‘It was about six in the morning when she was last seen. She had to walk down a remote road to get to the bus route. No one ever remembered seeing her in Repulse Bay itself, and I think they would have if she had made it that far – she was wearing very little and it was early in the morning. At the time, it was our guess that if anything untoward had happened it must have happened on that walk – someone picked her up there.’

‘That means our killer has been around for two decades. He’s at least thirty-five, probably over forty.’

‘It also means he could have killed a lot of women in the last twenty years – we could be finding a lot more bodies.’

‘Count on it,’ said Mann.

‘What about the reports of missing foreign women, Ng?’ asked the Superintendent, going back to sit behind his desk. He spread the photos from the autopsy neatly across his desk.

Ng shook his head at the enormity of the task. ‘Sir, Interpol have come up with hundreds of women who are unaccounted for and who fit the profile. Even tracing the people who reported the women missing is proving very difficult.’

‘And attacks on foreign women?’ White picked up the photo of Beverly and the mugshot of Maria.

‘Attacks do not usually involve local men. It’s nearly always between two foreigners. Just a drunken disturb ance,’ replied Ng.

‘Similarities between these women, Shrimp?’ asked the Superintendent, studying the photos in his hand.

‘Foreigners. Young women. He likes young foreigners.’

‘Likes, or maybe hates all foreigners, and he certainly doesn’t like women,’ said Mann. ‘He enjoys inflicting pain.’

‘Age, sex, ethnicity? Basic similarities? Marks on bodies? What have we got, Ng?’

‘Victim one.’ Ng read from his notes. ‘Beverly Mathews – no evidence of torture. Victim two – a bite mark on the thigh … rope fibres on the wrist. Victim three – many small burns and sexually mutilated.’

‘What about the way they have been killed and dissected?’ White asked Mann.

‘Probably asphyxiated. We’re not sure yet. All three were dismembered in the same manner, though – with precision, neat, surgeon style. The process is important to him. He takes his time over it. He enjoys it.’

White scanned the report. ‘He leaves the bodies somewhere cold, the pathologist said?’

‘He leaves them for long enough for the lividity to settle, then moves them to somewhere else where he takes his trophies and dismembers them. Some of them he freezes,’ answered Mann. ‘Which is useful for us because some parts have been less affected by decomposition than others and some of the surface injuries are still visible.’

‘Like the bite mark that was made after death,’ said Ng.

‘That’s so weird! Why would he do that?’ asked Li.

‘Part of his fantasy. It’s a common trait with serial killers,’ said White. ‘And to return to the body several times before finally disposing of it.’

‘Ng, what did you get from Lucy, the S&M queen?’ asked Mann.

Ng took out his report, flipped open the page, and shrugged dismissively.

‘She gave me a description of six women who had lived in her flat at various times over the last five years. They were all in their twenties. All white. One American, three Europeans, two Antipodeans. According to Lucy, one of the Europeans had a strong accent. She didn’t know where from. None of them had any distinguishing characteristics. Nothing that stuck in her mind, anyway. She seems to have known very little about them. They kept themselves to themselves, she said. She seemed to think that most of them were on their own – no families, no ties. None of them gave reasons for leaving. They just left. She didn’t consider that strange.’

‘Not much help then, was she?’ said Superintendent White.

‘She wasn’t trying.’ Mann took the report from Ng and looked at Lucy’s statement. ‘Leave her to me, Ng. Li – get me photos of those women. Find out all you can about them. I want a name for them all. They deserve that much – and Shrimp …’ he handed Li a photo from the autopsy on victim three, ‘that tattoo. What would you say it was?’

‘A fish?’

‘Possibly – but I’d say it’s more likely to be a mermaid. Find out all you can about it. I want to know where she got that tattoo, look into the ink used – it differs in different countries. And the design – see if you can trace the artist … And remember, Shrimp – these women could have been somebody’s girlfriend, wife. They could have been somebody’s mother if they had had the chance. Real names and faces – I want to see them. And – before you go – a name for this perpe t rator. It’s up to you.’

Li didn’t hesitate. ‘The Butcher.’

‘The Butcher?’ The Superintendent looked questioningly at Li.

‘Yes, sir. You need to be a good surgeon to be able to bone and joint a piece of meat, or at least a good butcher – the pathologist said.’

‘The Butcher it is then.’

Just then an officer opened the door with a message. A second bag of bodies had been found.

32

Mann and his team were the second squad car to arrive at the New World restaurant in the New Territories. Two young policemen had cordoned the site off as best they could and were in the process of trying to keep a group of people away from an object buried beneath builders’ rubble at the far end of the car park.

As Mann’s car went to turn in, an open-backed meat lorry carrying pig carcasses blocked their path. The driver had slowed down to see what was happening, and was contemplating turning in to the restaurant car park but changed his mind when he saw the police car in front of him. Instead, he pulled out of the way and parked across the road, and stuck his large, gormless head out of the cab window to see what was going on.

As his vehicle turned in, Mann looked into the back of the truck. Pig carcasses were thrown haphazardly into the back of the lorry, forming a mangled jigsaw of puffy white flesh.

The police car headed for the far end of the car park, trying to avoid contaminating the area even further or covering the killer’s tracks. They swung round to park.

‘Anything?’ asked Ng, following Mann’s gaze and pointing towards the lorry.

‘Not sure. Take down the plate number for me, Li. Now, let’s get a move on – looks like chaos over there. Put these over your shoes.’

Mann handed Li two plastic bags and rubber bands. Li looked at him.

‘So we know which prints are ours. Although, I seriously doubt anyone else is wearing winklepickers.

‘What the fuck are they doing?’ Mann pulled the bags over his shoes and marched off in the direction of the rear of the building, where an extension for a new dining room was being built. ‘They’re trampling over everything.’ He pointed towards a crowd gathered around a mound of smashed masonry, then shouted to the crowd to stand back. They chose not to hear and continued to form an ever-shuffling yet impenetrable ring around the source of a stomach-churning smell of putrefied meat, which grew more intense at every step. As they neared the police officers could see a black plastic bag partially hidden among one of the slabs of broken-up concrete paving.

Mann shouted again. This time some of the crowd turned to watch the three policemen marching across the car park, but they didn’t all pull back. Some of them were transfixed to the spot, rooted in disgust and repulsion, with bulging eyes and hands clasped over mouths. Others ran back and forth like demented yoyos – not able to stay with the offending object and not able to leave it.

No 3D High Definition could prepare the men for the reality of what they saw and what they smelt. This time Mann shouted to one of the young policemen, who, in his attempt at restoring order, was taking names of some of the people present, and making the mistake of turning his back on the rest.