Five-Ring Circus by Jon Cleary

Crime Scene tapes hung across the front door like an auctioneer’s invitation. The Physical Evidence team were still at work, but showing no excitement, as if they had already decided that whatever they unearthed here was not going to be of much value. The flat was typical rent-stuff: cheap carpet, cheap furniture, a faded print of a bush scene on one wall, the bare essentials in the kitchen. Zhang’s body, fully clothed, had been found huddled in the shower-stall, the shower drenching him like a last benediction.
    â€œThe water seeped down into the flat below,” said Napolani. “A coupla Maoris. They came up to complain, so they said—they look more like they would of beat the shit outa him. When he didn’t answer the door, they kicked it in—they tell us they play rugby for Easts. They found him and, like good citizens, they phoned us.”
    â€œWhat have you found?” asked Sheryl.
    â€œNothing. The place is so bloody neat, you wonder if he actually lived here. There’s some clothes in the wardrobe and stuff in the bathroom cupboard, but nothing to identify him. It was the Maoris who gave us his name, told us he was a student.”
    â€œNo passport, no bank book, credit card?” said Gail.
    â€œNothing. The Maoris think he was at UTS, we’re gunna check.”
    â€œWhat killed him?”
    â€œA bullet in the left temporal, another one practically dead centre in the heart. Our guess is they used a silencer—nobody heard any shots. He’d been dead eight to ten hours was the pathologist’s guess—that would of been about midnight last night. They’ll tell us more when they do the autopsy Monday.”
    Gail Lee looked around the small bedroom: a featureless box in which an almost anonymous man had lived and died. The bed had not been slept in, so Zhang had either been up at midnight expecting visitors or had come home with them. “I noticed there are no books or newspapers out in the living room.”
    â€œIf there were, they’d all been taken away,” said Napolani.
    â€œWhat about the TV set?” asked Sheryl. “There’s a VCR on top of it.”
    â€œNo videos.”
    â€œSo he was sitting up till almost midnight, looking at TV, or he’d come home with the guys who killed him?”
    â€œLooks like it,” said Napolani.
    â€œWhat made you think this homicide has anything to do with the ones last night in Chinatown?”
    Napolani shrugged. He was a cop who had learned his trade the hard way: never behind a desk, always on the beat or, once he had become a detective, out doing the legwork on an investigation. He had worked his way through robbery, assault, drugs and murder. He had developed an instinct: “It was a guess, a wild one. You don’t get four Chinese murders in twelve hours . . . Is that why they sent you?”
    â€œNo.” Gail gave him a thin smile. “Sheryl just drags me along to read the tea leaves.”
    â€œYou win.” Napolani’s smile was wider than hers.
    â€œOkay,” said Sheryl, “now we’ve got the cross-cultural bit out of the way, do you want us to hang around or do you want us out of the way?”
    â€œBefore we go,” said Gail, “I think we should talk to the Maoris.”
    â€œThey’re downstairs. Kip and Keith, friendly as a coupla buffaloes.” Napolani led them out of the flat, ducking under the tapes, and down a narrow flight of stairs where their heels click-clacked on the cheap tiles. “I had a check run on them. They’ve both got records—assault, battery, that sorta thing. Saturday-night wreckers, probably after they’ve been playing rugby.”
    â€œYou’re not a rugby man?” said Sheryl, who occasionally dated footballers. “Not rah-rah?”
    â€œ Golf. A gentleman’s game.” He grinned again as he knocked on the door of the flat immediately below that of the murdered