by Ian Hamilton
“Like most cities in China.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to China either.”
“How much longer until we get to the Mandarin?”
“There it is, straight ahead,” he said.
Ava had stayed at Mandarin Orientals all over the world, and her expectations in terms of quality and level of service were high. The Singapore hotel didn’t disappoint. Within minutes of being greeted by a gorgeous young woman wearing a purple cheongsam, she was shown into a suite on the twelfth floor that offered a panoramic view of Marina Bay and the Sands complex. She unpacked and showered, then climbed into bed under a white duvet that was almost weightless.
She hadn’t decided when she would confront Jasmine Yip, but when it happened, Ava wanted to be well-rested and alert. It would also be helpful if she had some hard information about the bank account in Chengdu, and for that she had decided that May Ling was best positioned to get access. It was seven-fifteen, still too early to call Wuhan, but she would do it as soon as she woke up.
Except sleep didn’t come. Not even replaying bak mei exercises in her mind could calm an imagination that was full of questions about Jasmine Yip and Malcolm Muir. At eight she gave up and got out of bed, made a coffee, and called May Ling’s office. When there was no answer, she tried her mobile.
“Ava, where are you?” May answered.
“Singapore.”
“What the heck are you doing there?”
“It’s a long story, but basically I’m chasing money that was stolen from my friend Mimi’s father.”
May Ling had first-hand knowledge of Uncle and Ava’s debt-collection business, since she and her husband had employed them once. “How much?”
“It isn’t an enormous amount but it’s everything they had, and the loss caused Mimi’s father to commit suicide. That’s what motivated me to take this on.”
“What a horrible thing to happen!” May said. “How can I help?”
“Money that might have a connection to the theft has been going through a bank in Chengdu. I tried getting some information on account activity through a bank in Amsterdam, but it didn’t work. I thought that an approach from a Chinese bank, especially one associated with you, might be more successful.”
“What do you want to know?” May asked without hesitation.
“The names that are attached to the account, who controls it, and the origins of the money that’s been flowing into it,” Ava said. “It would be ideal if I could also get a complete record of deposits and withdrawals, including the sources of the deposits and the beneficiaries of the withdrawals.”
“What’s the name of the bank?”
“The Mercantile Bank of Chengdu.”
“Give me the account number.”
Ava opened her notebook and read the number and the bank’s address.
“I assume you want the information as quickly as possible.”
“Please.”
“I didn’t expect any other answer,” May Ling said, laughing. “Okay, I’ll do what I can this morning. The president of one of the banks we use has lots of connections. He should be able to open the right doors. I’ll call you as soon as I have something.”
“Thanks so much, May.”
“You know that thanks aren’t necessary,” May Ling said. “By the way, is Fai with you?”
“She’s in Taipei making a film. It was a last-minute thing.”
“Are you going to join her after you resolve this money issue?”
“I’d like to, but I think it’s best to let her concentrate on her work right now.”
“Then why don’t you come to Wuhan for a few days or, better still, go to Hong Kong? I can meet you there and we could spend some time with Amanda. She’s not a complainer, but every once in a while she lets me know that she’d like to see her partners a bit more.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Let me see where I am after I get this thing behind me.”
“You’ll solve it. You always do.”
“May, I’m not going to solve anything without that bank information.”
“Okay, I’m on it.” May laughed again. “I’ll call the president now.”
(20)
Until she heard back from May Ling, the day was going to drag. She contemplated calling Brenda Burgess to see what progress she was making in the U.K., but Ava knew that Brenda would call her if things were settled. She thought about calling Xu and then put that idea aside; neither of them was fond of aimless conversation.
She decided to call her mother. She got Jennie’s voicemail, then remembered it was Thursday evening in Toronto and her mother would be at a regular mah-jong game. “Mum, this is Ava. I’m in Singapore looking for Mr. Gregory’s money. Things have been going quite well, so there’s no need to worry. I’m not sure how long I’ll be here. I’ll let you know if my plans change.”
She made a fresh cup of coffee and sat by the window overlooking Marina Bay. Be patient, she thought to herself. Sooner or later I’ll hear from May Ling or Tommy Tiu. And as much as I want to meet Jasmine Yip, it’s irresponsible to do so without knowing more.
Ava finished the coffee and decided it would be wise to get something to eat. Ten minutes later she left the suite to go downstairs to the Melt Café. As a child, Ava had never enjoyed eating the bland rice porridge known as congee. Marian had the same distaste for it, so Jennie had stopped serving it to the girls unless Marcus was visiting — and then Ava and Marian were expected to pretend they liked it. Ava had thought she’d left congee behind her when she left home, but her involvement with Uncle brought it back into her life. He ate it every morning, adding a wide variety of ingredients such as sausage, soy sauce, pickled vegetables, hundred-year-old eggs, or spring onions, and he always ate it with fried bread that he could dip. During the final months of his cancer, Ava ate it with him every morning and developed her own appreciation for the dish.
The Melt had some variations she’d never experienced, including a seafood congee. She ordered it and coffee, then sat back and looked around the café. The Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong was equally five-star, but its clientele were not quite so homogeneous. Every man sitting in the Melt was clean-shaven and wearing a suit, or at least a crisply ironed shirt. It was the same for the women, who were all beautifully dressed and coiffed. In the Hong Kong Mandarin she was accustomed to seeing at least some people who looked as if they hadn’t slept in two days, and jeans were common wear for both men and women. In Singapore there was a formality, a sort of we’re better than you are attitude that could either grate or engender admiration. It had grated on Uncle, but Ava couldn’t decide.
One thing she was certain about was that the congee — laden with clams, scallops, shrimp, and tender slices of squid — was superb. She finished the bowl and was thinking of ordering another serving when her phone rang.
“Hi, Tommy. Can I assume you have some news for me?”
“Yeah, but it’s bad news. I called the car dealership. A woman in the finance department confirmed that Jasmine bought her car there, but then it went downhill. I tried to spin a story about Jasmine applying for a loan from my company and using the dealership as a reference. I said I wanted to confirm her primary banking information and asked which bank she’d used when she bought her BMW.”
“The woman obviously refused.”
“She asked if I had Jasmine’s permission to access that information. When I said yes, she immediately said that I shouldn’t object if she put me on hold while she phoned Jasmine. I told her to go ahead, but when she put me on hold, I hung up.”
“Does she have your name?”
“I gave her a phony one.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Ava said.
“I’m sorry, I did the best I could. Finessing information out of people isn’t my strong suit.”
“Never mind. I’ll figur
e out another way of getting it,” she said, already crossing the car dealership off the list in her head.
“I wish there was more I could have done.”
“I’ll still tell Xu that you were helpful.”
“Thanks for that.”
First Jacob and now Tommy Tiu, Ava thought as she ended the call. She wasn’t accustomed to being disappointed so often, although to be fair, Jacob was a professional, while Tiu’s approach to the car dealership sounded clumsy. Now it came down to what May Ling could conjure up. If she failed, Ava would be forced to confront Jasmine Yip with only limited information.
She returned to her room and opened her notebook, found Todd Howell’s cellphone number, and dialed. His phone rang four times and she was about to give up when he said, “This is Todd Howell.”
“And this is Ava Lee. Sorry for calling so late.”
“You can call me any time. But tell me, what have I missed or done this time?”
“I apologize for being abrupt the other day. I was in a meeting and couldn’t say too much. The information you gave me about the wire transfer from Calgary proved to be useful. It filled in part of the puzzle, but many pieces are still missing.”
“You aren’t going to tell me anything more specific, are you.”
“There isn’t much specific to tell. Things are still murky. I’m hoping you can help make them less so.”
“Tell me what you want to know,” he said.
Ava hesitated. “I didn’t mention this earlier, but I went to Malcolm Muir’s house in Toronto before I left the city.”
“Why would you go there?”
“I wanted to put a face to the name. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, quite unplanned. We had a short conversation before he slammed the door in my face. Curiously, he asked me if I’m Chinese and made a point of telling me he could tell Asians apart. He credited that ability — or whatever you want to call it — to the fact that he’d travelled extensively in Asia. I didn’t see anything in your files about him travelling in Asia. And when I asked you if you’d heard of a woman named Jasmine Yip, you told me no and that you hadn’t found anyone Chinese or Asian connected to Muir. I’m wondering if that was an oversight.”
“I’ve thought about it since you asked me, and the only thing I can remember that’s the least bit related to Asia is the humanitarian projects the fund purported to support.”
“Did you check into them? Is it possible some of them really exist?”
“We had local lawyers in South Africa and the Ivory Coast investigate five projects. None of them existed. I didn’t see any point in pursuing that line of inquiry any further.”
“So you didn’t check any in Asia?”
“No.”
“Todd, how detailed are the fund’s bank records?”
“We aren’t missing anything that I know of.”
“Then I’d like you to do something for me,” she said. “I know Muir wasn’t drawing a salary from the fund, but I assume there were expenses related to incorporation, legal bills, travelling across the country, et cetera, that were paid with fund money.”
“There were.”
“Could you have someone go through the records and pull out any payments made to a travel agent or an airline? I’ll flag the ones that I want some additional research on.”
“I’ll put someone on it tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you. And there’s something else I’d like you to do,” she said. “Would you humour me, please, and go back over your notes to look for any references to anyone Chinese in Muir’s life or his wife’s.”
“Is this about Jasmine Yip again?”
“Yes, but also anyone else with ties to mainland China and maybe Singapore.”
“Is there anything else specific you can tell me?”
Ava hesitated and then thought that being coy could only lessen Howell’s effectiveness. “Yes. I believe Yip is connected to Muir, though I don’t know how. She lives in Singapore, which is where I am now. What I’d love to find out is how she knows him. Is it a personal relationship or are they connected through a third party?”
“Who is this Jasmine Yip?”
“She’s a diamond trader,” Ava said, deciding not to mention her talent for money laundering.
“That explains the wire transfer from Calgary to Antwerp.”
“It’s the smallest part of this puzzle, but it does connect Muir to Yip on at least one occasion, and it did bring diamonds into the equation.”
“Ms. Lee, may I say that I’m very impressed with the work you’ve done so far.”
“That’s kind, but very premature. My former partner was extremely superstitious when it came to projecting success. All I’ve done is come up with some names. Unless I can locate the money that was stolen, no one is any better off than they were a week ago. So, please, let’s not get complimentary until we make that happen.”
“Message received.”
“One more thing. I would appreciate it if you don’t share our conversation with anyone else, including your office staff. We don’t want anyone, accidentally or otherwise, to hear the name Jasmine Yip until I’ve had a chance to confront her.”
“When do you think that might be?”
“I’m waiting on some information from a friend. I won’t make a decision until I see what she’s found. It could be today or it could be two days from now.”
“But you’re sure that Yip is in Singapore?”
“That’s what I’ve been told. But Todd, before you get excited, I have to make it clear that I don’t know how deeply she’s immersed in this scam. There is a connection, but she could be a bit player, an enabler of some sort, and nothing more. We can’t afford to let our expectations get ahead of the facts.”
“I understand. Tomorrow I’ll do what I can with the bank records.”
“Please email me whatever you come up with.”
“Will do.”
Did I do the right thing by telling him so much? was her first thought when she hung up. She didn’t have Uncle to lean on, she knew she couldn’t do it alone, and thus far Howell had provided information without asking for anything in return. I trust Jacob, and now I guess I’m trusting Howell. I hope it doesn’t come back to bite me.
(21)
The morning turned into early afternoon, each hour that passed seeming like three. Ava didn’t let her phone out of her sight, twice taking it into the bathroom with her. By two o’clock her patience was wearing thin. She considered calling May Ling to get an update, but just as she was deciding to wait, her phone finally rang.
“Hey, I was getting antsy,” she answered.
“Sorry. I had difficulty reaching my guy here, and then he had the same problem getting hold of his banker friend in Chengdu,” May Ling said. “Ava, this is more complicated than I anticipated.”
Complicated was a word Ava wasn’t pleased to hear. “Can we start with the basics?”
“Sure. What’s first on your list?”
“How many names are attached to the account?”
“Let me read from the banker’s email: ‘May Ling, the account in question is a U.S. dollar account doing business as Jewellery Circle. The signing authority for any action related to the account resides with Jasmine Yip and Su Na, either jointly or singly. On that last point, it appears that nearly all the activity was initiated and signed off on solely by Yip. My Chengdu associate told me that Yip provided two addresses when the account was created; one in Chengdu and the other in Singapore. Yip’s Chengdu address is the same as Su’s, and he suspects Yip may be using it for convenience. Without a local address, it is unlikely that the bank would have permitted her to open an account with them.’”
“Yip has two female cousins. One married a Chinese man,” Ava said. “It’s possible she changed her name to Su when she got married, and Na might be her origi
nal first name.”
“Do you want me to check into this Su Na?”
“Please. I’m quite sure she was born in Singapore, but if she’s now living in Chengdu I’d like to have the address she gave the bank.”
“Will do,” May said. “What else do you want to know?”
“Did the Chengdu banker provide the records of deposits and withdrawals?”
“Yes, he faxed everything to me — he still uses faxes for security reasons. I’ll scan them and forward them to you as soon as we’ve finished speaking,” May said.
“Before, you used the word ‘complicated.’ What did you mean by that?”
May hesitated, then said, “I may be reading too much into it, but for an account with significant sums of money going through it, I was surprised by how few actual transactions there were.”
“I know Yip was buying rough diamonds in Antwerp from a company named Fozdar Trading. Those would have been large but sporadic deals.”
“Fozdar is one of the two companies she was sending substantial amounts to, but that stopped a few months ago.”
“What was the other?”
“Golden Emperor MicroLab in Chengdu, and that’s been ongoing and very regular.”
Ava drew a deep breath. “What kind of company is Golden Emperor?”
“According to the Chengdu banker, it’s a drug manufacturer. Some of their production is pharmaceutical, but a lot of it is classified as industrial, which allows them to evade government inspection. He also said that the name MicroLab is misleading; it’s one of the major manufacturers in Chengdu.”
“Why would they want to evade inspection?”
“Golden Emperor is manufacturing fentanyl, for example, which has some medicinal value as a painkiller but is fifty times stronger than heroin and highly addictive. It also turns out large volumes of a synthetic opioid called carfentanil, and synthetic marijuana.”