“Yes, I’ve been so terribly busy of late and under a lot of stress. I might not have been able to get the date right. Whatever Jiang might have done, it wasn’t any of my business, so I didn’t try to pay close attention to it. I’m sorry about the possible mistake, Chief Inspector Chen.”
“But it’s a murder case, Mi. An innocent man could have been convicted because of your perjury.”
“No, that’s not true. How could it be perjury? People’s memories may not always be reliable, you know that. What do you want me to do? Both you and Officer Huang are here, so I can give you another statement. The meeting between Jiang and Liu was definitely in March, of that much I’m sure.”
“Let’s put it aside for the moment, and talk about another statement you gave. On the night of the murder, you said you were at the company office, working late on the IPO plan. That was just about a week ago. Your memory couldn’t have failed you concerning that part, too? ”
There was no mistaking the ominous hint; she got it and turned ghastly pale. Mi stared first at Chen, and then at Huang, wringing her hands, panic-stricken and tongue-tied.
“You told us that you were so busy working at the office that evening,” Chen went on, “that you didn’t leave until after eleven. You were so overwhelmed with work that you didn’t even have time to go to the company canteen. Correct?”
“Correct,” she said. “We were so busy preparing for the IPO. It was a Sunday, but a number of people were at the office working, including Fu. Fu talked to me that evening and we discussed the company’s business plans.”
“Now, I want to remind you again, Mi. Perjury is a serious crime. You have to consider whether it’s worth it or not,” Chen added, crossing his legs, breathing into his cup, and then taking a leisurely sip of his tea. “Confucius says,
“I’m afraid that what you’re saying is over my head, Chief Inspector Chen.”
“Fine, let me ask you a question. Liu went to his home office, as a rule, through the back door of the building, right?”
“I think so. It’s a shortcut.”
“So when you go there it’s also through the back door?”
“Yes, when I had to work with him there. There’s no point in going through the front gate, it would take at least ten more minutes.”
“You don’t know about the advanced security camera recorder at the back door, I’m guessing.”
“No, I didn’t know. But why are you asking?”
“The back door closes at eight, and then the security guard leaves for the night. We all know that. However, the camera there records people going through the door all night long, and I don’t think you knew about that.”
“Yes,” Huang said, echoing Chen’s statement. He was beginning to see the light for the first time, though he didn’t know anything about a hidden camera. For all he knew, there could be one and he was determined to play along. “The camera there records all night long, Mi.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“Why? Because Liu didn’t think that you needed to know those things as a little secretary. If so, it was totally understandable that he didn’t even mention it to you. But we’ve obtained the tape for that night and studied it carefully-”
“Everyone going in and out the back door that night is on the tape,” Huang contributed hastily.
It was obvious that Chen had Mi trapped. She opened her mouth helplessly, but no words struggled out.
“Has your memory been refreshed, Mi?”
“So many things have happened of late,” she said at last, repeating what she’d said earlier, “I’ve been so worn out that my memory might not prove to be accurate.”
“A young, energetic office manager is supposed to remember a lot of things,” Chen pushed on relentlessly. “Anyway, the videotape is admissible as evidence in court, you know.”
“Do you need us to play it for you now?” Huang chipped in again.
“You-” She sprang up, as if galvanized, before she swayed, slumped back into the chair.
Chen waited, pouring himself a cup of tea, and another for Huang, without looking at her.
It took only a minute or two, however, for Mi to try to pull herself back together again.
“I worked so hard that evening, Chief Inspector Chen. I might have stepped out, briefly, for some fresh air, and not even thought about it. I’m still not sure, but something like that could have eluded my memory.”
“Now you have perjured yourself repeatedly in a murder investigation.”
“No, I just forgot.”
“You signed your earlier written statements, and we also have your new testimony recorded here and in the presence of Sergeant Huang and me. One small lapse in memory is possible, but not so many lapses in both of your statements. Definitely not. It’s up to the police to decide whether this amounts to perjury or not. Right, Sergeant Huang?”
“If this isn’t perjury, I don’t know what it is,” Huang said.
Instead of responding immediately, she kept staring at them like a melting snowwoman, her eyes like two black coal balls.
She’d been caught lying, trapped in the very act of it. Huang tried to think of all the possible scenarios. Out of all of them, if she kept insisting that it was just memory lapse, she might still get away with it. After all, leaving through the back door didn’t have to mean going to Liu’s home office. Huang guessed there was no security camera there. There were no witnesses or evidence against her. No motive, either.
What’s more, Internal Security could simply brush aside the scenario of her and a co-conspirator being the real culprits, since they had already reached their own conclusion and were ready to convict Jiang.
The silence weighed on all of them like a huge rock.
So what was Chief Inspector Chen going to do?
“Fu wasn’t in Wuxi over the weekend, was he?” Chen said unexpectedly, changing the topic.
This was another thrust that left Huang perplexed. Why was Chen bringing Fu in at this critical juncture?
“Yes, he was in Shanghai for a business meeting.”
“He was in Shanghai, that much is true, but I’m not at all sure about the business meeting part. I happen to have some pictures taken there last Saturday, the day before yesterday.”
Chen produced a large envelope containing a bunch of enlarged pictures. The first two or three pictures showed Fu and a young woman emerging from a hotel onto a street thronged with people. Then photos of the two walking, hand in hand, with the hotel visible in the background, and one of them showing the two kissing passionately, regardless of the passers-by. The pictures weren’t of high quality, but Fu was recognizable and the girl was someone Huang had never seen before. The last photo Chen brought out was of a large sign standing in front of the hotel.
“Look at this sign. This so-called hotel rents rooms by the hour,” Chen said with emphasis on “by the hour,” handing the picture to her. “On Nanjing Road. Who would go to such a hotel with him?”
“A prostitute?” Huang said.
The picture began trembling in Mi’s hand.
“No, she’s not one of those girls soliciting customers on Nanjing Road. That much I can tell you, Mi. She’s his fiancee. The cop in his old neighborhood in Shanghai has confirmed that. Fu has kept his relationship with her a secret here at the company. Why would he do that, Mi? You know better than anybody else, I would think. Anyway, that Saturday afternoon in Shanghai, Fu and his fiancee sneaked into that sleazy hotel, where they stayed for more than two hours. What were they doing there? You can easily imagine that. Here’s a picture of them leaving the hotel. Look at the happy, radiant smile on her face. There’s a young attendant-you can see here-who stands at the hotel door, shouting, ‘Clean, convenient, we change the sheets after every customer. Hot showers twenty-four hours. Mandarin Duck Bath … Worth every penny. Fifteen minutes in the spring valance is worth tons of gold.’”
It was astounding that Chen chose to launch into this vivid narrative at this juncture, almost like a Suzhou opera singer who got carried away by the details of the story he was narrating.
“That’s so dramatic,” Huang improvised.
“For everything under the sun, Sergeant Huang, there must be a reason. A reason may be inexplicable to others, but so transparent to the man or the woman involved in it.”
Again, Chen didn’t push further. Instead he spread those pictures on the table like a mosaic.
