Heaven's Light (41 page)

Owens was writing on the envelope.

‘What’s that?’ Louise was peering at the row of figures.

‘Her home telephone number. Her husband’s moved out. They’ve had a domestic.’

His hand was back in his briefcase. He pulled out a sheet of paper and Louise found herself looking at a poster for Pompey First. The candidate’s photo was bordered in a tasteful shade of green. She had a strong, open face framed by a tumble of loose curls. It was rare, Louise thought, to find such an attractive woman in politics.

Owens was back on his feet, pulling on a pair of gloves. ‘You wanted a poster. She happens to be my ward candidate. You can keep it. She left the missus two.’

He stepped towards the door and Louise got to her feet. She was grateful to him for sparing the time to drive up. She’d pop the poster on the wall.

Owens knotted his scarf. ‘I’ve put ours in the window,’ he said. ‘Bloody good idea, if you ask me.’

‘What is?’

‘Pompey First.’

When he’d gone, Louise sat down again. The photograph of Mrs Barnaby was still on the desk. She pored over it for a full minute, moving it into the pool of sunshine where the last of the chocolate biscuits was slowly melting. Then she picked up Owen’s envelope, checking the phone number, and reached for her mobile. The
Sentinel
’s switchboard answered at once.

‘Editorial, please,’ Louise was looking at the photo again, ‘whoever deals with drugs stories.’

The
Newsnight
crew were late for the twelve o’clock interview. They were spending the entire day in Portsmouth, exploring every nuance of Charlie Epple’s ‘new politics’,
and Barnaby had agreed to meet them in the car park near Southsea Castle. At twenty past twelve he was still sitting in his car, the seat reclined, his head back, his eyes closed. If this is really politics, he was thinking, then I’m only sorry I started so late.

A tap at the window brought him upright. A young man in a red scarf was standing in the car park. When he wound down the window, Barnaby recognized the voice on the phone.

‘We thought we’d do it out there on the grass,’ the reporter said briskly. ‘Castle in the background.’

Barnaby joined him for the walk across. The camera crew had already set up their equipment and were running sound checks. The interview would be open-ended but the edited piece would probably last no more than a couple of minutes.

Barnaby stood in front of the camera, letting the young reporter angle his body until the cameraman was happy with the balance of light and shade on his face. After yesterday, outside the dockyard, and another TV interview earlier in the week, Barnaby was getting used to this. Kate had been right when she said he was a natural. All you had to do was tell it the way it was, spell it out the way you felt it, and the curious chemistry of television would do the rest.

The interview lasted nearly fifteen minutes. Although
Newsnight
were chiefly interested in the difference Pompey First was making locally, Barnaby was quickly conscious that they were really talking about national issues. Ministerial responsibility. The quango state. The sheer thickness of the curtain that had descended between the people in charge and the men and women who had to live with the consequences of their decisions. Each time the agenda widened, the young reporter tried to nudge Barnaby back to local
politics but the longer the interview went on the more it became obvious that these weren’t anxieties you could limit to a single city. Up and down the country, local councillors, local officials, and local voters were tussling with the same problem. Power had leaked away. There was a massive haemorrhage of the nation’s civic lifeblood. Not out to the provinces, where it belonged, but inwards, to what Barnaby termed ‘the dead centre’ of British political life. Even in London, he said, even in the nation’s capital city, no one was trusted with power. There was no voice for London, no elected body in whom the people could place their faith. Alone amongst the great capital cities of the world, London had no voice of its own.

The reporter nodded, agreeing. He’d liked the line about the nation’s civic lifeblood. Was Barnaby serious? In terms of democracy, was he saying that the situation was terminal?

‘I simply don’t know,’ Barnaby answered. ‘I don’t know where it will end. All I know is that down here, in our own small way, we’re trying to make a difference. A month ago people thought Pompey First was a joke. It isn’t. It’s a reality. It’s something you can feel and measure. In votes. And, come Thursday, that’s exactly what we’ll do.’

The young reporter stepped back, delighted. Barnaby shook his outstretched hand. The camera crew were already packing up their gear, returning the sound equipment to its silver box and collapsing the big tripod. Barnaby gave them a final wave as they drove away, and then climbed the path that led to the castle battlements. From here, the southernmost point of Portsea Island, he could see east to the pier and the long sweep of shingle each that stretched away towards Hayling Island. Behind him, furrowed by a passing warship, were the approaches to the harbour mouth.

He began to walk, feeling the warmth of the sun on his
face, happier than he could ever remember. Whole areas of his life – his marriage, for instance – were in chaos but with Pompey First he’d caught a wave that had somehow lifted him above the daily grind and was pushing him forward, faster and faster. Adjoining the seafront were the wide green spaces of Southsea Common and he paused, shading his eyes, remembering the way it had looked a couple of years back, June 1994, the weekend Bill Clinton and his entourage had descended on the city for the D-Day Commemoration. The memories of that weekend, the feeling of sour frustration, of creeping middle age, of having missed some indefinable opportunity, now seemed to belong to another life. He’d heard the trumpets, he thought, he’d answered the call and, God willing, life would never expose him to that kind of humiliation again. He mattered. He truly mattered. There were people, clever people, who’d just driven seventy miles to listen to what he had to say. His name was in print, in local papers, national papers, even the international press, doubtless cross-indexed in countless cuttings files. Soon, perhaps, there’d be similar clips on video, archived for ever.

Barnaby glanced down at the patch of worn grass where he’d just conducted the
Newsnight
interview, reflecting on the slightly unreal sequence of events that had brought him in front of the camera. Then he retraced his steps towards the Mercedes, thinking once again of Bill Clinton. Two years ago, he’d seemed a remote figure, defined solely by the world’s headlines. Now, to Barnaby’s intense satisfaction, he was simply flesh and blood.

The meeting with Zhu was brief. Tully took the lift to his top-floor suite at the Imperial, accompanied by Mr Hua,
Zhu’s chauffeur. Zhu was sitting at a desk in the window. It was the first time Tully had seen him wearing glasses.

Zhu offered him a small cup of Chinese tea but Tully shook his head. He’d developed the prints himself. He laid them on Zhu’s desk. To Tully’s quiet satisfaction, they were excellent.

Zhu examined them for, perhaps, a minute. Finally, he looked up. ‘This is the man you described?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘The one who …’ Zhu looked pained ‘… wrecked our opening day?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And he’s here?’

‘Very definitely.’

‘You have an address? Directions? Where to find him?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good.’ Zhu indicated the stocky figure by the door. ‘Leave the details with Mr Hua.’ He smiled. ‘I’m deeply grateful.’

Louise took Ellis for a late lunch at a pub along the hill from the Defence Research Agency. He’d arrived only minutes before, stepping out of a car at the main gate, pale with exhaustion. Now he sat beside her, looking out at the countryside to the north of the hill, amazed at how this fold of chalk could separate such wholly different landscapes.

‘Big, isn’t it?’ Louise was looking at the city. ‘Much bigger than I’d thought.’

‘You’re right.’ Ellis closed his eyes. ‘And not too pretty, either.’

The pub had a modest restaurant. Louise studied the menu while Ellis did his best to brief her. The investigators
at the Commercial Affairs Department had been pleased with the file he’d delivered on Barings. It filled in various holes in their own enquiry and resolved one or two key issues on which they’d found no collateral evidence. In return, with some bewilderment, they’d told him a good deal about Raymond Zhu.

‘Bewilderment?’

‘They think he’s straight. In fact, they think he’s the jewel in their crown. Mr Private Enterprise. Very canny. Very shrewd.’

‘Very rich?’

‘Immensely. Even richer than we thought. They capitalized him at between three and four billion. That’s dollars, of course.’ He waited while Louise examined the menu. Today’s special was monkfish in batter.

‘Nothing for us, then?’ she asked at last.

‘Nothing startling.’ Ellis consulted the summary he’d prepared overnight on the plane. ‘Except the command and control equipment.’

‘Oh?’

Ellis described what Lim had told him in the car on the way to the airport. Zhu had evidently bought the riot gear, plus ancillary communications, on behalf of officials in Beijing. He was using Singapore as a conduit country, camouflaging the real end-user.

‘Was this a surprise at the DTI?’

‘Frankly, yes. The order wasn’t that big. It could have gone to any one of half a dozen regional players. Or it could have stayed in Singapore. China barely figured.’

‘So why Beijing?’

The waiter had arrived for the order but Louise was ignoring him, a sure sign to Ellis that her interest was aroused.

‘The Chinese have tasked a military force to take over in Hong Kong,’ he said slowly. ‘We’re talking police duties, maintenance of civil order. There’s nothing covert about it. It’s been in the papers. Photos, even. I’ve seen them myself.’

‘And?’

‘They need equipment. State-of-the-art stuff.’ His hand went to the file. ‘Zhu bought British.’

‘On their behalf?’

‘So it seems.’

‘How interesting.’ Louise at last placed her order. Ellis settled for a salad. The waiter disappeared.

Ellis opened the file, offering it to Louise, but she shook her head.

‘Talk to me,’ she said. ‘Tell me more about Hong Kong.’

Ellis bent forward across the table. ‘Hong Kong’s crucial,’ he said. ‘Hong Kong’s where it begins and ends. It turns out Zhu was born in Shanghai. He fled during the revolution, in ’forty-nine. His parents were killed by the Communists. He and his brother got out of Shanghai on a barge of some sort.’

‘They went to Hong Kong?’

‘Yes, along with thousands of others. He stayed until the mid-sixties. That’s when he and his brother set up Celestial Holdings. Until then they’d been general traders. Celestial took them into the big time. Construction to begin with. Then associated development. The guys at Commercial Affairs have the brothers down as typical Shanghai Chinese. Very nimble, very sharp, always looking for the next opportunity.’ He paused. ‘In ’sixty-eight we announced we were pulling out of Singapore. Several months later, Zhu applied for citizenship.’

‘Of?’

‘Singapore. The place was newly independent. Economically,
it was buzzing. Cheap labour. Lots of foreign investment. Annual growth rates of twenty-three per cent. For someone like Zhu, all that would have been irresistible.’ He paused. ‘His brother stayed in Hong Kong but Zhu registered Celestial Holdings in Singapore as soon as he got his citizenship. That’s why we got confused about his passport, incidentally.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘We thought he was born in southern China, not Shanghai, but it seems he put Amoy to get himself sponsored. At the time, Singapore was awash with Chinese from the south. Not that it matters now.’

‘And the brother?’

‘He’s still running the Hong Kong end of Celestial and he’s doing very well. That’s partly why Zhu’s worth so much. Hong Kong generates a lot of the profits but the brothers obviously feel that Singapore’s a safer home for the cash than Hong Kong. And given next year, he’s probably right.’

‘So Celestial clean up in Hong Kong while they can?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And the Commercial Affairs people don’t mind?’

‘Not at all. Money’s money. The more of it ends up in Singapore the better.’

Louise nodded, testing a bread roll with her fingers. ‘This riot equipment,’ she mused, ‘the stuff that’s going to Hong Kong. Doesn’t Zhu have a conscience about that? Arming the Chinese militia against his own kith and kin? Or am I being naïve?’

‘You’re being naïve. Big business and the Communists have a great deal in common. Neither are very keen on democracy. Especially if it hurts the profit stream. The last thing Zhu wants is a breakdown in law and order.’

Louise was pleased. Very pleased indeed.

Ellis consulted his summary. She wanted more detail on the sources of Zhu’s fortune in Hong Kong, how exactly he and his brother were making their money, and Ellis listed the areas he’d targeted for his major investments. Shipping and transportation was one.

Louise stopped him, laying her hand on his. ‘What kind of scale?’

‘Big. Everything Zhu does is big.’

‘Hong Kong to where?’

‘Anywhere. US. Europe. Australia. The Zhus are merchants. They trade wherever they can turn a profit.’

‘So Zhu’s been shipping goods here? Into the UK?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he’s still doing it?’

‘Absolutely.’

Louise leaned back in her chair, looking pleased again. Her prawn cocktail had arrived, a tent of shredded lettuce, oozing pink sauce. She tapped her watch. ‘Your Mr Tully,’ she said briskly.

‘Who?’

‘Tully. The one you told me about. Your ex-Marine.’ She plunged her spoon into the prawn cocktail. ‘He’s expecting you at three. I must remember to give you the address.’ She added, ‘I sense he’s got a lot to get off his chest.’

When the phone rang Liz Barnaby was on the point of going out. She closed the door again and retraced her steps across the lounge. The caller introduced herself. She said she was a reporter. She worked on the
Sentinel.
She
wondered if Liz could spare a couple of minutes on the phone.