Nhan stiffened. Her face blanched, but she said nothing.
“If the police think you are lying,” Blackie said, “they will persuade you to tell the truth. They have a number of ways of persuading people to tell things they don’t wish to tell. Even the bravest people finally tell them what they want to know.” He paused and asked quietly, “Are you very brave, Nhan?”
She shuddered.
“Please don’t tell them,” she whispered.
“You know where he is?”
She hesitated, then squaring her shoulders and looking directly at him, she said, “No, I don’t,” but the tone of her voice was so unconvincing that Blackie felt sorry for her.
He drew on his cigarette and released a cloud of smoke down his nostrils.
“Last night, the American came to me and asked me if I could get him a false passport. He didn’t say it was for himself, but I am sure it was. This told me he wants to leave the country and also that he is in trouble.
I don’t believe he has been kidnapped. I think he is hiding somewhere. Without help, he will eventually be found. It is possible I could help him, but before I do help him, I should want to know what the trouble is and how much he would pay for my help. If the trouble is very bad, the payment naturally would be high. It is possible he will get into touch with you. If he does, will you tell him I am anxious to help him?”
Nhan remained frozen. She didn’t say anything, but by the way her dark eyes flickered Blackie was satisfied that she had understood what he had said. He got to his feet.
“I think it would be unwise for you to come to the club for a few days,” he said. “If you need any money, I will be happy to finance you. If you see the American, please don’t forget to tell hint what I have said.”
Then as she still said nothing, he put on his hat, nodded to her and walked slowly down the stairs into the hot street.
He paused for a moment on the edge of the kerb, a puzzled frown on his face, then waving to a passing pousse-pousse, he told the boy to take him back to the club.
Chapter Seven
1
While Blackie Lee was being conveyed back to his club in the pousse-pousse, a curious scene was being enacted at the Headquarters of Security Police.
At the back of the Headquarters building where the police cars were garaged, there was a narrow lane screened on one side by the high brick wall that surrounded the Headquarters’ building and on the other side by a high, thick hedge.
This narrow lane was seldom used except by a few peasants, taking a short cut to the General Market.
At a few minutes past noon, two uniformed policemen opened the double gates of the garage yard and walked briskly down to the far ends of the lane. There they stood with their backs to each other, separated by fifty yards of dusty gravel roadway. They had been given strict orders to stop anyone using the lane for the next twenty minutes.
While they were taking up their positions, another uniformed policeman, thin and boyish-looking, got into a police jeep and started up the engine. Anyone looking at him closely would have seen that he was sweating profusely and his brown face revealed a tension that seemed unnatural for the simple job he appeared to be doing.
At exactly fifteen minutes past twelve, just as Blackie Lee was paying off the Mousse-pousse boy, My-Lang-To who had been sitting in a hot dark cell for the past three hours, heard a key grate in the lock and the lock snap back.
She got to her feet as the steel door swung open. A uniformed policemen beckoned to her.
“You are no longer required,” the policeman said. “You can go home.”
My-Lang-To came timidly out of the dark heat into the sunlit corridor.
“Is there no news of my fiance?” she asked. “Has he been found?”
The policeman took her thin arm in a hard grip and pushed her down the corridor and into a courtyard where a number of police jeeps were parked.
“When we have news of your fiance, you will be told,” he said and pointed to the open gateway. “That is your way out. Be satisfied that you have your freedom.”
There was something in the man’s voice that frightened the girl. She suddenly felt an urge to get away from this place: a frantic urge that stifled her and made her quicken her steps into a near run.
She made a neat and charming figure in her white tunic sheath, her white silk trousers and her conical straw hat as she hurried across the sun-filled courtyard.
The policeman sitting in the jeep, its engine running, shifted the gear stick into first gear. Sweat from his face fell onto the white sleeves of his immaculate jacket.
My-Lang-To passed through the open gateway and into the lane. She turned to the right and began the long walk to the main street. Ahead of her, she saw the back of a policeman who was standing at the top of the lane.
She walked rapidly for some twenty yards before she heard the sound of a fast moving car coming up behind her. She looked over her shoulder at the police jeep that had swung out through the open gateway and was coming straight at her.
She stepped to one side and leaned against the wall to give the jeep room to pass. It was only in the last brief seconds of her life that she realized the driver of the jeep had no intention of passing her. He suddenly swung the wheel and before My-Lang-To could move, the steel bumper of the jeep slammed into her, crushing her against the wall.
Neither of the policemen at the far ends of the lane looked around when he heard My-Lang-To’s scream. They had been told not to look around. They heard the jeep reverse and drive back to the courtyard, then there was a long silence in the lane.
Following instructions, they moved off into the main streets and went about their daily routine, but neither of them could blot from his mind the shrill scream of terror they had heard.
My-Lang-To’s body was found ten minutes later by a passing peasant who was hurrying to the market with a load of vegetables skilfully balanced on a bamboo pole which he carried on his shoulder.
He stared for some horrified minutes at the crumpled figure and the white nylon sheath dyed red with blood before he dropped the bamboo pole and ran frantically to the gates of Security Police and hammered on them as he wailed out his discovery.
While My-Lang-To was walking to her death, in another quarter of Security Police, Dong-Ham was also about to die.
He was sitting in his small cell, nervously picking at the lump of hard skin on his hand when the cell door opened.
Two men, wearing only khaki shorts came in. One carried a large bucket of water which he set down in the middle of the cell. His companion beckoned to the old man to stand up.
Dong-Ham knew he was going to die. He stood up quietly and bravely. He allowed himself to be up-ended by the two men who handled him with the skill of experienced executioners. He didn’t even attempt to struggle as they inserted his head into the bucket of water and held it there. He drowned after a few minutes with scarcely a movement. He was a man who accepted the inevitable with the belief that death was a release into a better world and that at his age, this release should be welcomed.
The man who had caused the death of these two simple people was lying full length on three narrow planks of wood, staring bleakly up at the wooden ceiling and smoking a cigarette.
Jaffe kept looking at his watch. It would be another three hours before Nhan came with some news. He could hear her grandfather moving about in the downstairs room. He hoped the old man wouldn’t come up and start talking again. He had had more than enough of him.