The Case of the Chinese Boxes

by Marele Day

  But it was a special occasion. I had on a soft black leather jacket, slim black trousers and black boots. My hair was up in combs and on top of it was a green hat. I thought I looked the business.

  The thing I noticed about that towering facade was how relatively small the doors were. Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Cars came and went as the lights changed from red to green then back again. Clouds raced eastwards behind the twin towers of the facade. I looked up at them because everything about the cathedral was designed to lift the eye heavenward. There were pointed archways, meeting like fingertips in prayer, above the doors. There was a huge rose window in the centre and cutting into the sky a cross. All around the cathedral was a spiked fence. With its turret and buttresses it looked more like a fortress than a place of worship.

  It also looked as though there’d be a lot of good hiding places inside.

  I crossed the road and walked up the wide front steps. I decided not to go in through the front doors but through a less conspicuous entrance. I walked around the eastern side of the cathedral, overlooking a construction site with aluminium portables. Three engineers in white hard hats were standing in a huddle, talking almost mouth to ear to be heard above the sounds of construction.

  I went into the cathedral through a small side door and immediately all sound was subdued. A dull amber light filtered down from the yellow glass high up in the walls.

  Suddenly the cathedral was full of light, as if someone had turned up the dimmer switch. My first thought was that a miracle was about to happen. Fiat lux. Then I realised it was the sun coming in and out of the clouds. The fluctuation of light was to occur several times. It was very windy outside.

  The rose window and other stained glass had lots of rich reds and blues in it. Christ with a bright red halo, bearing his cross, surrounded by supplicants in rich indigo. There were flashes of white light too from the cameras of Japanese tourists.

  Behind the row of candles at the side altar was the Christian queen of heaven, complete with crown above her robes. She’d come a long way for a carpenter’s wife of dubious pregnancy. A long way from Nazareth.

  I started wandering now. I had plenty of time, looking more at the people than the architecture, looking for Father John. A schoolteacher came by with a flock of Asian children in tow, all wearing bottle-green tracksuits with gold stripes down the sleeves and the sides of the pants.

  Being unaccustomed to Catholic churches, especially cathedrals, it took me a little time to locate the confessionals. There was a set of red cushioned doors that looked likely candidates but proved merely to be double doors to the outside world.

  It was not until I got to the main entrance that I saw the Special Notices that gave the times of guided tours, masses and confession. In that order.

  There were no confessions scheduled for 3.15.

  There were quite a few confessionals on the western side of the cathedral. They were all locked but there was a clear panel rather like a mailbox slot in the frosted glass of each door. I looked in. Nothing but empty chairs.

  It was 3.12. I had been in the cathedral twenty-five minutes. I had seen tourists, parties of schoolchildren, the odd individual at prayer. I had not seen a priest. Especially not one wearing size nine shoes.

  Above the confessionals on the eastern side a light shone. A single yellow light above the middle door. It was open for business, an unscheduled confession.

  A special confession, for me alone.

  I patted my hair, adjusted my hat. I took a deep breath and walked to my rendezvous with destiny.

  As I approached, my eyes were focused on the clear glass panel. But no matter how much I peered I couldn’t see in. The panel had been blocked by a book. The Holy Bible.

  I entered the adjacent box.

  ‘Bless me Father, I haven’t sinned but I believe you have.’

  He chuckled. The throaty chuckle of someone who was enjoying himself.

  ‘Keep talking,’ he said.

  ‘I believe you may recently have come into a large sum of money.’

  ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ He didn’t sound like the punks who’d come up to me in the pub. His voice was muffled, and it wasn’t just the partition between us. But it sounded rich, almost melodious. The voice of a man with a great deal of job satisfaction.

  ‘I believe you have helped yourself.’

  He didn’t have anything to say to that.

  ‘Do you wear size nine shoes?’

  ‘I am an average man.’

  ‘I believe you are more than average, you have knowledge of specialised subjects.’

  ‘And so apparently do you.’

  ‘It’s my job to know.’

  ‘So I’ve been told. I have been doing my own investigations.’

  So he’d checked me out. And I’d come up smelling of roses.

  ‘There are many people who would like to be having this conversation with you. I’m curious as to why I’m the lucky one.’

  ‘I like your style.’

  ‘I think I like yours.’

  ‘And your discretion. Guaranteed.’

  ‘I am as good as my word. What exactly was it that appealed to you about my ad?’

  ‘You understood. The urge to confess.’

  Not quite.

  He wanted to tell all right, but it wasn’t the urge to confess, it was the urge to brag. It was not ‘Bless me Father for I have sinned’, it was ‘Bless me Father because I am the smartest bastard in the world’.

  ‘You chose the right place.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So let’s hear it.’

  He chuckled. ‘It’s not that simple and I’m not that foolish. You will notice that nothing specific has been said, nor will it, nothing that will stand up in court, nothing that will identify me.’

  ‘This conversation will never get to court; it’s strictly between you and me.’

  ‘That’s what I was banking on.’

  ‘I like your choice of words.’

  There was a pause. ‘It was good, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was brilliant,’ I said.

  I could almost feel the contentment. He was ready to tell me now.

  ‘Was it the way the paper said?’

  ‘Almost, but not quite. We did get in through the fourth floor window then go down to the basement. We did blast through the safes the way they said. What we didn’t do was go out to nearby pubs. We stayed in the bank the whole time. Even when the alarm went off. Do you know what that’s like? What nerve it takes? Not to run when you hear the alarm? To stay there, when all your instincts are telling you to get out? And the second time, when the guard came down to the basement. Hearing the lift door open, the light switched on. If only he’d looked further, if he’d removed the cardboard boxes we’d piled up. What if he had been clumsy and accidentally knocked them, or been a little more curious. But he wasn’t. We weren’t lucky, we were blessed.’

  In my mind I could see him going over it all again, as he must have many times, smiling inwardly with satisfaction.

  ‘Can we expect any repeat performances?’

  ‘Not from us. Do it clean then disappear. I have resumed my normal life. When the time is right I will reap the fruits of my harvest.’

  ‘Talking about harvest, I was interested in one particular fruit—a golden one, with a dragon on it.’

  ‘Ah yes, there were many trinkets.’

  I wondered how the Chens would feel hearing their key to power described as a trinket.

  ‘Most of the items are no longer with us. We dumped a lot of those trinkets.’

  ‘Dumped?’

  ‘Too hard to get rid of, too identifiable. We dumped them in the harbour.’

  My heart sank, right down to those depths. It was no longer a question of finding a needle in a haystack, more like looking for a grain of sand in an ocean. Maybe a shark had swallowed it. Still, we clutch at straws.

  ‘Where in the harbour?’

&
nbsp; Maybe it was just off Balmain. Maybe on my morning walks to the park that jutted out into the water I would find one small key washed up among the garbage and the flowers of the ebbing tide.

  ‘Off the back of a night ferry to Manly, a haversackful. Trinkets, one after the other, sparkling in the wake.’

  ‘You didn’t keep anything? As a memento of the occasion?’

  ‘We kept the money.’

  I supposed that was memento enough. With that money you could buy as many gold keys as you wanted. But not the key the Chens wanted. Not the key that might save Alice. It was beyond my means to dredge the harbour, beyond anyone’s means, even the Chens. They were on their own now, no gold key, no symbols of power. Merlin had left them.

  ‘Are you still there?’

  Yes, I was still here.

  ‘I think it’s time to go. There may be other sinners waiting.’

  I smiled to myself. ‘Aren’t you going to give me absolution, Father?’

  ‘Of course my child. I absolve thee in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. For your penance say three Hail Marys and help an old lady across the street. Leave the church by the front entrance and don’t look back. If you do you will be turned into a pillar of salt.’

  I didn’t look back. Not till I’d got out of the church. The light was off now; there were the odd individuals at prayer, the tourists. My confessor could have been any one of them. Slipped off his robes and resumed his normal life.

  Carol would not be pleased. She would say I should have informed the police. They would have had a stake-out. He wouldn’t have come. But I wouldn’t be telling Carol.

  I wondered how many other lives had been disrupted by that bank job. The simple twists of fate. They could at least have dumped what they didn’t want somewhere accessible—in the middle of Martin Place for example.

  I crossed the road and walked down to where my car was parked.

  I opened the car door. A hand came towards my face with a white pad held in it. I felt my head being whacked back. I struggled, but there wasn’t any point. I was going down fast. In those few seconds of struggle I remembered thinking—the last thing I remembered—where does someone get chloroform in this modern day and age?

  I had been kidnapped and taken to Asia. There were voices around me speaking in a language I didn’t understand, men’s voices. How long had the trip taken? How many hours, days? Wherever we had landed it was dark, very dark. And soft.

  Slowly my brain started to come on duty again. It was soft because I was lying on a mattress, feeling rather cramped. It was dark because it was night. No. My brain tried again. It was dark because there was something covering my eyes. I raised my hand to remove the encumbrance and, though I hadn’t intended it, the other hand came up too. This one didn’t take so long to figure out—my hands were tied together. I also discovered now why I felt so stiff and cramped. My legs were bent and tied together as well. Trussed up like a chicken. I imagined I heard one clucking. My green hat was missing.

  The blindfold was wrenched off. I blinked in the light which wasn’t all that bright. The place looked familiar. I’d been here before. It was the snooker room in Cabramatta.

  But nothing was the same. There were still lots of men about but now they were wearing white robes with red headbands. They didn’t look like they were about to play snooker. They were lined up in various parts of the room. The tables were missing. No, not all of them. There was one at the end of the room. It was made up to look like an altar. A square-looking object had been placed on it and was covered by a red cloth with some sort of insignia.

  There was something familiar about all this too. As if I’d seen a picture of it in a book. Multitudes of virtuous men assemble . . . None of these men looked particularly virtuous. Something to do with willows. Willow pattern plate? No. Cities. City of Willows. The Triad initiation ceremony.

  And what was my place in all of this? Registration of recruits . . . execution of traitors. I had the feeling it was not registration of recruits.

  In front of the altar sat the man in the black hat, the man I’d seen here at the snooker room and again at the Queen Street gallery. His walking-stick hung on the back of his chair. A look of extreme satisfaction spread over his face, including the skin graft.

  He snapped his fingers. Two of the white robes came towards me. One of them was the man with no tie.

  He and the other guy grabbed me under the arms and dragged me up to the man in the black hat.

  He snapped his fingers again and the man with no tie handed him the walking-stick.

  He extended the hooked end towards me and stuck it under my chin.

  He chuckled. I was glad he was enjoying it because I certainly wasn’t. ‘We will not waste each other’s time. Just a few simple questions then you will be free to leave.’

  Sure, I thought.

  His expression changed completely. ‘Where is the key?’ he hissed through his gold teeth.

  ‘Search me.’

  If he had been one of the white boys around town I would have had a backhander across the face, but the double meaning was lost on him.

  ‘We have, and you do not appear to have it,’ he said, sneering into my face, ‘but you do know where it is, don’t you!’ Now the backhander came. This brought me out of my chloroform daze completely.

  I burned with frustration, the frustration of having been hit and not being able to hit back. Not even being able to turn my head away because the walking-stick was rammed hard against my throat. Lurking somewhere beneath the frustration was fear. An undercurrent that might take me out to sea altogether. I was alone here in the presence of my enemies. I could not afford to have fear working against me as well.

  ‘It’s not anywhere you can lay your hands on in a hurry.’

  ‘Where is it?’ Another slap across the face.

  ‘It’s irretrievable.’

  ‘It’s what?’

  ‘No-one can get it, not me, not you, not the Chens.’

  ‘But you know where it is, don’t you?’

  I tried to turn my face but caught the slap anyway. I wished he’d stop doing that. From my point of view it was unnecessary and not very manly. And it was beginning to smart.

  Now he bent down close to me, so close I could see the tiny black points of his close shave. He spoke carefully and slowly, weighing each of the words: ‘If you want the child to live, you will tell us where the key is.’

  My hands formed fists and came abruptly up under his chin, making him bite down on his tongue. He cursed and spat in my face. I smelled blood in the spit.

  He removed the walking-stick from my chin and waved it towards the door. Two lackeys left the room. I hoped that meant he was going to stop slapping me around. It didn’t. He asked the same question, I gave the same answer and received the slap.

  The lackeys came back. With Alice. She was neatly dressed and clean, and her hair was tied up in a bow. She was carrying her doll. A big doll, almost as tall as she was. It had only one arm.

  ‘Hello, Alice.’ I hoped I spoke gently.

  Another slap. ‘You don’t speak unless it is to tell us where the key is!’

  Alice blinked but her face was stalwart.

  ‘The key in exchange for the child. No key, no child.’

  The lackeys placed heavy restraining hands on the child’s shoulders.

  ‘You understand?’ he said with a victorious grin. ‘Now, I will ask you again. Each time you give a wrong answer one of Alice’s fingers will disappear; click!’

  It was not necessary for him to click his fingers for me to understand his meaning.

  ‘Let Alice go first.’

  The slapper chuckled. ‘Not so easy. A child might come to harm wandering the streets alone. The city is not a safe place.’

  ‘Take her back to her grandmother. You’ve got cars, haven’t you?’

  The slapper gave a slight nod of his head. The lackey on Alice’s left held her hand; a comforting gesture. He bounced it
up and down a little then with one swift movement cracked her little finger out of joint.

  Alice’s face screwed up and she let out a wail that would have broken the heart of anyone in the room—if they had one. No-one budged or flinched. It looked like I was the only contender.

  A woman entered the room. Two more of the white robes moved quickly to stand either side of her. I looked at her in surprise. It was the woman I’d seen leaving James Ho’s room. Who had also been at the gallery with my interrogator.

  The man with no tie, the man in the black hat and now the woman. All present and assembled. I scanned the faces of the men in white robes. The only person missing from the scene was James Ho.

  James Ho. Willing to exchange six thousand years of civilisation for a description of the key. Who meant me no harm, who’d given me the false key to ‘move things along’. Who’d staged the fight at the Red Dragon to show me whose side he was on. Well, I knew now, and it wasn’t mine.

  The man in the black hat was leering at me again.

  ‘You seem to have some difficulty telling me the whereabouts of the key. I will try something simpler.’ He applied further pressure to the walking-stick. I tried to swallow but couldn’t. He bent down very close to me, so close that I could feel his clammy breath on my cheek. ‘What does the key look like?’

  ‘It’s got a dragon on it.’

  I wasn’t giving anything away. Ho already knew about the dragon.

  ‘And what else?’ His voice dropped now to a malicious whisper. ‘How does it open the boxes?’

  I saw very clearly the photo of the key—the tubular shaft, the dragon and the six strangely shaped teeth. The clue to unlocking the boxes was the key. But which part of it?

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He chuckled again. ‘A great pity. Because you are going to open the boxes without the key.’

  He removed the walking-stick from my throat and leant on it. I took a few deep breaths. He walked the few steps to the table and with a flourish removed the red cloth from the square-shaped object.