The Fan Tan Players Read online

  Costa lifted his shoulders, let them fall. ‘‘It’s a seeckness, I think. I can’t help myself.’’

  Iain pinched the skin between his eyes and shook his head. ‘‘Well go on then, tell me what it says.’’

  Costa reached over and removed a few sheets of paper from within the brown parcel. ‘‘I have here the fortnightly Confidential Report,’’ he announced.

  ‘‘Yes, I know, you fool. Read me what it says.’’

  ‘‘You want me to read it to you?’’

  ‘‘Aye.’’

  ‘‘In Eenglish?’’

  ‘‘No, you bloody twit, in Swahili. Of course in English!’’

  Costa gave a groan then cleared his throat noisily. ‘‘It says that there’s been fall in opium prices,’’ he said tentatively, blinking hard at the words. ‘‘The price of the colony’s opium, shold through the Hong Kong government monopoly, ish falling because of illegal shupplies. The Breetish Colonial Department estimates opium to account for only11% of the government’s total income for the year.’’

  ‘‘A drop of 3% from last year,’’ said Sutherland. He shook his head. ‘‘Clementi’s not going to be pleased. The monopoly’s meant to be managing the traffic. With His Majesty’s Government so reliant on official opium revenues, it’s no wonder he’s cracking down on smuggling.’’

  ‘‘Internal reports show shmuggling shindy-cates are thriving. Illicit trade valued at Hk. Tls 135,000 is thought to have been brought into Hong Kong seence Chinese New Year. And seex weeks ago, 2000 catties of a tobacco/opium mixture, packaged in bundles, was intercepted by the Hong Kong Police in a swoop in Wanchai. They shuggest that the contraband material ish coming through from Macao.’’ Costa stopped talking, wiped a lustrous bead of sweat from his cheek.

  ‘‘And?’’

  ‘‘And what?’

  ‘‘Why have you stopped?’’

  ‘‘My Engleesh. It’s not so good. It’s tiring for me to read like this, Vermelho.’’

  ‘‘Stop whining, you great lump, and get on with it!’’

  Costa made a sour face and lowered his eyes to the sheets of paper. ‘‘It says here seex names are extracted from those that are arrested. One, a Mr. Takashi, ish a Japanese entrepreneur with hotel and gaming interests; he hazh already been brought in for questioning and ish on remand. Intelligence information indicates that Takashi ish head of the Golden Tiger triad syndicate – a very dangerous man. Files show he hazh three business partnersh. One of them is called Mr. J. P. Lazar.’’

  ‘‘What do you know about Lazar?’’

  The Macanese man thought for a moment, stretched his fat legs toward the window. He was slow-moving but not lazy. ‘‘About shixty, hotel owner, operates two, maybe three unlicenced gambling halls. His sister married a Russian tobacconist, some man called Fillipov. She died about five yearsh ago.’’ Costa shrugged and got up from his chair. He went over to the windowsill where a row of men’s toiletries – some bay rum, a jar of hair cream and a dark green bottle of Musgo Real Agua de Colonia – stood basking in the sun. He picked up the bottle of cologne and looked closely at it. ‘‘I’ve been into the shop. There’s this beeg Russian woman who serves behind the counter, great beeg booshoms! Like melonsh. But I cannot remember her name.’’ He gave the bottle a shake. ‘‘What is my colonia doing in your office?’’

  ‘‘She’s called Olga Shashkova.’’

  Costa sat back down. He repeated the name and then raised a finger to the sky. ‘‘You think Lazar and the tobacconist are involved in the opium. In this triad business? Ish that what you are thinking, Vermelho?’’

  ‘‘I’m under pressure to put a stop to this opium smuggling as it’s eating into the Government’s profits. I’m looking at every possible angle. That’s why I’ve been trying to get information out of the daughter.’’

  ‘‘Lazar hazh a daughter?’’ said Costa, leaning forward in his chair.

  ‘‘No, Olga Shashkova’s daughter.’’

  Costa, still leaning forward, watched Sutherland closely. ‘‘She ish good-looking?’’

  Iain paused, shuffled some papers on his desk. ‘‘Sort of …’’

  Costa smiled at the ceiling. Sutherland ignored the look on his colleague’s face. ‘‘I want you to pay Lazar a visit today,’’ he said. ‘‘Two thousand catties of tobacco is huge. Let’s find out whether there’s any connection between the tobacco and Lazar and this Shashkov fellow. Maybe the Tabacaria is a smokescreen of some sort. I’m going to keep on talking to the daughter.’’

  ‘‘So that ish why you borrow my colonia. You like her, eh?’’ Costa grinned, at the same time removing a fruit-scented handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the sweat from his face. He also extracted a bag of pistachios from a filing cabinet and started peeling away their shells. ‘‘You want to dance the midnight rumba with her, Vermelho?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ said Iain. Something in his throat tightened. ‘‘I’m just doing my job.’’

  ‘‘You go to shleep at night with a pounding heart, eh?’’ Costa’s face flushed with delight. He was nodding and full of laughter. ‘‘Amor, amor!’’ he sang, and when he laughed his mouth grew wide and childlike.

  ‘‘It’s the smuggling ring I’m interested in, not the girl,’’ Sutherland said with emphatic sobriety. ‘‘And then there’s this body that was found floating in the harbour …’’

  Costa, worn down by years of port and heavy aromatic food, shrugged his shoulders and grunted. ‘‘Maybe it was a shooishide.’’ He began eating his pistachios.

  Sutherland got to his feet and moved to stand before the slatted window. ‘‘You don’t bind your hands with rope, stuff rosary beads into your mouth if you’re going to top yourself. And why was the right foot stripped of flesh?’’

  ‘‘You think it ish a triad killing? Maybe to do with Takashi?’’

  ‘‘Maybe. Lee and I are accompanying a police detective to the mortuary tonight to look at the body, which will be fun. You know how I love the smell of a three-week-old corpse.’’

  Costa threw a pistachio into his mouth and gave it a crunch.

  Morning sun slanted through the wooden blinds, whirling grains of golden dust in its rays. In the street below the hubbub of coolie calls and shouts soared above the fountain in the middle of the promenade square. Sutherland could see the sweep of the Praya Grande in the near distance, could hear the waves beat against the age-old rocks of the seawall. He began thinking about Nadia. Tall, composed, a little proud, there was certainly something unusual about her, as if her body concealed a secret. Was it a naivety, a virginal confidence? Why did he think she was a virgin? The woman was in her late twenties. It was something he couldn’t put his finger on. Perhaps it was the way she held herself; maybe it was the wistful, artless slope of her mouth. He certainly liked her laugh, thought it was a pretty one. And when he pictured her face – the beauty mark on her chin, the sprinkling of freckles beneath the eyes, the loose strands of hair that kissed her cheeks – a feeling ran through his blood like a hot wind through brittle leaves.

  ‘‘Amor, amor! Tell me something about this Shashkov girl,’’ said Costa.

  ‘‘There’s nothing to tell.’’

  ‘‘Entangled in desire …’’ Costa sang. ‘‘Oh, my sweet lady friend, won’t you lend me your lips …’’

  Iain Sutherland bowed his head. He felt a pistachio shell strike the back of his neck, another ricocheted from his shoulder. A glimpse of a smile spread across his face. ‘‘You really are one of the most annoying men I know.’’

  ‘‘Sweet lady friend, sweet lips of paradise …’’

  Three whole pistachio nuts pinged off the window pane. Sutherland looked round at Costa with a flashing look of pique. Costa squinted back at him like a gunslinger in a cheap cowboy movie, baring his teeth in a smile. He shut one eye as a hunter would when taking aim at his prey and hurled another nut at the Scot. Sutherland lunged at him, grabbing him by the shoulders, attempting to pull the shirt over Costa’s
head. The two men grappled. Costa teetered from his chair. Spontaneously, he threw his arms into Sutherland’s chest. The chair landed with a thud on the parquet as they crashed to the floor and rolled, scattering paper, nuts, straw hats, pens, paperclips, blotters and ashtrays. ‘‘You are meshmerized by her melonsh,’’ cried Costa, giggling. They were breathing into each other’s faces, both laughing now. Costa bit him on the elbow.

  ‘‘Get off me, you fat weasel,’’ yelled Sutherland. Their heads rolled and banged against one another. It was a moment of pure intoxication. Two men in their very early thirties, old companions, wrestling, acting like children again.

  ‘‘Wait!’’ hissed Sutherland, with hoarse intensity. ‘‘Someone’s coming.’’ He heard the door begin to scrape open; it was a thick door and its wood juddered against the floorboards. Sutherland and Costa froze. Mrs. Chan, the consulate administrator, filled the threshold. She held a crystal vase in her hands, containing a pretty arrangement of yellow flowers. A look of horror and astonishment darkened her face as she surveyed the scene before her. Keeping her eyes fixed on the two men, she bent down slowly and laid the vase on the floor, then eased herself upright once more. Without speaking, she squeezed the tops of her fleshy arms, unsure exactly where she should put herself. Costa’s hands were still clasped round Sutherland’s throat. Sutherland’s fingers were in the other man’s hair. They must have looked huge and wild and ludicrous.

  ‘‘Ahhh, Mrs. Chan,’’ said Sutherland standing up. ‘‘What have you got for me today?’’ Costa clambered to his feet too, shirt disheveled, potbelly swaying. Cloth, wood, metal and newspaper were strewn across the floor – a mess of confidential documents lay liberated from their cardboard shrouds.

  ‘‘I thinking …’’ she said, whispering, ‘‘that maybe your room need a little colour.’’

  ‘‘Very good of you, Mrs. Chan, I’ll put it on the table by the window later. Senhor Costa was just showing me some new karate moves.’’

  She stared at him, her lips quivering with displeasure.

  ‘‘Anything else?’’ he asked, embarrassed, turning his attention momentarily to Costa who, he noticed, had a great split down the back of his trousers.

  ‘‘Yes,’’ she said. ‘‘Police Commissioner is waiting for you in next room.’’

  7

  At about six o’clock that same evening Iain and Lee arrived at the Hospital St. Lourenco. The mortuary was below-stairs in a bright, low-ceilinged anteroom. The skull-white walls were adorned with charts of the human nervous-system and pictures of the Virgin Mary. On the lime-washed shelves were specimen jars containing livers, hearts and intestines swimming in formaldehyde, together with numerous sets of grinning faceless teeth mounted on wood. In one corner hung a pig carcass suspended from a meat hook. On its rump, stamped in blue ink, were the Chinese words ‘slaughterhouse approved. 60% lean meat’. The hairy snout brushed the smooth floor. The room was very cold.

  Following his meeting with the police commissioner, Iain and Lee had been given special dispensation to be present at the autopsy. They were accompanied by a police detective named Poon.

  ‘‘You will need this,’’ said Lee, handing Iain a tiny red-and-gold tin of Tiger Balm. ‘‘For the stinky. Put under each nose hole.’’ Iain applied the camphor ointment.

  Seconds later, the refrigeration unit hissed as the autopsy room door slid open, emitting a strong smell of sulphur dioxide and ammonia.

  ‘‘Mr. Sutherland? Mr. Lee? Det. Poon?’’ asked a short Chinese man in a laboratory coat.

  ‘‘Yes,’’ they replied.

  ‘‘My name is Koh. Please come this way. Oh, and forgive the pig, my niece is having her moon-yuet celebration tomorrow. Only place to keep it fresh.’’ He took a few neat little steps forward. ‘‘I was informed that you are not a policeman, Mr. Sutherland. Very rare for us to have a civilian present at our PM’s, you know.’’

  ‘‘So I gather. I’m here representing HM Government Hong Kong.’’

  ‘‘Yes, very hush-hush and classified. Don’t worry, as witnesses your names will not appear on the paperwork.’’

  The autopsy room was equally bright, lit by a series of overhead bulbs, its floor liberally covered with sawdust. At its centre was a metal operating table fitted with twin grooves on either side to allow for the drainage of blood and other bodily liquids. On the nearby worktop Iain saw a sink basin, a hot and cold tap, a pedal for a shower hose, electric sockets, and a range of stainless steel tools – scalpels, bone saws, sheers, toothed forceps, needles, skull chisels and rib cutters.

  Iain folded his arms over his chest.

  ‘‘Is this your first forensic autopsy, Mr. Sutherland?’’ asked Koh.

  ‘‘Aye.’’

  ‘‘Lo baan was in the army before,’’ said Lee. ‘‘He not scared of dead people.’’

  ‘‘Actually, ever since the war I’ve been a little uncomfortable around corpses.’’

  Another man entered the room. The refrigeration unit hissed again, excreting additional odours of sulphur and ammonia. ‘‘This is Ah-Kuen,’’ said Koh, ‘‘he is what we call in our business the diener. He will move the body, photograph the subject and take samples of hair and skin scrapings.’’

  Ah-Kuen went over to a tall white cabinet and opened up one of the hatches to the cold chamber. Inside, Iain saw trays of bodies stacked three-levels high. Koh looked at his notes. ‘‘Ah, yes, number B188. One of our long-staying residents.’’

  Iain took a step back. Ah-Kuen transferred B188 to a wheeled stretcher and brought it to the autopsy table. After cleaning the body, Ah-Kuen left the room.

  Koh started making visual observations. ‘‘Male, aged early thirties. Race: Chinese stroke Macanese. No visible birthmarks. Mole on right upper leg. Right foot stripped of all flesh up to the ankle, first to fifth metatarsal bones intact. Flesh of lower leg corrupted in parts. All distal and proximal phalanxes appear undamaged. Lateral cuneiform has signs of indent. Evidence of external interference – possible bite and gnaw marks. Looking further up, we see a wound to the throat and an entrance wound to the chest. Scar-tissue consistent throughout. Tattoo on left forearm. Both wrists have noticeable abrasions, probably caused by ropes or handcuffs.’’

  ‘‘What kind of tattoo?’’ Iain asked.

  ‘‘An image of a red pole carrying a blue lantern, and the number 426,’’ said Lee, leaning forwards to see.

  ‘‘What does that mean?’’

  ‘‘It means he a member of a secret society. Wo Cheung Wo triad. The red pole and number confirms he a ‘fighter’. The blue lantern confirms he loyal to his leader.’’

  Ah-Kuen returned with a camera and started taking photographs. The flash popped several times.

  ‘‘Now I will make an internal examination,’’ said Koh.

  Ah-Kuen came forward and placed a body-block under the spine of B188 so that the arms and neck fell backwards. ‘‘This pushes the chest upwards, elongating the skin,’’ said Koh with a smile. ‘‘It helps to facilitate the cutting.’’

  Iain instinctively turned his back to the proceedings.

  ‘‘You ok, lo baan?’’ Lee asked, standing close.

  ‘‘No.’’ Iain swallowed. ‘‘I saw a lot of death in the war. I don’t like being reminded of it, regardless of what form it comes in.’’

  ‘‘Hey, but you big army man. Scottish Dragons. Why you scared?’’

  ‘‘I’m not scared, Lee.’’

  ‘‘Then how come you look as white as octopus?’’

  ‘‘It’s the memories.’’

  ‘‘My Ma-Ma says that best way to not scared of memories is to talk about them.’’

  Koh said, ‘‘Now I am making a deep Y-shaped slit from left shoulder to breastbone to right shoulder.’’

  Iain heard the quiet tearing of skin and flinched. After a few seconds he said, ‘‘Lee, let’s wait outside. We don’t have to see this. Det. Poon can supply the details.’’

  Iain laid a hand on the door han
dle. The door hissed open and he stepped into bright, low-ceilinged anteroom. He stood amongst the jars of livers and hearts feeling tired and off-centre.

  Inside a minute, Lee had joined him and was now staring dumbly at the pig, as if hypnotized. The two men treated each other to a long period of silence.

  Eventually, Lee spoke. ‘‘Pigs always remind me of my fadder. He used to work in the abattoir,’’ he said, prodding the hog’s snout with the tip of his shoe. ‘‘Every evening he come home, stinking of bwud. His clothes were always dirty and stained from his work. When he come to my bed to kiss me goodnight, I used to push him away.

  ‘‘Then one morning, a temple day, he put on his best shirt and cleanest trousers to go bai sun and give respects to his ancestors. He carried two oranges in his hands. I thing he was late or something. Anyway, he get hit by car. In those days there were very few cars in Macao. He was not used to crossing the road. The police give my Ma-Ma back his glasses, his shoes and his two oranges. You not the only one, lo baan, who has been angry with the Gods.’’

  Iain drew in a breath. ‘‘But I saw a lot of it, Lee. Far too many of my friends …’’

  ‘‘Maybe it worse when they die by accident, like my fadder, because you not expecting it.’’

  ‘‘Maybe,’’ Iain said. There was a long pause.

  Through the door, Iain thought he could hear the sounds of sawing.

  ‘‘You ever kill someone during the war, lo baan?’’

  ‘‘I’ll kill you if you don’t stop with these questions.’’ Iain wiped his face with a handkerchief. ‘‘Look, let’s change the subject. What do you know about the Golden Tiger triads, Takashi’s outfit?’’

  ‘‘Them big in gambling and drug distribution. Mainly pen yan, opium.’’

  ‘‘Are they in direct competition with the Wo Cheung Wo?’’

  ‘‘I thing maybe.’’

  ‘‘Do you think we have a gang war on our hands?’’

  ‘‘I thing so.’’

  ‘‘Do they usually dump bodies out in the open?’’

  ‘‘No, usually someone just disappear. Tied to rock and thrown to bottom of sea or hide undergownd.’’