“If it’s not then someone went to serious dramatic lengths to make us believe it was a suicide.”
“Very dramatic lengths,” said Fong.
“Who? Who would do this?”
“That would be the question, wouldn’t it, sir?” said Fong.
The man’s clothes may have changed and maybe even his demeanour but his uncanny ability to state the obvious as if he had revealed some great truth had remained firmly intact.
“Carry on,” the commissioner said and turned on his heel.
Fong was sure that if he could have seen the man’s face he would have watched a self-satisfied smile cross his lips. He’d managed to set the investigation on firm legs. Oh yes he had. And now he could tell whomever it is he reports to that he had done the best he could with what meagre resources, both financial and human, he’d been given. It was a classic bit of ass covering.
Then Fong noticed Li Chou’s face – he was calm, serene. It scared the shit out of Fong.
Fong took a breath and turned to Lily, “How many steps up the ladder would he have to have climbed to get his head into that noose?”
“Eleven, maybe twelve, Fong.”
“And how heavy was Mr. Hyland?”
“Fong?”
“How much did he weigh, Lily?”
“Just under a hundred and eighty pounds.”
Fong thought about that for a bit. How do you get a 180-pound man to climb twelve steps up a ladder? Then once he’s up there, how do you get him to put his head in a noose? Then how do you get down the ladder before he takes the noose off his neck and follows you down?
Fong shot to his feet. The words I ascend literally propelled him up. Everyone in the room looked at him but he didn’t care. His mind was on himself and Chen by the pinrail. And the counterweights. Christ and counterweights: “I ascend.”
He smiled as the memory he couldn’t pull forward at the time bloomed full force in his head. She was laughing. Fu Tsong, his wife, was laughing. No, she was roaring with laughter. Laughter was literally thundering out of her mouth so that Fong couldn’t understand what she was saying. They were sitting on the Bund Promenade. She had just come back from adjudicating a drama festival in Taipei. Fong wanted to hear her impressions of the renegade island. She wasn’t interested in talking about that. She wanted to tell him about what she had seen in the theatre – except her laughter kept getting in the way.
“Just take a breath and tell me,” Fong had said.
She did – take a breath, that is. Her laughter stopped then it erupted once again.
Fong got up. Immediately, someone took his seat. This was Shanghai – public seating of any sort was at a premium. He looked at the old lady who had taken his place but before he could speak she said, “Tough luck, Flat Head.”
How did they always know he was a cop?
Suddenly Fu Tsong leaned over and whispered something into the old lady’s ear. The crone’s face went dark then she got up and moved along. Fong couldn’t recall ever being able to move someone from a seat on the Bund Promenade before. As he reassumed his seat, he asked, “What did you say to her, Fu Tsong?”
“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 coll
ected 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.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE VOYAGE OF JOAN SHUI
Joan 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 h
ave 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.
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