Number 39

By Greg Tuck

After the exploits dealing with police corruption, (see "You Don't Say" in the Downs Crime Mystery series) Detective Inspector "Sarge" Downs from Cairns was looking for a break. However, while on a holiday in Hong Kong with his partner Sarah, he finds himself in trouble. He had decided to accompany his partner Sarah, who, as a lecturer at James Cook University in marine biology and toxicology had been invited to be a guest speaker at a world wide seminar. Sarge unwittingly becomes involved in a Chinese drug triad after coming to the rescue of a man being beaten up in a market place in Hong Kong. Sarge is captured by the triad and held to ransom. With the aid of Chief Inspector Li of the Hong Kong Police, Geoff Smith from the Australian Federal Police and Sergeant Nat Johns from Cairns, Sarge is released and then helps them to curtail the activities of the triad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Tuck
• Release date: Jan 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463942703

Greg Tuck

I am a former primary teacher and principal, landscape designer and gardener and now a full time author living in Gippsland in the state of Victoria in Australia. Although I write mainly fictional novels, I regularly contribute to political blogs and have letters regularly published in local and Victorian newspapers. I write parodies of songs and am in the process of writing music for the large number of poems that I have written.

Book preview

Chapter 1

No way! We have talked about this before. You are not going. And that is final.

It came across as an order. However, it was more like a challenge to the receiver of the news. It was a bait that he would rise to and if he was a fish would have swallowed hook, line and sinker. He was accustomed to being told what to do but never actually doing it.

The two of them, stubborn as each other, faced each other on yet another battlefield and neither would give in. They had been together as a couple for eighteen months and the honeymoon period was well and truly over. The added stress of designing and building their own brand-new home didn't help one iota. That had been the beginnings of their major confrontations and nearly the end of their relationship. As palatial as their temporary accommodation was, the building process was taking a lot longer than they expected and throwing up lots of little niggle points. Now when final decisions were required, one of them was heading overseas for ten days.

You are bloody well not going, She was adamant and stared up at the giant of a man in front of her. I am the one who has been invited to give the lecture and I don't need you there with me to hold my hand.

By comparison to him, she looked frail, though her partner was aware of her steely resolve and her ability to talk her way out of just about anything. She was right, he knew, but because he loved her so much, he was very protective; probably overprotective he admitted.

They had danced around this issue before, but on this occasion, he wasn't about to give in. Ten days for her overseas alone as he saw it, scared the bejesus out of him. As a police officer he was well aware of the seamier side of life and the dangers that went with it. His massive frame was enough to pose a threat to would be attackers but his partner only had her mental agility to protect her. Based on what he had witnessed over the time he had known her, and especially in the last three weeks of arguing over this trip, she was plenty strong enough in that department, but was that going to be strong enough or all she needed where she was going? What he needed was some of that mental agility himself to gain the upper hand. He sensed her frustration was on the rise as she had used the word 'bloody' and she rarely if ever swore. He understood that she was very much entrenched in her stance and needed a different tack. Then it hit him. He could use another bone of contention to assist him. He broke into a big Cheshire grin that split his deeply tanned face and immediately turned away from her and stared at the waves crashing on the shores of their almost private South Cairns beach.

Sarah saw the smile however and immediately became wary. She was pretty confident that she could win any logical argument that Sarge and she had, and knew she had the staying power and determination to best him as well; but he was very cunning, a street fighter who when push came to shove would throw the rule book, a rule book he lived by, completely out the window.

Ok, you win. I will stay here. You're a big girl and the people there probably won't know what hit them and will never be the same for it.

Sarah wasn't fooled for one minute by this sudden capitulation but wasn't going to let him back down from this statement. That was her mistake she would soon realise, but right at this instance she gave him literally a winning smile, a big hug and a long and passionate good morning kiss.

After all, Sarge continued, one of us has to be here to discuss things with the architect and builder. I have a few ideas I want to toss around with them.

Sarah saw the trap before her but her momentum had carried her into it and there was little she could do about it. The arguments over the design had been relentless. Sarge had created a beautiful functional layout and Sarah had added the designer touches. Many of the walls were curved. Sarge hadn't seen the sense in that and her logic in placing some of the door openings. Feng Sui was not common sense as far as he was concerned. When he needed to use the ensuite in the middle of the night, he wanted a direct path, not to bump into a curved wall to then have to move around into an offset doorway. Who cared if you saw the toilet when you were in bed? Straight line between two points was important when you were busting, but not according to Mr Feng Sui, whom he suspected was some Chinese unqualified architect writing for women's magazines.

Sarge wanted a house that was composed of large open spaces with rectangular rooms. Sarah wanted their house to also have large open spaces but like the sea, which was metres away, she wanted the house to have lines that ebbed and flowed and melded into the landscape. Sarge’s previous house on this site had been destroyed by an explosion six months ago and this was their chance to build a dream home together. The dream was becoming a nightmare. Sarge wanted to hang art work on the walls and this was one of the tactics he used to get his flat straight walls back on the plans. Sarah retaliated by showing how the latest three D printers could actually mould picture frames to match the contours of any shaped wall. Both had an eye for detail and both were determined to get their own way. Sarge had thrown a spanner in the works of Sarah’s plans because he would no doubt change everything in response to her determination that he should not accompany her to the location of the world marine toxicology conference. She was valiantly and desperately searching to find a way that she could win on both fronts.

There is no reason for you to go to. I will be trapped going to lectures or lecturing all the time I am there, Sarah had explained earlier. Her role in the development of antivenins and her thesis had led to her become one of the youngest professors ever at the James Cook University in Cairns and had seen her receive high praise from people from all around the world. It had also seen the demise of her previous mentor/boss who had tried to claim her idea as his own, only to be caught out because he knew next to nothing when compared to his much younger research assistant.

You can’t just leave your own work, was another ploy she had used. Unfortunately, as Sarge argued, he most certainly could. Eighteen months prior as a lowly but much respected police sergeant in Cairns he had solved an interstate cold case through sheer hard work, dogged determination and a photographic memory. Then six months ago he had busted wide open, major corruption issues in the Queensland Police Force that had lay hidden since the 1990’s era post Fitzgerald Inquiry. Some very high-profile politicians, public servants, police officers and judges had fallen like dominoes thanks to a not so gentle nudge by Sarge’s investigation in an acting Detective Inspector role with the Cairns CID. Now, permanently in the role as a Detective Inspector, he had been promised time off when he wanted it by the big boss himself. The Chief Commissioner of Police knew Sarge was the sort of person who would only take it if he really needed it and it was one way of retaining one of the best and most incisive minds in his police force.

Sarge had come into a lot of money after the solving of the murder in Coober Pedy and then even more after the corruption investigation. He had sought neither and just wanted his shack back that had been destroyed by one of the corrupt cops he had uncovered. The shack was unable to be replaced ‘Like for like so a new shack had to be created and a grateful government was happy to use the proceeds from crimes" act to fund the new one to whatever level Sarge sought. He had steadfastly refused to accept it but when the Premier, Attorney General and Police Commissioner insist, most people eventually cave in. Sarge took longer than most but eventually gave in. His shack had been over insured anyway so money for the build wasn’t going to be an issue. He had barely touched the millions in the windfall that came when he had been forced to attempt to purchase a worked-out opal mine in Coober Pedy in a desperate attempt to solve a murder. The murder was solved but also it turned out that the opal mine was not useless at all and he made a fortune. He even got his purchase price back because a relative of the previous mine owners left it to Sarge in his will. Lots of things had fallen into place and Sarge attributed that to luck. He had even met Sarah at the time, and, if the house and the trip were out of the picture, he would consider that to be the greatest piece of fortune that had ever come his way. At the moment though, he wasn’t so sure.

"I have nothing urgent sitting on my desk and I have heaps of leave. I have great faith in my colleagues to be able to step into my shoes. Although I know they won’t be able to do the job anywhere near as good as me, Cairns Police Station won’t collapse without me there.

Sarah hated it when her partner, whom she loved to pieces, was not only right but smugly making fun of her. His attitude was always self-deprecating and the skiting he was doing she knew was very much tongue in cheek. What was even worse was that she had been outflanked and she had few choices left. She would have to seek an honourable deal in defeat. Reluctantly and logically she came to the conclusion that she was going to have this huge hearted man sitting next to her on the plane for ten hours because she could cope with that and quickly put it behind her. The flat walled rectangular house she would wake up in for the rest of her life was another thing.

Curved walls and your body with me for ten days, or flat walls and peace and quiet and someone who doesn’t snore or steal the doona? Tough call. Lucky for you I guess I love my curved walls, Sarah conceded.

You mean I won? I never win. It is written in our unwritten partnership that I never win and that you are always right. Is this a trick? Sarge was revelling in the moment.

No, you didn’t win. The curved walls won and I intend to make sure that you suffer for the ten days we are over there. And you had better not get into any trouble! Sarah warned him.

What trouble? What possible trouble could I get into? he tried to look into her eyes for an answer but her eyeballs were too busy rolling in their sockets.

For a start, it’s in Hong Kong. You don’t speak the language. You will stand out like a sore thumb looking down on everyone there from your oxygen-canister required height. You won’t know anyone there. I won’t be there to hold your hand. I will be busy every single day. And I assure you, because you sound so smug right now, you will be practising celibacy every night there.

Sarge groaned.

This will be a complete change of culture for you. These people won’t understand your big boof head ocker approach. You will be a nobody over there. You are a cop here. You will just be just another tourist there. But as a tourist, I swear to God if you wear that bloody Hawaiian shirt of yours, that I want to burn, I will personally have a hit squad find you. Have you considered you could be stuck in the hotel suite for ten days because you don’t like the people there?

I’ll have you know, Sarge said indignantly, I like Chinese.

Sarah shook her head in a resigned dismissal of any hope that things would go well.

Number 39 on the menu, she firmly stated, doesn’t count!

Chapter 2

You know what? I looked up Chinese astrology by mistake on the internet and guess what I found? Sarge said smugly as he climbed out of bed just as Sarah returned from the shower, her hair wrapped in a towel.

Sarah had issues with her partner’s new-found obsession, the internet. She rolled her eyes as Sarge put the laptop on the bed and proceeded to give her a cuddle. However, one look in her eyes and he realised that danger lurked in that sort of action.

So, tell me what you have found now that you have become a guru in yet another area thanks to the degree you have from the Google School for Dummies. Sarah was in no mood for anything to do with the Hong Kong trip after conceding that Sarge would accompany her there.

Well I’m a monkey and you’re a rooster.

And????????

Well it says here that marriages have only a forty percent chance of surviving because of poor compatibility. Sarge was sailing in dangerous waters but couldn’t see it.

Okay. Let’s look at some facts. Compatibility has nothing to do with your birth year and even if it did, we are not married, so the forty percent doesn’t count. Even if you got down on your hands and knees and begged we are not getting married. I wouldn’t give my mother the satisfaction. It will be over her dead body. So, if you want to marry me then you know what you have to do. Sarah was only just warming up. "If you look logically then some people have to be in the forty percent who do make it and why shouldn’t that be us? With the divorce rate nearing the same mark then we would be on trend. But guess what we are not married!"

Sarge looked like he had the wind taken out of his sails and that might have saved him from the shipwreck of a conversation he was in, but he got an oar out and paddled directly towards the reef.

I would be far better with an ox it says here.

And what sort of ox would have you? You don’t know any oxen do you with low intelligence and no taste? Sarah quipped.

Actually, Jess is an ox according to the Chinese calendar.

Sarah stopped in her tracks. Jess was the ravishing beauty that had helped solve the corruption case last year. Sarah and Sarge had attended her wedding to Nat only three weeks ago. Nat and she had been living together for years and following the conclusion of the events of six months ago and Nat’s promotion to Sergeant and a position at Cairns Police Station they had tied the knot on Trinity Beach. Nat’s blond hair, which was normally tucked into his shirt at work, streamed out behind him and blended in with Jess’s as the onshore wind swept across the beach on the day as a sign of their togetherness. Sarge’s hair was short and thinning. Sarge had been best man and Sarah a bridesmaid. Even though Sarah was much older, she refused to be called a matron of honour, but had to admit the alternative ‘bridesmaid’ rankled a bit.

Jess is on her honeymoon still so you have no chance there my friend. Sarah responded.

Honeymoon? What’s that? Sarge’s death wish may soon be fulfilled.

"If you bothered to google the meaning, you would see it refers to the period after a marriage of about a month when it is supposed to be the sweetest time of a relationship. Again, I point out to you that we are not married, so, if your dumb question is about when ours is finished, our honeymoon isn’t over, it never got started. By the way, are you saying that you consider Jess is interested in you, because I don’t think so," Sarah concluded.

Sarge must have heard the shattering splintering sound as his foolish attempts at navigating his way through this conversation scrapes across the coral. The bottom of his ship was torn asunder but he was going down in a blaze of, well not glory, stupidity perhaps.

Going back to what you said before; are you saying someone who chooses to live with me has low intelligence and no taste? he smiled as he asked.

The speed of what happened next wiped that smile from his face. A sweeping kick from the much smaller person in front of him was fast and savage. It took his feet right out from under him and he landed on his backside with a resounding thump that shook the walls of the portable home.

From his prone position on the ground, he stared at Sarah who bowed briefly to him.

Where did you learn how to do that? Have you been keeping secrets from me? I thought you said to me what you see is what you get. I haven’t seen this Chinese karate trick before.

Oh my god, with all that vacant space between your ears we could rent it out and make a fortune. Japanese do karate not the Chinese. I gave you a tae kwon do dweel huryeo chagi. It is a kick that is designed to do more damage than I gave you. I held back a bit.

I thought Tae Kwon Do was number 38 on the menu. Sarge’s attempt to lighten the mood had little effect. He held out a hand in an attempt to get Sarah to help him to his feet. She turned her back on him and headed back to the bathroom.

"What you see is what you get most of the time. You didn’t see that coming, did you but you got it. You don’t actually get me, do you?" Sarah asked over her shoulder just before she closed the door.

I most certainly do not, Sarge muttered as he hauled himself to his feet rubbing his backside and wounded ego, I do not.

I heard that and guess what you’re also not getting tonight! Sarah’s voice came loud and clear through the thin partition.

Sarge walked