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  Smiling, but with the hint of a sneer.

  “Of course I do not know you, and, most importantly, you do not know me. No, you do not know me. This is just as well. Those officers that you do know are either dead or in lao gai. Justified, however. Reactionary elements. Of course, justified.”

  Moving from the window.

  “I hear that speeches are being made about you. The return of the hero comrade. Good. Good for morale. Good for the fen-chu. Even our perfect People’s Republic needs a hero or two, now that Mao is dead. Dead, and forgotten.”

  Moving to the front of the desk. His eyes filled with lapsed communism and of a report to the psychiatrist, not yet written.

  “I imagine you have noticed many changes, yes? Many, many changes. Fine offices, carpets, air-conditioning, computer workstations. What have you noticed most, Senior Investigator?”

  Piao’s eyes still haunted by the bony arse of the Chief Officer’s secretary. His words slow to form.

  “I have noticed that this office is larger than it used to be, Comrade Chief Officer. Larger than when it used to belong to the Street Market Regulations Officer and the Chief of the Dog Patrol Wardens.”

  Zoul grimaced, moving around the desk and sitting. He had a fully-padded chair, adjustable height and posture controls. A chair that dreams were made of.

  “As I say, things have moved on. For the better, Senior Investigator.”

  Leafing through a thin file in the bony clasp of his fingers.

  “And you, Piao. How have things moved on for you?”

  From the window, a thousand flaring office windows. A thousand lives lived behind them. The Senior Investigator averting his eyes and concentrating on Zoul’s hands, wasted, and impossibly small. Surely too small to be functional?

  “I am free of Ankang, Comrade Chief Officer. Free of the medication that they pumped into me. I have my life returned to me.”

  “Good, Sun Piao. Very good.”

  Looking up from the report.

  “But we should not forget, never forget, that Ankang’s shadow is long. But that is in the past. You are welcome back, Senior Investigator. Very welcome. This welcome will remain as long as you fulfil your duties to the best of your abilities. The very best of your abilities.”

  Gathering together the papers, before Piao could read the inverted characters of print.

  “And as long as you adhere to the command structures of the fen-chu. There are rules, Senior Investigator, you would do well to remember that. There are rules for you and there are rules for me. Written rules. Unwritten rules. Even I have to remind myself of that fact. You will obey them all. Without question. Without fail. Is this understood, Senior Investigator?”

  “It is understood, Comrade Chief Officer.”

  Zoul, sharply clapping his hands together.

  “Good, very good. Then we shall get on famously, Sun Piao. Famously.”

  Opening a deep drawer. From within it, a large pristine beige envelope. Zoul’s hand dipping in and out of it.

  “Documents of authority and of identification. Danwei letter of confirmation of employment.”

  The Comrade Chief Officer’s gaze still drawn to the interior of the envelope. One item remaining.

  “You will notice a small decrease in your salary, Senior Investigator. Very small. This is due to your transfer of departments with the corresponding reduction in grading.”

  “Transfer, Comrade Chief Officer?”

  Fingers pulling the last of the papers from the envelope. Folding, smoothing it open. The stamp of the danwei, the Party, the Public Security Bureau, bleeding across its bottom. Inks, in black, red and blue, across the signatures of cadre who all possessed fully-padded chairs with adjustable height and posture controls.

  “A copy of your standing orders. Your position, a Senior Investigator within the Public Security Bureau Vice Squad.”

  Many seconds before he could speak. An urge, almost palpable, to count bricks in a wall, to count a sturdy legged nurse’s footfall. To taste a sugared pill melting on his tongue.

  “I am a Homicide Investigator, Comrade Chief Officer. This is where my skills lie.”

  Zoul had risen from his seat, his face towards the office window. His only words as Piao walked from the office.

  “Then acquire new skills. One day, Senior Investigator, you will thank me for this change of department. One day soon, you will thank me.”

  The secretary was already waiting by the outer office door, holding a key fob. Her bitten fingernails, witnesses to another life.

  “The keys to your and your Deputy’s office in the Vice Department. Please make sure that you do not lose them. If they have to be re-cut, the costs will be deducted from your wages.”

  The door, already closing.

  *

  The basement, a rabbit warren of offices with dark wood-panelled, fogged-glass partitions. Lights strung on spider’s web cables. A sense of the subterranean about this space, with only brief reminders and glimpses that there was a world above, beyond this one. Overhead, pedestrians’ hurried feet on thick glass blocks set in iron. And light, in degrees of slate. As if the world beyond the basement were fashioned from steel, lit by a ball-bearing dull sun.

  And on each desk, a spill of inactivity. Dust covered files, silent telephones, dried pens, curled papers with faded type. And permeating all, the smell of failure and of indifference. Files slipping to the floor. Dust. Panda Brand butts. Mouse droppings. The Big Man shaking his head. Piao pulling open a heavy file drawer from a wall of heavy file drawers. A stagger of dog-eared folders. On each the faded colour coding of every investigation’s current status. Red for closed, amber for in progress, green signifying waiting authorisation to investigate. The files a forest of green markers. Hardly a case in progress. Violence, pimping, abduction, prostitution, corruption, blackmail, narcotics. Vice and all of its charming fringe adornments, held in an official clamp of inactivity.

  Slamming the file drawer closed.

  “Sorry.”

  Yaobang sifting through files on desks. Messages, reports, letters jamming dusty in-trays. Rubbing his hands down his trousers.

  “Not your fault that this is the fucking colostomy bag of the PSB. It’s just life. How do you put it, Boss? ‘You cannot prevent the bird of sorrow from flying over your head.’ ”

  Smiling.

  “Just wish that it wouldn’t build a nest in our fucking hair.”

  “I will make some tea. If I can find a kettle and some water.”

  “N-no need, Investigator. No n-n-need …”

  A voice as grey as the scoured aluminium light.

  “It is already on. Boiling its b-b-bottom off. What do you p-prefer, xunhuacha or lucha?”

  Deep in the back of the basement, a room of amputated computer stacks, naked hard drives, unsheathed monitor innards and spraying intestinal wiring. A box of Japanese mobile telephones that had been purchased for the entire staff of the fen-chu … their SIM cards fried due to faulty wiring. The basement, nothing more than a mortuary of deceased hi-tech. And in the corner, a skunk of a man. His head balancing an oversized toupee and on his nose, half-lensed spectacles, their arms held on with black insulating tape.

  “You are Ow-Yang?”

  Adjusting his spectacles the old man considered Piao as the cat considers the mouse.

  “Yes, yes. And you are P-Piao. Homicide. Then d-d-disgrace. Then Ankang. And n-now?”

  “Vice.”

  Laughing the old man.

  “Vice? You l-look like y-you could do with s-s-some, son … not police it out of ex-existence.”

  Against the blistered back wall of the room, under the festooned electrical socket, the kettle boiling its arse off.

  “Your kettle, old man, before you fucking blow us all up.”

  Ow-Yang fending off the Big Man’s pointing finger with a soldering iron. Angled glasses, rotten teeth, directed at the Senior Investigator.

  “Who’s th-th-the big piece over there?”
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  “My Deputy, Yaobang.”

  The old man turning to the kettle. Chipped cups. A series of tea caddies, transfer printed with images of the Great Helmsman, his dark eyes sparking and his rouged lips smiling. Each round of tea, the prints a little paler toward the caddy’s silver base metal.

  “Rude b-bastard, isn’t h-he? C-c-can’t abide foul m-m-mouths.”

  “I agree, tong zhi. A distinct lack of education in the rural provinces.”

  A genteel sip of the tea. Summer rain.

  “ ‘Aspire to the principle, behave with virtue, abide by benevolence, and immerse yourself in the arts.’ ”

  The old man topping up Piao’s cup, the steam across his spectacle lenses dulling the light newly lit in his eyes.

  “Confucius, Senior Investigator. Y-you are a sch-schscholar?”

  “More than a scholar, Comrade. I attempt to live my life by the thoughts and adages of the ‘Master of ten thousand generations’.”

  “Excellent, Piao, excellent. W-we shall have m-many f-fine conversations.”

  Topping up his cup once more.

  “And p-perhaps some of the Master’s w-w-wisdom will r-rub off on th-the oaf who you c-call a Deputy.”

  Following the old man into the broken interior of the basement. Against the Big Man’s fast beating chest, Piao’s palm, calming him.

  “Look. L-look. What h-h-have we come t-to?”

  Ow-Yang, arms open, embracing the desolation and kicking an empty, dust-coated beer bottle across the floor. Watching it spin and settle, its long ago opened top pointing to the west.

  “What fucking happened here, Old Man?”

  “Less of the old m-m-man, fat p-pig !”

  The Senior Investigator positioning himself between locked horns.

  “Comrade, what happened here?”

  The tong zhi pulling the words of the adage from his fading memory. Each week, a little less distinct the years and what they carried on their back; like the transfer prints of Mao on the tea caddy. Fading. Fading. Soon just a smile. Nothing else.

  “ ‘The gentleman understands righteousness. The petty man understands self-interest.’ ”

  A smile, but borne across Ow-Yang’s life-trodden features as a grimace.

  “The Vice Department was d-disbanded just un-un-under a year ago, Senior Investigator.”

  Walking across the space and with difficulty, bending. Retrieving the kicked beer bottle and gently placing it on a desk that had not received a telephone call in ten months.

  “I am s-sorry to t-tell you that you h-have been given a j-job that does n-n-not exist, Piao. There is n-no such thing as v-v-vice.”

  The Big Man pushing forward to confront Ow-Yang. Irony, a foreign continent.

  “Look around, Old Man. Filing cabinets full of pimping and prostitution. Desks with files on abduction, whorehouses, drugs. In-trays full of reports on STDs, violence, shootings, HIV. What are you talking about?”

  Waiting for the storm to still, the tong zhi. Confucian words whispered over his lips, calming the hot rise of his anger.

  “ ‘Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.’ ”

  Pouring more tea, before replying.

  “Vice, in the People’s Republic, it d-d-does not ex-exist, Investigator. Like p-poverty. Like cl-class. Like serial m-murderers. Did they n-not tell you? It is official, vice does not exist. The Politburo s-s-says so.”

  *

  Of all of the stratagems, to know when to quit is the best …

  It had started to rain. Fine rain. The kind that has no body, but a soul of tempered steel, and the ability to avoid the windscreen wipers’ stutter and glide. The type of rain that effortlessly soaks through one’s jacket and shirt, to the skin.

  “Fucking Zoul. Puts us in a department that doesn’t exist, with investigations that will never be investigated. They don’t need us, Boss, so what do we do?”

  “We survive, like we always survive. ‘The ball that I threw in childhood has never reached the ground.’ I read it once in an American magazine. I too, am still waiting for that ball to fall to my feet. There will be a reason. I have learnt that about Comrade Chief Officers. Always a reason. That is what they live for, to give reason to others. We survive and we wait for that reason to emerge.”

  Moving from the long and into the dry sanctuary of a stairwell that smelt of cabbage and sesame seeds. Up stained stairs, the third door on a landing speaking of mild neglect.

  “You alright, Boss?”

  No reply. His eyes fixed to the door.

  “Ankang, Boss?”

  Piao saying, “Yes”, but his thoughts on a wife long lost.

  “What was it like?”

  “What was it like? Ankang was an insult to life and the living of it.”

  Gaze moving to his palm, to the key, burning, fixed at its centre. Bitter memories seeming to be at every turn.

  “In March 1993 a delegation from the International Olympic Committee arrived in the city to inspect sporting facilities, as a part of our People’s Republic’s bid to host the Olympic Games. The homeless, the ill, the politically undesirable, they were put into Ankang. Many of them never returned. One of them was Wang Chaoru. He was 41 years old and mentally retarded. He lived with his elderly parents. I met someone when I was in Ankang who knew him …”

  Piao’s gaze fixed to a distant and unknown point as the words left his lips, colourless.

  “After pleading, both parents were allowed to visit their son on March 9th, two days after the Olympic delegation had toured the sporting facilities. They were taken into an office, and an officer came into the room, saying, ‘the person has died’. Wang’s parents demanded to see the body of their child. He was covered in blood. His lips were cut-up. His eyes ruptured as if they had burst open. In his back were two large holes. On the day that Wang was cremated, his parents were handed a bag with 5,000 yuan in it. The price of a life. 122 yuan for each year that he had lived. That is Ankang.”

  *

  It took an hour to slip the key into the lock. To turn it. An hour to push open the front door and to walk through it.

  Beyond the door, swept back by its staggered arc, an avalanche of mail. Fastidiously picking them all up, one by one. Even after all this time, his eyes seeking meaning in the ink-bled postmarks across their stamps. Heroes of the People’s Republic, wild flowers of the People’s Republic, economic triumphs of the People’s Republic. Scanning them for a Beijing postmark, for the familiar swirling scrawl of her handwriting. Or mixed into the smells that paper and ink possess, a faint scent of Chanel, Guerlain. None. His heart vacant. But not even knowing what he would have done with such a letter in any case.

  A realisation that he would have to do it the hard way. Moving through each room, last of all, the bedroom. The only way to reclaim this territory. The only way to reclaim a life that had been hung on a meat hook for so long.

  Focusing on nothing else but that which he needed to discover. What he was looking for would be state of the art; immune to electronic detection, crystal controlled, mains fed. Permanently on, day and night.

  Concentrating on the living area. Everything new. Each article bought by yuan from other pockets. Nothing his. Only the view from the window and the rain’s hammer on the cracked paving stone. Checking every electrical point, under the carpet, light switches, behind shelving, in the upholstery of chairs. A UHF transmitter behind a main’s cover, another in a lighting rose, one in the far corner of the hall under the carpet. Right now someone would be listening, their ears clamped between bakelite earphones, sweat, whispered words. Or to be trapped on tape running across the polished heads of a bank of reel to reel tape recorders, to be listened to and transcribed at a later date. His words, his life, held on gamma ferric oxide and numbered in highlighter pen.

  Piao, at the top of his voice, as loud as he could, shouting into each transmitter in turn.

  “Fuck off home and check your own rooms for wire taps.”

  Before pulling th
em out, wire intestines clutched in his fist.

  Not able to avoid it any longer, the bedroom. Curtains still roughly pulled across. A slight gap falling between them. Light, as pale as her skin. Checking the bedroom for UHF transmitters. Nothing. In a drawer, a large brown envelope. Throwing the bugs into it. Quickly sealing the envelope, as if afraid of them crawling back out, to re-embed themselves in hidden places, private little places. Scrawling the address in large characters across its front. An address that he knew well, the main administrative offices of the Party Central Committee. Propping the envelope on the shelf, beside it, photographs of her. The curve of her cold cheek, the slant of her dark eyes, the knife-edge taper of her eyebrow. Knowing the date, the occasion on which each was taken. Someone must have picked them up, stood them up. A gift of comfort to him. One by one, Piao taking them, placing them once more, face down. A death in the family. A hole in the heart.

  Pulling the bedding to his chest, across the carpet to the living room. His head aching with the weight of memories. Still, as if tattooed to his vision, the Red Flag’s glide through bitter winter. Through its rear window, her face, gaze, turning. And then his arm, the arm of the septuagenarian tong zhi, around her. Her face, her gaze, turned aside. A smile, at him, then a kiss to his cold lips.

  Piao releasing the strung bamboo blinds. Too exhausted to undress. Lying on the floor, the sheets around him as a shroud.

  *

  He woke to a hunger that he could not label. Washing and shaving in cold water to cold thoughts. The ivory handled cut-throat in adrenalin jumped stutter across his face. Blood, as warm as a lover’s kiss, from a wound that would not be staunched. A quarter of a page of the People’s Daily in limp torn strands across the cut, and still it bled, against his will, reminding him of his loss.

  The Big Man was already outside, a clutch of peanuts, a lit China Brand, and across his clothes, ash and peanut shell.

  “You all right, Boss? Looks like you lost the war.”

  Piao’s hand to his cheek. Pulling the slivers of People’s Daily from the wet wound. A sodden section of an article on another set of tractor production figures, not only realised, but surpassed. Letting the paper fall to the gutter.