by Mark Arundel
‘Leave the skis and the poles there,’ I said.
Xing dropped them on the snow. I held the rifle pointed at her. I called Charlotte. ‘Let us in.’
Charlotte peeked through a crack in the door and then opened it wider and we went in. We had to step over the dead body of Ulrich. He still lay where he had fallen.
Charlotte stared at Xing. Neither of them spoke.
‘Where’s Casanova?’ I asked.
‘Through there,’ Charlotte said.
We entered the main room. Casanova sat quietly in a high-backed chair in the corner. His normally ruddy features were as white as the mountaintop. Looking at his shock and discomfort made me even more convinced of his innocence in the death of the girl back in Soho. He stared at me first and then Xing and finally the rifle. He didn’t speak.
Nobody spoke, so I said to Xing, ‘Sit down there and put your hands on your head.’ She obeyed. All three of them were staring at me. Then I realised something, I didn’t know what to say.
Fortunately, Charlotte spoke. She looked at Xing and then back at me. ‘Is this the assassin?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘this is Xing.’
Charlotte repeated, ‘Xing!’
‘Yes,’
‘The assassin, the one in Tenerife,’ Charlotte said.
‘Yes,’
‘...Xing, the assassin from Hong Kong?’
I nodded. Charlotte stared at Xing. Xing sat with her hands on her head. She kept silent.
‘Who paid for the hit?’ She didn’t answer. I realised Xing was as confused as I was. She was trying to understand why I was there and what my connection was to Ulrich, her Swiss target. ‘I’ll swop information with you,’ I said.
Charlotte interrupted. ‘You can’t do that,’ she said, ‘the Official Secrets Act.’
I ignored the Official Secrets Act and said, ‘This man,’ I pointed at Casanova, ‘runs a big UK bank and he’s stolen a large sum of money. I’m trying to get it back.’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Casanova said.
‘Shut up,’ I said.
Xing looked at him and then back at me. She gave me that look of hers. It reminded me so much of Tenerife. ‘The job was paid for by the head of a crime organisation in Macau, you know the organisations by the name triads. It was a standard job. I don’t know anymore.’
‘Standard until I appeared.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
I looked at Casanova. ‘What do you know about this?’ I said.
Charlotte said, ‘I should call...’
I looked at her. ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘There’ll be time.’
‘Well, tell me,’ I said to Casanova.
‘I didn’t steal the money,’ he said. ‘It was an unauthorised investment. That’s all. We had done it before. It always worked before.’
We were all watching him. He was scared. I might be too in his place.
‘You better explain,’ I said.
‘I transfer the money from my bank using my authorization code and then it’s returned in under twenty-four hours and nobody knows about it.’
‘Transfer it where?’ I said.
‘To Zurich,’ he said, ‘to Stein’s bank.’ He gestured towards the door to indicate he meant the dead Ulrich.
‘What did Stein do with the money?’ I asked.
‘He lent it to a man in Macau,’ Casanova said.
‘A loan for less than twenty-four hours, why?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes, you do.’
We were all watching Casanova.
‘Collateral,’ he said.
‘Explain,’ I said.
‘Collateral,’ he repeated. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘the money is used to let someone see you have the capital to make deals, prove you’re a big player, earn respect. The money isn’t spent it’s just for show. You have it in your bank account, people see it and then you transfer it back.’
‘What was in it for you?’
‘I earned a commission.’
‘Yeah, I bet you did. I bet you didn’t pay the tax on it, though. Did Stein keep it hidden away for you?’
I didn’t get an answer.
‘How much did Stein make out of it?’
Again, there was no answer.
‘So what went wrong?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. It all happened exactly as before, except this time, the money wasn’t transferred back.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Did Stein know why?’
‘No.’
‘What about the girl in Soho?’
‘...Soho. What girl?’
‘The girl you visited in her flat; the girl who’s now laid out cold in a police morgue.’
‘I didn’t kill her. She was alive when I left.’ His fear level had just jumped two notches.
‘Who did kill her then and why?’
‘I don’t know. They used her as a go-between. She passed me messages, verbal messages. That’s all.’
Then I remembered Meriwether’s words: in his report, the pathologist has given ethnicity as Far Eastern, Southeast Asia, most likely Macau or Hong Kong. Don’t ask me how he knows I have no idea. The murdered girl was a messenger for the triad boss in Macau.
‘What messages?’ I asked.
‘Just dates, identity codes, numbers; that’s all. Nothing really, she didn’t even know what it meant, and she certainly didn’t know what it was for.’
‘Then why was she killed?’
‘To clean up,’ said Xing. We all looked at her. She was looking straight at me. It surprised me to hear her voice. Slow and quiet with that particular accent of hers.
‘She was killed to sever the line of communication; to break any connection back to Macau. Dead people can’t speak, can they?’
‘Do you know about this girl; this killing?’ I asked. She didn’t answer. ‘Did you kill her?’ It’s what I thought. I said it without pausing to consider. ‘Did you?’
‘No. I didn’t.’
Did I believe her? Did any of us believe her?
‘I didn’t kill her,’ Xing said again. It sounded like the truth.
‘Then how do you know about it?’
‘I don’t. I know about the triads and their work. Anyway, you thought this man killed her.’
I looked at Xing’s hands. They were small. Were they too small to strangle someone? She was strong enough. That, I already knew.
‘I didn’t kill her,’ Casanova repeated. ‘She was alive when I left her.’
‘Why did you go to see her? The money was already transferred by then.’
‘I wanted to find out if she knew where the money was. I had to try to get it back. She was my only contact. Stein was trying to find out, too, but he didn’t know any more than I did. Or at least that’s what he said.’
I believed Casanova. I didn’t know if I believed Xing.
‘I must get the money back.’ Casanova had turned desperate and his anxiety was peaking.
‘The money is gone,’ Xing said. Her voice was cold, definite. She was right, of course. It was obvious. For whatever reason, the triad boss wasn’t going to transfer the collateral loan back. Instead, he had sent an unknown killer to silence the Soho messenger, and Xing, an experienced professional, to kill Ulrich. No, Mr. “triad kingpin” had decided to keep the money. This was not good news for Casanova and he knew it.
Charlotte said, ‘I really must make that call.’ I nodded at her. She pulled out her phone as she left the room.
Casanova was staring at me. ‘What’s going to happen?’ he asked. His eyes pleaded for mercy.
I kept my eyes on Xing. By now, she was probably thinking it was time for her to leave. I didn’t want her making a grab for me, so I backed off and raised the rifle directly at her. She gave me one of her looks. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t think of anything. The room was silent. Time seemed to stop.
Eventually, Charlotte returned. Her eye
s were big. ‘He wants to talk to you,’ she said and passed me her phone. I took it without looking away from Xing.
‘Ah, dear boy,’ Meriwether said. ‘It’s a bad business.’ His voice was deep like the grave. ‘Charlotte has given me all the details. It’s very unfortunate, very unfortunate indeed. I’ve agreed with her what’s to be done. We shall have to extricate ourselves as best we can. Retire to the pavilion as it were. There’ll always be another day.’
‘Just tell me,’ I said.
‘Yes, of course. With the hole empty and no hope of filling it, Casanova is of little use. We shall throw him to the wolves. Your friend, Miss Marple, will be pleased and probably quite grateful, too. Ulrich is too high profile for a satisfactory clean, so we shall have to leave him for the local gendarmes. They’ll probably enjoy the excitement, anyway. There is one thing I need you to do, though, something to add an extra ingredient and to settle a score.’
‘What’s that?’ I said.
Meriwether’s voice never altered. ‘Terminate the assassin,’ he said. ‘Use the same rifle that she used. In that way, it will give the local boys something to ponder. Anyway, we owe her for Tenerife. It’s been twice now. I don’t want a third.’
The call ended. Meriwether was gone. I handed back the phone. Charlotte didn’t speak. I kept my eyes on Xing.
Casanova looked lost. ‘You better take him to his wife and kids,’ I said.
Charlotte nodded. She pulled Casanova up by his arm. ‘Come on,’ she said. He stood up. He was a little shaky. Charlotte pulled him towards the door.
Charlotte looked at me. ‘Come to my chalet,’ she said. I nodded. Charlotte and Casanova left. I heard the door bang shut. Xing and I stared at each other. I pulled the rifle tighter and aimed at her chest.
‘Don’t you want to ask me about Tenerife, before you do it?’ she said.
‘You won, I lost,’ I said.
‘I didn’t win,’ she said.
‘No?’
‘It was a job. I’ve never failed one yet. I’m sorry it conflicted with your work.’
‘I don’t remember you being sorry when you shot me in the chest.’
‘Have you ever wondered why I shot you in the centre of your chest and not your head?’
I had wondered, but I didn’t say so.
‘It’s because I knew you were wearing a vest,’ she said.
Was that the truth?
‘How did you know?’ I asked.
‘The London contact, you know the man, he told me you had taken two vests from the Russians. He got the intelligence from the local police. He said you left the three Russians alive and gave them over. Is that true?’
It was true.
I wanted to believe her, but even if I did believe her, it didn’t make any difference, not now. I still had to kill her.
She sensed this, and for a moment, I thought she was going to make a desperate grab for me, but instead she lifted her chin and her eyes darkened.
‘Your boss wants the money back,’ she said. I didn’t reply. ‘How much is it?’ she asked. I didn’t actually know. Nobody had told me and I hadn’t asked. Again, I didn’t reply. Then Xing said something that made me loosen my trigger finger.
‘I know who’s got the money and I know how to get it back.’
It was a stay of execution and she knew it. She took her hands off her head and said, ‘It’s true what I said about knowing you were wearing a vest.’
This time, for some reason, I did believe her and I wondered what that meant.
The cabin held that silence that only a heavy wooden cabin high on a mountain can hold. It was thick and complete like being under a winter duvet as a child.
Xing’s eyes never left mine. It felt like she was trying to read my mind. Eventually, I said, ‘How do you know who has the money?’
‘It’s the man who hired me to kill the Swiss banker.’
That made sense. I nodded.
‘Why has he kept the money, this time, do you know?’
It was her turn to nod.
‘Yes, I do,’ she said.
‘Tell me,’ I said.
‘It’s because it’s not the same man, this time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This Macau triad organisation has had a recent change of leadership. New has replaced old. The old leader is dead and a new, much younger man has taken over. As he didn’t personally do the deal with the Swiss banker he believes he can keep the money, and for insurance, he has sent me.’
It sounded plausible.
‘But how can we get the money back?’ I asked.
‘I’ll only tell you that once we’ve made a deal,’ she said. ‘Call your boss and ask him.’
I used my K106. Bartholomew Meriwether’s voice was less animated than usual. The outcome had clearly disappointed him. I wondered if what I was going to tell him would make any difference.
‘She says she knows how to get the money back,’ I said.
‘Does she?’ he said. His voice lifted, but I wasn’t sure if it was in hope or disbelief. ‘Do you believe her?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, maybe.’
‘Give me five minutes,’ he said. ‘I want to read her file. Hoagy will find it for me on his laptop. I’ll call you back.’ He ended the call.
The tension charged the air like the Hadron Collider. Xing didn’t want to ask me, but she wanted to know. I said, ‘He’s going to read your file and then call me back.’ The tension remained.
Xing broke the silence. ‘In Tenerife, the other man I killed was a soldier, wasn’t he, like you?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I followed him up. Like a soldier, he was only interested in what was ahead not what was behind. I watched you fight him. I thought you were going to kill him. Why didn’t you?’
I didn’t answer. Instead, I said, ‘I don’t want to talk about Tenerife. Let’s leave it in the past.’
We returned to tension charged silent waiting.
My K106 played “Rule, Britannia!” I answered the call.
‘I’ve read her file,’ Meriwether said. ‘Did you know her father was British? He was a Hong Kong policeman. You know, we should never have given it back to the Chinese.’
I did know he had been a Hong Kong policeman. Charlotte had told me. I got the feeling this nationalistic knowledge made a difference. To Meriwether, it counted for something. It counted for a lot.
‘What does she want?’ he asked.
‘A deal,’ I said.
‘Umm, well, it may be worth our while exploring this development a little further, don’t you agree? Tell her I’m prepared to make a deal with her. Ask her to accompany you back to London. I should like to meet her. We can discuss terms then.’ Meriwether ended the call.
‘How would you like to spend Christmas in London?’ I asked.
She smiled.
The tension lifted.
‘That would be nice,’ she said.
We left the cabin and Ulrich, dead on the floor. Outside it was snowing again. I dismantled the rifle into its component parts and stored it away in Xing’s rucksack. I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
‘What had you planned to do with the rifle?’ I asked her.
‘That’s a secret,’ she said.
‘Tell me.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I was going to post it back to Hong Kong, to an unnamed postal address. If you ever need to move small weapons around the world, send them by airmail. You can then fly clean and collect them from the postal service when you arrive. It usually works well.’
‘How were you planning on getting back?’
‘By train to Paris and then Air France direct to Hong Kong.’
‘We should get rid of the rifle, just in case,’ I said.
‘I’ll post it if you’ll let me.’
We went down the mountain on the trail side by side. I rested on my skis and Xing walked beside me. She kept her hood up and I used my hat and goggles. There wasn’t any need to
give anybody the opportunity of describing us to the police when the investigation started.
‘You don’t ski?’ I said.
‘No, I grew up in Hong Kong,’ she said.
‘Why did you take this job then?’
She shrugged and said, ‘chance?’
The snow fell. Visibility had closed in. We were silent. Then she spoke again. ‘How will we get to London?’
‘We’ll fly from Geneva.’
‘Will we leave today?’
‘Maybe, if we can.’
The track turned and through the fir trees, we saw the village below. ‘Where are you staying?’ I asked.
‘In a hotel,’ she said.
‘Do you need to return to it?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Until we get to London,’ I said, ‘you and I will not leave each other’s side.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to run off. There’s obviously at lot of money involved and besides I’m looking forward to working with the British Intelligence Service.’
‘We’re not the British Intelligence Service.’
‘Oh, no, then what are you?’
Once off the mountain and back in the village the first place for us to go was Charlotte’s chalet. She was waiting for me. She tried to hide her surprise at seeing Xing.
‘I’ll explain inside,’ I said.
We went in. Her grandfather was there. From his discontented face, I could tell Charlotte had obviously told him some of the latest developments. The most likely one was that we knew his friend, Casanova, had lost the bank a large sum of money in a crooked venture undertaken purely for illegal personal gain. I considered rubbing it in but chose to consider Charlotte’s feelings. You understand I’m sure. We left Charlotte’s grandfather and went into her bedroom. I indicated for Xing to come with us.
Charlotte whispered, ‘Why is she here?’
I took her to one side and said, ‘She may be able to help recover the money. I’ve spoken to Bazzer. He wants to meet with her. I’m going to return to London and take her with me.’
Charlotte didn’t respond. I got the feeling she wasn’t excited by the news. She glanced at Xing. Just then, my K106 rang. It was Hoagy. ‘I’ve booked two seats on the BA flight leaving this afternoon. I can meet you on arrival.’ I completed the arrangements with Hoagy and ended the call.