Yun was now wide awake, a quickening beat in his chest. "Lieutenant Rhee, was it Mr. Chon?"
The surprise was obvious in Rhee's voice. "You expected it? It was Chon all right. His body had been dumped inside the stall. It's a bloody mess. I knew he was one of your contacts, so I—"
"Did anyone disturb anything? Have you sealed off the area?"
"Of course, Captain. My men are well acquainted with the procedures for handling homicides. Nothing has been touched. We have three men guarding the scene."
"Yes, of course. Thank you, Lieutenant. You did the proper thing." He was hoping to smooth over any slight the officer might have felt. "I'll be there as quickly as I can."
For a moment, he sat in the dark and shook his head. I sealed his death warrant, he thought. I should have told him to forget it.
"What is it?" Sun-ok asked, one elbow propped on the hard pillow.
He got up and reached for his clothes. "I have to go. It's a homicide. Nothing to do with Se-jin." Whenever one of the infrequent night calls came, his wife would immediately start worrying about their son, now a police lieutenant. Yun wondered if she still worried about him, also. She had been an obedient wife and a good mother. There was no great burning desire between them as the young people seemed to think necessary these days. But they were comfortable together and respected one another. By Korean terms, certainly, and perhaps by any other, it was a good marriage. "Go back to sleep, yepo," he told her, stifling a yawn. "I should be back in time for breakfast."
Lieutenant Rhee directed the broad beam of his battery lantern down at the disheveled mass of butchered humanity. It was even worse than Yun had imagined. There were fingernails missing, one eye gouged out, ugly cuts on different parts of the body, signs of a smashing blow to the head. That was probably what killed him, Yun decided. This could have been the work of only one person, the man known as Hwang Sang-sol.
"Are you ready for me, Captain?" asked a voice behind him.
He turned to see the police photographer, a lanky, youthful officer with a bored expression, camera about his neck, tripod with lights slung under one arm, an aluminum case like a small carry-on bag in his hand.
"Go ahead," Yun said, glancing back at the tragic figure sprawled in his favorite corner. He would miss the old man.
While he waited for the photographer to complete his series of shots taken from various angles, Captain Yun questioned Lieutenant Rhee and the officers who had found Mr. Chon. He was told about Pak Tong-hui and his friends in the market stall across the way, the sight Pak had witnessed in front of the fruit stand. Where had the old merchant been slain, he wondered? Hwang must have been the man on the motorcycle.
"I think that should do it, Captain," the photographer said, gathering his equipment together.
"You'll have prints on my desk this morning?" Yun asked.
"Bright and early."
"Thank you." Yun turned back to Lieutenant Rhee. "Shine your light down here again and let me get a closer look, please."
He turned the old man's pockets inside out and found them empty.
"Everything taken? It looks like he resisted the robber a bit too vigorously, doesn't it?" Rhee said.
Yun replied in an icy tone. "It looks like he encountered a brutal murderer." He added silently, his eyes fixed on the wounds, by someone adept at torture.
When he turned the body to one side to check Mr. Chon's back, he noticed something protruding from the collar of his shirt. Leaning closer, he saw it was a piece of folded paper. Yun pulled out the paper and opened it to find a note. He read:
For he who asks questions, this is the answer.
If there had been any doubt before, the note eliminated it. The message was meant for him. He felt sure it was from Hwang Sang-sol. The only thing he couldn't be sure of was whether Hwang had learned the identity of "he who asks questions." He had no doubt that was the reason for the torture. Had Mr. Chon begged for mercy? From the looks of the body, he had found none. Had he cracked in the end? Yun felt an involuntary chill ripple down his spine.
"What did you find, Captain?" Rhee asked.
Yun shrugged. "Only a receipt," he lied. "Probably fell from one of the crates." He gestured toward the stack of wooden boxes against which Chon's body was crumpled. He was not interested in answering any more questions, nor did he see any benefit to sharing details of the troubling investigation with Rhee. Unobserved, he slid the note into his pocket as he stood up. "We'd better get this wrapped up, Lieutenant. Some of the merchants around here get started quite early."
"How well I know. And I don't want to get a lot of rumors running around the market. We'll catch enough hell as it is about not protecting against robbers."
"It would probably be best not to mention the butchered condition of the body," Yun said.
"Sure. The less said the better, as far as I'm concerned. I'll caution all of my men."
Yun was not interested in any more pressure on himself, either, until he had been able to sort this out. He felt even more certain now that Hwang was the hit man of the conspiracy. But he had just lost his only link to the assassin. He had no idea who Chon's contact had been. A previous check of the National Police computer had turned up nothing. If Hwang had run afoul of the South Korean criminal justice system, it had been under a different name. The same was true of Interpol. Of course, he could have used any of various names according to the time and place. There was still another possibility, however, one the old man had mentioned in their first conversation. The NSP likely had a file on Hwang, may even have used his services in the past. To get anything out of them would take a request directed through the Minister of Home Affairs, who was responsible for the Korean National Police. From the standpoint of proper police procedure, he knew that was what he should do. But professional pride and personal prejudice swayed him away from it. He was reluctant to concede the necessity for going outside the police bureau, and he had no desire whatever to become involved with any machinations of the Agency for National Security Planning.
As he drove back home through the sparsely traveled streets, he returned to the critical question, the one that had been weighing most heavily on his mind. Had Mr. Chon revealed his identity? He was aware that t'ai chi taught ways to resist the crippling effects of pain. But considering the appearance of the body, it would seem to have required a superhuman effort. He had to accept the possibilty was quite strong that Hwang would know a police captain named Yun was looking for him. So what would he do? He would start looking for the policeman. And he wouldn't waste any time doing it. He had certainly moved quickly enough to eliminate Mr. Chon.
Yun parked his car and looked around the street with its small houses crowded together in rows like so many peas in a pod. Maybe it wasn't as modern as the newer high rise apartments that stretched endlessly nearby, but he abhorred the institutionalism they represented. It would be like living in an office building or, worse, in a prison. He would keep his small house and the sense of independence it afforded. Then it occured to him that it might also provide an opportunity to pick up the trail of Hwang Sang-sol. If Hwang should come looking for him, it would be here at his home, not at the police bureau. Yun decided to arrange for a twenty-four-hour surveillance of the neighborhood. He might have to expand his task force, but it shouldn't take more than a week. If Hwang were bent on tracing down the man "who asks questions," he should make his move by that time.
Chapter 19