The Case of the Chinese Boxes Read online

  Why bother jemmying open eighty safety deposit boxes? Why not simply blow the safe? Were they in fact looking for something specific? A gold key? No-one would go to all that bother. Would they?

  I took Vince out of the cassette player and slipped in the interview with the Chens.

  ‘. . . sentimental value, a family heirloom . . .’ I tracked forward. ‘. . . a small item but . . . ’

  But what?

  I played that bit over, listening to the gaps between the words, listening to changes in the tone of his voice. Tried to picture him sitting there saying it.

  Him sitting there, and the woman.

  A simple head movement from the woman on the sofa would have been enough to pass the message.

  I played the whole interview over again, including Mrs Chen’s final words. I got the message now—don’t complicate matters, stick to the script, only tell her what’s absolutely necessary.

  A faint breeze was coming through the french doors but the temperature wasn’t getting any cooler.

  I gathered up my notes and the empty beer bottles. Then I noticed a damp patch near the bed. I looked more closely and saw a gun. A green water-pistol—Amy’s. I picked it up and felt the last of the water drip out of my hand. I wiped the pistol dry and put it away in the box that held the rest of my children’s things. Soon the damp patch would dry and disappear.

  I looked around the room. Usually I called this neat and tidy. At the moment it looked empty and bare.

  The phone rang. It was Steve. Did I want to go out?

  I did.

  The Malaya had gone upmarket. What used to be a pale green room with laminex tabletops and lino had now expanded into an up and downstairs, with a ritzy bar and black carpet with tiny red dots on it. But the menu hadn’t changed in years. I think the beef curry had been handed down through generations. During my student years I had eaten a beef curry here every Friday night. We used to think it was the in-place to eat. Some people still did.

  The waiter placed margaritas in front of us. They looked deliciously cool, the colour of an Arctic sea.

  ‘How was it at the airport?’ Steve asked.

  ‘OK,’ I said, half-heartedly picking bits of salt off the rim of the glass.

  ‘Yeah. I know,’ He knew. He had Ulrike with him only once a year. At least I had David and Amy four times a year and the phone calls to Queensland were more frequent than Steve’s calls to Germany.

  ‘Amy asked if she could be penfriends with Ulrike,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, good. It might help her English if she has another correspondent apart from me.’

  The beef curries were the same as they’d always been, like a good book you couldn’t put down, but our minds weren’t really on the food. Having mostly absent kids was something we had in common. We understood what it felt like and it was the way I at least had chosen it, but still the post-departure gap was there. We ate the meal in silence and sweated out the curry.

  The rest of the restaurant was buzzing with conversation, flying off the walls and the hi-tech chrome. I wondered how many of the people sitting here had lost something during the robbery, how many of them had detectives out there searching through haystacks. Not many. The only Chinese person in the Malaya was the cashier.

  We went back to Steve’s place and sat in the jungle courtyard drinking champagne. The night was still hot and steamy.

  He moved his chair closer. I took off my shoes and put my feet up on his lap and began lightly pressing his groin with my toes. He circled his fingers on the tops of my feet, then began brushing his lips on them. By the time he got to the inside ankles my loins were stirring.

  ‘My, what long legs you have, Ms Valentine.’

  ‘Yes,’ I purred, ‘and they go all the way up.’

  ‘So do I,’ he said. ‘So do I.’

  There are two ways of finding a needle in a haystack. Either you tread on it accidentally or you go through the stack straw by straw. Until an accident happened I’d have to go through it straw by straw.

  Most of the gold dealers are in Martin Place. There are trees and flower stalls in Martin Place and a modicum of oxygen. It’s a place for people and the difference is discernible. They sit on smooth seats, eating sandwiches out of paper bags and listening to the lunchtime jazz concert. Others quietly read newspapers.

  I walked into the GPO to buy a stamp. There was a queue of backpackers at Poste Restante. I remembered when I had stood in the middle of foreign cities waiting for mail or money from home. Wearing cut-off jeans, silver jewellery, sandals and a backpack, idly talking to other travellers, comparing hostels, good beaches and whether you were suffering yet from the local bugs. Things hadn’t changed all that much except that now I was on the other side, a part of the scenery. I didn’t mind, I’d spent my time in the queue.

  I stuck my stamp on the letter addressed to the kids and walked out into the sunlight.

  None of the gold places in Martin Place is on street level. Gold isn’t street business, it’s discreet.

  The lift came eventually and let out four men in business suits talking numbers and percentages. Men in suits always remind me of schoolboys, even the ones with moustaches. You could still pick out the bully, the yes-men and the wimps.

  I got in the lift and touched the square of light that indicated the second floor.

  When the doors opened again I stepped out onto grey carpet. It was quiet up here but not the sort of quiet you find in a church. It had no smell, no breeze. It was like having cottonwool in your ears.

  I came to a steel door and tried the handle but the door was locked. Then I noticed a small buzzer to the right that invited me to press. I accepted the invitation and through the glass panels either side of the door watched a neat but unimaginatively dressed girl approach. Why go to all the trouble of a steel door if you had glass panels either side of it? I suppose it allowed you to see whether the person at the door had a stocking over the head and was carrying a machine-gun.

  As she let me in she let out a Chinese girl wearing a thin gold chain around her neck. I noticed the chain because hanging from it was a small gold key. The door closed and separated us before I could see whether the key had a dragon on it. I looked back through the glass panels but the key and the girl had disappeared.

  The place was both a shop and an office. There was a counter beneath which were display cases of gold jewellery—chains, brooches, earrings, cufflinks, and keys with ‘21’ and ‘18’ on them. There was the same dove grey carpet on the floor and the same feeling of cottonwool in the ears. Behind the counter and filing cabinets were windows that looked out over part of the city, a silent city from here, that you couldn’t hear or smell.

  To the left was a desk and seated behind it a man in a navy-blue suit and gold-rimmed glasses. He glanced at me but soon went back to discussing business in soft tones with another man who had his back to me.

  ‘Can I help you?’ asked the girl who had let me in. She had shoulder-length brown hair held back with a pale pink clip. She wasn’t exactly twin-set and pearls but I was willing to bet her mother was.

  ‘I hope so.’ I showed her my ID. She looked at it then back to my face. Neither of us commented. There was no need. I wasn’t the first private detective who’d come to a gold dealer.

  She didn’t invite me to sit down but that was all right. Both of us hoped I wouldn’t be there long enough for sitting.

  ‘Do you buy gold items?’

  Yes.’

  ‘What happens to them?’

  ‘They’re sold for scrap.’

  I had a feeling in my stomach as if a small furry animal had stretched out in its sleep. I saw the drop of gold that was the key melting in the heat and becoming an indistinguishable part of an ocean of gold. I looked at the keys in the display case. ‘Wouldn’t you just resell them?’

  ‘We don’t have a licence to sell second-hand goods,’ she said primly.

  No, it didn’t exactly look like a pawn shop.

  �
�So all these are new?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘How long do you keep an item before it gets scrapped?’

  ‘About a day.’

  That little furry animal started stretching again. But things were pretty hot out there, maybe it was too soon for the thieves to start getting rid of their haul.

  ‘Do you keep a record of the gold you buy for scrapping?’

  ‘For a time. We fill in a form for the smelters. And we have the client’s name, address and phone number.’

  ‘Do you check up on these?’

  Her attention was waning. I was beginning to take up her time.

  ‘Not usually. Unless there’s a reason,’ she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

  I described the Chens’ key to her.

  ‘Come across this lately?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘You sure? You can remember without checking the files?’

  ‘It’s my job to remember,’ she said. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve answered a set of questions from people in your . . . profession.’ She turned up her nose as if to avoid an unpleasant smell.

  ‘You mean you’ve had enquiries about this particular item?’

  ‘No, but others. It’s the National Bank robbery, isn’t it?’

  I smiled. ‘If it turns up, or any information about it, would you let me know?’

  I handed her my card.

  ‘Yes, Ms Valentine.’

  She edged me towards the door. I got the feeling I was the sort of person who reminded her of the seamier side of life.

  The steel door closed with no sound other than the lock meshing with its other half and I was on the other side.

  I was meeting Lucy in the Chinese Gardens and to get there I had to walk across Darling Harbour. Despite the date palms there was not enough cooling greenery. Painting the roof green doesn’t do the trick. The green and blue roof panels of Darling Harbour were hardly distinguishable from the sky and the glare was ferocious.

  From the outside the Gardens had the appearance of a miniature walled city, with the characteristic oriental roofs curling up their eaves. Despite the walls, the Gardens looked less daunting from this angle than the tall city buildings looming behind them.

  I entered, along with a fairly steady stream of tourists. In the vestibule was a sign describing the area as the Garden of Friendship. Also in the vestibule were two security guards, though the insignia on their police-blue shirts said ‘rangers’.

  A plaque with gold lettering described the Gardens, and their history.

  On a fine day when the sun is shining, on a moonlit night or at the break of dawn, a walk through the Gardens enjoying the visual delights will leave one amazed at the boundless panorama. A fondness for it lingers and thoughts of leaving are forgotten. Here in this garden generates the warmth of a friendship which will endure for a thousand springtimes.

  All well and good, but the opening times were 10 a.m. to sunset. You could hardly enjoy a moonlit night or break of day in here unless you were willing to scale the wall.

  I took off my shoes to feel the cool of shaded cement. I could probably live in these Gardens if they weren’t right next door to Darling Harbour.

  Most of the other visitors to the Gardens were European but some weren’t. I guessed if I went to China the sight of a kangaroo would be a shot in the arm for homesickness. The eucalypts in San Francisco always were.

  I walked round to the Reading Brook Pavilion. In the rockpool on the way were black and red carp. There was also an empty Fosters can. I sat down in the Pavilion and looked upward through the brackets which made cut-outs of the sky. Through a wide space I could see up to the Gurr, Clear View Pavilion, the highest point of the Gardens and, with its three tiers, the most exotic. The altitude of Clear View can go as far as beyond the cloud. I watched the people going in and out of it. They didn’t stay long, just long enough to look at the hanging lantern then down the steps carved in rock where they disappeared from view.

  Except one.

  A smallish man who looked like a hood. He had a Mexican bandit moustache, sideburns, and hair that hung over his forehead. He was doing something unusual with his hand, as if straightening his tie. But he wasn’t wearing a tie. He was looking out across the Lake of Brightness. His hand in that odd position, two fingers straight out, two bent. Was he signalling to someone or just watching? Spring seems to be hidden among the dense shade of a thousand trees. The sight of him made the gardens seem less restful and shade turned to shadow.

  ‘Hey Claudia! Why couldn’t we have met in a nice cool bar like normal people?’

  I turned abruptly to see Lucy plonk her bag on the seat. I grinned broadly at her. At least if there were two of them there were now two of us. Despite her cheeky face and slight build she could whip an opponent twice her size.

  ‘We’re not normal people. Besides, doesn’t it remind you of the old country?’

  ‘I was born in Surry Hills. We didn’t have a lot of Chinese gardens round there.’ She looked around, taking in the view. ‘Quite pleasant,’ she commented, ‘if you like this sort of thing.’

  ‘Let’s hope it stays that way,’ I said darkly. ‘How are things at the hospital?’

  ‘I dropped everything the moment you rang, including a rather large patient we’re treating for alcohol allergy. Can you imagine? You’d become a hermit or something, wouldn’t you? If you didn’t die of boredom first. What do you mean, “let’s hope it stays that way”?’

  ‘Have a look up at the Gurr.’

  ‘I’m looking.’

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘A three-tiered Chinese pavilion on top of a man-made mountainette. A stream of tourists and a little boy picking his nose and flicking it into the water. What am I supposed to be seeing?’

  ‘An Asian hood.’

  ‘What do they look like?’ she said innocently.

  ‘OK, Lucy,’ I said like a parent who’d overindulged a child.

  He’d gone. Now he could be anywhere. Bamboo shadow entering through the curtain. Nightingale hidden in greenery. Lucy would say I was paranoid. There was no reason for me to think the man with no tie had anything to do with me. But he was up to something. I felt like some fresher air.

  ‘Let’s walk.’

  ‘But I only just got here,’ protested Lucy.

  ‘We’ll walk slowly. Watch out for men straightening their ties when they aren’t wearing one. Like this.’

  I put my hand on my chest with the forefinger and little finger extended in the way I’d seen the hood doing it.

  ‘You’ve been watching those Bruce Lee movies again, haven’t you? And if you go round Chinatown doing that sort of thing you’re liable to have those fingers chopped off.’

  ‘Who’s going to chop them off?’

  ‘Red Pole men. Triad street-fighters.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘You want to know about that, join a kung fu club. The standover merchants train there. He who can use his arms and legs as weapons is more persuasive than he who can’t.’

  ‘Old Chinese proverb?’

  ‘Australian fact of life. You know that.’

  We kept walking. Nightingale hidden in greenery. We knew, Lucy and I, what those kung fu boys could do. Certain close contacts with them were lethal and they could use the cover of a crowd to brush against you. To crush a message into your hand maybe? A swift blow to the throat could rupture the cricoid cartilage and suffocate you immediately. Blows to certain other parts of the body could cause death in a few days. And it didn’t have to be blows. A finger applied with the right kind of pressure would do the trick. We all knew how Bruce Lee died.

  We passed the Hall of Longevity and the Dragon Wall. Two dragons vying for the pearl of prosperity.

  ‘What’s this Chinese fetish for dragons?’ I asked Lucy.

  ‘They make better pets than cane toads,’ she said. ‘Besides, Chinese aren’t the only ones with a thing about dr
agons. What about that goofy green St George dragon?’

  I made no comment and Lucy eased up on the jokes.

  ‘They can mean just about anything you like. From the forces of nature right up to the emperor. You’re walking over one right now. There’s a huge dragon living under the ground. No, it’s not some fairy story,’ she said, seeing my reaction, ‘it’s good common sense. Before my father bought the place in Surry Hills he called in the fung shui man. The guy said the house was in a good position—halfway down a hill, nestled in the belly of the dragon. So we bought it. Circular Quay, on the other hand, has bad fung shui. Too exposed to the elements right down there on the water. The worst place to live is on top of a ridge—the dragon’s head.’

  ‘What about its tail?’

  ‘That’s not so good either, the tail can do a lot of damage.’

  If you chase the dragon beware the sting of its tail.

  I didn’t think that message had anything to do with buying houses. What did it mean? That the dragon on the Chens’ key could land me in trouble? That if I started investigating I would be tailed, and the tail would sting? Maybe it was just words playing tricks. The words all fitted together neatly but they may not have had anything to do with what was really happening out there.

  ‘Tell me about the Chens.’

  ‘Why don’t I tell you over lunch.’

  ‘In Chinatown?’

  ‘God no. I know where you can get some real food—in Cabramatta. You might find it interesting. Your car’s not going to seize up if you drive west of Victoria Road, is it?’

  ‘I think we’ll manage.’

  ‘I’ve got to go out there anyway this arvo. Some meeting about community health. I’d much rather be chauffeur driven in your Daimler than go in the boring old train.’