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The driver listened calmly and without interruption as Smith gave his account. When it was finished he still made no comment, so that Smith found himself wondering if the old man had understood. His doubts, however, were soon put to rest.
"When the child of a powerful family is doing something like this," he said at last, "you might put yourself in great danger to interfere. They will have very powerful protection, perhaps police men that they have paid money. They will do anything to keep their own names out of it. A foreigner might come in very useful as someone to carry the blame."
"But you said you thought they were good people?"
"Even good people, if one of them does wrong, they will protect that person. They will not care about you. You will take a big chance if you reveal yourself to these people."
"So what are you saying? That I should do nothing?"
The old man thought for a moment. "My son works on a newspaper," he said at last. "Best thing, you ask my son."
Smith nodded. "Where can we find him?"
"I will take you." With an unpleasant snarl, the engine burst into life once again.
"My name is Fan," the old man told him as an afterthought, raising his voice slightly over the growl of the two-stroke. "My son, he is Peter. We give him American name."
"Good to meet you. I'm Leonard Smith. Most people just call me Smith. It's shorter than Leonard." O
Fan's son lived in a shabby concrete apartment block in a rather dismal back-street not far from the city center. Smith wondered if they should have phoned ahead, for the building was mostly silent and in darkness, but Fan assured him that his son would be there. He parked the three-wheeler and they ascended a flight of external stone steps to a dark landing on to which three doors opened. Fan knocked sharply on one of the doors.
There was a pause, then it was opened cautiously by a very slight Asian man wearing a towel around his waist and seemingly nothing else. He greeted his father warmly in his own language and they began to talk excitedly. Smith heard his own name and that of the political family mentioned several times. In the background a dim light flickered, probably a candle, and a warm smell like a burning joss-stick drifted out to his nostrils. As the father and son chattered, he caught a glimpse of a young Asian girl in a dragon-pattern kimono, stealing a glance from an inner door. Smith suspected that they had interrupted a session of love-making and began to feel rather embarrassed.
"Come inside please," said the younger man suddenly, in perfect English, "let me make you some coffee."
Smith thanked him and followed the two men to a small lounge. They made themselves comfortable on improvised seats which were really cushions draped with pieces of cloth and arranged against the wall surrounding a low circular coffee-table. Apart from a candle in front of a little Buddhist shrine high up in a corner, the room was in darkness. The girl appeared again from an inner room, now fully dressed, smiled sweetly at the men, and disappeared once more, presumably to make the coffee.
"My father has explained to me what has happened," said the man whom he knew to be Peter. "This family is very well-known in my country. A few years ago that girl's father was the Prime Minister. Now he is the leader of one of the two main opposition parties. He has newspapers, television stations, hotels.. he is a major shareholder in the national airline.. he is one of the four or five richest people in the country. I don't think anybody is going to believe that his daughter was smuggling drugs, Mr. Smith."
"Do you think that I'm telling lies? That I was mistaken?"
"I didn't say that I did not believe you. I said that other people wouldn't. I think there is something big going on here. Something very big. I think we can be of use to one another. Me, for the news story. You, for clearing your name."
Smith nodded and smiled. "I don't suppose he's the owner of your newspaper, is he?"
Peter smiled. "Fortunately not, Mr. Smith."
The father and son exchanged a few more words in their own language, then the girl came in with coffee-mugs on a tray and joined them.
"My fiancee, Yee Ling," Peter introduced her. She nodded but did not speak.
"Mr. Smith," Peter began, "I think we have a tough assignment here. This girl, Suavarose, is certain to deny everything. There is no point in our confronting her until we have a little more evidence that she is involved in shady business. Now tonight may be our best chance to collect that evidence. If she was trying to import a sizable quantity of heroin, then it is likely that she has arranged to pass it on to somebody. I cannot believe that it was for her own use. That means there is someone she is supposed to contact. Someone who will be angry when he discovers she has failed. I think it would be worth watching Miss Suavarose's house tonight. Do you agree?"
"I think we should lose no time. We may be too late already."
Peter gulped down his coffee. "I need to get dressed. I'll be about two minutes."
O
The house where Suavarose lived was positively breath-taking. It was hard to believe that they were in the same city that Smith had seen from the air, with its ugly tower-blocks and little bamboo shacks on stilts by the sides of the canals. This was a virtual palace. The building itself, its outline softened by tall, elegant trees, silhouetted against the glow of the distant city lights, was at the end of a long private driveway that ran off a broad tree-lined avenue. The grounds were surrounded by high stone walls, with security-cameras nestling discreetly in slots within the coping-stones. Stone heraldic dragons perched atop the two towering gate-posts, between which a spidery wrought-iron gate, constructed to a pattern of the finest intricacy, barred the way of any unwanted callers.
Smith couldn't help whistling in amazement as their motor-rickshaw drew to a halt on the opposite side of the street.
"It's out of a fairy-tale, isn't it?" he said in a hushed undertone.
There was very little traffic on the roadway, but just outside the impressive gates, as though waiting for someone, was parked another little three-wheel rickshaw, the double of the one they had come in, and the driver was sitting back lazily in the saddle, his head tilted up to the night sky, as though he might be on the point of falling asleep. On seeing him, Fan instantly became excited.
"Is my good friend, Chelim. I go talk with him!" so saying, he got out and hurried across the road, leaving Smith alone with Peter.
"A good stroke of luck," Peter explained. "Rickshaw drivers are all friends, they all talk to one another. It will make our stopping here less suspicious."
Fan and Chelim talked for several minutes in low, intense tones. When he eventually came back, Fan had quite a lot to report.
"We have good piece of luck," he said in a conspiratorial whisper, "I explain as we drive along."
He got back on the driver's saddle and started-up. Moving off, he started his explanation. Suavarose had come home by rickshaw from the airport, arriving a few hours ago. They had entered by the main gate and he had driven her up to the front door, but before going in she had made an odd request. She had asked Chelim to come back to the main gate just before midnight and wait for her on the road. As the request had been backed-up with a generous tip, he had carried out his instructions without hesitation. Suavarose was planning some kind of clandestine journey. Things were certainly looking promising!
They drove back along the avenue to a point where they could just keep the other rickshaw in view and parked. "We will see when they move off," Fan explained, "there is only one way out of the road. They will pass us by, and then we shall follow."
O
Suavarose was not a very good time-keeper. It was coming up to half an hour after midnight when they saw her diminutive figure moving down the road, keeping close in to the wall (which was probably a blind-spot for the cameras), wearing a smart two-piece business-suit and a very respectable-looking cloth hat with a narrow brim, and carrying a small handbag. The outfit had the effect of making her look a lot older than her actual years. She had come on to the road from a side-gate somewhere, avoiding the main driveway. Her appearance, Smith could see, constituted a partial attempt at disguise. If the cameras happened to pick her up the people in the house probably wouldn't recognize her. It was important to her not to be found-out. This was undoubtedly a girl with something to hide.
As her rickshaw passed theirs, Smith got the first clear glimpse of her face since he had been on the 'plane. She looked pale and drawn now: not at all the chirpy teenager who had flirted with him beneath the baggage-lockers.
Her gaze was fixed straight ahead, her thoughts wrapped-up in some worrying internal dialogue, and when they started their engine to follow she did not look around.
The route taken by Chelim and Suavarose was long and convoluted. From the genteel outskirts they drove back into the chaotic center of the city, down the side of one of the major canals, on to a dirt-track that followed the course of a smaller one, down a side-alley lined with crude wooden shacks and smelling of untreated sewage, and finally through a set of broken wooden gates into what looked like a small disused goods-yard.
Fan thought it best to park outside the yard, as there was no cover inside and it would inevitably make the others aware of their presence. He switched off the engine and spoke to Peter and Smith in a hoarse whisper. "I know this place," he said excitedly, "is very bad place. Here is gambling, and lady-house, but not ordinary lady-house. Very bad things."
Smith, who didn't really know what to expect from even an "ordinary" lady-house, could scarcely imagine what the old man was suggesting. Fan tried to be more explicit. "I think that here they make movie... of people die! You understand?"
Smith felt suddenly very queasy. What, in heaven's name, he thought, was a girl with Suavarose's background doing mixed-up with a place like this?
"Mr. Smith," said Peter earnestly, "I think this is becoming too dangerous for us on our own. We must telephone the police. Tell them Miss Suavarose has gone into this terrible place. Other newspapermen as well. If there are enough people here it will be safe. They can not commit murder if there are many many witnesses."
"But her whole family would be ruined, wouldn't they? Do we really want to do that to her?"
"Mr. Smith, we came looking for a story. We have found our story. We can link the name of one of the most powerful families in the land with a place of terrible evil. This is news, Mr. Smith. And it proves your innocence one hundred per cent. This is your chance to link the very person you accused of putting that box in your luggage with the drug-scene in this country. It's your salvation, Mr. Smith! You must seize it with both hands! Don't be sentimental about her just because she's a pretty girl. If people do wrong they must accept the consequences."
Smith sat for a moment and thought hard. She was a pretty girl. He found that he somehow couldn't get the girl's face out of his mind. Her face and the way that she had looked when her rickshaw had passed them by, so haunted and desperate: a poor, beautiful lost soul. |