Flower Net (Red Princess 1)

“I didn’t report him,” the woman said in a quavering voice. “He was a bumpkin, but he paid his rent promptly.”

“In other words, you followed a one-eye-open, one-eye-closed policy,” Hulan said.

“I did no such thing!”

“Well, then, is it your habit to allow people without the proper permits to stay in this building?” Hulan gestured toward the hallway. “Will I find others in this place who do not have a hukou, a residency permit?”

The deputy head of the Neighborhood Committee stared intently at her hands folded tightly in her lap.

“Just tell me,” Hulan pressed, “was Mr. Su a legitimate resident here in Beijing? Was this argument over a true possession or over something that belonged to neither man?”

This time the woman’s voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “Inspector…”

“You must speak up!”

The woman looked defiantly at Hulan. “The Supreme Leader tells us that to be rich is glorious.”

“Deng Xiaoping didn’t tell us to get rich by taking bribes, by harboring the criminal element, or by lying to the Ministry of Public Security.” Hulan looked past the woman’s shoulder to a uniformed man. “Take her down to the office. Have her make a full confession.”

Hulan followed Widow Xie as she shuffled through the crowd of neighbors. At the door, Hulan raised her voice. “If some of you are here in Beijing illegally, I can assure you that I will be more forgiving to those who volunteer that information. Downstairs, you will find several police officers waiting for you to approach them if you have anything to discuss. If anyone has something to add specifically about this crime, I would like you to stay here and tell me immediately. If you have no business with either the officers downstairs or with me, go to your rooms. I will allow you just ten minutes to pass the word to the other residents and to make your decisions.”

Hulan regarded the stony faces. She had already offered more options to these people than any of her colleagues would have dared. But she wasn’t finished.

“I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone the consequences if you are found to be lying,” she called out down the hallway. “You know the saying—leniency to those who confess; severity to those who hide. Already Widow Xie has been detained. Her case is compounded by her dishonesty. I would not like to see this happen to any of you.”

A moment later, the room emptied. As she expected, no one chose to speak with her. Still, she hoped that at least some of them would come forward, because the stack of personal files on her desk was much smaller than the number of residents living in this building.

Hulan sat still waiting for calm to settle over her, but she was angry. How could the deputy head be so stupid? Out of greed, the widow had forgotten her duty. Many times in her career, Hulan had elected to look the other way—to follow her own version of the one-eye-open, one-eye-closed policy—thinking that there was no harm in people seeking a flyspeck of freedom. But today there was little Hulan could do except watch as China’s “iron triangle” closed over not just the suspect in the murder, but also over Widow Xie and who knew how many others? It was this latter group—all innocents, really—who had had the pure misfortune to have traveled here illegally, to have found someone who was willing to twist the rules and rent them a room, and to have ended up in a place where a murder would bring the triangle’s ineluctable force down on them.

The three sides of the iron triangle controlled a quarter of the world’s population. At one corner of the triangle was the dangan, the secret personal file, which was kept by local police stations and work units. If someone was unwise enough to make a political mistake (offering even mild criticism against the government) or make an error in behavior (getting caught having sex with an unmarried member of the opposite sex or showing a selfish attitude at work), a note would be placed in the file. This information would then follow a person throughout his lifetime, keeping him from getting a job, from being promoted, or from moving from province to province even for private matters. (Here, Hulan was letting a Western attitude invade her mind, for there were no words in Chinese for private or privacy.)

At another corner of the triangle stood the danwei or work unit, which provided employment, housing, and medical care. The work unit decided if you could get married and issued pregnancy permits. It determined whether or not you were eligible for a one-or two-bedroom apartment and if you would live close to your factory or miles away.

At the apex of the triangle was the hukou or residency permit. It looked like a passport of sorts, and that’s exactly what it was. It stated your name, listed your relatives, and said where you were from. Even though in the last ten years the government had loosened just slightly its stranglehold on the population by allowing its citizens to travel on vacation within China without getting permission, it was still nearly impossible to change the status of a hukou. So, if you were from Fooshan and were accepted into Beijing University, you would be allowed to go, but at the completion of your education you would have to return to Fooshan. If you were from Chengdu and fell in love with someone from Shanghai, you would have to abandon the romance. If you were a simple peasant, eking out a meager existence in the countryside, there you would remain just as your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had.

Today, the iron triangle had trapped at least two people—Mr. Su and Widow Xie.

The allotted ten minutes had passed. Hulan stood, gathered the files, and went downstairs. In the courtyard, one of the officers reported that two residents had confessed to being in Beijing illegally. A few had added what they could to the story of Shih and Su. But most of the people had come to make reports on Widow Xie’s corruption. Hulan had anticipated this last wrinkle. Making public criticisms of people who were falling out of favor was as old as the regime.

Fatigued and depressed, she got into the backseat of a white Saab. Her driver, a compact young man who liked to be called Peter, asked, “Where to now, Inspector?”

“Just take me back to the office,” she said, laying her head back on the soft seat cushions.

Peter pulled away from the curb and began making his way toward Tiananmen Square and MPS headquarters. Hulan had no illusions about Peter Sun. He was an investigator third grade, and his main job was to inform on her. She did her best to circumvent this by relegating him to the position of driver rather than partner. He seemed shy and unprepossessing until he got behind the wheel.

/> Now here he was as usual, honking the horn at bicyclists, yelling out the window—“mother of a fart” and “mating worm”—frantically cutting in front of other cars even if it earned him only a few feet, and ignoring the invective that was hurled back at him. Hulan preferred this to the alternative: Peter turning on the siren, paying no attention to anything or anyone in his way or whether he was going the wrong way down a one-way street. “We have the right to do this,” he used to say, and she would answer, “But the people will see it as an abuse of power, and I’m not in a hurry.” After several months of working together, he had grown used to her ways and she had accepted his.

Twenty minutes later, they turned into the gray stone low-rise multibuilding compound of the Ministry of Public Security. Two smartly dressed guards carrying submachine guns waved the car inside once Peter flashed his identification. Despite the cold weather, a group of MPS agents were playing half-court basketball near the parking area. Hulan got out of the Saab, walked through an archway, into an inner courtyard, and through a set of massive double doors. Her shoes clattered along the stone floor as she avoided the main stairs and crossed the lobby to the rear of the building. She turned left and made her way up a back set of dimly lit stairs. Up here the stonework gave way to worn linoleum. Just as there was every day, a woman was on her hands and knees washing the floor. Hulan skirted the wet areas, passed several closed doors, and entered her office.

Eleven years ago, a year after her return from the United States, Hulan had been hired by the ministry as a tea girl. With her American law degree, she had been overqualified for the job, which required that she look pretty, smile, and pour tea. Eventually she had gone to her superior and asked to be assigned to a case, then another. By the time his superior found out, she had already solved enough crimes that to demote her back to tea girl would have caused several people to lose face.

Since that time she had received standard promotions based on seniority rather than the accelerated promotions based on political integrity or “staying in touch with the people.” As a result, for the last decade, she had been tucked away in what was perceived to be an unimportant part of the building, which was fine with her.

Gray winter light filtered into the drab room. It was sparsely outfitted with a proletarian metal desk, two swivel chairs, a telephone, a bookcase lined with notebooks, and a single file drawer, which she kept locked. The only decorations on the walls were a calendar left over from last year and a hook on which to hang her jacket. The room was chilly—most government buildings in the capital were—so she kept her coat on and her muffler draped around her shoulders as she sat down at her desk to write her report.

Five hours later, as frigid darkness settled on the city, Liu Hulan still worked at her desk. The phone rang. “Wei?” she said into the receiver.

A voice said, “You’re wanted in the vice minister’s office. Please come immediately.” The caller didn’t wait for a response.