The elevator pinged and disgorged them into the salmon-coloured corridor.
“Who is in charge here?” Gwailo Pete demanded in English of the frightened receptionist while Topgun waved his warrant card at her face so she’d understand what this was all about. She stammered a reply in Cantonese and Topgun took over. Two minutes later they found themselves shown into the Conference Room and an attractive Western woman with a quizzical expression joined them. Scrimple looked her up and down and thought she wasn’t bad at all. Not young but she obviously kept in shape.
“I’m Louise Walker. I’m not really in charge. I’m just one of the staff but you seem to have panicked them all with your entrance so they’re all cowering under their desks.”
“Sorry about that, Miss, but it happens,” Gwailo Pete said. The woman appeared startled for an instant at his Birmingham accent.
“This is Inspector Scrimple who was present while your two bosses were attacked last night and this is Sergeant Ng from my team. I’m in charge of one of the Regional Crime Units.”
“Nice to meet you. Oh, and this is Madeleine Fong, one of the Merchandising Managers.”
A Chinese girl with short-cropped hair and pretty eyes had come into the room. She looked apprehensive.
“We might as well start with the two of you. We’d like to know more about Bob Chen.”
“I’m not sure there’s much I can tell you. He always seemed to be travelling and my work is more on the creative side,” Louise replied.
Madeleine leant forward nervously and said, “There’s someone coming from our Bangkok office. His name is Mr. McHardy. He might be able to tell you what you want to know.”
“Miss, we need to know everything. Then we can decide later what is important and what isn’t. Topgun why don’t you take Miss Fong to another room and get her statement and we’ll just carry on here.”
Topgun nodded and the Chinese girl’s face implied that she felt as if she was being dragged off to a Xyclon B gas chamber.
“How long have you been in Hong Kong and working for this company, Miss Walker?” Scrimple said, wanting to sound like he was part of the team and not merely along for the ride. Gwailo Pete didn’t seem to mind, he was getting his pad of Pol 155’s out from the briefcase he’d been carrying.
Louise shrugged and began talking until twenty minutes later they were interrupted by the arrival of John McHardy. He strode into the conference room without knocking. His hair and bushy moustache were immaculately groomed and in his blue pin-striped suit he appeared tall enough to be a basket ball player but broad enough to be a Marine Corps Sergeant.
“Inspectors, I’ve just arrived from the Thailand office of McPherson Ferguson to take charge here. What can you tell me about last night’s tragedy?”
Scrimple had to smile at the confident, commanding attitude of the American while Gwailo Pete looked irritated at being interrupted. Louise appeared relieved and ready to pass the buck of responsibility. In any case she hadn’t been able to tell them much.
The boss of the Bangkok Office made himself comfortable in one of the leather chairs but it was obvious he wasn’t going to be much help either.
* * * *
The Deputy Director of MI6, also known as the Secret Intelligence Service, was a man called William LeBailly. He was a consummate Whitehall politician who had served his country and its various masters for nearly thirty years. He remembered Philby, Burgess and Maclean as real people with fears and ambitions and not names from a training manual. He epitomised all the good and bad things about the old school tie brigade that was still clinging on to its influence in the upper echelons of the organisation.
He was sitting in a glorious Chesterfield armchair twirling his reading spectacles while his Head of Asia Desk was trying to explain to him why she had faith in the intelligence gathered by their Singapore counterparts.
“An exceptionally capable man, sir, this Brigadier Wee. Ruthless, as one has to be, surrounded by well-motivated youngsters with a canny nose for what is going on at grass-roots level.”
“You seem rather taken by this fella, my dear. What does he want in return for his titbits. Nothing’s ever for free in our business, is it?”
“I give him GCHQ intercepts relating to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. He’s very proactive, you know. I understand he doesn’t hesitate much using free-lance hard men when the need arises or sending teams of commandos into other countries undercover to perform jobs that went out of fashion years ago in the rest of the civilised world.”
“One of the old school is he?” LeBailly said, making it sound as if he himself were sprightly and modern.
“They get a lot of training from the Israelis so that gung-ho mentality rubs off on them. Singapore is a small nation and they have this paranoia about being over-run or not taken seriously by their Moslem neighbours. They’re good at stuff and at times irritatingly cocky.”
Margaret Rose had been Head of the Asia Desk for two years now and nobody denied that she was both suited for the job and so far handling it very well. She was careful in her decision making, had selected an unusual team and was known for the occasional unorthodox approach to intelligence gathering and interpretation. She spoke with a slight Lancashire accent although she’d been at Cambridge where a first in Chinese language and the fact that she had a black belt in karate by the age of sixteen had brought her to the attention of those mysterious men called “The Selectors.” When she expressed an interest to use her language skills on behalf of her country it wasn’t such a big step to persuade her that the twilight world of espionage could be both challenging and intellectually rewarding.
“So your assessment is that this Wee fellow is generally friendly and doesn’t have too much of a hidden agenda in his dealings with us?”
“I’d like to think,” Margaret said, “he still has a soft spot for the old colonial master. He’s of that vintage. Very close with the old Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yue. Bit of an eminence grise.”
“Heavens, aren’t we all, in our business? Hiding behind our grey, mortar-proof walls and making decisions that influence the rest of the world, making our political masters appear great or feeble as the case may be.” LeBailly chuckled. He’d always cultivated a donnish image. He could easily have been a patrician professor at one of the more prestigious universities giving a tutorial to a gifted, mature student.
Margaret Rose was small in stature but her sharp face and fiercely sparkling eyes told people that here was a woman who shouldn’t be treated disrespectfully. On her lap was an A4 size filofax and she was reading from notes that had been prepared by her in preparation for her daily meeting with the Deputy Director.
“If you recall, sir, Brigadier Wee was involved in that defector incident a few years back that could have been very embarrassing for all parties.”
“Ended up with a number of dead bodies, I seem to recall?”
Margaret smiled briskly. “Dead men, as the cliché goes, don’t tell any tales, certainly not to the international press. Even China was grateful.”
“So can you corroborate any of these snippets he’s been giving us?”
“I have a number of free-lancers in place in Hong Kong. They’re not strictly speaking part of the hierarchy but it’s an experiment. I think the regular channels tend to get bogged down in their standard way of working and are not as intuitive in their interpretations as I’d like them to be.”
LeBailly gave Margaret a knowing look. “What you are trying to tell me in your usual, subtle way is that you aren’t too happy with Hong Kong Head of Station?”
“He’s doing a good job. I just like to extrapolate more and reach more concrete conclusions by triangulating intelligence. Hierarchical structures suffer too much from personal input.”
“Human intelligence is vital. I think we’ve always agreed on that, you and I. Not like some of these morons who think you can stay on top of everything just by using technology. It’s what our Atlantic cousins have got all wron
g these days. A good mix is what’s needed. I don’t have to tell you that. You understand that better than I do.”
Margaret acknowledged the compliment with a move of her head and by tightening her lips. “I do like working with the ‘Echelon’ system though, sir. It gives tremendous data that we can manipulate.”
“Yes, amazing system that, but your man on the ground is still the key piece.”
“Or woman.”
“Quite right, quite right. I wasn’t being sexist, just grammatically lazy. Now tell me what you’ve got.”
* * * *
Dead bodies were no big deal to the Thai Police Captain but dead falangs were. With foreigners there would be pushy relatives and embassy officials asking too many questions and they would interfere without understanding that the authorities must be left to pursue any investigation in the most suitable manner.
The Captain knew he’d be choosing to pursue this investigation with limited enthusiasm and energy. The reason for this was simple. He’d received a phone call earlier advising him that it would be in his bank account’s best interest to avoid working too hard at finding out what had happened to the fifty year old Englishman whose papers identified him as Michael Fossgate.
Shrugging, the Captain had put down the phone and left the office to attend the scene of the crime. He knew how the game was played and he knew his primary responsibility was to himself, his wife, his children and his mistress.
The body lay as it had been found, in a cheap hotel room off the Khao San Road where the backpackers tended to live. Two Australian girls had reported the matter when they found the door ajar. The Captain assumed the girls had tried to steal something hoping the room to be empty at that time of the day. Instead they’d found a naked body with a hypodermic syringe protruding up from a vein in his arm.
The police photographer was just finishing his work and another man with a big pilot case waited his turn to take fingerprints. The men greeted him with the traditional “wai” of respect for a senior officer.
He stared about the room and saw nothing that would make it glaringly obvious that this was not a real suicide. He assumed it was a murder or there would not have been the phone call. The medical examiner might find a small bump on the man’s head or evidence that he’d been knocked out first with other drugs but if the Captain certified that there were no suspicious circumstances then the overworked doctor would never get to see the body. It would be shunted straight off to the morgue.
Hovering by the door were the “ghouls” from the coffin-van waiting for a signal. They made six hundred Baht on every dead body and competed with other identical independent businesses. For a living, injured person delivered to a hospital they only made three hundred Baht so it was not unheard of that survivors of car crashes or similar tragic accidents had mysteriously died from suffocation on the way to hospital. Such were the realities of life in the Kingdom. It was harsh but a man had to make money for his family. Scruples did not buy rice.
The Captain picked up an overnight bag and found the usual contents as well as a small baggy of white powder. He walked over to the body and without touching it examined the naked flesh on the arms, the legs, between the toes. There was no sign that the dead falang had habitually injected himself with heroin which confirmed the policeman’s judgement that here was a victim not of his own excesses but of a business deal gone wrong.
He told the fingerprint man that there would be no need as this was an open and shut case. Then he went next door to where the two terrified Australian witnesses were sitting drinking Mekhong Whisky and water.
“You know the dead man?” The Police Captain enquired politely and glanced over the statements that had been hand-written by the girls. His English was functional and he saw nothing in the words that would make his decision to drop the case be questioned by a more senior officer.
Back at his desk he verified that the falang had been in Bangkok for many years, was known as a businessman who had lived from hand to mouth and had no known relatives, not even a regular local girlfriend.
Nobody would miss him much.
Chapter 11
The advent of the weekend was welcome, Jim decided. He wasn’t in the mood for a real hard day and at nine o’clock on this Friday morning he already felt the warning signs of a mild headache. Perhaps it was a hangover because he’d downed four whiskies before going to bed. He didn’t think he’d been drunk but his body obviously felt otherwise.
He glanced at the emails and opened a few that might be important, reading them without bothering to reply. There was one from John McHardy in Hong Kong who asked him to call as soon as he got into the office.
Jim went and got himself a cup of coffee from the machine, put skimmed milk and sugar in it. The office was slowly filling up. If his headache didn’t go he’d take an aspirin and get Sawyers to agree to a hard game of squash at lunch. Getting the blood pumping was always an efficacious way to flush out the system.
He couldn’t find any other emails that were of interest and although some of them were marked “High Priority” he could see nothing of urgency in their content. Stupid people. Everyone always thought their problems were the biggest and needed immediate attention. But most problems solved themselves. Poor old Dougie Campbell; he wouldn’t have any problems to worry about any more. Free of all responsibilities. Unless he was negotiating to get past the pearly gates at this moment. It was a foolish image but more comforting than one of the old GM lying in a coffin staring stonily into space.
Jim hadn’t given it much thought, but at the back of his mind he knew someone would have to take over the GM’s position and if he carried on conscientiously there was no reason why the Old Man wouldn’t appoint him.
It had been a ghastly interview with Dougie’s wife. She’d had no idea what to expect on finding the two men on her doorstep. Mr. Ferguson had been soothing and Jim had been supportive but nothing could take away the harsh blow of reality. The woman was a widow at a point in life when she was beginning to think about her husband’s future retirement and where they might settle to enjoy the fruits of his long, hard career.
Jim felt a craving for a cigarette, then banished the stupid thought and picked up his phone. He hit the fast dial that would put him through to the Hong Kong Office.
“Glad you could call me, Jim. What time is it there?” John McHardy’s voice came over the speaker-phone.
They exchanged more pleasantries and then the American began explaining the situation and what he had done about the police and repatriating Dougie’s body.
“Jim, let me be frank. I’m happy to hang here and keep a grip of the office but people are confused and what they need is some clear direction from the head office. If not you’ll find things are going to get screwed up real fast. Somebody has to take charge here and arrange for a long-term replacement. You’ve been in Asia before, haven’t you?”
“I hear what you are saying. I suppose I could come out. It would make sense.”
“Now what was Dougie doing out here anyway? This wasn’t a routine trip, was it, Jim?”
“We weren’t happy with Bob Chen’s handling of the Hong Kong office. Too many shipments were going wrong and we wanted to know what the hell was happening. Have you come across anything odd so far?”
“Nothing, except that the files in Bob Chen’s office are badly maintained and don’t give me much of a picture of what the current status is. That may just have been his style. Chinese don’t like too much on paper. Prefer keeping stuff in their heads.”
“I can relate to that. What are the police saying about all this?”
“So far, not much but it looks like Bob Chen got on the wrong side of some Triads—which may have nothing to with our business at all, could just be gambling debts or women problems—and Dougie got in the way when some men came after Bob. Just incredibly bad luck for Dougie. To be frank, Bob was never my favourite guy. I could see some criminally inclined dudes getting pissed with him and sending a bun
ch of street punks to stick him with meat cleavers.”
“Okay, John. I get the point,” Jim said, suddenly queasy at the thought of all this gratuitous Asian violence. “I’ll have to clear it with Old Mr. Ferguson but I don’t see any major problem. I could come for a week or two and have someone sit in here. Do you think we should talk to headhunters right away about finding a replacement for Bob or is there somebody in the office who could be promoted?”
“Nobody that stands out from the crowd. The Merchandisers all seem surly and uncommunicative. A nice bunch Bob Chen recruited here. There’s an English gal called Louise but she’s only a designer type. I don’t think she’s had experience running an office of Chinese.”
“Could she do it?”
“Might be too much for her, Jim. You need someone who knows the business from top to bottom. No big deal, I know a few headhunters and I’ll get them working on this right away. Hey, they’ve probably been leaving messages all morning once they read the papers. This kind of thing doesn’t happen too often. The police are real uptight about it.”
“You’ve been a great help, John, getting up there right away. You wouldn’t want to take over Hong Kong permanently would you?”
“Jim, if I had the slightest interest I would have told you from word go. China isn’t my gig. My family is comfortable in Thailand. You want to call me back later once you know your flight details? I’m staying in the Shangri-La and you know my mobile number.”
Sawyers appeared pleased when Jim told him that he’d have to hold the fort in his absence.
“You think you can handle it?”
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