“I imagine this must be unusual or else you wouldn’t be here.”
“Well, yeah. Geoff works hard, and … he plays hard. I knew that about him before we were married. Quid pro quo and all that, but he’s always kept some sort of balance – even if it was only for the sake of the kids. He has always come home each evening and if there was some emergency and he has to go somewhere suddenly he always calls.”
“And you haven’t heard a word from him?”
“No.”
“You haven’t contacted the police. Why?”
“Because … I’m not one hundred per cent sure that everything my husband does is absolutely legal.”
“What does he do, Mrs. Hewes?”
“Please, call me Pam … Geoff has fingers in all sorts of pies. Always has some new business scheme. He lends money, he invests in businesses. I find it hard to keep up.”
I looked her directly in the eye. “And you, Pam? What do you do?”
“I’m in real estate. I work at H and F Realty on the Lower North Shore.”
“Do you have anything to go on? Any leads? Are you familiar with your husband’s associates, friends?”
Pam shook her head and looked down at the carpet. “My husband plays his cards close to his chest. He tells me things, but I know it’s the tip of the iceberg. But, Mr. Gisto, to answer your previous question, there’s one thing you should know about my husband. Geoff does have associates – many of them – but when it comes to friends they’re pretty thin on the ground.”
Chapter 21
“GOOD MORNING,” HO said, standing and extending a hand.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet me,” Mary said.
They were in the bar of the Blue Hotel in Woolloomooloo, all oversized concrete buffet counters, post-modern piping and metal grills. She ordered a coffee.
“I wasn’t being entirely straight with you and Mr. Gisto yesterday,” Ho began. “I don’t know Mr. Gisto, but I’ve done some checking and he seems like a worthy man. And besides,” he added with a small smile, “you obviously trust him and that is good enough for me.”
Mary kept buttoned up, searched his black eyes.
“The fact is, I believe my son was kidnapped and killed by the Triads.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Our forensics expert found compelling evidence to support the idea.”
“I see. Well I have a lot of experience with the gangs, going back years. I know how they operate.”
“Your time in the Hong Kong Police Force?”
“I was one of the senior officers involved with breaking up the Huang gang in ’94. I then headed up the task force that smashed two other big Triad teams in Kowloon and Macau. I emigrated to Australia with my family, a few years before I met you at the Military Police Training Academy.”
“And you think this attack on your family was some sort of revenge?”
“I’m convinced of it.”
“Why?”
Ho was silent for a few moments, gazing around the huge, almost empty bar. “I was sent a ransom note.”
Mary raised an eyebrow. “Maybe we should start at the beginning, Meng.”
“I told you yesterday the last time I saw Chang was on Thursday. I reported him missing the following day. Late that night, Friday, I received a package. A note demanding that I cooperate with a gang who are planning to smuggle heroin from Hong Kong. The note came in a box with one of my son’s eyes.”
“And you didn’t go to the police with this information?”
Ho shook his head. “No, I told you …”
“You don’t trust the cops … Why?”
“I’d rather not say.”
Mary rested an elbow on the table and rubbed her forehead. “Okay,” she said, a little exasperated. “What happened next?”
“Saturday night I received a call from the gang leader. He said I had twenty-four hours to agree to their ‘request’, or my son would be killed.”
“That would give you until Sunday night. And they did murder him.” Mary shook her head slowly.
“I’ve concluded they were going to kill Chang in the car and dump his body in a public car park.”
“But why?” Mary said. “Surely they would have been more discreet.”
“Quite the opposite, Mary. They would have wanted to advertise it. I’m not the only Asian businessman in this city. If I keep refusing they could go elsewhere. They wanted to broadcast the murder, as a warning to others – that’s how they operate – fear and arrogance.”
“But you did refuse them,” Mary said.