Bad Seed

by Alan Carter

  Cato woke early and went to find the Bund. The day was humid and a milky-white sun hung behind a jaundiced veil of ozone. In the street, the smell of cooking oil mingled with petrol fumes and something overripe. Along the way, Nanjing Road became a pedestrian mall. It was throbbing: huge department stores already opening their doors, office and shop workers on their way somewhere, old and middle-aged couples waltzing to Chinese love songs, and a handful of western tourists capturing everything on their cameras and phones, even the quiet, intimate moments of complete strangers. Then suddenly there it was, the Bund, wider and more open than he had imagined. It was Shanghai’s iconic landmark, according to the travel guides he’d scanned in transit. The solid and grand nineteenth-century architecture of the old bank, shipping, and insurance buildings reminded him of visits to Liverpool, Manchester and other European cities from a bygone age. And along the wide, muddy brown swirl of the Huangpu huge industrial barges chugged, belching smoke as they must have done for a century or more. By contrast Pudong, across the river, definitely belonged to the future; the space-age architecture was right out of The Jetsons. So this is Shanghai, thought Cato, old meets new, east meets west – simple really. A clock atop one of the old buildings struck the hour, eight, tolling out a tune that was unmistakably Chinese and vaguely martial in tone. Cato strolled the length of the Bund and back without being bothered by any touts, as the anglo Westerners were. Descending the steps into Bund Park he passed the bronze statue of Chairman Mao beneath which tourists posed for happy snaps.

  On his return to the hotel, Lara emerged from her room freshly showered and flushed from exercise.

  ‘Run or gym?’ said Cato.

  ‘Both, they have a treadmill. Had breakfast yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘See you down there. If you’re good I’ll show you my file.’

  ‘Whoopee,’ said Cato. ‘Where’s 007? He invited too?’

  ‘He’s skypeing his mum. He’ll meet us down there.’

  Business or casual? Cato surveyed his open suitcase and opted for casual. It was muggy and he felt no great need to impress Driscoll, Lara, James Blond or anyone else today. Li? He’d think about it. At the breakfast table Lara was eating yoghurt and fresh fruit and JB was working his way through a fry-up. Cato found some cereal and coffee at the buffet and joined them.

  ‘How’s Mum?’ he asked James.

  ‘Good, thanks. Sends her regards.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’

  Lara slid a file across the table to him. Inside was an enlarged passport photo of Tommy Li’s fellow traveller, Yu Guangming: it was one of those chiselled faces, heroic and handsome from one angle, cruel and petulant from another. There was also one sheet of A4 and a photocopy of a press clipping. It was brief but still an advance on the thumbnail sketch they’d been given in Pavlou’s office earlier in the week. Four years ago Charlotte Wen, a twenty-two year old Singaporean exchange student, had been raped, beaten, and left for dead in a Sydney hotel room. She’d survived and not only provided police with a description but also a name. She had met Yu Guangming in a bar in King’s Cross but remembered little after that. Traces of the date rape drug Rohypnol had been found in her system. Yu was arrested and the trace samples taken from him backed up her story. Unaccountably he was released on bail and within a week had left the country.

  ‘So?’ said Cato.

  ‘Read the other sheet,’ said Lara. ‘The ACC profile.’

  Yu Guangming, and his handful of aliases, seemed to be anything from thirty-three to forty-two years old. Using various names he had criss-crossed the Asia Pacific regularly over the last few years: Australia, New Zealand, PNG, Nauru, Fiji, Indonesia. It seemed that everywhere he went he left bodies or maimed victims. Meanwhile the student, Charlotte Wen, had subsequently tried to retract her allegation and now suggested the sex had been consensual and that somebody else must have beaten the crap out of her. Sydney detectives were apparently keeping an open mind.

  ‘If we know this guy’s movements and his history why do we keep letting him go?’

  Lara shrugged. ‘Conspiracy or fuck-up, we haven’t worked that one out yet.’

  ‘But you believe he’s here in Shanghai, connected to Li, and involved in the Tan murders?’

  ‘Yes. The bodies in New Zealand, Indonesia, and PNG were of people who seemed to be either blocking or threatening projects in which Li has interests.’

  ‘What about the other bodies in Fiji and Nauru?’

  Lara shrugged again. ‘Maybe some were business, others were pleasure.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Cato conceded, ‘but still a bit circumstantial so far?’

  ‘Enough to shake a few trees with though, eh?’ Lara gathered up the folder and downed the rest of her orange juice. ‘Driscoll’s meeting us in the lobby in ten minutes.’ She checked out Cato’s T-shirt and shorts. ‘You getting changed or what?’

  The Australian Consulate was about a fifteen-minute drive west along Nanjing Road. It was on the twenty-second floor of a tower block surrounded by expensive-looking shops selling high-end Western brands. After passing through security scanners and being issued visitor passes, Driscoll ushered them into a boardroom with a view east towards the Bund. There was just one other person there, a Chinese woman. Her hair was cropped short, pixie-like; she had swimmer’s shoulders and wore a slightly bored expression.

  ‘Allow me to introduce Ms Wang, our AFP liaison from the Beijing office,’ said Driscoll.

  Cato had upped his sartorial game as per Lara’s request. He stepped forward and played leader of the pack. ‘Nee ha,’ he said, bowing slightly and holding out his hand.

  ‘G’day,’ she said, shaking the hand. ‘Sharon.’

  Cato flushed. ‘So you’re not actually from Beijing then.’

  ‘Bendigo.’ She shook hands with Lara and JB then lifted her chin at Driscoll. ‘Rory, got your Powerpoint ready to go?’

  They spent the next ten minutes looking at a series of flowcharts showing how international police agencies communicated and cooperated while in China. Finally Driscoll sat down.

  Sharon Wang frowned. ‘I think a saw a typo in one of your cards, Rory. It’s two m’s in communication.’

  ‘Very funny, Shaz. Maybe you could let them know the ground rules and we’ll take it from there.’

  ‘Cool. So which of you is really in charge here?’

  ‘I’m the senior officer,’ said Cato.

  ‘So why did you look at Ms Sumich before you spoke?’ Wang tilted her head towards Lara. ‘You want to interview Mr Li then, do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Kwong here’s your front man.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She snapped her fingers in a gimme gesture. ‘List of questions?’

  ‘There isn’t one.’

  ‘My arse. DI Pavlou would have given you a script and we need to see it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that’s what Mr Li, his lawyer, the mayor of Shanghai, the city police chief, and half the Politburo are expecting. It shows respect. It’s pretty important over here.’

  Lara fiddled with her iPhone and Driscoll’s left pocket throbbed. ‘It’s a Word attachment.’

  ‘Felt very nice, too,’ said Driscoll, standing. ‘I’ll print it off.’

  A few minutes later, after scanning Lara’s list of questions, Wang sat back in her chair and twirled a pen. ‘What are you hoping to achieve here, Sumich?’

  ‘We’re trying to establish whether Mr Li knows Yu Guangming.’

  ‘What if he just says no?’

  ‘Then we’ll press him on the matter.’

  ‘No, no, and no again. What then?’

  ‘We’ll go home and write a report.’

  ‘You’re not holding anything back, no cards up your sleeve, no ambushes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’ Wang appraised the three of them. ‘So DS Kwong here is your question master. Hope you know how to kowtow properly, mate.’ She
switched her gaze to James Blond. ‘And what’s your job?’

  James grinned. ‘Muscle?’

  Wang snorted. ‘God help us.’

  Lara put up her hand. ‘While we’re on the subject, we know what you are but what about him?’ Driscoll. ‘What’s his job?’

  ‘Iyam Koltural Attache!’ he said, in a mock Boris-the-Russian voice. Nobody thought it was funny. ‘I work for embassy. On special projects.’

  Lara nodded slowly. ‘Oh, a spook. How cool,’ she said, without enthusiasm.

  ‘Tonight I take you to ballet,’ said Driscoll, resuming the accent. ‘Then we drink plenty vodka.’

  Wang gathered up her papers. ‘Mr Li’s agreed to see you at eleven a.m. for twenty minutes. Time for a cuppa then we’ll drive you over.’ She tapped Lara on the shoulder on the way out. ‘No surprises, I’m deadly serious.’

  Li Tonggui occupied the thirty-sixth floor of a Pudong tower with a panoramic view back over the river to the Bund and a building that looked like a kid’s drawing of a space station down to his right. He welcomed them with a huge smile into a plush, thickly carpeted office with floor to ceiling windows. His lawyer was a young woman called Phoebe with killer heels and a stare to match.

  Cato kicked off. ‘Thank you for sparing us some time, Mr Li.’

  ‘My pleasure. How do you like Shanghai?’

  ‘Spectacular so far,’ said Cato nodding at the view. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing a bit more before we leave.’

  ‘Oh, you must, you must. There’s so much more to Shanghai than skyscrapers and light shows.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Cato unfolded his sheet of questions while Lara took out a notepad and James Blond laid an MP3 on the table.

  ‘Not allowed,’ snapped Phoebe, flicking her wrist at JB’s gadget.

  Sharon Wang glared at James and he put it away.

  Cato smiled like nothing had happened. ‘I understand you’re aware of our line of questioning. Are you happy to proceed?’

  ‘Of course, of course. Fire away!’

  ‘Can you remind us of the purpose of your visit to Perth in the days preceding the murder of the Tan family?’

  Li proceeded to reiterate what they already knew: various deals or prospective deals to be progressed, meetings, site visits, troubleshooting.

  ‘Troubleshooting?’ said Cato.

  ‘The FIRB.’ Foreign Investment Review Board, recalled Cato. ‘I still had hopes to rescue that deal, to change their minds.’

  ‘That’s the one Francis Tan was part of, lost you a few million?’

  ‘Eighty-seven in development costs to be precise.’

  ‘You must have been angry. A sum like that?’

  ‘In the scheme of things it was small change. I can write it off against tax. But the deal was worth saving. It would have been a big project.’

  Cato showed interest. ‘This is a departure from the script, Mr Li, but I’d love to know what it was. The big project.’ He earned himself triple warning glares from Phoebe, Sharon and Lara.

  Li outlined the project. Millions of acres of farmland were to be purchased in the Great Southern providing certainty for struggling Aussie farmers and clean and bountiful food security for increasingly affluent and choosy Chinese consumers. Huge profits for Li. Win-win-win. Cato thought about the pigs in the Huangpu, the chicken flu, and the pollution. He could see Li’s point. He moved into more dangerous territory.

  ‘And you travelled alone?’

  ‘No, I had my personal assistant with me.’

  ‘Nobody else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yu Guangming. Do you know him?’

  ‘No, sorry. Who is he?’

  ‘He’s a man with a history of violence. He was sitting a few rows behind you on your last flight into Perth.’

  ‘Everybody was sitting behind me. I tend to travel first class.’

  Cato read the list of aliases.

  Li denied knowing those names too. He exchanged a glance with Phoebe the lawyer and checked his watch. ‘Is he a person of interest in those dreadful murders?’

  ‘We believe so,’ said Cato.

  ‘On what basis?’

  ‘I’m sorry that’s confidential.’

  Li was smiling. It was a ‘well, thanks for coming’ smile. The body language said he was getting ready to wind the interview up and Cato knew he’d got precisely nowhere. Lara looked far from happy to leave it there.

  ‘His DNA was at the murder scene, his sperm was inside Mr Tan’s wife,’ said Lara. She stood up and pointed a finger at him. ‘You’re a liar and no matter how big you think you are, we’re going to have you.’

  All hell broke loose. Phoebe pointed her finger back and yelled in Mandarin, Sharon Wang and Rory Driscoll rounded on Lara, and James looked unsure about what he was meant to do. Cato and Li sat in the maelstrom and regarded each other. Both knew this wasn’t going to end well.

  They were back in the boardroom at the consulate being chastised. Driscoll was jumpy and Sharon Wang was incandescent.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?’

  The question was addressed to Lara.

  ‘We’ve got four murders to solve, a family bludgeoned to a pulp in their own home. We’re not here to piss about with diplomatic niceties or “inter-agency cooperation”. We need to rattle that bastard’s cage.’

  Nice one, thought Cato. Lara was growing into the job.

  ‘Those protocols are for everyone,’ said Driscoll. ‘They help keep the Chinese authorities reassured about working with us on much bigger issues like drug and people trafficking. Fact of life: your family murder isn’t worth rocking the boat for.’

  ‘Tell that to the Tans,’ said Lara.

  Wang shook her head. ‘Oh grow up, Sumich. That little exchange might have made you feel better but it didn’t progress your inquiry one jot. Li didn’t even blink. His reach goes all the way to the top here. He could have you all sliced and diced in broad daylight and nobody would say a word, here or in Australia.’ She twirled her biro. ‘You’ve done nothing to help your case and you’ve probably stuffed up years of work for us. Thanks, now piss off back home.’

  ‘Our flight leaves in two days,’ said Lara.

  ‘Good. Do some shopping and sightseeing and keep your heads pulled in. Expect a formal reprimand and hopefully a suspension on your return.’

  ‘That goes for all of us, I assume?’ said Cato.

  ‘Ra-ra-ra, three bloody musketeers,’ Wang muttered. ‘Sure it does.’

  Driscoll stopped pacing and slid into a chair, drumming his knuckles on the table absent-mindedly. ‘Why the hard-on for Li? I’ve seen the files and reports. It’s all circumstantial.’

  Surprisingly, James Blond spoke up. ‘He’s bent, he’s shipping truckloads of meth and heroin into Australia, and he’s laundering his money by buying up great swathes of our country.’

  ‘Whose country?’ said Driscoll.

  James hadn’t finished. ‘He’s involved in the Tan murders, has to be.’

  ‘Funny how people get uneasy about the Chinese buying the farm,’ said Driscoll. ‘We’ve already sold them half the topsoil in the Pilbara and everybody’s cool with that but we can’t hack them actually coming to town. Poms can come and blow up their nukes at Maralinga, the Yanks can set up military bases in the Top End, all good. But Chinese buying up a few acres? Nah. You’re a hypocrite, Jimmy.’

  Lara sat back and folded her arms. ‘Nice speech, Rory.’

  Driscoll shook his head contemptuously. ‘Li, a drug runner and murderer? Evidence would be good, mate. The Yellow Peril stuff won’t stand up in court.’ He left the room, followed by Sharon Wang. Bollocking over.

  Cato’s phone vibrated in his pocket. A text. Sender unknown.

  My apologies for this morning. Allow me to invite you to breakfast tomorrow. Royal Garden Restaurant, Zhongshan Park, 9.30. Take the westbound metro line 2 from near your hotel. Alone please. Thomas.

  Cato wondered what Li wanted to apologis
e for. And how he had this mobile number? And how he knew which hotel they were in?

  Lara was waiting. ‘Anything we need to know about?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  16

  Saturday, August 17th.

  Cato arrived at Zhongshan Park station an hour early. It was several suburbs west of their hotel and the area, to his untrained eye, was indistinguishable from anywhere else he’d so far seen in Shanghai. Skyscrapers. Galore. He’d thought he could maybe recce the joint, spot any potential dangers, mark out escape routes, check if he was being stalked. He knew he didn’t really have a hope but it seemed like a good and diligent idea. The park itself was a splash of green among the traffic, the concrete, glass and steel. But just a few steps in from the road, the noise and the fumes seemed to fade into a distant background to be replaced by birdsong, the perfumed rustle of cherry blossom trees and the gentle chatter of neighbours. A dozen men and women of varying ages practised tai chi under the guidance of a lithe woman in a black silk pyjama-type outfit. On a nearby bench a bookish middle-aged man sawed at a two-stringed Chinese violin. But it was the calligraphers who captivated Cato: ordinary-looking blokes with jars of oily water and brushes drawing Chinese characters on the flagstones with deft, graceful strokes only to see them evaporate within a few minutes. It seemed futile, existential, and so bloody beautiful all at the same time. Cato felt an urge to learn the names of these things, to understand the movements, to partake in the gossip. He felt both enchanted and lonely. As he ventured further into the park down narrow meandering paths, across ornate stone bridges, he came across more people waltzing, playing badminton or mahjong. The park wasn’t just a splash of green in the midst of a mega-city, it felt to Cato like an oasis of calm and culture from another time and place altogether.

  After yesterday’s dressing-down at the consulate they’d all retreated to their hotel rooms to brood. Cato could hear Lara through the wall giving her report back to DI Pavlou. Through the wall on the other side, James Blond was watching a succession of action movies. By mid-afternoon Cato was getting cabin fever so he’d checked his guidebook and gone out shopping for souvenirs. South of the Bund, the City God Temple market had offered some manufactured old-world energy and charm. The temple itself was an antidote to the skyscrapers with its ancient open courtyard, smoking incense, and believers kowtowing to their ancestors. He’d sipped an expensive cuppa in a teahouse midway across a zigzag bridge over a lake festooned with water lilies, koi and turtles. Further south and west, the Dongtai Road Antiques Market offered all you could want in the form of tacky memorabilia: from Chairman Mao ashtrays to Cultural Revolution alarm clocks. Nostalgia knows no shame, reflected Cato. He bought his son a fur-lined army hat complete with red star and fold-down earmuffs. Jake was at an age when something that naff might be ironically cool. He hadn’t got around to making that call to Jane to discuss their son’s apparent unhappiness; maybe later, after this meeting with Li, he’d give it a go. Or in a few days when he returned.