Death in Chongqing

Bo Guagua has told acquaintances that he was still on good terms with Heywood when they last met for a drink in Beijing in mid-summer 2011 and discussed the prospect of going sailing together.

But by this stage Heywood was telling friends he was depressed and worried about the tense atmosphere that had developed between him and the Bo-Gu family.

He described an “extraordinary feudal world” within the Bo household in which servants and hangers-on would swear celibacy in order to serve the family. He also talked about Bo Xilai's sinister “enforcers”, a shadowy group of ex-spies and security agents who were sent to threaten or “deal with” real and perceived enemies; he said Gu had even tried to force him to divorce his wife to demonstrate his loyalty to the family.

In a conversation with a friend just a day before he was found dead at the Lucky Holiday Hotel, Heywood seemed nervous about having been summoned to Chongqing to see Gu but did not mention any fears for his safety.

During Gu's trial, the court heard that Gu had initially sought help from Wang Lijun in her attempts to exact revenge on Heywood and the two had discussed a plan in which Wang would shoot Heywood dead after luring him to Chongqing and framing him for drug trafficking.

When Wang apparently pulled out of the plan, Gu decided to take matters into her own hands but she still informed Wang of her intentions just hours before she poisoned Heywood in his hotel room in the evening on November 13, 2011, prosecutors said.

Instead of stopping her, Wang put more police on duty near the Lucky Holiday Hotel that night, in an apparent attempt to make sure everything went to plan.

In testimony presented to the court, Zhang Xiaojun said Gu ordered him to summon Heywood to Chongqing on November 12, 2011. When Heywood agreed to come, Zhang picked him up in Beijing and escorted him on the two hour flight to Chongqing the next day.

A 32-year-old demobilised soldier, Zhang had previously worked for Gu's father until his death in 2004 and had then gone to work as a servant in the Bo household. His main role was to maintain contact with Bo Guagua and ensure the young man's safety. Zhang told the court Gu told him about her plan to kill Heywood and although he did not want to be involved he acquiesced out of loyalty to the Bo-Gu family.

On their arrival at the hilltop Lucky Holiday Hotel on November 13, Heywood checked into room 1605 and then ate dinner that evening with Gu. After dinner at around 9pm, Gu and Zhang went to Heywood's room with tea and a small $100 bottle of Chivas Regal Royal Salute whisky.

Gu had prepared two bottles beforehand – a glass bottle of cyanide-based poison used to kill dogs and rats, and another medicine bottle containing unidentified narcotics in capsules. She handed the bottles to Zhang to hold while she went into Heywood's hotel room alone to drink with him.

According to the official account, Heywood became drunk, vomited in the room and fell over in the bathroom, whereupon Gu called Zhang into the room to put Heywood on the bed.

When Heywood asked for a glass of water, Gu took the bottle of poison from Zhang, mixed it with water in a small soya sauce bottle before walking to the left side of the bed where she poured the toxic mixture down Heywood's throat while talking to him.

When she and Zhang could no longer feel a pulse on Heywood they scattered the illegal drugs they had brought on the hotel floor to make it seem like an overdose and then left the hotel. They were caught on the hotel's security cameras leaving the room just after 11.30pm that night and after hanging a “do not disturb” sign on the door Gu told hotel staff not to bother the guest in 1605.

Heywood's body was found about 36 hours later, on the morning of November 15, 2011 – which just happened to be Gu Kailai's 53rd birthday.

But by then Wang Lijun already knew all about the murder. On November 14, Gu met Wang and told him what had happened in a conversation that the wily police chief recorded and later handed to investigators as evidence.

After the body was found, Wang Lijun assigned the case to Guo Weiguo, deputy Chongqing police chief and a close associate of the Bo-Gu family, and three other high-ranking Chongqing police officers.

In a separate trial in August, 2012, the four senior officers were found guilty of covering up Heywood's murder and Gu's culpability by “fabricating interview records, hiding material evidence and other measures”; they were sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to 11 years.

On November 16, 2011, Chongqing police sent a fax to the British consulate in Chongqing to inform them of Heywood's death, which was blamed on “excessive alcohol consumption”.

Although the investigators uncovered ample evidence that Gu had killed Heywood they did not file it as a criminal case and they convinced Heywood's wife, Lulu, to agree to a quick cremation without a formal autopsy.

The official account of the police officers' trial said they made the decision to cover up the murder after “consultations” with “other individuals”, an oblique reference that some political analysts say might point to Bo Xilai himself, even though his name was not mentioned once throughout the Heywood-related trials.

During the trial, it was revealed that even though there was no formal autopsy, the police had taken samples of Heywood's vomit and blood from his heart before he was cremated.

Although Guo, the Bo family confidant, ordered his subordinates to destroy the blood, vomit and other evidence taken from Heywood's body and the crime scene, the other officers decided to preserve it, possibly on Wang Lijun's orders or at least with his knowledge.

This meant that when the case was eventually reopened after Wang's damaging revelations, investigators were able to re-test the samples and determine that Heywood's death was indeed caused by cyanide poisoning and not excessive alcohol consumption.

On November 18, 2011, Heywood's wife and his family in the UK told the British consulate they had agreed to have his body cremated and a British diplomat subsequently attended the cremation ceremony.

That very same day at about 2pm, Gu Kailai arrived at a luxury hotel in Chongqing for a meeting with Wang Lijun and other senior police officers to discuss the police force's propaganda work.

According to someone who was present at the meeting, Gu was dressed in the uniform of a major general in the People's Liberation Army and she spoke for nearly two hours about Wang Lijun's heroism and his great deeds as police chief of the city.

This person said they were very surprised that a civilian would appear in public in the uniform of a senior military officer and although she was polite and gracious she also seemed distracted and slightly unstable.