‘Not a thing.’
‘She came round for dinner a couple of times,’ Lyang said.
‘Yeah, but all we ever talked about were people we knew back in the States. Work. You know, stuff we had in common.’
‘And we never got an invite back to her place.’
‘The thing is,’ Hart said, ‘her private life was just that. Private, wasn’t it, Lyang? You know, for such an outgoing girl, she really was a very private person. You got so far with her, and then zap. Down came some kind of shutter. So far and no further. I don’t know anything about her relationships, what she did in her spare time. Hell, I don’t even know if she lived on her own. It’s hard to know if there was anything much at all outside of her work.’ He sighed and then glanced through the two-way mirror. ‘How’s our boy doing?’
‘Feeling pretty sorry for himself,’ said the female interrogator.
Hart glanced at his watch. ‘He’s had long enough to stew. Time to go get a confession.’ He looked at Li. ‘Unless there’s anything else you want to ask.’
Li said, ‘I can’t think of anything right now.’
‘We’ll be seeing you tonight, anyway,’ Lyang said. ‘You and Margaret are still coming to dinner, aren’t you?’
Li had forgotten all about it. ‘Sure,’ he said.
Hart squeezed his arm. ‘Catch you later.’ And he went out still clutching his charts. He hadn’t looked at them once.
Li was anxious to be away, but he also wanted to see how Hart’s interview with Jiang would turn out. ‘Will this take long?’ he asked Lyang.
‘I shouldn’t think so.’
So he sat down again and watched as Hart entered the interview room on the other side of the two-way mirror. Jiang sat upright, almost startled, and you could see his tension in the rigid way he held himself. Hart sat down facing Jiang and put the charts on his knee. He still wasn’t consulting them. ‘On these tests, Jiang,’ he said, those hypnotic tones again, ‘I can make one of three decisions. I can say a person’s telling the truth. I can say a test’s inconclusive, that I just don’t know. Or I can say a person’s not telling the truth.’
Jiang drew in a deep breath, very focused on Hart and what he was saying. He kept nodding, as if he could gain approval by agreeing.
‘Now here’s the thing,’ Hart said. ‘We’re not dealing with a criminal case here. You’re just an ordinary guy, working hard to raise his family, making his contribution to society. Now, some of the criminals I deal with, that they bring down here from the cells uptown, they don’t contribute to anything. They’re just kind of leeches on society.’ He leaned forward, creating a sense of confidentiality between them. ‘When I look at the charts, and from talking with you here today, I know you’re no criminal, that’s for darn sure. In fact, I’m inclined to think you’re kind of a nice guy. And life’s dealt you a pretty bum hand.’
Jiang nodded vigorously.
‘The thing is, is that as far as what Shimei is saying, it happened. And you’re remembering it. But you’re having a problem bringing it forward to talk with somebody. To try and understand why. And I can understand the fear and embarrassment for you. That’s the biggest thing, isn’t it?’
Jiang was nodding miserably now.
‘Because you can remember it happened, but if you come right out and tell somebody, how do you handle that picture you have of yourself, because you’re not like that normally.’
‘I’m not,’ Jiang whispered.
‘We all have a view of ourselves, Jiang. The way we believe that the rest of the world looks at us. We call that our ego. And when that is threatened, we have what we call an ego defence mechanism which, to protect that image we have of ourselves, will push things back into our subconscious and lead us to deny that they ever occurred — when, in fact, we ourselves know that, yes, it did happen. But because it is so out of character for us in normal situations, we really don’t know how to deal with it.’
Jiang was still nodding his agreement. You could see in him, as clear as day, the desire to confess. To tell this soft-spoken sympathetic American the truth, because after all he had already seen it in the chart.
Hart was still talking. ‘And so, we are left in a predicament where we feel so much pressure. It’s called anxiety. And our anxiety gets to be so great that our total thinking, our total being, is just taken up with trying to fight it.’ He leaned even closer, and put a comforting hand on Jiang’s knee. ‘The thing is that you know, and I know, that what happened was probably brought on by the booze.’
‘Yes …’ Jiang’s voice was a whisper.
‘And you were lonely. After all, your wife had left you. How long had it been? Two years? That’s a long time for a man to be on his own, Jiang.’
Jiang had tipped his head into his left hand, his palm hiding his eyes, but you could see the tears running down his pockmarked cheeks.
‘And that’s why you did it, wasn’t it, Jiang?’
‘Yes.’ Almost inaudible.
‘I need you to tell me, Jiang, that you did put your penis into Shimei’s vagina. And all that anxiety is just going to lift right off your shoulders.’
Again, the bluntness of it seemed shocking, but Li knew that the form of words was important for legal purposes.
‘I did it,’ Jiang said.
‘You put your penis in Shimei’s vagina?’
‘Yes.’
‘All the way?’
‘Yes.’ And he wept openly now.
Hart patted his knee gently. And he still hadn’t looked at the charts.
V
Lynn Pan’s apartment was in a new housing development at the south end of Haidian district, not far from Beijing University. The blocks were only four storeys, and had pitched, red-tiled roofs and white painted walls peppered with tiny balconies at every other window. The compound was gated, and guarded by a grey-uniformed Beijing Security officer. Inside there was parking for vehicles, and covered sheds for bicycles. But there were no bicycles parked there. Li flashed his Public Security ID for the guard to raise the gate and the guard said, ‘Your people are already here.’
Li nodded and drove through to park up in front of Pan’s block. He was puzzled by the black and white parked outside it. Forensics travelled in unmarked vans.
In the lobby, an elderly woman grinned at him toothlessly from behind a grilled window. ‘Second floor,’ she said, pointing upwards when he showed her his ID.
On the second-floor landing, the door to Pan’s apartment was standing wide open and he could hear voices from inside. As he went in, he saw that the lock on the door had been forced. The apartment was a shambles. The polished wooden floor in the square hall was strewn with colourful Xinjiang rugs. There were four doors off it. One to a bathroom. Beside it, one to a tiny kitchen. The door to the right led to a living-dining room, its window giving on to one of the small balconies and overlooking the car park below. The fourth door led to the back of the apartment and a double bedroom. The contents of drawers and cupboards had been tipped out on to floors. The doors to the wardrobe stood open. There were two uniformed officers in the bedroom. They turned, startled, as Li appeared in the doorway.
‘What the hell are you guys doing here?’ Li asked.
There was no need to show his ID. They knew immediately who he was. One of them said, ‘The caretaker called the station about the break-in half an hour ago. They radioed the car. It only took us about fifteen minutes to get here.’
‘A break-in,’ Li repeated stupidly.
They looked at him as if he had horns. ‘Sure, isn’t that why you’re here?’
Li said, ‘Haven’t you seen the morning papers? The lady who lives here was murdered last night?’
‘Shit.’ The one who had spoken first suddenly viewed the apartment in a new light.
‘It was in the papers?’ the other one said, incredulously.
‘I hope you haven’t disturbed anything.’
‘No, Chief.’
‘You’ve spoken to the caretaker?’ They nodded. ‘How come the break-in wasn’t reported until this morning?’