The Dragon's Tale: A Jack Lauder Thriller (4 page)

     Jack nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me,” he replied, “the station sergeants always controlled the criminal activity. Sometimes in a good way but often a bad. But I wasn’t smiling at that. I was smiling at you guys. When I used to work out there, we used to talk about back home all the time. That’s what you do, too.”

     They greeted that observation with an hilarity which was far in excess of its desserts but that was the thing about his hosts, they did everything to excess, even politeness, laughing at a guest’s bad jokes. When it was over and they had settled down to the obligatory game of
mah jong
, to which he was invited but which, as a chess player, he found too dependent on chance to provide even a moment’s entertainment, he was walking back along Stowell Street and he still had that feeling of unease in his head. He wondered if he was just off the pace, too many long court cases not mixing well with late nights.  It was raining but instead of the air having a clean feel it was heavy as if a thunderstorm were imminent. He crossed the road, heading towards the taxi rank up on Gallowgate.

     At first he thought there was no one else in the street but he became aware of the dark shape of a figure opposite him, a man dressed in black, standing on the corner, perhaps sheltering from the rain. There was something about him which didn't quite gel with the look of a late night reveller. The memory of the previous encounter in the alleys of Shields was only too fresh. Maybe that was what was troubling him, the idea he hadn‘t seen the last of that guy. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the figure begin to move, seeming to materialise from the darkness. He was deceived at first by its speed because the black clothes made it indistinguishable against the gloom and, even as the thought came into his head, he was already into the same posture of self-defence which had proved so useless last time. Suddenly a voice interrupted the silence and it was not the newcomer's. As Jack gazed at a face masked by a black scarf of a diaphanous material he heard Johnny Kwok shouting his name: "Mister Jack!" The figure suddenly veered from its course, went down the alley towards the old Blackfriars Monastery and was swallowed by the gloom. All that was left was a street of Chinese lanterns, throwing many a shadow as they swung in the wind.

      The encounter had been almost dream-like, and that other impression had occurred to him in those few moments. It was not a comfortable one and at that instant he couldn’t define it. Johnny Kwok was stumbling across the street. His face was wreathed in a grin which might have featured in a toothpaste commercial, lending him a slightly vulpine appearance. He held Jack’s scarf, "You almost forget this!”

     Jack may have seemed a little ungracious. "Did you see anyone there?"

     Johnny shook his head, "I didn't see anyone.”

     "There was someone there, standing in the shadows,” Jack pointed towards the door of the Lee Tat Hong supermarket, "and then it came towards me."

     "Maybe woman," Johnny said and he laughed a throaty laugh, "we get all sorts that kind of girl round here." He poked Jack playfully, "You missed your chance eh, Mr. Jack!" The smile hadn’t faded.

     Jack didn't encourage the exchange, "But you saw no one?"

     "No," he replied. "Maybe it ghost, eh? Ghost of old Chinaman?" And then he shuddered because the Chinese don't like talking about ghosts in case they invite them into their lives. He became very sober. "You better get home now Mr. Jack, tomorrow another day, eh?"

     In the taxi home Jack experienced again the feeling which had engulfed him as that figure detached itself from the shadows. It wasn’t fear, it was too sudden for that, almost as if the speed with which things had happened had had the effect of a dentist's needle and frozen all sensation.  In that moment he had become detached from himself and, although his body had reacted instinctively to the threat, his mind had observed it dispassionately. It came home to him with jarring starkness, just as the taxi turned its nose into his drive, that what he’d experienced was the certainty of imminent death. What did it say about the state of his head that he could be so detached about his own demise, as if it were a matter of no importance?

     When he got in the chess pieces still blinked at him from their pride of place on the table. The game had moved on slightly. Black was not long for this world, even though Jack had a preference for playing black.

CHAPTER 4

     It was only when he sat at the kitchen table, a malt whisky warming the palm of his hand, drawing on a rare cigarette that the enormity of the event struck him. The feeling was one of coming round from an anaesthetic. His attacker had exuded narcosis, almost as some species of snake have the power to hypnotise before striking. Staggered by his own complacency, suddenly aware of his exposure, he got up and dimmed the kitchen light. He sat there in the dark, smoking his cigarette, drinking his whisky, pondering why he had resigned himself to death and then the memory of Gerry Montrose entered his mind. He wondered where Gerry was now. No sooner had he thought it than there was a knock at the door. He looked first through a crack in the curtain and saw the silhouettes of two figures standing there. They were westerners. Slightly reassured, although intrigued about who would want to visit him at this hour, he opened the door. As soon as he looked at the men he knew they were cops. One was burly, above average height, with a dark moustache; the other was tall, spare of build with powerful shoulders, sparse ginger hair and a stubborn lip. Before he read their warrant cards, Jack said, “Don't tell me, ICAC, am I right?" He didn’t know why that had occurred to him but he had seen enough members of Hong Kong‘s Independent Commission Against Corruption to know one when he saw one. It was if a number of different strands of his fate were being drawn together.

     The moustached one deferred to his wisdom with a slight bow, “We are sorry to bother you at this time.”

     “How did you know where to find me?”

     The ginger one replied, “We know everything about you, Mr. Lauder.”

     He meant it to sound intimidating as if to emphasise that, once you have been subject to their jurisdiction, you can never escape the ICAC but that implication of all but supernatural powers made Jack smile. “Oh, you mean I’m well known at the local nick?”  The moustached man smiled slightly but the other didn't move a muscle. He looked at Jack disdainfully and then, when he stood back to let them inside, his eyes took in the room and every item of furniture. The moustache sat down in response to the invitation; Ginger stood, still surveilling the room. “You’ll know I spent some time in Hong Kong," Jack added. It sounded like somewhere alien now and it was in a way.

     "Like I said, we know all about you, Mr. Lauder," Ginger replied.

     "All?" Jack said reproachfully. "Surely not? I must still have the odd secret?" Ginger gave him a hard stare. If it was supposed to intimidate it didn't work. The moustache waved a hand at his colleague, telling him to calm down. Jack eyed them warily. Once a Crown Servant in Hong Kong you can’t escape the ICAC. They are entitled to come after you, wherever you wander, and they can extradite you if you don't co-operate. Even now, Ginger was appraising Jack’s worth as he cast his inquisitive glance round the room, wondering where the English lawyer had made his pile. “A few weeks ago," the moustache continued, measuring his words, "you transferred a very substantial sum into the bank account of a former Crown servant, name of Montrose?"

     Jack noticed the pregnant pause and thought of pleading confidentiality, but it was no big secret. "That's right, I did. I wasn't aware, however, that private transactions had suddenly become public in Hong Kong?"

     "Cut the crap," Ginger said, "the guy was the subject of an investigation when he jumped ship."

     “Investigation? Jumped ship?” Jack was alarmed. “I know nothing about either.”

     “Pull the other one!” Ginger nearly exploded but an upraised, calming hand from his colleague quelled his temper.

     "Oh no, Mr. Lauder," the moustache said, "please don't imagine we thought you had anything to do with it. We know you helped Montrose for good reasons. What we’re concerned about is why he needed that help."

     "You’ll have to ask him.”

      "Chance would be a fine thing!" Ginger glared gimlet-style at Jack, who, by contrast, was so laid back in his armchair, he was in danger of touching the horizontal.

     “I see you play chess,” the moustache added, indicating the chess pieces on the small table between the chairs.

      Jack nodded. There was a hidden code in the message, letting him know that playing games would do no good here. “Not really that much, now,” he replied.

     “Oh?” The eyebrows of the law were raised, including Ginger’s shaggy ones.

      “Not competitively anymore. I just concentrate on problems.”

     “Isn’t that a little lonely?”

     “Not for me. It’s known in the trade as home cooking.”

     The moustache grinned thinly while Ginger flexed his whole frame as if desperate to go into action braying someone’s head in. It didn’t take much to guess whose. The moustache looked at the board again. “What’s this problem?” he asked, still trying to get Jack’s measure.

    “Well, it’s a pawn problem really, although it might not look it. You’ve got a black bishop which can take the knight on f3 and open up the king side and you’ve got an isolated white pawn on d4. Your move? Where do you go?”

     The moustache studied it for a moment and said, “I’d tend to do the unorthodox and move the rook to c5.”

     Jack nodded. “You think that’s unorthodox? You’d lose five moves later. The bishop would take the knight on f3.”

     “It would be a sacrifice because the pawn on g2 would take the bishop.”

      “And the black queen side rook would then move to d8. You’re now four moves from checkmate.”

     “I can’t see it.” He shook his head and beads of perspiration had broken out on his forehead.

     “Play it.”

     “I‘d love to…but.”

      “Gerry?”

     He nodded, looking at Jack with renewed respect. “He's disappeared, gone to ground, lost without trace.” He shook his head again as if annoyed with the perceived incompetence which had allowed it to happen. “Temporarily, I'm sure. But that just adds to the riddle. You see, we've suspected Gerry was a security risk for some time. We think he’s been hands on in corrupting witnesses for some of his clients.” He twirled his fingers, making air signs of ironic quotation marks. “He’s been successful in big trials and let’s say there’s been a common theme running through some of them at least of witnesses changing evidence at the last minute. Then he got out. It was almost as if he knew the net was closing in."

     “Well, interviewing witnesses isn’t his job, is it? He’s the trial lawyer so he’s not going to be doing the interfering.”

     “There has to be a brain behind every muscle action,” the moustache replied. “Those pieces don’t move by themselves.” He indicated the board.

     "I'm afraid I can't help you," Jack said, "maybe he needed a holiday?"

     "Oh bollocks man," Ginger said angrily, "I’m fed up with your skirmishing. You're not seriously asking us to believe that you lent him fifty grand without even a who's your Aunt Fanny?"

    “Except for the absence of an aunt Fanny or any other aunt, come to that, that’s exactly what I did do. I trust him. This might be a difficult concept for you to take in.”

     "Talking about taking in, he's taken you right in. In fact he’s taken off with your dough, mate," Ginger seemed to enjoy the idea. The moustache pursed his lips again and he studied Jack thoughtfully. Ginger stood behind him, scowling menacingly, clenching and unclenching his fists like a comic book heavy. At length the moustache spoke; he’d been weighing up the pros and cons of taking Jack into his confidence. “We’ve been watching certain police officers for some time. We’ve now got a clear case that these officers have been passing inside information to Gerry. On top of that in the recent trial of a major drug dealer he was party to bribing witnesses, using Triads to threaten others. We believe he’s into all sorts of corruption.”

     Jack was sceptical, aware they were watching his reaction. If it was true and Gerry was that far AWOL, Ginger was right, he probably could kiss his money goodbye. Finally he shook his head and replied, "Sorry, I don't buy that. Gerry doesn’t get involved at that level. Like I say, he’s a trial lawyer, not a street lawyer.”

     The moustache shook his head, too. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But Gerry’s not like an English Q.C.”

     Jack laughed. “No, I can credit that. There’s nothing remotely English about Gerry.”

     “Which makes you two an odd couple,” Ginger scowled.

     “Opposites attract,” the moustache said.

     “Okay, but he wasn’t that different. Assuming he was even aware of it, he’d leave any dirty dealing to the solicitors.”

     “Like you, eh?” Ginger scowled.

     “Sorry but I was Crown Counsel out there.”

     “Crown Counsel have been known to throw trials,” the moustache said in his measured tones. “There’s more than one locked up in Stanley.” The fingers formed the same pyramid in front of his lips.

     That was true. Crown Counsel had come eventually on to the list of people bribed by Hong Kong criminal gangs; there had been almost a gentleman‘s agreement for a time that they wouldn‘t be targeted but that had changed with some of the high profile trials in the latter years. Government lawyers couldn’t earn anything like their private practice counterparts so they were as vulnerable as anyone else. The ICAC had targeted its corruption drive originally at the police and civil servants in the public works department but they had later started to look closely at the legal system. Anyone doing a risk assessment would see the danger immediately. A lawyer can lose a trial because he doesn’t have the right information, or because something unexpected comes out at trial; or he can lose one by a simple human error falling far short of negligence. It’s almost impossible to detect. That’s why the ICAC has access to all Government servants’ bank accounts.  Follow the money.

     “I’ve read about some of them over the years.”

     “When you worked for the Government,” the moustache said, “you refused to prosecute any cases for the ICAC?” He waited for an answer but none came so he continued: “I was wondering why that was?”

     “What were you afraid of?” the blunter Ginger asked, which made Jack laugh.

     Why not? he thought. Just tell them like it is, or was. “I just didn’t like the way you guys worked, and I can see that not much has changed.”

     If he meant to phase them he didn’t succeed. “Gerry didn’t share your…er… principles,” the moustache said, “he did a lot of cases for us. Maybe that’s the point? Maybe those who have nothing to hide can afford to tell us to piss off but those who are covering things up stay friendly?”

     Jack smiled again. The Godfather mentality: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. There had been whispers in the past about Gerry Montrose, long before he packed his bags at Central Government Office and took off to be a Q.C in private practice, earning (and spending) a fortune in the process, but nothing had ever been proved. It was all speculation. Jack shrugged. "If you don't know the answers with the network of informers you've got, how do you expect me to, particularly as I don't believe it? Tell me this? Who is this drug dealer character anyway?"

     "K.K. Chow.”

     Jack raised an eyebrow. That was the second time he'd heard that name tonight. Some people at the function had discussed the latest revelations from back home about the infamous K.K. Chow.  "Oh come on," he said, "you guys know Gerry's success rate goes way back, you can't seriously ask me to accept you don't know the number of enemies he's made, particularly in the RHKP. All this information you've got could be rubbish. You know as well as I do, the guys who ran the squeeze in Hong Kong were the Station Sergeants. That’s where you want to look for any pressure to change evidence."

     "Yes, and all the officers and gentlemen did nothing more than find a brown paper envelope in their desks on Friday. Very sanitised. The point is, secrets about police operations were leaked and that led to Gerry Montrose Q.C dismantling a big case."