Lights Out

by Stopforth, W. J.

  She arrived back at her office and sat down at her desk ready to go through the robbery file but with fresh eyes. The information that Ryan had given her had totally opened up her case, but she still needed to get more on Ghost Face and Lily. They would lead her straight to the money and also the Triad gang.

  She started to work through the reports. She turned the first page and started to read. She had a lot to follow up on, and now more than ever she was missing her old partner. He was always so good at this part of the job. She missed Chow and thought about him for a moment. The investigation was still ongoing. The Chief had given the case to another team to follow up on, freeing Lam to continue with the robbery investigation, especially now that she had so much to work through. She had been interviewed and they pulled together everything they had on Chow, it didn’t amount to much. The Chief was desperate to nail this killer. “One of his own.” He had said to Lam. But they had nothing. There was no evidence left at the scene after the overnight down pour, no fingerprints, and no weapon. Just Chow’s almost decapitated body. She didn’t know why he was there, or what he’d been working on. He had nothing on his body when they found him, his wallet and ID was missing. They concluded that it may have been a tragic case of a mugging gone horribly wrong, but there was something about the way that Chow had been murdered that didn’t sit well with Lam.

  Lam sat drumming her fingers on her desk. Then she stopped suddenly, her fingers raised, hovering above the desk as though she had been momentarily frozen.

  “Oh my God.” She whispered slowly under her breath. She quickly grabbed her moleskin and scanned through her roughly scribbled notes. After flicking through the pages, she stopped and turned back one page. There it was in black and white.

  8th August, Ryan meets with Lily and ‘Ghost Face’ at a Café in TST.

  The realization dawned on Lam, like having a glass of cold water thrown on her face, bringing her to her senses. The Café in Tsim Sha Tsui, which Ryan described, was directly opposite the alleyway and the 7Eleven where they found Chow’s body.

  Chow was watching them, Lam thought horrified. He had a lead, he knew something and they killed him for it.

  ‘What did you know?’ Lam said out loud. As though Chow was in the room in front of her.

  “I don’t know, what did I know” came the reply from behind her.

  Lam jumped, swinging her chair around quickly to face Jimmy Luk. The very last person that she would discuss Chow with.

  “Nothing,” Lam said straightening up her back and closing her notebook quickly.

  “Any news for me?” She asked abruptly.

  “Well that depends. “ He teased. “ I may have a bit of information that you might be interested in.”

  “OK, I’m waiting,” Lam responded, irritation seeping into her voice.

  Jimmy walked over to Lam’s board showing all of the crime information so far. She hadn’t yet updated Rob’s or Ryan’s status, she’d do that later after Jimmy had left.

  “You were right. The rubble bags definitely were full of the cash. Twenty-six rubble bags were sent down the disposal shoot that morning from the bank. Only 16 bags were delivered to the construction site to be disposed off. The vehicle has been taken away and put in the pound. I’ve arrested the driver and he’s here, ready to be interviewed. He seems eager to talk.” Jimmy finished. Giving Lam wide smile as though he expected her to tap him on the back or give him a well-done sticker.

  Lam nodded, the best that she could muster, and stood up.

  “OK,” she said. “Let’s go and chat to our driver.”

  The driver sat in the interview room looking absolutely petrified. He was young, somewhere in his mid-twenties and wore jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt. Lam could see tattoos just showing around the wrist area below his t-shirt. His hair was cropped short. She noticed that he was sweating.

  Both DI’s sat down opposite the driver. Lam switched on the tape recorder. She spoke first.

  “Please could you state your name for the recording”.

  “Anthony Choi’, he said nervously, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “You have been brought here because you are thought to have information regarding the Bank Robbery of the World Asia Bank four days ago. Do you understand?” Lam spoke slowly and clearly as she always did during recorded interviews.

  The young man nodded.

  “Please speak so that we are clear of your understanding.”

  “Yes, I understand,” he said.

  “Please can you talk us through August 9th, starting with loading up the truck with the rubble bags.” Lam said.

  “My job that day was to load the bags of rubble, take it back to the yard, then once we’ve sorted it we dispose of it in one of our land fills. It normally take a few hours from start to finish.” He said.

  “And what was different this time.” Lam prompted.

  “I was asked to make an unscheduled stop.” He said.

  “Who asked you to make the stop?” Lam asked

  “A – A Woman”, he stuttered a little embarrassed.

  “Did she ask you in person, or over the phone?” Lam said.

  “In person. That morning I was waiting for the bags to be loaded and she just climbed into the cab next to me. She really took me by surprise.” He said, clasping his hands in front of him on the table to keep them from shaking.

  “Go on” Lam prompted.

  “Well, she went into her bag and showed me an envelope. She said that if I gave her a lift to a particular road, which was on my way to the yard, I could have the envelope. She opened it to show me. It was stuffed with cash, a lot of cash.” He said, his voice trailing off.

  “I just thought it was my lucky day. A beautiful woman climbs into my cab, and offers me money to drop her on the way to the yard. So I said OK. I was stupid.” He said, casting his eyes down.

  “So you took the woman with you, and did you drop her where she asked?” Lam said.

  “Yes, it was all a bit weird really. She wasn’t very chatty at all. She just made one phone call, I assumed to her boyfriend, and so after that I put the radio on so that it wasn’t too quiet. Then once we got close to her drop off, she guided me down a wide off ramp and into a disused quarry. There was a van waiting, I just thought it was her boyfriend or something. But then four men got out, and I got scared.” He said.

  “She told me not to worry, and to just stay in the truck. She said that they just had to pick up something that belonged to them, and before I could argue they had jumped onto the back of the truck and were throwing off the rubble bags. I thought it was so odd. Why would they want rubble? They took ten bags and loaded them into their van. Then she handed me the envelope, climbed out of the truck and she was gone, they were gone. So I just drove back to the yard and unloaded as usual.’

  “How much money was in the envelope?” Lam asked.

  “Fifty thousand Hong Kong dollars. A lot.” He said.

  “Do you know what was in the bags?” She asked.

  “I think I do now,” he said.

  “I saw the news later in the day, and I kind of thought that’s what it probably was.” He said.

  “I didn’t really know what to do. I’d taken the money, and was worried that if I came forward that the police may think that I’m involved.” He finished, shrugging.

  “Do you need to have the money back?” he asked earnestly.

  “Yes, we’ll need to check the money and the envelope for finger prints. It’s also probably part of the stolen cash from the Bank.” Lam said.

  “We’ll only know that once we can cross check the serial numbers.”

  “I have it still, I didn’t take anything out. I was too scared to use it after seeing the news, so I was planning to wait and maybe use it later, you know, once things had died down.”

  “OK, I’ll need you to give a detailed description of the van, the woman and the other four men that got out of the vehicle.” Lam said. She turned to look at
Luk, who had remained silent throughout the interview.

  “Anything else that you would like to ask?” She said.

  “No, I think that covers everything. “ Luk replied offering her one of his best smiles.

  He leaned in toward the recorder and said.

  “Interview with Anthony Choi finished at 15:32hrs.” He clicked off the machine and turned to Choi.

  “Come with me and I’ll take you to one of the officers to take down the descriptions and write up a report.” He stood and waved for the young man to follow him leaving Lam sitting in the room.

  A few moments later Luk returned to the room.

  “Is everything alright?” he asked her.

  Lam turned to look at Luk, thoughtful for a moment.

  “It’s all very, very clever.” She said. “Luk, come with me, I want to show you something.” Lam stood and led the way out of the room and down the grey corridor to her office.

  They stood in front of her board looking at everything involving the bank case so far. They scanned the pictures, starting with the dead contractor, through to images of the vault and Bank exits.

  She looked again at Chow’s picture, her partner, and she signed and shook her head.

  “What is it?” Luk asked noticing her mood change.

  “Oh, it’s nothing” she said pointing towards the smiling picture of Chow. “Just such a waste of his life.”

  Not wanting to get morose, Lam quickly changed the subject.

  “ I think I’m getting closer to finding out the sequence of events, and this is where I’m going to need your expertise and knowledge of the Triads and which gang may be responsible for this.” She said, moving towards the left hand side of board, and the dead contractors picture.

  “We always wondered why this old man”, she said tapping the picture with her finger, “would attempt to get into the bank. He was never going to be able to rob it. But that was never the intention. I’ve gone over this hundreds of times. It was to see if he could get to the fourth floor undetected. To see how far he could get before someone official stopped him. That’s all.” She said blinking at the board.

  “But that doesn’t make sense, he was bound to get picked up, his card didn’t work for a start.” Jimmy countered, not following Lam entirely.

  “That was their only flaw. The swipe card didn’t work. Had it been working as intended, he could successfully have got through the security entrance and he would have been in the building, undetected. He could have made it to the fourth floor and exited and it’s possible that he could have done this without being stopped and questioned.” She said.

  “But other security camera’s would have picked him up moving around the building, stepping into the lift. He would have been noticed.” Jimmy said.

  “No, he wouldn’t. The camera’s we’re all down that morning, remember? They were being upgraded. There was no footage whatsoever recorded during the first few hours of that morning. That’s why we could only take eye-witness accounts of the security officers and Ryan Harper into consideration. There was nothing to verify what happened, where or when.” Lam finished, deep in thought now, she moved along the back wall and stopped at an image of Ryan Harper and pressed her hand against the wall.

  “She pointed a finger at Ryan’s image.” He was the key to all of this, but he didn’t even know it yet.” She said, drumming her fingers on his forehead on the paper picture, whilst she was thinking.

  “In the background his girlfriend was planning the robbery with meticulous accuracy. Every fine detail covered off. This has been planned for a while. Her pseudo electronics company had successfully negotiated a contract with the bank. They installed all of the new equipment exactly one week before the robbery.

  Her intended target was always going to be Ryan Harper. He had the security clearance to get them through every area of the bank without triggering an alarm or unwanted attention. She worked him and he naively took the bait. So they started to get to know each other, meanwhile she’s planning the whole event. But I think she needed security to make sure that he would definitely be a part of the robbery. She wasn’t convinced if she could bribe him with money, or other promises, so she used collateral, she used his closest friend in Hong Kong, which also happened to be her closest friend.

  This is where Robert Black comes in. The unsuspecting innocent in all of this. He never knew of Lily’s involvement until just before he died. He was supposed to be released shortly after the robbery, but this was taken out of Lily’s hands.

  “Poor guy. I hear her got a bullet in the face.” Luk said.

  “That’s right.” Lam responded, then paused. Temporarily stuck in her own thoughts.

  Shaking it off she continued. “The timing was just perfect. The bank is undergoing upgrades to their security cameras and systems and renovation work inside the building in also being carried out. Contractors are coming and going, there’s lots of noise and disruption. It’s clever, because staff are less cautious, they don’t question when they see a new face, assuming that it’s all to do with the renovation work.” Lam said, on a roll now.

  “Then they had cover of the City’s ‘Lights out’ campaign. The whole of Hong Kong being thrown into pitch darkness couldn’t be more perfect. It gave her the ideal opportunity. A chance to get in undetected both supported by a black out, and camera’s and motion detectors that could be easily switched on and off. They had Ryan with them, their ‘key’ and obviously enough people to help carry the money out.” Lam continued.

  “She knew that she didn’t need to walk out with the money causing them unnecessary risk. She could simply load up the rubble bags. She already knew they would be collected the next morning at the same time that they always were. It was the perfect way to get something out of the building unnoticed and undetected. It was hidden in plain sight. No one even knew that the bank had been robbed at that stage. The money was well and truly gone by the time the alarm had finally been raised. She used her charm and guile to get the truck driver to drop her off at a pre-determined destination, so that the bags could be removed. It was so easy for her to bribe Choi. It was too much of a temptation for him and probably more money than he could earn in three months.” Lam was about to continue when Jimmy interrupted.

  “Actually it would be four months salary.” His comment was greeted with a glare from Lam.

  “I asked him earlier today”, he muttered under his breath.

  “They still had Ryan with them straight after the robbery.” Jimmy asked Lam. “So what happened to him. Why not simply kill him, so that he couldn’t identify them later?”

  “They needed him to be the scape goat. He was already under suspicious by us, and they knew his prints would be found everywhere. It would buy them enough time to move the money, probably by laundering it, and release Robert unharmed. He would verify that he didn’t know who had kidnapped him. Ryan would already have tried to exonerate himself and would have given descriptions of Lily and the other men involved. Our whole process would be too slow for them. They are professional and are experts at covering their movements and tracks and have been for years.”

  Lam finished and looked for a response from Jimmy.

  “So where is the money now?” Jimmy asked.

  “I don’t know, and I suspect only Lily and a few loyal people will know at this stage.”

  “So, how do we find Harper?” he asked.

  “Harper I’m in contact with, but he’s running scared. He’s very high profile target right now, so it’ll be hard to get him to come in and talk to us on the record.”

  “Hold on, you’ve been in touch with Harper?” Jimmy asked, a trace of irritation in his voice.

  “You’re supposed to keep me in the loop here, Lam.” He said, crossing his arms in front of him, showing her that he was annoyed. “How am I supposed to help you if you keep things hidden from me?”

  “Look I had the opportunity to chat with Harper in private under his conditions, that’s all, and he
ran again. He doesn’t trust the police.” She said, almost as though she felt the same way. “I don’t blame him at this stage. The triads have infiltrated us in the past, they could easily do it again.” Lam said. “Also, Lily is not the only person involved in this.” She stated.

  “Go on”, Jimmy said.

  “Harper told me that Lily called him after she heard that he’d escaped the police and was on the run. She’d agreed to let him see Robert, to check that his friend was at least alive. They met, and he persuaded her to do the right thing and release Robert. Then another man came in, the same man from the robbery and the café. They call him Ghost Face. He tried to shoot Ryan, but Robert got in the way.” Lam said, picking up her black marker and drawing a cross through Robert Black’s name on her board.

  “So now we have two dead bodies on our hands.” Jimmy said.

  “What do you know about Ghost Face?” Jimmy asked, more interested now.

  “Harper described him to be in his mid-fifties, slender, but strong with incredibly pale skin. He had cropped black hair, going slightly grey at the temples. Whoever this guy is, he managed to not only convince Harper to be a part of the robbery, by intimidation and kidnapping Rob, but he has also shown himself to be very adept at killing.”

  “Do you know him?” She asked Jimmy hopefully.

  “No, no. Not one of the names that I’m familiar with.” he said confidently. “But it’s possible that he has another name, most Triads members do?”

  “Well can you do a search of other known names or anything similar?” Lam asked.

  “I can, but if he was a leading triad member, then I would know him already, and I don’t recognize the description or the name.” Jimmy said flatly.

  Lam continued. “Harper didn’t think that it was Lily’s intention for anyone to get killed. The contractor was unplanned, Rob’s murder was totally avoidable, had they kept to their side of the bargain and released him straight after the robbery. But it’s clear that something has changed, and there is a shift in the relationship between Lily and this man, Ghost Face.” She turned to Jimmy.

  “This is where you come in. You know everything there is to know about Triad gangs in Hong Kong. From what Harper has told me, and looking at everything we have. This is definitely triad related; I’m 100% sure about that. What’s the likely outcome between Lily and Ghost Face if they are both part of the same Triad family?” She asked Jimmy.