A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel (26 page)

O
N A CHILLY November night, the Lucky Holiday Hotel looks like a desolate castle perched alone on top of the forested South Mountain, deemed as Chongqing’s crown jewel. Most travelers choose to stay, or dine, elsewhere—at the convenient and bustling downtown
establishments—despite the Lucky Holiday Hotel’s attractively-discounted room rates and the enticing Mongolian barbecued lamb at its restaurant, which boasts a full view of the city’s spectacular lights.

At first glance, the hotel is deceptively dingy and small. The main building, with its fading yellow exterior, brings to mind a roadside motel in the US, where budget-conscious tourists can pay US $50 for a sparsely-furnished room. But out of sight is the hotel’s main attraction—ten European-style villas with rooftop balconies are clustered discreetly in the wooded areas around the main building. Along a narrow, winding path leading to the villas, menorah-shaped street lamps cast a faint glow on the polished brick surface, elongating the flickering human shadows. The luxury suites feature queen-size beds and European or Chinese-style faux antique furniture. They pander to wealthy entrepreneurs and senior officials with big expense accounts who want a quiet getaway or privacy for a secret liaison.

It was inside one such villa, at the end of the pathway, that the hotel staff found the body of Neil Heywood. Gu Kailai later confessed to the court that she had put Heywood up in Room 1605 and then poisoned him on the chilly night of November 13 because Heywood was blackmailing her family and had threatened to kill her son.

The “threat” arose from a land development deal in Chongqing. According to Gu Kailai’s confession, she introduced Heywood to Xu Ming and another princeling, a man who managed a state-owned enterprise. Xu and the princeling were planning a big construction project in Chongqing’s Jiangbei District. Upon completion of the project, Heywood was promised
140 million in commission. Unfortunately, the deal fell through for political reasons. A source in Beijing claimed Bo Xilai had personally killed the projects for fear that they could turn into a scandal and jeopardize his political future. According to a British documentary, which offered a different version of the deal, Gu Kailai introduced Heywood to Xu Ming, who had purchased a plot of land in Chongqing and planned to build English-style luxury townhouses. Heywood was hired in 2005 to lure wealthy British investors for the project. In 2008, Heywood was sacked because he had not been able to get a single investor involved.

Having put so much time and effort into the deal, Heywood was upset about the outcome. Subsequent court documents showed that Heywood, in 2008, demanded one-tenth of what he had earlier been promised as commission via e-mail exchanges with Bo Xilai’s son, twenty-five-year-old Bo Guagua—who appeared to be in control of the family assets overseas. Heywood also cited the help he had given to Bo Guagua in the past to justify his demand. Bo Guagua refused to pay but agreed to meet Heywood for further discussions. Bo Guagua had arranged a meeting between Heywood and Gu Kailai in Beijing during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The two sides reconciled and Heywood apologized for his inappropriate request.

In July 2011, Neil Heywood went back to the UK and was pressed for money. Out of desperation, he met Bo Guagua, who was staying at the Bo family apartment in London, and brought up the compensation issue again. When Bo Guagua rejected his request, Gu Kailai said their conversation turned ugly. Heywood held Bo Guagua against his will inside the apartment for several hours. When Gu Kailai learned about the incident, she reportedly called Heywood a lunatic and looked to Wang Lijun for help. Noting that Heywood’s alleged threats against her son happened in the UK, Wang could not come up with a plausible solution. In August 2011, while both Heywood and Bo Guagua were in Beijing, they had a drink together but failed to resolve the compensation issue.

Based on an investigative report in the Guangzhou-based
Nandu Weekly
, Heywood contacted Bo Guagua again via e-mail in early November, saying that “if you don’t keep your promise, you’ll have to face the consequences. I haven’t given up on you yet.” In his reply, Bo Guagua said he would take legal action if Heywood continued to threaten him. Heywood backed down. “If it is not the time to resolve it now, let’s wait for another time then,” replied Heywood. Guo Weiguo, the former deputy police chief in Chongqing, had examined all the e-mail exchanges between Heywood and Bo Guagua and told the court that he did not detect in them anything that could be construed as serious threats on Bo Guagua’s life.

However, Gu Kailai told a different story. She said in her confession that Heywood had written to her son “I will destroy you” in early
November. She also said that in July 2011, prior to the threatening e-mail, Bo Guagua had telephoned Gu Kailai to tell her he had been “kidnapped”—that Heywood detained him for several hours at the Bo’s London apartment. Upon hearing the news, Gu said in her testimony that she became worried and severely distressed. “To me, that was more than a threat. It was real action that was taking place. I must fight to my death to stop the craziness of Neil Heywood.”

Several of Heywood’s friends disputed Gu’s claim. “I find the idea of Neil threatening the safety of Bo Guagua to be extraordinary,” one person close to Heywood’s family told the
Wall Street Journal
. “He was a good and loyal friend to Guagua over the years, and was a mentor to him while he was studying in Britain. Whatever difference on business matters there might have been, he remained throughout as a kind uncle figure.”

Meanwhile, a source familiar with the Bo Xilai investigation at the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said Heywood told his friends that he had kept records of all the transactions he had completed for the Bo family. He said Gu Kailai moved millions of dollars to overseas banks via Heywood and he would not hesitate to show them to the international media. Such a disclosure could damage Bo Xilai’s political career as he maneuvered for a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee. In the words of a Chinese analyst, “Heywood knows too much about the Bo family, and too much knowledge could be a dangerous thing.”

After Heywood sent an e-mail to Bo Guagua in early November, Gu admitted in court that she wanted to get rid of the Briton. Meanwhile, she was unhappy with the police chief’s reluctance to help and complained to Xu Ming, who traveled to Chongqing and visited Wang Lijun on November 11, urging Wang to do something about Heywood. When Wang Lijun failed to come up with a feasible solution, Xu suggested that the police frame Heywood with charges of taking and selling drugs—China has some of the toughest laws against drug traffickers and sixteen foreigners have been executed for drug trafficking since 1997. Wang embraced the idea and instructed Xu Ming to send an anonymous message to the Chongqing Public Security Bureau,
“alerting” police that Heywood was the ringleader of a large drug trafficking network in Sichuan and its neighboring provinces.

After Xu left, Wang Lijun contacted Gu Kailai, advising her to lure Heywood from Beijing to Chongqing. “It’s not easy to arrest him in the capital city,” the prosecutor quoted Wang as saying. “You should get him to Chongqing, and I can ambush him.” Over the course of discussions, Wang proposed killing Heywood in a shootout and planting drugs on him, but he quickly abandoned the idea for fear that a shooting could cause a diplomatic nightmare and stain Chongqing’s reputation. Gu eventually settled on a plot to poison Heywood first and with Wang’s help, make Heywood’s death look like it was from a drug overdose or natural causes.

Because highly toxic materials are under strict government control in China, court documents showed that Gu obtained a type of rat poison, called “Drop Dead After Three Steps,” from an organized-crime syndicate in the name of “conducting a scientific experiment.” The rat poison provided to Gu was supposed to contain cyanide. However, a police officer in Chongqing told an overseas Chinese media outlet that Xia Zeliang, a district party chief in Chongqing who was angling for the Chongqing deputy mayor’s position, had allegedly obtained the poison for Gu.

Nandu Weekly
reported that Xu texted the drug allegations against Heywood to the Chongqing Public Security Bureau via his mobile phone on the morning of November 12. That afternoon, Wang Lijun came to Bo’s house. 3 and helped Gu Kailai unwrap the rat poison sealed inside a lump of red wax. During the process, she accidentally hurt her hands and Wang went around the house to get medicine for them. Gu’s helpers witnessed Wang’s presence.

Gu enlisted a former military man, Zhang Xiaojun, to invite Heywood to Chongqing. Zhang served as the bodyguard and personal assistant to Gu’s father and was employed by the Bo family following General Gu’s death in 2004.

“On November 12, 2011, Gu Kailai asked me to contact Neil Heywood, saying that she wanted to see him and I shall pick him up and bring him to Chongqing,” Zhang, who was put on trial along with
Gu Kailai, told the court. “She instructed me repeatedly that I should accompany Heywood to Chongqing. Heywood replied that he also wished to see her, but had to check his schedule. Within half an hour, Heywood called me back, telling me he would be available the next day and asking me to book a flight for him.”

On November 13, Heywood flew first class on China Southern Airlines, Flight 8129, which departed Beijing at 11:35
A.M.
After he landed and left the airport, Wang Lijun notified Gu Kailai that Heywood was under police surveillance and everything would be under his control now. Heywood’s hotel registration form showed that he checked into Room 1605 in the secluded villas of the Lucky Holiday Hotel, which was operated by the Chongqing government. The hotel was almost empty in November and provided a discreet venue. Besides, Gu Kailai had hosted guests there before and was familiar with the hotel management. In case anything went wrong, her friends at the hotel could help cover up.

On that evening, Gu offered to meet Heywood in his room and discuss future business plans. On her way to the hotel, she instructed her driver to buy a bottle of Royal Salute whiskey. At nine o’clock, Gu and Heywood sat down for a drink inside the split-level villa. She had prepared two bottles: a glass bottle of poison and a medicine bottle of capsulated crystal methamphetamine and herbal ecstasy pills. Gu later bragged to Xu Ming that she wore a nylon top and a pair of baggy pants with multiple pockets, where she stuffed her tea bags, poison bottles, and a small soy sauce container. Gu asked her family assistant, Zhang, and the driver to wait in the spacious living room on the first floor while she entertained Heywood in the upstairs bedroom.

Heywood ended up having half a 350-milliliter bottle of 80-proof (40 percent alcohol) whiskey. Due to his low tolerance for alcohol, Heywood became intoxicated quickly. According to Gu’s confession, after Heywood ran to the bathroom to vomit (a large amount of vomit was also found near the toilet bowl), Gu brought out the tea bags and the poison bottle from her pockets to get herself ready. She then called Zhang into Heywood’s room and the two of them dragged Heywood to the bed. When Heywood gasped for air and asked for water, Gu Kailai poured the poison into the small soy sauce container filled with tea and
dripped the toxic mixture into Heywood’s mouth. Gu and her family assistant then pinned him down until they discovered Heywood’s pulse had stopped. (Gu admitted they were not sure if he was dead.) Before she walked out, Gu scattered some capsuled drugs on the hotel floor, making it easier for the Chongqing police to claim that Heywood died of an overdose of drugs if the heart attack scenario did not pan out. Before stepping out of the room, Gu switched on the “Do not disturb” indicator on the door and told hotel staff Heywood was drunk and needed to sleep it off. At 11:38
P.M.
, Gu Kailai, her family assistant, and the driver left the scene.

At noon on November 14, Wang went to Gu’s residence and asked about the killing. “When I met Wang Lijun that day, I told him in detail about how I met and poisoned Neil on the night of November 13,” Gu said in her testimony. “Wang Lijun advised me not to be bothered by the case, which would have nothing to do with me in the future. He also told me to erase my memories about the case. I said I was a bit worried; he told me it would be fine within a week or two.” What Gu didn’t know was that Wang had secretly recorded her conversation with him. Wang defended his decision to tape the conversation by claiming that he feared being set up in the future. Later, he also used that tape to blackmail Gu’s husband, Bo Xilai. After he was detained in February 2012, Wang Lijun turned the tape over to investigators in Beijing.

On the morning of November 15, hotel staff discovered Heywood’s body and contacted Wang, who assigned the Chongqing police to inspect the crime scene. According to court documents, police took a blood sample from an area near the victim’s heart and conducted a CT scan of his body. Before leaving the hotel, Wang quietly drew another blood sample and took it home. Through subsequent interviews and on-the-scene investigations—checking the hotel security tapes and examining the fingerprints on mugs in Heywood’s room—police investigators identified Gu Kailai as a possible suspect in Heywood’s death. Instead of continuing with a full investigation, the prosecution stated, the four officers “fabricated interview records and hid material evidence and other measures” to cover up for the wife of the city’s party chief. They hastily concluded the investigation, and in consultation with Wang Lijun, listed the cause of Heywood’s death as a heart
attack triggered by heavy alcohol intake. Investigators did not file Heywood’s death as a criminal case.