Citizen One (10 page)

The scientist’s hands outstretched in an earnest plea.

“Now can I have my bottles of whisky, Investigator? My four bottles of whisky? I have a deep thirst and I believe that I have lifted enough mist from your investigation?”

*

Walking, although the car was in the opposite direction. Above Century Park, the sun, still mist-bound, but its heat warming the air, shimmering the trees, rippling the steel of parked cars.

Finding the nearest bench. The paths full of people. Life’s cycle exposed with the graphic detail of an autopsy. Children at play, toddlers learning to walk, old people in slow-motion stumblings.

“Enough mist lifted, Boss?”

A flight of balloons had been released by a group of young people from the Communist Youth League. The start of celebrations for the Festival of the People’s Army of Liberation.

“
Dao-mei
, Boss. Fucking bad luck this case.
Cadres
who smoke expensive cigarettes, who wear uniforms and murder girls like it was a sport.
Dao-mei
. Especially for the stupid bastards who try to catch them.”

Strong, in a perfumed breeze of caramelised bananas and spent generator fuel, People’s Army of Liberation’s songs. Black-toothed veterans leading bright-eyed boys. Baritone to soprano. Under the spread of richly leafed chestnut trees, chests puffed out in pride.

‘Arise! Arise! Arise!

March on! March! March on!’

“We should gather evidence from wherever we can, and pass it on. Pass it on, Boss. My mama used to say, ‘Only when you get everyone to contribute their firewood can you build a strong fire’. It’s Zoul’s job, let him deal with it.”

In response, Piao pulling a crushed pack of China Brand from his jacket. Lighting two, pushing one between Yaobang’s lips.

“There are only so many roads from the site of the new national stadium that low-loaders would have been able to take. Check them.”

Smoke falling lazily between them.

“Even when serving argumentative customers, shopkeepers notice such things as huge low-loaders negotiating difficult corners. Shiny-shoed office workers will remember massive tyres spewing mud. Those women, those girls, they were somebody’s babies, somebody’s children. They will be missed, mourned.”

A deep draw on the China Brand’s butt, as if his life depended upon it.

“We find out who they were. What it was that they did. Then as the flea follows the rat’s back, we will find out why they died and who would have gained from such deaths.”

For an instant, closing his eyes as the nicotine hit.

“We will trace death back to its lair. We will trace death back to a man who smokes Disque Bleu cigarettes and then who crucifies PSB Investigators in his spare time.”

Seeing the Senior Investigator’s eyes, and his heart falling.

“Shit, Boss, you’re really going to take this case on, aren’t you? Why? Because they were comrades, friends?”

“We are going to take this case on because no one should die as they died, and because we both know that those who murdered were not wearing the uniform of one that clips train tickets.”

‘Brave the enemies gunfire,

March on!

March on!

March on!’

“We will collect the firewood ourselves. We will light the fire ourselves. It will be a wonderful fire. The strongest fire that you have ever seen. A fire that will light up the sky.”

*

2 a.m … the Shanghai Yu Yuan Import Export warehouse
.

Frayed incident tape. Black stairs. Bolted doors. Checking his watch for a rough approximation of the time. A fake Omega, the minute hand detached within a week of purchasing it. Now following the hour hand around the dial as a faithful hound walking at its master’s side.

“Shit, Boss. Time for work, and I haven’t gone to fucking bed yet!”

Piao turning, one finger across his lips, calming the Big Man. Just the sound of the city breathing.

Moving around the side of the warehouse; mud and discarded things. A pram, bald tyres, a bicycle and a half-bag of dried cement, a dead dog. Rounding the rear of the warehouse, the only light from a wine bar’s scarlet neon half a block away. Everything with the edgy hue of danger.

“There.”

A whisper. A point of finger. From the
long
, through the nettled undergrowth that wrapped around the end of the warehouse, a darkly trodden path. Bent weeds pointing the way to a rickety spiral staircase leading to the fire exits.

“What the fuck …”

Again, finger over lips. Climbing, black step over black step. Yaobang following, lifts of shoe sole, flap of coat. Levelling out, steps to gridded floor. The first floor. A floor known well. But the Senior Investigator climbing higher. Following, the Big Man.

A door to the second floor, bolted closed. A whisper, as his hand gently rattled the door for effect.

“Fuckall up here, Boss.”

But Piao looking upward toward the roof, the stars. Blue eyes seeing what he was seeking. Carefully pulling himself up, his fingers into brick handholds and his feet onto the narrow steel balustrade. High above the bolted door, slotted just below the eaves of the warehouse roof, a gap. With difficulty the Senior Investigator pulling himself up and silently in. A few seconds, and a hand coming out of the hole. Fingers beckoning, pulling on night air. Yaobang, not built for climbing, wobbling precariously, pulling himself up the steel and brickwork. Fingers, broken-nailed, scrabbling for holds. Sweaty palms grabbing the Senior Investigator’s hand, as he was half-pulled up the remainder of the wall and into the hole. Still muttering gratefully his prayers to the ancestors as he lay on a darkly-boarded loft floor, only ceasing as he felt Piao’s finger across his lips in a cold warning. Still the city breathing, but now a new sound, of burdened hours laid down and of sanctuary from life’s storm. Snoring, deeply resonant and rhythmic.

A small torch from the Senior Investigator’s pocket. Yaobang, hand in pocket, un-holstering his pistol, but Piao pulling his hand aside. A whisper.

“No.”

Re-holstering his pistol. Following. Piao picking his way through the cathedral pitched loft. Forests of piping. Jungles of smudged shadow shifting with each step and change of angle of the torch. And with each step the snoring louder and the smells more defined. Of sweat and dirt in layer over layer. And of sour memories.

“There.”

Between hot water pipes a collection of ripped, frayed bags. At their centre a bundle of rags. Startled, the bundle rising, forming a shape. A man, a vagrant. Struggling to get to his split-soled shoes. Yaobang blocking the vagrant’s path. The man spinning toward the Senior Investigator, his face illuminated by the torch beam, dirt black. Rough, matted beard and wild eyed.

“
Tong zhi
, it is okay …”

Panic, turning again. Running into the Big Man. Arms engulfing him. Slowly, Piao approaching, hands open, his palms exposed.

“
Tong zhi
. Old Comrade. We are not here to harm you.”

Struggle giving way to resignation.

“You
wangba dan
…”

Spitting on the floor.

“
Ganbu
, thieves. What do you want of an old man? I am a veteran. A Red Guard Veteran. It was I, and fellow comrades, who arrested Lin Biao.”

Gasping for breath. Fervour and uncertainty firing his fixed gaze.

“Lin Biao, the Director of the School of Political Training for the Army.”

Flexing himself against the Big Man’s firm embrace. Strong for an old papa.

“The Great Helmsman gave us the order himself. Pulled the smirking faced
ganbu
by the ears like a squealing pig.”

Spitting once more. Its reach, longer. Falling between Piao’s feet.

“No respect. No respect.
Wangba dan
. Now you come for me.
Wangba dan
.”

“Old man. PSB. We are fucking PSB.”

Spitting again, between Yaobang’s feet.

“PSB or not, old man. One more spit near me and I’ll crack your thick skull.”

A double take of the side of the old
tong zhi’s
face.

“He’s the vagrant that found Di, isn’t he?”

Moving forward, Piao. Bleached by torchlight the old papa’s features, wrinkles washed away, suddenly forty years younger. A Red Guard in smooth-faced prime. At the back of his eyes, the light of a mission. Of orders, thoughts, enshrined in the Little Red Book.

“ ‘All our
cadre
, whatever their rank, are servants of the people, and whatever we do is to serve the people. How then can we be reluctant to discard any of our bad traits?’ ”

A smile seeping onto the old comrade’s face.

“The Quotations of Chairman Mao Zedong. Second edition, 1967. It has been a long time since I have had the Great Helmsman’s words quoted at me, Comrade.”

“It is a long time since I quoted the Great Helmsman. Fashions change.”

“Fashions! The quotations of Mao are not about fashions.
Wangba dan
. They are about a golden path. A golden path that was fought for with tears, blood. My comrades, friends, dead in the mud.”

Piao’s hand falling to the old papa’s collar, wet with spittle. Wet with tears coursing down his cheeks.

“
Tong zhi
, our children, only one out of every three even knows who the Great Helmsman was. Times change. People change.”

A nod to the Big Man, his tree trunk arms slowly releasing. The bundle of rags sinking to the smelly pit of holed blankets. Head in hands, the papa, sobbing.

“Too many changes. Too many changes. They strand you on an unknown beach. Your life and where you live it now unrecognisable.”

Into the torch and Piao’s eyes, the old
tong zhi’s
gaze.

“I have seen much. Too much. Too much for just one lifetime.”

His face bruised black and pink.

“One of the worst things that I ever saw, a
Guomindang
officer walking across a muddy field. Walking on the bodies of my comrades in arms so that he would not get his leather boots muddy.”

Sobbing. Shoulders rising, falling, with heaving, ripped breaths.

“Too much. I have seen too much. I am haunted by the ghosts of my comrades. It is now time that life no longer possessed me.”

The back of Piao’s hand across the old
tong zhi’s
cheek.

“Not yet, Comrade. Not yet your time to die.”

Fingers across his other cheek.

“Now tell me of the other worst thing that you have seen in your momentous life,
tong zhi
?”

“You already know this, Comrade Policeman.”

“Yes. I already know, but I need the power of your words.”

To the Big Man.

“Our old papa saw what happened on the first floor of this warehouse. He saw Detective Di and his Deputy interrogated and murdered.”

“How do you know, Boss?”

The Senior Investigator’s eyes, never leaving the old papa’s.

“A vagrant is trapped by his possessions. His cross to carry. What I saw did not fit into place. In the crowd, standing, he had nothing with him. Not a bag, not a bundle. Unusual for a vagrant, who is like the tortoise. He had already made this place his sanctuary.”

Dabbing his eyes, face, the
tong zhi
, on a dirty blanket.

“You have a keen eye, Comrade Policeman.”

“Yes, but not as keen as yours,
tong zhi
. That night, tell us what happened?”

Silence.

“
Tong zhi
, talk to me. It will exorcise from behind your eyes what it was that you saw. We can protect you, if it is that which you worry about.”

“
Wangba dan
, protect me? Protect? I will have none of that, not me. Not me. Me, a comrade in the glorious Red Army! I worry about nothing. Nothing. When you have witnessed what I have in my lifetime,
fanshen
, there is nothing left that will worry you.”

“ ‘Thousands upon thousands of martyrs have heroically laid down their lives for the people; let us hold their banner high and march ahead along the path crimson with their blood.’ ”

“Very good, Comrade Investigator. Very good. ‘On Coalition Government’, Mao’s Selected Works, Vol. III April 24, 1945.”

“Very good yourself,
tong zhi
. But it is a long work, you neglected to say what page it comes from. It is page 318. Mao’s words, they are meant to be more than just words. So why not talk,
tong zhi
? What you saw that night, is that not what you fought against all those years ago?”

Minutes before he spoke. Words muffled, into khaki-holed blanket.

“Their noise woke me. Footsteps; something being dragged, wheeled, and then screams.”

Rubbing the clarity back into his eyes with his frayed cuff.

“They had put them onto the floor. Two men. Your two men. They drove nails into each hand. Each foot. The screams.
Wangba dan
, the screams. As pigs make when they are castrated. Enough to wake the night. But it did not, it only woke me. I saw them through a small hole in the corner of the floor. As the last nails were driven in, I saw them. Men dressed in dark clothes. One, their boss, asking questions …”

“Questions?”

“Questions, mainly to the older one.”

“What questions were being asked?”

“Over and over again, about an investigation. Who else had been there. Names. Reports, had they filed any reports. Evidence. Evidence. He kept asking about evidence. Where was it? Who had it? Who had they spoken to?”

Faster the words, but more garbled.

“He said little, the man. Just one name, Zoul, I think it was. And things that did not make sense. About a videotape, or something. Then they lit the torch.
Wangba dan
, the torch. As bright as the sun, that torch …”

Shaking his head.

“Their screams. And through it the sound of their flesh burning. And the smell like sweet pork past its best. They screamed and screamed.
Wangba dan
. How their screams were not heard across the river …”

Wiping his mouth and beard with the sodden end of the blanket.

“The boss, the one with the scarred face, he was getting impatient. He ordered that they burn them more and more. And more deeply. Even I knew that these men had nothing more to say. What this boss wanted was not in their heads or their hearts.”