Tay instinctively began a more detailed assessment of his prospects, but before he could get very far, the woman lifted her gaze from the IHT and looked straight at him. Their eyes met and, following a brief moment of appraisal, she smiled. It appeared to be a genuine smile, even warm, but it caught Tay completely off guard. To mask his embarrassment, he glanced quickly around the room as if he was looking for someone, then put down his cup, stood up, and walked quickly away. After he was safely out on the sidewalk, he began almost immediately to wonder why he had done such a thing. Surely returning the woman’s smile wouldn’t have been unreasonable, would it? Particularly not since the woman had smiled at him first.
You’re a damned idiot, Sam Tay. Pass up too many opportunities like that and one of these days there won’t be any more.
Shaking his head at the depths of his own foolishness, Tay crossed Orchard Road to a 7-Eleven where he bought another disposable lighter, a blue one this time, and a fresh pack of Marlboro Reds. Then he walked about a hundred yards back up Orchard Road to the nearest taxi stand. The line was blessedly short and within ten minutes he was in the back seat of a Comfort taxi on his way to the Police Cantonment Complex on New Bridge Road.
Tay suddenly realized that the taxi was exactly the same shade of blue as the lighter he had just bought and he wondered for a moment about the coincidence. In spite of the healthy sugar and caffeine buzz he was carrying, he really couldn’t see what significance that fact might have, so he stopped thinking about it as abruptly as he had begun. Settling back against the seat and shutting his ears to the music blaring from the driver’s radio, Tay watched the streets and sidewalks slide by and tried very hard to think about nothing much at all.
AS soon as Tay got to his desk, he began work on the investigation papers for the dead woman at the Marriot. The investigation papers in every case were ultimately the responsibility of the designated investigation officer, although most IOs treated the job as the police equivalent of manual labor and assigned it to the first junior officer they saw who wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way.
Tay didn’t look at paperwork that way at all. He really didn’t mind dealing with the IP on his cases himself. To tell the truth, he rather enjoyed it. He sometimes thought he had the soul of an accountant rather than that of a policeman.
Tay even found dealing with the IP himself brought with it a sort of sense of personal redemption. Holding the progress of an investigation right there in his own two hands was both a symbolic and a practical act. It was symbolic in that it reminded him he was accomplishing something, and it was practical in that it prevented him from thinking he was accomplishing any more than he actually was.
Tay worked on the IP in silence for nearly an hour, methodically filling out the investigation diary with the details of his observations at the crime scene. He wrote until he was interrupted by a knock at his door. When he looked up, Sergeant Kang was leaning in.
“In a little early this morning, are we, sir?”
Tay had never understood how people who rose early could lay claim to such moral superiority over those who didn’t. Yes, Kang was usually in the office by eight and Tay seldom made it until nine-thirty or even ten; but then Tay was usually still in the office at six or seven, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that Kang could be found there after five. And yet Kang could still position himself as the zestful one and Tay as the lazy bastard who came in late. It hardly seemed fair.
“I brought your mail, sir.”
Kang dumped a small stack of something into Tay’s in-tray, but Tay was still thinking about Kang’s dig over his working hours and didn’t bother to look at it.
Didn’t his late evenings count for as much as Kang’s early mornings? They bloody well ought to; but where arriving early at the office was taken as the mark of an energetic man, staying late at the office was merely the indication of a man with no better place to go. It was all just so goddamned unfair.
“Did you get an ID on the woman at the Marriott yet?” Tay asked Kang, covering his annoyance.
“No hit from the prints in the local database, sir. It looks like she was a visitor.”
“What does Immigration say?”
“They’re generating a list of all the female entries during the last thirty days who haven’t exited yet. They ought to have it to us by this afternoon.”
“How many will there be?”
“No idea, sir.”
“When you get the list, I want you to check everyone on it by tomorrow. If there’s anyone you can’t account for, I want to know it by six o’clock.”
“I’m not sure I can do that, sir. There’ll probably be hundreds of names. I won’t have enough-”
“The Chief has already authorized whatever resources we need,” Tay interrupted. “I want that list checked by tomorrow. Get the men you need and get it done, Sergeant.”
Kang bobbed his head and started to close the door.
“And one other thing,” Tay added.
“Sir?”
“Get her prints into the Interpol system. Maybe they’ll get a hit.”
“How much detail do you want me to include?”
Tay thought about that, tapping the cap of a felt-tip pen against his teeth with an audible clicking sound.
“Can you just send the prints without any details?”
“Well, sir, if we don’t give them any reason we’re looking to match them, the priority will drop pretty low.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Tay thought some more. “Just tell them they’re unidentified prints from a crime scene.”
“Perfect prints from all ten fingers? Nobody will believe that, sir.”
“Just do it that way and let’s see what happens.”
Kang shrugged. “Right, sir.”
“What about Forensic Management Branch? When are we going to get their report?”
“Tomorrow, probably late, but it won’t say much.”
“FMB didn’t get anything?”
“There wasn’t much to get. They’re running the samples from the vacuum and the wipe-downs now, but they say they’d be surprised to find anything. The killer cleaned up pretty thoroughly. It almost looks like he knew exactly what he was doing.”
“No prints either?”
“A few partials from the back of the headboard and a couple of other places, but nothing good enough to return a match.”
Tay nodded at that and returned his attention to the IP on his desk. Kang took that as a signal that he was dismissed and closed the door quietly behind him.
Tay started back to work on the IP. Then, suddenly remembering the mail Kang had brought in, he put the file down, pulled his in-tray across the desk, and peered into it. There wouldn’t be anything but junk, of course; there never was. Still, each time he flipped through a new mail delivery, some combination of curiosity and hope always flared within him.
To his surprise, right on top of the pile there appeared to be an actual letter. He picked it up curiously and took a closer look. It was an airmail envelope with a metered stamp that carried the return address of a law firm in New York City. He checked to make certain the letter was actually addressed to him. It was.
Tay held the envelope for a moment without opening it. Perhaps he was being sued. He had never been sued and didn’t know what he would do if he was. But surely that couldn’t be what the letter was about. If he were going to be sued for something, it certainly wouldn’t be by anyone in New York. He had never even been in New York.
Eventually Tay opened the envelope and took out the letter. It was only a single sheet of paper. He read it, and then, not quite believing what he had just read, he read it again from the beginning.
The letter was from a man named Rosenthal whom Tay had never heard of. He said he was a lawyer representing Tay’s mother and wanted to notify Tay that his mother had had a stroke and was in Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. She was expected to recover, but the prognosis was uncertain as to whether she might have permanent brain damage. That was all the letter said. Nothing else at all.