The Trophy Taker (2 page)

Morning finally arrived outside. Glitter Girl watched the faint rays of light squeeze through the cracks in the far wall. She watched them widen, soften and fill with spinning dust particles. She felt a little calmer. She loved pretty, sparkly things. She thought of home: Orange County, USA. It was a Saturday night and she was sixteen. It was her first ‘proper’ dance and her first date with Darren. Her mama said her dress was too tight, too revealing. She’d had to smuggle it out of the house in a bag and change in Darren’s car. That had been the most special night of her life, spinning round and round in Darren’s arms, showered with light beams from a rotating disco ball. Darren’s strong arms held her so tightly that she’d thought she would faint. That was the night she knew he was the one for her. How wrong she had been.

And then it occurred to her – the room was the same size as the one she and Darren had started out their married life in – in the days before he’d started hitting her.
When
he’d started that, there had been no stopping him.
Oh sweet
Jesus!
Why did it remind her of
that
room? Was it because Darren had beaten her so badly in
that
room that she’d thought she was going to die, and now she actually was? Her mama always said she’d come to no good and she was right. She was right about a lot of things – especially about Darren.

Glitter Girl looked at the photos of the women. Some of them were staring straight at her, but their eyes were blank. She’d seen eyes like that before. When she was a little girl on the farm she’d fallen on the dung heap and, as she’d struggled to get out of the muck, she’d turned and the dead piglet had been right there in her face. Its eyes were cloudy too, and although it wasn’t alive it was moving with maggots.

In the dim light she tried to make out the room. On the far side, hanging from a hook beneath a row of shelves, she saw what looked like a piece of fur and strips of pale animal hide. On the shelf itself there were jars like the ones her grandma kept pickles in. She was trying to make out what was inside when she stopped, held her breath and looked towards the door. A key was turning. Someone was coming.

‘Okay, gentlemen, shall we begin? It’s a Jane Doe, is that right?’

Mr Saheed, the pathologist, had arrived. He was a tall, wiry fifty-five-year-old, originally from Delhi and now settled in the region. He had an abrupt manner, and a habit of grunting his reply, but it was just his way. He was a very good pathologist who never minded questions as long as they weren’t too puerile. Mann had learned a lot from him over the years and on the several occasions they had met over a mortuary slab.

The detectives waited while Saheed rammed his feet into a pair of white rubber boots and pulled on a starched white coat and plastic apron. He looked over his glasses and raised an eyebrow at Mann.

‘Yes. It’s a Jane Doe, sir, and I’ll be recording,’ Mann said, in answer to Saheed’s silent enquiry as to which of the detectives would be taking the role of assisting Kin Tak. ‘Ng here is photographer, and that leaves Detective Li to do the dirty work. Scrub up, Shrimp,’ he said, remembering the first time he had attended an autopsy. It was at the height of the invasion of the Vietnamese boat people. A pregnant woman and her two children had been washed up after spending a week in the water. It was an experience he’d never forget.

Kin Tak checked a number on a fridge door against one on his list, pulled out one of four drawers, slid a white body bag out onto the trolley and wheeled it over to the stand above a drain in the centre of the room.

Saheed began dictating into the microphone clipped to his breast pocket:

‘The head of a Caucasian woman … late twenties … frozen after death. Bluish discoloration around the mouth … no obvious sign of injuries.’ Mann looked over his shoulder as Saheed shone a light inside her mouth.

‘She looks like she’s had a fair amount of work done, sir.’

‘Yes. She should have dental records somewhere.’

‘Cause of death, sir?’

‘Asphyxiation of some kind – we will have to wait for the x-rays to be sure. Let’s move on. There’s plenty more of Jane to get through. Wash her hair, please, Kin Tak. Sieve the contents and send them off for analysis.’

Kin Tak unzipped the bag along its length and lifted out a woman’s thigh, dissected at the knee and hip. He weighed it in a set of scales suspended above the table, before placing it on the slab. Ng measured it and recorded its dimensions on his pad.

Saheed turned the leg over twice, examining it closely before lifting his head to address the policemen. ‘Tell me what your observations are, Officer,’ he said to Li, who had managed to avoid getting too close to the table so far.

Li stepped forward and stared nervously at the leg. ‘Uh …’ His eyes darted hopelessly around the room in search of an answer.

‘And yours, Inspector?’ Saheed turned to Mann.

Mann pointed to the knee joint. ‘Pretty impressive, sir. Someone enjoys his work. Likes it to look neat.’

The pathologist grunted his agreement before addressing Li again. ‘Do you cook, Officer? Ever had to joint or bone meat? No? Well, let me tell you, it’s a skill. You need to be at least a competent surgeon or at worst a good butcher. You need a very sharp knife and you need to know where to saw, chop and cut. Like here,’ he said, tapping the open knee joint with his scalpel. ‘Now, let’s see what else we have … Victim is approximately twenty-five years old, five foot five inches tall, and … what’s this?’ He paused to study a mark on the inside of the thigh.

‘We have us a biter,’ Kin Tak blurted out, unable to contain his excitement.

The pathologist looked up, nodded and smiled at his assistant. He allowed Kin Tak his little eccentricities and his almost Tourette’s-like need to voice his observations. ‘Yes … There is a human bite mark here on the inside of the thigh, made
after
death occurred. Within twelve hours, I would say.’ Ng stepped forward to photograph the bite mark and measure dimensions in preparation for a cast to be made. ‘She had been dead at least a week before being dismembered.’

‘So, someone hung on to her after they killed her and before they froze her?’

‘Why would they do that?’ Li looked at Mann.

‘All sorts of reasons, Shrimp. None of them nice.’

Reasons? He shrugged. She had made him feel good – reason enough. He hadn’t wanted to let her go. He had a video of her death, which he watched often. He was watching it now – sat in his chair, remote in one hand, cock in the other. Ready to pause and rewind at his favourite bit. The look on her face when she knew this time was the last! He loved that bit.

He watched himself turn and grin at the camera, a length of twine in his hand. The girl, frantic, trying to get away from him. But she couldn’t. She was tied tightly to the chair. Only her pretty little head moved in tiny shakes as she squealed into the gag. There was nothing she could do. Her fate was in his hands.
Wait
… It was coming to his favourite bit now.
Tourniquet
in place. Turn it once, twice … turn and tighten. Hold
it for longer this time … Yes! She knows this is it!
Her eyes bulged. Her body convulsed. The shaking stopped. Still he carried on watching. This was his favourite part of the film. She was dead but he wasn’t finished with her.
Pause. Rewind. Pause. Rewind.

Saheed waited for Ng to finish photographing the bite mark before continuing:

‘The right arm of the victim has been cleanly dissected at the shoulder joint. Obvious signs of injury around the wrist: deep lacerations, residual debris.’ He picked out some fibres enmeshed in the flesh. ‘Rope fibres,’ he said, holding his tweezers aloft for Li to take the sample from him. ‘The hand is still attached, two fingers remain intact but lifted from the bone …’ Saheed scraped beneath the nails, and tapped the scrapings into a plastic dish, ‘which is common with bodies found in water.’ He cut the lifted skin from the woman’s finger.

‘Found in water, sir?’ Li spoke.

‘They had been frozen, hadn’t they? When they thawed they created a lot of liquid. Give me your hand,’ he said, at the same time reaching over and taking it. He wrapped the woman’s cut skin around Li’s index finger before passing his hand to Ng to take a print. Ng rolled Li’s finger, and the woman’s, in the ink several times. Pressing hard onto the pad, he held it there to ensure a good print. Li’s boiled face blanched.

‘You all right, Shrimp?’ It looked to Mann like he was about to throw up.

‘Totally.’ Li cleared his throat while managing a half-smile. ‘No problemo.’

‘Good lad.’ Mann and Ng exchanged grins.

‘Okay, gentlemen, let’s move on, shall we?’ Saheed peeled off his gloves and apron and pulled out a new set from the box above the sink. He indicated to Li to do the same and resumed his dictation:

‘The torso is showing greenish-black discoloration on the abdomen – a sign of decomposition. There is a deep cut which runs directly across from one hip bone to the other, measuring …?’

Mann stepped forward. ‘Twenty-one centimetres,’ he announced, holding the ruler while Ng photographed.

‘A large-bladed knife with a sawing action made this wound, and it was made at least twelve hours after death.’

Li shook his head with disbelief. ‘How do you know that? How do you know the size of the knife? Awesome!’

Saheed paused, looked over his glasses at Li, then, with a small upward jerk of the head, he beckoned him nearer.

He’ll
learn
… thought Mann, as Li hesitated.
The
hard way
…

‘Come closer, young man. I want to show you something.’ Mr Saheed guided Li’s hands to the edge of the wound. ‘Put your fingers in there and gently pull back the surrounding flaps of skin … Now what do you see?’

Li reached in gingerly.

‘A pattern of straight and jagged cuts, sir …’ he held his breath, ‘along the length of the wound.’ He stood up and turned his head away to breathe.

‘Stay there!’ Mr Saheed said as he held on to Li’s retreating hand. ‘Give him the ruler, Inspector.’ Mann handed it over. ‘Now … how long are the horizontal cuts?’

‘Four centimetres, sir.’ Li measured it with his free hand.

‘How far into the muscle and flesh has the knife travelled? Fingers in, young man, get on with it!’

‘Right through, sir. The cut goes past the fat and through the muscle.’

‘As far in as the length of your thumb, would you say?’

‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Okay. So the blade has to be at least that thick, doesn’t it? Does that answer your question, young man?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Li stood up and backed away to safety. He looked like he was about to throw up.

Mann winked at him. You had to admire his guts – he’d just
had
to ask, and that was a sign of a good detective. You had to be a good listener and a great questioner. Of course, timing was also important, but Shrimp hadn’t learned that bit yet.

Saheed moved his attention to the upper half of the torso.

‘There is a cluster of small burns across the chest area – cigarette burns by the look of them.’ He scanned the scatter of black dots, a centimetre in diameter, that were spattered across her chest and collarbone.

‘They were made over a period of days and are at different stages of healing.’ Li didn’t ask, even though he wanted to. Mr Saheed hovered over her chest. ‘And there is a tattoo here above the left breast. Can’t make out what it is.’ He paused, peeled off his gloves, and waited while Mann and Ng finished photographing and plotting the position of the tattoo. As he waited he was handed a slip of paper from a mortuary technician. He took it, studied it, picked up his file and flipped back over his notes.

‘Something else, gentlemen. According to the results of these blood tests …’ he checked his notes again and looked over his glasses at the detectives ‘… there isn’t just
one
woman on this table.’

The video stopped. He sat back, satiated, weary. He closed his eyes. Then the crying started. Behind him Glitter Girl cowered in the corner of the room. Still sat in the chair, his head relaxed against the back of the seat. Still holding the remote. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

‘Your turn will come – be patient. You just paint your pretty nails like I told you – make them sparkle.’

‘All three Caucasian?’

‘We may never know for sure, but the measurements, the forward curve to the femur, they tally.’

‘We may get lucky with some IDs,’ said Mann. ‘We have one skull, in pretty good shape at least, and a tattoo.’

‘And a fingerprint,’ added Li. He wasn’t going to let them forget that.

‘We’ll download these photos we’ve taken onto Detective Li’s laptop – get them straight across to headquarters so that they can begin working on it,’ said Mann. ‘Let’s hope it’s enough to positively establish the race and identity of these women. One
Gwaipoh
is bad enough – three will start a mass exodus.’

‘What about the texture of the skin?’ asked Li. ‘Would that help to give the ethnicity of the victim away, sir?’

‘How?’

‘Everyone knows that
Gweilos
have really rough skin and are very hairy.’

Mann looked at him, half-amused, half-appalled. ‘Yeah, that’s about as true as the one about all Chinese men having tiny cocks. Oh wait! That one is true!’ He turned back to the pathologist who was suppressing a grin.

‘Any theory about cause of death, sir?’ asked Mann.

‘We need to wait for the toxicology results to be sure about poisoning, but I suspect the cause of death to be asphyxiation again – manual strangulation or with the aid of a ligature. We’re just waiting for the x-rays to come back; that might give us an idea of how it was done. Right, let’s see what else we can find.’ He pressed his fingers inside the wound again and eased it apart.

‘We’re quite lucky here – because of the freez ing pro c ess we still have some organs left intact. However …’ his gloved fingers disappeared inside ‘… some are not where they should be.’ He looked at Li.

‘Sir?’

‘The ovaries and uterus are missing …’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Li, before he could stop himself.

The pathologist paused and looked at him. ‘It means … young man …’

Li blinked back at him, ready for the worst, but before Mr Saheed could answer, Kin Tak exploded:

‘We have a trophy taker …’ and immediately smacked his hand across his mouth to silence his excited giggle.