Death Beyond the Limit: Fiji Islands Mysteries 3

by B. M. Allsopp

  Mishra lifted his eyebrows in mock surprise. ‘I submit that the report I just handed you answers the charges laid against the captain. How can you ask any further questions? The matter is beyond the jurisdiction of the Fiji Police Force.’

  ‘I won’t dispute that right now. However, the happenings onboard Joy-13 since she has been within Fiji’s twelve-nautical-mile limit are within our jurisdiction, whether the vessel is sailing or in port.’

  Mishra looked wary but nodded. ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Captain, who were the twelve women and one man who disembarked Joy-13 in Suva on the evening of Monday 18th September? To help your memory, they disembarked under cover of darkness by tender on the port side, not by the gangway onto the wharf.’

  Mishra did not hide his shock well. But the captain did. ‘I know nothing of this.’

  ‘Come, Captain, that’s not true, is it? None of these people appear on your crew manifest, but we have since discovered that they all boarded Joy-13 from a carrier on 24th August, on the high seas, during a transhipment of fish in one direction, supplies and women in the other. We have also discovered that the man’s name is Yo Wu Yee, aka Charles, known in several jurisdictions as a ranking triad member who runs smuggling operations using legally licensed fishing vessels.’

  The lengthy translations bugged him, but during this interval he enjoyed the succession of reactions washing over Mishra’s face: surprise, dismay, panic.

  The interpreter rendered the captain’s growled reply as, ‘This must be a mistake. I have no knowledge of what you describe.’

  Kau had been trying to put two and two together, flipping through the file Singh had prepared for the interview. He snapped open the rings, and at Horseman’s nod, placed the photo of Yee in front of the captain.

  ‘I first met Mr Yee onboard Joy-13, on Thursday 21st September, when you invited us on board for a tour and to receive your statement. I am not mistaken. I had a conversation with him.’

  The captain said nothing.

  ‘It must have made life onboard difficult when Yee brought all those women on board. I can imagine how the crew reacted to moving out of their cabins to make room. Not to mention the bad effect on discipline. No wonder they say women bring bad luck to a ship. They’ve certainly brought bad luck to you, Captain Shen. People smuggling is a very serious charge, much more serious than shark-finning or submitting false documents, like the false manifest, to the port authority.’

  Again, nothing.

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t people smuggling. How much choice did these women have about a career in tropical prostitution? Perhaps the charge will turn out to be human trafficking, which is even more serious.’

  Mishra looked aghast. ‘Detective Inspector, I would like to confer with my client. May I use the police interpreter?’

  ‘By all means, go ahead. Let the constable know when you’re ready to resume the interview.’

  He took Kau upstairs to the CID room where he was relieved to find Singh at her desk, working on the case file. ‘Can you get us some tea, Kau?’

  Kau left.

  ‘Susie, I won’t tell you anything about the interview unless you tell me how you are.’

  ‘I’m fine. I just had a shock when Shen’s lawyer turned out to be Mr Mishra.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘It’s not relevant to the case, sir. It’s private, in fact.’

  ‘Mr Mishra is conferring with the captain—I don’t know how long they’ll take. I hope he’ll persuade him to give us Yee to avoid the people smuggling charge.’

  ‘When I’ve finished this, what do you want me to do?’

  Kau came in with their tea mugs. ‘Can you talk Kau through your interview file first? He’s doing well, but he’s not familiar with how you want the images presented.’

  ‘Yes. We’ll do that now.’

  Horseman went to his own desk to check his messages, praying the one that might close the case would be waiting.

  *

  Singh powered along the footpath, crowded with children just let out of school. If she didn’t stride out she’d start shaking again. She’d barely got through coaching Kau through the plan for the interview and the presentation of evidence, especially Filipo’s photos. She and Horseman had worked it all out together. How she wished she could partner him in this all-important interview, right now.

  She couldn’t explain how she felt when Brij walked into the interview room, not even to herself. Her senses sharpened, her skin prickled. Her insides were still in turmoil, off-kilter, bounced around as if a giant hand had flipped her upside down and shaken her. Now she knew what it was to be betrayed, she could understand what a powerful motive it was for violence, even murder.

  Brij had charmed her, no doubt about it. She’d been flattered by his interest in her work. How long had he been retained by TTF, or Joy-13’s fleet owners, or whoever he was paid by? Had his whole courtship, three weeks of it, been fake—just a ruse to get police intelligence?

  But that couldn’t be right, Jimmy’s head wasn’t fished up until after they met with the matchmaker at her parents’ place. She must have attracted him at the beginning although she always wondered why. He might have been simply nosy. Or maybe his interest in her intensified when she let slip some details of the case, out of her own desire to appeal to him.

  She liked him, he was an intelligent, amusing date, but she didn’t know him in any real-life context. And she knew, from the moment he winked at her in the interview room, they had no future. She would never forgive him that wink.

  His wink told her he would take risks lightly. He’d jeopardise his client’s defence to show the others he knew her. He said he didn’t take his work too seriously, but she’d not believed him. How could a lawyer give his clients less than his best?

  She’d been wrong: his wink confirmed that his profession was a game to him. It was a game he wanted to win, but still a game. Neither of them could help the way they’d been made, but they could never be happily married. Her conclusion filled her with such regret that tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Another thing she was certain of—she would never tell anyone the full story.

  52

  At four o’clock Mishra told the constable the interview could continue. He, the captain and the interpreter were already seated and drinking tea when Horseman and Kau walked in. Horseman’s expected email had still not arrived, so he asked Tani to monitor his computer.

  After the preliminaries, Mishra asked to speak. ‘Captain Shen has reviewed recent events on Joy-13 and asks me to read his statement, translated into English by police interpreter Mr Samuel McLeod.’

  ‘Do you agree, Captain Shen?’ The captain nodded.

  ‘Continue, please, Mr Mishra.’

  ‘I, Bo Hung Shen, master of FV Joy-13, declare the following to be a true and complete record of recent events on board during a voyage of four months’ duration ending in Suva on Friday 15th September.

  On 24th August, while engaged in offloading tuna catch onto a carrier on the high seas, I received a radio message from Joy-13’s owner that Mr Yo Wu Yee, also known as Charles, would board from the carrier together with twelve passengers who would disembark in Suva. I knew Mr Yee as an inspector for the company who had boarded a few times before to conduct a spot check of the ship, the catch and the progress of the voyage. I did not want to take passengers as a fishing vessel has crew accommodation only, but this was an order which I must obey.’

  ‘Yee brought women passengers on board before, didn’t he?’ Horseman asked.

  ‘No, this was the first time.’

  ‘Really? I have a reliable witness to at least two other occasions, in January and May this year. On those occasions, the women secretly disembarked in Port Moresby and Noumea.’

  Silence. There was a tap on the door. The constable entered and handed Horseman a folded print-out. Musudroka appeared just beyond the open doorway, both thumbs up.

  ‘How did Yee get on with you and the crew?’


  ‘I was scared of him. He didn’t have much to do with the crew.’

  ‘Why were you scared of Yee?’

  The captain shrugged. ‘He’s very hard.’

  ‘Did he threaten you?’

  ‘Not exactly, but he didn’t have to.’

  ‘Because you knew he was part of a criminal gang, a triad known for ruthless enforcement of obedience. He would kill anyone who got in his way.’

  Silence. ‘I had no choice.’

  ‘Was the fishing observer frightened of him?’

  ‘No, he didn’t understand. He talked to the women. He took photos.’

  ‘Where are those photos now, Mr Shen? Jimmy Inia’s phone and other items were not in his cabin on 21st September when I collected his packed bag.’

  Mishra interrupted. ‘This line of questioning must stop now, Detective Inspector. We have established that the enquiry into the death of Semesi Inia is closed and was beyond Fiji’s jurisdiction.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Remind me of the reason for Fiji’s exclusion from the case?’

  Mishra gave him a searching, wary look. ‘Primarily because his fall occurred when FV Joy-13, a foreign-registered ship, was beyond Fiji’s territorial waters, beyond the twelve-nautical-mile limit. Therefore, it was the duty of the vessel’s flag state, China, to investigate.’

  ‘Good, we share that understanding, Mr Mishra. But it was a problem that Joy-13’s logbooks and chart plotter data were denied us, on the same grounds. The police had no way of verifying the vessel’s position without that evidence. Is that not so?’

  Mishra nodded. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘You don’t sound very sure. I share your uncertainty. What a complex world international fishing is and what a complex law governs it! I say this to excuse my ignorance that the Fiji government has the right to navigation data from an independent source: the Vessel Monitoring System or VMS. This data shows fishing vessels’ position every two hours and their tracks are plotted.’

  He unfolded the print-out and placed it on the table facing the captain and Mishra. The top half of the page was a printed report; the lower half showed a line of coloured dots on a map.

  ‘I could have requested this data through our Fisheries Department or the Fiji Navy once we discovered Jimmy Inia had fallen from the Joy-13. But I didn’t know this.

  ‘See the coloured circles? They show Joy-13’s course. Each circle has a time-print. The black line on the map shows the boundary of Fiji’s territorial sea, the twelve-nautical-mile limit.’ He traced the line with the end of his pen.

  ‘You can see Joy-13 moved through Fiji’s exclusive economic zone, the EEZ, then crossed into Fiji’s territorial sea here at 1500 hours on Friday 8th September. The fishing observer fell overboard after 1500 hours.’ He tapped the paper with his pen.

  Mishra spoke up. ‘Inspector, I will call a break here. My client and I need to examine this data carefully. I submit that the scale of this paper presentation does not permit this to the degree necessary.’

  ‘I agree with you, Mr Mishra. I will have this chart blown up to A-3 size straight away. If you give me your email address I will forward you the original message just received from the navy so you can zoom it out even more. I would like to see this too. I suggest we also read the expert analysis of Joy-13’s track—that’s the first page of this document. Shall we resume at six o’clock?’

  Mishra replied immediately. ‘In view of the critical nature of this evidence, I request time to consult an independent expert to interpret the data. A realistic time to resume would be ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I will request bail for my client.’

  ‘That is your right. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to confirm the VMS track with Joy-13’s logs because Captain Shen threw them in the sea this morning. Similarly, Joy-13’s chart plotter data has been erased for dates since 7th September. Very well, we’ll resume tomorrow morning, ten o’clock.’

  Good. He needed ice packs, he needed rest, he needed pain relief. Let Mishra waste his time applying for bail for a ship’s master who had slipped out of port without clearance and defied orders from a Fiji warship.

  53

  Singh didn’t feel calm enough to contact Brij until later that evening, alone in her room in the sergeants’ barracks. She didn’t want to say anything she’d later regret; she needed to be in control of herself if nothing else. Besides, Brij was otherwise occupied in an interview room at the station. When she did pick up the phone, her hand trembled. She put it down again. She would email instead. That way, she would not betray her emotion.

  In the end, after editing again and again, she clicked Send. She hoped he’d be totally occupied preparing Shen’s case and wouldn’t even notice her message until morning.

  Two minutes later her phone rang. There was no point in putting off this conversation.

  ‘Susie? I’ve just read your email. What is this?’

  ‘I tried to be clear, Brij. What don’t you understand?’

  ‘I don’t understand any of it. I mean, I accept that I gave you a shock when I walked in this afternoon. I realise now I should have warned you that I’d be coming. But I’ve been flat out trying to get my head around this case since I got the call this morning.’

  ‘What call?’

  ‘From Toby Shaddock at TTF—the port agents for Joy-13. The navy’s never run a hot pursuit on one of his clients. He didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘How long have you been employed by TTF?’

  ‘Not me personally, Susie. TTF retains my firm on an ongoing basis so we can represent any of their clients at short notice. Usually for breaches of fishing regulations—nothing major. It just so happens I’ve only assisted on one or two cases for TTF, so I have the least expertise. Just by chance, I was the only one available today at no notice.’

  Maybe Brij was not the big-shot lawyer she had assumed after all. Thinking back, he’d never told her or even implied that he was. Maybe she wanted him to be one.

  ‘A quick call, Brij—just ten seconds. Then I could have excused myself in advance. I felt so humiliated when you winked at me.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Susie—just a subtle wink! I didn’t have time to warn you and I can see now I should have done. I apologise. But how could I know you would take it so seriously? Leaving the room like a drama queen. Professionals with private connections are bound to run into each other in a town the size of Suva. We just behave as if we don’t know each other and get on with our jobs!’

  ‘So, winking at me is behaving as if you don’t know me!’

  ‘Susie, have a heart. I messed up due to nerves. You, the case. For heaven’s sake, I just winked!’

  ‘Brij, I wanted to avoid this strife. I meant what I said in my email. I’ve thought about it for hours. I liked you. Very much. But today I found out we’re fundamentally different in our approach to our work and life in general. To you it’s a game, to me it’s life or death.’

  ‘That’s okay, that’s fun! Opposites attract, don’t they? I’m sorry I didn’t propose on Tuesday—I wanted to, just couldn’t summon up the nerve. I know now is not the right time, but give me a chance, Susie. Let’s meet again in a few days or a week. This case will be all wrapped up before then, by the way the great star DI Horseman is going. He’s steamrolling it along, taking no prisoners.’

  ‘You say that as if it’s a fault. He’s committed to justice.’

  ‘Come on Susie, he’s a has-been rugby player—captain, no less. This is a game for him too. He simply cares more about winning than I do.’

  Brij paused. ‘Susie, you should seriously ask yourself why you won’t leave the force if you have babies. Is it because you don’t want to leave your heroic DI Horseman? Unconsciously, of course. I mean, are you sure you even want to have real babies? Or is that self-deception, too?’

  ‘Brij, stop this, please.’

  ‘If your boss is so perfect, marry him and have his babies, why don’t you?’

  Singh gasped.

  �
�Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that. Let’s meet in a few days. I’ll call you.’

  FRIDAY 29th September

  54

  Horseman was at the station early to prepare for the suspended interview. After the naval technician had coached him, Horseman felt comfortable about presenting the VMS data, but his grasp wasn’t strong enough to be questioned on it. He’d called the super who agreed that Lt Vodo could present the data and answer questions.

  He hadn’t seen the super since Wednesday afternoon after Tevita had led him to the brothel housing the women from Joy-13. It seemed like a week ago. Or more.

  ‘Good morning, Joe. I’m behind you.’ He was knocking on the door when he heard the super’s jovial voice from the stairs.

  ‘Good morning, sir. Have you got five minutes?’

  ‘Indeed I have, Joe. My goodness, I heard you got yourself beaten up again, but look at your face! Someone’s used it as a punching bag.’

  ‘Good description, sir.’

  ‘And that plastic boot thing. What have you done to your knee?’

  ‘Knee’s not too bad. Just a brace. No, I cracked my ankle this time, but it’s all straightforward. These fracture walking boots are the latest thing. The crutch is just for a few days until I get my balance.’

  ‘Come in, come in.’ The super was puffed.

  ‘Let’s have the good news, first, eh? Your shoe-shine protégé may have found his niche. I twisted the arm of our garage manager and Tevita started with him yesterday. Best to keep him busy and away from evil influences. The two hit it off, and Tevita’s mustard-keen. He’s thrilled to bunk in with the apprentice boarders, too. The manager understands his situation. But it’s up to the boy himself, now. It’s not your fault if he doesn’t stick at it, Joe. Not your fault.’

  Horseman’s anxiety went down a few notches. ‘Vinaka, sir. That’s so good to hear. I didn’t make training yesterday afternoon, so I was wondering.’

  ‘Next is the not-so-good news. My colleague in Vice congratulates you on arresting Yee and appreciates the intelligence about him and the brothels. Vice will take over that case now and incorporate it into ongoing investigations. My colleague assures me a major operation will break soon, so long as the brothel sharks keep on thinking we Fijians are a dumb lot. Keeping Joy-13 at the naval base for a few days should help delay the story leaking to the media.’