Clutching his laptop under one arm, the young detective stepped forward and stared up into Mann’s face.

‘Awesome,’ he said. ‘Truly awesome. Heard all about you, boss – honoured.’ His eyes stayed fixed on Mann’s face as he shifted his weight from one snakeskin boot to the other and grinned inanely. ‘You’re a legend – a one-man triad annihilator. Never heard you called Genghis Khan before, though.’

Ng thumped Mann in the ribs. ‘I named him that because he is a tenacious warrior and he looks like a wild man.’

Li giggled nervously – high-pitched and girly. Ng put a protective hand on his shoulder and edged him further forward.

‘And I have decided to call Li “Shrimp”, owing to his peculiar resemblance to one.’

The boiled-sweet complexion; the random crests of over-gelled hair. Mann could see what he meant.

‘Shrimp here is a regular Bruce Lee. Aren’t you?’ said Ng proudly.

Detective Li blushed a deeper scarlet and his eyes darted around the room. ‘I wouldn’t say that … but …’

Mann shook Li’s hand with an extra-firm grip that left Li wincing and Ng chuckling. ‘Good man – useful to have around. Take no notice of Confucius. Good to have you on the team, Shrimp.’

‘Thank you, boss …’ Li beamed, his mouth showing more gum than teeth. ‘Awesome.’

‘We called in at headquarters earlier, Genghis. The place is heaving. There are people there I haven’t seen for years,’ said Ng.

‘I know. This is big. The top brass want it dealt with super-fast, before we lose what few tourists we have.’

‘Is it true it’s a Gwaipoh?’

‘Yes, a white foreigner. She was discovered sixteen hours ago, dumped in a bin bag on a building site out in the New Territories, near Sha Tin. A workman found her when he started moving some rubble. She’d been there a few days.’

‘Anyone notice anything?’

‘No. There’s a constant stream of construction vehicles twenty-four hours a day. It’s easy to get in and out of the site. She could have been dumped at any time – day or night.’

Kin Tak appeared beside them, ready to start the autopsy.

Ng turned to Li. ‘You ready for this, Shrimp? You’re about to attend the autopsy of a murdered white woman – a rare thing over here. We usually only get to see dead triads, don’t we, Mann?’

‘Yes, and the more we get of those, the better,’ Mann said, and signalled to Kin Tak that they were ready for what was to come.

3

Morning finally arrived outside. Glitter Girl watched the faint rays of light squeeze through the cracks in the far wall. She watched them widen, soften and fill with spinning dust particles. She felt a little calmer. She loved pretty, sparkly things. She thought of home: Orange County, USA. It was a Saturday night and she was sixteen. It was her first ‘proper’ dance and her first date with Darren. Her mama said her dress was too tight, too revealing. She’d had to smuggle it out of the house in a bag and change in Darren’s car. That had been the most special night of her life, spinning round and round in Darren’s arms, showered with light beams from a rotating disco ball. Darren’s strong arms held her so tightly that she’d thought she would faint. That was the night she knew he was the one for her. How wrong she had been.

And then it occurred to her – the room was the same size as the one she and Darren had started out their married life in – in the days before he’d started hitting her. When he’d started that, there had been no stopping him. Oh sweet Jesus! Why did it remind her of that room? Was it because Darren had beaten her so badly in that room that she’d thought she was going to die, and now she actually was? Her mama always said she’d come to no good and she was right. She was right about a lot of things – especially about Darren.

Glitter Girl looked at the photos of the women. Some of them were staring straight at her, but their eyes were blank. She’d seen eyes like that before. When she was a little girl on the farm she’d fallen on the dung heap and, as she’d struggled to get out of the muck, she’d turned and the dead piglet had been right there in her face. Its eyes were cloudy too, and although it wasn’t alive it was moving with maggots.

In the dim light she tried to make out the room. On the far side, hanging from a hook beneath a row of shelves, she saw what looked like a piece of fur and strips of pale animal hide. On the shelf itself there were jars like the ones her grandma kept pickles in. She was trying to make out what was inside when she stopped, held her breath and looked towards the door. A key was turning. Someone was coming.

4

‘Okay, gentlemen, shall we begin? It’s a Jane Doe, is that right?’

Mr Saheed, the pathologist, had arrived. He was a tall, wiry fifty-five-year-old, originally from Delhi and now settled in the region. He had an abrupt manner, and a habit of grunting his reply, but it was just his way. He was a very good pathologist who never minded questions as long as they weren’t too puerile. Mann had learned a lot from him over the years and on the several occasions they had met over a mortuary slab.

The detectives waited while Saheed rammed his feet into a pair of white rubber boots and pulled on a starched white coat and plastic apron. He looked over his glasses and raised an eyebrow at Mann.

‘Yes. It’s a Jane Doe, sir, and I’ll be recording,’ Mann said, in answer to Saheed’s silent enquiry as to which of the detectives would be taking the role of assisting Kin Tak. ‘Ng here is photographer, and that leaves Detective Li to do the dirty work. Scrub up, Shrimp,’ he said, remembering the first time he had attended an autopsy. It was at the height of the invasion of the Vietnamese boat people. A pregnant woman and her two children had been washed up after spending a week in the water. It was an experience he’d never forget.

Kin Tak checked a number on a fridge door against one on his list, pulled out one of four drawers, slid a white body bag out onto the trolley and wheeled it over to the stand above a drain in the centre of the room.

Saheed began dictating into the microphone clipped to his breast pocket:

‘The head of a Caucasian woman … late twenties … frozen after death. Bluish discoloration around the mouth … no obvious sign of injuries.’ Mann looked over his shoulder as Saheed shone a light inside her mouth.

‘She looks like she’s had a fair amount of work done, sir.’

‘Yes. She should have dental records somewhere.’

‘Cause of death, sir?’

‘Asphyxiation of some kind – we will have to wait for the x-rays to be sure. Let’s move on. There’s plenty more of Jane to get through. Wash her hair, please, Kin Tak. Sieve the contents and send them off for analysis.’

Kin Tak unzipped the bag along its length and lifted out a woman’s thigh, dissected at the knee and hip. He weighed it in a set of scales suspended above the table, before placing it on the slab. Ng measured it and recorded its dimensions on his pad.

Saheed turned the leg over twice, examining it closely before lifting his head to address the policemen. ‘Tell me what your observations are, Officer,’ he said to Li, who had managed to avoid getting too close to the table so far.

Li stepped forward and stared nervously at the leg. ‘Uh …’ His eyes darted hopelessly around the room in search of an answer.

‘And yours, Inspector?’ Saheed turned to Mann.

Mann pointed to the knee joint. ‘Pretty impressive, sir. Someone enjoys his work. Likes it to look neat.’

The pathologist grunted his agreement before addressing Li again. ‘Do you cook, Officer? Ever had to joint or bone meat? No? Well, let me tell you, it’s a skill. You need to be at least a competent surgeon or at worst a good butcher. You need a very sharp knife and you need to know where to saw, chop and cut. Like here,’ he said, tapping the open knee joint with his scalpel. ‘Now, let’s see what else we have … Victim is approximately twenty-five years old, five foot five inches tall, and … what’s this?’ He paused to study a mark on the inside of the thigh.