The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  One of the other men pointed to the maid’s shapely legs and said something in Cantonese and they laughed. Two of the men went out of the room and Anne heard them go upstairs and move from room to room.

  “Which one of you William Fielding?” the man in the black mask asked. Anne felt cold dread grip her heart. She heard her husband speak and then she heard him being dragged to his feet.

  The man in the black mask shouted at Fielding but Fielding shook his head, saying he didn’t understand. A slap rang out and Anne lifted her head to see what had happened. She caught a glimpse of her husband spitting out blood and then she felt a foot in the middle of her back and she pressed her face back to the hard wooden floor.

  There was an exchange of Cantonese and she heard someone else being dragged to his feet. She recognised the next voice she heard. It was Anthony Chung. The men were obviously using him as an interpreter because the man in the black mask spoke to him, and he in turn spoke to her husband in English.

  “They say you must go with them, Mr Fielding,” Chung said. “They say you must do everything they tell you, or the people here will be punished. He doesn’t say what the punishment will be, but I can tell that he is serious.”

  “Tell him I’ll do as he says,” said Fielding. There was a coughing sound, and a spitting noise. “Tell him not to hurt the people here.”

  Chung spoke in Cantonese and the man in the black mask replied.

  “He says I am to go with you to translate. Their English isn’t particularly good. They want there to be no misunderstandings. They’ve asked me to point out your wife and daughter. I’m going to have to do it, Mr Fielding, or they’ll start shooting.”

  “I understand, Anthony,” Fielding said, wiping his bloody mouth with a handkerchief. “Don’t worry. Just do as they say.”

  Anne could see the men in masks moving from guest to guest, tying their hands and feet with rope. She felt hands grab her shoulders and she was pulled to her feet. Across the room she saw two men in leather jackets and green woollen masks holding Debbie. Debbie looked across at her mother, fear in her eyes.

  Someone forced Anne’s hands behind her back and she felt her hands being tied. She saw that Debbie was also being bound.

  “What do they want with me?” Fielding asked Chung.

  “They didn’t say. They want you to go with them, but they didn’t say where.”

  “Can they understand what we’re saying?”

  The man in the black mask stepped forward and jabbed the barrel of his gun in Fielding’s solar plexus. “I understand enough!” he barked. Chung moved to help Fielding stay on his feet. Anne tried to go to him but she felt rough hands pull her back. One of the hands slid over her breast and squeezed her. She turned to face the man and spat in his face. Saliva dripped down his yellow woollen mask and she glared at him. The man drew back his hand to slap her but the man in the black mask shouted something in Cantonese and the hand was lowered. She could see brown eyes glowering at her from behind the yellow mask. As she watched, the eyes stared at her cleavage, which was rising and falling as she panted. She could tell that the man was turned on by her mistreatment. She looked away, fearful of antagonising him any further.

  The man in the black mask spoke to Chung again. When he’d finished, Chung raised his voice and addressed the room. “They are taking Mr Fielding and me outside, and they’ll be holding Mrs Fielding and Debbie in a bedroom upstairs. At no time will you be left alone, so please don’t try anything. They assure me that no one will be harmed if they get what they want.”

  Anne lurched forward as someone slapped her in the back and she almost stumbled. The man she’d spat at pushed her towards the door. She caught Chung’s eye and gave him an anxious smile. He smiled back, but the man in the black mask raised his gun menacingly and he looked away. She and Debbie were herded up the stairs like cattle being rounded up for the kill.

  Neil Coleman saw the door to the Fieldings’ house open and four men walk out. Two of them had arrived in one of the Toyotas, one was William Fielding, and the other was Anthony Chung. He pushed himself back in his seat as the men walked towards a Mercedes parked in the double garage at the side of the house. It wasn’t the one that Fielding had reported stolen, so Coleman guessed he’d arranged a replacement. Coleman scratched his chin thoughtfully. The two Chinese strangers didn’t look like racegoers, and he wondered what had happened to the other six who’d gone inside.

  Fielding climbed into the driving seat of the Merc, with Chung in the back. One of the strangers took the front passenger seat, the other sat next to Chung. They were talking, and Coleman couldn’t see any signs that Fielding and Chung were being coerced. The Mercedes started up and drove down the driveway, indicated a left turn and headed down the Peak towards the Central business district. After a moment’s hesitation, Coleman started the Suzuki Jeep and followed it.

  Archie Kwan leant his elbows on the barrier and focused his binoculars on the starting gates. Four of the horses were already in but three others, including one of his, Fortune Cookie, was playing up. Reg Dykes was having trouble controlling the horse, and Kwan thought the fault lay more with the jockey than the mount. Dykes was using the crop on Fortune Cookie’s flanks and urging him on with his knees, but the horse was rearing and flaring its nostrils. The horse belonged to a mainland Chinese trader and Kwan knew he was watching from a private box and that he would not be happy with what he saw. Dykes really was more trouble than he was worth, Kwan decided. He’d looked half dead at the weigh-in and had only just scraped in. Through the binoculars Kwan saw Dykes whip the horse hard, and he winced. He raised his binoculars and scanned the grandstand, trying to locate the box where Fortune Cookie’s owner was. He saw the Jardine Matheson box, packed with racegoers drinking champagne, and he saw several directors of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank smoking cigars and studying racecards and close by the directors of Hutchison Whampoa, the colony’s leading Chinese hong. He saw the box which belonged to the Kowloon and Canton Bank, though he couldn’t see William Fielding. An expectant hush fell over the crowd and Kwan saw that all the horses were now in the starting gates. The first race was about to begin.

  The drive from the Peak to Kowloon took twice as long as usual because of the cars streaming into Happy Valley for the race meeting. William Fielding drove slowly, his mind working to find some way out of his predicament. Twice he drove by police cars and he thought of jumping out of the Mercedes and turning the two men in his car over to them. But he had little faith in the Hong Kong police being able to rescue Anne and Debbie without it turning into a bloodbath. They had the reputation of shooting first and asking questions later.

  The man sitting next to him, the one who’d stripped off the black ski-mask in the hall, had told him to drive to Kowloon, and Fielding was almost sure they were heading for the bank’s underground depository. They were wasting their time, he knew, because both vaults in the depository had time locks, and no matter what they threatened or what they did, there was no way they could be opened before Monday morning.

  The cut on the inside of his mouth had stopped bleeding but it still hurt, and his chest ached where he’d been prodded by the gun. He hoped that they hadn’t hurt Anne or Debbie.

  The man in the passenger seat told him to drive down Nathan Road and Fielding knew for certain that they were going to the depository. He wanted to tell them that they wouldn’t be able to get into the vaults, but didn’t want to antagonise them so he kept quiet. Chung sat in the back, his arms folded across his chest.

  Anne Fielding sat on the edge of the bed and flicked the hair out of her eyes. The rope they’d used to bind her arms behind her was biting into her flesh and the pain brought tears to her eyes. Debbie was lying face down on the bed while one of their two guards tied her legs.

  The other guard stood at the door to the bedroom, holding a gun in either hand. He was the man Anne had spat at earlier and he was openly staring at her.

  “Which one do you like best?”
the man at the door asked his companion in Cantonese. Anne couldn’t speak the language but she guessed from the way he was looking at her that she was the subject of the conversation. “The mother or the daughter?”

  “The younger the better,” said the man crouched over Debbie. He stroked her legs. “You think we should do to these two what the British have been doing to Hong Kong for years?”

  The man with the guns laughed. “I’d really enjoy giving it to the mother. Look at her breasts. And her legs. Have you ever had a gweipor?”

  “Never. I hear they don’t like sex. Frigid most of them.” He finished binding Debbie’s legs and stood up, wiping his hands.

  “This one doesn’t look frigid. She looks like she’s built for sex.”

  “Give her one, then. I’ll hold the guns. No one will know. You have the mother, I’ll have the girl.”

  The man by the door tapped one of the guns against his leg. Anne avoided his eyes, keeping her legs pressed together, knowing they were talking about her and hoping upon hope that they wouldn’t touch her. She knew she’d be unable to fight them off. She strained at her bonds behind her back but the knots wouldn’t budge. The effort of straining made her breasts push up against her dress and she felt the man’s stare mentally undress her. She let her shoulders sag and sat slumped on the bed.

  “The Dragon Head said he’d kill us if we touched them,” said the man with the guns. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “I can dream, can’t I?” He went over and stood in front of Anne so that his groin was in front of her face. Anne kept her head down but he grabbed her hair, forcing her to look at him. “She has a wet mouth,” said the man in Cantonese and he pushed her face towards his trousers. Anne tried to pull back but he twisted the handful of hair so hard that she gasped. She was off balance and fell forward, her cheek pressing against his thigh. She tried to push herself back, away from him. “See, she’s pushing herself against me. She wants it.”

  The man with the guns shook his head. “If the Dragon Head finds out he’ll cut off your balls,” he warned.

  The man looked down at Anne. He nodded slowly. “You’re right,” he said, “she’s not worth it. No gweipor is worth it.”

  “You have the paper?”

  “In my back pocket.” He took a sheet of paper and unfolded it before kneeling down in front of Anne. He showed the paper to her. “I want you call box at racetrack. You read from this. You understand?”

  Anne nodded. She read the typewritten lines on the paper. “Who do you want me to say this to?” she asked.

  “Man in charge of box,” he said. “You understand?”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “If you say anything not on paper, your daughter dies,” he said. “And you die. But first we have fun with you. Understand?”

  “I understand,” said Anne. The man’s English was slow and hesitant and heavily accented but she could follow what he was saying.

  He took the phone from the bedside table and dialled a number. When he was sure it was ringing he held it against her face. Anne could hear Debbie crying softly and she wanted to reassure her but knew that would only provoke the men further.

  A man answered and she recognised Alex Perman’s voice.

  “Alex, this is Anne Fielding,” she said.

  “Anne? Where are you? The race has already started.”

  “We’ve had a small problem at the house, Alex. One of the guests is feeling ill and we’re waiting for the doctor to get here. It looks like a diabetic coma so we’re going to stay here until we’re sure everything is okay.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  There was nothing on the typewritten sheet to say how she was supposed to answer questions, so Anne continued to read.

  “We’ll try to get there as soon as possible, but it might not be until the end. William says you’re to look after the guests there, make sure everyone’s taken care of. He’ll call you later. Goodbye, Alex.”

  The man hung up for her. “Good,” he said. “Very good.”

  The Mercedes stopped in front of the depository’s delivery door, though Michael Wong told Fielding to leave the engine running. Wong spoke to Chung in Cantonese, even though his English was perfect. He didn’t want Fielding to know how good a grasp of the language he had, and it was important to reinforce the impression that Chung was along as an interpreter.

  “He says you are to accompany him to the reception area,” Chung explained to Fielding. “I’ll be coming, too. You are to tell the person at reception that you wish to show us around. Will they know you?”

  “Yes,” said Fielding. He was a regular visitor to the depository. “But they won’t admit the three of us without authorisation. They have a list of who is scheduled to visit.”

  Chung spoke to Wong in Cantonese, and Wong replied. “So what will they do?” asked Chung.

  “They will check with my head of security,” said Fielding.

  Chung and Wong conversed again, and Chung leant forward to put a reassuring hand on Fielding’s shoulder. “He says you are to speak with the head of security and tell him that you have two guests you wish to show around the depository. You must make sure that he doesn’t suspect anything. He says your wife and daughter will be killed if anything goes wrong, Mr Fielding. And I am afraid they mean it.”

  Wong prodded Fielding in the stomach with his gun. “I know English to hear what you say,” he said in pidgin English. “You tell, they die.”

  “I will do as you say,” said Fielding.

  Fielding, Chung and Wong got out of the Mercedes and the fourth man climbed into the driving seat. They walked around the side of the building and Wong pushed open the glass door for Fielding. There was always someone manning the reception desk, even when the vault doors were locked, because the control room was always occupied.

  Fielding recognised the man at the desk, an elderly Chinese man in a grey suit with a bank tie. “Mr Lee, how are you this afternoon?”

  “I am well, Mr Fielding.” The man looked down at an appointments book on his desk. “We were not expecting you, were we?”

  “No, but I wish to show my friends here around the depository.”

  “I shall have to check with Mr Ballantine,” said Lee. “It is the rules, you understand?”

  “Of course, Mr Lee. You would not be doing your job if you did anything less. We shall sit over here.”

  Fielding took the two men over to one of the sofas and sat down, straightening the creases on his trousers. Chung sat on his right, Wong on his left.

  Lee consulted a bank phone directory and dialled a number. After a minute or two he called over to Mr Fielding. “Please come to the phone, Mr Fielding,” he said.

  Wong spoke hurriedly to Chung. “He says to have the call put through to the phone on the table,” said Chung.

  Fielding told Lee to transfer the call and he picked up the receiver when it buzzed. “William, is that you?”

  “Good afternoon, George. Sorry about this, but I had a sudden urge to visit the depository.”

  “I thought you’d be at the races,” said Ballantine.

  “I’ll be going later,” said Fielding. “I have Anthony Chung with me, the man you were good enough to show around for me, but he has a partner with him and they’d both like a quick look around. Does that cause you any problems?”

  “Of course not,” said Ballantine. “But you know the vaults are sealed until Monday?”

  “I’ve explained that, but they’d still like a look. They have a shipment of antiques arriving tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine by me, William. Enjoy yourself. I’ll see you in the office tomorrow.” There was a pause. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

  Fielding held his breath. It would be so easy to drop a hint that he was in trouble; George Ballantine was no fool, but his first reaction would be to call in the police, and Fielding could not risk the lives of his wife and daughter. Could not and would not. “A head cold, Geor
ge,” he said. “I feel terrible, but business is business.”

  “I know what you mean,” laughed Ballantine. “Go to bed with a hot toddy, that always works for me. Transfer me back to Lee and I’ll put him in the picture.”

  Fielding asked Lee what his extension was and put the call back to him. Lee spoke to Ballantine and then he summoned the elevator for the men. He watched as the doors hissed shut on them.

  “There is something he should know,” Fielding said to Chung. “Tell him the vaults have time locks, and there’s no way they can be opened until Monday morning.”

  “I’ll tell him,” said Chung. He spoke to Wong, and Wong replied in a few curt syllables. “He says he knows,” Chung whispered.

  The lift doors opened and the three men walked along the corridor to the control room. They were admitted through the two security doors, the locks clicking open as they approached, showing that they were being monitored every step of the way by the closed circuit cameras. When they reached the glass door of the control room, Fielding saw three uniformed men waiting for them. The oldest of the three, a man called Woo who Fielding knew had been with the bank for several decades, opened the door for the group. He was sweating, Fielding noticed, even though the control room was air-conditioned.

  “Mr Lee said you were on your way up, Mr Fielding,” Woo stammered. He looked over Fielding’s shoulder at Chung and Wong. He stepped to the side and let the three men in. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, Mr Woo. We’re just here to look around,” said Fielding.

  Woo closed the door and turned to face the three men. His mouth fell open as Wong pulled the gun from inside his jacket.

  “All of you, put your hands on your heads!” Wong barked in Cantonese. The three men did as they were told. “Stand up against the wall, and face it,” commanded Wong. The men shuffled round. Fielding stood with his arms at his side, not sure what to do. He looked at Chung and as he did Wong slammed the pistol into his temple, knocking him cold. Fielding slumped to the floor, his head banging against a console as he fell backwards.