David Rotenberg - The Hamlet Murders

The woman who had murdered the man she loved lifted her left buttock and farted loudly. She waved her hand in the air in front of her to dissipate the odour. “Sorry, but the food in here isn’t exactly agreeing with my gastric system.”

Fong smiled. Then took the smile off his face. “Why am I at such a loss here?” he asked himself. Before he completed the question he shouted the answer at himself in the recesses of his head, “Because, jerk, you don’t know why you’re here.” He reached into his shirt pocket, tapped out a Kent and held it out to her.

She reached for it, careful not to touch the skin of his fingers or hand. She put the cigarette between her lips. It was only then that he noticed they were bruised.

“Did someone hit you?”

“You’ve been in prison before, right? People get hit in prison. I need a light.”

He struck a stick match on the floor and held it up to her. The flaring of the match touched moments of light to the skin of her face. Little licks of beauty.

She breathed out a thin line of smoke just past Fong’s left ear. Before he could stop himself he breathed in her smoke.

“You smoked too. Interesting,” she said. “Why not join me?”

Fong hadn’t smoked since he’d killed the assassin Loa Wei Fen in the construction site in the Pudong almost seven years ago, but he was direly tempted to break his smoke fast. But he didn’t. “If they hit you again, get word to me and I’ll put a stop to it.”

Again she made the sound that only a few weeks ago must have been a laugh but now sounded like something very different. “Are you really capable of doing that?” she said.

Fong didn’t answer. He didn’t know if he could control events within a prison. He’d never tried.

“It’s better to be hit than raped,” she said.

Fong found himself nodding although he didn’t want to.

She lifted her head, took the cigarette from her lips and stared into his eyes. “Why are you here? Again I ask.”

“To try and understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Understand how you could kill the man you loved,” said Joan Shui.

“Is that really what you want to know?” she asked Fong. He nodded. The woman who killed the man she loved opened her mouth to answer then put her face in her hands. For a moment Fong thought she was going to cry. But she didn’t. “Answer your own question, Detective. You’ve loved, you’ve been in prison, maybe you’ve even killed.”

Fong looked away. The desire to get out of that room roared up from his depths. This woman somehow knew him. How? But he needed her. The simple Chinese word long , dragon, came up to his lips. Dragons always guarded treasure. They had to be defeated to gain the knowledge – or wooed.

“How did you first meet Mr. Clayton?”

“How do you think?” Her voice was harsh. Suddenly the practised whore.

“You were a hired date for him?” Joan asked, careful to keep any annoyance out of her voice.

“I was given to him by a Chinese client. I was there in his hotel room when he returned from a night of drinking. Naked. Waiting. All greased up and ready to go.” She noticed Fong wince at that last. “Nothing to be embarrassed about, Detective Zhong. Ready to go because I didn’t want to get pregnant. Greased up because it wasn’t likely that I’d produce much lather at the possibility of fucking this Long Nose or any Long Nose for that matter. Or so I thought. Can I have another smoke?”

He gave her the pack and was about to give her the matches then remembered that it was forbidden. He struck a match and held it out. She leaned forward and cupped his hands.

Then held them.

Over the flame, amidst the veil of her cigarette smoke, he saw her more clearly. Her eyes were the eyes of a ghost.

He made sure his voice was calm before he spoke, “So you slept with Mr. Clayton?”

“No, Detective Zhong, I didn’t sleep with him. Whores aren’t paid to sleep with clients.”

Fong nodded.

Then a single line of tears emerged from the corner of her right eye and fell straight to the floor. “He bought me breakfast.”

The phrase was so simple but it carried so much weight. Somehow she knew that if he hadn’t bought her breakfast they would never have started what ended with him dead and her in this awful place.

For a moment he wanted to ask if the breakfast was good. But he knew the answer to the question. The food had tasted as exquisite as food could taste. The sun had been as brilliant as the sun can shine – and the world seemed gracious, open and full of hope. Fong knew that.

Sensing the momentum slip, Joan asked, “When did you see him next?”

“He drove me home and gave me money to rent a hotel room. It was the first time I ever had a room to myself. I almost didn’t know what to do with all that space.”

“Did he come by that night?” asked Joan.

“No. Not for a week.”

“Why?”

“He told me that he wanted to be sure.”

“Sure of what?” asked Fong.

“Oh, fucking hell, sure that the breakfast was good, sure that I was a woman, sure that Korea is a peninsula of idiots, what do you think he wanted to be sure of?”

Fong took a breath. “Sure that he cared for you.”

“Whites don’t come back again if they only care about a Chinese girl.”

“No, they don’t.” Fong considered lighting up but forced that thought out of his head. “So he loved you?”

She looked away. “That word sounds silly coming out of your mouth.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Have you been so hurt by love that love is now a joke to you, Detective Zhong?”

“No . . . ”

“Then what?”

“Doesn’t it take longer to fall in love than . . . ”

“Then one fuck fest? Is that what you’re asking?”

He was, but he knew the answer to that. He had fallen hopelessly in love with Fu Tsong within the first fifteen minutes of her saying hello to him. They hadn’t even touched. They’d hardly exchanged words. It sounded foolish – but he knew it was true.

“So what happened to your love?”

She began to answer but she was crying. Big sobs came from a place very deep in her. Tears fell on her cigarette. The thing hissed.

“Like a dragon,” Fong thought. But he said nothing. He sat and watched waves of anguish take the woman who murdered the man she loved down down down into places of despair that had yet to be named. A place where only ghosts lived.

And as he watched he knew both the question he needed to ask and the answer to his question. He had known it before he came to this small prison room. Question: Can love kill? Answer: No, but things that begin with love can end in murder.

He looked to Joan who looked away, clearly trying to stop herself from crying.

“Are you all right?” Fong asked as he got into his car beside Joan.

“Yes. I’m fine. In fact, I’m better for having seen that.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Where to?”

Fong took a moment and then replied, “To those who loved Geoff.”

She nodded slowly and sat back. While Fong made his way through the densely tangled traffic, Joan soaked in the great city. As they drove, a small smile came to her face. Shanghai flaunted itself – like a young woman in her first sexy dress – as if it were a thing newly made and proud – and finally open for public viewing.

Once again the day’s heat had decided to spend the night inside the old theatre. While the rest of Shanghai had a momentary respite, the air inside the theatre was sultry, almost hazy in its dampness.

“You wanted to see us?” The voice came from the darkness at the back of the theatre.