The call came through an hour early.
‘Got your tickets?’ Colhoun asked.
‘Yeah, but for first thing tomorrow morning. It didn’t seem like such a good idea to arrive after midnight.’
‘What time do you get there?’
‘Eleven fifteen.’
‘All right. You’ll either be met by someone from the Marine Police or someone from the Organized and Serious Crimes Group – the people I spoke to didn’t seem too sure which agency was in charge of fighting international piracy.’ Colhoun grunted with amusement, disgust or both. ‘If you’re dealing with the Marine Police tread carefully – Bellamy was one of theirs, and they’re probably all feeling a little defensive at the moment. MI6 also know you’re coming, but I’m afraid the days of luxury hotels are over – you’ll be bunking with 3rd Raiding Squadron on Stonecutters’ Island. John Ferguson’s expecting you. Any questions?’
‘Nope.’
‘I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Have a good flight.’
‘Thanks, boss,’ Marker began to say, but Colhoun had already hung up. He might be garrulous for a Scot, but not for a normal human being.
‘Green light?’ Dubery asked.
‘Yep. Come on, I’ll fill you in over a Singapore Sling at the Raffles. And then we’ll find a meal to remember through the next few days of standard-issue scran.’
Finn put down the guidebook and rubbed his eyes. There was no longer enough natural light to read by, and the risk of using a torch, though probably minimal, carried too high a potential penalty to ignore. Since Cafell’s witnessing of the wilful slaughter of the ship’s original crew, neither SBS man had harboured any illusions about the price of discovery.
It was six-thirty – another hour and a half to go before he was supposed to wake Cafell. Finn liked these solitary watches the least, but that was no surprise – he had never really liked being on his own. The company of a few mates or a girl – the company of a few girls, come to that – and he felt alive. Alone, he began asking himself questions which didn’t have answers, like what the fuck was he doing a million miles from home stowing away on a ship run by the local sociopaths?
He glanced across at the sleeping Cafell, who always seemed to relish being alone. Marker and Dubery were the same. No party spirit in any of them.
He thought of Stamford Raffles, about whom he’d just been reading in the guidebook. The man had just turned up at the mouth of the Singapore River, thought, hey, this looks like a good place for a city, and five years later there were ten thousand inhabitants. What a world it must have been, Finn thought, when you could do things like that, when one man could make such a difference. Somehow the world had solidified since then, grown harder to put dents in. Or maybe it was like a river, he thought: the wider it got the harder it became for one person to influence the way it flowed.
That was what success had been in Raffles’ time – making a difference in the way the river flowed. These days the river took no notice, and nobody had a clue what success was. Famous people moaned on about how terrible fame was, the rich all seemed as miserable as hell, and everyone else wanted to be rich and famous.
Success was having adventures, Finn decided. Adventures like this one, or like the one he’d just had with the teacher in Poole. And he supposed marriage could be an adventure with the right person, though most people seemed really adept at picking the wrong one. Sooner or later he’d have to find a woman to live with, and give up on all that lovely variety.
Later, he decided.
The Fast Patrol Craft rocked gently in the swell, one of five positioned at mile-wide intervals across the broad expanse of water which separated the islands of Hong Kong and Lantau. Further north another two FPCs were covering the narrower Kap Shui Mun channel. There were other ways to reach the Kowloon docks from mainland China, but all the scraps of intelligence they had been able to gather over the last few months suggested that the smugglers would use one of these.
The sun had disappeared about fifteen minutes earlier, leaving the hilly silhouette of Lantau filling the western horizon. The waters around them were filled with craft of various sizes: fishing boats sailing to or from the local banks in the South China Sea, large cargo vessels, pleasure craft, inter-island traffic of one sort or another. The twenty-five-foot-long FPC was linked to the other boats by radio, but like all members of the cordon it was showing no lights and maintaining radio silence until such time as the enemy was identified. In the stern one of the Royal Marines was studying each sampan and speedboat on a northerly course through the night-vision glasses, hoping to match one of them to the rough descriptions Dr Chen had given Rosalie Kai.
There were four of them in the boat, Rosalie and three Marines. For the first hour the Englishmen had treated her to their usual strange mixture of exaggerated courtesy and innuendo-laden flirtation, but since arriving on station they had settled for the self-deprecating humour of professionals, reminding her of Callum Marker.
She hadn’t thought about him for a long time, which was probably just as well.
‘Your turn, Taff,’ one of them said softly, passing the night glasses to the darkest of the three.
‘Tea, miss?’ the third man asked, holding out a plastic mug with the words ‘West Ham’ emblazoned on its side. A football team, she supposed.
The tea, already milked and sugared, tasted more like a liquid dessert than a drink. Her father had had a passion for Bird’s custard, she remembered. And Heinz treacle puddings, which had arrived in sixty-tin boxes from England.
Marker had liked Sichuan food, as she did.
The radio burst suddenly into speech, and Rosalie thought she heard the faint echo of a shot across the water. ‘Gamma calling. Boat answering to the description has just answered our friendly enquiries with hostile fire. We are in pursuit, heading south-south-east.’
Their own boat sprang into motion, the Marine corporal in command barking out orders to the other two above the sound of the engine. They were already skimming the crests of the waves, and Rosalie had little doubt that it was only the strap on her seat which was keeping her on board. They had to be approaching fifty miles an hour, she reckoned, which was definitely the fastest she had ever been on water. One of the Marines in the bow suddenly threw out an arm and yelled something, causing the corporal at the wheel to veer sharply to starboard, and now she could see the smugglers’ speedboat careering across the surface towards them, almost on a collision course.
The man at the speedboat’s wheel must have realized the same thing, for he veered away to port, forcing the FPC into a tight turn which left them more than a hundred yards in the smugglers’ wake. Another FPC – presumably the one which had made first contact – was a further fifty yards behind.
‘Can we catch them?’ Rosalie shouted at the corporal.
‘No sweat,’ he shouted back.
And they were gaining, slowly perhaps but gaining nevertheless. There was no way the smugglers could reach the sanctuary of Chinese waters.
She wondered how the Englishmen intended to board the smugglers’ boat at this speed and in the teeth of gunfire, but was destined never to find out. A figure stood up in the stern of the speedboat, apparently holding something above his head with both arms. Then, like a basketball player, he lobbed whatever it was into the air.
‘What was it?’ the corporal shouted.
‘A baby,’ she shouted back.
He looked at her with disbelief.
‘Slow down – we’ll have to let them go,’ she shouted, scanning the dark waters ahead of them for the tell-tale bundle. A minute later one of the Marines pulled the baby on board. The smugglers’ boat was already almost out of sight. To Rosalie’s surprise, there were tears in the Englishman’s eyes.
She watched the distant boat until it was completely out of sight, a coldness gripping at her heart. She hoped to God that Li had enjoyed more success in following the doctor.
On the other side of Hong Kong Island, on the long, cu
rving veranda of a large, white villa overlooking Tai Tam Bay, two men were sitting across a chessboard. One man was in his early seventies, with greying hair and a deeply weathered face. His name was Shu Zhi-fang, and for the last three years he had served as Dragon Head of the Blue Dragon Triad. The other was only just into his thirties; he had longish hair, a flat face which came to life only when he smiled, and the look of a man dedicated to physical fitness. Lu Zhen was the society’s chief enforcer, its Number 426, its ‘Red Pole’.
The pieces on the board had been set up, but the two men had not yet finished discussing business.
‘They have no idea what the police were looking for?’ Shu asked, pushing his lower lip forward to blow the smoke from his cigarette straight up towards the rafters. ‘No idea what precipitated the raid?’
‘None,’ Lu said, repressing a cough.
‘Well, what are their police sources saying?’
‘The police were only brought in to conduct the raid. It was ordered by some task force the authorities in Singapore and Malaysia have put together to combat piracy.’
‘So this is connected to the Ocean Carousel?’
‘I don’t see how. Wu Ka-shing swears there is no evidence to connect him with our friends in the Riau Islands.’
‘A coincidence? Or have the Wu brothers been freelancing?’
‘Maybe, but if so they have covered their tracks well. The only thing the Singapore police have been able to pin on them so far is possible tax evasion.’
Shu laughed, scattering smoke across the board. ‘The ship is on schedule?’
‘It should arrive at Chuntao on Thursday evening.’
Shu took one last contemplative drag on the cigarette. ‘Then let’s play,’ he said, palming two pawns and holding out the closed fists for the younger man to choose.
An hour later, as the headlights of Lu’s car climbed the hill behind the villa, Shu lit another cigarette and began walking slowly down the path towards his private beach. Beyond the mouth of the bay an oil-tanker was silhouetted against the night sky, reminding him of the earlier conversation.
He walked along the sand a few feet from the receding tide, and turned up the path which wound diagonally across the cliff to the grassy stretch of hillside overlooking the bay. Just under the trees which ringed the hilltop he reached the stone tomb marking his wife’s place of burial.
He stood beside it for several minutes, looking out across the sea as if he were following her gaze, breathing in the fragrance of the trees. He knew she would have disapproved of his decisions in recent years, but that couldn’t be helped. It had been easier when she and his predecessor had both still been alive, and the Blue Dragons had been steadily cutting back on the criminal side of their activities.
At the time of his accession Shu had believed that 1997 would change everything. The Communists would purge all traces of genuinely free enterprise from Hong Kong, and the Triads, for historical reasons, would be the first to feel Beijing’s whip. In such a situation the Blue Dragons would be left with only two choices – relocation abroad or death.
But there had been one other option. Shu had sought success where all the other Dragon Heads had accepted failure – in forming a working alliance with elements inside the Communist ruling class. Even five years ago it would have been an impossible task, but the creation of the so-called enterprise zones across the border in Guangdong had eventually unleashed a frenzy of greed among Party members and non-Party members alike, and Shu had found the new partners he wanted.
His wife would not have approved, but now there was a good chance he would live out the rest of his days in this villa by the sea. And there would be no need for him to leave her alone on this hillside.
5
In the OSCG office Inspectors Kai and Li were halfway through their first coffee of the morning.
‘It was my mistake,’ Rosalie admitted, as much to herself as to Li. ‘We should have gambled on not losing the doctor.’
Li shook his head. ‘Nine times out of ten a loose tail gets shaken, and we agreed yesterday that a close tail would put the doctor at risk. Jen was just lucky – he made about four blind guesses and every one turned out a winner.’
‘All for nothing,’ she said bitterly. ‘If we had tried following the boat . . .’
‘You’d have been spotted,’ Li said calmly, loosening his tie. ‘What’s the matter with the air-conditioning this morning?’
‘Probably another economy drive.’
‘Probably. And anyway, the evening wasn’t a complete failure – we know where they bring the kids in, and we have these.’ He gestured towards the pile of black and white 8x10s which lay between them.
‘They’re just foot soldiers.’
Li sighed. ‘Yes, but whose? If they’re Blue Dragon enforcers, then I think we’re in business.’
She sighed as well. ‘Sorry. I just keep thinking about those babies in the boat, and wondering how many of them have come down with bacterial pneumonia.’
‘I know . . .’
‘Sometimes . . .’ She shrugged.
‘Sometimes we get lucky,’ Li said. ‘Which of us is going to ask Halliwell for the round-the-clock on the godown?’
‘You do it. I’ll probably put his back up somehow, the way I’m feeling this morning.’
‘He likes doing you favours.’
‘Only because he’s hoping for a particular favour in return.’
‘Let him hope.’
‘Yuk,’ she said, making a face. ‘Just thinking about those big hairy hands makes my skin crawl.’
Li grinned at her. ‘OK, I’ll deal with it.’
‘I’ll get working on the photos. See which of our upstanding citizens they work for.’
The Boeing 727 carrying Marker and Dubery slid gracefully down between the tower blocks and on to the long runway which stretched out into the harbour. For Dubery, who had never landed at Kai Tak before, the plane seemed an awful long time coming to a halt.
The two SBS men were still standing in the passport control queue when they were approached by an old Marine colleague of Marker’s, John ‘Fergie’ Ferguson. He led them through a door marked ‘Security,’ down several corridors and out through another door into the arrivals lounge.
‘So who are you working for these days?’ Marker asked, as the blond giant ushered them all into a dark-blue Rover.
‘Good question,’ Fergie said, twisting his body in the front seat to face them. ‘Officially I’m the liaison between the military and the Governor, but lately I seem to have graduated to the role of universal dogsbody. At this moment in time I’m liaising between a couple of ill-dressed commando types and about a dozen different parties, starting with the Marine Police. Which is where we’re heading.’
‘Sorry we’re such a sartorial let-down,’ Marker murmured. ‘But why a dozen different parties?’
There was a pause while their driver squeezed through a gap between double-decker buses. ‘No one tells me anything,’ Fergie said, ‘but they do drop the odd hint, and I gather your presence here is not entirely unconnected to the demise of a certain Douglas Bellamy.’
‘Possibly,’ Marker said with a smile.
‘Well, there’s your explanation. He worked for the Marine Police, and since he was found dead on his boat they handled the initial investigation. The Triad ramifications have brought in the RHKP’s Organized Crime group, and then there’s something else – which you probably know a lot more about than I do – which has got the Customs people involved. You’re going to have your work cut out remembering the names of the people you’re working with.’
‘Wonderful,’ Marker murmured. ‘How is the RHKP doing these days?’ he asked, remembering all the corruption scandals of the seventies and eighties, and the talks he’d had with Rosalie three years before.
‘Business as usual, I guess. There’s a lot more Chinese in the officer ranks, but there’s still a big gulf between the English at the top, most of whom don’t speak a w
ord of Cantonese, and a Chinese rank and file which doesn’t speak a lot of English. And of course even the most honest of the Chinese are wondering what 1997 is going to mean for them. Getting a good reference from us is not likely to be a big career plus when Beijing arrives. More like the opposite.’
Marker nodded. They were on Chatham Road now, the skyscrapers of central Kowloon looming through the windscreen. In the back seat Dubery was watching the city go by with a familiar mix of feelings – fascination, estrangement and a sense of disapproval which he found hard to pin down. Singapore had felt the same, and so had Miami the year before. He found himself watching the young women on the pavement, their fathomless faces and taut bodies, hyperconscious of how far he was from home.
In the front seat Marker caught a glimpse of a woman driving in the far lane, and thought for a second it was Rosalie Kai. He smiled inwardly and got Ferguson talking about his last few years in the colony.
It was just after one when they reached the Marine Police HQ on Canton Road. Chief Inspector Charles Skillen was waiting for them in his fifth-floor office, a huge, map-adorned room with large plate-glass windows that offered a panoramic view of the harbour and its junk-filled wharves. Skillen, a solidly built man in his mid-fifties with slightly receding grey hair and a neat moustache, reminded Marker of a long-vanished TV policeman. The name escaped him.
‘I should tell you that Doug Bellamy was a friend of mine,’ Skillen explained, staring almost belligerently at the two SBS men.
‘Understood,’ Marker said.
‘So how can I help you?’
‘For a start, we’d like a run-down on the investigation to date.’
Skillen half turned in his chair to look out of the windows. ‘He was found on his yacht, late on Friday night. A man on a nearby boat heard the shot and went to investigate. He found the body. A bullet had pierced the throat and passed up through the brain, killing him instantly. The circumstantial evidence suggested he had been in the act of cleaning his gun.’
Marker waited for Skillen to go on, but the Chief Inspector was staring into space. ‘So was it suicide or wasn’t it?’
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