Crimson Jade

by George B Mair

  ‘You mean you flogged her as punishment,’ said Grant.

  The Minister nodded. ‘You seem to enjoy trying to humiliate me. But I’ve already told you I’m ashamed of my past. What more can I say? In fact that’s the reason why I didn’t tell you at first, but now I’ve no alternative.’

  The pictures were bad, though Grant had seen worse along the same lines, and for sure they were enough to tie the Minister up with a double killing and torture. The fact that this was still common enough even in the 1970s wouldn’t be enough to get him off the hook if they were published and at best he would only be given permission to retire from public life.

  There was also a photostat, however, where headlines date and write up confirmed the death of Cyp’s parents as 1934. Press photographs of a crashed biplane showed the registration mark, and two inserts of his parents made identification easy. The press had given the incident a fairly full coverage, and although only through a smallish provincial paper, there was enough to prove that Petra must have been born years later. It was absolutely impossible for her to be Cyp’s sister.

  A message was attached by a paper clip and had been made up of single words cut out from an English language newspaper.

  ‘Do as you were told or the girl will be taken within thirty-six hours. And keep Grant out of it.’

  ‘How was this delivered?’

  ‘To my father by one of the staff,’ said Petra. ‘It had been signed for by the doorman.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night before I joined you in the cactus house,’ said Cyp. ‘In fact, it was that packet which finally cracked my nerve and made me realise I was out of my depth and needed outside help.…’

  He was cut off short by a crash of breaking glass, and Grant dived for Petra’s legs as a roundish black shape lobbed through the room from the gardens outside. He flung the girl behind a chair and threw himself on top of her while fragments of glass dropped round them and a sheet of searing white flame seemed to fill the room. He got a glimpse of the Minister’s face twisting with fear and felt Petra shiver as a short sharp crack echoed round the walls. Acrid smoke was stinging his eyes and he felt Petra quiver when a second burst of flame lit up the room.

  Grant could hear the Minister whimpering with fear and then smoke filled his nostrils. Petra’s shoulders were heaving as she struggled for breath and a car drove away at speed in the distance.

  There was a final flash of light and the noise of running feet padding in the corridor outside. The room had filled with black smoke, and Grant saw, almost subconsciously, that blood from his fingers had trickled round Petra’s neck, staining her unusual jade necklace a deeply dark crimson.

  Somewhere in the past he had read that crimson jade is one sign of death! And Petra’s jade had, literally, been stained and created by death, a coincidence which made him suddenly shiver with apprehension.

  He knew its history, and the necklace really was crimson jade. She had given it over drinks before dinner, and the American television journalist had even asked if he could use it for a story.

  It had been gifted by an old family friend in Manaos as a wedding present and had been in his family for four generations. But originally it had been brought from Tibet by a British officer during the 1888 expedition and was then known to be at least two hundred and thirty years old. The Tibetans, with their love of ancestors and family, had a record of its history, and the jade had been buried with parts of the body of a distinguished Shapé in 1658 or thereabouts. At that time the jade had been darkly green. Then years, contact with death, and the weird alchemy of mortification had altered the colour until parts had become flecked with crimson as the silicates of lime and magnesia metamorphosed into a bizarre emblem of good fortune, symbolic of new life and of life after death.

  The remains of the Shapé had been disinterred during the expedition of 1888 and when one of his descendants wished to give a gift of rare value to an officer from whom he had received favours. It had then passed through Sikkim to Calcutta and reached London for resetting. The Englishman’s wife, an actress, had been widowed shortly afterwards, and the widow had joined a company playing for a few weeks in Manoas. She had taken the crimson jade necklace with her and given it one evening, in a fit of generosity, to a young lover who had pleased her. Four days later she died of cholera, but the boy had lived long enough to establish a family which had become a sort of dynasty, and his great-grandson had given the jade to Petra.

  For Grant it was the symbol of death. Yet Petra preferred to think of it as a powerful good-luck charm.

  As the dust began to settle and Grant felt the girl begin to relax he almost shivered with reaction. It seemed more than coincidence that her crimson jade should suddenly be splashed with his own blood, and the finality of death seemed nearer than it had ever been in his life. The room almost stank of evil.

  5

  ‘They would kill for the sake of my ghost’

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Mikel’s voice snapped with anger, and Grant left Cyp to explain while he flung open the windows.

  Fragments of frizzled black plastic were all that remained of a bomb-type gimmick. Ceiling and walls were coated with grime, and a patch of Shiraz-design rug had been singed. Splashes of blood stained his jacket and he glimpsed his face in a mirror. All three were covered with black powder and eyes bloodshot. He could still smell a whiff of tear gas, but guessed that the bomb had been home-made and calculated to scare rather than kill.

  Mikel Brandt was nursing his gun and the Minister chattering excitedly in French when Mikel suddenly turned to Grant. ‘You, Doctor! Any idea about what’s been going on?’

  Grant daubed his knuckles with a soiled handkerchief, and this time, he thought grimly, there could be no question of hallucinations. The blood was for real. ‘The Minister and your wife,’ he said, ‘were having a snack with me when some sort of bomb came through the window.’ He pointed to remains of casing centred on the patch of burned carpet. ‘Home-made, probably. Anyhow it only gave off three separate coloured flashes like old-fashioned magnesium flares, released a deal of smoke plus a touch of tear gas, and then fizzled out.’ He forced himself to sound relaxed, although every sense was quivering with expectation. ‘One point, though. It would be difficult to lob a bomb about the size of a grapefruit from any concealed point outside and guarantee to hit the target area. Assuming, of course, that this suite was the objective. But,’ he added slowly, ‘if it was, who could have known whether or not I had visitors? Or who any visitors might be? If you follow! I also doubt if anyone could have lobbed it from below without being seen. Which leaves only one alternative, your flat roof. Lean over, look down, throw, and bingo.’

  Mikel lowered his gun. ‘I was forgetting. You’re an expert in affairs like this.’

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘Everyone says so. I’ve known about you ever since you eliminated SATAN’s crowd in Switzerland during the sixties. And I got more interested when you beat up the Cosa Nostra. So don’t be modest. After all, my own empire also has a security network to look after my own affairs so I’m not out of touch, and according to our files David Grant rates high.’

  ‘You checked them recently?’

  ‘This morning. I wanted to check your record to see if your arrival could tie up with any of my own activities.’

  ‘You left that until after I had been invited to your house!’ Grant was sceptical. ‘But surely men like you look up records first and send invitations afterwards.’

  ‘You forget,’ snapped Mikel, ‘that I only invited you for dinner. It was my wife who made you a house-guest. My own invitation was a civility with no strings, because dinner guests have less freedom to move around than a resident. For example, they don’t usually involve their hostess in an affair like this.’

  ‘I didn’t involve her in anything,’ said Grant quietly.

  ‘Forgive me, Doctor.’ Mikel Brandt’s manner was somehow jeering. ‘You are quite right. No one outside the ho
use, and few inside, can have known who you were entertaining, so I suppose I must agree that the attack was intended for yourself.’

  ‘You can suppose anything you like.’ Grant had had enough. ‘But right now we all want to wash and change. So I’m going to ring for my valet.’ He glanced towards Petra. ‘Roca is the name I think.’

  She lifted a house phone. ‘Roca it is. And, of course, you’ll need clean rooms. The Magnolia Suite, I think.’

  Grant glanced at the Minister. ‘Do we meet later?’

  Mikel slipped on the safety catch of his gun. ‘We’ll meet later,’ he interrupted. ‘In fact we’ll all meet later.’

  ‘One point.’ Grant became slightly formal. ‘You arrived carrying a gun within seconds of that phoney bomb breaking the window. Now, as a professional, I don’t like coincidences and I’d be obliged if you found it possible to fill in the blanks.’

  Mikel Brandt smiled broadly. ‘Nicely put. But I don’t explain anything: to anyone: not ever. I even rate it an impertinence to be asked about my own movements in my own house in my own country. And as a professional author you will appreciate a straight answer to a roundabout question.’ He slapped Grant on the back, almost affectionately, and then his voice changed. ‘But it happens that I would appreciate a word with your good self. So shall we say in one hour in the Magnolia Suite?’ He walked abruptly away with Cyp following at his heels while Petra gave a flood of instructions to Grant’s valet.

  Roca was an albino and one of the most powerful-looking men Grant had ever seen. It occurred to him only later that the man walked like a cat, his feet almost noiseless whether he padded on tiles or carpets. His hair dropped sheer to shoulder level and had the sleek silky texture of an Indian but was the colour of pale straw. His eyes seemed almost white and his teeth faultless, though four had been heavily crowned with gold, and the gleaming glint of metal gave his fixed, hard smile a quality of menace which was almost theatrical. His features had the chiselled symmetry of some Scandinavians Grant had met and his arms hung limply by his side, never swinging even when he walked. ‘He speaks English,’ said Petra, ‘but is better with Spanish. I’ve told him what to do and he’ll take you to the Magnolia Rooms when you’re ready.’

  Her eyes were smouldering with either anger or tension and Grant guessed that she was having difficulty in controlling her temper. ‘No idea where that bomb came from?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Or what your husband wants to talk about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor why he arrived when things were happening?’

  Petra lit one more cigarette. ‘Mikel has a habit of arriving where things happen.’

  Grant nodded towards Roca who was standing, silent, in the background. ‘One of your own men, I gather?’

  She smiled. ‘You gather right, David Grant. But Roca doesn’t dig women. Which is one reason why I feel safe with him. He’s strictly a man’s man. Like Bas and a few others on my private staff.’

  ‘He looks pretty powerful. Now I can appreciate why Bas smiled.’

  ‘He can take a fifty-kilogramme sack of grain in each hand, swing his arms sideways and burst the bags right over his head.’ She paused and drew out a knife from a sheath strapped against her upper right thigh.

  Roca held it for a moment and then Petra threw a grape casually across the room. The man’s hands moved so fast that Grant never really appreciated what happened until the blade was quivering against wood with fragments of skin still sticking to metal.

  Petra pointed to the sliced fruit lying on the floor. ‘Now that’s really something,’ she said. ‘Especially since it’s the first time he’s thrown it and hasn’t had a real chance to judge weight.’

  Roca’s eyes didn’t even register satisfaction, but as Petra spoke in rapid Spanish he pulled out the knife, carefully wiped it clean and bowed as he handed it back. ‘You’ve got the message?’ she said at last. ‘My friends are Roca’s friends.’

  ‘And where you go he goes?’ asked Grant.

  ‘In general, yes. But a word, David Grant. The Magnolia Suite isn’t part of my own private and exclusive territory. It can be given to any family guest. So anyone, but anyone, may pop in from time to time. And I don’t suppose I need to tell you that Mikel won’t be the only one. Or that Mikel also has friends who are his friends.’

  Grant wanted to be alone. ‘Mikel said an hour and I’d like to wash.’

  ‘Then get on with it. In fact,’ she added, ‘I think I’ll join you.’

  ‘Why?’ Grant’s patience was running out and he was hating the assignment more and more with every passing hour. He felt like a ninety per cent blind man wandering through a strange city in a pea-soup fog looking for an route which made sense between a known address and an unheard-of destination.

  ‘Because I want a word.’ She said something to Roca and the man returned to the bedroom. ‘He’ll transfer your things, David. And I’ve told him to leave out a set of pants, shirt and jacket. Now relax and try to understand what I want to explain.’ She looked at him anxiously. ‘Please, David. Will you listen?’

  He nodded without enthusiasm. ‘I’ve listened enough and things are getting too complicated.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘That it’s about time to bring matters to a head.’

  ‘By doing what?’

  ‘For example I once heard you described as “kinky and cruel”. Any comment? Especially when I remind you that you seem to have used me for some sort of orgy last night and remembering that not only do you have a gay husband but unusual staff as well. How come?’

  The girl’s eyes sparked with irritation. ‘I didn’t know you had been drugged until our “orgy”, as you call it, was over. And it was you who set most of the pace. But it was exciting to meet a man who didn’t seem to have one single inhibition and who knew how to satisfy a woman properly. Nothing kinky about it! Just straightforward animal sex. And I told you how Mikel conned me. I didn’t know he was gay until too late.’

  ‘And Roca? Or Bas? And the others?’

  Petra stared at him curiously. ‘Sometimes you talk childish. Or didn’t you know that a lot of women prefer gay men? Even as servants? They understand women better. When I slapped Bas today he knew why I had lost my temper and could sympathise. He can “feel” about some things the way I do. Bas and Roca have more female in their make-up than a man like you, so they’re sympathique. Roca even massages me when I’m tired. Now if a woman did it she might waken my latent lesbian feelings and complicate life. Or if a man like you gave me massage I might want to hop into bed with him. But Bas or Roca give me relaxation. And they’re grateful because I don’t criticise their private life.’

  Grant was becoming claustrophobic and wanted action. Above all, he wanted another link-up with Krystelle, who after two or three hours of radio silence would be planning a rescue action. ‘You wanted to say something?’

  ‘Mikel is angry.’ The girl was chain-smoking. ‘He never, but never, swears in English unless he’s really furious. Which is why Cyp became excited. Because he knows as well as I do that Mikel was one very dangerous person a short time ago. Then another thing. He smacked you on the back and you probably thought it was a friendly gesture. But Mikel pats the people he expects to destroy. It’s one of his very few mannerisms about which he knows nothing and which are real give-away signals.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He called me “my wife”. And that’s another give-away, because he’s only used the word “wife”, in any language, when he was angry with me.’ She touched him lightly on the arm. ‘David Grant, I’m frightened.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  The girl flopped on a chair. ‘David! Mikel can be a killer. You think Cyp was bad, but Mikel kills as easily as you would brush away a fly. He’ll destroy anybody who clashes with him in a business deal if the stakes are high enough, and I’ve even known him have a man murdered because he organised a strike. It had cost Mikel’s company about t
en thousand sterling a day and the man was soon found dead with a broken neck at the bottom of a block of flats where he lived.’

  ‘The Sureen incident?’ said Grant. ‘Any ideas? Would he really have tried to frame her in this house?’

  Petra shook her head. ‘Naturally not. Before any photographs were taken Mikel would have fixed some background clue to turn attention elsewhere. Sureen stayed in two other countries during this trip and Mikel has contacts in both. It would have been easy enough to leave one or two newspapers around with the date in focus, or a headline, or something. Or even to involve some public figure by using a stand-in. For example Sureen’s Minister of the Interior has a special sort of hair style which it would be easy to imitate, and in Paraguay there’s a business tycoon with a well-known beard and sideboards. Mikel would have no trouble in fixing a double.’

  Grant was able, more than most, to confuse an issue with words and a shoal of red herrings, but he began to wonder if he had met his match in Petra. The woman complicated life every time she opened her mouth, and he was convinced she was a natural-born liar. ‘I’m going to change,’ he said abruptly. ‘And I’m going to have my third bath in less than twenty-four hours. But I’m filthy dirty and you’re not going to add your dirt to my own dirty water. Get Bas or Roca to look after you.’

  ‘You can look after yourself?’ Petra’s voice was loaded with sarcasm.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Yet if that bomb had been genuine you would now be dead. So I hardly call that being able to look after yourself.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘That as long as I’m with you I think you’ll be safe. Mikel’s own men must have thrown it to scare you. And he was angry because I got involved. He likes me in his own particular way and for sure he doesn’t want to lose me.’

  ‘Why?’ Grant felt himself being caught in a mesh of intrigue which seemed to make no sense. And Petra forced him to ask more questions with every other sentence.