The Wild Beasts of Wuhan

by Ian Hamilton

  “Don Valley Parkway or Gardiner Expressway?” the cab driver asked.

  “Your call. They’re both going to be slow,” she said.

  They were crawling along the Gardiner when Maria called her back. “I’m so mad. I had a meeting I couldn’t get out of,” she said.

  “That’s okay; this should be a quick trip. I may even get home tomorrow night.”

  “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Me too.”

  Their conversation stalled. Neither of them was entirely comfortable with sharing endearments over the phone. “Look, I’ll email as soon as I figure out my schedule.” Ava said.

  “I’ve already told the office I’m taking a few days off. When you get back, I’m going to stick by you till you can’t stand it anymore.”

  “Do you still have a key to my place?” Ava asked, knowing she did, and also knowing that Maria would never think of using it without Ava’s express permission.

  “Yes.”

  “After work, go over there. I bought two sweaters. They’re on the bed. One is for Mimi, the other is for you. You have first pick.”

  “I’m leaving in five minutes.”

  Pearson Airport was jammed but most of the crowds were for U.S. departures. The international departures area was a peaceful island by comparison. She checked in and then hit the lounge for a couple of glasses of white wine. She figured if she had two more on the flight, she’d sleep most of the way to London.

  They boarded and took off exactly on schedule. Within fifteen minutes of liftoff Ava had a glass of wine and was nestled in her seat watching Extras. Her intention was to watch one episode while she sipped her wine and relaxed enough to sleep, but Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant were so funny, and the series premise so clever, that she had to force herself to turn off the entertainment system after three episodes. She dozed off, and woke only when the flight attendant told passengers to prepare for landing.

  They disembarked at Heathrow at nine a.m. Ava hustled through Immigration and went to the ladies’ loo. She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and fixed her hair with the ivory chignon pin. Then she went into a cubicle to change into her midnight-blue shirt, tan skirt, and brown stilettos. Then she stood at the mirror to apply a light touch of red lipstick and black mascara. By nine thirty she was in a taxi line and by nine forty-five was inching her way into London.

  Sam Rice had impressed her the day before. He saw no reason to discuss their involvement, no reason to make excuses for his actions. He knew they had a problem and he was eager to address it and put it behind him. She liked a no-nonsense approach, and she was sure that when she got to Harrington’s, Rice would be well organized.

  She reached New Bond Street at ten past eleven. The last time she had been to Harrington’s it was after office hours, and she had been greeted by a security guard. This time she found herself talking to a beautiful young black woman with short, stylish hair. Ava signed in, was given a visitor’s badge, and was told that Mr. Rice was waiting for her in the boardroom on the third floor.

  When the elevator doors opened, Frederick Locke was waiting for her. He looked sheepish, and Ava saw no reason to let him off the hook. “I hope you’re here to apologize. Do you even understand what it is to make a promise?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “You have no idea how tortured I was feeling. I mean, I was having nightmares, Ava, about how this would affect the firm. I had to tell Sam. And he’s been great, really great.”

  “I talked to him yesterday.”

  “I know, and I couldn’t have been more pleased.”

  “Frederick, we all want the same thing here, but we’re not going to get it if we can’t trust each other.”

  “Ava, I’m so sorry. This will never happen again.”

  “Where is Mr. Rice?”

  “In the boardroom.”

  “Let’s go see him.”

  Ava was guided through the high-rent district of Harrington’s: big offices filled with antique furnishings and collectible paintings on the walls. The boardroom was large; in the centre was a massive oak table surrounded by matching chairs. The only modern piece in the room was a credenza pushed against the wall. On it was a tray with a coffee urn, cups, saucers, and bottles of water.

  Sam Rice stood to meet her. He was extraordinarily pale, his skin almost translucent, which made his full red lips and ice-blue eyes stand out. He was large and soft, about six foot two and close to three hundred pounds.

  “Ms. Lee.”

  “Mr. Rice.”

  “Sam.”

  “Ava.”

  “Thanks so much for coming at such short notice.”

  “This is important,” Ava said.

  “For all of us.”

  “Are you Scottish, Sam?” she asked.

  “Welsh.”

  “Ah. I love your accent.”

  “There was a time when it was a handicap. The auction, the art business in the U.K. was run by an old boys’ club who all went to the same public schools and the same university and spoke with one accent. It’s only in recent times that they’ve made room for us provincials.”

  Ava sat down in a chair directly across from Rice. Locke looped around the table and sat next to his boss. “Coffee, tea, water?” Rice asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  He saw her looking at the table. “It was Oliver Cromwell’s. It was the family dining table, and some of the chairs were his as well. The table has been in our firm for more than a hundred years.”

  “And how many times over those hundred years has the company dealt with an issue like this?”

  Frederick Locke glanced at his boss, and Ava saw that he was as curious as she was to know the answer. “More often than I care to recount,” Rice said. “This isn’t an exact science, you know, and sadly, things do slip through the cracks. We like to keep our secrets well buried. My predecessors always believed that sustaining the credibility of the firm was our primary goal. Without trust, we have nothing. So if from time to time they needed to shade the truth for the sake of the greater good, they were prepared to do that.”

  “And you learned your lessons from them?”

  Rice smiled. “I guess that’s as good a lead-in to the subject at hand as we can expect. Ava, would you like to start?”

  She liked the way he had sidestepped her question and passed the meeting over to her. “As you both know by now, I was hired by a client in China to investigate a potential scam involving some Fauvist paintings,” Ava began. “In the course of my research I came across possible irregularities involving some other paintings not directly connected to my client. I have since resolved the Fauvist issue to my client’s satisfaction, and the other paintings now hold zero interest for them or me.”

  “For the record, what does that mean exactly?”

  “As far as we’re concerned, they don’t exist. I understand that you can’t take the exact same position, at least with one of them, since you sold it at auction. So I’m curious — for the record — as to how you want to proceed.”

  Rice looked at Locke as if to say, See? Nothing to worry about.

  “The painting you refer to, the one that was sold through Harrington’s for a client — we have reviewed the provenance and our original evaluation, and on balance we think it would be irresponsible to cast any shadow of doubt upon it,” Rice said.

  “So we seem to be on exactly the same page,” Ava said.

  The door behind Ava opened. She turned and saw a young woman with a slip of paper in her hand. Rice looked annoyed. “What is it, Melissa?” he said.

  The woman seemed distressed. “Excuse me, Mr. Rice, but something has come up and Mr. Tomlinson thought you should be informed.”

  �
�Can’t it wait?”

  “He thought not.”

  “Well, what is it then?”

  “Excuse me,” the woman said to Ava as she reached past her to hand the note to Rice.

  He read it and then looked up. Ava saw shock in his eyes. “Does he have any more details?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  Rice stared at Ava and she felt a shiver. Does this have something to do with me? The Wongs? she wondered. No one knew she was at Harrington’s.

  “There has been an incident at the Hughes Art Gallery in Kensington,” Rice said.

  “An incident?”

  “Something serious enough to involve the police. They have the gallery cordoned off.”

  Ava froze.

  “How does Tomlinson know this?” Locke asked.

  “He lives in the neighbourhood. He went past the gallery on his way to work and saw that the police were there. He called from his mobile,” Melissa said.

  “That’s all he knows?” Locke pressed.

  “Melissa, is Tomlinson still there?” Rice asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have his mobile number handy?”

  “I wrote it on the bottom of the paper,” she said, pointing to the slip in Rice’s hand.

  “I’ll call him from outside. I’ll be right back,” Rice said as he moved quickly towards the door.

  When he was gone, Locke said quietly, “What can this mean?”

  Ava didn’t know if he was talking to her or himself, and in either case she wasn’t going to respond. She had too many questions in her own head.

  “I want to go to the gallery,” she said to Locke. “Can you drive me?”

  “You don’t want to wait for Sam? It could be something minor.”

  Ava got to her feet. “If you won’t drive me then I’ll just catch a taxi downstairs.”

  “I think we should wait for Sam,” Locke said.

  She turned and left the boardroom. As she was walking to the elevator she saw Sam Rice standing at a desk, a phone to his ear. The look on his face told her more than she wanted to know. “Ava, wait!” he yelled.

  She didn’t stop. The elevator doors opened as soon as she got there and she stepped in. As the doors closed she saw Sam Rice running towards her. He moved quickly for a big man, but not quickly enough.

  Ava was starting to give the taxi driver the gallery address when she caught herself. The street would probably be closed to traffic. She directed him instead to the Fletcher Hotel.

  Sitting in the back of the taxi she tried to calm herself down. I don’t know, she told herself, what happened on Church Street. But the dull throb in the pit of her stomach wouldn’t go away.

  Her cellphone rang. Harrington’s. “Ava, we’re on our way. Sam and I are getting into his car as I speak,” Frederick Locke said.

  “See you there,” Ava said, turning off the phone and throwing it into the bottom of her purse.

  As the cab pulled into the Fletcher Hotel, she looked up Church Street and saw police barriers and what looked like the blinking lights of police cars and ambulances. She went into the hotel and almost threw her bag at the concierge. “I’m Ms. Lee. Tag my bag and store it for me. I’ll be back.”

  She walked slowly towards the gallery, trying to let the scene develop gradually in her mind rather than erupt before her. She was accustomed to the yellow tapes used to seal off crime scenes, the wooden barriers to keep onlookers — two and three deep around the outer perimeter — back. She tried to find a gap in the crowd, and at the north end she saw an opening and wormed her way to the front.

  Three ambulances were parked outside the gallery. Waiting, Ava thought. Uniformed police stood in a small circle next to their cars; others in plain clothes huddled by the gallery’s door. Beyond the ambulances Ava saw two television trucks, and to her right, cameramen stood with reporters holding microphones.

  “Do you know what’s happened?” Ava asked the woman next to her.

  “Bit of a shoot-up, I gather. Robbery attempt maybe.”

  One of the television crews moved towards Ava as the cameraman tried to find a good angle for his shot.

  “Excuse me,” Ava said to the reporter. “Do you know what happened here? I’m acquainted with the people who work at the gallery.”

  “A shooting. Actually, shootings.”

  “How many?”

  “Three.”

  Ava paled, the throb in her stomach now beginning to pound. “You wouldn’t have any names, would you?”

  “Nothing official,” the reporter said. “You say you know the people at the gallery?”

  “Yes, two of them. Edwin Hughes and his assistant, Lisa.”

  The reporter checked her clipboard. “We came up with those names ourselves, but they haven’t been confirmed.” She moved off, following the cameraman, who had found a position that gave him a clear shot of the doorway.

  It’s strangely quiet, Ava thought. The uniformed police were standing like sentries, staring back at the onlookers, while the plainclothes officers whispered back and forth and occasionally walked in and out of the building. When they moved, Ava saw a gurney, flanked by two ambulance attendants and a policeman, rolling out of the gallery. There was a white body bag on it. The crowd gasped, and Ava heard several women moan. The man next to her said, “God love us.”

  They pushed the gurney to the last ambulance in the row, and another gurney began its progress from the gallery, with an identical white zippered body bag. Ava stared at the bags, almost willing herself to see through them. The bodies are small, she thought. Female probably.

  A third gurney came through the door. A pair of brown leather wingtips lay beside the body bag.

  Ava gagged. The man next to her said, “Go easy, there.”

  She breathed deeply through her nose. Then she started to move away, back towards the bakery door where only a few days before she had lain in wait for Edwin Hughes.

  It took ten minutes to clear space for the ambulances. As they drove away, the crowd began to disperse. Ava walked towards the crime scene, her eye on the television reporter, who was in deep discussion with one of the plainclothes police officers. She watched them talk, the reporter making notes and then calling over the cameraman to film her report, the hughes gallery sign prominent in the background as she spoke into the camera.

  The reporter did three takes before she was satisfied. The cameraman went off to get more exterior shots and the reporter walked to her car, which had been parked behind the ambulances. Ava caught up to her as she skirted the barrier.

  “Did you get the names?” Ava asked.

  It took the woman a second to recognize her, and then she looked around to see if anyone else was listening. “The two you mentioned, plus a third, a woman named Bonnie Knox. They think she was a customer.”

  “How did they die?”

  “I’m not sure I should say anything more.”

  “Please, this is important to me,” Ava said.

  The reporter lowered her voice. “They think it was some kind of gangland thing. The three of them were shot in the back of the head, and were probably on their knees when it was done.”

  “But why the women, the customer?”

  “Innocent bystanders, they think — a robbery gone bad. Hughes must have tried to resist and the women got caught up in the mess,” she said. “It’ll be all over the news in the next hour or two and the police will make some kind of statement before the afternoon is out. Until then, keep this between us, eh?”

  Ava nodded and began walking slowly back to the hotel. She met Sam Rice and Frederick Locke on the way. “I couldn’t find a bloody parking spot,” Rice said, breathless. “I’ve been circling for ages.”

  “You didn’t miss anything,” Ava said quietly
.

  “What happened?” Locke asked.

  “You can hear about it on the news in an hour or two, I’m told.”

  “Is Edwin all right?” Rice said.

  She looked away. “No, he’s not, and there’s nothing we can do to help. Now I need to be alone for a while, and you should go back to the office.”

  “Ava —”

  “No, Sam, I can’t talk to you or anyone else right now. I’ll call you later and we can continue the discussion we were having this morning. Although I suspect it might be irrelevant now.”

  She half walked and half ran to the hotel. “Do you have a room available?” she asked the front-desk clerk.

  “Of course, Ms. Lee, and welcome back to the Fletcher Hotel.”

  ( 32 )

  Ava lay in the dark with the drapes tightly drawn, the digital clock by the bed unplugged. Her mind was jumping from one scenario to another; her feelings oscillated from confusion to rage to grief in an instant. Underlying it all was the sickening realization that she had been betrayed.

  She didn’t know how long she had been in bed before she finally found the energy to get up. She opened the drapes to a sunny day, the Gardens lit up like — what, a Fauvist painting?

  She turned on the television and flipped channels, looking for news of the shootings, but there was nothing. Leaving the TV on, Ava went into the bathroom. She stripped and climbed into the shower, the water as hot as she could bear. For ten minutes she let it pelt her, more punishing than cleansing. Feeling no less lost, she wrapped herself in the hotel’s terrycloth bathrobe, a towel around her head, and went back into the bedroom.

  She crawled back into bed. Even in the robe she felt cold, and she pulled the duvet up to her chin. She was listening to a quiz show when she heard the host’s voice interrupted by a reporter’s and the words “multiple shootings.” Ava sat up.

  The presenter sat at a desk with three photos displayed behind him. She recognized Edwin Hughes and Lisa. The third picture was of Bonnie Knox, a woman in her early thirties, the mother of two young children. The news report cut to the scene outside the art gallery. The reporter she had talked to was conducting an interview with one of the plainclothes officers. He was subdued, confirming only that three people had been shot dead. There were no suspects and no apparent motive, although they were treating it as a robbery. The reporter pushed the officer to confirm that the three victims had been killed execution-style. “We have no firm motive and we can’t speculate,” the policeman repeated.