The Ghost Shift by John Gapper

its beam had shone through the blinds, searing his eyes as he lay awake, cursing his recklessness. He’d lost something so precious that his brain kept returning to the blunder he’d made, tormenting him. He waited desperately for the phone to ring or the ping of an email to break the deathly silence, but nothing came. All he needed, the thing that could restore his sanity, had vanished.
    “She loved her Poppy phone,” Mrs. Wu said, smiling sadly. “She was happy to make them.”
    “Tell me about her,” Lockhart said, gratefully.
    “Ning was a good girl. She sent us money. She didn’t waste it, like some of them. She wanted to come back to Sichuan when she could—she said she’d find a husband here.”
    “She looked forward to that?”
    “She was always happy and laughing. She talked about the New Year holiday when we last spoke.”
    “When was that?”
    “A month ago.”
    “That is a long time, Mrs. Wu. Why didn’t she contact you again?”
    Mr. Wu broke in. “It wasn’t her fault. She was assigned a new job, and she said she might not be able to call.”
    “I see.” Lockhart looked over the temple wall toward an apartment block on the far side of the canal, and his throat went dry. It was as if Mr. Wu were telling him his own story.
    “Your wife says that Ning was happy, Mr. Wu. I must ask: Do you know why she killed herself?”
    “Ning did not kill herself.” Mrs. Wu stared at him fiercely. “We taught her how to work hard, and she wanted us to be proud. She would not have made us suffer like this.”
    A few days before, he wouldn’t have believed them—he would have smiled and dismissed it as parental blindness.
Of course
it was suicide. Twenty of them—sixteen women and four men—had thrown themselves off roofs. What other explanation could there be but self-harm? Now, after his own nights of hell, he felt differently. However Ning had died, it wasn’t her doing. He knew it, and it scared him sick.
    He lifted his briefcase and took out an envelope, putting it on the wall between them.
    “I am sure you’re right, Mr. Wu. She sounds like a wonderful young woman, and this is a tragedy. Poppy is doing all it can to ensure nobody else suffers in that way. You have heard of Henry Martin?”
    Mr. Wu nodded. Even a Chinese farmer without a mobile phone knew of Poppy’s founder.
    “Mr. Martin trusts in Long Tan to manufacture his products responsibly and to keep all of the workers safe. He is very upset by what has happened. That is why he sent me to see you.”
    Another lie. Lockhart doubted whether Martin gave the life of Wu Ning a single thought, except that it was trouble for his company. The Chinese media was filled with stories of the deaths and the price that migrant workers paid to build his devices.
    He picked up the envelope. “Mr. Martin wants to offer you this. The sum of money Wu Ning would have earned in a year, with overtime. We hope you will accept a token of our respect.”
    Mr. Wu glanced at his wife and, after a second’s pause, she closed her eyes and nodded.
    “I am glad. There is just one thing to sign.” Lockhart’s hand trembled as he took a document from the envelope. It wasn’t possible to feel lower, dirtier. In the night, he’d imagined the dark tunnels of the Shenzhen subway, the trains shooting into stations, their lights blazing.
What would it be like to jump? How painful would it be?
    “It is English, but let me explain. There is a lot of legal language, and I hardly understand it myself.” He smiled, his charm switching on automatically. He’d always been good at this. “It says you will accept this settlement and you will not take legal action.”
    Mr. Wu looked at his wife again, and she nodded her consent.
    “One other thing. You will not talk about it with anyone. Not to the media or others. You will be silent.”
    This time, the man did not bother to check but reached forward and scratched his name on the paper, where Lockhart had