John Burdett - The Last Six Million Seconds

Jenny checked her watch. “I have this checklist of items I have to get ready-things the crew aren’t so good at, like choosing wine and champagne. We can get it all from the club if you want to help.”

Back on the walkway he helped his sister step down from the boat. They walked together along the floating dock: two Eurasians. People turned as always to look at Jenny. Her long black hair was tied up in a bun; her dark eyes were large and only faintly tilted. With Chan’s high cheekbones and fine lips in a smaller, female mold, her apparent fragility was terrifying, like a Chinese vase.

“No one would guess that you can fight like a cat. I still have scars where you scratched me down to the bone,” Chan whispered in her ear.

“You were all I had, and I was jealous.” She looked at him and smiled. “I’m glad you’ve come. I know how you hate social groups, but you can talk to me. And you can dive. Emily likes to dive too; underwater you won’t have to talk to her.”

He waited in the club’s enormous lobby while she chose the wine and champagne. As they were about to return to the boat, Jenny murmured, “There’s Emily now.”

A white Rolls-Royce with blue interior slid into the forecourt to stop in front of the entrance. A chauffeur in whites stepped out to open the rear door.

Chan winced.

“Sorry,” Jenny said. “She uses it only when she’s entertaining someone important.”

A Chinese man in his seventies got out of the car. He wore a white jacket and blue slacks, both ill-fitting. The open-neck shirt under the white jacket was black. On his feet, old sneakers had molded around his bony feet. Chan noticed the hands, heavy and gnarled like ginseng roots. Emily followed in white shorts, a blue silk blouse, red shoes with flat heels. The old man walked in front of her, then seemed to remember a local custom and stood aside to let her pass while the doorman opened the door. Chan thought that people stopped because of the Rolls and because Emily’s face was often in the newspapers, but some of the Chinese looked at the old man as if they knew him too. Chan had never seen him before, although he fitted a specific category.

Jenny was watching Chan. He caught her eye. His twitch was working. She put a hand on his arm.

“I told you, I’ll explain later. Stay-for me.”

“Why?”

“For me. For you. I promised them you’d stay.”

Chan glanced quickly at her, then nodded. “Okay. For you.” Chan picked up the plastic bag with bottles of champagne and claret, followed Jenny across the marble lobby. Emily gave a big wave. Jenny smiled. Out of the corner of his eye Chan saw a white Toyota draw up behind the Rolls-Royce. Two men got out: Chinese but not Cantonese. They were each over six feet tall with the powerful build of the far north. The two bodyguards took up positions about ten feet away from the old man and never took their eyes off him.

“My God, I hate you,” Emily said to Jenny. She turned to Chan. “Every time I see her she’s more stunning than ever. Doesn’t it make you mad that this former Miss Hong Kong is your sister?”

“I believe you two have met,” Jenny said.

“All my life,” Chan said.

“This is Mr. Xian, a very close business associate of mine from the PRC,” Emily said.

She spoke to the old man in Mandarin. Chan followed one or two words that were the same in Cantonese. He caught the word for “detective.”

The old man held out a horny hand to Jenny, gave a shark’s yellow smile. He spoke in Mandarin. Jenny shook his hand. He turned to Chan. Chan took the hand, pressed it instead of shaking it.

He spoke softly in Cantonese. “You killed my mother.”

“What did he say?”

Emily blinked. “He said, ‘pleased to meet you.’ ” Her Mandarin was perfect.

On the way back to the boat Chan felt Emily’s eyes on him while she conversed with Mr. Xian. He recognized the word for “dollars” in Mandarin. She used it a lot. The old man had a way of replying with a high-pitched laugh and a forward shake of the head like a horse neighing. Whatever she was saying it was pleasing Mr. Xian. Chan noticed the old man’s Shanghainese accent; he pronounced x sounds with the middle of his tongue. Through the wooden boards Chan could feel the heavy tread of the bodyguards ten feet behind.

“I guess you had to do that.” Jenny said.

“Yes,” Chan said.

She shook her head. “You never change. You’re all balls and no brains.” But she said it with affection and let him see how her eyes were shining. “Bravo anyway.”

Jenny turned to speak to Emily. “Jonathan phone you?”

Emily switched from Mandarin to English. “He’s going to be about twenty minutes late. A client.”

“Anyone else coming?”

“I invited Milton Cuthbert, the political adviser. D’you know him?”

“No,” Jenny said.

“Slightly,” Chan said.

“Oh,” Emily said.

With a cigarette Chan attempted to calm the jumping nerves, the increased heartbeat, the cold sweat. He knew that he ought to feign serious illness, disappear until he had time to work out what kind of trap it was, but there was Jenny.

As soon as he could, Chan left the other guests in the saloon to join the captain and mate on the bridge. On the captain’s hat EMILY was embossed in gold.

At a signal from the captain the boat boy let go of the two mooring lines at the bows and ran along the side to release two more. He jumped back on board using the swimming platform at the stern. Behind the boat lay a crowded playground of smaller craft maneuvering to escape from the marina to more spacious seas. Leisure made people urgent; everyone seemed to be yelling as sailboats tacked past powerboats chugging in opposite directions. The captain of the Emily sounded the horn three times, and as the stern bore down on them with its threshing screws, the smaller boats took avoiding action.

Once extricated from her berth, the large boat turned slowly in her own length and the diesels increased to a low throb as she made way slowly ahead. Chan left the wheelhouse to stand at the bows. Looking up at the club terraces, Chan saw that people had crowded to the rails to watch.

“Stops them in their tracks, doesn’t she?”

Chan had not heard Cuthbert come up behind. He offered Chan a Turkish cigarette from an old silver case. He was wearing beige shorts with razor creases, a blue designer sailing shirt with an anchor on the single pocket, white socks and blue leather Docksides.

Chan took the cigarette. “Money does that.”

Cuthbert smiled. “I believe I’ve not yet proffered you a full apology. I’m afraid everyone was pretty worked up. Radiation sickness scares the best of us, and one or two were looking for a scapegoat. Also, a word of thanks. You’ve no idea how much more manageable Jack Forte has become since you broke his nose.”

“You knew I would be on board? You arranged it?”

Cuthbert considered the smoke winding upward from the end of his cigarette.

“Not exactly. Not in the way you mean. I know Emily very well, and I have a standing invitation for weekends. I just happened to have lunch with her last week. She mentioned you. Naturally I was not going to spoil your weekend. Then, when she told me who else was coming, I thought you might need a little help.”

“I’m lost,” Chan said. “I’m paid to catch crooks with room temperature IQs. Ninety percent of the homicides I investigate are husbands or wives murdered by their spouses with meat cleavers when the air conditioning fails. If they have air conditioning. I don’t want to prove anything by getting into the big time.”

What was it about Cuthbert that made one want to lie? Chan had never been so intrigued by a case in his life. Somehow it was bad form to tell the truth to a diplomat, like annoying a bat with a bright light.