In need of a pick-me-up, and of verifying something, Roger sat looking at the collection of black and white newspaper photographs which covered one of the walls of his club. Framed in dark wood, they evoked bygone eras of Hong Kong. How many times had he looked at them, without seeing them? One in particular. It showed soldiers wearing caps and shorts and with guns, guarding a group of men crouching on the ground, their hands behind their heads. ‘The 1967 Riots’, the caption indicated.
“It’s not possible. That woman must take me for a fool!” he mumbled before emptying his glass and leaving.
Siu Fung entered the temple garden and stood behind a big banyan tree, very close to the bench where she had spent the night.
The bloody cop left the foreigner’s place after fifteen minutes, went to telephone from the grocer’s shop then came into the temple garden and sat on the bench, so near that she could hear him breath.
Another ten minutes. A police Toyota parked nearby. The young cop who got out, looking very clean, came straight over and sat down next to him and handed him a newspaper, without a word.
Good news? The bastard read with interest and even delight the article that the clean cop pointed out to him.
“Well done Andy, good work”, she heard him say.
Then nothing. The duo remained there, on the bench, saying nothing, stretching occasionally. No need to be a fortune teller to guess that they were waiting for the return of the foreigner. Siu Fung didn’t dare move. She was finding the time crawling along slowly and the ants crawling up her legs, annoying. And then, phew, Andy stood up. But not phew! the bloody cop remained seated, his eyes following his partner, who ambled nonchalantly to the grocer’s. He came back with two cans of soft drinks and some peanuts. They toasted each other. Aya! She was thirsty too! You pigs.
At last… The gweilo came home, still carrying his red plastic bag. He seemed pensive, uncertain. The two sleuths exchanged a crafty look but did not yet react. God, if you knew how much I feel like strangling you! They calmly finished their drinks and let him go inside the building before getting up and approaching it themselves.
Coming out of her hiding place, Siu Fung stretched her limbs and seized the newspaper that they had left.
‘Taiwanese National Murdered’. The title of the article was underlined in red. About fifteen lines recounted the drama:
This morning, at around ten, the police discovered the body of a man floating in the harbour. He had been killed by a bullet in the head. Rapidly identified thanks to the papers he was carrying, Kuang Hsien-Bian was a senior executive of the National Centre of Strategic Studies of Taipei, an organization with a respectable image but which experts believe is a covert nationalist centre for the acquisition of military equipment. Kuang’s passport showed evidence of no less than eight trips to Hong Kong during the past six months. What was he coming here to do, if not to negotiate contracts with arms dealers and foreign secret services many of whom, it should be remembered, hide behind respectable facades but behave in a very dubious manner in the colony? This illicit milieu is naturally disposed to violence. Kuang probably perished following such an undoubtedly sordid dispute. This horrendous crime sounds a wake up call to the British authorities, who should re-establish order in the territory over which they have temporary charge, in order to leave it perfectly safe for their Chinese counterparts who will legitimately retake possession of it in a few years, with the goal of turning it into a haven of peace and morality in the region.
Siu Fung instinctively said to herself, there are a lot of things I don’t get in this load of rubbish, but something is clear: they are going to arrest the foreigner and accuse him of this murder.