Louise had acknowledged the congratulations with a show of unaffected pleasure. It warmed her that the operation had gone so well, that the material Ellis had brought back from Singapore had meshed so nicely with the script she’d prepared for the Sentinel. Just sometimes, she confessed to her colleagues, the media had its uses.
Now, in the outskirts of Carshalton, she leaned forward, switched on the overhead light and read out directions to Ellis’s house. The MI5 driver had relatives in the area and he picked his way through leafy avenues of semis until the big car slowed to a halt and Louise recognized the sagging front gate that guarded the path to Ellis’s door.
He took an age to answer the bell. When he opened the door, he was wearing a dressing gown over a pair of striped pyjamas. He smiled awkwardly at Louise, apologizing at once. He’d been trying to ring her. He had a touch of flu. It had been in the offing for days.
Louise beamed at him. She had a driver. They’d be snug in the back of the car. Portsmouth was barely an hour and a half away. Ellis began to protest but she reached forward, a comforting hand on his arm. While he got dressed, she’d see to a couple of hot-water bottles. Did he have a Thermos? Should she make cocoa?
Ellis was staring at her. She’d never heard him stammer before.
‘What are you telling me?’ he said. ‘What are you saying?’
Louise stepped into the house, encouraging him towards the stairs. He wasn’t to worry about the rumoured redundancies at the DTI. She’d been with Jephson only that afternoon and scope for recruitment at MI5 was a good deal more ample than she’d been led to believe.
The Seaspray Hotel lay in the middle of a scruffy Victorian terrace, overlooking South Parade pier. A neon sign in the ground-floor window advertised single rooms for £16 per night, and something large had made a jagged hole in the plastic canopy shadowing the open front door.
Barnaby met Charlie in the front hall. He was trying to charm a fat, belligerent woman in a pink apron. The bar, she said, was for residents only. Was he intending to book in?
Charlie produced a twenty-pound note from his wallet, ignoring her invitation to sign the register. Zhu and his guest were in the lounge. In theory, the bar should now be open.
Barnaby was frowning. ‘Guest?’
Charlie rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. He’d managed to intercept Zhu half a mile short of the Imperial. Sitting beside him in the back of the Daimler was an oriental vision. He hadn’t caught her name but she was clearly unimpressed by the Seaspray. Circumstances hadn’t given Charlie much choice. This was one place the media would never dream of looking for Zhu.
Charlie took Barnaby by the elbow and steered him into the lounge. Zhu was sitting on a sofa covered in threadbare Dralon. There was a semi-circle of cigarette burns in the carpet at his feet, and from somewhere close came the smell of old cooking oil. Zhu was reading a copy of the Sentinel’s midday edition. When Barnaby and Charlie came in, he stood up at once, extending a small, formal bow. As ever, his expression gave nothing away.
Barnaby was staring at the woman at the other end of the sofa. The dramatic fall of jet-black hair was even longer than he remembered but the challenging smile and the tall, slender figure were unmistakable. Flora Li. The woman from the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs. His guide around Changi prison.
She got to her feet, smoothing the creases on her trouser suit. Charlie watched Barnaby kiss her on both cheeks.
‘Something else you never told me?’ he enquired.
They all sat down, Charlie folding himself into a plastic-covered armchair beneath the window. Zhu carefully folded the copy of the Sentinel and put it on the carpet beside his feet. Flora, it was quickly obvious, had already been through it.
‘What’s been happening?’ she asked Barnaby. ‘Why so much trouble?’
Barnaby looked at Zhu, trying to work out what lay behind the question. Was this really such a great surprise? Was Zhu really this ignorant? He explained the basis for the Sentinel’s attack on Pompey First: that the party had been funded by Zhu, that he’d built up shareholdings in major British utilities, that Pompey First was merely a stepping-stone to some kind of full-blown independence, a raft for tens of thousands of exiled Hong Kong Chinese. He got to the end of his exposition and apologized for his frankness, aware of Flora’s steady gaze.
Zhu began to go through the Sentinel’s list of accusations. He had the air of a man with limitless patience and limitless time. Of course they were right to say that he’d helped Pompey First. He’d been pleased to do so. He agreed with people taking charge of their own lives. It was his democratic right to offer financial support.
‘And the other business? Electricity? Water?’ This was territory Barnaby had never entered before. ‘You’ve bought into these shares? Heavily?’
‘Of course,’ Zhu replied. ‘Your government makes it so attractive. I’m a businessman. Why not?’
‘But you did it for gain? For profit? Not because … you had some other motive?’
Zhu leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, giving the proposition some thought. At length, he looked up.
‘Your friend with the newspaper, Mr Wilcox. The man we met on Saturday?’
‘Yes?’
‘He’s crazy.’ Zhu lifted the copy of the Sentinel, then let it fall to the carpet again. ‘Of course I invest. Wherever I go, I invest. Without seed, there’s no corn. Without investment, there’s no growth, no future. But investment isn’t the same as ownership. I don’t need to own your city. I just need to make money here. And profits can be good. For everyone.’
‘I know. That’s what we’ve been saying for months. Investing in people. Investing in jobs.’
‘Of course.’ Zhu spread his hands wide. ‘And I’m happy to help. Is that such a bad thing to do?’
‘Not at all.’ Barnaby glanced at Charlie. ‘Not in our book.’
‘So why all this?’ Zhu pushed the paper with the toe of his shoe. ‘You remember what happened when we opened the hotel? The trouble outside? This is no better. This is exactly the same. Your people don’t want us here. We’re not stupid. We’re not blind. We understand what you’re saying. And believe me, my friend, there are plenty of other places in the world we can go.’ He sat back, nodding. ‘I was born in Shanghai, Mr Barnaby. When the Communists came, I had to flee. My brother and I, we had nothing, just a single bracelet, my mother’s bracelet. We ran like everyone else. And you know where we went? Hong Kong. An experience like that teaches you a great deal. Nowhere in the world is home. Nowhere. The only thing that matters is kiasu. You remember kiasu?’
Barnaby had heard the word in Singapore, during the conversation over dinner that first night. He stole a glance at Flora. She was studying her fingernails.
‘Winning,’ she said quietly. ‘It means winning.’
‘Kiasu,’ Zhu confirmed. ‘So maybe that’s a lesson for you English. Maybe you should run a little harder. Maybe you should know what it’s like to be chased, to be homeless. My brother and I, we made our money in Hong Kong. That’s where we ran. And now we run from there, too. Not that it matters, not that it means we won’t survive.’
Barnaby extended a calming hand. He’d never seen Zhu like this, so angry, so upset.
‘It’s not our people,’ he said. ‘Our people are happy to have you. You bring work. You bring money. You get things done. It’s not us, not our people.’
‘Who, then? Who is it?’
Barnaby leaned back, helpless. It was a question to which he didn’t have an answer. Not if Zhu was as honourable as he claimed. Not if his civic interests extended no further than Pompey First. He glanced across at Charlie. The Sentinel’s brand of flag-waving was dangerously close to racism. The least they owed Zhu was an apology.
‘If we win tomorrow,’ Charlie said quietly, ‘you’ll stay?’
‘Of course.’ Zhu nodded. ‘But you won’t win, Mr Epple. Not after this.’
There was a long silence. The landlady appeared behind the bar and
switched on the row of fairy lights above the optics. On the wall behind the bar was a framed photograph of a warship at anchor in a foreign port. The white ensign hung limply at the battleship’s stern. Matelots in white shorts stood at the rail. Ricksaws lined the quayside.
Zhu was also looking at the photograph. He cleared his throat. There was a smile back on his face. He leaned forward, touching Barnaby lightly on the knee.
‘Flora flew over for tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We had news to break.’
‘What news?’
‘We wanted to start a factory. A big factory. Many jobs. Here in Portsmouth.’
‘Making what?’
‘Police equipment. Riot shields. Helmets. Radios. Batons.’ He glanced fondly at Flora. ‘She’s been looking forward to it. A new start.’
Barnaby looked at Flora, confused now. ‘But I thought you worked for the Singapore government?’
‘I do.’ She corrected herself, ‘I did. But my father prefers now that I work for him. Perhaps here. Perhaps…’ she shrugged, looking round, ‘wherever.’
Barnaby was staring at her. ‘Your father?’
‘Yes.’ She reached across, squeezing Zhu’s hand. ‘Didn’t he ever tell you?’
Mike Tully sat in a corner of the lobby at the Imperial Hotel, still uncertain, reading the Sentinel’s late edition for the third time. Since noon, the front page had been radically altered. Over a huge photo of Charlie Epple, the new headline read, THE PARTY’S OVER! Tully peered at the photo. Epple was standing behind a table. His shirt was tieless and his jacket hung loosely from his shoulders. His head was back, and he was grinning at the camera, his middle finger raised in a derisive salute. If a single image could stop Pompey First in its tracks, Tully thought, then this was surely it.
He opened the paper again, returning to the other photograph, the big blow-up that had brought him to the hotel. Liz Barnaby was pictured leaving a travel agency in Southsea’s shopping precinct. She was wearing a long white trenchcoat and she looked harassed. The accompanying story outlined her alleged involvement in a drugs conspiracy. The police might forward evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service, and that – in turn – might result in charges against her. Three times, over the two-column report, Liz was flagged as the wife of Pompey First’s founding father and the piece ended with dark hints of a possible Triad involvement, a slur that clearly extended as far as Zhu. Hong Kong was awash with hard drugs. Zhu was big in transportation. His container ships called weekly at nearby Southampton. Need the Sentinel say more?
Tully shook his head. As far as he knew, this was pure invention on Wilcox’s part and simply added to Tully’s growing unease at what he seemed to have triggered. He was no closer to trusting either Barnaby or Charlie Epple. On purpose or otherwise, they’d put some major question marks against a lot of what Tully himself held dear. But the treatment they were now getting at the hands of the Sentinel was rough to the point of brutality, and he had no taste for the kind of baseless innuendo that seemed to pass for tabloid journalism. Finding Liz on the inside pages, clearly identified, was the last straw. Wilcox had made a promise. And now he’d broken it.
Tully became aware of two figures pushing in through the revolving door. One of them was a woman. She was well past middle age. She had a soft, round face, and her eyes were bright behind a pair of enormous glasses. Her hair was greying, gathered into a bun, and she walked with a slight roll. Behind her, carrying a small suitcase, came the man Tully had talked to only a couple of days back. Ellis, he thought. Whitehall’s bagman.
The two of them were standing by the reception desk. The woman was checking a prior booking. Tully heard her mention the Raffles suite, and he watched while the receptionist handed over a key and what looked like a set of faxes. The woman lingered a moment, reading the faxes, her other hand reaching for Ellis. Ellis had spotted a pile of Sentinels on the reception desk and was deep in the front page. If he’d been tasked to shaft Pompey First, Tully thought, it doesn’t seem to have brought him much pleasure.
The woman looked at her watch, then linked arms with Ellis and tugged him towards the stairs. Half-way across the lobby, she stopped and turned round. She wanted to know about the Guildhall. Was it far? Was it walkable? The receptionist recommended a taxi and the woman agreed. She’d need one at seven, she said. They had to be there by quarter past. She checked her watch a second time, permitting herself a girlish laugh. Ellis had freed himself and was consulting the dinner menu outside the restaurant. When the woman joined him, they had a brief, whispered conversation. Then, with the greatest reluctance, Ellis picked up the suitcase and headed once again for the stairs.
Tully remained in the lobby for nearly half an hour. Twice he asked for Hayden Barnaby, and both times the receptionist said he was expected in time. When he finally arrived, hurrying across the forecourt to escape a brief flurry of rain, Tully met him at the door.
The two men eyed each other. In the one conversation they’d had since Barnaby left Liz, Tully had made no secret of his feelings. She was a good woman. It was a great shame.
Tully folded his copy of the Sentinel and pushed it deep into the pocket of his raincoat. ‘Your do at the Guildhall still on?’
‘Of course. Why not?’
‘What time does it start?’
‘Half seven.’
‘OK,’ Tully said. ‘Then maybe we ought to talk.’
Epilogue
‘Southsea … a residential suburb of terraces with a half-hearted resort strewn along its shingle beach, where a mass of B&Bs face stoic naval monuments and tawdry seaside amusements.’
England, the Rough Guide, 1996
It was nearly six by the time Jessie made it to Tokar Street. Number 89 was at the eastern end, a narrow-fronted terrace house beneath the shadow of the Royal Marine barracks. She paused outside. The curtains in the windows were pulled tight but she could hear wild laughter and the thump of heavy rock music inside. At length, she tapped on the door.
Within seconds it opened. An enormous man stared down at her. He had a can of Tennant’s in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. Braces over his collarless shirt supported a pair of skintight jeans and his head had been shaved to make way for an elaborate Union Jack tattoo. A grubby plaster cast encased one forearm, and amongst the scribbled messages Jessie recognized Haagen’s signature.
The phone began to trill. He put it to his ear, still looking down at Jessie. ‘Yeah. OK.’
He thumbed a button, ending the conversation. Jessie introduced herself. She’d come with a message. For Monty.
‘That’s me.’
‘Haagen says to make sure it’s on.’
Monty permitted himself the beginnings of a smile. Most of his teeth were missing. He offered Jessie the can of Tennant’s. When she shook her head, he shrugged. ‘Tell Haagen it ain’t a problem. It’s done, sorted. Tell him we’re ready for the off.’ He jerked a thumb behind him. ‘OK?’
Jessie nodded. Beyond Monty, in the narrow hall, other bodies had appeared. More tattoos. More flags. Sullen faces. Dead eyes. Jessie wanted to go. She’d had enough. She wanted to be back home. With Lolly. With her mum. With anyone but these nightmare people.
Monty caught her arm. She froze.
‘What’s he think he’s up to, then? That old man of yours? All this Pompey First crap?’
Jessie looked up at him. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘And that’s the truth.’
Faced with open rebellion amongst the Pompey First candidates, Barnaby had no choice. He’d locked himself away with them in a dressing room behind the Guildhall stage but forty minutes’ heated argument hadn’t altered anything. The huge majority of candidates felt compromised and betrayed. The last thing they intended to share was a public platform with Charlie Epple and Hayden Barnaby. The Sentinel had been right. The party was, indeed, over.
Barnaby glanced at his watch. The last he’d seen of Charlie was back at the hotel. He’d caught the gist of Mike Tully’s story, something about an MI5 i
nvolvement, but frankly he’d had neither the time nor the energy to give it the attention it deserved. A phone call from the Panorama office had dragged him away and he’d ended a fierce debate about the case the Sentinel was trying to make by putting the phone down. There was no hidden agenda. There were no plans to swamp Pompey with Hong Kong Chinese. The allegations were offensive and absurd.
Now, looking dazedly at the men and women around him, he heard a knock at the door. Charlie was standing outside in the corridor. He was wearing leather trousers and a black shirt studded with fake diamonds. His left ear sported a big gold ring, and his hand-tooled boots were blocked with one-inch heels. He looked, Barnaby thought, like a refugee from a sixties rock band.
Kate was standing beside him and stepped back as the room began to empty. Charlie watched the candidates flooding away towards the fire exits. ‘Off home, then?’ he shouted. ‘Early night?’
He turned back, not waiting for an answer. The Guildhall was filling nicely, he said. The Sentinel had nearly doubled the media attendance and there was a good turnout from the far right. A lot of them, it seemed, had turned up in England football shirts, eager to rehearse for the coming European championships. With luck, amongst these lunatics, the occasion might also have attracted one or two locals who fencied working things out for themselves. In this respect, Charlie promised, he’d be only too happy to oblige.
The remark drew a warm smile from Kate. She hadn’t attended the meeting in the dressing room but now she seemed as bullish as Charlie about the course of the next couple of hours.
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