The Mandarin Cypher

'Are you here in the club?' Flower was asking me. He'd asked me before and I'd told him to shut up.

'Just keep on looking at the wall.'

But I was ready to drop the receiver and put the phone on to the banquette below table-level in case he took it into his head to look round anyway because with his lack of experience I didn't want him to be able to recognize me at any time or in any place until I was ready.

'All right, Flower, I want a quick breakdown on her travel-pattern.'

A couple of seconds went by and I wondered if he was normally as slow as this or whether it was nerves. 'She goes quite a lot to jewellers and places like — '

'Which ones?'

'Erm- the House of Shen, that was this morning. And a place called Constellation «144» — that's in — '

'Where else?'

'Kaiser's, and — I think that's all. She — '

'Does she always buy something?'

'You mean jewellery?'

'Yes — come on, Flower — '

'Well, I can't be sure whether she — '

'Then you bloody well ought to be, they've got windows, haven't they? Where else does she go?'

He didn't get any faster but it was no good my taking the pressure off because I wanted to know things, a whole lot of things, this wasn't really my kind of operation, Macklin had told me, he must have known I'd have Flower to deal with.

'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