“I’m not. You heard Bai. Mrs. Liu kept casting herself in the role of a successful woman so she could continue to bathe in the admiration and envy of others. But it’s different with Bai, since they’ve been friends for so long. As for her churchgoing, she might find some real solace there that is unavailable to her elsewhere.”
“That’s quite an analysis, Peiqin,” he said. He couldn’t help adding an ironic edge to his tone. “I might just report it to Chief Inspector Chen verbatim.”
“You know what? I’m glad that you’re not that successful,” Peiqin said, changing the topic. “Or I’ll have to worry like Mrs. Liu.”
“Come on, Peiqin. But what we have learned probably won’t help our Chief Inspector Chen a lot.”
“Let’s go to my old neighborhood again.”
“Why?”
“I have a feeling,” Peiqin said, “that it wasn’t a karaoke girl that Fu picked up in front of that cheap hotel.”
NINETEEN
When Chen woke up, it was almost nine A.M.
The curtain still drawn, the room appeared enveloped in a gray opaqueness, as if its contents were waiting to be mailed into the morning.
He remained lying in bed, disoriented by the lingering sensations of the night, before he turned and reached out for her.
But she was gone.
He sat up with a jerk, looking at the rumpled sheet.
“Shanshan!”
The echo of her name resounded like a dream in the empty stillness. But their evening wasn’t a dream. The white pillow against the headboard remained rumpled with the shape of her head, still slightly warm, as he touched it again.
He put on his robe and hurriedly searched through the house, but she was nowhere to be found. Stepping outside, he shivered with a premonition, seeing the stone steps strewn with fallen petals after the night’s clamor of wind and rain. The sound of birds chirping was heard here and there.
He moved back inside to see on the desk a note, upon which was placed her black plastic hair band. She’d taken it off last night while standing beside him at the window. The note said:
What? He was totally confounded. The last sentence seemed somewhat familiar, yet he failed to recall where he’d come across it.
Beside the note lay the bulging folder she’d entrusted to him last night. It was heavy when he weighed it in his hand.
So what was Chief Inspector Chen going to do?
He started pacing about, as if anxious to catch the echo of her footsteps from last night.
He could hardly make sense of her appearance last night. Or her disappearance in the morning. Was she so depressed that she simply wanted to let herself go in the company of a man she cared for, for one night?
But the folder in his hand didn’t speak to that scenario. She wasn’t going to give up the environmental cause. It meant more than that-perhaps it was her way of saying thanks for his help in the uphill battle to come.
It wasn’t a moment, however, to indulge in such speculations. Chen had to decide on an immediate course of action. To leave the whole matter behind was one possibility, as was suggested in her short note. No obligations. No commitments. They hadn’t talked about future plans. He would, of course, keep his word by taking the folder with him-there was no need for him to hurry and make a specific move. In the long run, doing a good, effective job as Chief Inspector Chen would be in the best interest of the country and the people.
Alternatively, he could try to help her through the crisis. He should be able to keep her out of the clutches of Internal Security, who had targeted her because of her relationship to Jiang. Her “cooperation” wouldn’t be that crucial; with or without it, Jiang would be convicted. As a last resort, Chen could go so far as to appeal to Comrade Secretary Zhao, though such an option did not appeal to Chen.
But he could also choose to get further involved, as he had said to her, by clearing Jiang of the charge. That was an effort that Chief Inspector Chen should make if Jiang proved to be innocent. Chen wondered, however, whether he would be able to throw his weight about here in Wuxi. It wasn’t just a homicide case, and it wasn’t his territory.
Besides, if he endeavored to help Jiang, Chen might actually be helping out a potential rival. He paused, then brushed aside that consideration. If he were to give up because of that, then he would never be able to consider himself worthy of her or of being a cop.
But he had no authority here. It wasn’t feasible to confront Internal Security, by whom he had long been considered a troublemaker, having blocked them on several occasions. There was no way to argue with them about what was considered a “state secret,” as that was something defined by them and in the interests of the Party.
It wasn’t possible to pressure the local cops, either. It was out of the question for him to rush onto the scene. What he had told Huang about Comrade Secretary Zhao and his “special mission” wouldn’t really stand up.
“Room service, sir-”
The young attendant came in bearing the breakfast tray along with the thermos bottle of herbal medicine. Smiling a sly smile, she might have noticed something different about the room.
“Thank you,” said Chen, reaching for the thermos.
He finished the herbal medicine in two or three gulps as he watched her withdraw. He then dialed the cell phone he had given Shanshan, but it was turned off.
It might not be a good idea for him to visit her dorm, since it was most likely being watched by Internal Security. Instead, he decided to go to Uncle Wang’s eatery. There he could wait, or at least learn something about her. Before he stepped out, he picked up a soft leather briefcase-a gift from the center-and put in a bunch of the photos as well as other information related to Liu’s murder. What he was going to do that day, he had no idea, but he might as well restudy some of the material while he waited for a call from her.
That morning, the same old route felt almost unbearably monotonous. He walked on without looking around, lost in thought. A maroon convertible suddenly sped past him with a strident rumble. The driver, a young man in his early twenties, waved his hand dashingly at him. An extremely slender girl in a light-blue dress sat reclining in the back, dangling her bare feet off the side. To his surprise, the car came to a screeching halt and backed up a couple of yards. The driver looked over his shoulder.
“My dad stays at the center too, you know,” he declared with a proud grin. “Would you like a lift?”
An HCC-high cadre’s child, or Communist prince. Chen knew their ways. A high-ranking Party cadre probably brought along his family for a vacation at the center.
“No, thank you.”
“We live in the villa next to yours. It’s not too bad, but there’s no real fun inside the complex. It’s old and filled with old-fashioned people. We have to party outside to entertain ourselves.”
“You’re right. Perhaps another time,” Chen said.
He watched as the car drove away in a cloud of dust.
Surely it was a waste for one man alone to occupy a whole villa, but then according to the policy, only a high cadre-a cadre of a certain rank-was entitled to such treatment. Of course, Chief Inspector Chen himself wasn’t a
