The Allegation: A John Mackworth novel

by Tony Davies

  Ping was standing at the end of the street talking to an old lady who was selling t-shirts from a make shift wooden stand. He didn’t glance up as Luk walked past him, but after he had gone ten yards Ping crossed the street and headed in the same direction.

  As Luk turned the corner into Argyle Street he stopped and looked back. He would have caught Ping by surprise, but his view was obscured by a group of teenagers who were crossing the street and Ping was able to walk past him unnoticed.

  Ping walked into a poorly lit building entrance and put on a dark coloured t-shirt over the white shirt he had been wearing. The old lady had told him it would fit him and she had been right. When he re-entered the street he saw Luk was walking about fifteen yards ahead of him. He set off after him, keeping a respectable distance as Luk meandered his way through the side streets of Mongkok.

  Chapter twenty two

  Where are we up to?

  At 8am the next morning Mack was sat on his own with a half empty coffee cup in front of him. There were three chocolate biscuits on a side plate beside the cup. His desk was covered with sheets of A4 paper, open manila folders and colour printouts.

  He needed to finalise a couple of outstanding cases that Lindy had been pressuring him to do for the last few weeks. He knew she was right, they had to be finished and invoiced for. All the work had been done except for the final reports.

  His report writing had always been exceptional, or so he had been told, but finding the time to do it had always been his difficulty. In the police he had been forced to work to a strict timeline as cases were set down for specific dates in court. You had to be ready by that date or all hell would break out. Now he had his own business there wasn’t the same sort of external pressure. Sure, Lindy tried to replicate it, but they both knew he was more interested in solving cases than writing about them.

  His mind drifted off and for a moment he thought about Em. He sighed to himself as he pondered the question he had been forcing to the back of his mind. It was relatively easy to find someone’s residential address in Hong Kong so the fact they were waiting for him at his home didn’t unnecessarily concern him. They could have been waiting there for hours assuming he would return at some point that evening, so the timing could be explained. However, he had given Em his address and agreed a time he would meet her there and he was not a great believer in coincidences.

  There didn’t appear to be anything that linked her to the case, although he admitted to himself that he knew very little about her and anything was possible. Was it a coincidence that they had met in a bar he rarely went to and twenty-four hours later he had been attacked? Probably.

  But the nagging doubt persisted that the events of the last seventy‐two hours were somehow inter woven. Everything was moving too quickly and it was as if someone was synchronizing events in an attempt to lead him down a particular path.

  He worked steadily for more than hour and drafted the first of the two reports. Lindy could finish it by inserting various dates and proof reading it before sending it on to the client. He looked at his watch and was surprised to see it was already 10am. He began tidying his desk, but before he could achieve much there was a knock on the door and Lindy and Ping walked in.

  “You did good work last night” said Mack.

  Before Ping could answer Lindy remarked “Hold on, you are not getting off that easily. Where are my reports? From the state of your desk I kind of know they aren’t ready.”

  She hadn’t phrased her comment as a question so Mack sheepishly shrugged his shoulders and handed over the drafted report. His attempt at a ‘mea culpa’ plea was met with a stern face and no hint of a smile.

  “We keep having this conversation. If you take the job offer you will have to be a lot more disciplined. Corporations don’t like people who can’t invoice for their time properly. And don’t worry, Ping knows about the job offer.”

  Suitably chastised, Mack held his head down for a moment and then looked up and said to Ping “Anyway, tell Lindy what happened,”

  “I followed Luk ten minutes and then he go into apartment block, don’t know which apartment. I wait one hour but he not come out so I go home. I go back today and see what I find out.”

  Mack was about to end the meeting when Lindy asked “What is the aim here Mack, what are you trying to achieve? Discover the truth about the allegation against Lee or is there another agenda?”

  Mack looked at her and saw she was smiling. She had her hair tied up in a bun and was using a pencil to keep it in place. He told himself it was probably something they did in the States, but he was too afraid to comment on it. When it came to her appearance Lindy could be quite sensitive.

  “You know me, we need to fulfill our obligation to the client but if there is something else going on then I want to know what it is. And there is something else going on. All we can do at this stage is follow what is in front of us and see where it leads us.” Mack’s tone was serious and he was not in the mood for an argument.

  They sat in silence for a few moments before he replied “I realize we may be getting into dangerous territory with Luk. But even if I started that, I can’t now let it drop. You know me. I just don’t like being warned off something, especially when someone has attacked me outside my home.”

  Lindy looked across the table. Whilst Mack seemed pretty relaxed about the attack, she knew that was anything but the case. He was never going to let Luk get away with it. His pride would not let him do that. Despite him having been a policeman, she doubted he would do it by lawful means and that was the one aspect of his approach to business she did not agree with. She wasn’t sure what she could do about it though, as in these situations he was a law unto himself.

  She replied in a serious voice “First and foremost this is a business and we have to pay wages, rent etc. every month. You leave all that for me to sort out and as long as we get paid for the work we do I am fine with it. I know profit is not always the motivating factor with you and that sometimes you do things that we don’t get paid for. I am also fine with that, but with this case we have to be careful. Our other work will suffer if this takes up all our time and besides, it is very dangerous when you cross people like Luk.

  “Just remember that even though you can be a stubborn, pig-headed gweilo sometimes you are fun to work with. But never forget. I am a good Hong Kong girl, I will want to invoice someone when all this is over”

  She got up, smoothed her close fitting one-piece dress over her hips and walked with a provocative sway of her hips as she left the room.

  ………………………………………………………………………………………

  Mack was on the tram heading to Causeway Bay, one of the main shopping districts in Hong Kong. There was no room to sit down and he was squeezed in between two Filipina maids who were talking in Tagalog. An elderly Chinese women, who seemed old enough to be his great grandmother got on at Queensway and a young Chinese boy offered to give up his seat for her. He has brusquely refused.

  Mack’s phone rang and as he maneuvered himself to be able to extract it from his pocket the old lady muttered an expletive in Chinese, which would have embarrassed the more gentle members of Hong Kong society.

  He saw the caller was Em and he reluctantly pressed the receive button. Privacy is simply not possible when taking calls on crowded Hong Kong trams and he assumed the Filipinas would inevitably stop talking so they could listen in to his conversation. He was right.

  “Hi, it’s M, sorry about the short notice the other night. Something came up at work. You must think I am awful standing you up at the last minute. Your phone rang out when I called you so I assume you were pretty pissed off.”

  She sounded quite contrite and Mack remembered he had checked his phone the next morning and there were several missed calls. One of them could have been from her. He replied “Hi, no problem, I turned in early with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate.”

  “You don’t look like the hot
chocolate type. You are a kinder garden teacher, right?”

  Mack sensed relief in her voice and his first reaction was to question whether it was because of his friendly tone or the fact he hadn’t been badly hurt. Brushing that thought aside he said “It feels like that some days.”

  “I see. You were probably devastated you couldn’t get your hands on my body. But don’t worry, it was only a temporary delay, assuming you are still interested?” Her voice did not sound seductive, if anything it betrayed her uncertainty over his answer.

  He immediately responded with “Of course. Time and place please.”

  “I am out with friends tonight, why don’t we meet later. Say around 10 at Insomnia. I may be a little drunk though.”

  “Okay, no problem, see you tonight” responded Mack.

  He looked to his right at the two Filipinas and saw they were smiling at him. He put the phone back in his pocket and edged his way to the front of the tram.

  Five minutes later the tram stopped and he headed towards Starbucks in Patterson Street, which was only a short walk away. The coffee shop was full but he saw Debbie Chan sat in a corner with an empty seat opposite her. She had a coffee cup in front of her so he waved to her and pointed to the counter. She smiled and he joined the short queue to get served. Having bought a soy latte he took the seat opposite her.

  “Thanks for coming. I know you are busy” she said with a faint smile on her face.

  At Debbie’s request Lindy had set up a meeting for them, although Mack wasn’t sure what was to be gained from it. Still, she was Stephen Chan’s sister and as a journalist she might come up with information he could use. He was not to be disappointed.

  “Mack, I have been doing some research, which you might find useful. I know you don’t want me to be involved, but I am a journalist and Stephen was my brother. I told you that Stephen had mentioned the La boheme club. Well, it is an up market gay club, very secretive. We were going to run a typically trash type story on it, full of innuendos about the secret life of Hong Kong’s elite. But my bosses were persuaded not to. I am still trying to find out by whom. I have the names of some of the members. I don’t know if they will be of any help, but I am happy to give them to you if you want me to.”

  Mack told himself there was no harm in knowing who the members were. Lindy would file the information away and it might come in useful in the future.

  Debbie then handed him a folded sheet of A4 paper, which on first glance contained around twenty names. He quickly scanned it and didn’t recognize any of them. They were mostly Chinese names, with one British and one French.

  When he had finished scanning it Debbie said “I can’t tell you how I got it as that might compromise my source. I am sure it is authentic though. They have lots more members but that is all I have at the moment. I have tried hacking into their membership base but I haven’t been successful.”

  Mack was not surprised she had been unsuccessful. Lindy had also tried and failed and there were few better exponents of the art than her.

  Debbie went on “If my paper won’t run the story, I may do it as a freelance piece and to hell with the consequences. I am sure someone will want to run it. I suppose you are going to ask me why I would bother?”

  “You are a journalist and I am rarely surprised by what you guys print. You are entitled to exercise your right to freedom of speech so as long as your facts are right. And of course, your facts are always right, or nearly right anyway.”

  He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice, although if he had been asked he would have admitted he had made little real effort to.

  Debbie sounded defensive when she said “It is my job to write articles that people want to read. If they want to read about the La boheme club then so be it. I think we are all accountable for our actions and for the decisions we make, including which clubs we join. I agree that people are entitled to a degree of privacy, but in an open society there should be few if any restrictions placed on the media as long as long as what we print is the truth.”

  Mack bristled at the statement. “So tell me, why should Chan Fat, a taxi driver living in the middle of Kowloon, be entitled to know someone has joined a gay private members club? Surely that is a private matter between the member and the club?”

  Mack realized he was never going to win this argument with a journalist, especially not one who worked for the Hong Kong Daily News, the worst scandal rag in the region. Goading Debbie into a reply hadn’t been his intention, but the response to his remarks was immediate and vitriolic.

  “Amazing! You cops are all the same. The answer is obvious. It is impossible to judge what should and should not be regarded as private. Once restrictions are imposed they are open to abuse by governments and the judiciary. In matters of national security one could argue that the need for privacy may overrule the need for freedom of speech. But if we allow governments to tell us we cannot publish something as innocent as a club’s membership list then they will have no difficulty stopping us publishing an article that exposes corruption within their ranks.

  “Where does it all end? Look at China for heaven’s sake. People have a right to information in Hong Kong and if the downside of that is that it allows us to publish things like details of the La boheme Club’s membership then that is the price we have to pay for freedom of speech and a free society.”

  She glared at him and Mack decided there was little point in pursuing the discussion. He doubted Debbie would ever change her views. He was appreciative of being given the list, but a philosophical debate over freedom of speech could wait for another time.

  There was a few moments of silence as Debbie waited for a response, but she quickly realized he was not going to pursue the conversation so she said with a softer tone “The police haven’t got very far regarding Stephen’s death. We should know tomorrow whether he was murdered. I think they might know already, but for some reason they are not telling me. They know he was gay and given that all of them are homophobic I don’t think they are the least bit interested in finding out if he was murdered, let alone who did it.”

  Before Mack could respond she smiled and joked “Got you there. Couldn’t resist getting my own back.”

  She laughed and Mack reminded himself she was intelligent, attractive and had a sense of humour, even if sometimes she took herself a little too seriously. Perhaps everyone did once in a while.

  He returned the smile. “Okay, we are even. As for the investigation, you are right, I don’t think the police have got very far. But you probably know as much on that score as I do. How are your parents handling things?”

  “Not very well, but that is to be expected. One thing I should also tell you. I am looking into Stephen’s employer, Andrew Weston. I did a short piece on his involvement with a local celebrity some time ago. They were ‘dating’ but something wasn’t right about it, or so one of my sources told me. I thought it might be worth me spending some time digging a little deeper. My editor certainly thinks so. He likes the idea of some scandal involving a blue chip gweilo investment banker.”

  Mack knew that Weston was not going to be impressed when he found out Debbie was digging into his activities. Still, her earlier ‘freedom of speech’ comments were still fresh in his memory and he knew anything he said was unlikely to deter her. Nevertheless, he still felt he should at least warn her that her target was likely to react very badly to her activities.

  “I have met Weston and I know he is going to be extremely upset if you do that. He shuns publicity and he will not welcome your intrusion into his private life with open arms. By the way, why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you are working on a case for Westminster. I don’t have the details yet, but it does involve something quite serious. I don’t want us to argue later with you saying I should have said something earlier. And don’t ask me how I know about your involvement with them. Let’s just say I am very resourceful.

  “Perhaps we can help each other, perhaps we can�
��t. It is up to you whether you tell Weston what I am up to. It doesn’t matter to me. It might not lead anywhere, there might not be a story. No harm in looking though.”

  Mack decided there was little to be gained by discussing Westminster further. If Debbie went after Weston then that was her business. He was sure Bent would get involved in some capacity if she got too far, but that was not something he could concern himself with at the moment. He had no obligation to protect a journalist with the Hong Kong Daily News, as much as he liked Debbie. A few minutes later they both left with promises they would keep in touch.

  Chapter twenty three

  The principals meet

  At 11am the following day Weston was sat opposite Lee Wai and five of his assistants. They were sat in the government team’s conference room and the air conditioning was running at full capacity to keep the room moderately cool. The walls were bare and there was a minimum of furniture. Weston told himself nothing ever changed with governments, but even by their standards the room had an anemic, soulless feel to it.