Chapter Twenty-One
Thirst.
It was the thirst that was really troubling Jason Teller. His mouth was as dry as dust and his throat ached.
He had never been thirsty in his life before. Really thirsty. So that his mind could concentrate on little other than an unbearable craving for moisture that would wash away the dust and soothe what he imagined were deep cracks in the sensitive lining of his throat caused by constant swallowing of a depleting supply of saliva. It seemed the ducts were almost empty. Remaining droplets had to be sucked and hawked up.
With closed eyes he would gradually lower the liquid on contracting muscles, trying to prolong the salve as long as possible. But he failed each time. Uncontrollable impatience took over and the blobs of spittle plummeted down his throat in gulps that made his Adam’s apple bob as though on a spring. A burning sensation followed immediately which made him screw his eyes tight as he attempted to bathe the raw flesh in all that remained. Warm gut air.
His head throbbed as well, one of the symptoms of withdrawal he suffered because he had not been permitted to smoke nor to drink his regular cups of steaming black coffee. Essential heart starters. Both were drugs and while he had told himself many times he was not addicted, that he merely chose to smoke and consume six to eight cups a day, the need had become obvious some time ago. Like a junkie going cold turkey Teller was experiencing severe mental anguish.
For Christ’s sake, what he would give for a single cup and to be able to draw on just one cigarette. Fuck the brand. To taste the thick liquid rolling around his cheeks, stirring it with his tongue and then to let it rush down his throat and hit the pit of his stomach, making him tense his muscles, drawing in his rib cage to trap it, hold it there, feeling the warmth spread. And then to suck in a lungful of smoke, letting only a thin scarf trickle between his lips, taking it down the tube to where it would settle as a cap to the coffee, calming it, calming him. He knew it went straight to his lungs and added yet another black layer of deadly sediment but it felt like it went straight into his stomach. It really did. Jesus, if he could only have one. Even the condemned got a cigarette with the blind fold. And he was condemned. He was going to die. Hands tied behind him, propped up against a pitted wall, as the weapon was aimed and the finger took up the tension until there was the explosion and nothing more. Oblivion. Death. The end.
He’d lived it again and again.
The whole thing was narcotic. A dream. Hallucination. But the soreness, the tremors in his temple were real. His situation was real. The sentence that had been passed was real. His inability to do anything about it was real. The story was rewriting itself. He had started it, but invisible hands had taken it over, pushing his out of the way leaving them useless, making him impotent. It was weird. He had been telling the story of others before it went off the rails. Then he had to sit and observe himself enmeshed, the words being strung together, the characters changing, inexorably raising arms and pointing accusatory fingers at him. He was the central figure, the bystander turned into motivator. The one who had made terrible things happen, the one who caused events which killed people. Not the hero. The fact that he was on the right side no longer mattered.
The invisible hands coerced, tugged him into the plot taking over his body, insinuating into his brain, controlling him. Until finally he was the bad guy, the one hunted by everyone, the one who had to be hounded to the ground and then drained of everything he had inside him. Until now. Now he could predict the conclusion with uncanny clarity. If his hands were freed he could sit and bang out the end with utter certainty. He was going to die a useless death. Others were going to die too, many others, and the world of those who were left behind would be a living death. God, what had he done? What had he caused?
Teller snapped open his eyes and in a panic looked about him. An earthquake pounded his head, his heart pumped blood at a precarious rate and he wanted to scream until his whole body exploded, obliterating reality in a mass of splintered flesh, bone, gristle, grey matter and blood. All because he had been deprived of a drink and a cigarette. Get your act together, Teller ordered. Concentrate. Concentrate on the real thing. Deal with the demands of reality and ignore the peripheral mosquito bites. There is too much at stake to be put off. Far too much. All his suffering was selfish self introspection. The lack of his coffee and cigarette luxuries were nothing more than excuses.
For the past two days he and Brigit had been held prisoner in a place well out of reach of possible rescuers. So the Catskinner thought and Teller reluctantly had to agree.
Lantau Island is probably the most neglected part of the British colony. Almost twice the size of Hong Kong Island, it houses a fraction of the population, though there had been a number of proposals over the years to develop it. Situated barely half an hour by ferry to the west Lantau is surrounded by tiny rocky outcroppings. The southern extremity is well distant from the mainland but the northern tip reaches close to the New Territories coastline between the crowded towns of Tsuen Wan and Tun Mun. In this narrow gap are the industrial island of Tsing Yi and the deserted stepping stone of Ma Wan.
There were ambitious plans for Lantau to be linked to the mainland by a series of bridges which would bring car and rail transport to the vast potential development areas, and with it huge residential and commercial complexes. The most impressive proposition was to reclaim a tract of sea on the northwest side of the island and to build a completely new international airport. The cost was astronomical but it could be borne provided the projected revenue could be gleaned from the resultant development sources. This was what was holding up the final go-ahead, this was what was keeping Lantau the sleepy rural and holiday island it remained.
This was why there were areas where one could escape the pace of urban life. Where a handful of old stone huts dot hillsides unseen from the beaches and well off the narrow tracks used by hikers on Sundays and public holidays. There was a time many years before when one or two of the huts had actually been used as weekend getaways. Expatriates had bought them for a pittance and outfitted them in a rudimentary fashion, but it soon proved a waste of money. Their remoteness which was the initial attraction became their drawback and by the second summer they had been stripped again and left to age ungracefully in the windy elements. No-one ever went near them and only a few knew of their existence.
The Catskinner knew and that was why he had chosen one of them as the jail for Jason Teller and Brigit Rolanne. He had used the hut a number of times before, to get away by himself, clear his thinking, make his plans. As soon as he had decided not to kill Teller and the woman he had settled on the island hideaway almost instantly. It was obvious.
He could not go back to Sai Kung. That would be too risky. His own flat was out of the question, and there was nowhere else he could think of where he could guarantee security. The hut would have no visitors, there would be no inquisitive eyes, and should any noise be raised there would be no nearby ears to hear it. It was perfect.
Getting there was a relatively straightforward matter. The three of them used the dead advertising man’s car to drive to Aberdeen. With the gun threatening Brigit’s kidneys from his pocket the Catskinner had roused a young girl who plied one of the dozens of sampans in the congested harbour. Though it was early morning by the time they arrived she was prepared to accept the bundle of dollars offered and to turn her face away while they did whatever they wanted in the rocking little craft. Maybe even to join in herself if sufficient inducement was added. It was not the first time she had had earned more in one night than in two whole weeks. However it was the last.
Once in the West Lamma Channel the Catskinner with his arm around Brigit had called her to him. She did not even see the blow coming. She felt the man’s knuckles strike her temple and her knees buckle, but that was all. She was unconscious by the time she sagged to the damp and oily bottom of the sampan. Nor did she feel herself hauled to the edge of the bobbing vessel and pushed over the side into the warm polluted waters of the channel. The girl never regained consciousness.
All the while Teller and Brigit were helpless to stop him. The killer had kept the gun pointing at them as without showing any emotion he did his dirty work. When Teller protested the Catskinner had aimed directly at Brigit again and said quietly: “I will shoot her first.” Then later with Brigit again by his side and Teller at the tiller he had charted the sampan past the rock of Kau Yiu Chan to the shoreline of Lantau Island at Tai Shiu Hang and a small cove which sheltered a five meter stretch of beach littered with plastic bags and empty torn containers, some of the debris that despoiled Hong Kong’s fragrant harbour.
They had to pick their way up the side of the hill from the water’s edge. It was hard to imagine why anyone had built the hut there in the first place. It was virtually buried in the scrub and there were no windows to look out over the channel; just a joined pair of square concrete structures whose sides measured no more than six paces each, a cold concrete floor, flat roof and no electricity or plumbing fixtures. There were pockmarks where they had once been but now they simply ushered in wisps of breeze and dripped with dirty water when sweeping typhoons hammered away at the outside walls. A doorless opening joined the two rooms and a new sturdy wooden door had been fastened to the front, adding an incongruously modern touch to the otherwise forlorn bunker.
Teller and Brigit had been pushed unceremoniously inside. Then in dim torch light the Catskinner had watched unblinking as Brigit, as ordered, bound Teller’s hands behind his back with strong nylon cords taken from the sampan. She was then tied hand and foot and the Catskinner completed the task by securely knotting the cords around Teller’s ankles. By the time he had finished his prisoners were totally immobilised. Only then did he put away the .38 revolver. He squatted in the darkness and said nothing for the hours that dragged into the dawn. Both Teller and Brigit tried to make him talk but it was as if they were addressing the bare wall against which he leaned his back. Neither of them slept and by the time a thin crack of light seeped under the door their bodies ached as though they had been beaten with pick handles.
Saturday was a day unlike any other Teller had had to endure. It began in discomfort and ended in as near to agony as he had even been. If he ached from head to toe when he woke he was almost at screaming point by the end of the day. The whole time he and Brigit remained bound and by nightfall his wrists were swollen and the smooth nylon cords had rubbed glistening bands tinged with pink which threatened to spill blood. Fortunately his socks had protected his ankles though there was a soreness that irritated maddeningly. As for the rest of his body the aching stiffness had hardened and become numbness that nevertheless itched and throbbed and finally suggested a pain he imagined an amputee might feel after a limb had been hacked off.
Brigit had fared worse though. He could see the red-stained nylon that circled her delicate wrists and those binding her legs had also harshly rubbed through the skin. Her face was drawn and while she did not complain any more than to say she was sore all over, he could see she was suffering considerably.
“For god’s sake,” he had demanded of the Catskinner. “At least loosen the knots on her.”
The killer, sitting cross legged in the unbarred doorway between the two rooms, had averted his face and stared out over the channel at the T shaped island of Peng Chau. His arms hung limp in the hollow formed by his legs and his hands toyed with a single straw of grass, the forefingers and thumbs moving backwards and forwards along the stem the colour of uncleaned teeth, warming, polishing it. At Teller’s plea the fingers increased their motion. The grass broke as Teller shouted: “Fuck you. Can’t you see the blood? Is that necessary? She has done nothing.”
The man glared at him and then peered through the doorway once more. Suddenly he leapt to his feet and stormed across the room to where Brigit huddled against the wall. Pulling her roughly towards him he bent over her shoulder and untied the cords and then retied them more loosely around her wrists. When he had done the same with her legs, checking to ensure her limbs were still securely tied, the Catskinner pounced back to his position and commanded in a hoarse low voice: “Now shut up.”
“Well, thank you,” sneered Teller. “Bloody nice of you. Most considerate I must say. It’s nice to know you’re not into torture as well as cold blooded murder.” The Catskinner seemed to ignore him. Teller went on: “It is murder you know that. Cold blooded, premeditated homicide. Or do you have a weird justifiable reason for it all?”
The man continued to stare out over the water towards the western tip of Hong Kong Island ten kilometres away. Teller wriggled awkwardly and his bonds pinched the hairs on his bare wrists and burnt further into his flesh. “Jesus,” he said. “Your brain must be really something. When you’re caught they should being back the death penalty and then experts should spend years trying to fathom it. There are knots in there that would keep them happy for decades. You will be the envy of every assassin in the world.” When the Catskinner looked at him Teller caught the gleam in his eyes. “Oh, don’t think I mean that as a compliment. You’re a fucking idiot. There’s nothing intelligent about you or what you’re doing.”
“You don’t understand,” said the Catskinner softly. He blinked twice and again turned his attention to the outside. “You couldn’t understand. You are a gwai lo.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Teller retorted. “You think that says it all? Because you are Chinese it gives you the right to kill those who don’t see things your way? If that’s the case why don’t you just go and kill everyone in Hong Kong? Why stop at Legislative Councillors? And us? Blow up the tunnel, the airport, fucking Shatin racecourse on a Saturday afternoon. Hell, you might as well include Ocean Park just in case there are some kids up there who might harbour thoughts of freedom, capitalism and all those other rights you oppose.”
In the distance a motorised junk puttered through the water seeking its favoured fishing grounds, and overhead a jet rumbled on its approach to the needle landing strip, leaving the sound far behind to draw the faces of two young boys perched dangerously on the bow of the junk.
It also attracted the Catskinner and for a moment he searched the gloomy sky for the metal body of the aircraft. Ceasing his vain search but continuing to gaze upwards he repeated: “It is impossible for you to understand the shame, the degradation we feel. You have never been subjected to mental and moral slavery.” He turned to look into the room. “You have never had to bow and accept humiliation simply because of the colour of your skin or the shape of your eyes. In your own land. You come here….”
“We came here to work. To enjoy what Hong Kong has to offer and maybe to learn something from this unique society.”
“You and those like you came to take. You don’t give. You don’t add anything.”
“We do what everyone else does dammit. We work, we earn, we pay taxes and we spend much of what we have left over. What the hell do you expect?”
“You overlook the fact that you have much more left over as you so simply put it than we do. That’s because you regard yourself as superior, so demand and get higher salaries, the best jobs, live in luxury apartments, look down on us. What gives you the right to set yourself on such pedestals? What makes you consider yourselves so high and mighty? That must change. I am going to change it.” He stood up abruptly and without another word walked from the hut.
Brigit who had remained silent during the heated exchange turned to Teller. “What are we going to do Jason? He’s going to kill us. We have to get away from him.”
“He’s mad,” Teller said excitedly. “He has actually convinced himself that his hair-brained plot can bring everything down and that a new, bright people’s proletariat can be built in its place that will bring riches to all. Equality for everyone. God, doesn’t he see what will happen? In the rubble that’s left there won’t be any people to rebuild with. Those who are skilled will have gone. Or have died at his hand.”
“Us included,” she remarked softly. “Unless we can escape from here we’ll be among the first.”
For the remainder of the day they talked and formulated their own plans but were not able to carry out any of them. The Catskinner regularly came into the hut and while he refused to be drawn into any further discussion, he carefully checked their bonds to make sure they were tightly fastened. By the time night fell Brigit had withdrawn into herself and sat sullen in the corner. Teller too had retreated into his inner being with anger and frustration building to boiling point.
Their discomfort was immense and Teller hurled abuse at the killer whether he was in the room or outside. He knew it would achieve nothing but each time he derived some satisfaction from the verbal attacks he launched. Then he would sit and brood until once again the ire would bubble to the surface.
Teller and Brigit slept little on the Saturday night. Only a few hours each, though it was more they guessed than their captor who each time they looked was sitting cross legged in the opening between the two rooms watching them. During the night it rained lightly again and the temperature in the exposed structure dropped, the cold trapped in the concrete floor and eating its way into their already painful joints.
On the morning of the second day Teller awoke from a fitful nap to find Brigit sitting apart from him crying gently. With difficulty he wriggled over to her and kissed her hair and the back of her neck. Desperately he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort and reassure her. But he could not.
“My love, my love,” he whispered, unable to conceal the anguish in his voice. Nor could he find the words to cure the pain, to dispel the fear. “I love you. I love you so much. Remember that. I love you more than anything else in the world. No matter what happens, remember I love you.” Her sobbing deepened and she leaned her body into his. Nestling her face in his neck so the warm tears fell from her eyes onto his cold skin, searing hot stabs across his chest right into his heart.
Teller caressed her hair with his cheek as the Catskinner entered and stood framed in the doorway. “I’ll kill you,” said Teller. “Be sure. I’ll kill you with my bare hands you bastard.”
The man said nothing but took the revolver from the band of his trousers and slowly walked back through the doorway and disappeared outside into the clear crisp daylight. He squinted at a bird circling above him. The reporter would have to be closely watched. He had miscalculated. He had expected fear and some anger. However, it was hatred that had overcome the other emotions and that was something he would have to be alert to constantly. Like passion, hatred brought with it a determination to succeed. And the reporter could not be permitted to succeed in what he was undoubtedly contemplating.
The Catskinner knew about hatred. It was what motivated him. He knew its strengths. Also its weaknesses. It could be used to drive shards into the weak points of opponents, bringing them to their knees, defeating them, hurting them. It had served him well in the past and he had every intention of using it to achieve his ends again. He must not however allow it controlled by someone else to work against him. It must not prevent him from carrying out his plan. Everything was in place. Only one final act was needed. Only he was capable of carrying it out and only days remained before he did so.
There was another distant rumbling above him and this time he caught sight of the aircraft as it cleared the thin cloud cover that was rapidly being blown north, creating a bright ceiling and a hospitable welcome for the hundreds of visitors who would disgorge themselves from the belly of the plane and file into the bustle of the Pearl of the Orient. He wondered how many of them would still be there on the Wednesday. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t doing it for them. He was not doing it for himself either. He was merely the instrument.
Inside the hut Brigit had stopped sobbing and oblivious to the decent of the jet outside sat looking into the face of Teller, her eyes red, damp streaks staining her face. “I am just so sad that we wasted so much time,” she was saying. “If only we had realised before. Everything would have been so different. Yes? We would not be here. This would not be happening to us. We would be looking forward to life. To happiness. But now….now what do we have?”
“We still have each other,” Teller answered weakly. “For now we still have each other my love.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as we can. Don’t give up yet. There is still hope.”
“Hope?” she blurted and then repeated. “Hope? What can we hope for? He’s going to kill us. We have no way of escaping, and no-one knows where we are. How can we hope to get out of this?” She paused and Teller thought she might cry again. “Oh Jason, how did we get into this mess? How did we allow it to go so far?”
A piece of his conscience snagged, unwilling to be dislodged. “You did nothing. I did it all. It is my fault. If I had not been so stupid none of this would have happened. Oh, that maniac would still be out there plotting his horror, and those people would still be dying, but we would not be involved. You would not be. It is because of me that you are here. Now. If only I had not gone to you for help. If only….I wish there was more I could do. I am sorry my darling. So dreadfully sorry.”
She could not look at him. She knew if she did he would see the condemnation in her eyes. He was right. He had brought her into it. He had been responsible for embroiling them in the whole horrible series of fateful events, by his actions, his careless, foolish behaviour. Almost as instinctively she found herself flipping the coin over and examining the other side. She had accepted his plea for sanctuary at the very beginning. She had even encouraged him to continue his writing and questioning. She had gone on to aid him by actually arranging their flight to the two hotels. Khan was her idea. She could not lay all the blame at his feet.
True, she may not have rationally analysed all the potential consequences and that galled her, but for the rest she had been a willing partner. More perhaps. Perhaps she had secretly hoped that by taking him in and then giving him the help he needed so much, which she had to admit excited her to a large degree, she would win him back, that he would fill the void that had developed in her life. And her hopes had been realised. The years had dropped away like a shrugged nightgown and the unexpected intrigue had brought them together again, cementing their love, fusing their feelings. But for what? The emptiness had been filled but it would be wasted. Their love was doomed. They were doomed.
She lifted her face and was about to explain when the Catskinner came back into the adjoining room and peered at them. Teller stared back but remained silent. The man checked their bindings and again went outside. Teller looked around the room and then quietly said: “God I’d love a cigarette. And my mouth tastes like the bottom of a bird cage.”
The words in her throat caught and she swallowed them away, recognising the time for uttering them had passed. She acknowledged too the time for recriminations had also gone.
*
While Brigit and Teller had been deprived of their freedom others in the colony, and outside, had been keeping developments moving at a heady pace.
The public debate on the Green Paper, or more precisely the question of direct elections and their timing, continued with the various factions voicing their views unrestrained. News media also continued their stand of giving major coverage to any and all utterances. Some Legislative Councillors, in attempts to balance the demands of the democrats, offered themselves to the young ambitious reporters whose job it was to record whatever was said by the people’s representatives.
Saturday’s fare was that it would not be the end of the world if the administration ruled out direct elections in 988. Some councillors, they said, could seek a reconsideration of the decision but business would go on as usual. The implication was that it would be little more than a hiccup.
Even religious bodies entered the fray. The head of a local Taoist group was quoted by the China News Service, the local offshoot of the NCNA, as warning against the hasty introduction of such radical reforms. To support his caution the despatch said the spokesman had referred to the fact that the vast majority of Hong Kong’s residents were silent on the issue, indicating they were not in favour. Schools too were involved. The Heung To Middle School was reported to have attempted to mobilise its students and their parents to oppose direct elections.
However, the pro direct election fever was still high and it did not stop with the Legislative Council. A few District Board members seriously suggested it extend right down to what were titled Area Committees, bodies that listened to the wishes of residents at the suburban grass roots level. But even there the idea was unacceptable to the administration. The Regional Secretary for Hong Kong and Kowloon said this would lead to “too many elections”.
On the Sunday the stories that were aired attacked the AGB McNair public opinion surveys again. At a seminar organised by a political reform group formed by staff from tertiary education institutions, a number of statisticians and political lecturers labelled the surveys as neither scientific nor representative. They urged the Survey Office to setup an assessment committee comprising professionals to determine how representative the polls results really were. The entire exercise was becoming farcical.
On the Basic Law front the comments were more serious. The Director of China’s Hong Kong and Macau Office was quoted on Saturday as telling a labour union delegation that China’s policy of “One country, two systems” and “Hong Kong people rule Hong Kong” would not change even after the coming 13th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Meaningfully, for the press he added that he did not want to see drastic changes in Hong Kong during the transition to 1997.
The Basic Law Drafting Committee special group on the political system for post-British Hong Kong was to open its next meeting the following day in Guangzhou which would last until October 6. One of the items on the agenda was that proposed by a Hong Kong drafter for a shadow government to be formed before the handover of sovereignty to participate in the work of the local administration. As an unofficial opening to the meeting four other Hong Kong members of the group openly criticised the suggestion.
When the meeting did get under way on the Sunday the Basic Law Drafting Committee Secretary General gave some temporary heart to democrats when he said China did not oppose the principle of direct elections before 1997. The proviso was that they had to be stipulated in the Basic Law.
Martin Lee’s response was instant and predictable. He strongly reiterated his call for their introduction in 1988 and added his own rider that he was concerned whether the Basic Law would in fact provide for Hong Kong’s future legislature to be constituted by the electoral process, despite the original promises contained in the Joint Declaration of three years earlier.
Meanwhile, there was other news that captured the headlines and added to the political confusion that was permeating Hong Kong over the weekend preceding the official opening of the council on October 7. One which concerned the civil service itself had lain dormant for some time, but it now became an issue. Senior officers were resigning or retiring early to join the private sector in growing numbers. On the surface this might under normal circumstance not be cause for concern. But in the present conditions, and at the escalating rate it was occurring, worried eyebrows were being raised. The brain drain was already alarming and the Governor personally had ordered a crack down. The outside view was that confidence was being lost from the inside and that pointed to a most serious state of affairs. Not only was the duck lame, but an illness had struck at the bird’s very heart.
Added to this was the thorny question of Vietnamese refugees. It refused to go away. Their numbers continued to grow. The Legislative Council ad hoc group continued to press for decisive action. Commentators continued to maintain the Hong Kong and British governments did not have the power, or more importantly the will, to act. On Vietnamese refugees, the basic Law, or democracy right.
As one commentator wrote:
“This Administration has repeatedly maintained it has gone to the
people on all issues of significance. In fairness it has; at the last minute and generally only under pressure to do so. Now that the livelihood of Hong Kong is at stake will the Administration listen to the people? In fairness it will. The danger, and the likelihood, is that the clock of survival will have already chimed.”
*
Around five o’clock on Sunday afternoon Teller exploded.
He did not know what time it was, nor in truth did he really care. There were signs that the day was drawing to a close as the light that burst into the front room all morning had crept back out through the door as the afternoon hours lengthened. Teller had taken no notice though had be wished he could have measured the passing time by the line of shadow that inched away from him. Also the temperature dropped as if the encroaching shade was nudging the warmth out through the entrance a miniscule point at a time. By the time the interior of the double roomed hut was plunged into gloom Teller’s patience too had evaporated.
The Catskinner was not present but Teller’s bawl brought him into the hut, his right