The Trophy Taker

by Lee Week

  ‘She looks like she’s had a fair amount of work done, sir.’

  ‘Yes. She should have dental records somewhere.’

  ‘Cause of death, sir?’

  ‘Asphyxiation of some kind – we will have to wait for the x-rays to be sure. Let’s move on. There’s plenty more of Jane to get through. Wash her hair, please, Kin Tak. Sieve the contents and send them off for analysis.’

  Kin Tak unzipped the bag along its length and lifted out a woman’s thigh, dissected at the knee and hip. He weighed it in a set of scales suspended above the table, before placing it on the slab. Ng measured it and recorded its dimensions on his pad.

  Saheed turned the leg over twice, examining it closely before lifting his head to address the policemen. ‘Tell me what your observations are, Officer,’ he said to Li, who had managed to avoid getting too close to the table so far.

  Li stepped forward and stared nervously at the leg. ‘Uh …’ His eyes darted hopelessly around the room in search of an answer.

  ‘And yours, Inspector?’ Saheed turned to Mann.

  Mann pointed to the knee joint. ‘Pretty impressive, sir. Someone enjoys his work. Likes it to look neat.’

  The pathologist grunted his agreement before addressing Li again. ‘Do you cook, Officer? Ever had to joint or bone meat? No? Well, let me tell you, it’s a skill. You need to be at least a competent surgeon or at worst a good butcher. You need a very sharp knife and you need to know where to saw, chop and cut. Like here,’ he said, tapping the open knee joint with his scalpel. ‘Now, let’s see what else we have … Victim is approximately twenty-five years old, five foot five inches tall, and … what’s this?’ He paused to study a mark on the inside of the thigh.

  ‘We have us a biter,’ Kin Tak blurted out, unable to contain his excitement.

  The pathologist looked up, nodded and smiled at his assistant. He allowed Kin Tak his little eccentricities and his almost Tourette’s-like need to voice his observations. ‘Yes … There is a human bite mark here on the inside of the thigh, made after death occurred. Within twelve hours, I would say.’ Ng stepped forward to photograph the bite mark and measure dimensions in preparation for a cast to be made. ‘She had been dead at least a week before being dismembered.’

  ‘So, someone hung on to her after they killed her and before they froze her?’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ Li looked at Mann.

  ‘All sorts of reasons, Shrimp. None of them nice.’

  5

  Reasons? He shrugged. She had made him feel good – reason enough. He hadn’t wanted to let her go. He had a video of her death, which he watched often. He was watching it now – sat in his chair, remote in one hand, cock in the other. Ready to pause and rewind at his favourite bit. The look on her face when she knew this time was the last! He loved that bit.

  He watched himself turn and grin at the camera, a length of twine in his hand. The girl, frantic, trying to get away from him. But she couldn’t. She was tied tightly to the chair. Only her pretty little head moved in tiny shakes as she squealed into the gag. There was nothing she could do. Her fate was in his hands. Wait … It was coming to his favourite bit now. Tourniquet in place. Turn it once, twice … turn and tighten. Hold it for longer this time … Yes! She knows this is it! Her eyes bulged. Her body convulsed. The shaking stopped. Still he carried on watching. This was his favourite part of the film. She was dead but he wasn’t finished with her. Pause. Rewind. Pause. Rewind.

  6

  Saheed waited for Ng to finish photographing the bite mark before continuing:

  ‘The right arm of the victim has been cleanly dissected at the shoulder joint. Obvious signs of injury around the wrist: deep lacerations, residual debris.’ He picked out some fibres enmeshed in the flesh. ‘Rope fibres,’ he said, holding his tweezers aloft for Li to take the sample from him. ‘The hand is still attached, two fingers remain intact but lifted from the bone …’ Saheed scraped beneath the nails, and tapped the scrapings into a plastic dish, ‘which is common with bodies found in water.’ He cut the lifted skin from the woman’s finger.

  ‘Found in water, sir?’ Li spoke.

  ‘They had been frozen, hadn’t they? When they thawed they created a lot of liquid. Give me your hand,’ he said, at the same time reaching over and taking it. He wrapped the woman’s cut skin around Li’s index finger before passing his hand to Ng to take a print. Ng rolled Li’s finger, and the woman’s, in the ink several times. Pressing hard onto the pad, he held it there to ensure a good print. Li’s boiled face blanched.

  ‘You all right, Shrimp?’ It looked to Mann like he was about to throw up.

  ‘Totally.’ Li cleared his throat while managing a half-smile. ‘No problemo.’

  ‘Good lad.’ Mann and Ng exchanged grins.

  ‘Okay, gentlemen, let’s move on, shall we?’ Saheed peeled off his gloves and apron and pulled out a new set from the box above the sink. He indicated to Li to do the same and resumed his dictation:

  ‘The torso is showing greenish-black discoloration on the abdomen – a sign of decomposition. There is a deep cut which runs directly across from one hip bone to the other, measuring …?’

  Mann stepped forward. ‘Twenty-one centimetres,’ he announced, holding the ruler while Ng photographed.

  ‘A large-bladed knife with a sawing action made this wound, and it was made at least twelve hours after death.’

  Li shook his head with disbelief. ‘How do you know that? How do you know the size of the knife? Awesome!’

  Saheed paused, looked over his glasses at Li, then, with a small upward jerk of the head, he beckoned him nearer.

  He’ll learn … thought Mann, as Li hesitated. The hard way …

  ‘Come closer, young man. I want to show you something.’ Mr Saheed guided Li’s hands to the edge of the wound. ‘Put your fingers in there and gently pull back the surrounding flaps of skin … Now what do you see?’

  Li reached in gingerly.

  ‘A pattern of straight and jagged cuts, sir …’ he held his breath, ‘along the length of the wound.’ He stood up and turned his head away to breathe.

  ‘Stay there!’ Mr Saheed said as he held on to Li’s retreating hand. ‘Give him the ruler, Inspector.’ Mann handed it over. ‘Now … how long are the horizontal cuts?’

  ‘Four centimetres, sir.’ Li measured it with his free hand.

  ‘How far into the muscle and flesh has the knife travelled? Fingers in, young man, get on with it!’

  ‘Right through, sir. The cut goes past the fat and through the muscle.’

  ‘As far in as the length of your thumb, would you say?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Okay. So the blade has to be at least that thick, doesn’t it? Does that answer your question, young man?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Li stood up and backed away to safety. He looked like he was about to throw up.

  Mann winked at him. You had to admire his guts – he’d just had to ask, and that was a sign of a good detective. You had to be a good listener and a great questioner. Of course, timing was also important, but Shrimp hadn’t learned that bit yet.

  Saheed moved his attention to the upper half of the torso.

  ‘There is a cluster of small burns across the chest area – cigarette burns by the look of them.’ He scanned the scatter of black dots, a centimetre in diameter, that were spattered across her chest and collarbone.

  ‘They were made over a period of days and are at different stages of healing.’ Li didn’t ask, even though he wanted to. Mr Saheed hovered over her chest. ‘And there is a tattoo here above the left breast. Can’t make out what it is.’ He paused, peeled off his gloves, and waited while Mann and Ng finished photographing and plotting the position of the tattoo. As he waited he was handed a slip of paper from a mortuary technician. He took it, studied it, picked up his file and flipped back over his notes.

  ‘Something else, gentlemen. According to the results of these blood tests …’ he checked his notes again and looked ove
r his glasses at the detectives ‘… there isn’t just one woman on this table.’

  The video stopped. He sat back, satiated, weary. He closed his eyes. Then the crying started. Behind him Glitter Girl cowered in the corner of the room. Still sat in the chair, his head relaxed against the back of the seat. Still holding the remote. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

  ‘Your turn will come – be patient. You just paint your pretty nails like I told you – make them sparkle.’

  7

  ‘All three Caucasian?’

  ‘We may never know for sure, but the measurements, the forward curve to the femur, they tally.’

  ‘We may get lucky with some IDs,’ said Mann. ‘We have one skull, in pretty good shape at least, and a tattoo.’

  ‘And a fingerprint,’ added Li. He wasn’t going to let them forget that.

  ‘We’ll download these photos we’ve taken onto Detective Li’s laptop – get them straight across to headquarters so that they can begin working on it,’ said Mann. ‘Let’s hope it’s enough to positively establish the race and identity of these women. One Gwaipoh is bad enough – three will start a mass exodus.’

  ‘What about the texture of the skin?’ asked Li. ‘Would that help to give the ethnicity of the victim away, sir?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Everyone knows that Gweilos have really rough skin and are very hairy.’

  Mann looked at him, half-amused, half-appalled. ‘Yeah, that’s about as true as the one about all Chinese men having tiny cocks. Oh wait! That one is true!’ He turned back to the pathologist who was suppressing a grin.

  ‘Any theory about cause of death, sir?’ asked Mann.

  ‘We need to wait for the toxicology results to be sure about poisoning, but I suspect the cause of death to be asphyxiation again – manual strangulation or with the aid of a ligature. We’re just waiting for the x-rays to come back; that might give us an idea of how it was done. Right, let’s see what else we can find.’ He pressed his fingers inside the wound again and eased it apart.

  ‘We’re quite lucky here – because of the freez ing pro c ess we still have some organs left intact. However …’ his gloved fingers disappeared inside ‘… some are not where they should be.’ He looked at Li.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘The ovaries and uterus are missing …’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Li, before he could stop himself.

  The pathologist paused and looked at him. ‘It means … young man …’

  Li blinked back at him, ready for the worst, but before Mr Saheed could answer, Kin Tak exploded:

  ‘We have a trophy taker …’ and immediately smacked his hand across his mouth to silence his excited giggle.

  8

  Before the process of reclaiming land from the sea, Hong Kong Island was just a big rock. Now, the further up the Rock you lived, the more prestigious the address. At the top, the Peak represented the pinnacle of affluence. Its lofty head rose above the smog and heat, affording some respite from the stifling summers. Its wooded areas were a welcome contrast to the skyscraper world below. It was where the fabulously wealthy lived; where fleets of lucky-numbered Bentleys sat idling in air-conditioned garages. Up to two million US was paid in Hong Kong for a lucky number plate. Two stood for ‘easy’ or ‘fast’. Three for ‘living’ or ‘giving birth’. Six for ‘longevity’. Eight for ‘prosperity’. It wasn’t just number plates and the numbers weren’t always lucky. Four stood for death. Two and four combined – fast death.

  Halfway up the Rock towards the Peak were the Mid-levels, a sought-after residential area populated by high-earning professionals. At the foot of the Rock was the business heart of Hong Kong: Central District.

  Headquarters was situated at the top of Hollywood Hill, on the rise above Central District towards the Mid-levels. It was a wonderful Victorian colonial legacy: big, white and smack-bang at the top of the hill. At one time Headquarters was a ‘one-stop shop’ where criminals could be held for questioning, interviewed, judged, sentenced and incarcerated all in one place. Now it was the centre for all serious crimes.

  In room 210 Superintendent David White sat behind a heavy oak desk. On one side of the desk were photos of his grandchildren. On the other was an engraved cigar box and a small silver rugby ball on a stand – a trophy from his coaching days, awarded for surviving five unbeaten seasons and presented to him by his beloved police rugby team.

  In the centre of the room a colonial-style fan hung down from the ceiling and whirred lazily at half speed.

  Superintendent White was not only the senior officer in charge of the investigation but also Mann’s mentor and an old friend. He commanded great respect in the force, one of the only non-Chinese senior officers to speak fluent Cantonese. Not that he needed to with Mann, who, with a Chinese father, English mother and educated in England, was fluent in either language.

  David White was approaching retirement. He had given his life to fighting crime in the colony and now was being gently phased out under Chinese rule. He knew it was time to go but it didn’t stop him mourning the end of an era. He had arrived in the colony in the sixties when the police force had been one of the most corrupt in the world. When the clean-up came in the seventies he lost many of his good friends. Accepting pay-offs from triads, even working with them to keep the crime level under control, was the norm at that time. Some officers admitted their guilt and did their time. Many more took the money and ran. David White stayed. He helped the Hong Kong police force to develop into one of the finest in the world. He wished he felt happier about leaving it to others.

  ‘DNA?’

  He didn’t wait for Mann to sit down. He had the photos from the autopsy spread over his desk.

  ‘No chance, David. The bin bag is a great place to rot – makes two days look like seven.’

  ‘Any reports of missing foreigners?’

  ‘Fifty in the last year, and those are just the ones we know about. They’re the ones that someone cares enough about to report missing. We don’t know whether there’s a particular ethnicity he goes for. It could be black, Asian, mixed race … we have no idea yet. And I’ve asked to go further back than one year, David. I have a hunch the head we found is much older.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ White rubbed his bald head with his hands – a sure sign he was stressed. ‘Hong Kong can be proud of this one. It’s all we bloody well need,’ he moaned. ‘We are going to have so much heat on our backs, Mann. Say goodbye to life as you know it till this is solved. This is going to be our home for the foreseeable future.’

  The Superintendent got up from his desk and walked over to the window where he pulled at the louvre blind to observe the day. The morning smog was lifting and rapidly being replaced by rain clouds. ‘But, on the positive side …’ He let the blind go and turned back to Mann, smiling. ‘At least you’re back at Headquarters.’

  Mann grinned back at his old friend. ‘Ten months, David! It felt like a lifetime,’ he said, shaking his head with relief. ‘I thought I was going to be forgotten in Sha Tin. Lucky for me they found the bodies out there. You have no idea how good it is to be back.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why they transferred me. I’d only been at the OCTB for eighteen months. I expected to stay there for at least three years. I thought I was doing a good job – making some progress.’

  ‘Yes, well … You were making progress, that was the problem. There are some people, Mann, and not just at the OCTB, who hoped they’d never see you again. You never know when to ease up on the triads, Mann. You could do with having a bit more respect for death. You might be a big lad, but there are still plenty of foundations out there that need filling. Sometimes I think you go looking for trouble.’

  He paused, looked squarely at Mann and waited for a reaction. Realising he wasn’t going to get one, he sat down heavily.

  ‘I was just doing my job, David,’ Mann replied. ‘Since when did that become a crime?’r />
  White shook his head and sighed. ‘Your job, and a bit extra, Mann. You forget I’ve known you all your life. I knew your dad when we were both wet behind the ears – him just starting out in business and me just off the boat. I was proud to know him, proud to call him a friend. After his death I was delighted that you wanted to come into the police force. You’ve proved your worth many times. There are few policemen with your level of intuition for a case, Mann, but there are none so reckless of their own safety either. I know how you think. I’ve seen you on the cricket field. I’ve watched you on the rugby pitch. I was proud to be your coach for many years. You were the best player the police team ever had. I know what kind of sportsman you are: you give everything you have and a little more, and you hate to lose. But, more than that, good sportsmanship is paramount to you. And that’s all right on the sports field, Mann, but not in real life. Right or wrong, black or white, there’s no grey area with you. But there is in real life. Your father was just the same – a strong, upright and honest man – but it was his inability to see the grey that led to his death …’

  White stopped abruptly. He wanted to say more, but one look at Mann told him he had already overstepped the boundary.

  ‘My father stood up for what he believed in, David. He died because he refused to pay protection money to a bunch of thugs. Just because it’s the norm doesn’t make it right. My father died rather than compromise his beliefs.’

  ‘I know. I know.’ White held his hands up, calling for a truce. ‘But it was such a great loss … Such a huge loss for you and your mother. For all of us.’

  Mann knew that the Superintendent meant it – White missed Mann’s father. He missed all the good men he had known in his life. He was coming up to that point when he looked back and reminisced more than he looked forward. The last year had seen the Superintendent shrink inside the uniform that he used to fill with such pride. His retirement couldn’t come quick enough now, and yet it was the last thing he really wanted.