A Woman of Courage (30 page)

‘You think she's planning to blackmail us?'

‘I don't know. What I do know, we'd better find out fast.'

‘A visit from some of our friends?' Damian said.

‘My thoughts exactly,' Charlie said. He went and picked up the phone. When he spoke it was in Cantonese.

3

It was eight-thirty in the morning and Sara was feeling pretty sick too, but taking a leaf from Andrea's book, was determined to show nothing. She put on her face, studying herself in the bathroom mirror. Eyes clear, mouth firm. No shadows of the fear she had felt behind the toilet's locked door with Charlie Lennox only metres away. Yet her mind remembered what her face had forgotten and the memory could still bring sweat to her palms. Not only of the traumatic time in the Lennox offices but of what had come later, when two hours earlier Martha Tan had burst into Sara's bedroom to find her in the shower.

‘Sara! Sara!'

She emerged from the shower, water streaming, towel tied loosely about her waist. ‘What is it?'

‘Andrea Chan.'

‘What about her?

‘Two gangsters paid her a visit an hour ago.'

4

Andrea had been asleep in bed when a violent hammering on the door of her flat woke her. The shock brought her heart into her throat. Luckily the door was double locked but her flat mate was away and she was alone. She crept to the door and looked through the spy hole. Two men were standing very close to the other side of the door with what looked like baseball bats in their hands. The flats on either side of Andrea's place, normally noisy at all hours with shouts and laughter, the clatter of mah-jong tiles, were silent as though the occupants were holding their breath, no one game to ask the two men what they wanted. No one game to come to her aid, if aid were needed.

The taller of the two men must have guessed she would be watching because he smiled, broad lips and broken teeth, and spoke to her in a harsh voice, addressing her through the door in the rough Cantonese spoken by the triads.

‘Come out, Chan Zhang Li. Come out. We wish to talk to you.' And he began rhythmically and with increasing violence to beat on the door with the butt end of his bat.

‘Come out, Chan Zhang Li! Come out!'

While, behind the flat door, Andrea felt the blood drain from her face.

5

Sara put on one of the day dresses she had bought at Shanghai Tang. She rejoined Martha and they went down to breakfast together. They discussed how they would handle their ten o'clock meeting with the Lennox brothers. They went out into a morning washed clean by the night's rain.

At ten o'clock on the dot a cheongsam-clad woman, snooty-looking as only a young and beautiful Chinese woman could be, ushered them into the Lennox boardroom, carpeted, wood-panelled and with expensive Chinese prints on the walls. She closed the door and they were alone.

They were kept waiting for ten minutes. Martha had warned Sara the brothers might try this tactic.

‘It is a way of telling us they have nothing to hide.'

‘But they have.'

‘Of course. We have the papers, as they will soon discover. Something else they will discover also.'

‘What?'

‘That we are the angels of retribution.'

Now in the boardroom they did not speak. Martha had warned Sara about this also.

‘The room is very likely bugged,' she had said.

Eventually their patience was rewarded. The door opened and the two Lennox brothers came in.

Charlie and Damian Lennox were effusive in their greetings yet their smiles failed to conceal their underlying resentment that the Brand Corporation should have presumed to send these two women to check-up on them. But Sara saw something else too: the wariness of men prepared for trouble. Although now Andrea was out of the way they were no doubt hoping they would be able to ride out any storm.

‘You are more than welcome, of course you are,' Charlie Lennox said. ‘We are delighted to see you. We only hope you won't feel you've been wasting your time.'

And ours.
Which he did not say but clearly implied.

‘Hear hear,' said Damian Lennox.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They were both fat but Damian was the fatter of the two.

‘You'll be wanting to hear how our negotiations have been going in Beijing,' Charlie said.

Martha smiled but said nothing. Sara, taking her cue from Martha, smiled but said nothing.

‘It's been a slow and arduous process,' Charlie said.

‘As we warned you,' Damian said.

‘Indeed yes. We made that very clear,' Charlie said. ‘Both to Ms Brand and to Channel 12's previous owners. But we are glad to report progress.'

‘Excellent progress,' Damian said.

‘I can confidently say that six months, perhaps less, should see our getting a positive response to our negotiations,' Charlie said.

‘Almost certainly less,' Damian said.

Sara watched the two faces: genial, a little sweaty, both of them with the expressions of men who could be trusted all the way to the bank. Both of them lying through their teeth. Mr Cheu's damning report had been one hundred per cent correct; the papers she and Andrea Chan had stolen put that beyond doubt.

If I never go through that again it will be too soon, Sara thought. No more cloak and dagger nonsense for me; next time we'll use professionals.

She watched Charlie Lennox's lips shaping his lies and remembered how close she and Andrea had come to being pinched last night. The cops called, a charge of breaking and entering… How good would that have looked? And what would Hilary have said? She could imagine her mother, very much the CEO, tearing strips off her:
The first job I give you and you end up in gaol?

Thank God it hadn't happened but it would be a long time before she forgot those terror-soaked moments behind the locked toilet door with Charlie Lennox washing his hands not three paces away. And then the security team arriving and the pair of them running barefoot down the endless flights of stairs… The memory made her sweat even now.

Martha interrupted Charlie as he rabbited on about the rosy future that awaited them all. ‘We don't have time for all this nonsense. You have the file, Sara?'

Umbrage from Charlie Lennox. ‘My dear lady…'

Slowly and carefully Martha laid the first damning document on the table. ‘Perhaps you care to explain this?'

Charlie's agreeable smile vanished when he saw what it was: a statement from a bank in the Channel Isles. ‘How did you get hold of this?'

Martha smiled but did not answer.

Charlie stared at it, no doubt hoping the figures would disappear. His face paled. Damian's face paled. They looked like a two-man coven of disconcerted ghosts.

‘Or this, from a bank in the Cayman Islands?'

‘I have seen neither of these statements before,' Charlie said. ‘I know nothing about them.'

‘Nothing at all,' Damian said.

Their voices were as white as ghosts too.

‘Our assistant Andrea Chan handled this side of the operation,' Charlie said. ‘I'll call her in.' He snatched up the phone. ‘Tell Andrea to get in here at once!' Then listened to the receptionist before slowly replacing the phone. ‘She is not in today.' His moistened lips shone. ‘I have to say I find this most embarrassing.'

‘Not to say suspicious,' Damian said.

‘Highly suspicious,' Charlie said.

‘We trusted her implicitly, you see.'

‘We shall both be heartbroken if there is anything amiss.'

‘Or if it became a matter for the police.'

‘I was thinking more of the Hong Kong Corruption Commission,' Martha said.

It was like the silence after a bomb blast, everyone watching each other.

‘I hope you are not suggesting that we –' Charlie Lennox said.

‘We are as concerned as you,' Damian Lennox said.

‘When we get hold of Andrea Chan –' Charlie said.

‘Our understanding is that two men paid her a visit early this morning,' Martha said.

‘We know nothing about our staff's private lives,' said Charlie Lennox.

‘We respect their right to privacy,' said Damian Lennox.

‘It was not a social call. She reported that the men had threatened her but sensibly she did not let them in. Instead she phoned the police.'

‘And?'

‘And nothing. When the men heard the sirens they left.'

‘How do you know this?'

‘Because she told us so.'

‘I was not aware you knew her.'

‘Now you are.'

In the streets outside the building the morning might be warming up but in the boardroom the atmosphere was glacial. Watching the Lennox brothers' faces Sara saw suspicion harden into certainty.

‘That is how you obtained these papers,' Charlie Lennox said. He slapped his open hand on the boardroom table; there was nothing amiable about his expression now. ‘You broke in and stole them.'

Martha remained calm. ‘We reject any such suggestion,' she said.

‘Then how –'

‘How does not matter. The fact is we have them.'

‘The police will want to speak to Andrea Chan about this,' Charlie Lennox said.

‘Your accomplice,' Damian Lennox said. No amiability there either.

Martha glanced at Sara; taking her cue, she joined in the discussion for the first time. ‘Andrea flew out of Hong Kong this morning. I went with her to the airport and saw her safely on a flight to Sydney.'

‘Andrea Chan will report to Hilary Brand when she gets to Australia,' Martha said. ‘She has copies of all the papers. She'll be under the protection of Brand Security from the moment she disembarks. Do not think of trying to intercept her.'

‘Surely you cannot imagine we would do such a thing,' Charlie Lennox said.

‘Surely not,' protested Damian Lennox.

‘Those gangsters didn't call on her by chance,' Martha said. ‘We are satisfied you have engaged in systematic fraud. Your actions have cost the Brand Corporation a great deal of money. Now I am asking what you plan to do about it.'

‘Fraud?' Charlie very much on his high horse. ‘Nonsense! The balances in those statements represent funds set aside for contacts in China –'

‘Spare us,' Martha said. ‘You owe us six million Australian dollars. Some you sent overseas; some are still here in Hong Kong. We require a clear statement how you plan to repay. Or do you want us to contact the Corruption Commission?'

6

Sara listened on the extension as Martha and Hilary talked. It was a guarded conversation, the habit of caution deeply engrained in both women.

‘Any chance of recovery?'

‘Maybe fifty per cent,' Martha said.

‘And the rest?'

‘Hidden in maybe a dozen accounts in many countries. I doubt we'll ever get it back. We can always try but I suspect what we recover will be nowhere near the cost of pursuing them.'

‘What do you suggest?' Hilary said. ‘The police? I'll get our legal boys on to it as soon as our friend arrives but from what you say we've enough to put them away for years.'

‘That's very true,' Martha said. ‘But I ask myself, what's the use of locking them up? What's the benefit for us?'

‘It would warn others who might be tempted to try the same trick.'

‘Maybe it would do that. But in the meantime we lose everything and get nothing back. In any case, while police start investigating there's a good chance they'll grab what cash they can and vanish. For people who've got money, that wouldn't be too hard, would it? No, I think there may be a better way.'

‘You think you can turn this around?'

‘Maybe yes, maybe no. But definitely worth a try.'

‘Riddle time again?' Hilary said.

‘No riddles. Absolutely straightforward.'

A long silence while Martha leant forwards on the edge of her seat, body tense like a dog waiting for the rabbit.

‘Very well,' Hilary said eventually. ‘I'll give you your head on this. But make sure you keep me in the picture, OK? And Martha, we'd better come out on the right side of this. That is important both for the company and for you.'

‘I understand, Hilary. I'll get back to you. One or two days, no more. OK?'

She hung up.

‘What are we going to do?' Sara asked.

‘Speak to the big shots.' Martha saw the confused look on Sara's face. ‘When we deal with China,' she said, ‘we have to think like they do. That is very important.'

‘But you are Chinese too.'

‘I am Singaporean. Very different. So I too have to learn. First lesson: respect is very important. Respect for each other. Also getting respect from the outside world. What the Lennox brothers have done, they have cheated foreigners. Worse still, foreigners wishing to invest in China. Wishing to create business in China. Charlie Lennox and his brother lose respect not only for themselves but for China also. It could make the world say China is a bad place to do business and that would be very bad. If we prosecute them and they go to gaol, the whole world will know what happened. Chinese officials won't want us to do anything like that. But if they know what happened and know too we are protecting their good name by
not
prosecuting these men, they will respect us too and reward us for our consideration. That is how China does things,' Martha said.

‘So we write off the money –'

‘And in return win their respect. I promise you, that will be worth many times what we lose. Oh yes, Sara, that is the right way to handle this.'

‘I am glad you are here to teach me these things,' Sara said.

1970

THE ISLAND AND THE JETTY

1

Hilary was cross. Lance had raised the question of Rottnest Island. She had liked the idea of seeing a new and interesting place with a new and interesting man yet so far nothing had come of it. Before Lance had mentioned it she had never given Rottnest a thought but to be given a half-invitation and then to have nothing happen was aggravating.