by Jake Needham
“And the name and address of the last occupant.”
“Yes, Inspector, of course.”
Tay pursed his lips and thought for a moment while everyone waited in respectful silence.
“Sergeant, put patrolmen at all the lifts. The stairs, too. No one except our people on this floor until I tell you otherwise.”
“Inspector,” the manager spoke up, “there are nine guests staying on this level and they will have to—”
“Yes, we’ll need a list of them along with all their registration information. Also a list of everyone else who has checked out but may have stayed on this floor any time within the past week.”
“Naturally, Inspector. But as for the guests who are on this floor now—”
“You’ll have to make other arrangements for them. Sergeant Kang will get a patrolman to accompany each of them back into their rooms to retrieve their personal belongings as soon as possible.”
“I see.”
The manager didn’t see, of course, but he was smart enough to recognize there was no point in arguing with Tay.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Tay said. “If you will wait downstairs in your offices, either Sergeant Kang or I will be down shortly to talk to you further.”
Keshar looked for a moment as if he was about to say something else, but then he merely nodded. The manager, however, was less reticent.
“I am completely at your service, Inspector, as are all the members of my staff,” he said in his most sincere voice. “This is a terrible thing. Terrible. And we want to do everything we can to help you bring whoever did this horrible thing to justice. Of course, at the same time, we naturally would prefer that the hotel’s involvement in this unpleasantness be kept to the absolute minimum and we hope you will do your best to help us to accomplish that end.”
Tay hardly thought it worth the effort to point out that a hotel with a murdered woman lying in a presumably unoccupied suite was about as involved in unpleasantness as it was ever going to get. Instead, he just held out his hand to Keshar.
“May I have your passkey, please?”
“Of course, Inspector.”
The security man fished a plastic card out of his pocket and handed it to Tay, who turned it over several times and examined it with evident curiosity.
“We have electronic locks rather than mechanical ones, Inspector. The way they work is—”
“I know how they work,” Tay interrupted. “I’m a policeman, not an idiot.”
Keshar looked embarrassed. “I didn’t mean…”
Tay waved him into silence and turned to the patrolman standing in the room’s doorway.
“Take these men downstairs, Officer. Then stay with the maid who found the body until either Sergeant Kang or I come down to interview her. Make certain she doesn’t talk to anyone until then.”
“Yes, sir.” The patrolman saluted and spread his arms as if to herd the three men away.
“Now wait, Inspector.” The manager stood his ground for a moment. “I really do think we ought—”
“Thank you for your cooperation, sir. Someone will talk with you downstairs. Please return to your office now.”
The manager puffed out his cheeks and bounced on his toes for a moment. He looked as if he might be about to say something else, but then he just gave a little shrug and allowed the patrolman to shoo him away along with the other two men.
Sergeant Kang followed them to the elevators and watched until the door closed; then he organized the other patrolmen on the scene to seal off the floor. When he returned to 2608, Tay was standing in the corridor exactly where Kang had left him. Kang would have sworn that Tay had never moved a muscle the whole time he was gone, and perhaps he hadn’t.
“Right, sir. The floor is closed off. Anything else?”
Tay took a deep breath and tugged at his right earlobe. He said nothing.
The Forensic Management Branch would have been dispatched by now, Kang knew. Perhaps their van full of equipment was even in the driveway twenty-six floors below.
“Do you want to go in now, sir, or wait for FMB?”
When Tay still said nothing, Sergeant Kang shifted his weight from one foot to another and waited. The silence stretched on with no end in sight and eventually Kang spoke again.
“I think, sir, that we might—”
“I don’t give a shit what you think, Sergeant,” Tay snapped. Almost as soon as the words were out Tay wiped an open hand across his face and sighed heavily.
“I’m sorry, Robbie.”
“It’s all right, sir.”
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry. Really.”
“Not to worry, sir.”
“Is the boss here yet?”
“Not yet, sir. But I’m sure he will be shortly.”
Tay nodded several times, apparently more to himself than to Kang, then rubbed absentmindedly at his face again.
“Okay, Sergeant,” he said after a few moments of silence. “Let’s find out what we’ve got.”
“Right, sir.”
Tay slid the security man’s card into the slot in the lock with two fingers, taking care not to touch the mechanism. A tiny light above the slot switched from red to green and there was an audible click. Using only the knuckles of his left hand, Tay pushed at the door to 2608.
It swung open without a sound.
THREE
TAY’S first impression, however incongruous it might have seemed when he thought about it later, was of the view. It was dazzling.
The drapes in the living room were open and the suite’s big windows offered an unobstructed panorama all the way south to the Straits of Singapore. Hundreds of cargo ships rode at anchor on a glassy smooth sea, each waiting its turn to enter the Pasir Panjang Terminal which was presumably the largest container port in the world. Tay had never really been certain whether it really was the largest in the world or whether that was just local boasting, but then he had never really cared much either.
Off to the right, the towers of the financial district marked the entrance to the Singapore River where, in simpler times, wharves had lined the banks and fleets of flat-bottomed barges called bumboats had ferried cargos of rice, rubber, and tin to ships moored out in the Straits. Somewhere along the way the bumboats had been swapped for steel containers and the wharves for cranes and the traffic had started running in the other direction. Instead of taking out rice, rubber, and tin, cargo ships calling in Singapore now brought in Sony PlayStations, Samsung flat screen TVs, and Apple iPhones. That, Tay supposed, was what people meant when they talked about progress.
In front of the windows was an L-shaped seating area with a couch and a chair, both upholstered in some kind of nubby, darkgreen fabric. There were also two side tables, two lamps with heavy brass bases, and a coffee table with a thick, oval-shaped glass top. On the right was a light-colored wooden desk that matched the end tables, and on the left was a large cabinet with a television set inside it, an old-fashioned-looking model with its cables coiled haphazardly into a corner. The furniture was tired-looking and didn’t really seem to fit the room. The carpet was worn and had several burns and stains as well as a big wrinkle across it. The drapes were made of some kind of heavy, neutral-colored fabric and looked as if they could use a good cleaning.
The whole effect, Tay thought, was slightly shabby. Certainly not what he would have expected a suite in a five-star hotel to look like, but then he supposed he really hadn’t seen all that many suites in five-star hotels, so what did he know? After all, he reminded himself this was just a Marriott, not the Four Seasons. Maybe the hotels where everyday business travelers stayed always looked like this.
Without stepping into the room Tay squatted and examined the carpet. He placed his hand flat against it. It was dry to the touch and when he lifted his hand and sniffed his palm there was no odor. He raised his eyes and scanned the room. It looked normal enough. No furniture shoved around, no tables tipped over, nothing pushed to the floor.
Ta
y raised his head and tasted the air. It was cold. Someone had set the air-conditioning very low. And there was death in it. The rancid, raw meat odor of blood mixed with the stink of urine and feces. It was a smell like no other he had ever known.
When Tay stood up, his knees creaked loudly. Sergeant Kang was behind him and Tay wondered to himself if Kang had heard. Yes, of course he’d heard, but then what difference did it make? Would Robbie be surprised that he was starting to creak at the joints? Would he somehow be disappointed in Tay for starting to turn into an old man? No, of course he wouldn’t. What a lot of nonsense it was even to think about it.
Tay handed Kang the security card he had used to open the door. “Return this when you go downstairs please, Sergeant.”
Kang nodded quickly, a single jerk of his head, and slipped the card into his shirt pocket.
Across the living room a door was ajar. Tay assumed it led to the bedroom where the security man said he had found the body. Watching carefully where he placed his feet, he crossed the suite.
The door was a little more than half open, but the room beyond was dark and Tay could make out almost nothing inside. He nudged the door with his elbow and in the light from the living room window saw a light switch to the right of the door. He used the side of his hand to flip it up and two bedside lamps flared to life.
Tay looked away. If he had not, he knew he would have vomited then and there.
It was worse than he expected. Much worse. Later he would say it was the worst he had ever seen, and he thought he had seen more than any man should have to see.
The woman lay spread-eagled on the room’s king-sized bed. Her head and shoulders were held upright by two pillows and her legs pointed to the doorway where Tay was standing. They were open at an unnatural angle. The woman’s face appeared to be looking straight at Tay, or it would have been if she had a face. It was crushed beyond recognition.
Tay breathed slowly in and out and tried desperately to bring himself under control. His mouth was drier than he could ever remember it. He tried to swallow, but couldn’t. A few more breaths, he told himself, just take a few more breaths, slow and deep. Gather the moisture in your throat. Roll it around. Take your time.
WHEN he thought he might be ready to try again, little by little he moved his eyes back to the bed.
The woman was nude. Her body was slim and appeared to be fit and toned, but it looked as if she was still in the rigid stage of rigor mortis so it was difficult to be sure. Her skin might once have been tanned, but now it was gray, except around her hips and buttocks and at the bottom of her legs where Tay could see the dusky purple lividity where stagnated blood had accumulated. It struck Tay there was remarkably little blood anywhere around her on the bed.
Where the woman’s face had been there was nothing now but a dark mass of tissue spread out in a coagulated lump like a tray of ground meat in a supermarket display case. The light from the bedside lamp glistened off patches of white bone shining through raw flesh and her swollen tongue, bitten half through, hung from where Tay assumed her mouth must have once been. The woman’s hair had been deep brown or even black, and clumps of it were stuck into the matted tissue like soiled straw spread on a garage floor to mop up oil stains.
The body had been posed after the woman was murdered. There was no doubt of that. Her hands were neatly folded beneath her breasts and her legs were spread open at a freakish angle. Something between them flashed in the light and in spite of himself Tay looked more closely. There was a metallic object of some sort protruding from the darker mass of the woman’s pubic hair.
For a moment Tay did not know what it was; and then he did.
He was looking, he realized all at once, at the rear end of the barrel of a chrome-colored flashlight. The rest of the flashlight, at least six inches of it beginning with the lens, had been pushed up the woman’s vagina.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Tay heard Sergeant Kang whisper from behind him. “Shit, oh shit, shit, shit.”
Tay said nothing. He was fighting too hard to control his nausea.
INSPECTOR Tay and Sergeant Kang were waiting outside in the corridor when the Forensic Management Branch arrived. There were three men, two wearing black vests over their sport shirts with FORENSIC on the back in white letters. The third man wore a short-sleeved white shirt with a dark striped tie. Each of them carried a small aluminum case and a black cloth duffel bag.
The man with the tie stopped in front of Tay. “Ready for us?”
Tay’s face was pale and he was leaning against the wall as if it were holding him upright. He just grunted and waved toward the open door. The man nodded and said nothing. One glance at Tay told him all he needed to know.
The three men organized their bags into a neat row just outside the door to the room. One of them produced paper shoe bags and a box of latex gloves, and Tay and Kang watched silently as all three slipped the protective coverings over their hands and feet. The shoe bags were white, but the gloves were bright red and they struck Tay as looking unreasonably cheery.
The man with the tie squatted just outside the open door and surveyed the room’s interior while the two men in black vests leaned over his shoulders and did the same thing. They stayed like that for quite a while, whispering a few words to each other now and then, but they kept their voices low and Tay and Kang couldn’t make out what they were saying. For his part, Tay was just as happy he couldn’t.
Tay had gone twenty-nine days without smoking a cigarette. That was his longest streak to date by a good bit, but he had no doubt it was over now. He had a headache and he would have given a month’s pay for a cigarette right that minute. Just one fucking cigarette. Was that too much to ask? He didn’t even care what brand it was. He’d take anything.
Kang didn’t smoke, so he wasn’t going to be any help, and leaving the crime scene to go and buy a pack of cigarettes was too unseemly an act to contemplate seriously. Or maybe it wasn’t.
Tay was still trying to decide when he saw the Officer in Charge of CID-SIS coming down the corridor. Deputy Superintendent of Police Goh Kim Leng stopped directly in front of Tay and looked him over carefully.
“Is it that bad?” he asked.
Tay didn’t reply.
“Yes, sir,” Kang responded instead. “It is.”
Goh had a full head of thick, silver hair that men half his age regarded with envy, and he habitually wore dark, gold-rimmed sunglasses. He was of medium height, but looked shorter because of his broad shoulders, barrel chest, and thick, heavily muscled neck.
“You sure you’re okay, Sam?” he asked again.
“Yes, sir,” Tay nodded carefully, trying not to make his headache any worse. “I’m just great, sir.”
“You don’t look so great.”
“Thank you, Chief.”
The OC didn’t smoke or Tay would have goddamn well asked him for a cigarette. He doubted any policeman in the history of the Singapore Police Force had ever before asked a senior officer for a cigarette, but the truth of it was that he really didn’t give a rat’s ass right at that moment. Christ, was he the only man in Singapore who still smoked? Yes, he thought he probably was.
“I’d better have a look,” the OC said as he leaned into the hotel room and glanced around. “You coming, Sam?”
“I’ll be right out here, Chief,” Tay said.
Tay and Kang waited in the corridor while the OC went into room 2608. Kang chewed absentmindedly at a hangnail while Tay passed the time envisioning himself smoking a Marlboro. He sharpened his memory as much as he could and tried to conjure up the taste of the nicotine and the edge he felt as it entered hisbloodstream and rushed to his brain. It didn’t work.
Fuck this zen shit, Tay thought. He didn’t care what anyone said. He was going downstairs to buy some cigarettes and he was going to do it right now.
But before Tay could will himself into motion, a grim-faced OC emerged from the room, leaned against the wall, and folded his arms.
“Do we
know who she is?” he asked.
“Not yet.” Tay struggled to control his nicotine fit by studying the swirling patterns in the wine-red carpet. “The hotel doesn’t have anyone registered in the room. According to their records, it ought to be empty.”
The OC’s mouth tightened into a thin, hard line. “The FMB says they got clean prints. If she’s local, we’ll know who she is within a half-hour. If she’s not, we’ll compare the visitor entry records with the exits and see who’s unaccounted for. We should get an ID pretty quickly.”
Tay’s eyes shifted slightly at that and the OC caught it.
“What is it, Sam?”
“Somehow I have the feeling it isn’t going to be that easy, Chief.”
“No,” the OC shook his head slowly, “maybe it won’t be.”
Tay looked off to his left as if a repository of constructive thought lay somewhere down the corridor, but he didn’t say anything else.
“What about the security cameras?” the OC asked.
“I’ve asked for copies of the tapes from all the hotel’s cameras for the last three days,” Kang answered.
That was news to Tay, so he listened carefully.
“We’ll look at them,” Kang continued, “but I think finding anything useful is a long shot, sir. The state of the deceased leaves us without an identifiable face to look for, and there’s an international electronics trade fair going on now. The traffic in and out of the hotel would have been very heavy. Unless this woman really stands out for some reason, I doubt we’ll see anything that might help us.”
The OC let out a long, tired sigh. “I want you to stay with this until it’s done, Sam. It’s going to scare the hell out of a lot of people.”
“It certainly scares the hell out of me, Chief.”
“You and Sergeant Kang drop everything else until this case is cleared. Tell me what you need and you’ll get it. Just wrap it up and do it quickly.”
“What about the press, sir?” Kang asked.
The OC looked momentarily puzzled. “What press?”
