The Solitary Man (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  The secretary finished her call and pressed the intercom to tell Chau-ling’s father that she was there to see him. The door to Tsang Chai-hin’s office opened almost immediately.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘Can’t I visit my own father?’ she chided.

  Tsang waved his hands apologetically. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you were at home.’ By home, Chau-ling knew, he meant his home. She’d been taken there and been under almost constant guard since the night of the attack. Tsang looked around the office. ‘Where are your bodyguards?’

  Chau-ling resisted the urge to smile. Her father had insisted that two heavy-set men stay with her at all times, but she had given them the slip while out shopping. ‘I wanted to be on my own for a while,’ she said.

  Tsang’s features stiffened. He stood to the side and motioned for her to go through to his office. He waited until they were both inside and the door was closed before speaking to her. ‘This is not a game, Chau-ling,’ he said.

  ‘I know, Father, but I felt ridiculous walking around with two huge men following me everywhere.’

  ‘They are not following you, they are protecting you.’

  There were four rosewood chairs grouped together around a circular table to the right of the door and Tsang put a hand on her arm and guided her towards them.

  ‘I’m not an invalid,’ she said in exasperation. ‘You don’t have to treat me as if I’m going to break.’

  ‘Just humour an old man,’ he said. Chau-ling went to sit in one of the chairs but Tsang pulled her away. ‘No, not that one,’ he said quickly. ‘Here. Sit here, by me.’ He kept a grip on her arm until he was seated, then he sat down next to her.

  He looked old, thought Chau-ling, older than he’d looked in a long time. ‘You are working too hard,’ she said softly.

  ‘A man can never work too hard.’ The telephone on his desk rang and he patted her on the knee before going to answer it. He put the receiver to his ear and watched her as he listened. ‘Yes, she is here,’ he said. ‘We shall speak of this later.’ He put down the phone. Chau-ling thought he was about to scold her again, but his face creased into a smile. ‘The lingerie department?’ he said. ‘You left them in the lingerie department of Lane Crawford?’ He chuckled and went over to sit by her again. ‘Do not do that again,’ he said. There was a seriousness in his eyes that broached no argument.

  ‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘I promise.’ Her father nodded, satisfied. ‘Not in the lingerie department, anyway,’ she added.

  Tsang raised a finger to admonish her but then realised that she was joking. He nodded slowly, and smiled again. ‘Why does everyone respect me but my own daughter?’ he asked. ‘What do I do so wrong in my life that I am cursed with such an offspring?’ His smile widened and his eyes were full of such love and adoration that Chau-ling felt a sudden rush of sadness.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ was all she could think of saying. She slid off the chair and rested her head in her father’s lap, the way she’d done when she was a child.

  Tsang stroked her hair. ‘You are all I have left,’ he whispered. ‘I promised your mother that I would take care of you.’

  ‘You do,’ replied Chau-ling. ‘No one has a better father. No one.’

  They sat together in silence for several minutes. It was Chau-ling who spoke first. ‘Why?’ she said.

  ‘Hush,’ he said. ‘It’s over. I will handle it from now on.’

  Chau-ling’s eyes were damp but there were no tears. ‘It was me they were after. I deserve to know why.’

  ‘I don’t know why,’ said her father. ‘I only know who, but that is enough. Now that I know who, I will be able to find out why. But I don’t want you to think about it any more. Perhaps you should go on holiday. Anywhere you want. The United States, perhaps. You could go and visit your college friends there.’

  ‘It was you who wanted me to stay in Hong Kong,’ she reminded him. ‘It was you who wanted me close by. Now you’re pushing me away.’

  ‘I am only suggesting that you take a holiday.’

  Chau-ling sat up and shook her head emphatically. ‘No. I am not running away,’ she said. ‘Who were they, those men?’

  ‘Their names are unimportant,’ said Tsang.

  ‘Father, don’t play games with me. I’m not a child any more.’

  Tsang looked at her, then slowly reached over and tousled her hair. ‘You will always be a child to me.’

  Chau-ling raised her eyebrows sternly. Tsang’s eventual nod was almost imperceptible.

  ‘They came from Thailand,’ he said. ‘From Bangkok.’

  ‘And were they trying to kill me? Or did they want to kidnap me? Were they trying to get to you through me?’

  Tsang pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘They had been paid to kill you.’

  Chau-ling frowned. ‘Why? Why should anyone in Thailand want to kill me?’

  ‘As I said, I do not know why. Not yet.’

  ‘But you know who, you said.’

  ‘A man called Bird. A Thai. He is involved in the drug trade, but so far that is all I know about him.’

  ‘It’s to do with Warren, I’m sure it is. There’s been something wrong right from the start. He had no reason to go to Thailand in the first place, and he’s totally anti-drugs. Yet he wouldn’t say more than a few words to me and he refused to have anything to do with Khun Kriengsak.’

  ‘You are jumping to conclusions, Chau-ling.’

  ‘Don’t you see, Father? I tried to help Warren, and this Bird is worried. I’m a threat to him. Why? Because he knows that Warren is innocent, and for some reason he doesn’t want anyone else to know.’

  Tsang leaned forward and took her hands in his. They were almost the same size, though there was a lifetime’s difference in the texture of the skin. ‘You cannot know that,’ he said.

  Her eyes flashed fire. ‘A journalist came around to the kennels, asking questions about Warren. She seemed to think there was something strange going on, too.’

  ‘I will make inquiries,’ said Tsang.

  ‘It’s to do with Warren, I know it is. I’m going to Bangkok.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You said I can go anywhere. I want to go to Thailand.’

  ‘No,’ Tsang repeated.

  ‘He needs my help.’

  ‘What is he to you, this gweilo?’

  Chau-ling withdrew her hands. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how I feel about him.’

  Tsang looked at her through watery eyes. ‘I can see how you feel about him, daughter. You wear your feelings on your face.’

  Chau-ling shrugged. She felt herself blush and she looked away.

  Tsang stood up and looked down at Chau-ling. ‘I want you to promise that you will not go to Thailand,’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘I cannot,’ she said.

  Tsang made a tut-tutting noise with his tongue and folded his arms across his chest. Tsang Chai-hin was not a man used to being disobeyed, but he knew he had met his match in his daughter. Half of her genes were his, and it appeared to Tsang that she had inherited all the stubborn ones. ‘I will do a deal with you, wilful daughter.’ She looked up at him expectantly. ‘Let me make some inquiries. Then if it is safe I will allow you to go to see the gweilo. With suitable protection. Do I have your word that you will do nothing until then?’

  Chau-ling nodded. ‘Cross my heart,’ she said, speaking in English for the first time.

  PIPOP TOOK HUTCH BACK to the furniture factory. He rejoined the sanding team and spent the best part of an hour working on the chest. When he had finished he showed it to Thep. The old man nodded his approval and Hutch took it over to the varnishing section. Once he’d stacked it with the rest of the furniture awaiting varnishing, Hutch hobbled over to the carpenters. He looked around to reassure himself that the guards weren’t watching him and went over to the racks of tools. He picked up a small file and examined it. It was perfect.

  The lea
der of the team was a big Thai with his hair tied back in a ponytail. He was screwing the legs on to an ornate coffee table but he stopped and glared at Hutch. ‘Tham a-rai?’ he asked. Hutch waved him over. The carpenter loomed over Hutch, a large screwdriver in his hand. ‘Tham a-rai?’ he repeated.

  Hutch held up the file. The carpenter reached for it, but Hutch pulled it away. Before the carpenter could say anything, Hutch took a handful of banknotes out of his pocket. The carpenter’s eyes glinted. He looked at the money, then at the file, then at the money again. He held out his hand for the money. Hutch gave it to him. The file was about eight inches long, including a wooden handle which made up half its length. Hutch wrapped it in the cloth he used to keep the chain off the ground, and limped over to the woodworking machines. An elderly Thai was bent over one of the circular saws, cutting a table leg. Hutch pointed at the saw, then at the file. Then he showed him two of the banknotes and the pack of cigarettes that Bey had given him. The Thai nodded immediately, as if being bribed for the use of his machine was a regular occurrence. He stood back as Hutch used the saw to cut off the wooden handle. Hutch threw the bits on to a pile of off-cuts, then slipped what remained of the file into his left training shoe.

  He went back to the sanding area. Pipop was standing there, speaking to Thep. Hutch bent down and began to work on a chest of drawers.

  TIM CARVER PRESSED THE stop button. He ejected the cassette and tapped it thoughtfully against his cheek.

  ‘You were right,’ said Nikom.

  ‘Yeah, wasn’t I just,’ said Carver. ‘Who else knows about this?’

  ‘Just you and me. The warden and a couple of the guards know that we bugged the room, but no one else heard what’s on the tape. They met in private.’ Nikom grinned. ‘They paid the guards a stack of money.’

  ‘And this guy Bey. Where did he go?’

  ‘The Oriental. He went to see a Brit called Billy Winter. The Billy who spoke to Hastings, I guess.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘Late fifties, early sixties. Grey hair, slicked back. Medium build, looks as if he works out. Oh yeah, he was smoking a big cigar. A really big cigar.’

  Carver nodded. ‘Okay, Nikom, thanks. Good work.’

  ‘Anything else I can do?’

  Carver dropped the cassette into his desk drawer. ‘This Winter. How long is he booked in for?’

  ‘Two weeks.’

  Carver pushed the drawer shut. ‘Okay, so we won’t put a tail on him just yet. Let me do a little digging then I’ll get back to you.’

  Carver settled back in his chair as Nikom left his office. Nikom was Thai and had worked for the DEA for the best part of four years. He was a freelance, but totally trustworthy, and Carver used him whenever he wanted to get information without having to file a report, paying him from the DEA’s substantial informers’ fund. The fewer people who knew about Warren Hastings, the better. Carver wondered what the man’s real name was. Chris something. The man Bey had called him Khun Chris. And Billy Winter had called him Hutch. Chris Hutch? Chris Hutchins? Chris Hutchinson? There couldn’t be too many possibilities, assuming that Hutch was a nickname. Carver picked up a pen and wrote the various surnames down on his notepad.

  He doodled as he replayed the tape in his mind. The man called Hutch was planning to escape, that was clear enough. And he was going to take another prisoner with him. Harrigan. Carver knew of Ray Harrigan; he was the Irishman who’d been arrested in the Chiang Mai bust. He’d been found in possession of fifty kilos of Zhou Yuanyi’s top grade heroin. Carver recalled the conversation he’d had with Nung from the police forensic laboratory: the heroin that had been found in Hutch’s bag was from the same batch. Carver wrote down Zhou Yuanyi’s name in capital letters. A smile spread slowly across his face, like dawn breaking over a harsh landscape. He drew a circle around the possible Hutch surnames, and then drew a thick arrow connecting it to the name of the drug warlord.

  HUTCH OPENED THE PLASTIC bag and sniffed appreciatively. Fried chicken. He put it down on his newly acquired sleeping mat and opened the second bag. Sliced fresh pineapple. The third bag contained boiled rice. He put half the chicken and the rice into a red plastic bowl and gave the remainder to Joshua and Baz.

  ‘Thanks, man,’ said Joshua, picking up a chicken leg and gnawing on it.

  ‘Least I can do,’ said Hutch. He saw Matt looking at the chicken and offered him a piece. The American took it and wolfed it down. The money Hutch had told Bey to put in his account had yet to work its way through the system.

  ‘Hey, you don’t owe me nothing,’ said Joshua. He lay back and waggled his legs in the air. ‘Getting those things off my feet was the best present you could give me.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Hutch, stretching his legs out. Two trustys had arrived at their cell soon after they’d been led in from the factory. One of them was the man who’d attached the cursed manacles to their ankles on their arrival at Klong Prem. This time he had a large vice-like apparatus which he used to unbend the metal manacles. One by one he freed Hutch, Matt and Joshua. Along with the food, Hutch had received a tube of antiseptic ointment which he’d smeared over his injured ankles, and more antihistamine cream which he’d dabbed on his mosquito bites. He was starting to feel halfway human again. The sleeping mat made a big difference, too. It was barely an inch thick but after a week sleeping on the bare concrete floor it felt like a double-sprung mattress.

  Later, when he was sure that his cellmates were asleep, he sat up with his back to the wall and took the file from his training shoe. He slipped his fingers inside a small slit he’d made in his foam rubber sleeping mat and pulled out a piece of metal he’d taken from the furniture factory. It was thin steel, about three inches long and an inch wide with four holes drilled into it. The carpenters had been using similar pieces to strengthen joints in bed frames they were assembling.

  Hutch closed his eyes and tried to visualise the key that the guards had used to lock the cell door. He’d seen it more than a dozen times and from several angles. He began to work on the metal, slowly and methodically, alert for any sign that the noise was disturbing his cellmates.

  TSANG CHAI-HIN HAD TURNED his chair around so that he could look out of his window. The view was spectacular at any time of day, but he enjoyed it most during the early afternoon when the sunlight glinted off the steel and glass towers of Central. To Tsang’s eyes, Hong Kong was the most beautiful city in the world, a monument to capitalism at its most rampant, where tycoons both Chinese and British had competed to build the biggest and best edifices that money could buy. Tsang Chai-hin owned several of the skyscrapers that he could see, and two of them he had built from scratch. When he had finished the first of his tower blocks, he had considered moving his headquarters on to the island, but he had decided that such a move would have been a betrayal of his origins. Forty years earlier Tsang had been a near-penniless street trader, buying and selling plastic flowers among the sweatshops and rancid alleys that had long ago been replaced by high-priced tourist shops and five-star hotels.

  The intercom on his desk buzzed. ‘Yes?’ he said, his eyes fixed on the view.

  ‘There is a Mr C. K. Lee here to see you,’ said his secretary. ‘He does not have an appointment, but . . .’

  ‘Show him in, please,’ said Tsang. He twisted his chair around so that it was once more facing the desk.

  The door opened and the obese frame of C. K. Lee waddled into the office. ‘Mr Tsang, it is good of you to see me,’ said Lee. He was sweating profusely and wiping his hands on a large, white handkerchief. Tsang remained seated and waved at a chair. Lee forced himself into it, his midriff bulging against the wooden arms. He stuffed the handkerchief into his top pocket. ‘I have come to apologise, Mr Tsang. I have come to make amends.’

  Tsang frowned and waited for Lee to continue.

  ‘I am sorry about what happened to your daughter. Most unfortunate, most unfortunate.’

  That Lee had heard of the attack on Chau-ling d
id not come as a surprise to Tsang; Lee had connections that ran the gamut of the Hong Kong and Chinese underworld. He steepled his fingers under his chin and studied Lee the way an entomologist might examine a rare beetle.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you before . . . well, before your investigations go any further. To explain, and to offer my assistance.’

  Tsang nodded slowly as he realised why Lee was so frightened. ‘I thank you for your courtesy,’ he said. ‘Please continue.’

  Lee toyed with the large gold ring on the middle finger of his right hand and blinked his small eyes several times. ‘I had no idea what they intended to do,’ he said. ‘If I had known, it goes without saying . . .’

  Tsang waved his hand dismissively, wanting his visitor to get to the point.

  Lee took the hint. ‘I sold two guns and silencers to a man from Bangkok. The man’s name was Wonlop. His assistant I had not seen before. Wonlop is a paid killer, a very expensive killer.’

  Tsang nodded. That much he already knew. The man Ricky Lim had interrogated had told them about Wonlop before he had died.

  ‘I have spoken to people in Bangkok and they tell me that a man called Bird offered the contract to Wonlop.’

  Again, it was nothing that Tsang didn’t know. ‘You have worked with this Wonlop before?’

  ‘I don’t work with him, Mr Tsang. I am not a murderer. I only supply the tools.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Tsang. ‘Do you know why this Bird wanted my daughter dead?’