The Sky Might Fall (Harry Vee, PI) Read online

  “I’ll tell my barman you said hello.”

  She headed for the door, “Just turn something up. And fast. Huang wants results.”

  “Fong, or Huang. It’s Fong’s daughter after all.”

  She looked him in the eye. “Eight tomorrow evening. A car will pick you up. I hope you’ll have something interesting to say by then.” She closed the door behind her, leaving Harry alone with his whisky and cigarillo.

  Usually, that was just the way he liked it.

  *

  Thirty minutes and a taxi ride later, Harry stood outside the school. It was dark and locked up, the heavy iron gates chained for the night, and most of the building hidden behind a high brick wall. The rain had let up and left the empty streets slick, reflecting the orange glow of the streetlights. He retraced the girl’s steps on the day she had disappeared. Her friends had gone left, towards the Fong house a mile away and slightly down the hill.

  Harry went the other way, past the now deserted taxi rank, past the dark and empty shops, all the way to the petrol station where she had met the biker, Andrew Buchanen. He stood on the corner where she had stood, and looked out into the night. The road was flat across the junction, but then sloped away down the hill, and he could see the skyscrapers lining the edge of the island, and through them a few boats still trawling the dark swathe of water, then the distant glow of Kowloon City.

  There were few cars at this time of night, and several times the lights turned red for nobody. The girl must have stood on this corner every week, waiting to meet her boyfriend. He wondered what she was thinking as she stood here the final time. Did she know where she was going? Had she planned everything, or was it all the boyfriend’s idea? Did they even have a plan?

  A taxi splashed through the water pooled on the corner as it turned in front of him, and brought him out of his daze. Well, he wouldn’t find any answers standing here all night.

  Another ten minutes walk through the empty streets and he was sitting in a fashionable bar on the west side of the island. His table was on the edge of the bar, open to the street, to get around the no smoking law. Classic rock played quietly on the ancient jukebox. He ordered a Singapore Sling because that was what he always drank here, but the girl serving was new and didn’t know him.

  Inside, the bar was dark, with just red and blue neon strips along the wall to show the empty corners. Not much business tonight. The only other customer was a young woman sat at a table opposite him. Their eyes caught for a moment, then she looked shyly down at the table. Did he know her? He tried to recognise the face, then realised he had been staring too long and too hard when her boyfriend came back from the bathroom. No, he didn’t know her.

  A single car, with bass booming through the tinted windows, splashed slowly up the street, past the empty kebab takeaway, and up round the corner. Two guys crashed out from the bar opposite, and staggered down the hill, supporting each other with an arm against the beer they had drank together.

  There was nothing happening here tonight, and to Harry it didn’t feel like home anymore. It was just another place he used to live. Ten minutes later he had finished his drink and, leaving some money on the table, he took a taxi back to the hotel.

  3

  The next morning, in the same cheap noodle bar, Harry met Steven Chang to give him the laptop. Chang was already sitting in a side booth sucking noodles from a bowl when Harry walked in and placed the laptop on the table against the wall.

  “Well gee, Harry,” started Chang, wiping the steam from his glasses, “It’s lucky that you’re my only client, isn’t it. It’s lucky that I have nothing else to fill my time with but running around doing favours for you. Why don’t you make me staff?”

  “You’d have to take a pay cut,” said Harry. He stood to leave. “See what you can pull off there. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Chang said, “Oi, where are you going?”

  “I’ve got some calls to make,” Harry called over his shoulder. He walked out again into the grey Kowloon morning. With the rush hour over, few people were about. These streets full of restaurants and bars wouldn’t be busy until lunchtime.

  He crossed the street behind a car, passed restaurant windows hung with chickens and ducks, refused an offer for a tailor-made suit as he turned a corner, and headed for Nathan Road, lined with big name brand stores.

  As he walked across the street he checked his reflection in the plate glass windows, and was unsurprised to spot a Chinese man walking twenty yards behind him. The same man, in casual chinos, a shirt and light jacket, had been hanging around on the corner outside the noodle bar.

  Harry turned up the steps to Kowloon Park, taking his time, and strolled across the park, taking a detour around the morning tai-chi enthusiasts, to the large, netted aviary. The crowd of parrots, cockatiels, and a dozen other exotic birds that Harry didn’t care about were noisy at this time, the squeals and chirps masking the nearby traffic. Harry stopped to look in at the birds, and saw his follower, also stopped, now about thirty feet away.

  Harry walked the long way around the aviary, crossed the wide ornamental lake filled with lily pads and carp, and the Chinese man walked quickly south side of the water. Harry walked up some more steps to the brick pathway at the top, and stopped at the public payphones. He dug a pile of coins from his pocket and put several in the slot, leaving more on top of the phone. His follower walked past the steps and sat at a bench a short way away, pulling a morning paper out of his pocket.

  Checking his mobile for the number, Harry dialled and waited while the phone at the other end rang. A woman’s voice answered in a foreign language.

  “Jim James, please,” said Harry, and waited, putting more coins in the slot. His tail was still sat on the bench, clearly checking Harry every few seconds from the corner of his eye. A voice came on the other end of the line.

  “Yes?”

  “Jim. It’s Harry.”

  Jim James said, in his heavy Midwest accent, “Well, hey Harry, how you doing? Where the devil are you?”

  “Back in Hong Kong. How’s life on the beach?” said Harry.

  “Quiet. Very quiet. I love it. But you were never one for social calls.”

  “Does the name Jessica Lee mean anything to you?” asked Harry.

  “Not right now it doesn’t, but if you give me a day I’m sure I can look her up. What’s this to do with?”

  “She’s working for a Kenny Fong, but she doesn’t exactly fit in to the picture. I have a feeling she’s connected somewhere else.”

  “Jessica Lee. Okay. Say, when are you gonna visit like you always promise?” said James.

  “When I get out of here. Listen, got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow,” said Harry, hanging up. He checked his tail was still there, then headed down the steps away from him, back onto Nathan Road, and headed for a taxi rank. Climbing into the first taxi, he told the driver to start and turn left.

  In the mirror he could see his follower getting into the next taxi. As soon as they had turned the corner and were out of sight, he told the driver to stop, gave him a bank note and climbed out again, just in time to see the wide-eyed face of his tail staring at him as he passed in the second taxi. Harry turned and strode back towards his hotel.

  *

  Harry was sleeping fully clothed on his bed when Steven Chang rang back to say he had found something. Harry told him to come over. Half an hour later, Chang arrived with two laptops in the case over his shoulder. He slid them out on to the desk.

  “Okay, Chang, tell me you found something interesting. What’s on the computer?” said Harry.

  “What’s on here,” said Chang, patting Buchanen’s laptop, “is far more Iron Maiden than is healthy for anyone.”

  “Okay, and?”

  “And some really terrible European techno. Oh, and some very bad porn, and when I say bad, I’m not just talking about the quality.”

  “That’s really useful. You’re a big help.”

  “But that’s not all,
Harry. There are some pretty interesting documents on here. He was pretty careful about deleting stuff, but not careful enough to outwit me. It looks like Andrew had his own little website. A conspiracy site.”

  “What conspiracy?” asked Harry.

  “Moon landings. They were faked, you know. All done on a Hollywood set, and Andrew’s site has photographs and quotes to prove it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like photographs with wrong shadows, strange reflections, dust not doing what it should do in low gravity. That sort of thing.” Andrew pulled up the site for Harry. It was full of flashing ads for ‘The Truth about 9/11’, and big promises in large red letters: ‘WLearn how & why your government is lying to you!’

  “Not exactly going to set the world on fire with this, are we?” said Harry. “There are a thousand websites like this, and still nobody gives a shit.”

  Chang adjusted his glasses. “This is true, my friend. It’s one more paranoid little corner of the web. But looking on the comments board, I found Andrew has a few friends. I looked some of them up, and they’re pretty respected in the conspiracy world. Seems they have their own little group, looking for UFO’s in China.”

  “A website?”

  “Just a message board. There were seven of them. And four of them are here in Hong Kong.”

  Harry thought about this. “So, Mr Buchanen is in a gang. I wonder if he’s Freddy or Scooby. What does it say on the board?”

  “Not many details. They were cautious, but they definitely believe they’re on to something big. Since about eighteen months ago.”

  “Big like what?”

  “Like I said, they ain’t saying in public. But as I’m so amazingly smart, I should be able to trace where they’re posting from.”

  “Can you get me an address?”

  “Give me half an hour and a computer and I can do anything.”

  Chang got to work on his own computer while Harry looked through the message board on Andrew’s laptop. It was meant to be private, invitation only, but Chang had got in pretty quick. The group had definitely thought they were onto something major league, but had been careful about not putting details on the net. “If they really were onto something big, it wouldn’t take anyone long to hack in to this, would it? And then to track them down?”

  “They were pretty cautious, paranoid, even,” said Chang, “They used a mirror site, and proxies to log on. But, no, it wouldn’t take anyone long if they’re half as good as me.”

  “Okay, so who’s as smart as you?”

  “The Chinese government employs all the best hackers in the country. If they know about the site, it’ll take them about as long as it’ll take me, and I’m halfway to the first address. But that’s only if they know about it and actually give a shit.”

  Harry sat back, thoughtful, and pulled a cigarillo from his box. Someone had cared enough to break in to Buchanen’s apartment and take something. And Buchanen was still missing. Somebody must care about that.

  *

  The sky was still grey and lifeless when Harry approached the first address, and it was already starting to get dark. The IP address that Chang had tracked down was shared by an entire apartment block, but a quick search of the local area records office had found another American living on the sixteenth floor, so Harry decided to try him.

  The corridor had a long open space instead of a window, and Harry felt the wind bringing the first few drops of rain. The sky was getting darker, and lights were coming on in most of the apartments opposite. Harry saw a light through the window of his target flat. He tried the door, and found it unlocked: paranoid, but not quite paranoid enough. He opened the door a crack, and saw a long straight kitchen with two doors off to the left.

  The light was from the kitchen. About six yards down it opened into a larger dimly lit room, and he saw the flicker of a TV. Harry slipped through the door and silently closed it behind him. He crept down the kitchen, checking the open door, which opened into a tiny square room filled with drying clothes and boxes. The second door was clearly a bathroom, and the light was off.

  Pulling the gun from his pocket he swung into the larger room at the end. Opposite the TV was a bed, with a standing lamp in the far corner. Sprawled across the bed, mouth open in surprise, was a tall, thin, young man in jeans and a t-shirt. The TV showed CNN. A computer desk and two overloaded bookcases filled the rest of the room.

  “Hello,” said Harry. “Denmead? Jason Denmead?” The man on the bed nodded. Harry indicated the TV with his gun. “Turn that off. We need to talk.”

  Jason Denmead got up off the bed, and slowly, without taking his eyes off Harry, pressed the power button on the TV. Harry nodded back at the bed and Jason sat down again. All the blood had drained out of his face. Above his head was the classic UFO poster: ‘I want to believe’. Harry decided he was terrified enough, and put the gun back in his pocket.

  He pulled over the swivel chair from the computer desk and sat down, making sure he remained at a higher level than Denmead.

  Jason finally found a voice. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I am a very good friend of yours, Jason, a very good friend. I am going to save you a lot of trouble.” Jason looked confused. Harry went on, “You see, Jason, if I can find you, then so can anyone else, and most of them won’t be as nice as I am.” Harry didn’t like to mention Andrew Buchanen or his apartment. He guessed Denmead didn’t even know. The front door had been unlocked, after all, but the kid was clearly scared out of his wits now.

  “What do you want?” he managed to say.

  “I think you know, don’t you Jason. We have a mutual friend. Anita Fong.” Harry was relieved when he saw Denmead react to the name. Until then he couldn’t even be sure he had the right apartment. But Denmead had just confessed without even realising it.

  “That’s what I thought, Jason. Now, where is she?” Jason didn’t move. Harry slipped his hand inside his pocket and started fingering the gun.

  “My patience isn’t unlimited, Jason. Where are you keeping the girl?”

  The panic was rising in Jason, “I don’t know. I swear I don’t. Someone else’s apartment. I swear I don’t know where.”

  Harry believed him. The boy was clearly terrified. “Okay, Jason. Get up. We’re going somewhere.”

  Jason didn’t move. “Where are you taking me?”

  “If I was going to kill you, I’d do it right here, wouldn’t I? Come on, let’s move.” They stood up, Harry keeping his hand on the gun in his pocket. He didn’t think he’d need it, but he wanted to keep Denmead on a leash. Harry decided to take him to Chang, show him the website, show him that they already knew everything, and get as much information about the group out of him as possible. Besides, he didn’t want him warning the others in case they moved the girl.

  As they rode down in the lift, Harry said, “Remember, I’ve got my hand on the gun at all times.” Jason nodded silently. As they left the apartment building, into the car park, the rain was falling heavily. Harry nodded towards the nearest main street. “That way. We’re going to get in a taxi, and go see a friend of mine.” Jason nodded again. His face was still ashen.

  Turning to check behind them, Harry saw a man holding an umbrella, talking into a phone. It looked like the same man who had tailed him through the park. Harry picked up the pace. “Come on, move it.”

  They crossed the apartment car park, past another apartment building the same as Denmead’s, and turned on to the main road. The cars splashed through the rain, but there were no taxis in sight. “Keep walking, fast,” said Harry. He checked behind, but there was no sign of the man who had followed him. Then a taxi light came into view and soon they were sat inside, with Harry talking to Steven Chang on his phone.

  The taxi pulled up opposite Harry’s hotel. Harry paid and got out of the car. He felt an arm come round his neck, and suddenly he was caught in a choke-hold. Two other men pulled Denmead from the taxi. Harry spun round, and pushed back with his legs to slam
his assailant into the wall of the hotel. That loosened the grip a little, and he managed to twist, get a grip on the arm around his neck and throw the man over his shoulder.

  The taxi disapeared at speed, while Denmead was struggling and shouting, until one of his attackers punched him hard across the jaw. Harry rugby tackled that one, slamming him into a parked car, then turned around to face the other. He pulled the gun from his pocket, but didn’t have enough space to aim as the guy grabbed him around the chest, but Harry managed to smack him across the head with the pistol grip. He saw Denmead get up off the floor and start sprinting. The first man who had attacked Harry shouted, getting to his feet, and started to give chase.

  Meanwhile, Harry felt something heavy crash into the back of his head. Stunned, another punch across the face put him into the gutter, and the man he had rugby tackled aimed a boot into his ribs. Yelling to each other in Chinese, the remaining two assailants got into the parked car and drove off after Denmead and his chaser.

  Harry slowly rose to his feet, with sharp pains shooting across his chest, and started to give chase. Denmead had headed left, down a narrow side street, but the car had gone straight on, to try and head him off. He turned the corner to see the chasing man disappear down an alleyway to the right. Harry felt his head spinning from the blow earlier. He was gasping for breath. He turned into the back street to see the assailant stood at the far end, looking around him. Denmead had gotten away.

  Harry charged up behind the man just as the car carrying his accomplices turned the corner at speed. The man half turned, but had no chance of defending himself as Harry dropped a shoulder into his ribs, sending him flying into the road and onto the radiator grill of the car with the slap of wet meat, and then the body was rolling under the car as it skidded to a halt.

  Harry turned and disappeared back into the alley. He checked over his shoulder but they didn’t follow him. They knew where he was going, anyway. He headed back to the hotel, still clutching his wounded ribs.