by Graeme Hall
‘What about the target? Are we right about him?’
‘Too early to say for certain but everything points that way.’
‘Come,’ said the man. ‘Let’s dance. You can tell me in three-quarter time.’ The musicians had started a waltz. ‘Nobody will pay us any attention.’
Susan realised that her companion was right. While they danced it was natural for her to talk directly into his ear. With couples swirling around them they were invisible to the rest of the room that afternoon.
‘He’s obviously doing something for the military. Kwok-wah has seen him showing round a uniform. Of course he has no idea who the guest was … Sorry.’ Susan stumbled over her feet a little before recovering herself. ‘Or even what part of the military he comes from.’
‘We need to find out.’
‘Agreed. It looks like it’s something to do with data encryption though,’ said Susan.
‘Which is what we thought.’
‘Quite.’
‘But do we know what they are planning on doing with any encryption technology they develop?’ he asked. ‘The PLA must have whole units devoted to the subject. What is so special about working with Professor Ye?’
‘I don’t know.’
The music stopped and there was a ripple of applause.
‘You’re getting better, I think,’ the man said.
‘Y’know, they don’t teach this at Langley. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t part of my induction training.’
‘More’s the pity. I shall have to suggest it the next time I’m there. I think ballroom dancing is an essential life skill. You never know when it might be useful. Come. Let’s take a break.’ Seated back at their table, he continued. ‘He has no suspicions, I assume? Kwok-wah, that is. About you I mean.’
‘No,’ Susan laughed. ‘He’s very innocent of the world. It would never cross his mind. All he wants to do is play with his toys. Quite sweet really.’
‘Do you think he’s being watched?’
‘I am a little worried about that. I’m a little wary of one of his room-mates. His father’s in the PLA. I’ve made friends with a girl who dated him a little. Apparently he’s very devout. Could just be a coincidence, of course – I’m sure a good university is full of the children of high-ranking Party members – but then again it might not.’
‘What do you propose to do next?’
‘I don’t know. There’s only so much I can get out of Kwok-wah when he doesn’t know himself what Ye Zhang is up to. I need to get into his office.’
‘Which won’t be easy.’
‘I have a key.’
‘That’s very resourceful, my dear. How did you manage that?’
‘I got Kwok-wah to show me around. By chance the departmental secretary was away from her desk, so I got rid of Kwok-wah for a couple of minutes, went through the drawers and found a set of keys. I’m assuming one of them is for Ye Zhang’s office. I don’t know for certain, of course, but I’d be surprised if not.’
‘Won’t the keys have been missed?’
‘I hope not. I had them copied and then I sort of found them, if you get my drift, and handed them in. I’m relying on the secretary having been too embarrassed to admit they had been missing in the first place. I don’t think security is that tight. No matter what Ye Zhang is up to it is just a university department at the end of the day.’
‘I expect she wouldn’t want to lose face.’
‘That’s my theory. But there’s still a problem …’ Susan paused while a waiter passed their table. The band struck up another number with the trumpeter now not only out of tune but also a beat behind his colleagues. ‘It’s all very well having the key to his office, but I have to get into the department in the first place.’
‘There’s a security guard, I assume?’
‘At all times.’
‘Can you get your young man to help you get into the building?’
‘I’d rather avoid that if I can. I don’t see a way of asking him to get me into the department out of hours without having to tell him something about who I was, and I’d rather not put Kwok-wah in any more danger than he already is.’
The man was thoughtful as he swirled the remains of his drink in the glass. ‘What do you propose to do?’
‘To be honest, I don’t know.’
‘I know this is your first operation in China, but we really need to know what he’s up to. I wouldn’t force you to do anything you’re unwilling to, but how far are you prepared to go?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
There was a pause.
‘One last dance before you go, my dear?’
***
Zhanyuan opened the window, leant out and carefully brought in the bottle of Tsingtao that had been standing on the window ledge for the past couple of hours. They weren’t supposed to bring alcohol into the dorm. It was strictly against the rules and anyone who was caught would be fined. It would go on their academic record and would be an obstacle to a good job or Party membership, unless, that is, you had the right connections to get it removed. But students being the same everywhere, sometimes a rule was simply something that needed to be broken.
Getting the beer past Granny Sun was the easy bit; the challenge was finding somewhere to keep it cool. There was a fridge in the communal kitchen but Granny Sun was known to check that from time to time, and anyway, keeping beer in the kitchen ran the risk that it would be stolen. Until the weather became too warm, the window ledge was the best option. Zhanyuan gripped the bottle in both hands to assess its temperature.
‘Not too bad,’ he concluded.
‘What we need,’ said Li Lao, ‘is a bucket and some ice. Couldn’t you pinch some liquid nitrogen from the solid-state physics lab?’
‘Typical fucking Beijinger,’ said Zhanyuan. ‘You think this is one of your fucking Beijing restaurants? Perhaps you’d like to see the fucking wine list?’
Li Lao caught Kwok-wah’s eye and smiled. ‘Bad day in the lab, was it?’
‘Crap, as it happens.’ Zhanyuan poured three beers and passed the glasses round. ‘My practical went completely wrong. We were supposed to be measuring the charge on the electron. It’s a standard experiment but everything I did went balls up. So rather than start all over again, I thought: Well, we know what the answer should be so why not work backwards and invent some results that will give the right answer?’
‘Sounds a sensible thing to do,’ said Li Lao. ‘I thought that was what all experimentalists did anyway?’
‘So, I write up the experiment with my faked results and take it to the lab supervisor. As soon as he looks at it, I know something’s wrong. He studies the results I gave him and says: “These can’t be right, they’re way out.” Then he turns to my calculations and of course I’d fucked up the maths so my faked results were even worse than the ones I’d got actually doing the experiment. Of course, he knew what I’d done. He refused to sign off the experiment and I’m going to have to do it all again.’
Kwok-wah and Li Lao both nearly choked on their beer with laughter.
‘Yeah, very funny. Something you can tell your American girlfriend.’
‘What’s this?’ asked Li Lao. ‘Something I should know about?’
‘You should ask our southern friend here. Real Chinese women aren’t good enough for him. He has to screw an American banana.’
Kwok-wah was both embarrassed and angry at the same time.
‘She’s not my girlfriend and we certainly haven’t had sex.’
‘If you say so. But that hasn’t stopped you going out with her. Day trips to Suzhou wandering along the canals hand in hand I expect. Going for runs together. Showing her round your department.’ Kwok-wah was shocked and alarmed with how much Zhanyuan knew. He hadn’t been keeping his friendship with Susan a secret as such, but he was certainly being discreet. At least he thought he had been.
‘So what?’ said Li Lao. ‘Good for him.’ To Kwok-wah: ‘Don’t take any notice of this jer
k. He’s just jealous because that girl in the football team he fancied turned him down. She told him that she had a lot of experience kicking balls and he took the hint.’
‘Her loss.’
Chapter 11
Emma took a seat in Yannie and Eric’s tiny living room. The flat in Yuen Long was scarcely larger than Emma’s studio but it was home to a family of three. Emma had met Yannie from work and they’d travelled together. Yuen Long was one of the new towns in Hong Kong and largely a dormitory suburb. It was a part of Hong Kong Emma had never been to before and largely off the expat radar. Yannie had warned her that she would never find the place on her own, and after travelling for over an hour using a combination of MTR, bus and light rail, before arriving at a flat on the twenty-third floor of Block G of a new development where all the buildings looked the same, Emma was glad to have had a guide.
‘You do that journey every day?’ she asked when they finally arrived.
‘Unless I’m working in the Kowloon office when I can get a bus direct from Yuen Long. The bus isn’t really any quicker but it doesn’t involve having to change. You get used to it though and we could never afford to buy anywhere closer into town. It’s also near to where my mother lives and she helps with Thomas.’
‘Have you lived here long?’
‘We bought the place about eighteen months ago, just after I got pregnant.’
An older woman, who Emma took to be Yannie’s mother, came into the room carrying a baby.
‘Mama, da goh jiu fu, Emma,’ said Yannie.
‘Nei ho, Emma.’
‘My mother doesn’t have any English, I’m afraid.’
‘No problem,’ said Emma. ‘Nei ho,’ she replied to Yannie’s mother, using up a significant percentage of her conversational Cantonese. ‘Can I see Thomas?’
‘Of course.’ Yannie took the baby from her mother and held him in her arms.
‘He’s cute,’ said Emma, knowing that was the expected response regardless of what the child actually looked like.
‘My mother thinks he takes after me, but I think he’s closer to Eric. Lily thinks he’s just a baby and they all look the same anyway. She’s probably right.’ Yannie passed Thomas back to her mother: ‘Mama, nei ho yi tai tai bo bo hau, dong ngo dai suet wah?’
‘I’ve asked my mother to look after Thomas while we talk,’ said Yannie. ‘Eric should be home shortly. I don’t know how much he’ll be able to help but I know he’s been looking in the archives.’
‘I’m just grateful you’ve both tried. It’s really appreciated.’
‘And afterwards you’ll stay for supper I hope? Ah, here’s Eric.’ The door opened and a good-looking thirty-something came in. He took off his jacket, put his case on the table, and greeted Emma.
‘You must be Emma. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
‘You too, Eric.’
The three of them chatted about the weather, children and family for a while, but Eric could tell that Emma was anxious to hear whether he had been able to discover anything.
‘Let me get a beer from the kitchen and then I’ll tell you what I found. Do either of you want anything?’ They both declined and waited until Eric returned with a San Miguel.
‘So, I went to talk to the people in the newsroom. It took a while to find out who had covered the story. It wasn’t a big story at the time – sorry.’ He looked at Emma. ‘That may sound insensitive, obviously it was huge to you and your family but to the paper it was just another road traffic accident.’
‘Of course, I understand that,’ said Emma. ‘Please, Eric, go on.’
‘It turned out that the main person on the story was a relatively junior staff reporter, Brian Lo. He left us not long afterwards to move to Australia. Apparently he works for the Sydney Morning Herald these days.’ Eric could see that Emma was starting to look crestfallen. ‘But after he left, some of his notes were kept in the paper’s archives.’
‘How long do you keep things for?’ asked Emma.
‘Usually a few years, I think. I’m not sure if it’s a consistent policy that’s always followed, but sometimes they’re kept in case there’s any dispute over something that we’ve printed, especially after someone has left, or if a journalist needs to research something while working on a story. Sometimes things just get kept because nobody can decide what to do with them. I asked a favour from the chief archivist and got him to search around.’
‘Was he happy to help?’
‘Oh yes. One of the advantages of being a sports writer is that I can get tickets for things, access to inside information and so on. I expect he’ll do well at Happy Valley next week …’
‘And did he find anything?’ Yannie wanted to get Eric to stop rambling and get to the point.
‘Yes. Some of Brian’s original notes were there. I’ve got copies in my case.’ Eric took out a sheaf of papers that he laid out on the dining table. ‘I’d probably be getting the archivist into trouble if I gave these to you, Emma, and anyway, they’re all in Chinese, but I can tell you what they are and what they say.’
‘I understand.’ Emma was watching Eric’s lips intently, making sure she didn’t miss a word. Her hands were clasped together, her fingers twisting and untwisting.
‘Most of the stuff was pretty unremarkable: copies of the official police statements on the case, photographs of the scene … I’ve left them out … unless you’d like to …?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Not yet anyway.’
‘But there were also Brian’s notes from interviews with eyewitnesses. He had terrible handwriting, you know … quite hard to make out in places. It’s like he had his own personal shorthand …’
‘Was there anything interesting in them?’ Yannie prompted.
‘I’m not sure. Most of the people Brian spoke to hadn’t actually seen the accident. They just described the aftermath. The police arriving, the ambulance and so on. But there was one guy who did see it all. Most of what he said was unremarkable, but there was just one thing that stood out as being a little odd, which is that his description of the driver doesn’t really tie in with the guy who was convicted. What was his name …?’
‘Chan Wah Man,’ filled in Yannie.
‘Chan Wah Man, that’s right. The eyewitness described the driver as being an older man but Chan Wah Man was thirty-four at the time.’
‘So he can’t have been the driver?’ said Emma.
‘Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ said Eric. ‘You’ve got to remember that it was late at night in Wan Chai, so you can assume that any witness had probably been drinking. The driver never got out of the car so the witness can’t have seen him fully, indeed the car barely stopped so it must all have happened very quickly. The possibility that he was simply wrong must be high.’
They all sat in silence for a moment until the spell was broken by the sound of Thomas crying. Yannie left the room to go see to him.
‘But even so, Chan Wah Man might not have been the driver after all?’ said Emma finally.
‘Perhaps not, but as I said, you’ve got to remember it’s quite possible the guy was wrong, and in the end Chan Wah Man pleaded guilty, didn’t he?’
‘Do the notes give the name of the witness?’
‘Yes, but only a name and nothing else. Cheung Wing-ho. It’s a pretty unremarkable Cantonese name, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how you could find him if that’s what you’re thinking of doing.’
‘Was there anything about Gao Zhihua in the notes?’
‘Only what we already know. That Chan Wah Man was his driver.’
Yannie came back into the room carrying Thomas, who was quiet again.
‘So Emma, what do you think?’ she said.
‘I don’t know,’ said Emma. ‘I know you’re right, Eric. Being realistic about it there’s every chance the witness was wrong, but I don’t know … it’s tantalising … I can’t explain it but there’s something bugging me about all this. Something that says there’s more to what hap
pened than the official story but I’ve no idea what to do next.’
‘What to do next is to have something to eat,’ said Yannie. ‘Mum’s been preparing some food.’
They cleared the papers away to create some space and sat at the table, sharing a family supper that Yannie’s mother brought out dish by dish. It was the first time that Emma had eaten at home with a local family and she was grateful for their kindness. She sat quietly with her own thoughts while the family chatted in Cantonese for a while.
‘Emma,’ said Yannie, turning to her, ‘my sister was in Wan Chai the other week.’
‘Lily?’ Emma couldn’t see the significance of Lily having been in Wan Chai.
‘Yes. She was buying tickets for a movie and she thought she saw you come out of the cinema.’ Yannie looked at Emma expectantly.
‘Oh.’ It suddenly dawned on Emma what Yannie was getting at. Lily must have seen her with Sam. Emma felt herself blush slightly.
‘Anything you’d like to share with us?’
‘There’s not much to say really. He’s a guy I worked for a couple of months ago. We’d been to see the new Maggie Cheung.’
‘A boyfriend? Sorry if I’m being nosey, but we married women have to live through others.’
‘Too early to say. We’ve only met up a couple of times. He’s been busy with work, and to be honest I’ve been rather preoccupied with Peter’s death.’
‘I can understand that,’ said Yannie. ‘I shall say no more.’
‘Why would anyone plead guilty to something they hadn’t done, knowing they would get a heavy jail sentence?’ asked Emma, still thinking about Peter and the accident.
‘Well,’ said Yannie cautiously, ‘it does happen sometimes, even in the US and Britain. There could be any one of a number of reasons. A confession might be obtained by force. I’d like to think that was unlikely in Hong Kong but you never know.’