China Wife

by Hedley Harrison

  Both the Shis had heard about the various raids on the farms in Lincolnshire and Kim’s hasty retreat after the latest one. Mr Shi had also heard about the police raid in Melbourne and Mr Xu’s increasing focus on the women trafficking side of his business. As he waited for his wife to say more, he was at least honest enough to acknowledge that he had benefited from the trafficking of high-value women! And he had every intention of further exploiting his wife’s capabilities, even if he was never likely to acknowledge them to her, to his continuing benefit.

  ‘I think that there must be better ways of working with the people in Britain without Kim and Xu. Their approach is too crude.’

  Her husband agreed, again not that he would have said so, but he in his turn felt the beginnings of a grudging respect for his wife’s power of analysis. That they might make a very good working partnership as yet was a thought too far for his rather austere, self-focused and masculine mind.

  As a consequence, he didn’t share the knowledge that Mr Kim had apparently gone to ground after the Melbourne raid, presumably on Mr Xu’s instructions, which relieved Mr Shi of the need to consider Kim in his plans any further. It also gave his wife an enhanced and leading role, but he had no plans to tell her that either until the need arose.

  Mr Shi didn’t trust his wife with organising dinners for his business associates. Food was one of the areas where he knew that his wife was never going to meet his requirements. How could she? Born and bred in Manchester and fed on junk food during her brief career in Edinburgh, she had no more idea about putting together a traditional Chinese meal than any other of the ex-Canadian, UK or Brazilian purchased trophy wives. It was a weakness in the trafficking system that was recognised by both sellers and buyers. Her mother-in-law, with whom she had immense difficulty in communicating, was always drafted in when something special was needed. Why feeding the objectionable Mr Xu with something special was necessary was beyond her comprehension.

  Being instrumental in bringing her to China, Xu regarded Linda Shen with a contempt that he only reined in because of her husband’s powerful patronage and unforgiving nature. A misogynist by nature and incapable of any sort of physical relationship with a woman, Mr Xu’s dealings with her were minimal and, much to her amusement, confined to the most trivial or banal matters. Wheelchair bound though he was, she felt no pity for him and generally avoided any necessity of helping him manoeuvre himself around the confines of her home except in circumstances where he was obliged to ask her to. She was well aware that seeking her help did nothing to endear her to him.

  When one such passage occurred between Xu and herself as the latter arrived, with his principal henchman, Li Qiang, Linda was struck by the contempt that showed in her husband’s face. As the expression converted into a frozen smile of welcome, she realised that the contempt was not for her but for the man that he was greeting. Her feeling that her husband was no more a fan of Xu than she was was very clearly confirmed.

  But Mr Xu in his turn understood his syndicate associate very well. What made Mr Shi superior to him, apart from his much greater wealth, was the sort of subtle underlying class distinction that was understood by everybody, if not always acknowledged. Xu was a facilitator – he made things happen for people like Mr Shi and his other associates and clients; he got his hands dirty, no questions asked. He wasn’t a principal and never would be, however successful or rich he became.

  The dinner at the Shis’ was a very good dinner. Linda watched and listened as her husband managed the conversation around to the outcomes he was seeking to achieve. She was very impressed, despite herself; complex negotiations were something that she had been trained for and which she was good at and she recognised her husband’s skill. Encouraging Xu to concentrate on the high-margin end of women trafficking came over to the man himself as an endorsement of a sound business opportunity. Sensing that Mr Shi was not really interested in participating in this activity, Mr Xu was only too happy to take it on without him. Freezing Xu out of the high-cash-flow labour trafficking came over to him as sensibly exiting a risky and hazardous business activity that was under constant pressure worldwide from a whole range of authorities. Xu saw himself as better off not engaged in this area. Mr Shi’s capabilities as a salesman and negotiator were recognised by Li Qiang but he felt no obligation to risk his colleague’s anger by pointing out what was happening. The rationalisation that women trafficking was low risk and hadn’t yet attracted the same interest from the various authorities around the world as the labour trafficking had made enough sense to Mr Li for him to manage his conscience. None of the diners had yet realised that this rationalisation was no longer true.

  ‘That was well done.’

  Linda’s remark was made in the relaxed after-dinner atmosphere that signalled that her husband was well satisfied with his evening’s work. Aware that she had contributed significantly to this success, he mellowed his manner sufficiently for his wife to recognise the softening.

  She accepted his nod of appreciation with a flashing smile; the thought that they might make a good working partnership moved a step closer towards his conscious mind.

  Already possessed of an heir, Mr Shi’s lovemaking was infrequent and erratic. Surprisingly for a man of his nature, it was, however, never rough or forceful. This night his wife struggled to maintain her detachment from it; his lovemaking was also very skilful.

  20

  While Julie’s problems multiplied as a result of Alice’s unexpected display of feelings towards her, and as her companion settled herself comfortably against her, she still had time to review how things had developed and about her working relationship with Mr Kim. How long his shopping trip would be Julie had no idea.

  If he really didn’t trust her, he would have just killed her and found another way of handling Alice. That seemed self-evident to Julie.

  But what motivated Kim was still the most important issue for Julie. Although she had no idea what hold his Chinese masters had over him, his seeming fear of them didn’t strike her as entirely rational. But what was clear to her was that she had to manage every contact with him as an independent event and not carry the conclusions from one contact on to the next. It was going to be challenging and wearing but, she decided, the safest way forward. Necessarily cast adrift by her new Security Service bosses, Julie had no choice but to get along with Mr Kim.

  Thinking back to the meeting with him a few days after her introduction to him at the Queen Victoria Market, she recognised that that was the beginning of the working relationship, but at the point that they were at in Echuca it was also still work in progress.

  Mr Xu wouldn’t have called himself a traditionalist, although he would have admitted to being old-fashioned. His initial reservations about employing Julie Li stemmed first from her being a woman and then from the too neat a way that she had come to Kim Lee Sung’s notice. A traditionalist simply wouldn’t have employed a woman; being old-fashioned, his thought processes required that he be given evidence of her capabilities, not just be expected to rely on a description of them.

  But Mr Xu, anchored in Shanghai by a body whose lower half no longer functioned, was dependent on Kim to provide the evidence that tested both Kim’s own advocacy of Julie and her true capabilities. Setting up a process for this verification before Julie was accepted was typical of the caution that Mr Xu applied to anything new or beyond his experience. Only when she finally played her part in the kidnap of Alice Hou was Xu as confident in her as one of his essentially suspicious nature was ever likely to be

  ‘Treasury Gardens.’

  A circle on a map that Julie had left on the seat at the Spring Street breakfast restaurant a couple of days after Alan had procured her contact with Kim, along with a flyer for a lecture at a one-day exhibition of Aboriginal art at the gallery next door, told the Australian Security Service date, time and place of the next contact.

  ‘Track Julie, not Kim,’ was Alan’s instruction to the watchers.

  In ter
ms of city parks, the Treasury Gardens were a fairly modest oasis in the middle of an area dominated by the Victorian Parliament and other official buildings. They were readily accessible by tram or Metro, but arrival by either required Julie to show herself fairly obviously unless she chose to approach the Gardens other than via the city centre.

  She did; Kim assumed that she would.

  Why did they have to play these stupid games? Julie asked herself. Why didn’t they just tell her to meet them at Cook’s Cottage; it was a tourist magnet, so they’d hardly be noticed.

  But of course she knew that the point about the Treasury Gardens rather than the Fitzroy Gardens was that they were very open, with only a limited number of trees to hide behind.

  Skirting around the city centre to approach the Gardens from the east challenged Julie’s still-rudimentary knowledge of the geography of Melbourne. But it was only when she was well down Lansdowne Street that she detected both of the men following her. They weren’t Security Service, she was sure of that; she was most unlikely to have detected them if they had been.

  Ambling unhurriedly on to the grass, she headed for one of the broader trees and put it between her and the men following her. Staying within the tree’s shadow she accelerated towards a bench at the edge of the Gardens that backed on to Spring Street and awaited developments.

  It was then that she saw Mr Kim walking up the Spring Street towards her. It was also then that she saw the first Chinese man hurriedly break out from the small area of bushes beside the government buildings and scurry in her direction. Sensing that he was no threat, she ignored Kim.

  How the second Chinese man got to her so quickly she didn’t have time to consider; she was immediately set upon by both of them.

  Grabbing at her shoulder bag gave the attack an appearance of an attempted robbery. Julie held on to her bag with her left hand and with an instinctive burst of aggression bred of her regular karate training she kicked the nearest man to her heavily in the crotch; he backed away, his silent mouthing in agony telling Julie that he would be much more cautious in any further attack. Surprised by Julie’s powerful reaction, the second man hesitated, braced himself and squared up to her. As Julie clutched her bag more tightly to her the man feinted, moved forward and then hesitated again. Then he cast an enquiring glance past her, shrugged, turned and ran off. The first attacker limped painfully after him.

  The flicker in the man’s eyes alerted Julie, but as she turned she was too late to see Mr Kim’s gesture of dismissal.

  ‘Very good!’

  Julie could read nothing into the slightly mocking statement, nor into Kim’s face as he made it, but she sensed that he hadn’t been expecting her reaction to be so vigorous and as a consequence she had passed some sort of test. Kim showed no interest in whether she might have been injured in the attack.

  The obviously contrived nature of the episode led the Security Service watchers to the same conclusion as Julie; she was being tested out. Since Mr Kim didn’t abandon the meeting, it was assumed that she had passed the test.

  Kim gestured Julie to follow him.

  If Julie hadn’t been able to fathom why Kim was testing her in the Treasury Gardens, the purpose of the time that she next spent with him in a pre-booked room in a hotel on the other side of Spring Street was very clear.

  The room was equipped with a dining table and two chairs and set up with a laptop computer, so it was immediately obvious that she was to be interviewed again. Gesturing her to sit at the table in front of the open laptop, Kim reached across her and with far more dexterity than she would have given him credit for he opened up communication with an elderly but hard-faced Chinese man who confronted her in surroundings that spoke of luxury but gave no clue as to their whereabouts. The man’s immobility immediately attracted Julie; he seemed only to be able to move from the waist up. Since he was sitting close up to webcam, she couldn’t see that he was in a wheelchair. Whether there was anyone else in the room with the man Julie had no way of knowing.

  ‘Miss Li,’ the man said, ‘my name is Xu, but you need not bother yourself about that. This is the only time that you will see or speak to me.’

  The expression that fleetingly scurried across the old man’s face suggested that even this was more contact than he would have preferred to have had.

  Julie said nothing. Xu probably didn’t even notice. He simply continued with what he intended to say.

  ‘Mr Kim says that you are being hunted by the British authorities. My contacts tell me that the search for you has spread to Australia and that you are in danger of being arrested and returned to the UK for trial. This is an outcome that I would not want to occur. Your knowledge of the UK Immigration Control systems will be very useful to me and I do not wish to lose it.’

  The first thought that developed in Julie’s brain was how unbelievably pompous the old man seemed to be despite his near-perfect English; the second thought was that she didn’t believe a word of what he had said about wanting her useful knowledge of UK Immigration. How could he have exploited that in Australia?

  She didn’t move. She just stared back at the screen, fully aware that Xu could see her every change of facial expression. The gentle noises behind her suggested that Kim had stretched out on the bed and was switched off from what was going on.

  ‘But before we avail ourselves of your expertise we have a task for you. You should pay particular attention to what I am going to ask you to do. Kim will not trust you until you prove that you can be trusted. Mr Kim’s distrust can be very painful to those who attract it.’

  Julie didn’t doubt it; that Mr Kim had a sadistic streak she could easily imagine.

  What Julie was asked to do led her to an attic in Little Bourke Street and a modern riverboat at Echuca. The importance of Alice’s virginity and the need to protect it was never mentioned. The need to ensure that Alice was fit and healthy equally wasn’t mentioned explicitly. As far as Julie could discern, Alice was merely a commodity to Mr Xu, albeit a valuable one. What she would be required to do once it was time to move on from Echuca didn’t figure in her instructions either.

  However, there was clarity on one point.

  ‘If we have any reason to doubt your loyalty, or if you seek to contact anybody other than those people you are instructed to contact, you will be killed.’

  It was a statement made in the most chillingly conversational manner that Julie had ever heard. She had absolutely no doubt that Mr Xu meant it and that Mr Kim would willingly kill her if he was required to do so.

  No response was called for from Julie throughout the whole of the interview.

  As the link was severed and the laptop screen went blank, Kim unwound himself from the bed, gave Julie instructions for the Little Bourke Street action and then gestured her to the door.

  It was only some minutes later as she walked through into the atrium of the buildings fronting on to Collins Street and settled to a strong coffee that she relaxed enough to go into a panic.

  Jesus, fucking Christ; what have I got myself into? I’m a trained investigator, not some modern-day version of Wonder Woman.

  But if she didn’t know what it was all about, the urbane man who had been sitting on the other side of the chairman from Alan at her original security service interview, and who had been listening in on the conversation she had just had with Xu, had a far better idea. The Australian Security Service, briefed by partners in the UK and China, had a clear enough view of some parts of the trafficking activities that Julie was being drawn into; what they didn’t know was how it all hung together, how it was controlled, who the key players like Mr Xu actually were, and, what was driving the kidnapping of the middle/professional-class and educated women. That this marginal activity was linked to the mainstream of labour and sex-trade trafficking they knew full well. How far these linkages went in terms of the Chinese mainland criminal fraternity, and, more importantly, how far they reached into the corrupt underbelly of Chinese officialdom, was a question
that Julie’s activities, it was hoped, would give the beginnings of an answer to.

  The problem for the authorities in Beijing and elsewhere was that the apparent role of the trafficked high-value women, which appeared to relate to circumventing China’s strict immigration and emigration rules, just did not seem to merit the elaborate processes by which they were being captured and trafficked to China.

  The consensus among the elite group of public servants around the world, which now included Susie Peveral, was that they were clearly missing something very basic. The clues were there. The UK immigration system was accumulating a growing log of movements between China and Britain, not just of Mr Kim, but also of Linda Shen and a number of other young Chinese women. The concentration was on the movements and the activities that followed in the UK; it would take time for people to think back up the linking train of events that preceded the movements. In the complex web of security, people trafficking and like activities, joined-up thinking was extremely difficult to achieve. The common theme of money was recognised, even if it wasn’t yet clear which of the manifestations of illicit money acquisition and management was the key one here.

  The one prevailing feeling that remained with Mr Xu after his conversation with Julie, or at least his monologue in front of her since she didn’t open her mouth, was undoubtedly good old-fashioned scepticism.

  ‘Kim will need to watch that one very carefully,’ he said to his companion.

  ‘And you trust Kim?’

  The question was in Mandarin. Mr Xu didn’t distrust Kim as much as most, but generally he didn’t trust anybody.

  ‘No.’

  The chuckle from Xu’s companion, who had been sitting in on the video-conference out of Julie’s sight, said that he understood the old man all too well. The members of the tight syndicate of commodity suppliers that they were a part of undoubtedly didn’t even trust one other.