“Join us, will you mate?” Stump said.
Scrimple ambled over to the table. It was still early so the pub wasn’t that busy yet. There were hardly any girls and it was mostly Western men with the occasional group of Chinese drinkers, red in the face and prone to noisy exchanges once they’d had a few.
“You know Gwailo Pete and Bill Jedburgh?” Stump said, pulling back his stool. Scrimple nodded and shook both of the men’s hands. He knew Jedburgh from years back and although he’d seen Gwailo Pete around he’d never talked to him. The guy looked Chinese but apparently he was through and through Brit. Even his father had been born in England and although he could understand spoken Cantonese he had more problems dealing with the local mentality than his Caucasian mates. That’s where his nickname came from.
“I’m just getting another round in,” Gwailo Pete said with a strong Birmingham lilt to his voice. “Same again?”
They all nodded. The Chinese inspector went up to the bar.
“How are you, Bill? Back in town for a bit of business?” Scrimple asked the other man.
Jedburgh was a tough-looking bloke with stony, grey eyes and broad shoulders. He’d joined the RHKP around the same time as Scrimple and moved on from Uniform Branch quickly into VIP protection and the Special Duties Squad which did anti-terrorist work. Then he’d resigned and apparently now worked as a Security Consultant for some Singapore-based entrepreneur. He popped up every once in a while in Hong Kong and rarely talked about his job which involved much travelling around the region. He lived partially in Thailand and partially in Singapore and was known to be a close friend of Julian McAlistair, another copper who’d retired after three contracts and married a rich Thai businesswoman and was now taking it easy, supervising the maids and gardeners while his wife went off to work.
“Got a couple of things to sort out with one of our affiliates here. Lax computer security,” Jedburgh said, downing the last of his beer in time for Gwailo Pete to deliver the next.
“Still living in Bangkok?”
“Rayong, not too far from Pattaya,” Jedburgh corrected Scrimple.
“Oh, yeah. Haven’t been to Pattaya for ages. Still sleazy and horrible and brilliant, is it?”
“Worse than ever. We go up once in a while for a night out. Marine Disco doesn’t get going until three in the morning and then you move on to Marine Two at six or seven.”
“Might have to come and check it out.”
“Where’s that then?” Gwailo Pete asked.
“Pattaya.”
“Not a patch on Angeles.”
“That’s real bandit country. Lawless, these days, so I’ve heard,” said Stump.
“It’s pretty bad,” Jedburgh agreed. “People get shot for ten thousand pesos and if you need a hitman the local police are only too happy to oblige for a bit of beer money.”
“Is it that bad in Pattaya?” Scrimple wanted to know.
“Not really. Since the Germans were driven out, it’s now the Russians and the Thais who run the place. And they are pretty sensible. I’m about an hour further down south from there.”
“See much of McAlistair?” Scrimple asked.
“If I’m in town we’ll usually hit the gym together but these days I’ve been travelling constantly. After this job in Hong Kong I’m planning to take two weeks off. I’m just going to lie on my beach and listen to the sea.”
Jedburgh stared at Scrimple as if he knew what had been going on lately with the ICAC, Harriet and Freda. Then he continued, “You’re welcome to come down and stay with me for a few days if things are getting a bit too boring. Hong Kong’s not what it used to be.”
Scrimple thanked him, commenting that it sounded like a good idea and Jedburgh pulled a business card from his wallet. It had a list of phone numbers and an email address on it.
“Where’re you at, Gwailo Pete?” Scrimple turned to the Chinese fellow with the Brummie accent.
“Regional Crime Kowloon, one year already and it’s a pain in the arse. All the good cases go to OSCB.”
Stump laughed. “We used to say that about the District Crime Squads when we were in the Divisional Reserve Team. So what do the wankers at OSCB complain about?”
“Maybe they whinge about NB or DATS,” said Gwailo Pete referring to the Narcotics Bureau and the District Anti-Triad Squads which were other specialised crime formations.
“Who’s in OSCB these days?” Jedburgh said.
“Simon Foxcroft’s one of the CIP’s,” Stump replied.
“He made it to CIP? He was always a bit intense,” Jedburgh commented. “Good man though.”
“What are you up to these days, Stump? Still at PTS?” Scrimple said.
The small Irishman nodded. He was one of the Drill and Musketry Instructors, a legacy of his having spent three years as a Lieutenant in the Royal Irish Rangers. “Don’t even ask me about it. I hate the frigging job. Trying to teach bong-heads to march…” He dropped his head and shook it in despair.
An hour later Jedburgh said he had to go and meet up with a girl and Stump and Gwailo Pete decided it was probably time to head home to their wives.
Scrimple was left sitting alone at the table thinking about going on holiday. It would be great to go off and have a blast in Thailand or the Flips. Just complete debauchery. Rest and Recreation, Intoxication and Intercourse, Booze and Bonking. Clean out the pipes.
He smoked another cigarette then finally got up and began wandering in the direction of Tsim Sha Tsui East.
The streets were busy and as usual he was accosted twice by Indian men trying to entice him into their tailor shops and some trainee triad boys wanting to sell him copy Rolexes. There was no point in getting angry with them as they only saw a white man and this meant “tourist” and “prey” to them. The uniformed constables of Tsim Sha Tsui Division didn’t bother with these touts although accosting people in the streets was supposed to be a summary offence.
Scrimple crossed Chatham Road and walked past the Shangri La Hotel. All of Tsim Sha Tsui East was built on reclaimed land and it was mainly commercial: hotels, office buildings filled with trading companies, high class nightclubs and restaurants.
After the beers he no longer felt hungry so he didn’t bother looking for a McDonald’s. He crossed the road by the Houston Centre, went past the Royal Garden Hotel and came out by the big square with the fountain. He had no idea what the square was called. Couples sat on benches and gaggles of Chinese youths ambled along on their way to Karaoke or “siu-ye,” the midnight snack.
Scrimple stared over at the corner of the building where a set of stairs led up to the Marseilles Night Club. Pictures of bikini-clad women indicated what kind of place it was although they all appeared to be Japanese and he knew that inside the club all the hostesses would be Chinese and fully clothed. One could only find out what was hidden beneath their evening gowns if one paid the bar-fine and then whatever else the girl demanded. All in all that could set one back 4000 HKD unless a business associate footed the bill, which was generally the case.
He stood, hands in pocket, watching the entrance. A turbaned Sikh doorman lounged against a pillar and occasionally men went up the stairs and other men came down with girls on their arms. It was the time of maximum traffic although Saturday was never as busy as the rest of the week. Most businessmen had commitments to their families over the week-end.
A hand touched his arm and he jumped with surprise.
“Massage-ee?” a tall girl said with a mainland accent.
“What?”
“You want massage-ee?” She smiled crookedly and he noticed that although her skin was nice, her teeth were terrible. Ever since the handover they’d been allowing more mainlanders on tourist visas into Hong Kong and some of them were attractive young women who came for two weeks and tried to make some extra pocket money. This one looked like she’d been smacked in the gob by her boyfriend.
The girl suggested, “Make Love, I can do what you want?”
Scri
mple frowned, then asked, “How much?”
The girl hesitated, trying to get a feel for what this white man would be willing to pay. “Eight hundred dollar?”
It was a question, a proposal. And it was a good price. He smiled. Apart from her teeth she was pretty attractive. She wore a thin cotton dress and high heels that set her apart from the more casually dressed locals in their jeans and Nikes.
“Not tonight, I don’t think,” he said although for a second he was tempted but the teeth put him off. And mainland girls were pretty useless in bed. They didn’t know how to move, not like a Filipina, who had natural rhythm.
“Fi’ hundred,” she said, tugging at his sleeve.
Scrimple sighed and reached backwards to his wallet. It fell open in his hand to reveal the plastic of his warrant card. The girl peered down and recognised the picture of him in uniform and the words “Police.” Her face became alarmed.
“Siu-sam di.” Scrimple gently told her to be careful in Cantonese which she should understand, then he turned away. The girl walked in the other direction as fast as she could.
He bought three cans of San Miguel from the corner shop that displayed a full range of Hong Kong, English and Japanese soft porn magazines. He lingered for a while gazing over the titles, wondering where those girls were now, then went to sit on one of the benches. He didn’t expect much but there wasn’t much else on his agenda for the evening. He drank his beer and smoked two cigarettes.
There were at least five mainland hookers hanging about trying to catch hotel guests as they crossed the square. The one who had accosted him was gone. After half an hour he stood up and tossed the last can and grabbed a cross-harbour taxi that took him back to the island and Wanchai. He walked in to the Firehouse and found that it was full. The music was loud and all along the bar there were men talking, drinking and looking up at the Filipina girls who danced in bikinis and tights.
The mama-san found him a stool right at the end. Three girls were on stage and another six were chatting from behind the bar with customers. Along the wall were more sofas and four other girls were busy being friendly to men by sitting on their laps. Two of them were snogging and having their tits felt. None of the girls were Marie-Tess.
He sipped his beer for a while and then grabbed the granny who had found him his seat.
“Where’s Marie-Tess?” he asked.
“She not work today.”
“Why not?”
“Someone pay her bar, okay?” The old Chinese woman moved on. Politeness had never been part of her job description. Scrimple felt mildly irritated. Maybe he should have given that mainland girl a chance after all. It was a damned good price and she’d had a good pair of pins on her.
He watched the girls on stage, one of whom was staring straight at him and rolling her tongue around her lips without realising that it made her appear vulgar instead of sexy.
Scrimple left after his drink, had a quick look in “Dusk to Dawn” where the band were working hard at an old Simple Minds number. The place was packed but it was mostly men so there seemed little point in wedging in to get a drink.
The booze suddenly hit him and he called it a night. It had been a busy two days and he thought he was getting too old for this kind of aggravation.
* * * *
Narcissus was a rave club and Louise felt high just from listening to the music and watching the young Thai kids bounce around.
“A natural high,” Marco had said with an ironic wink. He handed her a glass of wine and they squeezed in a corner out of the way of the jostling and the gyrating bodies.
“You don’t see this in the tourist brochures,” she yelled over the techno-track.
“The tourists prefer the sleazy side of Bangkok, makes it more exotic. This is too close to home for them.”
Louise was enjoying the repetitive beat of the music because she’d had a few drinks and the warmth of the South African’s body was behind her. She pushed back against his hard thighs and his arm encircled her waist.
If they could see me now back in London.
Well, it wasn’t any of their business. She was on holiday and there was no immediate problem that she had to worry about. Back in Hong Kong there were lots of problems on her desk but they could all wait. She was having fun and she was enjoying the company for once of a real man.
Over dinner Marco talked openly but the more he said, the less he communicated. He spoke about events and people and told amusing little stories but nothing that really revealed any deep truths about his own personality. He seemed very confident, very secure, very focused and yet appeared to be an unemployed bum. It unnerved her. It excited her. It made her think of those movies where the lonely secretary of some top civil servant was seduced by a handsome Russian spy. It was a silly thought and she downed her wine and reached out for a passing waiter to bring some more.
In front of the DJ booth was a speaker, about eight foot high. A plank lay across the top of it so one could get up and dance. It would never have been allowed in England. There was a young Thai fellow up there, his singlet sweaty and his expression vacant, lost in a trance, as he jogged and moved his arms to the beat in his head. If he took one wrong step he’d fall and break his neck. Louise watched with fascination.
* * * *
On Monday at nine-thirty Jim got a phone call from one of their big French clients.
It was Francois LeJardin and he didn’t sound happy at all.
“We must talk, we are very angry with what you are shipping and I am getting trouble with my chef.”
“Your boss?” Jim smiled but he tried to keep the humour out of his voice and resisted the temptation to make a culinary joke.
“Yes,” the Frenchman said in his stage accent. “Always there are problems with your containers and now we have some other trading companies giving us some good offers. You know Jim, we are good friends and have worked together for some time but…” The Frenchman let it hang for an instant, “…business is business.”
Jim made a face and asked what the problems were.
“We must talk about it in person. You must come this afternoon with Marcel.”
“It’s quite short notice—” Jim began.
“I am your customer, Jim. Please don’t forget. We are one of the biggest DIY companies in Europe and your competitors BrightTest or Aquinus jump very quick…” The Frenchmen let the veiled threat hang in the air.
Damn those Taiwanese traders, Jim thought. They’re always so bloody aggressive.
“Francois, I know. Just let me see if I can get a ticket.”
“You can always get a ticket on the Eurostar. We meet at five o’clock, okay and maybe M. Chambertin will be there also.”
Jim agreed and sat back tapping his fingers on the surface of his desk. He really didn’t need this shit. It sounded like another Hong Kong screw up. Or a series of screw ups. He called Marcel, their French sales rep who was based in Lille, in a small office big enough for him, one other salesman and a secretary who had a habit of purring down the phone which got most of the London office staff excited. Sadly, as Jim had found out when he’d visited Lille the last time, she didn’t look as good as she sounded, being slightly more voluptuous than decently acceptable. But she wasn’t being paid for that, just the efficiency of her filing and typing.
Marcel was a skinny, prematurely bald man in his mid-thirties who carried himself with the air of a man who wasn’t happy with his lot in life. Apparently he had a wife who nagged him and two kids who screamed a lot, so he tried to be at home as little as possible and spent his time either selling McPherson Ferguson’s services or drinking Duval beer in a little bar called “Le Grand Chevalier.”
Jim managed to catch him on his mobile. Marcel sounded pained when told about the meeting with “Brico-Prince.”
“I wanted to tell you but I was hoping it would blow away,” he excused himself.
“Have you told Frank?”
“Maybe I sent him some email but I cannot rem
ember.”
Frank was the Regional Sales Manager and all the sales reps reported to him. He was rarely in the office and didn’t know how to use a computer.
“Any email to Frank would have been copied to me, wouldn’t it, Marcel?”
“Ah, maybe I didn’t send an email.”
Jim could sense the evasion in the Frenchman’s words. There was no avoiding this problem though.
“I’ll take the train just after lunch, pick me up at Lille Europe and book me into that four star hotel just off the Opera Place,” Jim instructed tersely. It was still early but already he’d run out of patience. After putting the phone down he sent a quick mail to Frank and copied Dougie informing them that there was a slight hiccup with Brico-Prince and he’d come back with more information. He didn’t want to say more than this because sometimes with the French, things got exaggerated. Maybe just one or two shipments had gone wrong and a good long, emotional discussion with lots of wringing of hands and beating of chests would make all parties feel better. So there was no point in making a big fuss now until he knew if it was a mountain or a molehill. He hoped for the best, mentally prepared for the worst and then banished it from his mind.
He carried on reading and replying emails until lunchtime then told Dougie’s secretary that he had to pop over to France for the rest of the day and would be available on his mobile. He bought a sandwich at the “Pret a Manger.” It was still early and so the regular office crowd had not descended yet for their cappuccinos and carrot cakes.
He left the Saab at home and ordered a taxi to Waterloo. He’d only packed a small leather bag with a change of shirt, tie, underpants and his toiletries.
The Eurostar, Jim felt, was one of the most visible signs of progress in modern Britain. A train that ran on time, ran fast and had functional clean toilets. Within two hours one was in a different world where scruffy French waiters sneered and served marvellous food and under-priced wine. If it wasn’t for the fact that the Brico-Prince people would be abusing him later he was rather looking forward to an evening away from home.
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