Moving on up
Meanwhile, Gu Kailai, whose given name means “embrace the future” was also burnishing her public image as a high-flying lawyer with the 1998 publication of a book entitled Uphold Justice in America that was later turned into a TV serial.
The story followed Gu as she helped several Dalian companies win a case in a US court in 1997, a rare victory for a Chinese plaintiff at that time.
In one prophetic section in the book, Gu compares the Chinese and US justice systems, criticizing American courts for being too hung up on evidence and due process. “Chinese law doesn't play with words [like the US legal system does]. We have a principle called 'based on facts.' If we know you killed someone you will be arrested, sentenced and executed,” she wrote.
On her business cards she used the English name Horus L Kai and her law firm of the same name, established in 1995, had offices in Beijing, Dalian and Zhengzhou that handled commercial disputes in China, the US, UK, Japan and Korea.
Horus is the ancient Egyptian falcon-headed god of kings and vengeance.
People who knew her around this time say Gu and her legal practice were in huge demand as Chinese and foreign companies sought them out for legal advice related to investment and business in her husband’s fiefdom of Dalian.
In dealing with western companies Gu often relied on a small group of advisers that friends and business partners say included Neil Heywood, as well as a French architect by the name of Patrick Henri Devillers. Friends of Heywood and former acquaintances of Gu say they believe she had a romantic relationship with Devillers and that he helped arrange numerous business deals for her in Europe and the UK.
At the request of the Chinese authorities, Devillers was arrested in June, 2012, in Cambodia, where he had lived for five years. Freed a month later, the 52-year-old Frenchman flew directly to China after receiving assurances of legal immunity in exchange for assisting with the investigation into Bo and Gu.
Cambodian officials said publicly that according to their investigations Devillers was “in charge of keeping money for the wife of Bo Xilai”.
In around 1999, Gu moved to Bournemouth in the UK with her son, Guagua, so he could attend a language school before moving to Papplewick, a private boys' prep school, followed by Harrow.
According to people who claim to have knowledge of the matter and reports in Chinese media based outside the country, Bo had a string of mistresses by this time and the couple's marriage was falling apart.
Neil Heywood told friends he helped Guagua gain admittance to the exclusive schools, especially his alma mater Harrow, and in the succeeding years he acted as a mentor and friend to the young man, often meeting up with him and his mother in the UK.
According to an FT investigation, Devillers helped a company fronted by Gu's eldest sister, Wangjiang, to buy at least two apartments in London’s plush South Kensington neighbourhood between May 2002 and May 2003, for a combined total of £1.2m.
One of the flats was occupied intermittently between 2003 and 2010 by Devillers who told a neighbour in the mid-2000s that he had an ex-wife in China and a Chinese girlfriend living in London with a teenage son.
Devillers also helped broker a deal in which Gu arranged for Xu Ming, chairman of Dalian Shide Group and a close ally to Bo Xilai, to buy a promotional hot-air balloon for Dalian.
The UK businessman who sold the balloon, Giles Hall, has told reporters that Gu asked him to overcharge Xu Ming for the balloon by adding $240,000 to his invoice so that the extra money could be used to pay Bo Guagua's expensive school fees.
Hall said Gu became very angry when he refused. As their relationship soured, she warned him that if he ever came to China she would have him arrested. Hall claims that he met Neil Heywood, and that he too was involved in the deal.
China does not allow anyone to transfer more than $50,000 a year in or out of the country but many individuals and companies manipulate foreign trade invoices as a way to get around these capital controls.
Xu Ming, who built up his empire in Dalian while Bo was mayor and was named China's eighth-richest man by Forbes in 2005, was detained around the same time as Bo and Gu in mid-March 2012. As of mid-September, 2012, he was under investigation in connection with his ties to the family, according to people familiar with the matter.
Much of the success of Xu Ming's business appears to be related to support it enjoyed from the Dalian government under Bo Xilai.
In the trial of Wang Lijun in mid-September, prosecutors alleged that Xu Ming bought two apartments in Beijing for one of Wang's close relatives in 2009. To show his gratitude, Wang released three prisoners who were being held by the Chongqing police for unspecified crimes.
As his wife and son settled into their new lives in Britain, Bo Xilai’s career was finally accelerating and he was promoted to governor of Liaoning Province in early 2001.
Political analysts say his promotion was partly thanks to a concerted campaign of flattery directed towards China’s then-president Jiang Zemin, as well as continued heavy lobbying by the ageing Bo Yibo.
In 1999, Bo flouted a Communist party rule banning large public displays of current leaders and placed giant posters of Jiang in the centre of Dalian to mark the president's visit there, a move that greatly pleased the president and helped Bo’s advancement.
On Bo’s departure from Dalian in January 2001, his underlings organised a big send-off at three separate locations across the city. Roads were closed and Bo, accompanied by an entourage of mounted female traffic cops, paraded through town and mingled with the adoring masses, shaking hands and posing for the cameras.
“He was just like an American presidential candidate, very western and showy,” said one person who was present at the rallies. “China just doesn’t have any officials like that.”
Among the various monuments from his time in Dalian – including a giant Seashell Museum on the side of a cliff that resembled a Bavarian castle – perhaps none was more grandiose than the Dalian Modern Museum. Bo took a keen interest in this project, even insisting on personally choosing the materials and design for the museum’s door-handles. When it was finished, it stood as a testament to his achievements as paramount leader of the city.
During a visit to the museum by an FT reporter in the final week of June, 2012, the last of the displays honouring Bo’s reign had just been cleared out. Dark dusty halls and empty glass cases were all that remained of the exhibits extolling the virtues of Bo-built highways, economic development zones, Bo-inspired equestrian policewomen and of course, the heroic grass-planting campaigns.
In keeping with the Communist party’s practice of erasing or revising history to suit its political agenda, not a trace remained of the man who had once ruled like a king over one of China's most successful cities.