The Mao Case

power, all the emperor’s men and women. That’s why Hua was so panic-stricken about
     the possibility of losing Jiao, a woman he didn’t really care for. Consciously, she was nothing to him. But in his subconscious,
     Jiao was everything.”

    “Leaving your psychological jargon aside, he’s devil-possessed. He has fucked his brains out! He must have watched too many
     movies about Mao and the emperors. He’s totally crazy.”
    “It’s sheer craziness, but for such a split personality, it makes sense. Jiao provided the mechanism for him to switch into
     Mao, so he couldn’t afford to let anyone know about their relationship. That led to a hell of secrecy: adjoining apartments,
     a secret door from his apartment into hers — somewhere in the living room, I believe — and financial transactions too. After she
     quit her job, he no longer was seen in her company, but he kept seeing her in secret. That’s how you caught a glimpse of them
     by the window the other night.”
    “I’m still confounded, Chief. That bastard is crazy — why would Jiao have played Shang for him?”
    “I don’t think Jiao liked the role of Shang, but he must have insisted on it as the condition of their Mao deal.”
    “Beauty has a thin fate indeed. What a curse to three generations! A curse to her grandmother, to her mother, and to her too.
     But what’s the damned point for him?”
    “There’s not a point in the world — its not like in a Suzhou opera. There isn’t always a transcendental point visible in life,
     so people have to have their own point, or to make one, at least, in their own imagination,” Chen said, his dismal smile getting
     lost in thought. “Anyway, Hua got increasingly uneasy about Jiao’s visits to Xie’s place, and about her mixing with other
     people. For instance, Yang kept trying to drag Jiao to other parties —”
    Chen’s cell phone rang, cutting short his speech.
    “Oh, it’s Liu,” he said to Old Hunter, pressing a button.
    “Comrade Chief Inspector Chen, I’ve got the information you requested. Among the people Song interviewed during your vacation,
     there’s one named Hua. He owns several large companies, including the one for which Jiao once worked. It was just routine.
     Nothing suspicious on the record —”
    “Nothing suspicious on the record,” Chen repeated in irrepressible sarcasm. “Then listen to this, Comrade Liu. Less than an
     hour ago,
Hua killed Jiao in her apartment. He’s in my custody. Hurry over here with your people.”
    “What?” Liu said, too astonished to absorb what Chen had said. “But you didn’t say anything about it this morning, or this
     afternoon.”
    “You were so bent on your tough measures, expecting to get the warrant tomorrow. Did you really want to listen?” Chen added
     after a pause, “Hua also killed Yang, who he saw as a potential threat that could drag Jiao away from him.”
    “He killed Yang! But — why should he have bothered to leave Yang’s body in Xie’s garden?”
    Old Hunter, too, found it hard to believe. How could Chen have discovered it while on vacation thousands of miles away?
    “In Hua’s imagination, Xie had became another threat because Jiao was nice to him.”
    “How could an old pathetic fellow have been a threat?”
    “Hua’s paranoid, and all he saw was that Jiao was nice to Xie. So by getting rid of Yang and planting her body there, Hua
     tried to kill two birds with one stone.”
    “You — you have done an amazing job. We’re on the way. Stay there, Chief Inspector Chen.”
    “Yes, I’ll stay here,” Chen said, snapping the phone closed in disgust. “An amazing job indeed, Old Hunter. Jiao was murdered
     in this very room, not even a stone’s throw away from the closet I was in.”
    “But you did your job,” Old Hunter said in earnest, aware of the agony in Chen’s voice. A cop could close many cases successfully,
     but a single screwup could haunt him forever. “You were in the closet, unable to see or hear clearly. Nobody could have done
     any better under the circumstances. But for you, the criminal would have got away. What a case —”
    Old Hunter lost his words in angst. What a Mao case — so many years ago for him, and now for Chen …
    “Shang —”

THIRTY-ONE
    “SHANG —” HUA WAS COMING round, his features convulsed with bewildered astonishment. “What the hell happened?”
    “That is exactly what happened,” Chen said, thinking of the superstitious