The Borrowed

by Chan Ho-Kei

  TT didn’t make a sound. Kwan continued, still in a level voice. ‘The ID team weren’t clear on the exact sequence of events, so the gap of ten minutes didn’t set off any alarms, and your average investigator isn’t too knowledgeable about the stages of blood clotting. More importantly, because we were facing the prolific killer Shek Boon-sing, no one guessed that by “coincidence”, an unrelated murder had actually taken place fifteen minutes before the gunfight.’

  ‘You said it, Superintendent Kwan. Coincidence. This sort of guessing game is all based on assumptions – no one would believe it,’ TT defended himself.

  ‘A seeming coincidence. This was actually an act of desperation, a scheme dreamed up by someone backed into a corner.’ Even when detonating these heavy words, Kwan’s tone remained light. ‘I’ve questioned the takeaway owner and Fan Si-tat, the hospitalized officer. You stepped outside at twelve forty on the day of the incident, for about ten minutes. Fan said you had to use the bathroom, and it was time for your break anyway, but I believe you weren’t on any break. Instead, you made use of this small window of time to meet Mandy Lam at the Ocean Hotel.’

  Kwan pulled out his notebook and flipped it open. ‘I got the phone company to release the records of every number dialled from the hotel. Starting at eleven, five calls were made from Room 4, all to a pager. Two of them were “Miss Lam is waiting for you in Ocean Hotel Room 4,” two were “Come to Ocean Hotel Room 4 quickly, urgent business to discuss,” and the fifth was “Come to Ocean Hotel Room 4 within ten minutes or face the consequences.” The last message went out at twelve thirty-five. When I asked who the pager was registered to, the answer was interesting: Miss Mandy Lam Fong Wai. That is to say, Miss Lam herself registered the pager, then gave it to someone else, suggesting this person was more than just a friend or client. I believe this person was Miss Lam’s fiancé, the man her colleagues mentioned. TT, it was you.’

  ‘What nonsense is this?’

  ‘Fan Si-tat told me you’d been leaving your post all morning to get your messages. Yet when I checked, your personal pager hadn’t received a beep all day. Also, according to the records, all the calls to retrieve Miss Lam’s messages were made from the payphone outside Ka Fai Mansions management office. You really shouldn’t underestimate the CIB’s ability to gather information,’ said Kwan.

  TT said nothing, shrinking slightly back as if trying to think of a response.

  ‘My guess is that you and Mandy Lam had an intimate relationship, and she even believed you’d marry her, allowing her to quit her job at the nightclub. But then you broke up with her, or else she happened to find out about your upcoming wedding to a top brass’s daughter, and she immediately went from pliant mistress to vengeful woman. For all we know, the hotel room was meant to be where she’d lure you back with her body. But you ignored her, until she made that impossible. I believe it was no coincidence that she picked Ka Fai Mansions for a rendezvous – she knew you were working there that day, which again shows how intimate the two of you must have been. The “consequences” she threatened presumably included wrecking your engagement, and possibly revealing other secrets that might cause you trouble.

  ‘Around 12.40 p.m., you claimed you needed the toilet and to check your messages, and headed for the hotel. In her room, the conversation quickly grew heated, and Mandy Lam threatened to destroy you. You weren’t able to placate her, and knew there’d be no saving the situation once she’d left the hotel. So you took the only chance you had, pulled out the Type 67 silenced pistol you’d concealed on your person, and shot her dead.’

  ‘Where would I have got a Type 67?’

  ‘God knows. But Mong Kok Crime Unit makes so many arrests – you must have fifty or sixty operations per year, including burglaries, drug deals and so on. It’s not implausible that you’d come upon a rare gun like this and keep it for yourself instead of reporting it. After all, you love shooting and you’re good at it, and it’s not like you’re some goody-two-shoes who follows regulations.’

  ‘Even if someone took out that Lam woman beforehand and left the body in Room 4 of the Ocean Hotel, how would the murderer have made sure the gunfight took place exactly there? No one could have known which way the suspects would run. What if they’d headed for the other end of Ka Fai Mansions, or taken the elevator?’

  ‘You told them where to go,’ said Kwan simply.

  ‘Why would Shek Boon-sing listen to me?’ chuckled TT derisively. ‘And how would I even have got in touch with them? Phone? Telepathy?’

  ‘With this key.’ Kwan pointed at a corner of the photo of Chiu Ping. ‘All the Ocean Hotel room keys had their room number and the hotel name on their tags. After killing Mandy Lam, you locked the door, returned to your post and tried to work out how to lure Shek to the hotel. Just then, Jaguar happened to come in to place his food order, and you realized this was an opportunity you couldn’t miss. As well as hiding the note in the takeaway bag, you also slipped in the key. When Shek saw them, he could only assume they were a cryptic warning from his older brother to relocate to Ocean Hotel Room 4. He’d never have guessed it was someone else using their code. Their only enemy was the police, and the police would never pointlessly throw their investigation into chaos. So Shek would have been sure this had come from his own side. He and his accomplices packed up and left for their new “hideout”. You knew their destination, which is how you were able to pelt straight up the staircase, then suddenly slow down at the ninth floor and prepare to face them.’

  TT didn’t respond, just stared silently at Kwan.

  ‘Shek had probably positioned his men in the corridor and by the stairwell outside the hotel, while he went personally to Room 4 to find out what was going on. You got there “just in time” and accosted Jaguar. All three men had to die for your plan to work, otherwise your murder of Mandy Lam would come to light anyway. You never intended to take them alive. TT, you compulsively take huge risks in which there’s only complete victory or utter defeat. We’ve seen you venture alone into the tiger’s den and take on suspects one on one, using your own life as a gambling chip. You might have been at a huge disadvantage when it came to firepower, but you’d guessed each of their positions and had faith in your sharp shooting. And so you placed your stake – having already killed Miss Lam, you didn’t have many other options.

  ‘You fired on Jaguar and Mad Dog Biu. Shek quickly came to their assistance – I imagine he hadn’t reached Room 4 yet. According to the reports of Officers Sharpie Fan and Sonny Lok, after you’d killed his henchmen, Shek Boon-sing charged at the stairwell with an AK-47. The bizarre thing was that he didn’t then flee towards the other end of the corridor, but back into the hotel.’

  ‘He wanted to grab a hostage to use as a human shield.’ TT spat out the words.

  ‘No, that doesn’t make sense. Taking a hostage at this point would immobilize him – he could hardly walk down nine flights of stairs whilst holding another person. He’d have sprinted down the stairs first, and if he found no way out at the bottom, he’d have barged into a shop or someone’s apartment and taken a hostage there. He went back into the hotel because he expected Shek Boon-tim to have left an escape plan in Room 4, or even that his brother would be there in person. He rushed back in with his rifle and kicked in the door – no time to use the key – only to see Mandy Lam’s corpse. That’s when he knew he’d been tricked, so he set off on a killing spree, having no idea which of the people around him was dangerous or had a concealed weapon. That’s how Wang Jingdong and Chiu Ping ended up dead. Then you burst in, probably shouting and flashing your badge and gun. That left Shek Boon-sing no choice but to grab Lee Wan, the chambermaid cowering in a corner, and use her as a human shield.’

  ‘All of this is just your imagination,’ said TT indifferently.

  ‘Imagination? TT, don’t you have even a scrap of remorse?’ Loathing showed on Kwan’s face.

  ‘What remorse should I feel?’ TT’s voice was cold.

  ‘You bastard! You k
illed those hostages that could have been saved! You murdered all those innocent people to cover up your crime!’ Kwan had been icily calm up to this point, but now rage suffused his features. ‘You didn’t take down Shek Boon-sing by pretending to surrender. Lee Wan took a bullet to the chest – no hostage would be stupid enough to run away facing their captor! You shot her with the silenced Type 67, distracting Shek enough that you could get him too. He’d never have expected a police officer to kill a hostage! You shot Lee Wan with the Type 67 in your left hand, before firing on Shek with the police revolver in your right. That’s why you weren’t as accurate as usual. You missed the first time, taking a bullet to your left wrist, and had to shoot him again in the head. In order to kill Shek Boon-sing, you used Lee Wan – no, in fact, from the very beginning, you didn’t intend to leave a single living soul. You wanted to seal the mouth of everyone in that hotel!’

  TT hasn’t expected the normally placid superintendent to display such strong emotion, while he was the one with the poker face, staring coolly at the other man.

  ‘Yau Choi-hung and Bunny Chin too! They were still alive at the moment of Shek’s death. He didn’t kill them, you did! No one would be such an idiot as to open their door when they’d heard gunshots, especially a Mong Kok pimp like Well-hung. There’s only one reason he’d open his door, and that’s if someone outside called out that it was safe and he’d better get away quick. That’s how you got him to let you in, and then you shot both of them. You’re a cold-blooded killer. In order to cover up your murder of Mandy Lam, you took the lives of a whole group of innocent victims!’

  ‘So you think, after I’d killed everyone the way you described, I wiped my prints off the Type 67 and shoved it into Shek’s hand, so it would look like he’d come out with both guns blazing? Superintendent Kwan, you’ve forgotten an important fact.’ TT was relaxed again, smiling. ‘Less than a minute after I entered the hotel – maybe forty seconds – the other team showed up. Do you think that was enough time for me to shoot Lee Wan and Shek Boon-sing, trick Yau into opening his door, shoot two more people, wipe the gun clean and plant it on Shek? Don’t forget my left hand had been injured, and even if I’d been able to ignore the pain, it would still have slowed me down. Even supposing I could move as fast as that and was such a resourceful murderer, would I take the risk of doing all this, knowing other officers could appear at any moment? What if Yau had refused to open his door? I’d be sunk then.’

  ‘You’d just need to do all this before you burst into the hotel.’

  ‘Oh, so now I can split myself in two? Are you soft in the head?’

  ‘What I mean is, you did all this before claiming to enter the hotel.’ Kwan glared at TT as if seeing a monster. ‘Instead of communicating with Chief Inspector Ko when you got there, you walked straight in, killed Lee Wan and Shek Boon-sing, lured Well-hung out of his room, dealt with him and Bunny, and only then did you radio in pretending to be outside, about to enter. Everyone was dead by then, and you knew your plan had worked. You picked up Shek’s rifle and fired into the corridor, claiming that was the sound of him taking a captive for a stand-off. You told Ko you were going in to save the “hostage”. Then you just had to fire a few shots to sound like a gunfight, wipe the prints off the AK-47, place it in Shek’s hand, and sit tight waiting for “back-up”. Forty seconds? Ten would have been ample.’

  ‘You have no proof.’ TT was no longer smiling.

  ‘No concrete evidence, but discrepancies crop up as soon as you examine the whole sequence of events. When the first gunshot was heard from Ka Fai Mansions, Chief Inspector Ko gave the order to seal the lifts and head up the stairs, at which point you were already on the ninth floor. According to Sonny Lok’s testimony, it was only ten to fifteen seconds from then to your retreating to the stairwell, then Shek returning fire, sweeping the stairwell for a few seconds before dashing back into the hotel. Shek shooting and running, you and Lok arguing over Sharpie in the stairwell – all of that can’t have lasted more than fifteen or twenty seconds. If you’d really charged into the hotel right after those gunshots, calling the command centre for back-up, that would have been around forty seconds after Inspector Ko’s order – but by then, the other team had arrived at the seventh floor. Yet while they were on the ground floor, they’d have waited for instructions after the first gunshot, then needed to order the maintenance crew to lock the elevators, which must have taken at least half a minute. If they’d run flat out, it’s just possible they could have gone up seven flights of stairs in a little over ten seconds, but they were moving slowly and cautiously, afraid there was an ambush ahead. They sped up when they heard your radio message that only Shek Boon-sing was left, trapped in the hotel. So we have to conclude that when you ran in from the stairwell, you hadn’t radioed yet, and when you did call for back-up, it was about two minutes after the exchange of fire at the stairwell. In this atmosphere of extreme stress, most people wouldn’t have noticed the timings weren’t quite right, especially as no one was certain where the gunshots were coming from. When we’re under pressure, our sense of time is extremely unreliable. That’s the blind spot you exploited.’

  TT applauded, grinning widely. ‘A most thrilling scenario! But Superintendent Kwan, no matter how gripping your tale, I still have to ask – where’s your evidence?’

  Kwan hadn’t expected this volte-face from TT, and couldn’t help frowning. ‘I have the takeaway order pad.’

  ‘You can’t prove I wrote that note,’ said TT calmly. ‘If I were the criminal, I’d have ripped off a few pages to get to one with no indentations from above, and wiped the whole thing clean with my apron afterwards. If my fingerprints aren’t on the note, you can’t show that I’m the culprit. The killer could have torn off a slip of paper before or even during our shift. This piece of evidence also throws suspicion on Sonny Lok, Fan Si-tat, even the takeaway owner and his workers, not to mention all the customers who came in that day.’

  ‘But you can’t explain Lee Wan’s chest wound, or why Yau opened his door, or Mandy Lam’s blood clotting, or the mismatch in the time when you reported to Ko.’

  ‘I don’t need to explain any of those things. The only thing you can say is that they’re unusual, but none of them contradict my testimony. Where did these discrepancies come from? How would I know? Forensics isn’t my responsibility.’ The corner of TT’s mouth curled up slightly.

  ‘You called the pager operator several times from the management office phone.’

  ‘The manager was old and snoozed half the time. You think he’d remember who used his phone? I doubt it.’

  ‘I’ve asked ID to check the Room 4 key for prints.’

  ‘If I were the killer, do you think I’d have left prints?’

  ‘I thought so too, but if they had Shek Boon-sing’s prints...’

  Kwan didn’t go on, because he saw TT’s smile holding steady. He knew then that even in the aftermath of the crime, TT hadn’t forgotten to wipe Jaguar and Shek’s prints off the key lying next to Mandy Lam’s corpse. Perhaps he’d taken the key off Shek’s body after shooting him, and planted it in Room 4 afterwards. It would be odd that there were no prints on the key, as Mandy would have had no reason to wipe it clean, but that fell into the same category as all the earlier discrepancies – TT was under no obligation to explain them.

  ‘There’s another route we could take to expose your crime.’ Kwan’s brow wrinkled. ‘Motive. If we start with Mandy Lam, we have a sure way to show your guilt.’

  ‘Superintendent Kwan, you can certainly try this method, but you’ll be wasting your time.’ TT’s confidence made Kwan understand that this wasn’t a sufficient threat. Earlier that afternoon, he had already been to the nightclub where Mandy worked, only to learn how tight-lipped she’d been, hadn’t pursued that line of inquiry.

  ‘In fact, Superintendent Kwan, you must be very brave.’ TT’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, which were boring coldly into Kwan. ‘If I really were the killer, wouldn’t you be seek
ing your own death by coming here today? The piece of evidence most likely to cause me bother is that food counter notepad, and you’ve helpfully brought that along. Haven’t you thought that the murderer might want to destroy the evidence, even if it meant knocking you senseless or taking your life?’

  ‘You won’t do anything of the sort. If you were capable of that, you wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to cover up Miss Lam’s death. It’s clear that you understand the process of killing someone is easy; the difficulty lies in disposing of the body and dispelling suspicion after the murder. After a death, as long as the police, doctors, family or friends have even a sliver of suspicion, in a city as densely populated as Hong Kong, you’d find it difficult to escape the attention of the law. Even if you could make a corpse vanish, the victim going missing would attract police notice. You knew that the simplest way to murder with no consequences was to find someone else to take the blame, but then the problem became how to silence your chosen scapegoat. And so you took the most evil route – pushing the guilt for Mandy’s death onto Shek Boon-sing, and then killing Shek by legal means.’

  TT smiled triumphantly. ‘By the same token, it’s far more likely that Edgar Ko was trying to push the blame onto me, and the Internal Investigation guys think he’s guilty too, so they’re hardly likely to admit defeat and accept your hypothesis. They’re not going to budge unless you can produce hard evidence. You’re just going to make a fool of yourself, going to them with your half-baked suppositions.’

  Kwan realized how thoroughly TT had thought this through. What a shame he’d never used so much intelligence and ability in his detective work.