The Eight Curious Cases of Inspector Zhang (16 page)

“My mother always wanted me to be a dentist,” said Inspector Zhang, looking around. “I am starting to think perhaps she was right.”

“What do you mean, Inspector?” asked Dr. Hu.

Inspector Zhang waved a hand around the room. “Just that on an inspector's salary I couldn't afford to buy more than a few square meters of an apartment like this. Now, had I been a dentist …” He shrugged. “As they say, hindsight is a wonderful thing.”

Dr. Hu chuckled. “Ah, I understand. No, Inspector, it is not my salary as a dentist that pays for this lovely home. My wife is the one with money. Her father runs a shipping company and he has been doing very well in recent years.”

“I wondered if you were married,” said Inspector Zhang. “I noticed you do not wear a wedding band.”

“Dentists tend not to wear rings,” said Dr. Hu. “They would get in the way and they also harbour germs. Our hands are often in people's mouths so hygiene is paramount. A ring might pierce a surgical glove, for instance.” He held up his left hand. “So, no rings.”

“Of course,” said Inspector Zhang. “Though I suppose that not wearing a wedding ring also helped you meet Miss Chau.”

“I'm sorry?”

“The first time you met she wouldn't have seen a ring and wouldn't have known you were married. Or was it that she knew but didn't care?”

“Inspector, what are you talking about?”

“Miss Chau. Sindy Chau. I am assuming she was threatening to spoil the arrangement you had and that's why you killed her.”

Sergeant Lee's jaw dropped and she lowered her pen and notebook.

“That is ridiculous,” said Dr. Hu.

“On the contrary,” said Inspector Zhang. “There is absolutely nothing ridiculous about murder.”

“But you have the murderer in custody,” said Dr. Hu. “You told me so when you came to my surgery.”

“And that was your downfall, because Mr. Yip was in custody when he was supposed to be killing Miss Chau. Your plan was almost perfect, Dr. Hu. But the only thing you could not control was the fact that Mr. Yip would lose his temper with the policeman who asked him to turn down the volume of his music.”

“Music?”

“You knew Mr. Yip lived alone. So you assumed that if you killed Miss Chau late at night and framed Mr. Yip, he would not have an alibi other than to say he was home alone.”

“I did not even know Miss Chau. Why would I want to kill her?”

“You had the oldest reason of all, Dr. Hu. But I have to admire your creativity. If Mr. Yip had not been arrested, you would have gotten away with it.”

Dr. Hu threw up his hands in exasperation. “How dare you come to my home and make allegations like this,” he said. “I insist you leave. I shall be complaining to your superiors.”

“So you are not interested in how you gave yourself away?” asked Inspector Zhang.

Dr. Hu's eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“When we came to see you in your surgery, do you remember? We wanted to talk to you about the comparison between the bite on Miss Chau's arm and the dental records you had.”

“And they were a perfect match; your own forensic people told you that. All I did was to supply the records; I did not make the comparison. Mr. Yip bit Miss Chau on the arm; that is irrefutable.”

“No, Dr. Hu, it is not. Mr. Yip did not bite Miss Chau. In fact he never met her. He certainly did not burgle her house nor did he kill her. Someone else did. But it wasn't until you gave yourself away that I began to consider you as a suspect.”

Dr. Hu sneered at the inspector. “Gave myself away? You are talking nonsense. Now please leave.” He gestured at the door impatiently.

“Do you remember what you said to us, Dr. Hu? When we talked about Mr. Yip, you said how you didn't think he was the sort of man who would stab an innocent woman.”

“Because he had always seemed to be a perfectly nice man whenever I saw him. I did not know he was a criminal, let alone a criminal capable of murder.”

“I am sure you knew exactly the sort of man Mr. Yip is,” said Inspector Zhang. “It was vital to your plan that he was a known house-breaker.”

“My plan? What plan are you talking about?”

Inspector Zhang ignored the dentist's question. “Dr. Hu, how did you know that Miss Chau had been stabbed?”

“What?”

“When we saw you in your surgery you said Mr. Yip had stabbed an innocent woman. But no one had told you she had been stabbed. The cause of death had not been released at that stage.”

Dr. Hu frowned. “Someone must have told me. The detectives who collected the records from me, perhaps.”

Inspector Zhang turned to Sergeant Lee. “My sergeant has spoken to the detectives and they confirmed they did no such thing. Isn't that right, Sergeant?”

Sergeant Lee stopped scribbling in her notebook. “I spoke to both of them myself,” she said. She flicked through her notebook. “They said they told you it was a murder investigation but gave you no details of the case. They did not tell you the name of the victim, nor the manner in which she died.”

“They are wrong,” said Dr. Hu. “They made a mistake when they told me and now they are lying to cover it up.”

“I think you will find in a case like this a court is more likely to believe two detectives with more than twenty years' experience with the Singapore Police Force between them than a murderer who is desperate to save himself.”

“How dare you call me a murderer,” said Dr. Hu angrily.

“That is what you are, Dr. Hu,” said Inspector Zhang calmly.

“You have no proof.”

Inspector Zhang reached into his jacket pocket and took out a mobile phone. “I do have this,” he said. “This is Sindy Chau's phone. She wasn't a patient, you said? In fact you said you never met her?”

“That's right. You can check with my surgery. I have never treated her.”

“Miss Chau doesn't have you listed by name on her phone,” said Inspector Zhang. “I assume you told her not to, in the same way you insisted on her having no photographs in her house, the house you were paying for. Of course the lease was paid through a company but I doubt that we will find it difficult to connect you to it.”

“Ridiculous,” said Dr. Hu.

“Miss Chau doesn't have you listed in her phone contacts but she does have a listing for Dentist,” said Inspector Zhang. “So let's see what happens when I press it. I assume it will go through to whichever surgery she uses.”

Inspector Zhang pressed the call button and the colour seemed to drain from Dr. Hu's face. After a few seconds there was a musical ringtone from the phone attached to Dr. Hu's belt.

Inspector Zhang's face broke into a smile. “It sounds like someone is calling you, Dr. Hu,” he said. “Perhaps you should answer that.”

“You don't understand,” said Dr. Hu. “She was threatening to tell my wife. She said she was fed up with being just a mistress, and if I didn't choose her then I'd lose her and I'd lose my wife.”

“On the contrary, I understand everything, Dr. Hu. You did not wish to lose the lifestyle that came from your wealthy wife. So you decided the way to keep it would be to dispose of your mistress. You had read about Mr. Yip's criminal career in the newspapers and realised he would be the perfect fall guy. He was a difficult patient which meant he would require a full anaesthetic for the root canal work. You took a knife from Miss Chau's kitchen and while he was unconscious you placed it in his hand to get his fingerprints on it.”

The phone was continuing to ring, so Inspector Zhang cancelled the call and put it back into his pocket.

“But you realised the knife alone might not be enough to convict Mr. Yip, so you decided to increase the stakes. You took a cast of Mr. Yip's teeth to ensure his new tooth was a perfect fit. I believe you used the cast to make a set of false teeth that matched Mr. Yip's perfectly. While you were at Miss Chau's house, you killed her with the knife then used the teeth you had made to bite her arm. Then you faked the break-in and left. I did not ask you if you had an alibi for the night that Miss Chau was murdered but I am sure you do not. At least, not an alibi as good as the one that Mr. Yip has.”

Dr. Hu's shoulders slumped. He dropped down onto a sofa like a marionette whose strings had been cut, put his head in his hands and began to sob quietly.

“It was almost the perfect crime, Dr. Hu. You very nearly got away with it.” Inspector Zhang turned to Sergeant Lee, who was scribbling frantically into her notebook. He had a sly smile on his face and he waited until she looked up from her notebook before speaking. “So tell me, Sergeant Lee, how did it feel to have a case that we could really get our teeth into?” he asked.

Sergeant Lee smiled, then went back to writing in her notebook, knowing Inspector Zhang was not expecting a reply.

“Please come with us now, Dr. Hu,” said Inspector Zhang. “Though perhaps you would like the opportunity to change into something more suitable for a prison cell.”

INSPECTOR ZHANG AND THE HOTEL GUEST

Inspector Zhang removed his spectacles and polished them with a large red handkerchief as he waited for the Malay receptionist to finish her phone call. It was a hot day, even for tropical Singapore, and he was already regretting the five minute walk from Clarke Quay MRT station to the Best Western Hotel on Carpenter Street. His wife had borrowed his car to visit one of her relatives in Malaysia, his sergeant's car was being serviced, and there were no cars available in the office pool so he had no option other than to use the MRT. The receptionist put down the receiver, flashed him a professional smile, and asked him how she could help. “My name is Inspector Zhang of the Singapore Police Force,” he said. “I am with the CID at New Bridge Road.” He nodded at his companion, a twenty-four-year old Chinese woman in a pale green suit with her hair tied up in a neat bun. “This is my colleague, Sergeant Lee.” Sergeant Lee smiled and held out her warrant card. “I believe it was the manager who called us,” said Inspector Zhang, putting away his wallet. “About a body.”

The receptionist gasped. “A body? Here? Are you sure?”

“Can I speak to the manager? I am told he is a Mr. Leutzinger.”

The receptionist hurried away to a back room and reappeared with a tall, cadaverous man in a black suit. He shook hands solemnly with Inspector Zhang. The manager's nails were beautifully manicured and glistened as if they had been given a coat of varnish. “I am afraid you have been misinformed, Inspector. We didn't report a body. What we reported to the police was that we had somebody in the hotel. A man who has lost his memory. He has no idea who he is but he is very much alive.”

“And why do you require the services of the police?” said Inspector Zhang, frowning.

“Because he has no money. No identification. And no idea who he is or where he is supposed to be.”

Inspector Zhang nodded thoughtfully. “Very well,” he said. “Where is this gentleman?”

“Upstairs, in Room 302.”

“But if he has checked in he must have shown his passport or ID card. And you would have checked his credit card.”

“That's the problem, Inspector Zhang. It's not his room. But he has the keycard.”

“So who did book the room?”

“A Mrs. Petrova. From Russia. She has been out all day.”

“But this man in the room now, he had the correct keycard for the room?”

The manager nodded. “He let himself in and the chambermaid found him there when she went in to clean the room. It's all a bit of a mystery, I'm afraid.”

A smile spread across Inspector Zhang's face. There was nothing that Inspector Zhang liked more than a mystery, but in low-crime Singapore they were few and far between. “Indeed it is,” he said. “Let us go and talk to the gentleman.”

They went up in the lift together, then along the corridor to Room 302. The manager knocked gently on the door. It was opened by a Westerner in a dark blue suit, his tie loose around his neck. He was holding a damp towel to the back of his head. He was in his forties, with jet-black hair and a neatly trimmed greying moustache.

Inspector Zhang introduced himself and Sergeant Lee as the man sat down on the bed and dabbed at his head with the towel.

“Are you hurt?” asked Inspector Zhang.

“I have a bump on the back of my head,” said the man. He showed the towel to the inspector. “There's no blood, so I don't think it's too bad.”

“We said that he should see a doctor but he insisted that he was all right,” said the manager.

There was a chair in front of a dressing table and Inspector Zhang moved it so that he could sit down opposite the man. “I am told you do not know who you are,” he said.

The man nodded. “I can't remember anything. Not a thing.”

“You sound English. From the south of England perhaps, but I am not very good at accents. Are you from England?”

The man shrugged. “I don't know.”

“I think you are. You are definitely not American, Australian or South African.”

“I'm sorry. Really, I can't help you.” He dabbed at the back of his head with the wet towel. “I don't know where I'm from. Everything before I set foot in this hotel is a blank.”

“And you have no wallet? No identification?”

The man shrugged again. “I think I might have been robbed,” he said.

“That seems highly likely,” said Inspector Zhang. “You are dressed like a businessman but I don't see a briefcase?”

“If I had one, it was probably stolen.”

“No mobile phone?”

The man shook his head.

“And you have no idea if you live in Singapore or if you a visitor?”

“I'm sorry. This is crazy, isn't it?”

“It is unfortunate,” said Inspector Zhang. “But it does happen. A blow to the head can cause temporary amnesia.”