A Perfect Crime (12 page)

Make me bankrupt?

The judge asked for my response.

‘I have to respond?’

‘What is your reaction to the indictments?’

‘No reaction. It’s all true.’

My lawyer tapped at his table as if to ask why I wasn’t defending myself, but he didn’t say anything. The judge then signalled to the prosecutor to begin.

He began by confirming some more basic facts. Then, ‘I have no more questions, it all seems very clear.’

The judge looked over and by mistake caught the eye of Kong Jie’s mother, who took it as permission to stand up.

‘Why did you kill my daughter?’

I kept my head high and said nothing.

She was shaking, her voice loud like a gale blowing over a sheet of metal. Then she groaned and sat back down. An awkward silence filled the court and those in uniform whispered to each other.

Someone needed to break the silence, so I raised my hand. The lawyer finally remembered he was on my side and signalled to the judge, who let me speak.

‘Can I sit?’

My question disturbed the viewing gallery, as if this
was my primary sin. The judge thumped his gavel, but didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure if that was a yes, but then I thought, they’re going to kill me anyway, so I plonked by butt back down on the seat. But no one cared, because the prosecutor was busy calling in the medical examiner. She was old and dressed in a white coat, her features like dead tree roots. She should have read clinically from her appraisal, giving details about how many stab wounds Kong Jie had suffered, that she died of acute blood loss trauma and so on. But the tears pumped and she kept tainting her account with ‘the child’ this, ‘the child’ that. Everything was covered in blood, the floor, the walls, the door, the window. It was horrifying. Especially the bit where I put her in the washing machine. ‘Head first. The blood filled it half full.’ Kong Jie’s mother had been listening, wiping tears and nodding. At this point I watched her faint.

The morning’s proceedings finished there. In the afternoon people tried to stop Kong Jie’s mother from entering the courtroom, but she forced her way in and back to her seat. She sat watching me, hate radiating from her eyes. Suddenly, she spat at me. I spat back.

The first witness called in the afternoon was the policeman responsible for the case.

‘When did you arrive at the scene?’

‘The morning after.’

Kong Jie’s mother stood up and pointed. ‘When did you get the call?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Well, I am. I reported her missing the evening before.’ The gavel echoed around the court, but she merely spoke louder.

‘I must tell the court. I rang at 6.00 the same evening, but they told me to wait twenty-four hours before reporting her missing. “Ninety-nine per cent of cases are resolved by the following morning,” they said. I told them, “my daughter is a good girl, she would never run away.” “Are you done?” they said. “Do you know how many cases we have to handle every day? Do you know how many officers we have? You’re wasting our time.” Isn’t that what you said? You then said, “It’s not that we don’t want to take the call, but this is the law. We do as the law dictates.”’

She blew her nose with her fingers, wiped it on her sleeve and continued.

‘I want to ask the ladies and gentlemen present if such a law exists? You are the experts. Tell me: is there such a law?’

The judge indicated to the prosecutor to continue. But she broke in.

‘I trusted you. But I went to the law school and asked them. The teachers there are better than you lot. One
of the professors helped me call some of my daughter’s classmates. There was a boy named Su. He liked my girl. His phone was switched off. We spent the night looking for him, but by the time we found him the next day the sun was coming up. Him. My daughter’s murderer.’ She was pointing at me. ‘His aunt got home that morning and as soon as she saw the blood she called the police. But she was already dead.’

She looked stunned by the reality of what she’d just said, as if this was the first time she was hearing the terrible news. She began wailing. People looked around the court, not knowing what to do, until her relatives pulled her back to her seat. But she started screaming.

‘This isn’t over! I will never give up! I’ll write to the mayor! There must be justice!’

The judge pummelled his gavel. The whole scene shocked me, it was playing out as if the fault lay with the police, not me. I was upset and even thought of standing up and shouting at them myself. The prosecutor desperately resumed his questioning so that the policeman could make a quick and gloomy exit. My lawyer had no intention of putting any questions to him.

My aunt was supposed to have been called in, but instead the prosecutor read out a transcript of a formal interview. Next came the two guards from the military academy. Their cheeks were puffy and red, but as soon
as they saw me their eyes turned cold, like wolves. They were angry. How were they supposed to know? ‘Isn’t it your job to keep watch, not just stand around?’ their boss would have roared back, thumping the table.

The first guard admitted to having seen a girl entering the compound, the second wasn’t sure.

‘You swap shifts at 3.00, correct?’

‘Correct.’

‘I believe this was a premeditated murder,’ the prosecutor said, pointing at me.

‘I never said it wasn’t,’ I said, standing up.

My lawyer silenced me and, with a feigned look of pain, sat back down.

The day’s session finished with the identification of the switchblade and other pieces of evidence. As the officers led me away, Kong Jie’s mother rushed over and scratched at my face. Her relatives followed behind and pinched me too. The officer grabbed my arm and dragged me off to stop me from charging back. I looked away as we left and saw Kong Jie’s mother kicking out like a naughty child, before collapsing in tears.

‘My girl, my girl!’

Everyone was trying to help her, but this worsened her tantrum.

It felt so ritualised. Maybe she felt she had to perform like this to prove she was a real mother. But I knew this
wasn’t real suffering. Real suffering would break through in the moments she spent alone while looking at photos of her daughter. Even then, the grief wouldn’t produce tears, only a hollow feeling, as if her organs had been spooned out of her body.

T
he trial was over in a matter of days. My lawyer argued that the case should be treated as a matter of legal technicality, while the prosecutor contended this was premeditated murder in the first degree from which I had tried to abscond. It was straightforward logic. The judge agreed. He asked if I had anything to add; I said no.

A few days later I was led back into court. Everyone stood along with the judge as he relayed decision in his beautifully modulated voice. I was swimming in unfamiliar words; I could barely understand any of it. Just as I thought we were nearing a conclusion, he licked his finger and turned to a new page.

‘Just read the last sentence,’ I said.

He stopped and his glasses slid down his nose. The officer beside me kicked me in the shin.

Finally, the judge came to the verdict: the defendant was guilty of murder in the first degree.

Sentence: the death penalty.

Grievous bodily harm, fixed prison term of ten years.

Rape, eight years.

The judge had barely finished when I felt another sharp kick to the shin. I bent over in pain.

At least it was all finished. But then he started reading again. Now we came to the civil action brought by the victim’s family. The court had taken into account my economic circumstances and decided I was unable to pay compensation, so none was to be granted.

A thud sounded behind me as someone fell to their seat. In this instance the court had judged her rather than me. I did regret killing her daughter in some ways, but if I hadn’t committed a murder so intolerable to our hypocritical society, what would have been the point?

T
wo days later Ma came. She was still avoiding people and when they bumped into her she would say, ‘My son’s going to be dead soon too. I don’t owe anyone anything.’

She looked at me and placed a selection of different drinks and a large bag of roasted chicken wings before me.

‘Son, you were right. If you don’t eat well, there’s no point in making money.’ But there was a screen between us. She gestured at a guard as if he was a waiter. ‘These are for my son.’

‘I’m afraid all gifts must be registered.’

‘Then please register these for me.’

‘You have to do it yourself.’

Displeased, she put them back in her bag. ‘Son, if you want a bird’s nest or bear paw, Mama can get them for you. My money is worthless without you.’

‘Save it. You need it to start a new family.’

Yes, I was being cruel, but what else could I say? Ma’s tears burst forth like a fountain. It was the first time I’d ever seen her cry like that.

She cocked her head and said, ‘Mama is going to get you out.’

‘Impossible.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

I didn’t say anything. In one short month she’d become a stubborn ox. Maybe this was the first time in her life she really had something worth fighting for.

‘Wait,’ she said, grabbing her bag and striding out of the visitors’ room. After fifty metres she stopped, turned and called back, ‘You’ve lost so much weight.’

Ma came back two days later with a squat, bald lawyer.

‘I don’t understand, but you can explain it to my son.’

‘Here’s the thing, boy. We want to appeal on your behalf to the Supreme Court. But we need your consent.’

‘I’m not appealing.’

‘But it’s your right. Why wouldn’t you?’

‘I know.’

‘My name is Li, everyone knows me. Mr Li has got three men off death row.’

‘I know, but there’s no need.’

Ma beat at the glass, first with her hands and then with her head. I watched her eyes, nose and teeth contort as they came at me, before pulling back again.

‘Just some cooperation,’ she howled.

‘OK,’ I said, nodding.

But I started regretting it as soon as I got back to my
cell. I was like a character in a novel who has gone to drown themselves in the sea but who meets an old friend on the beach and is kidnapped by the conversation.

I couldn’t tell my mother I wanted to die.

From then on, Ma and the lawyer came and left on a cloud of dust, too busy for niceties. I was the emperor and they were the loyal ministers. One day the lawyer arrived with an official document from the A—Province People’s Hospital, dated five years previously, which described the after-effects of a wound I had sustained to the head. Symptoms included headaches, hysteria and signs of neurosis. I told them it never happened.

‘We have the word of a doctor,’ the lawyer said, pulling out a transcript, on which was written:

Q:   
Did you write this medical record?

A:   Yes.

Q:   
The proof?

A:   That’s my signature.

‘I’ve never been to the People’s Hospital,’ I said.

He rapped on the counter, exasperated. I understood.

‘You listen to me from now on. Your answers are
limited to yes or no. That’s it.’

I would say yes to everything. He was there to remind me of my story.

He looked satisfied, but before leaving he asked one more time, ‘Can you tell me why you were admitted to hospital?’

I didn’t know what to say. He looked disappointed.

‘Someone hit you on the head with a brick as you were walking through the night market during your New Year holidays.’

‘Right.’

‘You must remember your injuries.’

We were dicing with death here. I was under no illusions that there’d be a miracle, but my lawyer went on to outline the five potential lines of ‘escape’. He made it sound as if the death penalty was the least likely of outcomes.

1.  Judicial appraisal.

2.  Apportion some of the responsibility to society.

3.  Change of date of birth.

4.  That there was in fact no intent to commit rape.

5.  A leniency plea based on having given myself up.

‘But I didn’t give myself up,’ I said.

‘Yes, you did,’ he replied firmly. ‘Upon your arrest
you voluntarily made contact with the police. Before your arrest you wrote three options on three separate
hundred-yuan
notes. One of those was to give yourself up. Which means the intent was there. You also called your assistant class monitor Li Yong to tell him where you were. For a kid your age, the class monitor and assistant class monitors are the highest possible levels of authority. This shows your desire to repent to those in charge.’

‘I was fed up with the game.’

‘Which amounts to turning yourself in.’

M
y mother came back a few days later with a spring in her step. She was waving wildly with excitement. Anyone would think she had in her possession a paper granting my release.

‘You must thank your mother,’ the lawyer said. ‘I’ve never seen such persistence.’

‘What’s happened?’ I said.

‘Kong Jie’s mother has agreed to file a petition for clemency,’ he said.

‘How come?’ I said.

‘Your mother offered her seven hundred thousand,’ he said.

‘Where did she get that from?’ he said.

‘I have savings. I sold the shop and the house. It was
enough,’ Ma said.

‘Your mother also borrowed twenty thousand,’ he said.

‘You’ve already given it?’ I said.

‘Not all of it. The first instalment is sitting safely with Kong Jie’s uncle. She still hasn’t promised personally,’ he said.

‘How could she? I killed her daughter. Why would she grant me mercy?’ I said.

‘She didn’t agree at first,’ Ma said. ‘But I said to her, “I’m a single mother, so are you.We both only have one child. Will my son’s death bring your daughter back? I’d have swapped him for your daughter if I could, but that’s not how it works. Can’t you let him live, seeing as we are both alone in this world?”’

‘I said to her, “It’s not easy raising a daughter’,”’ the lawyer said. ‘“She was on the cusp of becoming a woman. It’s our fault, no doubt about it. But it’s done now. We have to look on the positives. This is a chance to display a moral magnanimity rarely seen these days. Beg for mercy on his behalf and you will have saved two lives. This woman’s and her son’s. They will do their utmost to repay you – compensate you, I mean. They will for ever be indebted to your grace.”’