He could guess the reason why Huang had chosen not to upset him with the news. The Wuxi cop knew a thing or two about the relationship. But it was a closed chapter, at least so it seemed to the young cop, no point opening it again.

‘You don’t have to say sorry for that. So she’s married with someone surnamed Yao?’

‘Yes. Yao runs a successful solar energy company in Wuxi. Possibly the number one in the country. She stayed on with him, helping to take care of his business instead of working at that local chemical factory. She also started making frequent trips to Shanghai for her husband’s business, I think. In the meantime, she has become an “Internet celebrity” or a “public intellectual” for her online writing about environmental issues, all of which I’ve learned from a net cop stationed in Wuxi. His name is Bei, and he occasionally goes to Shanghai too – most likely because of her. She’s still being closely watched by government people, I suppose.’

‘That’s no surprise. But there was another man quite close to her at the time. I mean during the days I was on vacation, staying at the Wuxi Cadre Recreation Center.’

‘You mean the man she saw before Yao? Yes, you actually insisted on my helping to arrange a meeting between the two the day he was sent to prison – Jiang, I think that’s his name. It’s just so magnanimous of you, I have to say. Hold on—’ Huang paused with a light click, and then a light ding, conceivably from a smartphone in his hand inside the public phone booth, checking something quickly.

‘Yes, Jiang was an environmental activist. He brought big trouble for himself because of his blackmailing the local companies with the pollution evidence collected against them. At least so was he accused at the local court, which spelled trouble for Shanshan too. Jiang was sentenced for more than ten years, but she did not leave him at that time, as you know.’

‘Yes, I know the part concerning the blackmail in the name of the consulting fee, as claimed by the local government, even though he did work as an environmental consultant at the time, and people paid him as a matter of course.’

‘But I don’t think she knew what you had done for her, so brilliantly, and so generously, I have to say. Even today, she still has no clue about it. Nevertheless, it might have turned out to be just as well.’

What Huang meant by ‘just as well’, Chen understood. The young cop had persisted in seeing Shanshan as a potential troublemaker, not a match politically suitable for the chief inspector, a star with a promising prospect in the Party system.

In fact, Shanshan herself had given the same reason for choosing to part with him, but he had always wondered whether there was such ‘a promising prospect’ for him in the Party system.

Not too long ago, he had published an article in Guangming Daily, speaking in favor of the judicial independence, which was soon criticized by someone high above as the proof of his advocating the Western system. Zhao, too, had chastized him in an unusually serious manner. In fact, his very survival in the system remained open to question. His recent exclusion from the serial murder investigation spoke volumes about it too. But he saw no point discussing it with Huang.