The Borrowed

by Chan Ho-Kei

  ‘Weren’t you afraid of hurting Yue Chin-yau?’

  ‘That wouldn’t happen. She might believe Yuen Man-bun to be a good husband who’d never treat her badly, but Wing-lai was the product of rape. She’d be sad if Man-bun were to die, but as for Wing-lai, only Man-bun knew the truth about his parentage and would feel sorrow. And because he couldn’t tell anyone the truth, he would have to hide his grief in front of the household – no more than he deserved.’

  ‘Why wait till Yue Wing-lai was almost twenty before you struck? I thought you’d learned the truth from the Triad guy a decade after the event.’

  ‘I’m not the sort of idiot who trusts whatever some two-bit gangster tells me. I only believe my own eyes. Heaven was good to me, and in 1990, I received a gift.’

  ‘What gift would that be?’

  ‘The DNA Testing Centre at Wo Yan Hospital.’

  Lok remembered that Wo Yan was indeed the first medical centre in Hong Kong to have brought in DNA-testing RFLP technology. As well as uncovering hereditary conditions, it could also be used to confirm blood relationships.

  ‘As the private secretary of the consortium’s director, it was child’s play to arrange for the entire family to undergo a complete physical examination. Just a drop of blood would do – it wasn’t hard to use the boss-man’s name to secretly run a couple of tests.’

  The inspector grew certain that he was facing a formidable opponent – one who must have been every inch a match for Yuen Man-bun.

  ‘Why didn’t you seek revenge against the second son, Wing-yee?’

  ‘Who says I didn’t?’

  Inspector Lok stared in surprise at the other man.

  ‘Who do you think gave him the idea that he’d killed his older brother?’ said Old Tong. His tone was deadpan, but Inspector Lok could tell he was suppressing a smile.

  The inspector could see the whole thing now. Wing-yee had said it was Old Tong who gave him the joke can. Probably he also encouraged the boy to place it in his brother’s car, and after the accident, would have murmured, ‘Young master, don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone what you did,’ affecting the child’s judgement. For someone as cunning as this, it would be simplicity itself to manipulate a nine-year-old kid.

  ‘So Yue Wing-lim...’

  ‘I’ve never told him I’m his biological father, just quietly taken care of him. Even without knowing the truth, under my influence, he came to share my thoughts, my hatred for Yuen Man-bun. After Chin-yau died, he happened to come across a couple of DNA reports – now, who could have left those lying around for him to see? – and I “had no choice” but to tell him how Yuen Man-bun had assaulted and deceived his mother back in the day.’

  DNA reports, Inspector Lok guessed, showing that Yuen Man- bun was related to Yue Wing-Lai, and that Old Tong himself was Wing-Lim’s father.

  Inspector Lok mumbled to himself. ‘Already on edge from the hundredth day anniversary of his mother’s death, Wing-Lim confronted Yuen Man-Bun, asking if he’d raped his mother, and in his agitation attacked him with the vase, then wrestled over whether to get rid of this hated man. With the second blow, he made up his mind to commit murder. Then the sequence of events we imagined yesterday. To get vengeance for his mother, he’d kill someone like this. Did Yue Wing-Lim never talk about his own identity? Right, he wouldn’t want to mention his mother’s affair, because he respected her too much to trash her reputation even when confronting his enemy. And so Yuen Man-bun would rather die than reveal what had happened. He thought his son was just taking revenge for his mother. Before dying he even looked at the photo album – he must have regretted what he’d done to Chin-yau...’

  ‘Wrong!’ yelled Old Tong. ‘That man regretted nothing! He only missed the bastard who toppled off the cliff, and in his last moments wanted to relive his glory days. That scum still had the fake accounts he used forty years ago to steal company money to bribe those gangsters with. I’m sure it wasn’t to cover his tracks, but as a trophy! The first souvenir of his road to success!’

  ‘Anyway, Yue Wing-lim carried out this murder solo, without any urging from you.’

  ‘Hypothetically, yes.’

  ‘You’re sending your own son to prison. Can you live with that?’

  ‘What son do I have?’

  ‘But isn’t Wing-lim...’

  ‘I said “supposing”! I don’t have a son!’ Old Tong smiled craftily. ‘The police are free to test my and Wing-lim’s DNA – you won’t find any blood tie between us. Just think. Wouldn’t the most perfect revenge be to have your enemy killed by his own son?’

  Inspector Lok was tongue-tied.

  Old Tong continued calmly, ‘The first step would be to kill the eldest son just as the youngest was born. Their father would believe rumours that the child was unlucky and would bring harm to the family, so they would become estranged. That’s when the plotter would make sure to grow closer to the youngest child, allowing him to feel a father’s love from another source. Add in a fake DNA report, and twenty years later this scenario would spell success. As the plotter wouldn’t actually be related to the youngest son, even if the boy were to say something, he’d be unable to prove it. But I think this child will keep his promise, and not say a word against his “natural father”. He’d rather make some excuse like his father forcing him into business, to take the guilt upon himself.’

  So that’s why Old Tong was so forthcoming – Inspector Lok now saw where this confidence had come from. He was right; the string of suppositions wasn’t sufficient to prove his guilt. The physical evidence had vanished, and all that was left was testimony, which alone would never convict him. As long as Old Tong refused to admit his guilt, Yue Wing-lim’s words would be taken at face value.

  Old Tong’s speech was the final scene in his drama of revenge – and Inspector Lok was the audience.

  Inspector Lok felt a chill through his heart. If he wasn’t able to stop this brilliant, evil man today, how many more people would be hurt? Perhaps Yuen Man-bun had got what was coming to him, but his three children were innocent. And even if Lok could persuade prosecutors to drop the murder charge, Wing- lim was very likely to be found guilty of manslaughter. Then there was the unjustified guilt Wing-yee had shouldered for twenty years, let alone Wing-lai’s accidental death – all their lives had been snatched away by this monster.

  The car turned to enter the main gates of Police Headquarters.

  ‘Inspector Lok, I’ve enjoyed our little chat, but I believe you’re only allowed to detain me for forty-eight hours, and you certainly won’t find any evidence within that time. Yuen Man-bun’s death has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I don’t need forty-eight hours. I imagine you’ll be arraigned and formally charged by tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, and how would that happen? Everything I said was a supposition, just a joke. You won’t be able to find anything connecting me to the Yuen Man-bun case.’

  ‘Who said anything about Yuen Man-bun? I’m arresting you under suspicion of the murder of retired Superintendent Kwan Chun-dok last night.’

  Old Tong gaped at him.

  ‘How... you... you have no proof.’ His response wasn’t ‘Superintendent Kwan is dead?’ nor a rebuttal of the charge, but this stiff little statement of self-defence.

  ‘I do.’ Inspector Lok pulled out his smartphone and tapped on the screen. Old Tong took one look and almost fainted – it was the hospital room, and a man sneaking in to switch the IV bag.

  The man in the video was Old Tong.

  ‘That’s not possible... yesterday... you’d put away the camera... I didn’t notice...’ He was panicking.

  Inspector Lok didn’t even look at him. ‘I don’t care about Yuen Man-bun’s case. I have hard evidence now that you tried to kill Kwan Chun-dok. We found a large dose of morphine in the IV bag, as well as the gloves and phials you discarded. Today the pathologist will carry out an autopsy, which, together with this video clip, should be enough to put you away.’

  ‘N
o, that’s not possible... This was a patient in the late stages of liver cancer, no doctor could be sure of the cause of death... Ah!’ Suddenly he started screaming, ‘It was you! You laid a trap for me! This was all a plot.’

  Ah Sing opened the car door and several officers caught hold of Old Tong. He didn’t stop roaring as Lok ordered, ‘Put him in a holding cell for now, I’ll deal with him later.’

  The inspector stayed in the back seat of the car, watching as Ah Sing led the struggling man away. He didn’t move for a long time.

  ‘Sifu, did I do well?’ he murmured.

  A week earlier, while examining the speargun, he’d already noticed the discrepancy – a 115 cm gun couldn’t possibly shoot a 115 cm harpoon. The investigators quickly found the real weapon, which yielded the killer’s DNA. Normal procedure would have been simply to request a DNA sample from everyone in the Yue household in order to determine who was guilty, but he’d felt something was wrong.

  The scene of the crime was just too bizarre. The two injuries to the back of the head, the incompetent murder method, the victim choosing to look at a photo album instead of seeking help... it didn’t add up.

  And so, he did what his mentor would have done, and adopted an unorthodox method.

  First, he summoned the suspects to the station for questioning, but also so he could surreptitiously harvest their DNA by offering them drinks, then sending their cups to the lab.

  DNA evidence showed the murderer was Yue Wing-lim.

  Knowing the killer’s identity deepened the mystery. No combination of means, method and motive made any sense, and the inspector grew certain there must have been some kind of plot behind this, or that someone had incited Wing-lim to kill.

  When Old Tong stated so emphatically, ‘Yue Wing-lim would never kill his own father,’ that only strengthened his belief in his instincts. This old fellow was a first-rate chancer.

  After accompanying Superintendent Kwan for so many years, Inspector Lok had encountered quite a few worthy opponents, and learned to detect that whiff of the extraordinary from their every move and gesture. Old Tong gave him that sensation, and even without evidence, the inspector knew this old man was at the centre of the case.

  The problem was, given the bureaucratic system they worked under, his superiors weren’t going to accept his instincts as proof. Yuen Man-bun was an important figure in the business world, and the case would devolve into a tangle of government, police, financial and societal interests.

  ‘I’m guessing it’s when you can’t solve the case that you need to make this kind of fuss, to show your superiors you’re trying?’ Yue Wing-lim’s sarcastic words had touched on the truth. Inspector Lok had indeed received orders from his boss to crack the case as quickly as possible, to shut the public up and remove the impression that the police were incompetent.

  Lok’s worry had been that the younger man would take on all the guilt, and his superiors would close the case without seeing any need to investigate further. ‘Don’t cause trouble for yourself’ was the ethos of today’s civil servants and police higher-ups, only interested in generating reports and keeping their positions. The truth didn’t interest them. Yet to Inspector Lok, bringing the real killer to justice was the only mission of the police. He couldn’t accept anyone committing a crime and walking free – his true loyalty was to the people of Hong Kong.

  In this difficult position, he thought of his mentor.

  ‘Sonny... just let me die...’ This had been Kwan Chun-dok’s plea the umpteenth time he regained consciousness, several days before the Yuen Man-bun case.

  ‘Sir, don’t talk nonsense... The best detective of his generation shouldn’t just give in to death like that,’ said Sonny Lok, clutching the superintendent’s hand.

  ‘This... this isn’t giving in...’ Kwan Chun-dok fought for breath, spitting each word out. ‘I just don’t want to linger on... What’s the point of prolonging my existence with machines and medicine... My brain is all confused... I hurt all over... I think... I’ve finished my life’s work... it’s time to go...’

  ‘Sir...’

  ‘But... but Sonny... life is precious... don’t waste it... Sonny... I give you my life... make good use of it...’

  ‘Sir, what on earth do you mean?’

  ‘I’m giving you the rest of my life... do what I would do... look beyond the rules... don’t let me die in vain...’

  With a chill, Sonny Lok understood what his mentor meant. He wasn’t one of those cops who followed every rule and regulation, but still the superintendent’s parting instructions left him with no alternative.

  ‘Sonny...’

  ‘I understand,’ said Lok, after a long time. He squeezed out a smile. ‘Still “Uncle Dok”, after all.’

  ‘Ha... I’ll see my wife again soon... she must be waiting impatiently... Sonny... take care of yourself... don’t forget what the police are here for...’

  And for just a second, Sonny Lok glimpsed past glories in his mentor’s failing eyes.

  The following day, Kwan’s blood ammonia levels spiked, leaving him in a coma. Doctors told Lok that his organs had deteriorated so much, he might never wake again. The cancer cells had spread too far.

  Just as the inspector was wondering how to put his mentor’s parting words into action, the Yue case came up. The more he looked into it, the clearer it became that conventional methods wouldn’t reveal the truth. He was at the poker table with no chips and a weak hand.

  It seemed like fate – Kwan Chun-dok would be his trump card.

  Caught on the back foot, Inspector Lok went on the offensive and set a trap – with his mentor as bait. Kwan would have wanted it this way.

  And sure enough, the old detective’s life wasn’t wasted.

  The apparatus to measure brain waves actually did work, as Old Tong demonstrated, so the suspects were convinced it was the unconscious detective solving this case. But as Choi Ting said, no one would be able to control their thoughts with such accuracy. Kwan Chun-dok’s supposed responses were, in fact, all engineered by the inspector. Apple owed the superintendent a favour, so Lok asked her to build the machine and connect it to two pedals. If Lok pushed down with his left foot, the pointer would move to YES, while his right foot produced a NO. With the hospital bed in the way, only Apple and Ah Sing could see the movement of his legs.

  At the last moment, the inspector asked Apple to add a pop-up error message, meaning she had to change the program on the spot – fortunately, she managed this in time, and everything went as planned. She hadn’t expected Lok to be such a good actor, answering his own questions convincingly, completely fooling the suspects into believing Superintendent Kwan truly was a genius who could solve crimes while unconscious. As the inspector suspected Old Tong was most likely to be manipulating Yue Wing-lim behind the scenes, he made sure the old man was the one who tried on the band, so he’d be firmly convinced the superintendent was calling the shots.

  Inspector Lok had already gathered enough evidence from the scene of the crime to have more or less deduced the sequence of events. He had to pretend ignorance, making use of his mentor to point out inconsistencies, so the true murderer would believe the patient in the hospital bed had a complete grasp of the situation. Superintendent Kwan had taught him that misleading your opponent is an effective tactic, the way mediums make use of psychology to cheat people, creating the impression that they can commune with spirits through the use of ambiguous words. Lok knew next to nothing about Yue Chin-yau and Yue Wing-lai’s past, but had sensed a reserve towards the late eldest son while carrying out his investigations, and also noticed Wing-lai’s date of birth was a little too close to his parents’ marriage. Added to the recent death of Chin-yau, who seemed to have been the nucleus of this family, it seemed likely there were some secrets here. And so he teased his audience by drawing back each time he seemed about to reveal the murderer, dazzling them, leading the conversation back to those two earlier deaths, inducing them to reveal facts no outsider k
new, falsely claiming his mentor deduced the truth from their words alone. The inspector also knew very well that the identification of Wing-lai’s real father could be no more than conjecture, but in this charged atmosphere, no one would be able to look at the matter objectively and ask questions.

  Because of ‘Kwan Chun-dok’s’ preternatural performance, Old Tong began to worry there might be a flaw in the plan he’d been working on for so many years. That error message was the final bit of bait: what had the genius detective been about to say? Was he about to point out a flaw in the story that he, Tong, hadn’t noticed?

  These worries niggled away at Old Tong, growing larger in his mind. Inspector Lok was sure to let everyone know he and Apple planned to visit the ward again the following morning. Under such pressure, even the most cunning criminal might make the wrong choice.

  And sure enough, Old Tong tried to cover his tracks, but instead ended up tying the noose around his own neck.

  When Yue Chin-yau was dying of pancreatic cancer, the man who’d secretly loved her all along, Old Tong, visited her daily together with her youngest son. As a result, he knew the workings of the hospital very well, including where medicines were kept, when visiting hours ended, how to inject someone with morphine... He also learned the effects of morphine on the human body, and so thought of this method to kill Kwan Chun-dok. An overdose of morphine constricts the respiratory system, causing the victim to suffocate – also the way many cancer patients die, meaning the hospital wouldn’t find his passing suspicious. Essentially, this murder would have been foolproof – if someone hadn’t been lying in wait.

  Old Tong hadn’t missed anything; the cameras had indeed been cleared away. What he didn’t know was that the two computers left behind by Apple had been fitted with night-vision video lenses, so everything that happened would be captured and sent over the internet to her and Inspector Lok. They’d spent the night staking out the hospital from a nearby parking lot, keeping an eye on the room. The moment Old Tong struck, Inspector Lok felt a great jolt of sorrow, but also relief that his mentor wouldn’t have to suffer any longer.