Take A Thousand Cuts

by TERESA HUNTER

  “Make some inquiries, discreetly. See what the word on the street is about what Lee was up to. I'll press some flesh among my circle.”

  “What about Silverman and Laura Wan Sun? Should we warn them?”

  The whirring blades of a helicopter playing cat-and-mouse around the tall buildings throbbed against the city's mountain girdle.

  Mantel hesitated. Silverman was the one he feared. Suddenly he drew breath sharply.

  “Yes. See if you can make contact. Silverman’ll already be ahead of the curve if I know him. They should be vigilant. As a precaution, you understand.”

  Crisp nodded.

  “I'll meet with security for the building, and click it up a notch. You may want to revisit your own personal security and surveillance at your apartment, as a precaution, you understand,” he repeated.

  “Of course,” Crisp headed for the door, but Mantel wasn't done.

  “While you’re at it. Make sure your own money is safe. I'm rock solid. Already in gold, and I'm talking bricks. It's the only thing in times of crisis.”

  Crisp squeezed out a smile. He had already placed his trust in diamonds. You could carry a fortune in your pocket, if you needed to travel at short notice.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Noon Thursday July 29

  Soho London’s West End

  SIX THOUSAND MILES AWAY an elderly man stood at his bedroom window reflecting how karma can take its time, but it catches up with you. He promised himself once he would never allow events to overpower him again. He kept that promise. Every threat neutralised. Still the dream haunted him. It always started as a happy dream. He was back in Diamond Heights, the village of his childhood. South-westerlies blew a warming wind across Hong Kong Island under a brilliant kingfisher blue sky - so welcome after the bitter cold winter. There was no school. He spent the day in grandfather's workshop, assembling toys for children far away. Father was busy sewing suits for Westerners in a textile factory nearby. Mother laboured in a big mansion, with majestic gardens stretching as far as the eye could see. From his cardboard community, the young boy could glimpse her at work, if he squinted up his eyes, serving drinks at famous parties on the pristine lawns below.

  How lucky I am, he thought. In his child's eye, he had a good life - somewhere to live, enough to eat and surrounded by family and love. And when he looked out beyond the shanty village, his eyes could feast on the beauty of the mountains, the water below, and bewitching red sails of the Chinese junks gliding serenely across Victoria Harbour. What better world could there be?

  Suddenly the scene changed with a violent jolt, as it can in dreams. It was night, and blisteringly hot. The sky ablaze like a fiery dawn. We’ve only just gone to bed. It can’t be morning. He dashed out to see tongues of flames erupting all around, the air filled with screams of terror. The fragile village was ablaze.

  Grandfather and father ran towards the toy factory. He was fast on their tracks until an explosion blocked his path. His face was on fire. Mother yanked him back.

  “Go down to the water, Wo. Hurry. Fast as you can. Get out of here and don't look back.” She pushed him into the river of people streaming down the rough track.

  Then explosions began ripping through the night with ear-splitting rhythm. Adhesives, paint, petrol - innocent provisions, indeed lifesavers when providing an income – they were dynamite when stored in sweatshops buffeting family squats.

  He made it to the water. It seemed to be snowing. He looked back to see an ash cloud rolling down the mountainside. The harbour sky was shot with reds and oranges, as if pumping blood into the firmament. The white storm, the snow cloud, was all that was left of 20,000 homes razed to the ground.

  He heard alarm bells ringing.

  No, no, you’re too late. You can’t save my family. You can’t save the boy – he’s fading, slipping way.

  The boy disappeared. Wo, the man, listened as the ringing got louder, and engines hummed to a halt somewhere nearby.

  “Mr Chang, wake up, wake up. We need to get you out.”

  He started to come to. This was not Hong Kong 1953. It was London, his home for the last half a century. He sat up in bed, and saw a man at his second-floor window wearing a brilliant yellow fire helmet and breathing apparatus.

  “We need to get you out,” the fireman's muffled voice came through. “Can you get out of bed and open the window?”

  Wo Chang slipped open the window clasp.

  “What happen?” the elderly gentleman asked.

  “Nothing to worry about. A small fire downstairs in the restaurant. Our men are containing it. Can't be too careful in Chinatown. Can you manage the ladder or do you need a lift?”

  “My family?” dread gripped his heart.

  The fire-fighter didn't need to answer.

  “Baah, Baah!” his two sons called up to their father in Cantonese. They were standing on the pavement below, safe with their wives.

  “I'm coming,” he said, stepping onto the ladder.

  That was three months ago. A warning. Adam Lee – another. Wo Chang moved from the window to the mirror on the bedroom wall. He touched the burn scars disfiguring the left side of his face. Some wounds never heal.

  CHAPTER NINE

  6pm Thursday July 29

  Soho

  JULIA BROKE INTO A TROT as she exited Piccadilly Tube station. She was running late. She shivered as she turned up Wardour Street. Somewhere here Adam Lee was murdered.

  Pitcher waved hello with a smile when she walked into the Golden Pagoda.

  “This was the place with the fire, wasn't it?” She wriggled out of her jacket, and hung it on the back of her chair. “They've done a good job. A few months ago – no? You’d never tell.”

  “Three. Fire crews here in a flash. Station's round the corner in Shaftsbury Avenue. They'll never close Soho.”

  “You hope,” she smiled, reaching for the menu. “Change is inevitable.”

  “Not from a vending machine,” he smirked. “Don't bother with that, I've already ordered.”

  “Ha ha, very funny,” she closed the menu and looked round the crowded dining room. “Cleared up pretty sharpish.”

  “That's the Chinese for you. Minimum fuss, all pull together, do as you're told.”

  “Much to be admired, I guess. Better than arguing endlessly about everything like we do. Hot air and no progress.”

  “Interesting perspective from a hot air merchant,” he teased.

  She pulled a rude face.

  “How’s your story going?”

  “Which one?”

  “You only write one, don’t you? First as high drama, next tragedy, then satire – followed by farce.”

  “Oh shut up,” she threw her serviette across the table at him. “So what was it? The fire. Accident? Electrical? Cigarette?”

  “Accident? In Chinatown?”

  Julia lowered her voice. “That body was found round here somewhere too wasn't it?”

  He ignored the question, distracted by the arrival of his dinner.

  “Ah, Mr Chang, you’ve excelled yourself. The food looks fabulous.”

  Julia’s eye went straight to his facial disfigurement. Poor man, I wonder what happened to him? It looks like a burn scar - surely not in the recent fire.

  “Everything has beauty,” Mr Chang said, bowing his head slightly so Julia could see a tight bun on his crown. “But not everyone sees it.” He smiled but not all his facial muscles responded.

  Skin grafts, Julia guessed. Not entirely successful.

  “That's what I'm always saying to my friend here. She just doesn't see it.”

  Pitcher winced as she kicked him under the table. Three waiters brought plates piled high. Julia was beginning to wonder how they could possibly manage such a feast, when Mr Chang pulled up a chair and joined them.

  “Good to see you here, Chief Inspector,” his English was near perfect but not quite. The v in everyone sounded more like a w and the s in see was hard like zee.

  “L
et me introduce my friend Julia.” Pitcher started piling large helpings of sweet and sour pork, shrimp dumplings, dim sum, noodles on to his plate.

  “Ah! A very pretty friend.”

  “As I'm always telling her.”

  Julia shot him a daggers look.

  “Pleased to meet you, Julia,” said Mr Chang. “Any friend of the Chief Inspector is always welcome here. Try this dish. Roast Goose, our Hong Kong speciality. Ordered in especially for you.”

  “You look well, Mr Chang,” Pitcher continued. “Business thriving? How’s the family?”

  “So, so,” he shrugged his shoulders. “We are so saddened by the death of that poor man. Such sorrow. So young.” A veil of eastern inscrutability descended. “Any news Chief Inspector?”

  “Adam Lee? We're working on it.”

  “I asked my grandson. He didn't know him. He joined after Anthony resigned. We are living in difficult times. Ever thus.”

  Pitcher turned to Julia. “Mr Chang arrived in London in the 60s with a young family.”

  “And now I’m a grandfather,” he bowed his head slightly again.

  “Wonderful,” Julia said. “How many children and grandchildren do you have?”

  “Two sons and a daughter. My sons run the restaurant. I provide, I think, you say, a little authentic colour. And I have four grandsons and two granddaughters.”

  “And your grandchildren? Do they work here too?” Mr Chang laughed. “Of course not, they are British. College graduates.”

  “Two are doctors, I think?” Pitcher chipped in. Mr Chang nodded, “Correct.”

  “Another a journalist like Julia,” Pitcher put down his fork and stretched out an open palm towards her.

  “Oh really?” Mr Chang raised his eyebrows. “Yes, my granddaughter is journalist in California for the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Choose a job you love, I always told them, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

  “One is in banking. Worked for First State Bank, in Hong Kong, before he set up on his own a few years back. Isn't that so?” Pitcher said.

  “Yes. Doing well I understand. Another grandson has his own IT company, with offices here in London and in Hong Kong.”

  They chatted on until Mr Chang was called away to the kitchen.

  Julia waited until he was out of earshot. “Where did he get that dreadful disfigurement?”

  “Some childhood accident, I guess. Not the recent fire, if that’s what you’re thinking. No one was hurt.”

  “You still think it might’ve been started deliberately? I thought the days of protection rackets in Soho were a thing of the past.”

  “Tick tock – you might be right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, what I said – which is more than your story did this morning. Hedge Fund Tsar Disappears. What does that mean?”

  “Which words don't you get? Hedge fund, tsar or disappears?”

  “Don't give me that look?”

  “What look?”

  “You know, that look you do. It's unnerving.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Julia took her cue from him and tried to give him a killer stare. They both collapsed in giggles.

  Pitcher straightened his face first, and spoke seriously.

  “My advice is stick with what you know – money stuff. Missing people are way out of your line.”

  “What are the police doing about it?”

  “We don't have the resources to investigate every individual who decides he doesn't much like his life.”

  “You’ve already got one dead banker, how many more d’you want?”

  “Shush...” he whispered as a nearby table looked up. “I'd rather not have any.”

  He drained his glass then leaned across the table.

  “How serious is all this money stuff? I don't want London swimming with white collar stiffs.”

  A waiter brought two hot towels to the table.

  “Adam Lee. What d’you know about him?” she asked.

  “He who knows all the answers has not yet asked all the questions.”

  “Don't you start quoting Confucius at me.”

  “Well?”

  “Not very much. He ran a bank called First State in Hong Kong. He annoyed someone – a very great deal.”

  Pitcher picked up his hot towel, and wiped greasy fingers clean.

  “And that's it?”

  “Pretty much. I know a bit more about crime in the Chinese community in London. Or I thought I did. It’s a moving feast and for once, I fear...”

  “You’ve been left behind? Tell me about it.”

  “Long story. Read your history. Secret societies are part of Chinese culture. When they came to London, they formed their own associations. In time their criminals joined them.”

  “Triads? I thought they were eradicated at the time of the Opium Wars?”

  “Their heyday was the 1920s and 30s in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore. Sex, drugs, money. Like today, the rich liked to spice up their lives. Mao put a stop to their fun when he kicked the bourgeoisie out and broke Triad power in mainland China. Many upped sticks to Hong Kong and Macau... and onwards.”

  “London, New York, Sydney?” Julia opened her towel.

  He nodded. “The Phoenix is the oldest in London, arrived here in the 1930s to escape the chaos engulfing East Asia. Started off as anti-communist. Today crime more important than politics. Remember the murder of Alex Ho-him, here in Chinatown?”

  “Ho-him...vaguely.”

  “Chopped to death round the corner in Old Compton Street. Dozens of witnesses. No one would talk. Background said he was a regular at one of the illegal gambling dens and owed someone important a lot of money. Similar case in a cinema queue in Leicester Square. This time he lived but refused to make a complaint. Again no one saw anything.”

  Julia took a deep breath.”Intimidation with violence.”

  “Charge sheet soaked in blood. Suspicion is some kind of initiation rite. Drugs deal gone wrong. And you must know about Kevin Tang?”

  “The Hong Kong journalist, who was slashed by a meat cleaver – critical of the Chinese Government.”

  “That was the Dragons.”

  “Don't tell me, more Triads?”

  “They’ve been arriving in large numbers for the last five years. Hired thugs, not averse to working for the Chinese Government.”

  “So one's pro-communist and one's anti? Sounds like war.”

  “Which is what I've been trying to tell you. New groups have been arriving since the handover. Power bases are shifting.”

  “Who’s behind it all? The top man?”

  Pitcher threw her a caustic gaze.

  Julia flicked her hair and laughed.”You don’t know.”

  “We will.”

  “Where does Mr Chang fit in?”

  “He doesn't, I don’t think. I'm fairly sure Mr Chang is what he seems to be – a restaurateur trying to stay in business. He’s been skilful keeping on the right side of everyone,” he paused. “Until now. Someone’s unhappy.”

  “Was Adam Lee caught up with this?”

  Pitcher sighed. “Honest truth? I don't know?”

  “You still haven't told me how he died. Shooting or stabbing?”

  Pitcher swallowed hard.

  Julia's eyes dropped to Pitcher's thumbs, twitching nervously on the red cotton table-cloth.

  “I can't tell you. It's sensitive.”

  Julia reached across the table and lay a hand over his fidgeting fingers. “You've always trusted me before.”

  He looked around to make sure no one was near enough to overhear. Then he leaned forward until their heads were almost touching. “He was garroted – eyes gouged out.”

  “What here, in central London?”

  “Keep your voice down. Heard of Lingchi?”

  “Death by a thousand cuts.”

  “This is the modern version. They’re good at it. Razo
r-sharp wire and blade. He wouldn't have known a thing. And that’s absolutely 100 per cent off the record.”

  Julia nodded. She wasn't sure, even if she wanted to write it, anyone would print the story. Not exactly news you can use over the cornflakes.”

  “You've got contacts in Lee's world. Can you make inquiries?”

  “The grandson who worked for First State?” Julia asked. “Could that be connected?”

  Pitcher's mobile rang in his pocket.

  “I have to go,” he stood abruptly, ramming arms into jacket as he moved for a quick exit.

  On second thought, he paused. “There was a fresh orchid in his pocket. I'm having it looked at, but I'm told it could be rare.”

  Then he was gone.

  “Nice touch,” Julia muttered, as she called for the bill. After paying, she dialled a number on her mobile. She needed to find out more about Hong Kong. Much more.

  CHAPTER TEN

  8pm Thursday July 29

  Cornhill, City of London

  HUGO WAS TIRED. It had been a hard day. A pint with Julia on the way home would be a welcome release from the tortuous treadmill. Todd’s Wine bar was his local, tucked away in the basement of The Jamaica Wine House, known locally as the Jampot. It started life as one of the earliest coffee shops in the City, where traders hammered out deals to fund expeditions to far off lands. Way off the tourist trail, buried down an intricate web of medieval alleyways, it had hardly budged an inch in character or purpose. The wine bar in the basement offered privacy for today’s traders to hatch deals and weave secrets.

  Crowds of drinkers stood outside in the courtyard enjoying the heat of the summer evening. A strong smell of ale hit Julia as she entered the dark, heavily-panelled bar, with its gold, smoke-faded ceiling. Background music throbbed unobtrusively. Blackboards behind the bar blazoned summer delights of pink gins and old mout cider. She headed down a tightly-turned staircase lined with satirical cartoons dating back to the 1700s, lampooning the madness of King George the Third, and his prime minister Pitt. Times changed but London could always laugh.