The Wardens of Punyu (The Handover Mysteries, Volume I) Page 13

  Long numbered rows of microfilm machines stood waiting for her. She had to sign in yet again.

  At last she slotted the Brainchild International Ltd. microfilm into the machine.

  Claire wrote out the names of the original directors: Paul MacGinnes, Charles V. Mansfield, Scott Maitland, and Martin Lopez, all using what looked like an office address in Woodland Hills, California. Each held shares of five thousand each, at ten Hong Kong dollars a share, making a total issue of $200,000 Hong Kong dollars, pretty nominal stuff. Claire now suspected that the Hong Kong office of Brainchild International was merely a layer sandwiched between the real mainland operation and a larger holding company in Woodland Hills.

  She exchanged the microfilm for the current year. Now there was only Lopez and MacGinnes, each acquiring half the total shares. Maitland and Mansfield were gone, selling their shares over to Lopez and MacGinnes. Why?

  She inserted the film for Brainchild International China Ltd., the China subsidiary joint venture. The year was now 1985. The first directors were registered as MacGinnes, Lopez, and two others, listed in both English and Chinese.

  One was Philip J.F. Chen, the other Wong, C.P.

  Now MacGinnes gave his address in the Admiralty Building in Hong Kong while Lopez’s address remained in Woodland Hills. Each had shares worth ten thousand Hong Kong dollars priced at one Hong Kong dollar each. Chen and Wong had shares totaling five thousand each. Chen’s address matched the Electronics Ministry address on his name card.

  Chen Jiafang from Punyu wasn’t just representing the Chinese municipality at that meeting with Vic. He was MacGinnes’ partner masquerading as the government.

  Wong’s Guangdong office differed from Chen’s. Claire copied the characters as precisely as she could from the microfiche. Wong’s office was at the Huan Ji Electrical Company, using the ideogram from the two-word combination in ‘welcome’ and the second from the combination for ‘opportunity.’

  Claire checked her watch. The wind howled outside. A garbage can clattered down a sidewalk somewhere outside. She had twenty more minutes before the registry closed. She wanted to finish this before she saw MacGinnes. She sensed it was Business World’s last chance at getting his help, given Vic had already seen him once and missed his second appointment. Three times was enough for a man with God knows how many millions invested in factories that ran twenty-four hours a day.

  She told the man at the counter she was going to the bathroom, then raced up the backstairs to the computer room. She signed in again without breaking her pace and punched the characters for the Huan Ji Electrical Co into a computer. There was a chance, a small chance that Huan Ji maintained a Hong Kong office for trade or banking purposes.

  ‘13444,’ answered the computer.

  Claire rushed back down to the other floor, this time loping down the stairwell two steps at a time, and rushed back to the stacks. There were only a few stragglers now replacing loose-leaf binders on the shelves. She pulled out Huan Ji’s sheet. The year of Hong Kong incorporation was 1985. She headed anxiously for the line at the request window, but happily, that too, had thinned. It took them a few minutes to take her request ticket, and a few more minutes to pull the microfilm.

  She had three more minutes before closing time.

  The man at the door of the computer room tried to stop her. ‘We’re closing now,’ he brushed her back. ‘My things are at number 54,’ she said, pointing to her jacket and large bag on the chair by the machine.

  She jammed the microfilm into the machine and scanned up at the screen, heart racing. The sky outside was black and the overhead lights on full, so that the screen reflected her anxious face back at her. She started to read ‘Huan Ji Electrical Co,’ and then realized that she saw another face in the screen. Lingering at the row of microfilm machines behind her was that same tall Chinese man, smoking calmly, looking away.

  It was no coincidence.

  No matter how uneasy he made her feel, she refused to stop. She took a deep breath and bracing her shoulders, copied down the information on the microfilm. Huan Ji’s directors were C. P. Wong, Huang T. W., Huang Q. C., Huang R. T. and Ren M. C.

  Wong and Huang’s names used the same Chinese character. They read differently in Roman letters because of the Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciations. Claire guessed that C. P. Wong padded the directors’ list with members of his own family. All three Huangs gave residential addresses in Hong Kong in Wanchai’s Sun Street, a ratty little alley behind the old Suzie Wong district.

  The only clue was Wong’s location. She smiled as soon as she recognized it. The address was none other than the China Resources Building. The mysterious Mr M. C. Ren listed it as well.

  The China Resources Building belonged to none other than the mainland government. It was, alone with the Bank of China and the New China News Agency, one of the bastions of growing Communist Party power in the British colony. It was the home of the China Foreign Ministry’s Hong Kong offices and a hundred or more trading and investment outlets for Beijing and the more powerful provincial governments. Lesser Chinese offices had to make due with the grubbier buildings straddling the southern side of Gloucester Road facing the harbor.

  She took down the floor number. If Philip Chen, the lonely, overeducated outcast, was MacGinnes’s Chinese front man, there was much more to this setup than MacGinnes or Chen had admitted. Chen was an electronics partner playing the innocent bureaucrat. Their sleeping business partner, the Huan Ji Co., was nothing more than a cheerful-sounding front, working hand-in-glove with a very powerful organ at the center of Beijing’s Chinese Communist state.

  If nobody was who he claimed, who was Paul MacGinnes?

  She turned off the machine and sat for a moment. When she turned around to take her handbag and jacket off the back of the chair, the seat behind her was empty. But this time, she hadn’t imagined him.

  ***

  That evening, Claire and Xavier ate sausage and beans in tomato sauce while watching the local news. It was a meal he could make in his sleep and one he wouldn’t let anyone else tackle. Nothing less than a tablespoon of dried oregano per serving would do. Afterwards, Xavier poured her a second glass of Chianti and sank into her battered bamboo sofa.

  She’d resolved not to ask him where he was the previous evening. Though it felt little more than an incestuous village to her, Hong Kong was a big, glamorous city for a man new to its delights. She had to believe that things would be fine with Xavier or there was no point in seeing him.

  This new emotional formula stunned her with its simplicity and ease. She curled up next to him, but it didn’t feel as sweet as it had in her imagination the evening before. Some change had occurred inside her. Xavier couldn’t force Hager’s floating, maimed torso out of her nightmares. Xavier couldn’t make those sinister Chinese shadows—real or imagined—simply disappear. Xavier couldn’t name the creepy man tracking her each day.

  The TV news was almost over when Claire’s telephone rang. She took it in her study, settling into the rattan seat. The cozy cocoon of her work corner made it all the easier to picture Cecilia at the other end of the line.

  ‘Where are you?’

  The line was lousy with static; they were forced to abandon any hope of using Guangdong’s patchy cell phone network. She waited while Cecilia hunted down a public telephone outside the monitored circuits used by foreigners in hotels and offices. The Chinese girl held her hand over the own mouthpiece to reduce the background noise of some radio broadcast coming from an outdoor noodle stand.

  ‘Claire, the girls at the Brainchild factory say they saw Vic ten days ago. He talked a lot to them before Chen arrived and stopped him. But there was no one else from the Ministry of Electronics with Chen. Unfortunately, Vic’s Chinese is so poor, they didn’t understand his questions. He was talking about the delivery of the basic components—where they came from. He asked about Cha Ling and how to get there, but they didn’t know what he was talking about. They said the Guangdong police
came two days ago to talk to their forewoman.’

  ‘—Acting on a formal request from Slaughter’s division, checking on Vic.’

  ‘I don’t think they would learn any more than we know. These girls are very young, about sixteen or even younger. Most of them came in by bus from Guangxi. Vic wouldn’t have had a chance—they can hardly understand me. Their accents are really strange. But they did say that Chen took Vic away before he’d finished talking to the workers.’

  Cecilia was talking very fast.

  ‘Cecilia, where are you now?’

  ‘Just a side street outside my cousins’ house in Punyu. I have to go soon. There’s a guy here, waiting outside for his turn to use the phone. There’s more I have to tell you. The girls say that they saw the car of Mr MacGinnes outside the factory the same day Vic was there.’

  ‘MacGinnes! I’m seeing him tomorrow. Did they actually see him? Did MacGinnes talk to Vic?’ There was a minute of background chatter as Cecilia told the waiting stranger she would only be another minute.

  ‘No, they don’t know. They just keep saying to me, ask MacGinnes, ask MacGinnes. Listen, I’ve got to go. This man behind me seems to be in a hurry, he’s pressing so close to me.’

  ‘Cecilia, have you got a place to stay tonight?’

  ‘Yes, I’m staying with an auntie—one of my mother’s uncle’s wife’s friends. I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Okay. Tomorrow morning I’ll go straight to the Huan Ji Company in Punyu.’.

  ‘Just look it over. See if you can locate a C. P. Wong, but don’t approach him directly. Avoid Chen, but see if you can find out what the Huan Ji company does with or for Brainchild. Maybe Vic talked to Wong, too, since he’s a director. It’s listed here in the company registry office as located on Western Moi Chuk Wan Road.’ She told Cecilia the Chinese characters and added, ‘And then call me back in the afternoon. I’m seeing MacGinnes tomorrow morning. Maybe he doesn’t know about any of this. Good luck.’

  Cecilia seemed to have found her feet, and was almost herself as she signed off, ‘It’s my pleasure.’

  That night Claire dreamt of Jim for the first time since his abrupt disappearance from Hong Kong. In the dream, he was reaching for her, but she was saying she could make it on her own. Then she was sliding down a steep incline and couldn’t find a toehold. A small bramble bush broke her fall, but she woke up, the sensation of falling fresh in her mind.

  She didn’t want to tell Xavier she had dreamt of Jim, but the warmth of Jim’s memory left her feeling slightly distant from Xavier, snoring beside her. She was in front of the kitchen sink when a sudden, quite horrible thought came to her.

  That stranger standing so persistently behind Cecilia during last night’s phone call . . . Was he just a bystander impatient to use the phone or was someone eavesdropping on her conversation? She thought of the man trailing her around Hong Kong.

  Was his malevolent twin shadowing her unwitting assistant?

  Chapter Ten

  —Friday—

  Every Hong Kong journalist knew that the Mandarin Hotel’s Grill Room was the city’s most exclusive breakfast haunt. Other hotels—the Regent, Furama, Excelsior, Marriott, Shangri-La—bravely laid out lavish buffets every morning, but they fed traveling buyers, big-spending tourists, and ordinary people who, unbelievably, just wanted bacon and eggs.

  Only the hushed and dimly lit morning-time Mandarin, with its heavy silver teapots and pastry-laden trolleys, drew the local pinstriped elite who regulated the heartbeat of the British colony. And within that sacrosanct five-star landmark, the Grill Room was a glowing artificial spaceship of quiet influence and discreet money floating one floor above the frantic greed of Central.

  Of course, MacGinnes could have eaten there every morning and, unlike Claire, could have afforded to finish the same day dining at the hotel’s gourmet restaurant as well. But to be seen being interviewed, hosted and courted by an influential international weekly had its allure even to the most blasé. So Claire was counting on the combination of the American’s vanity and her magazine’s reputation to snag time out of his hectic schedule. He’d begged off at first, but she’d pressed. If lunch wasn’t possible, if a meeting at his office was out, then at least an early cup of coffee? At the Mandarin?

  She sat now at the very back of the dining room in a deep banquette that enveloped her in luxury. The famous room had no windows or natural light but her coppery curls glinted softly under the discreet recessed lamps. She sipped coffee from a delicate porcelain cup. A basket of croissants ready to crumble at the touch into a thousand buttery flakes had been laid on her table. The other seats were filling up, many of them reserved by regular customers for seven a.m., but the mood remained hushed, never hurried, as if some diners meant to stay asleep right through the gentle clank of gleaming coffeepots. White-jacketed waiters stood at attention along one wall to assist at the chafing dishes warming bacon, eggs, sausages, pancakes, and waffles.

  The single biggest Chinese touch was the large fish tank set for good luck by the hotel’s feng shui adviser on the far side of the room. The water cast a greenish glow on the brass railings that cordoned off a gallery of tables ringing the main floor.

  According to feng shui theory, the fish brought wealth to the Grill Room’s clients, prompting thoughts of coal to Newcastle in the mind of any knowing observer.

  Twenty years on, the protective balm of this room soothed Claire as much as when she was first invited as a South China Morning Post cub reporter by the hotel’s press relations officer. Unpleasant things did not happen in the Grill Room. Here no colleague would accuse you with angry silent glances of frustrating his brilliant future. For that matter, no grotesque corpse with torn threads of gaping, crusted flesh instead of eyes would come floating up to rest at your feet. No distant editor would threaten to dump your whole career in the garbage because a junior colleague had been foolish.

  Claire started her second cup of coffee. Rueful glances in the mirror the night before had inspired a cleanup. She was getting tired of wearing what amounted to a uniform, of worrying the entire day about Vic, of juggling routine with anxiety and of having her life on hold until he was found. It was about time she expended a minimum of effort on herself.

  This morning her hair was freshly washed and dried into a neat flow of waves, fixed by two jade combs. Instead of her usual pressed white cotton shirt and straight black skirt, she’d reached into the back of her closet for a silk waistcoat of flowing green flowers on a black background over a black designer dress.

  She knew it wasn’t enough to erase the fatigue from her brow. She was tired by so much these days. Hong Kong’s humidity, even during the relatively dry months of January and February, wrapped itself around you, whether it rained or not. Breathing in a mixture of exhaust fumes and fuggy mist made the lungs ache. Every night she rinsed mud splatters off her shoes and pantyhose. And every time she was good and damp, the Hong Kong passion for air-conditioning at full blast chilled her face from the doorway of every building and restaurant in town.

  She wondered if MacDermott’s warning to get back to business had sunk in. Was this morning’s black dress a subconscious gesture? If New York was writing off Vic for the time being, leaving it to the diplomats and police—powerless as they seemed—was she trying in the back of her mind to express some kind of mourning? Would Cecilia and she return to work on Monday to find someone sent from Tokyo doing temporary duty at Vic’s desk? Did her obligations to Vic end right there, like the endit she typed at the bottom of her copy every Tuesday, marking the final thought for one assignment and the rush to tackle the next?

  ‘Claire Raymond? Have I kept you waiting?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ Claire was flustered, half standing to reach over the table for MacGinnes’s extended hand. His nails were beautifully manicured. Smoothing her skirt, she settled back again into the soft seating and focused on how to begin. In formal interviews, a notebook by her side was always a reliable fallback, but pull
ing out a notebook in this setting seemed gauche.

  ‘I’m very grateful you’re willing to spend more time on this. How tight is your schedule?’ She gave him her best smile.

  Yes, he was a very handsome man, and taller, wider, stronger than she’d expected. He had seemed charismatically comfortable in the news photos. He was equally attractive to anyone close enough to read the confidence in his eyes. Was he used to being stared at by women on a first encounter?

  He enjoyed her scrutiny as he spread the stiff white tent of a damask napkin across his lap and signaled for coffee. ‘I’ll have the car back in about half an hour. ‘Til then I’m at your disposal.’

  Now he returned her smile. He was actually only a fraction taller than Vic and had the same coloring, but his aura shimmered with success. The suit was dark, the shirt white with stripes so thin they were mere tracings of gray. The cufflinks glinted in the soft lighting and his collar was as crisp as cardboard—not an easy feat in Hong Kong.

  His hair stood straight back from his high forehead. He wore it slightly longer than expected, brushed away from a face so clean-shaven it reflected the glow of the table lamp. He wore a very mild scent, not the usual morning cologne of lime or musk boosted by chemicals. Claire couldn’t place it, but yes, it attracted her.

  MacGinnes clearly was used to commanding the show.

  ‘First question. What’s your co-worker’s’s excuse for standing me up? Big scoop? Hang on, I’ll have a double grapefruit juice if it’s freshly squeezed, two bran muffins, and a side of sliced papaya, thanks.’ He turned back to her.

  ‘He’s disappeared. He wasn’t just blowing you off. He went to Guangdong for the New Year break and hasn’t come back. That’s why I wanted to see you.’