FEARLESS FINN'S MURDEROUS ADVENTURE (29 page)

HONG KONG

I have a
devious, double-crossing, limp-wristed stockbroker for Mac to kill. I couldn’t care less how Mac gets rid of the little bastard, as long as he gets away with it. With any luck, we’ll be able to make it look like a homophobic murder – that’s what I’m hoping for. I’ll be guided by Mac on the exact method to dispatch the target, but I already have a location in mind.

I’m remembering days spent with Mac lying up to our chins in freezing cold streams or dirty ditches, watching UFF volunteers stashing boxes of British Army-issued SLR rifles in their safe houses. Times like that I had a hell of a job persuading Mac not to sneak out of his hidey hole and break the lads’ necks with a few of his killer rabbit punches.

Mac is the most dangerous man I have ever met…and I’ve known, and fought alongside, many dangerous men. Once Mac is persuaded that someone must die, die they will. He’s an astute, resourceful, ruthless executioner.

———

Like most Roman Catholics, Mac’s family were ordinary, third-class British citizens. Their own house was burnt out by the RUC in Derry, and they moved into a council cottage in Kilkeel, County Down, Northern Ireland. They were just going about their daily lives in their new home when they were senselessly targeted for slaughter.

A gang of bored Unionist youths armed with their fathers’ revolvers drove around Kilkeel seeking out victims. The savages murdered Mac’s twelve year old twin brothers who were playing cowboys and Indians with pretend guns in the front garden. Then they gang raped and bludgeoned Mac’s fourteen year old sister to death. She was still wearing the costume she wore to an Irish dancing competition across the border in the Irish Republic earlier that day. The barbarians then tormented and killed Mac’s mother after she struggled home from the shop with a five stone bag of potatoes balanced on the crossbar of her dead husband’s bicycle.

The murderous wretches who killed Mac’s entire family were sons of serving members of the Ulster Special Constabulary, known to the Nationalists as the B-Specials. The police arrested no one for the killings, but four youths from Warrenpoint suddenly left to visit relations in Scotland and Canada.

Mac was ordered by the Army Council not to overreact to the loss of his family; they might just as well have told the wind not to blow. Mac tracked down all the killers and shot each one in the identical spot between his nose and mouth. He was deliberately leaving his calling card, but not surprisingly, no one returned his call.

The brutal murders of an entire Catholic family hardly warranted a mention in the North’s Unionist-controlled media, unlike the subsequent executions of Warrenpoint youths in Glasgow, Perth and Montreal. Those killings featured extensively on the Ulster Television News, and the Northern editions of the English tabloids were anxious for every grizzly detail. Except, of course, there was no connection made with the earlier Kilkeel butchery of Mac’s family, or any explanation offered for the boys’ executions.

What shocked me at the time was the way Mac set about his revenge. There was no sign of the crazy Mac getting up to his usual stunts. He was calculating, efficient and unemotional…ice-cold and terrifying.

———

Susie’s meeting the Canadian Consul in One Exchange Square, and I need a Two Exchange Square Health Club membership card, so I suggested we meet in Plume’s for lunch. I thought I might get her to distract some lucky club member whose card I’ll steal.

I arrived in Plume’s before Susie, but it turns out I won’t need her to distract anyone. The pimply faced money broker I’ve set my sights on is playing liar’s dice with three other Essex gobshites. He’s helpfully hung his jacket over the empty chair next to him, which happens to be directly behind the chair I asked to be seated in.

Without even getting up from my seat, I knocked his chalk-striped, vermilion-silk-lined jacket off the back of the chair, lifted his wallet and removed the membership card. On the pretence of retrieving and re-hanging the jacket, I was able to slip his wallet back into the inside pocket. And then the gobshite offered me a glass of Champagne. “Do join us for a glass of shampoo, fellow,” he said, holding up his ridiculous jeroboam.

I signalled not necessary and turned away from him just as Mrs. Natasha Harrington-Browne slipped into the seat across from me.

“Susie’s lunching with clients upstairs in the American Club; their lunch is running late. She asked me to have lunch with you, so you won’t be lonely Finn Flynn. Though, I must say, you’ve never struck me as someone who minds being alone. And you seem able to find company when you need to,” announced Natasha.

Who could ever accuse the Dutch of being blunt
? I thought.

Natasha leaves no one in any doubt that she’s the restaurant owner’s wife. She summoned the manager to our table, but in the nicest way possible, of course.

While half-listening to Natasha talk excitedly about her husband’s business plans, I’ve been making some plans of my own. I want to make an unannounced appearance at the Wyndham Street offices after lunch – just to find out what goes on there when I’m not around.

After our meal, Natasha Harrington-Browne and I parted company with a soft kiss on the lips.

I arrived at Tivoli Mansion and found Sui-Lin arranging fresh flowers in my office. My dispatch manager, resplendent in suit and tie, is in the outer office.

I read dozens of telephone messages thanking me for the day out at the Mud Olympics, including one from the antipodeans.

“Sui-Lin, are you busy?”

“No Mister Flynn. What do you need?”

“I’d feel happier if I knew what’s happening with those account applications at the Dao San Bank on Des Voeux Road.”

“On my way Mister Flynn. Do you mind if I take a few minutes to pop into Dickson Poon’s in the Landmark? He’s just received a new Rolex range and I’m thinking of getting my mother a new watch for her birthday. I’ll make up the time tomorrow, or the next day, promise.”

“No problem…take your time.”

As soon as she left the office I asked the dispatch manager if he knows where the American Club is.

“Oh yes, Mister Flynn. My brother is employed as a steward at the American Club in Exchange Square, but sadly, no longer at their country club. We meet for chow fan at a food stall near his place of work.”

Jaysus, the good luck gods are on my side again…and his English has improved.

“Can your brother get copies of the members’ annuals?”

“Yes, of course Mister Flynn, no problem. He takes them home with him to study the faces of new members. I’ll bring for the past ten years in the morning. Is that suitable boss?”

“If you go home now could you bring them to my apartment tonight?”

“Of course Mister Flynn.”

I wrote my address on a Post-it note and handed it to him with a twenty. I told him to take taxis, which I suspect he won’t. He politely took the two notes and shot out the door and down the stairs.

I need Mac to recognise his target straight off. I don’t have time, or the inclination, to arrange a face-to-face between Mac and the broker. The photographs in the members’ annuals will have to do.

———

I can hear Susie singing to herself upstairs. I haven’t tackled her about smoking dope at the Mud Olympics. I don’t want to come across heavy-handed, but I can’t let her bring that shite into my home. If the police searched the penthouse and found drugs I’d be a goner – as well as a hypocrite.

“Have you got anymore of that grass you were smoking at the Mud Olympics Susie?!” I yelled, as I climbed the stairs to the bedroom.

“No way! Finn love, that belonged to Joe! I hadn’t even smoked any since I was in Australia with Fran! To tell you the truth, I’m not really keen on it! I didn’t know you use the stuff!” she called back at the top of her plummy voice.

“That’s OK. I don’t use it. I’m just curious if you had any here with you.”

“Finn darling, I might bring big-titted dykes into your home, but drugs? Never! And while we’re on the subject, dear, I got a call from the girls you gave a lift to the Frog and Toad. They want to know if we’d go to their place in Discovery Bay for an overnight barbecue. Would we?” she asked.

“Sure, why not? But am I expected to stand around while you get shagged by a dozen delectable dykes?”

“Such delightful alliteration dear…all those darling ‘D’s. That’s not the impression I got. I do believe that you managed to flutter a few lesbian hearts among those antipodeans dear. The invitation is for both of us, remember.”

“Right, say yes…we’d love to come.”

“Filthy beast, I know that already!”

HONG KONG

I’ve never been
to Hong Kong before; it’s bleeding roasting. Finn didn’t warn me about this desperate heat. The place looks like New York, but it smelt like Calcutta until I crossed the harbour and arrived in the Central business district.

From the sweltering, humid heat in the street I stepped into the air-conditioned chill of the Ritz-Carlton. As instructed, I asked at reception to speak to Linda. A girl with coal-black hair and turquoise-blue eyes came to the desk.

“How might I help you, sir?” she asked, in a voice that comes from round by the Rhondda Valley in Wales.

“My dear, it wouldn’t be right, see, if I was to tell you all the things I’d like you to do for me…seeing as we’ve only just met, you see,” I said, imitating my hero Tommy Farr.

“Not bad, not bad, but no Richard Burton. I feel Tony Hopkins’s job is safe at the moment, see, and Dylan Thomas may still lie peaceful in his grave. Now, shall we see what I can do for you right this minute, in the privacy of this public hotel lobby?”

“A mysterious package please, Linda.”

“Coming right up, big fellah,” she smiled.

Linda returned moments later and handed me an envelope sealed with Sellotape on top of a pubic hair – nice touch Finn. The hair intact under the sticky tape means no one has opened the envelope. It’s a simple device, but effective all the same.

“Important is it, then?” Linda asked.

“Not really. Just sexy photos of wenches I’ve come to photograph in the nude.”

“And I suppose the fanny hair is from one of them then, is it?”

“Probably. I’ll just have to look out for the genuine blonde, I suppose.”

I walked to Statue Square and sat on a wall surrounded by girls chattering thirteen to the dozen in a language I don’t recognise. Inside the envelope there’s a photocopy of a photo of a man’s face, a membership card for the Two Exchange Square Health Club, and a phone number scribbled on a beer mat. Another nice touch there Finn – it’s just too difficult to lift fingerprints from beer mats, and the police don’t usually bother trying. I stuffed the health club card in me sock and studied the face.

“Can yous tell me where I’ll find Exchange Square?” I asked the chattering girls.

“Behind that one. Take the bridge,” one of them said, as she pointed me towards a grey building with windows like portholes on a ship.

“Thanks a million.”

As I headed for the pedestrian overpass I memorised the phone number. I tore up the envelope, photocopy and beer mat and dropped them in a rubbish bin along the raised walkway. Two steep escalators – one for up and one for down – sandwiched between brown marble walls lead to and from Exchange Square. The escalators are lined with rows of potted daffodils from top to bottom; the blaze of yellow against the brown marble is impressive, and very Welsh.
An omen
, I thought…considering my earlier encounter and piss poor Tommy Farr impersonation, see.

The Health Club is on the fifty-second floor of Two Exchange Square. Before I go up I’ll look for alternative exits, something other than the main escalator I’ve just used. There’s an escalator to another elevated walkway leading towards a pier, and I saw a lift that goes down to the lower ground floor. Three escape routes, it’s ideal.

I got in the lift and pressed the button marked ‘HEALTH CLUB 52nd Floor’. The lift stopped on the second floor and the man I’d been studying in the photocopy stepped in carrying a sports bag. He checked me out in the reflection of the polished chrome doors, then he turned and gave me one of those sickly smiles you only see on the lips of a poofter – I remember them from my Brighton days with Finn. Holy mother of God, forgive me, but I smiled back at him.

“Are you going all the way?” he asked. He must’ve caught the puzzled expression on my face. “Oh silly me, all the way indeed! I meant are you going to the fifty-second floor, to the health club? I only ask because you don’t have any kit with you. Just going for a Jacuzzi, then, are we?” he twittered.