by Lee Weeks
‘Seems like you’ve thought this through…’ smiled Mann.
‘I’ve been working, if that’s what you mean. Doing my job. We can’t all be lying on a fucking beach getting a sun tan.’ Sheng was tapping his foot, fiddling with his coffee cup.
Mann was beginning to get the gist of what must have been said between Sheng and Mia. He knew he would be hearing all of it by the end of the meeting. Sheng had a lot of pent-up aggression that wouldn’t stay behind bars.
‘Okay, we get two hundred plain clothes officers out there sitting in bars, listening to talk,’ said Sheng. ‘I want every sex worker who is seen working the plush hotels pulled over and discreetly interviewed. At the risk of pissing the guests off we have to step up security. Anyone not seen by hotel staff when they are expected? Anyone not answering their door for cleaning for more than twelve hours, security in that hotel go in. Shrimp, we have your ID ready. Your team is ready to go. You are the Manhattan VD in a book distribution company. You will be staying at Vacation Villas. We need to move this along now. You ready?’
Shrimp nodded but he thought of Nina. He would not be able to see her. For the first time he felt a conflict in his heart. He had never believed in love at first sight until now. Now he couldn’t imagine loving anyone else.
‘I don’t see that working. She’s smart and cocky. She’s not going to get caught in a bar by us. I think we should wait to go in heavy.’ Mia stood, arms crossed. ‘She’s on a roll now. She’s speeding up. The first head was a year ago, the rest have all been in the last six months. Three of the heads are within the last month. She’s bound to trip up sooner or later. If she gets freaked now and goes underground she might just emerge worse in six months’ time.’
‘I agree,’ said Mann. ‘Get Shrimp in Vacation Villas undercover. Let’s try and coax her out of her web.’
Sheng stopped fidgeting and eyeballed Mann.‘Your role in this investigation is being reconsidered, Mann. Until that time you won’t be required to attend meetings. If we want to find you we’ll contact the Leung Corporation. You concentrate on what you’re good at, sucking up to Triad bosses.’
There was a stunned silence around the room.
Mann looked across at Sheng and smiled as he shook his head. ‘It’ll take a lot more than you to get rid of me, Sheng. You’ve tried so many times over the years and yet I’m still here.’
‘Yeah, well I’ve suspected there’s been a mole in the OCTB for some time. Busts that don’t come off, tip-offs that look set up. Now Tammy’s dead. My money’s on you, banana boy.’
Mann shook his head and almost smiled ruefully. It had been a long time since anyone called him that to his face. The room went silent. They waited for Mann’s retaliation. Sheng’s racist views were well known. It amused Mann more than made him mad. He kept his cool.
‘I have access to CK’s world and I intend to use it. But I’m not the only one. CK has prior knowledge about a lot of things. Things that only someone in this department could know. You were undercover, Sheng, you reaped the rewards. Maybe you kept in contact with your old buddies? Tammy died because someone countermanded my order. It had to be someone high ranking: that’s you or Mia. You know what I think?’ Mann’s eyes turned black as he glared at Sheng. ‘I think it’s you who can’t be fucking trusted.’
‘That’s not the way it looks on paper, son of a Triad. Who are people going to trust – you or me?’ Sheng rocked on his feet as he grinned at Mann. His eyes lit with triumph. ‘Fuck off, Mann. You don’t belong here any more.’
Chapter 74
Shrimp came to find Mann on the roof. ‘What would we do if we couldn’t stand on top of the world like this?’ he said, looking out over the evening sky. The eight o’clock night-time display was starting.
The bowlights of giant tankers were blinking on the horizon.
‘Thought you might like to let off steam.’ He handed Mann the urumi. ‘I caught the boss practising with it.’
Mann smiled. ‘Knowing how competitive she is she’s bound to have mastered it by now.’ Mann took it from Shrimp. It was light. Its handle was the same as a sword. ‘Yeah, it’s a beautiful weapon, hard to defend against.’ Its three blades uncurled, shimmering in the laser lights that lit the sky around them, vibrating like a metal snake as it clacked against the roof tiles. Mann lifted it, felt its weight and balance in his hand. He whirled it overhead and brought it down, wrapped around the dummy. Bits of Hawaiian shirt and stuffing flew out.
‘It’s a hell of a weapon.’ Shrimp looked at him. He waited. Mann knew he had come to the roof to say something. He was rubbish at hiding anything. ‘What is it, Shrimp?’
‘You all right, Boss?’
He turned to look at Shrimp and smiled. ‘Sure. I will be okay. Just do your job and do it well, Shrimp, I’m counting on you. We’re still the same team we always were. Isn’t that right, Mia?’
Mann knew she was standing watching. She came towards them,
‘Yes. It’s true. We’ve always been a unit.’ Shrimp left. ‘You can take a lot worse than that, hey, banana boy?’ When he looked up Mia was smiling and frowning at the same time. ‘I used to call you that – for slightly different reasons. Do you remember?’
Mann smiled. ‘I remember. Shall I tell Sheng or will you?’
‘Yeah. I’ll save it for the right moment, I think.’ They stood in silence for a moment.
‘You’re my boss, Mia. What do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to do what you’re good at. Use your instincts and keep pushing, Mann. Nothing else matters at the moment but getting to this killer. I can’t force Sheng to do anything. He’s the SIO in this. But we have our own investigations and I need you on that. But…’ She smiled, concerned. ‘Do one thing for me first; go home, get some rest for a few hours. Take a day looking over your father’s affairs, make a start on it. This might be the calm between the storm.’
‘Before.’
‘Before what?’
Mann smiled across at Mia. ‘If you’re going to talk to me in your perfect schoolgirl English get the idiom right – it’s before the storm.’
‘All right, smart arse.’ She smiled back but her eyes still penetrated, searched for the answer inside him. ‘You afraid to go home, Johnny? I’ve seen you sleeping in the office a few times recently.’
He screwed up his face, shook his head, but hesitated too long.
‘Bullshit. Yes you are. You prefer to sleep here. You prefer to sleep sat up in your chair, don’t you? What is it? Ready to run at a second’s notice?’
He shrugged.
‘Where you going to run to, Johnny?’
‘Shit…’ Mann smiled ruefully as he shook his head exasperated. ‘I hate it when that happens. Why are women always right?’
‘It’s just a con.’ She smiled back at him. ‘Fortunately for us women it usually works.’ She held his gaze and her eyes were full of sympathy.
‘Okay, you’re right, Mia. I feel like shit. I haven’t slept properly for weeks and I don’t want to go home. I really am thinking of taking some time off. In fact I might take the rest of my life off. I’m thinking of handing in my badge. Sheng is only saying what others are thinking.’
‘That’s crap. I trust you more than any officer in this department. You will always be the best man for the job, Johnny.’
‘Why? Because it takes one to know one? Haven’t you heard all the shit going round this building? The whole station is talking about it.’
‘Since when did you care what people say? I have known you all my police career. I have never wanted anyone else on my team. You’re the best the OCTB has to offer, Mann. Don’t fall apart over this; you’ve weathered bigger storms. You know what you have to do, don’t you? You have to prove them wrong.’ Mia shook her head as she gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Anyway, this is your life.’ Her eyes searched his; they were full of sympathy. ‘What else would you do?’
‘I don’t know, lie on a beach somewhere, be a professional surfing bu
m, find myself one of the six thousand islands in the Philippines and disappear for a few years?’ He shrugged. ‘Try and feel human. Maybe try and start again. I seem to have made a mess of the last thirty-seven years and now it’s catching up with me. I can’t close my eyes without seeing people that I haven’t managed to save. I am afraid to go home because I wait at the apartment door for Helen to shout hello. I wait for her to come out of the bathroom with a towel round her, I wait to hold her in my arms and smell her hair, feel her soft skin. Instead when I close my eyes I see her being tortured.’
Mann knew what she was going to do, she was going to say she knew how he felt and that time would heal as it always did. But time didn’t heal; it just papered over the cracks. Now Mann felt that there were only cracks left. And he felt his life was falling between them, seeping away. Mann shook his head and closed his eyes for a few seconds.
‘Maybe it’s all for a reason, Mann. Maybe this is your time to put all your ghosts to rest.’
Chapter 75
The next morning Hafiz’s body was discovered on a stairwell.
Sheng knelt beside Hafiz. ‘They say it can take twenty minutes.’ Daniel Lu didn’t answer him, he was busy drawing a plan of the scene. ‘Twenty minutes to die.’ The smell of burning tyre was still an acrid taste in the air. The smell of roasted flesh.
‘He wouldn’t have taken that long. He hasn’t much fat on him.’
Daniel was knelt beside the body, examining the blackened corpse. Hafiz’s charred body was lying on its side, hands tied behind his back. His knees up around his chest, where the body had shrivelled as it burned.
‘They’ll save a bit on the cremation anyway. They could ask for half price, half the job’s already done for them,’ joked Sheng. Daniel didn’t comment. Sheng left him to it. ‘I’m going to talk to the family. I’ll catch you back at the station.’
Sheng made his way back down the stairwell. The Delhi Grill was the site of mourning. It had Indians queuing to pay their respects to PJ and the family. He walked past the mourners and found PJ sat at one of his tables, Flo next to him. Ali was standing, talking to people as they approached the table. Nina was busy laying out plates of food and drinks for the mourners. She kept her head down, she moved silently around as she worked.
PJ looked up as Sheng approached.
‘Mr Kahn, a word please.’
Ali gently eased the mourners out. Nina got a chair for Sheng. He thanked her. She smiled at him. His eyes lingered on her as she went about her work again, refilling the plates of food ready for new mourners.
He turned back to PJ and Flo. ‘My sympathies for your loss.’
‘Where is his body now?’ asked PJ. He had aged twenty years. His face hung in sorrow.
‘He will be moved shortly.’
PJ groaned and hid his eyes as he wiped them. ‘Still on that stairwell?’ Sheng nodded.
Ali placed his hand on his father’s shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Dad.’
PJ rounded on him. ‘It’s not all right,’ he said angrily, shrugging off Ali’s hand. ‘You said it would be but it’s not. Two of my children lost. One dead, the other in prison. How is that all right?’
Ali looked nervously at Sheng and back at his father and spoke to him in Urdu.
‘English please.’ Sheng spoke. ‘I can get a translator here if you need.’
‘No we don’t need that.’ Flo spoke. Her eyes burned with sorrow and anger. ‘We can all speak English. Hafiz was murdered by the Africans.’
‘Did anyone see it?’
‘Of course not. We smelt it though. The Mansions was full of smoke. People said you could hear him begging for mercy as he burned to death.’
‘Did anyone try and help him?’
Flo shook her head. ‘No one helps in these Mansions, not unless you want to be killed next.’
Sheng stood. ‘I will leave you for now, I’ll get someone in to take your statements. Hafiz’s body will be taken to the morgue for the autopsy. It will be released to you as soon as we have finished with it.’
PJ nodded his head, his eyes on the table. ‘Nina, show the officer out,’ PJ said, always polite, always respectful.
Nina stopped her work and walked Sheng to the door. He stopped to speak with her.
‘What do you think about it, miss?’
Nina looked up at him. Sheng wasn’t usually partial to Indians. He had never dated an Indian woman but this one had something about her that appealed to him. She had a full chest beneath the silk and the sari; she had a beautiful face and light skin.
‘My brother had got in with the wrong people.’
Sheng raised an eyebrow, he nodded. He smiled. ‘Do you live here with your family? You’re not married?’
Nina shook her head. ‘I live with my grandmother.’ She looked away shyly and down at her feet. ‘I am engaged to be married.’
‘Not yet though, hey? I tell you what – it would be really helpful to catch your brother’s killers if we could meet for a private chat about it all. I would like to help you and the Indian community. I am sure, with the right information, I could change things in here. Does that sound good?’
‘Of course. Thank you. You’re very kind.’ Nina smiled nervously. She was anxious to get away.
‘Fine then. We’ll have a private meeting, you and I, somewhere quiet where we can talk and I’m sure we can achieve a lot.’ Sheng grinned. ‘I’ll ring you here and arrange something. Don’t go anywhere.’
Chapter 76
Shrimp looked closely at the computer image of the skull found by the fishermen. It was worn smooth, its right side was missing. The teeth were all there except for the molars on the right at the back. Shrimp clicked on the program until he had produced a projected image of the whole skull.
He took the photo of David’s brother, Ishmael, and enlarged it. He studied it closely: Ishmael had only one significant scar on his face, the one extending from his mouth to his ear on the right side. The skull was missing on the side.
He enlarged and cropped the photo till he was left with an A4 photo of his face. He scanned it into the computer and superimposed it over the skull found by the fishermen. He took it straight to Daniel Lu’s department.
‘I’m impressed. It’s a good match. Can you get his brother in here for a DNA match?’
‘Possibly,’ said Shrimp. ‘They’re a bit wary of police stations.’
‘Okay, I’ll give you a swab kit. Have you time to go back in there? You’re undercover from tonight.’
‘Yes. I’ll ring him. Get him to meet me. I’m not worried about being recognized undercover. I’m not moving from the bar. It’s all travelling businessmen in there. Plus, I have a great disguise.’
Shrimp phoned David. ‘Can you meet me at the park at the back of the mosque?’
Shrimp could see by David’s face that he was expecting bad news. They walked away from the park aviary and past the old men playing chess. They found a shaded bench and Shrimp told him what he believed. David listened, his head down.
‘The scar on Ishmael’s face, how did he get it?’
‘He was hit with a metal bar. It cut all the way from here to here.’ David ran his finger down the side of his face. ‘It knocked out four of his back teeth.’
‘He was doing the same sort of business as you here, wasn’t he?’
David nodded and then shook his head perplexed. ‘I don’t understand. He was doing well here in Hong Kong, he even had a girlfriend.’
‘Did you meet her?’
‘She was someone from the Mansions. He said it had to be kept secret. He said her name was Pearl, or Rose, I can’t remember. He liked her a lot.’
‘Did he tell you anything about her, age, height, second name, anything you can think of?’
‘He said she wasn’t Chinese. He didn’t say if she was tall or not. He said she had a nice figure. She was young.’ He shook his head. ‘My mother will cry forever when she hears this news.’
‘I am sorry, David. I nee
d to ask you something else. Was he married?’
David shook his head. ‘No.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’ David looked across at Shrimp. ‘So, she has killed others?’
Shrimp nodded. ‘We think so.’
‘Why did she kill my brother?’
Shrimp shook his head. The words in his head: there always has to be a first.
Chapter 77
Ruby had seen Hafiz’s burnt body on the stairs but it meant little to her now. They would all die at some time. The difference is that Ruby would choose when and how.
Humming to herself, she picked Peter Thorne’s head out of the sink. She held it tightly to stop it slipping and slid it into a plastic bag, then another and two more. Then she tied them tightly and placed the head in her handbag, ready. She had a lot of things to do today. She went around the room and gave each of her dolls a kiss.
‘Mummy has to go out now so be good, babies. If anybody knocks on the door, don’t answer it. Mummy is taking Daddy somewhere special today.’
She stopped by a doll with a shock of curly blond hair. ‘This was your daddy.’ She placed the photo she had taken from Peter Thorne’s wallet into the doll’s lap, resting it on the stiff edge of her frilly skirt. ‘I know, I know.’ She looked around at her dolls. ‘Everyone needs a daddy.’ She scanned the room and her eyes stopped on a baby doll sucking its thumb, it had a blue cap on its head. On its tummy was a photo of a man, his family had been cut out, only his head remained. ‘Do you love your daddy, Steven Littlewood? Or you, little Louis?’ She picked up a ruddy-faced chuckling doll with painted plastic hair coming down its forehead in a kiss curl. ‘Of course you do.’
Ruby began dancing. She twirled around the room spinning and laughing. She clapped her hands in the air. From the cupboard came the noise of a baby crying. Ruby stopped, walked slowly to the cupboard and opened the doors. She stood at eye level with the baby on the shelf. Its mummified remains wrapped in muslin. Next to it the crying doll was smiling again. ‘Look after your sister. Don’t let her be lonely.’ Ruby talked to the blue-eyed doll. ‘Mummy has a special treat coming for you. For all of you.’ She turned and held her arms open addressing all of her dolls. ‘We are going to have the one daddy I have been searching for all this time. He is going to be the one and we will keep him. We will keep him forever.’
