Mr Wong Goes West (14 page)

Wong nodded. ‘I see. He was a double agent.’

‘No. King George V was not a double agent.’

‘So why he needs a fake name?’

Manks thought about this for a moment. ‘It was sort of for PR reasons. I like to think he was an early example of an individual who instinctively knew the power of good branding.’ He puffed out his chest and looked rather proud of this notion. ‘Anyway King George V decided to call himself Windsor. That was the name of their castle. Many people these days, of course, assume that the castle was named after the family. Not so. The family was named after the castle.’

‘So they are going by fake name Windsor, but really they are the, er, Sexy-Cobber-Goater family?’

‘Er, not sure if I would call it a fake name. Maybe we should think of it as an adopted name. And it’s Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Hmm. Perhaps I am giving you too much information. Let’s go back and start again.’

‘Understand. This information top secret.’

‘No, it’s not exactly secret. But let’s just think of them as the Windsors.’

‘Queen Windsor.’

‘No, we don’t say Queen Windsor. Traditionally we only use first names.’

‘Elizabeth Vagina.’

‘Regina.’ Manks started to look seriously concerned at this point. ‘Look…let me make it as simple as I can. The most senior members of the family go by first names only. But they do have surnames, which they only use on certain occasions. The family as a whole abandoned their German name and adopted the name Windsor. But in the 1960s, the Queen and Prince Philip decided to call their immediate family Mountbatten-Windsor, to differentiate themselves from the other Windsors.’

‘They had a fight?’

‘No, they did not have a fight. They just did it because… well, I don’t know if there is an official reason. They just did it. Are you following me?’

‘Yes,’ Wong lied.

‘There’s one more thing. On some occasions members of the royal family use their title as if it was a surname. For example, His Royal Highness Prince Harry, when he joined the army, was known as Cornet Wales. See how it works?’

The feng shui master thought long and hard about this. ‘So for his family name, he uses the name of the country his mother was not born in.’

‘Exactly.’

Wong shook his head. ‘Very suspicious. All this use of fake names. Must be hiding something.’

‘Um. I think you’ll find that that’s not really the case. Anyway, you won’t be looking for anything fishy there. You will merely be doing a feng shui reading of the main living area of Buckingham Palace. Do you understand?’ Manks was starting to look thoroughly disaffected.

‘You want me to find out what is causing bad fortune?’

‘In a nutshell.’

‘In a nut shell? What nut shell?’

‘That’s just a figure of speech. It means, well, never mind. Check out the bad fortune in the palace. Alleviate the situation. Stop the bad…what do you call it…bad
ch’i
, or whatever it is from flowing. Now you will not be working alone. I contacted the gentleman you mentioned yesterday. Mr DK Sinha, the expert in
vaastu
. He’s flying into Hong Kong from Singapore as we speak, and will be joining us on the flight.’

‘Wah! Sinha is coming too. This is good news. He is very good man. We are both members of the same union.’

‘Very good. Next week, we’re flying in Shang Dan, a gentleman based in Shanghai; a medium called Elsa Dottvik from southern Germany, and we’ve also booked a couple of English people to look over the premises, including Edward Alaine, a famous dowser.’

Wong nodded. ‘You are taking good care of your Queen. These sound like good people. Shang Dan is also old friend of mine.’

‘Well, I like to do things properly, Mr Wong. You will soon find out that when Manks is involved in anything, every detail is covered. So, do you have any questions for me?’

‘When will I be paid?’

‘I’ve slotted you in for three days in Britain. At the end of
the third day, you can be paid immediately.’

‘The full amount, before I leave Britain?’

‘Yes.’

‘Cheque or cash? I need something I can cash immediately.’

‘We can arrange a cashier’s cheque or a bank transfer, if you wish.’

‘Good.’

‘But we want good service out of you. We want all negative energy banished from The Family and their premises. We want wonderful good news, nothing but good news, from here on out. Do you get me?’

Wong nodded. ‘Can. But will cost more. Royals more expensive than people.’

Watching from a distance was a tall stocky man with dark skin and short hair. Wong did not notice the man watching him as he got out of the truck and headed back towards the hangar, nodding politely as Robbie Manks continued to talk.

‘Hi, Paul, it’s me.’

She was shocked to see him. He looked years older. He looked sick. He had purple bags under his eyes, which stood out against the pallor of his dumpling-coloured skin.

Joyce had turned up at prison unannounced and had initially been flatly refused permission to see him. It was only when she pretended to be his sister and explained that she did not live in Hong Kong and would be leaving the territory the next day that the officer at the gate had become fractionally less intransigent. From her time spent living in Asia, she knew that she could pull the ‘irrational, emotional white woman’ trick:
for some reason, Asian males seemed to have an in-built terror of Caucasian females, and she could always get rules bent if she pretended she did not understand the regulations, or indeed the concept that rules existed, and gave the impression that she was about to become screechy and unhinged.

The exhausted door guard had eventually sent her up the ladder to the duty warden. He had consulted a woman who turned out to be some sort of social worker assigned to Paul’s case. The woman had argued that the prisoner had refused to speak to anyone, and she was inclined to give Joyce brief contact with him, presumably in case she had a positive effect on him, but only if the prisoner personally consented.

The warden had then relented and allowed her five minutes. ‘When I say five minutes, I mean five minutes only,’ he said. Unsmiling, he handed Joyce into the care of a guard who had walked with her through five separate layers of lockable gates before she was shown into a cold, empty room painted hospital green, and told to wait by an internal glass window.

Almost ten minutes passed before Paul Barker, looking haggard and unhappy, had been shown into a chair on the other side of the window. In reply to her greeting, Paul merely touched his lips with the tip of his left index finger and waved his right index finger from left to right like a metronome. The message was clear.

‘You’re not talking?’

He dipped his chin in affirmation.

‘Not even to me?’

He said nothing. But his eyes seemed to tighten their grip on hers.

‘Paul.’ Joyce felt she had been aching for this moment for a year, but now it was here, she didn’t know what to say. If they could not use words, how could they communicate?
They could not touch, hug or squeeze each other’s hands. Would a one-way conversation work?

‘If you won’t talk to me, that’s fine. I believe in you, Paul, and whatever you think is right, that’s what you should do. Perhaps I’ll just talk anyway and you can listen. We’ve only got five minutes.’

She looked at his face, and a flicker of a smile crossed his lips.

‘Well, what shall I tell you? Shall I tell you what’s going on in my life and you can listen, and then I’ll ask about you, and you can reply or not reply or nod or not nod or whatever you like, okay?’

He said nothing, but seemed to relax slightly in his chair.

Despite what she had just said, she couldn’t think of anything in her life worth talking about in comparison with the drama of the situation he was in, so she turned the subject back to him.

‘How are you bearing up? Could you tell me that, at least?’

He spoke, his voice little more than a whisper: ‘The Cure, 1980.’

Joyce blinked. Okay, so he wanted to play Obcom. It was better than silence. She thought about it for a few seconds. ‘Is it “Boys Don’t Cry”?’

He nodded.

‘Two can play at this game. Stevie Wonder, 1974.’

A genuine smile.

‘So you got that, hey?’ Joyce said. ‘“You Haven’t Done Nothin’”. What about Billy Swann, 1974—“I Can Help”. Will you let me help?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Robert John, 1979. Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer, 1979.’

Joyce thought about it. ‘Robert John I don’t know. Barbra Streisand? Was it “No More Tears”?’

Another smile. Again, a phrase from Paul, spoken in a whisper: ‘Gloria Gaynor, 1979.’

‘“I Will Survive”. Ha ha ha. Very funny. But Paul, this is not a joke. I mean, look, I’m sorry to bring this up, but, well, you’re bringing it up yourself.
Will
you survive? This is part of China now. I don’t even know what they do to people on murder charges…I mean, maybe there’s a death penalty here. I’m sorry to talk about all this, but you have to face the facts. This is really, really serious.’

‘Blue Oyster Cult, 1976.’

‘“Don’t Fear the Reaper”,’ she offered.

He nodded, pleased with himself. ‘Queen, 1975.’

‘Nineteen-seventy-five? Was that the year of “Bohemian Rhapsody”? No, it can’t be that.
A Day at the Races
? I know—“You’re My Best Friend”.’

He raised a thumb at her.

‘This is crazy. We’re playing Obcom when you are about to be charged with murder. You have to fight back. You have to talk to the lawyer. That Abel guy. You have to give yourself a chance.’

‘Billy Joel, 1976.’

‘I’m not playing any more.’

‘Billy Joel, 1976.’

‘Can’t we just talk normally for a minute?’

‘Billy Joel, 1976.’

‘“Only the Good Die Young”. I want you to answer this question for me. Everyone says you are a Talking Heads, 1978. Are you?’

He thought for a second and then shook his head.

‘So you’re not a “Psycho Killer”. Did you shoot—did you Bob Marley and the Wailers, 1974?’

He shook his head again.

‘You didn’t shoot the sheriff. That’s good. At least we are making a start. Was it self-defence? What actually happened in that room?’

He said nothing but looked away briefly.

‘Can’t think of a song?’

The guard approached. ‘Time’s up.’

‘Please, Paul, say something.’

‘Jimmy Buffett, 1977.’

‘What? I don’t know that one. It’s too obscure. Paul. Paul.’

A guard grabbed Paul’s arm and started to hustle him away. ‘Finish,’ the man said.

Paul called out: ‘Jimmy Buffett, 1977.’

‘James Taylor, 1971,’ she shouted as he disappeared. ‘“You’ve Got a Friend”, Paul. “You’ve Got a Friend”.’

Wong sat in a dream on the top deck of the tram as it trundled slowly towards Central. He loved the trolley-cars of Hong Kong island, which moved only slightly faster than the walking speed of an averagely impatient Shanghainese. And it was cheap. Just a couple of Hong Kong dollars, flat fare, to anywhere you wanted to go. Even then, he was always tempted to go further than he needed to and walk back a bit—flat-fare journeys always made him want to do that, keep on going, get more money’s worth, even at a cost of inconvenience to himself.

Having said that, trams were not easy vehicles on which to relax. They trundled slowly through the busiest parts of town, and often skimmed close to busy building sites and factories—top deck passengers were frequently in danger of
being skewered by pipes swung languidly across the road by half-asleep crane operators. There was no air-conditioning, so the upper windows were left open, allowing a cacophony of jackhammers and road diggers to reverberate through the seating. Yet despite the pandemonium on both sides, Wong was a happy and relaxed man.

Things were looking good. Manks clearly wanted him to do the feng shui of a huge mansion owned by one of the richest families in the world. The aircraft job had been quickly finished, and would also prove lucrative. The two jobs together would push him well into profit for the year, even after paying Arun Asif Iqbal Daswani.

The only bad thing is that he would have to go to London. He had never been out of Asia and had no desire to visit the West. Oh, he knew all about the West. He had seen it on TV enough times to realise that it was a place best avoided. From his understanding of Western life, gained largely through accidentally watching bits of American sitcoms and Hollywood movies on televisions in Chinese cafés, the West was highly dangerous. It was a place where: