high cadre, and he was only there because of his connection to one. He wondered how far he could go with all his connections, and whether he really wanted to go that far.
Whistling, he tried Shanshan’s number one more time. Still no answer.
The phone still in his hand, a call came in. He recognized the number shown on the screen. It was Sergeant Huang.
“Oh Chief, I’ve just learned something,” Huang said, with a strange edge in his voice. “I told you that Shanshan’s phone was being bugged because of her connection to Jiang, you remember?”
“Yes?”
“Her connection to Jiang wasn’t just because of their work. According to Internal Security, she’d had an affair with him. That’s how her name appeared on a list-not our list, but Internal Security’s. They took pictures of her sneaking out of his apartment late at night several months ago.”
Even though Chen knew Shanshan and Jiang had dated, he was momentarily at a loss for words. Whatever their relationship, he hastened to remind himself, they had parted.
If anything, it only proved that Internal Security must have been following Jiang for a long time. And perhaps Shanshan as well. He thought of the suspicious peddler he’d seen a couple of times in the last few days. But then again, he might simply be jumpy.
“She made a phone call to him just a couple of days ago,” Huang went on, having not gotten any response from Chen.
“What did they say to each other when she called?”
“He didn’t pick up.”
“Thanks, Huang,” he said. “If there’s anything new, let me know.”
Still, the timing of the call couldn’t have been worse. How would Huang have reacted had he learned about Shanshan staying overnight at the center with the Chief Inspector?
All of a sudden, a siren shrieked, piercing the grayness of the overcast morning sky. Chen looked up to see that he had arrived at the shabby eatery, with Uncle Wang bending over a large stove outside.
“You’re early today, Chen,” Uncle Wang said, busy setting up the fire with old newspapers and dry twigs before he threw in a ladle of coal balls. He must have just started. “We don’t serve breakfast. There’s nothing for you at the moment. But I can have a bowl of salty bean soup microwaved if you’d like.”
“Don’t worry about it, Uncle Wang. I’ve had my breakfast. Has Shanshan been here?”
“Not this early and not today. It’s Sunday. I didn’t see her yesterday either. Do you know if there’s anything going on with her?”
“No, but I saw her last night.”
“Oh, I’m so concerned about her,” Uncle Wang said. “And about you, too. The day before yesterday, a couple of strangers came here. They asked me a number of incriminating questions about her, and about the man seen with her in the last few days.”
“Really!”
“Of course, I didn’t tell them anything.”
So they were already checking on him. Perhaps it was naive of him to think he could provide protection for her. If Internal Security found out about their relationship, it might only be to her disadvantage. Nor was he untouchable, in spite of the assurances he’d given Shanshan. In China, everything was politics. His enemies could hit him hard by saying that his involvement with her was another example of his “bourgeois lifestyle.”
A lanky middle-aged man on a tricycle rode up with the morning’s food supply piled in the trunk. Uncle Wang picked up a carp, smelled it, threw it back, and then began bargaining with the supplier.
As Chen watched, his cell phone rang again. It was Detective Yu. He must have been calling from the street again, given all the noise in the background.
Yu summed up his encounter with Bai after the church service.
“According to Bai, Mrs. Liu may be attending church in Wuxi today,” Yu said.
“So she seems to find some peace in the church.”
“Yes, at least Bai thinks so.” Yu summarized what he had termed Peiqin’s analysis before he shifted to another topic with renewed excitement in his voice. “But you know what, Chief? I’ve just talked to Wei, the neighborhood cop, again. He recognized the girl with Fu in front of the sleazy hotel from the pictures we took. She’s none other than Fu’s longtime girlfriend. There’s something weird about that. Why would they be so stealthy?”
“It might not be that odd. It could be as simple as Fu having to sneak off for a quickie with his girlfriend at such a hotel, because of his housing situation in Shanghai.” It was not uncommon for two or even three generations of a Shanghai family to squeeze together in a single room.
“True. Still, people always find ways to do what they want to do. Peiqin and I lived in the same apartment with my parents for years, as you know. But Peiqin insists that she would never spend money for something like that.”
“Peiqin is so perceptive. I’ll check it out here,” Chen said. “Anyway, you’d better keep the pictures of the lovers. Someday, you might be able to sell them for a lot of money.”
Closing the phone, Chen thought that it must have been an anticlimax for Yu, who had spent his weekend learning nothing really useful, at least not from a cop’s perspective.
As for Mrs. Liu, Chen didn’t know what else he could do. If anything, this new information made her more of a character but less of a suspect. It wasn’t the first time, however, that the chief inspector had an elaborate theory end up as nothing more than just that: an unsubstantiated theory.
Then he thought about the “something weird,” as Detective Yu had phrased it, about Fu’s behavior yesterday. There could be a number of explanations for it. For one, Fu might be a sly dog who kept his affair “in a stealthy way,” so that he could approach other girls at the same time. When Chen was first assigned to the Shanghai Police Bureau, he also tried to keep secret his relationship with his HCC girlfriend in Beijing, though for a different reason.
Chen decided not to think too much about it. He could see no interpretation that applied to the investigation.
“You’re no schoolteacher, are you?” Uncle Wang said, breaking into his thoughts.
“Sorry, I’ve just had a phone call from Shanghai.”
The old man, perhaps having overheard some of the phone call, studied him closely.
“Shanshan can be stubborn, but she’s a nice girl,” Uncle Wang went on wistfully as he seated himself on a bench opposite Chen. He picked up a cup from another table. “Let me tell you something about myself.”
“Go ahead,” Chen said, wondering what the old man wanted to tell him. He poured himself a cup of tea.
A few doors away, a middle-aged woman with a bamboo basket of wet, green shepherd’s purse blossom looked at the two in curiosity, and then smiled pleasantly.
“I used to be a school teacher in the Anhui Province. During summer vacation several years ago, I came to Wuxi and fell in love with the city. To be honest, it was mostly because of the lake fish and shrimp. The three whites, you know. So after I retired, I moved here and started this eatery. I didn’t do it for business reasons exactly. I have to cook for myself, and I like cooking anyway. A single retiree with grown children in Xinjiang with their own lives, I simply wanted to enjoy the remaining years of my life with a cup of Southern rice wine and a platter of steamed lake fish. But it was a decision no one seemed to understand.”
“But I do, Uncle Wang. In ancient times, a poet-official missed a particular fish that was available only in his hometown, so he resigned his position to return home. I think his name was Jiying. No, your decision was no mistake.”
“So you know the story. That’s great. ‘
Chen didn’t comment, wondering what the old man was driving at.
“That’s why I’m so sympathetic to Shanshan’s efforts to protect the environment,” Uncle Wang resumed, nodding. “I’m just an old man; nothing really matters for me now. But it’s an issue that affects so many people-all people, you might say. She really believes in what she does, no matter what others might say. It takes an extraordinary man to appreciate someone like her in today’s climate.”
Chen was more than impressed, and not just because of Uncle Wang’s story. One way or another, people
