Citizen One (33 page)

On their wall, as long as a Red Flag automobile, is a list. Some of the more extreme conditions that can be treated underlined in red. As if every personal file of every Homicide Investigator in the
fen-chu
had been read and transcribed.

Depression

Violent Anger

Bereavement

Trauma

Impotency

Two tigers, two tigers.

They run fast, they run fast.

One has no eyes, one has no tail.

How strange, how strange.

Chinese Children’s Song

Flies never visit an egg that has no crack.

A finger pointing through the windscreen.

“There, Boss. The ‘cracked egg’.”

A man’s reflection in the glass.

“He’ll go into the bar and then back onto the Nanjing Road.”

Picking at his teeth, the Big Man. A reluctant shred of pork dumpling levered from a dark crevice. Flicking it away and finding the windscreen.

“He calls into every bar on Nanjing. Every stop, a bigger bulge in his trouser pockets. And we’re not talking about a ‘glad to fucking see you’, bulge, if you know what I mean, Boss?”

Pointing, but Piao only seeing the grey pork remnant slip down the windscreen.

“The same routine, our PLA little friend. Four days in a row. After he comes out of the bar, he’ll cross there, walk down a bit and then go into the Karaoke bar next to the Zhang Xiaoquan Scissors Store.”

Tight against mirrored glass, a thousand reflections with Tsung at the centre of its maze. The PLA Officer nervous. A gaze over his shoulder, a hand to the pistol that lay slumbering under his expensively-tailored jacket. Another look around before disappearing into the bar’s interior.

“I will stay this side in the Zhang Xiaoquan Scissors Store. You follow him, cross with him, and as he steps on the kerb we will take him.”

A nod. The Big Man jumping out of the Liberation truck, a laboured run through a gap in the traffic and taking up position four doors down from the bar. Already drenched in the incessant rain, as if the ancestors had a bladder problem.

Piao slamming the Liberation truck’s door and running for the Zhang Xiaoquan Scissors Store. Soaked by the time he reached it. Standing just inside of the door, in the Xiaoquan’s front window, a display of specialist scissors for the disabled, for those with no thumbs, fingers, or no hands or sight. Looking past honed scissor blades as he watched the other side of Nanjinglu through the stutter of traffic. The entrance to the bar, people coming and going. A couple draped around each other, a drunk, another drunk, and suddenly there he was, the
tai zi
, patting the fat packed-pockets of his trousers stuffed with
yuan
. Protection money, pimping money, by the tens of thousands. Standing directly under the buzzing neon light’s drop, at one with the wet glossed jigsaw cars. Pulling up his collar, walking fast and keeping tight to the shop windows.

The Big Man picking him up, fifteen, twenty metres behind. Also tight to the shop window’s shunt of reflections. Following through knots of pedestrians. The princeling avoiding the worst of the puddles, suddenly turning his back into the slanting rain as he lit a long, gold banded-filter cigarette. As he did so, catching sight of Yaobang pressed against the glass. A recognition set in red neon. The PLA dropping his expensive cigarette, starting to run with the Big Man matching his every move as if joined by an umbilical cord. Frantic, the PLA’s eyes, seeking a gap. Seeing one. Readying himself, hand to the railings of the traffic barrier. Sprinting between bumpers, making it to the concrete island splitting the traffic’s frantic race. A glance at the sanctuary offered by the other side of the lane of traffic. From there so many other roads to choose, so many other escapes and then protection, the arm of the People’s Liberation Army, so long and so comforting. Cradle to the grave comfort. A second glance, and then seeing him. A face he knew, but could not name, only remembering as he saw the pistol’s ugly snout slowly moving from the cover of his sodden jacket.

“Still. Stand still.”

The rain pissing down on Piao’s head. Cuff across his eyes.

“Don’t move.”

Welded to the spot, the PLA, but the Senior Investigator’s view of him lost in wild reflection, as a snorting beast of a Liberation Truck pulled up. Piao, in spray and dampened exhaust fumes, running around its belching arse. Crouching, hand over hand, his pistol dripping rain and jigsaw shadow, but Tsung, the cracked egg, gone.

“Where the fuck, Boss?”

Traffic breaking into separate links while the Senior Investigator’s eyes frantically hunted for a running figure. A face amongst other faces, or a wet arm being pulled back through a side window, or a window being wound back up, but nothing. Again the Senior Investigator scanning the ebb of traffic, through the rain the sound of horns and the anger of engines over-revved. And in it all a little thing, such a little thing. Piao on his knees in a puddle, watching the water’s soft escaping dance.

“The drain’s grate has been moved. He is using the sewers. Get a torch.”

Yaobang, pistol in hand, halting the traffic. Grabbing the torch and the batteries from under the driver’s seat of the Liberation truck and juggling them as he ran back. Fiddling the cells into the cracked body of the torch, as the Senior Investigator wrenched up the grating with bleeding fingers. Water falling into darkness. An instant reek of dead and expelled things. Feeling a damp wall, then an iron ladder before swinging his legs over, twisting and moving down. The Big Man following, rung after rung, with the torch in his mouth. The yellow beam blinking, cutting out, blinking back to life. Piao moving its beam onto the rough walkways just above the trough and shadowing the wall, moving past Yaobang.

“This way.”

“How the fuck do you know, Boss?”

“On the walkway wet footprints. There’s no magic in a sewer. Now keep your voice down.”

A corner of broken brickwork, rounding it in a sickening skid. Pulling an arm out across the Big Man. Stopping, aware for the first time of somebody else in the tunnel. A new urgency. Piao half running and slipping, aware of his trouser leg and the torn skin beneath it. The Big Man labouring behind him. Thrusting legs through the deeper sluggish tide. Side tunnels feeding the overflowing trough.

Ahead, a man fighting against exhaustion. A dull echo, a fall, a moan. Piao and the Big Man stopping. Ahead, nothing, no sound, except the night city spiralling above them. Then a luminescent glow of light submerged in water. Starting a run towards it, halving the distance, seeing him, directly beneath a rectangular barred grill set deep into damp mortar, spilling distant electric neon hues from the street. Seeing him, in static bars of hazed light. A pistol’s dark shadow before a dull gold flame. Piao pushing the Big Man into the water, diving on top of him. A roar, then a crack of splintered brick. Ears ringing. Another shot. The Senior Investigator, fingers seeking the pistol butt, moving through water to where it met the stinking air. Pistol gripped double-handed, sights aligned, through weeping vision, aiming low, a round loosed off.

“Did, you get him, Boss?”

“No. But better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

A man turning, running. Banishing all else from his consciousness, Piao, finger in a gentle squeeze, as his weapons trainer had said so many years ago, so many holed bodies ago.

‘Squeeze, as if you are fondling your wife’s breast. Or the breast of a best friend’s wife.’

Instantly with the recoil, a body punched, spinning, falling. Running towards it. The Big Man standing above a dark shape, hauling it from the trough, pistol wedged rudely into the corner of its eye. The PLA, Tsung.

“Look at it, fucking look at it. You’ve ruined my best uniform. Any more shit from you and I’ll take your fucking head off.”

Piao, an exhausted whisper into the PLA’s other ear.

“I would listen, Comrade Tsung. He means it. He is a proud man, with a keen dress sense.”

“Not a good start, is it? I think that you had better try to impress us. Answer a few questions. That would be a better fucking starting point, wouldn’t it?”

“
Wangba dan
, you fat bastard …”

Hard against bone, anodised steel. The Senior Investigator pushing the pistol aside, noticing the slow seep of blood from the PLA’s lower stomach. A shake of his head.

“Talk to us, Comrade Princeling. But be quick, you need a hospital.”

With each word the PLA wincing with the pain.

“I have nothing to say. Just take me in, I will tell them you brutalised me, manhandled me, attacked me, dragged me into the sewers and then shot me. I will sign a statement saying this and provide witnesses.”

Witnesses. There are always witnesses. A crate of beer to find an old woman who will swear on her labour pains, that she is your mother. A carton of cigarettes to purchase an old man who will testify on the grey hairs on his head, that he is your long lost loving father.

“Take me in, I need medical attention. I need to call my Colonel. He’ll have me out of your interview room within an hour.”

“I’m afraid that we don’t tend to do things quite that way, Comrade. We are what you call, un-conventional in our approach. Aren’t we, Boss?”

“Just take me in. I will answer nothing.”

Piao, a whisper into Tsung’s ear. Its quietness, its preciseness, as chilling as a winter in Harbin.

“This is a dangerous place to be, Officer Tsung. A comrade could die in such a place as this.”

“I don’t care if I die. If I do, you will follow. My Colonel will make sure.”

Pulling Tsung closer, his breath over the PLA’s.

“You do not care if you die, Comrade Princeling?”

A smile.

“Neither do I, so let us do it.”

The comrade’s heart dropping, as an elevator freed from its constraining cables. In the Senior Investigator’s eyes, only the edge that real truths have.

“Who ordered the murder of the girls?”

“Fuck off. Take me in. I need attention, medical attention.”

A nod. Yaobang hauling the PLA by his jacket back into the trough. Violently his hand over Tsung’s face, pushing him deeply into the sour water. The PLA rising, gasping, coughing.

“Qi. Qi, fucking Qi.”

“Good. Now we are getting somewhere, Comrade Cracked Egg.”

Gently wiping the water from the PLA’s face.

“The girls, why were they murdered?”

“Fun. Just fun. He likes to watch. Watch us as we fuck them.”

“And he likes to watch you slash them and rape them as they die, yes, Comrade?”

The Big Man’s hand upon his face.

“Yes, yes. He likes to watch.”

“But there was another agenda for four of them, was there not, Comrade PLA?”

Shaking his head away from Yaobang’s hand.

“Fuck off. Fuck off. Take me in.”

A nod. The Big Man’s hand grasping the princeling’s neck, forcing the head back, open mouthed gasping for breath, into the black water. Mouth, nostrils, in a deep trenched filling. Bubbles, at first furious, now just in gentle measures of the many seconds. A nod. The PLA’s face breaching the surface. Water pouring from the interior of his mouth and nostrils.

“Comrade, there was another agenda. Talk to me
tai zi
. Talk to me of other agendas.”

Gasped, tattered breaths.

“Fathers, their fathers. He wanted something from them. Their fathers. Scientists. Important, something important …”

Violent coughs racking his whole body.

“Money, big money, for the benefit of the PLA, he said. The girls, casualties of war, he said.”

Piao, with his cuff, wiping the water and the snot from Tsung’s face. And deeply into his ear.

“But Comrade Cracked Egg, the PLA is not at war.”

“This, this is all I know. All I know. Take me, take me in.”

“But I do not think so, Comrade. I think that you know much more.”

“I know nothing, nothing more.”

“What of the name Citizen One? Kanatjan Pasechnik?”

A shake of the head.

“Facility – 4? Righteous Mountain?”

A shake of the head.

“Please. Please. These names, I don’t know them.”

A darker plume moving through black water. The loss of blood from the PLA’s stomach increasing.

“Your time, as with your blood, is running out, Comrade Tsung. Talk to me. Persuade me that you know no more.”

“Fuck off. I know nothing.”

“What is Qi after? What is this about? Drugs? The Scientists were biologists.”

Shaking his head. Coughing.

“Qi, what was he wanting from the fathers?”

“Fuck off.”

“What is this about?”

Shaking his head violently. A nod. Yaobang’s hand across the PLA’s face forcing it deep, deeper into the trough. At first a struggle, but after many tens of seconds it abating into a stillness of dark water disturbed only by the occasional bubble limply seeking its surface. A nod. Tsung’s paper-white face rising through the water to its surface.

Kneeling in shit, the Senior Investigator’s face against the cracked egg’s face. Watching Tsung’s eyes. Squeezes of unconsciousness. Pinpoint irises, turning in on themselves.

“I need more from you, and you need urgent medical attention, Comrade PLA. Tell me, before I forget where the nearest hospital is. A hospital,
tai zi
, more than you gave those who you call casualties of war.”

The warm breath of the words against the PLA’s cheek calling him back.

“Be quick, yes, Comrade? Time is a butterfly. Tell me more. Now.”

Coughs. Breaths, torn and pulled in through blue lips.

“Two days … two …”

“More. I need to know more to stop the killing. For the dead girls, tell me for the sake of the dead girls.”

A slight shake of the head, unconsciousness banished.

“Maglev. Maglev train station, Longyang Road …”

His vision blurring, his eyes swimming.

“Around 2 a.m. 2 a.m …”

“What will I see, Comrade PLA? What will I see at the Maglev train station?”

“Dollars. Millions. And … power. Great, great power …”