The Mao Case

Railway Station.
    The new station was larger and more modern. It was another attempt to upgrade the image of the “most desirable metropolitan
     city internationally,” as advocated in the Shanghai newspapers.
    Chen got off after the couple, who hugged and kissed, stepping out onto the ground in Shanghai for possibly the first time,
     before they merged into the throng, oblivious to the crowd milling around. The young girl came down after him, waving at him
     before disappearing in another direction.
    He remained standing on the platform, next to the train door, waiting for five or six minutes before he spotted a middle-aged
     man hurrying over, raising his hands in a gesture of recognition. He could have seen Chen before — or his picture. The man was
     of medium build, yet heavy-jawed and broad-shouldered, inclined toward stoutness.
    “Comrade Chief Inspector Chen?”

    It was Liu, the officer who succeeded Song as head of the special Internal Security team.
    They walked out into the hall swarming with people, where, in the midst of escalators running up and down, Chen saw the young
     girl again, studying an electronic information display.
    “Someone you know?” Liu asked.
    “No,” he said, moving down the escalator after Liu.
    The square outside appeared no less crowded, with people standing in lines for tickets, peddlers showing their products, and
     scalpers shouting with tickets in their hands. The restaurants and cafés nearby appeared noisy and cramped. It was out of
     the question for them to find a quiet place to talk.
    Liu led Chen across the square, into a parking lot tucked in behind the station tower. Liu pressed a remote control, unlocking
     the doors to a silver Lexus in the corner. As soon as they got into the car, Liu started the engine and turned on the air
     conditioning before handing Chen a folder about Song’s murder, all without saying a word.
    Chen started reading immediately. He understood Liu’s accusatory silence. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Song had been killed
     because of the investigation he had been pursuing — in the company of Chen, until the chief inspector’s unannounced, and so
     far unexplained vacation.
    It was no coincidence that Chen had been attacked in similar circumstances. Only Chen had been luckier.
    Lighting a cigarette, waving his hand over the document, Chen couldn’t shake the feeling that he was responsible, at least
     partially, for Song’s death. Fragmented memories of their unpleasant collaboration spiraled up with the smoke. Had he let
     Song have his way, the situation could have developed differently; had he informed Song of the attack on him, Song might have
     acted with more caution; had he stayed in Shanghai, he himself might have been the target.
    In spite of the air conditioning in the car, Chen began to sweat profusely. Liu remained silent, puffing hard at his cigarette — his
     third one. Chen wiped at his brow with his hand, like a mole smoked in a tunnel.

    There wasn’t much in the folder. Song had been plodding along in another direction, different from Chen’s. There must have
     been some point of overlap that bundled the two of them together in this investigation, a something known neither to Song,
     nor to Chen, but to the murderer alone. Chen failed to find anything helpful in the file.
    Now, who would have been desperate enough to murder Song as a way to force a stop to the investigation? It had been focused
     on Jiao and Xie, and after Yang’s murder, on Xie in particular.
    “We have to shake them up,” Liu said at the end of his third cigarette. “We tried to get hold of you, but no one knew your
     whereabouts.”
    “You mean —” Chen didn’t finish the sentence. What Liu wanted to do, Chen could guess, but he wasn’t in any position to argue
     against it. Nor to give a satisfactory account of his “vacation.” Instead, he said slowly, closing the folder, “Can you give
     me a more detailed account of what Song had been doing for the last few days?”
    “I have a mental list,” Liu said readily. “While you were away on vacation, Song did a lot of work — visiting Xie’s place, talking
     to him, and to Jiao, interviewing people related to Yang, meeting Hua, the boss of the company where Jiao worked, and Shang’s
     old maid, checking into Jiao’s phone record —”
    “Yes, he left no stone unturned,” Chen said. Some of the stones he had also tried to turn — through the help of Old Hunter and