Chapter seventeen
Sunday morning was bright and sunny. I could hear Mrs Gim busy with her vacuum cleaner as I lay back in the bath.
I got out of the bath and shaved. On my way to the bedroom I saw Mrs Gim and said: ‘I’m expecting someone at eleven o’clock. Could you get everything finished by half past ten?’
She looked at me reproachfully, and in the pitying tones that women use to men when discussing household chores she said: ‘All right, sir. But what about the bedroom?’
‘The bedroom can wait’, I said.
At exactly two minutes to eleven the front doorbell rang. This, I thought, is too good to be true: not only had Park kept an appointment but he had arrived on time. With almost a feeling of regret I realised that my assignment was almost over: I had found Park Song-yong. Now it was up to Na ...
When I opened the door, however, I found that the visitor was Kim Joo-young.
She came into the drawing-room and draped her fur stole carelessly on a chair. ‘Hello, Han- sang’, she said in a strangely colourless voice.
I glanced at the clock. The hour hand was practically on eleven. ‘I didn’t expect you this morning’, I said lamely.
‘I know you didn’t’, she said composedly.
‘Joo-young’, I said hastily, ‘I hate to appear inhospitable, but I’m expecting someone at any minute. Could you drop round a bit later?’
She turned to face me. Her eyes had dark circles under them, which told of a night with little sleep. She said rather wearily: ‘It’s all right, Han-sang, I know all about it. You’re expecting Park Song-yong’.
‘Who told you that?’
‘I’ve seen him’, she said flatly. ‘I saw him on Friday night. He asked me to tell you that he won’t be coming this morning’.
I felt a sudden surge of uncontrollable anger. ‘Why not?’ I said sharply. ‘He definitely said he would’.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He just told me to deliver the message to you’.
I caught hold of her arm. ‘Where is Park Song-yong?’ I asked vehemently unable to conceal the anger in my voice.
‘I don’t know’, she repeated in the same expressionless tome of defeat. ‘I can’t make it out, Han-sang. He telephoned me on Friday and asked me to meet him at a cafe near Hwon-dong. I drove over there after the show’.
‘What sort of cafe?’
Joo-young wrinkled her nose in distaste. ‘A fearful dump called ‘Ma’s Cafe’ or something – one of those pull-ins for lorry drivers’.
‘But why in a transport cafe, for God’s sake? He can’t be all that broke’.
‘I don’t know’, she said. ‘It certainly wasn’t my idea, I assure you. I tried to persuade him to come to the flat, but he wouldn’t’.
‘Well, go on’, I said. ‘What happened?’
‘He said he’d spoken to you and that you were livid about the money he owed you’.
‘I pretended to be a great deal more annoyed than I am’, I said. ‘Principally because I was very anxious to see him as soon as possible’.
‘I realised that’, said Joo-young. ‘Anyway, he said quite firmly that he wasn’t going to see you and he told me to pay you back. He gave me the money’. She opened her handbag and took out a cheque. ‘Here it is’.
The cheque was made out to Moon Han-sang and signed by Kim Joo-young. It was for four- hundred million won.
‘But this is crazy’, I said. ‘This is your cheque, made out to me’.
‘I know’, said Joo-young. ‘Song-yong gave me the money in cash’.
I scratched my head in bewilderment. ‘But where would Song-yong get four-hundred million won from?’
‘I’ve no idea’, she replied edgily. ‘All I can tell you is that he paid me in cash. I banked the money and made out a cheque to you. That's all there is to it’.
This didn’t ring true and I told her so. ‘Shall I tell you what I think, Joo-young? I think you’re trying to pay Park’s debts with your own money. Well, as far as I’m concerned, forget it’.
‘It’s not that at all, Han-sang’, she protested. ‘I swear it isn’t! He paid me the money in cash. Obviously I wasn’t going to carry that much money around with me, so I put it in the bank. Anyone would’.
‘I find all this very hard to believe’, I said doubtfully. She shrugged. ‘Darling, I can only tell you the truth’.
I looked at the cheque again and then at Joo-young; the thing just didn’t make sense. I said: ‘How could Park raise four-hundred million won – just like that?’
‘I expect he borrowed it from someone – you know, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul’.
‘I can’t quite imagine anyone in their right senses lending Park four-hundred million’, I said. ‘Did you tell him that I particularly wanted to see him?’
‘Yes, I did, but I might as well have saved my breath. He doesn’t want to see you’. This hurt a little. ‘Why shouldn’t he want to see me?’
Her reply sounded far from convincing. ‘It seems he’s just started a new business with someone’, she said, ‘and he doesn’t want his new partners to know about your firm going bust’.
This sounded a bit over the odds, even for Park. I laughed derisively. ‘The whole world knew about our firm going into liquidation. We had some very good notices in the financial press’. ‘Well’, said Joo-young lamely, ‘perhaps he feels that you’d talk about it, or interfere – or something’.
‘I ask you, is that likely?’ I expostulated. ‘In spite of everything, Park and I have always been very good friends. You know that, Joo-young’.
At that moment the front doorbell rang, heralding the appearance of the Sunday papers. Every Saturday, as regularly as clockwork, I went to the little shop on the corner and asked if I could have the Sunday papers a little earlier. Every Sunday they turned up a little later.
‘Excuse me a second’, I said to Joo-young, and went out into the hall, leaving the door open behind me. The papers were on the mat. I picked them up and glanced at the headlines, and as I straightened up I saw Joo-young’s reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece.
She was holding a small object up to her face and at first I thought she was lighting a cigarette with my table lighter. Then I realised that it was not a lighter but her cell phone.
Hardly believing the evidence of my own eyes I watched as she pointed the camera on the phone directly at the tobacco tin. First the top, then bottom, then she prized it open and took a photo of the interior of the lid; then she quickly replaced the lid and popped the tin back. Holding the phone in her hand she slipped into the centre of the room where she was in the process of checking her text messages as I came back.
My first impulse was to have a showdown with her there and then; to get the phone from her and find out what she was doing. But I thought better of it and said casually: ‘I never asked you to have a drink, Joo-young’.
She didn’t turn a hair and I began to realise why she was such a success as an actress. She smiled with all the nonchalance in the world. ‘Too early for me, darling. I’m afraid I must be going – some dreary people coming to lunch’.
Joo-young’s little act with the camera could wait, but I had to know about the money. I flicked the cheque with my finger. ‘Joo-young, before I accept this, do you swear that Park really did give you the money?’
‘Yes, of course I do’, she said lightly. ‘D’you think I've got four-hundred million won to give away?’
‘You had the other day’, I reminded her.
She shook her head. ‘That’s not quite the same thing. I was prepared to lend you the money if you were thinking of starting up in business again’.
I put the cheque in my pocket. A cheque of Park’s might well be a dud, but Joo-young could have written one for three times this amount without doing herself much material damage.
‘Very well, if Park wants it this way’, I said, ‘that’s the end of a beautiful friendship. He’s entitled to run his own life, I suppose. But what about you? Are you seeing him again?’
‘I don’t know’, she said flatly.
‘You’re still engaged, aren’t you? Park wouldn’t be fool enough to give you up’.
She produced a rather wan smile. ‘I don’t know about that, either. We certainly weren’t particularly friendly when we met on Friday – not a devoted couple at all’. She looked at the clock. ‘Han-sang, I must fly! Let’s have lunch together one day soon – this week, if possible’. ‘All right’, I agreed, ‘I’ll give you a ring’.
She flashed me a smile, which in the ordinary way would have made me buckle at the knees. As it was, it just made me mad.
‘How’s the show going?’ I said as we walked to the hall. ‘We’re coming off next week’, she said. ‘didn’t you know?’
‘No’, I said. ‘I’m sorry about that’.
She made a little grimace. ‘I’m not. I’ll be glad of the rest’.
When Joo-young had gone I stood gazing at the tobacco tin from the Battle of Inchon. It gave me no sort of inspiration, I found myself thinking that I should have got tough with Joo-young and forced the truth out of her.
By now I was in a thoroughly bad temper. I went to the drinks table and mixed an outsize gin and tonic …