The Eight Curious Cases of Inspector Zhang (19 page)

Sergeant Lee pursed her lips for several seconds as if she was having trouble reaching a decision, then she nodded slowly. “Inspector Kwok is very pretty,” she said. “She has something of a hypnotic effect on men.”

Inspector Zhang smiled. “Hypnotic?”

“In the way that a cobra can hypnotise a rabbit before striking,” she said.

Inspector Zhang chuckled as he put his spectacles back on. “And do you think that perhaps the Senior Assistant Commissioner is of the rabbit persuasion?”

“Inspector, I couldn't possibly say such a thing,” she said, her cheeks reddening.

“Sergeant Lee, I was joking,” said Inspector Zhang. “It's just that the thought had occurred to me that if she was such a good police officer that she was promoted to inspector at twenty-three, how did she manage to misplace a hundred kilos of Burmese heroin?”

Sergeant Lee pulled up in front of a twelve-storey apartment block. There was a black Lexus already parked there and next to it a young woman in a belted raincoat that looked like something that Philip Marlow might have worn in a Raymond Chandler novel. It was a wonderful coat, thought Inspector Zhang as he climbed out of Sergeant Lee's car. A real detective's coat.

“Inspector Zhang?” said the woman.

“Indeed,” said Inspector Zhang. “You are Inspector Kwok?”

She flashed him a wonderful smile. “Thank you so much for coming,” she said, hurrying over to him. “This is a nightmare, an absolute nightmare.”

She was very pretty, and looked younger than twenty-three. Her hair was shoulder length, black and glistening, her cheekbones were as sharp as razors, her skin as flawless as a porcelain figurine. She held out her right hand, the nails perfectly manicured and painted blood red. Inspector Zhang had a sudden impulse to take the hand and kiss the back of it in the style of Hercule Poirot but he resisted the urge and shook it instead. “I am here to be of service,” he said. He turned to introduce his Sergeant. “And this is Sergeant Lee.”

Inspector Kwok nodded curtly at Sergeant Lee and gave her the faintest of smiles, before turning back to Inspector Zhang. “The apartment is on the eighth floor,” he said. “A very auspicious number.”

“Not always,” said Sergeant Lee, her voice little more than a whisper and Inspector Zhang doubted that Inspector Kwok had heard but he nevertheless gave the sergeant a stern look.

Inspector Kwok took them over to the entrance to the building and tapped a four-digit code into the keypad. The lock clicked and she pushed open the door. There was a reception desk but it was unmanned. “There is a security guard at night but not during the day,” said Inspector Kwok. There were two elevators and one was already on the ground floor, its door open. They rode up together to the eighth floor.

“Actually, Inspector Kwok, we were at the Academy together,” said Sergeant Lee.

“Really?” said Inspector Kwok, her face a blank mask. “There were a great many entrants that year, I seem to remember. So, Inspector Zhang, you solved the case of the body in the five star hotel, didn't you?”

“I did,” said Inspector Zhang.

“I must say that I do not like mysteries,” said Inspector Kwok. “I like there to be clear physical evidence that proves how a crime was committed and who committed it.”

“Often one has to be able to read the evidence,” said Inspector Zhang. “It is a question of spotting the clues and understanding their significance. That is what I enjoy about a mystery. “

“And you did not use any forensic evidence, is that correct?”

“Sometimes forensic evidence is not necessary,” said Inspector Zhang. “Sometimes we detectives rely too much on technology and not enough on ze little grey cells.”

Inspector Kwok frowned and was just about to ask him what he meant when the lift stopped and the doors opened. She stepped out and Inspector Zhang and Sergeant Lee followed her. As the lift doors closed behind them, Inspector Kwok pointed up at a smoke detector in the ceiling. “This is our surveillance camera,” she said. “It feeds a signal down to an empty apartment on the second floor. It was on twenty-four hours a day and we digitally recorded everything.” She pointed at a door just six feet away from the camera. “And this is the apartment. Number eight-four-two.”

The number was on a small plastic sign at eye height. Below it was a small security viewer so that anyone inside could see who was at the door before opening it. There was a single lock below a round steel doorknob.

On the floor was a rubber matt with the word WELCOME on it in large black capital letters.

“And the key was under the mat, I am told,” said Inspector Zhang.

“Exactly,” said Inspector Kwok. She took a brass key from her pocket and showed it to him.

“Please place it in the position it was on the day that the drugs were delivered,” said Inspector Zhang.

Inspector Kwok knelt down, lifted a corner of the mat and placed the key on the floor. Then she let the mat fall back into place and straightened up. “Just like that,” she said.

“Now, tell me exactly what happened,” said Inspector Zhang.

Sergeant Lee took out her notebook and began taking notes.

“The two men from the delivery company came up in the lift with the boxes,” said Inspector Kwok. “I was down on the second floor with the Drugs Squad team. They arrived on this floor and one of the men moved the mat to get the key, and unlocked the door.”

“And how were they carrying the boxes. There were ten cardboard boxes, were there not?”

Inspector Zhang nodded. “Ten boxes, each containing ten kilos. Each kilo was wrapped in plastic. So there were ten packages in each box, and ten boxes. The men had five boxes each, stacked on a trolley. One of the two-wheeled trolleys that porters use.”

“And they drove the boxes here from where?”

“From the company's bonded warehouse, inside the container port.”

“And of course you examined the drugs in the warehouse?”

“Of course.”

“So the men brought the drugs up to the eighth floor. What happened then?”

“They unlocked the door and took the trolleys inside. They put the drugs in the middle of the room and then left.”

“Did you see them do that?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Inspector Zhang pointed at the smoke detector. “The camera allows for coverage of the hallway, but if the door is closed you would not be able to see inside the apartment. Did they close the door when they went inside or leave it open.”

“They closed it,” she said.

“And there is no surveillance camera inside the apartment?”

“No, Inspector Zhang. There is not.”

“That is a pity,” said Inspector Zhang. “So what happened next?”

“The two men were inside for two minutes. They reappeared with their trolleys and went back downstairs. We then waited for the drugs to be collected. But no one came.”

“You waited for a week, I gather?”

“Yes. A week. And then I spoke to the Senior Assistant Commissioner who said that we should go in and check and when we went in, the drugs had gone.”

Inspector Zhang waved at the door. “If you would be so good as to open the door,” he said. “Exactly as you did then.”

Inspector Kwok nodded, bent down and retrieved the key and inserted it into the lock. “The lock and the key are new,” she said. “It is a security lock and has to be turned twice to lock and unlock.” She turned the key twice and opened the door, then pointed to a metal strip that ran around the doorframe. “You can see that the door has been reinforced, too.”

Inspector Zhang studied the metal reinforcing and nodded. “They wanted to make sure that the apartment was secure,” he said. “Not surprising when you think about the value of a hundred kilos of heroin.”

Inspector Kwok stood to the side to allow Inspector Zhang in first. He stepped over the threshold. It was a small apartment, a square room about fifteen feet by twelve feet, with a sliding window that led out onto a small balcony that overlooked another apartment block. There were two doors to his left, and one to the right. There was an old Toshiba television set on a black sideboard, a plastic sofa and a wooden coffee table with circular stains dotted over it and cigarette burn marks around the edge.

Between the two doors to his left was a teak veneer storage unit with Chinese figurines on one shelf and Chinese books on another. There were two glass doors in the unit; behind one was a collection of earthenware teapots and behind the other was a half-empty bottle of Chivas Regal whisky.

One of the doors led to a small kitchen with an old rattling refrigerator and a grease-encrusted stove. Inspector Zhang opened the refrigerator. It was empty. A cockroach scuttled from underneath the stove, got half way across the tiled floor, then turned around and went back the way it had come.

The other door led to a small shower room with a washbasin and toilet. There was no toilet paper, Inspector Zhang noticed, and no soap or shampoo.

The door on the other side of the sitting room led to a bedroom with a double bed with a white-painted headboard, a matching side table and a large wooden wardrobe. Inspector Zhang opened the wardrobe, but there were only half a dozen wire coat hangers inside.

“The apartment was just like this when you entered?” he asked.

“Exactly,” said Inspector Kwok.

Inspector Zhang knelt down carefully and peered under the bed. Another cockroach scuttled away and disappeared under the skirting board.

“We looked everywhere,” said Inspector Kwok.

“I'm sure you did,” said Inspector Zhang.

“But as you can see, it is a small apartment and there are no hiding places.”

Inspector Zhang tapped the floor with his foot. The bedroom floor was tiled, as was the sitting room, bathroom and kitchen. It was the same pale green tiles in all the rooms.

“How long were the men in the apartment?” he asked.

“Two minutes. Three at most. They left the boxes and then they took the trolleys back to the van.”

Inspector Zhang nodded thoughtfully. He looked up at the ceiling. It was plaster, painted white.

He went over to the bedroom window and opened it. He peered out. Down below was a car park. There were no ledges or balconies, and no external pipework that would have allowed someone to have climbed out.

“We had a car down there with two undercover police officers,” said Inspector Kwok. “They had the rear of the building under constant surveillance.”

Inspector Zhang craned his neck to look upwards.

“If anyone had lowered the drugs up or down through the window, we would have seen it,” Inspector Kwok said.

“One would hope so,” said Inspector Zhang.

He pulled his head back in and looked over at Sergeant Lee, who was standing at the bedroom door, taking notes. “What do you think, Sergeant?”

Sergeant Lee looked up from her notebook. “It is a mystery, Inspector Zhang,” she said.

“Indeed it is. Do you have any thoughts on how we might solve it?”

She frowned thoughtfully. “The drugs were brought into the apartment and they are clearly not here now,” she said. “They must therefore have been removed. The question is how were they removed? If they were not lowered out through the bedroom window, then perhaps through the sitting room. There is a balcony there.”

Inspector Zhang went through to the sitting room and opened the sliding glass door that led to a small balcony where there was an air-conditioning unit and three large ceramic plant pots filled with soil and the remains of long-dead flowers.

“We had the front of the building under observation, obviously,” said Inspector Kwok. “During the time we had the building under surveillance no one appeared on the balcony.”

Inspector Zhang examined the plant pots. They were each over two feet high with paintings of feeding cranes and bamboo on the side. They were of poor quality and the glaze was cracking.

Inspector Zhang tipped one of the plant pots on its side, then up-ended it and with a grunt lifted it up. Soil spilled out over the balcony.

He did the same with the other two plant pots. They both contained nothing but soil. Inspector Zhang stared down at the dirt thoughtfully. “So, the drugs are not on the balcony and they did not leave by the windows,” he said quietly. “There are therefore only two possibilities. Either they are still in the apartment but so well hidden that we cannot see them, or they were removed by some other route.”

“But how is that possible?” asked Inspector Kwok. “We have searched everywhere.”

Inspector Zhang walked through to the kitchen. There was a broom leaning behind the door and he picked it up. He turned it upside down and methodically tapped the handle against each of the tiles on the floor. They all made a dull thudding sound as he hit them. He did the same in the shower room, and then repeated the process in the sitting room and the bedroom. Every tile sounded the same.

“Inspector Zhang, we checked the floor,” said Inspector Kwok. “And the ceiling. Both are completely solid.”

“I'm sure you did,” said Inspector Zhang. “But there is no harm in my checking for myself.”

He walked around the apartment, tapping the ceiling at regular intervals. He checked the kitchen, the shower room, the sitting room and the bedroom. There was no difference in sound anywhere, no indication that there were any trapdoors or hidden compartments. The ceiling was as solid as the floor.

Inspector Zhang gave the broom to Sergeant Lee and she returned it to the kitchen.

“Did you speak to the occupants of the apartments on either side of this one?” Inspector Zhang asked Inspector Kwok.

“Of course. There is an old couple to the left. He is a retired schoolteacher and his wife is bed-ridden. Their bedroom is next to the kitchen and bathroom of this apartment. To the right is a young Indian girl with two young children. Her husband is a construction worker in Dubai. She only leaves the house to go shopping or to occasionally take the children to the park. We checked her side of the party wall and there is no way anyone could have gotten through.”