get.”
“As long as the lay was not procured by waving around your police identity card?”
Aston’s features flattened. “Course not, Chief. I know how you feel about that sort of thing.”
“Me and the commissioner of police. Just a sniff, the slightest suspicion, and you’re on the plane back to Romford, Essex. I’m not getting heavy, just advising; it’s part of my supervisory duty.”
“Back to Romford?” Aston feigned unendurable distress. “I’d rather cut it off.”
Chan nodded gravely. “Your preference for castration rather than repatriation is noted. By the way, what’s so terrible about Romford, Essex?”
“Nothing … until you’ve been somewhere else. Even Luton. When you’ve been here … I tell you, honest, I’d give ten years of my life to stay on here.”
“On this filthy, polluted, Chink-infested, superficial, crass, materialistic, overheated rock?”
“You know why? Life! The place is buzzing with it, night and day. It’s crawling with it, bursting. People flying all over the place earning a crust, nobody has time to sit around moaning. England’s on Valium, America’s on Prozac, here people still act human. There’s youth, ambition, drive. Eighty percent of the population is under thirty.”
“So it has nothing to do with the women?”
Aston passed a hand through his hair. “Now I didn’t say that, did I? I explicitly didn’t say, ‘Nothing to do with the women.’ ”
Chan watched the young man’s eyes stray once more to the sketch of Polly.
“I think I understand. Would you mind taking your erection back to your own desk now, before you have an accident?”
At his desk opposite Chan’s Aston checked through The Murder Investigator’s Bible , an American publication that Chan refused to touch. He had Aston refer to it on his behalf.
“DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid,” Aston explained.
Chan didn’t ask what RFLP stood for, or even PCR. It was enough to know that PCR was the short DNA test; you got the results in a day. RFLP took much longer but was more reliable. A detective was put to an election between the two only when he had a shortage of specimens. Chan had a whole vat full, a vat and three heads. Already he had the PCR results and doubted that the RFLP would produce any surprises.
The PCR test had been positive for all three. That is to say, theunique double helix that God stamped like an engine number on the nucleus of every human cell matched. Matched what? Three different double helixes had been identified in the mess in the vat, and each of these was replicated by DNA found in the hair follicles of one or other of the heads. Polly, Jekyll and Hyde were the mess in the vat.
Aston faxed all the foreign consulates in Hong Kong with all three faces, emphasizing Polly because she was probably from overseas. For the American and West European consulates he added a special request to check for missing persons thought to have disappeared on vacation in the Far East. He checked available missing persons lists for Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore, Taipei and Bangkok, the four closest cities most popular with foreigners.
Chan read the odontological report and understood little. He lit a cigarette and dumped the paper on Aston’s desk. “You did the course recently; what does he mean, ‘Her upper sixteen has amalgam missing’? Which is the upper sixteen?”
Aston read aloud. “ ‘First bicuspid lower 28, crown missing. Central incisors 9, 24, 25, 8, all broken. Also lateral incisors 10, 23, 26 and 7.’ Also what? Broken? Those bastards punched her in the mouth?” Alert now, Aston stared at Chan.
Chan held out his hands, caught the report, turned the pages. “Same for the others. Look. They all got punched in the mouth?”
With Aston standing by his shoulder he flicked through the report, studied the front and back pages. He looked up at Aston.
“No idiot’s summary.” He sighed. “It’ll mean going over to Arsenal
“As long as the lay was not procured by waving around your police identity card?”
Aston’s features flattened. “Course not, Chief. I know how you feel about that sort of thing.”
“Me and the commissioner of police. Just a sniff, the slightest suspicion, and you’re on the plane back to Romford, Essex. I’m not getting heavy, just advising; it’s part of my supervisory duty.”
“Back to Romford?” Aston feigned unendurable distress. “I’d rather cut it off.”
Chan nodded gravely. “Your preference for castration rather than repatriation is noted. By the way, what’s so terrible about Romford, Essex?”
“Nothing … until you’ve been somewhere else. Even Luton. When you’ve been here … I tell you, honest, I’d give ten years of my life to stay on here.”
“On this filthy, polluted, Chink-infested, superficial, crass, materialistic, overheated rock?”
“You know why? Life! The place is buzzing with it, night and day. It’s crawling with it, bursting. People flying all over the place earning a crust, nobody has time to sit around moaning. England’s on Valium, America’s on Prozac, here people still act human. There’s youth, ambition, drive. Eighty percent of the population is under thirty.”
“So it has nothing to do with the women?”
Aston passed a hand through his hair. “Now I didn’t say that, did I? I explicitly didn’t say, ‘Nothing to do with the women.’ ”
Chan watched the young man’s eyes stray once more to the sketch of Polly.
“I think I understand. Would you mind taking your erection back to your own desk now, before you have an accident?”
At his desk opposite Chan’s Aston checked through The Murder Investigator’s Bible , an American publication that Chan refused to touch. He had Aston refer to it on his behalf.
“DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid,” Aston explained.
Chan didn’t ask what RFLP stood for, or even PCR. It was enough to know that PCR was the short DNA test; you got the results in a day. RFLP took much longer but was more reliable. A detective was put to an election between the two only when he had a shortage of specimens. Chan had a whole vat full, a vat and three heads. Already he had the PCR results and doubted that the RFLP would produce any surprises.
The PCR test had been positive for all three. That is to say, theunique double helix that God stamped like an engine number on the nucleus of every human cell matched. Matched what? Three different double helixes had been identified in the mess in the vat, and each of these was replicated by DNA found in the hair follicles of one or other of the heads. Polly, Jekyll and Hyde were the mess in the vat.
Aston faxed all the foreign consulates in Hong Kong with all three faces, emphasizing Polly because she was probably from overseas. For the American and West European consulates he added a special request to check for missing persons thought to have disappeared on vacation in the Far East. He checked available missing persons lists for Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore, Taipei and Bangkok, the four closest cities most popular with foreigners.
Chan read the odontological report and understood little. He lit a cigarette and dumped the paper on Aston’s desk. “You did the course recently; what does he mean, ‘Her upper sixteen has amalgam missing’? Which is the upper sixteen?”
Aston read aloud. “ ‘First bicuspid lower 28, crown missing. Central incisors 9, 24, 25, 8, all broken. Also lateral incisors 10, 23, 26 and 7.’ Also what? Broken? Those bastards punched her in the mouth?” Alert now, Aston stared at Chan.
Chan held out his hands, caught the report, turned the pages. “Same for the others. Look. They all got punched in the mouth?”
With Aston standing by his shoulder he flicked through the report, studied the front and back pages. He looked up at Aston.
“No idiot’s summary.” He sighed. “It’ll mean going over to Arsenal
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