by Ron McMillan
The house was decorated with no expense spared and zero taste applied. Gilded mirrors and reproduction European landscapes competed for space on flocked floral walls. Eye-wateringly ugly carpets changed from room to room, and a stuffed deer stood sentry in the hallway, red glass eyes sparkling in the flickering light from fake candles sprouting from candelabras that would have made Liberace blush.
All I wanted was to view the video. Mr Cho had another word with his friend, who led the way to a living room with the biggest home TV screen I ever saw.
I wanted to watch it alone but instead found myself with friends who had put everything on the line for me, and a stranger who had opened his home to the nation’s most wanted man. Under the circumstances, it might have been churlish to ask them to leave the room. Mr Ryu pointed to a DVD player, and pushed a drinks trolley shaped like an antique globe to a strategic point within our reach. I poured a large single malt and hit the play button, deeply unsure about all this. Naz was bemused.
‘All the way to Korea for my first ever bachelor porno party.’
What played out in front of us took place only days before yet might as well have been in another lifetime. On the second night Miss Hong came to my room, while she showered, I had set the little camera to record and clipped it to a curtain rod. The wide angle lens took in almost the entire room. In the bottom right the television flickered, mute. A king-sized bed dominated the left side of the frame and beyond that was the bathroom and the door to the corridor, safety chain engaged. Onscreen, I paced the floor until backlit steam followed Miss Hong from the bathroom. Her hair was clipped high and she wore only a thick white towel tied above her small breasts. She looked stunning.
Even played at double speed what happened next made for sordid viewing. In the past I had made these tapes for innocent fun, to be viewed with a partner by my side, inspiration for more of the same. Now I watched myself as I cavorted and giggled and had sex with an attractive young woman, and all I could think of was that beautiful body, mutilated and bloated, snagged on debris in the frigid waters of the Han River.
Naz sucked on a chilled white wine, face blank. Mr Cho and Mr Ryu said nothing, the clink of bottle neck on crystal the only intrusion in the silent porno flick that played out in front of us at double speed.
A welcome break appeared in the onscreen action. After a long session of sex broken up by periods spent lapping Scotch out of Miss Hong’s belly button, I got up, visibly pissed, and weaved an unsteady path to the bathroom where I automatically closed the door behind me.
I thumbed the button that slowed the recording back to real time.
Miss Hong took two tall glasses from above the mini bar. She poured generous measures of whisky over ice and filled the glasses with Coca-Cola while her free hand rummaged in her clasp bag. In full view of the camera she cracked two capsules and quickly stirred their powdery contents into one of the drinks.
When I came out of the bathroom she was waiting, a drink to her lips, the other held out to me. The camera’s microphone picked up the dialogue but I wasn’t listening. I didn’t have to. The memory of what happened next was sharpened by equal measures of regret and disbelief.
‘What is this?’
‘Whisky-coke.’ She leaned forward and with one hand she clinked glasses. Her other hand dipped gently between my legs. How well I remembered soft fingertips cooled by chilled glass.
‘Cheers.’ She moved in to kiss me. I smelled the sex on her breath and the fine sheen of soap and sweat that coated her powdery-smooth skin. She ran her hot tongue around my mouth before pulling away and knocking back her drink. After waiting while I did the same she led me back to bed.
In the discomfort of Mr Ryu’s ugly armchair, I leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling. The soundtrack led me through my last few minutes with Miss Hong, and which came back to me with shocking clarity. We tumbled around the room with renewed vigour, changing positions frequently, until at last we pulled apart. Miss Hong leaned back on the pillows and plucked the whisky bottle from the bedside cabinet, free hand pointing theatrically at her stomach. Three sheets to the wind I did what I always do when I’m drunk. I reached for more drink. I took the bottle and leaned forward to fill the yin yang recess in the middle of her beautiful flat tummy. Miss Hong giggled while she lounged back, her hair, moist with sweat, fanning out over soft down pillows.
That was when the frame in my memory froze.
I looked up to the big screen where the naked me wavered like a sapling in a breeze and collapsed face-first on top of Miss Hong’s lovely legs. The bottle slipped from my fingers, whisky seeping across the rumpled bed linen. Miss Hong ignored it. She wriggled free and from her bag plucked a mobile phone, dialling as she walked to the bathroom, the cheeks of her beautiful backside jiggling seductively.
Onscreen I lay inert for several long minutes before she re-emerged from the bathroom wearing the same skimpy dress she had arrived in. Her hair was twisted in a towelling turban that she shook off and discarded on the floor next to the desk. Pulling the dryer from a drawer, she sat in front of the mirror and set to work on her hair. She broke off from the task only once to look at her watch, her movements relaxed and unhurried. I was well out of the game, shoulders sighing regularly.
Hair and make-up done she sat back in the chair, lit a cigarette and used the remote control to scan TV channels, settling for a Korean soap opera. She looked at her watch again. A knock at the door was so quiet that the microphone barely picked it up. She muted the television and with one last look of appraisal in the mirror, plucked her bag from the desktop and walked away from the camera.
The security chain rattled and the door swung wide. One figure, a little taller than Miss Hong in her three-inch heels, face obscured by her hair, spoke quietly in Korean. She responded, equally quietly, and pulled back to allow the newcomer into the room. He walked quickly to where I lay, and delivered a vicious hooking punch to my ribs. I had wondered about that bruise.
Ben Schwartz.
Miss Hong looked on like an acolyte desperate for a word of praise. Schwartz turned and kissed her full on the lips, and with an arm around one shoulder led her from the room. The door closed after them with a solid clunk. The video frame became a still-life save for the flickering screen in its bottom corner, where an overlit farming family argued in a rural courtyard, unnoticed by the naked foreigner face down on the bed.
Mr Cho rose from his seat and pointed at the screen.
I froze the picture and he strolled to the television, one finger extended. He tapped at the soap opera scene.
There, in the top left corner of the television picture, next to the broadcasting company logo, was the time. 03:45.
Chapter Thirty-five
As well as playing host to some of the world’s most visually offensive home furnishings, Mr Ryu plainly had a soft spot for electronic gadgetry. When I wondered aloud how I could make multiple copies of the DVD, Mr Cho translated and Ryu bounced to his feet, fished a brick of blank disks from a drawer and opened black gloss cabinet doors inlaid with snakes’ heads fashioned from abalone shell. Inside was a professional-quality digital dubbing deck.
Maybe Ryu had an ever-growing brood of beloved grandkids and spent his free time making home movies for all the family. Or possibly it was something to do with the giant rococo wall unit filled with European hardcore porn.
Mr Cho, Ryu and I worked like a team fuelled by occasional refills from the drinks globe, while Naz slept curled up on a puce green leather sofa.
Ryu produced a sheaf of padded brown envelopes ideally-suited to posting DVD cases to grandchildren, and we huddled together to work out where to send the copies. The first name was easy: Detective Kwok at the police station where he and the brother cops had done such a number on my kidneys. Numbers two and three both went to the British Embassy. Thinking that Bridgewater might try to bury it, I neglected to tell him in the accompanying note that another copy was already on his ambassador’s desk. Disks four, fiv
e and six went to the bureau chief at Reuters news agency and his opposite numbers at AP and the Korean news agency Yonhap. Seven and eight I addressed to the newsrooms at the two big Korean television networks, number nine went to the U.S. Embassy, and the tenth I saved for Korea’s best-selling economic daily. All were accompanied by a lengthy explanatory print-out typed on Mr Ryu’s desktop computer. I quickly discounted sending one to Nethers Hollands of the Due Diligence team, as he would find out soon enough just how surplus to requirements he was.
I thought we were finished, but Mr Cho had other ideas.
‘Two more, for safety.’
‘Who for?’
‘Chang and Schwartz.’
‘Give Schwartz the warning he needs to get out of town? No way. I want him locked up for what they did to Miss Hong.’
‘Your video will mean big problems for Chang as well. He introduced you to Miss Hong, and Schwartz works for him. And he knows you will talk about the GDR. When he hears about the DVD he will fight back.’
‘What can he do to me now?’
‘Not you. Other people. Like Bobby’s family and my family.’
Cue another reality check. I wanted to avoid scaring Chang and Schwartz into running, but maybe by showing my hand I could force them to disappear, and in doing so protect the people who had stood by me.
It took Mr Cho one telephone call to set everything up. In a couple of hours ten envelopes would arrive at a courier company in the city, to be delivered mid-morning at the latest. The other two DVDs would be waiting for Chang and Schwartz when they turned up at K-N Towers.
At breakfast time Mr Cho went home. My body screamed out for sleep, but first I had calls to make.
At the Embassy I put up with the usual phoney respect stuff from the same Korean woman with the Home Counties accent until finally Bridgewater came on the line.
‘Bridgewater here.’
‘I take it the Queen of Hearts at the front desk told you who this is?’
‘Of course.’
‘I want to know what you have done since the last time we spoke. I have sent the letters to Seoul and to London, both Whitehall and what used to be Fleet Street.’
‘You are in no position to be making demands. Until you surrender to the authorities, there is nothing we can do for you.’
‘Are you telling me you’ve done nothing since we talked?’
‘We have done everything possible – ’
‘To save your own stupid heads from rolling when this one goes pear-shaped.’
‘That sort of talk is not going to get us anywhere, Mr Brodie. So far as I can determine, your allegations are without basis.’
‘Are you saying the GDR is completely above board?’
‘Geoff Martinmass is a respected figure in the Seoul business community. I have discussed this matter with him, and I agree with his conclusion that you may be trying to divert attention away from the death of the prostitute.’
‘So I’m guilty until proven otherwise, but Martinmass is in the clear.’
‘If you surrender to the authorities, we will extend all reasonable consular assistance. While you remain a fugitive, there is little we can do.’
‘Thank you for being so understanding. You’re in for a long day. Keep a watch on the incoming mail, because what’s coming to you is also going all over town, to the police and to the media.’
‘What is?’ At last, a hint of panic in his voice.
‘Wait and see. And if I were you, I’d steer clear of dark alleyways for a while.’
My next call was to the Seoul office of Reuters News Agency. I brayed at the receptionist in my best haw-haw accent.
‘Eric Bridgewater of the Embassy here, British Embassy. Connect me to Vincent Cray, please.’
‘I am sorry, Mr Cray is in a meeting, may I – ’
‘Did you hear me? I am calling from the British Embassy.’
An electronic string quartet was foisted on me until:
‘Eric. What’s the problem?’
‘I have to talk to you.’ I used my own voice, which is about as far from Eric Bridgewater’s as you could get.
‘You are?’ The man was quick.
‘Alec Brodie.’
‘Just one moment.’ I made out the rustling of paper and urgent instructions muffled by a hand over the receiver.
‘OK, go ahead.’
‘Very soon you will receive a DVD that will clear me of involvement in the Miss Hong murder. Sorry it’s not an exclusive, but you are the only media person to know of it ahead of time.’
‘I appreciate that, but how will it prove anything?’
‘The video puts a fresh suspect square in the picture, but that is not what I called about. There is an even bigger story here, and I am giving you an early heads-up.’
He had the practiced ear of the experienced media professional who knows the importance of keeping the other guy talking, knowing he could sort the facts from the bullshit later. I concentrated on how the GDR was about to embarrass all sorts of prominent people. To the newsman, embarrassment is the food of the Gods, and any story that brings shame upon big business or senior government – or both – is manna from heaven. He asked pointed questions about how the police hunt for me was related to the GDR, and I filled him in as best I could.
‘I can’t run this without some sort of corroboration.’
‘To a man with your resources, confirming at least parts of what I’ve told you should be a piece of cake.’
He couldn’t get off the phone quick enough. Maybe he suspected that the moment I heard the line go dead I would call Associated Press, which is exactly what I did.
I spent a couple of restless hours bobbing atop a waterbed under a fake Siberian tiger-skin blanket, its back feet clawing at the pillows, head hanging off the end of the bed like it was trying to eat the lemon coloured deep-pile carpet. I ached all over and couldn’t keep my eyes open – but my mind raced out of control.
I pried myself from the tiger’s clutches mid-morning. There was no sign of Naz, who had been steered to another bedroom just before daybreak, nor of Mr Ryu. In an eye-straining stainless steel kitchen, I stood in front of a refrigerator the size of a Tokyo hotel room, wolfed cold orange juice straight from the carton and fed the empty container into the raggedy maw of a waste bin on the run from a Star Wars set.
I confronted an Italian coffee maker as complex as an airliner flight deck for all of ten seconds before filling a kettle and making do with instant that I eventually located inside a life-size ceramic soccer ball.
Eleven o’clock. With luck, most of the DVDs would have been delivered and viewed by now. Wondering how long it would take for the ripples they created to show up, I called Bobby Purves at his office.
‘Can we meet?’
‘Where and when?’
‘Halmoni’s tooth, the observation floor? Forty-five minutes?’
‘OK.’
Halmoni’s, or Grandma’s tooth, was the local nickname for a monster office building that sprouted from a residential district on Youido island. Clad in shimmering gold-toned glass and surrounded by off-white apartment buildings, the tower stuck out like a Grandmother’s solitary gold tooth. An insurance company HQ and famous for being the tallest skyscraper in Asia when it was completed in 1985, it was informally known as the ‘sixty-three’ building after its number of floors, never mind that three of them were below ground. At the top of the skyscraper, an entire floor served as an indoor observation deck.
Even mid-morning on a weekday, the observation deck was busy with out-of-town visitors who pointed out landmarks and lined up to have their photographs taken. I was looking through a coin-operated telescope at mountains to the north of the city when Bobby arrived.
‘Anything unusual happening in the Market today, Bobby?’
‘I might’ve known you would be in on this.’
‘In on what?’
‘Don’t even try to play dumb. The Market’s in a freefall set off by rumours that
K-N Group is about to be stomped on by the government for irregularities over the GDR. There’s talk of police investigations and arrest warrants, and the wire services are rushing out updates at ten-minute intervals. Trading in K-N stocks was suspended after they plummeted by twenty-five percent in half an hour.’
Yessss. ‘Just your average day at the office then?’
‘K-N’s public relations department is playing possum. Not one word of damage control coming out to refute the rumours, which at a time like this is corporate suicide. No sign of Schwartz anywhere.’
‘So I’ve done it.’
‘I’ve saved the best ‘til last – wait, what d’you mean you’ve done it?’
‘You first.’
‘There’s talk that K-N’s private jet took off from Incheon about an hour ago, three crew members and two passengers on board, and a flight plan filed for Tokyo. Apparently Chang and his missus were the passengers.’
The shit had truly hit the fan.
‘So how did you do it?’ Bobby smiled as he spoke, looking forward to the explanation.
I told him about Naz being snatched from her hotel by Schwartz’s goons, and how Mr Cho and his students had helped me rescue her the night before. I went on to explain about the video camera and the duplicate DVDs, how I helped the Press link what was in the film clip to what had been going on at K-N, and how Schwartz and Chang had received copies of the video before anyone else.
‘You certainly know how to piss on someone’s parade. If Chang is on that jet and Schwartz isn’t manning the battlements, maybe they’re both on the run.’
‘What about Martinmass?’
Silence.
‘Bobby?’
‘He might be in the clear.’
‘How the fuck – ’
‘You’re not going to believe it.’
‘I already don’t believe it.’
‘I spoke to a mate who works with him at the bank.’
‘And?’
‘Martinmass is in the office as usual, his faced fixed with a cocky leer. Staff have strict instructions to counter all enquiries, police included, with a clear ‘no comment’. All calls from London head office to be patched straight through to Martinmass.’