Book of Ma'Chi - 01 - Ken's last stretch

Ken dropped the phone back onto its base with a long sigh and sat staring at it. His drawn, grey face was illuminated by the single desk lamp sprouting on a curved stainless steel arc from its black base on the side of the black glass desk. The noise of the day had been replaced by the sigh of the evening wind as the lights in the Singaporean skyscrapers winked out, leaving Ken’s office isolated in the loneliness of the empty eight floor.

After an abnormally long pause his lifeless eyes looked up at the bearded westerner sitting in an armchair, one of four arranged around a matching black glass coffee table.

“My boss in London needs another two million dollars profit before the month end”, Ken said, shifting his focus back from the bearded figure by the coffee table to the phone.

The westerner’s blue eyes watched implacably, piercing the gloom of the office and reflecting in the cold light of the desk lamp.

“You know when the month end is?” Ken asked the man sitting at the coffee table, not really expecting an answer and not getting one. “There’s no way in hell we can make two million in two days. Not with the NIKEI falling as it is. Fucking idiot. Just wants his bonus, that his wife already spent.”

Ken paused and picked up the loose papers on his desk and laid them laconically, with another sigh, in the black plastic filing tray.

“You know that means?” Ken asked the man. But the blue eyes knew better than to interrupt. “The end of the Dutch Indies Bank... and I thought I could handle it.” His voice broke with emotion. It took a moment to regain his composure. “I know I shouldn’t have traded with the bank’s money”, he continued softly, “in two days it’s over. And there’s no way to fix this. A hole of fifteen billion ...”

Ken stopped talking as a wave of guilt swept through his body and his father’s voice echoed in his mind, from New Year, “Your mother would be so proud of her only son.” Tears ran down Ken’s face and on to the glass desk as he bit his lip. His father’s voice continued: “You have brought honour and dignity to our ancestors, my son. I’m proud.” Ken screwed his eyes shut tight, to stop the voice. He tried to swallow through his tightened throat. His voice finally emerged, weak and hoarse.

“What about you, Bernard? Are you my judge, executioner or saviour?”

Bernard’s blue eyes never left Ken’s face as he stood up to his full height and took the three steps to Ken’s black desk. He put a rosewood box, inlaid with white ivory, on the edge of the desk and pushed it across to Ken in the centre of the pool of light.

Ken looked questioningly from the box to Bernard, and back to the box. The two elephants heads, inlayed on the lid of the box, glowed a pale cream in the dim light of the office. His eyes followed the lines of the figure of eight made by the entwined trunks. His hands trembled slightly as he reached for the box and pulled it towards him. He paused, his hands on either side of the inlaid box, big enough to hold a small revolver, and looked back at the tall, ponytailed figure standing above him.

The blood drained from his hands and face as he sat motionless in front of the box. The feeling had gone from his fingers as he finally lifted the lid.

---

Cartilage and bone cracked under the pathologists secateurs as the dead man’s chest was opened to reveal its secrets. The assistant put down the phone and turned to his senior, saying: “Detective Ang will be along shortly. He seemed rather keen to see the autopsy.”

“Oh dear”, said Dr. Hurston, “these detectives get younger and younger. Such enthusiasm. I had him on a case a month ago. It was his first autopsy. Like a boy with a new toy.”

His assistant smiled at Dr. Hurston’s English intonation and black humour. In the six months she’d worked for him she had grown to respect and love his English eccentricity and knowledge. Well over sixty, his reputation of fastidiousness and Englishness had been long established as a well-travelled pathologist.

Dr. Hurston stretched his back as he stood up and straightened, out of the light over the stainless steel autopsy table.

“Well, he’s not going to have much to chew on with this one.” Dr. Hurston sighed as his body recovered from the strain of bending over and cutting ribs. “There are no injuries, to speak of, pre death. It looks pretty straight-forward.”

Detective Ang burst through the glass doors, still fastening his green overall. “Archie! Great to see you again! What have you found that’s going to lead to a famous murder case being wrapped up by a rising star?”

Dr. Hurston turned and cringed at the use of his first name, although this was better than Archibald, he thought to himself.

“Doctor Hurston to you, young man! And I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you. This looks every bit like a jump. He was alive until his neck was broken simultaneous to the bursting of several internal organs as he hit the pavement. There are no pre death injuries. Almost no stomach content. This one died hungry. The contents of his stomach, lungs and blood samples have been sent for toxicology analysis, but you’ll have to wait twenty-four hours.”

Ang stopped the flow of data; “So he was alive as he went through the window? Is he not cut by the broken glass? And what about time of death?”

Dr. Hurston looked across to the young detective, appreciatively. “Good! You’re learning fast! But there’s nothing on his body to suggest that he made the hole in the window. Slight cuts on his right hand as he climbed out, probably.”

Ang snapped back: “Or, as he tried to stop himself being pushed out!”

“Ah, so you have a suspect, do you?” quizzed Dr. Hurston, “fingerprints?”

“Possibly, on the chair that was found on the ground, but more specifically we have a late arrival at the office. The badge used to exit on the deceased’s floor was also used to go back to the car park. Around the time the passers-by called the police”, detective Ang reeled off, as he circled around the body, peering into the newly made orifice.

Dr. Hurston mused: “Hmm, so you have two bank employees on the same floor, well after office hours, and only one came down by the lift.”

“Not exactly, replied detective, the dead man is Ken Sun Fong, a Hong Kong Chinese. He was a bank employee. The other man is a consultant. Bernard Lawler.”

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This is the first chapter from the Book of Ma'Chi