Death of a Red Heroine

have had some friends coming to visit her here.”
    “Maybe or maybe not, but that’s her business, not mine.”
    “I understand, Comrade Yuan,” he said, “but I still want to ask you some other questions. Did you notice anything unusual about Guan in the last couple of months?”
    “I’m no detective, so I do not know what’s usual or unusual.”
    “One more question,” he said. “Did you see her on the evening of May tenth?”
    “May tenth, let me think,” she said. “I don’t remember seeing her at all that day. I was at my son’s school for a meeting in the evening. Then we went to bed early. As I’ve told you, I have to get up to sell the dumplings early in the morning.”
    “Perhaps you’d like to think about it. You can get in touch with me if anything comes to you,” he said. “Again, I’m sorry about the situation in your factory, but let’s hope for the best.”
    “Thank you.” She added, as if apologizing in her turn now, “There may be one thing, now that I think about it. For the last couple of months, sometimes she came back quite late, at twelve o’clock or even later. Since I was laid off I have been worried too much to sleep soundly, so once or twice I heard her coming back at such hours. But then, she could have been really busy, such a national model worker.”
    “Yes, probably,” he said, “but we will check into that.”
    “That’s about all I know,” she said.
    Chief Inspector Chen thanked her and left.
    He next approached Guan’s neighbor across the corridor, beside the public bathroom. He was raising his hand toward the tiny doorbell when the door was flung open. A young girl dashed out toward the stairs, and a middle-aged woman stood furiously in the doorway, with her hands firmly on her hips. “You, too, have to come and bully me. Little bitch. May Heaven let you die a thousand-stab death.” Then she saw him, and stared at him with angry, pop-eyed intensity.
    He immediately adopted the stance of a senior police officer with no time to waste, producing his official identity card and flashing it at her with a gesture often shown on TV.
    It caused her to lose some of her animosity.
    “I have to ask you some questions,” he said. “Questions about Guan Hongying, your neighbor.”
    “She’s dead, I know,” she said. “My name is Su Nanhua. Sorry about the scene you have just witnessed. My daughter’s seeing a young gangster and will not listen to me. It’s really driving me crazy.”
    What Chen got after fifteen minutes’ talk was almost the same version as Yuan’s, except Su was even more biased. According to her, Guan had kept very much to herself all those years. That would have been odd in a young woman, though not for such a celebrity.
    “You mean that she lived here all these years and you did not get a single chance to get acquainted?”
    “Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?” she said. “But it’s true.”
    “And she never talked to you?”
    “Well, she did and she didn’t. ‘It’s fine today.’ ‘Have you had your dinner?’ So on and so forth. Nothing but those meaningless words.”
    “Now what about the evening of May tenth, Comrade Su?” he said. “Did you see her or speak to her that evening?”
    “Well, that evening, yes, I did notice something. I was reading the latest issue of Family quite late that evening. I would not have noticed her leaving the dorm, but for the sound of something heavy being dropped just outside my door. So I looked out. There she was, going to the stairs, with her back me, and I did not know what she had dropped. All I could see was that she had a heavy suitcase in one hand. So it could have been the suitcase. She was going downstairs. It was late. I was curious and looked out of the window, but I saw no taxi waiting for her at the curb.”
    “So you thought she was taking a trip.”
    “I guessed so.”
    “What time was it?”
    “Around ten thirty.”
    “How did you know the time?”
    “I watched Hope that evening on TV. Every Thursday evening, in fact. It finishes at ten thirty. Then I started reading the magazine. I had not read much before I heard the thump.”
    “Had she talked to you about the trip she was going to take?”
    “No, not to me.”
    “Was there anything else about that night?”
    “No, nothing else.”
    “Contact me if you think of anything,” he said, standing up. “You have my number on the card.”
    Chen then climbed up to the third floor, to a room almost