The Uninvited Read Free Page A

exercise.
     
    The Taipei branch of the national Fraud Investigation Office, a modest low-rise to the south of the city, had the feel of a huge walk-in fridge. Here, over the course of several hours, kept awake by coffee, I heard several theories about the whistle-blower’s identity from the police and a sharp-featured young journalist who had covered the case for his newspaper. Although they were curious about his identity, their main concern was the crime itself, and the domino effect of its exposure. They seemed puzzled that Ganjong should have called in a Western personnel specialist.
    ‘It’s known as the Outsider Impartiality Effect,’ I tell them. ‘My presence here is Ganjong’s message that it rewards honesty and condemns corruption. Standard strategy.’
    The sharp-featured journalist made a face I interpreted as ‘wry’ and said, ‘Cover your ass, right?’ And they all laughed. He went on to speculate that the mystery man was in fact female, and the wife of a Jenwai manager who had been having an affair with a bar-girl. This prompted further theories: a shop-floor grudge, a power tussle between senior managers, a rival company’s attempt to bring Jenwai down, infiltration by eco-campaigners. I spent the rest of the day probing deeper, only to find the actual evidence was either thin or non-existent. It’s often the case, at the beginning of an investigation, that you spend eight hours in an over-air-conditioned office, learning what seems barely one level up from rumour. It’s only later that you might spot a stray detail that’s part of a bigger pattern, and things fall into place. Over 80 per cent of the time, that doesn’t happen.
     
    The next morning I was at the timber plant on the outskirts of Taipei by 8.25 for my meeting with Mr Yeh, the only Jenwai manager untouched by the scandal: at the time of the illegal wood-trafficking transactions, he’d been on sick leave with colon cancer. The air was humid, and pulsed with the heavy, electric heat that heralds thunder. Undulating lines of altocumulus castellanus and altocumulus floccus patterned the sky.
    The plant itself was a functional warehouse building in a high-fenced compound. In the office section near the front gates, the skeletal Mr Yeh welcomed me with a dry handshake and we exchanged business cards. I accepted his with both hands according to custom. The skin of his scalp, which was the distinctive yellow-grey of Dulux’s 1997 River Pearl, looked alarmingly thin and desiccated.
    ‘I am pleased to meet you Mr Lock. You are very tall,’ he said. Then he laughed. In Chinese culture, amusement display can mask embarrassment.
    ‘One metre and ninety-eight centimetres,’ I told him, pre-emptively. ‘But I’ve stopped growing, I promise.’ This is a joke I have learned to deploy to ‘break the ice’, but Yeh didn’t laugh, as Westerners tend to, so I inclined my head and told him in Chinese that I was honoured to meet him. This worked better: he broke into a cadaverous smile and complimented me on my facility. I told him languages were a hobby of mine, though my Chinese was unfortunately rudimentary.
    ‘Call me Martin.’ His English was assured and American-accented.
    ‘If you’ll call me Hesketh.’
    ‘Hesketh. Unusual name.’
    ‘Originally Norse. It means horse-racetrack.’
    ‘Horse-racetrack?’ He laughed. ‘And Lock is a Chinese name. But spelled L-O-K. In Cantonese it means happiness. Joy. Good name. Lucky name. Lucky-Lok.’ He paused. ‘So if you should bet on horses, you win. Ha ha.’ Then his face changed. ‘As soon as the current orders are completed the factory will close. It is a terrible situation, Mr Lock. Hesketh. It pains me.’ He touched his chest, as if to show me precisely where it hurt. In the cottage, five to the left on Shelf Three, I have a book of da Vinci’s anatomical drawings. The valves, aortas and arteries of an ox heart are on page eighteen. ‘By the way. I am sorry for the way I look.