The Scroll of Benevolence The climactic showdown for the future of Hong Kong by John Trenhaile

Author:John Trenhaile
Format: epub

CHAPTER 18

The room was poorly lit by a white, wall-mounted globe encased in a mesh cage, but there was enough light to make Simon Young glad that it wasn’t any stronger.

‘What have they done to you, Qianwei?’ he whispered.

Qiu slumped low on the other side of the table, neck resting on the chairback. His eyes gazed up at the ceiling. They were empty. He showed no sign of having heard.

Simon sat down and glanced around the bare cell. Concrete walls stained by damp, puddles of water, streaks of faded whitewash, a row of metal clothes-hooks nailed to a board along one side… it was cold and musty in here, but then the basement was almost on the waterline.

Something about this place unnerved him. Simon could not identify the source of his fear. Was it the hooks, so innocuous-looking? Or the off-white streaks on the walls? Things had happened here he would rather not know about.

His eyes strayed to the man opposite. Qiu had not moved. He was alive and not alive. A zombie.

‘Can you hear me?’ Simon said. He wiped a hand across his brow and tried to concentrate. It was difficult to do that at three o’clock in the morning, just after receiving confirmation that China’s leader was within hours of death. Soon the stock exchange would open, and then Hong Kong would plunge into a vortex the length and depth of which no one could forecast.

‘Qianwei,’ he said aloud. ‘Can you… can you try to listen to what I’m going to say?’

For a moment Simon wondered if Qiu’s mind had gone. He looked like a derelict: no jacket or tie, torn shirt, one shoe on, the other missing, dirty face, that angry yellow-and-purple ring around his neck… could anyone look like that and still be wholly human?

‘Qianwei, Peter Reade asked me here. You’re being held in Eucliffe, just by Repulse Bay.’

No response.

‘You must listen to me. The Chairman’s about to die. I need your help.’

For a moment nothing happened. Then, very slowly, Qiu raised his chin, as if some invisible puppet-master were tenderly hauling on the string. Simon fixed his gaze on the eyes opposite, willing them to focus.

‘Reade’s told me many things tonight. He says he’s had you watched ever since you came to Hong Kong to live. He was convinced you’d keep up contacts with the Mainland. For a long time he couldn’t prove it. Then he found a pair of shoes on the beach, the night of… that night. He traced the shoes back to the shop. They’d been paid for by credit card.’ Simon paused. ‘Your credit card.’

Qiu’s head did not move, but there was a subtle change in him. Before, his eyes had merely been on the same level as Simon’s. Now they were looking. They were registering another presence in the cell.

‘I’ve seen the file, Qianwei. It explains a lot of things we didn’t understand before. For instance, it was you who planted the microphone in Diana’s jacket at Jinny’s funeral. And there’s other things.

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