Citizen One (8 page)

During the wake do not wear jewellery.

Do not wear red, the colour of happiness.

Do not cut your hair for 49 days. During mourning, wail and cry. It is a sign of respect, of loyalty. The wails, the cries, to be louder the larger the fortune that has been left.

Do not be late to the mourning, or you will have to crawl to the coffin on your knees.

Burn the joss paper, the prayer-money, throughout the wake or your deceased loved one will not have sufficient income in the afterlife.

Provide for the monk who, with his chanted Taoist scripts, through the long night will smooth the path of the deceased soul into heaven. Provide for the musicians; music played on flute, gong, trumpet, smoothing the passage to the afterlife. The souls of the dead face many obstacles, trials, torments, torture. They must pay for the sins that they have perpetrated in life. Death, no easy journey.

A crescendo of wailing, the coffin lid nailed in place. Separation of the dead from the living. All faces turned away. To see a coffin sealed, very unlucky. Yellow, white, the holy papers pasted to the coffin. Protection from malign spirits.

Be a volunteer to carry the coffin to its resting place. A blessing bestowed by deceased to pallbearer.

Be attentive. The long lit joss stick that symbolises the soul of the deceased … sometimes the wind will extinguish its orange flame. Be sure to relight it immediately.

Be attentive. The paper models of cars, houses, ships, that are carried to symbolise the wealth of the deceased’s family, sometimes the wind will blow them away. Be sure to retrieve them from the ground and place them back into the hands of the family members.

Be attentive. If the procession needs to cross water, the deceased must be informed. Not to speak of this will cause the soul of the dead to be left behind on the other side of the river.

Feng shui
demands that the cemetery be located on a hill. Your plot should be high. As close to the peak as finances allow. As the coffin is lowered into the grave, all faces must be turned away, or ill fortune will surely follow. Ill fortune will also follow if all items of clothing that have been worn for the funeral are not burnt.

Red packets are distributed to relatives. Inside, money, a sign of gratitude. Money that must be spent, not saved. Also distributed, towels. White towels. Another sign of gratitude. But also to wipe away the sweat, the dirt from hands that have been used to help fill the grave.

Be sure to mourn your loved one for 100 days. Be sure to wear the appropriate piece of coloured cloth on the sleeve of your jacket to signify this mourning. Black for the deceased’s children. Blue for the grandchildren. Green for the great-grandchildren. For up to 3 years you will wear these pieces of cloth.

If a child should die, do not mourn. If your wife should die, do not mourn. Wait for the seventh day. On the seventh day the soul of your departed one will return to your home. You will place a red plaque with a suitable inscription outside the house. The souls of the dead are easily lost. On the seventh day all family members shall remain in their rooms. Give yourself comfort on this day. Dust the floor of your home with talcum powder. Dust the floor of your home with flour. After the seventh day, when your room is left behind, witness the visitation of your loved one’s soul on a field of white.

So serious, death. Treat it as you would a ripe peach. A peach, yes. Treat death as a very delicate peach.

White, the colour of death
.

Dove-white clad mourners moving across delineations of brown. Earth scratched to darker earth. And smells that graveyards have, of rust, dripping out its iron life, and freshly dug sods with worms wriggling.

A view over shoulders, of shoulders. The urn, interned, bricked up. A plaque fixed in place. A chiselled name with the year of birth and of death. Stone letters carved in stone. A darker grey set in grey. Generous, the PSB. Looking after its own and meeting all of the substantial costs.

Through the graveyard, back to the house, the walk colder than when coming. Funerals, always colder on the walk back.

“This investigation, you do not have to …”

Ahead, Di’s widow. Hands, knuckle white in the clasp of her children’s hands.

“Don’t worry, Boss, I’m in. What the fuck, I’m not going to wait around to get what Di got.”

Ahead, tears and comforting words. Prayers and cold feet.

Piao, hand to pocket, passing a note. The Big Man unfolding it. Reading.

“Zoul agreed to help …”

“Shit, he said he’d give you all these American dollars?”

Reading.

“5,000 Panda Brand. 2,000 Marlboro. 20 bottles of Southern Comfort. 20 bottles of Teacher’s whisky.”

“
Guan-xi
. We will need to grease a few palms.”

“And a few throats, eh Boss?”

“They will know our Shanghai Sedan. We will need the use of another vehicle.”

“Difficult, but leave it to me, Boss. Nothing that a handful of those dollars and a few bottles of Southern Comfort won’t sort out.”

“On which subject, how far have you got with Nie? Has he got anything for us?”

“He’s got stuff, Boss. Told me. And I’ve already arranged a meeting in two day’s time.”

“He is safe?”

Outside the flat, mourners cleaning their shoes. Washing their hands in bowls of water. Remnants of the cemetery washed adrift. But not the tracks of tears down their cheeks and not their memories.

“Sure, but he didn’t like it, Boss. Didn’t want to leave work. Didn’t want to leave his house and go to a safe address. Didn’t want to do anything …”

“Until?”

“Until I told him what they had done to Detective Di. Soon changed his mind. Packed in two minutes flat. What about this file that Zoul was talking about, Boss? Any good?”

“A door. There were four reports in the file. Four investigations. Di had worked briefly on all of them. Four young women. The reports state that they were all prostitutes. All were attacked, cut up, mutilated. Three were found dead in the waters of the Wusongjiang. No leads. Not one. There were no witnesses. Or no one willing to say that they were a witness.”

“And this is a ‘door’, Boss? Sounds more like a fucking wall.”

“The last attack was a week ago. The
yeh-ji
is still in the First People’s Hospital on the Wu Jin Road, Hongkou. We are seeing her tomorrow.”

“So we do have a witness, Boss?”

“If she survives and is willing to talk. Someone played a game with her, with a razor. She was then dumped in the river at Suzhou Creek. She only just survived.”

Moving up the communal staircase with its smells of cooking, babies and sadness. A queue of tears. Mourners in a slow moving staggered line. Whispered words to a widow and to fatherless children.

“What do I say, Boss, to Di’s widow? What do I fucking talk about?”

A hand on the Big Man’s shoulder. Words in solemn whisper.

“What you do not talk about is a crucifixion, an oxyacetylene torch, or steel spikes.”

Images stacked in Piao’s head, never far from being summoned up. Layer over layer.

“You speak of other truths. What a fine comrade he was. What a good man, fine husband and loving father.”

Closer, the front of the queue to the widow. So close. Able to smell her tears of sweet honey and the most bitter of lemons.

“You speak of other truths.”

*

In aspic, that instance of time that stands on tiptoes still. Day turning off, lights switching on.

Moving through Xietulu where it intersects Jihueilu. Piao, shielding his eyes; a black shadow stripe over a face slowly being gilded.

“If you were going to crucify somebody, how many spikes would you use?”

“Fuck me, Boss, what a question. Di’s widow’s tears are still warm on my face and you ask me something like that.”

“How many?”

A blast on the horn. A shoal of quicksilver Forever Bicycles parting, like a carp’s belly to a sharp knife.

“Two, Boss. I wouldn’t want to waste any time, so I’d double over the hands and use one spike through the two of them. I’d do the same to the feet.”

“The one through the forehead?”

Turning sharply into Fuzingdonglu. Red lights in a smear across the windscreen.

“Unnecessary. Too much stuffing to the dumpling, Boss. If the spike to the forehead was to kill them, it could have been done a lot simpler. What about you, Boss, how many spikes would you use?”

“Two.”

Laughing, the Big Man.

“Practical bastards, the two of us, eh Boss? Children of the hardships following the Cultural Revolution.”

Green flooding the Sedan’s interior.

“So why did they use five, Boss?”

“I do not know. To guess is cheap. To guess wrong is expensive.”

The windscreen wipers stuttering to life. An end in view, an end of sorts. The apartment, home, clenched in shadow, squeezed in premature nightfall. A place where life was lived with the vitality of a coat hanging on a coat hook. Stepping out of the Sedan, fending off the rain’s insistence. Through the open quarter window hurried words.

“Who can guess what it is that is in the heads of such murderers.”

Pulling up his collar.

“They are as the rain, unpredictable.”

Piao’s whisper, at one with the snare beat rhythm of the rain falling on his head, as he walked toward his apartment.

“Five spikes. Five. As the points of the People’s Republic’s star. A message there?”

*

Public Security Bureau, Divisional Headquarters, Hongkou. 9.30 a.m. the next day
.

In the tray holding the in-coming mail, a fastidiously wrapped package, marked for the personal attention of Comrade Chief Officer Zoul. A tick, irregular but persistent, kicking off above Zoul’s left eye. Slowly peeling the layers away, as with a large gold onion. Not daring to rip the paper. Not daring to hurry the process. Last layer, gently slit and slipping aside. The Comrade Chief Officer falling back in his chair. Perspiration beading his forehead. Trembling fingers pulling the small plastic bottle from his tunic pocket. Fumbling the lid off with sweaty, panicked fingers. The pill to his heavily coated tongue; a taste of sugar giving way to an all-consuming bitterness. And all of the time his eyes never leaving the exposed contents of the package.

Slowly, the panic abating. Rising, head swimming, legs uncertain. Pulling open a deep filing-cabinet drawer. So many deep filing-cabinet drawers. So many things hidden in their locked, pressed steel innards. From its depths, removing a report, brief, sketchy, hastily compiled. Across its print, across the name signed at its bottom, Senior Investigator Di … fingerprints of concrete dust.

Moving to the small grey cabinet in the corner of the office. A flick of a switch. Print, signature, all shredding to meaningless tatters. A sigh, but lost in the shredder’s bite.

Moving back to the deep filing cabinet, taking the contents of the package from his desk and placing it within the darkness of the drawer. But stopping before the drawer had fully closed. A last look. The contents of the package, a bright steel spike and a pair of pitted lensed oxy-acetylene goggles. And in the very back corner of the same deep drawer, cement streaked, a cap badge. A People’s Liberation Army cap badge. The cap badge of a very high ranking officer.

*

Dialling the prefix
‘39’
. A long number, routed through its own exchange. A secure highway for
cadre
deals and gossip. Powerful
guan-xi
and powerful threats. Dialling the number, but with each digit hoping that the telephone would not be answered.

Within two rings, her voice, its edge-honed blade softened only by the sound of waves running to shore in the background.

“Madam, it is Zoul.”

Silence.

“Comrade Chief Officer Zoul.”

Silence.

Closing his eyes as he spoke the next words.

“Madam, there have been complications. I have stood by my word to you. Exactly to the letter. I have kept to our, our …”

“Arrangement? Comrade Chief Officer.”

“Exactly, Madam. Exactly …”

Silence.

“I have protected him, sheltered him. I even transferred him to a new department to keep him safe. But, but…”

“But, Comrade Chief Officer Zoul?”

“But, Madam, he is as a river that does not recognise its banks. A river that floods and follows its own path. Sweeping, I might add, all before it.”

Silence.

“Madam, although I transferred him to the Vice Squad, a now redundant department due to the magnificent achievement of our Politburo, Senior Investigator Piao has become involved in a complex and highly sensitive investigation.”

Silence.

“The
tai zi
that he is compelled to investigate are dangerous. Very, very dangerous …”

Silence.

“His blunt methods. And to be candid, Madam, his refusal to, to … how can I put this delicately?”

“What you are attempting to say, but with little success, Comrade Chief Officer, is that he refuses to turn his back on an investigation.”

“A maggot in the rice bowl, Madam. He refuses to bend, as we all must. He refuses to sublimate his individuality for the good of the group.”

Silence. Just an electronic white noise of disembodied voices.

“You could be talking about Mao, Comrade Chief Officer.”

“Really, Madam, I must protest. I really must …”

“You must do what exactly, Zoul? Shred the files and reports for him? Hide the evidence, ignore the witnesses because he will not? Too late, Comrade Chief Officer. Too late. How can you wrap a fire in paper?”

Silence.

“You have failed to protect him, as was our agreement. But never let it be said that I am not understanding. Not magnanimous. You will let me have the details of the case that he is involved in. You will let me have the details of the
tai zis
that he is investigating. By courier. By tonight, Zoul. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Madam. Thank you, Madam. By tonight, without fail. By tonight. Thank you. Thank you …”

Still apologising, as she placed the receiver back onto its cradle. His clammy-handed words, still filling her ears, even as the fine caramel sand fell between her toes. Watching as the child, her child, played on the sand. A dance of innocent joy, kicking over castles made of sand. And knowing that her only words to him as she passed to feel the cool waters from India, Africa, lap against her feet, would be: