Citizen One (6 page)

A realisation that he would have to do it the hard way. Moving through each room, last of all, the bedroom. The only way to reclaim this territory. The only way to reclaim a life that had been hung on a meat hook for so long.

Focusing on nothing else but that which he needed to discover. What he was looking for would be state of the art; immune to electronic detection, crystal controlled, mains fed. Permanently on, day and night.

Concentrating on the living area. Everything new. Each article bought by
yuan
from other pockets. Nothing his. Only the view from the window and the rain’s hammer on the cracked paving stone. Checking every electrical point, under the carpet, light switches, behind shelving, in the upholstery of chairs. A UHF transmitter behind a main’s cover, another in a lighting rose, one in the far corner of the hall under the carpet. Right now someone would be listening, their ears clamped between bakelite earphones, sweat, whispered words. Or to be trapped on tape running across the polished heads of a bank of reel to reel tape recorders, to be listened to and transcribed at a later date. His words, his life, held on gamma ferric oxide and numbered in highlighter pen.

Piao, at the top of his voice, as loud as he could, shouting into each transmitter in turn.

“Fuck off home and check your own rooms for wire taps.”

Before pulling them out, wire intestines clutched in his fist.

Not able to avoid it any longer, the bedroom. Curtains still roughly pulled across. A slight gap falling between them. Light, as pale as her skin. Checking the bedroom for UHF transmitters. Nothing. In a drawer, a large brown envelope. Throwing the bugs into it. Quickly sealing the envelope, as if afraid of them crawling back out, to re-embed themselves in hidden places, private little places. Scrawling the address in large characters across its front. An address that he knew well, the main administrative offices of the Party Central Committee. Propping the envelope on the shelf, beside it, photographs of her. The curve of her cold cheek, the slant of her dark eyes, the knife-edge taper of her eyebrow. Knowing the date, the occasion on which each was taken. Someone must have picked them up, stood them up. A gift of comfort to him. One by one, Piao taking them, placing them once more, face down. A death in the family. A hole in the heart.

Pulling the bedding to his chest, across the carpet to the living room. His head aching with the weight of memories. Still, as if tattooed to his vision, the Red Flag’s glide through bitter winter. Through its rear window, her face, gaze, turning. And then his arm, the arm of the septuagenarian
tong zhi
, around her. Her face, her gaze, turned aside. A smile, at him, then a kiss to his cold lips.

Piao releasing the strung bamboo blinds. Too exhausted to undress. Lying on the floor, the sheets around him as a shroud.

*

He woke to a hunger that he could not label. Washing and shaving in cold water to cold thoughts. The ivory handled cut-throat in adrenalin jumped stutter across his face. Blood, as warm as a lover’s kiss, from a wound that would not be staunched. A quarter of a page of the People’s Daily in limp torn strands across the cut, and still it bled, against his will, reminding him of his loss.

The Big Man was already outside, a clutch of peanuts, a lit China Brand, and across his clothes, ash and peanut shell.

“You all right, Boss? Looks like you lost the war.”

Piao’s hand to his cheek. Pulling the slivers of People’s Daily from the wet wound. A sodden section of an article on another set of tractor production figures, not only realised, but surpassed. Letting the paper fall to the gutter.

“Yes. Never better.”

Late by the time that they reached the
fen-chu
. A breakfast of noodles and stingingly hot pickles, then the sheepshank knots of traffic to negotiate. And then the bulky sealed letter of wire taps to be wedged through the letter box of the administrative offices of the Party Central Committee. Late, but Detective Yun waiting for them on the front steps. Pulling at the Senior Investigator’s cuff like a playful puppy.

“Come, come.”

All the way to the basement pulling at his cuff. A line of other officers following.

“Welcome back, Senior Investigator Sun Piao. Welcome back.”

His fingers to the light switch. An instant wink of illumination.

“We worked most of the night to clear it up. Ow-Yang got the telephones and computer re-connected.”

A round of spontaneous applause. Handshakes and pats on backs. The Big Man whistling, low, long. Every surface of the basement office had been cleaned and polished. Files stowed. Messages, mail, sorted and prioritised. On a corner cabinet, a shiny new kettle. Teas. Cups.

Piao, walked into the space, his fingers trailing the desk top, the files, the telephone.

“What do you think, Senior Investigator?”

Moving to the back wall, to a bank of filing cabinets. Bracing himself against them, back to the door and to his colleagues, his head bowed.

“Senior Investigator?”

“Senior Investigator Sun Piao wishes to thank you from the bottom of his fucking heart.”

Yaobang moving to the centre of the space.

“He is lost for words and is happy. In fact, very fucking happy.”

Arms outstretched.

“We both thank you, but would ask that you now allow us to resume our investigative work. Thank you.”

More applause. Colleagues turning, moving away.

“And the Senior Investigator thanks you for being such good colleagues. He is proud to call you his comrades. Thank you.”

Yun the last to leave. A nod, a smile, with teeth too white to be real. Only when the sound of footsteps had died did Yaobang approach the Senior Investigator, his arm moving to his shoulder.

“Thank you.”

Words hard to dig out.

“It’s all right, Boss.”

Patting the Senior Investigator on the back.

“As Confucius says, ‘to have fucking friends from afar is a fucking happiness, is it not?’ ”

In a basement where no telephone had rung for ten months, a telephone ringing.

“Sun Piao. Yun. You have to get down here. Now.”

In the background of the call, the sound of distant sirens, feet running on wood, voices shouting. Detective Yun, emotional.

“Something terrible has occurred. We need your assistance.”

Yun shouting, hand over mouthpiece.

“I’m talking to him now. You, don’t touch anything. For the ancestors’ sakes, don’t touch anything.”

Feet running. Loud voices.

“A warehouse on Pudong side. Riverside, 300 metres south of the Nanpu Bridge. Shanghai Yu Yuan Import Export warehouse. Hurry, please hurry.”

*

45 minutes
…

Flash of blue, red, white light across cobble stones, weathered brick and gaunt faces. Incident tape flapping to the keen breeze’s roll. Documents of authority held against the inside of the windscreen. Waved through.

Yun was waiting by the dented double doors of the empty warehouse. His face a mask of anxiety.

“Thank you, Sun Piao.”

“I am not Homicide anymore.”

The words seeming alien the very instant that they had left Piao’s mouth. Out of mesh with his existence. Detective Yun pushing open the heavy doors. An instant reek of the abattoir, of life passed over and now discarded, of blood spilt with a callous generosity.

“On this side of the door you may not be Homicide, Sun Piao, but on that side of the door you will be Homicide once more.”

Yun, a serious man, never looking more serious.

“The discovery was made just over an hour ago, Sun Piao. A vagrant looking for a safe night’s sleep.”

His finger pointing at a ragged man in a crowd of olive-pressed uniforms. Out of place, a mushroom in a rose garden. Piao looking for the little things. Single elements in a multitude of possibilities. The things that snag. Studying the vagrant. Enough to know his secret, his important lie.

Moving through the doorway, into the darkness and through the massive warehouse space, feeling its cathedral presence. The only light, a small defined pool of white arc at the very end of the ocean of sable.

“Only the vagrant, two officers and myself have witnessed this.”

Footsteps over wood. At their feet two bodies that life no longer possessed. Splayed, spread-eagled, pinned by steel spikes to the wooden floor.

“I have kept the scene clean, waiting for your arrival. I knew that you would want to be involved.”

“Want to be involved”. Strange words to choose for such as this.

As this … naked forms, pivoting on driven steel fulcrums, as if their lives had always turned upon those brightly lit points.

The Big Man running back to the darkness. Back to the sanctuary of cold broken wall. Bile, in a golden rivulet, choking his words. Bracing himself against the whitewash and brick powder.

Piao moved forward.

“He was a close friend. I have laughed with his wife and bounced his children on my knee.”

Nausea in butterfly flutters deep in his throat. Fighting against its winged crawling will. Fighting, banishing feelings, emotions. His shadow across the crucified remains of Detective Di and his Deputy. Counting five spikes. Five. One to each hand and foot. One to centre of the forehead. Five spikes, the same as there are points to the star of the People’s Republic.

From his pocket the Senior Investigator pulling on his gloves. A smell of latex and talcum powder. For an instant death’s odours elbowed aside.

“Take some notes for me.”

Yun’s hands shaking. An eye cast over his shoulder and into darkness, to the sound of repeated vomiting.

“Do not worry about the Big Man. He is always like that. He was not born in the city, he is a country boy used only to things that are green and things which sprout from the earth.”

The Senior Investigator guiding the Detective’s wavering pencil to the pad.

“He is not yet used to that which will be committed back to the earth, and from which green things will sprout. Now write. Please write.”

Pencil poised.

“They were meant to be found here.”

“How can you say this, Sun Piao? The warehouse has been empty for over two years now.”

Piao’s latex fingers testing each spike in turn.

“There is a sign at the side of the building. Fresh paint. The warehouse has been let. They were bound to be discovered. They were meant to be found. Look at what we have here, it is both practical and theatrical. Their death is a warning. But it only acts as a warning if they are found. The warning has now been served.”

Fingers following the spike down to its bloody root.

“The spikes to the foreheads were the final abuse.”

“How … how can you tell, Sun Piao?”

“The flow of blood. See how the spikes pierce already dried blood from other wounds. The spikes to the foreheads were designed to kill them. These other wounds …”

His hand in soft gesture down each tortured body.

“These occurred some time before. These other wounds were to extract information. Look at the placing of them. The sensitive areas of a man. The areas that would elicit pain and words.”

“These scorches, Boss, what caused them?”

Taking the torch from Yun’s top pocket. Away from the arc light’s onslaught, backtracking, halfway to the door spilling yellow light and inquisitive faces. The warehouse little used. Dust of weeks, months, years, but through it, two sets of stuttered trails.

“Di, his Deputy, they were unconscious. Dragged to where they are now. Dead weights.”

Indicating the trail with the torch’s steady beam. Footprints. Quite clear.

“There were four of them. One either side of each victim.”

Already the label ‘victim’. Fellow comrades in arms. Officers that I have shared drinks with, investigations with. Officers whose arses warmed toilet seats at the
fen-chu
, just minutes before it was my turn to sit and read the graffiti.

Another, a fifth track slightly to the right … following. Shoes, not boots as the others. Shoes, soft-leathered, expensive. The Big Man observing.

“
Cadre
, Boss. Giving the orders.”

Kneeling, Piao, as if in prayer, the torch held at an obtuse angle.

“Wheels. They were wheeling something.”

Walking back to the blind of arc light avoiding the fragile trail of evidence. His eyes upon the wounds.

“A branding iron, Boss?”

“No. They used an oxy-acetylene torch. They wheeled the cylinders and torch in on a trolley between them. Everything planned like a military operation.”

The Senior Investigator pacing the circle of arc light, his eyes focused on the dead eyes.

This is where they had stood as they lit the oxy-acetylene torch. As the questions were framed and asked. As fierce blue flame bit yellow and black.

Moving out of arc light, just. Stooping with the torch beam picking out a detail. Between the wooden boards, a small object. Carefully with his back turned, so that Yun would not see him, Piao pulling a set of tweezers from an inside pocket. From another pocket a clear, sealable plastic bag. Between fine steel blades, held to eyes and nose, a cigarette butt. Different. Perfumed, rich tobacco. Expensive and foreign. A cigarette from a
cadre’s
mouth. Dropping it into the bag and sealing it.

“Who hated Detective Di this much, to go to this trouble?”

Yun shaking his head.

“Did he have any known enemies?”

“No, not like you, Senior Investigator.”

A smile. No, not like me.

“What was he working on?”

Shaking his head again, Yun.

“I wouldn’t know, Piao. Homicides. You know, normal homicides.”

“Lately. Anything unusual? Anything at all?”

“No, no. Nothing at …”

“Speak, Detective. Speak, even of shadows.”

“Days ago Di got a call to a suspected homicide and left immediately with his Deputy. Something sensitive over at the site for the new stadium. Something that only he and his Deputy saw with all others kept away. Could have been anything.”

Loosening his tie.

“I didn’t see them until the next morning. Wouldn’t even talk about it. Wouldn’t talk about anything, and you know what he was like, an opinion about everything and a comrade that always had a joke to tell. This time nothing.”