by M J Lee
Dr. Fang put his noodles down on a table next to the head of the corpse and rose to meet Danilov. ‘Good morning, Inspector Danilov, you have caught me in the middle of my breakfast.’
Danilov often wondered how a man could live and work in a place like this. And Dr Fang did live here and sometimes he slept here. Danilov could see his neatly made bed through the open door of an adjoining store room. But despite everything he always wore a pristine white coat, a bright bow-tie and over-large tortoiseshell glasses that made him look like a preternaturally thriving owl.
He shook the doctor’s hand and the overpowering sense of loss washed over him again. He forced himself to smile. ‘Good to see you again, Doctor. I wish we could meet in more pleasant circumstances.’
The doctor looked around the morgue as if suggesting that there was nothing wrong with his place of work. ‘But I couldn’t meet you at the station, Inspector. I need to show you the bodies.’
‘Yes, of course, I didn’t mean that. I thought that we should meet when we are not working.’
‘But I’m always working, Inspector. Too many bodies, too little time. I’ve got three stabbings and a heart attack waiting for me as we speak.’ The doctor pushed his glasses back onto the non-existent bridge of his nose. ‘Detective Sergeant Strachan not with you this time?’
The doctor had saved Strachan’s life by giving him an emergency tracheotomy after he had been shot on Garden Bridge not far from the morgue. It was the first time he had saved a living body rather than examine a dead one.
‘Not today.’
‘And how’s his voice?’
‘Still a little rough around the edges. But it gives him maturity.’
‘I should have been more precise with my cut. I’ve read up on it since, two-tenths of an inch higher would have been just as effective.’
‘I don’t think Strachan is complaining. He’s still alive.’
‘How can I help you, Inspector?’
‘I’m here about the murder of the Lee family.’
‘I thought that was Inspector Cowan’s case?’
‘It is. I’m helping out.’ Danilov hated lying to the one man he really respected in Shanghai.
‘I hope he got the preliminary findings I sent across this morning.’
‘I’m sure he did. But now that I’m here, I wonder if you could take me through the autopsies yourself?’
‘Of course, Inspector, I believe you can understand far more by seeing my work than reading any report. Shall we proceed?’
Danilov nodded.
The doctor walked over to a table in the rear of the morgue. He removed a white sheet that had been covering the body on the silver table, folding it neatly and placing it on the floor. He picked up his notes from an adjoining table, where they lay next to the heart and a pair of kidneys.
‘Mr Lee Hsiao Fong, male, Chekiang native from Ningpo, aged 42 years old. Height 5 feet 9 inches, weight 152 pounds on arrival.’
‘You weigh all your bodies?’
‘We have to be thorough, Inspector. Time of death, approximately 9.30 pm. For once, we have a fairly accurate time.’
Danilov nodded. Listening to the doctor’s voice, he suddenly experienced a flood of bile surge from his chest into his throat. What was happening? He had attended countless post-mortems in his life and never felt like this before.
He swallowed his saliva and nodded again.
The doctor continued. ‘There were two bullet wounds in this man. The first was to the upper right side of the chest, a painful wound but non-lethal if the victim had been taken to the hospital quickly. Any half-professional surgeon would have been able to save his life.’ The doctor sniffed, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. ‘However, death occurred from a bullet to the frontal cranial lobe of the brain.’ He pointed to a small round hole in the forehead. Or where the forehead would have been if the skin had not been peeled back away from the scalp to lie in two long flaps on the stainless steel of the table.
‘The shot was taken from close to the victim. There was evidence of gunpowder residue on the skin of the face, neck and, of course, the forehead and hair.’
‘How close, Doctor?’
‘I wouldn’t like to guess. I deal in facts, Inspector, not suppositions, or don’t you remember?’
‘I remember, Doctor, the facts are all we need right now.’
‘Good. The shot was taken from close to the victim, within six feet, and had an upward trajectory of between thirty-five and forty degrees.’
‘You can be sure, Doctor?’
‘Yes, the angle of trajectory of entry into the skull and brain was fairly easy to see.’
‘So that would suggest that the shooter was a small person.’
‘Not necessarily, Inspector. It depends on where they were holding the gun. At the hip close to the body or with an extended arm.’
‘But either way, they would have had to be shorter than the victim for that angle of trajectory.’
‘Yes, that would be true, Inspector.’
‘That’s interesting. Please carry on, Doctor.’
‘Now, let us move on to the brain itself.’ The doctor leaned forward and gently removed the top of the skull, holding it in his hands as one would lift the lid of a teapot. ‘If you look closely, Inspector.’ He motioned Danilov forward with his free hand. Danilov took a step closer, leant over the body and its lifeless eyes, to peer under the trepanned skull at the mass of pink tissue that lay beneath the bone.
‘See, it’s made a frightful mess of the brain. But there’s no exit wound.’ He lowered the top of the skull and reached around the back of the head, lifting it like a lover caressing his girlfriend.
Danilov leant even further over to see that there was no exit wound in the back of the head. The feeling of nausea had passed now. This was no longer a human being, just another set of medical statistics and information. The brain that had once been full of feelings and emotions, love and hate, anger and calm was just a mush of soft pink tissue. The image of the iced melon drinks sold by the street hawkers from their carts in summer flashed into his mind. He dismissed it with a quick shake of the head.
‘It took me a while, but I managed to extricate the bullet.’ The doctor held up a small, misshapen lump of lead the size of a fingernail. ‘A .38, I think. But I’m sure your armourers will know better and I wouldn’t like to speculate.’
‘If I could take it with me, Doctor?’
‘Of course, Inspector. But please remember to sign the forms before you leave.’
The Inspector nodded once more.
‘I believe the bullet entered the forehead, but if you observe the skull, it’s much thicker than normal.’ He lifted the trepanned skull once again and touched the edge of it with his fingernail. ‘There’s a mark on the inside of the roof where the bullet struck. It didn’t have the velocity to escape the head, so simply ricocheted off the skull and around the brain.’
‘Like a drunken boxer off the ropes.’
‘Exactly, Inspector. Death was almost instantaneous. He must have dropped where he was shot.’
For once, silence descended on both of them. It was broken by Danilov. ‘Professional,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘I couldn’t possibly comment, Inspector.’
‘Of course not, Doctor, I was thinking out loud.’
‘I deal in facts, not speculation, Inspector. I have just a few more observations I would like to share with you.’ He pointed to the man’s head, ‘See the eyes?’
Danilov was forced to look back at the skinned face with its eyes protruding from the red raw flesh.
‘A definite yellow tinge to the whites. Evidence of extensive opium use.’
‘He was an addict?’
‘Addict? Such a loaded word, Inspector. Suggesting behaviour that was out of his control. I have no opinion whether he smoked opium for pleasure or for habit, merely that he smoked it often.’
For a moment, Dr Fang stared at Danilov before l
ooking back at the corpse. ‘One other thing, I would suggest this man held a position as a clerk or a writer of some sort. He lifted up the hands. ‘Ink stains and recent. He had been writing when he was killed. Soft hands, not those of a manual worker.’
‘His card says he was an accountant.’
‘That explains it. Dangerous profession, accountant.’
Dr Fang replaced the sheet, covering the man’s face. He strode quickly to the next slab. On it lay a woman, her body decorated with rough stitching in the shape of a Y.
‘This woman, Mrs Lee Veh Fong, aged 27, a native of Shanghai according to my notes, had been shot once.’ He lifted the body to reveal the back. ‘See? The entry wound went in here.’
Danilov observed a small hole at the base of the spine. Dr Fang returned her to the slab. There was a much larger hole in her stomach.
‘The exit wound is clearly visible. This wound didn’t kill her immediately. Most of the major organs and the spine were missed by the bullet.’
‘What do you mean, it didn’t kill her?’
Dr Fang pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. ‘Oh, she would have died eventually without medical help. Bled to death. Or died from shock. Or blood poisoning. But these wounds are not immediately fatal. Many people survived for days during the war with such injuries. It took me a while to see it but once I did, it was as clear as one of Longfellow’s poems.’
‘I don’t understand, Dr Fang.’
He picked up a silver metal pointer and indicated the neck. ‘See here, Inspector. Red petechiae around the eyes.’ He leant forward and used the tip of his index fingers to lift up the eyelid. ‘The small blood vessels in the eyeball are broken.’ He closed the eyelid gently. ‘Bruising around the hyoid bone, here and here. If you look closely, you can even see the marks made by the killer’s fingers.’
‘She was strangled?’
‘Definitely, Inspector. Cause of death, manual strangulation.’
‘Not shot?’
‘As I have just said, Inspector. Strangled, not shot.’ The doctor’s voice betrayed some annoyance that anyone would dare to question his findings.
‘Why was she strangled? Why not just shoot her again?’
‘I don’t know, Inspector. That’s a question that you will have to answer. As a pathologist, I merely report what happened, not the reasons for its occurrence.’
‘Thank you, Doctor. I will find out. I must find out.’
Dr Fang coughed. ‘Moving on.’ He turned to the next slab and lifted the sheet there. ‘Our third victim. A young boy, name of Lee Man Ho.’ He checked the tag tied to the boy’s toe. ‘Aged approximately eight years old. In good health except for the rather large cut across his throat.’
Dr Fang pointed to the deep slash across the boy’s neck. Danilov could see the pale white of the Adam’s apple through the layers of cut flesh.
‘A deep cut, slashing the right internal carotid artery, the hyoid bone and the thyroid cartilage. The boy would have bled extensively, drowning in his own blood.’ Dr Fang pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose once again. ‘Not a pleasant death for an 8-year-old.’
For a moment, Danilov saw the human behind the carapace the doctor had built up over the years. The human that saw an 8-year-old boy full of hopes and dreams and potential rather than another body lying on a slab.
‘Yes, not a pleasant death.’ And with a cough he was back to being the pathologist. ‘His throat was cut from right to left. See how the knife entry is much deeper close to the right ear and the wound gradually becomes shallow. A left-handed man I would say. Grabbed the boy from behind and slit his throat.’ Dr Fang mimed the action for the Inspector.
‘Thank you, Dr Fang, I understand.’
The doctor covered the young boy and walked across the aisle to another slab. ‘Our final victim of that evening.’
He pulled back the covers to reveal the face of a young girl, white, drained of blood and life. For a second, Danilov saw the face of Elina lying there against the stainless steel of the table. A lifeless Elina.
‘A young girl, Miss Lee Man Feng, aged approximately thirteen years old. Shot twice in the chest.’
‘Not in the head this time?’
‘No. The killer spared her face.’ Dr Fang showed a glass jar with two metal fragments lying at the bottom. ‘I extracted the bullets for you. I’m not an expert, but I would say it was the same gun that killed her father.’
‘Same killer?’
‘I wouldn’t know, Inspector, but the same calibre of bullet. I’m sure your armourers will tell you more. The young girl suffered from polio by the way. I doubt she would have walked again, the damage to the muscles was extensive.’
‘Poor girl.’
Dr Fang coughed again, clearing his throat, somehow removing any remembrance that this girl had once been alive. ‘There is extensive bruising on the legs, thighs and arms.’
‘Caused by the killer?’
‘I think not. There are old and new sites for the bruising. This girl had been beaten for many weeks before she died.’
‘Beaten? Why?’
‘I have no idea, Inspector. I do believe it’s your job to find out. One last thing. Notice her right hand.’
Danilov stared at the long, pointed fingers. A delicate, almost artistic hand.
‘I’m afraid I had to force it open when I retrieved the letter.’
‘What letter?’
‘The one I sent to Inspector Cowan yesterday after my initial examination.’
Danilov stared down at the body of the young girl lying against the stainless steel of the mortuary table. She had been so alive once and now all that remained was a shell.
‘Rigor mortis had set in by the time I examined her. I had to break her hand to take it from her. It was a letter from her cousin in Beijing, talking about a holiday they were going to have in Nanking. She had folded it up into a small square and hidden it in the palm of her hand.’
‘A letter?’
Dr Fang nodded. ‘I only mention it because it struck me as strange. Why would a young woman, suffering from advanced polio, use her last moments to reach for a letter and hide it in the palm of her hand?’
‘I don’t know, Doctor. But I’m sure I’ll find out. And I will discover why her mother was strangled after she was shot.’
Chapter 32
Strachan stood in front of the Lees’ house. He could see the forensic and fingerprint teams were still hard at work inside. Time to interview the neighbours. It was one of the more boring aspects of any murder investigation but also one of the most necessary. Somebody must have seen something last night.
He knocked on the door of the house on the left first. There was no answer. He knocked again, louder and longer. From inside came a sharp, querulous voice. ‘Hold your horses, I’m comin’.’
The door opened a few inches and a wrinkled face popped into view. ‘What you wan’?’
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Strachan, I would...’
‘Not interested.’ The door slammed shut in his face. Strachan banged on it again, louder this time. There was no response.
He stepped back and looked up at the first-floor window, An old woman was standing there. She quickly ducked out of sight. He shouted up at her. ‘I would like to ask you some questions about the Lees.’
After a minute, the door opened slowly and a head popped around the corner. ‘Already answered questions.’
‘I would like to ask some more. Can I come in?’
‘Ah?’ She cupped her hand to her ear.
Strachan leant forward and shouted, ‘Can I come in?’
‘No,’ was the blunt reply but the door didn’t close this time.
Strachan decided to press on before it did. ‘Did you know the Lee family well?’
‘Ah?’ The old woman turned her head to the left. ‘You’ll ’ave to speak up, young man. No point in whisperin’.’
‘Did you know the Lee family well?’ he repeated much l
ouder.
‘No need to shout. No, I didn’t. They just moved in.’
‘When was that?’
‘Stop mumblin’, speak properly. Didn’t your mother teach you to speak decent Shanghainese?’
‘When did the Lee family move in?’
‘I dunno, you’ll have to ask them. They’ll know much better than me, won’t they?’
Strachan decided that there wasn’t much point in asking any more questions. He wasn’t sure if she was just pretending to be old and senile, or whether she really was old and senile. Either way, he wasn’t going to get far.
‘Thank you for your help. I’ll go now.’
‘There’s no need to take that tone with me, young man. I’ll report you to your superiors.’
‘Thank you and goodbye.’ As Strachan turned away, the door slammed behind him. This must have been the woman Moore met on the night of the murder. No wonder he had given up. He hoped the rest of the neighbours would be more forthcoming. Time to try a different direction.
He walked past the Lee house and knocked on the building to the right of it. As the lights were on in every room, he was sure someone was at home. The door was answered immediately by a young, pretty woman in the black short jacket and trousers of a maid.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Strachan, can I speak to the owner of the house?’
‘He’s not at home, but the madam is. Do you want to speak to her?’
Strachan nodded and followed the maid across the courtyard to the open front door. He stepped into the entrance hall.
‘Please wait here.’ The entrance hall was a mirror image of the Lees’ next door. The same wooden floor and white-painted walls, but here the potted plant stood inside the house against the wall. They must have been provided by the builders, he thought. You’re not just buying a property but the lifestyle that goes with it. He must think about moving here in the future. A good neighbourhood for his mother, despite the occasional murder.
The maid appeared in the hallway. ‘Please come this way.’
He followed her into a room on the left which acted as a lounge. It was decorated in a modern style with a sofa, two armchairs, and a radio in the corner perched on a high table. A glowing fire burnt in the grate giving off heat that was a little too fierce for the autumn evening.