The Chinese Assassin (2 page)

1

When the ancient,
rickety lift finally ceased its anguished groaning and shuddered to a
halt at the fourth
floor, Richard Scholef
i
eld
heard
that
the bell of the telephone was
already jangling behind
the locked door of his flat. It was still ringing a
minute and a half later
when, drenched with perspiration, he
finally extricated
himself; his
suitcase his hand
l
uggage,
his portable
typewriter and his
plastic
carrier
bag
of duty-free liquor
from
the
clutches
of the
two spring-loaded latticed-iron
gates that daily threatened
the life and
limb
of al
l
the tena
n
ts
in the block.

The bulb on
the
windowless landing was out again and Scholef
i
eld stu
m
bled
in the
darkness over a loose stair rod on
the
two steps leading up to his door. He was cursing softly to himself when he felt a hand
on his
arm. He started back in alarm. ‘It’s been ringing
for a
week. It’s never stopped.’

Scholef
i
eld, still cursing,
bent to fumble on the floor in the darkness for the
plastic bag
of duty-frees he’d dropped in the confusion.
The stifling
heat lent a sharp edge of
irritation
to his voice. ‘Moyn
aha
n, if you spent your
time
fixing
the stair
rods
and
the
light bulbs around
here instead of
listening through
a keyhole to my bloody telephone ringing—.’

The new Irish porter suddenly leaned
closer in the darkness
and
Scholefield
recoiled as he inhaled the pungent
whisky fumes
on
his breath.
‘I mean it
literally, Mr. S
ch
olefield.
I’
m not employin’ the
words
to
mean that
your telephone has been
ri
ngin’ all week
in the sense that
it’s
just been quite
bury.
I
really mean that it’s
never
stopped.
Not for a mom
en
t. Not once.’

Scholefield stood still and listened in the darkness. The telephone
was
still ringing inside
the flat.

‘Eight days it’s been goin’.
Just like
that.
E
ight
days—without
a moment’s cease.’

Scholefield
put down
his cases slowly
and fumbled
i
n his pockets for
keys.

‘I
first noticed
last Thursday morning, Mr.
Scholefield
. When
I
was doin’
my rounds.’ He stopped
and
peered
cl
osely at the
luminous
dial of his wristwatch, holding it against the
end
of his nose.
‘It’s the twenty
-
second, today, right? So Thursday July
the
fifteenth,
it was, okay?’

Scholefield
tried
to elbow his way past him but
the
porter lurched sideways knocking him against the wall.
T
erribly
sorry, Mr. Scholefield—you all right?—by Sunday old Mrs. Thompson upstairs was complainin’ that
it
was keepin’ her awake nights. It’s rung right through the nights y’ see. I told her there was nothin’
I
could do. We porters aren’t allowed to enter flats when the tenants are away, I says. Did
you
have a good trip to Ottawa, Mr. Scholefi
el
d? You and your China-watchin’ colleagues got the yellow peril under control at last, have you?’

‘Good night, Moyna
h
an.’
Scholefield
edged slowly round the porter, speaking with exaggerated patience and inserted his Yale key
in the
lock. Behind the door the telephone continued its relentless clamour.

‘Who do
you think it
could be callin’ you all this time, Mr. Scholef
iel
d?’

‘If
it’s Her Majesty, the
Prime Minister,
or the
Secretary General
of
the United
Nations, Moyn
a
h
a
n. I promise
to let
you know.’ He opened the door
and
carried his luggage into the
darkened hallway.

‘More likely that actress
lady
friend
of yours. Desperate
to
see you the first
minute
you’re back,
eh
?’
The reek
of
whiskied
breath assailed
Scholefield
’s
nostrils
again and the porter laughed coarsely dose behind him
in the
darkness. ‘How d’yer
like this
heat,
Mr.
Scholefield
? Hottest
summer
in London since records were kept,
eh
?
Did ya know that? The
summer
of’76 will be one to remember,
eh
?’

‘Forgive me, Moyna
h
an, I’m je
tl
agged.’ Scholefi
eld
switched on the light in the ha
l
l and
cl
osed the door quickly in the porter’s leering face. He stood looking down at the telephone on the ha
l
l table. Its ringing echoed loudly through
the
empty rooms jarring his sleep-starved nerves. The heat inside the airless flat was stifling and
he felt the
sweat running in rivulets down the sides of his face. He stared at the telephone for a
moment
then turned away deliberately and picked up his typewriter and briefcase and carried them through to the desk in his study. He returned and took the two duty-free bottles of Polish Vodka front the plastic carrier bag and stood them on the ha
l
l table beside the ringing
telephone. Then he
took of his jacket,
hung it up,
and
carried his suitcase into the
bedroom
at the far
en
d of the ha
ll
The extension telephone
on
the bedside table was ringing there too.

Scholefield took the used
underclothes
from his suitcase
and
threw them into a linen basket, then hung
up
his suits. He opened several windows but the air outside seemed
equally fetid. He took
o
ff hi
s tie, and
the
s
h
irt
that
was
sticking
to his
back, undressed, and went to
the bathroom
and turned on the shower.
He stood motionl
es
s under the cold water jet for several
minutes with his
eyes dosed, listening
absently to
the shrill of the
telephone. Then
he
towelled himself vigorously, threw the towel aside
and went back to
the bedroom.

He
hesitated
by the bedside
table
for a moment before lifting
the receiver.
When he
did
the
abrupt
return of quiet to the flat was startling. He held the
instrument
to his ear and listened without speaking. There was a long moment of silence. Then a diffident,
barely
audible
foreign voice came
on the line.

‘Mr.
Richard
Scholef
iel
d?’

The
blurred consonants
and
the
inability
to
pronounce the
’R’
sound
of his
first
name
betrayed
a
Chinese
speaking
English.

‘Yes,
this
is Scholefi
el
d.’

There was
another silence, then
the
sound
of a long breath being drawn.
When
the voice spoke again, it
had
switched to Chinese.

‘Mr. Scholefield,
you don’t know me. But I must see you very urgently.’

Almost as a reflex
Scholefield
found himself
mentally
categorizing
the speaker’s nasal accent. Before he spoke again he’d placed it, in one
of
the
Yangtz
e
provinces
of
central China, probably Hupeh or East Szechuan. ‘Who are you? ‘What do you want to see me about?’

‘It is not possible for me to say on
the
telephone. But
I
have something to tell you that would be of great significance for your work.’

‘Who ar
e
you?’

‘My name is Yang. But I am not important. What I have to reveal could be a matter of life and death for somebody much more important than me.’ The man paused and drew another long breath. ‘In Ch
ina
’

Scholefield
frowned irritably into the receiver.
‘
I’v
e
just this minute come
off
a plane from Canada—’ Then he stopped. ‘Mr. Yang
,
have
you
been telephoning day and night for the past eight days?’

‘Yes.’
The voice of the Chinese was
right with tension. ‘May
I come this
evening?’

Scholefield
rubbed a hand
wearily across his eyes. ‘All
right
Do you know where
I
live?’

‘Yes!’
The answer
was a shout of relief: ‘I will be there in
half an
hour.’

The
line went dead immediately,
Scholefield
shrugged,
put on a fresh shirt
and a pair
of tennis
shorts and wandered barefoot into
the ha
l
l,
wiping fresh perspiration
from his brow. He
picked
up a
bottle
of vodka, broke
the seal and was
on
the
way to
the study
where he kept a cabinet of
glasses
when the telephone began ringing
again. He pushed
a pile of last
year’s
Peking
Review
irritably onto the floor to make room for the
bottle
and
glass
on his desk, then went back to answer
it.
He lost
the
battle to stifle an
enormous
yawn as he picked up the
receiver.