by John Creasey
“We shall look after them, there is nothing to worry about,” one man said confidently.
Limm and Doreen also stretched their legs. They kept close together, as young lovers mighNo one met him at Beirut.
Immediately after dinner they flew into a moonless sky in which the stars seemed to scatter themselves about the aircraft. Roger slept, dreamlessly. He stayed in his seat at Bahrain and slept again to Delhi. As he stepped out of the aircraft there into a cool early morning with the dawn glowing faintly beyond the horizon, a Sikh in western clothes but wearing a huge turban, came forward, teeth dazzling white against his great black beard.
“Roger, my good friend!”
“Ram Singh!” Roger’s heart leapt. Only six months ago this Indian detective had stayed for a month in London, spending much time with Roger both at the Yard and at home.
“It is wicked for you to have so little time, I cannot even arrange a rope-trick for you! I have a message, though, from your office.”
Roger’s heart lurched.
“Is it good news or bad?”
“It is to tell you that a Mr Samuel Hackett—Hackett is right, yes?—has been located in France. He appears to be in excellent health. Also,” went on Ram Singh, “a message from Sydney, Australia, comes from Superintendent Shaw. I met him when he flew through Delhi three years ago. He says you cannot arrive at Sydney soon enough for him. He has been informed about the warning from a man named Smith. He says also that he takes the case very seriously indeed.”
The big Sikh was no longer smiling; it was as if he were touched by anxiety just as much as Roger. As they stood there, Ben Limm and Doreen came out of the other exit of the aircraft. The girl looked very tired, and even Limm’s vitality seemed to have wilted.
Roger waved, the others waved back, the Sikh said, “Obviously you take it very seriously, too.”
14
Hong Kong Welcome
“The Captain’s compliments, Mr West, and would you like to go up front with him as we approach Hong Kong?” The second officer, a tall, amiable-looking young man with a broken nose, bent over Roger. “We’ll be there in twenty-five minutes.”
“I’d like to very much,” Roger said.
Several of the passengers who had come all the way from London watched, but no longer with any sign of envy; everyone now knew who he was, and the familiar, often welcome but sometimes exasperating sense of awe of a senior policeman showed clearly. He went through the lounge, where three men and one middle-aged woman dressed like a teenager were drinking, then stepped on to the flight deck. There was more noise, some vibration, and an appearance of high organisation and efficiency. Ahead was the instrument panel, so big and complicated that it seemed to need a man with a robot mind to understand it.
The second pilot’s seat was empty. The Captain turned, beckoned, leaned across, and shook hands as Roger settled into the seat.
“Sorry we haven’t had a chance to meet before, Superintendent.”
“I’m glad of it now,” Roger said.
“Proud to have you with us.”
Roger murmured a disclaimer.
“I’m just a policeman.”
The Captain smiled.
“I’ve heard you called other things.” He turned away. “How about that, sir? Red China and Hong Kong, looking thick as thieves.”
Ahead was a mass of land beyond a sea which was as blue as the Mediterranean. The great rocks of Hong Kong and the surrounding islands looked like huge diamonds as they glistened in the sun. The water was dotted with small craft and large; liners, cargo boats, sampans, countless junks with dark-brown sails. As they drew nearer, Roger could pick out spots he had often seen in pictures but never in real life.
“We fly low over Victoria, the city on Hong Kong Island,” the Captain said. “Famous for its shanty towns and the homes in the rocks, or William Holden and Suzie Wong, whichever you prefer. Over there is Kowloon, you see where the long isthmus strikes out – there’s a plane taking off.”
Roger said, “I see it. It’s surpassed all my expectations already.”
“First time?”
“Yes.”
“Just sit back and take it in,” said the Captain. “I won’t spoil it with chatter. If you want to know anything—”
“Those white boats – I can see four or five of them,” Roger said.
“Ferries from Hong Kong to Kowloon.”
“Oh.”
“Wonderful organisation, and always has been.” After a few moments’ silence while Roger marvelled, the Captain asked, “Spending any time here?”
“Just a few hours. Do you fly the plane on to Darwin and Sydney?”
“Not this one. I may do tomorrow’s flight, I don’t know who it will be today, I’m afraid. If you can spare any of your couple of hours to look around the place, jump at the chance. I go round every month or so and still don’t believe it. See you before I go off, sir.”
“Good,” Roger said. “Thanks.”
He was about to get up, and the island seemed very close, crowded with houses and people, when he saw a ship with a white funnel and a blue flag on it. The sight of it was like a physical blow. Both Captain and second pilot looked at him curiously. As he went back to his seat, he no longer saw the islands and the water as places of grandeur, but as the place where the Kookaburra had called only a week or ten days earlier, where nearly all the Blue Flag Line ships called. At his window he looked out, trying to spot the ship again.
There it was, by itself at a quay which jutted out from the mainland. Near it was a railway.
“Fasten your belts, please,” came over the loudspeaker.
The water seemed to be coming up to engulf them until suddenly they bumped, bounced, then ran along the tarmac with the blue waters stretching out on either side. The stewardess came up to Roger.
“There’s a messenger waiting for you, Mr West. Hope you enjoy the rest of the trip.”
“I will if it’s like this one.” Roger shook hands.
He was the first out into the gilded sunlight of the late afternoon. At the foot of the steps, even before they were pushed properly into position, was a tall, smiling man – Luke Shaw of the Sydney CIB with another tall, leaner man – Fred Hodges of the Hong Kong police.
They gripped hands, equally pleased to see one another, and moved off together towards a police car, until Roger said suddenly, “You two will have my stripes. Limm and Doreen Morrison are on board, I don’t want them to wander off on their own.”
“I’ve three men here who’ve studied their photographs,” Hodges said comfortingly. “Can’t you slacken off even for an hour?”
“If I get the chance.”
“I’ve told Luke that you can forget the Kookaburra while you’re here,” said Hodges. “He can brief you on the way to Sydney – he’s learned all there is to see here.”
“Don’t tell Handsome West that,” protested Shaw. “He’ll want to check for himself.”
They were getting into the car.
“I arrived yesterday, Handsome, to check all I could with the agents of the Blue Flag Line here. It’s the second most important office. The head office is in Sydney, but you knew that.”
“Didn’t stop him from doing the Hong Kong Island trip – and the night clubs. What an appetite for legs these Aussies have.” Hodges laughed heartily. “We can fit in—”
He stopped abruptly, looking across the airfield, snapped, “Swing round, Ling,” to the Chinese chauffeur, and added almost in the same breath, “I’ve just seen the nastiest piece of work in Kowloon, proper artist with a knife.”
To the chauffeur he barked, “That cyclist – catch him.”
The cyclist was a hundred yards away, near the airport buildings. Two cars and a fire-truck were in the way of the police car. Roger felt a d
esperate desire to get out and run towards the passengers now moving from the airport building towards coaches marked ‘Special Tours.’ The cyclist was nearer those than the police car when Ben Limm and Doreen appeared.
“Honk your horn!” roared Hodges.
The driver swung round the last car, hand on horn, blaring. All the passengers and officials started, looked round and stared. The cyclist was heading straight for Limm and Doreen. Roger felt a thousand miles away, and utterly helpless.
Limm sprang in front of the girl as the cyclist drew up. Even from this distance, Roger saw a flash, as of steel. Then two men near Limm and the girl flung themselves at the cyclist. There was a fierce, vicious struggle, a human dogfight. One man backed away, blood streaming from a nasty cut in his left hand. As the car pulled up, the cyclist went down with a thud, his head banged on the hard ground, and the knife clattered from his hand.
Hodges was breathing hard.
“I told you we’d look after her,” he said.
Doreen Morrison was huddled against Limm, her head on his chest. His long arms were about her, protectingly. He was staring down at the assailant and the bloodstained knife, horror reflected in his eyes.
Roger found himself speaking.
“Who did he come for, Limm? You or Doreen?”
Limm didn’t speak.
“He went for the girl, no doubt about that,” said the policeman. “If he’d wanted the man he could have got him with a single throw.”
“The man saved her,” another policeman chimed in.
“That made him pretty quick,” Hodges remarked.
“Almost as if he knew what was coming.” Luke Shaw was looking so intently at Limm that Limm turned his head and stared at him, without moving his arms from the girl. “That’s Benjamin Limm, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” answered Roger.
“If he knew what was going to happen, why should he save her life?” asked Hodges.
“We need to know a lot more about Ben Limm,” said Shaw heavily. “You weren’t slow on the uptake, Fred. Say you know the Chinaman?”
“Yes, I know Wu Hong,” Hodges said. He watched as the assailant was pulled to his feet and handcuffed. He raised his voice, “Take him to my office, I’ll be along.”
To Roger and Shaw he continued, “He’s Wu Hong, once one of the trouble-shooters for a big tong, until it went respectable. He’s what they call an artist with a knife – he can hit a moving target at thirty yards and a motionless one at fifty. He had to come close to avoid the people round her. Otherwise she’d be dead. Let’s get going.”
“I’ll have a word with Ben Limm, and make sure the girl’s guarded, Fred,” Roger said to Hodges. He moved across as the girl eased herself from the big Australian. Her eyes looked huge and her face so white she looked as if she would faint. “Is she all right?”
“Just about,” Limm grunted.
“Thanks to you,” Roger said.
“I did the only thing.”
“How well do you know Wu Hong?”
Limm’s eyes narrowed as if in surprise.
“Who?”
“The attacker.”
“What the hell are you trying to say?” Limm demanded angrily. “I saw him take his knife out – I’d been watching for anything suspicious. You told me she would be in danger, didn’t you?”
“I warned you,” Roger said. “From now on she will be under close police protection – while here in Hong Kong, on the aircraft, and in Sydney.”
“Who’s objecting?” Limm was more his truculent than his angry self now.
Doreen must have understood every word, but she showed no sign. She reminded Roger vividly of the way she had looked in the room at Notting Hill, when she had been so near death. Looking at her he felt he could almost feel something of her anguish. Soon, questions so obvious that they were easy to overlook, came to his mind.
Why should anyone be so determined to kill her? Surely she must know the answer to that at least.
And why was Limm never attacked?
Roger went back to the car and got in. The chauffeur closed the door on him and hurried to the wheel. Hodges, in front, was turning round and talking to Shaw.
As the car moved off, Hodges said, “We can take care of this, Handsome. No need for you to miss your sightseeing.”
“The only sight I want to see is Fred’s office, and Wu Hong’s face when he starts talking,” Roger said.
15
Wu Hong
It was easy to have preconceived notions about people, dangerously easy to generalise. The Chinese were said so often to be inscrutable. Wu Hong was a little, wizened man with skin like old parchment, eyes bloodshot, hands full of dark-blue veins. He wore a faded blue denim shirt and khaki trousers so often washed that they seemed no colour at all. In his nervousness he smiled widely at the policemen, showing gaps in his yellow teeth.
“He’s full to the neck with opium,” Hodges said. “Lives on the damned stuff.”
He stood up from his big desk as Wu Hong came slowly in. He didn’t speak to the Chinaman for a long time, just stared at him. The smile became a grin, the eyes puckered, the almost colourless lips quivered.
Hodges spoke suddenly, softly, in Chinese. His manner was almost friendly. Wu Hong answered in a spate of words, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. Hodges interrupted, there was a sharp exchange, and then the Chinaman averted his eyes.
Hodges said in English, “Marcus Barring hired him for the job.”
“Marcus Barring,” ejaculated Shaw. “Did he come through here?”
“Yes – so Wu Hong says. Five days ago.”
“But he couldn’t have know then that Doreen Morrison was coming this way or on this plane,” objected Roger sharply.
“He said she would probably be coming through, and Wu Hong was to watch each aircraft for the girl. Barring showed him a photograph of her, so that he could recognise her.”
“But this plane,” Shaw said sceptically.
“Don’t make a mystery of it,” Hodges protested. “Wu Hong knows a dozen people who work at the airport. There aren’t so many aircraft flying in here, all he had to do was be nearby so that he could pick up a message from anyone on the airport staff who knew when the planes were due. Ten minutes’ notice was all he needed, on his bike. We’ll start inquiries to try to find out who tipped him off, but it won’t be easy.”
“I’d like a go at him now,” Luke Shaw said firmly.
Hodges grinned.
“You’d be welcome – he’d have the time of his life lying to you in Pidgin English.”
“Fred,” Roger said, “how much did Barring pay him?”
“Two hundred Hong Kong dollars. Say twelve pounds ten.”
“To kill?”
“Life’s cheap here,” Hodges said drily. “Too cheap.”
“Has he worked for Barring before?”
“I’ll try him with that one,” Hodges said.
“Try him by saying you know he killed Neil Sanderson, of the Kookaburra,” Roger suggested.
“Don’t get me wrong, but it might take weeks to get a full story out of this man,” Hodges said. “We’re damned lucky he named Marcus Barring so early. He probably knows Barring is on the run already. He can’t deny the attack on the Morrison girl, but he can deny knowing anything about the murder of Sanderson. I might be able to break him down but I’d have to use all the tricks the Chinese know, and it can’t be done in a hurry.”
When Hodges stopped, Roger said briefly, “Sorry I spoke.”
“I mean it, Handsome. No offence intended.”
Roger grinned. “Don’t be an idiot, of course there wasn’t.”
“Tell you what,” put in Luke Shaw, who never liked to keep silent for long, “now you’ve got a start, Fred, keep
at Wu Hong and his tong friends, and give the Blue Flag Line all you’ve got. We’ll keep in touch by radio telephone if needs be.”
“Fair enough,” agreed Hodges. He nodded to the men who were guarding the Chinaman. “Take him away. Don’t let him get near any stuff, he might crack sooner than we expect if he has to go without it.”
“Stuff?” echoed Shaw.
“Opium.”
“You talk as if it were as easy to get as aspirin.”
“That’s how they can get the crude stuff out here,” Hodges said. “We have all our work cut out to stop them refining it and exporting it to the USA. Next time you’re this way remind us to tell you all about the opium business.” He grinned as he looked at his watch. “We could delay that aircraft, Handsome.”
“Let’s get off on time,” Roger urged. “The quicker we’re in Australia the better.”
“You’re learning.” Shaw grinned.
“Come back with your wife another time, I’ll lay everything on,” Hodges said earnestly. “Damned sorry you couldn’t look around this time. But you’ve one treat in store. Hong Kong by night from the air is fantastic.”
Roger leaned against his window and stared at the stars below him; or lights which looked like stars of a hundred different colours. Lights glimmered and shimmered from ships and ferries and reflected in the water. Lights blazed from the city of Kowloon. Lights of cars streaked about the mainland and curved about the steep roads of the island like shooting stars seen in a mirror. For the first time since the attack on Doreen, Roger forgot the case.
For the first time since then, too, Doreen relaxed. She stared down at the fairyland, enthralled, and said in a low-pitched voice, “Isn’t it wonderful, Ben?”
“Wonderful,” Limm echoed huskily.
As they gained height, she leaned against him. His right arm slid round her waist, and was still. She looked up into his eyes, without speaking. He raised his hand, very slowly, to the gentle swell of her breast, and she smiled, and nestled closer.