Pangolin, p.22
Pangolin, page 22
‘I know what you mean, Young. Well, what we’ve got to do now is inspire confidence in the Americans. And that means taking them into our confidence. I suggest a meeting later this morning between you, me and the American Consul General. All the available information can be pooled. I’ll ask him to bring along the appropriate advisers. Perhaps you’d bring a few people as well: heads of departments directly involved, perhaps, three or four at the most. I want to reassure the Americans. And impress them, of course.’
When Wilkie had put down the phone he buzzed his personal secretary in her office in the executive wing of the building.
‘Sophie, please get me the United States Consul General, then—’
‘Actually, he’s already called you, Your Excellency. His office is waiting for you on my line.’
‘Fine. While I’m talking to him, try and raise the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies.’
‘In London, sir?’ Wilkie sensed an eyebrow being raised. ‘It’s after one in the morning over there.’
‘I know that, Sophie.’
In the few seconds while he waited for the Consul General to be put through, the Governor thought about his situation. He did not, oddly enough, feel unfamiliar in it. He had often considered the possibility of something like this happening in his territory, and wondered what his response would be. He had rehearsed his performance, in a sense, and thought out some of the moves.
The phone crackled in his car. ‘Your Excellency?’
‘Ah, Mr Kirschmann. Good morning. First let me say how shocked and dismayed I am at this deplorable incident . . .’
They encountered only one roadblock on the way to Hebe Haven, and they were prepared for it. Halfway out along Clear Water Bay Road, a pair of overworked young police constables were desperately trying to cope with an ever-lengthening queue of cars. Baxter and Pritchard had to wait nearly ten minutes for their turn to be searched.
‘Open your rear door, please.’
‘What’s this all about?’ Pritchard asked curiously, hopping out of the car to join Baxter. ‘You’re holding up our sailing.’
‘A man has been kidnapped.’
‘Is that so.’
Baxter opened the door to the cargo deck. The policeman looked dubiously to the two sausage-shaped bundles of canvas lying among lengths of rope, life jackets, and old boating shoes. ‘What are those?’
‘Sails,’ Baxter said. ‘We’re taking them out to my junk, at Hebe Haven. Want to see?’
The cop nodded. It took nearly two minutes to undo the cord on the first sail bag and open it out to show the folds of stiff red canvas.
‘Do I have to open the other one? They’re a devil of a job to do up again.’
The policeman glanced desperately at the line of cars, then at the two men. They were so obviously what they claimed to be, a pair of Europeans off on a sailing jaunt, that he could not help thinking he would be wasting his time.
‘Carry on,’ he said, and moved to the next car.
Twenty minutes later the four of them had reassembled on the jetty at Hebe Haven. They had also met up with Osman Khan, who had parked his hired car on the track that led off the road through Pak Sha Wan and, with his road map and his camera, looked the part of a solitary sightseer taking in the view. The bay was deserted, with Ah Leung off on his weekly opium binge, and as peaceful as one of those willow-framed scenes on an old Chinese scroll, with junks riding at their moorings on water flat as glass.
They unloaded the prone form of Kiley, still in the sail bag, and laid him across the centre thwarts of the boatboy’s sampan. The rest of them crowded into the small boat and Fong propelled them, energetically waggling the oar fixed to the stern, out to the Lady Belinda.
They tied the sampan to the stern of the junk so that it would run behind them; that would save time launching the rubber dinghy. Then they pulled the sampan alongside, and Baxter scrambled aboard and lowered the aluminium ladder. Fong, Pritchard and Osman Khan followed him. Quinn got the limp canvas package with some difficulty over his shoulders in the rocking little boat and heaved the top end up to the level of the junk’s rail. Pritchard, Fong and Baxter got a grip on the crisscross cord and heaved the dead weight inboard, dropping it on the deck until Quinn could clamber up the ladder and help them lug it across to the companionway that led down to the saloon.
‘Everybody out of sight now except Baxter and me,’ Pritchard said. ‘There are supposed to be only two of us on board.’
Leaving the others to take Kiley below deck, Pritchard went to the cockpit and started the engines. Baxter had already gone forward to release the junk from its moorings.
At exactly ten o’clock, the Lady Belinda moved gracefully out through the lines of other boats and into the channel towards open water.
24
Once every four weeks Gavin McNair, a chief inspector in the Special Branch, had a long weekend off. It was strictly an unofficial long weekend. He had managed to arrange his shift pattern so as to take the Friday off regularly for a day’s work the previous weekend, and to begin his one week in four of night duty the following Monday. This meant he was free from late on Thursday afternoon until ten on Monday night. Strictly speaking, the officers’ duty roster should not have favoured him in this way, but McNair regarded it as one of the perks of seniority. If you couldn’t work a small point like that after twelve years’ service, you’d be a pretty poor policeman, after all.
As often as they could he and his wife, Siu, would go away somewhere over these weekends: by hydrofoil to Macau for Portuguese food and some modest gambling or—when they could afford it—by plane to Baguio in the cool mountains of the northern Philippines. They both believed that the best way to enjoy life in Hong Kong was to get away from it occasionally.
This weekend, though, they had stayed at home; one of McNair’s fellow-officers had got married on the Saturday and they had attended the wedding. On Sunday they had considered going out somewhere, had thought about the heat and the jammed roads and the horribly overcrowded beaches and had finally just stayed indoors, reading the paper and listening to music. Their flat, on the twelfth floor of a tower block in Mid-Levels on the Island, was small—McNair had lived in it as a bachelor until they’d got married two years ago—but comfortable enough and blessed with good air conditioning.
This morning, Monday, they planned to drive to Fanling. McNair would play eighteen holes of golf while Siu went riding from the stables adjoining the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club. Afterwards they would meet for a late lunch, and possibly a swim in the club pool.
They had actually closed the door of the flat behind them when the telephone rang.
‘Hell,’ McNair said.
‘Let it ring,’ Siu said quickly. But that was a thing he found difficult to do. For a few moments he stood undecided, listening to the repeated double ring, half hoping it would stop of its own accord. Then he swung the golf bag resignedly off his shoulder, unlocked the door and stepped over the telephone.
‘Mac? John Nightingale. I’d almost given you up.’
‘I was on my way out,’ McNair said uneasily. Nightingale was the day desk officer at branch headquarters. ‘What is it, John?’
‘A flap, I’m afraid. The boss wants you.’
‘Has the boss looked at the roster? I’m on nights this week.’
‘This is an emergency, Mac.’
‘Isn’t there anyone else?’
‘He’ll accept no substitutes, like the ad says. You’re not the only one who’s been called in, if that’s any comfort.’
‘Just what is the flap, John?’
‘Who tells me anything? This isn’t our baby, we’re just helping CID out. But the word is that some Yankee diplomat’s been abducted, his bodyguard shot. Now, can you meet the boss at ten thirty? Not here, at Government House. Chance to polish your marble, if nothing else. The Commissioner and the Governor himself will be there for a confab. They’ll be expecting you. Sorry to drop you in it.’
He put down the phone, the immediate vexation he had felt at the prospect of his leisure being spoilt giving way to that gut-sinking sensation of excitement that came from being assigned to a big case. But he tried to disguise the feeling as he turned to face Siu in the doorway.
‘It’s the office,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid they want me.’
‘I gathered.’ She gave him the set, expressionless Chinese look that denoted anger. ‘I told you to let it ring. If we had left a minute earlier—’
‘But we didn’t, darling. This is something big. You know they wouldn’t break into my weekend if it wasn’t.’ He fished for his car keys and held them out to her. ‘I’ll take a taxi,’ he said. ‘You go to Fanling and ride.’
‘It would be no fun going on my own.’
‘Hell, you’d have been on your own while I played golf! Look, go on out there. It could be I’ll only be needed for an hour; perhaps we can still meet for lunch after all.’
‘The last time you were called out I didn’t see you for two days, Gavin. Go on, you’d better go. I’ll call the stables and cancel my horse.’
‘Have it your way.’ He peeked her on the cheek; she was stiff, unresponsive. ‘I don’t like to think of you cooping yourself up here just because I can’t be with you, that’s all. I’ll phone later, let you know how I’m placed.’
He left the flat and walked to the lifts, angry with himself and with her, torn between guilt and exasperation. Guilt, because he enjoyed his work too much to mind upsetting their domestic arrangements, annoyance because when she was unhappy she managed silently to make him feel responsible for it. Damn. There were times when he wondered if he’d made a mistake getting married—not because he didn’t love Siu, hell, no, he couldn’t imagine being without her now—but because cops ought perhaps to resign themselves to not marrying at all. Compromise between the demands of the job and a reasonable home life was rarely possible, and he and Siu made the best of it, nothing more.
Both feelings, the guilt and the resentment, diminished as he rode downstairs to the basement and went to his car, a three-year-old Lancia 2000. It wasn’t as if he and Siu didn’t have a lot going for them, after all, not least the victory over double-edged prejudice that their marriage represented. There was beautiful irony in the fact that his family—respectable Dumfriesshire shopkeepers—had been as quietly aghast over his marrying a Chinese as Siu’s father—a wealthy textile merchant from Shanghai who had decamped to Hong Kong with two trunkfuls of gold bars, one jump ahead of the Communists, in 1948—had been scandalized at his daughter’s choice of an impecunious European for a husband. A policeman at that, who had shown no interest in the offer—redeeming for McNair, as it would be face-saving for his father-in-law—to join the family business. The powerful tentacles of the Chinese family had for once failed to clutch an outsider in their embrace. Relations with his in-laws these days were restricted to a ritual fortnightly Sunday supper and polite exchange of pleasantries at the mansion on the Peak.
He reached Government House in less than ten minutes. The classical white mansion that had once dominated the settlement below was now overlooked by thirty-storey apartment blocks, but it had retained some elegance even from the rear, where the tall iron palings were camouflaged by tropical shrubbery and the open gateway was guarded by Gurkhas with knife-edge trouser creases and gleaming bayonets. This morning there were also a couple of uniformed European traffic officers on duty. McNair swung into the approach to the gates, pulled out his warrant card and showed it to one of them. The man recognized his face.
‘I’m expected at the feast,’ he said.
‘Okay, pull in wherever you can.’
The car park, built to accommodate a fleet of limousines for receptions and balls, had room to spare for his Lancia. As he got out and walked to the main entrance he noticed the American Consul General’s Cadillac and a couple of other cars with CD plates as well as the Police Commissioner’s Humber and the personal, permanently filthy Volvo Estate that belonged to his immediate superior, Chief Superintendent Arthur Leggo.
He went up the steps, across the porticoed veranda and through the door. The big lobby was empty except for one of the Governor’s military aides in a white tunic and a couple of Chinese servants who blended into the oak-panelled background.
‘Your name, sir?’ said the lieutenant, stepping forward.
‘McNair, Special Branch.’
The soldier pulled a clipboard from under one arm and inspected a sheet of paper attached to it. ‘Come this way, please.’
He led McNair to a door that opened directly off the lobby, rapped on it twice and opened it. He showed the policeman into a long room dominated by a single huge table of polished mahogany: a table built to accommodate perhaps twenty dinner guests, so that the seven men who sat clustered at the far end of it looked oddly insignificant. The table was bare but for a jug of iced water and drinking glasses; there were portraits of former governors in gilt frames on the walls. McNair felt slightly ill at ease as the lieutenant closed the door and left him to plod across a thick-piled carpet towards the group at the table.
From one side of it, Chief Superintendent Leggo stood up.
‘Hello, Mac,’ he said, waving him to the chair beside his own. ‘I think this completes the party.’
McNair made gratefully for the proffered seat and stood behind it. Leggo said to the others, ‘I’d like to introduce Chief Inspector McNair. Mac, we’re not wasting time with handshakes, so I’ll just quickly introduce everyone. His Excellency, of course’—the Governor smiled and nodded at him absently from the head of the table—‘and the Commissioner, and of course Chief Superintendent Boyd of CID. The American Consul General, Mr Kirschmann; Vice-Consul Koch; and Mr Stanley, their chief of security.’ Leggo waved towards the three Americans who sat in a close group at one side of the table, as though they were a threatened minority. The Consul General looked grey and harassed; the two who flanked him were both crew-cut and sharp-eyed and darted appraising looks at the newcomer.
‘Do sit down, Chief Inspector,’ said the Governor, indicating the chair behind which McNair still hovered. ‘Mr Young was about to give us an up-to-date summary of the incident which has led to this meeting.’
McNair sat down. The Commissioner of Police cleared his throat. He crossed his arms on the edge of the table and began speaking, without notes, the facts all committed to memory. ‘Your Excellency, gentlemen, just to sum up what some of you know already and some of you don’t, the facts we have so far are these. At eight seventeen this morning, a car carrying a diplomat attached to the American Consulate General was stopped by a carefully contrived accident in the southbound carriageway of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel. The diplomat, Mr Roderick Neill Kiley, was abducted and his chauffeur-bodyguard was shot and killed . . .’
It took the Commissioner two succinct minutes to depict the crime in general outline. He told them the police had not yet issued a statement on it, but reporters were besieging the press office at headquarters and wild rumours had begun flying about. He thought it would be advisable to make a full official announcement immediately after the meeting. The Consul General had confirmed that the victims’ next-of-kin had been notified: the driver’s parents in San Francisco and Mrs Kiley, who was on a visit to Australia and was making arrangements to fly back at once.
Finally, the Commissioner said that he would personally supervise the overall operation that was being mounted to capture the kidnappers and free their victim. Immediate follow-up work on the crime, however, was in the hands of Mr Boyd, who would sum up for them the lines of inquiry that were being pursued.
Gordon Boyd was in an unco-operative frame of mind. He hadn’t wanted to attend this meeting, regarding it as an unnecessary distraction and an unforgivable waste of time. At the insistence of the Commissioner, however, he had reluctantly left his desk in the new Incident Centre they were setting up for him at headquarters, swearing to his deputy that be would be back inside half an hour.
He told the meeting what was being done in operational terms: roadblocks had been set up on all main roads, and a search of premises and systematic questioning of people was being conducted within a steadily increasing radius of the scene of the crime. Meanwhile, full priority had been given to forensic examination of all clues and traces found on the scene. Until there were some positive results from these tests and inquiries it would be impossible, he said bluntly, to state what progress, if any, the investigation had made.
The Consul General had been growing impatient. He said, ‘Just how long is it going to take you to form some idea who the kidnappers are and what they want, Mr Boyd?’
‘That may very well depend on how soon they choose to communicate with us—or with you. This shows all the hallmarks of a well-planned operation, carried out probably with a political motive. That means we must expect a ransom demand of some kind fairly soon. All we can do in the meantime is go through normal investigation procedures. We’re doing that as rapidly as possible, but it still doesn’t mean we’ll be able to identify the kidnappers before they choose to identify themselves.’
‘If you think there’s a political motive,’ the Consul General said, ‘then surely you can hazard a guess as to who might be responsible?’
‘I’m a policeman, sir. I don’t deal in guesswork, I’m interested in evi—’
‘All right, Gordon, thank you,’ the Commissioner interrupted smoothly. They could do without putting the Americans’ backs up this early. ‘Guesswork isn’t usually a very reliable method to use in police work, gentlemen, but there’s one of our departments that does deal in a certain amount of it. That’s why I’ve asked Arthur Leggo along. Politics is Special Branch’s baby, so if anyone is qualified to guess it’s him. Arthur?’
‘Yes, sir.’ McNair’s chief was a tall, gangling man with a schoolmaster’s air. He peered over his spectacles at the Americans opposite him. McNair had been studying them too. The Consul General looked like a small-town Rotarian, a conventional, middle-rung career diplomat, probably out of his depth in this situation and blustering to hide his helplessness. No doubt someone more senior would be flying in to handle their end of the crisis. Stanley, the security man, was thick-set and heavy-jowled, in his mid-fifties—pensioned off, at a guess, by the FBI or a big-city police department before being hired by State, and probably as worried about his own future as about Kiley’s. Then there was Koch, his role undefined, his feelings masked. A slight, academic-looking man with rimless glasses and short black hair peppered with grey, he was dressed in Ivy League style—button-down collar and striped tie, on the narrow side, and a lightweight blazer with patch pockets. He watched the speakers intently, each in turn.
