Apparently, Yu wasn’t calling from home, but from somewhere in the street. Chen could hear traffic in the background, and occasionally, Peiqin’s excited voice.
Yu began relating to him what he and Peiqin had learned.
It turned out to be a fairly long narrative. Yu made a point of including Peiqin’s analysis, sometimes even quoting her directly. Chen listened without interruption, sipping at his wine, until Yu finished relaying the part about Mrs. Liu.
“So what’s your take on her frequent trips back to Shanghai?” Chen asked.
“It’s difficult to say, Chief. According to Peiqin, it may be complicated. It might be more than just an escape from the unpleasantness in Wuxi. Only in Shanghai could she afford to keep up her image as a successful woman. She’s surely a character, desperate to keep up appearances-to preserve face-in the eyes of others.” Yu then added, “Oh, Fu, it seems, is another character.”
“How so?”
Yu summed up what he and Peiqin had seen while sitting at the cafe on Nanjing Road.
“I took a number of pictures of him and the girl,” Yu said. “Peiqin calls me a private eye. Which is, you know, a fashionable profession in the city now. Old Hunter is thinking about making it his new career.”
“That would be a good idea. Nowadays, there are quite a number of rich wives looking to find out about their husbands’ infidelities. Your father is experienced and energetic-an old hunter indeed. So why shouldn’t he?”
“Oh, before I forget, one more thing. Peiqin and I contacted Gu, the chairman of the New World Group. As far as he knows, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about the IPO plan for the Wuxi Number One Chemical Company. The top Party boss always gets most of the shares when a company goes public. It’s something that is taken for granted, but Gu promised that he would ask around.”
“Thanks for everything you’ve done, Yu, and of course, thank Peiqin for me too.”
After Chen hung up, he tried to fit this latest information into the puzzle, but without success. Instead, he found himself worn out by the fruitless speculations. To his surprise, he felt a little sleepy. Perhaps he really had needed this vacation.
After another futile call to Shanghai, he made for himself a cup of Cloud and Mist tea, hoping that it might revive him a bit. It didn’t work. So he brewed himself a fresh pot of coffee as well. It wasn’t a day for him to go to bed early. Internal Security was already reaching their conclusions. He had to be up and doing, he told himself, pouring out a cup.
Then a thought struck him. The night he was murdered, Liu, too, had tried to work. Of course, he might have dozed off while he was there all alone in the apartment. There was nothing really inconceivable about that scenario. But he probably wouldn’t have taken sleeping pills, certainly not that early. Allowing a half an hour for them to take effect, Liu would have to have swallowed the pills around nine, or even earlier. That was inexplicably early for a man who planned to work late into the night on an important document.
Another argument against Liu’s having taken pills was the missing cup in the apartment. Occasionally, Chen swallowed pills without water, but that was due to specific circumstances, like being on an overcrowded train. It was hard to imagine that Liu, in his own apartment, would have chosen to swallow the pills dry rather than getting a glass of water.
In a case of unpremeditated murder, the perpetrator was likely to have killed with whatever weapon they had found there and then left the apartment with it. A missing cup would have been too light for such a fatal blow. According to the autopsy report, the blow was definitely inflicted with a heavy object. So what else-heavy, blunt- was now missing and could have been used?
Again, he tried to fit Jiang into the details. The unpremeditated murder scenario could work, but could he have entered without being stopped by security? As for the missing murder weapon, Chen had no clue about that at all.
Chen started to feel slightly queasy, his head swimming. Perhaps it was the result of too much coffee and an empty stomach. He tried to take another short break. Leaning against the window, he looked out it again. This time of year, the light lasted long into the approaching dusk. He was fascinated by the scarlet clouds beyond the distant ragged lines of the hills, which seemed to be spurting out a huge flame, gilding an immense area of the lake. The lake had never looked so fantastic, as if sporting its natural grace in an unappreciated effort to keep itself from being contaminated.
Turning his attention back to the laptop, Chen found himself unable to settle into the unfinished poem. The fragmented lines could be saved on the laptop, but he had no idea when he would experience another impulse to complete the whole piece.
It might not matter that much. He thought of what Shanshan had said about the irrelevance of poetry in today’s China. He pressed the save key and went off to take a shower.
After the shower, he wrapped himself in a gray robe provided by the center, lit a cigarette, and settled on to the couch before turning on the TV.
There was nothing worth watching, except perhaps a “much-awaited” football game. But Chen wasn’t a sports fan. A faint breath of cool air, barely noticeable, came wafting in from the lake. He fetched a bath towel. Chen sometimes drifted off to sleep more easily with the TV on. He didn’t want to go to bed for the night, but a nap might refresh his mind.
SIXTEEN
There came a light knock at the door.
He must have dozed off. It was an evening when most of the people in the center would be watching football on television. Rubbing his eyes, he wondered who the visitor could possibly be.
He opened the door and standing there was Shanshan. She was wearing a short-sleeved white blouse, jeans, and sandals, with a light-green satchel slung across her shoulder. She looked casual, as if she’d just come back from a leisurely walk by the lake. A few loose hairs curled down at her cheeks, giving her a vivacious look despite the suggestion of dark rings under her eyes.
“I sneaked in by taking the shortcut through the fence door you showed me the other day,” she said. “No one stopped me or asked any questions.”
The security people must be watching the football game, he realized.
“Welcome, Shanshan. But you’ve caught me by surprise. Come on in. I’m sorry that the room is in such a mess.”
“I wanted to see you when you weren’t expecting a visitor. Now we’re even.” She stepped in. Still smiling, she added in a low voice, “You mentioned the possibility of the phone being bugged. So I thought I’d better come over without calling you first.”
“Yes, we can’t be too careful, but-”
“What have you been doing this evening?”
“Oh, nothing in particular, I’ve been watching TV. But there’s nothing good on.”
Shanshan turned her head left and right, taking in the villa.
“What a place-and you have it all to yourself!”
“It’s not too bad, I daresay. Please, take a seat.”
“It’s a place for a high-ranking cadre indeed,” she said. She pulled a scarlet swivel chair over opposite the sofa, but she didn’t sit down immediately.
“You’re being sarcastic, Shanshan. Yes, staying here is a special treat. As I’ve said before, it wasn’t originally intended for me.”
She let her eyes roam around the room, and they came to rest on the empty instant dumpling bowl on the desk and the plastic wrapper crumpled into a ball next to it.
“You should have someone taking care of this place.”
“They provide room service here, but I don’t like it, especially not when I have to concentrate.”
She picked up the bowl and wrapper and threw them into the trash can under the desk, her hand inadvertently brushing the keyboard. The monitor lit up in response, displaying Chen’s unfinished lines.
“Oh, you’re writing poetry.”
