“God forbid,” she said.
“My thoughts exactly. Harris may just have to use his own connections and keep away from here. He knows the rules. I’ll speak to him. He shouldn’t have bothered you.” Deliberately, he changed the topic of conversation. “You are looking pale.You need fresh air, a change of scene. I propose you accompany me to Senado Square this Sunday, sit in the sun, enjoy ourselves.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for a crowd.”
“I’ve been planning,” he said, beaming, like a boy savouring a treat. “We’ll take a guard. Don’t worry, he’ll be discreet. And, I’ve invited De Rey. He is most willing to help. The man likes you,” he teased. “And feels responsible.We should let him help.”
“You really think its safe?”
“Nothing will happen. I promise.”
IN the hot bright sun of Sunday morning, Albemarle, De Rey and Leah sat at a café table on Senado Square. The Chinese guard stood a little way off, making an effort to look inconspicuous, even as he swivelled his head, scanning the strollers, his fingers twitching against the holster of his gun bulging beneath his ill-fitting jacket. The churches had just emptied. Families were taking their usual promenade, smiling and talking amongst the elegant pastel buildings bordering the graceful wide colonial square. A portly middle-aged father watched with indulgent concern his teenage daughter flirt with a colleague’s grownup son.The young man had blue-black hair, good teeth and long lashes. The girl blushed under the handsome boy’s attention. De Rey exchanged a meaningful glance with Leah over the couple’s coy advances.
“They’re young,” said Leah wistfully, finishing her tiny cup of coffee.
“Are you so old?” asked De Rey, smiling.
“Perhaps.”
“Nonsense,” said Albemarle.
A murmur went up as people turned to stare as the Japanese car that drove by with its Rising Sun pennant and a Tommy gun bolted to the roof. Perched behind the gun was a uniformed Kempeitai, glaring at the happy crowd. The car halted on the far side of Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro.Nagotchi, the Japanese consul, got out. He was a small, neat man in a well-pressed dark suit. He looked straight ahead and kept his face a blank. Another man got out.
“That’s Sawa,” said De Rey. “And it was a beautiful day.”
Leah had never seen Sawa close up. He was taller than Nagotchi and held himself ramrod straight. He wore a dark green tropical uniform, with an open-collared white shirt beneath his jacket, but her eyes gravitated to his high black leather boots. Like the Gestapo, she thought. Pinned to his lapel was an Imperial chrysanthemum. He registered no emotion as pedestrians threw him covert looks and young women moved rapidly out of his line of sight.
As the two men walked to the square, the crowd parted. Albemarle turned his chair away. Leah saw Nagotchi blink at the deliberate snub.
De Rey whispered to Leah, “This must be Sawa’s informal day. He isn’t wearing his cavalry sword.”
Without the uniform and the military bearing, he might be mistaken for another round-faced Japanese businessman, only his eyes were harder and always on the move. She felt a twinge of fear and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
A small Chinese boy chased a runaway ball. It landed at Sawa’s boots. Sawa picked it up as the boy approached. Courteously, he made a show of returning it, then ruffled the child’s hair. The boy’s mother waited off to the side, not quite daring C187 to snatch her son away until Sawa passed. The child howled his displeasure. The mother swatted the boy lightly on the bottom; the child screeched louder. Sawa kept walking through the thinning crowd, the obsequious Nagotchi at his elbow.
De Rey shook his head at the pair. “I’ve had trouble with cockroaches. My landlord suggested using a mixture of borax, cornstarch, plaster of Paris and cocoa. You really should try it. Kills them dead.”
Albemarle nodded, looking into the middle distance. “Nasty things cockroaches. Very difficult to get rid of. I’ll keep it in mind should any turn up. Nagotchi and I used to be friends. I never thought . . . He gave generously when the first round of refugees flooded in . . .”He looked at Nagotchi’s retreating back. “Sawa put a stop to that,” he said.
“Now, they enjoy torturing the local population,” said De Rey softly to Leah.
“Surely not,” protested Albemarle. “This is Portuguese soil.”
Embarrassed, De Rey said helplessly, “They won’t report it. Even when they’re in hospital, they say nothing, or that it was a gambling debt. You can’t blame people for being afraid.” He looked at Leah for support, as if she too would understand the need for caution.
“You think I’m a coward, too,” she protested.
Albemarle soothed. “Of course, not. You were shot. It’s a natural reaction.”
De Rey looked uncomfortable. “Miss Kolbe,Leah, we have no leads in your shooting. People say they know nothing.Whoever was behind the attack on the consul’s car, now I think, doesn’t want to stir up more trouble. They don’t want Allied bombers or troops coming to Macau. They have their hands full with Hong Kong.”
“You think the Japs will leave us alone?” asked Albemarle.
“It depends on the war.No one can say for sure. It is all gossip and rumour and I’m only a poor policeman,” he apologised.
“It’s time I returned home, to my own little flat,” declared Leah.
“Unthinkable,” burst out Albemarle, red in the face, oblivious to De Rey’s naked interest.
“I have to go home sometime.” There she had said it. She was sick of cowering behind the frothy pink walls of the consulate. If she didn’t do it now, she knew that one night she would give into Stephen’s vulnerability and her own loneliness despite his bony ankles, after they both had too much good Portuguese wine. The repercussions of that would be messy and, yes, sordid. “My mind’s made up.”
“Tell her it’s too dangerous,” urged Albemarle.
“It’s true.What I said, it is all speculation. No one knows what might happen,” said De Rey.
“People have been killed in broad daylight. Look at what happened on Rua de Felicidade,” argued Leah.
“No one can control Chinese gangs,” De Rey retorted. “We are spread too thin and there are too many people.”
“Precisely my point,” said Leah, patting the police chief ’s hand in reassurance. “Anything can happen. And no one’s to blame. But I have to live my life.
“Another fortnight,” pleaded Albemarle. “When you get a clean bill of health.”
Leah caught De Rey’s private smile. He thinks it’s a lover’s tiff. Unfair. Here she was, doing the right thing, returning chastely home, and instead she saw in his eyes that he too believed she was the consul’s mistress. And what would Macau society think of her if it knew about Tokai? Why, they’d bell C189 her like leper. “All right,” conceded Leah in a level voice. “Two weeks.”
ALBEMARLE paid for the installation of expensive iron bars on her windows, a wrought iron security door and a grille. Spencer clucked when he saw the items listed under miscellaneous security improvements and Leah’s address. On his own initiative, he went there one afternoon, before Leah moved back, to gaze at the grillwork. The flat was sealed tight, the black wrought iron gleaming with new paint. He pulled on the bars and left his smudged prints behind.
When Leah returned, the flat had a terrible closed-up feel and the bird was dead. Ants had eaten it down to the carcass, poor thing. She cleaned up the mess and opened the windows, resenting the bars. She refused to be spooked by the bird’s death, convinced it was a good omen: she was finished with Chang. She had heard nothing from him since the shooting. She was a liability, too compromised by her association with Tokai, and Chang didn’t want to risk his own network. She spent a day cleaning and scrubbing away the stains of her former life and talking to the women on the Chinese screen who commiserated with her. Surprisingly, she found it easier to sleep in her own flat—no more listening to Stephen’s nightly moves and considering the inevitability
of allowing nature to take its course and share his bed.
Preoccupied with retaining their Pacific outposts and the large parts of China they had conquered, the number of Japanese officers on the streets dwindled. Those that were left swaggered less and kept to themselves. They continued to pay shopkeepers with their worthless and hated military script, but more did make an effort to pay. Everyone still hated them.
Leah’s day became work that stretched into evenings. Hunkered down, still recovering, she refused all engagements except when Stephen urged her to attend public functions with him. Always he sent his car and new driver to pick her up and deliver her home. The driver went armed.
She heard nothing from Tokai and was relieved. She rationalised the attempt to kill her as a warning. If she kept away from Tokai, she would be safe. She was determined never to see him again. After all, he might be dead or have returned to the safety of Tokyo to manage his munitions plants. But late at night, when she woke to listen to the rain or a tropical storm, she missed him and hated herself for missing him.
Back at work, she put up with Spencer’s cynical gaze and general nastiness. He insinuated that the consul had grown weary of her and kicked her out, and continually chipped away with barbs. He’d say, “‘The consul wants to see you, you lucky girl’” and smirk; or, “‘Brighten up, do this and you can meet with the consul over it.’” Always exceptionally gracious, she thanked Spencer for passing on Albemarle’s requests and watched him seethe under his pale white skin as a red angry flush crept up his neck onto his cheeks. It was a vicious game: the sweeter Leah’s reply, the more acerbic Spencer’s dig.
Albemarle caught them at it as he walked down the hall. “The consul hates purple. Mildred wore a lot of purple. You should change before your meeting with him at two. It will make him very unhappy and we wouldn’t want that, would we?” said Spencer.
“Spencer, how kind of you to notice. But I’m going to lunch with Stephen at the Military Club. And the dress is lavender and brings out the grey in my eyes . . . Brought your lunch?”
Curtly, Albemarle asked Leah and Spencer into his office. Spencer stood and gloated, expecting Leah to be dressed down. Instead, Albemarle said to them both, “I expect better.”
Now, Spencer went out of his way not to speak to her.He scribbled notes to pass on the consul’s comments and sat tightlipped when the three of them met or said, “If I may speak,” then looked pointedly at Leah as if asking permission. It was absurd in a three-person office. She was convinced she had seen Spencer lurking near her flat. She hoped he was visiting friends. Did he have friends? He lived far away, on the other side of city, close to the sea. Another time she recognised the back of his bald head as he hurried away in the early morning. He was spying on her, but for what? Evidence that Albe-marle slept in her bed? He would be very disappointed. She hoped he would give up soon. She considered telling Albe-marle, but if she told, her relations with Spencer would become truly impossible. Thwarted again, he might spread very nasty rumours. It would hurt Albemarle, who didn’t deserve it. She said nothing.
She was certain it wasn’t Spencer who had rifled her flat. He didn’t have the rat cunning. She checked the locks and bars. There seemed to be new scratches on several of the locks. Perhaps someone had made a copy of the key. Or maybe they had a skeleton key. As far as she could tell, nothing was taken, but she was dogged by a sense of unease. Again, it was something she let slide. She had lost a bit of resilience after being shot; she wasn’t capable of dealing with anything too disagreeable. It was so much easier to ignore it, like Macau and its uneasy peace with Japan.
One night, Vasiliev came to her door unannounced. “Barricaded yourself in, I see,” he said as he stared through the iron grille of the door.
“I am tired,” she said. “Go home.”
“Now, now,” he tutted. “You don’t want me yelling through the door about personal matters.”
She let him in. She could smell the alcohol on his breath.
In the light, his large nose was red, but his speech was unaffected. “I’ve missed you, Leah.”
“I’ve told you, the consul simply doesn’t have access to the funds you want. Besides things are changing rapidly in China.”
“It could save lives. And for the British to be seen helping the Chinese would help their case to rule Hong Kong.”
“What do you know?” she demanded. “Who have you been talking to?” But she already knew, Chang.
“It’s an open secret,” he said, cagey. “For a girl with your advantages, Leah, you haven’t used them well.” He stared at her body.
She was wearing a loose cotton shift. “Go to hell.”
“You shouldn’t have moved out. Intimacy is so important in delicate matters. In England, Albemarle isn’t a rich man, but here in Macau, he lives well and spends little.What is there to spend it on? Nothing much gets through because of the damn Japs.”
“He has a wife and family in England. That’s where his money goes.”
Vasiliev shook his head. “All the more reason you should convince him to use his own funds. He’d want to protect his family from accusations his mistress is a Japanese agent.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“It would stop his career, full stop.Wives are never that forgiving.”
“It’s blackmail and lies. You don’t give a damn about the Chinese.”
“Tell him, I need another ten thousand pounds. I’ve got the rest from other sources. He’ll find a way.”
“I won’t do it. I’ve never been his mistress.”
“I thought a nice letter enclosing a photograph would do the trick. The mail is a bit slow, but one can still send letters to England if you pay enough. The people above him are bound to find it interesting reading. I might telegraph the wife. Maybe I’d telegraph Whitehall too. Forget about the post. The wonders of modern communication.Not having the pictures would be a shame.”
“You are despicable.”
“I will give you a fortnight to change Albemarle’s mind. If he does, I’ll tell you how Theo died. Consider it an inducement.”
“Get out.”
“You know me,” he said, getting up, “I always keep my promises.”
He thinks he’s won. “Leave,” Leah said.
“See you soon,” he said. “Make sure you lock the door. There are thieves everywhere.” He pulled it closed with a heavy thud.
As soon as he left, Leah thought of all the things she should have said. This vile man was manipulating her, twisting her life to use it against her, promising things he would never deliver. She was livid; a slow burn in her gut worked its way up to her throat and she wanted to scream. If she had the derringer, she would have used it. It would have given her great satisfaction to see him lying on the floor dead.Well, he wouldn’t get away with it.
SHE knocked on Albemarle’s door. The servant let her in.He seated her on the uncomfortable green silk sofa and went to speak to Albemarle. Albemarle rushed downstairs in his dressing gown, combing a hand through his hair to tidy it. “Are you alright? What’s happened?” he said and opened his arms to embrace her, his eyes wide with alarm.
She took his hand and kept hold of it as if he were the one who needed comfort. His hand was soft, and fine grey hairs sprouted from his knuckles. “Harris is trying to blackmail us.”
Albemarle’s eyebrows shot up. “The bastard,” he sputtered.
“He wants ten thousand pounds. He’s threatening to send letters to Whitehall and your wife.He’s also threatening to reveal something about me.” She hesitated. “It’s private. I will tell you if you ask, but I would prefer not to.” She could feel her emotions welling up inside, ready to explode. “Harris is not Harris. He’s Russian. His real name is Vasiliev.We must stop this man.”
“Do you have proof?”
She let go of his hand. “No.”
“Do you believe he helped the Chinese Resistance?”
“There is no way of knowing. Whatever he was doing in Chin
a, he was also making a tidy profit for himself. I’m sure he’s doing black market deals.”
“He could be arrested. It’s a criminal offence.”
“I have no proof.”
Albemarle got up and started poking around in the liquor cabinet. “Whisky.We need whisky.” He poured two large shots. She slugged it down as he toyed with his, sunk in thought.
“I still have my gun,” he mused. “I could say I caught him stealing it and tried to take it away from him. And it went off.”
Leah gave a sad smile at the preposterous plan. “There would be a scandal and questions about why the British consul required a gun. Your career would be ruined. Or, Vasiliev might have a gun. He’d have no qualms about using it.”
“I could retire.”
“Spencer would be the next in line.”They laughed with gallows humour and drank more whisky.
“De Rey is a good chap. He could arrest Harris on a trumped up charge. Black marketeering or some such. As his consul, I could ask that he be released into my custody. Portuguese justice takes a long time. He wouldn’t dare blackmail us if the threat of a Portuguese jail hung over him. It is a filthy place. There are no custard tarts there.”
“Do you think De Rey would do it?”
“The man feels he has a debt to me. Two unsolved crimes and then he relishes his man of the world image. It only has to look official.”
“It must look very real. Vasiliev—Harris—has a lot of friends. They flock to his parties.”
“No one in the public eye wants to be connected with a scoundrel, even in Macau.”
“Please don’t tell De Rey I asked you to do this.”
“I won’t use your name at all, except that I have to protect both our reputations,” he said, struggling to disguise his embarrassment. “I’ll tell De Rey that Harris threatened to blackmail me. You know nothing about it. There is so much black mar-keteering here that I’m sure De Rey and I together can cook up a good story. Harris, or what’s his name,Vasiliev, will never know who exposed him. He’ll blame one of the low lifes. You’ll see.”
Deep Night Page 17