The Borrowed

by Chan Ho-Kei

  Cop 7 was silent again. ‘Okay. How do we get upstairs?’

  ‘You’re in full uniform – no matter what we’ll do it’ll look like you’re on official business, which’ll put them on alert!’ I said urgently. ‘Anyway, I have to watch the store until Mr Ho comes back at noon.’

  Cop 7 looked at the clock. ‘I finish my shift at twelve thirty. I’ll change into civvies and come back. Meet at the corner at one, and you can bring me upstairs?’

  ‘Fine. Wear a hat with a brim or something like that. If we bump into Mr Toh or Mr Sum, they might recognize you.’

  ‘I’ll think of something,’ he nodded.

  ‘And change your shoes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your black leather shoes are too obviously police issue. Even if you change everything else, your shoes give you away at once.’

  ‘All right, I’ll make sure of that,’ he smiled. Who’d have thought I’d be giving him orders like a commanding officer!

  Soon after Cop 7 left, Mr Ho returned. I told him I had some personal matters to attend to in the afternoon, and he gave me the rest of the day off without asking any questions. At one o’clock, I stood in front of the pharmacy at the corner, but there was no sign of Cop 7, only some young guy who suddenly came up to me as if he wanted to talk.

  ‘Ah!’ I stared at the other man’s face. It took a few seconds for me to recognize Cop 7. He was in a white short-sleeved shirt with a pen in his pocket, a tie and a black briefcase. You’d have thought he was a clerk in some foreign firm who’d just finished his Saturday shift. He wore glasses, and his hair was pomaded into a side parting. He looked like a different person.

  ‘Let’s go.’ He seemed pleased with my shock. As we passed, Mr Ho even said, ‘Oh, is this a friend of yours?’ I noticed a smug little grin on Cop 7’s face at that.

  Carefully opening the door, I looked in to make sure Mr Sum or Mr Toh weren’t about to bump right into Cop 7, which might give us away, but the communal area was empty. Although I’d seen them go out first thing in the morning, and they couldn’t get back in without passing by the store, I might still somehow have missed them. Tiptoeing, I listened at both their doors, then checked the kitchen and bathroom, and only let Cop 7 in when I was sure we had the place to ourselves.

  Our rooms didn’t have locks, which made our task a lot easier. We usually kept valuable items locked in our drawers, though it wasn’t like any of our possessions were worth much. Only a very stupid thief would bother with us.

  I lightly shoved open Toh Sze-keung’s door, and inside it seemed the same as always.

  ‘I thought you’d refuse an illegal search like this,’ I teased, as we looked into every corner of the room.

  ‘During a state of emergency, the police are empowered to search any suspicious person’s residence. It might not be within my duties, but I’m not going against any rules.’ He was calm and serious, as if he hadn’t noticed I was joking.

  There wasn’t much in Mr Toh’s room, just a bed, a desk, two wooden chairs and a chest of drawers. The bed was against the right-hand wall, on the other side of which was the room I shared with Elder Brother. At the head of the bed was the chest of drawers, with the desk and chairs on the left side of the room. A couple of shirts hung from hooks on the wall – wretches like us made do with this, not being able to afford anywhere nice enough to have wardrobes.

  The desk and chest of drawers contained quite a few books, as well as notebooks. I guessed he must have used the latter when he was a journalist. The desk also held a lamp, a pen-holder, a Thermos flask, a cup and some metal storage boxes. On top of the chest were a radio and an alarm clock. When I tugged at the top drawer, it turned out to be locked.

  ‘Let me see if I can open it,’ said Cop 7.

  ‘I don’t think there’ll be anything important inside,’ I said, taking a couple of steps back.

  ‘Why not? It’s locked.’

  ‘Toh Sze-keung might put important items in a locked drawer, but I don’t think Master Chow would.’ I knelt to look under the bed. ‘If I’m right, and Chang Tin-san’s arrest was a tactical sacrifice, then they’re preparing to attack from a different direction. People with a scheme like that wouldn’t lock evidence in a drawer. That would be the first place the police would search. I bet it contains a stack of inflammatory leaflets or something like that, but definitely no clues to do with the bombings. The police would find those, and that’d be enough to charge a suspect, so they wouldn’t look any further.’

  Cop 7 stopped trying the drawer and nodded at me. ‘That makes sense. I’ll see if there’s anything in the books and notebooks on the desk.’

  I checked under the bed and beneath the mattress, but there was nothing suspicious. Cop 7 was flipping through each book, and when I asked if he’d found anything, he just shook his head. We opened all the unlocked drawers, but apart from some tattered underclothes and other unimportant objects, there was nothing.

  ‘When you overheard them plotting, was there anything else that struck you?’ asked Cop 7.

  I tried my best to recall every detail. What was it Master Chow said? Something about Ah Toh and Ah Sum leaving from North Point, and he’d wait here...

  ‘That’s right! It’s a map!’ I yelled, as the answer flashed into my brain.

  ‘A map?’

  ‘Master Chow said he’d wait “here” for Mr Toh and Mr Sum. I thought he meant this room, but now I think about it, how could he? The landlord and landlady don’t know him, so it would be strange for them to just let him in. I think when Master Chow said “here”, he must have been pointing at a spot on a map.’

  Cop 7 nodded in agreement. ‘But where is it? I’ve flipped through all these books, and there’s nothing there.’

  I thought back to the conversation. Was there another clue?

  ‘No, I can’t think of— Ah!’

  I’d been moving away from the bed, but suddenly thought of something. The room had two chairs, so with four people present, two would naturally have sat on the bed. When Sum Chung was talking about ‘a diversion’ and ‘striking’ with Master Chow, his voice had grown softer. If he was holding the map, preparing to put it away, then his voice dipping would mean he was moving away from me, which meant away from the bed.

  On the other side of the room was the desk.

  I walked up to it and bent down, but there was nothing on its underside. And nothing between the desk and the wall. I thought I must be wrong, but just as I was about to turn my attention somewhere else, I noticed the large base of the lamp. Lifting it, I prised away the bottom plate, which came away with a click. In the space behind it was a folded map.

  ‘Excellent work!’ Cop 7 exclaimed, eyes wide.

  We opened it out and placed it on the desk. It showed the whole of Hong Kong, with lots of pencil marks, and numbers next to some locations. At Causeway Bay Magistracy was an ‘X’, and next to it ‘18 August, 10.00 a.m.’, while the other locations on the list were numbered 1 to 4, but with no dates or times. Jubilee Street and Des Voeux Road near United Pier in Central were circled, and above that was written ‘Number One T – 19 August – 11.00 a.m.’ Another circle ringed Jordan Road Ferry Pier in Yau Ma Tei. I remembered the plotters mentioning North Point, but that bit of the map was untouched, apart from a few pencil dots on Ching Wah Street. Between United and Jordan Road Piers was a straight line, also with an ‘X’ on it.

  ‘This should be enough evidence to arrest Toh and the others,’ muttered Cop 7.

  ‘But if you give the order now, you won’t stop them.’ I pointed at the Central circle. ‘This says 19 August at eleven in the morning, two hours ago. They’ve already started their operation. Toh Sze-keung said something about a “Number One” target. Could that be on Des Voeux Road? It does say “Number One” there.’

  ‘No,’ said Cop 7, ‘that’s Number One Tea House, at the junction of Jubilee and Des Voeux. It’s been in business almost fifty years. Haven’t you been there?’

  I shook
my head. To be honest, I haven’t really been anywhere. Elder Brother and I can only afford to go to a tea house a few times a year. We’ve eaten at Double Happiness and Dragon Gate near here, and out of the Central tea houses, I don’t know a single one apart from Ko Sing and Fragrant Lotus.

  ‘Number One Tea House must be their meeting point.’ Cop 7 studied the map. ‘If Chow was there at eleven and met Toh and Sum, then they’d leave from United Pier, headed for Jordan Road. Is their real target the ferry or the dock? Or maybe it’s United and Jordan Road Piers. If they could destroy both piers, there’d be no car ferry service between Kowloon and the Island – these are some of the busiest routes in Hong Kong. It’d take a long time to fix all of that. Or perhaps they plan to turn vehicles in the gridlock into sitting ducks for an attack.’

  Were they trying to start an all-out war?

  I banished this conjecture from my brain, and said to Cop 7, ‘You’ve got your evidence, so I guess I’ve helped as much as I can. Whatever their target is, I hope you’re able to stop them as soon as possible.’

  Cop 7 looked at me expressionlessly, as if making some calculation, then refolded the map, stuffed it back into the lamp base and closed the bottom panel.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You were right earlier. Even if I called it in now, there wouldn’t be enough time,’ said Cop 7. ‘We don’t even know what their target is – and we can’t be sure there won’t be real bombs at Murray House and Sha Tin Station. If I report this and officers are dispatched to the wrong locations, it might lead to a greater tragedy. Better to nab Toh Sze-keung and Sum Chung when they come home. Right now, we’ll just have to investigate this ourselves, uncover the real target and get the bomb squad in to deal with it.’

  I hadn’t expected Cop 7 would bend the rules like this. Was it Cop 3’s bad influence? Or was he just cutting loose because Cop 3 wasn’t here to see? I just hoped I wasn’t the one who’d planted these reckless ideas in his mind.

  Hang on – did he say ‘we’?

  ‘You said... but I’m just a regular citizen...’ I stammered.

  ‘But you have the brains for it. It’s thanks to you that we have this map.’ Cop 7 patted me on the shoulder. ‘I can’t do this on my own. I can follow rules and obey orders, but you’re different. Your thinking might seem crude, but you notice clues I miss. Besides, you’re a crucial witness because you heard Toh and the rest plotting. Only you can find the flaws in their plan and stop them.’

  I’d been about to say no, but in these circumstances, I felt I was already riding a tiger. I couldn’t dismount now.

  ‘Fine, I’ll come with you,’ I sighed.

  Cop 7 grinned happily, but didn’t leave Mr Toh’s room right away. Instead, he went back to the desk and opened a particular book, pulling out a photograph.

  ‘Is this Toh Sze-keung?’ He handed over the picture, and sure enough, it was Mr Toh. I nodded.

  ‘Easier to get information with a photo.’ He put it into his pocket.

  I’d been about to ask if this was theft, but no doubt he’d just have brought up the state of emergency again. It seems right now that the police are above us ordinary folk, and they can do what they like.

  4

  WE ALSO SEARCHED Sum Chung’s room, but didn’t find anything. Par for the course, I suppose. Around twenty to two, Cop 7 and I left the building. He walked along Spring Garden Lane to Gloucester Road, and I didn’t like to ask why, so I just mutely followed along.

  It turned out he was taking me to Wan Chai Police Station.

  ‘Why... why are we here?’ Although, as the saying goes, you don’t need to be scared of hell unless you’re dead, I didn’t want to walk into the station for no good reason.

  ‘I want to drive to Central,’ said Cop 7. ‘If you don’t want to come in, just wait outside.’

  In order to prevent rioters from attacking the station, the whole place had layers of protection – steel barricades, barbed wire, even sandbags around the entrance. It felt like you could really sense the coming storm in this place. I stood outside an ice-cream parlour at the corner, uncertain how the oppressive sight of these fortifications would affect the people who lived nearby.

  Two minutes later, a white Volkswagen Beetle pulled up in front of me. Cop 7, still dressed like a clerk, waved at me from the driver’s seat.

  ‘You own a car!’ I said, getting in. Although police officers earned a stable salary, wouldn’t it still be quite difficult to afford one of these? Of course, if you skimmed ‘extra income’ off brothels and gambling dens, even a Jaguar would be easy enough to get – but it didn’t seem like Cop 7 was the sort.

  ‘This was second-hand... no, third-hand. I had to save up for two years before I could afford it – I’m still paying it off every month.’ Cop 7 smiled grimly. ‘It breaks down from time to time, and there are days when I have to kick it hard to get the engine to start.’

  I don’t know much about cars, and can’t really tell new from old, first- from second-hand. To me, all privately owned cars are luxurious toys. The tram only costs ten cents, and takes you all the way from Wan Chai to Shau Kei Wan. If you drove that far, the petrol alone would probably cost some astronomical sum.

  Once we got to Central, the traffic was bad around the Bank of China building and the Cricket Court, so we didn’t get to Jubilee Street till almost half past two. I guess the police had shut the roads around the Magistracy and Murray House, creating the snarl-up as everyone tried to take a different route. Although Cop 7’s face remained calm, his fingers drummed incessantly on the steering wheel, so I knew he was agitated – after all, the criminals could be leaving the tea house at that moment, planting their bombs in some secret location.

  Finally, Cop 7 parked and we hurried across the road to Number One Tea House. An enormous green sign stretched across the second and third storey of its facade, topped with a giant thumbs up with the name below. It would have grabbed anyone’s attention, except the Chung Yuen Electrical Company billboard next to it was even larger.

  The ground floor only sold cakes and pastries to take away, so we went upstairs.

  ‘Table for how many?’ asked a middle-aged waiter, teapot in one hand.

  ‘We’re looking for someone,’ answered Cop 7. Hearing this, the waiter took no more interest in us, turning to greet other customers.

  Even though it was already past two thirty, the tea house was full of people – every table seemed noisily occupied. The dim sum girls carried metal trays with shoulder rests, each piled high with stacked bamboo baskets like little hills, steam rising from them. They wandered between the tables calling out their wares, and diners waved them over.

  ‘Toh and the rest might still be here,’ shouted Cop 7 in my ear, struggling to be heard over our noisy surroundings. ‘If they’re preparing for some big operation, with the risk of getting arrested, Chow might want to treat them to a slap-up last meal. You search this floor, I’ll take the one upstairs. If you see them, come up and get me. I don’t think Toh would recognize me looking like this. If they spot you, just say you’re meeting a friend here.’

  I nodded and started squeezing through the narrow gaps between the tables, looking for Toh Sze-keung or Sum Chung. I went all the way around the first floor, but didn’t see them. I then scrutinized every diner, looking for unaccompanied men – perhaps the other two weren’t here yet, and Master Chow was waiting for them. I went from table to table listening to conversations in the hopes of hearing a familiar voice.

  Most of the diners were in couples or groups. There were only four lone men. Just as I was trying to think of some way of getting them to speak so I could hear their voices, one of them called for more tea. He spoke Cantonese with a strong Teochew accent. That ruled him out.

  I found some excuse to talk to the other three – ‘mistaking’ one for someone I knew, asking another if he’d seen something I’d lost. The third one had a wrist watch, so I simply asked for the time. All three sounded different from the man I’d heard ye
sterday. So I went upstairs to see if Cop 7 had done any better.

  Before I even got there, I met him coming down the stairs. He shook his head.

  ‘Haven’t you found your friends yet?’ The same waiter as before, his tone unfriendly. He probably thought we were local ruffians who couldn’t afford to eat there, so we’d just turned up to hang out on the stairs and pretend to be better than we were.

  ‘Police.’ Cop 7 flashed his ID.

  ‘Ah! Sir, you should have said. Sorry if I offended you. Is it for two? Let me show you to a private room...’ His snobbish attitude had reversed completely – he was even starting to bow to us.

  ‘Have you seen this man?’ Cop 7 pulled out the picture of Toh Sze-keung.

  ‘Ah... no. I could ask the other waiters...’

  ‘No need, we’ll do it ourselves. Just don’t get in our way.’

  ‘Yes, of course!’

  Just like a lowly eunuch bumping into the emperor, the waiter scurried away reverentially. Being a police officer certainly opened doors. Even a regular beat cop was not someone most people dared to offend. Perhaps this unfair treatment was adding fuel to the flames, one of the reasons leftists cursed yellow-skinned dogs and opposed the government. I really don’t know.

  ‘Police. Did you see this man after eleven o’clock this morning?’ Cop 7 held his ID and Toh Sze-keung’s photo in the same hand, holding it up to each waiter and dim sum girl in turn. The answers were ‘No’, ‘Not that I noticed’ and ‘I don’t know.’ We did the same thing on the upper floor, with the same result.

  ‘Officer, we have a constant stream of customers. How could we remember any one face? Of course if it was a regular, we’d know them, but I have no memory at all of this man,’ said an elderly dim sum girl – really, she was more of a dim sum auntie.

  ‘Could we have misunderstood the words on the map?’ I asked as we trudged back down to the first floor.

  Cop 7 was about to say something when the toadying waiter came over and asked, ‘Officers, have you found him?’