Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 40

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am most grateful to you, Your Excellency.  May I send one of my senior inspectors to call upon you?  The inspector was a burly Shana in plain clothes.  He was accompanied by a sergeant in the smart uniform of the Zimbabwean police, and both of them were elaborately obsequious.

With profuse apologies the inspector took Cheng through a recital of his visit to Chiwewe, including his departure with the convoy of refrigerator trucks.  Cheng had rehearsed all this and he went through it faultlessly.  He was careful to mention his meeting with Daniel Armstrong.

When he had finished, the inspector fidgeted uncomfortably before asking, Doctor Armstrong has also made a statement, Your Excellency.

His.

account confirms everything you have told me, except that he mentioned that he noticed there were bloodstains on your clothing.

When was that?

Cheng looked puzzled.

When he encountered you and the Parks trucks, as he was returning to Chiwewe, after having seen the tracks of the raiders on the road.

Cheng's expression cleared.  All yes.  I had been an interested spectator of the Parks elephant culling.  As you can imagine, there was much blood about during the operation, I could easily have stepped in a puddle.  The inspector was sweating with embarrassment at this stage.

Do you remember what you were wearing that evening, Your Excellency?

Cheng frowned as he tried to remember.  I was wearing an open-neck shirt, blue cotton slacks, and probably a pair of comfortable running shoes.  That is my usual casual attire.  Do you still have those items?

Yes, of course.

The shirt and slacks will have been laundered by now, and the shoes will have been cleaned.  My valet is very efficient.  . . He broke off and smiled as though a thought had only just occurred to him.

Inspector, do you want to see these items?  You might even wish to take them away for examination.  Now the police inspector's embarrassment was painful.  He squirmed in his chair.  We have no right to ask for that kind of cooperation, Your Excellency.  However, in view of the statement made by Doctor Armstrong.  If you had no objection. Of course not.

Cheng smiled reassuringly.  As I told the commissioner of police, I want to cooperate in every possible way.  He glanced at his wristwatch.

However, I am due at lunch with the president at State House in an hour.

Do you mind if I send the clothing down to your headquarters with a member of my staff?  Both police officers sprang to their feet.  I am very sorry to have inconvenienced you, Your Excellency.  We appreciate your help.  I am sure the commissioner of police will be writing to you to tell you that himself.  Without rising from his desk, Cheng stopped the inspector at the door.  There was a report in the Herald that the raiders had been apprehended, he asked.  Is that correct?  Were you able to recover the stolen ivory?  The bandits were intercepted at the Zambezi as they tried to cross back into Zambia.  Unfortunately all of them were either killed or escaped, and the ivory was destroyed by fire or lost in the river.  What a pity.  . . Cheng sighed.  They should have been made to answer for these brutal killings.  However, it has simplified your work, has it not?  We are closing the file, the inspector agreed.  Now that you have helped us tidy up the loose ends, the commissioner will write to convey his appreciation and that will be the end of the matter The packet of clothing that Cheng selected from his wardrobe and sent to police headquarters, although agreeing with the description he had given the inspector, had never been worn anywhere near Chiwewe or the Zambezi valley.  Cheng sighed now as he thought about it.

He replaced the ivory netsuke on his desk and stared at it morosely.

But it was not the end of the matter, not now that Doctor Daniel Armstrong was nosing around, making trouble.

Could he rely on Chetti Singh once again, he wondered& It was one thing to get rid of two lowly Parks rangers, but Armstrong was game of a larger kind.  He had international reputation and fame, there would be questions if he disappeared.

He touched the intercom button and spoke into the microphone on his desk in Cantonese.  Lee, come in here please.  He could have asked his question without ordering his secretary through, but he liked to look at her.  Although she was of peasant stock from the hills, she was bright and nubile.  She had done well at Taiwan University, but Cheng had not chosen her for her academic achievements.

She stood to the side of his desk, close enough for him to touch if he had wished to, in an attitude of servility and submission.  Despite her modern accomplishments, she was a traditionally raised girl with the correct attitude to men, and in particular to her master.  Have you confirmed the reservations with Qantas Airlines?  he asked.  With Armstrong sniffing around in Lilongwe, it was as well that the return to Taipei was imminent.  He would never have taken the risk of the Chiwewe adventure if he had planned to stay on at the embassy.  Already his wife and family had left.

He would follow at the end of the month, only eight days from now.

Yes, the reservations have been confirmed, Your Excellency, Lee whispered respectfully.  To him her voice was as sweet as that of the nightingale in his father's lotus garden in the mountains.  It stirred him.  When are the packers coming in?  he asked, and touched her.  She trembled slightly under his hand and that stirred him further.  They will come in first thing on Monday, my lord.  She used the traditional title of respect.

Her straight black hair hung to her shoulders and shimmered with light.

Cheng ran his fingers lightly up the thigh slit of her cheongsam; her skin was as smooth as the ivory netsuke.  You have warned them of the value and fragility of my art collection?  he asked, and pinched her beneath the skirt.  He took a nip of that ivory skin between the nails of his thumb and second finger and she winced and bit her lower lip.

Yes, my lord, she whispered, with a catch of pain in her voice.  He pinched a little harder.  It would leave a tiny purple star on the flawless swell of her small firm buttock, a mark that would still be there when she came to him tonight.

The power of pain made him feel elated.  He forgot about Doctor Daniel Armstrong and any trouble he might be brewing.

For now, the police were off the track, and Lee Wang was lovely and compliant.  He had eight days while he was separated from his wife in which to enjoy her to the full.  Then he would return home, to his father's approbation.

Dan unlocked the rear door of the Landcruiser and packed the groceries and supplies that he had purchased from Chetti Singh's supermarket into his depleted tucker box.  Then he went round to the cab and sat at the wheel.  While he let the engine warm, he checked his notebook for the list of the Sikh's other business premises.

With help from a few obliging pedestrians he found his way into the light industrial area of the town, down near the railway line and the station.

Here it seemed that Chetti Singh owned four or five acres of industrial sites.  Some of these were undeveloped and overgrown with rank bush and weed.  On one of the vacant lots a large signboard declared: ANOTHER CHETTI SINGH PROJECT SITE OF PROPOSED COTTON CARDING FACTORY Development!  Employment!  Prosperity!  Uplift mend -MALAW FOR I!

On one side of the open plot, behind a barbed-wire security fence, stood the workshops of Chetti Singh's Toyota agency.

At least a hundred new Toyota vehicles were parked in the front lot.

They were still coated with the filth of the long rail journey up from the coast on open goods trucks.  Clearly they were awaiting delivery service in the main workshop building.

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