Red Ribbons (Chapter One)

Posted on | Wednesday, July 13, 2011 | No Comments


Chapter One

Venkath Das wrinkled his nose at the putrid stench of stale urine in the air. The once-blue stairwell railing was covered with rust, discarded chewing gum and various stains. The cemented floor was papered with cracks and rubbish. Somewhere below, he heard a hacking cough and the rustle of newspapers. It was just the kind of place a body liked to show up in.

The sound of his own breathing accompanied him as he jogged up two flights of stairs. It was still early, about twenty minutes to daybreak, but the air around him was stiff and musty. He suddenly missed the warmth of his wife's curves against his body. He missed the smell of her hair, the perfume she wore to work, the way her fingers clutched his hips when they made love. His chest constricted at the memories; he gritted his teeth to drive them out of his mind, at least for now. He had a job to do.

“Morning, Venkath.” A plump, serious-looking man in his early forties greeted Venkath as he reached the top of the stairs. The man wore a sky-blue dress shirt tucked messily into the waistband of a pair of black slacks with frayed hems. On his feet were a pair of scuffed black loafers. His hair was uncombed and his eyes bloodshot with lack of sleep (or one too many glasses of scotch, Venkath couldn't tell). There were lines around his eyes and the corners of his mouth.

“Morning, Lawrence. You look terrible,” Venkath said, briefly clasping the other man's hand.

“I'm sorry to interrupt your vacation, but this couldn't wait,” Inspector Lawrence Lourdes said in response. He nodded in the direction of a parking space a few metres away. A young officer in uniform was standing over the body of a woman, diligently taking notes. From where he stood, Venkath could glimpse a pair of slender legs covered by some red material. A red stiletto lay on the ground a few feet away.

Venkath's face turned dark and his pulse quickened. When Lawrence had called him half an an hour ago, he'd thought that this was just another murder case. A mugging gone wrong in a car park. But the moment he saw Lawrence's face, he knew. Knew beyond a doubt what they were dealing with wasn't an open-and-shut case. That the reason his wife was gone from his life had returned to haunt him again.

But the present had no space for the past. He was the closest Kuala Pilah had to a medical examiner; he had been surprised when Lawrence had called him, the village-town hadn't seen a murder for at least fifteen years. Five years, Venkath left his hometown of Penang to start life afresh in Kuala Pilah, hoping he'd left behind the ghosts that had cost him his marriage and peace of mind. And here he was again, looking down at a new ghost.

She lay in the centre of an empty parking space flanked by two cars. She was wearing a chili-red dress that ended below her knees; her face devoid of makeup except for pink lip gloss. Her eyes were closed and her lips parted in a silent 'o'; her hands were folded under her head and her body hunched into a fetal position. If not for the red ligature marks around her neck, Venkath would have thought she had simply fallen asleep.

He took a deep breath before putting on the latex gloves Lawrence handed him. She was young, in her early twenties at most, he thought. He lifted her eyelids open, the corneas were still clear, but the whites of her eyes were bloodshot. Subconjunctival hemorrhage and ligature marks--the girl had definitely been strangled to death.

He rotated her neck slightly and returned it to its previous position. “Rigor mortis hasn't set in yet, she's been dead for less than two hours. I'll give you a more exact time after the post-mortem, but so far it looks like she was strangled.”

Inspector Lawrence handed him a large envelope with “Evidence” written on the flap. “I took photos of the body and bagged this while waiting for you,” he said. The young uniformed officer looked on silently.

Venkath took the envelope, avoiding his cousin's gaze. Inside were two sealed Zip-loc bags, one with a woman's wallet in it and the other a set of car keys. His fingers trembled slightly as he undid the clasp of the wallet.

It was empty, as he had suspected. He checked all the compartments, just to be sure. There was no money, no coins, no driver's license or identification card. What he did find was a single RM1 note carefully folded into a pyramid and placed in the compartment where coins should have been. His fingers trembled slightly as he held the note in his hand. He heard the camera clicking close behind him, no doubt the young officer taking extra photos of the evidence.

“Is that it?” he asked Lawrence as he rose to his feet. He replaced the wallet and car keys in their bags and handed it over to his cousin.

“Yes,” Lawrence replied simply. He was never one to mince his words.

“Who found the body?” Venkath asked, removing his gloves and placing them in the zip-loc bag that Lawrence handed him.

“I did, sir.” a raspy male voice piped up behind Lawrence. It was the baby-faced officer who had been taking notes when Venkath arrived. He was tall and reed-like, with smooth skin and cropped hair which didn't sit right with his Taiwanese-pop-singer good looks. But his eyes were keen and intelligent and he stood with his shoulders and back ramrod straight.

“And you are?” Venkath asked him, shaking the hand he was offered.

The officer stood up straighter. “Paul Ong, sir. I just started work last week.”

“Dr. Venkath Das. Now, tell me what happened this morning.”

“I received a call from police despatch at 6.05 am, saying that an anonymous caller had phoned in to report that he'd found the body here at around 6.00 am. I found her here at 6.20 am. The caller was nowhere to be seen,” Paul explained.

“Who moved the body?” Venkath asked quietly, looking steadily at Paul.

Paul looked at him in surprise. “No one did, sir. I called Inspector Lawrence right after I found the body. We were waiting for you to arrive.”

Venkath gave a slight nod of acknowledgement. He waved to his cousin, who was listening to their conversation. “Lawrence, come take a look at this,” he said.

The inspector squatted on the floor next to Venkath. “What is it?”

“See this,” Venkath said, picking up the shoe lying on the ground. The bottom of the shoe was covered in mud and bits of grass. “Mud and grass. They're still wet, which means she wasn't killed here, this was a body dump.” The camera continued to click industriously as he pointed to the skirt of the dead girl's dress. There were three short, fine hairs on the material, just above her left knee.

Lawrence's eyebrows shot up. “Hmm, they look like cat-hairs. Paul, take photos,” he instructed to the young officer.

Venkath frowned as he extracted the hairs with a pair of pincers from his toolkit. He placed them carefully in a small plastic packet and sealed it. The killer hadn't slipped up before, the previous crime scenes had been devoid of DNA or trace evidence. Yet here they had found cat-hairs.

“Think he's trying to play us?” Lawrence broke the silence.

Venkath shook his head. “Her clothes and makeup are perfect, her nails immaculate; this is not a woman who would walk out of the house with muddy shoes and cat-hairs all over her. The sooner we find out who she is, the closer we get to catching this bastard,” he said, half to himself.

“We will,” Lawrence said, clenching and unclenching his right fist. It was a childhood habit he had never gotten rid of, (it also stopped him from planting the same fist in many a face, which helped him move up the ranks in the police force).

“I'll stay here with her until the ambulance arrives,” replied his cousin. “I want to take another look at her in case I missed anything. I'll call you when I'm back at the hospital,” he said.

“Paul, give us a moment, will you?” Lawrence said, clearing his throat.

“I'll wait for you in the car, sir,” Paul replied, with a quick wave to Venkath.

Venkath stretched to his feet and removed his gloves, stuffing them into his briefcase and snapping it shut. “What, you don't trust me with the evidence?” he said as soon as Paul was out of earshot.

“Of course not! It's just that after Penang--”

“I didn't let it affect my work then, not about to now,” Venkath said firmly, cutting him off mid-sentence.

“Has she---” Lawrence tried again, but Venkath shot him a look that silenced him. They waited for the ambulance to arrive, the air hanging cold and silent between them.

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