Black Horn (A Creasy novel Book 4) Page 6

  ‘Not just that,’ Chapman answered. ‘Although rhino horn powder has a huge value per gram, there is very little of it around. The turnover in that business would have been relatively small-beer compared to the 14K’s total turnover . . . You must understand the Triad mind. Your father threatened Tommy Mo. That itself was reason enough to have him killed, together with your mother and brother. Tommy Mo would have made it known among the 14K why he had your father killed . . . It is their way.’ He turned back to the letter and read out the name of the addressee. ‘ “Cliff Coppen, c/o The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Harare, Zimbabwe”.’ He then said thoughtfully, ‘There is no reply in the file . . . which is strange because, with such news, you would have thought there would have been.’

  ‘What now?’

  The Englishman looked at his watch.

  ‘It will not be hard to find out who the recently retired policeman was. If he did phone anybody in my department, the call should have been logged.’ He tapped the file. ‘At the date of your father’s letter to Coppen, I was out of the colony.’ Again, he glanced at his watch. ‘Zimbabwe must be six or seven hours behind us. I’ll have my office phone their Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism and find out where this Cliff Coppen is at the moment, and try to get a contact fax or phone number. I’m very interested as to why there was no reply to your father’s letter . . . unless, of course, Coppen called him on the phone.’

  ‘But how can this man Coppen help?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, but we follow up every lead.’

  He reached for the phone, dialled the number and issued a series of instructions. When he hung up, he said, ‘They’ll phone me back shortly . . . What will you do with this house? Sell it? It must be worth a fortune.’

  Her short laugh held no mirth. ‘It will be sold, but it’s been mortgaged and re-mortgaged. Unlike his father, my father had no head for money . . . He didn’t gamble or play the stock market or anything, but by the time he had given me and my brother expensive educations, and with all the money he spent on his work and the laboratory, there won’t be much left, if anything.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I have three months’ paid leave. When the house is sold I’ll probably move into an apartment with another air hostess.’ She saw the concern on his face and said, ‘You know the Triad mind, Colin, but you don’t yet know my mind. I’m not going to be chased out of town by any bastard Triad. Not Tommy Mo or anybody else.’

  For the next five minutes, he tried to convince her of the dangers of staying in Hong Kong. He was still trying to convince her when the phone rang. She answered it, listened and then passed it over to Chapman.

  He listened for several minutes, occasionally asking a one-word question, then he hung up, turned to her and said, ‘Assuming that a letter from here to Zimbabwe takes about a week, then at about the same time as Cliff Coppen got your father’s letter, he was shot dead, together with an American girlfriend on the banks of the Zambezi River. The Zimbabwe police are faxing me a full report.’

  ‘Coppen’s death could be a coincidence . . . after all, Africa can be a dangerous place.’

  The Englishman shrugged.

  ‘So can New York, Rio or a little village in the country. When it comes to the Triads, I don’t believe in coincidences.’

  Chapter 11

  The Gulfstream IV was equipped with a satellite telephone. Maxie MacDonald used it first. As they flew across the Alps, he spoke to his cousin, seventy miles outside Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city. He spoke in a language which Gloria did not understand.

  She looked at Creasy across the table and asked, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Ndebele,’ Creasy answered, it’s the language of the Matabele, which is the main tribe of that part of the country.’

  ‘Do you understand it?’

  ‘A little. Maxie and his cousin speak it perfectly.’

  ‘Why aren’t they speaking in English? Is it some secret you’re keeping from me?’

  Creasy kept the irritation out of his eyes.

  ‘We’re keeping nothing from you, Mrs Manners, not at the beginning of this trip or now. It’s just that we don’t know how secure this satellite link-up is. Maxie is talking about weapons. We don’t want anybody eavesdropping.’

  ‘What weapons?’

  ‘Well, obviously, Maxie and I are not going into the bush looking for murderers with our bare hands. We need rifles and hand-guns. The plan is that we will leave Michael in Harare for a few days, to nose around. He’s good at that and no one knows him there. You have to understand that, although it’s a big country, the cities and towns have a village mentality, especially among the white community. After leaving Michael in Harare, we’ll fly to Bulawayo and spend one day there, and then fly on to Victoria Falls, which is the nearest town to the operational area. There are some good hotels there. That will be your base while Maxie and I go into the bush,’

  ‘What will you be looking for, exactly?’

  ‘Nothing, exactly. All tracks of the killer or killers have been lost.’

  ‘So what’s the point of going into the bush? Are you just going to be playing at boy scouts?’

  Again, Creasy kept the irritation out of his eyes.

  He said, ‘Mrs Manners, so far, apart from the hiring of this jet, this operation is costing you relatively little. If Maxie and I don’t stumble across something in the bush — and if Michael draws a blank in Harare — then we’ll go home.’

  There must have been an edge of sarcasm in his voice because she immediately bristled.

  ‘Is that what you want?’ she snapped.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Let me explain further, Mrs Manners. Usually, I’m very choosy about who I work for. In fact, given the choice, I wouldn’t be working at all. I ended my career with a nice nest-egg, but events over the past two years have whittled that down. I’m not poor, by any means, but I like to have a good reserve. So I’d be very happy to find something in the bush that relates to your daughter’s murder, and then go on to collect the big payment. So will Maxie and Michael.’

  ‘What you’re saying is that if you still had this nest-egg, you wouldn’t have taken on this job?’

  ‘I’ll tell you the truth, Mrs Manners, I don’t know. Jim Grainger’s a friend of mine.’

  Maxie had finished his telephone conversation. Creasy turned to him and asked, ‘So?’

  ‘Ian has all the weapons we need and they’re fully licensed, but there’s one small problem. He can only lend them to us with written police permission. By law, they have to be in his possession. Obviously, he can’t afford to break the law.’

  ‘I anticipated that problem,’ Creasy said. He glanced at his watch. ‘Quite soon, Jim Grainger will be waking up in Denver. I’ll phone him and ask him to use his influence through the State Department to ask the American Ambassador to apply a little pressure on the Zimbabwe authorities again.’

  ‘OK,’ Maxie answered. ‘But now there’s something else. Ian confirms that the Commander John Ndlovu is the one and the same ZAPU officer we fought against back in the seventies. He also says that he’s well-respected, both by blacks and whites and, as far as is known, he’s not corrupt.’

  ‘What’s all this about?’ Gloria asked.

  Creasy explained. ‘ZAPU was one of the two guerrilla armies fighting for independence against the Rhodesian forces. Ndlovu was a good commander, operating mainly in the eastern Highlands. I almost managed to catch him a couple of times, but he was clever. He will know all about me and Maxie.’

  ‘That’s not good news,’ Gloria commented.

  ‘It’s not necessarily bad news. There’s been a major reconciliation in Zimbabwe between the different forces.’

  ‘So, you think he’ll cooperate?’

  Creasy looked at Maxie for the answer.

  Maxie said, ‘Well, if he’s getting pressure from his Minister, he’ll probably cooperate, although with some reluctance. After all, no polic
eman anywhere likes to come up with a dead-end in a case, and then have a rich woman arrive with a bunch of mercenaries to open the whole thing up. Especially when he gets pressure to issue those mercenaries with temporary permits for half a dozen guns. However, there is a plus. My cousin knows Ndlovu personally and gets on with him OK, and since they’re his guns, it might make it more acceptable for Ndlovu . . . We just have to wait and find out.’

  Further back in the plane, Michael was playing gin rummy with Ruby the nurse, and losing. She was a woman in her mid-forties, with a severe face but pleasant eyes.

  ‘You have a tough job,’ Michael commented.

  ‘You mean Mrs Manners?’

  ‘Yes. She can’t be the easiest of patients.’

  ‘I’ve had worse,’ Ruby said, with a slight smile. ‘But not many.’

  ‘How long have you worked for her?’

  ‘I was about number six. The others all quit within days or weeks. I guess by that point, she realised she’d have to soften up a bit or she’d never get anyone to stay.’

  ‘You mean she’s softer than she was?’

  Again the nurse smiled. ‘Marginally, but enough to be bearable. Besides, the pay and conditions are very good. There’s another factor. I have an only daughter . . . Her father ran off years ago. She’s in college now, and we’re very close. I know how much bitterness I would feel if she was murdered in a far-off country, like Carole Manners was.’ She laid down a full gin and said, ‘You’re not concentrating, Michael.’

  It was true. He ruefully counted his cards and made a note on the score sheet.

  She said, ‘Anyway, I’m enjoying this trip. It breaks up the routine and I’ve never been to Africa before.’

  ‘Neither have I,’ Michael said. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  Further up the plane, Creasy finished his brief telephone conversation with Jim Grainger and then said to Gloria, ‘He’ll get back to us either before we land in Harare or at the hotel tonight.’

  She had been listening to Creasy’s side of the conversation.

  ‘What did he ask, which made you reply, “No, she’s fine.”?’

  Creasy glanced at Maxie and then said to her, ‘He asked me whether you were being a damned nuisance, but then he would, wouldn’t he?’

  Slowly, she nodded. ‘Yes, I guess he would.’

  Chapter 12

  The other customers did not exactly bow or scrape when Tommy Mo walked into the restaurant, but they did fall silent and watch as he walked with his entourage between the tables to the private back room. He was known in Hong Kong as ‘Wu Yeh Tao Sha’, which translates as ‘the knife that never sleeps’. Since he owned the restaurant, the food and service was outstanding. The manager, chef and waiters were all members of the 14K and Tommy Mo could talk freely.

  His number one lieutenant was a short bald Shanghainese in his mid-sixties, who had the nickname ‘Shen Suan Tzu’, which translates as ‘the fragrant brain.’ At meals, he always sat on Tommy Mo’s left side. As the first course was served, he informed his boss that the police and other security services had gone on to red alert at 6.15 p.m., fifteen minutes after he personally had phoned through to police headquarters, using a recognised code, informing them of an impending terrorist attack within the next twelve hours, either at the airport or the sea terminal. Through their informers within the police, they knew that security was now concentrated on those two areas. The security guards from around the house of Lucy Kwok Ling Fong had been observed leaving at 7.30 p.m., but their departure had coincided with the arrival of Chief Inspector Colin Chapman.

  Tommy Mo’s face hardened at the mention of the name and he muttered curses in his native Chui Chow dialect. Fragrant Brain went on to explain that the attack on the house was planned for midnight but, obviously, if Colin Chapman stayed late they would have to delay it. Then Fragrant Brain got a major surprise.

  Tommy Mo shook his head and said, ‘Let fate decide.’ He referred to Colin Chapman by his derogatory nickname ‘Yin Mao’ which translates as ‘one pubic hair’. ‘Maybe it is time that he stopped bothering us.’

  The astonishment showed briefly on Fragrant Brain’s face.

  ‘There will be an uproar,’ he said. ‘The gweilo government gets very upset when even a Chinese policeman is killed, but when a gweilo policeman is killed they go crazy.’

  ‘Let fate decide,’ Tommy Mo repeated. ‘Back in the old days, we just used to bribe the Anti-Triad Police, who co-operated well. If a crime was committed which did not involve us, then we used to help the police catch the criminals. Then the idiots brought in the Independent Commission Against Corruption under that crazy Irishman and they threw all their best policemen in jail. That was all right because then they had to promote and bring in inexperienced idiots. But now we are facing people who understand us and how we think, and the most dangerous is Yin Mao. He speaks our languages better than we do. I could hardly believe it when I heard the bastard speaking Chui Chow. I never knew a gweilo like that one. He is dangerous, and I have weighed up the advantages and disadvantages of killing him. They are balanced, and so I will let fate decide. If he remains at that house after midnight, then he will die with the woman.’

  Chapter 13

  ‘Have you alerted Hong Kong?’

  ‘Of course I have, damn it!’

  Rolph Becker shouted down the phone, the anguish showing on his face. He stood on the patio facing the dark lake, lit by the merest sliver of a moon, a cordless phone to his ear. It was close to midnight. Half an hour earlier, Rolph Becker had arrived home from his weekly visit to Bulawayo. He had immediately phoned a partner in Harare and informed him of the news that, far from the Coppen/Manners murder being all but forgotten, the woman’s mother had arrived from the States by private jet, together with three hard mercenaries, one of whom was Maxie MacDonald, an ex-Selous Scout who knew the area like the back of his hand and spoke Ndebele like a native. He had discovered this while having lunch at the Bulawayo Club. Nothing happened in that city without it being gossiped about.

  On hearing the news, his partner had simply said, ‘If they go in the bush they’ll find nothing . . . Selous Scout or not.’ It was then that he asked whether or not Rolph Becker had been in touch with Hong Kong. A question that incurred Becker’s wrath.

  ‘There were two mistakes made.’ Rolph Becker said bitterly. ‘The first in Hong Kong, when that idiot Tommy Mo didn’t realise that the bloody house of that Chinese professor had a sprinkler system, which we know saved a lot of his documents. The other mistake was made here. We should never have allowed that woman to be shot. If only Coppen had died, nobody would have minded much, especially since he was an orphan. But when a woman gets shot, it’s different . . . Even more so, when that woman has a multi-millionairess for a mother.’

  ‘So what’s our strategy?’ the partner asked.

  Becker’s voice went quiet and cold. ‘Our strategy is to have Maxie MacDonald and his friends watched closely. And if they go into the bush, your job is to make sure that they don’t come out alive. Meanwhile, I’ve strongly suggested to Tommy Mo that he takes care of Professor Kwok’s daughter, and this time to make sure that the Professor’s study is completely incinerated, which should have happened in the first place.’ He was gazing out across the black lake, and his voice took on a hard edge. ‘I’ve decided that we have to try to hit Gloria Manners. She holds the purse-strings, and once she’s out of the way the others will go home . . . Yes, I know it’s dangerous, but we can’t stop now. I’ve lived here all my working life. I’ve watched this lake grow and I grew with it . . . I came from being a poor white in South Africa, looked down on by everyone, to being somebody . . . a man people look up to . . . No one’s going to take that away from me. No one’s going to put me in prison. No matter who has to die.’

  Chapter 14

  Lucy was in the garden, sitting on a canvas chair reading, when he arrived. He parked his black Volvo by the gate and climbed out. Colin Chapman was definitely not
a handsome man, she decided, but he carried himself with assurance . . . with a slightly cheeky air.

  She watched as he moved across the road to another car, leaned down and spoke to the driver, who then sounded his horn twice. A minute later, two men materialised from the sides of the garden wall and climbed into the car. As he walked to the gate, the car drove away. It, or one like it, had been parked there every day and night since the death of her family.

  She stood up, and he kissed her lightly on the cheek and explained, ‘We had what we call a red alert, both at the airport and the sea passenger terminal. This afternoon we had a strong tip-off of a terrorist attack and so we’ve had to pull in all our security people. That included my people who were protecting you.’

  As they walked into the house, she said, ‘Well, it’s no problem. I’m sure I’m not a target.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re at risk,’ he answered, I cannot put my people back up here until tomorrow morning, which means I have to stay the night.’ They were now in the lounge. He turned and smiled at her. ‘That might sound like the greatest line a man ever made but, Lucy, I assure you that the red alert is genuine and that the threat to your life is real in my mind.’

  With a half-smile, she said, ‘Colin, I have two questions. First, if I was a seventy-year-old lady, would you also be offering to stay the night? And second, if this house is attacked by Triad hitmen tonight, would you be able to protect me?’

  He said, ‘If you had been a lady of seventy, I would have insisted that at least two of my men remained on watch, even if it meant a clash with the Commissioner. But I must be honest. I find you attractive and also enjoy your mind and your company. So, since you had invited me for dinner anyway, I thought I could sleep on your settee until my men come back in the morning.’

  She reached up and kissed his cheek and said, ‘After dinner, will you write me poems in Chinese?’