The Hamlet Murders (18 page)

Fong usually had little time or sympathy for the views from the past. The mantle of righteousness taken on by the elders of China had deeply soured his response to them. But this was different. This man had clearly crossed the line. And what came out of his mouth was as revolutionary as Fong had heard in some time. The man laid out the need for a countervailing force to the power of Beijing, which was, like Joan, what he saw in Dalong Fada. He then said, “I think the religious side of Dalong Fada is stupid and potentially, like all religious movements, dangerous. But better a Chinese solution than a foreign one because, make no mistake, the West is anxious to put a stop to any recklessness coming out of China. But you must also understand that there will never be democracy in this country.” He looked to Fong, then to Chen, then to Joan and finally to Xi Luan Tu. No one deigned to respond to that. “It’s really quite simple. At base level this is all about survival. We need to assure the steady supply of food for our people. In a city like Shanghai where there are eighteen million people and little or no refrigeration. The very task of getting food, before it spoils, to the people is daunting. Any disruption would cause chaos. And we all know that chaos must be avoided at all cost.” This last met with at least some acceptance in the room.

“So you saved Xi Luan Tu to guarantee a real opposition to the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party?” asked Fong.

The man nodded. “Twenty-five-million followers of Dalong Fada qualify as a real opposition, wouldn’t you say?”

Joan watched the man with the basic wariness that all Hong Kong residents felt toward the powers in Beijing.

“But it’s the only form of democracy we’re ready for in the Middle Kingdom at this time. It’s a crucial small step, like opening some free markets and allowing freedom of movement for most people within the country. Both freedoms are much more widespread than they were only ten years ago, but they aren’t absolute. How could they be and have us avoid chaos? Can you imagine the eighteen million people in this city suddenly all forced to pay for the spaces that they live in? Can you imagine them trying to reshuffle almost sixty years of price control into a completely open market?”

Fong nodded, thinking back to the insider’s offer sheet in his desk in his bedroom.

The elderly Beijing man coughed into his hand then continued, “It would lead to riots and then would come Revolution. And make no mistake, before that Revolution came to a conclusion, millions of Chinese would lose their lives, most from starvation. I needn’t add that outsiders would soon take advantage of our weakness and we would be back where we were at the beginning of the twentieth century with foreigners controlling our country.”

Fong thought that through. He agreed with most of it. “What about Mr. Hyland?”

“What about him?”

“Did you or your younger half have him murdered?”

The older Beijing man shook his head slowly then opened a portfolio that he withdrew from the desk. From the portfolio he removed twelve eight-byten photographs and lined them up on the desk.

They showed Geoff arrested, tried for treason, disgraced in front of a large crowd, then put on an airplane in chains. Once again, the faked photos were expertly done. If Fong hadn’t seen Geoff hanging from that rope he could well believe that this was a real account of what had happened to his old rival. “This was Beijing’s intent. They didn’t care about Mr. Hyland. All they wanted from him was to lead them to Xi Luan Tu. Which is exactly what you did for us, Zhong Fong. But their intent and mine were not the same. I wanted to be led to Xi Luan Tu to tell him that he has much support in high circles, not for his religious practices which, as I mentioned, I find obscene, but for the very practical need for political ballast in the People’s Republic of China. And now you have led me to him and now he has heard what I have to say.”

Xi Luan Tu nodded, as if engaged for the first time in the conversation. Then he got to his feet and headed toward the door.

Joan leapt up and said, “We need to get you out of Shanghai. That’s what the money and the Internet access were for.”

For the first time, Xi Luan Tu spoke, “That’s what they were for, for you Ms. Shui, and I thank you for your efforts. I thank all of you. But I am not leaving Shanghai. I cannot leave Shanghai.” Fong began to protest but Xi Luan Tu cut him off, “Do you know a writer named Alan Paton, Zhong Fong?”

Fong shook his head.

“He was a world-renown South African novelist who wrote at great length against the sins of his countrymen and the Apartheid regime. Over and over again, reporters from outside South Africa would ask him why he didn’t leave. Do you know what he answered?” He waited for a response but no one spoke. Finally Xi Luan Tu said, “Mr. Paton said that a man without a country is not a man. All of us in this room know that Shanghai is like a country. In fact, it is bigger than many countries. Shanghai is my country. I will not leave it. Again I thank all of you for your efforts. I really do. But now I must leave you. I have no doubt we will all meet again.”

“Mr. Xi?”

“Yes, Captain Chen?”

“You’d better give me that phone.” Xi Luan Tu gave it to Chen who quickly removed the faceplate and extracted the small electronic bug. For a moment he held it in his hand then dropped it to the floor and stomped on it. The thing flattened without a sound. Then Chen held out the phone to Xi Luan Tu, who took it and headed toward the door. No one made a move to stop him and he did not hesitate in his going.

It left the four of them alone in the safe house – looking at each other. It was Chen who finally broke the silence, “So we are back to a straightforward murder investigation.”

The older Beijing man nodded.

“And you and yours didn’t murder Mr. Hyland?” Fong asked the Beijing man again.

The Beijing man just pointed to the object-lesson photos. “We didn’t want him killed. We wanted him to be an example to foreigners who meddle in the affairs of our country.”

“Why doesn’t Beijing know about you?” Fong asked.

“Beijing runs just like the rest of China – like the rest of humanity. It survives in boxes. Compartments. It’s how we live our lives. Not everything influences everything else. Our work doesn’t necessarily influence our politics. Our politics don’t necessarily influence our home lives . . .” He stopped and looked at Fong, “What?”

“Compartments. Work not necessarily influencing our home lives – or our love lives.”

“What are you talking about, Fong?” asked Joan.

“Are you heading back to Hong Kong right away?”

“I don’t know . . . ”

“I could really use a woman’s eyes to help me on this.” He didn’t wait for her response but turned to Chen. “Remember the woman I arrested in the bar for murdering her boss?”

“You mean for murdering the man she loved?”

Fong looked hard at Chen. “Yes, that is what I mean, Captain Chen. Arrange for Ms. Shui and me to see her – the woman who killed the man she loved.”

“To check on something?”

“Yes, Captain Chen, to check on something I’m pretty sure I overlooked.”

“Zhong Fong.” It was the elderly Beijing man. “I would appreciate the courtesy of you sharing the results of your investigations with me.”

“Why?”

“Politics is just an attempt to understand the workings of the human heart. If your findings increase my knowledge of that, then I can be of more help to our people.”

Fong nodded. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Sheng.”

Sheng was not a name you heard often. It literally meant “in the year of peace.” Fong thought, “What a good name for a man. Yet this man had shot his partner without a word of warning.” Fong took another look at the man. The man stood very still as if he understood Fong’s thoughts. “Peace in a dangerous world at times requires action – complicated action,” Fong said. The man nodded. “Well, where can I find you, Sheng?”

“I’ll be here in this house for at least a week.”

D
a Wei, Geoff’s homely translator, indicated that Fong and Joan Shui should sit at the small table in the cubicle that passed as her room at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. They did.

Ignoring Joan, Da Wei said, “I’ve been expecting you, Detective Zhong.”

“Have you?”

She stopped and stared at him. “I said as much.”

“You did,” he said nodding. It startled Fong to realize that they were speaking English.

“Your English is very good, Detective Zhong.”

“Thank you, but not nearly as good as yours, Da Wei.”

She nodded and poured tea from a large Thermos into the empty glass jars on the table. The tepid-coloured liquid swirled around the slender languid leaves of the tea that stood on the bottom of the jars, waving like sea plants.

He thanked her. She poured some for herself and sat directly opposite him.

He tasted the dark earthiness of the
cha
and knew that it was a special treat for Da Wei to serve such an exotic blend. He was about to comment on it when she said, “I was very fond of your wife, Fu Tsong. She was a great, great actress, a true artist. I was honoured to help her prepare her English for . . . ” Her voice ended as if somehow a finger had been placed over a stop.

He looked at her. So she had prepared Fu Tsong’s English for the production she had never gotten to do with Geoff in Vancouver.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “it’s inexcusable of me to mention such things.”

Fong looked away. A futon was folded to one side and a night table stood beside it. On the night table were small mementoes from her life. A set of tiny bells aligned between two wooden poles, an ornamental teapot in the shape of a dragon, three oblong, flat, polished blood stones from the Yangtze River and a round black rubber disk of some sort with a logo of a sporting team on it. Fong couldn’t identify either the disk or the logo. But that didn’t concern him now. Something about the way the objects were arrayed on the table did. It was as if there was a missing item – maybe two small missing items.

He looked at Da Wei then at the walls of the cubicle. Standard-issue pictures of a southern water town, two posters from plays she’d worked on at the theatre academy, a “new school” rendition of a classical pastoral scene executed in watercolours on a hanging scroll.

Again something missing. The visual aesthetic of the room was consistent, consistent, consistent, then absent.

Then he noticed a slight area of brightness peeking out from behind the scroll painting. It was like the section of wall in his room that at one time had been covered by Lily’s antique frescoed sculpture. He got up and moved the scroll painting aside. An eight-byten- inch rectangle showed brighter on the wall than the surrounding area. Da Wei’s cubicle was extremely clean but uncovered walls collected dirt in Shanghai; the pollution is inescapable. So an area that was covered then uncovered would show bright against the rest of the wall.

Fong looked from the eight-by-ten brightness to the round black rubber disk with the logo on Da Wei’s night table.

Then he looked at the theatre posters. “Don’t you have any posters from the shows you worked on with Mr. Hyland?”

“I do. Several.”

“May I see them?”

“They’re in communal storage. You may notice that I have no closet space here.”

Fong nodded and said, “Ah,” then he glanced at the blank brightness on the wall again. He crossed over and picked up the rubber object from Da Wei’s night table. He held it close to read the writing on the logo. “What’s a Canuck?” he asked.

“A hockey player from Vancouver, I believe. That’s called a puck. Do you know about hockey, Detective Zhong?”

No, he didn’t, but he knew about someone who did. He remembered Geoff’s reference on the CDROM and an incident years ago when Geoff was directing in Shanghai and frantically tried to find a newspaper that would tell him who won the Larry Cup – or Gerty Cup – some kind of hockey cup. “So Mr. Hyland gave you the puck as a souvenir?”

She nodded. Then poured herself more tea and hid her face in the mist from her cup.

“Not a particularly romantic gift, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t understand you, Detective Zhong.”

“Should we speak in the Common Tongue? Would that help you understand me?”

She was instantly on her feet, no doubt about to demand he leave her room, but before she could speak, Fong pulled down the scroll painting and pointed at the eight-by-ten inch brightness on the wall. “So was this where you kept Mr. Hyland’s picture?” She stared at him. Her mouth was open, revealing cracked teeth. “Did he sign it for you? Maybe with the words:
With all my love, Geoff?”

“No,” she said and sat heavily. “Not those words.
‘I couldn’t do it without you, Da Wei’
it said.”

“You cared for him,” Fong said.

She nodded slowly.

“But he didn’t reciprocate your affection? Is reciprocate the right word?”

“You know it is,” she snapped. Then she took a deep breath and let her air out slowly. “No, Detective Zhong, he did not reciprocate. I was not blessed with . . . ” The words failed her. She just shook her head and tears began to well in her round eyes as she contemplated the whole injustice of beauty. “I am not beautiful like your wife or Yue Feng.”

Fong stood very still. “Mr. Hyland was seeing Yue Feng, the actress who plays Ophelia?”

“Now it is I who must ask about word selection. What do you mean by ‘was seeing’?” She reverted to Mandarin. “Do you mean being attracted to – yes. Touching her backstage – yes. Having her in his rooms – yes. Fucking her – that, not having been there, I wouldn’t know.” She smiled wanly. “If you follow my meaning, Detective Zhong.”

“I do.” He got to his feet. “Have you got a passport, Da Wei?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll need to hold that for you.”

She balked for a moment then opened a small drawer in the table and handed over her way out of the Middle Kingdom.

V
isitation rights don’t exist in Chinese jails. So when Fong, through Captain Chen, demanded access to the woman who murdered the man she loved, the penal system first had to find the woman then arrange how the meeting could take place. While the authorities worked things out, Fong tried to find a transcript of the woman’s trial. But despite his best efforts he couldn’t even find a record of the verdict. Fong had no doubt she had been found guilty but access to court records, like jail visitations in the People’s Republic of China, are not guaranteed.

The call finally came through. A place. A time.

The woman who murdered the man she loved sat quietly on a small three-legged bamboo stool and did not rise when Fong and Joan Shui entered the dank room. When the jailor began to close the door, Fong turned to him, “Don’t.”

The woman who murdered the man she loved sat looking at her hands. Fong looked at them too. Her slender fingers were now capped by ragged bitten nails. Only the false nail of her right ring finger remained from her fashionable French manicure. She pushed up the sleeves of her prison blouse and lifted her head. Immediately she saw the way he was looking at her. “Wait till they cut off my hair, then I’ll really be a treat to look at. Like her,” she said pointing to Joan, “a real fashion statement.”

Fong had actually been surprised that they hadn’t cut off the woman’s hair. It was pretty much common practice. They claimed it was to keep down the lice but Fong knew otherwise. Like so much of prison life it was to break down any sense of anyone being special, being other than a prisoner at the total behest of the state.

“You’ve been in prison,” she said. It was a statement not a question.

Fong nodded. “This woman knew that I had been in love. Now she knows that I have been in prison,” he thought. He looked more closely at her. But she looked away saying, “Don’t.”

He began to apologize then decided against it. Beauty was to be shared. It was just one of the many talents. Fu Tsong had told him that, then quoted some parable or something from the West’s Bible about hiding money under apple carts or some such nonsense. As with so many things from that most questionable of books, Fong had no idea what it meant – if in fact it meant anything.

“Why are you here, Detective Zhong?” she asked. But he heard the waver in her voice. The inherent pause. The uncertainty that prison had already implanted in her.

“How long is your sentence?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. As someone who has been in a place like this, yes, it matters. On that, trust me.”

“Well, they haven’t decided yet.”

“When are they going to decide?”

She made a sound that in the time before the murder would no doubt have been called a laugh. Now, prison had modified the sound and it was little different than the sound made to clear the throat before spitting up phlegm.

Fong made himself go over the timeline. The murder had taken place only ten days ago so it was possible that she would be sentenced shortly but it was not likely. If they were going to sentence her it should have happened by now. If they were going to execute her he wouldn’t have been allowed to see her. Likely she would be imprisoned as long as the authorities thought it useful. That could be as little as three years or as long as her life.

“What are you doing here, Detective Zhong?” she asked again.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Well, that’s good because if you came here to fuck me that could prove above even your ingenuity.” She looked at Joan Shui for a second then said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Joan said.

“Have you got a cigarette?”

“Sorry,” said Joan.

“I do,” said Fong.

He had brought cigarettes for precisely this situation but now he hesitated. He didn’t want to bribe her to talk to him. He wanted her to want to talk to him.

The woman who had murdered the man she loved lifted her left buttock and farted loudly. She waved her hand in the air in front of her to dissipate the odour. “Sorry, but the food in here isn’t exactly agreeing with my gastric system.”

Fong smiled. Then took the smile off his face. “Why am I at such a loss here?” he asked himself. Before he completed the question he shouted the answer at himself in the recesses of his head, “Because, jerk, you don’t know why you’re here.” He reached into his shirt pocket, tapped out a Kent and held it out to her.

She reached for it, careful not to touch the skin of his fingers or hand. She put the cigarette between her lips. It was only then that he noticed they were bruised.

“Did someone hit you?”

“You’ve been in prison before, right? People get hit in prison. I need a light.”

He struck a stick match on the floor and held it up to her. The flaring of the match touched moments of light to the skin of her face. Little licks of beauty.

She breathed out a thin line of smoke just past Fong’s left ear. Before he could stop himself he breathed in her smoke.

“You smoked too. Interesting,” she said. “Why not join me?”

Fong hadn’t smoked since he’d killed the assassin Loa Wei Fen in the construction site in the Pudong almost seven years ago, but he was direly tempted to break his smoke fast. But he didn’t. “If they hit you again, get word to me and I’ll put a stop to it.”

Again she made the sound that only a few weeks ago must have been a laugh but now sounded like something very different. “Are you really capable of doing that?” she said.

Fong didn’t answer. He didn’t know if he could control events within a prison. He’d never tried.

“It’s better to be hit than raped,” she said.

Fong found himself nodding although he didn’t want to.

She lifted her head, took the cigarette from her lips and stared into his eyes. “Why are you here? Again I ask.”

“To try and understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Understand how you could kill the man you loved,” said Joan Shui.

“Is that really what you want to know?” she asked Fong. He nodded. The woman who killed the man she loved opened her mouth to answer then put her face in her hands. For a moment Fong thought she was going to cry. But she didn’t. “Answer your own question, Detective. You’ve loved, you’ve been in prison, maybe you’ve even killed.”

Fong looked away. The desire to get out of that room roared up from his depths. This woman somehow knew him. How? But he needed her. The simple Chinese word
long
, dragon, came up to his lips. Dragons always guarded treasure. They had to be defeated to gain the knowledge – or wooed.

“How did you first meet Mr. Clayton?”

“How do you think?” Her voice was harsh. Suddenly the practised whore.

“You were a hired date for him?” Joan asked, careful to keep any annoyance out of her voice.

“I was given to him by a Chinese client. I was there in his hotel room when he returned from a night of drinking. Naked. Waiting. All greased up and ready to go.” She noticed Fong wince at that last. “Nothing to be embarrassed about, Detective Zhong. Ready to go because I didn’t want to get pregnant. Greased up because it wasn’t likely that I’d produce much lather at the possibility of fucking this Long Nose or any Long Nose for that matter. Or so I thought. Can I have another smoke?”

He gave her the pack and was about to give her the matches then remembered that it was forbidden. He struck a match and held it out. She leaned forward and cupped his hands.

Then held them.

Over the flame, amidst the veil of her cigarette smoke, he saw her more clearly. Her eyes were the eyes of a ghost.

He made sure his voice was calm before he spoke, “So you slept with Mr. Clayton?”

“No, Detective Zhong, I didn’t sleep with him. Whores aren’t paid to sleep with clients.”

Fong nodded.

Then a single line of tears emerged from the corner of her right eye and fell straight to the floor. “He bought me breakfast.”

The phrase was so simple but it carried so much weight. Somehow she knew that if he hadn’t bought her breakfast they would never have started what ended with him dead and her in this awful place.

For a moment he wanted to ask if the breakfast was good. But he knew the answer to the question. The food had tasted as exquisite as food could taste. The sun had been as brilliant as the sun can shine – and the world seemed gracious, open and full of hope. Fong knew that.

Sensing the momentum slip, Joan asked, “When did you see him next?”

“He drove me home and gave me money to rent a hotel room. It was the first time I ever had a room to myself. I almost didn’t know what to do with all that space.”

“Did he come by that night?” asked Joan.

“No. Not for a week.”

“Why?”

“He told me that he wanted to be sure.”

“Sure of what?” asked Fong.

“Oh, fucking hell, sure that the breakfast was good, sure that I was a woman, sure that Korea is a peninsula of idiots, what do you think he wanted to be sure of?”

Fong took a breath. “Sure that he cared for you.”

“Whites don’t come back again if they only care about a Chinese girl.”

“No, they don’t.” Fong considered lighting up but forced that thought out of his head. “So he loved you?”

She looked away. “That word sounds silly coming out of your mouth.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Have you been so hurt by love that love is now a joke to you, Detective Zhong?”

“No . . . ”

“Then what?”

“Doesn’t it take longer to fall in love than . . . ”

“Then one fuck fest? Is that what you’re asking?”

He was, but he knew the answer to that. He had fallen hopelessly in love with Fu Tsong within the first fifteen minutes of her saying hello to him. They hadn’t even touched. They’d hardly exchanged words. It sounded foolish – but he knew it was true.

“So what happened to your love?”

She began to answer but she was crying. Big sobs came from a place very deep in her. Tears fell on her cigarette. The thing hissed.

“Like a dragon,” Fong thought. But he said nothing. He sat and watched waves of anguish take the woman who murdered the man she loved down down down into places of despair that had yet to be named. A place where only ghosts lived.

And as he watched he knew both the question he needed to ask and the answer to his question. He had known it before he came to this small prison room. Question: Can love kill? Answer: No, but things that begin with love can end in murder.

He looked to Joan who looked away, clearly trying to stop herself from crying.

“Are you all right?” Fong asked as he got into his car beside Joan.

“Yes. I’m fine. In fact, I’m better for having seen that.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Where to?”

Fong took a moment and then replied, “To those who loved Geoff.”

She nodded slowly and sat back. While Fong made his way through the densely tangled traffic, Joan soaked in the great city. As they drove, a small smile came to her face. Shanghai flaunted itself – like a young woman in her first sexy dress – as if it were a thing newly made and proud – and finally open for public viewing.