Daylight on Iron Mountain (22 page)

Jake sighed. This was the Changs’ doing. He had hoped they would try this case in one of the local courthouses, but they’d had it transferred here. Had used their influence to fuck him over. Why, this was barely ten minutes from their head office.

He yawned, unable to stop himself. Three hours he’d had at most last night. And then he’d woken, sheened in sweat, from the dream.

He could remember every single detail of that day. Could remember that morning, playing out in the garden with his sister, May, running about, chasing each other and giggling. The grass beneath their feet the softest green, wet from the dew, the lawn scattered with bright red leaves.

They had meant to go cycling that morning, up the narrow lanes that cut through the woods behind his grandparents’ house – to the old pond, maybe, or what they called the crow’s nest at the very top of the hill. Only his bike had
got a puncture. A tiny nail, it was. He remembered his grandfather placing it in his palm. Could recall the cold wet feel of it. And then his parents, calling out to them, asking if they wanted to go into town to get some shopping.

May had gone but he had stayed, helping his grandfather fix the puncture, running water into the bowl from the outside tap, then carrying it across, the water slopping side to side as he walked. Watching as his grandfather squeezed the inner tube, looking for the hole, air bubbles finally rising to the surface.

There!

And then the phone, ringing and ringing, and after it had stopped, after a long and oddly peaceful silence, the birds singing in the nearby trees. Yes, he remembered. Remembered how he had turned at the sound of his grandma’s choking voice, staring at her, trying to make sense of her tears as she stumbled through the door, her legs almost giving way.

He had pleaded with his grandfather. Pleaded to see it for himself. Because until he saw it he couldn’t,
wouldn’t
believe.

They had driven to the local hospital in silence, their faces fixed and ashen, him in the back behind them. His grandfather’s hands were locked, it seemed, on the wheel of the old BMW, the smell of the leather seats strong. There in the corridor, the two of them standing either side of him, their hands gently holding his, he had glanced up and looking from one to the other, saw the devastation in their faces, the disbelief.

That corridor. How he wished he could end it there. How he wished he had woken then. Only he hadn’t. He had walked on, towards that door. And inside?

Inside was his whole world. Gone, destroyed in an instant. It was there, outside the glass-panelled door, that his grandmother had lost her courage.

‘
Go on… go on in…
’ she’d said, her voice a pained whisper. ‘
I can’t…
’

Clutching his grandfather’s hand, he had gone inside, into that part-lit room. There to his left, laid out on two trolleys, were his parents, their bodies stretched out beside one another. Together in death as they had been in life, their pale corpses laced with the wounds they had received when their car had hit another head-on.

Overtaking. A young man of twenty-two. Not a scratch. Not a single fucking scratch. No, and no licence either, no insurance. He was UP. A non-person.

Jake remembered how in the dream, he had turned, looking up at his grandfather. ‘Where is she, Granddad? Where’s May?’

And then he saw her, on the small trolley to his right, close by the doctor’s desk. Covered over, only her face exposed, peaceful and marble white. He had walked across and looked. Saw how her eyes were open; how they stared out into nothingness.

Where is she?

Eight years old, he’d been. A happy child. Loved and loving. And then that.

Jake shuddered and looked down.

He was sixty-eight now. A grandfather. Sixty years had passed since that autumn day, and still it had the power to unman him. To reduce him to this shivering state.

He looked about him at the shabbiness of the room. From that moment to this – where had his life gone? It seemed to have flown so fast. And this latest thing with the court case. It was never meant to be like this. None of it. Life was supposed to have been so easy. Wasn’t that what they had promised him as a child?

Jake groaned, then lay down on his side, afraid to close his eyes, afraid lest he found himself back there again. In that childhood garden where things had first come apart.

God help me
, he thought, bringing his hands up, placing his thin, trembling fingers against his old and shrunken face, as if to shut it all out.
God help me for the wreck I am.

Jake woke. There was an urgent banging on his door.

‘
Shih
Reed!
Shih
Reed! You must come!’

For an instant he was disoriented. Then he understood.

‘Hold on, Chi Lin Lin… I’m coming.’

He hauled himself up, then sat there a moment, getting his bearings.

‘Shih Reed…’

Give me a moment.

He felt dreadful. It was wasn’t just the dreams, it was his age, the state of the mattress, not to speak of his anxiety about the case.

Jake looked down at the timer at his wrist, then swore. He hadn’t meant to sleep so long.

‘
Shih
Reed!’

‘
All right!
’ He reached out and unlocked the door, then stood, feeling the faintest bit unsteady, the faintest bit nauseous. Wishing he were home, in his own bed. All this…

Chi Lin Lin popped his head around the door. ‘Advocate Hui is summing up,’ he said anxiously. ‘The Judge will be deciding very soon. You should be there,
Shih
Reed!’

‘I know, I know… and I will be there. But let me comb my hair, Chi, and put on a fresh cloak.’

‘But
Shih
Reed…’

He turned, letting Chi see the state he was in. ‘You want the Judge to see me like this? No. So give me a few moments, my young friend. I shall be there.’

Advocate Hui closed the file he had been reading from, then bowed, gravely and respectfully, before taking his seat again among his team of advocates.

Jake looked to Yang Hung Yu. ‘
Well?
’

Advocate Yang gazed down. He was not the picture of confidence; more like a man who knows he has lost before the game’s begun. And maybe he was right to feel that way, only the law was on their side. Or should have been. The Chang family had acted illegally, and they could not be allowed to get away with it.

‘Your honour…’ he began. But Judge Wei was having none of it.

‘In Mandarin,’ he barked. ‘This is no peasant’s court!’

It didn’t augur well.

Yang cleared his throat, then began again. But he was barely three or four sentences in when the Judge interrupted him again.

Jake leaned in to Chi Lin Lin. ‘
What did he say?
’

But Chi Lin Lin wasn’t to be allowed to answer. Banging his gavel, the Judge ordered them to be silent.

Yang, standing there, looked bewildered. He began to address the Judge again, and again found himself shouted down.

For a moment there was complete silence, then, raising his chin to look about him, the Judge uttered what could have been no more than five, maybe six words in Mandarin.

This time the host on the benches opposite were up out of their seats, protesting violently, waving their files so angrily that you’d have thought Jake had won.

Bemused, Jake looked to Chi Lin Lin again. ‘What did he say?’

Young Chi was grinning now. ‘He says we can present our evidence. We’re over the first hurdle, Jake! He says the case can go to trial!’

After that debacle with GenSyn, Jake had gone back to the levels. Made his peace with Boss Wu and tried to settle in. Only it was hard. And then fate – and who knew whose face fate wore? – intervened and he was offered a job, and a good job at that. Market advisor to an up-and-coming company quoted on the Hang Seng – MicroData, known familiarly on the market as ‘Emdee’. It had been a good firm to work for, and he’d made good friends – Han and
Hung Mao
.

He had worked for Emdee for almost twenty years. Until last year, in fact, when he had finally retired on half salary. It was a good pension; enough to lead a comfortable life with Mary and the kids. Only then the old owner had died. The Chang family, who it seemed had long coveted the company, had shoehorned their way in, buying a controlling share and immediately selling off the lucrative parts to rivals.

That much was legal. It wasn’t nice, but it was within their rights as owners. Only then, in an attempt to reduce operational costs, they had announced a reduction in pension payments.

Overnight Jake’s income had been cut by two-thirds. It was outrageous, and
totally
illegal. Ex-employees, Jake among them, had formed an action committee, meeting to debate what could be done. Only the Changs quickly infiltrated that committee and, in the most brutal fashion, threatened and bullied some of the weaker members until they dropped out.

That had been three months ago. Since then, Jake – and a handful of others – had been preparing their cases, living off their savings while they did so. It was very much a do-or-die gesture, but the law was on their side.

Or ought to have been.

Now the three of them sat in the nearby canteen, eating noodles and trying to make sense of what had just happened.

‘
You know what I think?
’ Yang Hung Yu said, leaning in close to whisper to
the other two, as if he did not want to be overheard. ‘
I think it’s all a bargaining ploy. I think the Changs have offered Judge Wei a lot of cash to drop this case. Not to let it proceed. Only, by granting our suit, he gets the chance to ask a much higher sum.
’

Jake stared back at him, dismayed. ‘You think?’

Yang leaned in again. ‘
Judge Wei is a very rich man. That’s all I say.
’

Beside him Chi Lin Lin was nodding, as if he knew it for a fact.

‘Then we’re sunk.’

Yang smiled at that. ‘Not sunk. But badly holed, neh?’

The second session began just after two, the senior lawyers for the Changs crowding the front desk, chattering away in half-whispered Mandarin, their agitation clear. Judge Wei, it seemed, was driving a very hard bargain. Jake might almost have found it amusing, the Changs being screwed by one of their own kind, only he stood to lose all he had worked for. And if he did, they’d fall, and he did not know how he – let alone Mary – would cope with that. He
had
to win. Justice
had
to prevail. If it didn’t, it made a mockery of the last twenty years – of Tsao Ch’un’s great experiment.

A total fucking mockery.

Out front, the haggling seemed to be over. Advocate Hui and his men took a step back, then, as one, gave Judge Wei a respectful bow. A deal, it seemed, had been made.

‘All right,’ Judge Wei said, looking across at Yang Hung Yu. ‘Advocate Yang, you have an hour to present your evidence.’

‘An hour? But, my Lord…’

‘An hour,’ Judge Wei repeated, his face hard and stern. ‘Now get on with it. Before I rule against you!’

Jake felt his heart sink. An hour. They would barely scratch the surface in an hour. He knew it for a fact. And why? Because the Changs’ legal team would eat away at most of that with their queries and interruptions. If they managed to get ten minutes it would be something!

And so it proved. Only, five minutes from the end, in the midst of yet another interruption by Advocate Hui, a messenger appeared at Judge Wei’s shoulder, handing him a sealed envelope.

Wei So Yuan signalled to Hui Chang Yeh to carry on, while he slit the seal
open with his long fingernails and removed a single sheet of paper.

Jake watched him, trying to make out what it was. Only Judge Wei’s face did not change. Whatever was written on that paper seemed to have no power to move him in any way. He merely folded it, then pocketed it casually.

‘Advocate Hui,’ he said, as if tiring of the matter. ‘Sit down now, please, and let Advocate Yang give his summing up.’

Yang’s face lit. At least he would get to the nub of it.

Advocate Hui, however, seemed unconcerned. So maybe the letter was confirmation of some kind. A signed agreement between the Changs and Judge Wei. Maybe it no longer mattered whether Yang gave his summation or not.

Jake looked down. If they lost this today, he could always go to appeal. Only this had cost him just about everything he had, and to go to appeal would cost him another twenty thousand
yuan
at the very least, according to Yang, and where would he find that kind of sum?

Oh, he could borrow it off Peter, maybe. Only he didn’t like to. In fact, he had not even told Peter what had happened. His pride forbade him. That and Mary’s fear that they might drag him down with them if they lost.

No, it was best Peter knew nothing about this.

Jake looked up again. Yang Hung Yu was bowing to the Judge, his summation given. He came back to the benches, and sat down next to Jake.

‘
The law is on our side
,’ Yang said, leaning in.

Maybe
, Jake thought.
But the money is on theirs
.

Judge Wei sat back a little, as if considering what to do next. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled.

‘We shall reconvene… tomorrow. Until then…’

For a moment the Chang family and their lawyers clearly did not register what had been said. Then there was uproar again, and the same waving of files, the same angry faces, the same huddle at the desk, as Hui Chang Yeh and his team crowded about Judge Wei.

A half an hour later, Jake sat on the bench outside, waiting for Yang Hung Yu to return from renewing their passes. They were rescheduled for nine the next morning, when Judge Wei would hear evidence from Chang’s team. Until then, his time was his own.

The proceedings had tired him. So maybe it would be a good idea to get a few hours’ kip. Only he was afraid of that. Afraid he’d have the dreams again. So maybe he’d find a tea house. Get himself a paper and catch up on the news…

‘
Shih
Reed…’

He looked up. The man – a
Hung Mao
– was short and squat, but powerfully built, his face hard and menacing, his hair cut razor short.