by Tony Davies
“I agree. I can only think he is waiting for the right moment to pounce. Who knows. Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“I think the La boheme Club is somehow tied up in all this. Do you know the place?”
“No I don’t. What type of club is it?”
“It’s officially a dining club but it is almost certainly a gay club. It is in Central and has an exclusive, up market membership. There is a triad connection somewhere, but I haven’t got to the bottom of that. Stephen had been there at least once and he had mentioned it to his sister before he died. I visited there but was subsequently advised to stay away from the place.”
“What do you mean by that? How were you advised?”
“Let’s just say, forcefully. It doesn’t matter, it reinforced my opinion that something isn’t right about the place. But that doesn’t mean anyone associated with the club was connected with Stephen’s death or the allegation with Lee Wai.”
“Interesting. On that basis I am not sure it is worth pursuing but I will bow to your greater experience in this. Thanks for the update today and it was a pleasure meeting you and Lindy. Let’s catch up again next week and hopefully you will have made some more progress.”
After Bent had left the office Lindy returned and asked Mack whether he had mentioned the La boheme Club to him.
“Yes I did, but he claimed he had never heard of it. I don’t trust the man at all but for the time being that doesn’t matter. On another level, I can see he made quite an impression on you.” He grinned mischievously at her and waited for a response.
Lindy looked at him coolly and in a voice devoid of emotion remarked “What do you mean he made quite an impression on me?”
Without waiting for him to reply, she stood up and walked to the door. As she got there, she glanced back in his direction, winkled at him and walked out.
……………………………………………………………………………………………...
Mack spent the rest of the morning catching up on his paperwork. Just before lunch his mobile phone rang. He recognized the number and answered it hesitatingly. He assumed the call was not going to be an uplifting ’life is good’ experience.
“You are a prat, you know that. What was all that about last night?”
Em’s voice was cold and dispassionate. “You don’t own me. You think you can dictate how I behave in a night club!”
“Yeah, okay, fair comment. I wasn’t expecting to be put in that sort of position so how did you expect me to react?”
“Like an adult!” Although her voice went up several octaves he noted that she had not yet started screaming. He had had his fair share of distraught ex‐girl friends in the past but he sensed that Em was unlikely to go down that route. At least, not yet anyway.
She lowered her voice again when she mumbled “I wasn’t going to go home with him, I was going home with you, I told you that. I like to flirt when I have had a drink. It makes me feel sexy and its fun. I don’t do it when I am in a serious relationship, so where is the harm?”
“No harm at all, as you said, we are not in a serious relationship. No questions, no commitments.”
“Okay, so do I get an apology for you walking out?”
“Sure, if I get an apology for the way you acted with that guy.” “I have nothing to apologise for!”
Mack could sense that the conversation was going nowhere and it was only a question of who hung up first. He was not having a good day when it came to the females in his life.
He could see her point of view, they weren’t in a relationship and she was entitled to behave as she wanted to. Whilst that didn’t mean he had to accept it, he wasn’t sure it condoned him walking out as he had. His mother would have called it petulance, but then she wouldn’t have been impressed by Em’s performance either so perhaps she would have taken his side.
Before he could take that thought further Em said “Listen you old fashioned Neanderthal. My place at 10pm tonight. Bring you’re A game and the right attitude or don’t come at all.” She then hung up.
Mack looked at the phone and went over the incident again in his mind. He had no reason to suspect the scene had been stage managed and yet something was niggling him. It was a vague feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn’t determine what that was.
As for her last comment, he wanted to tell himself that was her way of apologizing, but there was little point in self-deceit. She hadn’t apologized, far from it. At least it had firmly put the ball in his court to decide what happened next. He smiled to himself, he would have more difficult decisions to make in the coming days than deciding whether to see her that evening.
The rest of day passed uneventfully. Lindy had brought in a number of files he needed to review and whilst she had not been over friendly towards him, at least she hadn’t scowled at him. She had a habit of doing that until he took the hint and apologized for what whatever transgression, or perceived transgression, he had committed. Saying “I have no idea what I have done wrong, but I apologise anyway” usually did the trick. He wasn’t in the mood to do that today though.
Just before 10pm that night he was sat in the lobby at Em’s apartment building looking at the lift. A young Chinese couple in their mid twenties were waiting for the doors to open. They were holding hands and the man was whispering something to her. The girl laughed and nodded her head before shyly looking around the lobby.
An elderly, well dressed lady walked into the lobby. She ignored Mack and went to stand alongside the couple. She smiled at them but said nothing. Mack got up and joined them at the lift and a few moments later he was stood outside Em’s door. Decision made, it was now all down to execution.
He was about to press the doorbell when he saw the door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open and walked inside. The lounge was in darkness with only the lights from the adjoining buildings providing any light. The main bedroom door was also ajar and he again called out Em’s name. He pushed the door open and was immediately conscious of the smell of incense and whilst he couldn’t place the fragrance, he found it pleasant and strangely soothing.
Suddenly there was a soft click and a small table lamp beside the bed came on and bathed the room in a soft orange glow.
Mack’s eyes were immediately drawn to Em who was almost naked on the bed. He stood transfixed as he stared at her body. She was lying on her back and her tanned body stood out against the white silk sheet below. Her arms were outstretched and her hands were handcuffed to the corners of the bed. Her hair had been tied back and he saw her large and beautifully formed breasts rise and fall softly as she breathed. He followed the contours of her body to a small black thong with loosely tied straps. It accentuated her slender hips and showed there were no tan lines to blemish the perfection of her body. She gradually opened her legs to spread-eagle herself on the bed.
She turned her head towards the bedside table where there was a riding crop and a silk scarf. She looked back at Mack and said in soft, seductive voice ‘I have been a naughty girl and I need to be punished. Come and punish me’. He hesitated for a brief moment before he closed the bedroom door and moved towards her.
Her eyes focused on him intently and she smiled. It was the smile of a woman who knew all men wanted this. Now, at this moment in time, she had the power to control this man. She knew he would not resist. What man could? She slowly arched her back and thrust out her pelvis invitingly while she groaned quietly in anticipation of what was to come.
Chapter twenty seven
The box
The call display on her mobile phone showed it was a barred number and Debbie let it ring several times before answering it. Cold calls from sales promotion companies are a fact of life in Hong Kong and Debbie’s reluctance to answer reflected the approach many of the city’s inhabitants adopted.
When she finally answered, the caller was a young Chinese girl who introduced herself as Miss Wong from the Luk Sing storage facility in Wong Chuk Hang. S
he told Debbie that Stephen Chan had deposited a small box at the facility and that it needed to be collected within the next three days.
The girl sounded pleasant enough and was obviously reading a prepared speech, which she used for such calls. Debbie’s first question was to ask to how she had got hold of her number and was told that Stephen had paid for a month’s storage and left her number in case he was unable to collect the box on the due date. He had told the storage company that he was due to go on an extended business trip and while he expected to return in time to retrieve the box, he had left her number in case there was a problem.
After telling the girl she would collect it immediately, Debbie went into her bedroom and sat on the bed. She enjoyed living on her own and having her own space. Fortunately, unlike many Chinese families, her parents were not expecting her to support them financially in their old age. Her father’s government pension and various investments he had made were enough to more than satisfy their modest needs. It meant she could afford the modest mortgage payments on her small apartment.
The air conditioning was on and its low hum was the only sound to be heard. She liked solitude and silence and often lay on her bed going over in her mind the news articles she had to write.
Stephen had not mentioned anything to her or her parents about an extended business trip. He often had to travel, but it was always within the region and never for more than a few days. If he were going for longer he would surely have told them as they were in regular contact and met most weeks for a family meal.
As to the contents of the box, that would have to wait until she had collected it. It could contain anything from family photographs to copies of newspaper articles she had written. The only way to find out was the collect it. Ten minutes later she left the apartment and caught a bus to Wong Chuk Hang.
Finding the storage facility was easy enough as it was on the main road into Aberdeen. It was a typical industrial building, no architectural appeal whatsoever and badly in need of a fresh coat of paint.
Luk Sing was on the sixth floor and whilst the reception area had not been expensively decorated, it was spacious and clean. The receptionist was a young Chinese girl and Debbie assumed it was the company’s policy to employ school leavers on minimum wages. It was one way of keeping the wage bill under control.
Having identified herself and told the girl she was there to collect Stephen’s box, Debbie was given a small plastic container the size of a shoe box and a form to sign. Quickly scanning the form she saw that the box had been deposited by Stephen and that someone called Foo had opened it and then re-deposited it a few days later. There was no record of who Foo was.
When queried by Debbie the girl told her that normally Foo’s ID card details would be shown on the form but for some reason they were not. She also told her that in order for Foo to have been able to inspect the box he would have had to have given Stephen’s individual code number. Each depositor was given a different number to help prevent theft.
Thirty minutes later Debbie was back in her room. She had left the air conditioning on and was grateful she had. It was another hot day in Hong Kong.
The box had an expensive looking eight digit combination lock on it and she first tried Stephen’s date of birth. When that didn’t work she tried her own which proved more successful. She was grateful Stephen had had the foresight to use a number she would know, although she knew she could have forced it open with a little help. There was no point in damaging a perfectly good lock though.
Inside the box was a CD, five photographs and Mack’s business card. When she looked at the photographs she could see they were of Stephen and a middle aged Chinese man and were taking in a number of locations including a Starbuck’s coffee shop. She immediately recognized the man and wondered why Stephen would have photographs of them together. She would need to find that out, but first she had to view the CD.
She knew she had no sound rationale for thinking that way, but the CD worried her. She hadn’t seen the contents yet, but for a fleeting moment she was tempted to throw it away. Her natural curiosity prevailed though and she turned on her laptop and inserted the disc.
Two hours later Debbie was sat in Mack’s office feeling relieved that he was involved in the matter. He seemed to inspire confidence, which is something he probably learnt in the police force she told herself. He was gazing out of his office window and appeared lost in his thoughts. He was handsome and would be a definite catch for any number of her female friends. She wondered why he wasn’t married. He looked like the type who would make a good husband and father.
After a few minutes Mack turned to look at her and smiled weakly. He had the feeling that someone was playing a game with him. It was not a game he wanted to play but inevitably once it had started he had to finish it. There was no stopping half way through. Even if he wanted to, he assumed the other player would persist until the very end or he got bored with it.
Debbie had first showed him the photographs, which hadn’t caused him any alarm. They showed Stephen and Lee Wai having coffee together in various locations and appeared to have been taken without their knowledge. The photographs were quite innocent, just two people who knew each other and were drinking coffee together. Given that Westminster had been sent such a photograph, he was not overly surprised there were others in existence. What he was not prepared for was the CD and he had sat in silence as he watched it.
The CD contained a short video featuring Stephen and another Chinese man. The man looked vaguely like Lee Wai, but the lighting was poor and his face was never fully in sight. It had been shot in a bedroom of some sort, possibly a hotel room.
Stephen and the man could be seen lying naked on the bed. They caressed and kissed each other, with Stephen holding the man’s erect penis. He was about to perform oral sex when the CD ended. It had lasted only a minute or so, which meant someone probably had a much longer version containing even more graphic scenes. There was no way of knowing whether their actions were choreographed, but Mack sensed they probably hadn’t been. Stephen seemed very relaxed, almost as if he didn’t know he was being filmed.
The fact Stephen was gay was clearly evident, but that had not been in dispute since early in the case. Someone had gone to considerable lengths to produce the video, with or without Stephen’s knowledge and consent.
If it really was Lee Wai on the bed then why didn’t the video clearly show his face? It looked enough like him that many people on seeing it would jump to that conclusion if they knew the background to the case.
Mack decided to let Debbie guide the conversation and being a journalist she was quite happy to lead off with her own interpretation of what she had found.
“Your business card turns up again. I am sure you are going to say you have no idea how it got there. I think Stephen meant for me to go to you if anything happened to him. Quite why he had such faith in you when he hadn’t even met you beats me. The photographs simply show two people who know each other having coffee. Someone was spying on them. The CD is disgusting. Most people would assume it’s Lee but actually that would be hard to prove, for some reason his face is away from the camera for most of the time. I have no idea why Stephen had it in his possession. It makes no sense even if they were having an affair. I have to assume it is somehow linked with his death.”
“I tend to agree with you. What are you going to do with it?” asked Mack.
“I was hoping you would tell me what I should do. I could take it to the police and perhaps I should do that. Or I could leave it with you for a few days if you feel it would be helpful. As long as you don’t needlessly harm Stephen’s reputation you can use it as you see fit.” She smiled at him and waited for his response.
“I am honestly not sure how useful it will be, but I will take you up on the offer. You can always tell the police later that you didn’t think the box was important and didn’t check the CD until a few days after you had picked it up. They won’t believe you but that doesn’t matter.
Is there anything else you can tell me that would be helpful?” he replied.
“Yes, there is. I didn’t tell you the absolute truth previously. I have taken a month’s leave to work exclusively on Andrew Weston. My editor hasn’t approved it, but if there is a story and he won’t publish it I know others who will.” She tried to avoid his gaze as she spoke.
“Thanks for telling me, but that is your business, not mine. I am not investigating Weston, you are. I think you should be very careful. As I told you, he will not appreciate you looking into his private affairs. He has the money and the means to cause you a lot of trouble if he is so minded. Just a bit of friendly advice for you. I am sure you will do what you want, but as I said, be careful. As for my next step, I need to give that some thought. Let me get back to you in a couple of days.”
As Debbie was leaving the office, Mack had the feeling she was getting in over her head. Andrew Weston was not a man to cross.