The Trophy Taker

‘No. There’s a constant stream of construction vehicles twenty-four hours a day. It’s easy to get in and out of the site. She could have been dumped at any time – day or night.’

Kin Tak appeared beside them, ready to start the autopsy.

Ng turned to Li. ‘You ready for this, Shrimp? You’re about to attend the autopsy of a murdered white woman – a rare thing over here. We usually only get to see dead triads, don’t we, Mann?’

‘Yes, and the more we get of those, the better,’ Mann said, and signalled to Kin Tak that they were ready for what was to come.

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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 sweetJesus! 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.

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‘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.’

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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.

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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 …