The Mao Case by Qiu Xiaolong Page A

his cigarette.
    His mind wandered off to the unannounced “vacation” for Chief Inspector Chen. It wasn’t the first time Chen had taken such a vacation, but it was the first time he had done so without saying anything about it to Yu. On the contrary, Chen had contacted Yu’s father, Old Hunter, instead.
    According to the retired officer, Chen’s decision was utterly understandable. Too much risk was involved. “Some knowledge can really kill, son.”
    But Yu felt terribly let down. He should have been told about what kind of an assignment it was. He had worked with Chen on many cases, weathering storms in the same boat. What was more frustrating was that even Old Hunter begrudged him the necessary information, hemming and hawing while trying to enlist him to help. And even that was only because of Yu’s personal connection to Hong, the neighborhood committee cop in charge of the Jiling district. Old Hunter had likely already approached Hong without success. So it was up to Yu to do a background check on someone named Tan who had once lived in the district. In addition, Yu was told to be alert to anything seen or heard at the bureau regarding Internal Security.
    Hong had also been an “educated youth” in Yunnan Province and had joined the Shanghai police force around the same time as Yu. They had known each other for more than twenty years. Hong cooperated without asking a single question, but the information he provided only mystified Yu.
    In the mid-seventies, Tan, the only son of a capitalist family, tried to sneak across the border to Hong Kong in the company of his girlfriend Qian, also of black family background. They were caught making the attempt. Tan was so badly beaten that he killed himself, leaving a note in which he shouldered all the responsibility, trying to shelter his girlfriend from the consequences of their act. It was an unquestioned suicide, and an understandable one too. For such a “crime,” Tan could have spent his next twenty or thirty years rotting in prison.
    Tan’s parents died shortly thereafter. Qian died a couple of years later. A sad story, but how someone who had died twenty years ago could have any bearing on Chen’s assignment today, Yu failed to understand.
    He didn’t stop there, though. He went on to look into the background of Peng, another lover of Qian’s. The initial check yielded little. In those years, it was a crime for people to have sex without a marriage license, and Peng was sentenced to five years for his affair with Qian, a woman then ten years his senior. He never recovered. Nor had he had a regular job since his release. If there were anything remarkable at all about Peng, it would be his ability to muddle along all these years.
    Yu had no idea how any of this could be helpful to Chen, who could have easily gotten the same information with a couple of phone calls.
    In the meantime, Yu had heard nothing concerning the movements of Internal Security, at least not within the bureau. There was something unusual about the quiet. Party Secretary Li’s reticence about Chen’s leave spoke volumes about it. Yu ground out his cigarette, more confused than before, and lonely too.
    Then, in spite of himself, he dozed off before putting the ashtray out of sight.
    When he opened his eyes again, Peiqin was in the room, half sitting, half squatting on a wooden stool, plucking the feathers from a chicken in a plastic basin full of hot water. A bamboo-covered thermos bottle stood beside. There was also a basket full of vegetables and soybean product on the floor.
    “The common kitchen area is too crowded,” she said, glancing up at him, then at the ashtray on the nightstand.
    So the sound he had heard earlier outside the door could have been the chicken struggling in Peiqin’s hand. It was too late, now for him to hide the ashtray.
    “Where is Qinqin?” he asked.
    “Group study with his schoolmates. He left early and won’t be back until late in the