Authors: Gil Hogg
Blue Lantern
BLUE LANTERN
GIL HOGG
BLUE LANTERN
Copyright © 2009 Gil Hogg
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
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ISBN 978 1780886 268
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FICTION
A Smell of Fraud
The Predators
Caring for Cathy
NON-FICTION
Teaching Yourself Tranquillity
Contents
At nearly nine pm Brodie took a last look at his uniform in the mirror: freshly ironed khaki shirt and trousers, Sam Browne belt polished and sitting comfortably, holstered Smith & Wesson 38 on his right hip; on his shoulder-tabs the silver, oak-leaved pips of a commissioned officer. He adjusted his black peaked cap squarely.
Brodie left his quarters in the station, a small bed-sitting room, and hurried downstairs, patting his pockets as he went, making sure he had everything: notebook, pencil, keys, wallet with ID. When he came out of the building into the station yard, the Land Rover of his patrol was parked under the lights at the gate, the engine running. The sergeant standing by the vehicle saluted.
“All ready, sir.”
The men were fitted snugly inside the cab. Brodie looked at his watch.
“Time for an inspection, Sergeant.”
Sergeant Lam shouted. The Cantonese phrase was incomprehensible to Brodie. The men tumbled out of the vehicle agilely, ran inside the station, and lined up in a bare room by the stairs, mute. Brodie drew his gaze across faces cast in bronze. He examined the revolver of one of the constables; like all their weapons and uniforms it was spotless. The only purpose of the inspection was to satisfy these serious men that he was aware of their excellence.
“Very good, Sergeant. Let's go.”
Brodie walked outside, while the rest ran silently for their places. He climbed into the front seat. A nod to the driver and they began to move. The driver would follow a set route unless ordered otherwise. Brodie tuned the radio, called control, and heard an all-clear report from the returning patrol. Then he gave his attention to the sprawling street stalls and markets which rippled with life in the cool darkness; excited tourists and rowdy servicemen. His patrol would penetrate the night-town where the servicemen drank and womanised around Hankow and Haiphong Roads; and the Chinese markets, and resettlement areas south of Boundary Street in Shek Kip Mei. Brodie's brief was to keep order in the streets. If necessary the patrol would attend car accidents, stop violent arguments, move harassing beggars, and arrest thieves, street gamblers and con-men. He had found that the squad managed their duties almost without reference to him. The average age of the constables was in the late thirties, and their length of service around a dozen to twenty years; they knew the streets, while Brodie felt that he was at the mercy of the vagaries of that unpredictable monster, the crowd. Before every duty he asked himself,
What's going to happen tonight?
Brodie's formal duties as a leader were light. Sergeant Lam looked after the men and the vehicle. Brodie had to attend on patrol, write a report, and if there were arrests, and charges to be brought, prepare the charges, and later give evidence in court. At times, he had asked Seregeant Lam about the health and happiness of the men. In his early enthusiasm of nine months ago, he had recorded their names, and details of their careers in a notebook. But the sergeant had never revealed that any of the constables had a problem which might require the interest of Inspector Brodie. The men were as distant and self-contained as they were immaculately presented. Brodie couldn't have more than the most elementary conversation with them in Cantonese. If he ever knew all their names, he had now forgotten most of them. To gesticulate, with a mixture of Cantonese and English jargon was sufficient communication for working purposes.
Brodie expected to be with the squad for probably another six months before he was posted elsewhere; and his reputation as an effective inspector rested, he had come to realise, on being courteous to Sergeant Lam, and accepting the Sergeant's guidance. Lam, wiry, ageless, with a smooth face eroded in fissures like a river stone, had created Bravo Two, and he alone could ensure that Brodie's orders were interpreted in a way best fitted to make them work. Brodie was aware that he did not control Sergeant Lam or his men; they largely controlled him.
Nathan Road was a very long road; it ran for miles in a passably straight line from the hills fringing the New Territories, to the golden mile of tourism near the docks on the tip of the Kowloon Peninsula. Brodie's Land Rover jerked forward fitfully in heavy traffic, heading toward that bright glow. They moved slowly into the Tsim Sha Tsui district where the hotels, restaurants, massage parlours and dance halls were soaked in throbbing light. Yanks on rest and recreation from the US Seventh Fleet roamed with British squaddies on leave from Chinese border posts. Crowds swelled on the footpaths, taxis honked impatiently, and rickshaws swerved alarmingly near to Brodie's vehicle. Streamers fluttered weakly in the heavy air, and the muffled thump of rock music inside the clubs and bars, lodged in the head like blows.
The call came in a few grated words on the radio, “Bravo Two, incident, Taksin Lane.”
Sergeant Lam gave the driver directions, and they drove a block before scrambling out of the Land Rover; they plunged down an alley, shoving people aside. Brodie broke through a wall of onlookers into a space where a US Marine was fighting a British soldier.
“Police, break it up!” he yelled, trying to pull them apart.
Both fighters were running with blood and sweat, slavering and groaning; they were big men, heavier than Brodie, menacing in the haze of shadows and flashing signs. The servicemen in the crowd, American and British, were enjoying the entertainment. The arm of one fighter swung at Brodie, who struck back with his stick. The man hesitated, wincing at a blow on his forearm. Brodie grabbed a handful of uniform on the shoulder of each contestant, and held them apart for a moment.
“You're under arrest!”
The squaddie wrenched away, “Fuckin' copper!”
Brodie heard a mechanical snick, a slight sound but audible against the background noise, and as ominous as the crack of a rifle. The soldier had a switchblade in his hand. He crouched, swaying drunkenly. The blade circled, sparkling.
“Come an' get it, pig!”
Brodie closed quickly, swiping his stick toward the knife. He had no time for fear, only the awareness of his own vulnerability. The soldier grasped Brodie's free arm, clamped it. Brodie dropped his stick, and thrust away the face which loomed before him, reeking of beer and digestion. The knife swung in a wide arc, and the point slashed across Brodie's shirt-front at chest level.
A constable, a slight figure, disregarded the blade, and with a howl, hurled himself on the squaddie, ramming the barrel of his revolver up the squaddie's nose. The three of them were stilled for a second in a tableau of violence. The squaddie's clouded brain must have interpreted the constable's move as a certain intention to fire, and he dropped the knife.
Brodie disengaged himself, and rubbed his forearm across his wet forehead. He drew his own revolver. “Bloody hell! Cuff them and get them out!”
His men secured the fighters. The engagement had lasted perhaps a minute, and he had visited the edge of being. The constable who saved Brodie had been cut deeply in the belly, and was on his knees. Brodie noticed for the first time that his own chest was wet with blood. The captives were herded down the alley, and two constables carried their wounded comrade. The watching servicemen snarled abuse. Hoarse with outrage, Brodie turned on the nearest of them. The squaddie's shaven head rose neck-less from his shoulders.
“I'll blow the shit out of you!” he shouted, jabbing the 38 against the soldier's gut.
The soldier's reckless grin froze, and he shied away.
At the roadside, Sergeant Lam radioed for an ambulance, and a van for the prisoners. The squad could soon hear the approaching siren.
Brodie shook the limp hand of the wounded constable. “Thanks for what you did. It was very brave.”
Even with the benefit of a Cantonese translation from Sergeant Lam, the man, in pain, received the words without a sign; but his friends had toothy grins of appreciation.
Stripped to the waist, Brodie lay on his back on a bed in the casualty ward at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Beside the bed, on a chair, was his bloodstained khaki shirt, Sam Browne belt, and holstered 38, surmounted by his peaked cap. A shy Cantonese nurse worked over him, her eyes reduced to concentrated lines in her shining, oval face. The nurse injected anti-tetanus serum and cleaned the shallow six inch long knife-wound which crossed his chest.
As the nurse worked another person came into his view against the background of the screen curtains; a white-coated Chinese woman or girl with a tag on her lapel which read
Dr Helen Lau
under a line of Chinese characters.
“You've been in the wars, Inspector,” she said, holding up his record card.
Brodie was conscious that the cut was not much more than a nasty scratch. He looked down at the raw valley of flesh trailing from one pectoral to the other.
“I'm sorry to trouble you with this.”
Dr Lau examined the wound and became more serious. She moved her lips tentatively before speaking, measuring out the words. “You have a dangerous job. Another fraction of an inch and you could have been killed. Your constable is in the emergency ward, seriously ill.”