Текст книги "The Trophy Taker"
Автор книги: Lee Weeks
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 26 страниц) [доступный отрывок для чтения: 10 страниц]
28
Mann looked around – a few courting couples, small groups of overawed tourists enjoying the skyline – nothing untoward. He sat down on a bench, suddenly weary from the kind of tiredness that doesn’t so much creep up on you as hit you like a bus from behind, when you least expected it. His heavy head rested back onto the polished granite seat. He closed his eyes for a few minutes and his aching body relaxed. The cool breeze brushed across his face, and, before he could stop it, his mind drifted away.
His thoughts turned to England. He didn’t know why he thought of England so often. It must be the ‘cool season effect’ – autumn in Hong Kong was so like spring in England, with hot days and cool nights. Or perhaps, and more likely, it was because the time he had spent in England had been a precious time of carefree youth. But they were bittersweet memories – Chan was always part of them.
Mann shrugged off sleep and sat up. He instinctively touched the scar on his cheek. It was the scar that Chan had given him when they were boys. After a summer spent running with the street kids, Chan had brought a ‘throwing star’ back from Hong Kong. It was a triad street weapon, designed to maim rather than kill. He’d been showing off, demonstrating it to a group of boys, and had thrown it as Mann walked past. It had spun across Mann’s face, slicing a groove into his cheekbone where the skin was tautest, and left a scar shaped like a crescent moon. It had been impossible to make the wound neat with stitches. The school staff had been horrified. Chan had been sorry. But, in real terms, a scar never hurt a lad, and Mann wore it with pride. It left his smooth face with a touch of ruggedness, and the girls loved it.
Mann still had the star. It was part of a collection he had made of triad weaponry. He’d taught himself to use them – the stars, the throwing spikes. He had become an expert over the years. Combined with his martial arts training it meant he hardly needed to carry a gun.
He settled back onto the bench and made the mistake of closing his eyes again. Just for a few minutes he allowed the memory of summer rain, mown grass and humming bees take him spiralling back. Then, BANG. He saw his father forced to kneel. He watched a man swing a meat cleaver and strike the chopper hard into his father’s strong frame. He saw his father’s body judder and lurch as the chopper snagged, caught in muscle and bone, before it was freed by the assailant’s boot against his father’s back. His father remained upright until the last blow that split his skull.
Mann jolted himself upright. Sweat was pouring down his face and back. He stood up, shook his head and wiped his brow. The nightmare of his father’s death would never go away. The worst part was watching it, not being able to stop it – not being able to reach him in time; not being able to save him. It would haunt Mann forever. But he had been just a lad, and had been held back by three strong men. He had been made to watch in triad-style retribution, a warning to Mann and to others – what happens when payments are not met. He was just a boy, but still Mann blamed himself for not being a superhero, for not saving his father.
He looked about him in a panic, relaxing when he realised where he was. The courting couples had progressed slowly on their promenade and the tourists were still there. He leant against the harbour wall and steadied himself for a few seconds. He looked across to Kowloon. The stars were out. The laser beams were shining into the liquorice sky. The water was still. He shivered as the breeze cooled the sweat on his back, then he pulled out his list of nightclubs.
The Bond Bar would be next.
Lucy slid into the centre of the waterbed and flipped onto Big Frank’s stomach like a wet fish. They lay panting together for a few minutes. Lucy could hear his heartbeat through the wiry carpet of silver-grey chest hair. She lay there, smiling to herself. Big Frank was getting more adventurous every time. It wouldn’t be long before he was hooked. He could be the answer to all her prayers. God knows, she deserved it! He could get her out before Chan had any chance to look for her. Big Frank had big bucks, Lucy could tell – she was used to men with money – she’d known many. He was generous and eager – that was a good sign. Lucy would work hard on him, devote everything to winning his heart and soul. But she’d better hurry up: the clock was ticking and the debt was mounting.
29
It was gone two a.m. when Mann arrived at the Bond Bar in Wanchai. The area was number three on his list, and probably the same number in order of importance in the nightclub world. It used to be number one, but the smarter clubs across the water, in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon side, had taken that slot.
The bar’s theme was Bond girls: Honey Ryder, Holly Goodhead, Plenty O’Toole. It was in the guidebooks as one of the ‘must see’ bars and was described as ‘intimate’. It was certainly that: small, cramped, and with a definite exchange of body heat going on. But it didn’t matter what the place looked like. The fact that it had half-decent, half-naked girls in it was all that mattered.
The doorman, Sam the Sikh, was in his usual pos ition – a genie in the shadows in his red silk – guarding the entrance to the club. He stepped forward and greeted Mann.
‘Good evening, Inspector.’
‘Hi, Sam. How’s it going?’
Sam screwed up his face and rocked his hand in the air. ‘So so. Business is not bad but I’ve seen better.’
‘Not like the old days, huh?’
Sam clapped his hands together and laughed. ‘The old days – before the Handover. Before we all changed into Chinese.’
‘This place hasn’t changed, that’s for sure – still as disreputable as ever. Still, I’d better make an in spection, Sam – see if it passes the health and safety regulations.’
Sam laughed. ‘Very good, Inspector. Say hello to her from me.’
Mann passed the wall of famous faces – an array of framed and signed photos of those well-known visitors who had been caught – some off-guard and obviously regretting it, others past caring. A few looked almost grateful. No new ones, though.
He scanned the room as he entered. There were about thirty punters in. It should have been busier than it was, but Hong Kong was still reeling from one global catastrophe after another. It had only just emerged from the SARS epidemic and, before that, the stock-market crash. Visitor numbers were down. The punters were distributed around the room, according to their preference in women. They sat at individual bar stations and were served by a topless Bond girl who sat or knelt at eye level in the centre of their bar on a raised rotating island, a metre in diameter.
All eight podiums were up and running that night.
Mann passed a group of nervous-looking Japanese who were hovering just inside the door. They’d probably wandered in looking for something more explicit and were too polite to move on when it hadn’t mat erialised. Across the room there were a few Indonesians around Honey Ryder’s station. They were probably dignitaries back home, now getting their first glimpse of a semi-naked white woman and trying not to giggle. The rest of the podiums had small groups of Europeans and Americans, just getting going for the evening. They wouldn’t be staying there for long. The Bond Bar was just an appetiser – pure titillation and completely harmless by Hong Kong’s standards – nothing like the real deal. In Hong Kong, money could buy the darkest of desires and everything and everyone had a price.
On the way through, Mann passed Honey Ryder entertaining the Indonesians – she looked up and gave him her endearing gap-toothed smile. She was dressed in black rubber hotpants and sported a cute blonde bob. She had an expectant look on her face and he was tempted to say a quick hello. She looked like she was waiting for him to come over. They’d had something going a while ago but it had never quite got off the starting blocks. It would be worth another shot, but it would have to wait. Now was not the time. He was here to see one of the others, Pussy Galore and, although Honey might be, Pussy wasn’t the sharing kind.
He spotted her at her usual podium at the right-hand side of the room. Her station was the busiest – he wasn’t surprised. He walked over and sat down on the fake leopard-skin stool, sat back and waited for her to notice him. It didn’t take long – she was good at her job; she’d been doing it for long enough.
Mann had known her for five years. They had provided mutual comfort for each other on several occasions and were fond of each other in their own way – on a part-time basis.
‘All right, Johnny?’ she said in a strong cockney accent. ‘Long time no see.’
‘Hi, Pussy. How’s it going? Business good?’
‘It’s always good in here, Johnny, you know that,’ she said, with a big false smile that she flashed to the dozen or so punters around her podium. Then she added, under her breath, ‘And don’t call me Pussy, you wanker …’ before spinning away from him.
Mann was amused by her show of frostiness. He knew she was angry that he hadn’t called her in a while, but he also knew it wouldn’t last long – three minutes max. She never could keep her feelings or anything else under wraps. Nor had she mastered the art of suspense.
She slammed a vodka on the rocks down in front of him before twirling around to flirt with an overweight loud-shirted tourist on the opposite side of the podium. Her electric laugh was mesmerising to the group of men who sat less than a metre from her, watching every undulation of her beautiful black shiny body as she turned on the rotating table. They didn’t attempt conversation between themselves. They weren’t incapable, but they hadn’t come here to think of anything else except Pussy Galore.
Two minutes later she swivelled back to Mann. He was playing with the ice in his glass, clinking it against the side.
‘You’re looking good, Johnny,’ she said, taking his glass to refresh it.
There! Knew she wouldn’t make it past three minutes.
‘You too, Kim. You missed a spot with the oil, though. Just there on your right buttock.’
‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said, ignoring his jibe and sitting back on her heels to look him over. ‘Lean and mean – it suits you.’
‘I’ve been doing a lot of running. Helps me think. Gives me energy.’
‘I thought you was doin’ it to keep your stamina up for the next time you take me out.’
‘That too,’ he grinned.
She stretched out her hand and moved aside the crow’s wing of dark hair that always fell over Mann’s left eye, before running her finger along the scar on his cheek. She was a lover of scars – emotional and physical – he knew that much about her. That’s how she’d ended up working on the other side of the world serving drinks dressed in a g-string.
She tilted her head to one side and softness crept into her eyes. Mann tried to avoid that these days. He liked her but he wasn’t interested in taking it further, and neither was she if she was honest.
He turned his head from her hand.
She drew back as if she’d been smacked in the face and twirled angrily away from him. He knew she wouldn’t like that. But she’d be back. She was a creature of habit – a boomerang. She always went full circle and ended up back where she started. She couldn’t even leave the Bond Bar. Sometimes she managed to stay away for a few days, even a few weeks, but she couldn’t hack it. She always came back with one excuse or another. Really she missed the adoration and the easy money.
Mann gave an inward shrug. He wasn’t one to judge or cast stones. Everyone had their buttons. Kim’s were complicated and yet simple – she looked for love but never wanted to find it. She didn’t think she deserved it. Mann’s buttons all merged into one big fat one, and it had a T for triad etched on the top.
30
Kim spun back to him and sat pouting. He was amused by her hurt expression. She was extremely easy to read. She had a catalogue of expressions and Mann had seen them all, even the ones that she didn’t know she had at certain moments. This one was number six – the ‘pretend to be hurt’ one.
‘You’re stressed out, Johnny. I can see it. You should learn to relax more. You should get yourself a girlfriend – someone you can trust.’
‘How do you know I haven’t?’
‘Coz I know you.’
‘Got anyone in mind, Kim? Does she work in a bar and spend her evenings in a spangly g-string?’
‘Might do.’ She pulled her hand away and resumed quarter turns on her island. ‘Anyway, it’s just a thought,’ she said, but fighting a smile.
She was a lot like him – Mann knew that. They might have come from different places, but they had arrived at the same point. He was a ‘love shy’ commitment-phobe. She was a ‘grass greener’ sort – always looking over her lover’s shoulder to the guy behind. But when she got it, she couldn’t wait to get rid of it. And the thing Mann knew about greener grass was that it still got weeds and it still needed cutting.
‘Anyway, Johnny, I might not be here much longer. I’m thinking of leaving this place.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. And don’t look at me like that. I mean it this time. I’ve had a good job offer.’
‘What?’
‘Can’t say. Not yet, anyways.’
Mann could see she was itching to tell him. He smiled to himself. He could tease it out of her if he wanted, but then what was the point? The job wouldn’t last five minutes. Then she’d be right back where she started – serving drinks in the Bond Bar in her smalls.
‘Maybe you’d like to come and work for me? I need a personal assistant.’
She laughed and spun away. Pausing with her back to him, she shifted her weight from buttock to buttock and stretched forward to serve some new punters. Mann smiled to himself. He knew the show was just for him. It was appreciated.
When she finished flirting, she spun back.
‘The thing is, Johnny – you pay me enough – I might just consider doing it.’
‘Money? I was thinking perks.’ He held on to her table and stopped her from moving. He wheeled her back to him. ‘I need to talk to you, Kim … it’s serious.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I need to ask you something.’
Her smile disappeared and she frowned at him. ‘What?’ She glared at his hand holding on to her table. Even that much control pissed her off.
‘We’re looking for someone at the moment. Has there been any talk among the girls of anyone they’re worried about? Any punter overstepped the mark?’
Kim thought for a minute before moving her head slowly from side to side. ‘No more than usual.’ She arched herself forward as close as she could physically get to Mann without giving the loud shirt behind more to look at than he’d paid for. ‘But then, you know me, Johnny, I don’t do that kind of thing – I’m a good gal.’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ he said. ‘How many foreign girls are working here, Kim?’
‘Seven at the moment. Different shifts. Why?’
‘All of them been here for some time?’
‘We had to replace a couple recently.’
‘What’s the turnover of girls like in here?’
‘Fast …’ she laughed, ‘and furious.’
‘Why?’
Kim gave a derisory snort. ‘It ain’t the kind of job you give notice to, Johnny. They don’t bovver showin’ up, then we know they’ve gone. Sometimes they turn up again ’cross town. Sometimes they come back after a month, just need a rest, a bit of head space.’ She leaned forward to whisper in his ear again. ‘You know, Johnny, you need to ask me more questions you could always buy me dinner?’
‘Are you on the same number?’ he asked, getting out his wallet to pay for the drinks.
‘Yeah, but you better hurry up, Johnny,’ she breathed into his ear, her heavy breasts resting against him. ‘I might get a better offer.’
‘Than me? Impossible.’
‘Mmmmm.’ She closed her eyes for a few seconds. ‘You’re a bastard, Johnny. But a lovely one …’
‘I’ll be seeing you, Kim …’ He pulled away. ‘… Very soon, I hope. Meanwhile, don’t take any risks. Watch yourself. I mean it.’
She recovered her composure, spun away once more and blew him a kiss over her shoulder.
‘Don’t worry, Johnny. I’ll be careful. And Johnny –’
He hovered.
‘Don’t wait too long. I get very fidgety.’
‘How could I forget, Pussy?’ he grinned.
At the top of the steps Sam was having trouble with a group of rowdy British holidaymakers.
‘Need a hand, Sam?’
A lairy drunk in a Manchester United shirt turned round and found himself two inches from Mann’s chest. He looked up, then stepped back.
‘Thank you, Inspector.’ Sam puffed himself out. ‘There’s no problem here. Is there, gentlemen?’ he said, forcing the suddenly well-behaved men into order. ‘One at a time. One at a time, and remember …’ he wagged his finger at the sheepish line, ‘all nice girls in here – the best – no touching titties.’ He flashed Mann a big smile. ‘Be seeing you, Inspector.’
‘Be seeing you, Sam.’
Mann stopped at street level, stepped out of the stream of people, and took out his list again. He scanned down it and then looked up again to get his bearings. He was reluctant to move on. He glanced back at the Bond Bar. It didn’t feel right … He didn’t feel good about leaving Kim and the others. They were all at risk, but there was no point in worrying every foreign woman working in Hong Kong. Besides, Kim wouldn’t listen to him anyway, and Mann was under strict instructions not to start a panic, a stampede out of the region – not to do any more damage to Hong Kong’s vital tourist trade. Not that Mann seriously cared about orders. If it would have helped, he would have told them all – but it wouldn’t help. Wrong place, wrong time … any one of them might just be the chosen one. The killer was definitely out there somewhere, sat at some girly bar, watching and waiting.
Mann looked at his list; he had several more places to visit that night. He needed to get to as many as possible. He needed to find out how many foreign girls there were, and where they worked – so that the next time one turned up dead, dismembered and dumped in a black bin bag, he might have a chance of putting a name to a head.
Bernadette was surprised at the old drunk’s nastiness. Hadn’t she just tried to give him what he wanted? He’d turned on her in a flash – had her handcuffed to the feckin’ bed before she knew what had hit her. Then he’d kept her tied up there for eight feckin’ hours while he snored his head off!
She stood with her back to the mirror and twisted round to look at the damage. Feckin’ bastard! He had marked her good and proper. Thinking about it, she hadn’t got him pissed enough. Ah well! He’d paid her for it – sent his maid to get his stash from the safe. She’d emptied his wallet while he was talkin’ to the maid. Served the nasty old fecker right …
31
Just as the early-morning traffic was beginning to build, and the Tai Chi enthusiasts were finishing their salute to the sun in the parks and on the rooftops, Mann stepped into the cool of the underground station and took a train home. He’d worked through the night and could do no more for a few hours until it all kicked off again. He needed a shave and a shower. He boarded a train for Quarry Bay, on the north-east side of Hong Kong Island. He lived in a great location: it was served by the wonderfully efficient MTR and was just a short distance from Central and Headquarters. But it wasn’t a community. It was a vertical village – fifty tower blocks with a shopping mall in the centre – affordable housing for the young executive classes.
Mann lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the fortieth floor in one of the older blocks. Built in the early nineties, it had wooden floors, white walls, and very little else. Mann didn’t do the homely look. He had cutlery for one, crockery in single units and a solitary armchair that he’d positioned opposite a massive plasma TV in the lounge.
But his apartment hadn’t always been so Spartan. It had been a proper home once. Not long ago someone had stood in his home and in his heart. Helen had been there.
She was long gone now. He wished he didn’t think of her so often. He missed that spontaneous laugh of hers, that optimistic view of life – so different to his cynicism. He missed the little things she cared about. He missed her. But he didn’t regret her going. She deserved more than he could give. He had never seen himself pushing a baby’s buggy or having friends over for dinner. He hadn’t wanted anything or anyone else – just her. But she wanted the whole package, and he just didn’t have it in him to give.
He flopped onto his bed. He knew that he would sleep for a week if he didn’t watch it, so he dozed, waiting for the alarm clock to sound. In that last hour, just as he was dreamless and heavy as lead, it started ringing and ringing as if from some faraway planet, dragging him into consciousness. He hit the clock first, then hit the floor running. He checked his watch – noon, time for a quick shower; the colder the better.
He stepped out of the MTR half an hour later and cut through the park. It was a ten-minute walk up the hill to Headquarters. The midday air was scented with the smell of lush vegetation. The traffic noise was momen t arily lost in a pocket of wilderness and replaced by the sounds of insects – as loud as pneumatic drills.
He cut across the road, up the cobbled alleyways, past skinny kittens and makeshift kitchens, until he hit Soho, an area of fusion restaurants and fancy artefact shops. In the evening it was given over to partying Gweilos who loved its European feel. Cafés spilled over pavements and noisy Italian waiters touted for business.
Mann nodded to a cleaner sweeping the front of a Malaysian restaurant. The man paused, leaned on his broom and inclined his head a fraction Mann’s way. Mann would speak to him later – he was one of three undercover officers working the street.
Mann crossed the packed car park and walked up the well-trodden steps of Headquarters. It took him ten minutes to get past the people waiting to talk to him on the stairs. Finally, he made it to David White’s office.
The Superintendent was alone. He looked harassed. He hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours, and it showed.
‘The post-mortem report makes for gruesome reading, Johnny,’ he said, as Mann walked in and sat down opposite him. The Superintendent was holding the report in his hands. ‘Trophy taker? A torturer? He must hang on to these women, Mann. Where is he holding them? We need to get as many officers out there asking questions as we can. Get some undercover officers into the clubs with foreign hostesses. But for Christ’s sake, make them understand we need discretion.’
‘Don’t worry, David, we’re on to it. But, if he is murdering Gwaipohs, it’s a clever choice. Many of these women work under aliases. They have no family here. He must have picked them quite carefully. We have hundreds of matches for our Jane Does. However, if this man moves in the nightclub world, he must have frightened a few women along the way. There must have been some who got away without even realising it.’
Just then Ng knocked on the door, followed closely by a very agitated Li. ‘Genghis – this just came in from Scotland Yard.’ Ng handed him a file.
Mann flipped it open and scanned it before reading it out:
‘The fingerprint belongs to Maria Jackson. Born in 1963. British. She had form for drug dealing in the UK. She was given a one-year probational sentence in May 1989. Came to Hong Kong in April 1991. Last known place of employment – the Rising Sun in Wanchai. That was in November 1992.’
‘Interpol are trying to trace any family at the moment but have come up with nothing so far,’ said Ng, handing the photo of Maria to the Superintendent. It was a mugshot taken at the time of her arrest.
‘The pathologist put the woman’s age at mid to late twenties. She’d be forty now. That means she’s been dead ten to fifteen years. So, our murderer has been around a long time,’ said Mann.
‘There’s also victim one … the head … belonged to twenty-eight-year-old Beverly Mathews,’ said Ng.
‘When did she go missing?’ asked Mann, scanning the second page of the file Ng had handed him. He pulled out a grainy photo of a woman with big hair and a big smile.
‘Seventeen years ago – July 1986.’
‘You were right to extend the search so far back,’ said Superintendent White.
‘How did you know, boss?’ Li asked, looking very Saturday Night Fever in his wide white-collared shirt and his slicked-back hair.
‘She had nothing but metal amalgam fillings in her mouth, Shrimp – every one of them. Most people over thirty have at least a mixture of new and old – she didn’t.’
Superintendent White left his desk, took the report from Mann, and went to stand at the window to read it.
‘I worked on the case. I remember it,’ he said.
‘Was she a resident here, David? Do you remember?’
‘No. She was a tourist. She’d sold the most Renaults in Reading – she won herself a holiday to Hong Kong.’
Superintendent White picked up the old shot of Beverly Mathews taken at a cousin’s wedding a few weeks before she disappeared. ‘She failed to turn up at her workplace back in England. It was then discovered that she hadn’t returned from her holiday.
‘We searched the area. We found nothing. The case was left open but it was generally believed that she’d decided to jack in her job and her life back home and had probably headed off towards Bali or somewhere similar on the backpackers’ trail.’
‘When was she last seen?’
‘At a party in a local’s house out at Repulse Bay. After a night of heavy drinking she decided she needed to get back to her hotel. She was staying in Causeway Bay. Apparently she couldn’t be persuaded to call a taxi from the house, said she needed to get some fresh air and promptly left.’
‘What time was that?’
‘It was about six in the morning when she was last seen. She had to walk down a remote road to get to the bus route. No one ever remembered seeing her in Repulse Bay itself, and I think they would have if she had made it that far – she was wearing very little and it was early in the morning. At the time, it was our guess that if anything untoward had happened it must have happened on that walk – someone picked her up there.’
‘That means our killer has been around for two decades. He’s at least thirty-five, probably over forty.’
‘It also means he could have killed a lot of women in the last twenty years – we could be finding a lot more bodies.’
‘Count on it,’ said Mann.
‘What about the reports of missing foreign women, Ng?’ asked the Superintendent, going back to sit behind his desk. He spread the photos from the autopsy neatly across his desk.
Ng shook his head at the enormity of the task. ‘Sir, Interpol have come up with hundreds of women who are unaccounted for and who fit the profile. Even tracing the people who reported the women missing is proving very difficult.’
‘And attacks on foreign women?’ White picked up the photo of Beverly and the mugshot of Maria.
‘Attacks do not usually involve local men. It’s nearly always between two foreigners. Just a drunken disturb ance,’ replied Ng.
‘Similarities between these women, Shrimp?’ asked the Superintendent, studying the photos in his hand.
‘Foreigners. Young women. He likes young foreigners.’
‘Likes, or maybe hates all foreigners, and he certainly doesn’t like women,’ said Mann. ‘He enjoys inflicting pain.’
‘Age, sex, ethnicity? Basic similarities? Marks on bodies? What have we got, Ng?’
‘Victim one.’ Ng read from his notes. ‘Beverly Mathews – no evidence of torture. Victim two – a bite mark on the thigh … rope fibres on the wrist. Victim three – many small burns and sexually mutilated.’
‘What about the way they have been killed and dissected?’ White asked Mann.
‘Probably asphyxiated. We’re not sure yet. All three were dismembered in the same manner, though – with precision, neat, surgeon style. The process is important to him. He takes his time over it. He enjoys it.’
White scanned the report. ‘He leaves the bodies somewhere cold, the pathologist said?’
‘He leaves them for long enough for the lividity to settle, then moves them to somewhere else where he takes his trophies and dismembers them. Some of them he freezes,’ answered Mann. ‘Which is useful for us because some parts have been less affected by decomposition than others and some of the surface injuries are still visible.’
‘Like the bite mark that was made after death,’ said Ng.
‘That’s so weird! Why would he do that?’ asked Li.
‘Part of his fantasy. It’s a common trait with serial killers,’ said White. ‘And to return to the body several times before finally disposing of it.’
‘Ng, what did you get from Lucy, the S&M queen?’ asked Mann.
Ng took out his report, flipped open the page, and shrugged dismissively.
‘She gave me a description of six women who had lived in her flat at various times over the last five years. They were all in their twenties. All white. One American, three Europeans, two Antipodeans. According to Lucy, one of the Europeans had a strong accent. She didn’t know where from. None of them had any distinguishing characteristics. Nothing that stuck in her mind, anyway. She seems to have known very little about them. They kept themselves to themselves, she said. She seemed to think that most of them were on their own – no families, no ties. None of them gave reasons for leaving. They just left. She didn’t consider that strange.’
‘Not much help then, was she?’ said Superintendent White.
‘She wasn’t trying.’ Mann took the report from Ng and looked at Lucy’s statement. ‘Leave her to me, Ng. Li – get me photos of those women. Find out all you can about them. I want a name for them all. They deserve that much – and Shrimp …’ he handed Li a photo from the autopsy on victim three, ‘that tattoo. What would you say it was?’
‘A fish?’
‘Possibly – but I’d say it’s more likely to be a mermaid. Find out all you can about it. I want to know where she got that tattoo, look into the ink used – it differs in different countries. And the design – see if you can trace the artist … And remember, Shrimp – these women could have been somebody’s girlfriend, wife. They could have been somebody’s mother if they had had the chance. Real names and faces – I want to see them. And – before you go – a name for this perpe t rator. It’s up to you.’
