Free Enigma of China by Qiu Xiaolong Page B

She’s just a little secretary.”
    “A little secretary,” Chen repeated reflectively. The term could mean a mistress-usually much younger-serving under the guise of being a secretary. There was nothing about that in Wei’s folder. Chen didn’t push. Dang didn’t elaborate. Still, Chen asked for her name, address, and phone number before he took leave of Dang.
    Back out in the People’s Square, Chen saw a group of elderly people exercising to loud music blaring from a CD player. It was a song that was familiar to him, played often during the Cultural Revolution. “Generation after generation, we will always remember the great deeds Chairman Mao has done for us.”
    It was one of the rediscovered “red songs,” popular again because of the dramatic change in the political environment. But for these people, it was perhaps just a melody they could energetically dance to.
    Chen hailed a taxi back to his own office, feeling exhausted.

NINE
    It wasn’t until five past nine that evening that Chen got back home.
    The hours spent in front of his office computer had yielded little. He was worn-out, and his muscles were sore, as at the beginning stages of the flu. He rubbed his eyes, yet felt far from sleepy.
    He opened his notebook to the page he’d been working on, which had a list of details, like a jumble of dots awaiting connection to point in possible directions. But he couldn’t see how to connect those dots.
    Chen hadn’t learned anything new from the interview with Dang that afternoon, though it was possible that Dang was involved in some way that no one was aware of.
    What puzzled Chen wasn’t the fact that Zhou himself gave the picture to his secretary for the press release but rather who had taken the picture and how Zhou had obtained it.
    There was no record of anyone sending him the picture after the meeting. Jiang had checked Zhou’s computer, as Dang had just confirmed.
    Zhou might have downloaded the picture from a camera, his or somebody else’s. Apparently nothing found on his camera either confirmed that possibility or ruled it out.
    A more plausible scenario was that the picture came from a camera that belonged to somebody else. But if so, who could have put it onto Zhou’s computer-or given Zhou a camera or something else for Zhou to save the picture on the computer himself?
    The people in the Housing Development Committee. Dang in the office next door, and others on the same committee. Possibly the secretary, or the “little secretary” too.
    Chen glanced at his watch, felt the beginnings of a throbbing headache in addition to the muscle pain, and dialed Wei’s number.
    “I’ve thought about that, Chief,” Wei responded readily, “I’ve talked to the secretary-her full name is Fang Fang. I’ve also done some research on her.”
    Wei then launched into a detailed narrative about Fang, checking his notes from time to time. Listening, Chen could also hear the occasional rustle of Wei turning pages.
    “Fang started working for Zhou about two years ago. Quite different from the conventional little secretary, she’s middle-aged, already in her early thirties, and a bit too thin to be really considered attractive. An official of Zhou’s rank could easily have hired one prettier and younger. There were stories around the office that Zhou went out of his way to give the position to her. It was considered a fantastic position, secure and well paid, not to mention all of the possible gray money, and more than a hundred candidates applied. Zhou, giving his reasons for choosing her, said he hired her because Fang studied in England for three years, majored in communication, and spoke English well, which would be important in her work for the city of Shanghai, a major international city. Fang was very grateful for the position, having failed to find a job in England after she graduated and having remained unemployed for more than a year after she came back to Shanghai. At the Housing Development