by Ron McMillan
‘I don’t get it. The bastard should be bricking himself. Maybe he’s done a deal with the authorities, immunity in return for testimony against the others. But there was no time to set that up, and even if he had, right now he’d be sweating bullets in an interrogation room, not swanning around his office playing Mr Happy.’
‘You got one bit right.’
‘What?’
‘He’s got immunity.’
‘How?’
‘Diplomatic immunity.’
‘You’re shitting me.’
‘I wish I was.’
‘He’s a banker, not a bloody diplomat.’
‘I’d forgotten all about it. About eighteen months ago, Martinmass was appointed Consul of some banana republic tax haven in the Caribbean.’
I shook my head in disbelief.
‘He and his bank had done a lot of business with the government there, and they wanted representation in Seoul without spending any money, a free way to attract dodgy money to their offshore banking industry. A secretary at his bank doles out a couple of dozen visas a year, and Martinmass gets to call himself a diplomat. He and his old lady even made the news when they went to the Blue House to present his credentials to the President.’
‘And that gives him diplomatic immunity?’
‘I don’t know how he swung it either, but I do remember talk of him retiring there in the next couple of years.’
‘No wonder he’s been sailing so close to the wind.’ I thought about it for a moment. ‘I’m guessing he’ll be celebrating tonight at the Nashville.’
Chapter Thirty-six
I found Naz sitting in Mr Ryu’s kitchen nursing a large mug of freshly-brewed coffee from the flight-deck machine.
‘Ever see a machine so flash? Where did you get to?’
‘I filled Bobby in on what has been happening.’
She pushed a mug of black-brown mix across the counter. I explained what Bobby had told me and outlined our plan for the evening. Soon after, coffee or no coffee, fatigue closed in on me and I went to lie down with the Siberian tiger.
When I finally resurfaced, the K-N story was at the top of the six o’clock news. Stock market unrest, handwritten signs stuck to K-N office doors and nervy-looking staff clustered in corridors at K-N Towers. An interview with a white shirt at Incheon Airport was intercut with grainy security camera footage of two figures scurrying aboard a private jet, steps folding up behind them and wheels rolling, even before the aircraft’s door was fully closed.
It was an easy link to the Brodie and Schwartz show. Ongoing investigations change tack due to new video evidence just in. Soft, freeze-frame images taken from the duplicate DVD: Brodie in bed with Miss Hong, body parts not very carefully frosted out; Miss Hong leaving the room with another man, his face much more carefully obscured; lastly, a full-face corporate portrait of Schwartz. K-N public relations supremo sought in connection with the death of Miss Hong, as well as for alleged trading irregularities that led to the collapse in K-N stock prices early today. British photographer no longer a suspect in the death of Miss Hong, though police remain anxious to talk with him.
Alec Brodie and dignity never did go together, but this time I had excelled myself. From murder suspect to friendly witness in the space of a few hours – and all it took was to bare my bits on national television.
The three of us huddled in the near-darkness of the dingy alley while Bobby spoke into his mobile. He broke the connection.
‘I was right. If it’s dark or a weekend, Jerzy McTague is in there. He’s on his way out.’
A metallic clatter rattled the doorway and light fanned out to briefly flood the alley as a stout figure squeezed through the emergency exit and gently closed it behind him.
He was an overweight little guy with the corned-beef complexion of the committed drinker and the unkempt look of a middle-aged divorcee. He nodded to me and to Naz, and turned to Bobby:
‘I don’t know about this, man.’ The accent was American, Southern states. He looked deadly serious.
‘Don’t worry about it Jerzy, we’ll – ’
‘What if y’all are here with somethin’ innocent or honourable in mind?’ His red face broke up in a grin and he turned to me when I answered:
‘No danger of that.’
‘Fuckin’-ay, man. I heard what his people done to little Min-tae. So you do whatcha havta do, and make sure you give the asshole one for me.’
‘That’s a promise.’
‘He’s surrounded by the usual buncha flunkies. Talkin’ loud about how the Caribbean beckons. Been drinking litres of draught for a couple hours. S’only a matter of time before he has to go drain the snake.’
We thanked him and he slipped back indoors, leaving the emergency exit off the latch. Through the crack between the door and the jamb, I had a clear view of the entrance to the Nashville’s toilets.
‘How the hell did he know about Min-tae?’
‘There’s not much Jerzy McTague doesn’t know,’ said Bobby. ‘He’s career CIA.’
‘A wee fat drunk for a spy. Talk about perfect cover.’
‘A bit more realistic than Pierce bloody Brosnan,’ said Naz.
Traffic in the corridor was steady, and it was only minutes before we saw the big frame of Geoff Martinmass push his way through the toilet door.
He soon came back out, head down, watching his step the way drunks do. The temptation was just too great. I nipped through the emergency exit and snatched at the wig, which came away with a sticky rasping sound that took me by surprise. A big hand flew to his pink scalp and he turned to find me in the corridor, dead bird in hand.
‘You little prick.’ He stood six inches taller and outweighed me by at least ninety pounds, most of it muscle, and I was alone. I tapped twice on the emergency exit and in blew Bobby, arms outstretched, grabbing for the big guy’s chest. Seconds later, Martinmass was picking himself up in the alley.
He got to his feet, a leer on his face. Two of us, and he still fancied his chances.
‘I get it,’ he said.
No he didn’t.
‘You try to destroy me, but you can’t do it, not on your own or together, not even when you fly your Paki bitch in to do your dirty work for you.’
He inched forward, fists clenched.
‘Are you sorry bastards really going to take me?’ He had contempt in his eyes and clouds of stale beer on his breath.
‘No.’ I backed off a half-pace. ‘We’re not.’
Uncertainty flickered across his eyes.
‘She is.’
Naz exploded from the shadows and buried a steel toe-capped boot in his crotch. He went down like he had been hit by a train, and she wasted no time laying into him, talking to him between wild swings of her feet.
‘That,’ Whump. ‘Is for Miss Hong, and so is this.’ Whump. ‘That,’ Whump. ‘Is for what you did to Min-tae, you ugly piece of shit. ‘And this,’ Whump. ‘Is for calling me,’ Whump. ‘A Paki.’ Whump. ‘Bitch.’
‘Don’t forget our promise.’ I angled my head at the door. Naz’s grin was raging on adrenaline.
‘This one’s by special request.’ Whump. She backed off a pace and went in for more. Her boots re-broke his nose and destroyed his front teeth and opened ugly gashes in his cheek and forehead, but I felt no pity. When she was done, Martinmass was unconscious, his face like raw meat, Naz’s boots covered in blood.
In my hand was the forgotten wig. I flipped it at Naz, who plucked it from the air and stooped to finger it into what was left of his mouth.
The emergency door creaked open, and the three of us darted for shadows.
‘Geoff?’ The voice was loose with beer. ‘Are you there, Geoff?’ Eric Bridgewater. His head slipped out in a crack of light and I hit the bottom of the door with my foot, wedging his ears in a wood sandwich. He squealed like a teenage girl.
I reached in to grab a fistful of tie. The prat wore a tie to the Nashville. I launched him against a pile of dusty beer crates as
Naz and Bobby slipped around the corner.
‘What did I tell you about dark alleys?’
I was going to hit him, but as he stood shaking with fear and nailed to the filthy alley, he wet himself. It was time to go.
Still buzzing, we flagged a taxi heading south. Fifteen minutes later saw us in the living room of Bobby’s apartment across the river. Myong-hee rushed around playing hostess, pretending she didn’t want any help from Naz. Elder son Min-hong played computer games in a nearby bedroom, and Min-tae sat astride my tired legs and tickled me without mercy, wiry fingers unerringly exploring every point on my body that hurt most. Naz brought over bulky glasses and Bobby and I each took a long pull at the cold beer.
‘Hell, that was good.’ He wasn’t talking about the beer. I could see him re-playing the alley scene in his head. ‘I’m just sorry I didn’t do it myself, get the boot in for the little guy.’ Meanwhile, the little guy was pounding at my sore shoulder with meaty fists not much smaller than his Dad’s.
‘Don’t talk daft,’ I said. ‘It was dodgy enough you just being there.’
Naz backed me up: ‘Martinmass got a bit of what’s coming to him. That’s all that matters.’
We drank to that, and Myong-hee nodded in agreement. Her husband was just back from gambling with his livelihood and his freedom, but as that was for Min-tae, it was alright by her. I couldn’t argue with that, even if Min-tae chose that precise moment to burrow a forefinger into a kidney still reeling from the phone book session. I hid a wince and turned to Bobby.
‘Bring me up to date on the business front.’
His big face lit up.
‘For the K-N Group investor, the day started out terribly, but it soon fell away. Rumours all over town made the money men run for cover, and they soon started dumping anything connected to the Group. Before long, panic set in and K-N stocks were offloaded at any price. Group subsidiary companies, Korean Banks they owe money to – which is all of them – and Managed Funds that were warm to the GDR, they all took a beating.’ He paused to re-fill his glass and pour a long draught of beer down his neck. ‘Confidence in the whole Market started to dive, so people did what they always do – they ditched shares and bought gold. The index plummeted, gold went through the roof and the Korean won fell like a boulder down a well. It’s meltdown, and everyone, but everyone, is setting the blame at K-N’s doorstep.’
‘I’ve never heard you string that many words together before.’
‘It’s the excitement.’ He took three long paces into the open-plan kitchen and grabbed two fresh bottles from the refrigerator. ‘I’m not myself right now.’
‘Was Chang on that jet this morning?’ said Naz.
‘Looks like it.’ Bobby flicked the tops off the beers. ‘Heads are rolling already. The chief of security at the airport has resigned and the Minister of Transportation has offered to do the same, never mind that Chang got out before an arrest warrant was even written up. It’s always the way here, ritual blood-letting, high-profile sacrificial lambs stepping up to pay the price for things they had nothing to do with. When this is all forgotten, the same guys will be quietly rewarded with bigger jobs.’
‘Any word on Schwartz?’
‘Nothing. The bastard’s disappeared. What is Jung-hwa saying?’
I tried to hide in my beer.
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t called her?’
‘What am I going to say? ‘I’m really sorry I put the murder squad onto your husband’?’
‘When it comes to women, you never fail to disappoint.’
‘I’ll call her tomorrow when I have a better idea what’s happening.’ I could do without this. Jung-hwa had popped into my thoughts throughout the day, but I still hadn’t picked up the phone. I pushed my empty glass at Bobby. ‘I have to go.’
‘What’s the hurry?’
‘I have a date.’
Chapter Thirty-seven
Viewed from a window seat in a tea house on the first floor of a crumbling city centre block, a little corner of night-time Seoul spread out in front of me like a drunken ant farm.
Jong-gak district in the centre of the capital sits shadowed by tall glass towers lining broad city avenues. Behind the modern towers smaller blocks from the sixties and seventies host hundreds of little businesses that exist to feed and refresh the tens of thousands of office workers who converge on downtown daily.
The old city’s main east-west axis of Chong-ro lay fifty yards away and choked with buses and taxis, horns blaring incessantly. The aggression and competitiveness innate to the Korean psyche turns city streets into barging, horn-blaring never-ending confrontational chicken sessions. In front of me a narrower lane that ran parallel to the main drag was just as clogged with pedestrian life, almost as raucous but infinitely less threatening than the neighbouring motorised chaos. Restaurants of every stripe lined the thoroughfare, from wood-and-vinyl pojang-macha hand-carts to exclusive upmarket Japanese establishments, windows curtained and air-conditioners humming. The lane shone with coloured signs advertising bars, small stores, fried chicken joints, bars, donut shops, coffee shops, bars, barber shops and more bars. Koreans like their bars, and it is not for nothing that they are known as the Irish of Asia.
Pairs of office girls hurried towards bus stop or subway station with arms entwined, shoulders rubbing and faces close enough to touch as they giggled their way homewards. Male colleagues more seriously intent on making the most of what was left of the evening drew meandering trails from restaurant to bar to pojang-macha. A gap in the buildings framed a grid-fenced enclosure where men faced automatic pitching machines that spat baseballs at frightening speeds. The metallic ding of bat on ball drew cheers from friends huddled behind fences. I watched them for a few seconds before I looked away, memories and bruises from men with baseball bats all too fresh.
In an odd shaped expanse of open ground between the tea shop and Chong-ro loomed a symbol of the city’s ancient origins. The Po-shin Gak Pavilion was a classic gathering of sweeping tiled rooflines propped upon towering red pillars that housed a massive bronze bell rung only at Lunar New Year.
I looked up as Detective Kwok took the seat across from me and sent the waitress scurrying for another glass of ginseng tea. From beside the ashtray he plucked a matchbox with the name of the tea shop on it and lit a cigarette. He leaned back in the chair and stared, anger and uncertainty bubbling near the surface. When he spoke, smoke billowed from his mouth.
‘My seniors are very unhappy that I have not brought you in for questioning.’
‘The same seniors sent my picture around the country with me labelled a sex-murderer. Now when I solve the case for them they’re pissed off? To hell with them.’
‘You are right.’ Kwok leaned back in his chair, and his slim features wrinkled in what might have been amusement. ‘Off the record, I thank you for the DVD.’
I sipped at the ginseng tea. Bitter but sweet, like what Kwok was swallowing right now. He spoke again:
‘I have just come from Yonsei University Hospital. It seems your banker friend Martinmass had an unfortunate accident.’
My attempt to suppress a smile almost certainly failed.
‘An ambulance was called to Itaewon. He was found in an alley, very badly beaten. He claimed he had too much to drink and fell over – several times, it would seem.’
Whatever he had in mind I would soon find out.
‘His jaw was broken in four places, most of his front teeth were gone – and he has bootprints all over his face.’ He changed tack with practiced abruptness. ‘When did you last see Martinmass?’
‘I didn’t touch him.’ It was the answer to a different question, but it was the truth. Kwok shook his head, and went on:
‘We were looking for him, so when the Itaewon station informed me that he was on his way to Yonsei Hospital, I stopped in to speak to him. He was not very cooperative.’
‘I hear he is protected from prosecution.’
‘He was.’ Emphasis o
n the second word. ‘Not any more.’
Yessss. Kwok saw my delight, and played to his audience:
‘His Caribbean employers are in the final stages of negotiations with one of the Korean Chaebols to build a harbour and casino complex to attract giant cruise liners out of Miami. Such visits will create hundreds of permanent jobs that are much-needed on the island. The project’s funding is from a collaboration of Korean banks underwritten by my government. It took one ministerial-level telephone call to have his immunity revoked, and I assure you he will be charged with very serious financial crimes. Did you know that a few years ago, he gambled heavily on dot-com start-ups and lost everything?’
I didn’t know that but it explained the desperation to keep his share of the GDR profits. Kwok’s investigative powers were proving to be a surprise.
‘What about Miss Hong?’
‘After I saw the DVD, we went back to the Hyatt security camera footage. Schwartz slipped in through an entrance by the swimming pool and later appeared briefly in an elevator that stopped at your floor. He and Miss Hong were observed in the car park getting into a Hyundai registered to K-N Group.’
‘What does that tell you about our scene with the telephone books?’
‘So far as I and my colleagues are concerned, that never happened, though you are, of course, welcome to try and prove otherwise. In any case, I only did what I thought was necessary.’
‘Or what you were told to do.’
The amusement evaporated and I pressed on:
‘Somebody in your department has been keeping Chang informed all along.’
‘If there is a problem in my office I will deal with it.’
It was as near as I could expect to an admission of culpability. It never happened but whoever did it, Kwok would take care of it in his own way. He looked grim. I didn’t envy anyone on his watch who was guilty of leaking information to K-N.
‘I sent copies of the video to the British Embassy as well as the media.’