A Spoonful of Murder

by Robin Stevens

  ‘Hazel, we really are getting somewhere!’ said Daisy, turning to me with a bounce. ‘Now, first things first. Would you like me to show you what I found in your father’s office? It’s really rather good.’

  ‘Of course I would!’ I said eagerly.

  Daisy laughed at me. ‘See, now you’re thinking like a proper Watson,’ she said. ‘Look!’

  She took a crumpled piece of paper out of Death in the Clouds and pressed it flat across her knees.

  ‘Goodness!’ I said, after I had read it.

  ‘Exactly!’ said Daisy. ‘Look – we had motives for Mr Wa Fan and Mr Svensson already. Here is proper proof that Mrs Fu needed money, and that your father said no to her. This is a real motive for her!’

  She was right. We were learning more and more about each of our suspects. They had all three been at the party the night before, and at the bank earlier – and they all had good reason to kidnap Teddy.

  ‘Father said that the man who called was talking so quietly he could barely hear him,’ I said, thinking about it. ‘So we can’t rule out any of our suspects. Mrs Fu might have made her voice quiet and low like a man’s, mightn’t she?’

  ‘But he definitely heard Teddy!’ said Daisy. ‘And some rattling, which I think is far more interesting. That call is useful to us. It tells us that Teddy is safe, and that his kidnappers do want cash for him. This case may have connections to Su Li, but it is still about money. Talking of kidnapping, have you ever heard of the Lindbergh baby?’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said cautiously. ‘Is it from a book?’

  ‘Hazel, I am quite convinced that sometimes, when I talk, you don’t listen. The Lindbergh baby was perfectly real, and one of the inspirations for the greatest novel ever written, Mrs Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. His father was the aviator Charles Lindbergh, and he was stolen by horrid kidnappers who wanted all his money. It all went wrong, and they never got him home again.’

  ‘Why are you telling me that?’ I asked, horrified. I realized I could not bear the idea that we might never get Teddy back.

  ‘Two reasons,’ said Daisy. ‘First, because I wanted to see how you’d feel at the thought that Teddy might not be found. I wanted to show you that you do care for him, even though you think you don’t.

  ‘And second, because in that case ransom notes kept everyone distracted for months. All the grown-ups thought that they were the most important thing to follow, when they were really useless, at least for the purposes of finding the baby.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So my point is that the ransom telephone call is important, but we must not fix on it the way the grown-ups are. We must continue to think logically about suspects and motives. And we need to get out of the house and investigate Sai Yat further. We can’t leave that to the detective!’

  ‘Daisy, we mustn’t!’ I said. ‘It’s terribly dangerous. You know we can’t leave the Big House on our own, especially not to go and find a Triad gang.’

  Daisy looked mulish. ‘Nevertheless, we must do it anyway,’ she said. ‘And there’s one more thing I want to say at this stage. We think this was an outside job. But … we can’t quite discount your family. Clearly, all is not entirely well at home, and we do know that the kidnapper has excellent knowledge of your household.’

  ‘Don’t even say it,’ I said fiercely. ‘Jie Jie is Teddy’s mother, even though she’s not allowed to show that in public – and you’ve seen how much she adores him. She has no reason to have him kidnapped. My father – well, he couldn’t, Daisy. He couldn’t pretend to be so hurt – and, again, what would he gain from having his own son kidnapped? May and Rose are babies. And my mother – no, Daisy. She knows that my father would never speak to her again, and, when Teddy came back, he’d be more adored than ever. She always knew that Jie Jie might have a son. It’s expected here. You simply have to live with it. You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Daisy. ‘Well, I take your point in general – but, Hazel, I do think we have to add your mother to the list, at least temporarily. We’ll be able to rule her out, I’m sure. But you must see that she has a good motive – although her feet don’t allow her to move as quickly as you or me.’

  ‘Bound feet used to be ordinary here, Daisy,’ I said quickly. ‘Most grown-up women have them. It doesn’t stop you walking.’ Then I heard myself, and knew that I was not helping my mother’s case. ‘But she liked Su Li! They used to talk all the time. That’s why Su Li was my maid, because my mother chose her out of all the mui tsai. She wouldn’t kill her! And she wasn’t at the bank today. She didn’t have the same opportunity to hand over the pin.’

  ‘This is all very useful, Hazel,’ said Daisy. ‘We can use it to help rule her out.’

  With a heavy heart, I picked up my pencil again.

  ‘Good,’ said Daisy. ‘Hazel, you know I’m only being thorough.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. But as I closed my casebook and readied myself for dinner, I could not stop wondering. My mother’s face at the upper window played in my head again and again – and so did the gardener’s boy we had met that afternoon.

  I remembered what he had said: Beware. There’s a snake on your back too.

  8

  The next morning it was raining again. I woke up, and for a floating moment felt clean and calm. Then it dropped on me, like a black weight: Su Li was dead. Teddy was gone. And I might be a suspect. I kept almost forgetting that fact, but then felt it pierce me like a stray pin poking through the hem of a not-quite-finished blouse.

  I sat up with a struggle, and saw that Daisy was already awake, sitting cross-legged on her bed, staring at me.

  ‘Good morning, Hazel,’ she said.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked her.

  ‘Thinking about the case,’ said Daisy. ‘I’m still trying to work out a bothersome puzzle: how to observe our most difficult suspect more closely. Sai Yat doesn’t have a standing invitation to your house, after all, so somehow we must get out and go to him. And this place is far more regimented than Deepdean. Simply slipping away with a change of clothes on under our coats will not suffice. We need to be considerably more resourceful to escape.’

  ‘The dogs are out at night,’ I said. ‘And the gardeners are out during the day. I told you, we’ll never manage it without being seen, Daisy. It’s not like England here. We can’t go where we like, on our own. It’s impossible. There’s no point even talking about it. You don’t understand.’

  ‘Hazel,’ said Daisy, blinking at me in an absolutely maddening way. ‘I am quite aware that I don’t understand. And that is the point. You understand so well that you don’t even want to try. I say that we must try, no matter how impossible it seems. And, in fact, I had a rather good idea just after dawn this morning. I shall consider it until I am more sure – but I have the inkling of a plan that might just manage to get us outside this compound without Ping, or Wo On, or any of the other grown-ups your father has surrounded us with.’

  ‘He’s just protecting us,’ I said. It came out of my mouth automatically, from years and years of being told just such a thing. My father’s decisions were wise, and for my own good. Even on the Orient Express, he hadn’t been wrong, just misinformed. But now I knew that my father had thought of Teddy before me, and given him into Su Li’s care even though she had not wanted it. Could I still believe in him the way I always had?

  I must have looked stricken, for Daisy put out her hand and patted my arm.

  Ping came in then, to dress us, and Daisy and I could say no more about her plan.

  ‘I am going to Man Mo Temple today,’ announced my father at breakfast. We were all surprised. This was my grandfather’s temple, and the Tung Wah’s – my father never liked going there.

  ‘I have to meet Detective Leung,’ said my father gruffly. His eyes were redder than ever this morning, and his lips were greyish. ‘Appointment. Maxwell will watch the telephone while I am gone.’

  ‘Can Daisy and I come too?’ I asked at once. M
y father glared at me with bloodshot eyes.

  ‘I— It meant so much to Ah Yeh,’ I said. ‘I want to see it again.’

  My father made a cross face, but at last he said, ‘All right, then. If you must. Be ready in half an hour.’

  The cars let us out on Hollywood Road, so we could arrive on foot. People on the street turned to look at Daisy, at the flash of her gold hair, and she looked back at them haughtily – but, I saw, with a little twitch of nerves.

  The trees above us curled their roots and vines down into the road, and the air was heavy with moisture. There were smells all around us of wood being cut and carved and varnished. The temple was ahead, with its white walls and slanting green tiled roofs, and red paper prayers fluttering.

  We went inside the temple, darkness dropping over us like a cloak. All around was red and gold from hundreds of square lit lanterns, and the air was thick with incense. Daisy coughed, and I bowed. We walked towards the gold and red gods at the other end of the temple, the curling incense sticks above us dropping ash on our arms and hands and necks like hot kisses.

  I love the Taoist temples in Hong Kong. The gods’ altars are covered in shining, sweet-smelling gifts of fruit and flowers, and paper money in bright packages. Christian churches always seem so bare to me in comparison. I remember being taken by my father to St John’s Cathedral when I was very little, and thinking that Jesus must be hungry, with only sour wine and bitter flat bread to eat. I am never quite sure if my grandfather’s gods pay attention to me, but I thought there was no harm in trying. And, anyway, Man is a god of books and learning, and Mo is a god of war, so I thought that they would not object to being asked to help with a detective case. I closed my eyes and hoped that we would find Teddy safely, and avenge Su Li properly. I thought about Grandfather, who had believed in all this, even if I was not sure whether I did or not.

  I understood like a heavy weight in my chest that, although we might get Teddy back, I would never come here with my grandfather or Su Li again, and whenever I did I would feel the space where they ought to be. That made me cry. I tried to pretend that it was only ash in my eye, but I don’t think Daisy was tricked. My father looked red-eyed too, wiping his eyes on his silk handkerchief. My heart ached for him – but I was still angry with him as well.

  Then Mr Wa Fan came through the doorway. Just behind him was Detective Leung. My father paused, and then bowed low to them, and Mr Wa Fan beckoned us over.

  ‘Good morning, Vincent,’ said Mr Wa Fan to my father. ‘And good morning to you, Miss Wong and Miss Wells. It is good that Vincent has brought you here.’ Mr Wa Fan spoke as if from a great height. This morning his gold-buttoned silk jacket was a deep purple. He reminded me, with an ache in my chest, so much of my grandfather, standing with his hands clasped before him. I saw that his rings were loose on his bony hands.

  ‘Sir, good morning,’ I said, in respectful Cantonese, bowing and nudging Daisy to remind her to bow too.

  ‘Vincent, we are here to help you,’ said Mr Wa Fan. ‘Remember that.’

  ‘I do remember that,’ said my father stiffly. ‘What news do you have?’

  ‘I am tracking Wu Shing,’ said Detective Leung, at Mr Wa Fan’s nod. ‘And Sai Yat’s gang seem rattled. They are straying from their normal behaviour. I will keep watching them, and I believe I will be able to find the boy soon. Yesterday I cleared the maid – she was an innocent victim, nothing more.’

  ‘This is not really much—’ my father began, and then he caught Mr Wa Fan’s eye, and stopped. I knew what he was going to say: that this was hardly worth getting us to drive to the temple for – but then I looked at Mr Wa Fan. He was smiling, and it ought to have been a kind expression, but somehow, on his thin face, it looked eerie. Mr Wa Fan had got my father to do something, even though he had not wanted to. I saw how much it meant to him.

  I looked at him with my detective senses and saw an old man who was set in his beliefs, and who was as firm in his disapproval of certain things as my grandfather had been.

  I suddenly thought of the relationship between my father and my grandfather, and I realized how much my grandfather had told my father what to do while he was at home. It was only when my father left the house that he could be the Mr Wong that the rest of the world saw. I understood that my grandfather’s death had suddenly allowed my father to be much more of the person he wanted to be – but now Mr Wa Fan was trying to control my father all over again.

  ‘How did you hear about what happened yesterday?’ I asked Mr Wa Fan. ‘The detective was with us so quickly, it was wonderful.’

  ‘News travels,’ said Mr Wa Fan, scowling at me. ‘I was here, at Man Mo Temple, at the time, but my servants informed me on my arrival home.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, trying to keep my face straight and calm. Mr Wa Fan had just lied to me. I knew from what Wo had told me that he had not been at the temple at all – he had been at the bank.

  ‘Detective Leung will find him soon, you will see. He will solve the case,’ said Mr Wa Fan, frowning through his beard.

  He gestured for Detective Leung to follow him, but before he did the detective paused before us, bending forward to stare at me more closely. The little black speck at the corner of his eye flickered as he looked at me, and I leaned closer to Daisy nervously.

  ‘Hazel Wong,’ said Detective Leung very quietly. ‘I have my eye on you.’

  9

  I returned to the Big House feeling shaken, but I had to come back to myself quickly. Almost as soon as we arrived, a steady stream of visitors started coming up the drive to see my father.

  Mrs Fu arrived first, bowing very low as she stepped over the threshold. This morning she was wearing a sky-blue cheongsam.

  ‘Mr Wong!’ she said as she walked into the Library (Daisy and I positioned ourselves at the door, so that we could hear the conversation, and Rose came wandering up and sat down beside us, her doll in her lap). ‘Is there any news?’

  ‘Thank you for coming, Mrs Fu,’ said my father, and his voice sounded cold. ‘There have certainly been many developments in the case. We have had a ransom demand from the kidnappers, and we have been given a time and date for the handover of the money.’

  ‘They’ve asked for a hundred thousand!’ said Mrs Fu. ‘Or so I have been told. Word spreads.’

  ‘Does it indeed,’ said my father, thunderous. ‘And how did it spread to you?’

  ‘I have my sources,’ said Mrs Fu. ‘Hong Kong is a small city.’

  ‘If you have come to ask for money again, I can’t give it to you,’ snapped my father. ‘I have other things on my mind.’

  ‘As it happens, I haven’t,’ said Mrs Fu sniffily. ‘Since we spoke last, I have had a change of circumstances. There are now other places I can get funds from. I have simply come by to ask after your son.’

  My father said something that I will not write here, and a moment later Mrs Fu came hurrying back out of the Library. Daisy and I did our best to look as though we had not been listening in, but Rose stared at her in fascination.

  ‘Rose!’ I whispered, nudging her.

  ‘Rude!’ said Mrs Fu, glaring down at us.

  I thought quickly. Mrs Fu was a very direct person – it seemed most sensible to ask her a direct question. ‘Mrs Fu,’ I said. ‘Didn’t we see you at the bank yesterday? I’m sure we did.’

  Mrs Fu turned very pale. Her lips pursed and her collarbones stood out as her shoulders tensed.

  ‘Don’t you dare tell your father that!’ she cried. ‘It had nothing to do with what happened.’

  She looked once more at me and Rose, a furious expression on her face, and then she rushed out of the house and down the front steps.

  ‘What was that about?’ hissed Daisy. ‘What was she saying to you? Oh, listening to Chinese is like going through the Looking Glass.’

  ‘When I told her we’d seen her at the bank, she got very upset,’ I said. ‘And, when she was talking to Father, she knew how much the ransom was, even before he told he
r. Then she said that she had money, and didn’t need to borrow from him any more, and he told her to leave.’

  ‘Interesting!’ said Daisy. ‘So you think—’

  ‘What are you two doing?’ Rose asked me curiously. Her English is so good now that she had understood almost everything we’d said. We both paused, and stared at her.

  ‘None of your business!’ I said. ‘Stop listening!’

  ‘You listen to everything,’ said Rose.

  ‘I’m older than you, I’m allowed to,’ I told her, more sharply than I usually speak to her.

  Rose’s lip wobbled.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ling Ling!’ I said, putting my arm round her hastily. ‘I’m just upset. Don’t worry. It’s going to be all right. Detective Leung is going to get Teddy back. We’re just … watching to make sure he does.’

  ‘I know,’ said Rose. ‘Father’s going to pay the ransom. One hundred thousand dollars! I wish I was worth that much.’

  ‘You do not!’ I said to her. ‘You don’t want to be kidnapped!’

  ‘But I want people to worry about me,’ said Rose. ‘Father notices you because you’re clever, and he notices May because she’s naughty. He never notices me. I want to go to English school so that I can run away like in the books.’

  ‘Don’t you dare run away!’ I said, pulling her closer. Rose pouted and tried to twist away. ‘You don’t need to. We all notice you already.’

  ‘You’d notice me more if I was a boy,’ muttered Rose, and she pulled out of my grasp and ran upstairs.

  I stared after her, feeling odd. It had not occurred to me that my sisters were upset about Teddy’s arrival as well.

  And then I thought about Mrs Fu. Where was she suddenly getting money from? Was it just a coincidence? Or … was it nothing of the kind?

  10

  I could tell that Daisy was feeling rather frustrated by her lack of understanding of Cantonese. She hates being behind, lagging, not having all possible knowledge sparking from her fingertips. So I was glad that, when Mr Svensson arrived, he spoke in English.