The Hamlet Murders (9 page)

“I told her I had the plague.”

“You didn’t.”

“You’re right, I didn’t. I told her that you were my sweet hard-working husband and you needed to rest your weary feet.”

“That wouldn’t have moved her even an inch.”

“True.”

“So?”

“So I told her that if she didn’t move her fat ass I’d put my fingers up her nose and pull it off her face.”

“You said that?”

“I did.”

“And she believed you?”

Fu Tsong unwrapped a sticky confection and put it in her mouth. “You might recall that I’m a very good actress, Fong,” she said as she munched the gooey thing.

“You are,” said Fong as he looked anew at his wife. Would there ever be a time when she didn’t surprise him?

“So what happened in those plays you had to adjudicate in Taipei?”

“Play, you mean,” she said as she swallowed the candy.

“Do I?”

“You do. I saw the same play thirteen times done by thirteen different groups.”

“Was that what was so funny?”

“Hardly. Watching the same play over and over again is tedious.”

“Unless it’s a great play.”

“Or done by great actors under an inspired director. But no Fong, this adaptation of the
Wakefield
Crucifixion
is not a great play, and these were not great actors and there wasn’t a director to be seen in the group.”

“What’s a
Wakefield Crucifixion?”

“It’s a religious play from England.”

“Modern?”

“No. What they call the Dark Ages.”

“Ah, the time that the Russians think didn’t really exist.”

“Right, Fong. You really are a font of truly useless information.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I wouldn’t. Anyway, in this play, which was being done by church groups – they didn’t tell me that when they asked me to adjudicate their drama festival nor did they tell me that they were amateurs, Christian amateurs. Anyway, in this play, Christ gathers his followers, he pisses off the authorities, they whip him, crucify him, bury him and then he . . . ” she burst out laughing.

“He what?” Fong demanded.

By now several dozen people had gathered round to hear the story.

“Okay,” Fu Tsong pulled herself together and said, “he ascends.” She broke into peels of laughter.

“To where, does he ascend?” Fong demanded to get her to stop laughing.

“To the Christian heaven or something. How would I know?”

“Okay, so he ascends. What’s so funny?”

“Well, the ascending happens at the end of the second act. Each group attaches a harness of some sort to the actor playing Christ and the play ends by him saying ‘I ascend’ and he is gently pulled up to the fly gallery above the proscenium arch. It’s hokey but cute.”

“I still don’t get what’s so funny.”

“Well, to do the ‘ascending’ smoothly, you have to have counterweights on the flylines that pretty much match the weight of the actor.”

“Yes,” Fong said, prompting.

“Well, on the third day – I was seeing four productions a day and five on the last day – well, on the third day, in the third performance I’d seen that day, a very large actor was playing Christ and it was obvious to me that he was not feeling well. He literally sneezed and coughed his way through the entire first act. I think he fainted at intermission. So at the beginning of the second act the stage manager came out and announced that the poor boy was too ill to go on and that his understudy would fill in for the second act.” Fu Tsong began to laugh. Fong gave her a stern look. She stopped laughing. “Well, the understudy Christ was not a big boy like the first-act Christ. In fact, he was a pretty tiny boy.”

Fong got it. “No!”

“Yes! They forgot to change the counterweights. So when this little guy put on the harness and announced all grave and serious ‘I ascend,’ shit Fong, he didn’t ascend, he rocketed. He zoomed. He disappeared in a puff of smoke and we heard the smack of him hitting the fly gallery. A few moments later, his feet appeared below the proscenium arch and just hung there. Then the feet began to move and we heard this Christian god saviour shout, ‘Get me the fuck down from here you moronic assholes!’”

Fong almost laughed but was glad he hadn’t.

Everyone around the table was still looking at him. He turned to Li Chou, “Isolate those fingerprints. Did you print the counterweights by the pinrail?”

“No.”

“How about the chair by the pinrail?”

“No, not that either, but I . . . ”

“Do it. I want to know everyone who touched the ladder, the chair or the counterweights. I also want fibres collected from the ladder, the noose and the whole area around the counterweights on the pinrail.”

To Fong’s amazement, Li Chou leapt to his feet and signalling his men to follow him said, “Will do, Zhong Fong.”

There it was again. Zhong Fong pronounced like Traitor Zhong.

Once Li Chou was gone, Fong turned to Chen, “Find out how the wooden batten that the rope was threaded through is lowered and who has control of that. While you’re at it, test the pulleys. I want to know if they both work. I also want to know if there are prints on the pulleys.”

“You still want to see the people called to rehearsal, sir?”

“And the actors last to leave the theatre that night.”

“I’ve already arranged that.”

“Good. What about that Shakespeare expert?”

“His contact numbers are on your desk.”

“Good.”

Chen divided up assignments among his men and headed out, leaving Fong alone with Lily. “You can tell Chen that he’s allowed to look at you in these meetings. He’s your husband.”

“Chen is very formal. You are his superior officer, Fong. I may be his wife but this is a business meeting not a cocktail party.”

“True, Lily,” and without a beat of segue he asked, “What kind of paint was used in the theatre?”

“I don’t know offhand. You want the paint used on the platforms or on the thing that . . . ”

“The proscenium arch?”

“Yeah, you would know the name for that.”

“I would. It’s called the proscenium arch.”

“Fine. So you want to know the kind of paint used on the arch?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. I’ll check.”

“Good. Then would you check if it matches the smudge of paint on Mr. Hyland’s right shoe?”

Lily looked at him with a wry expression on her face. “Sure, I can do that.”

“How long to get that information, Lily?”

“Not long.” Suddenly she shifted and leaned forward. “How are you managing, Fong?”

“Okay,” he said, very uncomfortable to be talking like this.

“You miss Xiao Ming?”

“Yes. But I get to see her almost as much as I did when we . . . ”

“Were married, Fong. You’re allowed to say that.”

“Yes.” Fong began to pack up his things. “You look happy, Lily.”

“I am Fong.”

“I’m glad. I’ll be on time picking up Xiao Ming Sunday.”

“If this case is solved by then.”

“Yes, Lily, if this case is solved by then.”

Fong stopped packing up.

“Something I can help you with, Fong?”

“Yes. But I don’t know what just yet.”

“You’ll let me know?”

“I will. . . . Lily . . . ”

She stared at him closely, “What Fong?”

“What happens to people when they lose a sense of purpose?”

Fong went directly to his office. Captain Chen was waiting there. “Who’s that, sir?” Chen asked, pointing at Shrug and Knock who had stationed his desk across the hall from Fong’s door. Fong ushered Chen into the office, closed the door and explained the who and what, if not the why, of Shrug and Knock. Chen nodded. “Men like him are a reality in the politics of this place. If you want to work here, you have to deal with the politics as well as the job but if you look at things closely, almost every situation can lead to either problems or opportunities. It’s all a matter of seeing the possibilities.”

Chen nodded. “Can I have a word, sir?”

“Sure, take a seat.”

Chen sat then began without preamble, “So you believe this is not a suicide, sir?”

“Yes. I believe this was a murder made to look like a suicide.”

“Are you sure, sir? How do you keep a noose on a man’s neck, make him walk up ten steps of a ladder then kick the ladder aside. There were no signs of any real struggle. No defensive wounds, no . . . ”

Fong cut him off. “Mr. Hyland never climbed that ladder. It was placed on the stage after Mr. Hyland was dead. Get me six men, access to the man who pulls those fly ropes and a hundred-and-eightypound dummy and I’ll show you how it was done.”

“Now?”

Fong looked at his watch. The theatre would just be opening. He had other things he could do before he proved his point, so he said, “No. Tomorrow. Get us in there tomorrow first thing.”

J
oan Shui assumed she had been chosen because she was new to the movement and hence probably not known to the authorities. Authorities like her. Being a cop was probably another reason they had chosen her. She’d been a member of the Hong Kong constabulary for almost ten years. Before that, she’d done an advanced degree in chemistry. It was that degree that allowed her immediate entrance to the elite Hong Kong arson squad. Her father, the first fireman in her life, had been so proud. For a moment, she wondered if he would be proud of what she was about to do. “We can hardly please the living, how can we hope to please the dead?” she asked the emptiness of her office.

She looked out her office window. The deterioration of Hong Kong was subtle but it was there. It had started quickly after the mainland took back the British protectorate in 1996. At first it was just little things, neon signs that didn’t flash, stores with shorter hours, vacancy rates rising, but of late the rot was threatening to break into the open. No longer was it just cosmetic. Something in the heart of Hong Kong could be dying.

That was why she was a supporter of Dalong Fada. She did believe in the exercise regime, but it was the fact of opposition to the Communists now that Hong Kong was no longer free that drew her to the movement. Without some form of opposition, Beijing would run even further amok then it had already. Dalong Fada was the only credible opposition in the entire country.

Her initial steps toward Dalong Fada had seemed so natural. A flirtation with a high-ranking member. A contact with an American-Chinese man. A series of discreet meetings and she was – a part of it.

Now there was a message and an assignment. For the briefest moment she wondered if this was what an al-Qaeda freak felt like. One moment a normal working stiff, the next a man with a bomb. Then she shook that off. She was not involved with bombs. Nothing that she was doing had anything to do with hurting people. She was a member of Dalong Fada because China needed a real opposition to the Chinese Communist Party – period, the end.

The phone on her desk rang. Joan let it ring as she remembered a call at almost exactly this time two days ago – when life was considerably simpler, a different reality. It had been a young lab technician with the results from her investigation of a fire on Peak Road. Insurance companies were taking a bath as fear of Beijing’s control gripped Hong Kong and drove land values down. Many fashionable buildings were no longer financially viable. Better to burn them down and collect the insurance than to declare bankruptcy and face the shame, even in a financial centre like Hong Kong, that accompanied monetary failure.

Joan had nodded as she jotted down notes from the lab. Traces of accelerant had been found in the apartment building’s basement. No planch was discovered, but the burn pattern was nothing if not suspicious. She thanked the technician and made a series of further requests for data. She sensed his hesitancy. “What?” she asked. The young man hemmed and hawed then finally said, “Are you doing anything Saturday night?” His question was no surprise to Joan. She was an attractive, unmarried, educated woman in her mid-thirties. She had a good job, beautiful if hard facial features and curves that attracted many eyes. What was she doing Saturday night? It was Wednesday. Did any who, who was any who in Hong Kong, have any idea what or who they were doing three days ahead? No. “Give me your cell number and I’ll get back to you,” she said to get him off the line. The young man evidently couldn’t believe his good fortune. He had thanked her more than he should have and gave her not only his cell number, but also the apartment number of the place he shared with three men and even his mom’s phone number.

The phone on her desk stopped ringing. Joan found the silence that followed strangely unnerving.

She pulled open a drawer of her desk and found the scrap of paper on which she’d scribbled the lab tech’s numbers. He was clearly either too young or too stupid or both for her to date, but he might be just perfectly equipped to account for at least some of the days she’d be out of Hong Kong.

She put his phone numbers to one side and stood up. She looked around her. After what she was about to do, all of this could change – to be frank, it could be no more. She didn’t know what she thought of that. She loved her work and she’d been adequately rewarded for her considerable expertise. Now she could be throwing it all away. She looked again at the coded e-mail from Dalong Fada and memorized the instructions and the single contact number there. She knew that once she dialled that number she might never be able to return to her life here. Before she met Wu Fan-zi in Shanghai she would never have considered giving all this up. But now, after Wu Fan-zi, she would. She picked up the phone and dialled the Dalong Fada number.

The phone was answered with a stiff
“Dui.”
The use of Mandarin in Hong Kong was unusual, but it was what she expected. Quickly, in Mandarin, she gave the code words from the e-mail, “When does the Club Sierra open?”

“Just before moonrise,” came the coded answer.

“Is the movie star dancing tonight?”

“Dui.”

The phone went dead. If someone tried to trace the call they would be out of luck. The person who answered Joan’s call only used cell phones once then threw them into the sea.

Joan took a breath. The silly old British phrase
the
game’s afoot
popped into her head – a remnant from her British education that had featured second-, third-, and fourth-rate British writers above all others. She sat and dialled the young tech’s number. She felt a little bad about using him – but only a little bad. “It’s Joan Shui,” she said. The pause that followed was probably the result of him dropping his cell phone. “Hey, how’re you doin’, hey?” he said in his best impression of a man in complete control.

It was not a terribly impressive impression.

“I’ve managed to clear the next few days. Are you busy?”

Splutter, pause, clunk, then, “Great. Good. No, great.”

“How about three nights at the Calden Inn?”

The silence that followed was the longest yet. The poor lad was balancing his good fortune with the incredible expense of three nights at the Calden Inn. The Calden Inn was an exclusive private retreat just across from Macaw. Before Joan Shui had gone to Shanghai to investigate an arson in an abortion clinic and fallen hopelessly in love with Shanghai’s head fireman Wu Fan-zi, she had thought that a weekend at the Calden Inn was the height of chic. Wealthy men sometimes suggested the Calden Inn as a great place for a little R and R and she sometimes took them up on it. Before Wu Fan-zi, she thought of sex much the same way as she thought of calisthenics – sometimes the exertion was very pleasing and sometimes it was less pleasing. The only consistent reality of her many visits to the Calden Inn was the pleasure she had given the men she was with and the luxury that they had provided for her.

“I’ve already made reservations in your name. I gave them your Visa number; we have it on file here for times that you have to go out of pocket for us. I got us a suite. I have to complete something here but I’ll meet you out there first thing tomorrow morning. Okay?”

She didn’t have to wait for an answer. She knew what it was going to be.

“Great. See you out there. Don’t be late.” She hung up then dialled the Calden Inn. She asked for the manager, who she’d befriended a few years back when she helped him solve a little arson-related unpleasantness in his kitchen.

“Ms. Shui, how nice to hear from you,” the manager said with evident feeling.

“I have a favour to ask.”

“Ask, please.”

“My new boss . . .” – since the handover, Hong Kongers used the term to refer to totally incompetent but politically connected mainland overseers appointed by Beijing – “. . . has a son who just won’t take no for an answer. He’s booked a suite at your resort for three nights. When he arrives, I need you to claim that I came and found that he wasn’t there on time so you assigned me my own private room in the other end of the building and that I have sworn you to secrecy so that under no circumstance will you tell him which room I am in.”

“It is a large resort,” he chuckled.

“And so very private.”

“Indeed.” He cleared his throat. “And were you particularly angry at the young man’s tardiness?”

“Furious.”

“As well you should be. I myself am almost beyond speaking I am so profoundly upset by the actions of this young hellion.”

“Thanks.”

“My pleasure, Ms. Shui.”

She hung up and made one more call. This to one of her snitches. Firebugs liked to brag – snitches were invaluable to arson inspectors.

“Now what?” came the snivelling voice over the cell phone. “You going to bust my balls over exactly what this time?”

Joan took a breath and asked sweetly, “Your balls grew back then?”

“Ha, ha! Lady cops!
Ye sheng!!!
Spare me from lady cops.”

“You know where the main forensics lab is?”

“Near Qian Shui Wan?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I know where it is,” he said slowly.

“Good. Follow a young tech named Clarence Chi and very early Saturday morning, say between 1 and 2 a.m., put a sizeable quantity of sand into the gas tank of his car.”

“And I get what out of this, exactly?”

“I conveniently lose the file on a certain restaurant robbery that took place last Tuesday.”

“I thought you were arson.”

“I am but I’ve got friends all over the place.”

More muttering about lady cops, the general unfairness of the world and references to a particularly painful self-inflicted sex act, then in a small voice he said, “It wasn’t really a robbery. It was more that I was hungry.”

“Therefore a restaurant?”

“Right. I was hungry,” he quickly agreed.

“You should keep your gloves on when you eat.”

“Fingerprints?”

“Everywhere – on the fridge, on the ovens, on the cash register – odd place to keep food, don’t you think? Robbery came to me because they ID’d your fingerprints in about ten minutes. Two guys claimed they’d seen your prints so often they recognized them by sight.”

“Po gai! Po kai!!!”

“I couldn’t have said it better. But today’s your lucky day. A little sand in a gas tank and all is forgiven.”

“That simple, huh?”

“That simple.”

And that simply she had her cover to get out of Hong Kong, or so she hoped.

At the entrance to the Nevada Texan strip club Joan tipped the doorman. The man pocketed the money, leered at her and said, “Dancin’ tonight, honey?”

She smiled at him. He pulled aside the restraining rope and she entered the darkened club. The place had become even more popular since the arrival of the Beijing authority. The club and others like it represented an attachment to pleasure that was anathema to the puritanical Communists but was so much a part of the life of capitalist Hong Kongers. People now came to this club who wouldn’t have been caught dead in a place like this just six years before.

Joan was directed to a small round table close to a corner, and before she smoothed out her skirt a martini was delivered. A demand for an outrageous amount of money quickly followed. Joan paid the tariff then asked, “Is Marie dancing tonight?” as she had been instructed to do in the Dalong Fada e-mail.

The waitress, a slender girl with better legs than brains, smiled and winked.

Joan assumed that meant yes.

Five minutes later a silicon wonder approached her table carrying a milk crate. “You been waiting all your life for me, sweetie?” the girl asked.

“Are you Marie?”

“No. Don’t know any Maries.”

Joan froze her out. “Get lost. And I’d be very careful with the breast augmentation. Latest studies have not been encouraging for the health of the recipient.”

Ms. Silicon made a face. “Aren’t you fun?” she said picking up her box and heading back into the darkness. On the stage, a dancer was removing a kimono, with surprising grace. She was not particularly beautiful but her control of the silk garment was alluring.

Joan spun as a hand landed on her shoulder. “I’m Marie. You asked for me?” The voice was deep, dusky. Joan went to turn but the voice commanded, “Don’t.” Joan looked straight ahead. “See the curtain on the far side to the left?” Joan was about to nod when she heard, “Don’t move your head. When I’m finished, pay me, head toward the curtain and through it. Go down the corridor to the bathroom and out the window. There’s a green Mini in the street at the end of the alley. The keys are beneath the driver’s side floor mat. Instructions are in the glove compartment. Good luck. Now turn and give me a kiss like you mean it.”

Joan turned her head and felt soft lips quickly press against hers. Then a silken tongue circled her teeth. She found herself responding. The face was too close to her for her to see it – that was the point. The dark voice said, “Don’t respond. This isn’t about sex. It’s about the cause.”

Then she was gone. Joan had no way to identify her if she were asked to. Which, once again, was the point. For an instant, Joan wondered at the complexity and professionalism of the system. Dalong Fada had only really been a presence for ten years and now it clearly had safe houses and methods that had been learned by the members.

A wave of fear washed over her. Then she remembered why she was doing what she was about to do. China needed an opposition and, at this point in time, only Dalong Fada could stand in the way of the Beijing Communists destroying everything that Hong Kong had bled to build.

She dropped yet more cash on the small table, made as if she was checking for something in her purse and headed toward the curtain.

Getting through the curtain was much simpler than dealing with the girls in the corridor on the other side of it. These girls weren’t paid to dance in the club. They paid the club to dance. Their dancing was a live ad for services that they provided in the dozens of small rooms that were on either side of the lengthy corridor.

As Joan moved quickly down the corridor, the sounds and sights of sex for cash presented themselves at nearly every doorway. The positions varied but the basics of the transaction were always the same – the girls serviced the customers whether they were old or young, ugly or beautiful, men or women.