Our guide was an interesting man who gave us snippets of Victoria history, as it related to various buildings and sculptures downtown. We saw Victoria herself, of course, in front of the Legislature buildings, looking a good deal more regal than she does in front of Buckingham Palace, but wearing that same silly little crown. We saw the fabled Empress Hotel. We saw the Inner Harbour, where the ferries from Seattle and Vancouver docked, as well as the seaplanes. Looking southwest, several blocks away, we saw the other side of the peninsula, where gigantic cruise ships docked, and learned that they provided a good deal of boost to Victoria’s economy.
‘Are the tourists mostly Americans?’ I asked in the most American accent I could muster.
‘All sorts. American, Japanese – lots of Asians, in fact.’
‘I guess you have to watch out for smuggling. I mean, all those people from all over the place.’
He looked at me sharply. ‘We have very efficient customs enforcement, madam.’ Turning to the rest of the walkers, ‘Now up ahead you’ll see …’
‘Snubbed,’ murmured Alan.
‘Sounded defensive, didn’t he? A thought to tuck away.’
We walked. And walked. Uphill and down. There were steps. I learned a good deal about Victoria, painted in the rosy colours one would expect from a tour guide. There was little opportunity to ask any more questions; the guide had decided I was a troublemaker, and avoided me.
Then we came to a narrow passageway called Fan Tan Alley and struck a vein of history that was of great interest to us. ‘This,’ said our guide, ‘used to be a notorious part of Victoria, famous, or infamous, for gambling and opium dens. Under British rule, the use of opium was legal, perhaps because there was a good deal of profit in importing it from China. But gambling was not. No easy way to tax that, you see. So there were, and presumably still are, passages on the top storey, or the roof, from one shop to another. Gamblers who thought a raid was coming could move quickly to an opium den and be found getting peacefully happy when the government agents arrived. Or they could go down back stairs to some of the alleys that open off this one. There was a virtual labyrinth of them.’
Since we were on the subject, I thought I could venture a question. ‘Are they still there? Those little alleys?’
‘Yes. There’s an entrance to one of them.’ He pointed out a wrought-iron gate, securely padlocked. ‘Closed off now, as you see,’ he added sternly. He still didn’t like me. ‘This used to be the heart of Chinatown, which was large and prosperous many years ago.’ He turned his back on me and went on to discuss the rise and fall of Victoria’s Chinatown.
So he didn’t want to talk about the ‘labyrinth’. Fine. Or else he just didn’t want to talk about it to me. Was it suspicion that I might be planning some nefarious deeds? Or, just possibly, that he knew of some that had already taken place, involving smuggling and/or recourse to Fan Tan Alley and its byways?
The Alley was now obviously geared toward tourism. Shops sold all manner of souvenirs, from the beautiful and expensive to the truly tacky. Even so, even with the chatter of our tour group and the bright (tiny) shop windows, the place felt vaguely menacing. Partly it was the constricted size. The alley is said to be the narrowest street in Canada, and though ‘street’ was a debatable term, it was certainly narrow. There were places where two could not walk abreast, and the walls seemed to press in. In spots there wasn’t a great deal of light. I began to be a little short of breath, and Alan, who understands about my claustrophobia, murmured, ‘All right, love?’
I moved on to where he could walk beside me, clutched his arm, and tried to smile. ‘I will be, as soon as we get out of here.’
He pointed ahead to where we could see the end of the alley. ‘Courage, dear heart.’
That’s one reason I love this man so much. He never makes fun of what both of us know to be an irrational fear.
And then we were out of the horrid place and into Chinatown proper, what was left of it. The guide explained that although there were still many families of Chinese descent in Victoria, they had moved out of Chinatown years ago and become assimilated into the general population, so although there were still a few restaurants and shops in the area, the large factories and warehouses that used to exist there were now merely façades, with condos behind them. He pointed out one with a large sign that read KWONG ON TAI CO.
‘Sad,’ I commented to Alan. ‘A thriving business once, now nothing but a wall and a sign.’
‘You don’t know that, Dorothy. Perhaps they moved elsewhere, to a modern facility. And isn’t it a good thing that the Chinese are no longer confined to their ghetto, but are living and doing well all over the city?’
‘Yes, of course it is. But all the same, it’s a shame when people lose their cultural identity. I think of the Poles who moved to the US near the end of the nineteenth century. Despised for decades, they lived in their own enclaves and pursued their own interests. But in the end, they had either to assimilate or live in poverty. So now, in many cities, very few of them can even speak Polish. Their churches are no longer exclusively theirs, their social clubs have died. I wish we could have both: immigrants fitting in to their new culture without losing their birthright.’
‘That can happen only when the people in the host country lose their fear of the newcomers, the “others”. We’re not there yet, Dorothy.’
The rest of the tour group had moved on without our noticing. They were halfway down the street, and I wasn’t minded to run and catch up. ‘I’m tired, Alan, and hot and thirsty. And I need to find a loo.’
‘A pub would deal with all those necessities. Do they have pubs in Canada?’
‘You’re asking me? They don’t exist in America, even though some bars call themselves that.’ I looked around, as Alan did the same. We had moved away from the touristy Chinatown proper, and there seemed to be no establishments purveying food and/or drink, Chinese or otherwise. There weren’t quite as many people around, either. In fact, the neighbourhood seemed to have gone from glitzy to glum in the space of half a block.
I peered into the window of a shop that had no sign, on the off-chance that it could be a café of some sort, but the interior was dark. ‘No luck.’ I turned back. ‘Alan, let’s— Alan?’
He’d been right behind me. Now he wasn’t. Had he turned down one of the narrow passageways between buildings, in search of a pub? Surely not. They weren’t as narrow as Fan Tan Alley, but they were dark and uninviting. Where on earth?
‘Madam?’
A man came up to me, a respectable sort, fortyish at a guess. ‘Is your name Dorothy?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Your husband is asking for you. He’s had some sort of stroke, or maybe a heart attack. Anyway, he collapsed in a doorway just a few minutes ago, and he wants you. Let me take you to him.’
The man held out an arm. Nervous and frightened, I almost took it. But then some warning signal went off in my muddled brain. I remembered that intelligent child. ‘Wait. What’s the code? Give me the code.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘We have a code. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what it is.’
‘I … he’s drifting in and out of consciousness. He couldn’t—’
‘You said he was asking for me. He’s conscious. Give me the code.’ I pulled a whistle out of my purse. Not quite as shrill and demanding as an English police whistle, it would nevertheless attract attention. I put it to my lips.
‘I … must have made some mistake. You’re not the right woman. Sorry to have bothered you.’
He was gone, vanishing down one of the passageways as I blew the whistle with all my might.
People, suddenly. Passers-by, asking if I was all right, if they could help. A very welcome policeman.
Alan.
I pushed everyone else away and flung myself into his arms. ‘You’re all right! Nothing happened to you! I was so scared, but—’
‘He said they’d taken you away! It took me
far too long to get away from—’
We were both talking at once and not making a lot of sense. The policeman shooed away the bystanders and said, ‘Let’s go somewhere quiet, where we can talk properly.’ He showed his badge. ‘My car is just here. Ma’am, let me help you.’
I needed the help; I was suddenly unsteady. The adrenaline had left me and my bones seemed to be made of Jell-O.
Alan cleared his throat and said, ‘Could you take us to a coffee shop or the like? I think my wife needs a stimulant.’
‘And a washroom,’ I croaked.
The man obligingly took us around a corner to a bright, inviting café, and when I had used the facilities, and we had exchanged introductions, we sat in a corner booth and told him the whole story, Alan speaking first.
‘We were both looking around for a pub or the like, when I got separated from Dorothy. I thought it a bit odd, since we had left a much more crowded area, but I didn’t worry until I found myself being pushed, as if by accident, into one of those rather nasty alleys.’
‘You didn’t cry out?’
Alan looked a little embarrassed. ‘I suppose I should have done, but I had no sense of being in danger, only irritation at what I assumed was someone’s appalling manners. I protested, of course. And then I felt what I took to be a gun in my back, and stopped making any noise at all.’
‘Very wise.’
‘My chief concern then was for Dorothy. The thug who had hold of me started talking then, saying that his accomplice had taken her away, and they were going to hold her until I ransomed her.’
I interrupted ‘Ransom? What made them – him – whoever, think you could pay ransom? We’re not rich. We live thousands of miles away; nobody here knows us, even.’
‘We’ll sort all that out, ma’am. Right now I’d like to hear the rest of the story.’
I subsided.
‘That, though, was exactly what I wondered,’ said Alan. ‘If this was just a straightforward mugging, it was taking a very odd turn.’
The sergeant – Moore, that was his name – gave Alan a searching look. ‘You’re familiar with what you call a “straightforward mugging” then, sir?’
Alan sighed. ‘Sergeant, I was a policeman in England for a very long time. I retired as Chief Constable of Belleshire some years ago, but there are some things one doesn’t forget.’
‘I see.’ Clearly there were things the sergeant didn’t see, but like him, I wanted to hear the rest of the story.
‘So. I waited for the bloke to tell me what sort of ransom, meanwhile working out what I could safely do to get free. And then I heard Dorothy’s whistle.’
‘Quite distinctive,’ commented the sergeant, with a straight face.
‘Yes. It distracted my captor enough that I could pull myself free and twist his arm back. He dropped his “weapon”, which turned out to be only a piece of wood, and I ran. And ran into Dorothy’s situation.’
‘Yes. Now your story, if you please, ma’am.’
‘As Alan said, we were looking for a pub, when I realized Alan wasn’t with me. I thought he’d just got lost in the crowd. Only there wasn’t really much of a crowd. That was when this man came up to me with a tale about Alan being ill and asking for me.’
‘He used his name?’
I thought for a minute. ‘No. He just said “your husband”. But he called me Dorothy.’ I paused. The sergeant nodded for me to continue.
‘So I was scared, of course, and I almost went with him. But then I remembered something, and I asked him for the code.’
Both men looked puzzled.
‘That little girl who almost got taken by some stranger. In the paper this morning?’
Dawning comprehension.
‘So I told him I wouldn’t go with him without the code, and when he started to back off, I blew my whistle. And you know the rest.’
‘Dorothy, we don’t have a code.’
‘I know that, dear heart. But he didn’t.’
The sergeant closed his notebook. ‘Well, both of you acted very sensibly. As you say, Chief Constable, this doesn’t look like a simple street crime, which makes it somewhat puzzling.’
‘It’s just plain Mr Nesbitt these days, Sergeant. I’m long retired. And there’s something you should probably know.’ He looked around. The café was filling up, creating noise and giving us reasonable privacy, but he lowered his voice. ‘We are not here entirely as tourists. You know we live in England, though Dorothy is from the United States originally.’
‘Ah, that explains it.’
He was referring, I knew, to the trace of American in my accent. I’ve given up trying to eradicate it, but I was a bit surprised that a Canadian would catch it.
‘Well, if that’s all—’
‘No. The fact is, sir, that we’re here to investigate a problem here on the island. One of your retired Mounties, John McKenzie, has asked our help in untangling the web of small crimes that began with the theft of plants and has escalated to the release of hawks up near Duncan.’
‘Ah.’ The sergeant gave both of us a sharp look. ‘The Victoria police, along with other forces in the area, are of course aware of Mr McKenzie’s efforts. Like you, sir, he prefers not to use his rank, now that he is retired. But I’m afraid I don’t quite understand how you and your wife became involved in – er – investigating our little problem.’
We both sighed. This looked like being a long story. I nodded to Alan, who can exercise tact much better than I.
In a few carefully-chosen words he explained that the two of us had become concerned in several investigations in England. ‘My wife, you see, brings valuable insights from her non-English background, as well as a knack for asking the right questions. People find her easy to talk to. And as we are good friends of Mr McKenzie’s niece Lady Montcalm, are in fact godparents to her son, she thought we might be able to help in some small way here. I am of course familiar with the problems of police forces everywhere: understaffing, overwork. Mr McKenzie asked us to come, and here we are, hoping to help in any small way we can.’
Bravo, Alan. The snob appeal of a titled friend. Even in democratically-ruled Canada, her history and Commonwealth status mean that titles still carry some weight. Add in the mention of his exalted one-time rank, sympathy for local difficulties, and a humble offer of help, and he couldn’t have done better.
It worked, too. Sergeant Moore thawed considerably. ‘Ah, well, we can use all the help we can get. As you say, sir, we are considerably overworked. Victoria is a law-abiding place for the most part, but I’m sure Mr McKenzie has told you about some of the tensions between various elements of the community. But now, much as I hate to say it, it looks very possible that you and your wife were specifically targeted in the attack just now. It could just be that it has to do with your “investigation”.’
I could clearly hear the quotation marks, and I resented them, but a look from Alan kept me quiet.
The sergeant opened his mouth to continue.
‘That had occurred to us, of course,’ Alan said, smoothly overriding him, ‘and although we haven’t had time to consult with each other, I know I can assure you that we intend to pursue our efforts even more vigorously. We’ll take all due precautions, of course. We have no intention of creating even more work for you by getting killed.’
Sergeant Moore was no fool. He wasn’t keen on the idea, but he had no way to stop us, and he could see that Alan intended to carry on, no matter what. ‘Neither do I want to see you killed. It would create endless paperwork, what with you being tourists, and all.’ He allowed a tiny smile to show us he was joking. Sort of. ‘Meanwhile, the biggest help you could give right now would be a description of your assailants.’
Alan, who was trained to be observant, could give fairly complete details. I, who was not, could speak only in useless generalities. Male, white, maybe fortyish, well-dressed, no particular accent. ‘I’m sorry. I was thinking about Alan and didn’t notice much.’
‘Quite
understandable.’ His tone left me in no doubt about his opinion of me. Fine investigator she’d make! He might as well have spoken it aloud. I gave him my sweetest smile, thinking of what I’d like to say to him.
He stood. ‘Right. I’ll be on my way. You’ll let me know of anything you find out? And I’ll do the same.’ He sketched a salute and went on his way.
‘Save it, Dorothy. We’ll find a pub and you can explode there. And you know, it might be a good idea to dream up a recognition code, don’t you think?’
NINE
We found a pleasant watering place not too far away, sort of a cross between a pub and an American bar. No dark oak stained by centuries of smoke, but proper oak tables, a dart board, and a friendly bartender who recommended the local cider for me. ‘You’ll have had English cider,’ he said, apparently picking up on that aspect of my odd accent, ‘but this is different. Different apples, for one thing, and nothing like as strong. And we serve it over ice. Most ladies like it – very refreshing.’
The day had grown very warm; ice sounded good. ‘I’ll try anything once.’ Alan opted for a straightforward pint. We took our drinks to a nice quiet table in a corner.
‘It wobbles,’ I commented. ‘I feel right at home.’
Alan stacked a couple of beer mats under the short leg and took a healthy swig of his beer. I tasted my cider more cautiously, and was very pleasantly surprised. ‘It’s just a bit sweet and apple-y, and very light. He’s right. Refreshing is the word. Alan, what do we do now?’
‘We finish our drinks and go home,’ he said pleasantly. ‘We’ve a lot to talk about, and I’ve had enough of sensitive discussions in public places.’
‘The café—’ I began.
‘That was a calculated risk. We couldn’t be overheard, not where we were and with the ambient noise, and if a villain saw us talking with the police, it would be assumed we were telling him about our nasty little narrow escape. In fact, I rather hope some criminal type did see us. They’d know then to lie low for a bit, and it’s unlikely they’d try that particular little trick again.’
Death in the Garden City Page 6
