‘Well,’ said Mac.
‘And I don’t chew my nails because I can’t find a husband.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mac.
‘The dead man is James Kirk.’
‘Quirk,’ said Mac before he could stop himself.
‘Ah,’ said Captain Loan, smiling as she put her sunnies back on. ‘You seem to know more than me.’
‘Only because you told me —’ said Mac, but she was grinning ear to ear.
‘I want to show you something,’ said Loan, and threw the Camry across traffic before Mac could reply.
Mac followed Loan and the landlord up the wooden staircase of the colonial apartment building. On the second-floor landing, the land- lord — a short elderly man with a cigarette stuck to his bottom lip — searched for a key and opened the door with the number 3 screwed into the wood.
Leading Mac inside, Loan shut the door. ‘This is where we tracked Geraldine McHugh,’ said Loan, as she walked to the living-room bay window and looked down on the hyperkinetic street activity of Cholon.
‘Geraldine McHugh?’ said Mac, confused, joining her at the window. ‘Quirk’s wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Mac, the T3s clouding his thinking as he looked around at the bare walls and a sparsely furnished apartment.
‘I don’t understand either,’ said Loan. ‘Want to tell me about it?’
‘I can’t,’ said Mac, trying to think of where to go with this. ‘What do you mean, you tracked her here?’
‘White woman, blonde, living alone. In Cholon?’ said Loan, as if it was the moon. ‘We got a tip-off — one of the neighbours was worried about her. She didn’t seem to know what she was doing and she had unsavoury company.’
‘So?’ said Mac.
‘So we had her under surveillance and one of our guys says he recognises her — that she’d been at an Aussie consulate barbecue two years ago.’
‘Really?’ said Mac.
‘So we went through the diplomatic files and connected Jim Quirk and Geraldine McHugh. Husband and wife, but he’s living in the compound at An Phu, while she’s living here.’
‘Maybe they’re separated?’
‘Then why’s she in Saigon, Mr Richard?’ said Loan, whose intellect was starting to grate.
‘I don’t know, Captain Loan,’ said Mac.‘You have a theory?’
‘Well, at first I thought she might have been kidnapped — you know, held against her will.’
‘How did you rule that out?’ asked Mac.
‘Women’s intuition,’ said Loan. ‘And a listening device under the coffee table.’
‘So what was she doing?’
‘Some sex, with a man she called Dodo,’ said Loan. ‘Nickname, I think. We established she wasn’t being held here, if you see what I mean.’
‘I think I do, but —’
‘By the way, does the phrase “BP” or “Beep” mean anything to you?’ asked Loan. ‘Is that an Australian saying?’
‘One’s an oil company,’ said Mac.
‘Hmm,’ she said, losing interest. ‘Not what I wanted.’
Rattling the keys in her hand, Loan made to leave the apartment.
‘So, what’s the theory?’ said Mac, wanting the final pieces.
‘I think she was pretending to be kidnapped. The few calls she made were to Quirk.’
‘Why would she come all the way to Saigon to pretend to be kidnapped?’ asked Mac.
‘She was getting him to go to the Mekong Saloon each day,’ said Loan, her eyes boring into Mac’s. ‘Before we could get answers, Quirk was dead.’
‘Where?’ said Mac.
‘The compound behind the club — in the alley.’ Loan was walking towards the door. ‘Single shot to the temple.’
‘So where’s Geraldine?’ said Mac, following her.
‘You tell me.’
‘What?’
‘She left last night,’ said the captain, holding the door open for him. ‘Neighbours say she was picked up around midnight.’
‘Taxi?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Man in a white Ford Explorer.’
Chapter 19
The steaming-hot taxi ride back to the Southern Scholastic offices took forever. Saigon’s traffic congestion was fast approaching that of Jakarta or Manila but motorbikes and cyclos still dominated the roads.
Popping another T3 capsule and washing it down with water, Mac thought about Captain Loan and the case she was pursuing. McHugh was pretending to be kidnapped and getting Quirk to make regular trips to the Mekong Saloon? Well, Mac was one step ahead of that story: he’d seen what Quirk was doing at the club. He’d seen the computer terminal he was being forced to work on and he’d heard a conversation about it. How did it go? Something like, I don’t care about your passwords — we want access.
Slugging at the water again, Mac glimpsed the Reunification Palace down a cross street on his left as they neared the destination. Relaxing, he tried to replay the conversation between Red Shirt and Quirk. It wasn’t just about passwords and access. There was another noun in there that he just couldn’t remember.
Paying the cabbie, Mac got out east of the tax department and limped towards the river, stopping like a tourist every few shops to have a look and see who was tailing him. It annoyed him that Loan had played him so well; rather than harass him or bring him down to the Cong An station, she’d gambled that a bit of curiosity would change Mac’s attitude. And she was probably going to win that bet: from the second he walked into Geraldine McHugh’s apartment, he’d been trying to work out how to stay assigned in Saigon and close to the Quirk murder. He’d technically screwed up by being in that club, but he’d done it and now he was part of it, and his next step was to find Red Shirt and this Dodo character. If they were the same person, Geraldine McHugh was in trouble.
At the top of the stairs, outside the door to Southern Scholastic, Mac heard the satellite TV news — it sounded like the CNN feed out of Honkers. Inputting his security code, Mac knew he was late for the meet and that the Quirk surveillance was technically over. But if this Kendrick was as smart as Scotty claimed, then Operation Dragon might be expanded slightly. He’d have to talk with Scotty and maybe Tobin, see how it developed.
Walking into the conference room area, Mac clocked Tranh leaning against the kitchenette counter, playing with his mobile phone. Standing up straight when he saw Mac, Tranh nodded quickly at the two sofas that faced the TV screen.
Looking over, Mac saw a shaggy-haired bloke in his twenties on one sofa and an older man on the other.
‘Hi, darling, I’m home,’ said Mac, walking around to the TV area.
Snapping out of his TV torpor, the younger bloke stood, running his palms down his jeans. He wore a loud Hawaiian shirt and an ironic goatee.
‘Lance,’ he said, offering his hand.
The TV was turned off as Mac shook. ‘Richard — Richard Davis,’ he said, tightly enough that Lance Kendrick and his guest understood Mac’s cover.
Turning, he came face to face with someone he knew well.
‘Dave,’ said Mac, shaking Dave Urquhart’s hand. ‘The fuck are you doing here?’
The phone rang in Mac’s office and Urquhart kicked at something on the floor. The moment broken, Mac moved away.
Picking up the handset as he swung the door shut, Mac gasped with pain while pushing sideways into his desk chair.
‘Yep — Davis.’
‘Mate, Paragon,’ came the strong Aussie accent. ‘The sky is blue?’
‘And the clouds are white,’ said Mac, confirming he didn’t have a gun pointed at him. ‘How are you, Scotty?’
‘I’m good, mate, but the chaps have shut down Dragon.’