Sea of Troubles Box Set

by Peter Tonkin

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The new airport of Chek Lap Kok was open and accepting regular flights now, though there would be some weeks yet before they began the process of closing down Kai Tak. On the afternoon of Wednesday, 4 June 1997, the arrivals hall was bustling with a surge of last-minute tourists here to see Hong Kong in its last days as a Crown Colony. Among them was Andrew, growing more and more irritably impatient as he waited to meet this much-hyped, lucky-mascot London silk of Robin’s.

  The number of tourists was augmented by those brought in by the promise of a solid month of festivities from the middle of June to the middle of July. The festivities were going to be lavish and continuous. They were designed to emphasise the continuity of everything which was important in Hong Kong as it passed from being a Crown Colony of Great Britain to a Special Economic Zone of the People’s Republic of China. In spite of all the efforts made by the Chinese government, a lot of people were still pulling out and the trickle of migrating companies and individuals that had begun more than five years ago was something of a flood now. Andrew knew himself to be lucky. He wouldn’t find it too hard to get a job back home if things got too grim here. He was in contact with a firm of solicitors in the City of London who were interested in his particular areas of expertise. He had somewhere to go; and the right and ability to go there. There were millions and millions trapped here with nowhere to go at all. As he watched the bustle of people passing through the new airport, he found himself wondering how many of these arrivals were going to stay; and how many in the departure hall were going to come back.

  Where was this bloody woman? he wondered. What time was it now? Just after two. Ye gods! He had been hanging around here for the better part of an hour!

  Then he looked down from the clock and there she was: Magdalena DaSilva, in all her glory, striding out of the Customs hall like a tiger exploring new territory.

  It was as if he had been winded. He just stood there and gaped.

  She had no idea that he was there; she swept out of the Customs hall behind a glowing Chinese porter who was wheeling her luggage as though it was the Crown Jewels. Andrew noticed the porter with surprise; he had never seen a porter bother with only two cases — or a Chinese smile like that before. Behind Maggie, he later discovered, came Lata Patel with shoulder bag and briefcase. Maggie, too, was carrying her briefcase but he did not notice that.

  She was wearing her Burberry travelling coat open so that her simple black suit could be seen between check silk wings whenever she moved. Her blouse was white, with a high, plain collar and a profusion of ruffles dancing down across her bosom. High though the collar was, her neck rose enough to carry her chin far above it. She struck him as being taller than she really was, perhaps because the glorious ebony excess of her hair was mostly up on the top of her head. Her chin, nose and cheekbones were long, her lips were full and dark, and her forehead pale and high. It was all there to be remembered, except that the image was dulled, somehow; knocked out of focus by the power of her impact. But he never forgot the size, the colour, the honeyed depths of her eyes.

  ‘How will I know her?’ he had asked Robin two hours earlier as he set off to meet her, almost like a sulky schoolboy, making it obvious that he didn’t really want to go at all.

  ‘You’ll know her,’ Robin had assured him cheerfully, refusing to notice his mood.

  And he did know her. There was never any doubt in his mind. Nor was there any of his usual shy hesitation in his approach of her, once he could get his legs to work again; though he felt like a bit of a clodhopper in her presence at first.

  He walked to the barrier and stopped, hoping to catch her eye as she approached. She looked at him, he caught his breath; she looked on past him and he wilted a little. ‘Hello?’ he said. She looked back at once. He pulled himself up again, living through his eyes. Tiny lines deepened at the comers of her eyes. He found that his mouth was watering, so he swallowed. ‘Ms DaSilva?’ he said. The deepening of the tiny lines became a smile. ‘I’m Andrew Balfour,’ he said. ‘Robin sent me to meet you.’ And the smile turned into a grin. He had never imagined that teeth could gleam so perfectly whitely.

  He stuck out his hand and she came up to the barrier, still grinning, to take it. Her eyes were all he could see. The contact between their fingers was like an electric shock and her grin flickered slightly as she felt it too. Andrew gasped and was introduced to the scent of Obsession.

  ‘A pleasure to meet you, Andrew,’ Maggie growled, shaking his hand, firmly, once, and letting it go. Immediately his hand felt cool, as though her flesh had somehow warmed it. ‘This is Lata Patel, my junior.’

  It had never occurred to him that a voice could embody the notion of smoke. And not just any smoke — the smoke of joss sticks, of burning sandalwood, dusky, distant, exotic.

  ‘How do you do, Ms Patel?’ He felt her take his hand and shake it but he did not look at her and would not have done so, in all probability, had Maggie not moved. She did so, however, and he found himself face to face with a serious-looking, studious-seeming young woman. Her face was devoid of make-up and her hair was swept back severely. He would have guessed her to be in her late teens, which gave him a twenty-year superiority over her, from the safety of which he observed that she seemed to have taken a dislike to him. This may have had something to do with the expression on his own face. He was conscious of trying to adjust his expression to his most irresistible twinkle as he walked beside them the few steps to the end of the barrier and relieved the porter of the baggage. He discovered then that the porter didn’t seem to like him either.

  ‘Now I love this!’ was Maggie’s reaction to the Aston Martin. He opened the passenger door and reached in to rock the seat forward.

  ‘Will you be comfortable on the back seat, Ms Patel?’ he asked, glowing with pride at Maggie’s throaty compliment. ‘Robin didn’t think there would be room in there for two, that’s why she didn’t come, but perhaps one — sideways?’

  Ms Patel said nothing. With her nose in the air she somehow still managed to stoop low enough to climb in. He went round to the back, opened the boot, and thanked God the two women were travelling light.

  ‘What is this beast?’ called Maggie as she pulled the passenger seat back into place and climbed aboard.

  Had anyone else called the Vantage a beast he would have been outraged. From Maggie it was a term of endearment.

  He closed the boot and went to the driver’s door. He told her what the car was as he climbed in beside her.

  ‘I love fast cars!’ she informed him, her voice loud, as though she knew how much noise the starter was going to make.

  ‘And what about you, Ms Patel?’ he asked, ever the gentleman, meeting her eyes, the colour of dark chocolate melting, in the rearview.

  The edges of the eyes crinkled. ‘I have never ridden in a really fast car,’ came the gentle voice from the rear seat.

  ‘Well,’ he said, to both of them, ‘this is an extremely fast car. But I won’t drive it too quickly, I promise.’ He engaged reverse and was actually very careful about his speed.

  ‘First things first,’ said Maggie as they pulled out onto the North Lantau Expressway. ‘How are Richard and Robin?’ Quickly and concisely, he brought her up to date on Richard’s current physical and mental state, and spent a moment or two describing yesterday’s experiment with hypnotism. ‘We’re taking him out to the ship itself tomorrow, to see if that triggers anything, but it’s hard. Hard on Richard, of course; I’ve never seen anything like the psychic pain he was in yesterday but Tom says we have to discount it and break though it if we’re going to get any further. It’s harder still on poor Robin, though.’

  ‘How is Robin?’

  ‘Exhausted, depressed; getting desperate. She’s increasingly trapped. Everyone knows she’s here now and the papers are after her all the time. She had a nasty experience in the Cat Street market ten days ago and since then she only pops out once in a while to pick up stuff for Richard
. She goes to the Heritage Mariner office sometimes when she thinks the reporters won’t be waiting for her there, but the rest of the time she hides in my offices if she’s in Hong Kong or vegetates down in Repulse Bay. Just about the only relaxation she’s had was at the start of this — what she called “shopping as therapy”. She hasn’t even got that now. I really don’t know how she keeps going.’

  ‘Is there anywhere we can send her for a week or so? Anywhere distant but relevant?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Somewhere where she’s not so well known, somewhere she can get a bit of peace. If I know Robin, she won’t leave her Richard to our tender mercies unless she’s doing something important to help his defence along. Is there anywhere like that? Anywhere at all?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Should we try and talk her into going back to London?’

  ‘No, she’s got things well sewn up there, I understand and the twins are with Richard’s parents.’

  ‘Well, we’ll just have to do a little more thinking, that’s all. Now, talking of Richard’s defence …’

  All the way back into Hong Kong town and then out to his office, he was careful about the speed at which he drove, but even so he pushed at the upper edge of the limit while engaged in a lengthy legal discussion with his passengers. He updated them on everything that had happened so far and gave them the benefit of his experience and of the best of his guesses as to what might happen next

  ‘So,’ Maggie summed up as they came out of the tunnel and turned into the snarl-up heading east, ‘they have charged Richard with the murder of everyone else aboard the ship, but they have no confession. They believe he might have done it on his own and can prove that he was close to some of the victims when they died and that he handled all of the murder weapons at some time or other. But they have not yet actually proved that he fired the fatal shots or chopped the fatal chops, and they don’t know whether he did it all on his own or in confederacy with someone who has since disappeared. And they aren’t sure what to do with him next.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it,’ Andrew admitted, impressed by her summation.

  ‘So their case really rests upon the fact that he was the only survivor of the incident and they have no other suspects.’

  ‘And his loss of memory.’

  ‘No, not really. The fact that he can’t remember anything seems to be incidental. If he was in perfect mental health and saying he was asleep when it all happened or was struck on the head at the outset and only woke up afterwards, then they would still be holding him and trying to prove that he was lying.’

  ‘It’s more complex than that, surely,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Well, perhaps. But I think that’s still the bottom line. He’s in the frame because he was in the picture. He was the only one in the picture, in fact. But what precisely is it a picture of? Is there anything else going on here? Anything political? If Richard didn’t kill all those people, who do you suppose did? And why?’

  ‘That’s a question we haven’t even begun to address,’ admitted Andrew. ‘We have absolutely nothing to go on, so we’ve concentrated on working with Richard himself. Except …’

  ‘Except?’ purred Maggie.

  ‘Do either of you know anything about computers?’ For some reason his eyes met Lata’s in the rearview as he asked this.

  And she answered for both of them. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Our first objective had been to find out what did actually happen. And our best source of information is Richard. We’re working on the assumption that he will prove to be innocent of all charges, though while under hypnosis he has apparently admitted to one slaying.’

  ‘I won’t ask about circumstances at this point, it would be a waste of time. We can’t deal with evidence gained under hypnosis, so the circumstances of the alleged slaying are irrelevant.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Tom said.’

  ‘Tom?’ she asked with a quickening of interest.

  ‘Tom Fowler, the psychologist,’ he said.

  ‘Ah yes, I’ve heard of Tom Fowler …’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘The case of the suicidal Christian,’ prompted Lata.

  ‘What was his name? Perrott? And the plane full of explosives at Heathrow last Easter.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. So Robin’s got Tom Fowler out here.’ The purr of intrigue in her voice made Andrew unaccountably jealous.

  ‘She told us that. Didn’t I mention it to you?’ asked Lata gently.

  ‘Not that I remember,’ answered Maggie shortly.

  *

  Maggie’s arrival gave Robin a shot of badly-needed adrenaline. The brilliant barrister swept into the team mentally as well as physically and shook them all up with her electric energy. They had been feeling pretty glum, especially after the trauma of that interview with Richard — though Richard himself had no memory of the event at all — but Maggie assured them that even as they stood they had a strong case. Without any more ammunition at all, she reckoned she could blow enough holes in the prosecution’s case to give Richard a fighting chance. But, that being said, it was always better to be safe than sorry, so they were to keep working just as hard, and keep looking for that one vital clue. And that, of course, meant that they had to continue Tom’s exploration of Richard’s battered memory.

  They needed two cars the next day when they went to pick up Richard because there were so many of them now. Andrew felt that he should be there as he was, after all, in charge of this section of the defence.

  Maggie went too. It was unusual, she admitted, for a barrister to be this closely involved in the preparation of a case at this stage, and she hoped Andrew would tell her at once if he felt she was getting under his feet. He would rather have died. Maggie cheerfully explained that she was used to being briefed by a solicitor at a much later stage and only meeting the accused on a couple of occasions before they came to court. But she was out here now and working exclusively on the case and she would put her shoulder to the wheel as forcefully as anyone else. Where Maggie went, Lata followed.

  Tom had to be there; he was going to be master of ceremonies. And Robin, of course, had to be there too. That went without saying in her own mind, but the others were not so sure and the idea that Maggie had planted in Andrew’s brain was rapidly flourishing into a fullscale plot to get Robin out of the spotlight for a few days at least, while they all went to work on her behalf unhampered by worrying about her.

  At the hospital they were joined by Richard, Dr Chu, Daniel Huuk and a two-man police escort, so it was almost a convoy, led by a police car and completed by an Aston Martin, which pulled up beside the gangway up onto the Sulu Queen.

  It was at once obvious to everyone that Richard was very nervous about going aboard. ‘Was he this upset the first time you brought him down?’ Tom asked Dr Chu.

  ‘Not at all. He showed no sign of nervousness at all.’

  ‘Maybe we knocked something loose with the hypnotic session. Has his behaviour varied at all during the last forty-eight hours?’

  ‘Not until now.’

  ‘Well, let’s go on. Slowly and carefully. One step at a time. Captain Huuk, will Captain Mariner be escorted by those two guards at all times?’

  ‘We will see, Professor. For the time being certainly. Now, are we going aboard or not?’

  ‘After you, Captain —’

  So Huuk went first, followed by Richard and his guards who urged their captive on while he clearly wished to hang back. Then Tom and Robin, followed closely by Dr Chu, and all the rest in a bunch.

  ‘Are you going to try hypnosis again?’ asked Robin as they followed the nervous man onto the deck and paused there.

  ‘We’ll see.’ He tapped his pocket. ‘I have some Pentothal here too.’

  ‘I’m worried.’

  ‘Yes. Richard’s very disturbed. That’s a hopeful sign, I think. We may not need to do anything other than get him to talk us through his thoughts as he walks
around the bridge.’

  Tom’s words were meant to be helpful and bracing to her, but they did not put her mind at rest at all. In fact, by the time they arrived at the main door into the bridgehouse, she was almost as agitated as her husband. It became obvious that they would have to give Richard a shot of the Pentothal in order to sedate him a little, or the guards would have to carry him around the bridge by main force. ‘Wait here a moment,’ ordered Tom as they gathered outside the doorway on the narrow section of the deck there. ‘Is there a chair nearby?’

  Huuk vanished for a moment and returned with one of the library chairs. Richard sat on it while Tom gave him an injection. He was much calmer within a few minutes, but Tom decided to take the opportunity presented by the pause to put Richard into a hypnotic trance. ‘I know what I said,’ he told Robin quietly, ‘but it will give us more control. He will be all right, I promise.’

  He turned to Huuk. ‘What I propose is this. I want to walk through the bridgehouse with Captain Mariner, once. You and your men will escort us, of course, but I want to be close enough to guide the captain if need be. I suggest that you, Robin, take his left arm and be prepared to guide him as well. Andrew, you need to be sure you have clear sight of anything that happens and be in a position to take note of anything said. I will be taping everything myself. Dr Chu, you will wish to stay close at hand as well, of course. Maggie, you will have to follow along as best you can. Not a situation you are used to, I dare say, but it’s the best we can do for the time being.’

  Tom’s suggestions were taken up by everyone, which was fortunate because the companionways and passages within the ship were narrow and there would have been a great deal of confusion otherwise.

  ‘Richard?’ said Tom, forgetting for a moment that it was Survivor he was speaking to.

  Silence.

  ‘Survivor?’