Dragon Breath

by Valerie Goldsilk

  Harriet Cheung, as most of her kind, lacked social graces and in a terse voice, ordered him to come to her office.

  He checked his watch. It was ten fifteen and nothing that he knew of had happened which could put her in such a foul mood.

  “Yes, Madam?” Scrimple said as he knocked diffidently at her door.

  The Woman Chief Inspector waved him in to her office and pointed at one of the hard, wooden chairs. She had a file in front of her and it was pink so Scrimple assumed it was his P-file.

  “How long will you still stay in the Force, Inspector Scrimple?” the woman said. It was a tough question. He studied her and decided that no man could possibly want to marry her. She had large bug eyes and a nose that was rather simian, under which he thought he detected the hint of a moustache.

  “I beg your pardon, Madam?”

  She repeated her question, slower this time as if it were Scrimple who had to struggle with a foreign language and not her.

  “This is my career. I’ve given most of my working life to the Hong Kong Police,” he replied.

  Harriet Cheung glared at him. “Many things have changed since you joined the Force. This is not a colonial recreation club for alcoholics anymore, Mr. Scrimple.”

  He suppressed the urge to tell her it had never been before because it was something he couldn’t substantiate and also she would have considered it insubordinate.

  “Is there a problem, madam?” he asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Scrimple, you are the problem. The ICAC say that you are not cooperating.”

  “The ICAC? They’ve been hassling me about some rubbish case.”

  “Yes,” she suddenly barked. “I have the case here in front of me. They tell me you have been offering some bribes.”

  “That’s nonsense, madam. It’s just a drug addict trying to waste our time.”

  “The ICAC doesn’t think so. Are you guilty of offering bribes to a complainant?” She studied him coldly.

  “It’s nonsense, madam. I told the ICAC I’d come down for a second statement yesterday if they wanted. And they haven’t called me again.”

  “They have made an official complaint about you.”

  Scrimple didn’t respond. He tried to make his face look as neutral as possible. It never did any good to contradict a senior officer. He’d learnt that a long time ago. And it was worse with the women bosses. You had to show them respect, give them as much face as possible. Otherwise they would destroy you. The proverb was true. A woman scorned was worse than anything in the world.

  “You are interdicted as of today, Inspector Scrimple. Pass your files to your colleague and clean up your desk. I will suspend you until this ICAC investigation is complete. I have my suspicious about you,” Harriet Cheung—ungrammatically—passed her sentence on him.

  He was shocked and didn’t register for a second.

  “That’s it?”

  “You don’t have a very commendable record of service, Inspector,” the woman said, “maybe you should start looking for some other career outside the Force. Westerners like you are not needed here anymore.”

  Scrimple nodded and got to his feet. She wasn’t betraying anything. She didn’t smirk, just stared severely at him. They both knew there were two hundred or so Western police officers left in the Force and one was resigning nearly every day. The tables had turned and they should have all seen it coming.

  “Thank you, madam,” he said because being polite was good and he didn’t know what else to say. It was only later he realised that he was suddenly on paid holiday. Not altogether bad—for the moment. A disaster probably, in the long term.

  * * * *

  That morning Jim had woken up with a thick head. He’d drunk three glasses of harsh French tap water before going to bed but still he felt sluggish. He brushed his teeth and took two Panadol, packed his overnight bag and checked out in time to catch the 08.22 Eurostar back home. From the hotel to the station it was only a ten minute walk and the brisk air and the analgesic chemicals made him feel better as they reached the parts that mattered.

  Once he was on the train he powered up his mobile phone and speed dialled the Hong Kong office number.

  A childish voice answered and Jim wondered how old the receptionist might be. He asked for Bob Chen only to be told that the Managing Director was out of the office.

  “When will he be back?”

  “Don’t know,” the receptionist replied.

  “Does his Secretary know?”

  “She take holiday.”

  “Who can I talk to?”

  “Who you want to speak?”

  “Is there a manager?”

  “Have many manager.”

  “How about...” Jim groped for a name, somebody he’d communicated with before. “Someone in textiles?”

  “Waidaminnit,” the girl said.

  Then another female Chinese voice, older, answered, “Wai?”

  “Why?” Jim was puzzled.

  “Wai?”

  “Hello, who’s that?” he said.

  “Madeleine Fong speaking. Can I help you?”

  “Hi, Madeleine, this is Jim Beauregard, the Import Manager in MF London, I don’t think we’ve spoken before?”

  “No, Jim, can I help?”

  “Maybe, I want to speak with Bob Chen but he doesn’t seem to be around.”

  “I think he’s in Shanghai this week, or maybe Xiamen.”

  “We’re having some problems here and we really need his input.”

  “I thought Mr. Campbell is coming to Hong Kong?” Madeleine said.

  “He is but this is more urgent. Do you know anything about short-shipments from Shanghai?”

  “I don’t know, what products?” the woman said, all of a sudden more wary.

  “Many different ones, but I think mostly hardgoods and furniture. You’re doing textiles right?”

  “I’m the Merchandising Manager for all softlines products.”

  “Isn’t there an English girl who works with you? I can’t remember her name?”

  “Louise, you want to talk to her?”

  Jim sensed the woman wanted to pass the buck, didn’t want to carry on talking with him.

  “What does Louise do?”

  “She’s the Fashion Coordinator.”

  “She doesn’t handle the shipments then?”

  “No.”

  “Who handles shipments?”

  “The Shipping Manager, Mr. Fong.”

  Jim hesitated, then made a decision. He was just running around in circles here. “You know what, Madeleine? I’m just going to send an email to him, to Bob. Could you leave a message for him that this is really urgent?”

  “Fine, nice to talk to you,” Madeleine said although the tone of her voice implied he’d just wasted some of her precious time.

  The train was moving. Jim placed the mobile on the table and stared out at the French countryside.

  What a screw up. Nobody knows anything, nobody’s responsible. Is that how it goes?

  It reminded him of an expression he’d once heard used in context with China: “The man with the key is not here.” Only Bob Chen had the key and only he would be able to discuss the issues. Jim wondered if anyone in the office had Bob Chen’s mobile number.

  Jim wished he could come down to Hong Kong with Dougie and grab them by their throats and tell them how important it was to do things properly. What was going wrong with this company? Ninety years of history rapidly sliding down the tubes because they couldn’t get the right shit into the right boxes and on the right boat? This was bollocks.

  He suddenly realised that the elderly woman opposite him was bothered by his scowl. She was staring at him over the top of her half moon glasses which hung around her neck by a thin gold chain. An expensive perfume wafted across the table separating them. He assumed she was French because English ladies didn’t apply costly scent so liberally.

  Jim was back at his desk shortly before noon. He typed out the terse email knowing that it
wouldn’t reach Hong Kong until the next business day. Did Bob Chen have a laptop and did he check his mails when he was travelling? Jim should have asked that girl Madeleine for Chen’s mobile phone number. They all had them, surely?

  He kicked the bin under his desk to vent his frustration.

  Doris turned at the noise and he smiled humourlessly at her through the glass partition.

  She stood up and came to his door.

  “Having difficulties?” she asked.

  “No.” He smiled again. “I mean yes, I’ll tell you about them later when I’m less pissed off. It’s your friends in Hong Kong. They’re winding me up.”

  Doris’s concerned expression faded and she came over and laid a hand on his shoulder. Quietly she said, “Don’t complain about the Chinese until you really understand what’s going on. You can only see the tip of the iceberg. You can only see three dimensions in business when there are probably four or five that you can’t perceive.”

  “I wish somebody bloody well would tell me what’s going on, Miss Confucius.”

  She dug her red nails into his triceps muscle for an instant and then walked back to her desk. A few minutes later his phone rang.

  “You still on?” Tom Bigglesford said at the other end. Jim glanced up at his computer and remembered that they’d pencilled in lunch for today. He grunted an approval but told Tom that he’d only be drinking Perrier since he’d had a big one the night before.

  “Farewell the famous City lunch then?”

  “Bull and Bear?”

  “One fifteen,” his friend confirmed.

  By the time Jim arrived the place was packed but Bigglesford knew one of the waitresses—exceedingly well, he always insisted with a smirk—and so he was ensconced at one of the little corner tables that had a view of the courtyard. They shook hands and patted each other on the back. Bigglesford was a Prop Forward type of guy, big and chunky with a red face that was rapidly growing more puffy as a result of his eating and drinking habits.

  They told each other what had been going on lately. They’d been at University together and now worked in similar businesses. Bigglesford was a Senior Buyer for a High Street Electronics retailer and much of their low-end purchases came from China. He travelled frequently to Hong Kong and Shanghai, more often than Jim, and always had interesting stories to tell.

  They ordered and the sprightly Australian blonde that Bigglesford claimed for himself was receptive as he flirted with her.

  “No beer for the poof here, he had two glasses of French wine last night and is still feeling the after-effects.”

  Jim gave the waitress an ironic shrug. She bounced off, her pony-tail waving about and Bigglesford leered at her pert behind.

  “So what were you saying about your Hong Kong Office, they keep on screwing things up?”

  “Yeah, it’s just got really bad lately.”

  “Who’s the guy you’ve got running it now. Wasn’t there someone called Bob Chen?”

  “He’s still there. He replaced Steve Chandler who went to Next or something.”

  “Bob Chen, I’ve heard of him. They call him ‘Five Per cent Bob.’”

  Jim looked dismayed. “Who does?”

  “The factories. One of my big boys pointed him out to me last time we were out on the town. Said, ‘there’s the new boss of McPherson Ferguson. He’s very tough and always demands money from the suppliers’ for his own development fund, so to speak.”

  “And one of your suppliers said this?”

  “Sure, your company’s a big player down there. With all that history and you do substantial volumes. Bob Chen’s pretty important. So…as they say…” Bigglesford chuckled, “here’s to Five Per cent Bob and the linings of his pocket and the contents of his Swiss bank account.”

  “Well, I’m not surprised,” Jim said in a subdued tone.

  “Ah, they all do it, it’s just they’re not so greedy generally. Mostly they make do with two per cent. That’s why he’s got that nickname. Sets his sights higher.”

  “And seems to get away with it.”

  “It’s a way of life down there. Just read in the Times about the guy who used to run Hong Kong Bank’s investment arm in the eighties. He once took a two million dollar bribe in a plastic bag that was handed to him under the table in a hotel coffee shop.”

  “No sense of style, these Investment Wankers.”

  “No.”

  “You take kickbacks, Tom?”

  “Sure, all the time, never less than five million pounds. Don’t like the small change. Spoils the cut of my Savile Row suits.”

  “John Lewis more like.”

  The waitress brought Bigglesford another pint of Directors and then returned with their plates, a salad and salmon for Jim, steak for his friend.

  “What you’ve got to watch out for is that if they’re squeezing the factories for price, especially on electronics, then the factories are going to use cheaper components to make their margins and you end up with unsafe products. People get killed that way, not if it’s simple stuff or textiles of course, nobody’s died from a shrinking T-shirt, but if there’s a fuse on it and it’s not the right one or the wiring is buggered up, or the creapage and clearances are wrong…” Bigglesford shook his head. “People could get hurt. Not that a guy like Bob Chen would give a toss about that, from what I’ve been told.”

  “What the fuck are creapages and clearances?” Jim said, having had enough of Tom slagging off his company management.

  Chapter 7

  “I’m on the evening Virgin Atlantic flight,” Dougie said, tossing his ticket into the open briefcase where a pile of files already sat, ready for his trip. Jim was slouching back in his boss’s generous guest chairs and his headache had returned.

  “It wasn’t much of a meeting we had with Brico-Prince. He abused us for about an hour and a half.”

  “The French enjoy abusing the English. Better than abusing themselves, eh, lad?” Dougie joked.

  “With good cause, we’re fucking useless. We’re just screwing up constantly. It’s not something I can control. You know that. I’m surprised you haven’t heard from Frank on this issue.”

  “No one’s heard from Frank. He’s probably on one of his alcoholic benders.”

  The Sales Manager was a notorious drunk but his red nose and casual Irish charm brought in the business.

  “You know how Frank is. He’ll blarney them into believing it’s their own people who messed up the unloading and lost some boxes or damaged them.”

  “That’s okay for now but sooner or later we’ve got to face the facts. We’re having problems in our procedures and no amount of smooth talk laced with Jameson’s will sort that out in the long term.”

  “Then it’ll have to be some hard Scottish talk, laced with half a bottle of Glenmorangie and a Glasgow handshake if the Chinkie bastards won’t listen, right laddie?”

  The General Manager seemed exceedingly jovial today despite the issues at hand, and all Jim could assume was that Dougie was looking forward to a few days away from the missus and the house he shared with their two teenage kids. Asia could be lots of fun for a single business traveller and the truth was that hardly any man resisted the temptations that came along with the wine, song and sweet and sour pork.

  “Well, you smack him one from me. I just had lunch with an old mate who does a lot of business down there and he says our man is well known.”

  “Oh, yes?” Dougie said, leaning forward to reach for his lighter.

  “They call him ‘Five Per cent Bob.’”

  “They do, do they?”

  Jim shrugged, not wanting to add anymore.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “I hear they have massages in Upper Class on Virgin?”

  Dougie flicked the flame on his lighter and took his customary long puff.

  “Beats British Airways. They just have old dragons barking at you in Business Class.” He changed the subject. “So what about this inspection company, the
one the Brico-Prince guy was talking about? Do we know anything about this?”

  “Some of our clients use them. But why pay another whack of money to have the goods checked before they’re shipped if your trader is doing a good job?”

  “If,” Dougie emphasised tersely, “your trader is doing a good job.”

  “Our clients have always trusted us in the past.”

  “What do they pay an inspection company?” Dougie wanted to know.

  “A percentage of the FOB value, I think. I’d have to check it.”

  “Got any names? Did he mention which one he wants to use?”

  “Global Quality Assurance. Then there’s some others, like SGS. They’re Swiss. Supposed to be trustworthy like their bankers but apparently they’ve been paying bribes to governments in Asia to get more business.”

  “Government business?”

  “Yeah, they inspect containers before they leave and then again when they arrive here to make sure the manifest is correct and nobody’s switched the goods. The assumption is that Customs needs a bit of help in certain countries because Customs are prone to looking the other way if they need some extra pocket money.”

  Dougie snorted. “It’s an interesting business, laddie. Maybe we should get into this.”

  “Bribing government officials?”

  “No, keeping a closer eye on quality.”

  Jim said, “Isn’t that the Hong Kong Office’s job? Isn’t that what this is all about? Bob Chen and his team not doing a good job?”

  “Aye.”

  “Because they’re all dirty as cow dung down there.”

  “Aye,” Dougie said again and from the expression on his face Jim thought the meeting was over because his boss was getting bored.

  Dougie said, “Find out about this Global Quality Assurance. See if they’ve got an office in London and have someone come over and give us their sales pitch. More we know, the more we can plan.”

  Jim nodded and stood up, shaking the creases from his trousers.

  “Have a good trip, Dougie. And take care. Don’t let them pull the wool over your eyes, they’re tricky bastards, the Chinese.”

  “Laddie, don’t tell your Scottish grandmother to suck eggs,” growled Dougie.