The Eight Curious Cases of Inspector Zhang

by Stephen Leather

  The inspector led them out of the room and down the corridor to the elevators. He took the first one down with Mercier, the waiter, Miss Berghuis and one of the two uniformed policemen. Sergeant Lee followed in a second elevator with the two assistant managers and the other uniformed policeman. They gathered together outside the security room and Inspector Zhang led them inside. He waved a languid hand at the chair in front of the monitors. “Mr. Mercier, perhaps you would do the honours.”

  The head of security sat down and ran a hand over his scalp. “We’ve already looked at the CCTV footage,” he said.

  “We looked, but did we really see what happened?” asked the inspector. He waited until everyone had gathered behind Mercier’s chair before asking him to begin the recording from the point at which Mr. Wilkinson and the prostitute stepped out of the elevator.

  “Here we can see Mr. Wilkinson and his guest arriving at eight-thirty,” said Inspector Zhang. “Very much alive, obviously.”

  He watched as Wilkinson and the woman went inside. “She left an hour later. Please skip to that point, Mr. Mercier.”

  Mercier tapped a key and the video began to fast-forward. He slowed to normal speed just before nine-thirty in time to see Ms. Lulu leave the room.

  “Now, at this point Mr. Wilkinson ordered his club sandwich and coffee from room service, so again we know that he is still very much alive.”

  “So who killed him?” asked Miss Berghuis. “If the woman left the room and no one goes in before the waiter, who stabbed him?”

  “That is an excellent question, Madam,” said Inspector Zhang.

  “But can you answer it, Inspector?” asked the manager, tersely.

  “I think I can,” said Inspector Zhang. “The key to solving this mystery lies in understanding that it is not who goes into the room that is important. It is who does not go in.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” said the manager crossly.

  “I beg to differ,” said Inspector Zhang. “It makes all the sense in the world. It is as Sherlock Holmes himself says in Arthur Conan Doyle’s masterpiece The Adventure of Silver Blaze, it is the fact that the dog did not bark that is significant.”

  “We do not allow dogs in the hotel,” said Mercier. “There are no pets of any kind.”

  Sergeant Lee looked up from her notebook, smiling, and Inspector Zhang sighed. “I was using the story as an example to show that it is sometimes the absence of an event that is significant, which was the case in The Adventure of Silver Blaze. If I recall correctly it is Inspector Gregory who asks Sherlock Holmes if there is anything about the case that he wants to draw to the policeman’s attention. Holmes says yes, to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. That confuses the inspector who tells Holmes that the dog did nothing in the night-time. To which Holmes replies, ‘That was the curious incident.’ Do you understand now, Madam?”

  She shook her head impatiently. “No, Inspector, I am afraid I do not.”

  “Then, Madam, please allow me to demonstrate,” said Inspector Zhang. He put a hand on Mercier’s shoulder. “Please, Mr. Mercier, fast-forward now to the point where the waiter arrives with the room service trolley.”

  “This is a waste of time,” said Mercier. “We did this already.”

  “Please humour me,” said the inspector.

  Mercier did as he asked and they all watched as the video fast-forwarded to the point where Mr. Chau arrived with his trolley and began knocking on the door.

  “Normal speed now, please, Mr. Mercier.” The video slowed as they watched the waiter use his key card to enter the room.

  “At this point Mr. Chau is discovering the body and calling down to reception.” Inspector Zhang waited until the waiter appeared at the door and began pacing up and down. “As you can see, no one enters the room until the hotel staff appear.” On the screen Miss Berghuis and her staff appeared and they all hurried into the room. “At this point you phone the police,” said the inspector, turning to Miss Berghuis. The manager nodded. Inspector Zhang patted Mercier on the shoulder. “So now fast-forward until my arrival, Mr. Mercier, but not too quickly. And I want everyone to note that no one else enters the room until I arrive with my sergeant.”

  The door to the room remained closed for twenty minutes until Inspector Zhang and Sergeant Lee stepped out of the elevator.

  “Normal speed now, please, Mr. Mercier. Thank you.”

  Mercier pressed a button and the video slowed. Inspector Zhang walked up to the door and knocked on it. It opened and he went inside, followed by his sergeant. The door closed behind them.

  “So, now we are inside, talking to you and assessing the situation. We talk, then I go to the bedroom with you, Miss Berghuis, I look at the body, I talk to you, I walk back to the sitting room, and then I walk out with Mr. Mercier.” On the screen Inspector Zhang and Mercier walked out of the room and headed for the elevator.

  “You can stop it there, Mr. Mercier,” said Inspector Zhang, patting him on the shoulder.

  The picture froze on the monitor, showing Inspector Zhang and Mercier walking towards the elevator.

  “So here is the big question, Mr. Mercier,” said Inspector Zhang. “You walk out of the room now, but when exactly did you walk into the room?”

  Mercier said nothing.

  “You did not arrive with Miss Berghuis.”

  “He was already in the room when we got there,” said the manager. She gasped and put her hand up to her mouth. “My God, he was in there the whole time.”

  “Apparently so,” said Inspector Zhang.

  Mercier stood up and tried to get out of the door but the two uniformed policemen blocked his way. Mercier turned to face Inspector Zhang. “This is ridiculous,” he said.

  “Now, Mr. Mercier, I am going to make two predictions, based on what I think happened,” said Inspector Zhang. He nodded at Mercier’s jacket. “I am certain that you are carrying the murder weapon. You have had no chance to dispose of it so it must still be on your person. And because I do not believe that you planned to kill Mr. Wilkinson, I think that the weapon is actually something quite innocuous. A pen, maybe.” He registered the look of surprise on Mercier’s face and he smiled. “Yes, a pen. But I also think that you have a camera, perhaps even a small video camera. Am I right?”

  Mercier didn’t answer but he slowly reached into his inside pocket and took out a black Mont Blanc pen. He held it out and Inspector Zhang could see that there was blood on one end. Sergeant Lee stepped forward and held out a clear plastic evidence bag and Mercier dropped the pen into it. Mercier then reached into the left hand pocket of his trousers and took out a slim white video camera, smaller than a pack of cigarettes.

  Inspector Zhang took the camera from him. “And Miss Lulu, she is in this with you?”

  Mercier looked away but didn’t answer.

  “She is not involved in the murder of course. She doesn’t know that Mr. Wilkinson is dead because he was still alive when she left the room.”

  Mercier nodded. “She doesn’t know.”

  “Because you never planned to kill Mr. Wilkinson, did you?” said Inspector Zhang.

  Mercier rubbed his hands together and shook his head.

  “You were there to blackmail Mr. Wilkinson?”

  “Blackmail?” said Miss Berghuis.

  “It is the only explanation,” said Inspector Zhang. “He was in the room when Mr. Wilkinson arrived with Miss Lulu. I am assuming that he wanted to video them in a compromising position with a view to blackmailing him. He was a married man, after all. And divorce in America can be a costly business. The only question is whether Miss Lulu was party to the blackmail, or not.”

  Mercier nodded. “It was her idea,” he said.

  “You were her client?”

  “Sometimes. Yes. Then she said that she had this rich customer who treated her badly and that she wanted to get back at him. She wanted to hurt him and get money from him. She said she’d split the money with me.”


  “So she suggested that you hide in the closet and video them together?”

  “She had been in his room before and she knew I could easily hide in the closet. She called me when she was on the way back to the hotel and I was in position when they arrived. She made sure that he could never see me. It was easy. But then she was supposed to get him into the shower so that I could slip out, but he wouldn’t have it. He said that his wife was due to phone him so he practically threw her out of the room. Then he phoned room service from the sitting room so I couldn’t get out, and then his wife called. I was stuck there while he took the call.” He ran a hand over his face. He was dripping with sweat. “Then it all went wrong.”

  “He opened the closet? He found you?”

  Mercier nodded. “He shouldn’t have, but he did. All his clothes were in the suitcase and his robe was in the bathroom. I don’t know why he opened the closet, but he did and he saw me.”

  “So you killed him?”

  Mercier shook his head. “It was an accident.”

  “You stabbed him in the throat with your pen,” said Inspector Zhang.

  “He attacked me,” said Mercier. “He opened the closet door and saw me and attacked me. We struggled. I had to stop him.”

  “By driving your pen into his throat?”

  Mercier looked at the floor.

  “I think not,” said Inspector Zhang. “If you stabbed him at the closet, there would be blood there. The only place where there is blood is the bed. Therefore you stabbed him on the bed.”

  “We were struggling. I pushed him back.”

  “And then you stabbed him?”

  “My pen was in my top pocket. He grabbed it during the struggle and tried to force it into my eye. I pushed it away and it …” He fell silent, unable or unwilling to finish the sentence.

  “You stabbed him in the throat?”

  Mercier nodded.

  “And then rather than leaving the room, you hid in the closet again?”

  “I didn’t know what else to do. I knew that he had ordered room service so I couldn’t risk being seen in the corridor.”

  “So you waited until the room service waiter discovered the body and while he was phoning the front desk you slipped out of the closet?”

  Mercier nodded. “I went through to the next room but there was someone in the corridor so I couldn’t leave and I had to pretend that I’d just arrived. It was an accident, Inspector Zhang. I swear.”

  “That’s for a judge to consider,” said Inspector Zhang. “There is one more piece of evidence that I require from you, Mr. Mercier. Your handkerchief.”

  “My handkerchief?”

  “I notice that unlike your colleagues you do not have a handkerchief in your pocket,” said the inspector. “I therefore assume that you used it to wipe the blood from your hands after you killed Mr. Wilkinson.”

  Mercier reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a blood-stained handkerchief. Sergeant Lee held out a plastic evidence bag and Mercier dropped the handkerchief into it.

  Inspector Zhang nodded at the two uniformed policemen. “Take him away, please.”

  The officers handcuffed Mercier and led him out of the room. Inspector Zhang nodded at the two evidence bags that Sergeant Lee was holding, containing the pen and the handkerchief. “You can send them to your friends in Forensics,” he said.

  “I will,” she said.

  “I suppose it does prove one thing,” said Inspector Zhang. He smiled slyly.

  “What is that, Inspector?” asked the Sergeant.

  “Why, that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.” He grinned. “There is no need to write that down, Sergeant Lee.”

  INSPECTOR ZHANG AND THE FALLING WOMAN

  Mrs. Zhang slipped her hand inside her husband’s as they walked together away from the seafood restaurant. “That was a lovely evening,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

  Inspector Zhang smiled and gently squeezed her delicate hand. “It isn’t over yet,” he said. “It isn’t every day that I get to celebrate thirty years of marriage to the most wonderful girl in Singapore.”

  Mrs. Zhang giggled. “I’ve not been a girl for a long time,” she said.

  “You will always be my girl,” said Inspector Zhang.

  Mrs. Zhang stopped walking and turned to face him. She put her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the lips. “I will love you until my last breath, and beyond,” she said.

  “That’s probably the lobster and the champagne talking,” said Inspector Zhang.

  Mrs. Zhang laughed. “It was very good lobster,” she admitted. She released her grip on his neck and slid her hand into his again.

  The restaurant that Inspector Zhang had taken his wife to was on a quay overlooking the Singapore River, with cute little tables and candles in old wine bottles and a chef who cooked the best lobster in the city. The chef was known to have a predilection for the ladyboys of Orchard Towers but his culinary skills were such that everyone turned a blind eye to his weakness.

  As they walked slowly towards where he had left his car, they saw a group of three Indian men looking up at a twelve-storey apartment block. One of them was pointing up at the top of the building. Inspector Zhang craned his neck to see what they were looking at and gasped when he saw a Chinese woman standing on the roof of the block, holding onto a railing.

  “I’m jumping!” the woman shouted. The wind whipped her black dress around her legs. “I’m going to jump!”

  “Oh my goodness,” said Mrs. Zhang, covering her mouth with her hand.

  Inspector Zhang walked towards the building, reaching for his mobile phone. He called headquarters, explained the situation and asked for a negotiating unit to be despatched. He put his phone away, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted up at the woman. “This is the police. Please go back inside, Madam!”

  The three Indians looked over at Inspector Zhang. “Are you really with the police?” said the youngest of the group, a teenager wearing combat trousers and a t-shirt with a Nike swoosh across the front.

  “I am Inspector Zhang of the CID, based at New Bridge Road,” he said. “Can you please move away? If she does fall it could be dangerous.”

  “For her, sure,” laughed the teenager.

  Inspector Zhang was about to scold the teenager for his insensitivity but before he could do so the woman shouted again. “I’m going to jump!”

  Inspector Zhang cupped his hands around his mouth. “Please stay where you are!” he shouted back. “We can talk about this.”

  “I’m going to jump!” screamed the woman. “Don’t try to stop me!”

  “What’s your name?” shouted Inspector Zhang.

  The woman shouted something but the wind whipped away her words.

  “What did she say?” asked Inspector Zhang’s wife.

  “I didn’t hear,” he said. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted up at the woman again. “What is your name?”

  “Celia!” shouted the woman.

  “Okay, Celia, please step away from the edge. I will come up and talk to you.”

  “I’m going to jump!”

  More passers-by were stopping to look up at the building and cars were stopping in the road, drivers trying to see what was going on. Inspector Zhang waved at the cars to keep moving but no one paid him any attention. Suddenly he heard screams and he turned around just as the Chinese woman slammed into the ground with a sickening thud. Blood splattered across the pavement. The spectators scattered and one of the Indian men began to wail.

  “Please, would everyone move back,” said Inspector Zhang, holding up his warrant card. “I need everybody to get away from the body now.”

  Inspector Zhang went over to his wife who was staring at the body, her eyes wide. He put his arm around her. “You have to go home, my dear,” he said.

  Mrs. Zhang frowned. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “I’m the first officer on the scene,” he said, putting his arm around
her slim waist. “I have to stay. I’m sorry.”

  Mrs. Zhang nodded. She knew what it meant to be married to a policeman, especially one who was as conscientious as her husband. “I’ll wait up for you,” she said and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.

  “You’d better,” said Inspector Zhang, giving her his car keys. As Mrs. Zhang headed towards the car Inspector Zhang used his mobile phone to contact headquarters to report the death and to cancel the negotiating team. The operator promised to despatch an ambulance immediately.

  Inspector Zhang ended the call and phoned Sergeant Lee. She was at home and he asked her to come to the scene as soon as possible.

  A small crowd was gathering around the body and Inspector Zhang went over and asked them to move back. “There is nothing to see,” he said, even though he knew that wasn’t true. There was something to see – a dead body. During his career as a policeman, Inspector Zhang had seen many dead bodies but most people were rarely confronted by death and when they were they tended to stop and stare in morbid fascination.

  The woman was lying face down, one leg twisted awkwardly, one arm under her body, and a pool of blood was slowly spreading around her head. He didn’t need to check for signs of life. Her dress had ridden up her legs exposing her thighs and Inspector Zhang tenderly pulled it down.

  As he straightened up, a patrol car arrived and two uniformed policemen got out. Inspector Zhang showed them his warrant card, explained what had happened, and asked them to help keep the onlookers away. There were now more than fifty people pressing around trying to get a look at the body.

  Sergeant Lee arrived just ten minutes after Inspector Zhang had called her. She was wearing a dark blue suit and had her hair clipped up at the back. “I’m sorry to bring you in so late but I was the first on the scene,” said Inspector Zhang.

  “But you’re not on duty tonight,” said Sergeant Lee.

  “An inspector of the Singapore Police Force is always on duty,” said Inspector Zhang.

  “But isn’t it your thirtieth wedding anniversary tonight?” asked Sergeant Lee, walking over to the body with the inspector.