The judge indicated to the prosecutor to continue. But she broke in.
‘I trusted you. But I went to the law school and asked them. The teachers there are better than you lot. One of the professors helped me call some of my daughter’s classmates. There was a boy named Su. He liked my girl. His phone was switched off. We spent the night looking for him, but by the time we found him the next day the sun was coming up. Him. My daughter’s murderer.’ She was pointing at me. ‘His aunt got home that morning and as soon as she saw the blood she called the police. But she was already dead.’
She looked stunned by the reality of what she’d just said, as if this was the first time she was hearing the terrible news. She began wailing. People looked around the court, not knowing what to do, until her relatives pulled her back to her seat. But she started screaming.
‘This isn’t over! I will never give up! I’ll write to the mayor! There must be justice!’
The judge pummelled his gavel. The whole scene shocked me, it was playing out as if the fault lay with the police, not me. I was upset and even thought of standing up and shouting at them myself. The prosecutor desperately resumed his questioning so that the policeman could make a quick and gloomy exit. My lawyer had no intention of putting any questions to him.
My aunt was supposed to have been called in, but instead the prosecutor read out a transcript of a formal interview. Next came the two guards from the military academy. Their cheeks were puffy and red, but as soon as they saw me their eyes turned cold, like wolves. They were angry. How were they supposed to know? ‘Isn’t it your job to keep watch, not just stand around?’ their boss would have roared back, thumping the table.
The first guard admitted to having seen a girl entering the compound, the second wasn’t sure.
‘You swap shifts at 3.00, correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘I believe this was a premeditated murder,’ the prosecutor said, pointing at me.
‘I never said it wasn’t,’ I said, standing up.
My lawyer silenced me and, with a feigned look of pain, sat back down.
The day’s session finished with the identification of the switchblade and other pieces of evidence. As the officers led me away, Kong Jie’s mother rushed over and scratched at my face. Her relatives followed behind and pinched me too. The officer grabbed my arm and dragged me off to stop me from charging back. I looked away as we left and saw Kong Jie’s mother kicking out like a naughty child, before collapsing in tears.
‘My girl, my girl!’
Everyone was trying to help her, but this worsened her tantrum.
It felt so ritualised. Maybe she felt she had to perform like this to prove she was a real mother. But I knew this wasn’t real suffering. Real suffering would break through in the moments she spent alone while looking at photos of her daughter. Even then, the grief wouldn’t produce tears, only a hollow feeling, as if her organs had been spooned out of her body.
The trial was over in a matter of days. My lawyer argued that the case should be treated as a matter of legal technicality, while the prosecutor contended this was premeditated murder in the first degree from which I had tried to abscond. It was straightforward logic. The judge agreed. He asked if I had anything to add; I said no.
A few days later I was led back into court. Everyone stood along with the judge as he relayed decision in his beautifully modulated voice. I was swimming in unfamiliar words; I could barely understand any of it. Just as I thought we were nearing a conclusion, he licked his finger and turned to a new page.
‘Just read the last sentence,’ I said.
He stopped and his glasses slid down his nose. The officer beside me kicked me in the shin.
Finally, the judge came to the verdict: the defendant was guilty of murder in the first degree.
Sentence: the death penalty.
Grievous bodily harm, fixed prison term of ten years.
Rape, eight years.
The judge had barely finished when I felt another sharp kick to the shin. I bent over in pain.
At least it was all finished. But then he started reading again. Now we came to the civil action brought by the victim’s family. The court had taken into account my economic circumstances and decided I was unable to pay compensation, so none was to be granted.
A thud sounded behind me as someone fell to their seat. In this instance the court had judged her rather than me. I did regret killing her daughter in some ways, but if I hadn’t committed a murder so intolerable to our hypocritical society, what would have been the point?
The Appeal
Two days later Ma came. She was still avoiding people and when they bumped into her she would say, ‘My son’s going to be dead soon too. I don’t owe anyone anything.’
She looked at me and placed a selection of different drinks and a large bag of roasted chicken wings before me.
‘Son, you were right. If you don’t eat well, there’s no point in making money.’ But there was a screen between us. She gestured at a guard as if he was a waiter. ‘These are for my son.’
‘I’m afraid all gifts must be registered.’
‘Then please register these for me.’
‘You have to do it yourself.’
Displeased, she put them back in her bag. ‘Son, if you want a bird’s nest or bear paw, Mama can get them for you. My money is worthless without you.’
‘Save it. You need it to start a new family.’
Yes, I was being cruel, but what else could I say? Ma’s tears burst forth like a fountain. It was the first time I’d ever seen her cry like that.
She cocked her head and said, ‘Mama is going to get you out.’
‘Impossible.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
I didn’t say anything. In one short month she’d become a stubborn ox. Maybe this was the first time in her life she really had something worth fighting for.
‘Wait,’ she said, grabbing her bag and striding out of the visitors’ room. After fifty metres she stopped, turned and called back, ‘You’ve lost so much weight.’
Ma came back two days later with a squat, bald lawyer.
‘I don’t understand, but you can explain it to my son.’
‘Here’s the thing, boy. We want to appeal on your behalf to the Supreme Court. But we need your consent.’
‘I’m not appealing.’
‘But it’s your right. Why wouldn’t you?’
‘I know.’
‘My name is Li, everyone knows me. Mr Li has got three men off death row.’
‘I know, but there’s no need.’
Ma beat at the glass, first with her hands and then with her head. I watched her eyes, nose and teeth contort as they came at me, before pulling back again.
‘Just some cooperation,’ she howled.
‘OK,’ I said, nodding.
But I started regretting it as soon as I got back to my cell. I was like a character in a novel who has gone to drown themselves in the sea but who meets an old friend on the beach and is kidnapped by the conversation.
I couldn’t tell my mother I wanted to die.
From then on, Ma and the lawyer came and left on a cloud of dust, too busy for niceties. I was the emperor and they were the loyal ministers. One day the lawyer arrived with an official document from the A—Province People’s Hospital, dated five years previously, which described the after-effects of a wound I had sustained to the head. Symptoms included headaches, hysteria and signs of neurosis. I told them it never happened.
‘We have the word of a doctor,’ the lawyer said, pulling out a transcript, on which was written:
Q: Did you write this medical record?
A: Yes.