Chapter Two
When Jason Teller walked into the compound of the South China Morning Post at nine thirty in the morning he was still suffering. He had had a dreadful night and the start of the day had not gone well either. The storm had been fierce but he had not realised at the time, which was surprising given his experience of typhoons, just how bad. He had worked late editing an in-depth feature on the nuclear power plant being built at Daya Bay, about thirty-five kilometres north east of the border crossing between Hong Kong and Guangdong.
It had taken him weeks to put it all together, his main difficulties correlating what the local officials were saying with regard to a study carried out by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. There were discrepancies, principally relating to the need for an evacuation plan in the event of another Chernobyl. He had obtained as much information as he felt he could. He had then spent six hours at his terminal laying it all out in a sensible easily digestible order. When he had read it in the early edition of the paper he realised just how hard hitting he had been. Those directly involved would not be happy. But then, nor was he at the moment.
He had arrived back at his Happy View Terrace flat in Happy Valley late to find the windows in the sitting room and his bedroom open. The gale force wind had blown the rain straight in. His bed was soaked as was the desk, his typewriter and the carpet. The television set in the adjacent room was probably wet inside, his prized Tientsin rug was dripping, and his collection of replica classic cars was scattered around the floor. One of the windows in the sitting room had been buffeted against the outside wall and was hanging by the lower hinge only, one pane of glass smashed, another cracked.
Teller had cursed the storm and his own stupidity a thousand times during the following few hours as he made frustrated attempts to clean up the mess. He discovered two of his cars were broken beyond repair, and when he flicked on the television there was a phutt, followed by a blank and silent screen. It took him until one o’clock in the morning to strip his bed and stand the mattress against the wall in the short corridor beside the landing door, to hang his rug and the rest of the soaked things in the tiny bedroom and kitchen, clean up the debris and then to try to mop up a quarter of an inch of rainwater on the floor of the two rooms. The bathroom mat served as an immediate temporary replacement for the broken window.
Then he relaxed with a tasteless can of beer and two cigarettes before curling up on a chair in the far corner of the room where he slept fitfully for five hours. When he awoke stiff and still angry he surveyed the damage and his remedial work of the night before.
“To hell with it,” he said simply. He pulled on a tracksuit and escaped for his usual four circuits of the racecourse. On his return he shaved, showered and dressed, ignoring any thought of a breakfast heartier than a glass of orange juice and the first cigarette of the new day.
At eight thirty he pulled the door to his flat shut and walked down the steep terrace into Link Road. He dodged across Wongneichong Road, between blaring taxis and clanking trams and turned the corner into Sports Road, a narrow one-way lane separating the race track and the Hong Kong Football Club.
At the other end he rejoined the circular Wongneichong Road opposite the Caravelle Hotel and continued down to Hennessy Road where he sidestepped his way into the underground station. He bought a copy of his paper as well as the Hong Kong Standard and started to read his story as he descended the long escalators and then waited for his train to Quarry Bay. The carriage was packed as usual so the Standard would have to wait until he got to his office.
As he entered the compound a Chinese security guard offered a salute of sorts and muttered “tsosan.” Teller repeated the greeting, but once out of earshot he added “good morning my ass” and prayed nobody else would tempt him into explaining why it was a bad morning and why there was every indication for it to remain bad for the rest of day.
He reckoned the other security guards in the lobby must have heard because they ignored him as he stepped into the lift and pressed the button for the fifth floor. The cab rattled slowly up stopping at each floor to admit various staff and the photographic and printing, advertising and promotions departments.
As the doors ground apart a squat Australian reporter pushed in with a curt “G’day”. Teller said nothing. He bit off the “good bloody day yourself” that was on the tip of his tongue and walked straight to the counter where he collected his badge and strode into the editorial department.
The South China Morning Post building used to be a sugar refinery depot in another incarnation. The editorial department was an open plan office, desks pushed close together with paper spread everywhere and the clicking of terminals as dozens of reporters and secretaries hammered out their messages to the news hungry world.
An Indian reporter named Sharma approached, coffee cup in hand and asked pleasantly: “How did you make out last night?”
“Don’t ask again,” snapped Teller and brushed by, throwing his newspapers onto a desk.
He looked quickly around the office. Some were reading newspapers, others chatting noisily, many more hard at work banging away on their keyboards. He glanced at the glassed office of the editor in the corner and saw that his arrival had been noticed. Davidson sat puffing on his pipe and beckoning with his index finger.
“Oh shit,” muttered Teller under his breath.
Before answering the summons he helped himself to a mug of strong black coffee from the machine, lit his second Dunhill and strolled over to the office. On the way a female reporter smiled up at him: “Liked your piece on Daya Bay,” she said.
“Thanks,” he replied and pushed open the door.
Davidson had watched him as he crossed the floor and as he entered he said nothing. He took another deep draw on his pipe as Teller shut the door and slumped into one of the chairs in front of the desk, resting his mug on the edge.
“So,” said Teller, fixing his eyes on the man before him. He respected the editor as a newspaperman of the old school and seldom joined others who, because of the own inadequacies usually, tried to run him down. He was a solid journalist who had proved himself in Sydney, Singapore and London and was a hard but good manager of the news, and of people it had to be admitted. That didn’t mean he liked him though. To the contrary, as a man he considered Davidson obnoxious. He was large, oily in appearance and dirty in his habits. He drank far too much and he was known to have tried it on with virtually every female member of his staff. His success rate on that score was low but it did not seem to bother him.
The most recent object of his intentions was Amelia Tse and he seemed unconcerned how painfully obvious those intentions were. It was even said that his attitude to her biased column was tempered by the thought of a single night in her bed. Teller doubted it. A slob he might be, but first and foremost Davidson was an old hack who knew the rules of professional journalism and lived by them. The news in his paper would not be compromised by a desire for a quick romp in the sack.
“So,” replied the editor.
Teller sipped from his mug and stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. He waited. He had had meetings which started out like this before and he knew if he was patient enough he would hear what they were supposed to be about.
“So,” reiterated Davidson. “Your Daya Bay story.”
“What about it?” At least he came to the subject pretty quickly, thought Teller. No need for beating unpleasantries about the bush.
“Is it accurate?”
“Of course it is. It would not have run if it was bullshit. Why? Who says it’s not?”
“No-one of any consequence,” Davidson said, heaving his body forward and tapping the contents of his Petersons into the ashtray. “Just Hiller of Economic Services, Doctor Henry Wu of the joint nuclear consortium, Leung of Omelco and the Director of the Government Information Services. Unless you’ve heard something from someone else I think that’s about it.”
Teller was familiar with the sarcasm. “What are they complaining about?”
The editor began refilling his pipe from the bright red and gold packet of tobacco. He finished and was tamping it tight before he replied. “Those parts about evacuation,” he said. “They say it’s all bullshit.”
“Bullshit,” said Teller.
“Are you repeating their view, asking me a question or describing their opinion?”
“Describing their opinion. It’s a fact.”
“Tell me,” said Davidson, striking the first of three matches. He puffed, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs, and studied his reporter through the pall. Teller lit a Dunhill. “It’s in the AEA report, it was discussed by the Legco Ad Hoc Group at least three times, the British experts made a presentation when they were here, and the Ad Hoc Group rejected the lot. It’s a fact.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Can you prove it?”
“If I have to, yes. I’ve got copies of the minutes. But I don’t want to do that unless there is no other way. For obvious reasons.”
The editor continued to study him. Then he said: “So, how did you weather the storm?”
Teller was not prepared for the sudden abandonment of the subject. “Is that it? That’s all?”
“Is there more?” asked Davidson.
“No,” said Teller.
“Alright then.” Davidson leaned back in his chair. “That twit of a high-rise gardener upstairs left a pot plant on the window sill and it ended up on the hood of my car. No, not true. It hit the hood, but I gave it back. He’ll find it embedded in the bonnet of his own car.”
Teller could not help but smile. “Are you sure it was his pot plant and his car?”
“Yes,” said Davidson. “Shit, I hope so.”
As Teller was leaving the office Davidson called: “What are you on today?”
“I’m going into the Secretariat,” he called back, referring to the government offices in Lower Albert Road, below Government House. “I want to check up on a few things, and then down to Legco where I’ll probably be cross examined by sundry bullshitters. Though maybe I should skip that now and just ride out of town for a while.”
Davidson looked almost apologetic for a moment. “Look in on the police on your way will you. Johnson is off sick and some guy didn’t make it home last night in the storm. Report says he was found in Wanchai. Probably some drunk. Just a few pars. OK?”
“OK.” Teller closed the door behind him. Now he was on police rounds. He had not covered the beat for years and it might be fun to do a short piece. Make a change from the investigative features that required so much time and wearying legwork. A nice little story about a poor hawker with six children and a pregnant wife to feed who got bashed while trying to make an extra buck in the middle of a near typhoon. Teller the cynic. He would drop in on the police public relations guys on the way to Central.
One the way back to his desk a brash young American journalist called across the room: “Hey Teller. Your story on the nuke sucks.”
“Good,” he called back. “Take it with you to the can. You should have fun.”
The American sat with his jaw hanging and his wide grin rapidly disappearing. He made no response. He had been especially brought out by the newspaper’s American-based owner in New York where he was apparently highly regarded. Teller was not alone in his dislike for the man who had a penchant for green flecked suits and pink slacks with pastel blue shirts. How it was thought he would be able to contribute anything to the Post was lost on Teller. Of course, it could have been because he was a brilliant writer who possessed a sharp, incisive mind. Teller the slightly envious.
Teller snatched his shoulder bag from the drawer, threw in his notebook and headed for the lift. He decided against the underground, preferring the tram. The trip would take much longer but he needed the fresh air to clear his head. The run in the morning, followed by the sharp cold shower, had worked wonders but a few cobwebs remained and an hour on the upper deck of the rattling dinosaurs would blow them away altogether.
As he sat on the narrow slatted seat and gazed out of the window he was still enthralled at how much some sections of the city had not changed. King’s Road and Hennessy Road from Quarry Bay through North Point and Causeway Bay were flanked by a hoard of small shop fronts touting leather bags, dresses and jeans, air-conditioners, rhinoceros horn panaceas, cameras and more leather bags, air-conditioners and dehumidifiers. How they all survived he did not know. The trading names all looked similar and gave every indication of being family concerns which had been in business for generations. One of the most interesting, as the tram trundled into the Wanchai district, was a green and white four-storey building which bore the weathered name of the Tung Tak Pawn Shop. Teller had stared at the building and the name a hundred times and tried to conjure in his mind the business that was transacted behind the peeling doors. Somehow it was out of character; it just did not fit.
Everywhere else people were in the bustling business of making money, selling for a profit, whether from hand-pulled carts or from behind counters stacked high with materials, pots and jars, jewellery or electronic gadgets. Yet here were premises which must have been the scene of fascinating, sad and foreboding examples of failure. If only he could be a Chinese, or invisible, and spend a week privy to the comings and goings of those forced to take their custom to the Tung Tak Pawn Shop.
Teller was still imagining as the tram screeched to a stop under the new pedestrian walkway outside the jaded Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Association building diagonally across from the police headquarters. He quickly dropped down the spiral staircase and flung his sixty cents into the collection slot, reaching the safety zone as the metal doors clanked shut. Time and Hong Kong trams wait for no-one, he reminded himself, and headed up the footbridge to the northern side of Queensway. A hundred meters back the way he had come was the Tai Sang Building with the China Travel Service on the ground level and the police public relations branch on the third, fourth and fifth floors.
The third and fourth floors housed the administration section and the library along with the publicity and promotions sections, the Junior Police Call staff and Studio 4, the private bar where staff gathered most Fridays after work. The information section and the branch heads occupied the fifth floor where Teller saw a pretty girl standing against a metal filing cabinet, engrossed in her search for some papers apparently proving to be annoyingly elusive.
“Can you see if there’s a balding bearded Yorkshireman in there while you’re at it please,” said Teller startling her.
“Sorry,” said the girl automatically. When she saw the stranger, she pushed the drawer closed. “Can I help you?”
“I said, is there a bearded…..is Mr Frank in please?” Teller should have known better. After nearly twenty years in the place he thought he was beyond expecting a sense of humour from a government secretary. They were programmed to say only “Who do you want, who’s calling, how do you spell please, he’s in a meeting.”
“Who’s calling,” asked the girl.
“My name is Teller,” he answered patiently.
“How do you spell pleas?”
Teller enunciated the letters slowly.
“One moment please.” When she returned from the adjoining office she smiled. “Go in please.”
Teller smiled back and walked through.
“Jason Teller,” David Frank all but shouted, crossing the floor to greet him with an outstretched hand. “What are you doing down here/”
He gripped the hand and shook it firmly. Frank was an old friend, but they had drifted along their separate paths for some years and their meetings were infrequent. “Thought I’d check up on you people,” he said. “See that you’re still working.”
“Not planning an expose I hope,” said Frank.
“Should I be?” Teller asked.
“You’d be wasting your time here. All the skeletons are over in CIB. Try Caine House.”
“They’re not my type. All bone. No meat.”
They laughed together.
“Why are you here?” Frank repeated “It’s good to see you, but you weren’t just passing through. It’s a bit off your usual track isn’t it?”
Teller took a packet from his pocket and held it up. Frank shook his head and Teller lit a Dunhill for himself.
“Actually, I’m looking for a few details about some guy who died in the storm last night. You had a line on it on the printer I think. Here is Wanchai.”
Frank perched on the edge of his desk. “That’s right. A bit out of your line though isn’t it?”
“Johnson is home in bed so Davidson asked me to do it on my way into town.” Teller looked around for an ashtray and the public relations man handed him one with an RHKP crest on it. “I haven’t done police rounds for years. This is the best he could trust me with.”
Frank looked at him momentarily and then asked: “What do you want to know? We don’t know much more than we put out over the printer.”
“The usual,” he said. “Who, where, where, how and why. Anything about him or the accident that can give me an intro and a few pars.”
“It’s a bit sketchy at the moment, as I say.” Frank seemed vague which struck Teller as a little strange given the simple nature of the incident. “There were a few incidents in the wind and the rain. You know what it’s like.”
There was a pause. Teller didn’t interrupt but sat with is pad open on his knee.
“Anyway,” Frank continued, “his name is Wong, it probably happened late in the evening, in Jaffe Road, and to be honest we’re not quite sure how it happened.”
“What’s the problem?” Teller’s interest was piqued. For some reason Frank was holding back.
“Oh Jesus alright,” blurted the information officer. “You didn’t get it from me. It’ll come out sooner or later anyway and it might as well be yours. He’s Michael Wong. And it doesn’t look like it was an accident. But we’re keeping it under wraps for the moment.”
Teller noted the details. He stubbed out his cigarette. “Why the secrecy?” he asked. “Has his family been told?”
He knew of Michael Wong of course. Prominent surgeon. Millionaire. Wife well known in charity circles. He was often a guest speaker at civic organisation dinners, and while it was said he had definite views on Hong Kong’s politics, he had apparently not expressed them strongly in public. He was chairman of the medical association and it was in that capacity only that he had once spoken in favour of direct elections. Otherwise he confined his interest to medicine.
“She was obviously told early this morning,” Frank was saying. “Took it badly as you would expect. The kids don’t know yet I don’t think.”
“That can’t be it though,” said Teller. “What is it? Murder? Suicide?”
Frank fidgeted on the desk uncomfortably. He glanced out the window at the colourless Asiana Restaurant sign hanging across the street.
“Come on Dave,” Teller urged. “Something’s put shit on your liver. You might as well make sure that when it breaks it is accurate. Otherwise you’ll have to go around with a bucket and spade afterwards and try to clean up the mess. Save yourself the trouble.”
The restaurant held the public relations man’s attention for a full minute. Teller held his tongue. When Frank turned back he spoke clearly and evenly.
“Someone else told you, right? He was murdered. Head smashed in by a baseball bat or something. Face sliced up terribly. Took us all night to make an ID. Funny how some things happen. The bastard was a millionaire but he had little tags on the inside of his socks with his name on them. But who looks there for Chrissakes?” He took a breath. “No other ID on him but….”
“What?” Teller prompted. “But what?”
The man from York heaved himself up and walked around the end of the table and sat down. He cleared his throat. “Also,” he said, “he had a skin wrapped around his face.”
“A skin? What do you mean a skin?”
“Jesus Jason. Someone, whoever did it, killed a cat, skinned it and then tied it around his head after mutilating his face. Can you imagine that? Jesus.”
Teller stayed with David Frank for no more than five minutes longer. That was all it took for him to learn all he was going to get from his friend, who after his initial reticence let it come out in a rush of words. It was clearly something which Frank found unsettling and which had bothered him since he had been called out around two o’clock in the morning. He had seen bodies before but not like this one. Speaking quickly he described the events to Teller while pacing around his office.
The surgeon’s body had been found by a patrolling constable, a foot protruding from a pile of rubbish bags. He’d reported in on his portable beat radio and within minutes reinforcements were on the scene. The Forensic Scientist got there half and hour before Frank who had been alerted by the senior criminal investigation officer, an English superintendent who had recognised the likely media sideshow once the story broke.
Fortunately, the press were not immediately on to it because communication had been by beat radio. Police headquarters was only two blocks away. Reporters monitoring the police communications band did not hear anything out of the ordinary in the storm calls for assistance. Frank told how he had looked down on the body and felt a cold shiver edge up his spine from his bowel which had nothing to do with the wind and rain sweeping along the narrow alley.
Hong Kong was not a city where brutality was so uncommon that a body would stun the populace. But there were isolated cases which shook even the Chinese society. Some years before two English school children had been battered, raped and murdered on a deserted hillside in a frenzied attack. Long before that a young Chinese had been viciously assaulted and mutilated, her body dumped in a cardboard box on the sidewalk. Frank had no doubt that when the full details of the Wong killing became known, irrespective of who was responsible, it would be regarded with horror as well.
So far the police knew the who, the how, the when within a few hours, the where. They did not know the why or by whom. Possibilities included triad involvement. Another question was what was the respected surgeon doing in Jaffe Road late at night in the middle of a storm? His car was nowhere nearby, yet initial investigations led the police to believe the killing took place where, or near to where, the body was found.
Unlike Frank, Teller had not witnessed the horrors described. So, unlike the public relations man, he did not feel physically ill. He was certainly intrigued though. It was a good story, yet it was one he had given his word that he would treat with a great deal of care. He could not tell it all. However, he had enough for more than the few paragraphs Davidson had demanded. Teller thanked his friend and they agreed to get together again soon.
“Say hello to Joan for me,” he said. “And don’t worry. I won’t drop you in it.”
He left and walked to Central, composing the article in his head as he dodged fellow pedestrians and breathed in the dust and petrol fumes of the traffic. When he reached Chater Garden opposite the Hilton Hotel he decided to go into the Legislative Council first, and then climb the hill to the government secretariat.
The council headquarters used to be the Supreme Court and was one of the oldest structures still standing in the ever changing Hong Kong. Built from solid sandstone it was two-storied, and domed with pillars surrounding its supporting arched precincts. It had been refitted two years earlier and the architects had wisely retained many of the original features and much of the character.
Oak panelled doorways and beans combined well with the liberal use of highly polished brass fittings and clear sheets of thick glass. All furniture was teak, again trimmed with brass, in keeping with the stature of the council and those who deliberated the territory’s policies within its walls.
Teller liked the building enormously and mourned the loss of the old Hong Kong Club a minute’s walk away which had been reduced to rubble and replaced by an uninspiring concrete tower. The Hong Kong Cricket Club’s decease was even more lamentable, but he had hardly given it a thought as he walked on its grave through Chater Garden and into the council building.
As he entered he was confronted by one of the retired policemen who acted as security guards, signed in, was given a media identification badge and released to roam the ground and first floors. The second floor was off limits. That did not bother him. He just wanted to sound out the press unit people on the ground floor with respect to moves by council members on the question of direct elections and the drafting of the Basic Law. It was a subject that was rapidly risking boredom setting in, but it as one he could not afford to ignore. And anyway, there was always something being said or done that kept the pot boiling.
Martin Lee was again in the news. He had apparently levelled an accusation that the Drafting Committee were dodging the issue of the relationship between the Executive and the Legislature after the 1997 handover. Members were afraid of China and were therefore playing it safe by postponing any definite decision or detailed discussion. Surprisingly the rest of the committee reacted sharply and immediately called a meeting and publically stated an agreed stance on the issue. It was a rebuttal totally unexpected and accused the brash Queen’s Counsel of being what increasing numbers of commentators were calling a troublemaker. His image as people’s representative was showing signs of tarnish and unless he was careful his successes could be overshadowed by his impulsive outspokenness. This opinion was being reinforced by Teller’s contacts. “The sooner he calms down a bit, the better for everybody, including himself,” said one, summing up the views of many others.
Teller spent about thirty minutes in the building, calling briefly on four contacts, and then slogged his way in the heat to Lower Albert Road where the Central Government Offices housed all policy branches. There he paid his respects to the Secretariat Press Officer, dropped in for chats in the Finance Branch and Administrative Services before ending up sitting across the desk in the office of a particular friend. They had shared opinions on many subjects over the years and his friend had passed him important information on a number of occasions. He had never printed it, but it had always been vital in providing him with a solid understanding of relevant situations. On this occasion though there was nothing significant to learn.
As he was leaving the office he tossed back: “Heard about the Wong killing?”
“Yes,” replied his friend quickly. “Are you involved in it?”
“I’m writing it up,” said Teller. “Anything I should know?”
His friend examined his face, unsmiling. “Be careful Jason.”
“Why? What about it should I be careful of?”
“Just be careful. If you can, stay out of it.”
Teller hovered in the doorway and was about to follow up on the unusual advice when his friend began shuffling the files on his table.
“Interesting times,” he said distractedly “Very interesting times. Let’s hope the interest doesn’t get out of control.”
Teller went back outside into the street and headed down the hill in the direction of the Hilton Hotel. There was time for a quick drink before he returned to his Quarry Bay office and it would give him time to think about the murder. Instinctively he knew there was more to it than he knew at the moment. He was hooked.
Questions buzzed around inside his head. Above all, why should his friend try to warn him off the story? He had a sometimes unusual sense of humour but there was no sign of amusement in the caution. Why should a branch in the CGO be taking an interest in the case in any event? Was there more to Michael Wong than met the eye?
Teller resolved to find answers to these and other puzzles.