Kiss & Die - Lee Weeks [95]
‘You don’t have to do it, Mann. It’s a big ask, I know. You can just say no, take some time off.’
‘The last thing I need is time off, Mia. I can’t bear my own company at the moment. I need to work. I need to be useful. I will take it all the way and hope I can deliver.’
‘Then stay focused. I don’t need one of my officers off his face 24/7.’ He glanced across at her. ‘Yeah, maybe that was a little harsh of me. But it’s tough love. I know you, Johnny. I want you to put it all behind you, move on.’
Mann looked out of the window, at the harbour just ahead he could see the flashing blue lights of several squad cars. ‘It’s easier said than done,’ he said.
Mia didn’t answer, she just drove.
They parked up by the cordon of flashing police cars around the water’s edge and walked over to join Shrimp and Ng.
They’d reached the water’s edge and Mann’s attention was diverted. ‘Jesus, is it in a lobster pot? Are these the fishermen who found it?’
‘Yes, Boss.’
Mann knelt down over the pot. A large lobster scuttled around the basket and settled on the skull. ‘There’s still a small amount of flesh, the pot must have protected it to a certain extent, apart from providing the lobster with a permanent meal.’
‘The lobster’s young,’ said Shrimp. ‘It’s probably not the first lobster to feed here.’
Mann took Delilah out of his pocket, poked her through the slats and dislodged the lobster. ‘Where did you find it?’
The fishermen pointed out to sea.
‘Can you be more specific?’
They looked at one another and then collectively shook their heads.
‘They say they were fishing in the permitted zone when they trawled it up in their net. It must have come loose with the bad weather.’ Ng leant down to whisper to Mann. ‘I think they’re bullshitting. They were somewhere they ought not to be or up to some kind of illegal bomb fishing. Whatever it was they caught themselves a net full of trouble.’
‘Were you out in the storm?’
The captain nodded.
‘Maybe this pot was dislodged from its home. Come to police headquarters in the morning. I want you to show me on a map exactly where you were fishing.’
The captain started to grumble.
‘You’re not going anywhere with this boat till we’ve had a chance to take a good look at it. Co-operate and we’ll speed things along. Piss me off and I’ll impound it for good.’
Daniel Lu came to join Mann and Shrimp and took a closer look at the head. ‘It’s not Max Kosmos then?’
Mann felt sick. He stood and took a few deep breaths. ‘Somebody get that fucking lobster out.’
Chapter 71
‘According to the fishermen’s co-ordinates they were just west of here when they dragged up the head in their net.’ The six-man team of divers included Mann. Daniel Lu was along as part of the forensic recovery team. ‘Allowing for the movement from the storm, it could have come off the coast around Stanley. There are places along the wall where people fish, deep areas that you access quite easily. We’ve tried north and now we’ll try south. We’ll take the boat in south of the beach, where the sea defence is deepest.’
‘This has to be the last dive for today, Mann. I have to get back to the office. We’ve been out here since seven o’clock this morning. It’s four now.’
Mann was stood looking towards the beach. It was dotted with families. Either side of it were the tall sea walls, sloped with boulders in places to accommodate the storm swells.
‘If the perp doesn’t have a boat, this place would not be deep enough to throw in a body, even if you rolled it down the stone boulders and into the water.’
‘I understand that, Mann, but Hong Kong is completely surrounded by water. We can’t check every part. People are allowed to fish off any wall, any beach. If someone wanted to weight a body and throw it in they could throw it off countless places.’
‘Sure. I know what you’re saying. It’s a difficult thing to work out but Ng and I looked at drift patterns, storm surge. It hit this defence pretty hard. It could have shifted anything