Murder with Bengali Characteristics (10 page)

‘Barin-da was not like that. He came back looking very worried. But he never told me anything. Next thing I hear, he’s been strangled by a thug.’

Silenced, thought Big Chen. Silenced by a thug.

‘Should we beat him up now?’ asked Phoni-babu. ‘Maybe he’ll remember more.’ Big Chen shook his head. Phoni-babu shook hands with the young man, smiling.

‘Maybe next time,’ he said, ‘there’s no rush. We know where you work.’

Big Chen and Phoni-babu emerged from the building to find the town of Kharagpur in uproar. The street was filled with marching people. Shopkeepers on either side were hurriedly pulling down their shutters. A few of the marchers had stopped to gawk at their car, which was parked between two rickshaws. ‘Our demand must be met, must be met!’ chanted the marchers, ‘Break the black hands, grind the hands!’ They waved their fists in the air. Some held placards with drawings of strange and impossible creatures. One of them looked like a cross between a duck and a porcupine, while another was an improbably furious dinosaur, spitting its wrath at what appeared to be an innocent baby elephant.

Phoni-babu grabbed one of the marchers by the collar, and before Big Chen could stop him, slapped him twice, once on each cheek. ‘What’s all this drama?’ he asked. The man tried to wriggle out of his grasp. He was around the same size as Phoni-babu, but not as well fed. Phoni-babu slapped him again. The man scowled. ‘It’s not good what you’re doing,’ he said, struggling, ‘I’m telling you. You better stop or I can’t be held responsible.’

‘Then tell me what’s happening, no?’ said Phoni-babu. ‘Do you think I have nothing better to do than beat you up?’

‘How should I know what’s happening?’ said the man. ‘I was on my way back from office. Everyone was marching and shouting, so I joined them. In any case what is there to do at home? These Chinese have banned all the TV shows except kung-fu-shung-fu and documentaries on Shanghai Expo, things like that. How many times can a human being watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony?’

‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ said Phoni-babu, slapping him again. Members of the surging crowd eyed him resentfully, but none of them interfered. One of them gestured at them menacingly with a placard, bearing a picture of a dishevelled witch in a crumpled white sari, holding up a surprisingly cheerful baby by the seat of its pants. But on the whole they ignored them. They were just two policemen. Everyone knew one or two policemen never did anything, so long as no one attacked them directly. If they were left alone, the protest would proceed smoothly. ‘Am I a donkey or a sisterfucker?’ demanded Phoni-babu. ‘Something you definitely know. Pretending to be stupid?’ He slapped him once more.

‘It’s not good, I’m warning you!’ said the man, angrily, ‘How can I know everything? Do I look like Astrologer Bhrigu to you? This much I can tell you, they’re angry about some book. Regarding that they are protesting.’

‘Are they for the book or against the book?’ asked Phoni-babu, who was familiar with book-related shenanigans. They were quite common. People were equally violent on both sides, although the opponents of books usually carried more kerosene. One of the simpler ways of starting a riot in Calcutta was to utter the words ‘Taslima Nasrin’ in a crowded bus.

‘For it, naturally,’ said the man, disregarding the facts on the ground. ‘Whatever little remains, they’re defending. Have these Chinese bastards left us anything? Everything they’ve banned. But this time they went too far. They banned a book by late Sukumar Roy. They are attacking Bengali culture. Cockroach fuckers!’

‘Don’t kick him in the balls!’ said Big Chen, but he was too late. Phoni-babu kicked him in the balls, hard. The protestor sank to the ground, wheezing.

‘Was that helpful?’ asked Big Chen. ‘What information will you get now?’

‘It was a matter of respect,’ said Phoni-babu. ‘The man was insulting you. We can’t let the silly fuckers insult the police. Whole law and order system will collapse. In any case, why waste time on this? We were here on the Mondol case. All these cheap people will just shout a little, maybe burn a few buses, then they’ll go home and watch football. Such things are common. From our side, we should go back and report our findings to the boss. After that, if you like, we can go out and educate some members of the public. That’s very necessary, otherwise they become too clever.’

Big Chen gave up. They got into their car, and ordered it to drive home.

The Doberman leaped at him the moment he stepped through the door. Sexy Chen screamed, effortlessly hitting the high notes. He covered his face with one hand and reached for his gun, knowing he was going to be too late.

The dog passed right through him, and disappeared. Sexy Chen collapsed against the wall. He took off his cap and fanned himself with it. He looked at Li, who had just stepped in, accusingly. ‘This is why you wanted me to go first, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t even let me draw my gun.’

‘This is the Department for Cyber Security, not the hideout of Tiger Face Bo,’ said Li.

‘I built them too well, that’s the problem,’ said Crazy Wu. He was a small, bespectacled man with long hair and sallow, unhealthy skin, thanks to years of living in maximum-security basements. ‘They may be virtual, but they have personalities of their own. I’ve tried to train them to stand and snarl, but they’re too eager to tear out throats. I think they read what’s in my mind. Wait a minute! I have a message coming in from the Great Firewall.’ He closed his eyes, lying back on what looked like a second-hand hospital bed. The backrest reclined automatically. As far as Li could see, no levers or buttons were pressed to achieve this.

Li sat down gingerly on a broken chair. It was a large room, dimly lit. Banks of servers hummed away on one side. The other half was a jungle of keyboards, screens and cables. Every flat surface, the tables, the walls, most of the ceiling, was alive with numbers, words and images. So was Crazy Wu. Shimmering pictures and streams of integers crawled across his arms and his legs and his cheeks and his forehead, and across his T-shirt and his filthy track pants. The only static part of him was the image of Chairman Mao in a pink frilly ballet costume on his chest. In the matter of clothing, hackers were allowed some leeway.

‘The 5th Rifle Division is three miles away,’ he whispered, ‘inform them of the mass incident, and send a drone to guide them. If they kill more than ten people, give the commander bad dreams tonight. I want him to wet his pants.’

He opened his eyes and looked at Li. He smiled. His teeth were terrible. ‘What’s up, Li? How’s that hot ex-wife of yours? She’s the queen of prettypretties! A lot of the boys want to spy on her, but I make sure they don’t. It’s a thing I do for you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Li, meaning it. ‘I know how busy you are.’

‘I never agreed when the Happy Cow Army decided to join the government. We’re too cool for things like that. We wanted to be just like Anonymous. Our dream was to take them down one day, and be mysterious and admired and get lots of girls. We never seem to get any girls, unless we make them wear helmets. We even have Happy Cow masks, just like the V masks that members of Anonymous have. His name is Chengu and he’s very cheerful and reassuring, like the characters in
Kung Fu Panda
. His appeal is universal. Who doesn’t love a cow? We could have been rock stars. But the others felt it was our patriotic duty to help the rise of China. Our contribution isn’t valued. Look at my condition. No one ever gives me nice furniture. I don’t have cushions, or a private fridge thingie. I’ve always wanted one of those private fridge thingies. Gloop.’

His eyes rolled back in his head. He froze, mouth half-open. Faint tremors ran across his cheeks. The displays on his skin and his clothes kept moving, like ants marching over a corpse.

‘I think he’s dead,’ said Sexy Chen. ‘Can we go now?’ He was mortally afraid of Crazy Wu. No one knew exactly what he did down here, but there were rumours. A few of the people who’d come down had emerged not quite the same. One or two were rumoured to have disappeared altogether. Since Crazy Wu was in charge of most information, it was hard to discover the truth, unless he chose to reveal it.

‘Duplicate overload,’ said Li.

When they had embarked on their grand mission of uplifting a nation, the Chinese Communist Party had realized that keeping an eye on a billion people was never going to be easy. Galloping disloyalty had made their job harder. Money was never a problem. They had the largest internal surveillance budget in the history of mankind. Their problem was manpower. The number of observers had increased dramatically, but so had the numbers of those in need of observation. Technology had come to their rescue. Most members of the Happy Cow Army had been duplicated and installed on machines across the country, controlled by a master brain, also duplicated for safety, which reported to The Great Firewall, who was bad-tempered and crabby. Morale in the surveillance corps was extremely low.

‘They’re all connected,’ said Li. ‘Sometimes they freeze, but it’s temporary.’ This was not true. Sometimes they went off in ambulances, and never came back, but Sexy Chen was nervous enough as it was.

‘Holy shit,’ said Sexy Chen, ‘I had no idea technology was fucking our brains to such a large extent. At least the Harmony Doctors in Beijing are medical doctors, with degrees and operating theatres and everything.’

Crazy Wu opened his eyes. ‘Did you bring any chocolate? I love 5 Star. It’s so chewy.’

Li pulled a bar out of his pocket. He held it out to Wu. ‘Tell me about the thugs,’ he said.

Wu snatched the chocolate from him and ripped off the wrapper. He shoved the entire thing into his mouth. His cheeks bulged as he chewed. For a brief moment he was happy. ‘They’re on Elgin Road,’ he said, slightly muffled, ‘which is named for the Big Barbarian.’ In the history of China, there was only one Big Barbarian.

‘I’m guessing there’s more of them than that upper-class jerk we met,’ said Li. ‘He’s a leader. He must be leading someone.’

Crazy Wu grinned. ‘Trust you to ask the right questions,’ he said. ‘They’re sneaky, those boys. They’re good at hiding, even from me. But not as good as they think. They’ve been very busy recently. They’re all over the city. Visiting local markets. Plenty of buying and selling going on. Quite a few cash transfers to the chief thug. The boys are doing well.’

‘They’ve been doing well with murders too,’ said Li. ‘Five of them so far. Notice anything about the victims? I got this list from the Governor’s office.’ He handed him a sheet of paper.

Wu held it gingerly. ‘Really, Li?’ he said. ‘Paper?’

‘I’m old fashioned,’ said Li.

Wu switched his spectacles on and scanned the sheet. He closed his eyes. ‘Odd,’ he said, his eyes still shut.

Li leaned forward. ‘Tell me,’ he said.

Wu held out his hand.

‘You know the rules,’ said Li. ‘One per question. Answer the question.’

‘It’s not the chocolate,’ said Crazy Wu, ‘I can get chocolate. It’s the love you show by bringing them for me personally. The other victims are too ordinary. Mid-level officers. I don’t see what the thugs would achieve by killing them. They’re not in short supply. We have enough mid-level officers to repopulate Tibet. Or Kashmir, once the radiation levels fall. Wait a minute! They’re freaks! All of them were poor. One month’s salary in the bank, no secret bank accounts. That’s amazing. It’s all Brother Gucci and Sister Prada these days. I had no idea we still had government officers like these. Honest men in the Party! Who could imagine such a thing?’

‘Well, they’re dead now,’ said Li, ‘so the Party is a little less honest than it used to be.’

‘Well, here’s the odd thing. One of them isn’t dead. Or he’s a very hungry corpse. He just ordered a pizza, with extra pepperoni. Not dead. At least, not yet. Your Chief Thug got it wrong.’

Li sat quietly, thinking.

‘This is why I like you,’ said Crazy Wu. ‘You’re just like a computer.’

‘What about telepaths, Wu,’ he said eventually. ‘Have you seen any of them around lately? The Governor is terrified.’

‘Really?’ said Crazy Wu. He was deeply interested. ‘He’s scared of telepaths?’

‘Only because he hasn’t met you yet,’ said Li.

‘I can find telepaths,’ said Crazy Wu, ignoring the jibe. ‘If you think we need to.’

‘Not just yet,’ said Li.

‘But the Governor is disturbed. He’s serving the nation. As a true Chinese patriot, it’s my duty to help him. I should do something about these telepaths.’

‘Whatever you do, don’t mess about with my case,’ said Li.

‘The school teacher?’ said Crazy Wu. ‘Of course not. He was a great man. A very great man. You should catch whoever did it.’

‘I will,’ said Li, tossing another 5 Star at Crazy Wu. ‘Thanks.’ Wu raised his hand in farewell, integers skittering across his palm. Li gestured to Sexy Chen, who emerged from behind a monitor.

‘These people are a dangerous element in our society,’ said Sexy Chen, as they entered the elevator together.

‘That’s why they keep them in the basement,’ said Li.

Propagandist Wang’s room was simple and clean, like his political views. His desk was a smooth black slab floating in mid-air, held in position by maglevs. It was bare, except for his screen, and a small hologram of the Young Prince waving benevolently. ‘ASSERT SUPREMACY OVER ONLINE PUBLIC OPINION!’ said the wall behind his head.

‘Bijli Bose is highly respected in Beijing,’ he said. ‘He was our supporter from the very beginning. He helped prepare appropriate ground conditions. He was the first person to put up a portrait of Chairman Mao here, at a place called Tenali in Andhra Pradesh, in 1967. It’s in the southern part of the landmass formerly known as India.’

‘Who complained?’ asked Inspector Li. ‘Was it him or Sexy Chen?’

‘You’ll know what you need to know!’ barked Propagandist Wang.

Wang was pissed with him. He had good reason to be. Li had caused his downfall. As the Beijing Hero Cop who had brought the Fudan University Poisoner and many other evildoers to justice, Li had once been a celebrity. Girls had mobbed him on the street. His pictures had been all over Weibo. He’d drawn the line at shirtless, although Gao Yu had been keen, and tried to ambush him with a camera on several occasions. He was living proof that the system worked, and that it had a square jaw and close-cropped hair. It was a propaganda triumph, and Wang had been in charge of the propaganda. Their stars had risen together. They had also fallen together, after Li had chosen exile over ridicule. Wang had followed him, hoping to resurrect himself by taming the wild frontier. Or raising enough money to buy back a position on the mainland. The Protectorate was full of people who were either building or rebuilding their careers. Except for Governor Wen, who had given up. Li himself was standing on the edge, thinking about it.