by Peter Tonkin
‘Good Lord,’ said Gerry, quietly. ‘How on earth are we going to handle this? You think it’ll come out in court, Maggie?’
‘Certain. Probably tomorrow. Where are the notes on Commander Lee’s evidence? Like I said, I have to go through it all again with these new facts in mind.’
‘Listen,’ said Gerry apologetically, ‘is it something that you can do without me? I have to get back. It’s coming up for two a.m. now and Dottie’s not all that well …’
‘That’s all right with me,’ said Maggie. ‘It’s a one-man job anyway, Lata, why don’t you go home with these two? Andrew, is there a bed out back or anything? It’s been a long night so far and it’s nowhere near over yet …’
‘Bedroom with shower ensuite,’ said Andrew. ‘All made up and ready to go. I use it quite often if I have to work late.’
‘That’s fine then. Show me where the papers are and leave me to it.’
*
Andrew followed the other two down to the underground car park but then he walked across to Gerry’s car. Lata followed the two men. All three of them crossed the echoing chamber in silence. They hesitated at the side of Gerry’s big Daimler as though uncertain what to do next. Then, with the possible exception of the speaker, no one seemed particularly surprised when Andrew said, ‘Look, Lata, Gerry … why don’t you two go back down to Repulse Bay together? I can’t really let Maggie slog through this all on her own. It’s just not on. I know where everything is. I’ll stay in case she needs a hand or anything …’
‘That’s her junior’s job,’ snapped Lata, possessively.
‘Perhaps … But you’re not acting with her on this one are you? I couldn’t possibly haul poor old Thong out of his bed at this hour. And anyway, as I said, I know where everything in the office is filed. What if she wants to consult any other sections of the prosecution notes? I know where to look — you don’t.’
Lata still hesitated, until Gerry said quietly, ‘Come on old girl, Maggie can look after herself. What do they say — nobody messes with Maggie unless Maggie wants to be messed? If I know that, you must know that.’
With one fulminating look at the sheepish solicitor, Lata got into Gerry’s car and slammed the door. Gerry hesitated as though he too were about to say something, then he climbed aboard and the big eight-litre saloon purred into motion.
Andrew stood and watched the sleek car pull away into the exit lane then he turned and strode purposefully across to the Aston Martin. He pulled open the door and slid into the driver’s seat, but he allowed the force of his movement to carry his head and shoulders across until he could reach the glove compartment. He unlocked it and pulled it open, rummaged around in it for a few moments, then took out a plain-wrapped little package. He pulled himself upright and looked at what he had found for a moment more, then he said, quite loudly, ‘That’s one I owe you, Jeremy, old man,’ before slipping it into his jacket pocket. Then he climbed out, locked up and marched back towards the building.
*
‘It’s only me,’ he called as he opened the door, and walked through into the office. ‘I thought I’d come back and give you a hand.’
Maggie gave no appearance of having heard him. She had kicked off her shoes and put her feet up on his desk before burying herself in the papers he had found for her. He saw at once that she painted her toe nails. He had not noticed that before — but he had somehow always known that she would do so. Then he noticed a great deal more than her toes. When Robin Mariner had sat in that position some uncalculated time earlier, just before going to her press conference then on out to Kwai Chung, her modesty had only been protected by the fact that she was wearing jeans. Maggie was wearing a short black silk skirt and no tights or stockings. And it so chanced that her legs were of a length to guarantee no modesty was left at all. Andrew stood, suddenly quite breathless, much struck by the manner in which the almost syrup-golden skin on the insides of Maggie’s thighs had a strange, smokey hue somehow reminiscent of her voice. And the higher up those honey columns he allowed his eyes to wander, the smokier, the softer, did that strange, seductive hue become. Perhaps it was the subtle contrast between the flesh itself and the white silk of her underwear that made the topmost curves of her thighs, just where the soft rolls of skin nestled up against the taut web of fabric, seem so much darker and so much more tempting than all the rest.
When he looked up, her eyes were on him and it was as though the air between them were filled with electricity. ‘Now what are we going to do about this?’ she whispered, and he knew she was not talking about Lata’s information and Lee’s testimony.
‘I suggest we make love at once, several times, and see whether that helps,’ he said.
She made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a growl. ‘That sounds like a perfect start,’ she agreed. One naked foot reached up languorously onto the pile of Archbolds with the Hong Kong bar notes lent them by Mr Thong. The skirt’s taut hem slipped up past her hips. She allowed her right arm to fall out on the hinge of her elbow apparently moved by its own weight, and she dropped the testimony of Commander Lee onto the floor. The tip of her tongue caressed dark-shaded lips and her nostrils flared.
Andrew began to shrug off his jacket but somehow his legs would not keep still and his arms could not wait to hold her. As he came towards her she swung round and opened one thigh for him like a turnstile so that he found himself half sitting on his desk, reaching down for her as her legs closed up around him.
It was she, therefore, who slid the jacket back over his shoulders as he did the same for hers. She was lithe and strong enough to keep her lips glued to his even though the chair back was far behind her. He was self-controlled and calm enough to unbutton her blouse without his fingers trembling into clumsiness but they had to break apart for an instant to get rid of his tie because the knot tightened inexorably under her fingers. Then he simply tore his own shirt off, buttons flying, and hurled it aside. The feel of her breasts against his chest, clothed as they were in a still-crisp mesh of lace was the most exciting experience he had ever enjoyed. And it was but the beginning.
She was surprisingly substantial — her chest was deep and powerful for all that her waist was slim — but he straightened with her in his arms easily and she came up towards him, one foot still firmly on the Archbolds. Then, with her arms fastened tight around his neck and her lips still pressed to his, she held herself still while he unzipped her skirt and eased it down below her bottom. When he put her down, she broke her grasp and kicked off against the desk. The big old chair rolled backwards on its castors so that she could kick her skirt free and reach forward for his belt all in one fluid motion. As his trousers came down he reached behind him for his jacket, pulling out of his pocket the little packet from the glove compartment. These were put in the Vantage by a bloke I know called Jeremy,’ he said. ‘He meant it as a sort of a joke.’
‘I love a good joke,’ she said softly. ‘Let me put one on for you.’
When she had done this, she leaned back again, hooked her hands onto the arms of the chair and her feet onto the edge of the table, gimballing up her hips so that her buttocks rose out of the seat of the chair. Andrew reached down and took the waistline of the white silk panties in gentle fingers. As he drew them down she breathed in languorously, hollowing her tummy so that the peaks of her hip-bones stood proud. Then she lowered her hips and pulled one knee close to the other for an instant allowing the silken loop to slide free of one long limb. He pushed the warm, damp material along her left calf thoughtlessly as he pulled her back towards him, and for the next few moments it lay, cooling, across the august black, gold and ox-blood cover of Mr Thong’s Archbold.
*
Mr Thong’s Archbold was on the defence’s table in Courtroom number four of the Supreme Court bright and early next morning, Wednesday, and beside it lay the typescript of Commander Lee’s evidence with copious annotations in Maggie’s decided hand. How these notes had been made and under what circumstances, on
ly Maggie, Andrew and Archbold knew, and none of them was saying anything.
Andrew sat, still dazzled, full of energy, more intensely alive than he had ever been, in the second row, slightly elevated, immediately behind Maggie. Lata fulminated up in the gallery far behind, all too well aware of the subtle changes in Andrew’s and Maggie’s body language — and what these changes revealed. Maggie herself had that rare facility of being able to exclude from her immediate consciousness everything except the matter at hand. And the matter at hand was Commander Lee’s testimony.
‘So, Commander, you are in command of an on-going investigation into smuggling and piracy centred in Hong Kong?’
‘Yes, Mr Po. That is correct. The investigation is centred here, but the smuggling and piracy under investigation take place all around the South China Sea. Some of it right around the Pacific Rim.’
‘So a range of authorities is involved?’
‘Authorities here, in Singapore, in Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Washington — and London, obviously.’
‘No more?’
‘Oh yes, many more. But not on quite such a regular basis.’
‘Very well. Could you please detail this investigation for the court — so far as you are able without compromising it.’
‘Of course. Our investigation has been centred on all the major ports around the South China Sea. We have, during the last decade, placed informants in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Jakarta, Brunei, Manila T’ai-pei, Fukuoka, Kanzanawa, Sapporo, Vladivostok, Pusan and Singapore. It has to be said that the information we gathered in the first few years has all been put in the shade by that which we have managed to gather since nineteen ninety-four. During that time we have observed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the increasingly wide availability on the market of nuclear material up to weapons grade. We have observed the somewhat hesitant process by which North Korea has been accepted into the international system, and its demand for just such fissionable material. We have observed the manner in which China has moved back into the centre of the international arena; with its attempted annexation of the Spratleys, its pressure to make Shanghai the city of the twenty-first century, its, shall we say, individual relations with the United States. We have seen the burgeoning growth of a range of pirated materials from Rolex watches to Rolls-Royce engine parts; from Filipino tobacco to a range of hard-core pornography; from counterfeit currency of all sorts and denominations to small arms and claymore mines dug up in North Vietnam; from Walt Disney videos to the latest designer drugs.’
‘My Lord?’ Maggie rose, apparently deep in thought.
‘Ms DaSilva?’
‘If I may …’
‘Of course …’
‘Thank you My Lord. Now Commander, how, do you believe, this contraband is transported around such a wide area?’
‘Well, I …’ Commander Lee was thrown off his stride and not a little flustered by the unexpectedly abrupt question.
‘Yes, Commander?’
‘Our information posits the existence of a series of ghost containers which move from port to port but are never checked by customs officials.’
‘Posits, Commander?’
‘We have never actually got hold of such a container with the contraband intact.’
‘But unless it contains contraband, one container is like any other, surely?’
‘Indeed.’
‘So, after the better part of a decade of investigation, you now tell the court that you guess that among the millions of containers moving around the Pacific Rim, there may be a couple which might contain contraband?’
‘More than a couple. On a regular basis. As part of a preprepared smuggling network. And we are amassing proof.’
‘A smuggling network being run by Captain Richard Mariner?’
‘Well no …’
‘But you believe that the China Queens ships were somehow involved?’
‘Yes.’
‘And do you have any proof of this?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘You have impounded the cargo of the Sulu Queen. Are the containers anywhere in this cargo?’
‘No, they are not.’
‘So you have no proof that the Sulu Queen was ever carrying these supposed containers.’
‘We have not.’
‘But you are suggesting that the containers were aboard when the ship left Singapore.’
‘Yes.’ The Commander was sweating now, more than a little bemused by the speed at which Maggie was moving.
‘So you must suppose that someone came aboard and removed the containers before Mr Huuk and his men went aboard.’
‘Yes.’
‘So why can it not be the case that these people committed the murders of which my client stands accused?’
‘The forensic evidence proves that the accused was intimately involved with the murders.’
‘And therefore with these mysterious pirates who came aboard and removed the containers.’
‘That is so.’
‘You are asking the court to believe that Captain Richard Mariner, a pillar of the British shipping community is closely associated with China Seas pirates?’
‘Perhaps not the accused himself. Not directly …’
‘Then, perhaps by his associate known as Anna Leung?’
‘Well …’ There was something in the Commander’s tone which made Maggie look up, her eyes bright with revelation. She caught her breath.
‘Thank you, Commander,’ she said, and sat.
Mr Po frowned as he stood to resume his examination, for he could not quite see what Maggie had gained from her cross examination. He would have frowned more deeply, perhaps had he been privy to the message Maggie passed to Andrew. ‘Anna Leung was probably a police informer. Tell Robin on the noon radio link.’
*
At noon on Wednesday, Robin was sixty hours into her 120-hour voyage, and feeling very much on top of things when Andrew’s information on their midday radio contact turned everything upside-down. In that intense, five-minute conversation he redirected her attention to the containers and their contents and revolutionised the way she thought about the mysterious secrecy of the China Queens Company. She had spent most of her time so far settling in and reacquainting herself with the ropes — literally as well as figuratively — and had made only a relatively cursory exploration of the ship and its cargo, so far, but she had found opportunity to be in most places aboard and to check most things. She had checked the outsides of all the containers easily reached and planned to try and get inside one or two as soon as she had the chance.
She reckoned she had done as much as might reasonably be expected of a busy first officer with a full range of duties, catching up on a certain amount of missed sleep.
Robin had, in fact, enjoyed two good nights’ sleep so far, in so far as the catnaps she had been able to fit round the 00:00 to 04:00 watch counted as a good night’s sleep. As with most first officers in her situation, she tried to sleep between 21:30 and 23:30, then from 04:30 to 08:30. Perhaps this did not count as a good night’s sleep in the head, but in the heart it certainly did. It was incredible to her just how quickly she stepped back into the old, familiar shipboard ways. In fact she had not felt so well-rested since she had slept like a baby, alongside her own babies, on the Isle of Skye.
Robin loved the middle watch for she could sit there, alone, at the centre of the illimitable night, observing the slow spin of the constellations, keeping careful lookout for signs and signals of danger nearby and making up the careful logs of the state of sky and sea. These watches were balm to her troubled soul on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights as the Seram Queen ploughed carefully north-west across the South China Sea. The British Admiralty China Sea Pilot (Volume 1) warned her against scorpion fish, stone fish, stingrays, barracudas ‘considered the most dangerous of fish’, sharks, moray eels ‘particularly dangerous in April to May, their breeding season’ — an uplifting thought this early in June — and ‘a spe
cies of jellyfish, whose sting can cause death’. Robin was not looking forward to the first lifeboat practice which would probably bring her into all too close association with these particular dangers.
The Pilot also took time to describe the beautiful bioluminescence which had followed the ship, and occasionally surrounded her, on the voyage so far. But it had not mentioned the silver-sided tuna which could leap — individually, or in shoals which looked like the surf on an uncharted reef — out of the water around the bow. It did not mention the gleaming, oiled-steel dolphin which sported in the bow wave then peeled away like Battle of Britain Spitfires to hunt the gleaming tuna. Alone to think, and glad enough of the unaccustomed leisure, Robin turned recent events over and over in her mind, trying to look at it all from a new perspective, one which would give that extra gleam of light which would unearth a hidden clue like a diamond hidden in ice.
And, each dawn, when she awoke again, still locked safely in her cabin, still stark but cool though more often than not wildly entangled in the now twisted rag of a sheet, she moved to put her thoughts into the first stages of action. Her days were apparently full of the normal bustle which filled the routine existence of any first officer. She had safety checks to make — she was responsible for all the lifesaving equipment and needed to be sure that it was in full working order for the strict series of drills Captain Sin never quite bothered to call. She saw that the quietly competent Sam Yung had completed all his duties, though he seemed mildly surprised when she checked his emergency lists and lifeboat disposition lists twice. Wai Chan remained grudging if not quite obstructionist in his reaction to her checking on his work. It was with him that she went through the pre-set channels on all the two-way radios aboard, and checked that they were in place, powered up and working at optimum.
She was also responsible for the safe bestowal of the cargo, above decks and below. As lading officer, she had to ensure that the weight of the cargo put the hull in no danger and guaranteed its most economically efficient movement through the ocean. She was also responsible for ensuring that nothing in one container could possibly contaminate, or otherwise damage anything in any neighbouring containers. The sickly First Officer Chin Lau seemed to have been an efficient lading officer — if his records actually accorded with the disposition of the containers. The only way to check that was for Robin to choose a random selection and open them for inspection. In most ships she had served upon, and on any ship she had commanded, the captain would have insisted that the lading officer completed these duties in very short order, for the captain was ultimately responsible for the safety of the hull and the economic consumption of bunkerage. But Captain Sin was somehow uninterested, or otherwise engaged, or he simply didn’t care to have his strange first officer poking around in the cargo.
