Death In Shanghai (17 page)

Boyle’s tongue flicked out and licked the left side of his moustache. ‘Well, you’d better catch him before he strikes again. If you don’t, I can’t answer for the consequences.’

Danilov stared down at his hands once more. The fingers had stopped tapping his knee. ‘Neither can I, sir.’

***

‘Do you need me to go to the Astor, sir?’

‘Not yet. Let’s go to the mortuary first and see what Dr Fang has to say. You can interview the hotel staff afterwards. Has the barrel lid arrived yet? I’d like the doctor to take a look at it.’

‘Not yet, sir. I’ll call Lieutenant Masset.’

Danilov sat down at his desk. It was completely empty. Sniggers came from behind him. Cartwright and a few of the other detectives were watching from the door. As he looked up, they beat a hasty retreat. He opened his drawers and found the telephone, his desk diary, pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners and tobacco tin inside.

‘This is becoming intolerable, Stra-chan. I must complain to Chief Inspector Boyle.’ As he got up from his desk, the phone rang.

Danilov picked it up. ‘Central Police.’

‘Hello, hello, is that Inspector Danilov?’

He recognised the elegant Russian vowels of the Princess. ‘Good morning, Princess. How can I help you?’

‘It’s the opposite, Inspector. It’s how I can help you. Victorov has turned up.’

‘The pimp who ran Maria Stepanova?’

‘The one and only. Scum like him can’t keep away from the bright lights for long.’

‘Where is he, Princess?’

‘He’s sitting in my cafe as we speak, Inspector. He thinks he is getting some work from me but I don’t deal with the dregs of the Earth like Victorov.’

‘Please keep him there. I’ll be there in an hour.’

‘Be careful. This one’s not to be trusted.’

‘Of course. Thank you for your efforts on my behalf.’

‘I’m sure they will be remembered, Inspector. And if they are not, I’m sure somebody will remind you.’

‘Thank you once again, Princess.’ He put the receiver back on the cradle.

Strachan had been listening to the conversation. ‘Do you want me there, too, Inspector?’

‘Not necessary, Stra-chan, let’s see what Dr Fang has to say first.’ Danilov picked up his hat from the stand in the corner. His desk was still empty. It would have to wait. There were more important matters to attend to.

But the image of the empty desk haunted him all the way to the morgue. Something would have to be done.

Chapter 16

‘Good morning, Dr Fang, I’m sorry to be seeing you again so soon.’

‘Good afternoon, Inspector.’

Danilov checked his watch. 12.05 pm. Dr Fang was as accurate as ever. ‘You have our latest victim?’

‘She arrived last night. We carried out the autopsy this morning at 8 am.’ The doctor led them through into the white-tiled mortuary. A body lay on the second slab from the door. Danilov did not recognise who it was. The skin of the face had been peeled back in two sections and then rolled up like a ruched rug along the hairline. All that was left of the woman’s beauty was blood and muscle and bone.

He remembered something his mother used to tell him long ago. ‘A candle is a flame, the woman a glow.’ There was no glow left here, the light that had shone from this woman was long gone.

Behind him, Strachan coughed.

‘If you are going to be sick, Detective, please do it outside in the bucket, not on my clean floor.’

Strachan glared at Dr Fang. ‘I’m not going to be sick, Dr Fang.’

‘Please begin, Doctor,’ Danilov said.

‘The victim’s death was caused by a single trauma to the throat, severing the aorta, trachea and Adam’s apple. She died almost instantaneously.’

‘And the wounds on her body?’

‘I counted 137 separate cuts to the arms, hands, legs and feet, and one deep cut to the left side of her face. They were clean, sharp scores caused by an extremely thin knife, scalpel or razor blade. See here, here, and here.’ Dr Fang pointed to the slashes. ‘Most seem to be on the arms and legs. Very few cuts to the body.’ The doctor scratched his head. ‘Sometimes, we see similar cuts in knife fights caused by cutthroat razors. But never this many.’

‘Would she have bled to death from these cuts?’

‘I don’t think she would, Inspector. The cuts were all shallow, barely penetrating the epidermis. They would have caused pain, severe pain. Her death was brought about by a deep cut to the throat produced by a completely different weapon.’

Danilov glanced down at the faceless corpse in front of him. Another body, another person who had their life terminated. Four corpses now. One frozen to death. The second drowned in blood. The third nearly severed in two, the genitals removed. And finally, this young woman, her throat cut and multiple slashes across her body. Four different ways to die. Four personal ways to kill. In each case, the killer must have been very close to his victims. Close enough to see the pain in their eyes as they died.

The doctor was speaking.

‘I’m sorry, Doctor, could you repeat that?’

Dr Fang sniffed, pushing his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. ‘As I was saying, Inspector, there are two small characters carved into her chest just above the sternum. The instrument used to carve these characters was larger and thicker.’

‘Not the same one as caused the cut on the throat or the slashes on the rest of the body?’

‘No, definitely not.’

‘A knife or a scalpel?’

‘I’m not at liberty to say, Inspector. It is up to you to find the instrument. But I will say the wound was definitely caused by a different weapon than the cuts on her body and throat.’

‘Thank you, Doctor. We will let you see the weapon as soon as we find it.’

‘The character is interesting, Inspector. Not a common character, “retribution”, as you know. Rather old-fashioned, I even had to check its meaning in the dictionary. Whoever did it was quite punctilious though. Each stroke of the character has been cut precisely. The proportions of the strokes are very accurate. Almost as if it was copied from a book.’

‘The character looks the same as on Henry Sellars?’

‘As a pathologist, I can only say the character was created with a similar instrument. But as a student of Chinese, I would say it was written by the same hand. Or rather, it was carved by the same hand.’

‘Thank you, Doctor. Anything else you can tell us?’ The smell of formaldehyde was beginning to irritate Danilov. He avoided looking at the faceless corpse.

In another part of the morgue, a telephone rang three times before somebody answered it. So there were other people in here beside the doctor, thought Danilov. Sometimes, it seemed as if the doctor was the only living person here.

Dr Fang sniffed loudly, pushing his glasses up to the bridge of his nose again. He lifted up one of girl’s lifeless arms. They were thin and white. ‘See here, the marks of the rope. She was bound at one point. The wrists show deep bruising where she struggled against her restraints.’ He put the arm down. ‘There are also rope marks on her palms,’ he turned over the hands for Danilov to see, ‘the inside of her thighs and her ankles.’

Danilov could see the marks clearly on her legs. Livid, blue marks, lying along the inside of the thigh and along the inside of the ankles.

‘The marks don’t go around her thighs or legs. They are only found on the inside.’

‘Were they inflicted pre- or post-mortem?’

‘Pre-mortem, Inspector. See, the bruising is livid, going from purple into blue. I’ve seen these sorts of marks before. Usually old scars that have healed and left a mark.’

‘Where did you see them, Doctor?’

Dr Fang sniffed. ‘It’s very strange but they are usually found on men who ply the coastal trade. On the old junks.’ He mimed a sailor climbing a rope. ‘The men get them from climbing the ropes attached to the rigging. But one sees them less and less these days. The advent of steam power.’

‘Thank you, Doctor. Any other reason she would have these marks?’

‘There are many reasons, Inspector, none of which I could speculate about.’ The doctor sniffed once again. ‘A few more things. You will have noticed the corpse has dyed hair just like the previous victim. A slightly darker shade though, not so platinum, but still dyed. And then there are the eyes…’

‘Cornflower blue.’

‘So that is what the shade is called. I looked it up in the dictionary but couldn’t find it anywhere.’ Dr Fang took a small book out of his top pocket and began writing notes.

Inspector Danilov stared down at the face once more. The cornflower-blue eyes were there sitting in their sockets, staring out lifelessly into the world, shaded by two rolls of skin that formed a small peaked cap along her hairline.

A pretty girl, he thought, a very pretty girl.

His thoughts about Elsie Everett were interrupted by the clatter of the door to the morgue swinging open. A young man’s head appeared.

‘I’ve told you so many times, I am not to be interrupted when in the middle of an autopsy.’

‘I’m sorry, Dr Fang, this was delivered.’ He held up a blue hessian bag. ‘The man said it was for Detective Constable Strachan.’

‘It’s the barrel lid, sir. I asked Lieutenant Masset to send it here.’

‘You are being efficient today, Stra-chan. There’s hope for you yet. Dr Fang, I wonder if you would mind taking a look at this for us?’

‘I’ve got two stabbings and a coronary thrombosis to deal with before tea-time.’

‘I would consider it a great favour if you could examine it, Doctor. I’m sure you’ll find it very interesting. Professionally, of course.’

Dr Fang sniffed, enjoying the compliment. ‘I’ll see if I can find the time.’

‘Thank you, Doctor. Come, Stra-chan, you have work to do. And so does the good doctor.’

Chapter 17

He loved the sound of a knife sharpening against a steel. There
’
s the ascending harmonic of the rasp of the blade as the edge kisses the metal. Up one side and up the other in a rhythm like the sound of the bossa nova. No downstrokes. We wouldn
’
t want to snag the end, chipping away at its edge, would we?

Even more than the sound, he loved the way the eyes of the guilty were inevitably drawn to the blade. Fascinated, entranced by its shining prospect of pain. He always sharpened the knife in front of them. It did prolong their terror.

The preacher lay on a slab in front of him. His eyes were only focused on the knife. Nothing else existed for him. The man was struggling against the ropes. He didn
’
t blame him. He would struggle too if he were in the preacher
’
s position.

Then he smelt the rich earthy smell of shit. The preacher hadn
’
t been able to control himself. What a shame. It meant Li Min was going to have to clean him again. He did wish they could control themselves more. He would have thought a preacher would have set a better example. After all, he was going to the place he
’
d always wanted to go, wasn
’
t he?

He touched the edge of the blade with his finger. Nearly there, a few more strokes should do it. Well, it was always better to be safe than sorry. At least, that
’
s what his nanny used to say.

He had tried the preacher that morning, soon after he had got back here. Now, in some courts, it might be seen as strange that he was prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner, but not here. We all know many criminals escape real justice through having clever solicitors. Or corrupt police. Or even incompetent judges. But in his court, there was no such chance to escape. They always enjoyed the certainty of justice.

Sometimes, he even acted for the defence, but not often. The guilt of his accused was usually so clear, he could smell and taste it.

He did have a helper though. Li Min was splendid at the work, a court clerk if you like. Li Min enjoyed bringing the miscreants to justice as much as he did. But it was up to him to see justice was done. That was his role. The role assigned to him.

He tested the edge of the blade with his finger.

Perfect.

The preacher struggled again as he got closer to him. The man saw the knife clearly now. He had been calling it a knife, but it was probably more of a cleaver. The sort butchers used in the market to slice into a piece of beef. It had a marvellous balance, nestling in his hand, crying out to be used.

As he got closer to the preacher, the man struggled even more. He could see the wild fear in the preacher
’
s eyes. Quite an imagination this one. Perhaps it was the man
’
s obsession with the Old Testament that enabled him to imagine what was going to happen next. It was a harsh book. They certainly knew how to deal with criminals.

Only the Chinese had the same sense of justice. A quick judgement and an even quicker execution, that
’
s what criminals could expect. They had been refining the ways of death for thousands of years. Coming to Shanghai, discovering the Chinese way, had made it all clear to him. This was what he had to do. This was what he was driven to do. They had done wrong. This was what they deserved.

The blade was in front of the Preacher
’
s eyes now. The man was struggling, but the rope around his forehead held him tight. He could see the blood where the rope had bitten into the skin.

Don
’
t struggle, preacher, you
’
ll only hurt yourself.

He put the point of the knife into the shoulder where the socket met the body. There was a little indentation there to guide him. How thoughtful the gods were. He saw the preacher
’
s face grimace with pain as his mouth struggled to scream against the glue of the duct tape.

Don
’
t struggle, preacher, you
’
ll only hurt yourself.

He pressed the knife deeper into the socket. The blood was flowing now from the wound, drenching the preacher
’
s body. He was wearing an apron, a mask and a surgeon
’
s cap. He didn
’
t want any of the preacher
’
s blood on him. Li Min stepped forward to wipe his brow, so very thoughtful of him.