But he had his reasons for doing so, at least during the course of the investigation.
He turned onto a small road, which he thought might lead to the center. He was pondering what he had just learned from so many different sources. He had to sort out the information.
Then he saw her walking in front of him.
“Shanshan,” he said, breaking into a run. “Let me explain.”
“You’re horrible,” she said without slowing her steps. “Officer Huang listened to you so reverentially, nodding all the time like a puppet. Do you still want to tell me that you met him by chance in a barbershop?”
“I owe you an apology,” he said, deciding to reveal his connections, if not his identity. “I have connections with the police here. That’s not something I really want to show off, or talk to you about, but in today’s China, you can’t do anything without connections. You know that.”
“You don’t have to waste your breath explaining anything,” she said, walking on with her head down. “I’m surprised that a master of connections like you actually has time for me.”
“You don’t have to say that, Shanshan. As for Sergeant Huang, he happens to be a fan of the mysteries I’ve translated. That part is absolutely true, and that’s the reason he calls me a master. As a matter of fact, I didn’t know Huang before this vacation. After meeting you, however, I thought I had to establish and develop the connection here.”
“You’re full of connections, both old and new, as you’ve already told me,” she said, with a distrustful edge still in her voice. “What do you want from me?” She seemed to be gradually recovering from her initial shock.
“We need to talk, Shanshan. Let me tell you something I’ve just learned from Huang. According to him, things are getting uglier for Jiang.”
“How?”
“He’ll be convicted of murder in Liu’s case.” He resumed after a pause, “I don’t know Jiang from Adam. Whatever happens to him, it’s not my business. But it involves you. That was why I had to tell you that it was a chance meeting between me and Huang. Because it wouldn’t do anyone any good to reveal such a connection. Especially at this juncture.”
They must have walked for some distance without paying attention to the direction. At an intersection ahead, another turn brought them to the beginning of the small, quaint road that lead back to the center.
She slowed down before finally coming to a halt, hesitant as to whether to walk any further with him. This was the only road in the city of Wuxi that was familiar to him. He remembered some of the tourist attraction signs he had seen.
“There’s a pavilion, I think, halfway up the hill. It should be a quiet place to talk.”
She followed him without saying anything. They started up the steps, which were half-covered in moss and weeds.
To their left, the flat surface of the rock cliff had lines engraved in red- or black-painted characters left by people years earlier. Among them was a couplet by Qian Qianyi, a Qing-dynasty minister who had first served in the Ming dynasty. The couplet was partially blocked out by “Long March,” one of Mao’s poems, which had been carved by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. Beneath Mao’s poem, a young couple had recently chiseled out a romantic pledge, with their names carved under a red heart. Perhaps they believed their names would last forever this way.
The trail, winding between clumps of larches and ferns, became rugged, slippery, even treacherous in places, with the stone steps in bad repair. Fortunately, as they labored up the trail in the heat, a breeze occasionally found its way through the groves of small spruce.
An old, ramshackle pavilion came into view. It had a yellow-glazed tile roof supported by vermilion posts, and the posts were set into curved wooden benches with exquisite lattice railings above. Chen was momentarily confused by a sense of deja vu. Which was odd. It was nothing like the dilapidated pavilion overlooking the lake and its turtle-head rock in Yuantouzhu.
Shanshan sat down, leaning sideways against the post, fanning herself with a newspaper that she pulled out of her pocket. He sat down beside her, his arm stretched out onto the railing.
In the trees behind them, small birds chirped. Among the trees, there was an ancient stump surrounded by an abundance of yellowish weeds and a flattened white fungus across the top.
“I’m afraid Jiang will be charged and convicted,” Chen started, “in a couple of days.”
“How could that possibly be?” she demanded. “They don’t have a shred of evidence.”
“They think they have. And that’s what matters. They aren’t ordinary cops, you know. They are Internal Security.”
“But why?”
“It’s the politics behind the case, Shanshan,” he said carefully. “Jiang is a troublemaker, not only in Wuxi, but to the people high above in Beijing too.”
“Because of the environmental issues he brings up,” she said. “I guess you do know everything.”
“Once he is sentenced, it will be impossible for anyone to turn the situation around-whatever their connections. I know hardly anything about Jiang, so I’m in no position to speak for him. That’s why I really need to talk to you.”
“I understand, Chen. Sorry that I was too upset to listen.”
“You don’t have to apologize for anything.”
They didn’t speak for several minutes.
He shook a cigarette out of his pack. For once, he didn’t ask for her permission, just lit it. The distant sky was dappled with white clouds like lost sails, purposelessly moving, torn at the edges.
“I’m trying to help, Shanshan,” he repeated. “Please tell me what you know about Jiang.”
She sat unresponsive, statuelike. The hills behind them were spread out like a traditional landscape scroll.
“Only by clearing Jiang,” he went on in earnest, “can I hope to help you and get you out of trouble.”
“I don’t know how you can help,” she said softly, but she started to tell him what she knew.
“Jiang had started as an entrepreneur in Wuxi in the late eighties. Having made a small fortune for himself in the early waves of China’s economic reform, he began to take note of the deteriorating environment in the area. A native of Wuxi, he had grown up by the lake, so he took it as his responsibility to draw attention to the issue. Initially, his efforts were not without support, and he had limited success. The media mentioned him as a fighter for the environment, and he even appeared on provincial TV and radio programs. With his firsthand knowledge about the problems with local industry, and by talking and writing about them, he was able to get several local factories to mend their ways-at least to some extent.
“Jiang then began taking the issue more seriously. He sold his business and devoted himself full time to environmental protection. He managed to make a modest living from the fees for talks and articles, but his efforts started to upset an increasing number of Big Bucks, especially those he mentioned unfavorably. So they launched a fierce counterattack, claiming that he was seeking publicity at the expense of law-abiding companies, and that his writings were amateur and half-baked, not based at all on scientific research.
“Then they took it even further by appealing to city authorities. After all, the success of Wuxi was dependent on its booming industry, and the city couldn’t afford for it to be discredited. The officials didn’t hesitate to put pressure on him.
“Jiang persisted, however, targeting factories that continued to dump pollutants into the lake. After doing extensive research, he sent detailed reports to many newspapers and magazines. To his dismay, though, his submissions were invariably returned. He was told that they had received specific instructions from above banning his work and that those companies were untouchable because they produced the majority of the local industrial revenue. Still, he kept on sending letters and reports to government authorities-higher and higher authorities-a persistence which eventually got him labeled a ‘political troublemaker.’
“According to his research, most of the companies in Wuxi were problematic. They were far from meeting the environmental standards, and the situation was aggravated by the acquiescence of the government.
“He started to reach out to foreign media, contacting Western correspondents, who sometimes paid him for his work and published it abroad. Ironically, it then found its way back into China, even into some ‘inside journals’ compiled for high-ranking leaders in Beijing. This made the local officials consider him even more troublesome, and he was consequently blacklisted. But those factories went on operating as before, at the expense of environment.
