Whispering Shadows (8 page)

“Good. Take it with you. Anything else?”

Paul pulled the other drawer open. “Assorted papers. Cash. A digital camera. A case of telephone SIM cards and memory chips, I think.”

“Take it.”

“Shouldn't I be leaving this to the police?” Paul asked.

“No, on no account. We can discuss this later. Take as much with you as you can keep hidden from her. The cell phones, the memory chips, the notebooks, the calendar on the desk; everything from which we can find out appointments, places, and the names of his contacts in China.”

“And what should I do with the stuff?”

“Bring it to me. As quickly as possible.”

Elizabeth Owen was still asleep when Paul returned to the living room. He went into the office again and put the two cell phones and the small digital camera into his trouser pockets, wrapped the hard drive, the case with the memory chips, and the notebooks in his jacket, wrote a short note for Mrs. Owen, which he laid on the table in the living room, and left the apartment as quietly as he
could.

During the journey to the border, his head was full of Zhang's words. His voice had sounded unusually sharp, almost a little unfamiliar. What was the meaning of his instructions? Paul could understand his suspicion of most of his coworkers, but why did he distrust the investigations of the Hong Kong homicide squad in this case before they had even started on their work? Were there connections between the Shenzhen police and the Hong Kong police that Zhang knew about, or did he just want to play it safe? His behavior was more than strange.

Paul wondered if he should call Christine, but decided not to do so. It would only worry her; he would be back in a few hours and would call her then.

In Shenzhen, he bought a fake leather briefcase at the train station and put Michael Owen's things in it. Although he could not imagine that any secret information was really hidden in there, he felt unsettled nonetheless, and held the case close to his chest with both hands. He felt like calling Zhang to pick him up from the station, but then felt it would be silly to do so.

———

Mei opened the door and greeted him with a smile. Paul had always thought her an extremely beautiful woman, even though she did not fit the ideal image of a Chinese woman; she was too short for that. She had inherited the short, stocky build of her mother, a farmer from Sichuan, but she had a very sensual mouth and eyes, which expressed an infectious joie de vivre.

“Come in. Zhang is still out getting the groceries. He'll be back any minute. Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, please.” Paul sat down at the folding table and put the briefcase down by his feet. “Tell me, why is there so much underwear hanging outside?”

“Today is laundry day for the brothel,” she said, turning on the gas stove, taking a large spoonful of dark-green tea leaves from a
tin and putting them in an old porcelain teapot. She turned to face him suddenly. “It's nice to see you more often again, Paul,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said, a little surprised.

“We've missed you.”

“I've missed you both too.”

“Will you come and visit us more often again now?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

He fell silent, unsure whether there was another, deeper meaning in what she said, if there was something she was hinting at.

“There's something I want to talk to you about,” she said, her voice becoming unusually quiet. “I'm worried.”

“Worried? About what?”

But before Mei could reply, they heard Zhang panting his way up the steps. Swearing softly, he put his key in the door lock. Mei turned wordlessly and poured the hot water into the pot.

Zhang put his shopping bags down with a loud sigh and sank onto the kitchen stool. “You'll have to carry me up here one day,” he said.

“Just stop smoking,” Mei replied, in a tone of voice that wavered between irritation and worry. “Then you'll be able to get up the stairs again.”

“It's not the breathing. It's the legs. They're much worse.” Zhang rubbed his right knee with both hands.

Paul knew about his friend's joint pains. They were a constant reminder of the years that he had spent in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. He had suffered his first inflammation of the knee after he had planted rice for almost forty-eight hours nonstop with a group of young people. They had stood for two days and nights in the paddy field, often knee-deep in cold water, in order to prove that they were not spoiled brats, not the pampered city kids of soft intellectuals, but that they could serve the Revolution like everyone else. Two in the group had died of lung infections a few days after that; for Zhang, it was only his knee that swelled and was intolerably painful for weeks. The pain had
developed into a kind of rheumatism over the years and got worse with increasing age.

Mei passed him two hot towels, which he wrapped around his knee.

“Have you eaten?” he said, turning to Paul and starting to unpack the grocery bags without waiting for a reply. Before long the whole apartment smelled of sesame oil, garlic, coriander, and ginger, of fried spring onions and chili peppers. On the table was a plate of cold chicken, several saucers of black and red sauces, fried pork belly, deep-fried mushrooms, watercress, and rice. Zhang took his place contentedly.

“Are you going to tell me why I should only call you on Mei's cell phone now?” Paul asked, after he had praised his friend for the food.

Zhang helped himself to a good chunk of pork belly before he replied.

“Because I'm not sure who might be listening in to the cell phone I use for work. It doesn't normally bother me, but this case is different.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Zhang spat a bit of rind out. “I tried to explain to you yesterday. The murder of a foreigner in China is not simply a murder. It's a loss of face. It damages the country's image. And in some cases it becomes an economic problem. The authorities do everything to make foreigners feel safe. I can't think of anything like this ever happening before here in Shenzhen. I can't imagine that anyone would be so stupid as to attack a foreigner and to rob him and kill him too. There are enough rich Chinese people around.”

“Who would have a reason to kill a young American man, then?”

“I haven't got the faintest idea, but I'm afraid that's exactly why it's a problem. Can you tell me anything about the Owens' business in China?” Zhang asked.

“Not much. They mentioned that they have a factory here. Or several, perhaps. I can't remember exactly.”

“What do they manufacture?”

“I don't know.”

“Didn't they give any idea? Toys? Lights? Shoes?”

Paul shook his head.

“Do you know the name of the company?”

“No. I didn't ask them. They did say, though, that their son had an appointment with a Mr. Tang. It sounded as though that was their manager or a joint venture partner.”

“Tang Mingqing?”

Paul would think back to this moment a great deal later on. To Zhang's eyes opened wide. To the grimace on his lips. Why had he not taken these unusual reactions as a warning?

“No,” Paul replied uncertainly. “If I remember correctly, they didn't mention a Chinese name.”

“Also called Victor Tang?”

“Yes, I think that's what he was called.”

Zhang stared at his friend disbelievingly.

“Are you sure?”

“Fairly sure. Who is this man?”

“Victor Tang is . . . is . . .” Zhang searched for words and finished his sentence only a few seconds later, “an incredibly influential person.” Paul waited for something that would explain his friend's sudden tenseness, but Zhang did not say more.

Mei stared down at her plate, which was still half full.

“What do you mean by influential?” Paul asked, after a pause.

“You don't even know his name?” Zhang said in response.

Paul thought for a moment. Victor Tang? Tang Mingqing? The man must have very patriotic parents. Who else would name their child after three Chinese dynasties at once? “No. The name means nothing to me. But why should it? I haven't been here for a long time and I haven't read the newspapers for years. How am I supposed to know who he is? What can you tell me about him?”

“Not much either. I don't know him personally, but his name is often in the papers. He is an adviser to the mayor and is a member of a few committees in the city and in the party, and he's the head
of the CWI.”

“CWI? What does that stand for?”

“China World Investment. It's a conglomerate of companies that produce all kinds of things; I've no idea what.”

Zhang shoveled two mouthfuls of rice into his mouth with several deft movements and thought hard. “There's an Internet café a couple of streets away. Now we have a name we can see if we can find anything on the Internet that will help us. Where's the stuff you brought from Michael Owen's apartment?”

Paul passed him the briefcase. Mei cleared the table and Zhang spread the things out in front of them.

“I'll have a look at the cell phone and the hard drive later,” he said, leafing through one of the notebooks. Michael Owen's handwriting was so illegible that Paul could only make out a few words. There was a business card in one of the booklets:

———

The Internet café was very busy, so they had to wait a few minutes. Paul looked around: There were two or three youngsters sitting in front of some of the computers, playing games or pounding wildly at the keyboards. The air was so full of cigarette smoke that his eyes stung.

“This café was closed for a week last month,” Zhang whispered.
“Someone reported it for spreading pornography.”

“And? Did they not find anything?”

“They did. My coworkers checked all the computers. Porn sites had been clicked on almost all of them in the preceding days.”

“Why is it open again, then?”

“It was just porn, not politics. They didn't find a politically sensitive website. I did wonder about that, but it must be because of the area. You can get rid of a porn charge with a few generous gifts.”

Before they could expand on this theme, a terminal became free and they sat down. Google.com and Google.cn showed eight hundred and twenty-eight entries for Cathay Heavy Metal. The first one was the company's website, which was not very comprehensive. It stated that Victor Tang and Michael Owen were joint directors of the company. Cathay Heavy Metal supplied components to the rapidly growing motor industry in China and had been founded three years ago. The number of its employees—more than three thousand—had tripled since then. All the figures and charts on the website showed vertiginous growth. Their customers included well-known German, Japanese, American, and South Korean car companies.

The other search results that they clicked on were small articles in newspapers and mentions in trade and professional publications. According to them, the Owens were part of a family dynasty in the American metalworking industry. They owned Aurora Metal Inc. in the American state of Wisconsin. The company had been founded by Michael's great-grandfather, a German immigrant from Böblingen, a hundred years ago. Richard Owen had been the president of the industry association in Wisconsin and had been received in the White House by President Ronald Reagan as part of a delegation. This fact did not leave Zhang unimpressed.

“He won't rest until we find out who murdered his son,” he said, as he paid the bill. “The sooner we find him, the better.”

“What shall we do with Michael Owen's things?” Paul asked.

“I'll hang on to them for now. Perhaps I'll find something that
will help us further.”

“Why did you insist that I bring them to you? Don't you trust the Hong Kong police?”

Zhang hesitated before replying. Paul was not sure if he was thinking about the question or if he simply felt uncomfortable talking about this.

Finally, Zhang said, “Would you trust them?”

“I haven't had any reason to think about that before.” After a pause, he added, “Probably not.”

———

On the journey back to Hong Kong, Paul started feeling so troubled that he could not sit still, but paced up and down in the car instead. He remembered that Zhang had ducked his question, and had replied by asking him a question instead. The whole time, his friend had seemed inexplicably, unusually tense. On top of that, Paul could not get the Owens out of his head, no matter how hard he tried to think about something else. He could clearly see the picture of the American president and Richard Owen. The two men were shaking hands. They were laughing. Looking straight at the camera. One of them with routine friendliness, but the other with the boundless pride that you only saw otherwise in photos of children. Mr. Owen must have donated tens of thousands of dollars to get that photo. Apart from labor costs, profit margins, and over a billion potential customers, what had driven the family to China? Had they known what they were letting themselves in for or had they come with expectations of trees and flowers of glass, bridges of porcelain, and bells that tinkled in the wind?