The Case of the Chinese Boxes Page 5

  ‘He seem all right?’

  ‘Polite. Not apologetic though. Polite but sure of himself. Chinese, spoke with a pommie accent. Have to be polite with that combination, wouldn’t he?’

  On the flickering television above the bar the familiar face of a newsreader appeared. Jack turned up the volume and the regulars lifted their noses out of newspapers and towards the screen.

  ‘. . . in Chinatown early this afternoon. Ellis Wong, a martial arts expert, was thought to have been an enforcer for the 14K Triad in Sydney. Police believe this audacious daylight killing to be related to a feud between the 14K and a rival Triad faction . . . ’

  My mind may have been pole-vaulting to conclusions but when I heard the word Triad I saw the image of the man with no tie standing on Clear View Pavilion. While Lucy and I were still in the Gardens he could have walked the short distance to Chinatown and in some quiet back street carried out the killing. Back to Cabramatta to pick up his pay then driven home. A good day’s work well done.

  It was too late now to ring Bernie and get the car number-plate checked out.

  But it was never too late to ring Carol.

  As I turned the key in the lock my phone started ringing. It was Jennifer, the girl from the gold shop. There’d been an enquiry about a key. She thought it only fair to tell me. It was from a Chinese detective, ID issued in Hong Kong. She thought it only fair to tell him also that there’d been a previous enquiry. She also thought it fair, since she hadn’t told him my name, that she didn’t tell me his.

  I thanked Jennifer for her call and told her I’d remember her in my will. She begged my pardon but I said it didn’t matter.

  As soon as Jennifer had signed off I called Carol.

  ‘What’s your interest?’ she asked. ‘Oh,’ I replied breezily, ‘I wondered if it had anything to do with the National Bank robbery.’ She didn’t think it did. ‘You got anything to tell us on that score?’ she asked. I didn’t. I cast my line again into the Chinatown killing. She said as usual no-one had seen anything. Even in reasonably broad daylight. I said I might have. She found that very interesting. I asked her if the victim had been wearing a tie. She said no. I asked if he’d been wearing kung fu shoes. She said what is this, twenty questions? I said no. I told her I’d seen a man acting suspiciously in the Chinese Gardens. She asked what I’d been doing there but I said it was irrelevant. I said I’d seen the same man later that afternoon in Cabramatta. She asked what I was doing in Cabramatta. I said it was irrelevant. I said it was a long shot and probably had nothing to do with anything but it might be worth asking a few discreet questions around the place. Check out the snooker hall. I asked her if she could tell me any more about the victim. She gave me a lot of bland stuff which would be appearing in the next press release.

  One piece of information wasn’t bland. It stuck up from the surrounding landscape like Mount Vesuvius.

  Ellis Wong, martial arts expert, had a day job. He was a waiter. At the Red Dragon.

  I sat by the phone but I wasn’t looking at it. I was looking at an imperfection in the glass of the french doors, a small bubble like the ones you get in ice, a bubble I often looked at when I needed to concentrate or let my mind put order to an overload of information. Threading the bits of it on string, like beads in a necklace.

  I could just see a glimmer in the gathering darkness when there was a knock on the door. I hoped it wasn’t a gentleman from Porlock.

  ‘That Chinese bloke’s back,’ said Jack. ‘Want to see him?’

  ‘Send him up. If I’m not down in half an hour send up some of the bikies.’

  The knock was so subtle that if I hadn’t been listening for it I might have missed it altogether.

  I opened the door and saw the kung fu shoes. They weren’t kung fu shoes at all but casuals made of the finest Italian leather. I liked the way they stayed flat on the floor and didn’t come up to kick me in the head.

  ‘Claudia Valentine? Joel Cairo.’ The handshake lingered a little too long to be merely polite.

  ‘If you’re looking for the Maltese Falcon you’ve come to the wrong place.’

  All this landed at his feet like a pile of wet rags. He was not unattractive but he was going to have to do something about the name. Close up he looked even better than he had at Darling Harbour. Still urbane and elegant but now I could see the eyes. They were innocent like babies’ eyes but he was neither innocent nor a baby. I’d seen those eyes on tai chi masters. They came from a mind untroubled by emotion, a stilled lake that reflected but did not reveal. Also he had the clearest skin I’ve ever seen on any human being over the age of ten. Not one blackhead in sight.

  ‘Memorable name, don’t you think? Your own is not entirely forgettable. Did you pick it yourself?’

  ‘No. Like greatness, it was thrust upon me. By someone who used to be my father. Are you here to help me or am I here to help you? While you’re answering, perhaps you’d better sit down.’

  He sat on the floor, without even looking round to see there were no chairs. There was a bowl of fresh purple-green figs on my low lacquer table. He picked one up and felt its plumpness. Then he set it aside. I noticed a faint scar on the back of his hand.

  ‘Eat it,’ I said, sitting down cross-legged opposite him.

  His eyes widened slightly and a faint smile crept to the corners of his lips.

  ‘You play with my fruit, you don’t discard it, you eat it.’

  ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure,’ he said, his eyes not so innocent now. He popped the entire fig into his mouth. I watched his throat ripple as he swallowed. ‘So succulent, and that deliciously soft yielding centre. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Valentine?’

  ‘Since you’re being so familiar with my fruit you may as well call me Claudia. And you still haven’t told me why you’re here.’

  ‘I believe we may be able to help each other.’

  ‘Yes? And what makes you think that?’

  ‘We may hold the key to each other’s problems.’

  ‘Supposing that we do, what are you offering?’

  ‘Six thousand years of civilisation,’ he said.

  It didn’t count for much in Sydney.

  Once again I was in Woollahra but it wasn’t a corner block of flats in a narrow street and it wasn’t to meet Mr Chen. It was an oriental antique gallery in Queen Street and I was meeting the man who called himself Joel Cairo.

  The young girl at the desk nodded politely and asked if she could be of help. I told her I was just looking.

  So I looked. At ceramic bowls, some of them dating from a time when Europe was still full of Vikings raping and pillaging. Then at a jade statue of Kuan Yin, goddess of mercy and compassion. She was also the patron saint of tai chi, the ultimate martial art. Every statue or picture I’d ever seen of her was serene and this one was no exception.

  The man who called himself Joel Cairo walked in. The young girl greeted him as if she knew him and as if she’d like to get to know him even better. When she finally released him he came over to me.

  ‘You’ve been here before,’ I remarked.

  ‘Reminds me of home,’ he explained, sliding over my innuendo. ‘My father collects antiques.’

  I thought of something Lucy had said about the Chens. About John Chen being offed just as he was about to ‘go into’ antiques.

  ‘Risky business, is it?’

  ‘Not from my father’s point of view. He has a more scholarly approach.’

  ‘Have you inherited the interest?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘before we go any further, there’s no way I’m going to keep calling you Joel Cairo.’

  He smiled invitingly. ‘The name’s Ho. James Ho.’

  He handed me an ID card issued in Hong Kong.

  James Ho, private investigator.

  So there was another detective on my patch. I didn’t know if I liked that or not. Usually I worked on my own but James Ho was interesting to say the least. I wasn’t
such an old dog that I couldn’t learn a few new tricks.

  As he took his card back I again noticed the scar on his hand.

  ‘Old war wound?’ I commented.

  ‘A little something I picked up at the baccarat tables, from a player who didn’t like losing.’

  I was learning new tricks already. ‘And what does his hand look like?’

  ‘The gentleman is no longer with us,’ he said smoothly. ‘Shall we go on to something more interesting?’

  He led me into another room, to a display of lacquer cabinets. He stopped in front of one and gazed at it.

  ‘You see the dragons inlaid in gold on the sides?’ he said. ‘There are spirit dragons which rise to heaven and earthly dragons hidden in the earth which protect treasure. In the Hsia dynasty one of the kings collected the foam from the mouth of two dragons and put it in a box. For centuries no-one dared open it.’

  ‘I know about dragon breath, I’ve seen Excalibur.’

  ‘Yes, and King Arthur is the son of Uther Pendragon—dragon’s head.’

  ‘How very well informed you are, James.’

  ‘I went to school in England. Got the best of both worlds.’ He went on. ‘In the reign of the tenth king of the Chou dynasty the box was opened and the dragon foam spread throughout the castle. It became an evil thing. Like all power it is volatile. Since that time there has been a tradition among certain noble families to place objects of power in boxes and lock them with a key. This cabinet is interesting, don’t you think? See the drawers inside? Even the sides and the back which are not normally visible have been decorated. That of course is a mark of a family of great wealth. And inside again are more drawers and secret compartments, so that sometimes, even if you have the key, you can’t get to the inner compartments. Boxes within boxes within boxes. Many of the boxes that you see here have become separated from each other but some sets we believe have remained intact. The Buddha boxes are the ones I’m particularly interested in.’

  ‘Buddha boxes?’

  ‘My father has spent his life researching them and evidence which came to light last year in Shaanxi province now proves his theory that they still exist.’ He handed me some photocopied pages headed ‘Rare Buddha Relics Unearthed’.

  ‘The Buddha boxes contain fragments of fingerbones. The fingerbones of Gautama Buddha.’

  I was impressed. It was like finding the Turin shroud, only better, and it hadn’t yet been discredited as the shroud had.

  ‘It’s all in there,’ he said, running his hand over the photocopy. ‘You can read it at your leisure. Briefly, it describes the discovery of one set of boxes containing Buddha’s finger.’

  ‘So there must be nine others?’

  ‘Oh, at least. There are also shadow bones, replicas of the real things.’

  ‘OK, I’m impressed. But I’m sure you didn’t come all the way to Sydney to tell me this.’

  ‘No, but I think you should know it. It is believed that a set of Buddha boxes has made its way to your fair city.’

  ‘Who has them?’

  His smile was almost inscrutable. ‘The matter that I am involved in is more complicated than that. It may jeopardise things if I were to reveal anything further. Besides, I am not yet sure of the exact location. But the key that you are looking for might open the boxes. It does not rightly belong to any individual, it belongs in a museum. Now, if I had a more exact description of it . . . ’

  He was telling me everything and he was telling me nothing.

  He had six thousand years of civilisation and was willing to swap it for a description of one little key. But he wasn’t going to get it. Not yet. Not till I had a few more pieces in place. It might just prove to be the pawn that could checkmate a king.

  I left James Ho, private investigator, in the willing company of the young antiques lady and went back to the Daimler. I drove to a quiet spot in Centennial Park and took out the photocopy.

  It had been taken from China Reconstructs, November 1987.

  Fragments of Buddha’s fingerbones had indeed been found during reconstruction work on Famen Temple in Shaanxi province. Encased in ‘Eight Precious Caskets’. It gave quite a detailed description of these, from the outer one made of silver with a cover of sandalwood, to the last, made of gold and encrusted with gems. The crown jewels looked like trinkets in comparison. The relics were worshipped, by both emperors and common folk, and did the rounds of the temples. When Buddhism came under attack around 840 AD the monks were ordered to smash the relics but smashed shadow bones instead and hid away the real thing. ‘Knowledge of the whereabouts of the relic was lost and 1113 years passed before it once again saw the light of day.’

  I scanned the article for references to keys but found nothing. Not a lot about dragons either though they seemed to be cropping up everywhere else.

  Everything else Ho had said was accurate. If there was a key that opened such boxes, where was it? If the Chens had it, how had it come to be in their possession?

  It was time to make a report to the client. Or rather, for the client to make a report to me.

  It was dinner time when I arrived at the Red Dragon but I hadn’t come to eat.

  ‘Table for one?’ said the waiter.

  ‘No. I’ve come to see Mrs Chen. Tell her it’s Claudia Valentine.’

  There was too much red and gold about to make me feel comfortable but it wasn’t putting off the mostly Chinese clientele or the tourist parties predictably ordering sweet and sour pork and fried rice. There were wooden screens with dark red dragons and red lanterns with gold tassels. Even the waiters and waitresses wore red.

  The waiter returned. He informed me that Mrs Chen was in a meeting and asked if I could come back tomorrow.

  I knew all about this ‘in a meeting’ business.

  ‘No, now will be just fine.’

  I walked in the direction he had come from, to a steamy kitchen where chefs in sweaty singlets and aprons were slaving over hot stoves. Next to the kitchen was a set of stairs.

  The waiter followed me up but I was strides ahead of him.

  I came into a huge banquet room, with the same red and gold, only not so much of it. But there were no banquets in progress, only a game of cards with six players silhouetted against windows that looked over Chinatown.

  I recognised Mrs Chen and I recognised someone else. He looked older than the photo on the back of his flattering ‘autobiography’ but he was just as smooth. Smooth as an oil slick.

  Mrs Chen stopped in mid-deal at my appearance and the others followed suit. The party took on the aspect of a frieze. The only sign of animation was Mrs Chen’s eyes as they moved from the cards to me.

  The moment unfroze and the film reeled on.

  ‘Care to join us, Miss Valentine?’

  ‘Then you’d have an odd number.’

  ‘Seven is a lucky number.’

  ‘Not with me at the table. I would like to have a brief word with you and I think you’d prefer if it was in private.’

  The waiter was hovering ineffectually in the wings.

  ‘Huang-Tso, ask Charles to come up,’ she said without turning her head or batting an eyelid.

  ‘I would rather talk to you, Mrs Chen.’

  ‘And who will act as banker while we have our private conversation?’ Condescension oozed out of her like honey. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen.’

  The gentlemen excused her.

  She unlocked a door marked PRIVATE and ushered me in.

  The room had a low black glass table with a sofa nearby and a sideboard with ornate carving, above which was a portrait shrouded in white gauze.

  ‘Coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘No, thank you. Tell me about the boxes.’

  ‘The boxes? Which boxes do you mean?’

  ‘The boxes the key opens.’

  She looked mystified but her fingers tensed ever so slightly. ‘The key is simply an object of sentimental value, a beautiful work of art. It is not the key to anything. It has been in our
family for generations. Charles inherited it on his eighteenth birthday.’

  ‘Shouldn’t such a beautiful object belong in a museum?’

  She laughed, as if the idea was simply ludicrous.

  ‘It is ours. It is no less beautiful in a private collection than it is in a museum.’

  ‘Maybe, but you can’t have had much enjoyment from it if it was stuck away in a safety deposit box.’

  She tilted back her head slightly with a haughty expression. ‘Miss Valentine, it is not really your concern where we choose to keep our valuables, now is it?’ The expression changed to a look that on anyone else would have been described as chummy. ‘Do sit down and have a cup of coffee with me.’

  ‘I’ll stand, if you don’t mind. I like the view from up here.’ I leant against the sideboard, looking up at the gauze-shrouded portrait.

  ‘My husband,’ said Mrs Chen simply. ‘He passed away some months ago.’

  ‘I believe you’ve had more than one death in the family recently. I believe you recently lost a waiter. Ellis Wong.’

  She sat up straighter and tightened her lips. ‘Not what you would call family, I hardly knew the man. He worked here only casually.’

  ‘Depends on your definition of family. I notice Mickey Doolan sits at your table. Is he “family”?’

  ‘He was a friend of my husband.’

  ‘He’s also a smart dude.’

  ‘Smart dude?’

  ‘Keeps breaking the law and getting away with it. Perhaps you should ask him about your key. He could probably organise a complete line-up of bank robbers for you to choose from.’

  Mrs Chen said nothing.

  ‘Why did you hire me? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to place an ad in the paper? “Lost: one gold key with dragon. Reward offered”.’

  Mrs Chen gave what almost passed for a laugh. ‘It is a somewhat delicate matter. First, what sort of reward does one offer for an item such as this? If it is still in the hands of the bank robbers who have gained some millions of dollars, a reward of a few thousand is laughable, whereas a much larger reward would arouse suspicion. However,’ she smoothed the side of her hair which was already immaculately in place, ‘the key may become more visible if there is an appropriate lure. If your fee is not enough, if you need more money . . . ’