Johnny Liddell walked over to the dead man, squeezed past him through the door into the kitchen. It was bare, cold-looking, and empty. Tins had been emptied onto the floor; the table drawer had been pulled out, thrown aside.
Another door led into a bedroom beyond. Here, too, there was ample evidence of a relentless search. Drawers had been spilled onto the floor, pillows had been slashed, the unmade bed torn to ribbons. Liddell investigated the other two rooms of the flat, found them empty, equally torn apart.
He stripped the soiled sheet from the bed, walked back to where Hong’s body hung in the doorway, and draped the sheet over it, blotting out the dead man’s staring eyes, agonized expression.
Back in the bedroom, he stirred the pile of clothing thrown from the drawers with the tip o
