of rice, rubber, and tin to ships moored out in the Straits. Somewhere along the way the bumboats had been swapped for steel containers and the wharves for cranes and the traffic had started running in the other direction. Instead of taking out rice, rubber, and tin, cargo ships calling in Singapore now brought in Sony PlayStations, Samsung flat screen TVs, and Apple iPhones. That, Tay supposed, was what people meant when they talked about progress.
In front of the windows was an L-shaped seating area with a couch and a chair, both upholstered in some kind of nubby, darkgreen fabric. There were also two side tables, two lamps with heavy brass bases, and a coffee table with a thick, oval-shaped glass top. On the right was a light-colored wooden desk that matched the end tables, and on the left was a large cabinet with a television set inside it, an old-fashioned-looking model with its cables coiled haphazardly into a corner. The furniture was tired-looking and didn’t really seem to fit the room. The carpet was worn and had several burns and stains as well as a big wrinkle across it. The drapes were made of some kind of heavy, neutral-colored fabric and looked as if they could use a good cleaning.
The whole effect, Tay thought, was slightly shabby. Certainly not what he would have expected a suite in a five-star hotel to look like, but then he supposed he really hadn’t seen all that many suites in five-star hotels, so what did he know? After all, he reminded himself this was just a Marriott, not the Four Seasons. Maybe the hotels where everyday business travelers stayed always looked like this.
Without stepping into the room Tay squatted and examined the carpet. He placed his hand flat against it. It was dry to the touch and when he lifted his hand and sniffed his palm there was no odor. He raised his eyes and scanned the room. It looked normal enough. No furniture shoved around, no tables tipped over, nothing pushed to the floor.
Tay raised his head and tasted the air. It was cold. Someone had set the air-conditioning very low. And there was death in it. The rancid, raw meat odor of blood mixed with the stink of urine and feces. It was a smell like no other he had ever known.
When Tay stood up, his knees creaked loudly. Sergeant Kang was behind him and Tay wondered to himself if Kang had heard. Yes, of course he’d heard, but then what difference did it make? Would Robbie be surprised that he was starting to creak at the joints? Would he somehow be disappointed in Tay for starting to turn into an old man? No, of course he wouldn’t. What a lot of nonsense it was even to think about it.
Tay handed Kang the security card he had used to open the door. “Return this when you go downstairs please, Sergeant.”
Kang nodded quickly, a single jerk of his head, and slipped the card into his shirt pocket.
Across the living room a door was ajar. Tay assumed it led to the bedroom where the security man said he had found the body. Watching carefully where he placed his feet, he crossed the suite.
The door was a little more than half open, but the room beyond was dark and Tay could make out almost nothing inside. He nudged the door with his elbow and in the light from the living room window saw a light switch to the right of the door. He used the side of his hand to flip it up and two bedside lamps flared to life.
Tay looked away. If he had not, he knew he would have vomited then and there.
It was worse than he expected. Much worse. Later he would say it was the worst he had ever seen, and he thought he had seen more than any man should have to see.
The woman lay spread-eagled on the room’s king-sized bed. Her head and shoulders were held upright by two pillows and her legs pointed to the doorway where Tay was standing. They were open at an unnatural angle. The woman’s face appeared to be looking straight at Tay, or it would have been if she had a face. It was crushed beyond recognition.
Tay breathed slowly in and out and tried desperately to bring himself under control. His mouth was drier than he could ever remember it. He tried to swallow, but couldn’t. A few more breaths, he told himself, just take a few more breaths, slow and deep. Gather the moisture in your throat. Roll it around. Take your time.
WHEN he thought he might be ready to try again, little by little he moved his eyes back to the bed.
The woman was nude. Her body was slim and appeared to be fit and toned, but it looked as if she was still in the rigid stage of rigor mortis so it was difficult to be sure. Her skin might once have been tanned, but now it was gray, except around her hips and buttocks and at the bottom of her legs where Tay could see the dusky purple lividity where stagnated blood had accumulated. It struck Tay there was remarkably little blood anywhere around her on the bed.
Where the woman’s face had been there was nothing now but a dark mass of tissue spread out in a coagulated lump like a tray of ground meat in a supermarket display case. The light from the bedside lamp glistened off patches of white bone shining through raw flesh and her swollen tongue, bitten half through, hung from where Tay assumed her mouth must have once been. The woman’s hair had been deep brown or even black, and clumps of it were stuck into the matted tissue like soiled straw spread on a garage floor to mop up oil stains.
The body had been posed after the woman was murdered. There was no doubt of that. Her hands were neatly folded beneath her breasts and her legs were spread open at a freakish angle. Something between them flashed in the light and in spite of himself Tay looked more closely. There was a metallic object of some sort protruding from the darker mass of the woman’s pubic hair.
For a moment Tay did not know what it was; and then he did.
He was looking, he realized all at once, at the rear end of the barrel of a chrome-colored flashlight. The rest of the flashlight, at least six inches of it beginning with the lens, had been pushed up the woman’s vagina.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Tay heard Sergeant Kang whisper from behind him. “Shit, oh shit, shit, shit.”
Tay said nothing. He was fighting too hard to control his nausea.
Inspector Tay and Sergeant Kang were waiting outside in the corridor when the Forensic Management Branch arrived. There were three men, two wearing black vests over their sport shirts with
The man with the tie stopped in front of Tay. “Ready for us?”
Tay’s face was pale and he was leaning against the wall as if it were holding him upright. He just grunted and waved toward the open door. The man nodded and said nothing. One glance at Tay told him all he needed to know.
The three men organized their bags into a neat row just outside the door to the room. One of them produced paper shoe bags and a box of latex gloves, and Tay and Kang watched silently as all three slipped the protective coverings over their hands and feet. The shoe bags were white, but the gloves were bright red and they struck Tay as looking unreasonably cheery.
The man with the tie squatted just outside the open door and surveyed the room’s interior while the two men in black vests leaned over his shoulders and did the same thing. They stayed like that for quite a while, whispering a few words to each other now and then, but they kept their voices low and Tay and Kang couldn’t make out what they were saying. For his part, Tay was just as happy he couldn’t.
Tay had gone twenty-nine days without smoking a cigarette. That was his longest streak to date by a good bit, but he had no doubt it was over now. He had a headache and he would have given a month’s pay for a cigarette right that minute. Just one fucking cigarette. Was that too much to ask? He didn’t even care what brand it was. He’d take anything.
Kang didn’t smoke, so he wasn’t going to be any help, and leaving the crime scene to go and buy a pack of cigarettes was too unseemly an act to contemplate seriously. Or maybe it wasn’t.
Tay was still trying to decide when he saw the Officer in Charge of CID-SIS coming down the corridor. Deputy Superintendent of Police Goh Kim Leng stopped directly in front of Tay and looked him over carefully.
“Is it that bad?” he asked.
Tay didn’t reply.
“Yes, sir,” Kang responded instead. “It is.”
Goh had a full head of thick, silver hair that men half his age regarded with envy, and he habitually wore dark, gold-rimmed sunglasses. He was of medium height, but looked shorter because of his broad shoulders, barrel chest, and thick, heavily muscled neck.
“You sure you’re okay, Sam?” he asked again.
“Yes, sir,” Tay nodded carefully, trying not to make his headache any worse. “I’m just great, sir.”
“You don’t look so great.”
