Death on Golden Mountain (A Case for Detective Inspector Bao Zheng Book 4) by Christopher West

Author:Christopher West [West, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: murder mystery, police procedural, Chinese detective, international crime fiction, detective, crime story
Publisher: Corazon Crime
Published: 2018-07-02T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

‘Come in.’

Team-leader Chen had a large office, with a proper window that looked out over Qianmen East Street, a carpet and an electric blower-heater to supplement HQ’s own erratic heating system.

‘I was right,’ said Bao. ‘It’s a suspicious death.’

‘Weather getting a bit rough for street patrols, eh?’

‘It needs investigation.’

‘By the local police.’

Bao nodded. He had worked out a set of arguments to convince his boss that it should be properly investigated. But Chen was right. It was a local matter.

‘Tell me the facts,’ Chen went on.

Bao did so. As he spoke, he knew the case wasn’t hugely convincing. Chen listened, with his usual superior expression. By the end, Bao knew he’d been wasting his time. A speech would follow, on the importance of the new clean-up, and of putting public duty before private concerns.

The old bureaucrat looked out of his window. A number 54 bus went splashing past. ‘Well, Xiao Bao, you’d better look into it. Take Detective Wei, and Lu, of course, and get me a progress report at the end of the week.’

They even got a Beijing Jeep.

At the farmstead, the investigation team was greeted with puzzlement but politeness. Bao requested the use of the waiting room as an incident room, and the request was granted without fuss. Extra desks were moved in; he let his subordinates squabble over who was going to have the smallest one and thus show magnanimity (Lu) or independence (Wei).

Bao had his orders ready. ‘Wei, I want you to prepare a list of residents, then for you and Lu to fingerprint everyone over the next few days. We will search the crime scene for prints too, of course. We’ll interview – not everybody, that would take forever. But the top people and a sample of others. I want you both to sit in on the principal interviews.’

The woman who had opened the door had helped them move in, was now getting them tea.

‘She’s fussing around us like an old hen,’ said Bao. ‘Let’s interview her first.’

Her name turned out to be called Sister Modesty, which had actually been her original name, Jia Qian.

‘You really think he was murdered?’ she asked.

‘That’s what we’re here to find out,’ Bao replied, then on a whim, asked, ‘What do you think?’

‘Me? I believe he was called by the Lord Ye Huo Hua.’

‘Why would Ye Huo Hua do that?’

‘We do not seek to understand His will, Officer.’

Bao nodded. ‘You seem to have the job of letting people in and out.’

‘I do. It is a position of trust.’

‘How many doors to the building are there?’

‘Just two. Front for visitors, back for work parties.’

‘So you’d know if anyone unusual visited?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did anyone, the days leading up to the master’s death?’

‘No.’

‘Is that unusual?’

‘No. We keep ourselves to ourselves.’

‘You have other keys, too?’

‘A few. The storeroom. The Great Hall.’

Bao then asked her to talk through her experience of the day that the master died, which she did, in a monotone voice. There was nothing in her narrative that clashed with that of the new master and young Wu.

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