Noble House

by James Clavell

  The room stank and he tried to close his nose to the smell. Sprays of rainwater were coming through the vent, the sound of the rain still pelting down, the whole wall mildewed and water-stained from a thousand storms. He searched methodically and carefully, all his senses tuned. There was little space to hide anything. The bed and bedding were relatively clean though there were many bedbugs in the corners of the bunk. Nothing under the bed but a chipped and stinking chamber pot and an empty suitcase. A few old bags and a tote bag produced nothing. The chest of drawers contained a few clothes, some cheap jewelry, a poor quality jade bracelet. Hidden under some clothes was an embroidered handbag of much better quality. In it were some old letters. A news cutting. And two photographs.

  His heart seemed to stop.

  After a moment he went into the better light of the kitchen and peered at the photographs again but he had not been mistaken. He read the news cutting, his mind reeling. There was a date on the cutting and a date on one of the photographs.

  In the honeycombed basement of Police Headquarters, Ah Tam sat on a hard, backless chair in the center of a large soundproofed room that was brightly lit and painted white, white walls and white ceiling and white floors and a single, flush white door that was almost part of the wall. Even the chair was white. She was alone, petrified, and she was talking freely now.

  “Now what do you know about the barbarian in the background of the photograph?” Wu’s flat, metallic Ning-tok voice asked from a hidden speaker.

  “I’ve told and told and there isn’t … I don’t know, Lord,” she whimpered. “I want to go home … I’ve told you, I barely saw the foreign devil … he only visited us this once that I know of, Lord.… I don’t remember, it was years ago, oh can I go now. I’ve told you everything, everything.…”

  Armstrong was watching her through the one-sided mirror in the darkened observation room, Wu beside him. Both men were set-faced and ill-at-ease. Sweat beaded Wu’s forehead even though the room was pleasantly air conditioned. A tape recorder turned noiselessly. There were microphones and a bank of electronic equipment behind them.

  “I think she’s told us everything we need,” Armstrong said, sorry for her.

  “Yes sir.” Wu kept his nervousness out of his voice. This was the first time that he had ever been part of an SI interrogation. He was frightened and excited and his head ached.

  “Ask her again where she got the purse.”

  Wu did as he was ordered. His voice was calm and authoritative.

  “But I’ve told you again and again,” the old woman whimpered. “Please can I g—”

  “Tell us again and then you can go.”

  “All right … all right … I’ll tell you again.… It belonged to my Mistress who gave it to me on her deathbed, she gave it to me, I swear it and—”

  “The last time you said it was given to you the day before she died. Now which is the truth?”

  Anxiously Ah Tam plucked at her ratty queue. “I … I don’t remember, Lord. It was on her … it was when she died … I don’t remember.” The old woman’s mouth worked and no sound came out and then said in a querulous rush, “I took it and hid it after she died and there were those old photos … I’ve no picture of my Mistress so I took them too and there was one tael of silver too and this paid for part of my journey to Hong Kong during the famine. I took it because none of her rotten sons or daughters or family who hated her and hated me would give me anything so I took it when no one was … she gave it to me before she died and I just hid it it’s mine, she gave it to me….”

  They listened while the old woman went on and on and they let her talk herself out. The wall clock read 1:45. They had been questioning her for half an hour. “That’s enough for now, Wu. We’ll repeat it in three hours just for safety but I think she’s told us everything.” Wearily Armstrong picked up a phone, dialed. “Armstrong—you can take her back to her cell now,” he said into the phone. “Make sure she’s comfortable and well looked after and have the doctor reexamine her.” It was normal SI procedure to give prisoners an examination before and after each interrogation. The doctor had said that Ah Tam had the heart and the blood pressure of a twenty-year-old.

  In a moment they saw the white, almost hidden door open. A uniformed SI policewoman beckoned Ah Tam kindly. Ah Tam hobbled out. Armstrong dipped the lights, switched the tape recorder to rewind. Wu mopped his brow.

  “You did very well, Wu. You learn quickly.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The high-pitched whine of the tape recorder grew. Armstrong watched it silently, still in shock. The sound ceased and the big man took the reel out of the machine. “We always mark the date, exact time and exact duration of the interrogation and use a code name for the suspect. For safety and secrecy.” He looked up a number in a book, marked the tape, then began to make out a form. “We cross-check with this form. We sign it as interrogators and put Ah Tam’s code down here—V-1–3. This’s top secret and filed in the safe.” His eyes became very hard. Wu almost quailed. “I repeat: You’d better believe that a closed mouth catches no flies and that everything in SI, everything that you have been party to today is top secret.”

  “Yes sir. Yes, you can count on me, sir.”

  “You’d better also remember that SI’s a law unto itself, the governor and the minister in London. Only. Good old English law and fair play and normal police codes do not apply to SB or SI—habeas corpus, open trials and appeal. In an SI case there’s no trial, no appeal and it’s a deportation order to the PRC or Taiwan, whichever’s worse. Understand?”

  “Yes sir. I want to be part of SI, sir, so you can believe me. I’m not one to slake my thirst on poison,” Wu assured him, sick with hope.

  “Good. For the next few days you’re confined to this HQ.”

  Wu’s mouth dropped open. “But sir, my … yes sir.”

  Armstrong led the way out and locked the door after him. He gave the key and the form to an SI agent who was on guard at the main desk. “I’ll keep the reel for the moment. I’ve signed the receipt.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You’ll take care of Constable Wu? He’s our guest for a couple of days. Start getting his particulars—he’s been very very very helpful. I’m recommending him for SI.”

  “Yes sir.”

  He left them and went to the elevator and got out on his floor, a sick-sweet-sour taste of apprehension in his mouth. SI interrogations were anathema to him. He hated them though they were fast, efficient and always obtained results. He preferred to have an old-fashioned battle of wits, to use patience and not these new, modern psychological tools. “It’s all bloody dangerous if you ask me,” he muttered, walking along his corridor, the faint musty smell of headquarters in his nostrils, hating Crosse and SI and everything it stood for, hating the knowledge he had unearthed. His door was open. “Oh hi, Brian,” he said, closing it, his face grim. Brian Kwok had his feet up on the desk and was idly reading one of the Communist Chinese morning papers, the windows rain-streaked behind him. “What’s new?”

  “There’s quite a big piece on Iran,” his friend said, engrossed in what he was reading. “It says ‘capitalist CIA overlords in conjunction with the tyrant Shah have put down a people’s revolutionary war in Azerbaijan, thousands have been killed’ and so on. I don’t believe all that but it looks as though the CIA and the Ninety-second Airborne have defused that area and the Yanks have done right for once.”

  “Lot of bloody good that’ll do!”

  Brian Kwok looked up. His smile faded. “What’s up?”

  “I feel rotten.” Armstrong hesitated. “I sent for a couple of beers, then we’ll have lunch. How about a curry? All right?”

  “Fine, but if you’re feeling rotten let’s skip lunch.”

  “No, it’s not that sort of rotten. I … I just hate doing white interrogations … gives me the creeps.”

  Brian Kwok stared at him. “You did the old amah there? What the hell for?”

  “It wa
s Crosse’s order. He’s a bastard!”

  Brian Kwok put his paper down. “Yes he is, and I’m sure I’m right about him,” he said softly.

  “Not now, Brian, over lunch maybe but not now. Christ, I need a drink! Bloody Crosse, and bloody SI! I’m not SI and yet he acts like I’m one of his.”

  “Oh? But you’re coming on the 16/2 this evening. I thought you’d been seconded.”

  “He didn’t mention it. What’s on?”

  “If he didn’t mention it, I’d better not.”

  “Of course.” It was normal SI procedure, for security, to minimize the spread of information so that even highly trustworthy agents working on the same case might not be given all the facts. “I’m bloody not going to be seconded,” Armstrong said grimly, knowing that if Crosse ordered it there was nothing he could do to prevent it. “Is the intercept to do with Sevrin?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so.” Brian Kwok studied him then smiled. “Cheer up, Robert, I’ve some good news for you,” he said and Armstrong noticed again how handsome his friend was, strong white teeth, golden skin, firm jaw, dancing eyes with that devil-may-care confidence about him.

  “You’re a good-looking sod,” he said. “What good news? You leaned on friend One Foot at the Para Restaurant and he’s given you the first four winners for Saturday?”

  “Dreamer! No, it’s about those files you snatched yesterday at Bucktooth Lo’s and passed over to Anti-Corruption. Remember? From Photographer Ng?”

  “Oh? Oh yes.”

  “It seems our fair-weather American-Chinese guest, Thomas K. K. Lim, who’s ‘somewhere in Brazil,’ is quite a character. His files were golden. Very golden indeed! And in English, so our Anti-Corruption fellows went through them like a dose of salts. You came up with treasure!”

  “He’s connected with Tsu-yan?” Armstrong asked, his mind diverted immediately.

  “Yes. And a lot of other people. Very important people, ve—”

  “Banastasio?”

  Brian Kwok smiled with his mouth. “Vincenzo Banastasio himself. That ties John Chen, the guns, Tsu-yan, Banastasio and Peter Marlowe’s theory nicely.”

  “Bartlett?”

  “Not yet. But Marlowe knows someone who knows too much that we don’t know. I think we should investigate him. Will you?”

  “Oh yes. What else about the papers?”

  “Thomas K. K. Lim’s a Catholic, a third-generation American-Chinese who’s a magpie. He collects all sorts of inflammatory correspondence, letters, notes, memos, etcetera.” Brian Kwok smiled his humorless smile again. “Our Yankee friends are worse than we thought.”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance, a certain well-known, well-connected New England family’s involved with certain generals, U.S. and Vietnamese, in building several very large, very unnecessary U.S.A.F. bases in Vietnam—very profitably—for them.”

  “Hallelujah! Names?”

  “Names, ranks and serial numbers. If the principals knew friend Thomas had it documented, it would send a shudder of horror down the Hallowed Halls of Fame, the Pentagon and various expensive smoke-filled rooms.”

  Armstrong grunted. “He’s the middleman?”

  “Entrepreneur he calls himself. Oh he’s on very good terms with lots of notables. American, Italian, Vietnamese, Chinese, both sides of the fence. The papers document the whole fraud. Another scheme’s to channel millions of U.S. funds into another phony Vietnam aid program. 8 million to be exact—one is already paid over to them. Friend Lim even discussed how the one million h’eung yau’s to be diverted to Switzerland.”

  “Could we make it stick?”

  “Oh yes, if we catch Thomas K. K. Lim and if we wanted to make it stick. I asked Crosse but he just shrugged and said it wasn’t our affair, that if Yanks wanted to cheat their government, that’s up to them.” Brian Kwok smiled but his eyes didn’t. “It’s powerful info, Robert. If even part became common knowledge it’d create one helluva stinky stink right up to the top.”

  “Is he going to pass it on to Rosemont? Leak it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. In one way he’s right. It’s nothing to do with us. Bloody stupid to put it all down! Stupid! They deserve to get chopped! When you’ve a minute read the papers, they’re juicy.”

  “Any connection between Lim and those other villains? Bucktooth Lo and the other man? Are they stealing CARE funds?”

  “Oh yes, must be, but all their files’re in Chinese so it’ll take longer to pin them.” Brian Kwok added strangely, “Curious that Crosse sniffed that one out, almost as though he knew there’d be a connection.” He dropped his voice. “I know I’m right about him.”

  The silence gathered. Armstrong’s mouth felt parched and tasted bad. He pried his eyes off the rain and looked at Brian Kwok.

  “What’ve you got?”

  “You know that vice-consul in the U.S. Consulate—the homo, the one who’s selling visas?”

  “What about him?”

  “Last month Crosse had dinner with him. In his flat.”

  Armstrong rubbed his face nervously. “That proves nothing. Listen, tomorrow, tomorrow we get the files. Tomorrow Sind—”

  “Perhaps we won’t get to read them.”

  “Personally I don’t give a shit. That’s SI business and I’m CID and that’s wh—”

  A knock stopped him. The door opened. A Chinese waiter came in with a tray and two tankards of cold beer and beamed toothily. “Afternoon, sah,” he said, offering one to Brian Kwok. He gave the other to Armstrong and went out.

  “Good luck,” Armstrong said, hating himself. He drank deeply then went to his safe to lock the tape away.

  Brian Kwok studied him. “You sure you’re all right, old chum?”

  “Yes, yes of course.”

  “What did the old woman say?”

  “In the beginning she told lots of lies, lots of them. And then the truth. All of it. I’ll tell you over lunch, Brian. You know how it is—you catch the lies eventually, if you’re patient. I’m fed up with lies.” Armstrong finished his beer. “Christ, I needed that.”

  “Do you want mine too? Here.”

  “No, no thanks, but it’s me for a whiskey and soda before curry and maybe another one. Drink up and let’s get the show on the road.”

  Brian Kwok put his half-empty tankard down. “That’s enough for me.” He lit a cigarette. “How’s the nonsmoking going?”

  “Rough.” Armstrong watched him inhale deeply. “Anything on Voranski? Or his assassins?”

  “They vanished into thin air. We’ve got their photos so we’ll catch them, unless they’re over the border.”

  “Or in Taiwan.”

  After a pause, Brian Kwok nodded. “Or Macao or North Korea, Vietnam or wherever. The minister’s hopping mad with Crosse over Voranski, so’s MI-6, so’s the CIA. The CIA top echelon in London have been chewing the minister’s tail so he’s passing it on. We’d better get those buggers before Rosemont or we’ll lose all face. Rosemont’s under fire too to come up with their heads. I hear he’s got every man out looking, thinking it’s to do with Sevrin, and the carrier. He’s petrified there’s going to be an incident involving the nuclear carrier.” Brian Kwok added, his voice hardening, “Bloody stupid to offend the PRC by bringing her here. That monster’s an open invitation to every agent in Asia.”

  “If I was Soviet I’d try to infiltrate her. SI’s probably trying right now. Crosse’d love to have a plant aboard. Why not?” The big man watched the smoke curling. “If I was Nationalist perhaps I’d plant a few mines and blame the PRC—or vice versa and blame Chiang Kai-shek.”

  “That’s what the CIA’d do to get everyone hopping mad at China.”

  “Come off it, Brian!”

  Brian Kwok took a last sip then got up. “That’s enough for me. Come on.”

  “Just a moment.” Armstrong dialed. “This’s Armstrong, set up another session at 1700 hours for V-11–3. I’ll want…” He stopped, seeing his friend’
s eyes flutter, then glaze and he caught him easily as he fell and let him slump back in the chair. Out of himself, almost watching himself, he put the phone back on its cradle. Now there was nothing for him to do but wait.

  I’ve done my job, he thought.

  The door opened. Crosse came in. Behind him were three plain-clothed SI agents, all British, all senior agents, all taut-faced and tense. Quickly one of the men put a thick black hood over Brian Kwok’s head, picked him up easily and went out, the others following.

  Now that it was done Robert Armstrong felt nothing, no remorse or shock or anger. Nothing. His head told him that there was no mistake though his head still told him equally that his friend of almost twenty years could not possibly be a Communist mole. But he was. The proof was irrefutable. The evidence he had found proved conclusively that Brian Kwok was the son of Fang-ling Wu, Ah Tam’s old employer, when according to his birth certificate and personal records his mother and father were supposed to have been surnamed Kwok and murdered by Communists in Canton in ’43. One of the photographs had showed Brian Kwok standing beside a tiny Chinese lady in front of a pharmacy at a crossroads in a village. The quality was poor but more than good enough to read the characters of the shop sign and to recognize a face, his face. In the background was an ancient car. Behind it stood a European, his face half turned away. Spectacles Wu had identified the store as the pharmacy at the crossroads in Ning-tok, the property of the Tokling Wu family. Ah Tam had identified the woman as her mistress.

  “And the man? Who’s the man standing beside her?”

  “Oh that’s her son, Lord. I’ve told you. He’s Second Son Chu-toy. Now he lives with the foreign devils across the sea in the north, the north of the Land of the Golden Mountains,” the old woman had whimpered from the white room.

  “You’re lying again.”

  “Oh no, Lord, he’s her son, Chu-toy. He’s her Second Son and he was born in Ning-tok and I helped deliver him with my own hands. He was Mother’s second born who went away as a child….”