Blue Lantern (4 page)

Helen's church was close to the Mongkok station, and she mentioned that she had met a young police inspector there, Paul Sherwin. Brodie knew from Sherwin that he occasionally conducted the choir there.

“Paul Sherwin is a friend of mine.”

“I like him. I don't really know him. I see him occasionally at practice. He isn't always there. He's very clever musically. And I feel he has some light of goodness about him. I'm very glad to hear he's your friend.”

It was trifling, needling, but he was curious whether Helen saw any ‘light of goodness' in him.

3

“Tell me, why do fair men have dark pubic hair?”

Andrew Marsden's groomed figure filled the doorway. Brodie gasped, rubbed his eyes, and leaned over the edge of the bed, scooping up the sheet which had fallen on the floor; he dropped it across his body.

“This is a rule?”

“Supported by extensive personal research. How about a swim?”

The joviality of Marsden's expression diminished the sinister possibilities of his dark-eyed face, with its blue shaven cheeks.

“Sure. Castle Peak? …I feel like a nocturnal bug.”

“Had a bad time? The scar on your chest looks like a new acquisition.”

“Drunk pulled a knife.”

Marsden nodded, understanding. “We all get in some nasty spots.”

“A man's a fool to go on risking his life night after night. Every time you patrol you could get a knife in your guts. And for what?”

“There are other compensations, Mike. You won't be on the streets forever,” Marsden countered mildly.

“What compensations?” Brodie asked dismissively.

Marsden held his arms out, and opened his palms as though it was obvious. “A comfortable life in an exciting city, privileges, authority…”

“Come on, Andy. Be specific. Being cut up with a knife is not comfortable. And what do you mean, authority? King of Nathan Road? Is that title worth risking a goon coming at you with a chopper?” Brodie said scornfully.

“Wait until you've served your apprenticeship, Mike. You've seen my lifestyle.”

As usual, Marsden was vague, and it was irritating. “Keeping order may be useful if you're some kind of muscle-man, but I'm looking for a job with professional expertise, and a career.”

“Hell, man, that's what this is! You need a damn lot of professionalism to be a cop in Hong Kong. Mike, don't let one small aspect of the work get you down. Keep your hand on your gun. Draw the line of jeopardy, as it were, a long way from your person.”

Brodie was inclined to listen carefully to Andy Marsden, his senior by a few years, and one of the ablest men of his seniority in the CID, and the Force. Marsden was widely eschewed because he held the camaraderie of the bar and mess-room in contempt. He was a solitary type who generated a single-minded determination in his activities. Everywhere a relative newcomer like Brodie went amongst the police, Andy Marsden was mentioned with bafflement and envy; his high marks in the School courses, his sporting ability, his fluent Cantonese, and his prowess as a prosecutor. Wherever there was competition, Marsden distinguished himself.

Brodie couldn't see why a man of such ability, who might have had a fine career in his own country, Australia, should not only settle in Hong Kong but relish it so much. He was sure that if he had Marsden's abilities he would have stayed in Scotland and prospered.

Marsden's pursuit of perfection was reflected in his attitude to his body. He stood before Brodie's bed, an intensely physical presence in his beach shorts and floral shirt. He had a broad chest and a flat belly. The thickened middle which Hong Kong life brought to men over thirty was well in check. Marsden's thinning ebony hair was always carefully shampooed, and dye had eliminated the few gray hairs at his temples. His face was softened with lotion; and he maintained an even, but not heavy tan. He like to immerse himself in the pleasures of the senses – a massage, or a long session at the barber's getting a haircut, shave, a manicure and a facial, heeding nothing but the delicious sensations. Brodie couldn't settle in the barber's chair without tomorrow's duty list spoiling his rest.

“Would you shoot a British soldier?” Brodie asked, thinking how very close to this he had been, and of that urge under stress which was almost orgasmic, to squeeze the trigger.

“With a few ales inside, the squaddies are the worst. Sure, I would shoot if my life was threatened. You can't be touched for it, you know…. Enough. Car's in the yard. See you in five!”

Marsden banged out of the door and Brodie heard him opening other doors in the corridor, shouting at acquaintances. The pleasure of associating with Andy Marsden was that of being with a person who was enthusiastic about his lot, a person who enjoyed life. Brodie hoped that some of Marsden's enjoyment would rub off on to him. And there was a flattering aspect to the friendship, to be noticed by a distinguished if unpopular senior.

Brodie went to the window. He raised the blind, and rubbed a finger along the black dust on the ledge. He pushed the frame open, and looked down four floors. The sun wasn't yet high enough yet to reach into the concrete maze below. In the morning damp shapes in the streets merged; cold neon signs, faded posters, drooped awnings, yesterday's scattered and soggy newspapers, torn wrappers and empty plastic bottles. Colour seemed to be absorbed from the scene by an orange-tinged mist. His room was filled with traffic noise; the inexhaustible human vigour in the diesel fumes.

The lives down there had only a trivial point of intersection with his own. He was not likely to meet one person, if he stopped fifty, who spoke his language; they would push past him, as though this extraordinary creature, a foot taller, with pale skin and hair that curled, was invisible. Brodie fingered the bristles on his chin and decided not to shave. He showered quickly and cleaned his teeth. He felt guilty going to the beach when he could have been studying for police exams. Above all, he would have liked to spend the day with Helen Lau, and he was convinced this would happen. The talks on the telephone were preliminaries; their voices were embracing in the ether.

“Come on man!” Marsden shouted, hammering on the door.

Brodie pulled on a t-shirt and swimming trunks, and slipped into open-toed sandals. He picked up his wallet, and ran downstairs, trailing a towel. On the way out of the station, the desk sergeant stopped him, and gave him an envelope. It was addressed in the familiar flowing hand. On the note inside, the words in each line were joined, held together by a fine thread, the letters formed with the precision of a brush-writer of Chinese script. The small piece of paper was printed on one side as a drugs requisition form. He turned it over.
Hullo Inspector, I have this piece of paper to hand and I'm thinking of you. Right now I've just finished a bowl of noodles in the cafeteria, and I have to read the case notes for three ops. I'll be giving the anaesthetic. Helen.

Helen's notes, although they contained nothing romantic or suggestive, brought a rush of excitement. He put the note away carefully out of the sight of Marsden before getting into the car.

Marsden drove his MG fast, with the hood folded back, pushing through the smog to the end of the city, and then out along Tuen Mun Highway to Castle Peak. The wind noise prevented conversation and Brodie lolled back as the hills moved past them in cloaks of blue haze.

Marsden parked the car off the road, and they climbed down a steep bank and walked through a grove of eucalyptus trees. The drowsy air had a sweetness of midsummer flowers, and a hint of dead fish. They came out of the trees on a beach, a sickle of cream sand. The brightly painted bathing huts were deserted; it was a weekday. Brodie looked back up the hill at the explosions of red and purple amongst the bushes; hibiscus and bouganvillea. He went to the water's edge, kicked off his sandals and felt the warm water. A hundred yards out, a diving platform turned invitingly on the tide.

The two men dropped their towels and shirts on the sand; they slid into the sea and swam out, diving and cavorting, breaking the surface to blow off like porpoises. Brodie plunged down to the carpet of sand below; he looked up from the sea-bed to the yellow-green bars of sunlight on the surface. Then he surfaced, and flopped on the raft, shielding his eyes from the knives of light on the water. He looked down into the depths below through a crack in the wooden planking. A few patches of weed on the bottom swayed rhythmically. His salted eyes were slow to pick out a shape, wavering, expanding.

“He sprang up. “Andy! Jellyfish!”

But Marsden had disappeared in another dive. Brodie could see his white form spearing along ten feet under, through the long, almost invisible tendrils which trailed behind the creature. Marsden broke the surface like a whale, roaring as he struggled on to the raft's ladder.

“Look at my back, will you?” he moaned as he hoisted himself aboard.

His shoulders were covered by a tracery of swelling red lines.

“Caught in the rigging of a sunken Portugese Man O' War.”

“It isn't funny, Brodie!”

Brodie ran a forefinger over the lacerations. “Nasty, but you'll live.”

“I'm going ashore.”

Marsden made sure the water was clear, dived in, and swam to shore. A few minutes later, Brodie followed, his skin tingling in apprehension of the jellyfish. The pair lay on the sand together, chatting idly, dozing, smoking. From under the towel shading his head and shoulders, Brodie was aware of the beach coming to life; an amah with two children; two elderly European women paddling with their dresses tucked up to reveal greenish white thighs; boys kicking a plastic football, yelling.

“I'd like to climb the hill,” he said.

“What do you want to go up there for in this heat?” Marsden looked at him disapprovingly; he liked constant company.

“It's a great view.”

“Go on then, clear out!”

As Brodie climbed, the bushes became more stunted, and the grass was combed by the wind. When he looked more closely, he could see that the tussock shielded small flowers like meadowsweet, ragged robin and harebell. The salt air was sharper. The bastion of the bay, his objective, was a rocky crag rising above every height in the near locality. The islands, which were smudges on the water from the beach, were becoming small territories as he climbed, each with their own cliffs and beaches.

Brodie joined a tribe of weathered stones at the summit, and sat amongst them in the hot breeze, thinking of Helen Lau and when he would meet her. He watched the junks crawling on the wrinkled sea. Andy Marsden, hundreds of feet below, was like a bleached bone on the sand.

“Look what's arrived since you left,” Marsden said, as Brodie stretched out beside him.

Three Chinese girls were sunbathing nearby, lying on their bellies, facing away, their trim bottoms in bright coloured bikinis, and their long black manes tossing together as they talked.

“I recognise one of them,” Marsden said, energised, propping himself up.

“I wish they'd turn their radio down.”

“What's wrong with the Beatles?”

It was the song,
Yesterday
, which made Brodie feel isolated. He couldn't explain it to Marsden.

“Let's go to the café. I'm hungry,” Brodie said, cutting off a tacit invitation to discuss the girls, theorise about them, perhaps even to plan to meet them.

They crossed the beach, went up the steps to the terrace of the café, and took a table overlooking the bay. The light reflecting off the sea was blinding. A ragged umbrella cast a pool of shadow over them. They ordered beer, and a dish of prawns and peppers in hoi sin sauce, with fried thread noodles. The waiter soon brought two bowls and their dish. They ate silently and hungrily, washing the meal down with beer. The food made Brodie sleepy. He smoked, and watched the fat baby of the proprietor play marbles on the tiled floor. The child, about three, was swaddled in a quilted jacket; narrow haughty eyes made him look like a Tartar prince.

Marsden got up and walked restlessly on the terrace. “Here they are,” he said, taking no care to hide his interest in the three approaching girls.

Brodie glanced, but no more. The girls sat down nearby, their childishly smooth bodies sliding gracefully into the chairs; they ordered drinks and ice-cream sundaes, and jigged their feet in time to the music from the radio which they carried.

“I know one of them. She comes out here on her morning off. I'm going to talk to them,” Marsden said.

Brodie watched his progress. The girls initially faced Marsden with masked expressions, but when he had spoken for a moment, they smiled, and an animated conversation started in Cantonese.

“Hey, Mike, come over!”

Brodie was fixed by three pairs of shy, inviting eyes. He strolled to their table, and looked down on the glossy heads of Wendy, May and Vanessa as Marsden introduced them.

“I've known Vanessa for some time. She works at the Lotus.”

Then it appeared that all the girls worked at the Lotus, a fashionable bar-restaurant. Marsden seemed to be trying to establish for Brodie that these were not mere bar-girls, and sent eye signals of approval which the girls were not meant to see. The two men brought their beer, and joined the girls. Marsden, sitting between Wendy and May, wove a web of rapture in fast Cantonese.
You've got to soften women up,
was one of his most frequent dicta to Brodie.
And nothing softens like flattery. Their vanities are enormous.
This was his view applied to the female sex irrespective of race.

Marsden must have appeared to the girls as vastly privileged. Brodie thought a European woman would identify Marsden as an ageing trifler; charming, interesting, hard to catch. But Marsden's encounters with young Chinese girls, which were reputedly numerous and brief, held out for them the possibility of a film star romance.

When Marsden mentioned his injured back, the girls fetched sun cream from their beach-bag, and applied it unself-consciously with tiny hands; their fingers slid over the fuzz of blue-black hair on his skin, and they giggled. Marsden was in a coma of pleasure.