Citizen One E-Book

Andy Oakes

• Herausgeber: Dedalus
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2007

Seitenzahl: 569

Beschreibung

Sun Piao battles the Princelings and the corrupt systemThe second of Andy Oakes' stunning crime novels set in Shanghai

Das E-Book wird angeboten von und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

PRAISE

Andy Oakes’s first novel Dragon’s Eye introduced us to Sun Piao, one of the great modern detectives and a hero for our times. Dragon’s Eye was both a critical and commercial success. The winner of The European Crime and Mystery Award for 2004 it has been translated so far into German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Serbian.

Here are a few comments:

“I don’t know if Oakes’s picture of China is accurate, but it is something better: convincing, filled with both impressionistic atmosphere and precise detail, scents and textures, sweat and silk, mud and guns, burning charcoal and peasant food. The poor old critic’s cell door suddenly opened wide after the long Christmas bang-up: Dragon’s Eye is a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card for the imagination.” Jane Jakeman in The Independent

“For a debut novel, Dragon’s Eye is a remarkably assured piece of fiction. In terms of structure, Oakes displays a natural gift for suspense, and manages to tease the reader at all the right moments with just the right amount of information to keep the pages turning. The narrative pace is also impeccably created, with just the necessary amount of restraint at key places to keep things ticking along nicely. Add to that a real flair for description which immerses the reader in the strange and wonderfully alien world of modern urban China, and you’ve got a debut novel that will surely attract plenty of acclaim.” Doug Johnstone in Scotland on Sunday

“The most compelling character in Oakes’ melancholy, evocative new conspiracy thriller is the present day city of Shanghai itself: dark and decadent and pulsing with menacing energy, with suggestion of the lawlessness of an Old West town or gangland metropolis.” Publishers Weekly

“Eight gory, ritualistic murders discovered in a muddy river in the dead of night. A bitter loner detective with a troubled past. A web of deceit drawing together corporate greed, political corruption, gangsterism and a lot of dark, rainy, moody street backdrops.” The Scotsman

“The pictures conjured up of Shanghai and of the complexities of a corrupt and claustrophobic China is gripping. Accurate or not, it is the long, stealthy shadow of the state falling across its pages that marks this crime novel out as something of an original in its genre.” Ranti Williams in The Observer

“Yaobang, a marvellous creation of gluttony, stained ties, expletives and improbable, boisterous good humour.” James Urquhart in The Independent on Sunday

“The following investigation is described in detail as brilliant and meticulous as the sanguine but relentless investigator, Sun Piao, around who the novel revolves. Oakes is a master of research and evocation and, with more twists and turns than a gyrating Chinese dragon, the story peels back the many layers of the country’s society to reveal a web of corruption and deception.” The Big Issue

“It’s an excellent bit of storytelling – coarse, nasty and gritty – while at its centre is a decent and humane man. If you only read one detective novel this year …” Eugene Bryne in Venue *****

“The chain-smoking detective at the centre of Dragon’s Eye is, naturally, cynical and jaded, but also metaphysically challenged – he hates his job, but could not be and, perhaps, would not choose to be anything else and is thus condemned to patrol the streets of Shanghai, a lonely and haunted figure. As the plot, which can fairly be described as labyrinthine, builds, so does the feeling of claustrophobia as the circle of investigation becomes wider and the people Sun Piao can trust become fewer. All told, a gripping and deeply involving genre piece.” Michael Harcourt in The Leeds Guide

DEDICATIONS

To Annie and Tom … always

Fsi yp rz kfrnqz ufxy fsi kzyzwj … n znxm ymfy n mfi pstzs ztz.

This book is dedicated to Manchester United Football Club, its players, past and present … and to its manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, and the memory of the great Matt Busby. Thank you for the dream.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is written in memory of Molly and Cliff Wyatt, true and honest people. Alan Fisher, writer, teacher, cravat wearer, and gentleman. And Gary Jewell, a friend who I think about every day. Rest in peace.

A book like this cannot be written without the help and support of many people, their expertise and skill. My special thanks goes to Juri Gabriel and Eric Lane, for their patience, insight, hard work, and faith in me. My manuscripts would simply be at the back of a bottom drawer if it were not for them! I would also like to thank Sean McMinn for his expert help on the diving scene within the book. Gaurav Kumar for his tutorial on NetBIOS computer hacking. Lee Geering for explaining the tutorial on NetBIOS hacking. And a thank you to Joel Griggs for our very enjoyable lunches together and our challenging conversations about writing … all of my best wishes go to you for success in your own writing projects. My thanks also go to my colleagues and friends at William Parker Sports College, Hastings, for their constant support and enthusiasm which have really re-fuelled me at the times when I have needed it the most. Also to my colleagues in the Youth Development Service, Hastings. A special mention must go to the CONNEXIONS team of Intensive Support Personal Advisers, who do such valuable work, ‘beyond the call of duty’, with young people and their families. It is a constantly moving pleasure working with you all. Thanks especially go to Sue Fenwick, Sally Thompsett, Bev Gibbs, Sarah Church, Ruth Adams, Steve Carter, Patrick Flynn, and Richard Lewis. A debt of gratitude must also go to all of the young people that I have worked with … your strength, resilience, and perceptiveness, amazes me. I am sure that you have given me more insights than I have ever given you.

CONTENTS

Title

Praise

About the Author

Dedications

Acknowledgements

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Part Two

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Glossary of Terms

Copyright

Part One

Chapter 1

THE NEW NATIONAL STADIUM. SHANGHAI, THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.

A Red Flag pulling up. Four men piling from it. Four men fashioned from the same blueprint: flat-foreheaded, dull-eyed, gash-mouthed. And their smell, of strong fingers and hard hearts. Pulling the girl from the automobile. Red Flag. Prodding her forward with pistols nods and shakes. Following behind, as they herded her through mid-calf mud. Slipping. Hands, knees, into ooze. Pulling her up by her arm-pits. Pushing, prodding her on. Laughter. Taunts. But still no words from the girl. The sound only of rasped breaths, and a breeze, keen and sighing through a forest of scaffolding.

Behind wire net fencing, curves of concrete. Skeletal banks of stairs, leading from mud to nowhere, and, rippling in the breeze, ribbons: red, yellow, black and blue in arc-lit shadows above two mud-spattered, five inter-linking ringed banners. One with the legend

THE PEOPLE’S OLYMPICS … 2008

The other.

OLYMPICS 2008 …The eyes of the world watching the People’s Republic of China

Beyond the fence, darkness; at its centre floodlit constructs, arc illuminated concrete edifices and bamboo forests of scaffolding. A country of the partial, a continent of the incomplete. The Olympic dream made real in rough textured materials, a vast oval enclosing a static ocean of mud. Half-lit, half-unlit. Around its edge, dark, shored-up pit holes, the foundations for the enormous banks of incomplete stands, that would seat the worshippers at the altar of the struggle between the clean and the doped bloods.

At the far end of the crescent moon, activity, noise. A machine turning out its life. A rhythmic effort of cogs and pneumatics. As they approached, figures around the machine moving away into the night, as if a plague were approaching.

Ankle deep mud, the shoeless girl dragged to the very centre of the oval. Left on her knees, wild-eyed, as the men separated, receding into darkness. Equal metres of black mud between them. Laughing as they knelt. Joking as they mimicked the pose of sprinters waiting for the starter’s pistol.

Disembodied, a rasp of a shout.

“On your marks.”

Out of the night, a serrated whisper to the girl.

“Run. Your last chance for life.”

Head craned over her shoulder, the girl starting to run, slip, fall. Running again.

“Get set.”

In imaginary blocks, the men rising. Eyes pinned to the rag-doll fifty metres ahead, toppling, rising back up in an ungainly slip.

Laughter, whistles, cat calls.

“Go!”

Four shadows in darker shadow, rising, slipping, sprinting, falling. Through darkness, gaining on the string-snipped puppet ahead. A cry as she saw them emerge from a floodlit oasis. Skidding towards her. Falling. Scrabbling back to their feet. Hearing their breaths, ripped. Closer. Closer. And in their hands, so bright, so sharp … cut throat razors, stainless-steel teeth aching to bite. Sobbing, falling, just picking herself up as the first was upon her. A blur of darkness and silver. So bright, never brighter. Hearing its slash through the air. Through the material of the back of her blouse. Through her brassiere strap. And instantly, a chilling coldness, followed by a roll of sticky heat. A wave, as warm as caramel, down her back. Falling to her knees, but unaware of the biting coldness of the muddy pool that she was kneeling in. Aware only of the darkness turning; of a fist, silver blade in its clasp. Black, her blood upon its razor edge. Watching as it fell in a deep track across her face, shoulder and arm. Watching, as her blouse succumbed to the warm tide. Cuts upon her as stinging rain. Frenzied fever of violence, sharp breath indented. Sable faces, shot with diamond-beaded sweat and panted exhilaration. Suddenly to his order, silence. Just breaths, excited breaths. And then he was over her. Slowly, as with a lover’s touch, a cut-throat razor gently slipping between the edges of her blouse. Buttons in slow fall. The sodden material eased aside. Silver blade to her skirt. Hands clawing at the material, pulling it adrift. Her clothes thrown aside, falling as kites’ tails. And then a pain set within so much other pain. Almost lost within it. The man with the pockmarked face making deep carvings into her abdomen. Each stroke of steel through her skin’s weak resistance, matched with a squeeze of his irises. Faintly laboured breaths of papercut lips. So much concentration, in mutilating. A comrade of immense focus, even in killing. With all of her effort, through lacerated lips, one word, falling faint against his cologned cheek.

“Why?”

He laughing, amused that she should even ask. His answer, lips against her torn ear, equally faint.

“Because I can.”

His blade slicing down her flank to the side of her panties. The fine material slipping frayed. Pulled aside. His hot breath. Laughter, as with torn hands, she attempted to hide herself. Gently, her fingers coaxed away with the cut-throat’s gleaming edge. And then as he walked away, pushing another towards her.

“Your turn, Comrade Officer.”

A reply. Words that she did not hear. Words that she had no wish to hear. Her gaze falling to a gap in the far bowl of the stadium structure. The city, so near, so very far.

“I said, your turn, Comrade Officer. That is if you wish to be a member of our club.”

Pushing him again. Nearer. Through the smell of blood, metal and pepper, his reek of vinegar sweat. And at the very horizon of her hearing, their voices chanting, goading him.

Against the darkness of the night his arm in a scything sweep. Blade in a race through the cold air and across her soft throat. A shiver of excitement running through him. Standing back as he surveyed her. He, at that moment, a god, bleeding her life into the puddled mud.

Her eyes, blind to her murderer dropping his trousers, deaf to his comrades’ jeers. Oblivious to his callous pumps into her. Her blood baptising him; the clench of her vagina around him, as she convulsed in death, forcing him to come prematurely. His seed falling cold within her. Dead by the time he had completely ejaculated. His arch-backed act caught in icy still frames, by the man with the pockmarked face.

Withdrawing to applause. Buttoning himself as he grinned at the camera. Pats on his back as they dragged her through the mud to the very edge of one of the shored foundation holes. From the rear of the group, the man with the pock-marked face moving forward. His eyes meeting theirs. Only a nod, the act not even demanding words. A nod back, then booted feet kicking her from the arclight into darkness. Falling headlong into the hole, body tumbling, limbs flailing. Another nod from the man with the pockmarked face. A hand on a lever, a belch of diesel fumes with revs building and a deep metallic voice growing. The machine’s voice, by the second more potent. A vast iron flamingo, the veined machine dipping its piped neck forward, down. Revs drowning everything. Now a river, the fall of liquid concrete, rising over the chest, flowing thickly into the mouth and the nostrils. Congealing over upturned eyes. The dead girl, now a stone crucifix. The liquid concrete rising, until there was nothing to be seen.

The man with the pockmarked face smiling. Unzipping his flies, and pissing into the hole. By the time he had re-zipped himself, adjusted his tailored-uniform jacket, the concrete had completely filled the hole, running into shallow channelled rectangular foundations either side of it. The man with the pockmarked face nodding again, one last time. A hand reaching for the lever, plunging it back. Silence. Just the pulse of the distant highways.

Laughter, as they walked from the cloying interior of the half-formed national stadium. Laughter as they viewed images on the camera’s bright screen.

Behind them figures moving from darkness, back to work. Behind them, life and the living of it. Safe now… the plague, receded.

No words. Car doors slamming. The Red Flags’ engines fracturing the silence. Headlights fanning across draped banners.

OLYMPICS 2008, CHINA … THE WORLD WILL BE WATCHING

Cigarette smoke merging. Jokes, slaps on backs, and a silver flask of French brandy passed from hand to hand, and mouth to mouth. All but the man with the pockmarked face drinking. But he was watching, always watching.

A gold ring knocking on the dividing glass that separated the driver from his passengers, proletariat from princeling … from tai zi. A deferential nod from the chauffeur. A deferential foot gently applied to accelerator.

There would be hot showers. Clean clothes made from the most expensive materials. There would be drinks, imported spirits and wines, waiting across the city. Waiting in the chrome-drenched Zhapu Road. Also food made from the finest of ingredients, enough to satisfy the Six Flavours of Chinese cuisine. The rich, fei. The fragrant, xiang. The fermented, chou. The crisp, song. The fresh, xiang. The full-bodied, nong.

There would be opium, served in silver pipes. And whores… not yeh-jis bought for a brace of beers. Not diseased ‘wild pheasants’ … a fuck for a pack of China Brand, oral for a handful of loose change fen. But a choice of whores from a menu of the most exquisite faces, the most desirable bodies. Just a bleeper summons away. Dollars, green and American, by the thousands, buying insatiable exploration of their perfumed delights.

Already the sensing of the opium’s sweet, breezing dream, the whore’s rouged nipples and her lipsticked lips. Anticipation, so often more fulfilling than reality. Even with the aphrodisiac of murder in your nostrils and tasted in the fine cement powder at the back of your tongue.

On his wrist an alarm loudly bleeping from an oversized watch. A life lived in divisions of two hours. The man with the pockmarked face switching the alarm off and re-setting the timer. Sitting back into the antique leather of the Red Flag as they passed the silver flask once more, draining it dry. Lighting another cigarette, foreign and long. Basking in the smoke that he knew would be smoothing his face. He would watch them swill the concrete dust from their mouths, so dry, with a fine Merlot. The finest. What better mouthwash? And then whores’ mouths to theirs in a joining of business and pleasure.

Chapter 2

‘Ankang’ – Peace and Health.

Do not be a hua fengzi, a ‘romantic maniac’. One who looks dishevelled or unkempt. One who has an adverse effect on social decorum.

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.”

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 to 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 led 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.”

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?”

“My Deputy, Yaobang.”