started.”
“Trouble?” Chen looked to Wilson, who stood behind the sergeant in the doorway.
“They burned a Security post, sir. No one Jiurt. The guards saw what was happening and got out, raised the alarm. That was an hour back.” Chen nodded. An hour back he had been with the woman.
There was a wailing, a sudden violent wailing from the next room.
He looked up, startled. “What the hell. . . ?” “It’s his wife, sir. I thought it best to keep her here. She’s hysterical and the crowd’s already touchy, so ...”
Chen nodded. But the sound was affecting him badly. He looked back at the shattered skull, then gently lowered it and stood back. He held his hands out, letting the medical orderly peel off the gloves and drop them in the sterile sack, then turned, facing the sergeant. “So . . . what else do we know? What do the camera records show?” Wilson answered him. “The area he was killed is a blind spot. There’s a camera on the approach to it, but nothing on the corridor itself. It’s only a small thing ... a maintenance passage. The room’s usually locked.” “So what does the approach camera show?”
Wilson looked to the sergeant. “We’re not sure yet, sir. I’ve got a squad checking faces against the records. It’s a busy corridor and we’re not sure just how long the body was there before it was discovered.” Chen turned to the medic.
“Oh . . . four, five hours at least. Maybe more.”
Chen turned back. “Okay. As soon as you find out anything, let me know. I’ve my own theory as to who’s behind this, and the sooner we get to our killer the better. That is, if he’s still alive—“ He broke off. There had been a scuffling in the next room. Now the door to the kitchen jerked opened. There was shouting. A distraught woman’s face peered out as she struggled to get past the guard, and then the door slammed shut again.
The wailing sounded again, louder than before. Chen sighed. “Okay. I want that trace made a priority. At the same time I want a complete and thorough search of this stack, every room, every cupboard. And we’re not looking for small stuff, okay?—we’re looking only for things pertaining to this killing . . . and for those missing men.” Wilson and the sergeant bowed.
“Good. Now get going. I’ll speak to the woman.” He watched them go, then stood there a moment, considering things. Under normal procedures the camera records would be checked back forty-eight hours at least. It would emerge that he had been down here earlier yesterday, talking to Song Wei’s family. Questions would be asked, his investigation reports scrutinized for the least irregularity, and he would be in trouble. Unless he could tie things up quickly. Unless he could make that crucial connection between the killer and that bastard Cornwell. He knew it was Cornwell—had known it since he’d first heard the news. No one else would have had Song Wei killed. No one else stood to benefit by it. But he had to prove that. The man’s blustering threats about taking things into his own hands weren’t enough to convince a court. He had to make the link. To prove that Cornwell was behind it. Chen shivered. Like a lot of them these days Cornwell thought he was immune, above the rule of law. And the men he killed or destroyed, what were they to him? Scum, he’d called them. Scum. He went to the door, knocked. There was a sudden silence, and then the door slid back.
“Sir!” The guard stood back, letting him pass. Inside, the woman sat on the chair beside the tiny shrine. Behind her stood the old man, Song Wei’s father.
The old man stared at Chen a moment, then narrowed his eyes. “You ...” he whispered. “I should have known.”
Chen turned, dismissing the guard, then went across, standing over the weeping woman. He stared at her a moment, understanding her grief, then looked up, meeting the old man’s eyes.
“This had nothing to do with me,” he said quietly. “I tried to warn your son. Him and his friends. But this . . .” He shuddered. “I’ll get the man who did this. I promise you.”
“You promise me?” The old man’s voice was scornful now. He stared at Chen venomously, then leaned forward and spat on the chest patch of Chen’s uniform. “That for your promises, Major. I know your kind. You stick together to protect your interests. My son”—he drew a breath, trying hard to control himself, then spoke again—“my son was a good man. He worked hard. He was good to his wife, his children. He looked after his father, like a dutiful son should. And what was his reward? To be cast off. To be made to beg for crumbs from the rich man’s table. And, when he protested at his treatment, to be killed. Like the lowest insect.” The old man shuddered with indignation, his gnarled hands resting on his daughter-in-law’s shoulders, the fingers digging into her flesh, as if both to comfort and punish her. His face was fierce now, his eyes staring at Chen with an unrelenting hatred. “Promises . . . Paa! Can you eat promises? Can your promises make my son live again?” He shook his head. “No, Major. Give me none of your promises. I am sick to the heart of eating such bile.”
“I_”
“Just go,” the old man said, his face hard, unforgiving. “Go play your games. Go and pretend you’re doing something.” Chen turned, his face stinging as if he’d been slapped, and left, the man’s words ringing in his ears, the woman’s weeping tearing at his gut. Corn-well, he thought, moving through the kitchen without stopping, barely conscious of the guards bowing and saluting as he passed. I’m going to nail that bastard Comwell, whatever it takes. And if you can’t? a small voice asked.
He stopped, looking about him at the empty corridor, saying the words quietly to himself. “Then I’ll kill him anyway.”
hannah sat at her desk, waiting. Her father had come in some while back, going straight to his study. She had heard the door slam shut, then, less than a minute later, had heard it open again, the sound of voices, quiet at first, then louder. The door had slammed . . . and then nothing. She looked down at the sketches she had been making, noting how the faces seemed to stare back at her, somehow independent, as if she had not made them, merely freed them from the anonymous whiteness of the page. There was one particularly—the face of the hua pen she had seen that day down-level—which seemed to have transcended her simple attempt to capture its physical details. There was something in the depth of the eyes, in the slight twist of that knowing smile, which suggested something shadowed—a secret, hidden self she had not suspected while she had been listening to him.
She looked up, her eyes drawn to the flickering flatscreen on the wall across from her. It was her habit to leave it on when she worked, the sound turned down—a silent window on the world. Images . . . she trusted images more than words. They were less intermediary in their nature, less easily manipulated. Yet images could be faked or wrongly read. They were no different from words in that respect. Between what was shown and what hidden, the truth so often slipped away. Even so, it seemed more important to her to see than to say, though she knew she must do both in future. On the screen image followed image silently. Her world was in chaos—was slowly tearing itself apart—and yet for a large number of people there was no connection between that greater life and their own small private worlds of work and family—only the flickering screen, the official voice which told them what to think. Isolated. The two worlds were isolated. And if they met it was in a blaze of sudden, explosive violence—a violence that inflicted understanding only on its victims, leaving the watching billions unaffected.
Maybe that, then, was her purpose. To be that connecting force. To link the greater world with the small. Maybe it was her role, in this world of walls and levels, of files and secrets, of masked men and ever-watching cameras, to be the one who saw things clearly—who opened files, and looked inside locked rooms—and spoke what she had seen. Yes, but it could not be done openly, for too much was at risk. To speak out was to oppose, to threaten those shadows that controlled their lives. She had no illusions about it. They would kill her to prevent it. A hua pen . . . she must learn to become a new kind of hua pen, telling, not ancient tales, but the story of her age, her place. She stood, her restlessness suddenly something physical, like an itch that needed to be scratched. Turning, she took two paces, then stopped abruptly, staring, her mouth open in surprise. Her father stood in the shadow of the doorway, watching her.