen recalled something else that afternoon. The office assistant Meiling came in with a printout to Qiang during their talk, upon which Qiang stopped in the middle of a sentence and suggested that they had tea down in the café instead.

  Meiling, the designated successor to Qiang, must have been screened and trained by Internal Security. Qiang was aware of the potential complications, so he wanted to continue the talk somewhere else. It nevertheless stirred up suspicions.

  All of these could turn out to be wild speculations on the part of the panic-stricken inspector. Nothing but a coincidence with Qiang’s disappearance shortly after their talk. But Chen had a hard time bringing himself to believe in the coincidence.

  And it could also point toward a different scenario, an even more sinister set-up threatening to engulf both Shanshan and him, which was not that inconceivable, he realized, with pieces already adding up for a disparate picture of the puzzle.

  The piece of Zhao choosing him for this job after having made a study of his poem in connection to the once relationship between him and Shanshan; the piece of Zhao and others opting not to do anything directly about her documentary project; the piece of his having ruffled high feathers with his earlier investigations, and with his articles about judicial independence; the piece of her scantily clothed pictures mysteriously surfacing in a net cop’s computer …

  These pieces, when put together, suggested a devilish trap had been set for him in the investigation of Shanshan’s project. Considering the past between the two, it was to be expected that they would come to discuss among themselves some things of which she might not have spoken to others. After all, they found themselves in the same boat, so to speak, once in Tai Lake, and now by Huangpu River. She had no reason not to trust him. So the hitherto unknown information would then be uncovered.

  In the midst of all this, the piece of Qiang’s disappearance could have been designed to make the devious trap infallible.

  But he ended up with only one certainty: whoever had orchestrated the disappearance of Qiang must have done so from a really powerful position.

  Detective Yu was increasingly disturbed with Qin’s direction of the investigation.

  Then a phone call came in from Peiqin. After recounting Lianping’s message, she added, ‘Lianping could not talk in her office, so she texted me, and I texted back. When we were finished, the plum flower cake for brunch was cold.’

  ‘You are the most extraordinary wife for a cop, as Chen has said.’

  It was obvious that Internal Security was moving fast in accordance to their set course of action, and so was Detective Qin, following them.

  So what else could Detective Yu do?

  As a consultant, he had made himself clear enough to Detective Qin who was the one in charge of the investigation, though they all still thought differently.

  Lighting a cigarette, Yu decided to study the case report and pictures just one more time.

  The contents of the report were so familiar to him that he put it down after no more than ten minutes. There was no point going over the details he had repeatedly studied.

  Studying all the pictures once again, however, revealed a similarity between the masks of the first victim and third victim: both with a slight yellowish color. Some masks, if worn for too long, could have discolored, but the color for the two masks in question appeared to be deeper than that. It was possibly because of the material. With such severe air pollution, some high-end manufacturer could have pre-treated the material for better effect.

  Sweating, he compared the four groups more closely.

  For the second victim, the mask was definitely white. Also, he was wearing it when his body was discovered.

  As for the fourth victim, Yu had just a couple of crime scene pictures from Qin in which the mask appeared to be partially covered by the earthen oven cake, with only its straps visible.

  Under closer examination, however, the straps looked slightly yellowish too, though Detective Yu was not absolutely sure about the color.

  In Qin’s case report, there was about half a sentence mentioning the first victim’s mask being a much-used one, off color. That made sense, considering her circumstances as a penny-saving night caregiver, but not so with the third. Nor with the fourth. If Xiang’s mask also proved to be yellowish, it would be too much of a coincidence – three out of four.

  Rearranging the pictures on the desk, and restudying them in comparison, Yu was thunderstruck by another possibility for the first time: except for the second victim wearing the mask on his face, the masks for the other victims could have been planted by their bodies.

  And that would be something too strikingly common among the victims. To use Chen’s word, the real ‘signature’, capable of telling them why the murderer had to commit the murder.

  But how, Yu still had no clue.

  After going over the pictures for another time, Detective Yu pulled out his phone and dialed Peiqin.

  ‘What’s up, Yu?’

  ‘Have you seen people wearing a sort of yellowish mask?’

  ‘Not that I can recall. But for young people a variety of patterns and colors would not be unimaginable. I have seen pinkish and florid ones, almost like colorful scarfs.’

  ‘Let me ask a different question. Is it possible for a mask to get yellowish after being repeatedly worn and washed?’

  ‘In my childhood, I used to wear and wash a mask so many times, so it’s usable for more than a year. It could have been a bit discolored – not as white as before – but never yellowish. Nowadays, masks are simply something disposable for young people. They don’t bother to wash them. But for your question, the answer is no, a mask won’t turn yellowish with wear and tear.’

  ‘So you are sure about it?’

  ‘I’m positive. But for all your questions about masks, I have a question for you too.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘For the serial murder case, one of the victims was hit while jogging out in the morning?’

  ‘Yes, the third victim, a young girl named Yan.’

  ‘Did she wear a mask while jogging out on a smoggy morning?’

  ‘That’s a good question. Yes, she had a mask with her – to be more exact, the mask had fallen aside on the bank, at some distance from her body.’ Yu went on after a short pause, ‘And for your question, I have another one. If you were aware of breathing all the toxic air into the lungs while jogging out in the smog, would you have chosen to wear a mask?’

  ‘Not me, I simply would not jog outside these days, but I don’t know about others. Some people could be crazy enough for their working-out fix in the morning. At least, I’ve seen mask-wearing people playing tai chi in People’s Park. Still, jogging could be a different story. Running, you’ll be hard-breathing or even breathless. Think how much more uncomfortable it would be with the horrible air and the suffocating mask.’

  ‘Again, your answer is no?’

  ‘I guess I would say so. But what comes over you, Yu? You’re suddenly turning into a mask expert. Is this about your investigation again?’

  ‘I’ll tell you more this evening.’

  After spending more than an hour doing research for the preview in the afternoon, Inspector Chen concluded that it was impractical to prepare without seeing the documentary first.

  So he took out the case report, the pictures and the video Detective Yu had sent him via Old Hunter in the park.

  Yu had done a good job gathering so much at a short notice, Chen thought, with hardly any cooperation from Detective Qin.

  Particularly so for the video, through which he skimmed, wondering how it could be related to the murder case.

  He moved on to an examination of the pictures. With the video he had just seen, he paid more attention to t
hose of Xiang. Not just those at the crime scene, but also some in the newspaper. She looked quite an intellectual in the Wenhui office, in sharp contrast to the image in the video in the massage room. Then he took a look at those at the crime scene. She lay face down on the street, with the half-finished cake on the curb beside her.

  Gazing at the picture for a couple of seconds, he shook his head. He felt sad, tired, not like a cop, or at least not up to the job of a cop.

  Still, he had to make a visit to the Shanghai Writers’ Association. He had no choice.

  Before lunch, Detective Yu dialed Inspector Chen, who picked up the call instantly.

  ‘Something new from Peiqin’s talk with Lianping, Chief.’

  Yu briefed Chen on what Lianping had told Peiqin regarding Xiang, Zhou, as well as other relevant information.

  Chen listened without interruption.

  ‘It’s so nice of Lianping,’ he said simply.

  ‘Yes, she’s really nice.’

  Yu then moved on to a detailed description of the investigation he had done into the yellowish masks.

  ‘Great job,’ Chen said, raising his voice. ‘It’s definitely in the right direction, Detective Yu.’

  ‘So you also think it’s the signature, just like the torn mandarin dress in the other serial murder case. The criminal left or planted it there on purpose. A message possibly, not understandable to others, but understandable to himself.’

  ‘You’re correct. A message not yet understandable to others, but it will be. It’s a breakthrough. No question about it.’ Chen went on after a short pause, ‘Now I have studied the pictures. The mask … hold on, something else really strange about the mask, Yu.’

  ‘What about it, Chief?’

  ‘It is reminding me of a scene – something I saw just this morning – I was out for some street food …’

  Yu knew better than to push, waiting patiently for Chen to go on.

  So it was Chen’s turn to give a detailed description about the street scene that morning, particularly of the sesame-strewn earthen oven cake for the young girl with her mask off. He had paid extra attention to the scene without knowing why. It was because of something in the information concerning the crime scene of Xiang’s death, something raising a question in his subconscious mind, Chen now realized.