When Chan was shown into Cuthbert’s suite at Queensway Plaza, Commissioner Tsui was already there with Caxton Smith, the commissioner for security, and Roland Brown, the commissioner for the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Chan sat at the extreme end of the long table that was the main feature of the anteroom annexed to Cuthbert’s office; only the political adviser and his positively vetted English secretary were allowed to enter the office itself. Cuthbert sat at the head of the table with Roland Brown on his left, Tsui and Caxton Smith on his right.
Over the years Chan had learned some of the semaphore that the English use in place of speech. Within seconds he had absorbed signals to the effect that the meeting was informal, that he was no longer in trouble, that indeed the three men staring at him were according him a measure of respect usually reserved for their own ranks; in other words, they wanted his help. Now it was time for someone to say something. Cuthbert coughed.
“I’ve asked the commissioner for ICAC to be here simply to underline what we all already know. Roland?”
It was Roland Brown’s turn to cough. Chan watched the Englishman work himself up to the infinitely painful act of communication. Brown searched in his pockets for something that never emerged, coughed again. As the head of ICAC he had powers in the colony greater than those accorded to the head of the FBI in America, but his shyness was known to be crippling. Finally he wriggled and spoke. Chan caught the words “radiation,” “death of three good men,” “uranium,” “panic reaction,” “apology in order” before the Englishman’s whisper merged with the rattle of a tea trolley outside the office.
An English mandarin apologize? Chan was almost disappointed, as if he had watched a famous Pacific island, a landmark to shipping, subside slowly into the ocean and, with a yawn, disappear forever.
“Well, there we are then.” Cuthbert beamed.
Roland Brown stood up, nodded once to Chan and left without a word. It seemed from the looks on the faces of the two remaining Englishmen and Tsui that Chan had not merely been rehabilitated but elevated to a position of intimate friendship with these three powerful men. Chan saw an opportunity to take one small advantage.
“Mind if I smoke?”
In unison the three men signaled that they were very happy for Chan to smoke. He tapped a Benson out of the box, lit up and inhaled gratefully.
Cuthbert shuffled with a piece of blank paper in front of him. “In view of the fact that I don’t… I mean… you’re not… how shall I say?… not on my staff, perhaps the commissioner of police would explain a little of what we have in mind.”
Clearly Cuthbert had not prepared Tsui for this moment, for Tsui threw him a quick glare. He drew a cough sweet out of a tin box that was on the table in front of him, began to suck. He thought carefully, it seemed, before speaking.
“What we have in mind is simply that you, ah, carry on the good work. I think that’s about it, isn’t it, Milton?”
Cuthbert frowned deeply at the piece of blank paper, and Chan was sure that Tsui had failed miserably to keep his end up, as the British put it. But then the expression on the political adviser’s face changed with startling abruptness. He turned to Tsui.
“D’you know, Ronny, I think it is.” He smiled recklessly.
“Well, there we are,” Caxton Smith said. It was the first and only time he spoke.
Startled and only halfway through his cigarette, Chan realized that he’d missed some vital part of the semaphore, and now it was too late. As so often with this kind of Englishman, the punch line was left out of the joke.
“Well, Milton, if that’s all, I think I’ll give Chief Inspector Chan a lift back to Arsenal Street,” Tsui said.
Cuthbert smiled again. “Excellent idea, Ronny, excellent.”
In the back of the large Toyota Tsui started to laugh. Chan saw that some kind of racial table had been turned. He wasn’t prepared, though, for the commissioner’s Cantonese expletive, uttered as he took a single sheet of paper from a file that he’d been carrying and gave it to Chan to read. “You made them look like a bunch of jerks” would be a rough translation of what he said. Chan studied the document, which bore the letterhead of the British Foreign Office and a TOP SECRET stamp. It was a photocopy of a fax to the political adviser and was clearly part of a series of communications.
“Thanks for yours of 0800 yesterday, but frankly it’s not clear to us why C. I. Chan was suspected in the first place. The identity of the victims of this atrocity, together with the exact origin, ownership and intended use of the items discovered in the trunk is information of crucial importance to us at the present delicate state of play with the PRC. If C. I. Chan is the best hope, then he must be given every facility. Repeat, every facility.”
The fax ended abruptly in an illegible signature. When Chan had read it, Tsui took it back, still laughing.
There was no reason for Chan to follow Tsui into the police headquarters; the copy fax from London said everything. Tsui let him out on Lockhart Road. Crossing Wanchai to Queen’s Road, Chan waited for an old green tram to clank past. As always it was crammed with people, their faces pressed against the dirty glass windows. One in particular caught his eye: an old man with wispy beard, gaunt face and eyes that had passed beyond suffering into some other dimension. Chan waved at the old man, who smiled and waved back as the tram trundled toward Wanchai.