Beautiful Death

by Fiona McIntosh

  The man must have got tired of her small, hesitant steps because he suddenly clasped the top of her arm painfully and dragged her along to the door of the building. He knocked.

  It took a few hideously long moments before anyone answered, during which Kate held her breath as faces she loved tore through her mind — her parents, her sister, even Dan. He was already living with someone else; someone far better suited, she’d gathered from their last painful call. He deserved to find someone to love, who loved him back and shared his life fully. Of course the face that swam most painfully in her mind’s eye was DCI Jac. Hawksworth’s. It seemed impossible, ridiculous even, that she was about to stare death in the face and have her life taken by the cruel hands of James Chan. This was how Lily must have felt, she suddenly realised — and she probably thought of Jack, too, at this same door. Kate couldn’t even kid herself to feel brave any longer; instead she began to tremble as behind the door a shadow blocked the thin line of light glowing from within.

  The door pulled inwards and she braced herself to look angrily, rather than tearily, at Chan, hating herself for her weakness.

  ‘Hello, Kate,’ the surgeon said, and smiled brightly. ‘I’m sorry we’re reunited in this manner.’ ‘Charles?’ she said, too shocked to do anything but gawp stupidly at him.

  He nodded at the man holding her, then immediately returned his attention to Kate. ‘Come in, we have lots of work to do.’

  ‘Charles, wait!’ she said, stumbling as the henchman shoved her roughly through the doorway. ‘I … this is a mistake, you —’

  ‘No mistake, Kate, other than you poking around for just a bit too long. I heard that you were asking about these buildings and I simply couldn’t let you investigate them until I’d had a chance to … er, clean up, shall we say. You got too close, too quickly. Such a shame, because I like you, I really do. By tomorrow, this equipment will all be gone and this will once more appear to be a disused medical room, useful for storage purposes.’ He gestured around the room that held a bank of equipment, stainless steel cupboards, and a clean, shiny stainless steel table similar to the one she’d recently seen in the morgue. She remembered how sad and tiny Lily’s naked body had looked upon it. She was destined to appear the same — perhaps not quite as tiny, but every bit as vulnerable.

  Vomit rose in her throat but she fought it back. ‘Why?’ she managed to utter over her nausea.

  ‘Help me tie her to the chair and then you can go,’ Charles said to her kidnapper.

  Kate whipped her head around furiously and began to struggle.

  ‘There’s no point,’ Charles cautioned her, reaching for a syringe filled with clear liquid. He tapped the glass. ‘I guess we need to help you relax, Kate.’

  Before she could protest again she felt the sting of a needle in her arm.

  ‘There,’ he said, almost kindly. ‘That should help you. I won’t steal your kidneys — that was just to confuse the police. As for your pretty face …’

  She stopped listening for a moment. Why hadn’t she resisted? Why hadn’t she fought him? Her thoughts swam and her body began to relax against her wishes.

  She heard Maartens’s voice as though it was coming from the bottom of a well.

  ‘I’ll give her more shortly. She’s compliant now. help me lift her. Ready? Okay, one … two …’

  His voice disappeared and Kate felt as though she was in a tunnel. She could still register sounds but they were muffled; no words could be made out and she wanted to sleep. The notion of closing her eyes and letting herself go further into the quiet tunnel was seductive — and yet she rallied, fighting against what she thought were fluttering eyelids.

  Jack would come. Jack would find her.

  * * *

  Malik, Angela and Sarah arrived roughly at the same time, within ten minutes of Cam. Jack was glad of their presence; his mind was swimming with dark possibilities of what might have occurred.

  They all gathered in Kate’s postage stamp of a garden, the only place free of scene-of-crime people. Benson spoke up. ‘Sorry, I know it’s freezing out here but SOCO needs the house free and they want us to stay on the grass where we can’t disturb any evidence around the side of the house.’

  Sarah looked ghostly white in the murky moonlight. She touched Jack’s arm. ‘Sir, I spoke to her on her way home.’ Her voice was filled with anxiety.

  ‘I know, I know. There’s no sense to this. Perhaps she was followed?’

  Cam shook his head. ‘Kate would know if she was being tailed, surely?’

  Sarah held a finger up. ‘There was something she was churning over. She was wondering whether to go back. I’ll just phone the clinic and check.’ She moved away from the group to make the call.

  Brodie looked at Sarah and the others, then t. Jack. ‘Who would snatch her, sir? I mean, whose feathers have we had a chance to ruffle so far?’

  Jack shook his head as he, too, pondered this. This was the first time he’d acknowledged tha. Kate’s situation was connected to the case. ‘I went in hard at Chan. But if Chan was going to do this, he would be coming at me, not Kate. Kate hardly said a thing in our meeting.’ He turned to Sarah. ‘Anything?’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘She didn’t return to the clinic this evening, not according to the security guard or reception.’

  Jack frowned. ‘Right. Can you get onto Professo. Chan? Try and establish where he is. Mal, get a couple of squad cars around to his house, the hospital and down to the clinic. They are not to move in until we say so.’

  They nodded, and started punching numbers into their phones as they moved away from the group.

  Jack continued. ‘The only other person who might be feeling us breathing down his neck is this guy called Schlimey Katz. He’s an Hasidic Jew from the Stamford Hill community. He may have been tipped off and that’s got me baffled. No one but us really knew we were onto him.’

  ‘Insider?’ Geoff wondered.

  ‘Seems like it,’ Jack growled. ‘But who? Only myself, Mal and Sarah were aware of him.’

  This gave everyone pause for thought.

  ‘Cam, I think we need to get that kosher café called Milo’s up at Amhurst Park checked out. It’s a haunt of a guy called Moshe Gluck who Katz does some work for. And Sarah was interviewing some of the girls who work Amhurst Parade and they use Milo’s too. One’s seen him around there, I think, hasn’t she?’ he said, as Sarah and Mal returned.

  ‘Milo’s?’ Sarah asked and Jack nodded. ‘Yes, sir,’ Sarah said. ‘Katz is not exactly a regular but he’s known … probably because he’s so recognisable.’

  ‘So, Cam if you and Mal … what’s wrong?’ Jack could see Malik digging into his pockets.

  ‘You said Milo’s sir, right?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Just a tick,’ the DC begged. He began flicking through receipts in his wallet.

  ‘I’ll have a latte if you’re wondering,’ Cam remarked sarcastically.

  Malik seemed to find what he had been looking for and moved to read one of the small receipts in the light flooding out from Kate’s small sitting room. ‘Yes! I knew it. I fucking knew it!’

  They all shared a glance of bafflement.

  ‘Mal?’ Jack queried.

  ‘Sir. I think I know who our rat is.’

  Jack stepped towards DC Khan. ‘Who?’

  Malik shook his head in angry wonder. ‘I reckon it’s Sarju, sir, our interpreter.’

  ‘What? No, that can’t be —’ Jack exclaimed.

  ‘Hear me out, sir,’ Malik began. ‘When Sarah’s call came through about Katz, I was taking a leak. Now i. I remember correctly, when I came out he was putting something away in his pocket as he handed me my mobile and told me of Sarah’s message to meet you at Katz’s address. Now that I think about it. I believe it was his own mobile he was putting in his pocket. He had the time to make the call to Katz if he’s involved. Until that point Sarju had stuck pretty close to us all day, sir, but suddenly he was like a cat with a bur
ning tail and eager to be gone. He gave me this note with Katz’s address; he wrote it on the back of an old receipt. A receipt from Milo’s!’

  Jack stared at Malik as though he was in pain. A fresh gust of anger was stirring inside. Sarju. Could this be right?

  ‘But Kate told me about Sarju,’ he said, puzzled.

  Malik shrugged. ‘He’s on the National Register for Police Service Interpreters — that’s not in question, sir, and that’s how Kate would know of him. Hell, I’ve worked with him before and he’s good. But that’s all coincidence. The interpreters don’t work exclusively for us — they’ve just got police clearance, that’s all. They do jobs all over the place. In fact … oh shit, oh shit!’

  No one said anything as Malik ran his hands through his dark wavy hair.

  ‘Tell me,’ Jack demanded.

  Malik looked at him, haunted. ‘I seem to recall now from the last job we did together a couple of years ago that Sarju told me a lot of his work was at the hospital.’

  Jack looked horrified. ‘Not the Royal Londo. Hospital? Please tell me, not Whitechapel.’

  Malik swallowed. ‘From memory I think he lives around Brick Lane, sir.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Jack cursed, punching the air. ‘Fuck him!’

  ‘Easy, Hawk.’ It was Benson, placing a reassuring hand on Jack’s shoulder. ‘You need proof. As Malik says, this could all be coincidence.’

  ‘My gut says otherwise,’ Jack groaned.

  ‘Mine too,’ Cam admitted. ‘Angela didn’t trust him. She said she sensed he didn’t like that she understood Gujarati and that Malik speaks Urdu.’

  ‘Mal,’ Jack said, straightening, taking a deep breath.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You know his mobile?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Get the records scrutinised tonight. Pull whatever strings you have to. I’ll call the superintendent if need be. I want to know who he called after your mobile received that call from Sarah.’

  ‘Done, sir.’

  ‘Cam.’ Brodie nodded at Jack. ‘Get down to the hospital and canvass everyone you can. I want to know if they’ve ever seen Sarju with Lily Wu. Pull rank with someone over at Empress and get a photo of Sarju sent through from NRPSI records to one of the hospital computers. He may use another name at the hospital or when he’s not working for the police. Either way I want a positive ID through facial recognition. I want to know if he can be placed anywhere near Lily on the day of her death. Once the info is in we can question him.’

  ‘Onto it now, sir,’ Cam said and both he an. Malik were running from the property.

  Sarah’s phone rang and she moved away to answer it. Jack turned to his friend. ‘I may need your help.’

  ‘I wouldn’t let you out of my sight tonight. Don’t lose it now, matey.’

  Jack shook his head, still dismayed. ‘He slimed his way down to the canal with us to keep an eye on things, probably. He knows exactly what little progress we’ve made, but he also found out about our breakthrough with Katz. I’m going to break the little fucker’s neck if I find out he gave them Lily.’

  ‘Sir?’ It was Sarah. She looked sheepish.

  ‘What news?’

  ‘A couple of squad cars are at Professor Chan’s house now. He’s on the line. He wants to speak to you.’ She handed over her phone with an apologetic shrug.

  Jack took it, vaguely disappointed that Chan had been found with such ease. ‘Hawksworth,’ he said.

  ‘DCI Hawksworth, it’s James Chan here. I’ve got some policemen lining up outside my house and I was —’

  ‘Yes, Professor Chan. I sent them.’

  ‘I gathered. Have they come to arrest me?’

  ‘They await my instructions, Professor.’

  ‘Shall I invite them in?’

  ‘That’s entirely up to you.’

  ‘What exactly are they watching for, may I ask?’

  ‘Do you remember my colleague, DI Carter, who came to the hospital with me?’

  ‘Kate, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘An intruder broke into her house this evening and now she has disappeared.’

  ‘That’s unfortunate. But why has that anything to do with me?’

  Jack was stunned by the man’s cool detatchment, even though he’d already experienced it in person. ‘She was at your clinic today in Hertford. Perhaps she asked too many questions.’

  This was met by a silence that lengthened into awkwardness.

  Jack, rather than Chan, felt compelled to fill the gap. ‘Did you see her?’

  ‘DCI Hawksworth, not only did I not see Kat. Carter today, I was not even at Elysium. I have been at the RLH unit most of the day. I visited the Wu family at around five fifteen and I returned home at about six forty.’ Jack opened his mouth to interrupt, but Chan spoke faster. ‘And before you ask, my assistant can vouch for my movements all day. I have been in theatre for much of it working on a child from the Czech Republic with a seriously damaged face. I did not leave the hospital until I drove to th. Wu family home at Hadley Wood. I spent over an hour with Lily’s parents — by all means contact them. Upon returning home I had a word with my neighbour as I was reversing my car into the garage.’

  ‘What time was that, Professor?’

  ‘It was exactly six-forty-one. We were discussing a troublesome dog belonging to another neighbour across the way. It keeps barking because it’s lonely. We both checked the time as we spoke.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I came indoors, checked my messages, rang my mother in Hong Kong, and spoke to her for a while before heating up some leftovers from last night’s meal. Would you like any more detail, DC. Hawksworth? I will gladly give you my mother’s number if you’re happy to speak Cantonese to her.’

  It was superbly concealed, because his voice hadn’t changed in tempo or volume, but Chan was angry. Jack felt the bite of the surgeon’s sarcasm. ‘That won’t be necessary, Professor Chan.’

  ‘Instead of the underlying accusation that I hear in your voice each time we speak, DCI Hawksworth, why don’t you tell me how I can help? I might remind you that it is my fiancée who is a victim in this case. One would think she was yours.’

  Jack felt bile rise from his belly and a sour taste hit his mouth. ‘Professor Chan, your fiancée or not, it’s my role to find the killer of Ms Wu and the other victims who fell prey to the same killer. My interest is just as vested.’

  ‘Although presumably not as emotionally invested. At night you can go home and escape the nightmare. I meanwhile live with the knowledge that the woman I loved is dead in the drawers of the hospital morgue and that she has no face — and we are none the wiser as to who her killer might be … though you continue to pursue the insulting notion that I am the murderer.’

  ‘It’s not an unusual position for the police to take. Professor. Something in the region of ninety per cent of murders in Britain are domestically related.’

  ‘Not this one, DCI Hawksworth. I did not kil. Lily and I certainly had nothing to do with removing her face, despite my profession. Has it ever occurred to you that someone is trying to frame me?’

  ‘Why would anyone want to frame you?’

  Chan sighed. ‘Status, wealth, power … pick a reason that suits you. And those are just the obvious ones. Any man in my position is going to make enemies — including many he will never be aware of. Everyone has enemies without knowing it … even you. As far as I’m concerned someone could have a grudge against me simply because I inadvertently cut them off in traffic one day, or the car I drive looks like the one that killed their wife. You must know better than most, DCI Hawksworth, that the brain is capable of great and twisted leaps and connections. To my knowledge I have offended no one in recent or even distant memory, but I suspect someone is enjoying making me appear a logical target for your interest.’

  Jack had to agree that the man was making sense, and his alibi was presumably watertight. Still, he wasn’t going t
o admit that to Chan just yet — because if he was responsible for murder he was probably an adept liar as well.

  Chan continued. ‘Perhaps I’m not being framed. Possibly this is all just a nasty coincidence. Either way, you should be asking for my help, not threatening to arrest me.’

  ‘Have you ever heard of a man called Sarju?’

  ‘No, where should I know him from?’

  ‘The hospital.’

  ‘In what capacity?’

  ‘Translator, I imagine.’

  Chan thought about this. ‘Mmm, there are dozens of translators in and around the corridors of the hospital all day long. Our unit has made use of them from time to time, but they’re always arranged through the admin staff.’

  ‘But they might be present when you’re consulting?’

  ‘Oh absolutely. There are occasions when I’m explaining in detail to parents what I will need to do over several procedures. To ensure they properly understand — if English or Cantonese is not their first language — we always have a translator present.’

  ‘So you might recognise the face even if you didn’t recall a name.’

  ‘I never forget either, DCI Hawksworth. I can assure you I have never been introduced to a translator by the name of Sarju.’

  Arrogant, smartarsed bastard, Jack thought. ‘There’s always the chance that he goes by another name.’

  ‘This man may be connected with Lily’s death. I’m guessing?’

  ‘We have reason now to believe so,’ Jack grudgingly admitted.

  ‘And you think he might have known her? From around the hospital, I mean?’

  ‘Yes, Professor, that’s the inference I’m drawing.’

  ‘I see. Well, I know that Lily was popular around the hospital — she was here almost daily, although I rarely saw her. Isn’t that ironic?’ He sounded suddenly maudlin, Jack was pleased to note. ‘The nurses saw more of the woman I’d asked to marry me than I did. It never occurred to me to ask them about whom she might have been seeing outside our relationship. She obviously has friends in the hospital she might have confided in.’