The Death of Kings

by Rennie George Airth

  New on the market, the car had been heralded by its makers as the answer to the German Volkswagen, and its distinctive jelly-mould shape and superior performance had made it an instant favourite with the public. Not many were to be seen on the roads as yet—most vehicles coming off the assembly lines were earmarked for the export market—and Helen’s cream-coloured model drew more than one envious glance as they made their leisurely way southwards along the A3 until they were a few miles short of Petersfield, at which point Madden, who was acting as navigator, spotted the signpost for Hawkley. Ten minutes later, still following the minutely detailed directions Adele Castleton had given them, they turned into a pair of wrought-iron gates and up a long avenue flanked by elms that led to the house.

  Late Victorian in design, it was fronted by a circular driveway with a lily pond at its centre. The high brick wall of a kitchen garden was visible on one side of the house, and it was from that direction that a man wearing work clothes approached them. Short and ruddy-faced, his close-cropped hair seemed to mark him out as an old soldier and he strode briskly towards them, in spite of having a slight limp.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Madden, is it? How do you do, sir—and you, ma’am?’ He dipped his head to Helen. ‘Lennox is my name. I’m Sir Richard’s chauffeur. He’s over on the other side of the house with the children, but he told me to keep an eye out for you. Mrs Castleton’s hereabouts. I think she’s in the kitchen garden. I’ll just go and see.’

  About to leave them, he paused as his eye fell on Helen’s car.

  ‘Oh, you’ve got one of those, have you, ma’am?’ His face lit up. ‘Is it true they do forty miles to the gallon?’

  ‘Quite true.’ Helen was complacent.

  ‘And the independent front-wheel suspension . . . does it really make cornering easier?’

  ‘Much easier.’

  ‘I must say she’s a beauty.’

  He laid a reverent hand on the machine’s bonnet.

  ‘Don’t encourage him, Helen.’

  Turning, Madden saw Adele Castleton approaching. She had a basket on her arm.

  ‘Ted’s one dream is to drive in the Monte Carlo Rally. If you’re not careful he’ll be asking you if he can borrow it next.’

  Garbed in a loose silk dress with a flowered pattern, she wore a wide straw hat that kept the sun off her face but did nothing to hide the warmth of her smile.

  ‘Are those roses for me?’ Laying down the basket, she enveloped Helen in a warm embrace. ‘How lovely to see you again, my dear: it’s been such a long time. Do you know you haven’t changed a bit?’

  She turned to Madden.

  ‘Richard was so pleased to hear you were coming today. He would have driven up to Highfield himself to see you, but he hadn’t set eyes on the children for more than a fortnight, and with their mother away he felt he had to spend the week-end at home. Sarah rang from Philadelphia last night. It sounds as though her father has had a slight stroke: not a disabling one, I’m happy to say, but enough to worry them. She’s going to stay there for a little while longer. Let’s go round to the front and look for Richard. No, wait . . .’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Your car will bake sitting in the sun. Would you like to put it under the tree over there?’ She pointed to a handsome oak whose spreading branches covered a corner of the drive.

  ‘Perhaps Lennox would like to do that for me.’ Helen turned to the chauffeur. ‘The keys are in the car.’

  ‘Of course, ma’am.’ His face lit up at the prospect.

  ‘But only as far as the tree, Ted,’ Mrs Castleton cautioned him. ‘No taking it out for a spin.’

  ‘Oh, ma’am . . . you know I wouldn’t do that.’

  Grinning with pleasure, he opened the car door, and as they went off they heard the motor start.

  ‘Ted served in the war with Richard,’ she told them as she led the way up the side of the house. ‘He was his company sergeant-major. When it was over Richard offered him a job. Officially he’s his chauffeur, but he’s far more than that. He does all sorts of things for us. He’s a dear man. The children adore him.’

  When they came to a door she paused.

  ‘I must just put your lovely roses in water,’ she said, relieving Helen of her burden, ‘and take this into the kitchen, too.’ She indicated the basket she was carrying. ‘It’s so difficult with rationing still, isn’t it? There’s a farm attached to the house and we get some stuff from it. But Richard doesn’t like to bend the rules, especially when he knows he could do it so easily. But fortunately we’ve a lovely kitchen garden and I can promise you a good salad to go with our rabbit pie.’

  She returned after a few moments and they continued to the front of the house, where she paused so that they could take in the view. Before them was a garden boasting a wide, tree-shaded lawn bordered by flower-beds and hedged by dense shrubberies; and beyond that a sweeping vista of beech-clad hills stretching for miles into the hazy distance.

  At the bottom of the lawn two figures stood facing each other some yards apart. As they watched, the taller of the two moved forward, bringing his arm over in a slow arc. Madden saw it was Jessup, and that he was bowling to a boy who must have been his son. The crack of a cricket bat striking a ball reached their ears, and at the same moment another, smaller figure, clad in white, darted like a sprite from the shadows cast by a giant beech and hared after the ball, which had disappeared into the shrubbery.

  ‘Poor Katy.’ Mrs Castleton sighed. ‘They just use her as a fielder. She hardly ever gets a chance to bat.’

  ‘Hullo there . . . !’ Jessup called to them.

  Raising his hand in greeting, he came up the lawn to meet them, trailed by the children.

  ‘It’s so good of you to come all this way.’

  He spoke while he was still some way off, and Madden and Helen had time to take in his lithe figure, dressed simply in a pair of shabby corduroy trousers and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow.

  ‘Dr Madden . . . ?’ He held out his hand.

  ‘Please . . . call me Helen.’

  ‘Adele has told me so much about you.’ Jessup looked into her eyes as they shook hands. ‘But I want to hear more . . . about both of you,’ he added as he turned to greet Madden. ‘First, some introductions though . . .’

  He beckoned to his son, who had paused behind him, bat in hand, waiting to be presented.

  ‘This is Jack . . . John, actually, but he prefers Jack, just as his grandfather did. Come and say hullo to Mr and Mrs Madden.’

  The boy stepped forward. Dark-haired, like his father—and with the same high cheekbones with their promise of good looks—his face was burned brown by the summer sun. Eyes as blue as sapphires examined them curiously as they shook hands.

  ‘Now, what have you done with your sister?’

  Jessup bent to peer into his son’s face, ignoring the presence of the little girl, who had held back and was standing some distance off, clutching the cricket ball to her chest and eyeing the visitors doubtfully.

  ‘She’s over there, Daddy.’ The boy pointed. ‘You can see her.’

  ‘So she is . . . !’ Jessup drew back in mock surprise. ‘Come along, Katy. I want you to say hullo.’

  The girl approached them, head bowed.

  ‘Shake hands now.’

  Still clutching her ball with one hand, she extended the other. It was solemnly accepted, first by Helen, and then by her husband.

  ‘There . . . that wasn’t too difficult.’ Jessup ran his fingers through her curls, which were fair like her mother’s.

  ‘And now I think it’s time for your lunch, both of you.’

  ‘It’s waiting in the kitchen,’ Mrs Castleton announced. She glanced at Helen. ‘Shall we take them inside? Then we can settle down on our own. We’ve a great deal of catching up to do.’ She had turned to Jessup. ‘And I
know you want to speak to Mr Madden. So why don’t we all meet in an hour.’

  • • •

  ‘I might have guessed that would catch your eye. She dominates the room, doesn’t she? Poor mother—she was afflicted by the worst of all curses: the unshakeable conviction that she was always in the right.’

  Jessup spoke from the doorway. He had led Madden to his study, a pleasant book-lined room with a view of the garden and the rolling, wooded countryside beyond, and left him there while he went to wash his hands and put on a jacket. Madden had wandered about, glancing at the books and inspecting the paintings hanging on the walls, which included a view of the Hong Kong waterfront busy with shipping, and with the well-known silhouette of Signal Hill rising in the background. He had stopped at a table in one corner covered with framed photographs, one of which had attracted his attention. Larger than the rest, and somehow managing to tower over them, its subject was a handsome dark-haired woman with strong features who gazed back at the camera without even a hint of a smile, seeming to challenge the lens, daring it to find fault with her.

  ‘I never understood how she and Father came to marry. They were young, of course, which may partly explain it. I’m sure Mother was quite inexperienced; about my father I’m not so sure. But they very soon found that they couldn’t live with each other and parted on the worst of terms; though not before I was sired, obviously.’

  Smiling, he came over from the door.

  ‘And there’s a snapshot of Rex and me. It was when we were at Eton. We rowed in the same eight.’

  The two boys stood side by side, each holding an upraised oar. Easily recognisable in spite of the lock of hair that hung carelessly down over his brow, partly covering one eye, Jessup was half a head taller than his companion, whose hair was brushed back from his forehead. Both were smiling broadly.

  ‘We were great pals in those days.’ Jessup’s voice was tinged with regret. ‘It was only later that we fell out.’

  His face brightened.

  ‘And this is Sarah,’ he said, picking up a photograph that was standing on his desk and handing it to Madden. ‘It was taken on our honeymoon in Paris.’

  The young woman whose face Madden recognized from the picture Mrs Castleton had shown him stood with her hands in her coat pockets. A beret tilted at a rakish angle crowned her fair head and a woollen scarf was wound about her neck. The cobbles at her feet shone with rain, but her smile lit up the damp day.

  ‘My mother didn’t quite approve of her. She didn’t think any girl was good enough for her son. But they were starting to get on better when she died. It was soon after Father passed away. Mother had been diagnosed with cancer sometime before, but she hung on grimly and managed to be present at our wedding in Philadelphia, something Father was unable to do. It was towards the end of 1938 and he was already too ill to travel. I’ve always believed that Mother was determined to see him in his grave before she went herself. As I think I told you, I began to spend more time with him as I grew older and she never really forgave me for it.’

  Putting the photograph back in its place, he went to a cabinet and opened it.

  ‘Will you join me in a bottle of beer before lunch, John? I’ve worked up a thirst.’

  They had moved easily onto a first-name basis, the transition occurring naturally and without fuss, and Madden had found himself surprised at how quickly a feeling of ease and companionship had grown up between them. Being naturally reserved, it was a new experience for him, and he put it down to the absence of just that quality in the other man. The openness Jessup had shown him from the first had been like a bridge that they had crossed without effort.

  Accepting the glass of beer offered him, he took his seat in a stuffed-leather armchair, one of two set on either side of a low table. Jessup stayed by the window looking out.

  ‘You’ve been very patient.’

  He turned with a smile.

  ‘I was going to ring you when I got back from my trip on Friday and found an express letter from the head of our Hong Kong office waiting for me. It was in reply to the telegram I sent him about Wing. But then something else happened that made me think it would be better to wait until I could speak to you about both in person.’

  ‘I wanted to speak to you myself,’ Madden said. ‘But I knew you were away last week. I wanted to explain how this story had got into the newspapers. I think the same person who sent the pendant to Derry also sent a letter to the News of the World. Whoever it is seems to want the case re-opened.’

  Jessup grunted. ‘I did wonder about that.’

  He came over from the window to join Madden and sat down facing him.

  ‘First let me tell you about Wing. To begin with, he was released from prison two months ago. He’d been inside for four years of a six-year term and there was nothing unusual about his early release, which was for good behaviour. You may wonder why I hadn’t heard about it before. I certainly did. But it turns out that Stanley was far from an ordinary prisoner, and the manner of his release was equally unusual. No announcement of it was made by the prison authorities. In fact it was kept a close secret, which explains why my people didn’t find out about it until now. They also learned that he was able to leave the colony immediately, possibly with official help. They had been given to understand that he went across the bay to Macau—it’s a short ride by boat. But after that he disappeared.’

  ‘What was so special about him?’

  ‘The charge on which he was convicted—of collaborating with the enemy—was real enough. But there was an aspect of it which put him in a different category from others who were charged with the same offence. What he was accused of, in fact, was acting as an intermediary between the Japanese occupying forces and the Triad gangs. I take it you know who I’m referring to?’

  ‘They’re a criminal society, aren’t they?’

  Jessup nodded. ‘They date from the seventeenth century. Originally they were a secret organization opposed to the Manchu rulers, but later they turned to crime and became involved first in the opium trade and later in all kinds of skulduggery, including extortion and drug smuggling; and murder, of course. They spread to Hong Kong a long time ago, but now with the Communists on the point of taking control of the whole of the mainland, the colony is their centre of operations. According to police estimates there are upwards of three hundred thousand Triad members active in Hong Kong.’

  He saw Madden’s look of amazement and shrugged.

  ‘I had always assumed that Wing had Triad connections. He could hardly have carried out his business in stolen artefacts without their help. But I hadn’t realized until now the full extent of his involvement with them. According to our sources in the Hong Kong police, Wing was recruited by one of the biggest gangs, or families, as they like to call themselves—the Tang—and went through their initiation ceremony, which, among other things, requires the sacrifice of a live animal and the drinking of its blood mixed with wine. Unknown to us he’d become a fully-fledged member and would have had to swear eternal loyalty to the brotherhood, it being understood that any infringement of the oaths he took carried the penalty of death. The Triad gangs are absolutely ruthless when it comes to punishing betrayals, or indeed any perceived affront. Wing, it turns out, had transgressed on both counts, hence the special treatment he received in prison; and the protection he was given when he was released.’

  ‘He became an informer? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘In effect. The police had evidence that he’d been quick to approach the Japanese when they occupied Hong Kong and point out to them the advantages of using the Triads to control the local population and manage the labour force. His actions were treasonable beyond question, and if he hadn’t offered to turn King’s evidence when he was arrested, he would have drawn a much longer prison sentence. But his willingness to cooperate with the police meant he was a marked man from then on: his name wa
s on the Tang’s death list, and almost at once he was the target of an assassination attempt in prison, which led to his being kept in solitary confinement for the remainder of his term. He was still providing the authorities with valuable information about the gang’s activities, so it was worth their while to protect him. And apparently he managed to extract a further concession from them: it was agreed that his eventual release should be kept secret.’

  ‘And now he’s disappeared?’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘You’re not certain of that?’ Madden had caught a slight change in the other’s tone.

  ‘This is that other matter I mentioned.’ Jessup rubbed his jaw. ‘This is what I wanted to speak to you about in person. It’s a sensitive issue and it raises difficult questions—for me, at any rate. What I’ve just told you is information you’re welcome to pass on to Scotland Yard. They can discover it for themselves in any case by getting in touch with the Hong Kong police. But this other matter . . . it’s put me in a quandary. I’m not sure what to do about it and I’d like your advice, John.’

  ‘Tell me about it. I’ll see if I can help.’

  ‘I got back from my trip late on Thursday, and when I went into the office the next day I found the letter from Hong Kong waiting for me. I’d barely had time to digest its contents, though, when my secretary told me that an elderly Chinese business man I’m acquainted with, a Mr Lin Jie, was asking to see me urgently. He had heard that I was back in London and telephoned from his offices in Soho to ask if he could call on me at the earliest possible moment. He’d been unwilling to divulge the reason for his request, except to say that it concerned a matter he could only discuss with me in person.’