Chapter Seven
When the article appeared in the paper on the morning of Wednesday August 26 outspoken Legislative Councillor Martin Lee had again stolen the limelight. It was on the third day of the fifth plenary session of the Basic Law Drafting Committee in Beijing that Lee had once more caused an uproar which resulted in headings in the media such as “Strong opposition to a more powerful legislature.”
The Post article began with the now expected tone of “the idea of a legislature-led political system for Hong Kong after 1997 was attacked by several Basic Law drafters yesterday.” It went on to say that “harsh criticism was levelled at a system which provides for a powerful legislature and a high degree of supervision over the executive branch.”
Lee had put the cat among the pigeons by criticising the Basic Law proposals as lacking checks and balances between the two authorities. From there the situation had deteriorated to the point where it became a battleground for drafters commenting on whether the sub-group had deliberately ducked key political discussions on the selection of the Chief Executive to replace the Governor who now was president of the council, and legislators.
These items were not included on the agenda for the meeting even though Martin Lee had suggested at the previous meeting in Guangshou that they should be. He reiterated his point by yet again demanding that the two key selection issues be speeded up, and in doing so drew up battle lines. The result was as expected, and the day’s deliberations began in a hot climate.
The temperature had also risen in Hong Kong by early morning. Teller’s article was noticed and read. It was probably read by most before Martin Lee’s outburst. And maybe even before the sad story of two children being burned to death in their flat after being locked in by their parents who went off to work in the incense shop down the street.
It was spread across eight columns, each five centimetres in length, and then onto page two in the third column. The heading splashed: “POST THREATENED IN POLITICAL MURDER COVERUP.” Below it in bold type was Teller’s byline.
When the telephone in his sitting room rang at eight that morning it woke Teller from a deep sleep. But when he answered it the line went dead. When it rang at eight thirty he had just emerged from the shower having decided to skip his usual morning exercise regime. This time there was a voice on the other end. A rasping one trying to keep it low but at the same time doing all he could to convey the agitated message.
“What the fuck have you done?” it demanded.
Before he could respond the man continued: “Do you have any idea the damage you’ve caused? You’ve hung me out to dry, and you’ve screwed up everyone else as well.”
“Is that you Dave?” said Teller. He thought he recognised Frank’s voice despite the attempt to muffle it so that presumably the secretary in the adjoining room would not hear him, or perhaps any other staff member of the police PR unit who might be passing his door.
“Yes, it is me you bastard,” railed Frank. “You gave me your word and now you’ve gone and broken it for the sake of a front page byline. You shit.”
“Now you listen to me,” countered Teller. It didn’t take long to annoy him early in the morning, certainly not when the accusation was directed at his integrity. “Just listen for a minute. You fed me a load of crap and you know it. Then you went and consciously decided to leave me out to dry. Don’t you accuse me. I gave you an opportunity to set the record straight and you simply ignored me. Even at Amelia’s place and later at the police station you avoided me. So don’t you talk to me about promises Dave. You turned away when I needed something to hold on to.”
“Jesus wept,” sighed Frank
“Jesus wept nothing. I’ve been pushed into this. I’ve got enough people telling me to shove off and shove it. I’ve been lied to, threatened, bounced around and then when someone asked for help I find her lying naked in her bed with her throat slit and the bloody skin of a cat draped across her face. How do you expect me to feel? What the hell do you expect me to do? Forget it?”
Frank’s voice was returning to normal. “Well,” he said, “you needn’t have gone as far as you have damnit.”
“I haven’t finished yet Dave. There’s more to come. This whole think stinks and you know it. If you don’t you’re bloody blind.”
“Jesus Jason. I don’t know. We’ve got people running around down here like chickens with their heads chopped off.”
“What are they doing?”
“I don’t know. They don’t know. They’re just buzzing around like crazy. Someone’s been pushing buttons and they’re reacting on impulse. Fingers are being pointed and I won’t give you three guesses as to who is one being singled out. They probably already know you got the details on the Wong killing from me.”
Teller could understand why the public relations officer was concerned but he did not agree with his overreaction. “Deny it,” he said. “I’m not going to name you for god’s sake. I’ve been talking to lots of people and any one of them could have told me about it. It doesn’t have to be you you know.”
“Don’t you worry about that. We have definitely not spoken,” said Frank firmly.
“OK then,” said Teller “Let’s forget it. That’s agreed. But do me a favour and keep me posted on developments this time.”
“Fuck you,” said Frank. “I’m going to stay well away from you. Let’s get together …..around Christmas.” And he hung up.
It was the same when he arrived at his office. No sooner had he walked ion when another journalist called across the room. “Teller, line three.”
It was the Chief Information Officer from the Medical and Health Department. She too was worried she might he dragged into a mess even though all she had done was provide him with Michael Wong’s biography. She sensed trouble but Teller pacified her by assuring her he would not mention her name in any way whatever.
Who next, he wondered?. It was Julius Owen, who merely said: “Well, at least you’ve breathed some life into things – even it is with a bad breath.”
Teller had the eerie feeling that he could predict exactly who would call next. The accountant. All those he had talked to recently in connection with the murders were lining up to have their say. No doubt the accountant would warn him yet again and then give him a dressing down in no uncertain terms.
He was wrong though. The accountant did not contact him. No-one else did. Despite the activity going on around him he felt as if he was sitting in a cocoon, isolated. His telephone did not ring and none of his colleagues said anything other than the perfunctory greeting. In other words, normal morning conversation.
At eleven o’clock Davidson called him into his office and instructed him to stand by at half past two for a meeting with the company lawyer to go over the follow up story Teller had completed the night before.
*
Within the Administration itself there was still the calm that had characterised it since the Legislative Council had gone into recess. Staff in the various branches went about their routine work and there was none of the obvious panic that David Frank had described in the police headquarters. Not that it could have been expected anyway. If there was to be any knee-jerking it would be manifested elsewhere, and in this case it was on the sixth floor of Beaconsfield House, the headquarters of the GIS.
The Director had been contacted on his car telephone as he crossed the harbour from Shatin New Town where he lived. The Chief Secretary had spoken sharply and instructed him to attend a meeting in his office at a quarter past eight. He should just make it. After he rang off he called his secretary and arranged for all his assistant directors to be ready to attend a meeting in his own office at immediate notice.
Then he had gone straight to the Central Government Offices, to Robert McNamara’s office, where he joined him, the Secretary for Administrative Services and Information, McNamara’s assistant, the Director of the Police Public Relations Bureau, and Gail Jones who took notes. The meeting lasted half an hour and the attendees left hurriedly to return to their respective offices.
The Director walked down the tree-lined steps at the rear of the Central Government Offices, next to the old St John’s Cathedral, to the back entrance of Beaconsfield House where it opened onto Battery Path. The assistant directors were waiting for him at the conference table, having been alerted by his secretary who had been watching out for him. The Director seated himself and dispensed with the normal informalities which usually began the daily directorate briefing.
“You’ve all read the Post story I take it,” he said. They nodded. “Then we have some work to do.”
Facing him were the assistant directors of news, public relations and publicity along with the deputy director, an administrative officer seconded to the department. He went on: “I’ve been with the CS. Also SASI and the Director of PPRB. We’re going to put out a statement killing the story. It’s our job to co-ordinate it effectively. Once we have a draft I’ll discuss it with the CS personally.”
Nobody said anything.
“What we do is this,” said the Director. “PPRB is setting out the facts of both cases from their side. Just the factual details with the sequence of events and nothing more. No comments or embellishments. It’s being faxed here and we should have it by ten or ten thirty. When we get it I want News and PR to go over it and fill it out as a denial.”
The assistant director of news spoke up. “How do we do that? We’ve got nothing to work from. I mean no backup material.”
“You’ll have the police report,” said the Director. “And also the Post story on the murders themselves is essentially correct. It’s the innuendoes we have to counter. Use your imagination as a start.”
The news man chipped in again. “That’s terribly dangerous don’t you think? We could end up making a bad situation worse if we are not careful.”
“So be careful. But we probably will nonetheless. But that’s it. We do a draft and I take it to the CS. It’s the style he looking for. He puts the red pencil through it. What we’re doing is giving him a draft to think about and tear to pieces.” He paused. “And he wants it by noon.”
*
Along Canton Road, just up from the Salisbury Road corner where the huge China Products store dominated the Star Ferry concourse precincts in Tsimshatsui, there used to be a little village of tea houses, or dai pai dongs as the locals called them. They were all under the one roof, perhaps two dozen of them and the roof itself was probably a combination of a number of makeshift shelters but it did protect the customers from the rain and the searing heat.
When it rained, it came down often with such force that the drains and gutters would back up and the water would sneak along the cracked concrete floor until those at the tables seemed to be sitting on a mirror. The tea houses used to be popular with dockyard workers, bird fanciers with their simple and fantastically ornate cages made from bamboo, and some regulars who dropped in for an ice cold San Miguel or a barbecued piece of squid on the way somewhere else. Even a few trusting tourists ignored the amused glances of the local patrons as they dared to savour what they considered the real Orient. But that was long ago, and the tea houses were gone. No longer could passersby watch chickens slaughtered in the gutter or fish gutted and cleaned in the same trough before being quickly fried and served up. The whole area had been pulled down, cleaned up and redeveloped, in keeping with the upmarket Hong Kong Hotel directly across the road and the newer Marco Polo and Prince hotels further up.
Many of the older tea house customers sought similar atmospheres in Yaumati or Mongkok, but a lot of the younger ones simply crossed the road or went deeper into Tsimshatsui to such places as the Hyatt Hotel.
One of the most popular attractions of the Hong Kong Hotel was its pub which serves drinks from virtually any part of the world. And it was in this pub that the Chinese man sat, reading the newspaper and with a barely touched bloody Mary which he had ordered half an hour before in an attempt to rid himself of the dullness behind his left eye, the painful legacy of a lack of sleep the night before. He too had read Teller’s article. He was now going back over a few of the paragraphs, rereading the words carefully. His eyes were fixed on the page and his forehead was smooth and unwrinkled though there were two little ruts between his eyebrows. When he had finished the article for the second time the man turned his attention to the other main story on the front page and read the report of the Basic Law plenary session in the Chinese capital.
He folded the paper neatly and lay it on the chair to his side. He took a sip from his glass and swilled the liquid around his mouth and then let it trickle slowly down his throat as he stared out through the doorway into the hotel lobby.
Motioning to the hostess he asked for a sheet of writing paper and a pen, as well as the check. When the girl returned he paid the bill, adding a small tip, and placed the paper on the glass topped table with the pen held poised above it. He thought for a few minutes and wrote quickly and fluently.
At the mail desk he asked for, and was handed a hotel envelope and again, using a borrowed pen a second time wrote two words on the front. From the lobby he went to the gentlemen’s toilet and using sheets of tissue he wiped the paper he had written on and slotted it into the envelope, sealing it firmly. He then applied the same cleaning process to the envelope and tucked it into the folded newspaper.
Ten minutes after Teller had left his desk in the editorial section and gone to the canteen for a sandwich and beer lunch, the Chinese man approached the security guard at the main entrance. As he explained his errand the envelope slid from the folded newspaper and fell to the floor. The guard instinctively picked it up and the man said: “Dojeh. Dojeh. Jason Teller, OK?”
The guard peered at the envelope and mouthed the name written on the front. “OK,” he replied
“Mgoi,” the man said and sauntered off.
*
“If we hadn’t lost the damn doctor none of this would have happened.” Robert McNamara was not a happy man. “I would have thought that with the storm keeping traffic to a minimum and the people off the streets it would have been easy to keep tabs on him.”
“Yes,” said the accountant, noncommittal.
“Instead, it was a damn shambles,” continued McNamara. “In the front door of the club and out the back door. What were the two SB men doing? Dreaming?”
“They’re back on beat duty now,” said the accountant.
“And Wong is dead. So is the girl. Now we have that damn journalist Teller digging into the laundry.”
The accountant watched the Chief Secretary. “We have to rethink our plan. Now that he has published the story we must be careful. Watch and wait.”
“Damnit it Jack,” said McNamara. “We can’t just wait. We’ve got only six weeks.”
The accountant remained silent.
“Alright,” said McNamara after a while. “We’ll wait. One more day. We’ll have to see what happens tomorrow. But if today’s efforts are unsuccessful we move. We have no choice.”
“Agreed,” said the accountant. He knew time was running out. He knew too that like Jason Teller they were doing a lot of guesswork. The journalist had also not only tied his hands for the moment, he was taking up a lot of his resources. He hoped he would not aggravate the volatile situation any further.
*
At two thirty Teller re-entered the editorial office and saw that the conference was already under way between Davidson and others. He caught his eye but Davidson paid him no regard and continued talking, so Teller sat at his desk and lit a cigarette while he waited to be summoned. Twenty minutes and two Dunhills later his phone rang. He snatched it off its cradle and heard Davidson command: “Come in.”
As he closed the door behind him Davidson said: “We’ve all read your piece. It’s well put together and would be considered thought-provoking by the intelligent reader.”
That’s the term, he used for Amelia Tse’s copy, thought Teller.
“Provocative I’d call it,” interrupted the chief sub-editor. Teller quickly looked at the little man sitting in the corner of the room. Another thought crossed his mind: I wonder why it is that sub-editors are so often small men.
Davidson brushed aside the remark and went on: “Your reasoning seems solid, or convincing at least. Your suppositions are serious.”
The tall lawyer coughed. “May I,” he said and picked up the article from the desk. “As Harvey says, all this makes good, fascinating reading. But as he also points out it is all supposition. There are no facts in it.”
“I don’t have any more at the moment,” said Teller. “If I did I would have used them. But that doesn’t change things. Something serious is going on and it is being covered up.”
“If what you say here is correct,” said the lawyer, “it is a matter for the appropriate authorities to deal with. If we go ahead and publish it we could, could not would, be helping those who might be planning an incident.”
“I don’t see how you can say that. We’ll be exposing it.”
“We could be hindering the authorities and their investigations.”
Teller did not answer straight away. He was familiar with the lawyer’s point. He had heard it many times before. Sometimes it was valid, but on others it seemed to him that the person who asked for something not to be published usually had something to hide. In this case he was not convinced by any means that the argument was justified.
“Well,” he said, “let me ask you a question. If what you say is right, why did we go ahead and run the first story? Surely it’s worse to let things hang unfinished than to propose possible answers to the questions. After all, I’m not saying the suppositions are absolutely right. They’re only possibilities. If they’re wrong let the powers that be say so. The public has a right to know. They’re the ones who are going to be affected. More than you and me.”
“On the other hand,” Davidson said in his devil’s advocate role. “We might be stirring things up a bit too much. This is bloody serious stuff.”
“It’s inciting trouble,” said the chief sub-editor. “The government in my view would have every right to slap a writ on us. It is precisely the sort of story that the AG warned would attract the attention of the law under the Public Order Ordinance. It’s false news calculated to cause alarm.”
Teller bristled. “It is not false news until it is proved wrong. And it is not calculated to incite fear in the public. The intention is to inform the public of a matter of great concern to them, something they have a right to know, instead of being kept in the dark, or misled by people who are at the same time threatening me.”
“Can you prove it’s true?”
“No. But can you prove it’s not? Until you can it’s not false news.”
“OK OK OK,” broke in Davidson. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. We have two questions we have to answer. First, is it in breach of the law if we run with it? Second, if not should we?”
The lawyer dropped his papers back onto the table. “My opinion at this stage is you could argue your case from a legal standpoint. But other legal opinion would probably say the same to the administration. Unfortunately, the law is not always strictly black and white.”
“We’re asking or trouble,” said the chief sub-editor.
The young news editor who had said nothing during the exchanges now spoke. “It’s a good story. I say if it is not illegal we should go with it.”
Davidson looked at Teller. Teller shrugged his shoulders as if to say I wrote it, the decision to publish is yours.
“Yes,” said Davidson slowly as if he had read Teller’s mind. “It’s my decision.” He picked up a copy and glanced through it again, his eyes selecting specific words and sentences, but his mind not really digesting them as it weighed instead potential consequences. “I’ll think on it,” he said finally and the meeting ended.
When Teller returned to his desk there was an envelope waiting for him. It bore the logo of the Hong Kong Hotel in the corner but had no stamp affixed. Quickly he tore it open and read the handwritten note inside. Teller leapt out of his chair and bounded across the room, rushing into the editor’s office without knocking.
“Now what?” demanded Davidson.
Teller thrust the sheet of paper at him. “Read this.”
Davidson took the note and read it. Then he read it again.
Mr Jason Teller,” it began.
Stop now before you get yourself into more trouble.
The doctor and the girl were necessary.
So far you are not.
Do not write any more stories or you will lose your face.
There was no signature.
“This is from some crank,” Davidson said after a time. But there was a doubt in his tone.
“I don’t know,” replied Teller. “It might be from the killer.”
“Who goes around knocking people off and then breaks cover by warning a journo off who simply writes up the story? Anyway, if it was from your friend it destroys your theory of a secret political plot. There’s nothing intelligent about this note. To the contrary, whoever sent it is plain dumb.”
To Teller there was something about the crude note which did not rest easily with him. It was not the threat implied. There was something else he could not put his finger on.
“Forget it,” Davidson was saying. “There are a lot of nutters out there and they probably say at least once a day that they will kill someone or other. This guy read about the murders, read your story and saw your byline. It’s the shot you don’t hear that you have to worry about.”
Still Teller made no comment.
“Right,” said Davidson. “Let’s get on with it then. We’re running your follow-up tomorrow by the way. I’ve decided to put it on the op-ed page. But even if we didn’t it would be no reflection on you. It’s a food piece.”
Teller left and sat at his desk and read the note again. He read it over and over until he knew it by heart and the words were imprinted on his brain. But he still could not decipher what it was about it that bothered him. Finally, he reluctantly agreed that his editor was most likely correct. He would not be the first reporter to receive crank mail from a reader, and as Davidson had rightly pointed out there were a lot of mentally disturbed people walking the streets of Hong Kong. It could even be a prank of some sort.
He crumpled the paper and was about to drop it in the tin bin by his desk when he changed his mind. Instead he smoothed it out and slipped it into his bottom left hand drawer. It was his ‘rubbish draw’ or ‘too hard basket’ where he kept papers and notes he thought he might need in the future. He cleared the drawer about once every six weeks and generally ended up throwing the entire contents away. But he kept on filling it anyway.
It was getting late and Teller intended leaving for the day no later than five. He had a six forty-five film to see and he wanted to shower and change his clothes first. He had an hour or so to fill so he decided to read over his story for the next day’s paper. Punching in his code he called up the story, and rolling from frame to frame he checked what he had written. It began by repeating the three questions posed in the first part. Was there a political cover-up of the Wong and Tse murders, was a political time-bomb primed to go off, and who and where was the killer now?
He had written:
The certain answers to these queries remain a mystery. But in the
following paragraphs the South China Morning Post proposes possibilities that, if correct, would have far-reaching consequences for each and every person living in Hong Kong.
Michael Wong and Amelia Tse were members of a political group that fervently favoured the introduction of direct elections next year. Indeed, it is believed that at least they, with or without the support of others of the same view, were determined to bring about a political system that flew directly in the face of the Beijing Politburo and Whitehall in London.
Wong, who on the face of it appeared a dedicated medical specialist with little to no interest outside his profession, was a firm believer in what could almost be called independence.
While such a concept would be dismissed as preposterous by virtually every thinking person, the quietly spoken surgeon possibly harboured such thoughts. The plain fact is of course that full independence could never be.
Hong Kong Island and a small area of Kowloon peninsula may, under international law have been ceded to Britain in perpetuity. But the vast New Territories was leased from the People’s Republic and that lease expires in less than ten years.
It has always been an accepted fact that in dealing with that lease the entire territory would be identified and treated as a single package. The best one could have expected, and highly unlikely, would have been a renewal of the lease. But the Joint Declaration of 1984 ended even those forlorn hopes. Hong Kong would always be ruled by others.
Yet as late as last year Michael Wong, an intelligent man without doubt, apparently believed something might be done to ‘free’ the people of this territory. He is on record as having stated categorically: ‘We must have freedom, by whatever method is necessary to achieve it’.
Such a stated position cannot be taken lightly.
Nor can the avowed stance of Amelia Tse, this paper’s own political correspondent and intimate confidante of Wong.
There is no question as to her views. She openly and publicly supported at least direct elections to the Legislative Council in 1988. But even she might also have had plans to pursue the political battle further. Consider what she herself wrote under the heading RELIGION in the publication Who’s Who in Hong Kong: ‘Freedom from oppression.”
That was her stated belief.
If one were to have Michael Wong – ‘freedom at any cost’ – and Amelia Tse – ‘freedom from oppression’ – forming a pact, the consequences would not be hard to imagine.
The SCMPost believes such a pact was formed. It also believes a plan was not only formulated but actually instigated to make sure that direct elections were introduced next year. Possibly even more far reaching goals were envisaged that would create unrest in Beijing and London and potential havoc here in Hong Kong.
Amelia Tse suggested as much in her death note which expressed great fear that many people would be seriously harmed unless something was done to stop whatever action had begun.
The death of her close friend had either brought her to her senses or worse told her that their plans had gone badly wrong.
What were those plans? We don’t know.
But there can be do doubt they are now out of control. The apparent masterminds are both dead. Viciously, callously, premeditatedly murdered. With Wong and Tse no longer in charge, a time-bomb has been set to explode and their killer may well be the only person who is able to defuse it.
That person is not known to the authorities it seems. Developments since the murders suggest they too do not have the answers to these questions.
They have, in the view of this newspaper probably for the best reasons, been trying to cover the situation up.
The two alleged triads arrested for Wong’s murder could not possibly have been responsible. Tse was killed while they were in custody.
Efforts to obtain information have been actively thwarted. Newspaper employees have been threatened and this newspaper is convinced those responsible for investigating the deaths, and the reasons for them, already know that something dire could be about to happen.
Why else would they warn this newspaper to “drop” its line of enquiry because many other people would suffer? Why would they express the same fears Amelia Tse expressed in her death note?
As already stated they may well have the best of reasons for not wishing to have the facts made known. However, when faced with a threat instead of a request for help, we feel obliged in the public interest to raise pertinent questions and seek acceptable answers. So far we have not received any explanations.
Amelia Tse referred to the opening of the Legislative Council session in October. Did she mean that whatever was programmed to happen would happen then?
The Legislative Council session will begin on October 7. That is forty-two days away.
In the meantime there is a killer on the streets of Hong Kong who will it seems stop at nothing to achieve his ends. Already he has brutally taken the lives of Michael Wong and Amelia Tse. Will there be more?
And importantly, what is th