A Place in the Country (27 page)

She took the service elevator down because she no longer merited the luxurious private wood-paneled one she usually entered her apartment by. No one noticed her go. No one even looked. No one cared.

*   *   *

Less than half an hour
later, Lieutenant Huang rode that smart elevator up to Ms. Chen's apartment. He had a warrant to arrest her for the murder of James Evans. She was not there. No one was. He was too late. Hong Kong was a big city. China a very big country. It was possible to remain anonymous there. Forever.

 

chapter 63

Henry said to Melanie
at the pub, “Better tell us the whole story. It's us or the cops.”

“Jesus! No need to go
that
far.” Melanie sniffed into her tissue.

“Yes there is,” Cassandra said. “There's a child involved.”

Melanie glanced up through the soggy tissue. Realizing she was outplayed she sat up straight, knees together for once. She adjusted her chiffon pussycat bow and said, “Well, okay then, so Asia is not my daughter. I was only doing this to help someone out. She wouldn't do it herself and she needed help. I mean this
is James's daughter.
”

Caroline felt the sigh that escaped her had been held in from the moment she had first seen Asia, with her blackberry eyes and olive skin, and her “lostness.” “Poor baby,” she murmured.

Cassandra said, “Well, at least now we know that truth.”

“If Melanie ever speaks the truth,” Jim reminded them.

She gave him an indignant glare. “I am not a liar. I only did this to help.”

“You mean you only
lied
to help.” Cassandra never let anybody off the hook.

Caroline was thinking oh my God this means Issy really has a little sister—well a half sister. What will she think? What will she do? Things are tough enough as it is, between us … now what? And what,
she also wondered suddenly,
would
she
do about Asia anyway?

“Get on with it, Melanie,” Henry said. “Or I suppose we should call you Jacqueline, now.”

“Jackie. Like Kennedy, y'know.”

“Only without the pearls,” Cassandra said; thinking,
and also without the class.

“So. Okay. It's like this. I live in Singapore, been there a long time now. I work in a cocktail bar, hostess I suppose you'd call me, a nice place though, no hanky panky, no showing your female assets for the customers.”

She glanced round the table. She had their attention.

“Yes, well, then,” she went on hastily. “There was this young woman. She worked at the boutique opposite, selling clothes, nice stuff, not upmarket but not down either. Actually, that's where I got this blouse.” She fingered the bow again and there was a collective impatient sigh.

“Right, well, we used to pass each other on the street, she'd be opening up the shop and we'd say hello, stop to chat a while … After a bit we met up for lunch, told each other our stories. She said she was madly in love, his name was James and he loved her so much it made her feel she was walking on air, or in a dream.”

Caroline felt a shaft of pain right in the place where she could swear she once had a heart. James, oh James. How? Why? Where did it go, our love, our walking-on-air dream?

“Asia's mother's name really is Melanie Morton. She's a nice girl.” Jackie threw Caroline a long shafting look, checking her reaction but Caroline's eyes were closed, her face blank.

“Anyway, then Melanie got pregnant. James said he couldn't marry her. ‘Yet' he said.” Jackie laughed. “Haven't you noticed there's always a ‘yet' in cases like this?

“Anyhow, Melanie had the baby. James wasn't around when it was born, he was off on his travels so she named her Asia—for the place she was conceived. By the way, Melanie is half-Thai, half-Vietnamese.

“Anyhow,” Jackie said again. “Like so many other people I've met in my travels, Melanie had no family. She was okay though, earned her living at the shop until the baby came and James kept her in a nice apartment nearby. Then he started not showing up, money got tight, he'd send some, then not…”

A familiar story, thought Caroline, the same thing had happened to her, probably at the same time.

“When James did come to see Melanie though, he really showed how much he loved that little girl. He spoiled both of them rotten, buying them clothes, presents, taking them places. Melanie told me he wouldn't so much as go out to dinner without Asia so that kid got to go to some pretty fancy restaurants. When James was in funds that is, because after a couple of years it was clear, even to Melanie, blinded to reality about him, though she was—I mean him not marrying her and all that; it became clear James was in financial difficulties. Working in a bar I heard rumors, asked a few questions. Nobody really knew anything except James seemed to have a couple of different lives going, and of course they all knew about you, Caroline, and your daughter and the divorce. They also knew about Gayle Lee Ching…”

“Chen,” Caroline corrected her automatically.

“Yeah, Chen. Well, then James got murdered…”

“How do you know he was murdered?” Henry asked.

“I didn't, but the real Melanie did. She said James loved his child too much to kill himself, he would never leave her, and never leave them un-provided for. But that's exactly what he did. And that's why I am here, with Asia, to try and get money for the real Melanie out of you cheap bastards because the real Melanie sure as hell wouldn't do it. She's in that boutique, seven days a week, putting the kid in preschool, working her butt off … so I suggested I come here with Asia. I suggested I'd be the ‘mother,' I'd get the money that's due her from James.”

“And exactly how much were
you
planning on making from the deal?” Henry asked.

“What d'you mean? I was doing Melanie a favor, a good turn. Doing what she should have done herself.”

“But Melanie had too much pride,” Caroline said, because she understood completely. She had been there herself.

“I'll bet you wanted fifty percent of whatever settlement you made,” Henry said to Jackie.

She stared defiantly back into his eyes. “So what?” she said with a shrug. “Without me, they would have had nothing.”

Caroline said to her father, “Whatever the story is, obviously we now have to take care of the real mother and Asia.”

They agreed and Cassandra nodded. “Of course. And ‘Jackie' has to leave right away.”

“What!” Jackie was indignant. “But I have to look after that child.”

“No you don't,” Caroline said. “I'll do that. Meanwhile, I'm calling Mark, in Singapore. I'm telling him the whole situation and that I'm keeping James's child here with me until we can decide what to do.”

“If we find the real mother is ‘unsuitable,' we might even have to go to the authorities,” Henry warned.

Caroline understood he meant then she would be left in complete charge of James's daughter. She sighed, thinking of Issy and their already tense relationship, wondering where all of this would lead.

“First, I'll call the airlines,” Henry said. “We'll get Jackie out of here.”

“
Asap,
” Maggie agreed. “And then we'll deal with the real mother.”

Behind her Sarah put the kettle on the hob and Lily put the Darjeeling in the pot and organized mugs without breaking anything, silenced for once.

 

chapter 64

Mark was not in Singapore
when Caroline called. He was in a teahouse in Hong Kong, in an area where tourists never ventured. Old men with dusty feet came in for their dim sum breakfast, some carrying little wicker cages containing pet birds. These were placed carefully on the seat beside them and allowed to watch the proceedings. Occasionally, they were fed a live cricket. Mark wondered if when the birds were at home they were freed from their tiny wicker prisons and sang for joy. He certainly hoped so.

A hawk-eyed waiter trundled past with the dim sum cart and Mark chose a steamed shrimp wonton and a sweet-bean bun. More tea was poured into his small cup, a fresh pot placed by his hand, another chit flung onto the table.

“Glad to see you're enjoying Hong Kong's best breakfast.” Lieutenant Huang settled himself in the chair opposite.

The waiter knew him and backpedaled to their table. Huang made his choice, far more exotic than Mark's: steamed buns containing gelatinous fishy substances and eel and egg and rice. Another teapot appeared, a fresh cup.

“I thought it best to meet here, anonymously,” Huang said, after he had demolished the eel dim sum and two gulps of boiling-hot green tea. “There are bad characters around who you might not want to know. And also because I have news for you.”

“I hope that means good news? If any news could be good in this situation.”

“
Good.
And
bad.
I'm not sure which way you'll take it. First, we know she killed James.”

Mark did not have to ask
who,
but he did ask
how
they knew.

“Somebody turned her in, a witness. Says he saw her go on the boat, heard the shot, saw her run off again, says she almost tripped on your little gangway she was hurrying so fast. ‘In those heels,' was what he said. That was kinda one of the things that made us believe he was speaking the truth. Besides, he corroborated the time, and described her perfectly.”

“How did he know her?”

Huang shrugged. “Everybody knows her, or more like knows of her.”

“And exactly
who
is your witness?”

Huang laughed. “Nobody you would trust with your life. Ms. Chen was set up. One of her own kind turned her in; works for an undesirable who makes too much illegal money and has kept Ms. Chen in splendor for years. More splendor than he knew about until recently, when he found out about her Ponzi scam. He had two choices. Kill her or get her another way. This way was tidier, and besides Chen had done the job for him. He didn't even have to get his hands dirty.”

“So? What next?” Mark didn't trust Ms. Chen not to have already hired the best lawyers or to have come up with the perfect alibi, or to be able to prove she was somewhere else at the time of the murder. A woman like that could do anything.

“She killed him,” Lieutenant Huang said. “Make no mistake about it. Her prints were not on the gun but we were given evidence that she bought that gun the week before the murder. She was seen at the boat when the shot was fired, seen running away after…”

“And that's enough?”

“Don't you want it to be?

Mark remembered James, good-natured, weak, emotional, torn between two lives, between women, between trust and wrongdoing. “It's enough,” he agreed.

“When are you going to arrest her?” he asked Huang who was already on his feet, about to leave.

“We're doing the paperwork, getting the evidence together, then we'll get the warrant. We'll go there tonight.” He was smiling as he patted Mark's shoulder and said goodbye. “Then watch what happens,” he said, heading past the birdcages for the door.

Mark's global mobile rang. It was Caroline. “Caroline,” he said. “Good news.”

“Shall I tell you mine first? Or do you want to tell me.”

“Okay, you first,” he said.

He did not interrupt while she told her story. “I'll be back in Singapore tomorrow, first thing,” he said. “I'll find the woman. Of course I will Caroline. It's a sad tale though.”

“And a sad little girl,” Caroline said.

It was only after Mark had rung off he remembered he had not told her Ms. Chen was to be arrested for James's murder. He sat for a while, sipping his tea. Where, he wondered, did this leave Caroline? He knew the answer, of course. Where James had always left her. Responsible.

 

chapter 65

Back in Singapore,
he went immediately to the boutique where Asia's mother, the real Melanie Morton, worked in the busy Orchard Road mall. It was evening and crowded.

Orchard Road was definitely not a place Mark usually found himself and he had to ask the way. The boutique seemed quite well known and when he got there it was larger than he'd expected, and busy.

From Caroline's description of the child, he knew her mother immediately; small, dark-haired, with delicate bones and blackberry eyes that tilted slightly upwards.

He went up to her.

“Melanie Morton?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, glancing up at him.

“It's about your daughter,” Mark said.

She clutched a hand to her heart, looking terrified and he told her Asia was safe. “She's with James's ex-wife,” he said. “They found Jackie Ferris was pretending to be you.”

The real Melanie Morton's face folded into tears and she said, “I knew I should never have agreed to it but Jackie said it was the right thing to do. I couldn't bring myself to go to James's family and ask for charity. I'll always work for my child … but Jackie said Asia was
entitled.
It was her
right.
I mean I can put food on our table but that's about all. I can't guarantee Asia a good education and a better life and I wanted her to have a better chance than me. Her father loved her, you know, he really did.”

Mark said, “We need to talk. Tell the store you'll take a break.” He was finally going to hear the truth.

*   *   *

Much later,
he called Caroline back and told her he'd met Asia's mother, that she'd believed Jackie only wanted to help her. Now she was ashamed and knew it was wrong. She did not want Jackie to have anything more to do with Asia, and he was faxing a certified document handing custody of the girl to Caroline.