Citizen One (9 page)

“Little Comrade, dance on your castles of sand. Little Comrade, I know a big comrade who is just like you.”

Piao, waking exhausted, his head full of memories, of dreams, indistinguishable from each other. Washing and shaving with cold water, the heater broken. Dressing. The flat too small to live in, too big not to. And so much to avoid: photos, possessions, memories.

Static in the centre of the living area. Watching the minute hand’s crawl. Always on time, the Big Man. Always.

To the minute, the Shanghai Sedan’s horn. The spell broken. Feet across paper mosaic of letters. Door closing. Stained steps. The car. The Big Man’s jokes. Through traffic, a short stuttered drive. A tea house on Jinlinglu. Tea and peanuts, pickles,
mantou
and jokes. Always the Big Man’s jokes. He remembered, even at the start of the agonies of detoxification; the process that would bleed
Ankang’s
will from him. A pill, sweetly pink, between the Big Man’s dirty fingertips. Holding it up high, between his eyes. Almost to his mid-forehead. A pharmacological
bindi
. And the words, slow, deliberately so …

“The last one, Boss. The last fucking one.”

Pushing it into Piao’s mouth. His fingers a mix of sweat, chilli and ginger.

“Think of it as your virginity, Boss. Once gone you can’t have it again.”

*

A day of mists. As if a damp, white teacloth had been thrown across the city.

Crossing the Nan Pu bridge and following the river’s ‘S’ bend as far as the Lujiazui, the new financial trade zone. Billions of dollars in marble clad, chrome and neon-striped spills. Where there were once orchards, now glass and concrete in vertical soars. Where there was once paddy fields, now stripped pine-floored Thai restaurants and sparse, cold-windowed designer outlets. Even the pedestrians with a different look. A new look: suits and clean underwear. Rolex gold watches, encircling wrists not turning jade. And on their breath, the smells of the
dahu
, the new money people. Fashionable smells only: lemon grass and tequila, sushi and Jack Daniel’s. Where once it had been China Brands and Tsingtao, street vendor noodles and yesterday’s tea.

A spike above Century Park, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. The third highest in the world: 468 metres of eleven spheres and columns of steel holding them in place. Locals saying that it looked like ‘two dragons playing with a pearl’. The tourist board saying that it resembled ‘a string of pearls falling onto an emerald plate.’ The Senior Investigator less poetic. Every time that he saw the tower, which was every day, thinking that it looked like a great ballpoint pen conceived and designed in the head of a dyslexic.

A sightseeing floor was situated in the upper sphere. On a sunny day you could see as far as Sheshan, Chongming Island. On a sunny day you could see forever. It was not a sunny day. A damp flannel of mist in the air. Views only of the Huangpu River, the Bund and Long Dong Avenue.

Also in the upper sphere, a revolving restaurant, a disco hall, a piano bar, and tourists smelling of ‘2 in 1’ shampoo and traveller’s cheques, drinking American beer, German beer, every beer except Chinese.

Under a crimson spotlight, a pianist in formal dress suit, smiling with cerise teeth. Overreaching himself musically, vocally. Stumbling into a race between hands and lips. ‘
New York, New York
’, sung in Shanghainese Sinatra.

“Boss, outside. Next to the telescope.”

A middle-aged man. Someone who had, from birth, always looked a pale imitation of himself.

The door swinging, closing in a huff of squeezed air. A chill from the mist. A taint of traffic noise. A tinge of sulphurous high notes from the Yellow Dragon’s breath. From 263 metres above the city looking like a place that you might want to live in.

“Boss, this is Comrade Nie.”

The scientist pulled up his collar, his eyes like two bees trapped in a jar.

“This is my boss, Senior Investigator Sun Piao.”

“Thank you for your help in this matter …”

Piao holding out a hand. The scientist ignoring it.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Choice is a luxury for those who have silk underwear and are free of holes in their shoes.”

“
Wangba dan
.”

A curse from the soul.

“The third time, Investigator. The third time this year that I have had to leave my home and my job and go into hiding.”

Shaking his head.

“Since Di gave me this job I have done nothing but look over my shoulder. I stayed away from my place of work except to do what he asked. I even stayed at my aunt’s home. That is where your, your ape found me.”

Another curse from twisted lips.

“It is not fair. Not fair.”

A panda arm from Yaobang, across the scientist’s scrawny shoulders.

“What is fair, Nie, except for a
yeh-ji’s
perfumed breasts, eh?”

Of sorts, the scientist smiling. As fleeting as a politician’s honesty.

“Now, my clever friend. What have you got for us? We are here to be amazed.”

Nie, his voice small, like watered down beer.

“It will cost you …”

Nervously looking around.

“Two more bottles.”

“Two more bottles! What do you think we are, a fucking Friendship Store?”

Tutting, the Big Man. Shaking his head.

“What do you think, Boss?”

“The two bottles of Teacher’s that we agreed. Two more if what you have will lift a little mist from this investigation.”

Licking his lips, the scientist. An indecisive cat. Yaobang gently shaking the plastic bag in his hand. Bottles of liquid gold jingling together in 40% proof music.

“Tighter than an oyster’s shell you PSB. OK. OK.”

Deep pockets to his trench coat.

“What I have will do more than lift a little mist.”

A VHS video tape and a large manila envelope from his pocket. Tapping the black casing of the tape.

“A death sentence here, Senior Investigator. It was retrieved from a CCTV system …”

Looking over his shoulder, eyes darting.

“… overlooking the site of the new Olympic stadium. Detective Di got a phone tip-off.”

Ripping open the envelope. Between nail-bitten fingers, deeply glossy monochrome prints.

“I pulled some stills off. Poor quality though, very poor. I had to enhance some sections, holding back others. Not that I expect PSB like you to appreciate such skills.”

Print following print. Watching in silence, the grim sequence of a girl’s abuse and death. In silence, till the one but last print.

Spitting to the floor, the Big Man.

“They’ve got fucking uniforms on, Boss. Who are these bastards?”

“The photographs are too indistinct to see any detail, and everyone in our People’s Republic wears a uniform. If you clip a train ticket, you wear a uniform. If you execute a sentenced prisoner by shooting them in the head, you wear a uniform. If you pick up dog shit in the park …”

“I know, Boss, I know. I wear a uniform, you wear a fucking uniform. But no train ticket-clippers these bastards, Boss.”

The last print. Darker. Greyer. Its reticulation, reminiscent of a storm’s fat-bellied clouds.

“And this?”

“The one pointing, ordering. Looks like their boss. Thought you’d like a close-up. But poor quality though.”

Yaobang taking the photograph.

“Ugly comrade, eh Boss? Imagine having a face like that?”

Acne, its puckered, seersucker ravage … not a centimetre of his face that was not filled with night’s darkness.

“Well done, Comrade Scientist, you have done well. But the other three, I wish to see their faces also. You can do this?”

“Sure. Sure. I will get some prints for you, but they will be …”

“Yes, I know, poor quality.”

“Very poor quality, Senior Investigator. And …”

Hesitating, weighing up the price, the cost, every citizen going through such a process.

“It will cost another two bottles.”

“One.”

“One?”

Unflinching, Piao, his eyes as fixed as stone.

“One.”

“You PSB, tighter than an oyster shell, actually more like a duck’s arse under water.”

The Senior Investigator’s gaze drifting across the Nanshi district, the Bund, the Huangpu River … the fog lifting as a virginal bride’s veil. Sluggish boats on sluggish water.

Prints, tape, eclipsed in manila. Deep pockets to his trench coat. Nie pulling out a second envelope. More prints. Colour, but dusted in delineations of grey.

Hands across mouth, the Big Man. His knuckles white, like unripe walnuts.

“What are we looking at? What are we fucking looking at here?”

But knowing, not needing an answer as print following print.

“Detective Di took them himself. Only he, his Deputy and I, knew about the images, the bodies. There were two separate foundations that he found them in.”

“The girl that they fucking chased, Boss?”

In concrete’s aspic, clasped hand, cherry-red nails, cut of chin, frozen sweep of hair.

“This is the other foundation that they dug up.”

Each side of the concrete block photographed, each topography of horror recorded. The Senior Investigator, a small magnifying glass from an inside pocket.

“How many, Boss? How fucking many?”

“Many.”

Placing the magnifying glass back into his pocket. Giving himself time to compose himself.

“There are many.”

Nie, pacing, his collar pulled up once more, his eyes darting.

“What a mess. What a terrible mess. I will be murdered over this, and for what? Four bottles of whisky.
Wangba dan
, four bottles.”

“Two,” replied Piao, walking to the balustrade.

“What else do you have, Comrade Scientist? And perhaps four bottles of whisky will indeed await you.”

Deep pockets; as the scientist retrieved the folded papers, already preparing the frame that they would be displayed in.

“I think Di knew. I’m sure he knew that it would end this way. He asked me to keep this.”

A photocopy of a report, barely a page and a half. Di’s signature at its bottom. Little detail. No facts. Hurriedly put together. As if it were not a report at all, but simply and importantly, a marker. A last hand extended out of water, saying, ‘I’m drowning’.

Piao speaking first.

“This is the only copy?”

“No. He said that the original was with a Comrade Chief Officer.”

Reaching for a name, the scientist. The Big Man putting him out of his misery.

“Zoul, fucking Zoul.”

“Yes, that is it. Comrade Chief Officer Zoul.”

The Big Man’s fist thudding down on the steel balustrade.

“Shit, you asked the Chief if Di had given him anything?”

“Yes, I asked him. He said that Di had given him nothing.”

Shaking his head.

“Internal politics, Comrade Scientist.”

The Senior Investigator’s arm around Nie’s shoulder.

“Where would our People’s Republic be without internal politics?”

Smiling, Piao, but unconvincingly, tapping the report with his knuckle. On the top left-hand corner, faint, but legible, a line of numbers written in pencil. A line of numbers, that he had seen before.

473309169972

“These numbers, are they yours or Senior Investigator Di’s?”

“No, not mine, Di’s.”

“Did he refer to them? Did he tell you what they were?”

“No. Why, are they important?”

Smiling again, the Senior Investigator. This time, passably convincing. Yaobang, moving forward, a question with his eyebrows.

“The number, the same number, it is on the front of Di’s file that Comrade Chief Officer Zoul sent me. The three girls found dead in the Wusongjiang. The fourth in the Number 1 Hospital …”

“So, this ‘door’, it’s now a corridor. Yes, Boss?”

A nod, Piao turning back to the scientist.

“Now tell me, do you have anything else up your sleeve? I can hear your whisky calling to you.”

Deeper pockets. Nie pulling out a sealed plastic bag. A polythene imprisoned cigarette butt.

“The concrete blocks were placed by cranes onto heavy duty low-loaders, covered over and taken away. Detective Di didn’t know where. The operation was directed by a
cadre
and his own men. Di didn’t know him, but told me that he had a scarred face. The
cadre
discarded this unusual cigarette, French, Disque Bleu.”

Piao, taking the polythene bag from Nie’s hand. With its touch, a sudden memory of a memory from childhood. A water-filled plastic bag, knotted at its top, but slowly leaking. Swimming around within it a golden, goldfish. Swimming around and around. Slowly, the water in a chilled leak across a thin wrist.

“A high ranking
cadre
. Very high ranking.”

“How do you know, Boss? It’s just a fucking cigarette.”

Sweet tobacco. Sweet perfume.

“Expensive cigarettes like this would only be available from the ‘Peking City Food Supply Place’. You would need a ‘special purchase card’ to gain entrance to the store. Only Communist Party Central Committee members, heads of the eleven military regions, and favoured Party veterans would gain admittance.”

Their gaze meeting, seeing the crows of worry take off in the horizon of each other’s eyes. Yaobang shaking his head.

Another plastic bag pulled from the bottomless trench coat pocket of the scientist. Instantly, Piao recognising his own writing upon it. The cigarette butt found in the warehouse, just metres from Detective Di and his Deputy’s tortured remains.

“There is a new DNA test, Short Tandem Repeats. We stole it from the Americans.”

“We steal everything from the fucking Americans. So what?”

The scientist scowling.

“This is not hamburgers, or trainers. This is not Mickey Mouse. It is a highly sensitive test. From a single human cell enough DNA can be duplicated to ‘fingerprint’ the owner of that cell and link them to a crime, or crime scene.”

The salve of scientific lingo soothing him.

“Criminals deposit saliva on glasses, telephones, victims. Under the Short Tandem Repeats profiling system, DNA is measured only at thirteen specific sites, where chemicals are repeated in a kind of stutter. A unique DNA fingerprint can be created from counting these repeats. Except for identical twins, these numbers are highly variable from one person to the other. It can pinpoint an individual with a probability of one in several billion. A cigarette butt found by Detective Di where the bodies in concrete were discovered and the cigarette butt found by you, Senior Investigator, beside the dead body of Detective Di. They are identical. They bear the same DNA.”