John Burdett - The Last Six Million Seconds

“I’ll be about an hour,” he told his secretary, and walked quickly to the lift lobby.

On Statue Square he strolled to the Hong Kong Bank building, walked under it, crossed Queen’s Road, passed in front of the Hilton until he reached Cotton Tree Drive, which he crossed; a few hundred yards later he was at the Bank of China. At the reception desk he gave his name and the name of the man he had come to see. The old security guard nodded respectfully and, after making a telephone call, gestured to the private lift at the back. A Chinese secretary arrived to escort Wong to the top floor. She spoke to him in Mandarin with a Beijing accent. Her manners were not as good as a Hong Kong secretary’s would have been, but he liked the look in her eye and the way she stood: military style with legs apart, hands behind her back. Conquest was a state of mind.

Xian wore almost the same clothes as he had on Emily’s boat: black shirt, creased slacks, worn sneakers that rested at angles on the Italian leather two-tone pouffe. The general was lighting a cigarette as Jonathan approached. From the glass-roofed cocktail lounge the view was much better than from Jonathan’s office: higher, more panoramic, more commanding.

Xian pointed to a leather armchair. “Women have everything except strong nerves,” the old man said. “You’ve come to accept my offer…”

When Xian had finished speaking, Wong stood, bowed and left the room.

On returning to his office, his secretary told him that a meeting had been arranged with the senior partners in the main boardroom.

Rathbone stood in front of the board table with his legs planted apart and his arms folded-like a bouncer in a nightclub, Wong always thought. Ng, Watson and Savile stood in various contemplative postures around the large boadroom. Ng half leaned on a polished teak credenza near the window; success meant a saturation of harbor views. Wong could see the uncertainty in the eyes of the three Englishmen. Ng was less concerned. Wong strode to the head of the board table, where he took a chair. The others sat near him.

“I’ve just come from the general,” Wong said. Watson looked away; Ng nodded respectfully; Savile blinked; Rathbone stared at his hands. On the way back from Xian, Wong had debated with himself how to run the meeting. He had toyed with various subtle approaches, then abandoned them. He was developing mainland ways.

“He’s offering us work.”

“Good,” Rathbone said.

“Excellent,” Ng said.

“Well done indeed,” Savile said.

“You all know that Xian and his friends will be running this place after June. They practically run it already. So it’s not quite an offer exactly. It’s an order. The work we’ll be required to do is somewhat unorthodox for a firm of solicitors.”

Wong paused to look into each man’s face. What he was about to say could not really shock them; they were nothing if not shrewd. They must have worked it out at least in part. He ought to have been surprised that none of them had talked about resigning. After all, they were each of them stupendously rich already, the poorest of them being worth at least ten million U.S. dollars. Greed was a fascinating study. It afflicted mediocrities more than most. It caused the mind to fixate not on what one had but upon what one was about to acquire. Even as they sat at the table, each man was silently calculating.

“With the death of Emily Ping,” Wong continued, “Xian needs a representative and a comprador. This firm will fulfill that function. We shall import on his behalf. In strict secrecy, of course.”

“May one inquire what?” Savile asked with a foolish beam.

“Weapons of mass destruction.”

Savile looked pensive. “Something will have to be said at the full partners’ meeting next week. It’s going to take a little finessing.”

“Tush,” Wong said. “They’re commercial lawyers, aren’t they? Subhuman apparatchiks, in other words, powered by greed. They’ll follow the money.” He looked into Savile’s porcine eyes. “Just like you, Cecil.”

You’re kidding me! The judge really did that? Even numbers guilty, odd numbers innocent? That is kind of Oriental. I have some great stories for you too that I’m typing out. I just wanted to scribble this to let you know I’m thinking about you. Must be all of forty-eight hours since you last heard from me.

By the way, those sneaky little Chinese characters you added to your last fax-I tried to look them up in a Chinese dictionary in the public library. If they mean what I think they mean, I feel the same way.

M.

Chan scowled at the fax, screwed it into a ball and threw it in the trash can. Well, I don’t feel that way anymore. You know she’s alive. Dental records: I know you knew.

On a summons from headquarters Chan left his office, took the underground to Admiralty and walked in the heat to Arsenal Street. At reception he called up to homicide on the third floor. An officer there said that the death of Emily Ping was being handled by Chief Inspector Jack Siu. Chan walked up the three flights of broad stairs. There was nothing on the walls except paint, nothing on the stairs except a nonslip synthetic product and no one in uniform going up or down at that particular moment, yet Chan reckoned that if he’d been transported there blindfolded, he would have known it was a police station. There was a subliminal message that went with law enforcement and attached itself to the walls and floors of police stations. Criminals learned to read it, but so did the police themselves. This was the first time Chan had been asked to assist in a death investigation other than as an investigator. Siu was waiting with his assistant, a young Chinese inspector. Siu smiled as he entered.

“Sorry to drag you over here. Unusual, isn’t it?”

Chan nodded, looked around the office. The wall behind Siu was a Bayeau tapestry in photographs of one man’s progress through the system: Siu as head prefect; Siu as police cadet; Siu graduating; Siu promoted to sergeant; Siu arresting two notorious triad killers; Siu promoted to senior inspector; Siu receiving a medal from the governor; Siu in full-dress uniform of chief inspector. Chan vowed to dispose of his own photograph featuring his bravery award as soon as he returned to his office. There were certain aspects of Chineseness that his Irish side couldn’t take.

“We received a copy of your memo-where you mention that your prints would be on the marble top. You’re right. They are.”

Chan allowed his eyes to rest on Siu for a beat too long. He was not surprised that Siu had checked. He was surprised that Siu had not asked Chan personally for a card with his prints. Without it there was only one way for him to have obtained Chan’s prints. Like everyone else who lived in Hong Kong, when Chan had applied for his identity card, he had submitted to fingerprinting. Normally those fingerprints were considered confidential information, not available to police except with the consent of the commissioner. Siu must have applied to Commissioner Tsui for permission to access confidential information relating to Chan. And Commissioner Tsui had consented.

Chan smiled. “Told you.”

Siu nodded. “She was a friend of yours?”

“Not exactly. She was a close friend of my brother-in-law. I spent a night on her boat with my sister, her husband and a few other people.”

“I’d better take the names of those other people.”

Chan hesitated. Siu waited. The young Chinese inspector leaned forward. Siu leaned back in his chair. “Would you like Inspector Ng to leave the room?”

Chan felt he was losing control of the situation. Why wait for a prompt from Siu? “Yes.”