The Pirate Ship

by Peter Tonkin

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘This is very bad,’ said Maggie two hours later. ‘I need to go through this again in some detail. It makes the case against Richard so much stronger that it is very bad indeed.’ Her voice was rough, her tone abrupt. Perhaps she was unsettled by the manner in which Lata had interrupted her increasingly intimate tête-à-tête with Andrew a little under an hour ago. Certainly it was difficult for both of them to change back from lovers to lawyers in an instant as required by the new situation.

  ‘Afraid I can’t see that,’ said Gerry Stephenson quietly. ‘How exactly does it make the case against Richard stronger?’

  Maggie glanced up. Her golden gaze swept around the three other faces in Andrew’s office. Gerry was clearly speaking for them all. They had caught him working late when they arrived three-quarters of an hour ago full of exquisite food, deep in the throes of a burgeoning affair — Andrew and Maggie were, at least; Lata was as coolly demure as ever — and all agog with Twelvetoes’ revelations.

  Almost unconsciously allowing her eyes to dwell on Andrew’s open, boyish, irresistible countenance, she tapped with one long red fingernail against the Tables and Index volume of the famous law-book Archbold Criminal Pleading Evidence & Practice which lay piled on Andrew’s desk in front of her. Then she began to growl an explanation. ‘In the absence of confession or witnesses, the prosecution case should be built on four main things: motive, opportunity, forensic evidence and benefit. There is no doubt that Richard had the opportunity to kill everyone aboard the Sulu Queen. Someone killed them all and he was there while they did it. We think it was pirates who came aboard and then vanished leaving no discernible trace. We guess it must have been the orang laut that Richard was apparently fighting with when Tom took him back aboard Sulu Queen. Huuk was worried that the Chinese coastguards may have been involved somewhere along the line. But that’s not really relevant now. What’s important is this: the prosecution have got a point. Richard did have the opportunity to do it. And they have their experts all tooled up to explain the forensic evidence in such a way as it appears possible that Richard was associated with all the recovered murder weapons in some way or another. We know that. What they don’t have, or didn’t have up until now, is any sort of idea of motive or obvious benefit. In spite of everything they can prove, why on earth should Richard bother to kill thirty nine people on board a ship he owned? What reason could he possibly have? What good could it conceivably do him?’

  ‘What reason could anyone have for killing so many people?’ mused Andrew, his mind clearly on other things.

  ‘The same reason most people have for killing anyone. Profit. Gain. Money.’

  ‘Fraid I don’t follow you …’

  ‘Imagine that what Twelvetoes Ho told Lata is right. Add it to the things he told Robin just before I arrived. Look at what it means. Two phantom containers going round and round the outer edge of the South China Sea, able to carry any contraband at all.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Andrew, frowning with concentration. ‘I accept that, but …’

  ‘Now, what do you think the White Powder Triad would want to ship in those containers?’

  ‘Well, drugs of course. Cocaine, probably, but …’

  ‘Have you any idea how much two container-loads of cocaine would be worth?’

  ‘Millions and millions, I suppose.’

  ‘Maybe billions. Enough to be worth killing a few people to get hold of?’

  ‘My God! Yes, certainly!’

  ‘Bingo! We have a motive.’

  ‘Yes, but wait a minute, there’s still no benefit. Richard hasn’t got them! He hasn’t got the drugs or the money! He doesn’t even have the containers. They were on Ping Chau Island.’

  ‘Some containers were on Ping Chau. For a while. You know they were gone when Huuk got back again. But there was nothing to say that they were the containers, was there? And who says Richard hasn’t got them? Richard or his associates?’

  ‘Associates? What associates?’ asked Gerry, surprised by the sudden turn of the argument.

  ‘Walter Gough and Anna Leung, of course!’ explained Andrew, his eyes on Maggie. She gave him a tiny, intimate smile of congratulation.

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Gerry, quietly. ‘How on earth are we going to handle this? You think it’ll come out in court, Maggie?’

  ‘Certain. Probably tomorrow. Where are the notes on Commander Lee’s evidence? Like I said, I have to go through it all again with these new facts in mind.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Gerry apologetically, ‘is it something that you can do without me? I have to get back. It’s coming up for two a.m. now and Dottie’s not all that well …’

  ‘That’s all right with me,’ said Maggie. ‘It’s a one-man job anyway, Lata, why don’t you go home with these two? Andrew, is there a bed out back or anything? It’s been a long night so far and it’s nowhere near over yet …’

  ‘Bedroom with shower ensuite,’ said Andrew. ‘All made up and ready to go. I use it quite often if I have to work late.’

  ‘That’s fine then. Show me where the papers are and leave me to it.’

  *

  Andrew followed the other two down to the underground car park but then he walked across to Gerry’s car. Lata followed the two men. All three of them crossed the echoing chamber in silence. They hesitated at the side of Gerry’s big Daimler as though uncertain what to do next. Then, with the possible exception of the speaker, no one seemed particularly surprised when Andrew said, ‘Look, Lata, Gerry … why don’t you two go back down to Repulse Bay together? I can’t really let Maggie slog through this all on her own. It’s just not on. I know where everything is. I’ll stay in case she needs a hand or anything …’

  ‘That’s her junior’s job,’ snapped Lata, possessively.

  ‘Perhaps … But you’re not acting with her on this one are you? I couldn’t possibly haul poor old Thong out of his bed at this hour. And anyway, as I said, I know where everything in the office is filed. What if she wants to consult any other sections of the prosecution notes? I know where to look — you don’t.’

  Lata still hesitated, until Gerry said quietly, ‘Come on old girl, Maggie can look after herself. What do they say — nobody messes with Maggie unless Maggie wants to be messed? If I know that, you must know that.’

  With one fulminating look at the sheepish solicitor, Lata got into Gerry’s car and slammed the door. Gerry hesitated as though he too were about to say something, then he climbed aboard and the big eight-litre saloon purred into motion.

  Andrew stood and watched the sleek car pull away into the exit lane then he turned and strode purposefully across to the Aston Martin. He pulled open the door and slid into the driver’s seat, but he allowed the force of his movement to carry his head and shoulders across until he could reach the glove compartment. He unlocked it and pulled it open, rummaged around in it for a few moments, then took out a plain-wrapped little package. He pulled himself upright and looked at what he had found for a moment more, then he said, quite loudly, ‘That’s one I owe you, Jeremy, old man,’ before slipping it into his jacket pocket. Then he climbed out, locked up and marched back towards the building.

  *

  ‘It’s only me,’ he called as he opened the door, and walked through into the office. ‘I thought I’d come back and give you a hand.’

  Maggie gave no appearance of having heard him. She had kicked off her shoes and put her feet up on his desk before burying herself in the papers he had found for her. He saw at once that she painted her toe nails. He had not noticed that before — but he had somehow always known that she would do so. Then he noticed a great deal more than her toes. When Robin Mariner had sat in that position some uncalculated time earlier, just before going to her press conference then on out to Kwai Chung, her modesty had only been protected by the fact that she was wearing jeans. Maggie was wearing a short black silk skirt and no tights or stockings. And it so chanced that her legs were of a length to guarantee no
modesty was left at all. Andrew stood, suddenly quite breathless, much struck by the manner in which the almost syrup-golden skin on the insides of Maggie’s thighs had a strange, smokey hue somehow reminiscent of her voice. And the higher up those honey columns he allowed his eyes to wander, the smokier, the softer, did that strange, seductive hue become. Perhaps it was the subtle contrast between the flesh itself and the white silk of her underwear that made the topmost curves of her thighs, just where the soft rolls of skin nestled up against the taut web of fabric, seem so much darker and so much more tempting than all the rest.

  When he looked up, her eyes were on him and it was as though the air between them were filled with electricity. ‘Now what are we going to do about this?’ she whispered, and he knew she was not talking about Lata’s information and Lee’s testimony.

  ‘I suggest we make love at once, several times, and see whether that helps,’ he said.

  She made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a growl. ‘That sounds like a perfect start,’ she agreed. One naked foot reached up languorously onto the pile of Archbolds with the Hong Kong bar notes lent them by Mr Thong. The skirt’s taut hem slipped up past her hips. She allowed her right arm to fall out on the hinge of her elbow apparently moved by its own weight, and she dropped the testimony of Commander Lee onto the floor. The tip of her tongue caressed dark-shaded lips and her nostrils flared.

  Andrew began to shrug off his jacket but somehow his legs would not keep still and his arms could not wait to hold her. As he came towards her she swung round and opened one thigh for him like a turnstile so that he found himself half sitting on his desk, reaching down for her as her legs closed up around him.

  It was she, therefore, who slid the jacket back over his shoulders as he did the same for hers. She was lithe and strong enough to keep her lips glued to his even though the chair back was far behind her. He was self-controlled and calm enough to unbutton her blouse without his fingers trembling into clumsiness but they had to break apart for an instant to get rid of his tie because the knot tightened inexorably under her fingers. Then he simply tore his own shirt off, buttons flying, and hurled it aside. The feel of her breasts against his chest, clothed as they were in a still-crisp mesh of lace was the most exciting experience he had ever enjoyed. And it was but the beginning.

  She was surprisingly substantial — her chest was deep and powerful for all that her waist was slim — but he straightened with her in his arms easily and she came up towards him, one foot still firmly on the Archbolds. Then, with her arms fastened tight around his neck and her lips still pressed to his, she held herself still while he unzipped her skirt and eased it down below her bottom. When he put her down, she broke her grasp and kicked off against the desk. The big old chair rolled backwards on its castors so that she could kick her skirt free and reach forward for his belt all in one fluid motion. As his trousers came down he reached behind him for his jacket, pulling out of his pocket the little packet from the glove compartment. These were put in the Vantage by a bloke I know called Jeremy,’ he said. ‘He meant it as a sort of a joke.’

  ‘I love a good joke,’ she said softly. ‘Let me put one on for you.’

  When she had done this, she leaned back again, hooked her hands onto the arms of the chair and her feet onto the edge of the table, gimballing up her hips so that her buttocks rose out of the seat of the chair. Andrew reached down and took the waistline of the white silk panties in gentle fingers. As he drew them down she breathed in languorously, hollowing her tummy so that the peaks of her hip-bones stood proud. Then she lowered her hips and pulled one knee close to the other for an instant allowing the silken loop to slide free of one long limb. He pushed the warm, damp material along her left calf thoughtlessly as he pulled her back towards him, and for the next few moments it lay, cooling, across the august black, gold and ox-blood cover of Mr Thong’s Archbold.

  *

  Mr Thong’s Archbold was on the defence’s table in Courtroom number four of the Supreme Court bright and early next morning, Wednesday, and beside it lay the typescript of Commander Lee’s evidence with copious annotations in Maggie’s decided hand. How these notes had been made and under what circumstances, only Maggie, Andrew and Archbold knew, and none of them was saying anything.

  Andrew sat, still dazzled, full of energy, more intensely alive than he had ever been, in the second row, slightly elevated, immediately behind Maggie. Lata fulminated up in the gallery far behind, all too well aware of the subtle changes in Andrew’s and Maggie’s body language — and what these changes revealed. Maggie herself had that rare facility of being able to exclude from her immediate consciousness everything except the matter at hand. And the matter at hand was Commander Lee’s testimony.

  ‘So, Commander, you are in command of an on-going investigation into smuggling and piracy centred in Hong Kong?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Po. That is correct. The investigation is centred here, but the smuggling and piracy under investigation take place all around the South China Sea. Some of it right around the Pacific Rim.’

  ‘So a range of authorities is involved?’

  ‘Authorities here, in Singapore, in Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Washington — and London, obviously.’

  ‘No more?’

  ‘Oh yes, many more. But not on quite such a regular basis.’

  ‘Very well. Could you please detail this investigation for the court — so far as you are able without compromising it.’

  ‘Of course. Our investigation has been centred on all the major ports around the South China Sea. We have, during the last decade, placed informants in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Jakarta, Brunei, Manila T’ai-pei, Fukuoka, Kanzanawa, Sapporo, Vladivostok, Pusan and Singapore. It has to be said that the information we gathered in the first few years has all been put in the shade by that which we have managed to gather since nineteen ninety-four. During that time we have observed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the increasingly wide availability on the market of nuclear material up to weapons grade. We have observed the somewhat hesitant process by which North Korea has been accepted into the international system, and its demand for just such fissionable material. We have observed the manner in which China has moved back into the centre of the international arena; with its attempted annexation of the Spratleys, its pressure to make Shanghai the city of the twenty-first century, its, shall we say, individual relations with the United States. We have seen the burgeoning growth of a range of pirated materials from Rolex watches to Rolls-Royce engine parts; from Filipino tobacco to a range of hard-core pornography; from counterfeit currency of all sorts and denominations to small arms and claymore mines dug up in North Vietnam; from Walt Disney videos to the latest designer drugs.’

  ‘My Lord?’ Maggie rose, apparently deep in thought.

  ‘Ms DaSilva?’

  ‘If I may …’

  ‘Of course …’

  ‘Thank you My Lord. Now Commander, how, do you believe, this contraband is transported around such a wide area?’

  ‘Well, I …’ Commander Lee was thrown off his stride and not a little flustered by the unexpectedly abrupt question.

  ‘Yes, Commander?’

  ‘Our information posits the existence of a series of ghost containers which move from port to port but are never checked by customs officials.’

  ‘Posits, Commander?’

  ‘We have never actually got hold of such a container with the contraband intact.’

  ‘But unless it contains contraband, one container is like any other, surely?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘So, after the better part of a decade of investigation, you now tell the court that you guess that among the millions of containers moving around the Pacific Rim, there may be a couple which might contain contraband?’

  ‘More than a couple. On a regular basis. As part of a preprepared smuggling network. And we are amassing proof.’

  ‘A smuggling network being run by Captain Richard Mariner?’ />
  ‘Well no …’

  ‘But you believe that the China Queens ships were somehow involved?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do you have any proof of this?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  ‘You have impounded the cargo of the Sulu Queen. Are the containers anywhere in this cargo?’

  ‘No, they are not.’

  ‘So you have no proof that the Sulu Queen was ever carrying these supposed containers.’

  ‘We have not.’

  ‘But you are suggesting that the containers were aboard when the ship left Singapore.’

  ‘Yes.’ The Commander was sweating now, more than a little bemused by the speed at which Maggie was moving.

  ‘So you must suppose that someone came aboard and removed the containers before Mr Huuk and his men went aboard.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So why can it not be the case that these people committed the murders of which my client stands accused?’

  ‘The forensic evidence proves that the accused was intimately involved with the murders.’

  ‘And therefore with these mysterious pirates who came aboard and removed the containers.’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘You are asking the court to believe that Captain Richard Mariner, a pillar of the British shipping community is closely associated with China Seas pirates?’

  ‘Perhaps not the accused himself. Not directly …’

  ‘Then, perhaps by his associate known as Anna Leung?’

  ‘Well …’ There was something in the Commander’s tone which made Maggie look up, her eyes bright with revelation. She caught her breath.

  ‘Thank you, Commander,’ she said, and sat.