Lights Out (25 page)

The police boat was now up against the side of the ferry and Ryan
glanced sideways as he watched Lam jump easily onto the lower deck and stride
quickly over to his side, all the while her handgun trained on Jimmy.

One of the other officer’s came up next to Ryan and relieved him of
the gun. Ryan was thankful and let the officer take it. He patted Ryan gently
on the back and motioned for him to go toward the police boat. On his way past,
Lam turned to Ryan.

‘It’s OK now’, she said, slightly breathless, ‘you did well’.

Ryan gave an awkward smile and followed the Police Officer to the
boat.

Lam looked down at
Luk
writhing on the
floor in pain, the blood pooling under his arm as the
colour
started to drain from his face.

“It’s just a flesh wound, you’ll live.” Lam said, her voice deadpan
and void of any sympathy. “And for the record, next time you take a shot at me,
you’d better make sure that it hits.”

Jimmy glanced up at Lam and through the mist of pain in his eyes he
could just make out a bright red scratch mark across her cheek where his bullet
had struck her.

In the final moments Jimmy had shot at her on instinct and missed.
His aim not as good as it used to be. As for Lam, Jimmy realized that she would
never have killed him, her aim was perfect, her reputation of never missing a
target, intact. Jimmy groaned and laid his head back on the wooden floorboards.
He closed his eyes for a moment and wondered how long the Society would allow
him to live. He gave himself two weeks.

Across the hall from Sarah Lam’s office, Detective Wong sat hunched
over his desk, his forehead creased with stress. He was under pressure from the
Chief to solve the murders of the three dead prostitutes. He sat with all three
files laid out before him, three pairs of dead eyes staring back, hoping that
something would jump off the page and give him the lead that he so desperately
needed.

They had received so many calls from the general public after they
released the details to the news channels and the newspapers. Typical media
headlines like
Serial Killer Stalks Hong
Kong Hookers
,
New killer appears as
fear spreads across Hong Kong
and
Killers
slays sex workers
, had done little to stem the widespread panic both
amongst the locals and within the industry. But so far they had received
nothing relating to possible suspects. People were calling in because they were
scared and lived in the local area. Local women were worried about being
accidently mistaken for a sex worker, or they themselves had their own
one-woman
brothels and wanted to know
how they could protect themselves. The police had already spoken to their
regular targeted brothels and advised the women to take extra security measures
and precautions, maybe have a security camera fitted or an alarm that could be
triggered easily. All of this was good practical advise, but unrealistic for
the women in question.

One-woman brothels were the only legal form of prostitution in Hong
Kong provided that there was only one women per apartment, if more than one
woman was found at an establishment, the police were then able to prosecute, it
was a catch-22. The lone sex worker was becoming popular choice among 18 to 30
year olds, and kept dedicated police departments busy. Historically connected
to the Triads, sex trafficking and organized brothels were becoming a thing of
the past now that women could legally work out of one-room apartments offering
a range of sex services in a homely environment. Advertising was easy and
cheap, online ad companies like Sex 101 offered monthly packages, making set-up
costs and overheads low.

There were now brothel districts spanning from the Island, across
Kowloon and far into the New Territories bordering China.

The three locations of the recent murders were set apart from one
another, but all well-known areas by the police. Yuen Long,
Mong
Kok
and now
Tsim
Sha
Tsui
were highlighted in red
marker pen on Detective Wong’s map of the City.

For the client it was easy too. With little chance of being
recognized, a man could have privacy and confidentiality and could avoid
possible public embarrassment. Normally there would be a yellow light bulb, a
well-known
colour
symbol, placed above a doorframe,
or a marking above a doorbell, normally of a phoenix, to provide a hint to the
client that they were at the right address.

The Police knew most of the prostitutes and canvassed all of the
brothel districts. The main concern for the police these days, apart from a
serial killer on the loose, was the influx of illegal immigrants, normally from
the North that would filter into the City on short-term tourist visa’s and set
up one-woman brothels. This was happening more and more and one of the dead
prostitutes was found to be a young immigrant from Qingdao.

With little or no money most of the one-woman brothels had limited
resource to make their homes safer. It meant that the women continued to accept
appointments with both regular and new clients, and they simply prayed that
they would survive the night.

The police had been asking the prostitute community to highlight any
regular clients that showed aggressive or violent behavior, or anyone that
seemed to be acting strange or out of character. The police had a slim hope
that perhaps the killer was actually known to one of the women. After days of
door-to-door enquiries, not a single person was willing to identify a client or
freely offer information. In the same way that patients enjoy Patient-Doctor
confidentiality, the same theory seemed to apply to prostitutes and their
clients. Detective Wong wasn’t that surprised with the outcome, after all it
was their bread and butter, and if it leaked out that a sex-worker had spoken
to Police about one of her clients, her career would be over in an instant. The
police had many doors closed in their faces and would continue to do so.

This left Detective Wong with nothing but the physical evidence at
the scene, and the offender profile that had been written up by their in-house
expert
Dr
Eric Ng.

Detective Wong took a sip of his weak, warm coffee and started to
review the paperwork.

All three murders so far followed the exact same M.O. The killer was
neat and meticulous and left nothing behind except his own DNA inside each
victim. Whilst this was enough to nail the killer once they had him. They first
had to physically catch him and he seemed very inept at staying in the shadows.

The brutal murders had been carried out over a three-week period,
with the time span between each murder becoming narrower. There was concern
that the killer would not stop now until he was caught and he didn’t want a
fourth victim on his hands.

There had been no forced entry, telling him that the killer was a
client and easily gained access to the apartment where the killing took place.
It was always late at night, normally after midnight. There had been no
caretaker or guards at the building entrances.

All three murders were sexually motivated.

Usually the killer showered thoroughly and cleaned up the room using
the victims’ own towel, which was always missing. They had found cotton yarn
threads at two of the locations indicating that this was the case.

The body was always left on the bed in position. The victims had been
found either naked from the waist down or completely naked. The way the clothes
lay, it appeared that the victims had consensually removed their own clothing.
All three victims had been strangled and raped.

Detective Wong shuffled through the papers until he got to the
Psychology report.

He read through it trying to picture what kind of man could do
something like this.

Reading it again, he started to build a picture in his head.

The killer is a sadist, who derives sexual gratification through the
pain of his victims.

He is most likely a Chinese male who has had a series of
dysfunctional relationships with women.

He is intelligent with a high IQ, however it’s likely that he is
socially inept and prefers solitude.

He has fantasized and rehearsed the crimes in his mind before hand.

His victims are most likely strangers to him, however he is not a
stranger to using prostitutes and most likely uses them on a regular basis
quite possibly showing rage or aggression.

He has absolute control over his victims and is physically strong,
rendering possible escape as futile.

He is organized and methodical in his sequence of events.

He knows the Kowloon district well and finds it easy to get around.

The final act of strangulation offers the killer his sexual
gratification.

He is most likely 40 to 50 years old.

He is likely to kill again.

This last point always made the hairs on Detective
Wongs
arm stand on end. This was the point that he dreaded
the most. Not knowing the when,
the who
or the where.
All he had was the how.

Detective Wong finished the report and absentmindedly ran his fingers
through his hair. He imagined the fear in the three women upon realization that
they had let a monster into their homes. Wong found the reports grim and
disturbing and more than anything wanted to catch this killer before he struck
again. He had requested more police patrols around the known brothel districts,
but he had limited funding to do this long term and door-to-door enquiries were
becoming fruitless to the point of futile.

He had to hope that if the killer struck again, that he would somehow
become over confident and leave a clue behind. For now all he could do was
wait.

Lam was back at her desk pressing a white towel filled with ice
against her burning cheek. She had refused to go to the hospital to get it
checked out, and instead accompanied Ryan to the station, whilst Jimmy
Luk
was carted off in a different direction to a nearby
hospital. The bullet fired by him had brushed past Lam so fast that it wasn’t
until moments later that she felt the stinging sensation across her face. She
had heard the whoosh as it swept just below her left eye, grazing her in
passing, before narrowly missing the top of her ear. Her cheekbone was bruised
and swollen now and the skin raised and angry. She was lucky. One or two
millimeters to the right would have left her with half a face, if alive at all.
There was no question that his shot was intended to kill. He now lay in a
hospital bed with a shattered elbow, not quite the flesh wound that she had
promised him. It was the next best thing to shooting him outright, but she
needed him alive. She knew that as a last resort she would have killed him if
Ryan had not managed to take himself out of range. That was quick thinking on
his part. Now she would have to wait for Jimmy to come out of theatre and wake
from his anesthetic before she could question him in detail. But she at least
had Ryan in one piece, and he was at the station under police protection.

With her one free hand, Lam pulled
open
her
desk drawer and fished around for some painkillers. She always had some on
hand. Locating the packed, she expertly pushed two pills out of their foil
wrapper and popped them into her mouth, chasing it down with some cool water.
Another fifteen minutes or so and the pills would work their magic, erasing the
headache that was threatening to turn into a migraine. She shifted in her chair
trying to get herself comfortable whilst she took out her case file. Her lower
back was sore, and she absentmindedly rubbed it with her thumb. She located her
old raised scar on her lower back and massaged it trying to ease the ache that
was working its way slowly up her spine.

For that brief moment the scar triggered old memories. She was no
longer sitting at safety of her desk at the station. She was lying on the cold
stone floor of a disused warehouse. Her nose was bleeding heavily now, and her
whole body ached from the fall. She had landed awkwardly and thought that
perhaps her wrist was broken. She heard a movement close to her left, and with
the small amount of strength that she had, she forced her body to sit upright,
and then to stand. Lam looked around her in the dark to try to get her
bearings. She couldn’t see
Ko
, her partner, she hoped
that he had managed to survive and would soon be coming down the steps to find
her. She blinked away the pain and half walking, half jogging moved deep into
the shadows and out of sight. Lam felt her side for her gun, but it must have
fallen out of her hand during her fall, she didn’t recall hearing it clatter
anywhere close by. She moved deeper still into the shadows whilst she regained her
breath and her location. It was silent all around her now except for the faint
footsteps of someone walking down a metal staircase, she couldn’t be sure if it
was
Ko
, surely he would call out for her if it was.
She strained to see if she could work out the direction of the stairs, her head
still foggy, but it was so dark.

It had been a tip off. It should have been a major drug bust,
probably the biggest that Hong Kong had experienced. Lam and
Ko
had been working undercover with two detectives from the
Narcotics Bureau. A team of four, they had been told, by one of their
well-oiled informants that this is where the hand over would be. They were expecting at least 38 kilo’s
of Cocaine, along with one of Hong Kong’s biggest Drug Lords. It was the end of
a trail that they had been following for months now. They had already
successfully carried out a raid one month before, the same gang involved, but
that time the ring leaders had slipped away, leaving behind just a few kilos in
their haste, each one kilo brick of cocaine embossed with their well known
symbol of an eye inside a triangle. Sarah felt cold and tried to stop herself
from shivering. They had sat for hours outside the disused warehouse in an old
car hidden between a parked truck and an empty skip, watching and waiting. They
were in the middle of typhoon season, so the rain had been heavy all day long,
switching between tropical downpours and intermittent light drizzle. Eventually
their patience had paid off. At first it was a silver van that had pulled up
about fifty meters in front of them. Two men had climbed out and moved around
to the back of the van, where they had removed two heavy black duffle bags.
Trying not to get wet, they had grabbed the bags and ran straight into the
warehouse entrance, letting
themselves
in via a small
metal door set inside a larger oversize metal gate.

Within minutes a black Mercedes had pulled up behind the van. The man
that exited the
drivers
side stepped out with
confidence and grace. He opened up an umbrella, and strolled toward the small
metal door as though he had all the time in the world.

Ko
spoke to his colleagues on his radio. ‘We are
green’. He said simply, the pre-arranged code to say that they were going in.

They had firstly moved up to the black Mercedes and the van to check
the interiors, ensuring that there
were
no other
people waiting inside that could jeopardize the bust. Satisfied, and giving
each other a silent signal, they quickly ran across the broken tarmac towards
the small metal gate. Lam rested her ear against the metal door, but with the
sound of the rain behind her it was impossible to hear anything on the other
side. Nodding at
Ko
, she silently counted down with
her fingers visible for
Ko
to see.
Three,
two, one.
She twisted the metal door handle and pushed open the door for
Ko
, he slipped in quietly with Lam entering behind
them. They were grateful for the rain. Any noise that the door would have
normally made was muffled by the noise. The warehouse was pitch dark. Closing
the door behind them, the last of the light was shut out. It took a few seconds
for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. Lam could now make out a metal
staircase and then the open mezzanines on each floor, leading up three full
flights. Ahead of them toward the far corner of the warehouse she could make
out the shape of a large metal box, she motioned to
Ko
using her hands, and signaled for him to follow her. They worked around the
side of the large space without making a sound. As they drew closer Sarah could
see now that the box was a container that had been converted into a makeshift
office corrugated metal sides, no windows and a basic door cut out of the side.
A slither of light shone under the door indicating that someone was inside, but
there was no sound, not even a murmur of conversation. A wave of uneasiness
flowed over Lam now as she considered their next move. She looked at her watch.
It was strange that her narcotics colleagues had not yet responded or joined
them. She had expected them to be close behind. Now almost at the door, Lam
shot a glance at
Ko
. Their eyes locked and they
silently agreed the next move. After so many years, it was so easy to read each
others
mind. This time
Ko
indicated that she should enter first. Their handguns were ready, the safety
catch off. With Kos spare hand he leaned in and held the door handle. Lam
silently counted down again with her fingers
;
three,
two, one.

What happened next, they would never have imagined. The door swung
open and Sarah stepped in with her gun steady, her muzzle now pointing directly
at the terrified eyes of the two narcotics officers, gagged and bound on
chairs.

‘Shit,’ she said under her breath, quickly placing her gun in her
holster.

She turned to
Ko
, ‘cover me, I need to
untie them.’ ‘Shit’ was all that
Ko
could say in
response. She frantically untied the two men, and as soon as their hands were
free they helped her to untie their legs and remove the gags.

“It’s a trap’, one of the officers said, a younger man, who looked
frightened and now much younger than his years. ‘We have to get out of here.’
The other said. “They took our guns and our radios.” ‘They have weapons, we saw
pistols and a shotgun’.

‘OK, OK’, Lam said, trying to think what they should do next.

‘
Ko
, kill the lights. We need some cover to
get out of here’, she kept her voice low, but now sure that they were being
watched.

Ko
switched off the wall light sending them all into
darkness. All that she could hear now was everyone around her breathing. She
motioned for one of the officers to go with
Ko
, and
one with her. She went first. As soon as she stepped outside of the metal room,
the first round of gunfire went off. They ducked and swerved toward the exit as
the bullets sprayed and ricocheted off the metal pillars and stairs surrounding
them, momentarily lighting up their whereabouts.
Realising
that they wouldn’t make it to the exit alive, Sarah turned sharply and ran at
full speed towards the staircase the other three men following closely behind
her. At least the metal railing may afford some kind of cover, she thought.
Taking two steps at a time, she bounded up to the first mezzanine level and
quickly moved back into the shadows the second officer right on her heels. Lam
could hear that
Ko
was close behind her when she
heard the same spray of bullets bouncing off the staircase. Just as
Ko
reached the top, the officer behind him let out a yelp
as a bullet tore through his shoulder. He collapsed against the railing, unable
to pull himself forwards.
Ko
turned and grabbed him
by the collar dragging him the remainder of the way and into the corner. Blood
was pumping from the wound as Lam and
Ko
tried to
stem the bleeding. The other officer was in shock and unable to do anything
except stare. They didn’t have to wait long. With a loud gurgle and a final explosive
spluttering cough, the injured officer’s stiff body suddenly relaxed, his last
breath pushed out of his body as his head fell back onto Kos knee and his legs
and arms relaxed onto the cold metal floor. Then there was silence.

‘We’re fucked’,
Ko
said under his breath,
alarm now in his voice. ‘They have us like cornered sheep. This is a fucking
set up.’ He said as he gently pushed the officers head off his knee resting it
on the cold floor. He looked down at himself and could see the dark stains across
his shirt. He tried to wipe some of the blood onto his trousers to get it off
his hands.

‘What now?’ he hissed to Lam who was squatting silently in the corner
trying to gather her thoughts.

Ignoring Kos question Lam considered their options. She had never
been out of control before, and this was not common territory for her. Blocking
everything out she tried to focus and keep her mind steady and her wits sharp.

Finally she turned to
Ko
and the young
officer.

‘We need to lure them up.’ She said, matter of fact. ‘The second we
try and go down, we are sitting ducks, they’ll just take us out one by one.’
She whispered.

‘And how do you suggest that we do that?’
Ko
had replied, hoping that she would have a better solution.

Lam had never seen
Ko
panic like this before.
He was normally calm and steady, they both were. She needed him to shape up,
quickly.

‘I’ll show you.” Lam grabbed Kos radio from his belt and turned the
knob until it was on the right frequency.

‘DC this is Detective Lam, over.’ The radio jumped and crackled to
life, the interference was noisy and Lam made sure that the volume was up as
high as possible.

‘I have three officers down, repeat, three officers down, in need of
immediate assistance, over.”

‘What?’
Ko
mouthed.

‘If they think we are all injured they’ll be more confident that they
can finish us all off.’ She whispered back. ‘I think they come up. It’s worth a
try’.

The radio blared to life again, this time with a reply.

‘Detective Lam, reading you loud and clear, please confirm your
location, over.’

Just as Sarah was about to respond, she heard a loud clatter as
something dropped on the metal floor, and it sounded close, too close. Like
lions ready to pounce on their pray, both
Ko
and Lam
were in position, legs slightly flexed, gun ready and arm steady. The young
officer stood close behind them feeling naked and useless without his weapon,
desperate to get out of their predicament and ready to follow Lam.

Without warning there was gunfire upon them again, the bullets were
closer this time. The three of them sprang into action and ran as fast as they
could to the next level of stairs,
Ko
was the first
up with the young officer close behind and Lam keeping up the rear. The spray
of bullets rang around their heads, and Lam heard the whoosh close by her body
reminding her that this was life or death. Behind her she could hear two sets
of footsteps as she was being chased up the stairs and they were closing fast.
Just as she was about to make it to the second level she felt someone grab her
foot and yank her back. The pull was hard sending her off balance and making
her fall face first onto the edge of the metal step. There was a sickening
crack as she felt her nose explode as it took the brunt of the fall. She yelled
out in pain, and twisted her body around to face her assailant kicking with her
feet as she did so. He looked like a thug, with his shaven head, his eyes
narrowed and determined and staring her down. He was strong and wouldn’t
release his grip on her foot despite her stamping on his hand. She pointed her
gun into his face and as she did so heard a shot being fired from above her. It
was
Ko
. The face in front of her disappeared as the
body, now limp released her foot and fell backwards onto the level below
hitting the other man and pinning him to the floor. There was a loud yell, this
time from her right as more shots were fired. Forgetting the searing pain
across her face, Lam scrambled to her feet and made it to the second mezzanine
and to safety, finding
Ko
and the young officer both
in the shadows catching their breath.