handle all interviews from now on. My team will do all the background on Max Kosmos. We’ll get a search started for all missing foreign businessmen that fit the perp’s specs in case there are other victims we don’t yet know about. Mia’s team will deal with Rajini. Ng, you can liaise between the two departments. I want to know what is cross-referencing across both camps. Keep us on track. If there is a link to the Outcasts then it follows to the Mansions too. Rajini Singh was from there. Max Kosmos was staying just a few doors up from there. Shrimp, your English is Americanized, I want you to be the businessman decoy and go undercover in the bars, stay in Vacation Villas. It’ll take a couple of days to set it up. We need to make you look good, give you a watertight cover. You’ll be watched by a team from my department. You’ll be wired all the time. We need to get behind the Outcasts, our murderer could be one of them. Operation Schoolyard continues.’
‘No,’ said Mann, ‘it’s too risky. I’m stalling it for now.’
Sheng didn’t answer at first. He stared at Mann coldly then he turned to Mia. She nodded. Sheng threw up his hands exasperated. ‘No fucking way…’
‘Something’s not right. Tammy’s at risk. We need more information. I’ve told her to sit tight. It can’t be rushed into. There’s too much at stake. I want it to work. No way am I letting her walk into a trap.’
Chapter 40
Ruby picked up the black doll and held her at eye level.
‘I’m sorry, baby. I should have never brought your daddy here but I was lonely. I never meant to hurt your daddy. I got frightened. He shouldn’t have tried to touch me. I am sorry, baby. Your daddy was special to me; he was the first that I kept here; he was the first that I…’ She couldn’t bring herself to say it. ‘I never meant to hurt him but then I couldn’t stop.’
She grew angry, shaking the doll without realizing. Its eyes banged in the plastic sockets.
‘I told him not to touch me. I told him. He didn’t listen.’ She stopped and breathed hard, calmed, she kissed the doll and placed it back down on the shelf. She put the photo of Ishmael in its lap. She turned back and smiled at all of the dolls. ‘Who wants to get a last look at Daddy before Mummy has to let him go?’ The dolls’ perfect little ruddy plastic faces smiled back. ‘Of course you all do,’ she laughed. She scooped the dolls up in her arms and pulled back the curtain and opened the door to her bedroom. His breathing was laboured. Ruby had removed the ball gag. There was no need to keep it. No one would hear him now. She crept in the room in the dark.
‘Shhhhh,’ she whispered into the nylon doll’s hair, ‘Daddy’s sleeping.’
He stirred as she came close. He let out a gasp of fright. It sounded strange. He had no nose, no lips, no side to his face.
Ruby put the light on, it bounced off the white tile still visible beneath the blood splatters. It threw deep shadows around the room. Steve’s wounds were still oozing.
‘Oh, Daddy’s very naughty. He’s just pretending to sleep. Shall we wake him with this?’ She picked up the electric saw.
Steve thrashed around. He tried to speak. Ruby tiptoed around him, placing each doll around the room.
‘What’s that you say? See if he’s ticklish under his arm? So sweet baby, so clever…’ She switched the saw on and knelt beside him. His arms were stretched above his head.
She brought the saw down into his armpit. He screamed. Blood and bone sprayed around the room. Ruby carried on until she had sawn through the shoulder joint. ‘There…’ She stood with the dripping saw in her hand. Ruby picked up another doll and held its mouth to her ear again. ‘What? See if Daddy is ticklish there? Ruby giggled. ‘You’re a very naughty baby. But okay…’ Ruby fired up the saw again and ran it up the length of his leg towards his groin.
Chapter 41
Tom Sheng caught up with Mann on his way back to his office.
‘Who gave you permission to interview the suspect?’
‘My boss.’ Mann walked away.
Sheng held Mann back by the arm.‘Let’s get this straight. You run everything by me from now on. Something doesn’t smell so good about you at the moment, Mann. I am getting the whiff of corruption. You’re in the wrong place at the right time these days. I’ll be watching your every move. I am going to sit in the monitoring room and run that tape back. If I find anything, I mean anything, I don’t like, you’re suspended.’
Mann felt his breathing slow. He held his breath deep inside his lungs, took it right inside his diaphragm. ‘Do it, Sheng. I’ve got nothing to hide. Mia wanted me to interview Michelle. Your interview techniques have been known to start with a hand up the suspect’s skirt. You’re a dirty bastard.’
‘If you don’t like the colleagues you work with then why don’t you fucking leave? You have your father’s money. You have your Triad family – fuck off. From now on you work on solving Rajini’s murder and following up on the Outcasts and only that, leave the rest to me. And, of course,’ he smiled smugly, ‘carry on doing what you seem to do best: ingratiate yourself with the top Triad brass. It’s a home from home for you.’ Sheng was inches from Mann’s face. He was frothing at the mouth.
Ng came up beside Mann and steered him away down the corridor towards Mia’s office.
‘Leave him. He will never change. Rotten wood cannot be carved. We have work to be done.’
Mia looked at him as they walked into her office. He could see by her face she was expecting him to go ballistic. He’d already decided he wasn’t going to. It didn’t stop him imploding though. He began to feel like his feet were in quicksand. He had the feeling Sheng wasn’t alone in his thoughts, he just didn’t hesitate to voice them.
Shrimp was the last one in, he closed the door behind him. Mia looked at him.
‘You okay with going undercover?’
Shrimp beamed. ‘Yes Boss. I need to choose my outfits carefully, grey suit, striped shirts, fancy glasses, jazzy tie. No, forget the tie, keep it young conservative.’
‘Don’t get carried away,’ said Ng. ‘The only reason you’re doing it and not me is that you sound like a Yank. Otherwise it would have been my operation. You know Mann can’t do it because he’s known in all the bars.’
‘I want you and Mann to head back to the Mansions now,’ Mia said. ‘Get as much information as you can before Sheng goes marching in there and all hope of solving this case marches out. Don’t let the rules stop you from asking questions about Max Kosmos. Ng will feed it back to the other team. Find that weapon.’
Chapter 42
Tom Sheng got back to his office and made a call to Mia. She was alone in her office.
‘I’m overruling Mann on Operation Schoolyard. I’m taking it away from him. We can’t trust his judgement any more. We can’t be sure his motives are what they should be. I’ve seen the new car in the car park. That’s a hell of a pay-off. He has obviously thrown himself into the task of infiltration wholeheartedly.’
Mia was fuming. ‘That’s utter bullshit and you know it. You don’t like Mann, you never have. You asked him to do his best to get inside CK’s head and that’s what he’s doing. You of all people should know you have to live it when you go undercover. You can’t tell me there weren’t moments in those two years you spent undercover when you didn’t know which way you felt any more.’
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end. ‘I earned my promotion, Mia. I did two years for the Wo Shing Shing. But I always knew why I was in there. I always knew what my objective was. I never got a brand new fucking Maserati.’
‘Then you lucked out, didn’t you, Tom? What do you want me to say? Poor fucking you? You’re jealous of Mann. You need to seriously take a look at yourself, Tom. I am beginning to wonder what I see in you.’ Mia heard
