“I presume that was Jackson Lee?” Sue said.
“Yep. At least he said he was. So I suppose it must have been.”
“Do you think it was wise to stir him up?” she asked.
“Probably not,” I replied. “If he calls back, I’ll apologise.”
He didn’t call back, but it hadn’t done my frame of mind any good, and the rest of the day dragged by even slower.
Five
It was our third visit to China, and the third time we had arrived through Beijing Airport. The long walk from the aircraft, and then the sudden onslaught of thousands of Asian faces, and the change from the brighter clothing of westerners to the drab browns and blacks of the Chinese, did nothing to brighten my spirits.
“What are you looking for?” Sue asked.
“What do you mean?” I replied.
“You’ve been as nervous as a cat ever since we got off the plane. Your head hasn’t been still for a minute. Do you think Jackson Lee is going to jump out and grab you or something?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Quick, move over to that other queue, it’s only half the length of this one.”
“Yes,” she replied. “It’s also for Chinese passport holders only. Can’t you read the sign?”
“Okay, okay.”
She was right. I was nervous. Digging up a chest in the forecourt of a Buddhist temple in the dead of night in the centre of one of the biggest cities in the world had seemed like a fairly simple task back in the safety of our home off the quiet leafy avenue in suburban Brisbane. But reality had hit as soon as we had walked off the aircraft and become engulfed by the crowd of unsmiling staring Chinese faces. They all looked the same, and yet they all looked somehow different.
We were in the large arrivals hall. There must have been at least twenty queues spread out across the width of the room, and each queue had more than forty or fifty people lined up behind each other, two abreast where there was husband and wife both waiting for clearance. Most of the people were Chinese, with a few western tourists dotted about the place – all of us looking tired and anxious to pass through passport control and be released into the mad rush that was China.
Could the officials who were rumoured to watch arriving passengers through one-way mirrors be able to read what was on my mind? Would they be able to look into my eyes and see that I intended to desecrate one of their temples? Would they guess that we were going to dig into the roots of what was probably a sacred tree and steal treasure that might properly belong to the Chinese people?
The last time we had been in China the tour guide had convinced us to visit some sort of clinic that prescribed herbal medicine. I knew the main reason was so that the guide could earn a commission on anything that we might be persuaded to buy. A middle-aged man in a white coat had taken hold of my wrist, looked deep into my eyes, and then told me, through an interpreter, that I had high blood pressure. He also said I needed to spend a large amount of money on a heap of herbs and other vile-looking things. He was right about one thing. I have high blood pressure, but there was no way the guide was earning a commission out of me.
Was it possible that the passport control guys were trained in the same way? Could they have the ability to pick out those who might have ulterior motives in visiting China?
The queue moved forward another three paces and I waited anxiously for it to move the other twenty metres until it would be our turn to be processed by the military-looking immigration officer. Would he ask us whether we intended to commit any crimes during our two week visit? There was nothing on the form about it.
Twenty minutes later Sue grabbed the passports and the immigration slips from my hand and put them up on the desk. The official looked at us, at our passport photographs, then at the visas stamped somewhere on one of the many pages in both booklets, and then stared at us again. I felt like running, back into the security of the terminal, back to where the aircraft was standing on the tarmac, back to safety. It was cold in the great aircraft hangar of a hall, but I could still feel the perspiration running down my back, and the wetness of my palms.
“Ben, let’s go. Ben!”
I shook my head, looked around sharply, and followed Sue as she strode away from the cubicle.
“My God, Ben!” she snapped. “Pull yourself together.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I’m just tired.”
And I was. Sue had slept during most of both flights – the one from Brisbane to Singapore and then to Beijing. I had been awake nearly the whole time. It was nothing new. I couldn’t sleep on aircraft.
“Do you want to take a bus, or taxi?” Sue asked as we walked out of the terminal doors into the freezing cold that was Beijing as winter prepared to leave. My parka was still in my suitcase. Like a fool I had refused to carry it with me in the aircraft all the way from Brisbane, telling Sue that I wouldn’t need it until we arrived at the hotel. She had smiled as she had put hers on in the customs hall, but hadn’t dared say anything. The smile had been enough.
“Taxi,” I replied. “But make certain he agrees the fare before putting our luggage in the vehicle.”
There was no way I was taking a bus. If there was anyone interested in us, it would be too easy for them to follow.
The Beijing traffic hadn’t changed, bumper to bumper until we reached the freeway and then three lanes of cars and buses, racing and cutting in on each other as they jockeyed for position, missing each other by mere millimetres, and then it was back to gridlock as we reached Beijing and crawled along the wide city roads, our driver seeming to switch lanes every fifty metres or so. If he gained any advantage by doing so, it was a mystery to me. The greater mystery was how he managed to cut in each time without causing a major traffic accident. I could have sworn that the clearance between his vehicle and each of the others that he slipped ahead of was less than the thickness of a piece of paper, but he never caused as much as a single scratch to either his vehicle or any of the others.
I could see the city buildings some kilometres ahead, or I thought I could see them. The thick pall of smoky haze surrounding the entire horizon let only the faint outlines of buildings push themselves through. Maybe it might clear as the day wore on.
The driver pulled up under the high stone portico of the Jianguo Hotel in Qianmen, a smile on his face as though he had just won the Grand Prix. We grabbed our bags from the rear of the taxi, handed them to the porters and followed close behind as they hauled them in through the revolving door into a high ceilinged reception area; the floor paved in marble, huge circular pillars a metre in diameter and two floors high, a large dark wood-panelled reception desk along one entire wall.
During our two previous tours of China we had soon realised that the entrance hall to most Chinese hotels was usually as opulent as the hotel could afford, but was in no way a guarantee that the rooms would be as smart. But we knew that the Jianguo was one hotel where the standard of the foyer continued up to the rooms. We handed our passports over, paid for the two weeks with my credit card, plus a bit extra to cover any telephone calls or room service we might avail ourselves of, refused the offer of further assistance with our suitcases, and took the elevator to the fourth floor. My teeth were still chattering, the heat in the hotel not yet sufficient to raise my body temperature to where it should have been.
“Well, Ben,” Sue said as soon as the elevator doors had closed and we were alone for the first time in maybe twenty-four hours. “We’re here. What’s the plan now?”
“Well, I want to have a look at the temple. I want to see if the tree is still where Captain Monty said it was. If it is, and it will be, then we have to find a hardware store or somewhere where we can purchase something with which we can do a bit of digging.”
“We’d better have some lunch and a rest first.”
“Lunch!” I exclaimed. “How can you think of food at a time like this? And how the hell do you expect me to have a nap in the middle of the damn day.”
“It’s not the mid
dle of the day back home. It’s some time in the afternoon, the time at which you normally doze off after lunch.”
“Bloody hell, woman. Leave me alone!”
“Okay, Ben. No nap, but we’ll have lunch first. And then we’ll go and look at your temple.”
“My temple?”
“Okay, our temple.”
I agreed to a quick lunch at the hotel restaurant as we wheeled our suitcases along the passage. As I opened the door I stepped in to find a piece of folded paper lying on the carpet. I picked it up and opened it. Sue leant over my shoulder as we both read the bold writing, copperplate, even if penned with a biro.
Mr & Mrs Dunlop. I am contacting you on behalf of Father Xavier. It is imperative that we meet before you proceed further in your quest. There are matters of which you are not aware, matters which could put you both in great danger. I am a member of the Society of Jesus here in Beijing. Father Xavier has asked me to watch over you and keep you safe. There are people watching you at this moment, not just myself. I beg you to trust me, and not to leave the hotel until you have spoken with me. If you wish to call Father Xavier in Rome to confirm my bona fides, please do so by all means. I will write his telephone number below. But please, I beg of you, for your sakes, and for the sake of our most blessed holy relics, please do as I ask. I am in room 324. Please make certain that you are not followed when you leave your room.
I anxiously await our meeting.
Father Joseph
There was a number set out at the bottom, obviously scribbled down after the note had been written, as though he had needed to ring someone and had held the telephone in one hand while writing and trying to keep the piece of paper steady with the other. I wasn’t certain whether it was a telephone number or not. There seemed to be far too many digits.
“What’s this all about?” Sue asked. “How the heck did they know we’re here? How the hell do they know what hotel we’re staying at?”
“How the hell should I know?” I snapped at her. “Have they got into our emails again?”
“No,” she snapped back at me. “I made the bookings through the travel agent at the mall. They didn’t have our email address! I did everything by phone.”
“Bloody hell!” I exclaimed. “How in God’s name did they get on to us then?”
“They’ve followed us from the airport!”
“No way,” I replied. “Not in that traffic. That taxi driver drove like a bloody madman. Nobody could have kept up with him!”
“What about that motor-bike?”
“What motor-bike?”
“There was a motor-bike just near where we caught the taxi. The rider looked like he was trying to fix something. He was talking on his mobile. I thought maybe he was asking someone what was wrong with it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t really think much about it. It was just something I saw.”
“Did you see what he did after we got into the taxi?”
“No. Like I said, it was just something I saw.”
“The bastard followed us. I kept looking back to see if there was someone following, but I was looking for a car. I never even thought about a bloody motor-bike. And I bet somebody followed the bike in a car - Jackson bloody Lee!”
“Do you think that’s who put this note under our door?”
“No, he couldn’t have got here before us, but I bet the bugger is down in the lobby right now.”
“So, who is Father Xavier?” Sue asked. “Who’s the guy he’s talking about in the note?”
“How the hell should I know?” I replied, staring at the paper again, trying to make some sense of it. “Wait on. Father Xavier? Isn’t he the guy from the Jesuit Church in Rome?”
“What, the one who kept emailing about the cross?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“Ah, yes, I think that was his name,” she replied. “It was something like that.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think so.”
“Well then,” I said. “Let’s go and find out what the hell’s going on.”
“Do you think we should call this Father Xavier first?”
“Why?”
“It might be a hoax or something,” she replied. “Whoever wrote the note mightn’t have anything to do with the Jesuits. That number might be a phoney. They might have someone at the other end just pretending to be this Father Xavier. For all we know Jackson Lee and some of his mates could be in the room he wants us to go to.”
“If that was the case,” I said. “Why didn’t he just wait in here for us?”
“He wouldn’t have known that we’d carry our own luggage,” she replied. “We could have come up with a couple of porters.” She looked at me for a few seconds and then added: “It couldn’t be Jackson Lee.”
“Why not?”
“He would’ve had to get to the hotel before us and book a room. He didn’t have time, not if he was following us.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“What?”
“Do you remember what I told you about the taxi?”
“What?”
“I told you to just show him the card with the address of the hotel on it, and not to bother practising your Mandarin.”
“Ah, yes, so?”
“But you had to read it out to him, and then read it a second and a third time, getting louder each time?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. They didn’t really have to follow us. They only did that to make certain we didn’t give the taxi driver the name of another hotel to fool them.”
“So, it could be Jackson Lee in the other room.”
“Yeah.”
“What do we do then?”
“We check on this guy who signed the note.”
“How?”
“Where’s your notebook?” She reached into her great cavernous handbag. “Check to see if it’s the same number that we looked up on the internet for the Jesuits in Rome.”
Sue thumbed through her notebook, the spring-bound one that was filled with all sorts of information, and with an index system that only she could fathom.
“Why did he mention holy relics?” she said as she kept searching.
“What?”
“In the note. The guy mentions holy relics, but nothing about the cross. We never mentioned anything about relics. We don’t even know anything about relics, just the cross, singular. And it’s not a relic, not what a church would call a relic anyway.”
“Damned if I know,” I replied, as she finally found the right page.
“It’s the same number,” she said. “Or at least the last eight digits are. The others are probably the international dialling code.” She put the book back in her bag and looked questioningly at me, running the fingers of her left hand through her hair. “So, shall we go?” she asked. “Or do we ring the number first?”
The words were scarcely out of her mouth when the phone rang. I looked at her and she looked at me. It kept on ringing.
“Do we answer it?” she asked.
“No,” I replied.
“But maybe it’s this Father Joseph. Maybe there’s been a change of plan or something. Maybe he’s not in his room and wants us to meet him somewhere else.” The phone kept ringing. “You’d better answer it.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Answer the bloody phone, Ben!”
I snatched it up; hoping that whoever had been calling had finally quit and hung up. “Yes?” I said quietly.
“What else have you come to collect from Beijing, Mr Dunlop?”
I dropped the phone back onto its cradle, cutting off the call.
“Who was it?” Sue asked.
“Lee. It was that bastard Jackson Lee.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m bloody sure!”
“What did he want?”
I told her.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. The sooner we get out of here the better. If it was him that le
ft the note, he wouldn’t have called. He’d have waited for us to come to him. What room is this Father person in again?”
She unfolded the note. “Room 324. We’re in 416 so I suppose that’s one floor below us.” She looked down at the note and then back up to me again. “Are you ready?”
“I’m ready when you are,” I replied. “Poke your head out the door and see if the coast is clear.”
I waited while she leaned around the door jamb and then, five seconds later, she crooked her finger at me. We both scuttled out the doorway like a pair of thieves making a quick getaway. There was nobody in the passage and none of the doors appeared to be ajar. There could have been someone watching through the spy hole of any of the doors, but I didn’t think it was probable. If it had been me keeping a lookout I wouldn’t have been able to keep my eye focussed for more than a minute before giving it up as a bad job. But there could have been someone sitting close behind any one of the doors, listening for the sound of footsteps moving down the passage. I put one finger to my lips.
“Keep it quiet,” I whispered. She nodded and we tiptoed along the long narrow strip of carpet.
I peered down the staircase and, finding it empty, we crept down the marble steps to the next floor and then out into the passage and along to room 324. I listened at the door but heard nothing. Sue gave it a sharp rap with her knuckles. The sound seemed to reverberate around the hotel. The door opened only seconds later.
“Ah, Mr and Mrs Dunlop,” a quiet voice said from behind the half-opened door. “Do come in, please. I see that you got my note. Did anyone see you come down?”
We both shook our heads. So this was Father Joseph. He wasn’t what I had expected. I had expected to see someone way past middle age, short, stooped, wearing black clothes, a clerical collar and talking with either an Italian or an Irish accent. But Father Joseph was almost the exact opposite. Father Joseph was in his late thirties, a little taller than me at about 5 foot 10 inches, or, as Sue would have said: 178 centimetres or thereabouts. At sixty-two years of age I still thought in the old imperial system. He was dressed in jeans, a polo shirt and a heavy knitted sweater, medium build. His accent and bearing were middle-class British.
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