Tony Richards - The Astonishing Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the Twenty-First Century

The others would hear a sudden wail. Occasionally, there’d be a splash. And they would hurry over to the source of the commotion – to find no one there at all.

“No floating corpse?”

Pang shook his head. “Nothing. Seven of my men have simply disappeared, out of a workforce of two hundred.”

“And what do the police make of it?”

“They are as baffled as everybody else.”

“But do you have any suspicions?” the detective asked.

At which, Mr Pang’s demeanour became considerably graver.

“We all think the same thing, Mr Holmes. We believe it is the Triads.”

Holmes stiffened at the mention of that name. He’d heard of those criminal gangs long before he’d arrived here. In fact, he had encountered their like in Victorian London. They could be counted amongst the most brutal villains in the world, merciless in the defence of their illicit empires. One of their modus operandi in these parts – or so he understood – was to threaten the lives of the actual families of policemen pursuing them, and even carry out those threats. The special squads that pursued the Triads, therefore, were entirely made up of a courageous elite of young men and women who were single, with no spouse or child. Holmes’ admiration for them was entirely boundless.

“But you have no proof?” he insisted, getting back to the point.

“I have been approached from time to time.”

“They wish your line to smuggle items for them, drugs and weapons and the like?”

“And I’ve rebuffed them every time, despite their threats.” Pang folded his hands and stared at them a moment, then continued. “I believe that one of the gangs is trying to soften up my attitude. I think that they have sent a lone assassin to attack my men. A shadowy figure has been spotted very briefly near the docks, about the time of several of the disappearances. There one moment, gone the next, the stealthiest of apparitions.”

Holmes listened to this with his eyebrows lifted slightly.

“Almost like a ninja, then?”

But that was Japanese, not Chinese, and both men knew it.

Suddenly, the day seemed not quite so pleasant, the colours muted, the sunlight dulled.

Holmes took another sip of his drink, and then frowned.

Simon Pang’s base of operations turned out to be not in Hong Kong City itself, but in Aberdeen, on the far side of the island. Sherlock Holmes had not been there until now. They were borne across the island in Pang’s limousine.

As they entered the town, Holmes could see how different it was to the place where he’d been staying. It was apparently more vulnerable to the weather – as the water came in sight again, he noticed how heavily constructed was the harbour wall.

“It is one of our typhoon walls,” his host told him, “since we get at least a couple of such storms every year.”

And although the place was full of towers, none of them were like the sturdy modernistic ones that he had left behind. They were mostly as tall, certainly, but narrow, so that they created the effect of massive pencils stacked inside a box.

“The same thing,” Pang explained. “If the towers were wider, then the storms might damage them. These are constructed, like the branches of a willow, to yield to the massive winds. They bend slightly, in other words, and so avoid serious harm. They sway, sometimes for several days.”

What must it be like, Holmes wondered, to occupy one of the apartments at the very top during a three- or four-day monsoon? An extremely bilious experience, most likely. And one that he’d not like to go through.

This was a place that made uneasy bargains with the elements.

They finally reached the entrance to Pang’s shipping company. It was a massive double iron gate, guarded by four security men. Beyond it, to either side, stretched chain-link fences at least ten feet tall, with razor wire at the top. The narrow cables running from them told Holmes that the fences were alarmed. And he could make out more security people, with Alsatian dogs, patrolling the perimeter. The place was sealed as tightly as a corked-up bottle of Bordeaux. This assassin had to be extremely skilful even to get in.

Once they were waved through, nothing more that was unusual met his eye. But he could not claim the same thing for his inner senses.

There were rows of warehouses, an office block, stacks of containers, cranes. And rugged-looking men were wandering about, all of them in orange hardhats. These were Pang’s employees. They were trying to go about their business in their usual fashion.

But were doing it with such an air of gloom and apprehension you could cut it with a knife.

The scent of fear hung about this place like a thick miasma. Perhaps even the scent of death. Pang could sense it too, apparently, because he stiffened in his seat, his eyes becoming slightly wider.

“Would you like to talk to any of my people?” he enquired.

“Maybe later,” Holmes replied. He seriously doubted that he would hear any more from them than what he’d already been told. “Perhaps we should go down to the water?”

Pang smiled stiffly, gave instructions to the driver.

“The newest of my fleet is in,” he told Holmes as their vehicle altered course. “The Goliath of Aberdeen . You really have to see her.”

It was a truly massive cargo freighter, practically a floating city. As they drew closer to the ship, it loomed above them like a cliff, blocking out the sunlight.

“Good Lord almighty!” Holmes exclaimed. “It’s twice the size of the Titanic !”

“Nearly three times,” Pang grinned proudly. “We had to deepen the channel through the harbour simply to allow it ingress.”

Holmes stared out across the placid grey water. “You dredged it?”

“Certainly. And you wouldn’t believe the stuff that we pulled out. A couple of sunken tugboats. And even the wreckage of a fighter plane from the war.”

He paused momentarily, thinking that last scrap of information through, then asked, half as a joke, “You don’t suppose that our assassin is the ghost of that same pilot?”

Holmes understood how superstitious Hong Kong people were. And the things he had encountered in his travels told him that they had good reason. But he did not think that the culprit was any ghost in this case.

“Anything is possible,” he conceded, keeping his suspicions to himself.

When they reached the dockside, both of them got out. The breeze was very salty, had the slightest tang of seafood to it. Holmes stared across the mighty harbour, and his gaze alighted on a gaudily attired ship he’d read about in his guidebooks. The legend down its side read ‘Jumbo Floating Restaurant’. It had been featured in countless moving picture shows, including those ones with the fictional James Bond. An absurd, soulless and priapic thug of a character, Holmes had thought since first encountering him, nothing like the passionate but noble James T Kirk.

Then he forgot about such musings, and his gaze took him further along, to an enormous row of smaller wooden vessels packed in side by side along the far end of the harbour. He had read about this in the guidebooks too.

“Yes,” Pang confirmed, seeing where his guest was looking. “That is the Aberdeen Floating Village.”

“Could I take a closer look?”

Pang’s personal launch was brought along. They both climbed into it. As they powered closer, Holmes could see that he was not the only person who was curious about the place. Several sampans, filled from stem to stern with Western tourists, were examining the place.

The launch slowed down. Holmes was able to get a clearer view of the junks. All of them seemed seaworthy, but most of them were shabby-looking.