Hungry Ghosts (15 page)

16

Crime Scene

A cordon of
stony-faced police officers greeted the Police Chief’s car as it pulled into the rutted side-road in Chaweng. The inevitable crowd of onlookers stood at a discreet distance from the guarded house waiting for something to happen. Neighbours’ dusty children ran around in the street, occasionally being yelled at by a policeman if they strayed too close to the police tape. Four police cars were parked in the road. The locals knew something important was going on and they weren’t about to miss out on it.

Buajan
, one of Charoenkul’s senior officers stepped forward as Papa Doc climbed out of the car.

“Is
Ho here with the forensic team?” snapped the Chief.

“Yes, sir. They’re all inside,”
Buajan responded.

“Clear all these people away. This is not a circus.”

“Very good, sir.”

Buajan
barked at the other policemen and they fanned out moving back the crowd none-too-gently.

As Charoenkul walked towards the
polythene tent covering the front door of the house he reflected that at least on this occasion there would be a professional job done on the forensics. As a result of his clearing up the ‘burning murders’, the Chief had been able to apply pressure to have a senior forensics officer seconded to his small island force.

Liosun
Ho had come highly recommended and with an impressive track-record in murder investigations in Bangkok. Charoenkul had been inclined to see this as something of a personal victory and evidence of his rising profile in the Royal Thai Police. However, a few weeks on, he was no longer so sure. Perhaps behind a front of congratulation, his Bangkok colleagues had taken the opportunity to offload an unpopular – if talented – employee.

While Ho was undoubtedly dedicated to his work, he was perhaps a little
too
dedicated – to the point of being creepy. Charoenkul had heard some of the talk around the station; that Ho’s sole topics of conversation revolved around morgues, autopsies and the ‘interesting’ things that happened to human corpses after death.

Consequently his new co
workers had given him the nickname ‘The Iceman’, hinting that his sexual appetites (assuming he had any) might tend to the necrophile.

Gossip also had it that
Ho had a pin-up of Dr. Porntip Rojanasunan on the inside of the door to his locker which he treated like a shrine. Dr. Rojanasunan, a forensic pathologist, had been granted the title
Khunying
by the King yet she remained a controversial figure and an occasional thorn in the side of the establishment. In Thailand there are around ten thousand unidentified corpses each year, and the good doctor had not been averse to spelling out the deficiencies in police investigation techniques. This had won her some enemies. It had also won her some friends – and it did no harm that she was something of an attractive lady.

However, at that moment Charoenkul could not have cared less about Ho’s alleged peccadilloes and perversions. He was glad
the Iceman was on hand. The last thing Papa Doc needed was a botched investigation into the murder of a policeman.

He entered the small tent with
Buajan and they put on the requisite protective clothing and face masks. Two other officers were already in the cramped space, kitted up and sitting on upturned plastic boxes.

“Why aren’t you inside?” asked Charoenkul.

“Sir, Officer Ho doesn’t want us to go in until the photographer is finished,” replied one of them glumly.

“I’ve given Ho full authority to organize proceedings,” said
Buajan, completing the struggle into his suit. “While I am the official Scene of Crime Officer, Ho has more experience with this sort of thing.”

He knocked at the door and a terse voice replied, “Come in, but
carefully
, and step to your right.”

Charoenkul and
Buajan entered as directed and shut the door behind them. Both men choked back an immediate gag reflex at the pungent smell of death that assaulted them. Ho was giving directions to a photographer who was taking close-up shots of a man in a chair in the centre of the room. As he stepped back, Charoenkul had a full view of Tathip’s body and he let out an involuntary gasp.

Ho dismissed the photographer with an instruction to leave without touching the door handle, and turned his attention to the two senior officers.
He peered at them through his thick-lensed glasses perched atop of his dust mask.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he said cheerily addressing the Chief. “Please don’t approach too close to the body, don’t touch anything and be careful not to tread in the blood. I’ll be calling in the dusting team in a moment, but is there anything I can do for you first
? I am afraid you will have to leave when the team is working.”

Charoenkul looked at Ho dubiously. He was not accustomed to anything other than deference from his officers but seeing the fanatical gl
eam in the other man’s eyes he held his tongue.  Buajan shuffled nervously from one foot to the other.

“Can we open a window in here?”

Ho shook his head, “Not until the team is finished. We need to preserve the scene as far as possible.”

“It smells like an abattoir,” said Papa Doc coldly.

The little mole-man shrugged and observed matter-of-factly, “Well, that’s because it is kind of like an abattoir. There’s certainly enough blood.”

Buajan
decided he needed to intervene before the conversation degenerated. “Tathip was discovered around eleven-thirty this morning, sir,” he stated quickly. “When he didn’t report for work an officer was dispatched to call at the house. He found a neighbour with a key and discovered … this. The team was dispatched shortly afterwards.”

Ho clapped his hands together in apparent glee. “And this is so amazing, sir.” He squeezed Charoenkul’s arm in his enthusiasm,
impervious to the Police Chief’s disapproving stare.

“I must confess,” Ho continued brightly, “
when I was seconded down here from Bangkok I thought it was going to be boring, but if I can be involved in murders like
this
on a regular basis I would definitely consider transferring to Samui permanently. I had no idea there could be such
exotic
work here. And to tell you the truth,” he continued in a confidential fashion, leaning in towards the Chief, “a lot of the murder cases in Bangkok are fairly humdrum, not really requiring a man of my expertise.”

“Indeed,” spat Charoenkul through clenched teeth.

“But I apologise,” babbled Ho, again putting his hand on the Chief’s arm, “I do get a little carried away sometimes. What can I do for you, sir?”

Papa Doc leaned forward dangerously.

“Might I remind you, Officer Ho, that one of our colleagues has been brutally murdered? Your jollity would appear to be somewhat misplaced.”

The Iceman was completely un
abashed.

“This is just me,” he said shrugging. “It’s how I work,” he added brightly.

“What can you tell us so far?” jumped in Buajan.

Ho looked puzzled.

“We’ve only taken photographs so far. We have had no time for any serious scientific work.”

“You’re a police officer,” hissed Charoenkul, “
and an investigator. So
investigate
.”

The short man drew himself up with dignity.

“With all due respect, I prefer to work on a scientific basis and ensure that evidence gathering is done professionally, so that proper logical conclusions can be drawn. For this I need time. Otherwise we will be proceeding entirely on guesswork.”

“I am not asking for your final conclusions, Ho,” articulated Charoenkul carefully. “I am asking you for your provisional observations.”

“You mean you want me to
speculate
on what happened?”

Some of the hostility emanating from the two senior officers finally penetrated
the Iceman’s awareness, although he was still left largely unmoved. He sighed, as if addressing annoying children.

“Very well, but I dislike
guessing
.”

He
sighed again.

“First of all there is no sign of forced entry, so it seems likely that Constable Tathip invited his murderer or murderers into the house voluntarily.

“Furthermore, if you look at the dining table behind the body you will see two whisky glasses and an ashtray with two cigarette ends in it. This suggests there may have been some socializing. Did the officer smoke?” This last question was directed at  Buajan.

“He drank,” replied
Buajan candidly. “I don’t know whether he smoked.”

“No matter. At some point, Constable Tathip was secured to the dining chair as you can see with tape binding his wrists to the chair arms and also his ankles to the two front legs of the chair.

“Well, this of course is only a
guess
,” he uttered the final word with a sarcastic flourish, “but I would
guess
that the officer was being interrogated. You will no doubt have noted that the end sections of his two little fingers have been removed – I would say by the bloodstained set of secateurs on the dining table here.”

“He must have been screaming his head off with the pain. I’m surprised the neighbours didn’t hear anything,” said Buajan.

“Not necessarily if he went into shock. Or if his assailant threatened him with something worse,” Ho replied coolly.

“So you think Tathip was tortured for information?”

The Iceman spread his arms.

“It seems likely. Then again, in murders I’ve been involved with in Bangkok, some people do this for fun.”

“The torture would have been unnecessary. Tathip was no hero. Just the thought of pain, and he would have told anyone anything,” said Buajan.

“There must have been at least two people here to have done this. How could Tathip have been strapped to a chair otherwise?” the Chief observed.

Ho rolled his eyes.

“Well, that of course is
possible
.”

“You think one man could have done this?” protested
Buajan.

The Iceman pursed his lips beneath his dust mask.

“There are only two glasses on the table. That would suggest one for Officer Tathip and one for his guest.”

“That still doesn’t explain
how one man could have taped Tathip to a chair.”

“If you look closely at the dining table you will see a watermark pattern behind the officer as if water had been thrown on him and part of it had splashed onto the table. Also there is water in the glasses, and the broken
whisky bottle on the floor behind the table may have been knocked off the table by the force of the water being thrown. I would
speculate
further that the plastic water jug over to your right by the wall was what was used as a water container.”

“So Tathip was knocked out first, then taped up, then woken up by throwing water
over him.”

“It is
possible
,” said Ho carefully. “Once the body has been properly examined – along with the other evidence – there may be bruising or internal bleeding at the back of his head which would point to this. I can’t tell at present. Even that, of course, does not eliminate the possibility that there were two men.”

“What else?” asked the Chief.

“On first sight, the bloodstain patterns are interesting.”

“Explain.”

The Iceman indicated for the other two officers to come closer to the body, and they reluctantly edged forward.

“Blood
, as you probably know, is essentially a fluidized suspension of cells which are elastic in nature. This results in blood being responsive to changes in the environment. Specifically, the degree to which it flows is a function of shear force. To put it simply, its viscosity is variable.”

Charoenkul and
Buajan stared at Ho blankly like students who had wandered into the wrong lecture.

“Blood, you see, may be classified as a non-Newtonian fluid.”

“Cut the jargon, Ho, and get to the point,” growled Charoenkul. “I haven’t understood a word you’ve said so far.”

“The point is that blood droplets hold together in flight,” said the little man testily. “They don’t break up and disperse
, so a single drop produces a single stain when it comes into contact with a surface – in this case, a wooden floor. Furthermore, blood drops are
spherical
in shape so we can deduce certain facts from the impact angle and the extent of distortion at the edge of the droplet.

“
Observe the blood on the floor beneath the victim’s hands. You can see there was a certain amount of gushing, but if you ignore the severed fingers for a moment you can also see where the droplets fell, making circular patterns with ‘scalloped’ edges.