David Rotenberg - The Hamlet Murders

Captain Chen had set up the other ladder and was climbing up to take pictures of Geoff.

Fong waited until Chen was at body level then pointed to the neck. “Shoot this.”

Chen did, then asked, “Is there something I’m not seeing? Those marks are to be expected in a suicide, aren’t they?”

“Maybe,” Fong said and descended a rung to get a better look at Geoff’s fingers. Long. Tapered. He bent the wrist to look beneath the fingernails.

Chen took another picture then asked, “Scrapings?”

Fong shook his head and descended.

“I don’t see any defensive markings, sir. Do you?”

On the stage floor, he stepped back and looked at the body again. Trying to get a fuller picture. “I want the body to go to Lily first. I want a full toxicology report.” Chen nodded. Then Fong remembered the odour. He raced quickly up the ladder.

“What?” said Chen surprised.

“Hold him still.”

Chen did and Fong pulled aside Geoff’s jacket. He was wearing a vest. Odd for a hot day. On the inside pocket of the vest Fong found them.

“Flowers, sir?”

Fong took a deep breath of the fragrance. “Yes. Three different types of flowers.”

“Tell Lily I want these identified.” Fong said then as Chen descended his ladder Fong added, “and get me a Shakespeare expert too.” Before Chen could ask why, Fong turned his attention back to Geoff.

It was only then that Fong noticed a slight paint stain on the outside of Geoff’s right shoe.

From the back of the auditorium two men in suits, the Beijing men, watched and smiled. The older of the two took out a cell phone, punched in a speed-dial number and gave an order. Then he turned to the younger man. “You agree?”

The younger man smiled, “I do.”

Fong was surprised. No. Shocked. Geoff’s room was untouched – no quadrant markings, no gummy residue from print dusting, no drawers opened, no bed turned over, no floorboards lifted. Here it was maybe twenty-four hours after Geoff’s death and the man’s room had not been scoured by the Crime Scene Unit, fuck, it hadn’t even been entered. Why? He stepped out of the room and closed the door. Then he turned to Chen. “Get Li Chou on your cell.”

Chen began to ask why but found himself looking at Fong’s retreating back. He punched in the CSU number on his cell phone and after a brief nastiness Li Chou consented to pick up. “Li Chou’s on the line, sir,” Chen called to Fong. Fong didn’t turn. He seemed entranced by the pattern of the carpet in the guesthouse’s corridor. Without looking up, Fong said, “Ask him why CSU hasn’t been to Mr. Hyland’s room.”

Chen relayed the question then had to hold the phone away from his ear as Li Chou shouted his response then hung up.

Fong lifted his head, “So?”

“He says that he was denied access to the room.”

“Who denied him access?”

“He says you did.”

Fong thought about that for a moment. He certainly would have liked to deny Li Chou access to the crime site, but after the unpleasantness in front of the men in the theatre even he wouldn’t venture into that territory. “He claims he was denied access to the room?”

“Yes, sir.”

Fong returned his attention to the complex pattern in the corridor carpet. He allowed his eye to trace one long wine red line as it intertwined with squares and circles of various colours and patterns and then disappeared beneath an intricate design of triangles and cubes. Several yards farther down the corridor he saw his wine red line emerge from the mess. He looked up.

“Did you deny Li Chou access to Mr. Hyland’s room, Captain Chen?” Before the stunned man could answer, Fong held up his hand, “Just a joke, Captain Chen.” Chen was visibly relieved.

“But someone did. I wonder who.” What he did not add was the important part of the thought: “Why had CSU been denied access?” He turned away from Chen again and once more traced the wine red line in the carpet. His thoughts cascaded quickly: “Question: What is the result of denying CSU access to Geoff’s room? Answer: It allows me to get in there first. Question: Who would want me to investigate a site before CSU? Answer: Someone who wanted a better chance of finding anything there was to find in Geoff’s room and therefore what happened to Geoff in the theatre.” No, that wasn’t completely right. Fong stopped moving. But before he could figure out exactly what part of the thought was wrong, the image of the two Beijing politicos who had been Geoff’s keepers popped into his head. Fong’s breath caught in his throat.

Federal officers, Beijing politicos in Shanghai, no doubt with an agenda. They were the only ones powerful enough to block Li Chou from getting into Geoff’s room. They may have already been in the room but were unable to find what they wanted. Fong thought about that then dismissed it. But for sure something that Geoff had been hiding is important to them. And they want him to find it and no doubt hand it over to them so they can figure out exactly what happened to Geoff. Again, he sensed a false assumption in his thinking but couldn’t put his finger on it.

He turned to Chen. “Yellow-tape this. It’s potentially a crime site.”

“Aren’t we going in?”

“Not yet. Somewhere to go first, we’ll be back.”

On his way out, Fong noticed that the key lady was different than the one he and Chen had seen on the way in. Key ladies, remnants of the old Communist control system, refused to allow visitors to have the room keys. Westerners always complained about this because they’d return to their guesthouses and have to search out the key lady to get into their own rooms – a process that could take up to an hour. Most places that foreigners frequented had scrapped this practice, but because the old campus where Geoff stayed was technically a working commune, the system was still in place. “Where’s the lady who was here when we arrived?” Fong asked.

The key lady clearly didn’t understand him.

Before Fong could launch into his favourite tirade about the advancement of incompetent party members, most often from the country, over native Shanghanese, Chen tried the question in a country accent and the woman responded, “We’re covering for each other. We’re always short. Don’t know where they go. People just come and go as they please. I don’t even know most of their names. It’s hard to get good help these days.” That certainly was the truth. Try to get anyone to do a menial job and you’re lucky to keep him or her for even a few weeks. Fong thought of it as nothing more than another one of Shanghai’s growing pains on its road to becoming one of the world’s most powerful cities.

Outside the guesthouse, Fong consulted his private phonebook and dialled the number of the head of the Communist Party in Shanghai. The great man picked up on the third ring. That surprised Fong but he collected himself and requested access to the two Beijing keepers. The man heard Fong out and then, with barely concealed glee, gave him the phone number for Ti Lan Chou Prison.

The prison official took ten minutes to set up a meeting – at the prison of course.

Fong arrived on time at the prison, but naturally they made him wait. Fong knew they would. Despite that, he couldn’t sit still. He was inundated with memories of his confinement here. That time had left deep slash cuts in his mind, deeper than he cared to acknowledge. It had taken a tremendous act of courage to force himself first to contact this place and then to walk through its tall iron doors. But there was nowhere else in Shanghai to contact the federal police force except here in Ti Lan Chou, the largest political prison in the world and a place where Fong had spent just under two of the hardest years of his life.