The Hamlet Murders Read Online Free

here until I come back.”

    Back in Bob’s office, Li Chou, the plump head of CSU was finishing his work. Fong had already crossed swords with this man during the investigation into the abortion clinic bombings that eventually led to the killing of Angel Michael. “But that was then and this is now,” Fong thought.
    “Anything, Li Chou?” Fong asked.
    The man looked up from his work and stared at Fong as if he didn’t initially recognize him. Then something that could pass for a smile crossed his face, “Not yet.”
    No “sir” on the end of the sentence Fong noted. Well, he’d played the insubordination game himself often enough in the past so he let it pass. “Initial thoughts then, Li Chou?”
    “Small calibre gun. Burn marks on the skin inside his left ear suggests that he put the gun in there . . . then put a teensy hole through his stupid head.” Two of Li Chou’s assistants giggled.
    Fong’s responding silence killed the hilarity in the room. Li Chou smiled and prompted his guys with, “Teensy-weensy hole, I’d say.” Laughter, although somewhat forced, greeted Li Chou’s comment. Fong looked at the CSU guys. They were much closer to Li Chou’s age than his. Li Chou was their dim sum ticket, not him. Fong nodded then cut through the tittering saying, “Are you right-handed, Li Chou?”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “So pretend that the stapler on the desk is a gun, okay?”
    “Sure,” Li Chou said slowly as he made a funny face for his guys. “Funny kinda gun, wouldn’t you say?”
    “So sit in the chair over there,” Fong said. Li Chou made yet another face then did as Fong asked. “Now grip the stapler as if it were a gun. You’re righthanded so use your right hand. Good. Now put it in your left ear.”
    The man tried to do it then realized that he couldn’t get his finger to the trigger and still keep the gun in his ear. A look of real hatred crossed the man’s face. “So what?” Li Chou demanded.
    “So Mr. Clayton was right-handed too. That’s so what,” Fong spat back.
    Too late, Fong realized that he had embarrassed Li Chou in front of his subordinates. Fong glanced over and the younger men made themselves look as busy as they could. Fong knew he should apologize. He knew that losing face was a real thing in this world but he couldn’t resist adding, “If your English was better, you would have seen that from his writing.”

    Of course, if Fong hadn’t been so cocky he would have bothered to read the dead man’s final words on the notepad. It would not be until almost eighteen months later, in a far-off Western Canadian town called Kananaskis, that he would finally get a hint of what the International Exchange Institute actually exchanged.

    Back at his office on the Bund, Fong was greeted by the head of the business section of Special Investigations. The man was a few years older than Fong and had at one time run a major corporation in Hong Kong. Run it just a tad on the wrong side of the law. When Hong Kong came back to the fold of Mother China, the man was offered two options: either join Special Investigations and work for the good of China or spend his remaining days in Ti Lan Chou, the world’s largest political prison. The man moved his family to Shanghai and began to work for Special Investigations. And in many ways he was happier than he’d ever been. He drove a more modest car, he no longer spent time in expensive Japanese teahouses and he had actually relearned to appreciate his wife, which was helped along by his inability to finance his mistress. Kenneth Lo was now an elegant man in a somewhat pedestrian world.
    He insisted on being called, like many Chinese from Hong Kong, by his British name. Fong could put up with that because Kenneth Lo was a talented forensic accountant and his computer skills were second only to Chen’s in the office. Fong pointed to the chair across the desk from him. Kenneth sat and opened a large folder.
    “So, Kenneth, what did the