The Interior - Страница 4

When Hulan was done, she carefully explained everything to Jinli, knowing that she might not understand anything that was said. Then Hulan kissed her mother, gave a few last instructions to the nurse, and made her way back to her own quarters.

At seven, Liu Hulan, dressed in a cream-colored silk dress, once again stepped through the gate of her hutong home to a waiting black Mercedes. A young man leaned against the back passenger door. "Good morning, Inspector," he said as he opened the door and motioned for her to get in. "Step inside quickly. I have kept the car running. The air conditioning is good."

Hulan sank into the soft leather cushions. Her driver, Investigator Lo, stepped on the gas and began heading toward Tiananmen Square and the Ministry of Public Security compound. Lo was a compact man- short, muscular, and prudent with his thoughts and emotions. From reading his secret personal file, Hulan knew that he was from Fujian Province, single, and an expert at several martial arts disciplines.

Several times during the last two months since Investigator Lo had been assigned to her, Hulan had tried to include him in the analytical aspects of her investigations, but he'd seemed circumspect, preferring to concern himself only with his chauffeuring duties. She'd invited him out for drinks, hoping that over a beer they might begin a friendship, but Lo had politely refused these offers as well. All of this was odd. Who would turn down an offer to "climb the ladder" at the ministry? It was through the successful conclusion of cases, recommendations from superiors, or political activities that investigators usually earned promotions. Investigator Lo appeared to have either no inkling of these rules or no aptitude for accomplishing any of these things, but Hulan was not surprised.

Her old driver, Peter, had been assigned to spy on her. Despite his lack of personal loyalty, Hulan had learned to depend on his judgment and instincts. She had hoped to build a similar relationship with Lo, but he seemed focused solely on his instructions from Vice Minister Zai, which apparently were limited to keeping tabs on her and working as some sort of bodyguard-a moving block of muscle with her protection as his goal. More than once she had needed to restrain Investigator Lo, who took it upon himself to physically bully witnesses who did not respond quickly enough to Hulan's questions.

When she had gone to Vice Minister Zai to request that Lo be transferred, he had shaken his head and said, "This is how it will be, Inspector." His manner-the way he dismissed her complaints and concerns-was new to her. But he, like all of them, was still trying to adjust and adapt to the changes that the last few months had brought. As the saying went, the blade of grass points where the wind blows. The only problem was that the wind was blowing in so many directions these days no one could completely protect himself.

These past months had been especially strange for Hulan. Her family had literally been ripped apart. Her father had died under bad circumstances when Hulan exposed him as a smuggler, conspirator, and killer. The press-regulated as it was by the government-had made the story headline news. There had been features about Hulan's parents, her grandparents, even her great-grandparents-all of them shown in a bad light. But for a time the government had seen in Hulan's own story a politically advantageous message, so her life had also been examined. Photographs had been dredged out of newspaper files as well as government records showing Hulan at various crime scenes, at political rallies from her youth, even as the baby daughter of one of Beijing 's then-most promising couples. Hulan had been compared time and again to her namesake-Liu Hulan, martyr for the Revolution.

Hulan had thought that this interest would pass. But instead of dwindling, the coverage had swung in another direction thanks to Bi Peng, a reporter for the People's Daily. In a country that loved puns, Bi Peng was well known for his name. Bi was just a family name, but the tone sounded like bi, the word for pen. What he wrote about soon spread across the country. Now, to Hulan's growing embarrassment and anger, several newspapers and magazines had run photographs of her as one of Beijing's elite class-a Red Princess. Here was Hulan in a grainy photograph copied from a security tape dressed in a fuchsia silk cheongsam and dancing at the Rumours nightclub with an American. This showed her decadence as clearly as if she'd been caught buying silk lingerie at one of Beijing 's new department stores.

But all this was just propaganda. Hulan remembered that night at Rumours perfectly well. She had not been there for fun, but rather to investigate a crime. The American in the photo was David Stark, an assistant U.S. attorney, who had come to China to help solve that case. The two of them had been successful and had been hailed as heroes. But it wasn't safe for anyone in China to climb too high. Bi and other reporters had turned her relationship with David into a national scandal. Could the same Liu Hulan who had been treated as a brave woman now have succumbed to the depravity of the West in the form of this American man? Couldn't she say bai bai-a mutant Mandarin-English phrase meaning to say "bye-bye" to lovers-to this foreign attorney? Hadn't Inspector Liu read China Can Say No, the book that stressed the importance of just saying no to American imperialism, materialism, and sexism?

None of this should have surprised Hulan. All the world over, the press liked to build people up, then bring them down, then build them up again. The only difference between the rest of the world and China was that here the government helped to color what was said.

At the iron gates to the Ministry of Public Security compound, Investigator Lo flashed his identification and the car was waved through. Lo dropped Hulan as close to the entrance as possible, then drove away to find a parking spot in the shade. Hulan hurried inside, walked across the lobby, and climbed the back stairs to her office.

Like most public buildings in Beijing, this one had neither heat nor air conditioning to protect the inhabitants from the vicissitudes of the weather. In winter she worked with her coat on. In summer she wore simple silk dresses or linen shifts and used old-fashioned methods of conserving cool air. She kept her windows open at night so that the room would cool down, then closed them first thing in the morning to keep the hot air out for as long as possible. In the late afternoons, when she couldn't stand it anymore, she cracked the windows again. On the very hottest days she draped wet cloths on the window openings and hoped for a breeze.

Hulan settled in at her desk, opened a file, and tried to concentrate, but she found her mind wandering. Her caseload was, to her mind at least, uninteresting. During these last months she'd been assigned to several murder cases. They'd been easy to solve, with nothing for her to do but fill out the paperwork, deposit the prisoners at the jail, and turn up in court when the prosecutor called. That she knew all this was Vice Minister Zai's plan to keep her safe didn't make her feel any better about it.

A few hours later, the mailboy came by with a stack of envelopes. She went through them quickly. One held an inter-office report from Pathologist Fong. She didn't need to read it, as the entry wound on the body at the temple pretty much told the story on that case. There were a couple of forms to be signed and sent back to the prosecutor's office. Again, nothing interesting on cases she could barely remember. But when she saw the return address on the last envelope, her breath caught. She set it down on her desk and swung around to look out the window. Memories flooded back. A destitute village on a scorched plain. Pigs crying at slaughter. The smell of the red soil. The searing brightness of a brutal sun. And then other images- girls in pigtails berating a man until he broke down and confessed. People being beaten. Blood running as freely as sweat. Her heart pounding, Hulan picked up the envelope and tore it open.

"Inspector Liu Hulan," Hulan read, "I am Ling Suchee. I hope you remember me from your days at the Red Soil Farm." Hulan remembered. How could she not remember? In 1970, at age twelve, Hulan had been sent to the countryside to "learn from the peasants." Now, sitting in her stifling office, Hulan was transported back across the years to when she was that young girl. Suchee had been her best friend. In those days of severity they had built a teasing relationship. With great affection Hulan had called Suchee her maor ye, or country bumpkin. Suchee had called Hulan bei kuan, literally meaning "north-wealth"-or a person of wealth from the north. Suchee had been funny, strong, and honest, while Hulan had been somber, had covered her city ways with false courage, and had already learned the political advantages of not always telling the truth. But for all of Hulan's so-called sophistication, Suchee had gotten them out of trouble more than once.

Hulan looked back at the characters on the page. "Today, on June 29 of the Western calendar, my daughter Ling Miaoshan died." Reading the circumstances of the girl's death, Hulan's hand instinctively went down to the early swell of her own pregnancy. "My daughter worked for an American company. It is called"-and here the crude characters gave way to even cruder print letters-"Knight International. I see and know things, but no one will listen to me. My daughter is dead. My daughter is gone from me. You once said you would help me if I ever needed it. I need your help now. Please come quickly."

Hulan ran a finger over the characters of Ling Suchee's name. Then she checked the date and realized that Miaoshan had died only five days ago. Taking a deep breath, she put away the letter, left her office, and went up a flight of stairs to Vice Minister Zai's office. He smiled when she came in and motioned for her to sit.