The Rain Killer (8 page)

‘Chinese Police say you’re originally from the French Concession area of Shanghai,’ Sean explained, noticing the tension that suddenly flowed into Ma’s body. ‘Tough?’

‘How could you ever hope to understand?’ Ma spat at him. ‘You think poverty is not having the latest colour TV. I shared one room with my mother and one cockroach-infested kitchen with a dozen other families – no toilets. We washed in the street at an illegal water tap the Triads built for us. If we went into the city the police arrested and beat us just for being there. We were outcasts in our own country. You had to fight like a tiger or die like a dog. I chose to fight and I grew strong. People respected me,’ he insisted, raising his voice. ‘Feared me.’

‘But when you were still a small child,’ Sean continued, ‘how did your mother feed you? How did she put clothes on your back? She would have needed money.’

‘We ate when we could – I wore clothes until they fell off my body,’ Ma barked. ‘All that mattered was staying alive.’

‘But she must have done something to earn money,’ Sean persisted. ‘She couldn’t go into the city to work, so what did she do – steal, scavenge on the rubbish tips of Shanghai? Or perhaps she was a …?’ He let the question hang.

‘I didn’t need her,’ Ma insisted. ‘I grew stronger and stronger. I knew what I was becoming – could feel its power as we became one.’

‘Became one with what?’ Sean asked, even though he already knew the answer.

‘The Great Serpent,’ Ma proudly answered, leaning back in his chair, his eyes wild with excitement. ‘The Great Snake.’

‘When did this …
transformation
happen?’ Sean kept him talking.

‘It is still happening,’ Ma tried to explain, ‘but it was always meant to be. Ever since I was a child. I was even born in the year of the snake. It was my destiny. As I grew older the other children called me the snake
–
out of fear and respect – and when I finally escaped the slums of my home the name of the Snake
struck terror into the hearts of the people who crossed my employers.’

‘You mean the Triads?’ Townsend asked.

‘Their name is not important,’ Ma smiled.

‘We’re getting a bit off the point, aren’t we?’ Coleman intervened.

Sean ignored him. ‘You ever kill anyone, Mao?’

‘These questions are too general,’ Coleman complained again. ‘You should ask about specific victims.’

‘Is that why people feared you?’ Sean kept going, ‘because you killed anyone who crossed you? Is that why they called you the Snake?’

‘They called me what I was,’ Ma answered.

‘But that wasn’t enough, was it,’ Sean pushed him, ‘killing your own kind – other criminals and gangsters? You wanted something else, didn’t you? But why only prostitutes? Normally they’re targeted because they make easy victims, but you were after such a particular type that restricting yourself to only prostitutes made your task all the more difficult. It would have been easier for you if you’d targeted all young Chinese women, regardless of their backgrounds.’ Ma said nothing, his eyes fixed on Sean’s. ‘So the fact they were prostitutes must be important to you. Question is – why? Why only prostitutes?’

‘Whores are a plague,’ Ma hissed. ‘Everywhere in the world they infest our streets. The Great Snake
purges them from this world – each one making him stronger and stronger.’

‘Making you stronger and stronger?’ Sean accused him. ‘You killed them because doing so made you feel stronger and stronger? Made you feel like a god?’ Ma didn’t answer. ‘But why always prostitutes that looked so similar? If it was just because they were prostitutes then why only ones that were Chinese or reminded you of Chinese women – and all of a similar age and all with straight, long black hair?’

‘You know nothing,’ Mao insisted.

‘I know you picked these women because they reminded you of someone who was special to you,’ Sean replied. ‘Was it a
lover
? A
wife
? Your …
mother
?’ Ma’s eyes burnt with rage and hate for a fleeting second – long enough for Sean to notice. ‘Your
mother.’

‘Don’t talk of her,’ Ma warned him through thin lips. ‘I don’t want to talk about her.’

‘Was that how she kept food in your stomach and clothes on your back – by being a prostitute?’

‘She never did anything for me,’ Ma almost shouted, rising to his feet and leaning across the table. ‘She betrayed me for her whoring desires.’

‘Sit down,’ Sean warned him, ‘or I’ll have you handcuffed to the table for the rest of the interview.’ Everyone waited for a few seconds in silence until Ma slowly sat back down.

‘They are nothing,’ Ma told them. ‘They were all whores and they were nothing – until I gave them to the Great Serpent – made them something in death they could never be in life. They willingly sacrificed themselves to the make the beast strong.’

‘They weren’t willing,’ Sean argued. ‘You murdered them.’

‘I saw the desire in their eyes,’ Ma explained. ‘The want. The same want I saw in her face when I struggled home one day to the empty room I shared with her. I had risked arrest and a beating by going into town to earn what I could begging on the streets of Shanghai, but some other children discovered I had some money. They beat me and took everything. By the time I reached home the rain had turned the dirt streets into streams and rivers, but I couldn’t take shelter inside our home, because I could hear her inside with someone, making their disgusting noises together. So I looked through the hole in the wall that was our window and saw him on top of her. The rain was running in my eyes, but still I could see clearly the desire in hers as she whored herself. Then the man saw me looking in and he came for me outside. He beat me. He beat me in the rain – in front of her, but she never tried to stop him – never tried to help me. After I fell silent he went back inside and she let him take her again. Afterwards she showed me the money she had earned. I never let anyone beat me again and I swore I would have my vengeance on all whores.’

‘You mean vengeance on your mother?’ Sean asked.

‘I didn’t kill my mother,’ Ma answered.

‘Yes you did,’ Sean told him. ‘Over and over again.’ Ma’s mouth opened slightly as if he was going to answer but then drifted away, to another time and place. ‘Did you kill these women?’ Sean tried to catch the moment. ‘Heather Dylan? Lisa Sheeran? Norah Cardle? Rebecca Shepard? Cantara Roper and Huian Yuan? Did you kill these women?’

‘Yes,’ Ma answered slowly and deliberately. ‘I took them. The Great Serpent
took them all.’

‘Not took,’ Sean told him. ‘Murdered.’

‘Words mean nothing,’ Ma replied. ‘Nothing compared to the power of the Great Snake.’ His eyes glazing over as he slipped into a trance.

‘Okay,’ Sean said, leaning back into his chair. He sensed that for now Ma was gone. ‘Let’s take a break. Try to get some rest. I’ll arrange for some food to be brought to you. We’ll continue the interview later.’ He turned to his side and switched the recorder off.

***

‘He’s completely mad,’ Townsend proclaimed.

‘Not completely,’ Sean argued. ‘He knew exactly what he was doing, and why.’

‘Because he thinks he’s turning into a great snake?’ she scoffed. ‘What the hell’s that all about?’

‘Something he created when he was a child growing up in a bleak and dangerous place,’ Sean explained, ‘to make himself feel stronger. Safer.’

‘Couldn’t he have just invented an invisible friend?’ Townsend mocked.

‘In many ways,’ Sean told her, ‘that’s exactly what he did, although in the environment he grew up in his imaginary friend was never going to be a six foot tall white rabbit. His surroundings, combined with the trauma of being beaten by one of his mother’s clients, shaped him. Made him a very dangerous man.’

‘You some kind of psychologist?’ she asked. ‘Is that why Middleton put you on our investigation?’

‘No,’ he assured her. ‘I’m just able to empathize a little more with the likes of Ma than most.’

‘Is that what you call it?’ Townsend questioned. ‘Empathy?’

‘I suppose.’

‘So he had no choice?’

‘There’s always choice,’ he told her, ‘but it would have been difficult for him not to have become what he has. It didn’t take organized crime long to recognize his unique talents, although I don’t suppose they knew about his other activities. Probably would have killed him themselves if they did. The Triads don’t like that sort of attention.’

‘Christ,’ Townsend shook her head. ‘A serial killer disguised as a hit-man. That’s just beautiful. At least it’s over now – we have the bastard.’

‘We have him, but it’s not over,’ Sean reminded her. ‘We’ll give it a couple of hours and then interview him again and see what else he wants to tell us. You know where Daiyu is?’ he changed the subject.

‘She was in the office last time I saw her,’ she told him. ‘Discharged herself from hospital.’

‘I better go see her,’ he explained. ‘See how she’s doing.’

‘She’ll want answers,’ she warned him. ‘She was left hanging out there for a while.’

‘She’ll get them,’ he promised. ‘She deserves them.’

***

As soon as Sean entered the Murder Investigation Team office in Streatham Police Station he spotted Daiyu sitting alone in the far corner wearing the same blood-stained clothes, nursing her wounded arm and sipping a coffee. He crossed the office, oblivious to the glances he was getting from the other detectives and sat next to her. ‘How you doing?’ he asked, making her look up.

‘I’m not sure,’ she answered.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ Sean told her. ‘I thought you’d still be in hospital or gone home.’

‘I hate hospitals,’ she admitted, ‘and I didn’t want to go home and be alone.’

‘I understand,’ Sean lied, knowing that if the tables were turned alone is exactly where he’d want to be. ‘You could have gone to SO10 and told them what happened. They’d have looked after you.’ Daiyu just shrugged. ‘Well, you can stay here as long as you want – as long as you need to.’

‘Thanks,’ she replied. ‘So, has he said anything yet?’

‘He’s given us a general admission that he’s responsible for the murders. We’ll get the detailed admissions later today.’

‘Then it is him,’ she stated, her relief obvious as her entire body seemed to relax.

‘Yeah, it’s him,’ Sean confirmed.

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why did he do it?’

‘No great mystery,’ he explained. ‘He hated prostitutes because his mother had been one. He was dragged up in poverty in some slum in Shanghai where every day was a fight for survival – recruited into organized crime at a young age where his violent nature was encouraged – nurtured. We’ll let the psychiatrists and criminologists worry about the details.’ He rubbed the back of his aching neck for a few seconds. ‘Our job’s almost done. We’ll have him charged by this time tomorrow.’

‘As simple as that,’ Daiyu asked.

‘Sadly,’ Sean answered, ‘at the end of the day, yes, as simple as that.’

‘And now he’s been caught,’ she told him, ‘because of you.’

‘Not just me,’ he replied. ‘There were a lot of other people involved. And without you it could never have happened and he’d still be out there. Listen – don’t believe everything you hear about me, okay?’

‘Okay,’ she nodded.

‘Now I have a question for you,’ he surprised her.

‘Such as?’

‘Such as why did you get in the car against my explicit orders?’

‘Because he was going to drive away.’

‘We were less than a minute or two away,’ Sean argued. ‘You just needed to stall him.’

‘He wouldn’t have waited,’ she insisted. ‘He was going to get away.’

‘We had his car details. We were all over the surrounding area. He wouldn’t have got away. You took an unnecessary risk. This man would have thought nothing of killing you – so why don’t you tell me why you really got in the car?’

She took a deep breath. ‘Because I wanted to know,’ she tried to explain. ‘I wanted to know for sure it was him. I don’t know why exactly. I just did. Haven’t you ever felt like that?’

He looked around the office to make sure no one was listening. ‘Just because it’s the way I might do it, doesn’t mean it’s the right way.’ Daiyu nodded slowly. ‘Anyway – the way things went down means your cover’s well and truly compromised – non-recoverable. The fact Ma’s a Triad’s put the icing on that particular cake.’ Daiyu seemed unmoved. Sean noticed it. ‘You don’t seem unduly bothered about losing your cover.’

‘Undercover work,’ she sighed. ‘All I’ve ever done is undercover work. They took me straight from Hendon. I never even got to do my probation. All I’ve ever known are days of boredom and the occasional moment of blind terror when you think they’ve
found out who you really are. I just wanted to be a police officer. I wanted to become a detective and do the job you’re doing. I didn’t want this.’

‘Now your cover’s blown perhaps you could go back to conventional policing,’ he tried to encourage her. ‘Eventually become a detective. If you do, look me up.’

‘No,’ she sighed. ‘I’m too valuable an asset to SO10. And there’s plenty other places round the world they could use me other than London. They won’t let me go.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I already have my law degree. My parents wouldn’t let me join until I had it. Perhaps I’ll go back to that – become a barrister one day.’ She put her coffee down and stood to leave. ‘Maybe I’ll see you in court one day – I mean other than at Ma’s trial. Maybe I’ll be defending someone like him and you’ll be the SIO.’

‘Could be,’ Sean replied.

‘Time for me to go now,’ she told him and held out her hand that he accepted, ‘and I suppose I should say thanks – for at least helping me see what I really want.’

‘No,’ Sean dismissed it. ‘Thank you.’

The End

Read an extract now …

The thick hood was pulled from his head and Paul Elkins squeezed his eyes closed tightly against the bright, white light that tried to penetrate his pain and fear, but the agony of the duck-tape being ripped off his mouth fired them open as wide as if he were being electrocuted. As the shock of the pain receded his eyes blinked the room into focus, his chest heaving with panic as the sweat poured down the sides of his face and back. His arms and legs were bound with more duck-tape to a heavy, old wooden chair that creaked as he struggled, but didn’t move. He bucked and kicked in the chair until the futility of his efforts overwhelmed him and drained him of his strength and determination, the desperation of his situation becoming increasingly undeniable.