make. Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind. I can’t stop thinking about Helen. I even feel her presence in the flat, smell her perfume. I feel like someone’s been in there, someone’s been looking through my drawers, looking through the papers.’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe I’m just getting paranoid. But now, with Tammy going against my orders I’m wondering if I ever gave her them. Did I not make it clear?’
‘Let’s see if the Indian boy can tell us any more. He’s waiting to be interviewed now.’
‘Okay but…’ Mann sighed. ‘I don’t think it’s him, he’s covering for someone he cares about.’
Mann left the bodyguard’s finger on the parapet for the eagle and followed Mia off the roof.
Chapter 58
Shrimp stood opposite Kin Tak in the autopsy room. ‘Could this be the weapon?’ He took out the urumi and allowed it to slowly unwind to the floor.
Kin Tak coughed as a gasp turned to a phlegm rattle in his throat. He took the urumi from Shrimp with outstretched arms as if it were a baby. He laid it flat out on the counter and reached for his tape measure. He measured the strands of the urumi and wrote down his findings. He examined it under a magnifier. ‘I can say, without doubt, that this is the weapon. This is it.’
‘I have downloaded a demonstration from the Internet. It’s awesome,’ Shrimp said when he got back to the office. ‘This little baby has three one-inch bands of razor-sharp steel. It’s basically a flexible sword.’ Shrimp let it unravel slowly towards the floor.
‘It looks tricky to use.’ Mann watched, fascinated. He appreciated the centuries-old skill that had first dreamt up the weapon.
Shrimp went back to his desk and turned his monitor so that Mann and Ng could see. ‘It’s not easy. It was only given to the most gifted apprentices in Indian martial arts schools.’ Shrimp pressed the play button on the video link and two combating Indian men, practising urumi combat, came to life on the screen. They were sparring with the urumi and using a two-bladed knife to defend themselves. ‘You need some strength but it’s mainly down to agility and technique. This is the ideal weapon for a woman. You can tuck it into your belt or pop it into your handbag, and you can take out several opponents at once with this little baby. Someone knew what they were doing to be able to use it accurately. The damage it causes is easy to identify when you’ve seen it once. The speed with which it comes through the air, the razor-sharp edge of the three blades makes an unmistakable wound. It took Rajini’s hands off like a hot knife through butter. And it made a mess out of Max Kosmos.’
‘It’s a horrible-looking thing.’ Ng shook his head as he picked a Danish pastry apart; he didn’t share the others’ enthusiasm for weaponry.
‘You see how the metal coils are whipped in circular movements in the air and then cracked down on the opponent, blocked here by a sword?’
Mann peered in at the video. ‘Blow it up for me, Shrimp.’
‘It will lose definition but I’ll try.’
He clicked to enlarge the picture and Mann leaned across and pressed the pause button. The picture was a little blurred but still clear enough to see what Mann wanted. ‘Look what they have in their hands. It’s not a sword. It’s the same knife we found on Mahmud, the one used to stab Tammy. It’s the double-bladed one.’
‘Right, are you all ready?’ Mia appeared at the door.
Shrimp was busy typing in the knife’s details into a search engine. ‘Bundi knife. That’s its name.’
Mann picked it up from his desk. ‘let’s see if Mahmud knows what it’s called.’
Chapter 59
Mahmud looked every inch a frightened little boy – he also looked like he’d been passed over a cheese grater, his face and arms cut from when he was thrown headfirst into the police van the night before. Mann sat across from Mahmud in the interview room and stared at him. Shrimp leant on the wall and watched. Mia was watching from the monitoring room.
‘Mahmud Khan, you are under arrest for the attempted murder of a police officer.’ Mahmud stared at his lap. He was shaking. ‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’
Mahmud shook his head.
‘Let me tell you then. You were caught by one of my officers in the act of escaping. You were found in possession of the assault weapon used to attack police officer Tammy Wang. Is that correct?’
Mahmud nodded.
‘Is this yours?’ Mann picked up the knife; a two-bladed traditional martial arts knife now wrapped in polythene. He turned it over in his hands.
Mahmud nodded again.
Mann turned to Ng. ‘What do you think of this, Sergeant Ng?’ Mann and Ng were doing the ‘hard cop, soft cop’ routine. Mann rested his hands on the table and leaned over Mahmud. ‘Sergeant Ng is an expert in weapons and in martial arts,’ Mann lied. ‘He says this is a hard weapon to use, difficult. Don’t you, Sergeant?’
‘It takes some skill: double-bladed, serrated edges; it needs a strong arm to wield it. It needs a vicious mind. He doesn’t look the kind to me. He looks like a peaceful type.’
Mahmud didn’t speak. He stared at the table. Mann slammed the knife down in front of Mahmud. He jumped. It rocked on the table. Mann leaned across and punched his fist, his fingers extended, into Mahmud’s lower abdomen and held it there and pressed into him. Mahmud doubled as the wind was knocked out of him. He tried to stand but Mann held him down.
‘Two entry points right here. Her stomach was punctured and her liver is perforated.’ Mann pushed Mahmud’s shoulders back into the chair and lifted his head by his hair. He held him there and looked into his eyes. ‘If she survives, she’ll be on a machine; she’ll need a liver transplant. That’s no life for a twenty-year-old, is it?’
Mahmud didn’t answer. Mann let him go. ‘But neither is belonging to a Triad organization. They use people like you. Use them to do their dirty work and then they throw them away and get another one – as easy as that.’
Mahmud sat staring at the knife in front of him as if it terrified him. Mann sat back down opposite him again.
‘Why didn’t you run with the rest of them?’ Mahmud didn’t answer. ‘You don’t have to worry, you know.’ Mahmud looked up. He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t understand what Mann was getting at. ‘About your gang, the Outcasts. You don’t have to worry about the other members of your gang or the Wo Shing Shing. You don’t have to worry about them or the Sun Yee On either. Shall I tell you why?’ Mahmud’s eyes flicked up towards Mann’s. ‘Because you are never going to see any of them again. You’re not going to see your family either. That wasn’t just a Triad you knifed. That was one of my officers.’
Mann got up and paced about the room, then came to stand behind Mahmud, just out of his range of vision. ‘Your dad is really proud of you. He says you can read and write Mandarin. He says you will be a doctor someday. What do think of that, Sergeant?’ Mann addressed Ng.
‘I think he’s going to break his old man’s heart,’ Ng answered.
‘Yes, that’s true. You know why?’ Mahmud didn’t answer but his eyes darted around the room. ‘Because the only medical career you’ll be pursuing is stitching up your own arse when it gets split from having too many hard cocks up it. But don’t worry, you’ll get used to taking it – you’re going to be in there for the rest of your life.’
Mahmud shifted uneasily in his chair.
‘So what made you take the oath? Why become a Triad? Or is your brother Hafiz the one I should be talking to? He was with you that night, wasn’t he?’
Mahmud shook his head but he looked down at the table.
‘What about your girlfriend, Lilly Mendoza? Did she tell you to target the girl? Are you protecting Lilly?’
Mahmud looked up at Mann, hopelessness in his eyes. ‘I don’t know anything. Lilly’s a friend, that’s all. She’s not my girlfriend. Hafiz wasn’t there. I don’t know how I came to have the knife in my hand. Someone handed it to
