Black Horn (8 page)

"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
co-operate, although with some reluctance. After all, no policeman 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 scoresheet.

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."

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."

"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 Rolf 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."

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?"

He
nodded solemnly.

"If
that's what you'd like ... As to your second question: of course I'm not Rambo,
but I have been well-trained." He reached under his jacket and pulled out
a large pistol. "I know how to use it."

"Have
you ever killed anybody?"

"No,
but if anyone breaks into this house tonight, I will kill them."

"I
will sleep easy then," she said. "Is there any news on the
case?"

"There
is ... I had a long fax from the Police Commander in Zimbabwe who is handling
the Coppen/Manners case. Very informative and interesting. I'll tell you about
it over dinner."

She
surprised him by cooking a traditional English dish of roast lamb. She knew how
to do it because one of her early boyfriends had been a chef at a smart
English-style restaurant in a hotel in Causeway Bay. She had shown interest and
he had taught her several traditional dishes.

Colin
Chapman was massively impressed, especially because she had not overcooked the
meat and she had made the perfect mint sauce. She explained that she had cooked
it for him because, although she knew he liked a wide variety of Chinese food,
she also knew he sometimes had to eat too much of it. Her father had enjoyed
good wine and she took a bottle of Chateau Margaux from the storeroom. They
drank it both before and during the meal, and it went so quickly that she
fetched another bottle, and by the end of the meal she was feeling lightheaded.

As she
brought in the coffee, he pulled out the fax from Zimbabwe. It ran to several
pages. He said, "This is from Commander John Ndlovu, Head of the
Matabeleland CID. He headed the investigation. He is clearly intelligent and
articulate. He mentions that he was under great pressure from the US Government
through his Ministry. Obviously, the mother of the murdered girl pulled
powerful strings. Ndlovu reached a deadend. No motive, no tracks, no weapon...
nothing."

"But
you think the motive could be connected with the death of my family? Have you
replied to his fax?"

Chapman
shook his head and then smiled at her.

"This
afternoon, I took a decision. Tomorrow, after the red alert is over, I'm going
to pull in Tommy Mo for questioning. It's never happened to him before and it
was a decision I took only after consulting the Commissioner... it's time Tommy
Mo came under the hammer."

"Will
it serve any purpose?"

"It
will hurt his dignity... he will lose face. We will arrest him at his usual
restaurant, which we are sure he secretly owns. It will be full of people. I
will personally frog-march him out."

"To
what purpose?"

He took
a sip of coffee and said, "I'll have to let him go after a night in the
cells, but it will unbalance him, and when criminals are unbalanced they
sometimes do stupid things."

"So
it's just a faint hope?"

"Faint,
yes... but still a hope."

"And
if he does nothing stupid... what then?"

He
sighed, gave her a speculative look, lowered his voice to a serious tone and
said, "You must go to Zimbabwe. I would like to go myself, but it's
impossible." He tapped the pages in front of him. "What's happening
down there is interesting. Gloria Manners, the dead girl's mother, has arrived
by chartered jet, together with a man simply called Creasy, his son Michael,
who is apparently adopted. They are both mercenaries. There was also a man
called Maxie MacDonald, whom Ndlovu informs me is an ex-Selous Scout, which was
an elite Rhodesian unit in the War for Independence." He tapped the papers
again. "According to Ndlovu, Creasy and MacDonald are going into the bush
in the area of the murders."