Hold Your Breath, China Read online

  ‘You mean the man she saw before Yao? Yes, you actually insisted on my helping to arrange a meeting between the two the day he was sent to prison – Jiang, I think that’s his name. It’s just so magnanimous of you, I have to say. Hold on—’ Huang paused with a light click, and then a light ding, conceivably from a smartphone in his hand inside the public phone booth, checking something quickly.

  ‘Yes, Jiang was an environmental activist. He brought big trouble for himself because of his blackmailing the local companies with the pollution evidence collected against them. At least so was he accused at the local court, which spelled trouble for Shanshan too. Jiang was sentenced for more than ten years, but she did not leave him at that time, as you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know the part concerning the blackmail in the name of the consulting fee, as claimed by the local government, even though he did work as an environmental consultant at the time, and people paid him as a matter of course.’

  ‘But I don’t think she knew what you had done for her, so brilliantly, and so generously, I have to say. Even today, she still has no clue about it. Nevertheless, it might have turned out to be just as well.’

  What Huang meant by ‘just as well’, Chen understood. The young cop had persisted in seeing Shanshan as a potential troublemaker, not a match politically suitable for the chief inspector, a star with a promising prospect in the Party system.

  In fact, Shanshan herself had given the same reason for choosing to part with him, but he had always wondered whether there was such ‘a promising prospect’ for him in the Party system.

  Not too long ago, he had published an article in Guangming Daily, speaking in favor of the judicial independence, which was soon criticized by someone high above as the proof of his advocating the Western system. Zhao, too, had chastized him in an unusually serious manner. In fact, his very survival in the system remained open to question. His recent exclusion from the serial murder investigation spoke volumes about it too. But he saw no point discussing it with Huang.

  Things were changing so fast, so unpredictably, like in the two lines written by the poet Du Fu in the Tang dynasty:

  The cloud looks now like a white blouse,

  but the next moment, like a black retriever.

  Shanshan, a young, idealistic but helpless environmental engineer at the time of their meeting in Wuxi, was now a celebrated activist or ‘public intellectual’ with millions of followers online.

  And at the same time, a Big Buck’s wife, too.

  But that was something puzzling him as well. If a politically incorrect troublemaker – the way Huang saw her – was unsuitable for the chief inspector, she would have made an equally unacceptable match for a Big Buck, who had to make money by maintaining good relationships with the government. And possibly even worse, for she was now considered as one potentially threatening to the Party regime.

  Is that how Zhao came to request Chen’s service?

  ‘Are you still there, Chief Inspector Chen?’

  Huang’s anxious voice pulled him back to the present moment, which was increasingly suffocating in the public phone booth.

  ‘Yes, I’m here. Sorry, I’ve just thought of something else in the case. Please find out as much as possible about Shanshan, both in the past and the present. And about the people related to her, too. I don’t know what info concerning her is truly relevant at this stage. Call me at this number,’ Chen said, reading out the number of the new SIM card purchased at the convenience store. ‘Make sure that you contact me at this number only. And you should have a special number too.’

  ‘No problem, when I call you again, you’ll have my new number.’

  Inspector Chen must have spent quite a long time in the booth. It was perhaps not a common sight in today’s Shanghai. He thought he’d better leave.

  Walking out, he moved along the bank again, looking around like a traveler lost in thought.

  There was a tiny, ungainly sampan moving on the river, a rare scene against the background of the increasingly metropolitan city.

  It was several years earlier – or just yesterday, as it seemed to him at the moment – that he had learned about the seriousness of the environmental crisis, and much more, particularly about what was behind the crisis, in Shanshan’s company in a boat drifting on the lake.

  And it was also in her company that he had composed the poem, which Zhao had read without knowing that those lines had come to Chen in the sleepless night, with her nestling against him in the shabby dorm room, her bare shoulder rippling like the lake water under the clear Wuxi stars. It was such a passionate, creative impulse as he had not since experienced.

  For the moment, what kept pushing back to his mind was, however, an indelible image of her debunking his naïve imagination on the lake.

  That afternoon, the two of them had huddled together in a sampan on the dirty green algae-covered water expanse where he was so intoxicated with her closeness that he began mumbling exaggerated lines about the ‘poetic moment’, with her bare feet on his lap …

  Then she did something totally unexpected to him. She shifted to the side and put her feet into the water.

  He did not know why she suddenly chose to dabble her bare feet there, her white ankles flashing above the darksome smelling water. He leaned over, her long black hair straying across his cheek. Watching, he wondered whether he should do the same, bending over to undo his shoelaces. But she was already pulling out of the water, her feet covered with a layer of green grime, as if painted, still wet, slimy, sticky …

  ‘Do you want to call that poetic?’

  ‘You don’t have to do that, Shanshan.’

  But he failed to juxtapose these remembered images by the lake, no matter how hard he tried, with the one falling out of the folder from Zhao – a mature yet strikingly beautiful activist fighting for her idealistic cause.

  How Shanshan had turned into Yuan Jing was a metamorphosis beyond imagination, though anything was possible in ‘the socialism with China’s characteristics’.

  He wanted to take the picture out of the folder again, but he checked himself. There was a job waiting for him. ‘An important job’, not just for Zhao, but also for himself, for Shanshan.

  And for those dreams he had cherished when writing that poem beside her.

  He had to turn himself into a detached, determined cop. There were things he had to do, though he was not sure how helpful they could be.

  So he headed to the subway station.

  As he was coming into view of the station, he slowed down to a stop again.

  This time he took out his white cellphone and dialed the number of Peiqin, Detective Yu’s wife.

  ‘I’ve been such a long admiring customer of your noodles, Peiqin. Shanghai’s Number One Noodles, as I’ve always said,’ he said in a hurry, without mentioning his own name. ‘Now I would like to order ten Zongzi – the palm-leaf-wrapped sticky rice with pork stuffing; another must from your restaurant that people have told me is wonderful. You know my place, and please deliver it today. Here is my new phone number. Your delivery people will need it.’

  ‘Shanghai’s Number One Noodles’ was an exaggeration for Peiqin’s restaurant. As far as he knew, nobody else had raved about her culinary skills like that. So it was a joking comment known only to the two of them. He believed she would get the message behind the message.

  ‘Oh yes, the delivery people shall need it,’ Peiqin too said in a hurry without bringing up his name, as expected. ‘Please go ahead and give the number to me.’

  ‘It’s the number I’m calling you with today. A new one I’ve just acquired.’

  ‘Thanks, our loyal customer. A basket of Zongzi shall be on the way to your apartment soon. Don’t worry about it. Your satisfaction is guaranteed.’

  ‘Thanks!’

  It was around three that Detective Yu walked Peiqin out of the Shanghai Police Bureau.

  Her visit with a small bamboo basket of Zongzi had been a total surprise, though perhaps n
ot so with some of his colleagues. She had brought him delicacies there before. With the Dragon Festival drawing nearer, Zongzi was seasonally fashionable.

  But with his colleagues surrounding the basket, Yu did not have the chance to ask Peiqin about the real purpose of her unannounced visit.

  It was not until she stepped out of the bureau that Peiqin took his hand, like the loving wife she was, and pressed a small piece of paper against his palm.

  ‘His new cell number,’ she whispered, her lips touching his cheek.

  ‘I see.’

  The message from her was unmistakable. Inspector Chen must have had something that alarmed him. He had gone out of his way to have Peiqin bring the new number to Yu, worrying about people tapping into their phone conversation.

  Again, Peiqin had proved herself to be ‘an extraordinary wife to a cop’, as Chen had said of her. In addition to Chen’s new number, she also brought Yu an old, out-of-fashion cellphone left at home by Qinqin, who was using a new iPhone in school.

  ‘On the way to the bureau, I bought a SIM card for you, under my name,’ she said. ‘So you don’t have to worry.’

  He did not raise any questions about all the secrecy.

  ‘I was just talking to Detective Qin about a sex video posted online—’

  But another cop came walking out of the bureau, waving his hand at the couple at the gate.

  ‘Come back home early for dinner.’ Peiqin left without saying anything else. They would talk more in the evening. He hugged her awkwardly on the street corner.

  After parting with her, Yu lit a cigarette and took out that old phone left by Qinqin.

  ‘Hello, who’s calling?’

  Chen must have been surprised at the unknown number on the screen.

  ‘It’s me. The manager of Shanghai’s Number One Noodles has just come over with a basket of Zongzi. And my new number, too. What’s up, Chief?’

  ‘She has delivered fast. So thoughtful of her!’ Chen went on after a short pause. ‘To begin with, I’m officially off the case in the bureau. Comrade Secretary Zhao from Beijing wants me to check into something else.’

  ‘Wow, another important assignment from Zhao. Then you don’t have to worry about the case in the bureau. And it might be just as well. I simply cannot stand the company of Li and Qin. They did not want to give the case to us, but now it’s too much for them.’

  ‘Don’t worry about them. We just do what we are supposed to do.’

  ‘If the case is solved, it’s to the credit of the Homicide squad. But if not, they’ll find one way or another to blame us for it, particularly you. Why should we bother?’

  ‘Come on. Our special case group is really under your charge. We cannot afford to look on with our arms crossed when a serial murderer is still at large.’

  ‘But you’re officially off the case.’

  ‘I don’t think I have to be doing Zhao’s job every minute of the day. It’s just that I don’t have to tell others about it. Anything new about the case?’

  ‘The latest development is mainly about a sex video of Xiang and her husband Vice Mayor Geng posted online. That’s why Internal Security and Qin joined forces in a hurry. They’ve come under so much pressure.’

  ‘A sex video of the two! Give me some more details.’

  ‘Sorry, not that much from me. Qin talks like an old tooth already loose yet still hanging on in there. You have to shake it real hard, but it won’t come out totally. The video was taken before their marriage. She wasn’t a journalist at the time. That’s about all I’ve got from him.’

  ‘She’s new at Wenhui?’

  ‘Yes, Xiang came to Wenhui about a year ago. One day after her death, a sex video of her and Geng broke out online. Unbelievably graphic, it instantly turned into a sensational scandal. Geng passed out because of it.’

  ‘Not just because of her death, I see. But I don’t think I’ve met her at Wenhui before.’

  ‘Guess what Detective Qin said to me. “Chief Inspector Chen has so many good friends in the newspaper, he’s surely able to find out more about her.”’

  ‘No, I’m not supposed to be involved in the investigation – whether through my connections in the newspaper or not,’ Chen said deliberately. ‘Incidentally, you or Peiqin may know someone there too.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Lianping, the Wenhui journalist who came to the Buddhist service for Peiqin’s parents.’

  ‘Yes, I remember, now you mention it. Peiqin met with her again for something else after that service.’

  ‘And Lianping went out of her way to help – through Peiqin.’ Chen added in spite of himself, ‘She’s now happily married with a baby on the way.’

  ‘I see.’ Yu abruptly changed the subject. ‘Xiang’s case has several things in common with the previous three. In the early morning. In the center of the city – the fourth one happened on the corner of Weihai and Shanxi Roads, which is still quite a central location. And a fatal hammer blow from behind. After the meeting, Qin spoke with Internal Security again.’

  ‘It would have been too much of a coincidence for Xiang not to be part of the serial murder case—’

  At that point Yu saw two cops moving toward him. One of them knew Yu quite well.

  ‘Sorry, I’ll talk to you later, our number one loyal customer.’

  Fifteen minutes later Inspector Chen got back to his apartment, still disturbed about the phone call from Detective Yu.

  Yu must have had his reason to cut short the phone call. Chen was not worried about that, but the growing complications around the Xiang case would make it a tough one for Yu. In spite of his grumbling, Chen knew Yu would not hesitate to throw himself headlong into the investigation.

  For the moment, however, there was nothing Chen could possibly do to help until he had more information – reliable information – available from the bureau.

  But how was he going to really help while he also had the Shanshan investigation on his hands?

  Looking up, he found the smoggy sky over Puxi, west of the river, more somber than over Pudong, east of the river.

  He made a pot of extra strong black coffee, poured out a cup for himself, and gazed out the window for several minutes absentmindedly.

  A black bird came circling out of nowhere, flapping its wings furiously above the window. In the folk superstition, it might have served as another ominous sign – for the assignment from Zhao?

  For the serial murder investigation?

  Or for both of them?

  He remained inexplicably disturbed, though he did not believe in signs.

  Then he turned on the computer and started research on the Internet about the air pollution.

  The issue of horrible air quality in China had a fairly long history, but for so many years after 1949 people had paid no attention to it because of their living in a ‘closed China’ under Mao, and ‘everything’s all right’ in the Party-controlled media. After the ending of the Cultural Revolution, the economic reform launched by Deng Xiaoping began to bring about dramatic changes for the country. China witnessed itself relentlessly consumed in construction and urbanization at a breakneck speed, and the air problem grew worse and worse, what with modern and ultramodern high-rises shooting up like bamboo roots after a spring rain, looming here and there and blocking out the sky, with a growing number of cars and air conditioning everywhere, with the ever-increasing-and-worsening carbon emission like the genie out of the bottle, and with industrial pollution further deteriorating and expanding.

  He was getting depressed with his reading, heaving a long sigh, when the cellphone started to shriek, all of a sudden, like a siren breaking into the dark recesses of his thoughts.

  The phone screen presented a chart showing PM 2.5 at an alarmingly high level, and a message underneath warning people of all ages not to go out unless absolutely necessary.

  Staring at the message for a minute or two, he plunged himself back into the cyber maze of information. This time, he thought of some
thing mentioned by Zhao at the hotel, and tried something new, putting various combinations of key words into the new search effort. As he put in ‘air pollution’ together with ‘America’, a number of articles popped up.

  As it turned out, one of the earliest acknowledgements of the serious problem came out of the American Embassy in Beijing, at least according to an article that explored the issue from the very beginning.

  Despite the invariable description of China’s air as ‘light-hearted blue’ in the People’s Daily, people began to be more and more bothered with the oppressive black smoggy mass before their own eyes. With more information accessible through the Internet, they also realized the air quality might not necessarily be the same elsewhere in the world. Things finally came to a head when posts appeared online, quoting the US Embassy Twitter feed that tracked air pollution in Beijing, and its number of followers was rapidly multiplied by Weibo. To their shock, people learned that on the day the level of PM 2.5 – the Particulate Matter less than 2.5 micrometers in size in the air – was marked in the Embassy monitor as ‘unhealthy for sensitive groups’, the air quality was still categorized as ‘excellent’ by the Beijing Environmental Bureau. It was actually made possible by excluding the level of PM 2.5, which was condemned by the Party officials as unheard of, unscientific, and unacceptable to China. In short, the American Embassy was accused of making something out of nothing – out of thin air.

  At a press briefing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman went so far as to demand foreign embassies stop publishing their reports on air quality. He criticized the reports as illegal and irresponsible, and declared that the Beijing government alone should be authorized to monitor and publish the air quality information. In conclusion, he called for the Chinese people to trust the great and glorious Party, to repudiate the malicious misinformation as reported by the American Embassy.

  What’s so face-losing for the Party authorities, the patriotism propaganda proved to be an utter failure. Almost unanimously people chose to believe the monitor in the American Embassy instead. It’s not too surprising in the days when they could not drink clean water, breathe fresh air, and see the azure sky. On the Internet, distrust of official air quality statistics started up like the unstoppable cacophony of cicadas in the summer, cutting through the firewalls of the frenzied governmental cyber control. It shook up the appearance of a ‘harmonious, prosperous society’ under the Party’s regime, which was undergoing a credibility bankruptcy. The people were sick and tired of the repeated ridiculous cover-up orchestrated from above …