Enigma of China(5)

Chen must have passed by this corner numerous times, but he’d never paid any real attention to it, despite its recent rediscovery in the collective nostalgia that gripped the city.

Two uniformed security men guarded the entrance, standing alongside a pair of crouching stone lions.

He walked in and through to building B, located at the back. This was the new building made in fastidious imitation of the original, a three-story red brick villa with arched attic windows. Another uniformed security man sitting at a desk asked Chen to show his ID. The guard looked up at Chen, at the ID picture, then recorded the ID number in a register and made a phone call to someone inside before letting him pass.

The atmosphere of a fairy castle seemed to be completely lacking.

“Room 302,” the security man said. “They’re waiting for you.”

Chen went up to the third floor, which consisted of only six attic rooms, each sporting an art deco window in the original style. He stopped in front of room 302 and knocked on the door. Detective Wei opened the door for him, holding a mobile phone in his hand. There were two others, neither of them from the police department.

Chen hadn’t worked with Detective Wei before, though they had known each other for a long time. A hard-working cop, practical and experienced, Wei hadn’t had an easy time in his career, and on occasion Wei apparently spoke less than highly of Chen’s work.

“This is Comrade Jiang Ke, of the Shanghai city government,” Wei said, introducing a wiry man in his late forties or early fifties with a disproportionately wide forehead. “And this is Comrade Liu Dehua, of the Party Discipline Committee.”

Chen shook hands with both of them. Jiang was the deputy director of the city government, known as a shrewd, scheming man and one of the most powerful confidants of Qiangyu, the first Party secretary of Shanghai. Liu was an elderly-looking man, short, feeble, bald, and with a slight suggestion of a limp. He seemed to be more self-effacing by contrast, possibly because he’d already reached retirement age.

Behind them was the body of Zhou, which had been taken down from a noose dangling from an exposed ceiling beam. His face looked distorted, his mouth twisted as if in a sinister final question never to be answered, one eye still slightly open. Judging from the rigor mortis in Zhou’s body, Chen guessed the time of death was late last night.

It was ironic, Chen observed, that in a city in which it was extremely difficult to find an exposed beam from which to hang oneself, Zhou happened to be detained in one of the few rooms with original beams “preserved” in the old style.

It’s not you that chose the beam, / but the beam chose you. A couple of lines came echoing out of nowhere, but Chen failed to recall the author.

What thoughts would have come across Zhou’s mind at the sight of the rope dangling in the last minutes of his life? It wasn’t hard to understand the rationale behind his suicide. A Party cadre, at the peak of his successful career, tripped up because of a pack of cigarettes, had fallen headlong into an infinite abyss, from which he saw no hope for a comeback.

“I’m glad you’re here, Chief Inspector Chen,” Jiang said cordially.

Chen had met Jiang a couple of times at city government meetings but had never been formally introduced. Liu smiled beside him, nodding without saying anything. Chen had a feeling that Jiang was the one that dominated here.

“Both Liu and I have talked to the hotel night-shift staff,” Jiang said. “Nothing suspicious or unusual was seen or heard the previous night.”

“In such a well-guarded hotel,” Wei commented, “people might have slept too soundly to notice.”

Before there was any further discussion, the crime scene technicians arrived. Chen nodded to one of them he knew. The scene itself was compromised. Jiang and Liu had been there for hours, moving about, touching here and there, examining this or that. In spite of their expertise in shuanggui interrogation, they weren’t cops. A considerable number of hotel people had been in the room too, helping to take Zhou’s body down and move it to the floor.

Jiang led Chen and the others into another room—room 303—next to Zhou’s on the same floor. It was an impressive suite, which turned out to be Jiang’s.

When they were all assembled, Jiang started up with an air of authority. “Since each of us arrived at the scene at different times and from different angles, Detective Wei, you might as well sum everything up for the benefit of Chief Inspector Chen.”

Wei started accordingly.

“Zhou checked into the hotel at the beginning of shuanggui, about a week ago. Since then, he never stepped outside. Shuanggui consisted of a strict routine. He got up around seven, with breakfast delivered to his room at eight, then he talked to Jiang or Liu about his problems or wrote self-criticisms in his room. Lunch and dinner were delivered to him the same way. He seldom talked to the hotel people, he never made any outside phone calls, and he wasn’t allowed visitors.