by Clive Hindle
He never had. Secretly, even as he’d mouthed the words, he knew he wouldn’t return, that it was a closed chapter. He didn’t tend ever to go back and even now only fate had put him in reverse gear. He climbed up the stairs to the walkways and looked down Hennessey at the vehicle congestion. In the building opposite was a gymnasium. Lined up against the window, a row of runners, twenty long, raced on their machines, staring fixedly ahead, oblivious to their neighbours, like lemmings desperate to throw themselves through the plate glass into the street below. Looking up the walkway past the intensifying throng of bodies he saw the sign for the Wanchai station of the MTR. He descended into the clean, mosaic halls of the underground for the short trip to Central.
When he came back up into the light, the Jardine Building towered over the Star Ferry. Out in the harbour junks and sampans with their red pterodactyl sails, ploughed the narrowing channel towards Causeway Bay, criss-crossing with lighters and inshore freighters. Larger vessels made for the open sea away from the lee shore, while the smaller vessels made for the typhoon shelter. Across at the naval base the No. 3 was hoisted. A storm was approaching. Somehow he’d missed that piece of information. He had to get his skates on so he headed for the lift. If the No. 1 went up the city streets would empty. When he reached the suite which housed Gerry’s chambers, the Chinese receptionist seemed surprised when he asked for his old friend by his first name. She looked at him suspiciously, trying to weigh him up. “Knew him from the old days,” he added brightly, “when we worked for the Government together.” She was a very attractive young lady, obviously well brought up and from a wealthy family as her facility with English suggested she‘d been schooled abroad, probably America judging by the tone. She had a creamy complexion for an Asian, and a winning smile. The girl looked at him in a way, which owed the politeness of her facial expression to the East but the sceptical tilt of the head and the quizzically upraised eyebrows distinctly to the West. Plainly she must have been wondering who he was, what he wanted. He shrugged. “Is he in?”
She shook her beautiful head, her hair moving like an Oriental bead curtain. "I'm afraid he's away but Mr. Moriarty will be in later."
"Mr. Moriarty?" Jack repeated, his memory stirred. "Not Plum Moriarty?"
"Mr. Pelham Moriarty." She spoke with a transatlantic accent that made the very English name sound more delightful than it deserved. Once again he couldn’t help but think she was very good looking and he had changed his mind about the description: it was an ivory, translucent quality she had to her skin. Her eyes were dark brown and limpid and her eyelashes long and silky. There was something about her, something feline; she looked strong and self-assured, not like the average receptionist but this was obviously an up-market operation. There was something else too, which Jack couldn't quite put his finger on. It was again a kind of familiarity just like with the airport woman, but this one was obviously mistaken: This girl would have been in school when he was last here.
“Plum’s not a lawyer,” he said, “what’s he doing here?”
“But he is Mr. Montrose’s business manager.”
Oh, yes, Jack thought, Plum would be the one greasing the palms, schmoozing the clients, a bit of a super-clerk. That was right up his street. He leaned forward and made a conspicuous show of reading the European name tag on the girl’s tunic, “Amie Chow?” He was remembering the name of the infamous gangster the ICAC guys had told him Gerry worked for and wondering if he was putting two and two together here. Another move of Plum’s perhaps?
She looked up and smiled a taut smile, the suspicion returning. "Yes?"
"Nothing," Jack lied, "it's just I have a client at home called Chow who hails from Hong Kong. It’s a long shot, I know, but I wondered if he could be any relation?"
She laughed. "Mr. Lauder," she said, "you'll have to get used to the fact that many people have the same surname in China. We only have about five hundred to share among billions of us." She stood up to show him to the reception area and he noticed how willowy and long legged she was, a real beauty. His male instincts were stirred and it was probably just as well he didn't have to wait long for Pelham Moriarty to appear.
The third son of some minor landed gentry back home, Plum had been sent to the new version of the Raj to earn his fortune. It had been a long time since Jack had seen him and, although the colonial circuit had treated him well in the financial sense, it might have been at the expense of his life expectancy. Bloated and red of face, obviously after a rich and largely liquid lunch, he affected the forlorn statelessness of the colonial type. There was something else too: he wasn’t all that pleased to see Jack; maybe he thought this was a shakedown. If he was Gerry’s business manager he’d probably know Jack had lent him money and he would put two and two together and assume he now wanted it repaid. The impression was confirmed when he made a snide comment about Jack’s concern for Gerry perhaps having a dollar sign in front of it. "It's not that," Jack replied, "I'm here because he's a pal, he was in a bit of trouble and he asked me for help. I gave it and I didn't hear from him again. Do you know where he is?"
Presumably relieved at raising the anticipated siege of his wallet, Plum suddenly became confiding. "Look, Jack, Gerry's been a bit strange of late. He seems to have been taking stock of his life. He went private because he realised, later than most, money makes the world go round. Once he got into it, maybe it wasn't quite what he expected. Who knows what's happened to him? Did he see the main chance and get out?" He shrugged. "Jack, you've done your money.” Why was it these people all seemed to be fond of telling him that? “I can tell you,” Plum went off after the pause to see how Jack reacted, “the Gerry you knew and loved is just not the same guy any more. I don't know what's gone wrong with him, but there have been a lot of very heavy people coming round here and if you find us a bit reticent from time to time you should understand that’s why."
"I know, I got a visit from the ICAC myself."
“The Tic Tac are the least of the problem, dear boy!” Jack pricked up his ears at that because there was only one organisation in Hong Kong more feared than the ICAC and it wasn’t the Police. He didn’t intend to let on that he had any worries about Triads. Plum would love that. He’d dine out on it for weeks.
The fat man sat down in his plush leather chair and swivelled it round towards a view of Victoria Harbour, a massive expanse of turbulent waves and teeming ships. The outer winds of the typhoon had reached the island. The Star Ferry ploughed its way through seething seas between Tsim Sha Tsui and Central with the Hung Hom car ferry off to port. "Jack," Plum continued, "let me tell you how I understand it." He sat staring out of the window his arms folded, the fat jowls of his chin hanging down over his collar. "Gerry went off to Macao; he was staying at the Westin Resort on Coloane Island. The truth is he was seeing a blonde girl there, a young woman with expensive tastes. He was dining in Fernandos every night. You won't remember that, it wasn't open when you were last here, but, believe me, it’s expensive, a trendy, high end place. Gerry's not been earning the kind of money lately to live that lifestyle for too long and from what I’ve heard about the bimbo….” He paused and made the ideal shape of a woman in the air. “She was a stunner and I bet she charged a pretty penny.” He smiled, looking slyly at Jack to see if he was surprised by his description of her as a hooker.
“Not what the ICAC guys told me.” Jack realized Plum would have reason to pretend Gerry was skint.
The other man shrugged. “He's been neglecting his work something chronic. Besides you‘re not the only one asking."
“Oh, who else is interested?”
“You remember Diana?”
"Diana?" Jack exclaimed. Even as he repeated her name something which had tugged at the back of his mind suddenly fell into place. That’s why the woman at the airport had appeared familiar! Could it have been Diana Lundy? Older and more worldly wise perhaps, certainly much more prosperous than in the old days when she’d been married to Simon, one of the Crown servants ou
t here, but Diana nonetheless. How could he have failed to recognise her? Was the memory of intimacy as vulnerable as a Polaroid snapshot to the ravages of time? If it was, time had been turned on its heels now. It all came flooding back as his mind lingered momentarily on that night on the beach in Telegraph Bay. Oh yes, he remembered Diana Lundy very well, in particular that night.
He switched back to the present. This at least was news.
"Fond memories Jack?" Plum asked in that insidious way some have, who cannot possibly know of a weakness, but, as if with a predatory instinct, can sense its existence, more or less as a shark can scent blood in the water from miles away, or a wolf can sniff it in the air. “Oh, I can see I under-estimated your powers of recall! You do indeed remember Diana! She is a walking disaster area, right? She will lead you right on and then dump you without a moment’s thought, eh? My, but what a way to go!" His half-clenched fist stroked the air.
Jack shrugged, liking him even less, and changed the subject, "So okay, Gerry's been shacked up in Macao with some good looking blonde. Who's she?"
"Nobody knows exactly but there are rumours that she is not all she should be. He's never introduced her to anyone here. I don't know how he came across her, but I'm told she's a real stunner. I mean, a real stunner." Once again as if to emphasise his words he made the shape of the perfect woman in the air with both hands, a reverential look on his face. "The point is he's really been living it up and he’s always been a big spender plus he just bought a fancy property out Repulse Bay so he can't afford the high life at the tables for long, unless he‘s on a real winning streak, and that’s not how I heard it, I heard he was neglecting the casinos too. Not without getting back to earning the bucks. I’ve got offers for him coming out of my ears, Jack! And he’s done a bunk! Can you believe it? I can guess where your contribution has gone, my friend."
"So what do I do? Get across to Macao, to this Westin Resort, whatever it is, and pick my bone with him?"
"Do you no good! He disappeared from there a short while ago, came back, no doubt got the balance of the money from you, dear boy, and off he went into the wild blue yonder." He was enjoying this. He would have fretted for weeks about a lost fortune like this and he assumed Jack was made the same way. “Word is, he’s in the Philippines,” he added mischievously.
“That’s a big place.” Jack wasn’t smiling back.
Plum laughed, "Damned big and damned dangerous place." He really loved the idea that Gerry was going around the world spending Jack’s money, but something about that just didn’t ring true. Jack had known Gerry for too long to think he’d drop him in it like that. Guys like Plum didn’t understand the kind of bond they had. It was light years beyond the comprehension of someone like this bloke, the epitome of everything bad about the colonial way of life.
"Okay Plum," Jack said, standing to shake the other man’s hand, “if you hear from Gerry will you let him know I'm around?"
"Of course I will dear boy."
Jack grimaced at the oily insincerity. On his way out he paused at reception and thanked Amie for her help. "Did you find out what you wanted to know?" The tonal Chinese lilt entered her voice for the first time.
"Not what I wanted, but possibly what I needed to know."
She looked around furtively, "Gerry used to talk to me." Her confidence came out of the blue. "I might know things others don't, but..." Her eyes motioned towards the half open door of Moriarty's room. Jack nodded. There was a pen and paper on the desk in front of her and he bent over and wrote the name of his hotel and the telephone number, and then he wrote ‘Dinner tonight?’ and showed it to her. She looked at it and smiled, nodding her head in affirmation. He wrote down, ‘8pm, the foyer,’ and she nodded again.
Jack walked towards the door as the telephone rang. He turned to wave to her but she flagged him down with one hand. She covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said, "Are you expecting someone to contact you here?"
He shook his head, "Not that I know of," he said. He hadn't even told old friends he was arriving.
"Someone is asking for you," Amie said. "They've hung up." She held out the telephone as if she wanted Jack to hear the dialling tone.
“It would take too long to explain but there might be people in Hong Kong who wouldn’t be happy about me being here. The guy I really need to see is a client of mine, a Mr. Ma. He may be able to help me.”
“Mr. Ma, the newspaper baron?” Jack was astonished when she wrote Ma's address on a piece of paper. He asked her how she knew it and she laughed and said, “Apart from Philip Chan, he’s just about the most famous man in Hong Kong right now.” He knew Philip too, but now wasn‘t the time to talk about that. “8 o’clock, on the dot," she added, idiomatically perfect.
CHAPTER 2
The sky was a slate colour but the No. 1 wasn’t up and the ferries were still running so he took the Tsuen Wan hydrofoil. It sped over the water, a flurry of foam towering in its wake, weaving in and out of the junks and sampans pitching in the swell. The foil didn’t need the right of way the ferries enjoyed in this channel and ploughed through the shipping lanes, responding to each touch of the controls. It was agile enough to ignore all other channel traffic. The godowns of Kowloon were on Jack’s right, stretching from Yau Ma Tei to Mong Kok. Soon the vessel came down off the foils and ploughed a deep furrow into Tsuen Wan Harbour, the beginning of the New Territories. A shanty-town stretched down to the waterfront, each shack sporting a television aerial.
Jack knew he was taking a chance here. The man he was about to meet was an associate of Johnny Kwok and it looked like his former friend had been part of the plot to assassinate him. He was making the assumption that not all Johnny’s introductions were questionable but he had no way of knowing. He could remember most of the people he’d known from his early days in Hong Kong, Chinese and expat alike. The name Ma rang no bells. What had he learned? That he was a press baron, the Rupert Murdoch of Hong Kong; a major contributor to the Community Chest charity; a celebrity in a land where the public lionised the leaders of its business community as well as its entertainers. If what Jack had heard was right, Ma was earmarked for a future role by the government of the Peoples’ Republic. The problem was no one knew what that role was: assassination victim or the next President, take your pick, or both in reverse order. The fact that Ma was arranging a bolt-hole in Britain meant that he didn’t know either.
Disembarking, Jack walked the short distance to the offices of Li Po, next to the Red Pepper Fish Restaurant. No opulence greeted him. This was working space, not a showroom. The man himself came into the office, throwing on the blue jacket of his smartly tailored suit as he walked. "Mr Lauder!" he said jovially through jowls of gold teeth. Like a lot of Chinese he was of indeterminate age. He also seemed genuinely pleased to see his visitor who returned his greeting affably and held out his hand. This first sighting did nothing to jog his memory. "What great pleasure Mr. Lauder," Ma continued, wringing his hand, "wonderful, wonderful. What bring you here? Holiday, eh?"
Jack smiled, "A bit of that," he said, "but business too."
"Ah, business, business, good, there is always business. It pay for trip, yes?"
Ma snapped his fingers, calling to a young man who hovered just outside the door and he said, "I want you to meet my son." He turned to the young man and in his mother tongue he said, "Son, this is Lauder Sin saang, the man from England. The man who showed me the way to walk."
"The way to walk?" Jack mimicked, but he knew the idiom. It meant that Jack had once been of great service to this man, had saved his life or, in some way, given him his freedom. Ma laughed at Jack’s bemused expression, and he clapped him on the back as he shook the son's hand. The son seemed as happy as his father to meet him, almost as if Jack was his hero. "All in good time," Ma said. "You must take dim sum with me Mr. Jack.”
Whether he knew they’d discuss sensitive matters Jack couldn’t tell, but it was just the two of them who walked across to the Green Shoots Cafe. Ma
was of average height, taller than most Chinese but not as tall as the modern generation. He had jet-black hair, brushed back at the forehead with a quiff at the front. He wore spectacles, which hid his eyes. It turned out that he was also a sympathetic listener, a man to whom Jack could talk, so he took a chance and did, but he was careful to work in generalities and not mention names at this stage. Ma bowed his head and listened with an air of gravity. “So you got trouble? I think it much to do with Johnny Kwok?”
Jack was taken aback, “How do you know that?”
“I know Johnny. I know his family and his father tell me he get in big trouble over your way. I say he has good dai si, I hear, and his father tell me he has done something to you which lose that trust.”
Jack breathed a sigh of relief that his path had been smoothed for him. “You’re right of course. I hoped you might be able to help me.”
