Free The Fireman by Stephen Leather Page B

the other papers arrived they’d know who had beaten them to it. Things like that were important to me then. They still are.
    It’s funny how your mind does that, how it protects itself from facing up to unpleasant realities. Somehow my thoughts had got shunted away from Sally and her luxurious flat and I’d started replaying events of more than ten years ago, memories conjured up from the backwater of my brain.
    ‘I can’t understand why the police haven’t been here,’ I said.
    Howard shrugged. ‘They’re not Scotland Yard, you know, and let’s be honest, they’re not investigating a murder,’ he said.
    ‘Not yet,’ I said quietly, and drank from the tall, thin glass.
    ‘Aye, not yet,’ he said, and walked over to the balcony. He turned to face me and leant back on the green railing, arms outstretched as if he’d been crucified.
    ‘This is one impressive flat, Howard.’ He didn’t reply, and I didn’t look at him. Sometimes it’s better that way.
    ‘How much would you say a flat like this would cost?’
    He paused, then cleared his throat like a head boy at speech day. ‘That would depend on the length of the lease, whether it was furnished or unfurnished, the sort of deal she got from the landlord, service charges . . .’
    ‘How much?’
    ‘Anywhere between $20,000 and $25,000 a month, I suppose.’
    This time I paused, and I could hear children playing in the street five floors below, shouting and shrieking. ‘And how much did Sally earn, in a good month?’
    ‘About the same.’
    The yelling stopped and there was the sound of feet slapping on the road as they ran off. A dog barked and then I was looking at the clouds again and wishing. I kicked the key ring and it rattled off the magazines and fell onto the floor.
    ‘What sort of car did she drive?’ I said it quietly but I could feel the anger starting to grow, because this was like pulling teeth and that’s not how it should have been because he was supposed to be on my side.
    ‘A Porsche, a red one,’ he replied, and we both knew the colour wasn’t important. What mattered was that my sister was living in a flat she couldn’t afford and driving a car she couldn’t have bought. She was 26 years old, she was freelancing for a Hong Kong paper and a couple of magazines and stringing for one of the London quality Sundays. She should have been sharing a flat half the size with two other girls, taking the MTR to work and counting every penny.
    ‘Where did the money come from?’ I asked, and I still wasn’t looking at him but I could sense him shrug.
    ‘I don’t know, laddie. None of us knew.’
    ‘But you wondered? You asked?’
    ‘Aye, we wondered. But we weren’t asking the questions.’ He walked in out of the sunlight and dropped into a white deck chair opposite me.
    ‘So who was asking the questions? Who was asking why Sally was living way beyond her means? Who was digging?’
    ‘The ICAC’
    ‘The what?’
    ‘The Independent Commission Against Corruption. The colony’s corruption watchdog. They were originally set up to clean up the Hong Kong police but they’ve moved on to cover racing, business, organized crime. It’s probably the most powerful organization in Hong Kong, powers of search and detention the likes of which you don’t see anywhere else. They’re on a par with the Star Chamber.’
    ‘And they were investigating Sally?’
    He mumbled.
    ‘What?’ I snapped.
    ‘That was the rumour. Hell, it was more than a rumour. They were on her tail like hounds after a fox. You can’t even accept a free trip to Macau out here without clearing it with your editor first. Everything has to be above board. It’s not like London where you get crates of beer and whisky every Christmas and free trips and God knows what else.’
    ‘But we’re not talking about a few bottles of Scotch here, are we?’
    He shook his head and I finished the gin and tonic and stood up.
    ‘I need to talk to someone at the ICAC, and soon.