Citizen One Read online

  Do not be a zhengzhi fengzi, a ‘political maniac’. Shouting revolutionary slogans. Writing reactionary banners and letters. Expressing opinions on important domestic and international affairs. Disrupting the normal work of the Party.

  Do not be a wu fengzi, an ‘aggressive maniac’. Do not beat or curse people, smash up public property, pursue women or endanger people’s lives or property.

  Do not be, do not do, any of these things, for Peace and Health await you. Ankang awaits you.

  *

  Ankang. A hospital that punishes by custodial sentence and regime. No leaving after just a few months. Three years, five years, are considered to be short periods of incarceration. Not a hospital in which to lie in bed. Rather a hospital where you will work seven hours every day.

  Ankang. A hospital that punishes by use of medical appliances and procedures. Drugs, medicines that make you dribble constantly. That make your eyes roll upwards helplessly in their sockets. That make you walk slowly, and stumble often. That make you constantly want to sleep.

  Ankang. A hospital that punishes through the use of injections. Muscular injections, and the much more painful intravenous injections. Injections that swell your tongue so that it bulges out of your mouth. Unable to talk. Swallow. Injections that paralyse your facial muscles, like a waxwork mask. Eyes fixed, staring. Unable to turn your head … having to move your whole body to look at something.

  Ankang. A hospital that punishes through acupuncture using an electric current. The ‘electric ant’. Three levels of current; three levels of pain; three favourite acupuncture points. The taiyang, on the temple. The hegu, on the palm of the hand between the thumb and the index finger. But the most popular, the most painful, the heart point on the sole of the foot. Screaming out, while other inmates are forced around your bed to watch the electric ant administered. Threatened that they will be next if a rule is violated, a boundary infringed.

  *

  Do not look dishevelled, unkempt, or have an adverse effect on the social order.

  Do not hand out leaflets, or stick up posters.

  Do not have an opposing political viewpoint.

  Do not challenge the Party, the government, in any form.

  Do not be mentally ill or have learning difficulties.

  Do not disrupt the public order of society, even if your illness means that you cannot help it.

  The orders are strict. On encountering any of these types of behaviour the public security organs are to take you into custody for treatment.

  Ankang awaits.

  Chapter 3

  BEIDAIHE, SEA OF BOHAI, THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

  Dream different dreams while in the same bed …

  The soft sanded resort of Beidaihe is divided into three areas.

  The east beach is reserved for chosen workers and members of the military. Those who are trusted. Those who are the ‘ears’. Who listen to the whispers and then report them. Those ‘who pat the horse’s arse’. Those tong zhi, those comrades, who attempt to ‘put the shit back up the horse’s arse’.

  The middle beach is used by high level Party officials. The highest of cadre and their hangers-on. The elite. Those who create the wind that all others must bend to. The middle beach, the best beach, combed, preened, the sand, finer.

  The west beach is for foreigners. ‘Big noses’. Yang-gui-zi, ‘foreign devils’. Wai-guo-ren, ‘external country persons’.

  Confucius, in the opening passage of the Analects asked, ‘Is it not a pleasure to have friends come from afar?’

  Yes, it is. As long as they keep to the west beach.

  *

  The zhau-dai-suo, ‘guesthouse’, overlooked the middle beach of Beidaihe, a private path giving it access to the fine honey-coloured sand. Rare, even amongst such privilege. Flanking its metal gate, a beach hut and a boat house of mellow coloured brick.

  Several dachas occupy this area, none visible from any road. High walls and tall leggy swaying trees, in full leaf, standing sentry. Invisible to the eye, the zhau-dai-suo. Invisible also in every other way. Recorded on no documents, plotted on no maps, no name attached to them, no records of ownership, no house number, or address. Sitting on roads that had no name, in areas that, officially, did not exist.

  *

  She stood next to the balcony that led from the master bedrooms. A view through the fine lilac voile curtains and the swaying trees to the sea. Every day seeing the sea, noting its change. Not unlike living with somebody. But it had been a long time since she had actually chosen to live with somebody. Lovers, husbands, men … stepping stones across a wide, restless river. Nothing more.

  Steeper now, the sun’s arc to the ocean. Boats, riding the horizon, their running lights blinking into life on their imagined road into the Yellow Sea, and onward to the mouth of the Changjiang, the Long River, the mighty Yangtze.

  A breeze was picking up. Curtains in a loose tumble and mimicking the waves’ gentle ride to the shore. Closing the balcony door. The evocative fragrance that she always associated with Beidaihe, coconut oil and camphor wood fires, cut adrift and replaced with man-made scents that came in delicate, expensive bottles. Chanel, Guerlain, Yves Saint Laurent. As she passed, stroking the head of the child that lay on the satin-sheeted bed. The telephone ringing, but not disturbing the child. Nothing disturbs this child. Checking her watch. The phone continuing to ring. To the minute, on time. How she loved men who were so predictable.

  “Ni nar.”

  Listening, just listening, with the occasional verbal prompt. Many could talk, few could listen. She was one of the few. The conversation meandering for many minutes before he found the right path.

  “Madam, thank you for your help with my little predicament. It is much appreciated. Very much appreciated.”

  “It is a pleasure to help one who is in need.”

  A delay in his next words. Words that were difficult to say, as a hook caught in a carp’s lip.

  “Your assistance, Madam. I cannot but wonder about its timing.”

  “Its timing, Comrade Chief Officer Zoul?”

  “Yes, Madam. We have an association with each other. One that pre-dates your assistance to me. Pre-dates it by some time. A common acquaintance. I had not realised, Madam. Those who recommended me to you did not say.”

  “Nor should they have, Comrade.”

  “Of course, Madam, of course. You were the …”

  For a second he halted, trying to find the right title. Mistress. Concubine. Lover. She smiled. A man of some sensitivity, it was a good sign. Such a man would be malleable, easily ‘persuaded’.

  “You were the partner of the late Minister of Security. A fine man, a great comrade. We in the PSB still mourn that life no longer possesses him.”

  “Thank you, Comrade Chief Officer Zoul. I also still mourn my beloved Minister’s passing to the ancestors.”

  Her fingers falling to the sleeping child’s blushed cheek.

  “But our love did bring forth a child. Such a gift. Ten thousand ounces of gold.”

  “Indeed, Madam, indeed.”

  “But when you talk about a shared acquaintance, you do not talk of the late Minister of Security, do you?”

  “Perceptive, Madam. You are very perceptive.”

  “You talk of my husband, yes?”

  Silence. Almost able to smell him, his Italian cologne and his un-fettled fear. She knowing instinctively when to use the right words, as if dipping into a tool box. Each sentence a spanner, a hammer, a chisel. Each word a pick, a soft brush used to remove fine debris.

  “Please, Comrade Chief Officer Zoul, speak your mind freely. This is a secure line and I am a woman who understands the sensitivities that the high cadre must take into account in all of their dealings.”

  She laughing lightly. So natural and so well practised.

  “One advantage of my now dead lover having been the Minister of Security?”

  He would be blushing, Zoul. The word lover. The word dead. A hardened
chief of the PSB, with such easily bruised sensibilities.

  “Yes, Madam, thank you. I will speak freely, if I may. Your husband, your, your …”

  “Estranged husband, Comrade?”

  “Yes, Madam, thank you. Your estranged husband, Senior Investigator Sun Piao. I have inherited his command. I am now his Chief Officer.”

  She laughed again. A laugh of perfect length and intonation.

  “I do not envy you, Comrade Chief Officer. My estranged husband is a difficult man, a challenging man.”

  “Exactly, Madam. Exactly.”

  “My husband, my estranged husband, he does not recognise subtlety. He does not recognise the tones that lie between black and white.”

  Suddenly, painfully, remembering his blue eyes. Eyes of a half-blood.

  “He is not a man who cares for the natural order of our system. For the secrets that must be held in soft hands.”

  “Exactly, Madam. My thoughts exactly. His investigation went far beyond what a normal investigation should encompass. As you will be aware, it impacted upon his own fellow officers. His commanding officers. Its ripples reached the Politburo, no less. It led to damaging investigations, judicial proceedings. The fen-chu, it was turned upside down. We are still feeling the aftershocks.”

  “And it interfered with the PSB’s other activities, yes, Comrade Chief Officer Zoul?”

  “Yes, Madam. As I have already said, you are very perceptive. It is good to talk to someone who understands how things, how things …”

  “How things work in the PSB and the Security Services, Comrade Chief Officer Zoul? How business is conducted?”

  “Indeed, Madam, indeed. Our Senior Investigator Piao, a very dangerous man. A man who would empty the entire swimming pool just because someone might have pissed in it.”

  Crude, so crude. How she hated crude men. Waiting for the next words, but many seconds before they were born.

  “My call to you, Madam, it is delicate.”

  “Please, Comrade, speak freely.”

  “Thank you, Madam. I am a Public Security Bureau Chief, not a politician. Words, they are sometimes difficult.”

  “I have had a lifetime of politicians’ honeyed words, Comrade. The honest words of a policeman are most welcome.”

  Silence. Just his breathing. Tight, expectant.

  “I had to contact you, Madam. You have aided me, supported me in regard to a delicate situation. One that could have ended my career.”

  “One that could have ended your freedom, Comrade.”

  “Indeed. Indeed. I thank you for that, Madam. I am most grateful. But I needed to see if …”

  “You contacted me to establish if I would want guan-xi in return?”

  A polite cough at the other end of the line.

  “Perhaps you thought that I would blackmail you, use this information to pressure you into releasing my husband, my estranged husband, from his incarceration in the Shanghai Ankang? Pressure you into accepting him for active duty within the PSB?”

  Silence.

  “Or perhaps you thought that I would blackmail you into a decisive action that might result in him never leaving Ankang? After all, Comrade Chief Officer, the PSB has very long arms, does it not?”

  Embarrassed silence.

  “I am sorry, Madam. I feel rightfully chastened. The timing of your intervention, it concerned me. Obviously, needlessly so. I see that now. Although you are estranged from Senior Investigator Piao, I thought …”

  Her hand against the child’s chest. So faint the heartbeat, that knife edge between life and death.

  She had decided, she would wake the child as soon as the call was completed and matters agreed. She would wake him and they would walk down to the beach. They would look at the lights of distant boats. Smell the smoke from wood fires and throw pebbles into the sea. Kiessling, the old German patisserie, would still be open. A cake, perhaps their famous strudel, and a coffee, hot and bitter. A small ice cream for the child. And again they would watch the running lights from boats wink out their existence.

  “You are less slow-witted than I imagined, Comrade Chief Officer Zoul.”

  Her tone different, like silk to leather and sand to granite.

  “Madam? I am sorry, I do not understand?”

  “I have a full account of your little indiscretion on file. It includes a statement from the victim. It will be sent to the new Minister of Security by courier if my demands are not met in full. You should know that the Minister’s dear wife is a close, close friend of mine …”

  Stuttered the word, like a steel security shutter falling into place.

  “Demands?”

  The child waking. Nemma bai nemma pang. Perhaps he already had dreams of ice cream.

  “Do you have a pen, Comrade? This could take some time.”

  Chapter 4

  Two weeks later …

  Detective Di warming his hands with his cheroot sweet breath. Eyes to a crane spiked sky, diced, sliced, and with a sun the hue of flat beer. A nod to a Deputy who was younger than his son. More spotty than his son, but less insolent. An engine cutting the silence, inch by inch, behind discoloured screening panels, straining cables hauling a rectangular shadow.

  Shouts. Brakes. A line of identically olive-garbed officers hauling ropes, swinging the concrete block onto steel chocks. Moving in a single file across the mud to a spattered Liberation truck. China Brands lit and burning tangerine in cracked lips.

  “Come.”

  He beckoned to the Deputy and smiled as he watched him negotiate the mud field. Shit up to his ankles, shit over the bottom of his trousers. He would have some explaining to do to his mama.

  Wincing as they breached the screening, the Detective shielding his eyes from the cutting arc light. The Deputy’s hands moving urgently to his lips, guarding his mouth with lattice fingers, but through gaps, bile pulling thick, as he ran from the screening, his legs folding. Kneeling in the mud, over and over again a mantra of penitence for seeing what none should ever see.

  “Dao-mei … dao-mei … dao-mei … dao-mei.”

  Di, lighting another cheroot. Rhythmic drags and exhalations as he circled the roughly hewn concrete obelisk.

  “Ta ma de.”

  From his pocket, a camera the size of a packet of Panda Brand. Each click, a swear word. Each click, each profanity, a vision of the sort of hell that one comrade of the People’s Republic can perpetrate on another comrade of the People’s Republic. Nothing here that would be found in Mao’s ‘Little Red Book’.

  Moving closer, the frame filled slate grey. Entombed in concrete, the toes of a foot, cherry nail varnish, once pristinely applied. The stone topography of chin, cheek, a gagged open mouth, a blind upturned eye. Entombed in concrete, a girl, naked and torn.

  Closer. Reluctantly touching a hand, within whose broken-fingered clasp was an object’s dull gleaming. Taking a photograph before wrenching each finger aside; concrete flakings falling as grey snow. Another photograph.

  “Ta ma de.”

  Nausea filling him. From his pocket, a blunt penknife. Using the blade to lever the embedded object from its concrete vice and carefully scraping the greyness off. At arm’s length, holding the object in his palm. Taking several digital images and cursing his bad luck. Such bad luck that he should have been on duty when the call had come.

  Retrieving an evidence bag from a pocket and dropping the object within its creased polythene. Sealing, labelling it. A last look before he buried it in a deep inside pocket. A shake of his head. His body racked in a prolonged shiver. Somebody was walking over his grave. Someone with heavy boots.

  The Deputy breached the screens. Di’s eyes not leaving the face of the dead girl. His words framed with a harshness that pressed the Deputy into immediate action.

  “No one else is to see this. No one. Post guards outside. Make sure, then see how the other excavation is doing.”

  “Yes, Comrade Detective.”

  A final drag of his last cheroot. Ten
a day. He had promised his wife, ten, no more. Flicking the butt of his tenth deep into the foundation’s gaping hole. Reaching back into his jacket side pocket for the rough cardboard packet and his eleventh cheroot which he lit as he strode from the screens.

  Across the mudflat an engine choking into action. The second crane, at the northwest corner of the site, heaving shadow. A shout to the laced canvas interior of the Liberation truck.

  “Out. Out …”

  Men jumping from the tailgate. Cigarettes thrown in the mud. Oaths to corners of lips.

  “A full sweep. Anything and everything. Got it? And you …”

  Pointing at a young, boss-eyed officer.

  “Take six other officers. Check this site and the neighbouring sites. Witnesses, evidence, anything suspicious. You don’t leave the shift until you’ve covered the whole area, do you understand?”

  Nods and whispered profanities. But all of the time the Detective’s eyes on the spike of the crane. Another shadow rising grey behind screening panels. Knowing, already knowing. Watching a section of screening flap apart. The Deputy through it, bracing himself against the forest of bamboo scaffolding poles. His voice lost to the language that machines speak, but Di reading his lips. Knowing the words and already running in the young Deputy’s direction.

  ‘There’s more. There’s fucking more.’

  Chapter 5

  Telephone calls in the middle of the night, always with an edge, always feeling more dangerous.

  “You know who this is?”

  The voice, a rasp. Instantly recognisable, and with it, an image of light falling over ravaged skin. Sleep banished and instantly alert. Comrade Chief Officer Zoul sitting up in his bed, his book falling to the floor.

  “Yes. Yes, I know who you are.”

  “Then you will know to listen carefully, Chief Zoul. You will be receiving a call from one of your Detectives. An investigator in your Homicide Division by the name of Di. He has stumbled upon something that he should not have stumbled upon.”