by Chan Ho-Kei
Sonny thought of how Inspector Wang had said the West Point fire looked suspicious and the Crime Unit was taking over the investigation. So the arsonists must have been—
‘Little Willy and the two Big Circle men set the fire at five in the morning, then drove the car, no, two cars to Babington Path, bought breakfast at the convenience store, then waited to stage the getaway at the hospital?’ Sonny worked it out as he spoke.
‘More or less.’ Kwan nodded, his fingers interlaced over his knee. ‘We don’t have any evidence for this, only logic and deduction, so I didn’t say anything to Alex, but decided to head to Graham Street and see the scene of the acid attack for myself.’
‘And that’s why you first said Graham Street was the work of a copycat?’
‘Right, I thought at the time that Shek might have taken advantage of the situation, and sent someone to imitate the Mong Kok incident to create chaos and distract from whatever he was up to at the hospital. But when I saw how exactly the methods lined up, I thought this was neither coincidence nor opportunism but a carefully laid operation that they’d started preparing for six months ago. If Graham Street had been a copycat, that could simply have been Shek’s way of sending more people to the hospital, making it even more overcrowded, but if it were that simple, he wouldn’t have struck at Mong Kok once before, let alone twice. There must have been some other reason – and that’s when I came up with the hypothesis that Mong Kok was a rehearsal.’
‘But Commander, didn’t you say the culprit wanted to ambush an enemy?’ Sonny asked, remembering their conversation in the car.
‘Ambush what enemy?’
‘You mentioned novels about serial killers, and I said one reason was to conceal the true target of their murder...’
‘Why do you have to be so literal?’ laughed Kwan. ‘The key word was “conceal”, not “murder”. Did you really think I was investigating the three wounded men to see if they had any enemies? I wasn’t looking for a victim, but an accomplice.’
Sonny smacked his head, cursing himself.
‘But sir, how did you guess one of those three was an accomplice?’
‘Put these things together: Shek Boon-tim lured his pursuers away while remaining in the hospital himself. He overfilled the Emergency Room with patients, causing chaos. And a plan was brewing half a year, to injure large numbers of people with acid. The most logical conclusion is that Shek took advantage of the confusion to impersonate someone else. He’d arrange for an ordinary person to be admitted, and then swap places with him. Afterwards, he’d simply take over that person’s identity, and live out in the open, while the police would never find the vanished Shek Boon-tim. Continuing down this line of thought, I knew one of the victims must be working with Shek – and that turned out to be the slipper salesman, Boss Chau.’
‘Hang on. Do you mean to say Chau Cheung-kwong was pretending to be injured?’
‘No, that had to be real. There’d be no way to fool the paramedics.’
‘Huh? But you said this whole thing was planned by Shek Boon-tim, so if a victim was also an accomplice...’
‘He deliberately splashed acid onto his own face.’
Sonny stared at Kwan in horror. ‘Chau Cheung-kwong did that?’
‘Of course it would have been Moe who actually threw the acid.’ Kwan paused, then added, ‘But Chau was a willing participant.’
‘Willing?’
‘I’d guess he must have owed a lot of money. One of Shek’s henchmen – maybe Little Willy, maybe Moe, maybe the long-haired man – scoped out one of their debtors about the same build and age as Shek himself, then threatened and bribed him into co-operating. Many people in that position would go along with it. And so they made the necessary preparations for Shek to assume Chau’s identity. Moe carried out the attacks in Mong Kok to lay a false trail, and then found a plausible way for Chau to start working on Graham Street, while getting ready to wipe out his face.’
Now Sonny grasped why Kwan had asked Auntie Soso if the three victims had money troubles or anything like that. Not to see if they had enemies, but to find out if they had weaknesses which might be exploited.
‘This morning, following the plan, Moe and Chau used the excuse of moving stock to head to the abandoned building at the corner of Graham and Wellington Streets. Chau might have waited in the stairwell, or else pretended to be moving boxes in front of the building, actually keeping a lookout while Moe threw the drain cleaner off the roof. After that, back in the stairwell, came the most important and boldest step – flinging the corrosive liquid directly at Chau’s face and hands. I’d guess this was a lower concentration, but it still caused second-degree chemical burns. Or else Moe had water ready, and washed the acid off as soon as he thought Chau’s skin was sufficiently damaged. In any case, Chau put himself through that willingly.’
Sonny swallowed hard, imagining the moment.
‘When the paramedics got there, they quickly cleaned and dressed his burns, then Moe and Chau both got in the ambulance to Queen Mary Hospital. End scene.’
‘Commander, when were you certain that Chau Cheung-kwong was the one who’d changed places with Shek? It could have been Li Fun or Chung Wai-shing too, couldn’t it?’
‘After my chat with Auntie Soso and her friends, I was, oh, eighty or ninety per cent sure.’
‘That was when you knew?’
‘First of all, Li Fun’s too old for Shek to convincingly take his place. Besides, the doctor said both his eyes were damaged, so he probably was injured for real.’ Kwan lifted one finger. ‘That left Chung Wai-shing and Chau Cheung-kwong. They were both possible, but Chung was less likely, because he had a tattoo, which would make changing places with him harder. Chau was most suspicious, because he’d worked the shortest time on Graham Street, and because his behaviour in the marketplace was so odd, not at all like a trader. Also, his eyes weren’t affected.’
‘That’s not a reason,’ interrupted Sonny. ‘The doctor said it was because he was wearing sunglasses that kept the acid out of his eyes.’
‘Wrong again. It was the doctor’s words that actually convinced me Chau must be the accomplice. Since that storm a couple of days ago, it’s been consistently hazy and grey. Why would he need to wear sunglasses?’
Sonny thought back. It was true, there’d been no sun for a few days now.
‘The victims were brought to hospital, and at the same time Shek faked abdominal pains to get sent here. Next came that little piece of theatre, the “escape”.’ Kwan looked back in the direction of the Emergency Room. ‘Chau’s injuries weren’t as serious as Li Fun’s or Chung Wai-shing’s, so after triage he was placed behind them in the queue for treatment. With so many patients waiting and the ER in such a mess, Chau would have easily evaded attention and left his place, carrying out the rest of the plan. We’ve already said what Shek, Sze and the long-haired man were up to in the bathroom. At the same time, Moe would have helped Chau to a nearby place to wait – maybe another bathroom, or a storeroom. As soon as the prison officers left, the long-haired man would have returned to the bathroom to fetch Shek, and they’d have gone to the agreed meeting place for Shek to change places with Chau.’
‘So Shek put on Chau’s clothes?’
‘No, not clothes. Chau’s clothes were taken off after he was injured, and he’d have been wearing a hospital gown, or maybe he was shirtless. They’d have had to repeat a step from earlier on, and pour acid onto Shek Boon-tim’s face and hands.’
Sonny took a deep breath. ‘Commander, can it be... Shek was willing to endure such enormous pain, just to escape?’
‘Yes. If he skipped this step, he wouldn’t be able to get past the doctors and nurses.’ Kwan’s voice remained level. ‘Shek ruined his face, then washed off the acid with water and bandaged his head. Then he went back to the ER with Moe and lay on the bed previously occupied by Chau. And Chau would have changed his clothes – probably putting on a windcheater with a hood – and gritted his teeth against the
pain, leaving together with the long-haired man. The hospital was in upheaval because of Shek’s escape, so they wouldn’t have attracted much notice, even though Chau was still wrapped up like a mummy – patients get discharged all the time with bandages on. The long-haired man had a car ready, and the pair of them left in a leisurely manner. They’d have planned to meet Little Willy and the others at the hideout in Chai Wan.’
‘So when Dr Fung said “Chau Cheung-kwong” was miscategorized by triage, the person he was referring to hadn’t actually received any first aid at all!’ Sonny realized.
‘Shek’s plan went very smoothly there. Yet however clever he might be, he couldn’t have predicted the result of the car chase. Little Willy crashed the car, they got into a gunfight, and all three died. Long Hair and Moe would have gotten very agitated when they heard the news, but their mastermind was stuck in hospital and Moe couldn’t get further instructions from him until six in the evening. They must have been completely at a loss, even postponing the next step of murdering the real Chau Cheung-kwong.’
‘Murdering Chau?’
‘I imagine Moe told Chau that after the swap, Boss Shek would get an underworld doctor to fix him up, then smuggle him to the mainland or South-east Asia to start a new life. But Shek wouldn’t actually have done anything like that. A low-value chess piece like Chau is, to Shek, only worth using and throwing away. Done and dusted.’
‘Commander, did you really recognize Moe as the Mong Kok perp from the way he walked?’
‘Of course I recognized his gait, but I wasn’t using that to discover the criminal, only to verify my own hypothesis. After talking to Dr Fung, because all the objective evidence pointed to the same conclusion, I was virtually certain that Chau Cheung-kwong was Shek Boon-tim, and Moe the acid attacker. I just needed to be sure. While I was waiting for you to bring the car round I thought of how to make Moe give himself away, and bought that black baseball cap. Next, I just had to wait for someone with the same way of walking as the Mong Kok fatty. If such a person appeared and went to visit “Boss Chau” in Ward 6, that would confirm my suspicion. What I didn’t expect was that Moe would have lost so much weight. No wonder the police haven’t been able to track him down.’ Once again, Kwan pulled out the baseball cap in its transparent bag.
‘How did you know Moe wore that cap during the attack?’
‘It was broad daylight, and without a cap he could easily have been recognized. I’m guessing he also had a jacket on, and maybe even a mask. Besides, he knew the pictures of him in the cap were circulating, and that’s who the police were looking for, so he had to wear it. That way, if he was seen, it would immediately link the Graham Street and Mong Kok cases.’
‘Why tie the cases together? Why not just let people think it was a copycat?’
‘Sonny, I’m going to send your question back to you – why didn’t Shek Boon-tim just use brute force, and shoot his way out of that hospital?’
‘Um... he was afraid of complicating the situation?’
‘He even had an inside man in the prison. He could have handled that.’
‘Uh... his conscience hit him, and he didn’t want to hurt any more people?’
‘Yes, and maybe the sun will rise in the west.’
‘Okay, I really don’t understand. Why use such a complicated method to escape?’ Sonny shook his head in defeat.
‘Sonny, escaping from prison is like committing murder – it’s actually very simple,’ explained Kwan slowly. ‘If you want to kill someone, a single bullet or a quick knife slash, and it’s done. Jailbreaks are the same. If you have enough manpower and firepower, you can blast a hole in the most secure prison to get your guy out. The hard thing isn’t the process, it’s what happens afterwards. How do you evade the law after committing murder? How do you stay free after you’ve fled from prison? These next steps are the real difficulty.’
Sonny listened in silence, like a disciple absorbing wisdom from his mentor.
‘Shek Boon-tim could get away easily enough, but once he was out, he’d have to hide in darkness, because the whole of Hong Kong would know this most wanted man was hiding among us, and the police would put everything we had into the manhunt. He’d be exchanging one prison for a slightly larger prison. Shek’s not stupid. He’d want complete victory. In a city like Hong Kong, it’s hard to get a new identity, unless it’s under the Witness Protection Programme, which needs the Governor – ah, no, after the handover it’ll be the Chief Executive – to approve it. All your records would need to be changed. But Shek chose an unexpected method – destroying his own features and fingerprints, and taking over someone else’s life and identity.’
‘But he could just have done that – got Moe to splash Chau Cheung-kwong with acid – without this whole plot, leaving dozens of people injured.’
‘If this were an isolated case, the victim and attacker would come in for a lot more police attention. Even if the switch were successful, they might still let something slip during the investigation. There are hardly any cases of people having their face and fingerprints destroyed in this way, so the police would treat it as a targeted crime. But a series of attacks seemingly motivated by pure malice would help conceal the true objective – giving Shek Boon-tim a new identity. “Chau Cheung-kwong” would be just another wounded person in a crowd of victims. Best of all, even if the attacker was caught, Shek wouldn’t be affected – everyone would just assume Moe was a psycho. So Shek actually hoped the police would think the Graham Street and Mong Kok cases were the same perp. That’s why Moe had to wear the baseball cap.’
If they were all chess players, Sonny thought, Kwan Chun-dok and Shek Boon-tim would be grand masters, calculating with every move, weighing the opponent’s plans and strategies, while he, Sonny, was just a novice, only seeing one move ahead. Kwan’s explanation was slowly making clear to him every detail that he’d seen or heard earlier, such as his commander’s quip to Auntie Soso about seeing ‘unsuspicious friends’ – because he knew the criminal must have been planted in the marketplace for some time, rather than being a stranger around there. And how Shek told Moe to stage the attack on Graham Street, rather than in Wan Chai or Causeway Bay, to ensure the victims would be sent not to some Eastern District hospital but to Queen Mary, where all the Stanley Prison inmates were taken. The first floor of Building J was Medical Social Services – and Shek used the fire and the acid attack to create large numbers of victims, so all the social workers would be busy downstairs counselling patients and their families, ensuring the area around the bathroom would be even more deserted, reducing the likelihood of someone stumbling upon their plans.
If Shek’s plan had worked, he’d have had a brand new face after reconstructive surgery, erasing his past and starting a new life as Chau Cheung-kwong. And all the while, he’d be planning a new crime spree. Sonny thought it was unlikely he’d have returned to Graham Street. Moe would probably have told the locals that Boss Chau needed time to recuperate, sold the stall lease and vanished from their lives. Ironically, it would be a public hospital providing the surgery – with taxpayers funding his change of identity. If Kwan hadn’t seen through the plan, Shek’s victory would have been complete.
‘I even had to ask the nurse at reception for this plastic bag – I didn’t have any evidence bags on me,’ laughed Kwan, placing the baseball cap on his own head.
‘Commander, why did you want to scare Shek Boon-tim? Lying to him that his life was in danger from the medicine?’
Kwan snorted. ‘Shek Boon-tim is human trash. His younger brother Boon-sing was garbage too – once he calmly killed five hostages in the course of an escape – but still the less heartless of the two. Shek Boon-tim had no regard for anyone but himself, and was perfectly content to sacrifice other people’s lives for his petty little goals. To him, it was no big deal to burn down an entire apartment building, create a huge public panic with acid attacks, and involve dozens of people, maybe more than a hundred, in his scheme. In my whole life, I�
�ve never hated anyone more than selfish bastards like him. Even after this defeat, he’d probably go back to his cell without once thinking what he’d done was wrong. My bluff was a little warning, just to let him know there’s at least one person on earth who can see right through him. I wanted him to realize he’s no criminal genius, but just a regular scumbag who lost to an elderly policeman.’
Sonny had never seen such fury in his commanding officer, but the rage was quickly quenched when Inspector Wang and the Organized Crime investigator in charge of capturing Shek arrived together.
‘Superintendent Kwan, we’ve apprehended two suspects at the address provided. One has serious chemical burns to the face, and has been admitted at the Pamela Youde Nethersole hospital,’ the O-Crime officer reported. ‘We also found two AK-47 assault rifles, numerous handguns and a vast quantity of ammunition. Looks like we were just in time to prevent an armed robbery.’
Kwan nodded in satisfaction. He’d predicted this too.
After they were done with the paperwork and had talked through the rough outlines of the case, Kwan handed over the two suspects from the eighth-floor ward to Wang and the O-Crime officer. Sonny followed him back to the parking lot. The sky was almost completely dark now – it was seven in the evening.
‘Commander, are you heading home?’ asked Sonny. He’d driven Kwan back to his Mong Kok apartment on several occasions.
‘No, let’s go back to the office.’
‘Huh? Are you keen to finish your report, so you can retire in peace?’
‘Not at all,’ smiled Kwan. ‘I want to catch the team before they leave, so we can all eat that cake together. I’d hate to waste it.’
*
The following morning, Sonny Lok went back to the Division B office. Inspector Choi had given the whole of Team 1 the day off. There was only paperwork left, anyway. Sonny could have stayed at home, but he wanted to take advantage of the weekend to tidy the place up, before taking his girlfriend on a countryside drive that afternoon.
