Blue Lantern (22 page)

“I believe you've had a rather good find today, Brodie.”

“Very, sir.”

“Every bit of progress we make is good, but you should have got a green light from the station first.”

“I didn't have time, sir. If I hadn't acted we might have missed out.”

Macbeth thought about this. “Yes. Make a point of that in your report, will you? Special Branch should have been involved, but we didn't have time. And we've come up with the goods. Fine. Well, they can't do everything, can they? Good work.”

Brodie came away pleased that for once Andy Marsden hadn't got it quite right. He finished cataloging the seizure in the duty room, and explained to Askew, on the telephone at the crime lab, the specimens that he would be sending for forensic tests. Then, as he went down to the cells, he passed Flinn who stopped.

“At it again Mr Brodie?” he said, shaking his head.

“Mr Macbeth seemed pleased. Terrorism and sedition isn't part of our deal.”

Flinn gave him a
You-bolshie-bastard
stare, and marched away. Brodie went on to the cells, his balloon pricked.

“What does he say?” he asked the corporal questioning the prisoner.

“He says he's a messenger.”

The prisoner was seated, wearing his Mao badge. He was tall, spike-haired, a northerner with a haughty composure, and a clear, intelligent eye.

“He doesn't look like a messenger.”

The corporal agreed. “I think he too smart. He wants lawyer.”

“First, you have to talk to him.”

The enquiry room was bare, windowless and full of white light. The prisoner was seated at a table with a paper and pencil near him; the corporal, and one of Brodie's constables stood over him. Brodie left them.

Half an hour later he returned. The prisoner was still sitting straight-backed and unemotive. Blank sheets of paper, and the pencil, were lying on the floor. The two Chinese cops were red with heat, and discomfort.

“He is very stubborn. All we get is Mao's thoughts,” the corporal said.

Brodie called Askew at the crime laboratory. Askew had had a chance to examine the samples Brodie had sent across the harbour by messenger. He confirmed that the plastic container, and the shrapnel samples, matched the Sherwin bomb.

“But what's the link with your prisoner? He might be a cook or a waiter.”

“There's nothing to tie Lo Sun in directly. He's no cook. He's a smart-ass political. We need a confession.”

“Special Branch may be able to come up with a file on him.”

“He'll confess,” Brodie said, confidently.

He wanted to tell Andy Marsden of his success, but the line was engaged. He decided to spend an hour walking to Marsden's apartment and back; he could do with the exercise and the opportunity to think. When he came back, he would work on the charges against Lo Sun. He left the station and strode out. As the months narrowed down to Christmas the air became milder and less humid; it was perfect weather for walking. Brodie's path passed through a district of large houses, secluded behind walls with barred windows. The inhabitants lived sumptuous lives of different cultures, Indian, Pakistani, Armenian, Russian. He approached Marsden's apartment block from the rear, through the car park. He saw two figures come out of the front entrance into the light. One was Marsden, unmistakably energetic in a starched white shirt. The other was Vanessa, high-breasted, flicking her head to arrange her hair. He was astonished. They were saying goodbye. Marsden had a hand on her upper arm, guiding her. She broke away and slid into the rear seat of a waiting taxi. Marsden didn't look to see the flutter of a hand at the rear window as the cab drew away.

Brodie went up in the lift ahead of Marsden, and rang the bell. When the amah came to the door, he pushed past her, ignored her protest, and walked through the lounge, down the hall, into the main bedroom. The room was neat, soap-scented with a made bed. He returned to the lounge and dropped into a chair. What was the connection between Vanessa and Marsden? The hidden baby, the hidden fiancé, and what else?

When Marsden came into the room a few seconds later, he showed only surprise and pleasure.

“I thought I'd call in. I don't want to … inconvenience you.”

“You don't have to have a pretext or an appointment to call on me, Mike. Any time, day or night. Have a drink. Remember, I'm from the big country where people call on each other uninvited. We don't issue engraved invitations.”

Brodie talked stonily about his raid in the Walled City. The amah put a tall beer in front of him.

Andy Marsden listened quietly. “I think it was a stupid thing to do. I don't care what McBeth said. He only wants to put one over Special Branch. You're not an independent police unit. You don't act on your own, except in an emergency. I'll say again, Mike, you've got the Sherwin thing out of kilter.”

Brodie didn't get into dispute. He finished his beer and left. As he walked back to Mongkok his legs jarred from pace to pace, and he saw nothing but grey paving stones.

When Brodie arrived at the station, he found his men had failed to get a statement from Lo Sun. Freddie Hudson told him that Special Branch would see him to get a briefing, and take over the investigation and trial. Brodie wanted to get his case together first, and decided to question Lo Sun at the factory. The next morning Brodie returned to the Mei Foo with Lo Sun, and the interrogating corporal and constable. Both the ground floor and upper floors were deserted. The factory room had been cleared and the tables removed.

“I'm going downstairs to make further enquiries. If he tries to escape, you'll have to stop him,” he said to his men.

Brodie went back to the first floor room, closed the door and lit a cigarette. When he stubbed out the butt, he heard a cry. He opened the door and looked across the bridge. The prisoner had fallen down the outside stairs.

“He tried to escape,” the corporal said.

“He says he will talk now,” the constable added.

Brodie took Lo Sun back to the interrogation room at the station, but Lo Sun refused to sit down, saying he had no statement to make, and wanted a lawyer.

“Ask him again,” Brodie said to the corporal.

Lo Sun spat in the corporal's face. The corporal wiped the yellow gob off his cheek with rigid hand strokes which were at the limit of self control. Lo Sun began to tremble, anger bellying up in him like a seizure. He struggled to get out of the door. He caught the edge of the door with his foot, and slammed it on Brodie. The heavy steel edge of the door struck Brodie's chest and chin. Lo Sun was bundled back into the interrogation room by the trio, and Brodie slammed a fist into his throat. Lo Sun's head hit the concrete wall. The corporal grabbed Lo Sun's hair, and banged his head against the stonework several times.

Brodie's chest hurt. Blood was running from an abrasion on his jaw. Lo Sun still stood unaided, breath rattling in his throat, saliva drooling from the corner of his mouth. Brodie tore the Mao badge off Lo Sun's shirt.

“Enough. Leave the bastard alone!” he gasped.

But Lo Sun screamed, and in a frantic fit of vituperation kicked at the constable, and then with the point of his shoe, hit Brodie solidly in the testicles. In agony, Brodie lashed out with his fists. The two cops joined in, and Lo Sun was pummelled to the ground, a stoical, bloody face at their feet.

There was a moment of hoarse breathing.

“Get him cleaned up and to bed,” Brodie said.

An hour later, Sergeant Lam came to the duty room to see Brodie.

“The prisoner is conscious, but says he will never make a statement. He still asks for a lawyer. What do we do?”

Brodie fingered the lump on his jaw. “We've got enough evidence. He's involved in a bomb factory. A conspiracy charge. That's enough. We'll also charge resisting arrest and assault. I'll get a medico to examine our injuries. I don't know about Constable Wong, but one of my balls is just about black.”

“What about the lawyer?”

“Tomorrow, after he's appeared in court.”

AC McBeth had spoken to Special Branch, and cleared Brodie to deal with the preliminary appearance in court; Special Branch would take over the case after the remand, and conduct the trial. Brodie saw the station doctor, and went to bed with white heat and nausea spreading up from his testicles, and an aching chest and jaw.

The next morning Brodie had four cases of rioting to prosecute, apart from the charges in the bomb case. He lay in bed for five minutes after waking at seven, feeling the pain of his wounds. He had a shower, dressed in a fresh uniform, ate toast and drank coffee in the mess, and glanced absently at the newspaper headlines. The
South China Morning Post
praised the restraint of the police, and the army, in dealing with the mobs. The
Hong Kong Mail
concentrated on the misery of individuals; the injured, the relatives of the dead, the shopkeepers who had suffered damage and looting.

Brodie went to the duty room, and then the court, absorbed in the detail of getting his cases together, the facts, the witnesses, the presentations he would make to the magistrate. Later he was sitting in court, waiting for his cases to be called, when an orderly gave him a message from the duty sergeant at Mongkok: Lo sun was ill and might not be able to attend.

Brodie could do nothing now, but an hour later, when the case was called, Lo Sun was present. He was brought to the dock by the police, too ill to stand unaided. He was propped up on a chair, while the clerk read the charges: conspiracy to murder; accessory to the murder of Paul Sherwin; accessory to grievous bodily harm to Brodie; unlawful possession of the implements of bomb making; three charges of assault, and one of resisting arrest.

Lo Sun was not capable of responding.

“I will stand the case down, and the accused can get medical attention,” the magistrate said.

“The police have killed him,” somebody in court shouted in Cantonese.

Brodie felt distant from the plight of Lo Sun, as though he had no hand in the injuries. He dealt with his other cases, and at lunchtime went to the Peninsula Coffee shop, where he treated himself to an expensive sandwich. He returned to an almost empty courtroom, waiting for the hearing to be resumed. Out of the window, he could see washing on poles flying in the wind from hundreds of apartments in one of the resettlement blocks, and paper kites looping over the buildings.

“Inspector Brodie?” a court clerk addressed him. “Sir, a message from the Mongkok Police Station. The defendant in the bombing case was reported dead on arrival at the Queen Victoria Hospital.”

The death struck Brodie only as a complication in a case. “Can you arrange for me to see the magistrate in his room?”

The magistrate was a Chinese from a wealthy local family, elderly, cultured and courteous. He heard Brodie's bald explanation.

“I'll adjourn the case, Inspector, and you can submit an autopsy report.”

“I can withdraw the charges now, sir. There's no point in proceeding against a dead man.”

The old Chinese smiled. “A man who has had a night in the cells collapses in my court and dies. When I have an autopsy report, I'll know what to do.”

17

After two days of brooding anxiety, Brodie received the post mortem report on Lo Sun from the coroner's office. He anticipated trouble, and showed the report to Freddie Hudson who had served many years as a prosecutor. Hudson reacted grimly.

“The magistrate is a cautious old bastard,” he said. “The report will cause a shitload of trouble when it's read out in isolation in the court.”

“Nothing I can do?”

“Nothing.”

Brodie arranged for the case against Lo Son to be called. He handed the report to the magistrate who read it without emotion, and handed it back, asking Brodie to read it aloud.

Brodie gabbled in a monotone, “The defendant Lo Sun died of a ruptured spleen. He also had three broken ribs, minor cuts and bruises, and a hairline fracture of the skull.”

He resumed his seat at the prosecutors' table amid sighs, and an outbreak of excited Cantonese at the back of the court.

“These injuries take some explaining, Inspector,” the magistrate said.

Brodie had thought out his response, “The defendant attacked three police officers, and there is medical evidence of the damage he inflicted.”

Jeers swelled from the body of the court.

“Inspector, I'm referring the case to the attorney-general's office for inquiry. I'm not satisfied that the prisoner in custody received the treatment to which he was entitled.”

“Sir, the coroner will deal with all aspects.”

“I will deal with what happens in my court, Inspector Brodie.”

The newspapers that evening, and the following morning, carried a story about suspected police brutality. At breakfast, a few of Brodie's fellow inspectors gathered around him to commiserate.

“It's ridiculous to talk of a murder trial.”

“The more radical press seem to be clamouring for it,” Brodie said.

“Come on! We all know the law. A murder charge won't stick.”

“Imagine having to face trial, though.”

“I see the great and the good have come out, various urban councillors and members of the Reform Club want it.”

“They don't know a fucking thing about it.”

“We risk our bloody necks every day, and when a subversive swine that would cut your throat for ten dollars gets killed, they want a murder trial! That's British justice.”

“I think it's rather the bend-over-backwards reaction to the constant refrain that the police are unnecessarily brutal with the rioters,” Freddie Hudson said in a fatherly way to the younger men.

Brodie was confined to the station with minor duties in the days after the magistrate's ruling. He was ostensibly free to assist the attorney-general's office with the inquiry. In fact he had been relieved of his street duties.