The Mandarin Cypher Read online

  'She's been to the Bayside Club, the Danshaku and Gaddi's.' He was speeding up a little now and by the way he was standing I thought he'd got a notebook. 'She's had dinner twice at the Eagle's Nest - that's at the top of -'

  'Hilton, right. Companions? Contacts?'

  'You mean--'

  'Who does she meet?'

  'Oh. Nobody.'

  'Nobody at all?'

  'Not that I've seen.'

  I was looking across at her. They had a can-can number warming up on the floor and she was leaning back, one arm lying along the top of the banquette, her bare shoulders pale and luminous in the low-key light and her small head poised as she watched the dancers. I wasn't surprised the elegant Chinese had risked a snub by going over to speak to her, and not surprised he'd got it. From Flower's observations she was avoiding men, avoiding people altogether, still upset by Tewson's death two months ago but not wanting to wilt alone in her apartment. Maybe this was where they used to come together, here and the other places.

  'What's her usual time-pattern?'

  'She never leaves her pad before ten or eleven a.m. and she's usually back before midnight, unless -'

  'Away all day? Lunches out, dines out?'

  'Yes, she never goes home before eleven or twelve, once she's left there in the morning. She -'

  'You'd say she drifts around, spending money or window-shopping, killing time, that kind of thing?'

  'Yes, sir, I'd say that. I-'

  'Never takes a trip -'

  'Only Kowloon -'

  'Shopping again? Drifting?'

  'Yes. Once she stayed overnight at -'

  'Overnight?'

  'Yes, last Sunday, at the Golden Sands Hotel.'

  A break in the pattern and I pressed him on this, did she stay there alone, meet anyone, talk to anyone in the lobby, in the bar? Not that he saw.

  'What was her room number?'

  'One hundred and ninety-two.' A notebook, yes.

  Went on pressing him, what time did she get there, what time did she leave, got him to think up a few of the questions for himself before I had to ask, finally drained him dry on the routine stuff like where she bought her petrol, what hairdresser, did she go to theatres, walk alone in the streets at night, ever take a taxi instead of the car, watching her from where I sat and trying to learn the things I couldn't see, the things I'd have to know to reduce the risk of losing her when I took over the tag for a stretch. Then I let him go.

  'All right Flower, where are you based?'

  'The Wanchai.'

  'Hotel?'

  'More of a boarding-house really.'

  He gave me the address and I said: 'Listen, you're off-duty from now on till I contact you, but you're on stand-by so don't leave your base at any time except between fifteen hundred and sixteen hundred hours on any day, repeat, fifteen and sixteen hundred and at no other time. Understood?'

  'Understood, sir.'

  'Leave here now and don't look around.'

  'Where can I contact you if I have to?'

  'You won't have to.'

  I hung up and put the phone on the banquette and watched him pay his bill at the bar and go through the curtains. The thin Chinese with the glasses was watching Nora Tewson and nobody else and I relaxed.

  'Change this for me will you? There's gin in it.

  'I'm sorry, sir, I thought you asked for gin and tonic.'

  'No, Indian tonic.'

  'I'll fix it right away.'

  Eurasian with a United States accent out of Taiwan, they all ought to be like that instead of the ones we've got in Accounts. In three minutes she was back and in fifteen minutes I saw the Tewson woman ordering her third drink and I began working out what to do.

  The George Henry Tewson dossier gave me quite a lot, from his schooldays on, through Cambridge but missing out his job, filling in relations, contacts, interests, addresses, vacation movements, the marriage of course, everything I'd need if I wanted to go across there and say well well well, long time no see, you're looking marvellous and tell me, how's old George these days, there was nothing she could do about it because I even knew his golf scores.

  But it wasn't the way in, for a lot of reasons. London said they'd closed the enquiry into Tewson's death so the thin man over there shouldn't be Special Branch, and the police-trained thing didn't add up to a lot because most of the Asian cells used people from official departments and he could be anyone, anyone distinctly dangerous if I didn't wipe my feet.

  Her waitress had reached the bar.

  Of course he could be insurance because a couple of years ago Tewson had been overdue with his fees at the golf club and his Austin was three years old and they'd come out here on a package trip and by the way she was enjoying her widowhood he'd either carried heavy life assurance in the UK or had known how to use a piggy bank or had taken out a short-term big-figure policy here in Hong Kong, which might explain why the thin man was Chinese.

  I didn't think he was insurance.

  Her waitress was leaving the bar.

  The long way in was to keep up the tag till I found out enough to signal London and ask for further briefing but that would take time and if Nora Tewson was the key figure in Mandarin they wouldn't want me to sit back: they'd pulled me in halfway through a ten-day call and pushed me on to a plane and that could have been partly because they couldn't get anyone else to take this one on but it could have been totally because they wanted me to go very fast now they'd lit the fuse.

  The thin Chinese could be on the tag to see if she made any contact with anyone who knew George Henry Tewson or knew anything about his death or who wanted to know something about it: so the only foolproof way in that would be fast, effective and noncommittal was to make first contact as a complete stranger and in public, going in deliberately under the opposition surveillance and making it quite clear that I knew nothing at all about Tewson, Tewson's death or Tewson's wife.

  I got up, timing it so that as her waitress reached the table I was there too, pressing my way through the people towards the dance-floor and catching my foot on a chair-leg. The whole tray went down with a crash, not just the glass, better than I'd expected.

  Chapter Four

  MING

  ROYAL HONG KONG POLICE

  Fixed Penalty (Traffic Contraventions) Ordinance 1970

  Notice of Opportunity to pay Fixed Penalty (Section 15 (2))

  Motor vehicle registration Mark, Code, Disc No, was seen

  in . . . at . . . hours on 79 . . . in circumstances giving me

  reasonable cause to believe that a contravention of the

  Ordinance, particulars of which are given at ( .......) overleaf,

  was being or had been committed. $30.

  I took it off the windscreen and got into the Capri, starting up and moving off past the club, looking for the Jensen as soon as I was round the corner. She'd put it neatly in between some railings and a sand-bin alongside the garden of someone's consulate: the flag over the building hung like a rag in the humid air. There wasn't a parking slot anywhere so I took one end of the chain off the post in the side entrance to the consulate and ran the Capri in there, a dozen yards or so from the Jensen and facing the right way in case I couldn't make final contact with her before she left the club.

  Then I walked back round the corner and through the ornate doors.

  'The gentleman forgot something?'

  'What? No, I was double parked, that's all.'

  I went to the bar and took a stool at the end near the heavy curtains: in this area there was no backwash of light from the floor-show and I could watch the Tewson woman and the Chinese couldn't watch me because the ceiling-high papier-mâché dragon was in the way.

  'Indian tonic.'

  'Gin and tonic? Yes, sir -'

  'No. Listen. In-di-an tonic.'

  'Excuse me.'

  I 'You're perfectly welcome.'

  From here I could see the magnum of Veuve Clicquot and the dozen gardenias on her table but coul
dn't at this distance tell whether she was pleased with them or not. The flying tray trick hadn't gone down too well.

  'Christ,' she'd said, 'did you have to do that?'

  'I'm terribly sorry -'

  'That's not the point-look at this!' Indicating her model lame sheath, patches of scotch all over it, the waitress on all fours between us looking for the glass, Nora Tewson with her hands on the edge of the table as if she were going to make a speech because the banquette was behind her knees and she couldn't stand up straight without support, did I know how much this dress cost, couldn't I see where I was going, so forth, really am very sorry, such an exquisite dress, be delighted to pay damages, so on, till she went off to 'clean up', the waitress on her feet again, excited because it had broken the monotony and this called for a suitable tip, yes, fifty Hong Kong dollars and this hundred is for a magnum of champagne, look, let's go to the bar, I want it done before she comes back to her table.

  The magnum hadn't been opened and she wasn't smelling the gardenias but I suppose she could have thrown the whole lot at the band.

  'I s-say, d'you know those-those girls have got holes in those - those net stockin's of theirs? Wha'?'

  I looked at him.

  'How can you tell?'

  He gazed back at me, perched dead straight on his stool, knees gripping the sides, perfectly aware that in his present circumstances the C of G was critical. Expression of glazed outrage at my stupidity, white cavalry moustache bridling.

  'Wha' - what erzackly does that mean - how can you tell?'

  He turned his back on me and raised his pearl-finish opera-glasses again after wiping the steam off the lenses. Half an hour later a Chinese chauffeur in white uniform came through the curtains and got him off the stool without a struggle and carried him out so cleverly that it looked as if he was walking.

  An hour after that I saw her signing the bill and five minutes later as she came past the bar I was going across to the phone in the corner, my back to her.

  'I must say you know how to apologize.'

  I swung round.

  'Apolo - ? Oh. The least I could do.'

  'It was handsome.'

  Tone much less sharp after four doubles: I'd been counting them. Now the brittleness had gone she looked defenceless but would obviously bite off the first hand that moved too quickly.

  'I thought it best not to present it personally.' Tone rueful, rueful smile: doormat, please wipe.

  Her face went still and her eyes became fixed on me, the pupils big in the near-dark here by the curtains. She couldn't have looked like this at me, or any man, sober.

  'Pity you didn't,' she said.

  Fair enough.

  'May I see you home?'

  Eyes thinking hard, still fixed on me, and I knew now why she'd bite if anyone got too near: for the same reason that any animal bites - because it's frightened.

  'Yes.'

  'Thank you. I'm Clive Wing.'

  Her dark eyes stayed on me for another few seconds and then she turned her head away with a little jerk and I supposed that whatever the problem had been she'd made up her mind about it. It could have been the simple, the obvious: Tewson had died over two months ago and there'd had to come a time when she was ready to speak to men again and maybe it had come tonight.

  Outside in the warmth of the night air she tried to light a cigarette and I said let me have that and took the magnum.

  'I'm Nora Tewson,' she said and flicked the lighter shut as if making a point of it. We'd only moved a few paces from the doors and the Chinese came out too fast and saw us and tried to go back and realized he couldn't and went on past us, turning his head away to look up at the light across the acacia leaves, walking briskly towards the corner.

  'The name rings a bell,' I said.

  'Does it? My car's down that way.' We began walking. 'How did you come here?'

  'In a cab.'

  Because she wouldn't want to leave a brand-new Jensen lying around and I didn't want her to see the Capri. The only thing was that if I'd been driving I could have got rid of the tag, not overtly, just playing the lights and the traffic. But it might not be worth risking: of the half-dozen theories in my mind the one I liked best was that Tewson had been an agent in one of the London departments and had been knocked off by the opposition and his wife had been talked into a decoy operation, in which case the thin man might not be a tag but a bodyguard. That would explain her nerves.

  'Beautiful job,' I said.

  'It was expensive,' she said and swung out past the sand-bin, clearing it by a couple of inches. Her anxiety state was prompting a steady release of adrenalin, combating the alcohol: the psyche was relaxed enough to let her forget her widowhood for the first time but her physical reactions were still good enough to drive this thing through the eye of a needle.

  'Tewson,' I said. 'That's Tee-ee-double-yew, ess-oh-en?'

  'How long have you been in Hong Kong?'

  'I flew in this evening.'

  'Then you won't have heard the name.'

  'I was here a couple of months ago.'

  She gave a slight resigned shrug. 'Then you've heard it.'

  The Honda swung into the chrome frame of the nearside wing mirror and stayed there until she turned off Gloucester Road and headed south. I counted five and the configuration moved into position again.

  She drove as she'd driven before, her movements rhythmic and calculating, her eyes always straight ahead as if she had to stare something down, something in the future that would rush her into the present if she looked away and dropped her guard.

  When there'd been enough time for me to think back and call it to mind I said: 'There was some kind of fishing accident, wasn't there?'

  Pause.

  'Yes.'

  'And you don't want to talk about it.'

  Pause.

  'No.'

  The magnum was half empty.

  'Why aren't you drinking any, Clive?'

  'Too acid.'

  We were sitting on the thick Hangchow carpet and she looked at me over her clasped knees.

  'Are you trying to get me pissed?'

  'You've been helping yourself.'

  She looked steadily at the magnum. 'That's perfectly true. God, this stuff goes right through you, doesn't it,' she said, and went out for the third time. 'Fix yourself some scotch or whatever you want.'

  I looked around again. The overall picture was inconsistent: Ming to the tune of ten or fifteen thousand pounds and then a lacquer table you could pick up in Cat Street for a song, and in between them a brand new cocktail cabinet with chrome bamboo style legs imported from Birmingham. A nouveau riche with condescending friends who'd told her where to buy the Ming and hadn't been looking when she'd done some shopping on her own. But the total contents of this apartment would still pull in close on fifty thousand even at an auction and the Tewson dossier said they'd come here for the last two years on a package tour.

  No books, no pictures. No picture of George Henry Tewson, even in the bedroom when she'd shown me proudly round. The whole apartment was just an expensive waiting-room.

  'To tell you the truth,' she said, coming back and smoothing her lame skirt, 'I do want to talk about it.'

  'About what?'

  'Remember you said I didn't want to talk about it?'

  'Oh yes.'

  'Well -' She tried to lift the magnum and I went to help her but she put it down again, shaking her head. 'I'd better not, had I?'

  'If you feel like it.'

  'Why shouldn't I?'

  'I'll put you to bed.'

  'I bet you would!'

  She giggled and looked away and that was when the shivering began, but I didn't think it was anything to do with sex, at least not directly. Freedom or something.

  'I've just realized,' she said with a gutsy little laugh, 'it wouldn't've been funny if this bloody great bottle had been on that tray, would it!'

  She lit another cigarette, gold lighter, Dunhill. That would have been
a present. This was where I could say well go on, tell me what happened to him, and just conceivably blow the whole thing.

  'How old are you, Nora?'

  'Little me? Thirty-two. Why?'

  'I'm a bad judge of people's ages.'

  'I wouldn't have thought,' she said with the frank stare starting again, 'you'd be a bad judge of anything.'

  No extra-marital affaires, the dossier said, so far as is ascertainable. This explained her little Victorian innuendoes and frank stares and so forth. It could explain the shivering too.

  'It's time you threw me out,' I said, and got up reluctantly, and quickly she said 'I was going to talk about it, wasn't I?'

  'Oh yes.'

  'He was in the Ministry of Defence.'

  Oh was he?

  There must have been a good reason why London had kept this one out of the briefing and out of the dossier and maybe it was on the principle of never telling the ferrets what they don't have to know or maybe it had been part of the softly softly catchee monkee approach by that devious bastard Egerton because he knows if he tried to sell me a conventional intelligence operation I'd only tell him to tuck it up his truss.

  'Pretty important job,' I told her and knew instantly I was right on the nail. It had been the only thing she'd ever been able to say about George Henry Tewson: the Ministry of Defence, you know.

  'Pretty important,' she said, liking the phrase. 'Well, I mean it was important that he worked there -' she uncurled off the carpet and stood with her hands clasping her bare arms, not quite sure where to go - 'actually his work wasn't important, to tell you the truth.'

  'As long as it was to him.'

  'Oh Christ,' she said with a sour laugh, 'it was all he ever thought about.'

  Then she knew where she wanted to go and it took ten minutes for the whole trip, back to England and then to Hong Kong for the first time, 'all he could think about, worked half the night sometimes, I don't believe he knew I was there except when he wanted his meals,' still with her small ivory-pale hands clasping her arms and she trod circles in the silk pile, not looking at me once, he wouldn't have gone across his own doorstep if I hadn't dragged him, it was like getting a baby away from its bottle, him and his slide-rule,' dropping the cigarette-end into the neck of the magnum, she was going to regret that, 'it was Spain at first, the Costa Brava, then I saw this ad about the Exotic East and it -' she stopped moving and stood dead still and looked at me - 'it really turned me on, you know? Perfumes and jade and jewellery and all that sort of thing, I suppose you think I'm childish.'