The Wild Beasts of Wuhan

by Ian Hamilton

  “Then I think it is worth pursuing. It should not take more than two or three days, and it will show Wong May Ling that you have taken your commitment to her seriously.”

  “Seriously enough that I’m going to phone her in a few hours and tell her it’s time she called you to settle on a fee.”

  “You are that confident?”

  “No, of course not. You know I don’t take things for granted. But on the chance that I can get some money back, I want to have an agreement in place. It’s just good business, and May Ling knows all about good business.”

  “When will you leave?”

  “Today. I just need to put a flight schedule together. I have no idea how to get from here to there. My agent is still up, so I’m going to contact her when I hang up with you.”

  “Let me know your schedule. We will take you to the airport.”

  Ava had been using the same travel agent for years, and even in the age of online bookings she liked the assurance of having someone cover her back if she ran into problems. Squabbling with airlines was not on her list of favourite activities. She emailed her new destination and asked for options.

  Half an hour later she had a reply. She couldn’t get to Skagen by air; the closest airport was Aalborg, about an hour’s drive away. Every schedule to Aalborg involved at least two stops, and all of them landed her via the same local carrier at 11:20 the following night, so it came down to airline and airport preference. She opted for Lufthansa and a Hong Kong–Frankfurt–Copenhagen–Aalborg route because it was a few hours’ less flying time.

  Ava told her agent to book the flight, check her into an Aalborg airport hotel, and rent a car for her for the following day.

  She phoned Uncle. “My flight is at one forty. Could you pick me up at eleven?”

  “We will be there.”

  She made herself a cup of Starbucks VIA instant coffee and collected the South China Morning Post that was waiting for her at the door. Iran. Afghanistan. Pakistan. North Korea. Thailand in some kind of upheaval again. On the cruise she hadn’t missed reading about any of it.

  She thought about going for a run, but a quick look outside negated that idea. The sky was dark, the rain pelting down sideways as it crossed Victoria Harbour. Instead she emailed Mimi, Maria, and her father to let them know about her change in travel plans. She knew Maria would be disappointed and would start to worry again, so she stressed the urgency of the business that kept her away from Canada.

  At ten o’clock she called May Ling on her direct office line. Briefing clients was a tricky business. Uncle believed it was always best to under-inform, to keep expectations to a minimum. If anything, Ava was even more closed.

  “Ava, I was hoping to hear from you.”

  “I’m leaving Hong Kong in a few hours. I have a small lead I’m following up on.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Does it have anything to do with the banking information I gave you?”

  “That was very helpful, thanks.”

  “You must be making progress of some kind.”

  “Actually, we managed to confirm that two more of your paintings are genuine. Someone from Harrington’s will probably contact you today with the details.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with your leaving?”

  “No,” Ava said. “I have a small lead I have to follow up on. And I want to repeat the word small. It may come to absolutely nothing.”

  “When will you know?”

  “A couple of days.”

  “And if it comes to something?”

  “It would be a piece of the puzzle, nothing more than that. Certainly nothing conclusive.”

  “And you can’t tell me?”

  “It’s better if I don’t. There are too many ifs attached to it.”

  “And if it comes to nothing?”

  “Then my work for you is done.”

  “I hope not.”

  Me too, Ava thought, and then said, “I’ll call you when I know something definite.”

  She was packing her bags when she got a call from the lobby. Uncle was early. She quickly organized the rest of her things and rode the elevator to the lobby, where Uncle was waiting for her.

  “I spoke to May Ling and told her about the other two paintings being genuine,” she said as the car eased out of Central.

  “What was her reaction?”

  “Hardly enthusiastic.”

  “The fakes are weighing more heavily on them.”

  “I also told her I was leaving Hong Kong, but I didn’t say where or why.”

  “Wise.”

  “I also think you shouldn’t call her about our fee — she’ll read too much into that. Let’s wait until I see what happens in Denmark. There’s no point in even talking about money unless I can find this Sandman.”

  “I agree.”

  “I arrive late tomorrow night, their time, so I won’t know anything until the next day at the earliest. Have you been to Denmark?”

  “No. They make good beer — that is all I know,” Uncle said. “I do not imagine we have any people there, but I will see who is close by.”

  “I don’t think I’ll need any people. These are artists and art agents and galleries I’m dealing with.”

  “You never know.”

  ( 14 )

  It reminded her of Vancouver — the Aalborg weather, that is. Cold, damp, lingering. It had been wet when she arrived the night before on the Cimber Sterling flight from Copenhagen, and it was the same in the morning as she rode a taxi back to the airport to get her rental car. The airport had been deserted and the rental booths shuttered when her flight arrived, so she had taxied to the Hotel Hvide Hus, where she spent most of the night wide awake, wondering exactly what she expected to find in Skagen.

  The car rental opened at eight and Ava was there ten minutes later. The woman behind the counter was dour, almost grim, her conversation devoid of pleasantries. Ava had booked a BMW but there wasn’t one available; the woman informed her she was getting a Saab. Ava had asked for a GPS system; the woman said she didn’t need one, but Ava argued with her to get it.

  The drive did turn out to be simple, almost a straight run on route E45, from Aalborg northeast to the coast and then north past Frederikshavn to Skagen, at the northernmost tip of the Danish peninsula. The countryside — what she could see of it through the mist and rain — was mainly marsh. The villages she passed, their homes and shops pressed tightly against the road, were uniform and neat: rows of brick houses, red tile roofs, and lace curtains hanging in almost every window.

  She drove into Skagen at ten thirty, found the downtown area easily enough, and parked her car in a public lot that held only one other vehicle. As she got out she had a feeling of déjà vu. She could have been in downtown Banff, minus the Rocky Mountains. Skagen had the same touristy feel, its main street lined with souvenir shops, coffeehouses, boutiques, dainty restaurants, and, in this case, art galleries. She counted four within sight and headed for the nearest one. It was time to jump into the haystack.

  A middle-aged blonde woman with a heaving chest was fussing with a group of small paintings. She took a glance at Ava and then turned back to what she was doing. There was no one else in the gallery. Ava stood, staring, waiting. The woman ignored her. Finally Ava said, “Can you help me?”

  “The prices are on the works,” the woman said in heavily accented English.

  “That’s not the kind of help I’m looking for.”

  “Then what can I do?”

  “Do you know a painter called Jimmy Sandman?” Ava said to her back.

  “We called him Jimmy the Sandman,” she said.

  Ava hadn’t expected it to be so easy. Then she noted the past tense. “Excus
e me, did you say ‘called’? Has something happened to him?”

  The woman finally turned towards Ava, a look of mild surprise on her face when she actually looked at her. Is it because I’m Chinese? Ava thought. Is it the Adidas jacket and pants?

  “Yes, he left town.”

  “He moved away?”

  “Years ago.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “No.”

  “Does he have any friends, any relatives in Skagen I could speak with?”

  “Jimmy was a strange man. Not many people wanted to talk to him, let alone be friends with him.”

  “There must have been someone. Another painter, maybe.”

  Ava watched as the woman searched her memory, almost painfully. “He and Jasper drank together sometimes.”

  “Jasper who?”

  “Kasten.”

  “And where would I find Jasper Kasten?”

  “At the Skaw.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The Skaw.”

  “I did hear you. I just don’t what the Skaw is.”

  “Come with me,” the woman said, walking towards the door. She opened it and pointed to the left.

  “See that hill at the end of street? If you climb it you can look down on the Skaw. Jasper goes there every morning to paint.”

  “How will I recognize him?”

  “He wears a red anorak.”

  The rain had thankfully let up, but the closer Ava got to the hill, the brisker the wind. It was a good ten-minute walk, which she found invigorating. Steps had been built into the side of the hill, which was actually an enormous sand dune. Up she went, leaning into the wind, glad she had worn her running gear. A roaring noise was coming from the other side of the dune, and the closer she got to the top the louder it got. She couldn’t imagine that it was just waves rolling in; the wind wasn’t that strong.

  She spotted Jasper Kasten squatting on a camp stool, a canvas on an easel in front of him. His back was to her, his focus on the scene below: a huge expanse of beach. But it wasn’t the beach that seemed to hold his attention, and very quickly she saw why. The sea beyond was being whipped into some kind of frenzy, the water spewing into the air like a geyser. The roar she was hearing came from the same source, but now that she was closer she could hear a distinct screech coming from what seemed to be the centre of the geyser.

  The cloud cover had broken, streaks of blue now appearing where there had been only a grey shroud. The clouds were moving quickly, leaving gaps for the sun to peek out, and when it did, it created a pattern of rainbows over the water. Ava was a city girl, most comfortable when she had concrete under her feet, but even she found the seascape breathtaking.

  He didn’t hear her coming and she had to move into his line of vision to get his attention. He looked up, annoyed. He had pale blue eyes, thin lips, a pointed chin, and huge jug ears. “Mr. Kasten?” she said.

  “Do I know you?” he asked in English, his manner easing.

  “No, I was referred to you by one of the women in town.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  “I’m looking for someone and they said you might be able to help me.”

  “Who?”

  “Jimmy the Sandman.”

  “Good God, I haven’t heard that name in a while.”

  “So you know him?”

  “Of course,” he said, looking out at the sea as if he had already lost interest in the conversation. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ava said.

  “That there on the right, that is the Kattegat strait. It flows up from the southeast and the Strait of Denmark. And there on the left, that is the Skagerrak. It comes from the North Sea. They meet here, crashing into each other in some kind of perpetual war, neither of them ever making headway, just smash, smash, smash in futility. Some days are better than others. Today is almost perfect. The wind is strong; the light flickers.”

  She looked at his painting. “You come here every day?”

  “I do.”

  “And you paint the same thing?”

  “It is never the same. That’s why I find it so beautiful.”

  “I was told Jimmy painted scenes like this too.”

  “He painted this one, except he couldn’t resist sticking in those ridiculous characters of his.”

  “On driftwood?”

  “Yeah, the crazy bastard.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You would have thought he’d invented the idea of painting on driftwood. He used to scour this beach every morning looking for what the tide had brought in. He used to go nuts if anyone else got there first or was looking when he was. There was more than one fight down there.”

  “Do you know what happened to him?”

  “Why are you interested?”

  “I’m looking for him. It’s business-related.”

  “Business? That’s a word I’d never associate with him.”

  “Do you know what happened?”

  “He left.”

  “When?”

  “Four or five years ago.”

  “Why?”

  “His wife, I think. She found it too crowded here.”

  “Crowded?” Ava said in disbelief.

  “In the summer we get overrun by those fucking German tourists, but most of the time it’s like this. Me, a couple of other painters, and a few guys on the beach throwing sticks for dogs to chase. The wife was a bit of a nut job, used to nag him something awful. Though when you think about all the kids she had to look after, maybe she had a reason.”

  “Do you know where they went?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think anyone you know would know?”

  “I don’t know him, but Jimmy had a brother in Hirtshals.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Ronny. He owns a fish plant, Sørensen Fiske. It’s right on the main pier in Hirtshals.”

  “Is that far from here?”

  “Straight west about forty kilometres. Just follow the concrete bunkers.”

  “Bunkers?”

  “During the Second World War the Germans dotted this entire coastline with them, to defend themselves against an attack that never came. The walls are so thick we can’t rip them down. That’s why some of the fuckers come back here every summer — to relive the old glory days.”

  “Thanks for the help,” she said, not particularly wanting to hear a rant about the Second World War; she’d heard them often enough when Chinese spoke about the Japanese. Different continent, different occupiers, same hatred.

  ( 15 )

  She punched Sørensen Fiske into her GPS and up it popped, a half-hour drive if she kept to the speed limit.

  Hirtshals was smaller still than Skagen, and she had no trouble wending her way through town to the harbour. There was one large jetty that, according to signs in Danish and English, handled ferry traffic. The others seemed devoted to fishing boats. Ava was surprised to see so many of them in port. Around the outer perimeter of the harbour were a number of what looked like fish plants, and at the far end she saw the sign sørensen fiske.

  She parked the car at the far end of the harbour lot and started to cover the two hundred or so metres to the plant. She had walked about a hundred metres when the smell first became noticeable. She couldn’t identify it at first, but the closer she got to the plant, the more intense it became. And then she realized what it was: urine.

  She gagged and began to breathe through her mouth. Every four or five breaths she would try her nose again, hoping the odour had abated. It just got worse — the raw, overpowering smell of piss. She felt as though she were walking in a cloud of it and the pale overhead sun was causing it to ripple
up from the pavement. It reminded her of a street corner, a block from her hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, that served as a toilet for street vendors and drunks. She had to walk past the corner twice a day, and she could smell the urine from at least twenty metres. Ho Chi Minh was child’s play compared to Hirtshals.

  She was breathing entirely through her mouth when she got to a wide-open plant door, from which the urine smell was obviously escaping. She looked inside and saw six men labouring. They were picking up grey fish that looked like small five-pound torpedoes. They lifted each one by the tail and then drove the head onto a spike that was attached to a bench. They then cut across the back of the fish’s neck, gripped the skin with pliers, and ripped it off.

  All the men were in rubber boots and overalls. None of them of them wore shirts. Their chests were massive, their forearms even bigger. One of them spotted Ava standing in the doorway and yelled something at her in Danish.

  She stepped inside, trying not to breathe. “I don’t speak Danish,” she said.

  “We already have a Chinaman who buys our fins,” he said in English.

  “I don’t want to buy fins.”

  “And we have a contract in the U.K. for all the meat.”

  “I don’t want the meat.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I’m looking for Ronny Sørensen.”

  “He’s in the office,” he said, pointing to a cubicle on the right.

  She walked to the door and knocked. She heard something in Danish and assumed it was Come in.

  A short, fat, bald man looked up at her when she opened the door. “Erik told you, our fins are all sold,” he said.

  “Are you Ronny Sørensen?”

  “I am.”

  “My name is Ava Lee. I’m trying to locate your brother, Jimmy.”

  “You mean Jan?”

  “Yes, the one and the same.”

  “Why?”

  “Business.”

  “Jan doesn’t do business.”

  “Painting business.”

  “That’s not business. This is business,” he said, motioning to the plant.