by Chan Ho-Kei
‘Liz wouldn’t...’ Old Tsui’s words had touched a nerve, but Graham said no more. He had to acknowledge it was a possibility.
‘Or perhaps Leung Lai-ping has been kidnapped along with the child,’ said Kwan in a level voice. ‘Or even worse, they’ve already got rid of her. The kidnappers would just want a white-skinned child. A yellow-skinned middle-aged nanny is of no value to them.’
Graham Hill gasped. He’d spent all this time worrying about his son, without sparing one thought for Liz – and what Kwan said sounded very likely. God only knew if the blood on the uniform was Alfred’s or his nanny’s.
‘Have you noticed any recent odd behaviour on Leung Lai-ping’s part?’ asked Kwan.
‘No...’ Graham hesitated.
‘Thought of something?’
‘Nothing major. Two weeks ago, I got back from work and had a shower. When I came out of the bathroom, Liz was in our bedroom. She said she was looking for a shopping list. But she seldom goes into the master bedroom – at least not when I’m at home.’ Graham’s face displayed conflicting emotions. ‘I wondered if she was stealing from us, but I counted the cash in my wallet and it was all there. Then later she said she’d found the list on the balcony, and I realized I was worried about nothing.’
‘So you were suspicious of her?’ said Old Tsui.
‘No, no, I just thought of it because Inspector Kwan asked. Liz got on very well with Alfred. I don’t believe she’d ever do anything to harm him.’
‘In any case,’ said Kwan, ‘can we take a look at her room?’
‘Please do.’
Graham led Kwan to Liz’s room. Old Tsui and Mac followed, leaving Ngai alone by the telephone. The room wasn’t large, and didn’t contain many personal items apart from clothes and toiletries – nothing of value to the investigation.
The group returned to the living room and sat in silence, waiting for the kidnappers to call. Kwan didn’t ask any more questions, but seemed sunk in thought as he sat on the sofa. Mac and Old Tsui paced around the living room from time to time, trying not to let the atmosphere get too heavy, staying away from the windows in case the kidnappers were watching.
While they waited, two men from Identification turned up to collect the shirt and other items. They were dressed as workmen with heavy gloves, pushing a trolley on which was an enormous cardboard box, so it looked like they were delivering a fridge. In fact, the box was empty. Mac loaded it up with the evidence and they wheeled it away. An onlooker would have assumed they’d got the address wrong and had to lug the fridge away again.
Now and then Mac glanced at an ICAC plaque on the shelf – an award Graham had received at the end of his second year, in recognition of the many corruption cases he’d broken. Mac thought how unbelievable this must look from the outside, the police in the same room as the man in charge of investigating them, doing battle together. As if cats and dogs could put aside their differences to fight jackals and wolves together, then resume their own quarrels when peace returned––
Brrring... The bright peals of noise broke the silence. It was exactly half past two. The kidnapper was punctual.
‘Drag this out as long as you can. It’ll take time for the tracing device to find out where the call’s coming from.’ Kwan and the others pulled on their headphones and signalled for Graham to pick up the phone. Ngai raised a thumb at Kwan, indicating that everything was in working order.
Graham answered. ‘Hello,’ he said cautiously.
‘Are you Alfred Hill’s father?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your wife did as we asked. Not bad. Did you get my gift?’
‘If you harm one hair on Alfred’s head...’ Graham couldn’t stop his angry outburst, provoked by the other man’s mocking tone.
‘What if I do? Mr Hill, let’s get this clear. I’m the one who gives the orders.’
‘You...’ Graham was filled with despair. ‘What demands do you have?’
‘Before we get into that, let me ask you – did you call the police?’
‘No.’
‘I hate people lying to me. The deal’s off.’
Click. He’d hung up. Graham clung numbly to the phone, listening to the monotonous dial tone, which sounded to him like a whetstone sharpening his executioner’s blade. He glanced blankly at Kwan, allowing the receiver to drift back down.
Brring... Without waiting for Kwan’s signal, Graham picked up the phone right away.
‘Please don’t – I’ll do anything—’ he gabbled.
‘I’ll give you another chance. Did you call the police?’ It was the same man.
Graham was on the point of blurting out ‘Yes, I’m sorry!’ but he looked up in time to see Kwan holding up a sheet of paper on which was scrawled the word ‘BLUFFING’.
‘No! I wouldn’t gamble with my own son’s life!’ Graham blustered. He was terrified the kidnapper would see through his lie, or that Kwan’s guess was wrong, but in this moment he could only trust he was making the right choice.
‘Good, good.’ He didn’t hang up, and Graham let out a shaky breath. ‘You’re an honest man. So we can talk business. A minute ago, you said you were willing to do anything. All I want is money. Give me cash and you get your kid back.’
‘How much do you want?’
‘Not much. Five hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars. Quite a bargain.’
‘I... I don’t have that much money...’ said Graham helplessly.
Click.
‘Hello! Hello!’ Graham was dumbfounded – he hadn’t thought speaking honestly would enrage the other party.
He set down the receiver. Inspector Kwan asked Ngai, ‘Did you trace it?’
‘No, not long enough.’ Ngai shook his head.
‘Officer Kwan, what’ll we do?’ asked Graham.
‘The criminal—’
Before he could finish, the phone rang for a third time.
‘The criminal’s testing you – he wants to squeeze you dry. He’s not actually going to terminate the negotiation. But you need to tread carefully,’ said Kwan.
Graham nodded and picked up the phone. ‘Please don’t hang up! Can we just talk?’
‘You said you had no money. What else am I supposed to say?’
‘But I really don’t have that much money.’
‘Huh, that’s ignorance for you...’ Then silence.
‘Hello? Hello?’ Graham thought he’d hung up again, but there was no dial tone.
‘...Liz? Are you there? Liz?’
Graham felt tears spring to his eyes. It was his son’s voice.
‘Alfred! Are you hurt? Don’t be scared, Daddy’s going to bring you home.’
‘Alfred!’ Hearing her husband’s words, Stella lunged at the telephone.
‘Mr Hill, you see that I’m serious.’ The kidnapper’s voice was back. ‘It’s too bad of you to keep saying you have no money. Your business fluctuates by millions in a single day – what’s five hundred grand to you?’
‘Where would I get a million-dollar business? I’m just a salaried public servant!’
‘Since when do public servants live in Kowloon Tong and send their children to fancy schools?’
‘Nairn House is government accommodation! My son’s school fees are subsidized!’
A sudden silence.
‘Hello? Hello?’
‘...I’ll call you later.’
‘Hello!’
But the kidnapper had hung up.
In that instant, Graham realized he’d said the wrong thing. If the kidnapper really thought he was a wealthy man, and if that’s why he’d kidnapped Alfred, then finding out he couldn’t afford a huge ransom might make him decide to get rid of the hostage. Why hadn’t he said he could borrow it from friends?
‘Ins... Inspector Kwan, have I ruined everything? Graham stammered, looking at all of them.
‘It’s too early to say. The kidnapper might not have done sufficient research,’ said Kwan calmly. ‘From what he’s said so far, we can guess tha
t whoever’s masterminding this is an expert in psychological manipulation. If they were mistaken, they’ll want to work out a new ransom. You’ve been very co-operative so far, so they’ll probably feel you’re still of value to them, and if they give up now, they’ll have nothing to show for their pains.’
Graham understood that when Kwan said ‘give up’, he meant ‘kill Alfred’, but that he was trying not to agitate Stella further.
Two minutes later, the phone rang again. To Graham, those two minutes were like two hours.
‘Hello?’
‘You... really are a public servant?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where do you work?’
‘The Independent Commission Against Corruption.’
‘Right, that’s what your son said too. At least you’re not lying.’ The voice softened a little. ‘That’s bad luck – I made a mistake.’
‘Please let Alfred go! I’ll give you everything I have!’
‘How much is that?’
‘About seventy thousand dollars...’
‘Seventy thousand? Your family lives in Kowloon Tong, and all you have saved up is a piddling seventy thousand?’
‘I came to Hong Kong to work, because I had debts to pay off...’ Graham didn’t dare conceal anything. They could verify what he was saying by asking Alfred, who knew about the family’s financial situation.
The kidnapper cursed in Cantonese, then switched back to English. ‘Listen carefully. I want a hundred thousand, and you have to get it within an hour... no, within forty-five minutes. Otherwise your son is dead.’
‘Where am I going to get thirty thousand dollars in forty-five minutes?’
‘How would I know? If you don’t have cash, make up the difference with jewellery. You’re in fancy government housing, I guess you must have an important position? I don’t believe your wife doesn’t have some baubles for when she hangs off your arm at those la-di-dah banquets you high officials attend. If you can’t get that together in forty-five minutes, then prepare to pick up your son’s corpse.’
Once again, the line went dead.
‘Ron, did you get a fix on that?’ asked Kwan, plucking off his headphones.
‘I’m sorry, sir. Not enough time.’
‘He kept hanging up, seemingly because he was angry at Mr Hill, but it might also have been a precaution,’ frowned Kwan. ‘He might have presumed we’d be listening in, so kept each call short to prevent us tracking him down. Everyone, be on your guard.’
Kwan turned to Graham. ‘Mr Hill, do you really only have seventy thousand in savings?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s two thirty-five now. Forty-five minutes takes us to twenty past three. That’s not enough time for us to get you marked bills. I think you’d better follow the kidnapper’s orders and draw all your savings out of the bank.’
‘And the other thirty thousand?’ interrupted Mac. ‘Mr Hill, could you get an advance on your salary?’
‘Not in forty-five minutes. And that’d be four months’ wages.’
Kwan stroked his chin. ‘Mr Hill, the police can’t provide the money, but I can lend it to you privately...’
‘Headman, that’s against the rules!’ said Old Tsui. All three subordinates were shocked – not that their leader was willing to help their sworn enemy, the ICAC investigator, but that the famously stingy Kwan Chun-dok was willing to loan thirty thousand dollars that might never get paid back.
‘Sergeant Tsui is right,’ said Graham, nodding to show his gratitude. ‘Stella has some jewellery left to us by my parents. We weren’t willing to sell it to pay our debts, but they’re insignificant compared to Alfred.’
‘The jewellery is worth thirty thousand?’ asked Kwan.
‘We had it valued at between fifteen hundred and two thousand pounds back in England, so at most twenty thousand Hong Kong dollars, but jewels fluctuate in price, don’t they? Hopefully it’s worth more by now.’
‘See? I told you Brits were all rich,’ whispered Tsui to Mac in Cantonese.
‘Stella, you don’t mind, do you?’
She shook her head. After being too late to hear her son’s voice on the phone, she seemed sunk even further in despair.
Kwan walked up to Stella and took both her hands in his. ‘Mrs Hill, we’ll bring your son safely back. I guarantee it.’
Stella looked up at Kwan and nodded sadly.
‘Mr Hill, is the bank far from here?’
‘Five minutes by car.’
‘Then you’d better get there as quickly as possible. Mac, hide in Mr Hill’s back seat and be on the alert for anything unexpected. Make sure no one sees you.’
‘Yes, Inspector.’ Mac departed with Graham.
The other four, left in the living room, said nothing. Kwan sat on the sofa, apparently staring at a horizon far away. His subordinates and the mistress of the house had no idea he was contemplating an entirely different matter.
What Kwan Chun-dok was considering was the ‘police corruption’ revealed by the Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market drug-smuggling case.
4
AT THREE O’CLOCK, Graham Hill and Mac returned.
According to Mac, nothing out of the ordinary happened on the way. He’d peeped out the car window in all directions, and hadn’t noticed anyone following them. The Hills had HK$70,000 in a fixed-term deposit that matured in a month. Graham had had to close the account to get it out, which meant losing all the interest. With the cash in an envelope, he returned to the car parked just in front of the bank. It all went very smoothly.
Now he stacked the new bills on the living-room table: seven bundles, each of twenty $500 notes. Although Hong Kong had issued a new $1,000 bill three months ago, most banks still supplied the familiar ‘Big Bull’ $500 notes. $70,000 would be six or seven years’ salary for the average clerical worker, but looking at the piles of paper on the table, Mac thought it looked much less than he’d expected.
‘Mac, write down the serial numbers.’ Before Kwan had even said anything, Old Tsui was giving orders. ‘There’s not much time.’
Mac nodded and sat at the table, ripping off the paper that held each stack together and diligently copying down the number of each note. As soon as any of these went back into the bank system, the police could start tracking down the perpetrator by following the flow of money.
‘And the jewellery to make up the rest?’ asked Kwan.
‘I keep it in my study,’ said Graham, walking in that direction.
‘Not in your bedroom?’
‘We had so much debt before last year. Of course we store our valuables in the safe. Imagine if we’d kept them unsecured and a burglar helped himself – that would have been the very little we had, completely gone.’ Graham sighed. ‘It’s funny how things work out. I’m going to be handing them over anyway.’
Kwan followed Graham into the study. Old Tsui followed, as if wanting to see a bit more of this world. The study wasn’t large, but very orderly, with shelves full of books on law, procedure and crime detection. The wall next to the bookcase held several paintings – nothing particularly beautiful, just childishly executed watercolours.
‘These are Alfred’s,’ Graham explained. ‘He loves painting. Extra-curricular activities don’t really interest him, just painting. Give him a brush and some paper, and he’ll sit and paint all afternoon. Stella sent him to some after-school drawing class, and he was completely hooked. He insisted I hang his work in my study, saying a study ought to be decorated with paintings.’
Graham’s smile quickly faded, to be replaced with sheer misery. Kwan and Old Tsui understood that this pleasant memory had become a psychological torture.
Opening a wooden cabinet by the bookshelf, Graham revealed a grey-blue safe, about seventy centimetres wide and a metre tall. Kwan couldn’t see how deep it was. Graham turned a key in the lock, then rotated the dial left and right. The door snapped open. He carefully removed a purple velvet box and shut the cabinet door, retrieving the key.
&nb
sp; When Graham opened the box, Kwan and Old Tsui almost jumped. Inside was a necklace with a dozen dazzlingly bright diamonds dangling from it, coiled around a pair of diamond earrings of the same design, while three rings lay to one side, two of them the same design as the other pieces. The remaining ring wasn’t a diamond but a ruby.
‘This lot is only worth twenty thousand?’ whistled Old Tsui.
‘I’m not sure,’ answered Graham. ‘The jeweller said fifteen hundred pounds, but maybe he was trying to cheat me.’ He shut the box and sighed, ‘Stella’s had this necklace and earrings so many years, but she’s only worn them three or four times. Since we arrived in Hong Kong, I believe the only occasion was last November, when we went to a colleague’s wedding. She’s always loved them. She’ll give them up for Alfred, but I’m sure she hates to.’
The three men returned to the living room, where Mac had fin- ished copying down the numbers. Five of the seven stacks had contained only new bills in sequence, which made his job easier.
‘Headman, isn’t it strange that the kidnapper didn’t specify old notes and small denominations?’ said Mac.
Old Tsui shrugged. ‘Maybe he wants to get this over with quickly, and didn’t think of those details.’
‘Or he’s already got a plan to cover that,’ said Kwan, walking over to Ngai. ‘Hand me the thing.’
Ngai knew what his commander meant, and removed a small black box from his equipment bag. It was plastic, about the size of a cigarette lighter, with several vents on the underside through which could be seen a jumble of wires. On the front were four screws, and in the middle an unobtrusive button.
‘Mr Hill, this is a transmitter.’ Kwan placed it on the table. ‘The battery inside is good for forty-eight hours. Press the button when you slip it into the bag with the money, and we’ll be able to track the signal. As soon as the kidnapper picks up the ransom, we’ll have a colleague follow him, and when we know where his hideout is, we’ll rescue your son.’