“No, thanks.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Just answer a few questions about Guan.”
“Yes, of course,” she said, settling into another chair.
She drew back her legs under it, as if intent on hiding her bare feet.
“How long have you worked with Guan?”
“About five years.”
“What do you think of her?
“She was a celebrated model worker, of course, and a loyal Party member, too.”
“Could you be a bit more specific?”
“Well, politically, she was active-and correct-in every movement launched by the Party authorities. Earnest, loyal, passionate. As our department head, she was conscientious and thoroughgoing in her job: The first to arrive, and often the last to leave. I am not going to say that Comrade Guan was too easy to get along with, but how else could she have been, since she was such a political celebrity?”
“You have mentioned her political activities. Is it possible that through those activities she made some enemies? Did anyone hate her?”
“No, I don’t think so. She was not responsible for the political movements. No one would blame her for the Cultural Revolution. And to be fair to her, she never pushed things too far. As for someone who might have hated her in her personal life, I’m afraid I don’t know anything about it.”
“Well-let me put it this way,” Yu said. “What do you think of her as a woman?”
“It’s difficult for me to say. She was very private. To a fault, I would say.”
“What do you mean?”
“She never talked about her own life. Believe it or not, she did not have a boyfriend. Nor did she seem to have any close friends, for that matter. That’s something beyond me. She was a national model worker, but that did not mean that she had to live her whole life for politics. Not for a woman. Only in one of those modern Beijing operas, maybe. You remember, like Madam A Qin?”
Yu nodded, smiling.
Madam A Qin was a well-known character in Shajiabang, a modern Beijing opera performed during the Cultural Revolution, when any romantic passion-even that between husband and wife-had been considered to detract from people’s political commitment. Madam A Qin thus had the convenience of not living with her husband in the opera.
“She might have been too busy,” he said.
“Well, I’m not saying that she did not have a personal life. Rather, she made a point of covering it up. We’re women. We fall in love, get married, and have kids. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“So you’re not sure that she had never had an affair?”
“I’m telling you everything I know, but I don’t like to gossip about the dead.”
“Yes, I understand. Thank you so much for your information.”
As he stood up, he took one more glance around the room, noticing a variety of perfumes, lipsticks, and nail polish on the dresser, some of the brands he had seen on glamorous movie stars in TV commercials. They were obviously beyond her means.
“There’re all samples,” she said, following his gaze, “from the First Department Store.”
“Of course,” Yu said, wondering whether Comrade Guan Hongying would have chosen to keep all her cosmetics more discreetly hidden in a drawer. “And good-bye.”
Detective Yu was not happy about his day’s work. There was not much to talk about with Commissar Zhang, but he had never had much to talk about with the commissar. He called from a public phone booth, but Commissar Zhang was not in the office. Yu did not have to listen to a political lecture delivered by the old commissar, so he went home.
No one was there. He saw a note on table, saying, “I’m with Qinqin at his school for a meeting. Warm the meal for yourself.”
Holding a bowl of rice with strips of roast duck, he stepped into the courtyard, where he had a talk with his father, Old Hunter.
“A cold-blooded rape and murder case,” Old Hunter said, frowning.
Yu remembered the frustration his father had suffered in the early sixties, dealing with a similar sex murder case, which had taken place in the Baoshan rice paddy. The girl’s body had been found almost immediately. The police arrived on the scene in less than half an hour. One witness had glimpsed the suspect and gave a fairly recognizable description. There were some fresh footprints and a cigarette butt. Old Hunter worked late into the night, month after month, but all the work led to nothing. Several years later, the culprit was caught in the act of selling pictures of Madame Mao as a bewitching second-class actress in the early thirties-a wanton goddess in a low-cut gown. Such a crime at the time was more than enough cause to put him to death. During his examination, he admitted the murder years earlier in Baoshan. The case, as well as the unexpected solution-too late to be of any comfort-had left an indelible impact on Old Hunter.
Such a case was like a tunnel where one could move on and on and on without hope of seeing the light.
“Well, there could be a political angle, according to our Party secretary.”
“Look, son,” Old Hunter said, “you don’t have to give me the crap about political significance. An old horse knows the way, as the saying goes. If such a homicide case isn’t solved in the first two or three weeks, the solution probability drops off to zero. Politics or no.”
“But we have to do something, you know, as a special case group.”
“A special case group, indeed. If a serial killer were involved, the existence of your group would be more justified.”
“That’s what I figured, but the people high up won’t give us a break, especially Commissar Zhang.”
“Don’t talk to me about your commissar either. A pain in the ass for thirty years. I’ve never gotten along with him. As for your chief inspector, I understand why he wants to go on with the investigation. Politics.”
“He’s so good at politics.”
“Well, don’t get me wrong,” the old man said. “I’m not against your boss. On the contrary, I believe he is a conscientious young officer in his way. Heaven is above his head, the earth is under his feet-at least he knows that. I’ve spent all these years in the force, and I can judge a man.”
After their talk, Yu stayed in the courtyard alone, smoking, tapping the ash into the empty rice bowl with roast duck bones forming a cross at the bottom.
He affixed a second cigarette to the butt of the first when it had been smoked down, and then added another, until it almost looked like an antenna, trembling in its effort to receive some imperceptible information from the evening sky.
Chapter 8
C hief Inspector Chen, too, had had a busy morning. At seven o’clock he’d met with Commissar Zhang in the bureau.
“It’s a difficult case,” Commissar Zhang said, nodding after Chen had briefed him. “But we mustn’t be afraid of hardship or death.”
Don’t be afraid of hardship or death- one of Chairman Mao’s quotations during the Cultural Revolution. Now it reminded Chen of a faded poster torn from the wall of a deserted building. Being a commissar for so many years had turned Zhang into something like an echoing machine. An old politician, out of touch with the times. The Commissar was, however, anything but a blockhead; it was said that he had been one of the most brilliant students at Southwest United University in the forties.
“Yes, you’re right,” Chen said. “I’m going to Guan’s dorm this morning.”
“That’s important. There might be some evidence left in her room,” Commissar Zhang said. “Keep me informed of anything you find there.”
“I will.”
