The Hamlet Murders

by David Rotenberg

  Joan took her hands away from the buttons. “These sandals cut my feet.”

  “Good,” said the woman as they left the train station and headed toward the old section of the small city.

  CHAPTER NINE

  COUNTERWEIGHTS

  As the heat of the day began to mount, Fong and Chen climbed up on the stage. Behind them, several other cops lugged a large black bag into the auditorium.

  “What now?” demanded the old worker from the far reaches upstage.

  “Thanks for joining us,” said Fong in an effort to calm the waves of open aggression coming from the man.

  The old worker looked at Fong then did a double take as he glanced at Chen. Chen was used to that. “What do you and your intensely ugly friend want?”

  Fong started to defend Chen, but the younger man spoke first, “You work the fly rail here?”

  “Some nights,” the old worker replied warily.

  “Which nights?” asked Fong.

  “Whichever they assign me. What is this? I was told I had to work on this shit. I don’t know squat about it. It’s ridiculous. I’m a rigger. A professional, not some stupid rope puller. I worked on skyscrapers in the Pudong then all of a sudden I’m told to go pull ropes for faggots. What’s that?”

  “These ropes that you pull, they are all your responsibility?”

  “Yeah, there are seven sets of lines and they are all mine to work – on the nights I have to waste my time here.”

  “And each of the ropes . . . ”

  “Lines. They’re called lines.”

  “Okay each of the lines has counterweights on them?”

  “Naturally. Some of the flying units weigh close to half a ton. Without counterweights no one could lower the thing in without smashing it to the ground, let alone fly it out.”

  “Yeah, I get that, but whose responsibility is it to set the counterweights?”

  “Mine . . . for the . . . ”

  “ . . . nights you waste your time and talent here. Right. So this was the line Geoffrey Hyland was hanged from?”

  “Who?”

  “The director who was hanged. You may recall that incident.”

  “Yeah. It was tied off to the pinrail when I arrived that morning.”

  “How much counterweight was there on that line?”

  “A lot.”

  “More than usually is on the line?”

  “Way more.”

  “Do you know how much more?”

  “I’m a professional, of course I know how much weight was . . . ”

  “How much?”

  The man went into the small production office in the back and came out with a well-kept leatherbound notebook. He turned to the date and pointed to a figure. The man’s handwriting was like a draftsman’s. The columns were perfectly in line. The whole thing was a work of mathematical precision. Fong looked at the man. Perhaps his talents were, in fact, wasted here.

  “So there were three hundred and forty pounds of counterweight on that line that night?”

  “That’s what it says, so that’s what was there.”

  Fong nodded. “How much does that line usually carry?”

  The man checked his notes. “Forty pounds when I work it and sixty when the other guy does.”

  “Because . . . ?” Fong prompted.

  “Because I’m stronger than the other guy who isn’t a guy at all but an old woman who needs the extra counterweight to move the damn thing.”

  “What do you pull up and down on this line?”

  “You mean what’s flown in and out on this line?”

  “Yes, I guess I mean that.”

  “Several vertical white panels. Used for the ghost’s appearance in the bedroom and for Ophelia’s madness walk with the flowers.”

  “Just canvas panels?”

  “That’s it. Pretty light but that director was very specific about how he wanted the panels flown in and out. It was in time to this real slow music so we needed enough counterweight to make the move smooth. When it worked it was . . . good, you know.”

  Fong nodded. Even this resentful old man saw the beauty in Geoff’s work. “Where are the counterweights kept?” He pointed to four stacks of iron weights on a rolling cart upstage of the last pinrail line. Fong thanked him for his help. “Just one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Did actors use the chair that was here?”

  “There’s not supposed to be any chair here.”

  “No?”

  “No. I wouldn’t allow actors here. This is my territory and I’m . . . ”

  “A professional, you’ve told us already.”

  “Yeah. And I wouldn’t use a chair because it was my job to be ready.” He was clearly about to reiterate that he was a professional but decided against it. He just harrumphed. Then he said, “Anything else?”

  “No. Thanks again for your help.”

  As the man left, Chen went to get the counterweights, and four cops shut the various doors to the theatre and then stood by. The rest of the cops muscled the black bag onto the stage and cracked it open. First, they took out a duplicate of the noose that had suffocated Geoffrey Hyland. Then they propped up a mannequin weighted to be just under a hundred and eighty pounds. Geoff’s weight.

  Fong walked the stage floor while, with the use of ladders, the noose was threaded through the pulleys and then brought down to the pinrail stage left. Then Chen added 340 pounds of counterweight to the flyline.

  The mannequin was set centre stage and the noose put around its neck. “Captain Chen, are you ready?”

  “Yes,” said Chen as he took up a position by the pinrail.

  “Now, unloop the line and pull.”

  Chen untied the line and gave it a yank. The mannequin rose easily off the stage toward the fly gallery. The cops were impressed. Fong signalled Chen to drop the line back in. He did and the mannequin slid gracefully to the stage. “Do it harder, Chen.”

  Chen did and the mannequin moved faster toward the fly gallery. “Let it back down, Chen.” The dummy moved smoothly back to the stage. “Now do it hand over hand as fast as you can?”

  Chen did and the mannequin moved rapidly all the way up to the fly gallery and stayed there.

  Fong shook his head and began to pace. Chen approached him. “It works, sir. With the counterweights, the murderer didn’t need to get Mr. Hyland to climb the ladder. So it answers that question, doesn’t it?”

  “That question, perhaps, Captain Chen.”

  “But it shows how someone could have hanged Mr. Hyland.”

  “Partly.”

  “Why partly? The counterweights make it easy enough to lift him.”

  “Fine, Chen, but how did they get the noose around his neck? He wasn’t drugged. Even if you could get the noose around his neck, how do you stop him from taking it off if he’s in the centre of the stage and you are all the way over stage left at the pinrail?” Then Fong stopped and looked at the scuffmark on the stage-right proscenium arch. He flipped open his cell phone and punched the speed dial for Forensics. “Lily, have you done the paint match yet?”

  “Yes. Very simple. The paint on the arch and Mr. Hyland’s shoe match.”

  “Thanks, Lily,” Fong said and snapped shut his phone.

  Fong took off his right shoe and tossed it to a cop standing by the pinrail door. “Smear mud on that.” The man was about to ask why then thought better of it when he saw the set of Fong’s jaw. Moments later, he returned and gave Fong his now muddy shoe. Fong took the shoe and put it on the mannequin’s right foot, lacing it up, careful not to get mud on his hands. “Bring the mannequin over beside you at the pinrail, Captain Chen.” He did. “Now put the noose around its neck. You’ll have to let in more line to do it.”

  Fong closed his eyes for a moment. A new horrific image was ready to force its way into the sack around his heart, increasing the ghostly weight yet again.

  “It’s ready, sir,” said Chen

  “Now pull hard, hand ov
er hand.”

  Fong hopped down off the stage and headed to the back of the auditorium.

  “Ready, sir?” Chen called out.

  Fong didn’t turn around; he didn’t have to. “Yes, Chen. I’m ready.” Fong knew exactly what would happen.

  The mannequin rose out of stage left in a large arch, flew across the stage like the base of a pendulum. The mannequin’s right shoe hit just above the scuffmark on the stage-right proscenium, leaving a muddy slash, and then the mannequin swung obscenely back and forth as it was hauled to its resting place just below the centre of the proscenium arch.

  Chen was ecstatic. “Right. Perfect . . . ” But he stopped before he completed his thought.

  Fong had left the theatre. He now knew two things for sure that he’d been uncertain of before. He knew that it was possible to hang Geoff and that Geoff’s hanging was the work of at least two people: one to put the noose around Geoff’s neck, one to pull the counterweighted flyline.

  Sometimes knowledge sets you free. Sometimes it makes you want to puke.

  Standing in the shadows at the back of the auditorium, Li Chou didn’t want to puke. He wanted to jump for joy. He already had motive: jealousy – and now he had means: counterweights. All he needed was opportunity.

  As the men packed up the equipment, Captain Chen found Fong outside the theatre. “That leads to something else, doesn’t it, sir?”

  Fong nodded. “My place is just around the corner. Let’s talk there.”

  Once in Fong’s rooms, Chen didn’t know where to look. His wife, Lily, had lived here with Fong. The shadowed outline of the antique lintel piece she had bought that caused so much trouble was still on the wall beside the window.

  A letter from the condo people awaited Fong on the floor just inside the door. He opened it and was informed that he had only two weeks left “to make his intentions known.” It went on to suggest to him that an “insider’s price” like this was a once-in-alifetime thing. Ignoring Chen, Fong went into the bedroom and put the “offer sheet” on his desk. So much money to buy what was already his. When had this place that he and Fu Tsong had loved in stopped being his? When had it become theirs? Whoever they were. He remembered the French guys with blueprints and “bum-winged” silk jackets and their Beijing keeper with the raspberry-stained cheek.

  So they were the ones who offered him the special insider’s price. And what a price! He moved the offer sheet to the top-left corner of his desk. Then to the top-right corner. Then to the centre – yep, everywhere he put the thing, the price was still completely beyond his means, way beyond. The only people he knew who had this kind of money were people he had arrested and were now spending time in jail. How could anyone, anywhere, make this kind of money, let alone have it just lying around to spend on buying back something that was already theirs?

  Finally he made a decision. He folded the damn thing and shoved it in the desk drawer. That felt better. Then he remembered that Chen was waiting for him in the other room. When he entered, Chen was looking out the window at the courtyard with the ludicrous Henry Moore–esque statue in it. “Tea, Captain Chen?”

  Chen nodded and Fong poured hot water from a large Thermos he kept on the floor into a simple ceramic teapot. “So this was definitely a murder then, sir?” asked Chen bluntly.

  “A murder made to look like a suicide,” said Fong as he swirled the water around inside the pot to get the tea to infuse the liquid.

  “Then shouldn’t we start with opportunity, sir?” asked Captain Chen.

  Fong noted the strength in Chen’s voice, wondered about it for a moment then nodded. He poured the hot liquid into a clean jelly jar and held it out to Chen.

  The man didn’t take the proffered cha. “Keys for the theatre then? Isn’t that where we should start? Who had keys to get into the theatre. Keys provide opportunity. Opportunity is the place we should start.”

  Fong nodded. Chen took the cha. Fong hesitated. Suddenly new vistas of danger were opening as this very sturdy, very dogged cop stood before him drinking his tea. “Let’s get a list of those who have keys to the theatre, Chen.”

  “Shouldn’t the custodian have a list, sir?”

  Fong thought of saying that he would pick up the list then put that idea aside. He would just have to weather the storm that list would let loose.

  “Surely he’d know who has keys,” said Chen.

  Again Fong nodded – that old man knew. He knew too much.

  The old geezer rummaged through a stack of papers on the floor and mumbled angrily. Chen stood patiently waiting for the standard Shanghanese complaints about authority to run their course. They finally did. “Keys? It’s keys you want? To the theatre?”

  “No,” Chen almost shouted. The man was clearly hard of hearing but it was also possible that he was delaying for some reason. “I want to know who has keys to the theatre.”

  Then the man brightened and pushed aside a desk to get at an old filing cabinet. He opened it by twisting the handle and giving it two sharp knocks to the side – your basic Soviet-made locking mechanism. The cabinet, surprisingly, had only one tall drawer. The old man took out several large, mounted, theatre posters and dropped them onto the desk with a thud.

  The poster on top featured a lithograph of a profoundly beautiful actress. Chen read the information. The play was by an English playwright whose name he didn’t recognize. But the name of the actress was extremely familiar – Fu Tsong. Chen looked at the image, the exquisite skin, the deep deep eyes, and marvelled.

  “She was more than just a looker,” said the old custodian. “She made birds sing in the trees when she acted. I never missed a performance when she was acting. And her Peking Opera work was . . . ” Unable to find the words, he waved his liver-spotted hands like a fan in front of his face. Then he smiled unabashedly showing off an almost toothless maw.

  “Have you found the list of theatre keyholders?”

  “Yep,” the man replied and handed over a muchrumpled pad of paper and then returned to admiring Fu Tsong’s likeness.

  Chen read the handwritten list on the top page. Names were printed, then a signature appeared beside each name. Chen assumed you signed out the keys. The list was predictable: Mr. Hyland as director had one, as did his two Canadian producers, as did the old man in front of him – those names were expected. Chen flipped through the following pages. Each entry was signed and then crossed off when the key was returned. Nineteen pages later he saw the first entry that had not been crossed off. The name there was Zhong Fong.

  Back in Fong’s office on the Bund, Chen reported most of his findings.

  “I’ll want to interview each of the keyholders at the office. Out of courtesy we’ll see the custodian in his room.”

  “No need, sir. He gave me an alibi for the time in question and it checks out.” Now it was Chen who hesitated.

  Fong stood. “There were more keyholders?”

  Captain Chen nodded.

  “Tell me,” said Fong knowing full well his name and signature ought to be on the list.

  “You’re the only other name on the list, sir.”

  Fong nodded. “Want my alibi, Captain Chen?”

  Captain Chen looked past Fong, out the window, to the Bund. Fong felt for the young man, trapped between his admiration for him and his need to do the right thing. Fong sighed. “I took Xiao Ming to the theatre and brought her back to you and Lily by 10:30 p.m. The rest of the night I was home. Alone. Reading. Not much of an alibi is it?”

  Chen didn’t meet Fong’s eyes.

  Fong took a step toward Chen. The younger man backed away. “I’ve told you that this is a political place. You must protect yourself in a situation like this, Captain Chen.” The country cop nodded and finally met Fong’s eyes. “Tell the next in command about my name on the list then arrange for me to interrogate the other keyholders.”

  Captain Chen bore the brunt of much mockery from Li Chou and his men. But this afternoon they were not busy thinking up nasty c
racks about his appearance. This time they offered him a seat and listened carefully to his story about theatre keys, keyholders and Zhong Fong.

  Li Chou had to stop himself from chuckling and rubbing his chubby hands together as he closed his office door behind Chen. All would be inappropriate under the circumstances but all were burbling up inside him. Motive – jealousy; means – counterweights that Fong had deviously pointed out to all and sundry; opportunity – Fong lived literally two minutes away from the theatre because his wife had been a star there and he had a key. His name and signature were on the caretaker’s list.

  A knock at his door. “The commissioner wants to see you in his office now, sir.”

  Li Chou nodded. Of course he does. After the report he put on the man’s desk about Fong’s history with the dead Westerner, what else could he possibly want?

  Li Chou stood up and did his best to straighten his jacket. His weight was beginning to show. “That damned cheese my wife likes so much,” he thought. It never occurred to him that he was not being forcefed the Western-style sweet dairy confection. Be that as it may, he now had girth where there did not used to be girth.

  “I want Chen followed,” he said to his men. “He may lead us to even more interesting information.”

  This was a good day. A very good day. Passing by Fong’s office, he nigh on clicked his heels and Shrug and Knock smiled broadly. But when he got to the commissioner’s office, his joyful bubble burst all over his puffed-out chest.

  “This report is garbage. Nothing more than speculation. Why are you wasting your time on this?”

  Li Chou couldn’t believe it. He was sure that the commissioner was as anxious to rid the police force of Zhong Fong as he was. Here was the perfect opportunity and the man was letting it pass by. Why?

  “Have you shared this with your men?”

  “No, sir,” he lied.

  “Good. Don’t. And that’s an order.” The commissioner slid Li Chou’s report into the shredder beside his desk and flipped a switch. A brief electric humming followed and shortly thereafter Fong’s comeuppance was little more than strips of indecipherable text.