‘We’ll give him ten more minutes,’ I said. Kuang looked at me. I walked back down the quayside.
The yellow headlight turned off the main road a trifle too fast and there was a crunch as the edge of an offside wing touched one of the oil drums piled outside the Fina station. The lights kept coming, main beams. Kuang was illuminated as bright as a snowman and there was only a couple of foot of space between him and the wire fence around the sand heap. Kuang leapt across the path of the car. His coat flapped across the headlight, momentarily eclipsing its beam. There was a scream as the brakes slammed on and the engine stalled. Suddenly it was quiet. The sea splashed greedily against the jetty. Kuang was sucking his thumb as I got down from the oil drum. It was an ambulance that had so nearly run us down.
Out of the ambulance stepped Maria.
‘What’s going on?’ I said.
‘I’m Major Chan,’ said Maria.
‘You are?’ Kuang said. He obviously didn’t believe her.
‘You’re Major Chan, case officer for Kuang here?’ I said.
‘For the purposes that we are all interested in, I am,’ she said.
‘What sort of answer is that?’ I asked.
‘Whatever sort of answer it is,’ said Maria, ‘it’s going to have to do.’
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘He’s all yours.’
‘I won’t go with her,’ said Kuang. ‘She tried to run me down. You saw her.’
‘I know her well enough to know that she could have tried a lot harder,’ I said.
‘You didn’t show that sort of confidence a couple of minutes ago,’ said Maria. ‘Scrambling out of the way when you thought I was going to run you down.’
‘What’s confidence?’ I said. ‘Smiling as you fall off a cliff to prove that you’ve jumped?’
‘That’s what it is,’ said Maria and she leaned forward and gave me a tiny kiss, but I refused to be placated. ‘Where’s your contact?’
‘This is it,’ said Maria, playing for time. I grabbed her arm and clutched it tight. ‘Don’t play for time,’ I told her. ‘You said you’re the case officer. So take Kuang and start to run him.’ She looked at me blankly. I shook her.
‘They should be here,’ she said. ‘A boat.’ She pointed along the jetty. We stared into the darkness. A small boat moved into the pool of light cast by the loading freighter. It turned towards us.
‘They will want to load the boxes from the ambulance.’
‘Hold it,’ I told her. ‘Take your payment first.’
‘How did you know?’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘You bring Datt’s dossiers as far as this, using your ingenuity, your knowledge of police methods and routes, and if the worst comes to the worst you use your influence with your ex-husband. For what? In return Datt will give you your own dossier and film, etc. Am I right?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Then let them worry about loading.’ The motor boat was closer now. It was a high-speed launch; four men in pea-jackets stood in the stern. They stared towards us but didn’t wave or call. As the boat got to the stone steps, one man jumped ashore. He took the rope and made it fast to a jetty ring. ‘The boxes,’ I called to them. ‘Your papers are here.’
‘Load first,’ said the sailor who had jumped ashore.
‘Give me the boxes,’ I said. The sailors looked at me and at Kuang. One of the men in the boat made a motion with his hand and the others took two tin boxes, adorned with red seals, from the bottom of the boat and passed them to the first man, who carried them up the steps to us.
‘Help me with the boxes,’ said Maria to the Chinese sailor.
I still had hold of her arm. ‘Get back into the ambulance and lock the doors from inside,’ I said.
‘You said I should start …’
I pushed her roughly towards the driver’s door.
I didn’t take my eyes off Maria but on the periphery of my vision to the right I could see a man edging along the side of the ambulance towards me. He kept one hand flat against the side of the vehicle, dabbing at the large scarlet cross as if testing to see if the paint was wet. I let him come to within arm’s length and still without swivelling my head I flicked out my hands so that my fingertips lashed his face, causing him to blink and pull back. I leaned a few inches towards him while sweeping my hand back the way it had come, slapping him not very hard across the side of the cheek.
‘Give over,’ he shouted in English. ‘What the hell are you on?’
‘Get back in the ambulance,’ Maria called to him. ‘He’s harmless,’ she said. ‘A motor accident on the road. That’s how I got through the blocks so easily.’
‘You said Ostend hospital,’ said the boy.
‘Stay out of this, sonny,’ I said. ‘You are in danger even if you keep your mouth shut. Open it and you’re dead.’
‘I’m the case officer,’ she insisted.
‘You are what?’ I said. I smiled one of my reassuring smiles, but I see now that to Maria it must have seemed like mockery. ‘You are a child, Maria, you’ve no idea of what this is all about. Get into the ambulance,’ I told her. ‘Your ex-husband is waiting down the jetty. If you have this cart-load of documents with you when he arrests you things might go easier for you.’
‘Did you hear him?’ Maria said to the sailor and Kuang. ‘Take the documents, and take me with you – he’s betrayed us all to the police.’ Her voice was quiet but the note of hysteria was only one modulation away.
The sailor remained impassive and Kuang didn’t even look towards her.
‘Did you hear him?’ she said desperately. No one spoke. A rowboat was moving out around the far side of the Yacht Club. The flutter of dripping blades skidding upon the surface and the gasp of oars biting into the water was a lonely rhythm, like a woman’s sobs, each followed by the sharp intake of breath.
I said, ‘You don’t know what it’s all about. This man’s job is to bring Kuang back to their ship. He’s also instructed to take me. As well as that he’ll try to take the documents. But he doesn’t change plans because you shout news about Loiseau waiting to arrest you. In fact, that’s a good reason for leaving right away because their big command is to stay out of trouble. This business doesn’t work like that.’
I signalled Kuang to go down to the motor boat and the sailor steadied him on the slimy metal ladder. I punched Maria lightly on the arm. ‘I’ll knock you unconscious, Maria, if that’s the way you insist I do it.’ I smiled but I meant it.
‘I can’t face Loiseau. Not with that case I can’t face him.’ She opened the driver’s door and got into the seat. She would rather face Datt than Loiseau. She shivered. The boy said, ‘I feel I’m making a lot of trouble for you. I’m sorry.’
‘Just