The Two Sisters of Borneo (21 page)

Ah-Pei’s head fell forward and Ava knew it was easier for her to talk about sex than money.

“I want to know whose idea this was,” Ava persisted.

“It was Jan’s,” she said, her voice cracking.

“How did that come about?”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, you do. And I should tell you now that, after you’re finished here with us, May will be taking you to our lawyer to repeat the entire story.”

A look of panic came into her eyes and Ava realized she might be close to scaring her into silence.

“Ah-Pei, listen to me,” Ava said, placing a hand on her knee. “We’re going to get our money back from you, and from the Dutch. That is what this is about. We need to know why things happened. But as for what it means for you and your sister . . . well, I’m not sure that’s for us to decide. So talk to me about the money.”

“The police?”

“If we wanted to involve them, you would be talking to them right now, not us.”

Ah-Pei drew a deep breath and then sighed. “The idea was Jan’s, but I might have set it in motion,” she said. “When Chi-Tze began to talk about buying out our brothers, I liked the idea at first. Then, as we got close to finalizing the deal, I began to think about how much money they would be getting and the kinds of lives they would have. I didn’t think it was fair, that it was right.”

“Because you built the business?”

“Me and my parents.”

“And Chi-Tze?”

“I love my sister — even if it doesn’t look that way — but she’s the baby of the family and has always been treated differently. When I left high school, there was no talk about university; I went right into the business. For Chi-Tze it wasn’t just university; it was a university abroad, and then it was graduate school abroad. My parents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on her education. Her contribution to the business didn’t come close to what had been spent. Maybe it would one day, but maybe not.”

“The money spent on her was money you had earned?”

“Money I helped to earn.”

“You resented them all? Your brothers and your sister?”

“Sometimes. Not always, but sometimes.”

“So what was in it for you to sell us part of the business?”

“I’d be rid of my brothers, I’d be able to hire some capable people to replace them, and I’d have access to working capital. I can’t tell you how many times we ran out of money over the years. Growing a business when you’re undercapitalized isn’t any fun.”

“When did that plan change?”

“You mean when did I decide to keep some money for myself?”

“I mean when you decided to steal some money for yourself and Jan de Groot.”

“And Meijer too. He was Jan’s partner.”

“Answer my question, please,” Ava said.

“Jan was here in KK,” she said. “We were at my house. I told him we were going to sell off part of the company. He asked me why and I told him I was fed up with my brothers, that I was tired of carrying the load for everyone. He didn’t say much right away, but the next night he came back to the subject and started asking me a lot of questions.”

“About the deal?”

“Yes, and about you and Ms. Wong.”

“What did he want to know?”

“How much money you were putting in and how much you had behind you.”

“Ah.”

“Yes, he had things figured out quite well. He said it was a crime that my brothers should get such a big payday and that my sister, with her
MBA
and her connections with you, would probably end up running the company, while it was I who had made it all possible for everyone. He said it didn’t have to be that way. He said there was a way I could be properly rewarded for what I had done.”

“Aside from the illegality of it all, it didn’t concern you that his scheme might put the company entirely out of business?”

“Jan said that because of all of the money you had already put in, you wouldn’t let that happen . . . He was right.”

“Yes, he was right,” May Ling snapped.

May had been so quiet that Ava had almost forgotten she was there. Now she turned to her friend and saw in her firmly set jaw and steely eyes that Ah-Pei shouldn’t expect even a shred of sympathy.

“The way he explained it to me, I thought it was a good plan. Everything would be done legally, he said, and we would be protected by the bankruptcy laws.”

“What he didn’t factor in is that Ava is very clever at finding money that has lost its way, and when she finds it, she doesn’t let things like Dutch laws stop her from recovering it,” May said.

Ah-Pei shook her head and slumped deeper into the chair. Ava, sensing that her confession had used up most of her emotional energy, quickly pressed another button. “Why did you hire those goons to attack your sister and Amanda?”

“I didn’t.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true. All I said was that I wanted to throw a scare into them. Hwang misunderstood me.”

“How did you find a man like Hwang?”

“My father used him years ago to help collect bad debts. I remembered him and was surprised to find that he was still alive and in the same business.”

“And why did you want to scare the girls?”

“Because of her,” Ah-Pei said, looking at May.

“What do you mean?”

“She hired that lawyer to go after my brothers. I didn’t want her to, but she wouldn’t listen. They aren’t even here; they’re in Thailand with their wives. When they heard about what was going on, the charges that were being levelled against them, they freaked out. Mamat called me to find out what was behind it all, and I explained about de Groot declaring bankruptcy. That freaked him out even more, because he thought you might try to claw back the money you’d paid them. He said that I was the one responsible for the contract, and if anyone should be blamed it should be me. He also said he knew that de Groot and I were sleeping together, and that if I didn’t call off the lawyer he’d make sure everyone knew.”

“Did he know that you and de Groot pulled off this scam together?”

“Mamat may be lazy but he isn’t stupid. I think he at least suspected something.”

“And you didn’t want him talking to May, or to our lawyer.”

“That’s right.”

“And you thought that if you frightened the girls, they might go to May and ask her to back off?”

“That was the general idea. I thought that if the three of us went to her it would be hard for her to say no.”

“So what went wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice cracking again. “They were supposed to just yell at the girls and tell them that if they kept making false charges through lawyers, people would start getting hurt. I never wanted anyone to actually get hurt.”

Ava sighed. “The trouble with using goons is that they’re goons for a reason. They usually don’t have the brains to hold down any other kind of job.”

“I haven’t slept since that night,” Ah-Pei said in a rush. “I keep thinking about Amanda and Chi-Tze when I saw them for the first time at the hospital. I’d give anything to take all this back.”

“Well, for starters, you’re going to transfer the money that’s sitting in Kuala Lumpur back into the company accounts,” Ava said.

“I will.”

“And then you’re going to go with May to see the lawyer. You’ll tell him everything you told us, and you’ll answer any other questions he has.”

“Yes, I will.”

“Have you been in contact with de Groot?”

“No.”

“Good. Keep it that way. I mean it — if he suspects there’s even the tiniest problem, everything I said about not involving the police will be reversed.”

“I understand,” Ah-Pei said.

“May, is there anything else you want to add?”

“Stay away from the office,” she said, leaning forward and jabbing her index finger into Ah-Pei’s knee.

Whatever composure Ah-Pei had left dissolved in a trail of tears.

“I’ll have someone pack your things and send them to your house,” May said, and then sat back. “Unfortunately there may be occasions when we need information or some help. When that need arises, one of my people will call you. I expect you to be one hundred percent co-operative. Otherwise I expect you to do nothing, absolutely nothing, that will interfere with the supply chain or the customer base.”

“I would never do that.”

“A week ago I’m quite sure you didn’t think you’d cause so much damage to two young women,” May said.

Ava stood up. Recrimination was pointless. At some point Ah-Pei would have to deal with her sister and brothers and Amanda, and it seemed obvious that the time between now and then would be painful enough. “May, when can the lawyer see you?” she asked.

“Whenever we want.”

“I have to go upstairs. I’m going to email Jacob Smits, with a copy to you, and tell him what’s going on here. When you finish with her at the lawyer’s office, send everything you have to Jacob. He can take care of things on the Dutch side. Now I need to get to Hong Kong.”

“I know. I’ll look after things here.”

“I’m so sorry,” a small voice said.

Ava looked down at Ah-Pei. “What I don’t understand is how you could tear your family apart like that. What else do we have in this world that we can rely on? If we don’t have family, we have nothing. That’s how I was raised, and I can’t imagine you were raised any differently.”

Ah-Pei stared at the ground.

Ava left the two women and limped towards Sonny and Suen. They leapt to their feet as soon as they saw her coming. “I’m finished here. I’m going upstairs to pack. How soon will the plane be ready to leave?”

“I’ll call the pilot now,” Suen said. “It shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

“May is taking Ah-Pei to the lawyer’s office. Can you send someone with them?”

“Choo will go,” Suen said, motioning to the man who had driven them to the hotel.

Ava made her way to the elevator. As the doors closed she looked back and saw that May and Ah-Pei had joined the men. Ah-Pei posed no threat of bolting, or of doing anything else, for that matter. She would do exactly what Ava had told her to do. So would May. So would Jacob.
Now
, she thought,
if only I had any control over what’s going on in Hong Kong.

The plane was a turboprop model, a Fairchild-Dornier 328, that could seat thirty-two passengers. Ava, Sonny, and sixteen men from Shanghai were on board. The men sat together at the front. Ava sat alone in the back row. She had kept Sonny’s phone, and she checked it every ten minutes for a call from Parker.

Ava turned on her laptop but couldn’t get an Internet connection. She pulled out her notebook and updated it with the activities of the past three days. She was doing it out of habit, as a way to kill time. When she finished, she turned to the back of the book and, almost without thinking, began to make a list of things she had to do in Hong Kong. Seeing Uncle’s lawyer was a priority, if only because Uncle had made such a pointed request.

She had a copy of his will. She hadn’t wanted it but he had been insistent, and then he had made her sit next to him while they read it together. It was simple enough. Lourdes inherited the Kowloon apartment and Sonny the car, and both they and Uncle Fong were left some cash. Everything else went to Ava.

“We’re about half an hour out from Chek Lap Kok,” she heard a voice say.

Suen stood several rows in front of her, as if afraid to invade her privacy.

“Thanks. I didn’t know the airport took private planes.”

“We’ll land at the Business Aviation Centre; it’s tucked into a corner of the airport. The immigration people will come on board to check our papers. When that’s done, you can disembark. I had the pilot phone ahead and arrange for a limo to meet you at the plane.”

“Thanks again.”

“Give Uncle our best regards.”

“I will.”

“Our boss thinks the world of him.”

“Yes,” Ava said.

They began to descend just five minutes later. Ava looked out the window as they cleared the clouds and the South China Sea became visible. How many times had she looked out on that view? A hundred, maybe two hundred, maybe more? When Uncle was gone, what reason would she have to come back to Hong Kong? In her mind they were interlinked; she couldn’t think of one without the other.

As they got closer to the airport, the sky ahead of them darkened. Rain began to pelt the windows and the plane began to rock in the wind. She saw some of the men shift uncomfortably in their seats. It was strange, the different things that generated fear in people.

They landed and then taxied for what seemed like ten minutes before stopping on the tarmac in front of a long, curved two-storey glass building. Ava saw a small group of people leave the building and run towards them, umbrellas pointed straight ahead. The pilot came out of the cockpit and opened the plane’s door. Two immigration officers entered.

“Who’s getting out here in Hong Kong?”

“We are,” Ava said, pointing to Sonny.

“Follow my colleague here into the terminal. The rest of you, I need to see your papers.”

Ava gathered her bags. Sonny took the heavier one from her and led her towards the exit. “Goodbye, and thanks,” she said to Suen.

Holding a large umbrella, a young man in a raincoat waited at the foot of the stairs. He held it over Ava and then led the way into the terminal. Within minutes they were through Immigration and had entered the baggage area. They walked almost directly into a limo driver holding a sign that read
MS. LEE.
“Do you have any bags to collect?” he asked.

“No.”

“So where am I taking you?”

“The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kowloon.”

“The car is right outside.”

Ava checked the phone again as soon as they were inside the limo. Still nothing from Parker. She tried his number again, and again it went to voicemail. She phoned Uncle Fong. He wasn’t answering either. Then she phoned the Kowloon apartment, thinking that Lourdes was sure to be there. She let the phone ring until she heard Uncle’s voice-message prompt.

It was verging on rush hour, and with the rain and the wind Ava was afraid they would be caught in a mess of traffic. But the limo coasted over the Tsing Ma suspension bridge and edged into Kowloon. Traffic in the city was slower; it took them another twenty minutes before the sprawling hospital complex came into view. By then it had stopped raining, and when the limo ran into a wall of traffic about two blocks from the hospital, Ava told the driver to pull over and let them out.

“Do you know which building we’re supposed to go to?” Ava asked as she and Sonny started to walk.

“R Block.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

They climbed the steps into R Block, Ava leading. She was starting to move towards the reception desk when she see saw a familiar figure leaving an elevator.

“Doctor Parker!” she shouted.

He took two steps to the side and stopped, searching the hall for the voice’s origin. When he saw her, he lifted his chin ever so slightly. What she thought was surprise on his face turned into something that chilled her to the core.

“Ms. Lee,” he said.

She felt her knees weaken.

Parker took several steps towards them. “Ms. Lee,” he said.

She saw that his lips were moving but she couldn’t hear him. Her legs buckled. She would have collapsed onto the floor if Sonny hadn’t been gripping her arm.