Linger Awhile

40 Detective Inspector Hunter

3 February 2004. ‘Shall we put the score at Vampires three, Plod nil?’ said Burke.

‘A true Briton would not support Vampires,’ I said.

‘Who said I was supporting them?’ said Burke. ‘I’m just telling it like it is. Here’s poor old Chauncey Lim missing all of his blood and found in the neighbourhood of our usual suspects. That makes a hat-trick for the other side. Have you got a clue?’

‘You can be very irritating at times, Harry.’

‘I’ve been told that before,’ said Burke. ‘I can’t think why. Have you got a suspect?’

‘Well, there are two Justines out there now and my money’s on Justine One.’

‘I suppose you’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of being right. What’s your next move?’

‘That’s on a need-to-know basis, Harry.’

‘Oh, yes. Who needs to know?’

‘I do.’

I looked at Chauncey Lim’s dead face, at his bloodless body, at what remained of whatever he was and whatever he wanted and hoped for. All of that had been drained out of him with the blood and now he was something small and left behind. Might he still be alive if I’d kept him in the nick another day? Probably she’d have got him sooner or later now that she’d come out. There was a tattoo on his chest, a line of Chinese characters. There were no relatives in this country so Rosalie and Lester Chun came to view the body and Lester was kind enough to translate the tattoo. ‘Form, emptiness,’ he said. ‘Emptiness, form.’

‘Is that a quote from something?’ I said.

‘I think it’s a Buddhist thing,’ he said, ‘but I’m not sure. I’m an atheist, myself.’