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  The man with the pockmarked face leaving room for a question that he knew would never come. Even a Comrade Chief Officer had the sense not to ask a question that would never be answered.

  “It is People’s Liberation Army business. A delicate matter that will require your complete support and which I will direct personally.”

  Another space. The man with the pockmarked face taking the time to light a French cigarette, its smoke as perfumed as a whore’s breast.

  “Your Detective and his Deputy find themselves in a delicate situation. They have seen things that they should not have seen. They are men who will not, will not…”

  Silence, counted in seconds, as he sought the right words, the correct phrasing. Currency of birthright, of knowing that whatever he had ever wanted he eventually received.

  “They are comrades who will not be able to see the bigger picture. Unlike you, Comrade Chief Officer.”

  Chilly in the bedroom, the weeks now turning toward winter; but Zoul wiping the sweat from his forehead with a bed sheet.

  “I understand, Comrade Sir.”

  “It is good that you understand, Zoul. This is what this situation requires from all parties, understanding.”

  Sweat into the corners of his mouth, warning of words not to be spoken.

  “My officers, Comrade Sir, they are good comrades. Detective Di and his Deputy, they are officers that can be trusted. I am sure of this. They will be diplomatic. They will keep confidences.”

  “Di will telephone you. He will need heavy transport, he will need men. I have already made provision for this. The material involved will be taken to a place that does not concern you. I will assume personal charge of this operation. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Comrade Sir.”

  “You will insist that Di gives to you any samples for forensic examination that he might have collected during his brief investigation. Is this understood?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is understood.”

  “All reports, all notes will be surrendered to me. Understood?”

  “Yes, I understand, Comrade Sir.”

  “I wish this situation, this investigation by your officers, to cease, to vanish, as if it had never been. You would not wish to anger me. You would not wish to anger my esteemed father.”

  His voice, low. Barely audible.

  “What we need is obedience. Obedience and discretion. We are involved in a struggle, Zoul. A struggle for hearts and minds. To retain the glorious values of our beloved leaders. In this process a few eggs may be broken. But what are a few eggs in such a struggle?”

  “Yes, Comrade Sir.”

  Cigarette stubbed deeply into crystal ashtray.

  “We must be prepared to make sacrifices by proxy, Zoul. For the security and advancement of our Republic, indeed, for its ultimate survival. We must all be prepared to make sacrifices, even the ultimate sacrifice should it prove necessary.”

  *

  A breakfast of peanuts, noodles, fruits and pickled vegetables as bitter as the news that he was expecting. The telephone call arriving as he ate apples past their best, and bruised and split lychees.

  “Comrade Chief Officer. It’s Detective Di. Sir, we have a problem …”

  Cold now; the only warmth, Di’s cheroot. His sixteenth cheroot.

  “Our investigation at the construction site of the new National Stadium at Olympic Green, it has complexities that we had not envisaged …”

  Di’s eyes moving across the face of the second obelisk. A concrete elbow and foot, a clenched hand and a concrete mask of a face.

  “It’s hard to estimate, but there could be many poor unfortunates that life no longer possesses. They have been entombed in the concrete foundations, Comrade Chief Officer. They all appear to be young women. They could be linked to other cases that I’m working on, Comrade Chief Officer. We will only fully know once we have transported the concrete to a suitable location and have broken it apart.”

  His hand, concrete powder-stained, across the top of the mouthpiece shielding his words, his lips.

  “However, Comrade Chief Officer, Sir, there is an additional complexity concerning the situation that we have discovered here.”

  His eyes moving from the human Braille that indented the second obelisk of the concrete foundation to his hand and the object that he had levered from a dead girl’s fingers … the star of the People’s Republic.

  “I have found a cap badge, Sir, in the hand of one of the victims.”

  A last inhalation from a sodden cheroot, before flicking it aside.

  “It is a PLA cap badge, Comrade Chief Officer. A cap badge of a very high ranking officer.”

  Chapter 6

  PSB DIVISIONAL HEADQUARTERS OF HONGKOU. SICHUANLU, SHANGHAI.

  The fen-chu smelt of everything that he didn’t associate with it. Toothpaste and plastic, clean shirts and clean minds. Gone the smell of men, the kind that he knew. Of used-up, disenfranchised sperm, cheap tobacco and see-saw morals, and three-day-old underpants. It was clear, in every sense, that a vicious tide of a purge had swept through this place. Almost every face of every senior officer that he had known, carried away on its white-horsed back and now posted to a series of three donkey, one tractor villages. Ramshackle wooden hovels, where the theft of a pitchfork would be considered a crime wave. And, with their shamed departure, also gone the very fabric of the old building that he had known as intimately as one knows one’s own palm.

  The fen-chu, not now a place to talk of murder, of rape. This place, now more a place to purchase an armchair. A place to drink coffee with a frothed top.

  *

  The corridor on the top floor was long with identical doors. Not one that he recognised. But knowing where the cadre’s office would be located. Status predicted that it would be a corner office. Two windows, one with a view over the Huangpu Park and the other with a view across the river to the sprawl of Pudong. Gaudy, cheaply made-up Pudong, which, if it were a woman, would be one that your mother would warn you against, but one that your father would crave. Tens of billions of yuan shaping its spiked and curvaceously tarty neon topography. Summits, mascara-eyed, eyebrow plucked, lost in mist. Strappy stiletto clad feet invading farmland the colour of rich chocolate. And beyond, in flatlands once lush with paddies, a sea of bamboo scaffolding rising from mud sprouting the new communist dream, shaped by camouflaged capitalist doctrine.

  All are equal, but some have a corner office with two windows. Still sweating, Piao wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and knocked on the door. It was many seconds before psychiatrist Tu invited him to enter.

  *

  The psychiatrist did not look up, did not acknowledge Piao. A report open on his desk, its parade of characters reflected on his gold, wire-rimmed spectacles.

  “I have read about you. The way that you investigate, it is with a total disregard for yourself. It has much in common with self-harming.”

  Closing the report and considering Piao for many seconds before speaking once more.

  “And this. A report from Ankang. From their chief psychologist. It makes for complicated reading, Sun Piao.”

  Reaching for the thick cigar that lay slumbering its life away in the ashtray. Softly into his fat mouth, kissing its moist end as if it were a lover’s welcome lips.

  “Tell me of your view on life, Sun Piao. I know that in Ankang you did not hold back with your homespun philosophy.”

  “There is too much of it.”

  The psychiatrist laughing, his triple chins wobbling discordantly.

  “Much could be made of such a comment, Sun Piao.”

  Smoke across his face.

  “Dreams. Tell me about your dreams, Sun Piao? Much can be discovered in the dreams that you have.”

  “The best dreams that I have ever had are the ones that I die in.”

  The psychiatrist observing him, his fingers drumming on the desktop.

  “At 3 a.m. most people think that life is a terrible thing. It is due t
o blood sugar levels. I do not look for a deeper explanation. But in your case …”

  Writing more notes. Tapping his fingers nervously on the edge of the desk. Tu, a glance at his watch. The lack of peeling gold signifying that it was a genuine Rolex.

  “I think that we will need further sessions, Piao. Many further sessions …”

  Eyes across characters.

  “Complicated. Yes, you are a very complicated man, Sun Piao.”

  “It makes me the successful Senior Investigator that I am, Comrade Psychiatrist.”

  “Were, Sun Piao. Past tense. And if it was up to me, which it should be, it would remain that way.”

  Carefully placing the cigar back onto the ashtray.

  “If it was up to me, I would seek your immediate retirement from the bureau on health grounds. Your last investigation, Piao, what was it that you did to my colleague, Wu, the Senior Police Scientist? Suspend him by his ankles from the highest river bridge in the city, I believe? And your previous Chief Officer, Liping, there are still many interpretations of how he lost his life and not all of them coincide with yours.”

  Shaking his head.

  “Unhealthy. Very unhealthy. You investigate as if your own life depended upon it, Piao. But apparently it is not up to me to make a final judgement about your mental wellbeing. I am merely the department’s clinical psychiatrist.”

  His fingertip chasing around the embossed star at the top of the report.

  “Quite clearly you are not fit to resume any duties within any of the departments of the PSB. I would not sanction you to even direct traffic within the city, at present. Let alone permit and authorise you to head complex homicide investigations.”

  Meeting Piao’s gaze.

  “But this decision has been taken away from me. I have been by-passed. You have a friend in a very high place, Sun Piao.”

  Pulling open a drawer of his desk. It coasting on silent runners. A large rubber stamp, a large ink pad, the desk shuddering to the double concussion.

  ACTIVE DUTY

  “But this friend in a high place does you no service, Piao.”

  Psychiatrist Tu replaced the stamp and pad in the drawer, in a neat little line.

  “Close the door on your way out, Senior Investigator. Close it quietly.”

  *

  A door opens. The world crashes in …

  Easy to forget, when incarcerated, how complex it is, the world. The sounds. The smells. The images.

  First breaths beyond Ankang’s grasp. Traffic breathing, roaring. Ten thousand feet on paving stones. A snippet of chatter, laughter, of sworn anger. All jumbled and laying over each other, as different ages layering an archaeological site.

  A high street … its smells. Diesel, drains, noodles, cheap cologne, and yesterday’s clothes re-worn today. The yellow dragon’s breath, incense, the shit on the sole of your shoe. All jumbled.

  “You alright, Boss?”

  Wiping the sweaty sheen from his forehead with a cuff.

  “I do not want this.”

  A tree trunk, the Big Man’s arm, barring Piao’s exit.

  “They only want to say welcome fucking back, Boss.”

  Spinning him around, pushing him forward, as if he were a child not wanting to see the dentist.

  “And there’s free beer. Although that is of course a minor consideration.”

  An arm around the Senior Investigator’s shoulder moving him into the room. Feeling Piao’s body shudder, as if concussed by a savage blow.

  “It’s alright, Boss, it’s alright. I’m with you.”

  Tsingtao. Reeb. Suntory. Yaobang grabbing a Tsingtao as he passed. Flipping its cap on the edge of one of the new workstations. A glare from a fellow officer that he didn’t know. Tipping the foaming bottle towards him. Loud voice cutting through the polite conversations.

  “Liquid bread. Very good for you.”

  Foaming down his chin, onto his shirt.

  “Want a slice, Boss?”

  Piao, picking up a bottle. Mineral water, Kesai.

  “I do not feel ready for beer yet.”

  Wiping the sweat from his face.

  “Maybe soon. Maybe …”

  “Sure, Boss. Sure. Don’t worry. Overrated beer. Fucking overrated.”

  Another gold-capped Tsingtao winking at him. Yaobang pulling it from the crate. His large, relentless palm pushing the Senior Investigator further forward. The crowd parting and all of the time, weaving through Piao’s mind, the old adage.

  ‘Keep your broken arm inside of your sleeve.’

  Wiping his forehead once more as faces turned to greet them. At the back of the open plan room that had been carved out from a warren of offices, corridors, cupboards, stained and stinking urinals … Yun. The Detective standing exactly where the down pipe for the piss and the shit would have been just a few months previously. His acne blazing as he pushed through the crowd enthusiastically. Spills of Tsingtao and Suntory, over uniforms, suits and the floor, as he stretched out his hand.

  “Sun Piao, Senior Investigator, good to see you.”

  Shaking Piao’s hand excitedly with both of his. His perspiring palms like a fleshy, bony oyster of sweat.

  “Good to see you. I never thought that we would ever meet again. And now look at you.”

  He stepped back, hands on hips, as if viewing a painting. The lie that crowned his next words, worryingly convincing.

  “Looking so well and returning a hero, no less. Lilly will be so thrilled that you have returned to active duty. My sister-in-law, you of course remember Lilly?”

  So long ago, so much medication, but still the fearful recollection. People’s Park, ballroom dancing, and a small pink chiffon puffball of a woman with a melon slice of teeth surely too white to be real. Lilly. Yes, he remembered Lilly.

  Yun nudging him. Hand shielding his mouth. A whisper, in Tsingtao fumes, accompanied by a wink.

  “I will let her know that we spoke. She is still single you know.”

  Piao looked around at the familiar and unfamiliar faces, but one that he had expected, missing.

  “Where is Di, he is not here.”

  A gulp of beer, a shrug of the shoulders.

  “A promotion in the offing they say. Our Detective Di will soon be a Senior Investigator. A raise in salary. An upholstered chair. Perhaps he feels that he is outgrowing us?”

  Yun wiped the froth from his lips.

  “Actually, I’ve not seen much of him or his Deputy at all lately.”

  Voice lowered.

  “There are rumours of him working on a special case …”

  Winking with a bloodshot eye.

  “A sensitive case. Perhaps he’s working undercover? But you are here, Senior Investigator, and that is what counts. Now the time is right for me to make my little speech.”

  A long script unrolled. Piao noticing his own name at its top and instantly his hands becoming clammy.

  “This is not necessary, Detective Yun, not necessary at all.”

  “Nonsense, Sun Piao, it is my pleasure.”

  He clapped his hands together.

  “Please, please, Comrade Officers, if I could have your attention. You will have your chance to charge your glasses again shortly.”

  Clearing his throat. A cement mixer crunching into life.

  “Comrades. Comrade Officers, it gives me great pleasure on this most auspicious of days, to welcome back a fellow officer whose reputation, deservedly, goes before him. A Comrade Officer whose honour we all bask in here at the fen-chu. Welcome back, Comrade Officer Sun Piao.”

  A round of applause. Piao hearing it only faintly through the internal din engulfing him, flooding him.

  “As many of you will be aware, Comrade Officer Sun Piao, in the face of threats to his career and personal wellbeing, fought against corruption and reactionary elements. Reactionary elements within our own beloved Public Security Bureau …”

  Lost in the noise. A deep resonating hum owning him.

  “This le
d to a series of investigations, trials. A purging of the grubs in the rice bowl …”

  Piao feeling the sweat, like trains out of the Dong Baoxing Road Station, run down his face to his neck.

  “Findings from the investigations were far reaching, and not only led to arrests, legal actions and lao gai sentences, but also resulted in a full and radical re-structuring of our service, and an updating and refurbishment of our fen-chu. We very much have Comrade Officer Sun Piao to thank for this.”

  Desperate to run his shirt sleeve over his forehead and across his face, but his arms nailed to his sides.

  “Long live the proletariat of the People’s Republic.”

  Glasses raised. Cheering.

  “Down with reactionary elements.”

  Glasses raised. Cheering. Proud chests puffed out. Unity in song.

  ‘Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!

  With our very flesh and blood,

  let us build our new Great Wall …’

  A thin woman cutting through the throng. Standing. Her reflection on twenty-five shiny Tsingtao bottle tops. Piao looking up. Chief Liping, the former Comrade Officer’s secretary, with a bosom as comforting as the holed soles of his shoes.

  “Senior Investigator, Comrade Officer Chief Zoul wants to see you. He wants to see you now.”

  Hearing the proud beer-fuelled voices of his comrades as he followed her bony arse to the new Comrade Chief Officer’s domain. Each step, pondering the significance of Zoul’s name … its literal meaning, ‘minnow or small fish’.

  *

  The office had a blazing lightness to it. Two walls of windows, their glassy-eyed stares following the lazy run of the Huanpu River. Its waters as grey as a birthday without any gifts.

  Zoul was smaller than Piao had imagined. Most probably smaller than Zoul imagined himself to be. A crow of a man. Fierce looking. The juxtaposition of nose and mouth, as if he were attempting to peck at something that he could not quite reach.

  “Senior Investigator Sun Piao, a name to conjure with. You look better than I imagined you would. Yes, better. Ankang has the habit of laying waste to an individual. Yes, laying waste.”