官方卷宗掩盖了什么？重构谷开来命案，看懂薄熙来与王立军的畸形博弈 20260501【新闻大写】

In the previous episode, we talked about 1999

when Bo Xilai was governing Dalian

at that time, Bo Xilai’s political career was sprinting at full speed

his private life was also collapsing at full speed

In this episode

we start with the first crack in that collapse

At age 41, Gu Kailai decided to stop pretending

At the end of 1999, she took 12-year-old Guagua

and boarded a flight to London

By this time, Bo Xilai had climbed from mayor of Dalian to acting governor of Liaoning

The gates of Beijing’s red walls were half-open to him

This political star was rising

but his private life was already a complete mess

Reuters’ 2012 investigative report described Bo Xilai like this

saying he had serious extramarital affairs, with rumors of models and female subordinates everywhere

so many that even a woman like Gu Kailai, who cared about appearances, couldn’t take it

according to people in Dalian’s political and business circles who spoke to Reuters

the direct trigger for Gu Kailai packing up and leaving

was another one of Bo Xilai’s brazen affairs

with a young and beautiful local TV host in Dalian

She couldn’t endure it anymore, she was leaving

where she was going was Bournemouth, a seaside town about two hours southwest of London

she moved into a building in the city center called Keyston House

After the 2012 case, Associated Press reporters visited this building

and interviewed a British businessman who had met Gu Kailai back then

the report said the apartment was simple, plain, and unremarkable

completely out of place for the wife of a mayor of Dalian

but that was exactly what she wanted

she didn’t want her British neighbors to know who she really was

nor did she want to be watched by those overseas peripheral agencies of the CCP

there was a local British man in the hot air balloon business named Giles Hall

one of the few locals who had formal dealings with Gu Kailai

Hall described the Gu Kailai he knew

he said the apartment she lived in was very ordinary

but what she wore when she went out every day was extraordinary

luxury high heels and couture dresses

plus conspicuous huge diamonds and emeralds

she clearly felt that overseas she had the privilege to show off

she put all her sense of security

onto that expensive exterior visible to others

In 2000, Gu Kailai wanted to order a huge red-and-white hot air balloon from Hall

to ship back to Dalian and hang in the sky for city promotion

when it came to payment, she asked Hall to do something

to inflate the invoice from its original value of 60,000 pounds to 250,000

the extra 190,000 pounds would be used to pay for Bo Guagua

tuition at Harrow School and Papawake Preparatory School

this was a trick commonly used back home, inflating invoices to claim reimbursements

unfortunately, Hall was over 60

a straightforward local British businessman

he had never seen such Chinese under-the-table tactics

he refused outright and said, Madam

our company’s financial audits

absolutely do not allow such illegal operations

at that moment, Gu Kailai herself tore off that refined upper-class facade

she pointed at the old man’s nose and said, do you know

I have very powerful connections in the Chinese government

with just one word from me, I can throw you into a Chinese prison

and you will never see the light of day again

Hall later recalled to reporters

that he had only one judgment at that moment: this woman was crazy

this incident was like a cold punch

that made Gu Kailai realize something

that the British business ecosystem of old-money rules and bank audits

was completely incompatible with her logic of privilege

she needed someone, someone who understood British rules

yet was willing to break them with her

then a British man she had known earlier in Dalian

Neil Heywood stepped in at the right moment

Heywood was a down-and-out British middle-class man

with fluent Chinese and the hollow prestige of being a Harrow alumnus

he had no money but claimed to have connections in China

Heywood officially took over

becoming the Bo family’s private affairs manager in the UK

the next ten years would be the making of this comprador

Heywood helped Guagua find boarding schools and connected Gu Kailai with British law firms

and managed a long list of properties held through European offshore structures for the Bo family

his work became increasingly complex and deeper

and increasingly hidden from view

as for what his relationship with Gu Kailai really was

after the 2012 case, media around the world dug into it

many reports said the two were lovers

but in Reuters’ April 2012 investigation

a businessman from Chongqing who knew both parties, Wang Kang, gave a description

he said Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai had not been a real couple for many years

Gu and Heywood had a deep relationship but not a romantic one

Financial Times reporter Tania Branigan

in April 2012 found an important anonymous source

a woman referred to as Jaffa Cakes

this woman sent British biscuits to Heywood from the UK every six weeks

she was one of Heywood’s few childhood friends and close confidants in the UK

Branigan quoted her recollection

saying Heywood did not think highly of Gu Kailai at all

he said she was mentally unstable

judging from his tone, it definitely didn’t sound like

something a man infatuated with this woman would say

Gu Kailai regarded Heywood as the closest confidant in her very small overseas inner circle

someone who knew her secrets

Heywood regarded Gu Kailai as the patron who fed him in China

plus a psychological shadow of half awe and half fear

they never reached the level of love, but far exceeded an ordinary employment relationship

This kind of outsider relationship with too much inside knowledge

is one of the most dangerous positions in this world

In 2007, Bo Xilai was sent from commerce minister to Chongqing

Guagua went to university and Gu Kailai also returned to Chongqing

her paranoia grew worse year after year after that

around 2010

Gu Kailai gave several foreigners in her core inner circle

including Heywood and the Frenchman Devillers, a hard order

telling them to immediately divorce their respective wives

and separately swear absolute loyalty to her, Gu Kailai herself

At that time, Gu Kailai’s mind had actually already gone haywire

years of medication plus heavy-metal poisoning

gave her severe persecutory delusions

everyone looked like a mole to her

today she thought your wife was an undercover agent for the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection

tomorrow she thought his husband would leak the account books to Beijing

Heywood had a Chinese wife named Wang Lulu

a Dalian native, who had given Heywood a son and a daughter

both children studied at the British School of Beijing

in Gu Kailai’s eyes, Wang Lulu was a time bomb that could explode at any moment

Heywood refused Gu’s demand that he divorce

when he had afternoon tea with that woman Jaffa Cakes

he complained bitterly about this

she described Gu Kailai at the time as extremely mentally unstable

nothing less than an old-school Chinese empress dowager who never forgave anyone

On May 11, 2011, Gu Kailai changed the legal representative of the company holding that Cannes villa

from Heywood’s name to Xu Ming’s girlfriend

former CCTV host Jiang Feng, and what signal did this change of legal representative send to Heywood

you have been kicked out

over the years, Heywood had helped Gu Kailai connect with

a commercial real estate project in China, in Chongqing

in that fatal email Heywood sent to Bo Guagua

the amount he demanded was around 20 million dollars

after that, Heywood’s requests for payment happened at least twice

the first time was during the 2008 Beijing Olympics

he met Gu Kailai in a teahouse beside Tiananmen, and Gu brushed it off with a laugh

the second time was in early 2011, when he asked for money by email

saying plainly that he could not afford his children’s tuition and that this compensation was what he wanted

Gu Kailai again sneered and ignored him

and even told people around her that this Englishman had really gone mad

In early November 2011

the desperate Heywood bypassed Gu Kailai

and directly contacted Bo Guagua, who was far away in Cambridge, Massachusetts

studying for a master’s degree at Harvard

sending several highly emotional emails in a row

at the end of the final email was the English sentence that cost him his life

if you don't pay up you will be destroyed

if you don’t pay, you will be destroyed

this email was later presented in court as core physical evidence at the Hefei trial

the line in China’s official statement was that Heywood had threatened Bo Guagua’s personal safety

this was the only direct evidence

for defining the whole case as Gu Kailai protecting her son as a mother

but afterward, according to British consular officials in China

the context of the original English email

was not a threat of physical elimination at all, but reputational and political destruction

what Heywood wanted to destroy was Bo Xilai’s ticket into the Politburo Standing Committee at the 18th Party Congress

long-term drug dependency did indeed amplify Gu Kailai’s persecutory delusions

but what truly gave her the confidence to carry out serial poisoning

was not the madness in her mind

but the arrogance of absolute power

deep down, she firmly believed that in Chongqing at the time

there was no one she could not crush to death

and no account the police chief could not smooth over

those English letters, destroyed

were automatically translated by her into the most terrifying image

an outsider holding a sniper rifle

aiming at her precious son in Boston

aiming at her husband’s crucial ticket to the Standing Committee at the 18th Party Congress

Caixin’s Hu Shuli later exposed in one sentence

the most absurd loophole in the official narrative of defensive killing

if Heywood had really wanted to kill Guagua

how could he possibly have stupidly flown alone to

Chongqing and sat in a hotel room

drinking the whisky Gu Kailai poured for him

Heywood was no professional killer

he was just a down-and-out comprador

he came to Chongqing for money, not for a life

the problem was that Gu Kailai had no intention of letting him go back alive

she needed to find someone to take care of Heywood

that person was Wang Lijun, then Chongqing vice mayor and police chief

In early November 2011, Gu Kailai went to Wang Lijun for help

but Gu Kailai’s original plan was not as crazy as you might think

after all, she graduated from Peking University’s law department

and had fought lawsuits in US federal court

she knew very well the cost of getting blood on her own hands

what she wanted at first was to kill with a borrowed knife

to start up the state machine of Chongqing’s public security system

pin a charge on Heywood, and throw him into prison

but Wang Lijun dragged his feet and still had not handled it

at this point, Gu Kailai brought in Xu Ming

he also had a very good relationship with Wang Lijun

not long after Wang Lijun arrived in Chongqing in 2008

Xu Ming gave him two apartments in Beijing worth 2.85 million yuan

registered under Wang Lijun’s father-in-law’s name

On November 11, Xu Ming appeared at Building No. 3 of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee

Gu Kailai flew into a rage in front of him

scolding Wang Lijun for handling things poorly, and Xu Ming was sent to coordinate with Wang Lijun

the next conversation was the most critical one in the whole case

the script was switched, and Wang Lijun first told Xu Ming

Heywood is a foreigner and hard to control