The Scottish Banker of Surabaya

( 7 )

The drive back to the city was quick, and by nine o’clock Ava was sitting in the Italian restaurant a few steps from her condo, digging into a dish of linguine with rapini and portobello mushrooms. Her black Moleskine notebook was open on the table, and between bites she began to make a list of the things she wanted to do the following day. She kept a separate notebook for every job she undertook. In it she recorded names, numbers, dates, summaries of conversations, questions to be asked, questions answered, and her thoughts as the case unfolded. When the job was done, the notebook was put in a safety deposit box at her local bank. Ava’s friends teased her for being so old-fashioned, but there was something about putting pen to paper that cemented memories and sparked her imagination. It had been three months between notebooks. And as she wrote, the first stirrings of anticipation began to form. Maybe I’ve missed working after all, she thought.

She phoned Uncle’s apartment and Lourdes answered. “Is he out?” Ava asked.

“No, he’s still in bed.”

Ava looked at her watch. When did Uncle ever sleep this late? “Have him call me as soon as he can,” she said.

She had finished the linguine and was picking at the remnants of a bowl of mixed olives when Uncle’s Hong Kong number flashed on her phone screen. “Wei,” she said, mimicking his usual response.

“You sound happy,” he said.

“We have a job, I guess. We have seventeen clients who’ve lost a combined thirty-two million Canadian dollars.”

“Good, good. It is nice to be back at work again. I was beginning to wonder if you were ready to retire before me.”

“Never,” she said, knowing full well he had sensed her uncertainty.

“When do you start?”

“Right away. I have things I need to do here tomorrow. And I have a Vietnamese licence plate number I need you to track for me.”

“Give it to me.”

She read him the number, then said, “How are our contacts in Ho Chi Minh City?”

“Excellent.”

“So this shouldn’t take too long?”

“One phone call, perhaps two, that is all.”

“And if I need to go there?”

“You will have all the help you need. We have some old colleagues there who are still active, and they have friends with the police and the army.”

“Then, in addition to the licence plate, could you ask them to come up with whatever they can on a Lam Van Dinh? He was spotted about a week ago in Ho Chi Minh, so there must be a record of his entering the country sometime in the past six months. He would have had to put his local address on the customs entry form. It could be entirely bogus, of course, but you never know.”

“I will look after it.”

“Thanks.”

He paused, then said slowly, “Ava, I really was worried that you might have had enough of our life. I would not have blamed you if you had gone to work with May Ling.”

How does he know about May? Ava thought, though the fact that he had mentioned it surprised her more than the fact that he knew about it. “I thought about it,” she said.

“And so you should have.”

“I guess I’m just not ready for that kind of change.”

He paused again and she felt he wanted to add something. Instead he simply said, “I’ll call you when I have the information.”

It was a cool night, and Ava found herself shivering as she walked back to the condo. It wasn’t her imagination anymore — summer was gone.

She phoned Maria to chat but just got her voicemail. She left a message, then turned on the television and found a Chinese soap opera set in the seventeenth-century Ching Dynasty. It was a guilty pleasure of hers. Her mother had been watching this soap for more than twenty years, and it had somehow caught and held Ava’s interest. The court intrigue was timeless. This was the soap her mother had most missed when they were at the lake, and although Ava was loath to admit it, she had kind of missed it too.

The show was so predictable that Ava was able to get caught up in ten minutes, even after a two-month absence. As it turned out, it was a marathon night, and Ava was into her third episode when her cellphone rang, just as the provincial governor was trying to explain to his distraught and angry wife why a young woman had been seen draped around his neck. “Where were you?” she said, thinking it was Maria.

“Wei,” Uncle said.

“Ah, Uncle, I was expecting another caller.”

“Do you want me to call back?”

“No, of course not.”

“I have the information on the car and on Lam.”

“Already? It’s been less than three hours.”

“I told you we had good contacts in Ho Chi Minh.”

“Obviously.”

“The car generated quite a bit of interest from that end.”

“How so?”

“It is registered to Lam Duc Dinh.”

“A relation?”

“Yes, his older brother . . . and perhaps the leading neurosurgeon in Vietnam.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Our friends think so. They are very curious why I would be asking about a car owned by such a distinguished man.”

“And you told them?”

“I explained that our main interest was the brother.”

“Did they have anything on him?”

“He landed in Ho Chi Minh about five months ago, and from all accounts he is staying at his brother’s house.”

“Is he known to them otherwise?”

“Not to any great extent. He left Vietnam twenty years ago to attend university in Canada. Until now he has been back infrequently, and then for only a week at a time, presumably to visit his family.”

“So, no criminal activity?”

“Nothing on record.”

“I guess I’m going to be visiting Ho Chi Minh.”

“If you do, you will come through Hong Kong?”

“Of course.”

“It will be good to see you,” Uncle said.

He sounds sentimental, she thought, and that’s not like him. “You too,” she replied, wondering what exactly was going on in his head. “But before I book anything, could you get confirmation for me that Lam is still there? You mentioned his brother’s house . . .”

“He is there, in the house. Our people saw him puttering around the garden.”

“How did they know it was him?

“Ava, they have his passport photo.”

“Of course,” she said, feeling silly. “They didn’t talk to him, did they?”

“Do not worry. They did not approach him.”

“So that settles it. I’ll try to leave tonight. I’ll catch the Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong and connect from there.”

“Don’t book anything to Ho Chi Minh until late morning or early afternoon. That way we can have breakfast before you leave.”

“I’ll do that, and I’ll email you my flight information once I have it.”

“It is good to have you back,” he said.

“I’ll see you in Hong Kong,” she said, ending the call.

I’m going back to work, she thought.