Mr Wong Goes West (18 page)

‘No. It wasn’t my fault.’

‘I’m not saying it was your fault. I was just saying that you probably feel it was your fault, you know—it’s human nature to blame ourselves for things.’

‘No. I don’t think it was my fault at all.’

Joyce knew when to give up on a line of argument. ‘Yeah, you’re right, I guess. That’s the best attitude to take. I’m right behind you.’

‘How do you like your tea?’

The conversation descended into icy bits of small talk for the next five minutes. Kaitlyn MacKenzie was clearly reluctant to talk about the events of the past few days.

Joyce tried to broach the subject of Wednesday from several directions, but to no avail. She decided to just talk honestly about herself and Paul. ‘Paul and I have been special friends for ages—mostly just on email, though. I don’t live here—I live in Singapore. It’s scary to think I might never see him again, if he’s going to be locked up for the rest of his life. Is there anything he said to you that you can remember? Anything that might help me get a handle on what happened, and why it happened? I can’t believe he intended to kill anyone. He’s just not that sort of person.’

Kaitlyn shook her head. ‘I hardly spoke to him. He approached me and asked me if I could get him into Skyparc. I said I could.’

‘He’s a good guy, isn’t he?’

‘He said he was an environmentalist and that what he and others were doing would eventually save the earth for us and our children and the generations to come. It sounded good. It sounded like the right thing to do. He turned up on Wednesday, and I used my card to get him through the security system. Some minutes later, all hell broke loose. I gave a million interviews to police. I lost my job. That’s it. That’s all I know. What happened on the plane wasn’t anything to do with me.’

‘It must have been awful for you when you heard about the killing.’

‘Yes. No. As I said, that part of it wasn’t really anything to do with me.’

‘But you lost one of your colleagues. And your job. That must have been really awful.’

‘Yeah,’ she replied, absently.

‘What are you going to do? Going to take a break? Or are you going to start looking for another job?’

‘I’ve got another job lined up.’

‘Already?’

‘I’m going to work for the Queen.’

‘You never are.’

‘I am, actually.’ Kaitlyn couldn’t resist a grin.

‘Wow! How did you swing that?’

‘There’s lots of people with royal connections on the Skyparc. There’s even one of the junior royals there. And there’s also this lobbyist guy called Robbie Manks, who is a sort of PR consultant to the royal family. He approached me with an offer. I’m going to work with him from now on. It’s kinda hush-hush, but it’ll be announced eventually.’

‘I know Robbie Manks. In fact, my boss is doing some work for him at the moment. When do you start?’

‘Tomorrow. I’m flying to London on the Skyparc.’

‘So’s my boss. I was supposed to be going too, but now I don’t know for sure.’

‘Oh. Well, perhaps if you do come on the plane, it would be better if we talked then?’ Kaitlyn put down her teacup and started picking clothes up off the floor. ‘I have so much to do tonight.’

It was too obvious a dismissal to miss. Joyce finished her tea and stood up to leave. ‘Sure.’

Friday dawned mild and misty. The sky was a hazy blue-white. Hong Kong lost much of its sultriness on the more pleasant days in December and the breezes were considerably cooler than those of Singapore. The air was fresh-tasting as Joyce McQuinnie left the hotel and headed in a straight line towards the nearest branch of Pacific Coffee. Halfway down the street she spun on her heel and pointed directly at the man following her.

‘Him,’ she yelled.

Two men appeared from nowhere and grabbed his arms, pinning them behind his back. One was a large Eurasian youth with straggly hair. Another was a middle-aged Chinese with small glasses.

‘Gotcha,’ said the younger one.

‘Step backwards and don’t cause any trouble,’ said the older one.

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ J Oscar Jackson Jnr said. ‘Hey! Let me go. I’m not doing any harm here.’

‘You are following our friend—an innocent and defenceless young woman, or at least she could be. And that’s doing harm in our book,’ said Abel Man Chi-keung.

Jackson stopped struggling. ‘You know what? I am just not cut out for this espionage lark. I’m going to go back to my office job at the foundation the day I get back—no, the minute I get—no, the minute you guys let go of me. I’ll resign on the phone.’

Jackson was so urbane and non-threatening that Abel let go of him immediately, but Jason McWong kept his grip tight.

‘You’re wrinkling my Armani jacket,’ Jackson said.

‘Like I care,’ growled Jason.

‘And your Comme de Garcons blouson.’

Jason quickly let go and stepped away.

Joyce approached him. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want a private conversation with you.’

‘Why don’t you just ask me?’

‘I was about to.’

‘You were following me yesterday. I saw you.’

‘I was following you yesterday. And Mr Wong. I was checking you guys out before offering you a very important but rather delicate assignment. I spoke to Mr Wong at length yesterday, and I was approaching you this morning with the intention of merely talking to you. He told me yesterday that you know more about the matter I have an interest in than he does. So think of me as a friend, or even a prospective employer, a source of paid work, if you like.’

‘Most people who offer us assignments phone us up or send emails. They don’t sneak around behind us like creeps.’

‘I have to work more discreetly than most people. I’m sorry if I scared you. I apologise.’

‘Anyway, I’m kind of busy right now. We have assignments up the kazoo. And so do my friends. We have a very important case to deal with.’

Jackson knew he had to put his cards on the table. ‘We may have something in common. The assignment I want to offer you is about Paul Barker of Pals of the Planet,’ he said. ‘My people want to get him out of jail. We think he’s innocent.’

Joyce’s jaw dropped. ‘Talk,’ she said.

For the next ten minutes, Joyce listened to Jackson with her eyes and ears wide open. He was saying exactly what she needed to hear. Joyce and Jackson, along with Jason, Abel and also Nina, were in Pacific Coffee talking over her second breakfast. The young people ordered giant coffees and piles of sticky pastries while J Oscar Jackson Jnr contented himself with a cup of herbal tea, no milk or sugar. There was a huge row of cabinets filled with food, but he was dismayed to note that every single item seemed to be wickedly, frighteningly carbohydrate-based. But Joyce hardly ate. She hung on his every word as he told her that he wanted to get justice for Paul Barker and believed that Pals of the Planet was a major force for good.

‘But that’s incredible. Should I believe any of this?’

‘Why shouldn’t you?’

‘It’s too perfect. It’s ludicrous. I thought I was the only person on this planet who believed Paul was innocent and then my boss suddenly changes his mind and now you—a big, expensively dressed corporate kind of dude—come along and say the same thing. It’s too weird. It just seems so…where are you going?’

Jackson had risen to his feet. He stretched like a cat. His stomach rumbled and he winced. ‘I’m going to my hotel to get my bag. Then we’re going to the airport.’

‘You may be, but I’m not. I gotta stay here and help Paul.’

‘I think you’re going to come with me. You are going to do no good at all by staying here. You’d be able to visit Paul from time to time, make him feel better, but that’s it. He won’t even talk to you. He’s not talking to anyone. You’re better off coming with me, you can meet my team in London, and then we have a chance of springing him.’

‘Why London?’

‘Listen lady, I haven’t got time to go into everything just now, but here’s the deal in a small package. To get someone on a murder charge out of prison, you need big guns. A few of his friends hanging around moping is not going to cut it. You need a top team. You need big lawyers. You need QCs. You need finance. You need strategy. You need people with connections who know what they are doing. We’re going to go to London, where I understand you and your boss have an assignment anyway, and, on the side, we are going to have some meetings where we can get the process underway to get Paul out of prison. We’re going to give you some detailed briefings, and then when you get back here, you spend as long as it takes doing research and investigation. The thing won’t come to court for months, so you’ll probably have time. But we want to work with you to get Paul Barker and Pals of the Planet cleared. Sound good?’

‘I can’t go on Skyparc. I’ve been negatively vetted.’

‘I can overrule that. My people have higher clearance than the security officers at Skyparc Airside Enterprises.’

Joyce felt torn about the idea of leaving Paul in jail and flying away from him, but what this American guy was saying
made sense. What they needed most of all was a strong team of qualified supporters together, and if that meant visiting J Oscar Jackson’s mysterious backers in London, that’s what they had to do.

‘Jojo, you go to London. We’ll visit Paul,’ said Nina.

‘We’ll talk Obcom with him,’ Jason added. ‘If that’s what he wants.’

‘Your parents won’t approve.’

‘Hey, I’m an adult now.’

Joyce turned back to Jackson. ‘You said you spoke to CF Wong about this? My boss? Are you the guy who changed his mind about Paul?’

‘I did. He’s cool. We’ll all be flying together to London on Skyparc. It all fits together rather well. We leave this afternoon. I’ll tell you more about what’s going on when we’re in the air.’

‘But you’ll be in business class, I’ll bet. Or first.’

Jackson smiled. ‘Little lady, we’re travelling on Skyparc. It’s
all
first class.’

Wong and McQuinnie arrived early at the airport so they would have at least an hour to look around and get a feel of what happened—or what was supposed to have happened. Nicola Teo, after a lot of arm-twisting, had agreed to escort the two of them into the Skyparc hangar to talk to the staff.

Their first job, Wong decided, was to talk to the witnesses, which meant the technical staff who had seen the shooting. The feng shui master was soon chatting in Cantonese with several of the engineers.

Teo pointed Joyce in the direction of a woman standing by herself, a thirty-something Chinese woman in overalls who was filling in some notes on an electronic clipboard of some kind. ‘Speak to that woman. She’s a senior member of the team you want to talk to, and she speaks English. Her name’s Poon Pik-kwan. I think her English name is Tammy.’

Joyce raced over to her. ‘Excuse me, are you Ms Poon?’

‘Yes?’ she answered, suspicion in her voice.

‘Your team witnessed the killing on Wednesday? We’re helping with the investigation and we’d like you to tell us exactly what you saw.’

‘You a police officer?’

‘No. We’re from a, er, independent investigating organisation.’

‘Well, we were working on Skyparc. There’d been some worry about the window seals and we were just checking them. They were fine. A little adjustment on one or two of them, my guys said. Replacing of loose rivets, that sort of thing.’

‘What did you
see
? You were looking through the windows of the plane when it all happened?’

‘I heard the shots. We all did. Hangars are echoey places. I didn’t see it myself. One of my men did. Danny Tang.’

‘Does he speak English?’

‘Yes. He’s a Chinese–American intern. Went to school in Texas.’

‘Can I talk to him?’

‘You a detective? You don’t look like a detective. You got proof of identity?’

Joyce shook her head. ‘We’re not police. My boss and I are from a feng shui agency. We want to make sure nobody gets bad fortune because of what happened. We want to alleviate all the negative energy caused by the killing.’

‘Oh,’ said Poon with a broad smile. ‘That’s different. Good, good, good. I was thinking we should get someone like you in. I guess someone upstairs had the same idea. Murder is very bad fortune. We should really have a full exorcism.’