Killigrew nodded. ‘My God, it’s the perfect commodity – from the supplier’s point of view. The more of it you sell, the more the customer needs to buy. I wonder if Sir Dadabhoy knows that?’
‘I don’t know, sir. But I’ll wager Bannatyne does.’
The lieutenant looked thoughtful for a moment, and then glanced up at Molineaux. ‘What’s the message that’s for my ears only? Or was that merely a ruse to get rid of Mrs Bannatyne?’
‘Merely a ruse.’ Molineaux lowered his voice and told Killigrew what he had learned from Endicott.
‘If this fellow was dismissed from the crew of one of Bannatyne’s ships, he probably held a grudge,’ Killigrew said when the seaman had finished. ‘He might have made the whole story up.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I reckoned at first. So I went to the offices of the Hong Kong Register and did some checking up in their library. The Arachne was rated A1 at Lloyd’s, but from what Seth told me she would’ve struggled to be rated C3. She was a floating coffin, sir, fit only to be broken up or used for target practice. If the pilongs hadn’t sunk her, the next big wave would have done the job twice as easily. If it was pilongs that sunk her.’
Killigrew took out his linen handkerchief to blow his nose. ‘You think it might have been an insurance swindle?’ he asked, tucking it up his sleeve.
‘More than that, sir. I also did some crosschecking. Every big company that trades with China has lost at least half a dozen clippers to pilongs in the past four years. Every company except for Grafton, Bannatyne and Co. They’ve only lost the one ship, sir. The Arachne.’
‘That doesn’t prove anything, Molineaux,’ Killigrew said carefully. ‘Maybe not, sir; but it makes you wonder, doesn’t it? And there’s something else you should know about. I’ve been doing some thinking, and it doesn’t make sense.’
‘What doesn’t make sense?’
‘This whole Zhai Jing-mu bobbery. You know that Triad you were questioning on the morning that… you know, when the Akhandata went down?’
‘Chan? What about him?’
‘Did you know he died?’
Killigrew regarded the seaman in shock. ‘Died? Good God, I never intended to—’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about that, sir. ’Tweren’t your fault.’
‘But… the whiskey I gave him… wasn’t it alcohol poisoning?’
‘Mr Strachan had a look-see at the stiff ’un, sir. He reckons arsenic did for him. And that only takes a quarter of an hour to take effect, he says. And it was four days after you gave the Triad whiskey that he cocked his toes. Mr Cargill traced the poison to the bakery which provides the coop with its bread, but the trail goes cold there. Apparently one of the baker’s boys mizzled that night.’
‘Mizzled?’
‘Cut and run, sir. Disappeared.’
‘Strachan never said anything about this to me.’
‘He didn’t want to, sir. Thought it best not to worry you while you was on the mend. I agreed, until I got to thinking: why would anyone want to burke the Triad?’
‘To stop him from talking, I suppose.’
‘Talking about what, sir? Everyone knew that Zhai Jing-mu was dead by the time that poison must’ve gone into the toke; so who was the prisoner trying to protect?’
‘His fellow Triads, perhaps?’
‘Maybe. Or maybe Zhai Jing-mu ain’t dead.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Molineaux. He was on board the Akhandata when it blew up.’
‘I helped pull the bodies out of the water. But I didn’t see Zhai Jing-mu’s body.’
Killigrew looked thoughtful. ‘Did you recover all the bodies from the Akhandata?’
‘Difficult to say, sir, since we don’t know how many were on the clipper to start with. But all the members of the crew were found, along with…’ Molineaux’s words trailed off when he saw the haggard look on Killigrew’s face. The lieutenant might be at pains to conceal it, but there was no hiding the fact that Miss Dadabhoy’s death had hit him hard. ‘Well, you take my point, sir. We also found the bodies of half a dozen unidentified Chinamen, most of ’em with shotgun pellets in them. But one thing’s for sure: none of ’em belonged to Zhai Jing-mu. Dead or alive, I’d know that blue-eyed bastard anywhere.’
‘There could be a dozen reasonable explanations as to why his body was never recovered. It might have gone down with the ship, or else been carried out to sea with the tide.’
‘You willing to stake your life on that, sir?’
Killigrew ruminated for a moment. ‘Have you shared this theory with anyone on board the Tisiphone yet?’
‘Mr Strachan and me put it to Commander Robertson, sir.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘The same as you: he thought it was all gammon. Only difference was, when he said it, I could tell he believed it was gammon.’
* * *
Killigrew found Sir Dadabhoy Framjee at Peri’s sepulchre in the cemetery in Happy Valley. The Parsi looked as if he had lost a great deal of weight in the past two months, his sorrowful eyes shrunk deep into his skull, his once rubicund cheeks now hanging slack from his face. Unlike Killigrew, he carried no umbrella against the slashing rain, yet he was heedless of the fact that he was getting soaked through.
This was the first time the two of them had spoken since Peri had been murdered. Killigrew had been in two minds as to whether he should speak to Framjee at all and he braced himself for an outburst of bitterness and recrimination, but at the sound of his footsteps on the gravel path the Parsi merely looked up and smiled wanly.
‘Mr Killigrew.’
‘Sir Dadabhoy.’ Killigrew held his umbrella to give the Parsi some shelter from the rain.
‘Every morning I go into the parlour for breakfast and expect to see her, waiting to read the papers to me as she always used to. Then I come down here, in the hope it will help me to understand she is never coming back.’ Framjee kneeled and laid the wreath he had brought before the sepulchre.
Killigrew laid his own wreath next to it. ‘I understood the coffin was sent back to Bombay?’
Framjee nodded. ‘For a traditional Zarathustrian funeral. She was always proud of her religious heritage, so much so that sometimes she made me feel ashamed…’
‘I suspect you’re a better Zarathustrian than I am a Christian, sir.’
‘You are very kind to say so.’ Framjee gestured to the sepulchre. ‘I wanted a memorial to her here on Hong Kong, to remind people at what cost this colony is maintained. Does that seem foolish to you, Mr Killigrew?’
Killigrew shook his head.
‘Walk with me, sir.’ Framjee gestured to the entrance gate, and the two of them wandered side by side down the path with their hands clasped behind their backs. ‘I am given to understand that you blame yourself for what happened to my daughter.’
Killigrew smiled sadly. ‘Wouldn’t you, sir? I led her right into that trap, I goaded Zhai Jing-mu into shooting her…’
‘You tried to bluff him, just as you did when you first saved her from him back in January. You did what you thought was right; you must not blame yourself. It was not your finger on the trigger.’
‘It might as well have been.’
‘No, Mr Killigrew. I have heard a great deal about you: the work you did against the pirates in Borneo, and against the slavers on the Guinea Coast. If anyone is to blame, it should be me. You advised me to send Peri back to Bombay back in January, and we pooh-poohed your advice. If we had listened to you, Peri would still be alive today.’
‘Or her ship might have been attacked by pilongs on the way, or it might have foundered and sunk in a typhoon.’
Framjee nodded. ‘So many ifs. Only one man had his finger on the trigger, and that was Zhai Jing-mu himself. Blaming ourselves will not bring her back.’ He looked at Killigrew speculatively. ‘I have also heard people say that you are something of a pirate yourself; is it not true? But there is one difference between you and the pilongs. They are motivated by greed and avaric
e: you are motivated by a strong sense of justice.’
Killigrew grinned cynically. ‘Ah, yes. Good old British fair play.’
‘You do yourself an injustice, Mr Killigrew. We both know that the British Empire has hardly brought the happiness to the lives of all the people it has touched in the way that some back in London might like to think. But we must never lose sight of the fact that the Pax Britannica has done some good. At least Zhai Jing-mu will never trouble any more innocent people.’
‘I wish I could be sure of that.’
Framjee looked at Killigrew in surprise. ‘You think he might still be alive?’
‘I’m almost certain of it, sir.’
The Parsi shook his head sorrowfully. The two of them walked on in silence to the entrance to the cemetery. Killigrew felt uneasy, as if by allowing Zhai Jing-mu to escape yet again, he had somehow let the Parsi down; and let Peri down, as well.
Framjee seemed to have reached a similar conclusion. ‘Perhaps it is wrong of me to think it, but I do not believe the spirit of my daughter will ever be at rest while her murderer is at large,’ he said when they reached the gate. He looked up at Killigrew. ‘You are going after him, are you not?’
‘That’s my intention.’
‘I shall pay you one thousand pounds if you see to it that his reign of terror is finally brought to an end.’
Killigrew did not know which shocked him most: the implication that he act as a hired assassin, or the high price that Framjee put on such an act; at his current salary, it would take him over five years to earn that much money. But there could only be one answer to the Parsi’s offer.
‘I’m sorry, sir. It’s a generous offer, but I couldn’t possibly accept. I have my duty to do.’
Framjee looked despondent. ‘So you will catch him again, God willing, and bring him back to Hong Kong, and he will escape again before he can be brought to trial, and then we shall be back where we started.’
Killigrew shook his head. ‘You misunderstand me, sir. I may have only one reason to want Zhai Jing-mu dead, but it far outweighs the thousand you’re offering me.’
Chapter 11
The Spider and the Fly
Li Cheng hurried through the muddy streets of Tai-ping-shan to get out of the pelting downpour as quickly as possible. He hated the monsoon; but also recognised that if there were no rainy season, no one would appreciate the dry season. That was yin-yang: no shadow without illumination, no light without darkness. He sometimes wondered if the barbarians were the yang to the Chinese yin. That would account for why the gods had seen fit to create such loathsome, uncivilised beings.
The streets were deserted except for those few people who had no choice other than to be outside in such relentless rain. Here a few wizened faces peered from windows with mournful expressions; there a coolie squatted beneath the eaves of a shack with the rain streaming off his broad conical hat.
At the eating stall opposite the joss house on Hollywood Road two men sat at one of the tables, heedless of the rain. Li Cheng did not spare them a glance, but entered the adjoining tea house. He purchased a pot of tea with a couple of copper cash from the money-string on his belt and went upstairs. At a table in one corner four old men were playing mah-jongg, shouting the calls noisily each time they slammed one of the elaborately carved bone tiles. The place was busy, but Li had no difficulty finding a table. It was perfectly positioned, beside a window overlooking the street outside. While he was waiting for an attendant to bring his tea, he took a leather pouch from his belt and emptied the pieces of a tangram on to the table.
The tangram was an ebony tile perhaps four inches square, cut into seven pieces of different shapes: a square, a lozenge-shape, different-sized triangles. The trick was to jumble the pieces up and then see how quickly one could form them back into the square. It was trickier than it looked, but Li could do it in seconds with his eyes closed. A skilled tangram player could also arrange the pieces to form pictures: a coolie, a farmhouse, whatever the imagination could conceive; the number of permutations was infinite.
Li arranged the pieces to form a representation of a barbarian devil-ship. Playing with his tangram helped him to think, to visualise problems from alternative directions.
‘You are a little old to be playing with a child’s toy,’ snorted a familiar voice. Li glanced up and saw a bulky figure, dressed as a coolie, standing over the table.
Li Cheng concealed his irritation. Admiral Huang was a Manchu, what the barbarians called a Tartar. Not being Han Chinese, he was unable to appreciate fully the subtleties and complexities of Chinese culture. But even the Manchus could have their uses sometimes, when one needed a blunt instrument.
‘Admiral,’ murmured Li. ‘Please accept my humble apologies for failing to kowtow as befits one of your exalted station, but I am discreetly reluctant to betray your identity.’
‘Spare me the pig shit, Li.’ Huang took out a silver cigarette case and lit a Russian cigarette. ‘Tell me what you have managed to leam so far.’
‘Did you see the two men sitting at the eating stall next door when you arrived?’
‘Yes. What of them?’
‘They are constables of the Hong Kong Police, disguised to look like civilians. They are watching the temple.’
‘Why do they not raid it, if they know it is a Triad lair?’
‘They think that watching who comes and goes will lead them to bigger fish.’
‘Will it?’
‘No.’
‘Good. The last thing we need is for the barbarians to go clumsily blundering in and spoil everything. What about Framjee?’
‘He knows nothing.’
‘Pah! Then the trouble we took to infiltrate you into his employment was wasted.’
Li rearranged the pieces of the tangram and then tapped a finger on the table to indicate them to the admiral. ‘What do you see?’
‘A tangram.’
‘A rabbit,’ said Li. With one finger deftly pushing the pieces around the table top, he rearranged them. ‘And yet with a different rearrangement of pieces, we see a dragon.’
‘All I see is a tangram,’ insisted Huang. Li knew the admiral was not stupid, but sometimes he could be deliberately, frustratingly obtuse.
‘The mystery we now face is like the tangram. We have all the pieces before us, but until we can put them together the right way round we will not see what is right under our noses. We arranged them badly to start with, and that led us to see a connection with Framjee where no connection existed.’
‘Very philosophical. Confucius would be proud of you,’ sneered Huang, and gazed out of the window. Something seemed to catch his attention. ‘Interesting…’
Li followed his gaze and saw a barbarian in a greatcoat and pilot cap striding through the muddy puddles with a grim expression on his pale face. ‘Killigrew.’
‘Ah, so you know the barbarian naval officer?’
‘We have encountered one another on several occasions,’ Li admitted with a faint smile. ‘He followed me into that very temple four months ago. The Triads tried to kill him. I had to jump out of a window and steal a constable’s turban to make him and his friend follow me, so they would intervene without the necessity of my revealing my purpose.’ He watched as Killigrew entered the joss house a second time.
‘It would have been easier to let the Triads kill him,’ snorted Huang.
‘Easier, but less expedient. If a barbarian is attacked by Triads in a temple, then the barbarian police watch the temple.’ By leaning out of the window and craning his neck, Li could just see the two plainclothes policemen arguing about whether or not to follow Killigrew into the temple. He ducked back inside and sat down again. ‘But if a barbarian is killed there, then the police will tear everything apart in their search for the killers. I did not think I could afford to let that happen.’
A crash sounded across the street from inside the temple. ‘It sounds like everything is being tom apart anyway,’ said Huang.
; ‘It is too late now. He will learn nothing. What are the two policemen doing?’
‘One of them is running up the road to Victoria. The other remains in his seat.’
Li nodded. ‘They have been given strict instructions to observe, but not to reveal their presence.’ He chuckled softly. ‘As if every man who walks down this street does not recognise them at once as lackeys of the barbarians.’
Another splintering crash echoed from inside the temple, followed by shouts of protest, a scream and another crash.
Huang toyed with the pieces of the tangram on the table before him. ‘You said you had encountered Killigrew more than once?’
Li nodded. ‘When we rescued Zhai Jing-mu from the gaol. Zhai left Yeh and I to watch the front while he and the others escaped from the back. Yeh would have shot Killigrew if I had not knocked the barbarian out with a blow from behind.’
Yet another crash sounded across the street. Both Huang and Li turned their heads with mild curiosity as a young priest came flying headfirst through the splintered shutters of the temple to fall in the mud outside. A moment later Killigrew appeared in the doorway and marched across to where the priest was trying to crawl away. He grabbed the priest by the throat and hoisted him to his feet.
‘Where can I find him?’ the barbarian demanded in his execrable Cantonese.
The priest tried to kick Killigrew in the crotch, but the barbarian twisted aside and caught the blow on his thigh. He punched the priest on the jaw and threw him into the mud once again.
‘Where?’
Huang sighed and turned his attention back to the tangram. ‘These barbarians are crude and unsubtle in their methods. His blundering will spoil everything.’
‘Do you want me to kill him?’ offered Li, rising to his feet.
Before Huang could reply, something outside caught his attention again. Two Triad hatchet men had appeared and stood in the rain facing Killigrew. The barbarian grinned. ‘Ah, at last. Just the gentlemen I’m looking for.’
‘Wait,’ Huang told Li. ‘I want to see this.’
Li nodded and sat down again.
Killigrew and the Golden Dragon Page 23
