Inspector Zhang Gets His Wish (a free short story) Read online

  “We looked, but did we really see what happened?” asked the inspector. He waited until everyone had gathered behind Mercier’s chair before asking him to begin the recording from the point at which Mr. Wilkinson and the prostitute stepped out of the elevator.

  “Here we can see Mr. Wilkinson and his guest arriving at eight-thirty,” said Inspector Zhang. “Very much alive, obviously.”

  He watched as Wilkinson and the woman went inside. “She left an hour later. Please skip to that point, Mr. Mercier.”

  Mercier tapped a key and the video began to fast forward. He slowed to normal speed just before nine-thirty in time to see Ms. Lulu leave the room.

  “Now, at this point Mr. Wilkinson ordered his club sandwich and coffee from room service, so again we know that he is still very much alive.”

  “So who killed him?” asked Miss Berghuis. “If the woman left the room and no one goes in before the waiter, who stabbed him?”

  “That is an excellent question, Madam,” said Inspector Zhang.

  “But can you answer it, inspector?” asked the manager, tersely.

  “I think I can,” said Inspector Zhang. “They key to solving this mystery lies in understanding that it is not who goes into the room that is important. It is who does not go in.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” said the manager crossly.

  “I beg to differ,” said Inspector Zhang. “It makes all the sense in the world. It is as Sherlock Holmes himself says in Arthur Conan Doyle’s masterpiece The Adventure Of Silver Blaze, it is the fact that the dog did not bark that is significant.”

  “We do not allow dogs in the hotel,” said Mercier. “There are no pets of any kind.”

  Sergeant Lee looked up from her notebook, smiling, and Inspector Zhang sighed. “I was using the story as an example to show that it is sometimes the absence of an event that is significant, which was the case in the Adventure of Silver Blaze. If I recall correctly it was Inspector Gregory who asks Sherlock Holmes if there is anything about the case that he wants to draw to the policeman’s attention. Holmes says yes, to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. That confuses the inspector who tells Holmes that the dog did nothing in the night-time. To which Holmes replies, “That was the curious incident.” Do you understand now, Madam?”

  She shook her head impatiently. “No inspector, I am afraid I do not.”

  “Then, Madam, please allow me to demonstrate,” said Inspector Zhang. He put a hand on Mercier’s shoulder. “Please, Mr. Mercier, fast-forward now to the point where the waiter arrives with the room service trolley.”

  “This is a waste of time,” said Mercier. “We did this already.”

  “Please humour me,” said the inspector.

  Mercier did as he asked and they all watched as the video fast-forwarded to the point where Mr. Chau arrived with his trolley and began knocking on the door.

  “Normal speed now, please, Mr. Mercier. The video slowed as they watched the waiter use his key card to enter the room.

  “At this point Mr. Chau is discovering the body and calling down to reception.” Inspector Zhang waited until the waiter appeared at the door and began pacing up and down. “As you can see, no one enters the room until the hotel staff appear.” On the screen Miss Berghuis and her staff appeared and they all hurried into the room. “At this point you phone the police,” said the inspector, turning to Miss Berghuis. The manager nodded. Inspector Zhang patted Mercier on the shoulder. “So now fast-forward until my arrival, Mr. Mercier, but not too quickly. And I want everyone to note that no one else enters the room until I arrive with my sergeant.”

  The door to the room remained closed for twenty minutes until Inspector Zhang and Sergeant Lee stepped out of the elevator.

  “Normal speed now please, Mr. Mercier. Thank you.”

  Mercier pressed a button and the video slowed. Inspector Zhang walked up to the door and knocked on it. It opened and he went inside, followed by his sergeant. The door closed behind them.

  “So, now we are inside, talking to you and assessing the situation. We talk, then I go to the bedroom with you, Miss Berghuis, I look at the body, I talk to you, I walk back to the sitting room, and then I walk out with Mr. Mercier.” On the screen Inspector Zhang and Mercier walked out of the room and headed for the elevator.

  “You can stop it there, Mr. Mercier,” said Inspector Zhang, patting him on the shoulder.

  The picture froze on the monitor, showing Inspector Zhang and Mercier walking towards the elevator.

  “So here is the big question, Mr Mercier,” said Inspector Zhang. “You walk out of the room now, but when exactly did you walk into the room?”

  Mercier said nothing.

  “You did not arrive with Miss Berghuis.”

  “He was already in the room when we got there,” said the manager. She gasped and put her hand up to her mouth. “My God, he was in there the whole time.”

  “Apparently so,” said Inspector Zhang.

  Mercier stood up and tried to get out of the door but the two uniformed policemen blocked his way. Mercier turned to face Inspector Zhang. “This is ridiculous,” he said.

  “Now Mr. Mercier, I am going to make two predictions, based on what I think happened,” said Inspector Zhang. He nodded at Mercier’s jacket. “I am certain that you are carrying the murder weapon. You have had no chance to dispose of it so it must still be on your person. And because I do not believe that you planned to kill Mr. Wilkinson, I think that the weapon is actually something quite innocuous. A pen maybe.” He registered the look of surprise on Mercier’s face and he smiled. “Yes, a pen. But I also think that you have a camera, perhaps even a small video camera. Am I right?”

  Mercier didn’t answer but he slowly reached into his inside pocket and took out a black Mont Blanc pen. He held it out and Inspector Zhang could see that there was blood on one end. Sergeant Lee stepped forward and held out a clear plastic evidence bag and Mercier dropped the pen into it. Mercier then reached into the left hand pocket of his trousers and took out a slim white video camera, smaller than a pack of cigarettes.

  Inspector Zhang took the camera from him. “And Miss Lulu, she is in this with you?”

  Mercier looked away but didn’t answer.

  “She is not involved in the murder of course. She doesn’t know that Mr. Wilkinson is dead because he was still alive when she left the room.”

  Mercier nodded. “She doesn’t know.”

  “Because you never planned to kill Mr. Wilkinson, did you?” said Inspector Zhang.

  Mercier rubbed his hands together and shook his head.

  “You were there to blackmail Mr. Wilkinson?”

  “Blackmail?” said Miss Berghuis.

  “It was the only explanation,” said Inspector Zhang. “He was in the room when Mr. Wilkinson arrived with Miss Lulu. I am assuming that he wanted to video them in a compromising position with a view to blackmailing him. He was a married man, after all. And divorce in America can be a costly business. The only question is whether Miss Lulu was party to the blackmail, or not.”

  Mercier nodded. “It was her idea,” he said.

  “You were her client?”

  “Sometimes. Yes. Then she said that she had this rich customer who treated her badly and that she wanted to get back at him. She wanted to hurt him and get money from him. She said she’d split the money with me.”

  “So she suggested that you hide in the closet and video them together?”

  “She had been in his room before and she knew I could easily hide in the closet. She called me when she was on the way back to the hotel and I was in position when they arrived. She made sure that he could never see me. It was easy. But then she was supposed to get him into the shower so that I could slip out, but he wouldn’t have it. He said that his wife was due to phone him so he practically threw her out of the room. Then he phoned room service from the sitting room so I couldn’t get out, and then his wife called. I was stuck there while he t
ook the call.” He ran a hand over his face. He was dripping with sweat. “Then it all went wrong.”

  “He opened the closet? He found you?”

  Mercier nodded. “He shouldn’t have, but he did. All his clothes were in the suitcase and his robe was in the bathroom. I don’t know why he opened the closet, but he did and he saw me.”

  “So you killed him?”

  Mercier shook his head. “It was an accident.”

  “You stabbed him in the throat with your pen,” said Inspector Zhang.

  “He attacked me,” said Mercier. “He opened the closet door and saw me and attacked me. We struggled. I had to stop him.”

  “By driving your pen into his throat?”

  Mercier looked at the floor.

  “I think not,” said Inspector Zhang. “If you stabbed him at the closet, there would be blood there. The only place where there is blood is the bed. Therefore you stabbed him on the bed.”

  “We were struggling. I pushed him back.”

  “And then you stabbed him?”

  “My pen was in my top pocket. He grabbed it during the struggle and tried to force it into my eye. I pushed it away and it…” He fell silent, unable or unwilling to finish the sentence.

  “You stabbed him in the throat?”

  Mercier nodded.

  “And then rather than leaving the room, you hid in the closet again?”

  “I didn’t know what else to do. I knew that he had ordered room service so I couldn’t risk being seen in the corridor.”

  “So you waited until the room service waiter discovered the body and while he was phoning the front desk you slipped out of the closet?”

  Mercier nodded. “I went through to the next room but there was someone in the corridor so I couldn’t leave and I had to pretend that I’d just arrived. It was an accident, Inspector Zhang. I swear.”

  “That’s for a judge to consider,” said Inspector Zhang. “There is one more piece of evidence that I require from you, Mr. Mercier. Your handkerchief.”

  “My handkerchief?”

  “I notice that unlike your colleagues you do not have a handkerchief in your pocket,” said the inspector. “I therefore assume that you used it to wipe the blood from your hands after you killed Mr. Wilkinson.”

  Mercier reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a blood-stained handkerchief. Sergeant Lee held out a plastic evidence bag and Mercier dropped the handkerchief into it.

  Inspector Zhang nodded at the two uniformed policemen. “Take him away, please.”

  The officers handcuffed Mercier and led him out of the room. Inspector Zhang nodded at the two evidence bags that Sergeant Lee was holding, containing the pen and the handkerchief. “You can send them to your friends in Forensics,” he said.

  “I will,” she said.

  “I suppose it does prove one thing,” said Inspector Zhang. He smiled slyly.

  “What is that, Inspector?” asked the Sergeant.

  “Why, that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword,” he said. He grinned. “There is no need to write that down, Sergeant Lee.”

  THE END

  There are three more Inspector Zhang short stories available on the Kindle – Inspector Zhang and the Falling Woman, Inspector Zhang and the Disappearing Drugs, and Inspector Zhang and the Dead Thai Gangster. They are all traditional “locked room” mysteries, where the inscrutable Inspector Zhang and his assistant Sergeant Lee are faced with a seemingly impossible case to solve.

  And if you would like to meet another detective based in Asia, why not try Bangkok Bob and the Missing Mormon?

  Long-term Bangkok resident and former New Orleans cop Bob Turtledove has the knack of getting people out of difficult situations. So when a young man from Utah goes missing in Bangkok, his parents are soon knocking on Bob’s door asking for help.

  But what starts out as a simple missing person case takes a deadly turn as Bangkok Bob’s search for the missing Mormon brings him up against Russian gangsters, hired killers, corrupt cops and kickboxing thugs. And he learns that even in the Land of Smiles, people can have murder on their minds.

  Bangkok Bob and The Missing Mormon is about 63,000 words, equivalent to about 250 pages, and you can find it on the Kindle at –

  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004AM5MV6

  Here are the first few chapters!

  ****

  CHAPTER 1

  She was wearing a lurid Versace silk shirt, had a diamond-studded Rolex watch on her wrist, diamante Gucci sunglasses perched on top of her head and a Louis Vuitton handbag on her lap. She pretty much had all brand name bases covered but she still looked like a sixty-year-old woman with more money than taste. She had brought her large Mercedes to a stop next to a fruit stall and she wound down the passenger side window and waved a ring-encrusted hand at the fruit vendor. I was sitting behind her in a taxi that had only just managed to avoid slamming into her trunk.

  The fruit vendor was also in her sixties but had clearly had a much harder life than the woman in the Mercedes. Her face was pockmarked with old acne scars and her stomach bulged against her stained apron as she weighed out mangoes for a young housewife. The fruit vendor pocketed the housewife’s money and waddled over to the car and bent down to listen to the woman, then nodded and hurried back to her stall. The driver tapped out a number on her cellphone and began an animated conversation.

  “Hi-so,” said my taxi driver, pulling a face. He wound down his window, cleared his throat, and spat a stream of greenish phlegm into the street.

  Hi-so.

  High society.

  From a good family. But in Thailand being from a good family didn’t necessarily equate to good manners. The woman in the Mercedes almost certainly wasn’t aware of the dozen or so cars waiting patiently for her to get out of the way. And even if she was aware, she wouldn’t have cared. After all, she had the Mercedes and the diamond-encrusted Rolex and we didn’t so it really didn’t matter that she was holding us up. It was the natural order of things.

  There was no point in getting upset. She would move when she was ready, and not before and there was nothing that I or the taxi driver could say or do that would change that. Acceptance was the only option.

  The Thais have an expression for it.

  Jai yen.

  Cool heart.

  Don’t worry.

  Be happy.

  Sometimes, for emphasis, they say jai yen yen.

  Real cool heart.

  I settled back in my seat and turned to the letters page of the Bangkok Post. A reader in Chiang Mai was complaining about the air quality. The farmers around the city were carrying out their annual field burnings and the mayor had warned the population to stay indoors with their windows closed. A Manchester City fan was complaining that he could only get a Thai commentary for his team’s last match. A reader in Bangkok was complaining about his erratic cable wi-fi service. For many people Thailand was the Land Of Smiles, but the average Bangkok Post reader seemed to spend most of his time complaining about the state of the country.

  The fruit vendor hurried over to the Mercedes with a bag of mangoes. She handed them through the window. The woman put her cellphone on the dashboard and then took the mangoes out of the bag one by one, sniffing them and squeezing them to check their ripeness. She rejected one, and the fruit vendor went back to her stall to replace it. The woman picked up her cellphone and resumed her conversation.

  I twisted around in my seat. There were now two dozen cars behind us, and a bus. The air was shimmering with exhaust fumes.

  Jai yen.

  I went back to my paper. A tourist from Norway was complaining of the double pricing for foreigners at the Lumpini Boxing Stadium. Tourists paid up to ten times what locals were charged, she said, and that wasn’t fair. I smiled. Fairness wasn’t a concept that necessarily applied to Thailand, especially where foreigners were concerned.

  The fruit vendor returned with a replacement mango. The woman smelled it, squeezed it, then put it into
the carrier bag. She opened her Louis Vuitton handbag and took out a Prada purse and handed the vendor a red hundred baht note. The vendor zipped open the bag around her waist, slipped in the banknote and took out the woman’s change. The woman took the change, checked it, put the money into the Prada purse, put the purse into her handbag, placed it on the passenger seat and closed the window. I didn’t see her thank the fruit vendor, but that was par for the course for Thailand. Women who drove expensive imported cars did not generally say “please’ or “thank you’, at least not to fruit vendors. The window wound up, the woman checked her make-up in her driving mirror, then put the Mercedes into gear.

  We were off.

  Finally.

  Jai yen.

  The taxi moved forward. The Mercedes lady was talking on her cellphone again. She indicated a right turn but then turned left on to Sukhumvit Road, oblivious to the motorcycle that narrowly missed slamming into her offside wing.

  The traffic light turned red and the taxi jerked to a halt. There were two policemen sitting in the booth across the road from us. It was getting close to the end of the month which meant that the police were looking for any excuse to pull over motorists and either issue a ticket to meet their quota or collect some tea money to pay their minor wife’s rent. Bangkok’s traffic light system was perfectly capable of being co-ordinated by a multi-million-pound computer system but more often than not the police would override it and do the changes manually, using walkie-talkies to liaise with their colleagues down the road. That meant that when a light turned red, you had no idea how long it would stay that way. Your fate lay in the hands of a man in a tight-fitting brown uniform with a gun on his hip.

  Jai yen.

  I went back to my paper. My taxi driver wound down his window and spat throatily into the street again.

  Just another day in Paradise.

  Not.

  *

  CHAPTER 2

  Ying is a stunner. A little over five feet tall with waist-length glossy black hair and cheekbones you could cut steel plate with, a trim waist and breasts that are, frankly, spectacular.