FEARLESS FINN'S MURDEROUS ADVENTURE

by Mike Coony

  “Two of our uncles died in a car crash, and their younger brother was left a small fishing boat. He was a kindly man and agreed to carry my grandmother, her two sisters, his mother and father, four older brothers, three sisters, my mother and father, my brothers and sisters, and me to Hong Kong. We also had two baskets of ducks and a lazy cat with us.

  “When we reached Hong Kong waters we were arrested by a police patrol boat, towed to Aberdeen Harbour and tied up with hundreds of other fishing boats from China. No one was allowed to step off the boat and walk on land. They warned us that we’d be arrested as illegal immigrants, imprisoned, fined, returned across the border to China, and the boat would be towed out to sea and sunk.”

  “Where is your family now?”

  “All the old people died without ever putting a foot on dry land in Hong Kong. My mother, father and two younger brothers still live on boats in Aberdeen; my sisters and elder brothers married other boat people and returned to China. The uncle who carried us to Hong Kong sneaked ashore, was caught, locked up, and then sent to prison back in China. We ate the ducks, except the one that jumped overboard and escaped. The cat lived to a ripe old age by eating mice.

  “I am the only member of my family granted leave to live on land. I have a shelter facing the Aberdeen Marina, but I hope to save enough money driving this taxi to put a deposit on an apartment. K.S. Li is building many apartments on land he bought from the Hong Kong Electric Company. Mister Li is a very clever man. His family came from Fukien, the same province as my family, but we are a poor family and they are rich. I hope he will sell me one of his apartments.”

  I listened to his story with a mixture of sadness and awe. My head is full of new images of the cruelty of confining families to a forty foot by twelve foot boat where they can see, smell and almost taste the freedom they’ve risked their lives to reach. Bastard Brits are the words on the tip of my tongue, but that’s not what I said to this brave wee man.

  “Beannacht Dé ort agus go bfhaighidh tú an mead atá á lorg leat. It’s an Irish blessing from an Irishman.”

  He looked puzzled, and why not? He wouldn’t have many Irish Gaelic speakers in his taxi. “Let God bless you and find what you look for,” I translated, and watched a grin appear on his face.

  Getting out of the taxi at the entrance to Stanley Market, I made what I hope is a helpful contribution to his dream. The fifty dollars I gave him is probably equal to two days’ pay – just a little something to help him on his way. He blessed me in Fukienese – at least I hope it was a blessing, not a curse – and drove away with a beep of his horn and a wave of his hand out the driver’s window.

  “There goes the spirit of Hong Kong,” I muttered. “Nothing’s ever going to get that wee man down. Good luck to him.”

  I made my way inside the market and went to the stall selling Levi’s jeans, shirts and jackets. After checking out a few nearby stalls I bought a Burberry golf jacket, two Fred Perry shirts and a pair of Timberland shoes for thirty dollars. It’s no wonder people choose to shop here, it’s ridiculously cheap. The clothes are the genuine articles, and I calculated that I’ve paid less than five per cent of what I’d pay back home. Within an hour I was loaded down with bags of clothing, hats and shoes.

  Needing a break from the relentless heat and humidity, I headed to a Scottish pub close by the market. I’m surrounded by off-duty British soldiers from the nearby Stanley Fort barracks. I feel a strong sense of déjà vu sitting in this Scottish bar on the other side of the world. During my first year as a volunteer I’d been ordered to drink in pubs popular with off-duty soldiers in Northern Ireland – due to the remnants of my English accent. I was to report back any snippets of information I heard to our intelligence officer.

  As I’m waiting to be served in the Hong Kong squaddie bar, I realise that I’m eavesdropping on a background conversation about a garden fête at the Fort – in the hope of hearing the date. I was concentrating so much on the soldiers’ conversation that the waitress had to nudge me to take my order.

  “I’d like tea please, and a few biscuits if you have them.”

  “Away now!” she snapped. “This is a pub you know, we don’t serve tea and biscuits! Try the Irish pub up the road why don’t cha!”

  I got the message loud and clear – no Irish wanted here! I’d completely forgot to use my Nottingham accent. A mistake like that would’ve got me a real beating, even a bullet, back in Northern Ireland.

  Feck the tea I said to meself. I’ll take a taxi back to Central and enjoy a nice cup of tea in my five-star hotel suite. I can live without a bigoted Scots’ hen giving me grief.

  I couldn’t find a taxi, so I walked up the hill to Stanley Prison. I waited beside the bus stop under massive chestnut and elm trees, probably planted as seedlings when the prison was built. The enormous deciduous trees almost hide the prison now, and they offer shelter to people visiting the poor wretches stuck behind the prison walls.

  Stanley Prison is a perfect reproduction of the colossal prisons all over England and Ireland. For a moment I thought I was back in merry auld England standing outside HMP Wormwood Scrubs in London, or Maghaberry Prison in Northern Ireland, or Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. I once heard these colossal prisons described by my English tutor at Trinity College as deliberately scary examples of Victorian architecture, and truly forbidding edifices, designed to impress the honest and depress the guilty. Looking at Stanley Prison, I can’t disagree with the professor.

  I’d read in some tourist book that a lot of the people inside Stanley Prison are debtors owing paltry sums of money. They can be kept until the money is paid, or until the person who put them here stops paying the few dollars for their daily upkeep. So, nought has changed in a far-flung British Crown Colony since Charles Dickens’s days, or so it seems.

  A bus arrived within five minutes and I jumped on board with my carrier bags. I sat upstairs at the front of the bus, to get a good view of the sea. I was enjoying meself until we hit the sharp bends in the road. The driver’s taking them too fast, and the wheels on the left side of the bus are barely balancing on the edge of the road – the edge with a two hundred foot sheer drop to the sea. I desperately want to move across to the other side of the bus, in the hope of redressing the balance. No chance, physics is working against me. So I’m keeping a tight hold on the seat as the bus careens around the bends at breakneck speed.

  “What’s the matter with this driver?!” I yelled at a fellow passenger.

  “He’s probably off his head on tonic drinks and ephedrine!” he yelled back in an Australian accent…between roars of laughter at my obvious terror.

  I never went on the scary rides at fairs, and now I wish I’d taken a hotel car after all – or waited until I found a taxi. I’m not a coward, but this is terrifying….

  We finally left the twisting coast road, and the bus slowed down to what I imagine is a normal speed.

  “Right pal, if you can stop laughing for a minute, tell me, what the feck was that about?!” I shouted to the Aussie.

  “No prob Paddy…it’s the system here. The Hong Kong bus drivers work seventeen or eighteen hours a day. To keep awake they drink tonic drinks full of caffeine and swallow handfuls of ephedrine, a heart speeding medication. On top of that, if they’re late arriving at scheduled stops they’re fined by the bus company.”

  “But don’t they have a lot of accidents?” I asked.

  “Yes, loads, but blokes like us don’t usually travel on buses, so it’s mostly the poor Chinese it affects. If they’re just injured they can claim compensation from the bus company. It’s a way to get ahead, to get a deposit for a market stall or a food stand. If it’s a really serious injury they could get enough to put a deposit down on an apartment. The Chinese are fatalists. If something is going to happen, it will, and there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s another reason why the drivers go hell for leather…if they’re going to crash, they will, if not, they won’t. It’s as simple as that.”


  I mentally forgave the Aussie for laughing at me, and I began to look at the Chinese in an altogether different light. But Jaysus, that was the hairiest journey I’ve ever been on…and I’ve dodged armoured cars chasing me through the streets of Belfast.

  ———

  When I woke up this morning I realised that I’ve only another day to go before I have to start putting in time with Gerry and Earl – to earn some ‘walking-around’ money as they call it. So today is my last chance to be a tourist.

  I crossed Victoria Harbour on a Star Ferry to Kowloon and walked to TST. The streets around Nathan Road are a shopper’s wonderland. The Golden Parade has every kind of electronic gadget ever made, and every second shop sells watches or cameras, or gold and jewels. There’s a lot of gold.

  It’s four o’clock and I’ve been walking around for nearly two hours in temperatures of twenty-eight to thirty degrees Celsius. Like any tourist, I need to get in someplace cool.

  I stepped into the lobby of the spectacular-looking Peninsula Hotel. There’s a string quartet playing a medley of Strauss waltzes on the minstrels’ balcony. Feeling like a character in a W. Somerset Maugham play, I ordered tea and crumpets – the only things missing are the monocle, blazer and Panama hat. It’s just as well Mac can’t see me relaxing in all this colonial splendour. I’d be in for a serious slagging, so I would.

  After an hour of Strauss waltzes and Victoria blend tea I took the MTR to Central Hong Kong. I’ve only ever been on underground trains in London, Stockholm and Paris, and the MTR is something else. There isn’t a sweet wrapper or cigarette butt in sight, and the station concourse and platforms are spotless. The seats in the trains are clean, comfortable and covered in fabrics that coordinate with the hand rails and the non-slip floor. This public transport system certainly wouldn’t put you in mind of the bone-shaking buses in Derry or Belfast, or even London’s Tube trains. Even the Victorian trams and ferries in Hong Kong have a timeless elegance about them, and they too are spotless.

  I was back in Central within minutes. I took an escalator directly from the station to the street right behind the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong.

  Bone weary from doing nothing, I had a soak in the Jacuzzi. It did the job and gave me a second wind, so I decided to take meself over to Plume’s.

  Susie’s friend Michael Harrington-Browne greeted me. He introduced me to Natasha, his much younger, and very beautiful, wife with corn coloured hair and soft grey eyes.

  “So nice to meet you at last Finn. My husband has described you to me…he’s good with wine, but terrible with descriptions! Yeah, you are hairy, true, but handsome hairy…he didn’t mention handsome! Anyway, it doesn’t matter, I can see for myself. Hello,” said Natasha, with a firm handshake.

  She has a hint of a European accent, similar to the one I’d heard during my first visit to the FCC. I take it that she too is originally from the Netherlands. I suppose this is as good a time as any to confirm my own origins…if not exactly my nationality.

  “Ta tú ag plamás mé a bhean dheas,” I told her softly.

  She cocked her head to one side, and with a mischievous smile she asked, “And what language is that may I ask? And what does it mean in English?”

  “You are flattering me pretty woman.”

  “No I am certainly not! Beneath all that hair, you probably do have a handsome face…well, craggy and mannish, anyway. But what is that language you used?”

  “It’s Irish. And your accent Natasha? I imagine that English is not your native tongue, even though you speak it very well.”

  “Two can play at that game. Nu wie is vleiende wie…now who is flattering whom?”

  “OK, I surrender, you win…we’ll use English. I don’t have enough Irish to hold a conversation anyway.”

  She reached across the table, took my hand, squeezed it, and nodded her head. “OK, English it is. And I am even more pleased to meet you now, because you’re not like my old man…sorry…husband…an Englishman. Although, as you can see, compared to me he is an old man, but a very nice old man, ya! Yes…Michael stole me from a pram in Amsterdam,” she laughed.

  With Michael in his late forties or early fifties, and Natasha barely twenty years old, she must be used to people spotting the age gap. And clearly, she’s decided to deal with it head on. Anyway, I was right about the origin of her corn-blonde hair and sexy singsong accent.

  “Will you join us Finn?” Michael asked.

  “If I’m not intruding, that would be darling…yes…darling.”

  My reply was directed not at Michael, but at his pretty wife. He seems to have completely missed my heavy-handed hit on Natasha, but she didn’t miss it one little bit – and she’s probably well used to it.

  Our conversation soon got around to Fran and Susie Cooke. Wrongly, Michael and Natasha assume I know the Cookes well. I said nothing to contradict their opinion…I want to know the setup with the Cookes.

  “I suppose you know that Fran, the bastard, has stopped screwing Susie,” said Natasha while sipping her cognac.

  “Well, be reasonable love. He’s under a shitload of pressure,” Michael interjected.

  “Shit…shit! Michael, when you were negotiating with Hong Kong Land to get the lease on this place, did you stop screwing me? Fooking sure you didn’t! Fran has written a couple of newspaper articles about something everyone guessed anyway. That’s nothing to the pressure you went through,” she replied, as she reached across and caressed his face.

  I’m intrigued, and sort of excited, to hear that Susie isn’t getting any sex…at least not from her husband – a man I have yet to meet.

  “So Finn, what are you intending to do in Hong Kong?” asked Michael, obviously changing the subject.

  I told him the agreed party line. “I’ll be investing in the Hong Kong stock market, and looking for other interesting opportunities, Michael. You know the type of thing.”

  Hearing this, Michael stood up and strode across to the bar. He practically dragged a tall guy in a chalk-striped suit back to our table. “Paul, meet Finn. Apologies…I’ve completely forgotten your surname.”

  “It’s Flynn, Finn Flynn. And don’t worry about it Michael, my mother was into alliteration…with all those fecking ‘Fs’, it’s not really an easy name to recollect.”

  “Paul Wills, at your service. Gentleman poacher and part-time investment manager,” Paul announced, as he reached across the table and shook my hand.

  He has all the right stuff for a serious salesman – selling ice to Eskimos, and sand to Arabs kind of fellah. Mac and I could’ve used him on our sales team all those years ago when we were on the knocker, trying to sell soap door-to-door. Our soap was allegedly made by the blind, which in truth meant there was a partially sighted man in the packing room.

  “Paul, Finn here is looking into buying shares,” said Michael.

  Paul fished out his business card, handed it to me, and paused – expecting one in return.

  “Susie Cooke is producing some new cards for him,” said Michael, coming to the rescue.

  Paul excused himself after one drink. “I must be off, I have an early start. But Finn, do call me before you start throwing your money away on shares,” he said before he left.

  I realise it’s time I get going as well. “Thanks for the great meal,” I smiled at the Harrington-Brownes. “I’ve had a busy day, so I’ll call it a night.”

  “Goede nacht, tot ziens…good night, see you soon,” grinned Natasha.

  “Yes, yes, Finn, cheers. Remember, do drop in anytime, anytime at all,” said Michael, with the same firm handshake I got the first time we met. His grip was possibly a little firmer this time…maybe he hadn’t missed my hit on his young wife after all.

  I rambled back over the pedestrian footbridge to the hotel. As I passed through the lobby a bellboy in his funny pillbox hat handed me a large, bulky manila envelope and enquired if I need anything.

  “Bed, my friend, that’s all I need.”

  He smiled, bo
wed, turned on his heel and marched back to his post.

  I waited until I was in my suite to tear open the envelope, and I dropped the contents out on the desk in the bedroom. I see documents for the bank accounts business, and a set of keys for my new offices at Tivoli Mansion in Wyndham Street. I put the keys in my pocket, but I left the documents where they are; they can stay there – untouched by me – until I meet Gerry in the morning.

  15

  HONG KONG

  The Ingrid Bergman film I watched before I fell asleep gave me a restless night, and I woke up early. I wasn’t ready for the memories and images the film conjured up…including those that didn’t really involve Anna. It’s just that Anna and Ingrid Bergman are so much alike in looks, manner and gesture….

  I’d used Anna and Ingrid – two lovely young Swedish girls who deserve better. I know I’m not the only volunteer who uses girls when it suits him. We often manipulate girls to get information, or to find a safe house…and most of the time the girls don’t realise what we’re doing. Our war with the Brits has turned us into bigger bastards than they are, and I hate them for it.

  I headed out before Mister Ling had a chance to prepare breakfast. As I left the hotel I saw the night workers leaving and the day workers arriving; it’s just the right time to see Central Hong Kong come to life. After walking off my spate of sentimentality, and the Catholic guilt trip, I slipped into a Queen’s Road restaurant for a Chinese dim sum breakfast of steamed buns and congee.

  With a full belly, I don’t feel like tramping up a steep hill. I got a taxi outside the gleaming Landmark, but I can’t remember the exact address of my new offices on Wyndham Street. I gave the driver the name of the building and he dropped me outside the front door of Tivoli Mansion, a red brick building with sash windows.