David Rotenberg - The Hamlet Murders

Fong interrupted him, “Did Mr. Hyland have a rehearsal set up for that morning?”

“Yes,” replied Captain Chen, referring to his notes. “No one was very happy about it. Apparently once a theatrical production starts to perform it is considered bad form to . . . ”

“Who was called?”

“Called?”

“Told to be at rehearsal,” Fong clarified.

Li Chou gave him a who-cares look.

Fong ignored him and looked to Chen, “I want to see everyone who Geoff called to rehearsal for that morning.”

Chen made a note and flipped open his cell, “Odd to call a rehearsal then kill yourself, don’t you think?”

Fong could have added, “Odd to start writing a book then kill yourself,” but he didn’t.

“Odd indeed, unless you wanted those called to rehearsal to come in and find you still swinging.” It was the commissioner who snuck noiselessly into the room behind Fong. The man had changed his demeanour of late. The rumour in the station was that he was modelling himself after the new actor who played the head of the district attorney’s office on the American television show Law and Order - not the original one, but the one who followed the lady who played it for a bit. Fong had never seen the program, but apparently it was very popular throughout Shanghai. For an instant he wondered if Fu Tsong would have liked the show. The man continued, “An odd sort of ‘up yours’ but, I imagine, in some people’s eyes, a very effective one.”

The commissioner shifted his position in the doorway to catch the light better or something. It unnerved Fong that he hadn’t at least sensed the man’s presence.

“Still to kill yourself like that?” the commissioner pressed on.

“True, sir,” Fong said, “but there is every possibility that this was not a suicide.”

“If it’s not then someone went to serious dramatic lengths to make us believe it was a suicide.”

“Very dramatic lengths,” said Fong.

“Who? Who would do this?”

“That would be the question, wouldn’t it, sir?” said Fong.

The man’s clothes may have changed and maybe even his demeanour but his uncanny ability to state the obvious as if he had revealed some great truth had remained firmly intact.

“Carry on,” the commissioner said and turned on his heel.

Fong was sure that if he could have seen the man’s face he would have watched a self-satisfied smile cross his lips. He’d managed to set the investigation on firm legs. Oh yes he had. And now he could tell whomever it is he reports to that he had done the best he could with what meagre resources, both financial and human, he’d been given. It was a classic bit of ass covering.

Then Fong noticed Li Chou’s face – he was calm, serene. It scared the shit out of Fong.

Fong took a breath and turned to Lily, “How many steps up the ladder would he have to have climbed to get his head into that noose?”

“Eleven, maybe twelve, Fong.”

“And how heavy was Mr. Hyland?”

“Fong?”

“How much did he weigh, Lily?”

“Just under a hundred and eighty pounds.”

Fong thought about that for a bit. How do you get a 180-pound man to climb twelve steps up a ladder? Then once he’s up there, how do you get him to put his head in a noose? Then how do you get down the ladder before he takes the noose off his neck and follows you down?

Fong shot to his feet. The words I ascend literally propelled him up. Everyone in the room looked at him but he didn’t care. His mind was on himself and Chen by the pinrail. And the counterweights. Christ and counterweights: “I ascend.”

He smiled as the memory he couldn’t pull forward at the time bloomed full force in his head. She was laughing. Fu Tsong, his wife, was laughing. No, she was roaring with laughter. Laughter was literally thundering out of her mouth so that Fong couldn’t understand what she was saying. They were sitting on the Bund Promenade. She had just come back from adjudicating a drama festival in Taipei. Fong wanted to hear her impressions of the renegade island. She wasn’t interested in talking about that. She wanted to tell him about what she had seen in the theatre – except her laughter kept getting in the way.

“Just take a breath and tell me,” Fong had said.

She did – take a breath, that is. Her laughter stopped then it erupted once again.

Fong got up. Immediately, someone took his seat. This was Shanghai – public seating of any sort was at a premium. He looked at the old lady who had taken his place but before he could speak she said, “Tough luck, Flat Head.”

How did they always know he was a cop?

Suddenly Fu Tsong leaned over and whispered something into the old lady’s ear. The crone’s face went dark then she got up and moved along. Fong couldn’t recall ever being able to move someone from a seat on the Bund Promenade before. As he reassumed his seat, he asked, “What did you say to her, Fu Tsong?”

“I told her I had the plague.”

“You didn’t.”

“You’re right, I didn’t. I told her that you were my sweet hard-working husband and you needed to rest your weary feet.”

“That wouldn’t have moved her even an inch.”

“True.”

“So?”

“So I told her that if she didn’t move her fat ass I’d put my fingers up her nose and pull it off her face.”

“You said that?”

“I did.”

“And she believed you?”

Fu Tsong unwrapped a sticky confection and put it in her mouth. “You might recall that I’m a very good actress, Fong,” she said as she munched the gooey thing.

“You are,” said Fong as he looked anew at his wife. Would there ever be a time when she didn’t surprise him?

“So what happened in those plays you had to adjudicate in Taipei?”

“Play, you mean,” she said as she swallowed the candy.

“Do I?”

“You do. I saw the same play thirteen times done by thirteen different groups.”

“Was that what was so funny?”

“Hardly. Watching the same play over and over again is tedious.”

“Unless it’s a great play.”

“Or done by great actors under an inspired director. But no Fong, this adaptation of the Wakefield Crucifixion is not a great play, and these were not great actors and there wasn’t a director to be seen in the group.”

“What’s a Wakefield Crucifixion?”

“It’s a religious play from England.”

“Modern?”

“No. What they call the Dark Ages.”

“Ah, the time that the Russians think didn’t really exist.”

“Right, Fong. You really are a font of truly useless information.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I wouldn’t. Anyway, in this play, which was being done by church groups – they didn’t tell me that when they asked me to adjudicate their drama festival nor did they tell me that they were amateurs, Christian amateurs. Anyway, in this play, Christ gathers his followers, he pisses off the authorities, they whip him, crucify him, bury him and then he . . . ” she burst out laughing.

“He what?” Fong demanded.

By now several dozen people had gathered round to hear the story.

“Okay,” Fu Tsong pulled herself together and said, “he ascends.” She broke into peels of laughter.

“To where, does he ascend?” Fong demanded to get her to stop laughing.

“To the Christian heaven or something. How would I know?”

“Okay, so he ascends. What’s so funny?”

“Well, the ascending happens at the end of the second act. Each group attaches a harness of some sort to the actor playing Christ and the play ends by him saying ‘I ascend’ and he is gently pulled up to the fly gallery above the proscenium arch. It’s hokey but cute.”