Gu Kailai's confession final chapter in sensational saga, but questions remain

The courtroom in Hefei sits empty - another faceless building you'd walk past without a second glance in one of China's sprawling metropolises. But last week, behind those granite walls were played out scenes that have rocked China; the latest stage in a scandal the scale of which has not been seen in decades.

On Thursday, Gu Kailai, 53, confessed to the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood - according to state media. Fearful for the safety of her son Bo Guagua, who she felt was threatened by Mr Heywood, the former high-flying lawyer said she killed him to protect her only child.

"During those days last November, I suffered a mental breakdown after learning that my son was in jeopardy," she said when appearing before the judges. "To me, that was more than a threat. It was real action that was taking place. I must fight to my death to stop the craziness of Neil Heywood."

The confession, China's rulers hope, will be the final chapter in the saga. For Mrs Gu was the wife of one of China's most charismatic and high profile politicians, Bo Xilai, who was party secretary of Chongqing - where Mr Heywood died in a hotel room in November. And the Communist party rulers are desperate to end the scandal quickly, before the once-in-a-decade leadership transition in the autumn, and before the lid is really lifted on the grotesque excesses of the country's elite.

But for all their desire to end the case quickly and quietly, questions remain:

• Why did Mrs Gu confess to the murder? Has she cut a deal with prosecutors, agreeing to accept the charges (and a quick show trial) in return for guaranteeing the safety of her husband and son?
• Did she really have a mental breakdown? Or is that just a convenient way for the Chinese state to disown her, and write her off as a lone, unhinged individual?
• Did Neil Heywood really threaten her son - knowing how ruthless and powerful the couple were? Was the suave, Jaguar-driving Old Harrovian capable of threatening to "destroy" Bo Guagua, who he had taught English and mentored, resulting in his intimacy with the family?
• Mrs Gu, in her confession, admitted to getting Mr Heywood violently drunk so that he was unable to resist when she poured cyanide in his mouth. But would the London-born businessman, whose friends say he rarely drank, become so inebriated in a business meeting that he vomited and fell on the bathroom floor?
• What will happen to the police chief, Wang Lijun, who fled to the US consulate in February and reported Mr Heywood's murder? Did he condemn Mrs Gu and, by association, her husband out of anger? Did he reveal all to the Americans out of a sense of duty? Or was he himself trying to evade an investigation into his own corruption?
• And, perhaps most importantly, what will happen to Mr Bo? Will his wife's confession be enough to save him? Or will he too be tried, possibly facing a long prison sentence for misconduct? Would China really want to see the son of Chairman Mao's finance minister exposed in this way? And what explosive secrets might he yet reveal?

The tale of how a mid-ranking British businessman became entwined with Communist royalty began in the 1990s, when Mr Heywood moved to Dalian in north-east China. Bo Xilai was then mayor of the city and Mr Heywood began teaching his son English. He became close to the family; guiding Bo Guagua into a British prep school, Papplewick, in Berkshire, and then on to Harrow and Oxford. He acted as a business consultant and assisted in a deal to bring a hot-air balloon from Bournemouth to Dalian as a tourist attraction.

"I met Neil Heywood," said Giles Hall, who ran the balloon company. "I think his involvement was meant to reassure us. He was an Englishman who knew how to work in China.

"He told us he had gone to Dalian as it had a free trade area and had introduced himself at the municipal offices and had met Bo Xilai there. He was very self-confident. He came across as very much the public school boy, very well spoken, and very smooth."

But, according to the official version of the case in Hefei, Mr Heywood was far more than just a business consultant.

On Thursday, the court was reportedly shown an email in which Mr Heywood demanded a pounds 13 million cut in a property deal that involved the son, Bo Guagua. The email, which has not been seen outside the tightly-guarded courtroom, apparently contained the threat to "destroy" Bo Guagua. It was this which, the official version claims, drove the mentally-unstable Mrs Gu into a frenzy, and led to Mr Heywood's death. In a drab black suit and white shirt, her face decidedly podgier and her hair in a frumpy pudding-bowl haircut, the woman ushered into the courtroom was almost unrecognisable from the glamorous, sparkling-eyed vixen who was once one of China's most powerful women. Nicknamed the "Red Queen", she and her husband were said to have ruled the province of Chongqing, the size of Austria, with 32 million people, as their own fiefdom.

Her well-scripted words, released by the state news agency Xinhua, were the fruit of weeks of planning. The staging of the trial - closed to foreign media - was rehearsed repeatedly, according to one source. Two Chinese officials even donned suits like the British consulate officials who were to be invited to attend the hearing, allowing Mrs Gu to practise how to behave while under scrutiny.

Even so, one report stated that her hands trembled as she made some of the five statements she was allowed under Chinese law. Mrs Gu's lawyers, appointed by the state, did not deny supposed forensic evidence that she was in his room, but claimed: "Heywood should bear a certain responsibility for the cause of his murder."

It seems bizarre that Mr Heywood would challenge such a formidable family. But no theory is too outlandish for followers of the case.

The Epoch Times, a newspaper of the outlawed Falun Gong religious cult, claimed that he was killed because he discovered that Mr Bo and Mrs Gu were involved in a lucrative illegal scheme to harvest organs for transplant from live Falun Gong practitioners. A Hong Kong newspaper said that she had a "wolfish appetite for sex" and, trapped in an unhappy marriage, seduced Mr Heywood in revenge.

A French architect in business with Mrs Gu was also said to be her lover. Patrick Devillers, discovered living in Cambodia, agreed to travel to China to help the investigation, but has not been seen since.

Mr Heywood's body was cremated without a post mortem examination, the Chinese claim, and four policemen went on trial on Friday accused of conspiracy after they persuaded his widow not to demand an inquest.

Yet one of the four, Wang Pengfei, was said to have defied Mrs Gu and secretly kept a sliver of Mr Heywood's heart as evidence. The frightened policeman prepared for the worst by writing his will and giving it to his personal driver to keep, while Mr Heywood's blood sample was secretly delivered to and kept in a fridge at the residence of an "important official" in Beijing.

"That would certainly suggest an autopsy had been performed," said Dr Henry Lee, a forensic scientist who was approached by Chongqing detectives to help analyse the blood sample of someone said to have been drinking before they met an "untimely death" - a sample that never arrived. "How they can claim not to have done an autopsy when this sliver of heart supposedly exists is a mystery."

But for China's rulers, answering these questions matters less than avoiding a corruption trial which might reveal how a top communist party official squirrelled away an estimated $120 million (pounds 76 million) in a web of corruption, nepotism and shady international businesses. They do not want this aired before China's public, it is argued, because so many of them do the same.

"At the heart of this whole case is the Chinese political elite desperate to avoid lifting the lid on their corruption and vast fortunes," said Gerard Lemos, author of The End of the Chinese Dream. "They are all billionaires, and all siphoning off money, just as Bo and Gu did. And they will do anything to stop the people knowing about it, and rising up in anger against the regime."

Equally crucial for the Chinese is the fast-approaching leadership transition. In October, the party's political princes will meet for a once-in-a-decade change of power. Mr Bo was seen as a likely contender for election to the nine-member Politburo; his downfall must not, they know, interfere with the hand over. Many within China think that the elimination of Mr Bo as a contender for greater power was welcomed by President Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, head of the government. The two men were known to dislike Mr Bo - seen as a showman, who fostered a dangerous cult of personality.

Mr Bo has not been seen since March, when state security swooped on him as he left the National People's Congress. According to Hong Kong media, Bo Guagua - who has just completed a masters degree at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government - flew back to China in March, but was met at Beijing airport by Mrs Gu's sister and persuaded to board the next plane back to the America for his own safety.

Taiwanese media say Mr Bo is under house arrest in Beijing, but analysts think he may escape trial altogether, despite being officially accused of violating party discipline - code for corruption and abuse of power. "Normally someone could be relegated to minister of paperclips in Inner Mongolia," said Dr Kerry Brown, a professor of Chinese politics at Sydney University. "But Bo is too powerful for that. They will simply make him disappear. The same is likely to happen to Gu. She will be found guilty, but probably spared the death penalty given her status as 'Communist aristocracy'. She will spend the rest of her days in prison - albeit a fairly comfortable one."

The judges have not said when they will issue their verdict on Mrs Gu, but the outcome is in little doubt; nor is the smoothness of the change of government.

It may be that Mrs Gu had nothing to do with the murder. It may be that Neil Heywood died of natural causes. And maybe, one day, Bo Guagua will be able to tell the world what really happened. Right now, all that has really been proved is the danger of swimming with China's political sharks.

Additional reporting: Tom Phillips in Hefei, Beverly Ford in Massachusetts