The Girl in the Jewel Shoes

Charitar's killer's trial started yesterday; an air-conditioner repairman called So.

You may not know about this murder since it happened before I started this blog but it was so horrible and came so close to home, I spent weeks wondering about randomness and why it was her and not me, and how it could be that we did the exact same thing probably only minutes apart and while I was fine - just having a typical day - she was murdered.

What happened was that Charitar, a visitor to HK, didn't turn up for an important dinner meeting and neither did she return to her hotel room.  Her Australian boyfriend, a cinematographer called Wade, was very worried so the following morning went looking for her and discovered she'd last been seen in a building just along from us in Wan Chai. A day later, when she still hadn't shown up, he reported her missing and was told by the HK police - and I'm not kidding about this - "She's Thai.  She's a prostitute. She's run off with another man. Forget her. Get a new one." and that was that.

Wade was furious because Charitar wasn't even remotely a prostitute.  She was a film producer and from one of Thailand's most wealthy families so ... well, when her family back in Bangkok heard what the HK police had said, they were furious and turned up in HK in numbers, throwing their importance and their anger around and so, after more a week, the police finally were persuaded to get involved and went looking for her ... and found her body hidden atop an air-conditioning unit only meters away from the last place she was seen, right here only doors down from us in Wan Chai.

And there were a pair of jeweled shoes stuck above her head.

Naturally, this being Hong Kong, that detail made everyone crazy because, according to Thai custom, putting shoes near someone's head is a death sign so everyone was saying how it had to be a hitman from Thailand sending a message to a family. And then there were the jewels on the shoes?  Since her father had been, only a month earlier, murdered in Africa while buying diamonds, everyone was convinced this was related to her dad's murder and it all had something to do with gem stones.

Honestly! To me it seemed like, since they were her own shoes and slip-ons, they had come off while her killer was sticking her body atop the air-conditioner, and he had just stuck them up there too, high up, hidden out of the way, without looking what he was doing.

And then there was the missing footage from the security camera, which had apparently gone down right around the time of the killing, and this only a week away from the WTO Conference several buildings along, and thus there were big and important questions being asked internationally about security issues, and lots of idle chatter about how "Only government officials could get rid of footage from those cameras so it's all an inside job." which quickly grew into "The HK government has to be involved in her dad's death."

And then Charitar's bedroom back at the family mansion in Bangkok was found trashed and, oh boy, the stupidity got worse, with one clique saying it was a break-in by a Thai hit squad trying to find whatever it was that she and her father had been murdered for, and other cliques saying it was the HK Government, but mostly it was folks saying it was her angry ghost wanting justice.

Me?  As a fellow messy-person, I thought maybe she'd just left in a hurry and not cleaned up. Like, maybe there was something about a missing passport so she'd done a frantic search, tossing stuff around, and then hadn't cleaned up afterwards so it was in a not-unusual state of mayhem.

But it wasn't any of this that got to me.  What it was was ...

... I was there!  I was right there!  Reading all about it in the newspaper,  there was nothing to separate the two of us. We were both there together. Same building. Same floor. Same time.  The only difference, I think, is that she was maybe only minutes ahead of me.  And yet ...

OK, what happened was that Red Carpet Production Company was looking for financing to make a film and Amy, Run Run Shaw's niece, told us that the myth was true, that there was indeed a book containing the names and contact details of everyone in Hong Kong who wanted to invest in films and we could find it at ... and that's when she opened her little black book and copied out an address onto a little piece of paper.

Because the office was in Wan Chai, I said I'd go the next day to pick up a copy for the others.  No biggie, right?

Well, the problem was that Amy's handwriting was so bad I couldn't read it properly, but I went to the building ... only I couldn't really read the floor but thought it could be the 13th, so I pressed that button. The doors opened and there was this creepy fellow lurking there.  Bad pock-marked skin, casually dressed, from his demeanor I guessed he was from one of the poorer African countries rather than a Black American from one of their poorer states. And he was leaning on a red furled umbrella.

His lurking was so sinister it was like he was a lookout for some crime being committed further along the corridor, and then he saw me and the look he gave me made me shudder ... and when he started walking towards the lift I decided that Amy had really written "15th floor",  pressed that button and kept my hand on the close button so the doors couldn't open again.

The 15th floor was deserted; all dark and silent and muggy. And very creepy too.  I don't get spooked easily but something definitely felt wrong, like this was a place where bad things happen. And the door to the stairwell in particular felt just nasty.  I gave it a wide berth because ... well, I thought creepy African guy had seen the lift stop and was coming up those stairs.

I wanted to get out of there fast but I didn't want to disappoint anyone either, so I did a quick reconnoiter around the corridors till I saw movement behind the glass of one of the offices and knocked.  Nice middle-aged Chinese woman answered and I asked where the film office was. She said "Wrong building.  It's the next one along. This is building A, you want building B."  and then she said the words that particularly came back to haunt me. "A lot of you are getting it wrong today."

Today!  She said TODAY!

And so, with a great deal of relief, I left that building, went to the right one, found the office involved, picked up several copies of the mythic book, and left with a great sense of accomplishment.

No biggie, right?

But when I read that this was the last place she'd been seen, and how it was exactly the same time I'd been there, I couldn't help thinking about what I'd seen and how dark and creepy that floor was, and the thought that maybe, maybe, maybe ... and I couldn't stop shuddering.  I also thought "Film producer?  Amy's little black book with the wrong address?  'A lot of you are getting it wrong today!'"  and decided that what Charitar was doing in that building was the same thing I'd been doing; she was looking for the office that had copies of the mythic book.

And when Wade was interviewed by SCMP, he confirmed it. She was indeed after that book. And that's when I thought about that nasty, nasty feeling coming from that stairwell and wondered.

And, yes, that's indeed where it may have occurred although her body was found atop the building in the air-conditioning control room.

So I kept thinking about the sinister African ... only the timing was all wrong.  He would have been down on the 13th floor when she was killed but nonetheless I did tell a Police Prosecutor friend that if it turned out to be relevant I could most likely recognise him again and pick him out in a line-up.

But as it turned out it wasn't relevant.  It was the air-conditioner repair man called So (and since he was fixing that air-conditioner at the time it explains why the entire floor was in darkness and the cameras were off) and the police say he'd simply seen her wandering round that floor and decided to rob her.  Why he stabbed her to death, we still don't know ... but I'll tell you later whatever comes out about this at the trial.

And, truly, from the deepest part of myself, I don't want to think about what was most likely happening in that stairwell, so I refuse to speculate about what stage the murder would have been at while I was being spooked by that nasty, nasty feeling. And I most definitely don't want to think that maybe if I'd done something differently I could have done stopped it from occurring in the first place. And, most uncomfortably, I definitely don't want to ask myself if that 'ping' of my lift doors opening could have somehow impacted on the robbery.

I have several friends who were only minutes behind a murder. Some of them say they have survivor guilt, some comfort eat and don't want to talk about it, and someone particularly close to home only says "Hey, the killer was right there, and the murder was going to happen and because he got the other girl first ... go me, go me, GO ME!"

Me?  I just think dark questions about randomness and/or fate and the whole thing makes me feel very sad and, yes, desperately, desperately uncomfortable.  It was only minutes, folks, that made it her and not me and that's just ... horrifying.