Chapter 1
Twelve years after my sister died, I heard her call my name again.
“Zhao, don't hang up yet.”
I took off my headphones. Her voice was still there, coming from the little speaker at the corner of the desk, carrying across the empty dispatch floor. The wall clock had stopped at 9:17. Beneath it, a notice read: EQUIPMENT DISCONNECTED. DO NOT USE.
I knew it was a recording.
Sorting recordings was what I had come here to do.
Still, my right hand found the keyboard and pressed the dispatch shortcut. The plastic key had worn into a shallow hollow, just deep enough for the tip of my finger. Twelve years ago, this had been my desk.
In the speaker, my sister drew a breath.
“The smoke's coming in. Can you find out how to open the door at the back?”
I reached to switch off the speaker and knocked over my paper cup. Water ran into the seam between the desks. When I pulled the computer tower aside, I found a portable audio player beneath it. A cable ran through a splitter, one branch to my headphones, the other to the speaker.
The old dispatch equipment really was disconnected.
Someone had used it to set the scene.
Beside the player lay my work list. The first two items were routine: check the inventory; verify that the recordings were complete. Lu Heng had added the third by hand: After nine, listen to the first file on the desktop.
Lu had maintained the center's recording equipment. Last week, he had recommended me for the archive project. Some of the old tapes had never been digitized, he said. They needed someone who understood the terminology.
I asked whether that included the hotel fire on Huaishu Road.
After a pause, he said it might.
I should never have come. Since leaving the center, I had transcribed audio for courts and insurance companies: other people's accidents, arguments, wills. Every job came to me as a case number. The fire was the one recording I refused to touch.
My sister had made the last emergency call from that building. The investigation found that, on learning a relative was in danger, I had mishandled the call and delayed dispatch by seven minutes and forty-eight seconds. The newspapers shortened that to: OPERATOR PUT FAMILY FIRST, WITH FATAL CONSEQUENCES.
I had come anyway.
I wiped up the water and started the player again.
My sister's voice stopped. Something brushed a microphone, then a man said, “Lin Zhao. It's Lu Heng.”
This part was recent. When he coughed, I could hear the congestion that had roughened his voice over the last few years.
“I meant to give you this in person. If you've reached this message and I haven't come to get you, look for me in the basement records room. The originals are there. Don't decide who's innocent too quickly. That includes me.”
Another pause.
“You've heard those seven minutes. But you've never heard what was actually in them.”
The file ended. I called his phone. Somewhere far below me, a ringtone sounded, muffled as though several layers of cloth lay over it.
The center had been empty for three months. Work on the dispatch-floor ceiling would begin tomorrow morning. The project manager had arranged evening access for me because the daytime construction noise made poor-quality recordings impossible to hear. Qin Lan had called that afternoon to remind me that they were taking inventory in the basement.
Switch on the lights before you go down, she had said.
I pressed the switch at the stairwell.
At the bottom stood a half-open frosted-glass door. Behind it, the silhouette of a seated man remained motionless, his head bowed.
I called Lu's number again.
The ringtone came from his body.
Lu sat on the floor with his back against a steel cabinet. His glasses hung from one ear. His phone was lit, my name on the screen.
I stayed in the doorway.
When I was young, I thought an emergency operator's job was to tell people not to be afraid. Later, I learned that the first thing you needed was an address. Next, you established whether there was still danger. Reassurance could wait.
I called emergency services, gave the address, floor, and room number, then said, “A man is down in the basement. There's blood beside his head. He may have been assaulted.”
The operator asked me to check his breathing if it was safe to approach. I called to him from the door. No response. I went closer, crouched beside him, and followed her instructions.
“He's not responding. I can't detect normal breathing.”
I was about to attempt first aid when I noticed another passage leading out of the records room. It was unlit, its entrance partly hidden by cabinets.
The operator asked whether I could be sure the scene was safe.
I couldn't. Someone had hurt Lu. I had no idea whether they were still in the building. I told her and, as instructed, withdrew to the doorway to wait for the emergency crews. The camphor smell from his collar lingered on my fingers.
Before ending the call, she asked if I had seen anyone else.
“Not yet.”
Then keys rattled on the stairs.
Qin Lan came down carrying an insulated food container. Her beige coat was only partly buttoned.
“What are you doing down here? Have you eaten?”
She was sixty now, but she still spoke as though she were running a shift: establish the situation, give an instruction. Since I left the center, people who mentioned me usually mentioned the fire first. Qin sent me a birthday present every year. A scarf. Hand cream. Last year, a lunch box.
I looked into the records room.
Her hand caught the railing. The container struck it with a hollow clang.
“Don't go in,” I said. “I've called the police.”
She nodded. Her lips moved, but nothing came out. A few seconds passed before she asked, “What have you touched?”
“His clothing, when I checked him. Nothing else.”
“The cabinets?”
I looked at her.
“Lu said he was looking for old records tonight,” she added quickly. “He might have hurt himself moving something. Some of these cabinets aren't stable.”
A wooden drawer lay overturned beside him. But the steel cabinet behind his head was upright. I couldn't see anything heavy that might have fallen. I knew nothing about assessing wounds. Her explanation simply felt too quick.
“Why are you here?”
“To bring you dinner. And collect the last batch of handover forms.”
“You knew he'd asked me to come?”
“I signed your contract. Of course I knew.”
She set the food container on the stairwell landing and told me to wait for the police at the entrance. I had climbed half a flight when I remembered Lu's message.
“There are still recordings from the fire here?”
Qin looked up. Her eyes passed over the dust on my clothes.
“Haven't you seen the files released after the inquiry?”
“He left me a new message.”
“Then give it to the police.”
It was the right thing to say. Yet I kept thinking about her question. The cabinets?
Above us, a door opened.
I stopped. A man in a dark raincoat stood on the dispatch floor, a camera bag over his shoulder, his wet hair plastered to his forehead. When he saw Qin, he gave a brief smile.
“Still here, then.”
She didn't answer.
He turned to me. “Lin Zhao? I'm Zhou Ye. Lu Heng asked me to collect some material at ten.”
He took a phone from inside his raincoat and showed me the message. The arrangement was specific: he would receive the material; I would witness the handover.
“Where is he?”
Before I could answer, Qin said, “There's been an accident.”
Zhou glanced down at her cuff.
“I came by at eight forty. The door was locked. I could hear people talking inside. Now he's dead, and you're telling me it was an accident?”
“Be careful what you say.”
“I am.” He put his phone away. “Fourteen people died in the Huaishu Road fire. My father was one of them.”
Qin slipped a hand into her coat pocket.
Only then did I notice that her right cuff was wet.
The left was dry.
