by Clive Hindle
“Tell me what happen.”
Jack explained the problem. Ma tut-tutted in disgust at Johnny’s role. "You are right that I have good fortune to know people whose names are not uttered in nice society. I would not be newspaper man if not! You also right to say Hong Kong influence events elsewhere, no matter how far flung elsewhere may be. It is like church. Spiritual head is here."
"So you could help?"
He was keen to know what was behind the trouble and Jack told him about Gerry. "What is it?" he asked, noting his host’s sudden discomposure.
"Nothing," he said, pulling himself together, "don't mention it, just ghosts." The slightly puckered face betrayed no emotion as he lit a cigarette and drew on it.
Jack noted the reaction but went on, "the thing is I lent Gerry some money a short time ago ..."
"First mistake?" Ma chortled, his composure fully restored now, and he wagged the two fingers holding the cigarette. The smoke curled off in dragon shapes.
"You can say that again, but I was surprised by what happened. What I got for my troubles was a Triad assassination squad. For some reason, they're after me."
"Perhaps you know something about Mr. Montro, where he is for instance?” Ma’s voice had subtly changed. This had become an interrogation. He went silent and Jack knew there was something more. He waited. "Of this I know something," his host continued, as if he had been wondering whether to mention it or not. "There is on-going enquiry into Mr. Montro. It not exactly public knowledge but then no need to be for me to know. Mr. Monro can’t put stop to rumour because no one take trouble to question him and then he disappear. But anyway, my friend, this not help you. We want to know who after you. You want stop put to this, of course?”
“Yes, that’s it. I do.”
“Consider it done. Don’t relax vigilance until I say so. It will take a couple of days for the word to get out, then…..” He made a sweeping gesture with his flat, pronated hand.
Just like that. It was what made this clock tick. Results could be achieved in a world of shadows which the official authorities could never come close to, and it would have an impact in the real world as if those authorities had done it themselves. This was what he’d come for. It was a result beyond his wildest dreams and it had happened the first day. He breathed a sigh of relief. If he felt he was on a roll it didn‘t show on his face as he tried his luck a second time. "One other thing," he said, "can you do anything to help me find Gerry?"
The eyes opposite him were hooded now. This request was slightly more difficult. "I think you got message. Maybe he not want to be found. These bad people think you know something. If it is not where he is, it may be something else." Ma smiled. "Maybe something you should not know. Perhaps Mr. Monro told you something about them? Something they not want you know?" He looked quizzical. "I find hard believe -” he wagged his finger again and lit another cigarette - "that nothing behind this. I am sure something there in mind which you know but you not see, because you not understand importance." He smiled again. "I make it known in right places that you know nothing." He said this as if he was talking about telling his neighbours. “I can only guarantee that when news get through you safe.”
“Thank you. That’s all I can ask. You don’t know how grateful I am.”
“Not at all, m gan yiu, One good turn deserve another, eh?” There it was again.
When they came out of the restaurant he suspected the hoverfoil would be suspended and he would have to go back to the island by the MTR but he was in time for the last sailing. Accompanying him to the wharf, Ma said, “you not remember, eh?" Ma was enjoying his confusion. He was grinning from ear to ear. Jack shook his head, loathe to admit it but unable to place him. "I am Chiu Chau," he said, "born in Thailand, of Chinese parents."
"Right," something was beginning to stir in his memory.
"In Thailand I am known as Suzuma," He emphasized the three syllables of his name as if none had precedence, much like the Japanese.
It all came flooding back. Jack clapped his head. "Mr. Suzuma," he said, and he stepped forward and pumped his host’s hand as if he’d just met him.
Ma was laughing now. "So now you know what you do for me!" he exclaimed when the fit had finished.
"No," Jack said, shaking his head, "it was nothing. I did only my duty. I couldn’t have done less."
“Well your less, my more. My fortune. I owe everything to you and your … duty!”
As the hoverfoil churned its way through the choppy waters of Victoria Harbour Jack thought back to when they’d first met. His story was an odd one. He was Chiu Chau. These indigenous people hail from a region of Guangdong Province to the north of Hong Kong. They have their own dialect of Cantonese. In Hong Kong they are infamous for their involvement in Triad societies and running drugs out of the Golden Triangle. The local prejudice against them is rooted in truth but, as with all prejudice, it also taints the innocent. The Crown alleged in this case that Ma was the kingpin of a cartel importing drugs into Hong Kong but it was his elder brother who was the real culprit. Reacting to the crackdown, big Ma had opted for a quiet life in Taiwan, from where he could still conduct his business empire in Hong Kong without fear from the British authorities. This was because the UK Government, unlike the Americans, recognised the People‘s Republic not the Democratic Republic as the sovereign government of China and therefore it had no diplomatic relationship with Taiwan which would enable it to extradite criminals.
Big brother having escaped the RHKP clutches, there were some in the Narcotics Bureau who needed a scalp. A scapegoat’s is better than none at all and their opportunity came when they discovered the methods used by the Chiu Chau’s South Sea diaspora to import morphine into the colony. A lot of them had dual nationality; they had become natives of Thailand whilst retaining family ties with Guangdong, particularly with their countrymen who migrated to Hong Kong. The Chiu Chau in Thailand ran raw opium and morphine blocks out of the Golden Triangle to the factories in Hong Kong where the product was refined. The most successful chemists were Chiu Chau immigrants. The illegality of their status guaranteed unswerving obedience and sweat-shop labour. The methods of importation were often ingenious. In one scam Polish ships sailing the trade route to China were used to bring in morphine blocks; in another Chinese or Vietnamese junks, setting out from the coast of Thailand, anchored in Macanese waters; their "catch" of raw opium was already packed in waterproof bags, which were dragged behind the boats in fishing nets (so they could be cut loose in the event of coastguard interference). The “catch” would be transferred to Macao fishermen for the journey to Hong Kong. The Macanese were used because they regularly fished those waters and the coastguard left them alone, whereas foreigners would have been plagued by what was left of the Royal Navy.
Ma was fitted up and he would have been languishing in prison even now, serving a thirty year sentence, except that Jack prosecuted the case for the Crown. He noticed a discrepancy in the evidence given by an accomplice witness, a man who had bought immunity from prosecution by whistle-blowing on his criminal colleagues. The defence counsel that day had been none other than the inimitable Philip Chan Q.C, a man better known now for his courageous stand against Red China as the leader of the Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Party. Jack’s exercise of his duty of impartiality in order to free Philip’s client had left the Chinese barrister admiring his English counterpart, just as much as it hadn’t gone down well with the Senior Crown Counsel in charge of the case. He’d been away that day conducting a case in the Court of Appeal and Jack had taken the decision off his own bat. The Senior Counsel was a certain Gerard Montrose and he was furious. “Whose side are you on, mate?” When Jack reminded him that his two Narcotics Bureau drinking buddies would be lucky not to be locked up for their part in the fit up, Gerry laughed. “Lock them up? Come down in the last shower, did you?” But he could do nothing about it. Jack had started something which could not be stopped. He had never expected however to meet Mr. Ma again, nor to need r
eciprocation in quite this way.
He had another errand to squeeze in before the weather closed in and before he could go back to the hotel and prepare for his meeting with Amie. Coming off the ferry, he took the short walk to the ICAC headquarters in Connaught Building. He had been busy making phone calls on his Tri-band and was due to meet the Assistant-Commissioner.
Graham Witherspoon was another rave from the grave. The tough looking Australian was exactly as Jack remembered him - medium height, brown, crinkly hair, almost ginger. He had thick spectacles and skin tanned like kangaroo hide. "How ya going mate, what brings you here?" The tones were dulcit Brisbane.
Of all the people he’d known here, he remembered Graham as straight, someone you could rely on in a crisis. Now he looked round at the Headquarters of the Independent Commission Against Corruption and said, “Never figured you for a politico!"
"Not much else you can be these days. You do as you’re told or you take the high road. The place just about belongs to the Chinese now. The Gwai Lo is on his bike, mate." He stretched out in his chair and lit a cigarette. "You still don't?" Jack shook his head. It wasn’t entirely true but it was ninety-nine per cent of the time. Graham fixed him with a friendly stare. "Bet you, you haven't come all the way over here to talk to me about my pension prospects. What are you here about?"
“Don’t tell me you don’t know I got a visit? Two officers from your Commission? They landed at my place and interviewed me. All very secretive and very high-powered, but I imagine I don’t have to tell you that?"
“Farago and Sullivan, you mean? I saw their report.” He grinned wryly, avoiding any answer as to the extent of his knowledge before the event. “Same old Jack!”
"To be honest, I'm looking for Gerry Montrose, too." He watched his friend’s brow knit. Why was it that whenever he mentioned Gerry's name it had that effect?
"You and just about everybody's Aunt Sally, mate."
"Well, I'd begun to appreciate that, including some pretty handy Chinese guys and, oh, not to mention your blokes. That at least is what they said they were after.”
“And you doubt that?”
“I doubt the reasons. They suggested they wanted to arrest him for corruption but they weren’t making much sense. I had the idea they wanted him for something he had, same as the other guys.”
Graham smiled and pursed his lips, "There are those who think Monty's gone native, mate but you know what this place is like, it gets to you. The sun gets to you, the humidity gets to you, the night-life gets to you, the women get to you, most of all the money gets to you." He winked conspiratorially. "Of course I knew officers from the Commission had interviewed you. I was surprised your name cropped up but we discovered Monty had borrowed money from you. There was another problem. The fact is there was a nasty smell at the end of the K.K. Chow trial. It fell flat on its face when the prosecution witnesses cocked. That's what caused the notoriety. 'Gang boss cleared in corruption scandal' is an even better headline in the Hong Kong Sun than 'Gang boss convicted'.”
"Mr. Ma’s paper?”
“Right in one. Most of the baiting is fuelled by Ma. He’s got a real axe to grind against anyone connected with the colonial Government. Gerry nearly put him away you know and the word was he knew it was a fit up.”
His old friend had obviously a shorter memory than Mr. Ma so Jack didn’t remind him of his involvement in that case. He’d heard the rumours but they arose from Gerry’s closeness to the cops involved - not strange when you prosecuted most of the high profile cases. "I heard all that but I still don't see how they could blame Gerry for the K.K. Chow case. Maybe it was just a bad case?"
"Yeah but there was a niggling doubt that Gerry had an inside track. Maybe it came from when Samson met Delilah?" He had another twinkle in his eye.
"Delilah?"
"Diana Lundy."
"Oh, Diana! Ah well, now there might hang a tale."
"And guess who she works for?"
Jack looked at him askance and then he caught on: "Not K.K. Chow!”
“Bull’s eye!”
“You’re kidding me!” Deflated, Jack stuck doggedly to his point. “No way would Gerry get involved. He wouldn’t have the control. Only the solicitors would have that.”
“He knew the risks when he took the case for Chow. The guy was the front for the Taiwan Mafia.” By the latter sobriquet Graham was referring to the group of wealthy businessmen who had seen the trouble coming and fled to Taiwan to escape, first of all, the Queen’s writ and, now, they wouldn’t be coming back in a hurry with the People‘s Republic almost in charge. In fact they’d be praying that the mainland and island republics didn’t decide suddenly to bury the hatchet, which was unlikely as the Taiwanese majority had been displaced by the Kuomintang cuckoos from the mainland. The invaders had quickly usurped the ruling order of the island and changed its official language to their own Mandarin. It was about as democratic a republic as the People’s on the mainland and now also the proposed SAR of Hong Kong. “But you see,” Graham went on, “Chow has an agenda of his own quite apart from what he appears to be doing for the Taiwan faction. He’s got friends in the north.”
“Really? I would have thought he’d have more to fear from the mainland than most, if they’re serious about crushing the Triads.”
“It’s the crazy politics of these times. It’s not the same here any more. You’d think the Triads would be shitting themselves; you’d think they’d be keeping their heads down. But there are more and more factions now, with their tentacles spreading into Hong Kong, jockeying for an edge. Control of this little Kingdom is like getting the keys to Fort Knox on an army away day. Fill your boots! All the CCP men up north are gangsters and some of them are fighting over it.”
Jack remained silent, digesting the information, not wanting to get side-tracked. “Do you have any idea where Gerry is now?”
Graham shrugged, "He’s gone to ground. He was spending fortunes on the tables at Macao, and then he disappeared, in a puff of smoke. The rumour is he's in the Philippines."
“I’d heard that.”
“I heard you’d been asking around.”
They chatted a little and then Jack rose to go, “I won’t keep you any longer, storm’s brewing.”
“Yes, I think it may be moving away but they’ll leave the number three hoisted until they’re sure. It’ll probably come back. That’s the way it works, if you remember? Stay in touch. If you’re going to be here a few days, let’s do something.”
As he took his leave of his old friend, it occurred to Jack that there was something about him which he couldn't quite put a finger on, a cynicism perhaps, a kind of attitude that nothing really mattered anymore. Perhaps he was facing up to the end of civilisation as he knew it. Soon he'd have to think about returning to Aussie, getting back into the rat race and earning a living. He hadn't been used to that for a while. Emerging from the express lift on the ground floor he was in time to see its neighbour, across the hall, filling up with people. He looked again because a couple who looked like the blond and the wealthy young Chinese guy from the airport were getting in. Was it Diana Lundy? He went and stood in front of it, letting her see it was him if she looked but the lift was too full. She was looking down at her mobile and half-hidden behind a couple of tall guys. The door closed. He watched the floors light up as the lift shot upwards. It went to the Commission floor and stopped. Curiouser and curiouser, he thought.
Arriving back he called in the Captain’s Bar to slake his thirst and heard some Australians talking about how the storm had veered away from Hong Kong and was heading for Taiwan. “No guarantees it won’t turn back again,” one of them added, gazing morosely into the golden liquid in his glass. “That’s what happened last time, it just circled round and came back twice as strong.”
“Glass half full, that’s your problem, mate,” the other said before he sank his drink in one quaff.
Jack sipped easily, conscious of how the heat and humidity can seduce
you into drinking too much for the good of your liver. Anyway, he had a date that night, which was an unexpected bonus. No way did he want to be three sheets to the wind when he met Amie. He just sat there and took stock of the weight Ma had taken off his shoulders. It justified the trip by itself and it had been much easier than he had dreamed. Too easy, it might be said. But no, let’s not go there, he thought.
CHAPTER 3
She was as good as her word, appearing in the lobby on the dot of eight. "You look stunning." She flashed him a radiant smile, her almond eyes sparkling mischievously. She was wearing a Cheong-sam, the greatest of evening dresses, Kingfisher blue streaked with gold, the revealing split in the skirt at a modest height above the knee. Her hair was tied back, only a fringe over her forehead. Her face make-up was white against ruby red lipstick. “Would you like to eat here?” he asked her.
“Not really. A bit too formal, I think, and too expensive.”
“That’s my problem, not yours,” he laughed.