A Killing Air

by Nigel Price

  “Harry.”

  The machine gun fire lifted, though the sound of it remained, faint now.

  “Harry wake up.”

  He opened his eyes. They were partly gummed together with sleep. With one big hand he rubbed them clear and blinked. Lisa was pressed against him. She was a perfect fit.

  Light was shouldering its way round the sides of the drawn curtains. The early morning wanted to have a look at them. With the morning to her back, Lisa’s face was a dark mask. Nonetheless Harry could see that she was smiling.

  “You are very noisy when you sleep,” she said.

  “I’m sorry. Snoring?”

  She nodded. “Like a rhino.”

  “Do they snore?”

  “This one does,” she said, prodding him in the chest.

  “How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.

  She pursed her lips, thinking, then cocked her head in answer. All right.

  “You?”

  “I could have done with a bit more sleep.” He thought he’d try a joke. “Is the sex still on offer?”

  “No. You had your chance. Never again.” She swung her legs out of bed and sat up. Harry stole a glance at them. Long and slender and golden. Shit, shit, shit!

  “I need to pee,” she said, and padded out of the room. Harry flopped back on his pillow trying to calm the riot taking place further under the duvet.

  When he had succeeded, he got up and went to open the curtains. No surprises there. The same thick smog. If anything it was more claustrophobic than the previous day, with visibility now barely halfway across the car park.

  He heard the sound of the shower kick-starting, then Lisa humming as she stepped under the jet of hot water and began to soap herself.

  Her clothes were roughly folded across a chair. Harry half wanted to wait for her to return so he could have the pleasure of seeing her coming to get them with a towel around her, hair wet. Instead he groaned and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. More jasmine bloody tea. The fridge hadn’t given birth to any new ingredients overnight, so it was going to be toast again for breakfast.

  He heard the ringing of a phone. Went into the sitting room and looked around for it. It sat on a small table near the entrance door. He went across to it and watched it ringing, wondering.

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” He turned round. Lisa stood, one towel around her, the other being used to rub her hair.

  “Probably best not to,” Harry said. “No telling who it might be.”

  She moved across to the table, brushing close to Harry on the way. Once again he got the soapy scent of her, full in the nostrils.

  “I’ll be his girlfriend. What was her name? Susan?”

  “And if it’s her?”

  Lisa grinned. “Then David will have some explaining to do.”

  Harry was about to stop her but as she reached for the receiver it rang off. She turned with a shrug. She had only gone two paces when it started up again. They looked at one another, both thinking the same thing. Susan would have his mobile number. It’s David.

  She lifted the receiver and listened. Silence. She returned Harry’s level stare. Handed him the receiver. He listened. He thought he could hear breathing. Lisa leaned across to join him. He felt her wet hair against his cheek. Trying to hear better, he pushed against her.

  “Wei?” she said.

  Harry held his breath. A man’s voice answered in Chinese. Who’s that?

  “Susan.”

  There was an audible sigh of relief from the other end. “Lisa, put Harry on. It’s David.”

  Harry took the receiver. Lisa perched on the edge of the table, legs crossed, hands working on her hair. As she sat, her floating foot rhythmically kicked Harry’s leg. She smiled when he glared at her.

  “David, how’d it go?”

  “Not well. Listen carefully, Harry. You’ve got to get out of there. I’ve just nipped out of the office to use this phone. It’s one they won’t be listening into. But I’ve only got a second. They don’t like my story. Some other guys are on the way. I think they’ll be Chau’s men.”

  “Can you get away, David,” Harry asked, frightened for his friend.

  “Not a chance. My only option is to tough it out. Stick to my story. If not, I’m done. But listen, the shipment …”

  Harry was all ears.

  “… I’ve made some calls. I think I’ve nailed the one we want. It arrived in Tianjin but the customs clearance was done in Beijing.”

  “Can they do that?”

  “Yes. It’s the choice of whoever makes the shipment.”

  “Why would they do that? Chau had an office in Tianjin. Surely it would have been easier for him to oversee it there?”

  “It depends. If there was something on board he wanted to hide, he would clear the shipment at the customs office where he had the best contacts.”

  “Or people on his payroll.”

  “Exactly. Chau’s consignment on the Hideyoshi-maru arrived in Tianjin and was trucked straight through to the Beijing customs at Block 19, Avenue Six Alpha, of the Northern customs terminal. I’ve spoken to a man called Alfred Lo. I’ve only met him once. Small man with glasses. Bald. He’s a minor official. Only been there a while so didn’t seem aware that he probably shouldn’t be telling me as much as he did. Miller would probably kill him if he knew how much he’d blabbed. But he might be able to tell you which insurance company covered it, and it will then be an easy matter to find their address. That’s the best I can do.”

  “That’s fantastic. Thanks. Northern terminal?”

  “There’s a back entrance marked on the map in the dresser drawer next to the phone table. I marked it when I first arrived as the easiest way into work when traffic on the expressway’s bad. I take a short cut through there to reach my office. Alfred’s agreed to meet you at ten. I just said you were part of a team reviewing security procedures. So not a complete lie. Take Susan’s car. It’s the red Chery in the car park downstairs. The keys are in the top left drawer of the sideboard.” There was a pause. “Please don’t wreck it. It took her years to save up for it.”

  The phone rang off without another word. Harry replaced the receiver and repeated the news to Lisa.

  He was coming to the end when the phone rang again. He picked up the receiver.

  “Harry, David,” his friend snapped. His voice was different from minutes before. Strained. “Get out now. They’re coming to search my flat. I overheard them. They don’t believe me. These are Chau’s men. Move.”

  There were raised voices at the other end of the line. Sounds of a scuffle.

  Then silence.

  Then a voice. “Wei?”

  Harry and Lisa stared at one another. Their heart beats were deafening.

  “Harry, is that you?”

  Both of them recognised the oily voice of Clive Miller.

  Forty Four

  Harry replaced the receiver as if it was a live snake being put in a sack. Neither of them needed further encouragement. Without a word they went about their separate tasks. Dressing and collecting the handful of belongings they each still had. It amounted to pitifully little.

  Harry went to the dresser beside the phone table and found a fistful of maps. He leafed through them until he found the one Lin had mentioned, a plan of the airport district with a route marked in scrawled red arrows. He crossed to the sideboard and pulled open the drawer. It was stuffed with loose papers, a torch, spare batteries, and all manner of accumulated flotsam in the scum-packed corner of David Lin’s very own tide pool. He shoved and pushed at them, searching in the deep dark corners until he found a set of car keys. A small purple teddy dangled from the key ring. A further search showed them to be the only ones there. He stuffed them in his pocket.

  Ready, he stood by the front door and waited. Lisa came out of the bedroom wearing a dark brown jacket. She smiled when he saw him appraising her. “Susan’s got style,” she said. She tossed a dark windcheater across the room to h
im. “This was in David’s wardrobe.” Harry caught it, held it at arm’s length to inspect, then put it on. A reasonable fit.

  They let themselves out and went quickly down the stairs. There was a chill in the air. When they stepped into the car park behind the building, Harry breathed in a lungful of filth. He coughed like a chain smoker on the first drag of the day. The temperature colluded with the pollution to mix a stultifying cocktail. Lisa huddled down into her jacket, pulling up the collar as her only defence.

  The layer of thick brown silt coating the car meant nothing. It might have been the accumulation of no more than a day or two sitting in the open. Under this covering, it looked more orange than red. It was a little Chery Riich M1, the ideal runabout for the town. Harry worked his way through the keys on the fob, searching for the right one. He found it and opened the driver’s door.

  “It might be best if I drive,” Lisa said.

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  She prised the keys from his fingers. “Chinese driving licence? A westerner might attract attention. If we’re stopped, you’re screwed. And me with you.”

  She slipped into the seat. “Nice car,” she remarked. “Tell me where to go.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” Harry said, enjoying her puzzled expression.

  He got in and belted up as Lisa started the motor and gunned the engine to get a feel for it. She waggled the gear stick giving him a giant grin. “Nice car,” she said with even more relish than before.

  “You like cars?”

  “Who doesn’t? When I’m rich I’m going to have a fleet of them. All supercars.”

  “I thought Hans and you were concerned with the environment?”

  She laughed, gunning the motor some more. It sounded like a distressed insect banging on glass. “We are. But there’s got to be a place for fun, even in a clean world. And what’s more fun than speed?” She shoved in the gear stick, let out the clutch and they shot off across the car park.

  “Sadly I don’t think people in jobs like yours get rich,” Harry said.

  “Then I’ll develop a website, invent a new fuel, or rob a very big bank.” She tossed the map into his lap. “Navigate.”

  Harry looked from the map to the road, then back to the map and pointed the direction. “Straight ahead.”

  With visibility so poor, Lisa switched on the headlights. Here and there a pedestrian lurched into the smog, face scrunched. They reminded Harry of images from the Great War. Gas, boys, gas!

  She couldn’t go more than thirty miles an hour. At times she leaned forward over the steering wheel to stare for her way ahead.

  “What if David told them where we are going?” she asked after they had been driving for a while.

  “I was thinking that too,” Harry answered. “But I don’t see that we’ve got a choice. Without that manifest we’ve got nothing. We’d might as well hand ourselves in. Or try to get out of the country, and with the lock-down we wouldn’t have a chance.”

  “I could drive us to Hong Kong and we could try to slip across the border there?” she suggested without enthusiasm.

  Harry smiled. “That’s well over a thousand miles. Nearly two thousand kilometres. In any case, the Hong Kong authorities would probably hand us straight back. They’re far too scared for themselves to want to make an enemy with Beijing for our sakes.”

  “Just a thought.” Then a moment later, “I suppose he’d only have told them if they tried to make him speak. If they beat him.” She looked at Harry. “Would they do that?”

  “I doubt it. They might not believe his story, but in the airport they can hardly start torturing him. Especially if he got to the police first. Which he will have done.”

  “Chau’s men are the police,” Lisa said.

  “In Chengde they are. I doubt the Beijing police are in his pocket yet.”

  “They will be. Soon enough,” she added.

  “Turn here,” Harry said.

  “Which way?”

  “Left.”

  She swung the car round the bend and almost missed a car hurtling in the other direction. It narrowly avoided them, shooting down the way they had just come. She checked it in the rear view mirror as it receded. “That was Miller.”

  Harry twisted round. “Are you sure?”

  “I know my BMWs. I’m sure of it.”

  “Did you see who else was in the car?”

  “No.”

  “Well he’ll have his two louts with him. If not more.” He thought for a second and brightened. “And it tells us one thing. If he’s coming after us without the police, then he doesn’t trust involving the Beijing police. It’s a rogue operation. That must be on Chau’s orders.”

  “And if Chau wants to keep it quiet, then he’s vulnerable. He’s afraid of what we might find,” Lisa added.

  Harry also realised that if they all met up again there would be no messing around. Miller and Thug Men would kill them the first chance they got.

  “One more thing,” Lisa said. “If David had told them about our meeting at the customs building, they wouldn’t bother going to the flat. They’d be waiting for us.”

  “Maybe. Unless they hoped to catch us somewhere quieter first. Like David’s flat.”

  Lisa looked at him. “So they could kill us more easily.”

  Harry shrugged. She reached over and stabbed the map on his knees. “Am I on the right road?”

  He checked the marked scrawl against their surroundings. “Second right. Then straight on for about half a mile and we enter the customs complex.”

  Lisa turned where he was pointing and nudged the little car up to forty which was the fastest she dared go. They had almost hit Miller. The last thing they needed now was a crash.

  A few minutes later they came to a wire fence. Wide double gates stood open. An articulated truck was manoeuvring out onto the road. Lisa pulled over to let it pass. Behind it a man with a clipboard waved to the driver as the truck departed. The driver waved back. Then Clipboard Man squinted at the grubby once-red Chery and its two occupants. Lisa let out the clutch and drove up to the gates and through them.

  Clipboard Man came up to the window. Lisa wound it down and called. “We’ve got a meeting with Alfred Lo.”

  Clipboard Man looked suspicious.

  “Alfred Lo,” Lisa called again, stressing each syllable so it was abundantly clear that she thought the man was an idiot. He scowled, grunted and walked away. “Pull up over there,” Harry said, pointing across the vast parking area.

  She reversed into a space with her back to a wall. Their position gave a good view of the entrance gates. Harry reached into his pocket. His fingers touched gun metal. The pistol from Chau’s villa. He pulled it out and checked the load. Gently pulled back the slide just enough to see the round in the chamber. Safety applied. If he was going to use it he would have to make every shot count. One shot, one kill. He wouldn’t have the luxury of spraying until lucky enough to hit the target.

  “Here he is,” Lisa said.

  Harry slipped the gun back in his pocket as a man matching the description given by David Lin came out of a warehouse, saw them and started to walk across.

  Harry wound down the passenger window. “Mr Lo?”

  The man smiled. “Yes. Alfred.” He reached through the window to shake Harry’s hand. “David said you are doing a security review?”

  “Yes,” Harry said, with a smile he was struggling to keep relaxed.

  “I’m not really the man you need. You need to see Mr Wai. He’s my boss.” He looked around the car park as if expecting his boss to materialise. His eyes fixed on a distant parking slot. It was empty. “Oh, not here.”

  Perfect. “Oh what a shame. Perhaps you can help though. David Lin said we needed to check the documentation for a consignment that was cleared here. Just a routine check. All part of the review.”

  Alfred Lo’s face brightened. “Yes,” he said. “The Hideyoshi-maru. I didn’t work here then, but Mr Wai was responsible for it. He can
help you when he returns.” Again he scanned for help.

  Harry opened the door and got out. Lisa too. “Right. The thing is, we’re in a bit of a rush. Got an awful lot to get through. Can we look at the documentation relating to it, please? I am sure you can help us. There’s no need to trouble Mr Wai with something so trivial. I’m sure he’s a busy man.”

  A cloud of doubt passed over Alfred’s face. “It is quite strange. After David’s call I checked the files and there isn’t any documentation. It should have been there, but it wasn’t. That is odd.”

  Harry’s heart sank. “So there’s nothing?”

  “Only the basics. David mentioned that you might be interested in the name of the insurance company.”

  Harry put on his ‘couldn’t care less’ face. “Do you know it?”

  “Yes. Merlin Associates. Big global company.”

  “I’ve heard of them,” Harry said. “Do you have the address of their local office which might have handled the consignment?”

  Alfred looked puzzled. “Of course, but why would you want to go all the way over there? We have our own insurance department here.” He pointed across the car park to a two-storey brick building.

  Lisa cut in. “And any documents relating to the shipment would be filed there?”

  “Only if there wasn’t any claim for damage or loss. If there was, we would send the documents to the insurers. If not, we’d just file them.” He pointed again. “Over there.”

  “And was there a claim?” Lisa asked.

  “Not that I’m aware of. I really don’t know. Mr Wai would be better able—”

  “Yes, yes,” she said quickly. “But presumably things generally go smoothly, and there aren’t insurance claims?”

  “Usually.”

  “So the spare copy for insurance purposes might still exist, but filed in your insurance department, not with the insurers themselves?”

  “I suppose so. Possibly.”

  “Over there?” Harry asked, hardly able to believe it.

  Alfred nodded. Lisa and Harry swapped a glance. Alfred got the message. “Would you like me to go and check?”