Citizen One (7 page)

“But that is not unusual, Detective. Perhaps he had an argument with his wife, or a stomachache from a late-night bowl of
jiaozi
. Or maybe one too many homicides to witness …”

“No. No, Piao. You know Di, a man of routines …”

Yes, routines. A fully completed docket to pick his nose. An action plan to scratch his arse. That was Di.

“When I saw him at 10 a.m., he’d be doing his paperwork from the call out, regular as clockwork. But this time he and his Deputy were drinking tea and whispering. I made a joke, but they walked away. Something was wrong.”

“Did Di file any report?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did he file any samples for forensics?”

Shaking his head.

“He couldn’t have. I was in the laboratories at midday filing my own samples. A domestic homicide, as usual. They went straight to the front of the queue, which they would not have done if Di had filed anything.”

It all making sense. Piao kneeling once more.

“With such an inducement as an oxy-acetylene flame, they will have got the information they required. Who could keep it from them. Or perhaps this was all just to serve as a warning?”

For an instance closing his eyes. In orange veined silver half-light, he would have sworn that he could still hear the screams, unanswered in the dark vastness of the warehouse’s interior. Like radio-activity, permeating the warehouse’s very brick, wood and concrete.

Voices. Movement at the other end of the warehouse floor. A line of officers moving through the far doors, across the floor.

“Stop. This is a closed area. A serious crime has been committed. No additional personnel are to enter this building.”

A voice weakened by the distance.

“We have more arc lights, Senior Investigator. Also the City Scientific Officer is here and the PSB scene of crime’s photographer.”

“This is a closed area. No admittance. No admittance to anybody.”

“But the City Scientific Officer is insistent, Comrade Senior Investigator. He demands entrance to the scene of the crime.”

“I am Senior Investigator Sun Piao. I have authority over this investigation.”

“But Comrade Officer, the Chief Scientific …”

“Do you have a pistol officer?”

Seconds before the answer floated back in the darkness.

“Yes, Comrade Officer. Yes, I have a standard issue pistol.”

“Well, Officer, what I suggest is that you stick the front end of it in the Chief Scientific Officer’s ear and escort him out of the premises.”

“And tell him to fuck off.”

The Big Man’s leer visible even in the meagre light. Many seconds before the last words from the officer echoed around the warehouse floor.

“Yes, Comrade Officer. Thank you, Comrade Officer.”

Double doors closing. Just the darkness and the spike of arc light. Yun kneeling close to Piao.

“We should have let them in, Sun Piao. There must be an investigation. There will be repercussions. You just cannot tell a senior
cadre
to ‘fuck off’. I am not like you, I like order in my life. I need order in my life.”

The Senior Investigator seizing Yun’s hand; the Detective resisting, but Piao forcing it closer to Di’s head. Running the Detective’s palm across Di’s forehead and through his hair.

“What in the ancestor’s name was that for? What’s is wrong with you?”

Allowing Yun to pull his hand away. The Detective cradling its redness in his other hand.

“He is dead. Life no longer possesses him. Is that enough order in a life?”

The Senior Investigator standing, pacing, a coldness shifting into him. Every body slumped at his feet, humanity discarded … a little more of his own humanity, frostbitten. For the first time, avoiding their open but dead eyes.

“We shall carry out the crime scene investigation ourselves. We shall take the scene of crime photographs ourselves.”

Walking into darkness, finding comfort in losing shape and form. Only Yun’s voice reminding him of who he was and what he was.

“Why? Why, Senior Investigator?”

Piao was at the door before he answered.

“Because I do not wish to stand above any more comrades crucified to a warehouse floor and see what an oxy-acetylene torch can do to another comrade whom I once regarded as a good friend.”

*

Revolving patrol car lights. PSB Officers against walls, on stairs, propped against patrol cars. Loud jokes about disembodied tits and pussies. Loud laughter, quiet jokes about politicians and the Party. Nervous eyes, nervous smiles.

All around him activity, Piao now slumped in a void of terrible, all pervading loss. Then, without warning and fangs bared, as if he were there, back in
Ankang
. Remembering, or thinking that he remembered what the old man in the corner crib of the ward had said.

‘If you really want to do yourself in, push the blade in here and slice upwards. That really fucks the doctors up.’

And remembering the series of faint scars, and not so faint scars, across the old comrade’s wrist. Rail tracks to nowhere. Five or six on each wrist. And noticing that none of his scars were sliced upwards. None of them.

“You really think that they’d kill us as well, Boss?”

Breath against the side of his face as he was shunted back to the here and now.

Silence saying more.

“Shit.”

Scars and death still clinging to the interior of Piao’s eyes. Turning in blue light. Enough, just the look. Yaobang consumed by its chill. Moving closer.

“What Boss, there’s fucking more?”

“If Di wanted forensic samples examined, but not through our
fen-chu
, not through our science laboratories, where would he go?”

The Big Man, eyes watering diamond bright.

“Nie. An old boy at the forensic science labs, Boss. He has a love of whisky and ‘wild pheasants’. He’ll do the occasional
guan-xi
job.”

“Is he good?”

“Sure, Boss, the best. Di used him a few times. Remember that triple murder in Yu Gardens a year ago, the
cadre
with high Party connections? Di used him then, he told me.”

“Find out if this Nie was given anything. If he was, I want it.”

Across Piao’s face, light as red as a capsicum.

“And give him this, I want it analysed.”

From his pocket, the pastic bag, the cigarette butt, pressed into the Big Man’s palm.

“Let us see what kind of magic he can perform. Also, help him collect what equipment he needs and get him to a safe place.”

“Sure, Boss, then we can just give it all to Zoul. Let him handle it. He’s the Chief, Di and his Deputy, they were his men. We can walk away. Get on with our lives.”

Eyes meeting.

“Shit. You’re not going to walk away, are you, Boss? But we’re not in Homicide anymore. We’re in fucking Vice.”

The Senior Investigator lighting two China Brands. One for the Big Man, as he watched a
Hong-qi
glide along the riverfront.

“Too late. We are in, whether we like it or not. You do not witness what we have seen without there being complications. It is too late to walk away. You know this.”

“Why fucking us, Boss?”

Piao spitting a shred of tobacco from his tongue.

“Why not?”

*

Chief Comrade Officer Zoul’s visit brief, lasting only for the time that it takes for ten steel spikes to be levered back through flesh, bone, skin, and for triple ply nylon body bags to be burdened with their cargo and loaded into an un-marked ambulance.

Wiping his hands, finger by finger, on a monogrammed handkerchief.

“Piao, what are you doing here? This is Homicide Squad business.”

“I was informed by the Homicide Squad, Comrade Chief Officer. They thought that I might have an insight into what was found.”

Dabbing his mouth. Piao watching, thinking that it was the whitest handkerchief that he had ever seen.

“An insight. An insight, eh? Dangerous things insights, especially in a case such as this.”

Watching him. His eyes, crow black with no reflection.

“You did well, Senior Investigator. I can see why you are so highly regarded. To limit observation of what was found, the bodies in the warehouse. Sensible, extremely sensible.”

“And what now, Comrade Chief Officer, Sir?”

Zoul’s handkerchief to his forehead. Cold, but the Comrade Chief Officer sweating.

“Now. Also a dangerous word, Senior Investigator. You make a habit, Sun Piao, of using dangerous words. Such words could lose one the power of speech.”

“Is that a threat, Comrade Chief Officer Zoul?”

“No, Senior Investigator Sun Piao. I am stating a fact. There are things that I, that you, cannot speak of. For risk of losing our tongues. You, me, we are men of the world. We know the system. How we play it, how it plays us. There are things that I cannot say. There are things that you cannot ask.”

“But you wish to speak, Comrade Chief Officer. You also wish me to ask. In a fashion. I see it in your manner. I see it in the hushed conversation that you had with Yun as you entered the warehouse. You knew that Yun would contact me, Comrade Chief Officer. You are a good officer, you know your men.”

His eyes filled with the blackness of the Huangpu’s waters.

“You wish to have a conversation with me, Comrade Chief Officer, Sir. You wish us to have an understanding. An understanding that will be binding, but which you would deny existed within seconds of us parting.”

“Very perceptive, Piao. No wonder there are those that would fear you.”

“I will do the talking, Comrade Chief Officer, and you can remain silent for risk of losing your tongue. Yes?”

A nod, slight and un-reassuring.

“Di and his Deputy, the ambulance was unmarked, they will be cremated this night. By morning their families will have received their ashes in an urn.”

Again, a nod.

“There will be no autopsy. No forensic examination. No investigation. No report. No file.”

Coughing, Zoul. A nod stitched into its spasm.

“There are other agendas at work here. Di, his Deputy, they are a side dish, not the main course …”

No reaction.

“Di, I knew him well. I knew his family. His children have sat on my lap. I will not allow his death to go unmarked, unnoticed. I will not allow his widow to wear the colour of death, without knowing why.”

Tears to the corners of Zoul’s eyes. Surely from the breeze across the river’s broken back?

“I understand, as you say, that which can be said and that which cannot. But this investigation, it will go ahead. It will be an un-official investigation. The act of a friend for a friend.”

“An investigation, official or not, is not a good idea, Piao. Not a good idea at all.”

“And you will stop me, Comrade Chief Officer?”

On the river a black ghost of a ship passing. Only its running lights visible; shivering to the engine’s roll.

“I did not say that, Senior Investigator. I am only stating that the support that I, the support that the
fen-chu
can provide, will be …”

“Limited?”

“Extremely limited, Senior Investigator.”

“I will need some resources, Comrade Chief Officer. I will need money for
guan-xi
. I will need computer equipment. Private access to the Internet, no restrictions.”

Zoul, accepting with a reluctant nod.

“Why the Internet?”

Knowing that he would get no answer. No answer coming.

“There are many restrictions, Senior Investigator. Laws. Permits to obtain. Personal use of the Internet with no restrictions is, is as rare as a woman without an opinion.”

Piao, his eyes bright with fierceness. Zoul nodding.

“But it can be arranged.”

Buttoning the collar of his coat, the Comrade Chief Officer. Piao envying him having someone to sew his buttons for him. Moving with Zoul toward the Red Flag. A sleepy-eyed chauffeur throwing his cigarette onto the cobbles. The door opening, and with it a smell of antique leather and fat septuagenarian arses.

“Comrade Chief Officer, did Di express any concerns to you, or to any other comrade officer?”

“No.”

“Did he produce any reports that would throw any light on the horrors that we have just witnessed?”

“No.”

The door closing.

“But there is a file, Senior Investigator. Tomorrow you shall have that file.”

And through the small gap at the top of the side window.

“This file, it did not come from me. It is a door. Nothing more, Piao. A door. You understand?”

Slowly pulling away, the
Hong-qi
, its window gliding fully closed.

“Yes, I understand,” said the Senior Investigator, walking back to the river.

Heaven lends us a soul. Earth will lend us a grave
…

Obey the customs, the rites. Not to do so can bring ill fortune. Can wreak disaster upon the family of the deceased.

If you are old, respect cannot be shown to a younger person whom life no longer possesses. Especially a bachelor. A
guan guan
, a ‘bare branch’. His body should not be brought into the house, but left in the funeral parlour. No prayers should be said for him, not even by his parents. If it is a baby that should die, your baby … no funeral rites can be performed. No prayers whispered. Your little one will be buried in complete silence.

There is much to do in the house of one whom life no longer possesses. All statues and deities covered with red paper, so as not to be exposed to the body or the coffin. Mirrors removed from sight. One who sees the coffin in the reflection of a mirror will surely have a death occur in their own family. Shortly they will be removing the mirrors in their own house.

A white cloth will be hung in the doorway of the home. If the deceased is male, a gong placed on the left-hand side of the entrance. If the deceased is female, a gong placed on the right-hand side of the entrance. Do not dress the deceased in the colour red, as this will surely cause them to become a ghost. Clothes should be white, brown, black, or blue. Their faces to be covered with a fine yellow cloth. Their body with a light blue cloth. Their hair comb, broken in two. One half placed within the coffin. The other half retained by a family member.