The Burma Legacy Read online

  He drifted back up the aisle. The Scots appeared to be unconscious – the alcohol had won.

  Back in his seat, before he fell asleep again, it was Midge his thoughts kept turning to. His desire to know her better felt like a dull ache begging to be rubbed.

  Julie had come into his sights fifteen months ago. She worked at a virology lab in the centre of London. He’d gone there to interview her about the murder of her father, an arms trader gunned down in Africa, and had been attracted to her immediately. By the end of his investigation they’d become lovers.

  She’d refused to join him in the Far East when the Intelligence Service decided to re-base him there nearly a year ago – she valued her job too much and had a young son whose stability and security she was determined to preserve. So they’d continued the relationship at long distance, emails and phone calls backed by a couple of visits, one in each direction. But now Julie had laid it on the line – if they couldn’t be together again soon there was no point in going on. She hadn’t said what had brought things to a head, but he suspected it was Christmas – the fact that work hadn’t allowed him to return to England to spend it with her.

  The flight landed a few minutes early, but by the time the baggage came through it was well after 7.00 before he was on the road to London. A bright January day, with frost coating the embankments along the motorway. The cab driver was a chatty type, so Sam feigned sleep.

  The flat where Julie lived and where Sam kept a few of his possessions was in Ealing, to the west of the city. His half share of the rent allowed Julie to live in more comfort than could be afforded on a Health Service salary. Her main expense was eight-year old Liam, the outcome of a short-lived college relationship. The boy lived with his grandmother in Suffolk, and Julie went there at weekends.

  For him the flat was a statement too. A token of his commitment to returning to London and to her. It was in a large, converted Victorian house near the green, with a grey slate roof and wide sash windows. Sam paid off the driver, then pushed open the front door. Julie collided with him. Late as usual, she was hurrying for the tube.

  ‘God, I’ve missed you,’ she sighed, hooking her arms around him. He hugged her tight, feeling for her body beneath the thick coat. Her wispy brown hair smelled of rose petals. ‘Oh God …’ she moaned, pulling her head back and looking at him hungrily.

  ‘Another ten minutes wouldn’t make you any later,’ Sam whispered.

  ‘Yes it would. The professor’s called a meeting for a quarter to nine. I’ll have to run all the way to the tube as it is.’

  ‘Tonight then.’

  ‘I’ll try to get back early.’

  They kissed like honeymooners, then she tore herself away and hurried out of the door.

  Sam entered the first floor flat. It was the only place in the world he could call home. He glanced into the living room. A small, tinsel-smothered tree stood in the window bay, almost devoid of its needles, the skeletal remains of the Christmas he’d missed. He walked into the bedroom. The duvet had been hurriedly tossed aside, the bed left unmade.

  When he’d left for the Far East, he and Julie had had a rational, dispassionate discussion about sex. All very grown-up. But the thought that some other man might have been rolling in these sheets with her made his stomach twitch.

  Sam Packer was tall and moderately stocky. His thick, dark hair had not yet begun to grey. In Singapore he used a gym to keep in shape, but this morning he felt spaced out. His body clock was seven hours ahead of London, mid-afternoon instead of breakfast time. He unpacked his bag and took a shower, then dressed in some of the winter clothes he’d left in the wardrobe a year ago. He walked into the small kitchen and made fresh coffee to take away the taste of the stuff on the plane. By the time he felt ready to face the world it was nearly ten. He rang his controller to check in.

  ‘Welcome back!’ Duncan Waddell had a much deeper voice than seemed right for a man of diminutive stature. The accent betrayed his Ulster upbringing. ‘I thought we’d do our briefing over lunch, if that suits.’

  ‘A scoff at the tax-payer’s expense …’

  ‘Tch! Careless talk. You’ll have a Parliamentary Oversight Committee breathing down our necks.’

  ‘D’you have somewhere in mind?’

  ‘There’s a Spanish restaurant in Pimlico that has little alcoves where we won’t be overheard. I’ve booked a table for one o’clock.’

  He gave the address and they rang off.

  Sam had a couple of hours to kill before taking the underground into the centre of town. He paced round the flat, pausing to peer from the windows, then let his eyes fall on the things that were his in the place. A pair of armchairs in the living room, a few maritime prints on the walls and an old bracket clock that had once belonged to his father. He’d owned his own apartment for several years, until forced to bed hop when the address became known to people out to kill him. Most of his meagre stock of furniture had been in store ever since.

  Sam had been told nothing about his new operation. Waddell had refused to say on the phone. The travel and the time shift had left him feeling out of touch, so he put on a warm coat and slipped out of the house to buy a fistful of newspapers. There were no world crises troubling his fellow countrymen, it turned out. The headlines were all about a ’flu epidemic.

  Two hours later Packer emerged at the top of the escalator at Pimlico. It was five to one. The cream-painted terraces of Bessborough Gardens gleamed in the wintry sun. After the humid heat of the Far East, he found the crisp winter air invigorating. He walked west towards the restaurant his controller had chosen. Suddenly a hand on his arm made him jump.

  ‘Well met!’ It was Duncan Waddell, dressed in a long black coat with the collar turned up. They shook hands. ‘Coping with the cold okay?’

  ‘Nice change, actually.’

  They strode on. ‘Next turning on the right. Good flight?’

  ‘Passable.’

  When they reached the restaurant, warm food smells wafted up from the basement. Their coats were taken by a waiter who introduced himself without irony as Manuel and they were shown to their alcove. Waddell ordered a bottle of sparkling mineral water, then waited for the server to be out of earshot.

  ‘Ever been to Japan?’ he asked. He had a pointed, terrier face, and fired the question like a dart.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Interesting lot.’

  ‘Yes?’ Sam waited to be told what this was about.

  ‘This culture they have. Honour and duty …’ Waddell broke a bread roll and bit off a piece. His short, fair hair was showing hints of white. ‘The need to expiate guilt about the past …’

  ‘Are we talking about the guilt of a nation or an individual?’

  ‘The latter.’

  ‘Ah.’ The first clue of where the conversation was heading.

  ‘Tetsuo Kamata’s guilt,’ Waddell explained cryptically. ‘You’ve heard of him?’

  ‘Should I have?’

  ‘If you’d been keeping up with your London press summaries …’ the headquarters man chided. ‘Walsall car factory? About to close with the loss of thousands of jobs?’

  ‘Ah, yes. Read about it this morning. Some Jap manufacturer wants to buy it and produce cars for Europe.’

  ‘That’s right. The Matsubara Motor Corporation. Trying to nudge Toyota and Nissan aside for a bigger place in world markets.’

  Sam’s recollection widened. ‘There was a picture in the Guardian. Some minister salivating at the prospect of jobs being saved. Marginal seat? By-election expected?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Waddell clasped his hands to underline the seriousness of the case. ‘The government is setting huge store by this deal going through, Sam. It’s not just the jobs at the Walsall factory, it’s loads of others in the area that are dependent on car manufacturing. Tens of thousands will find themselves in trouble if the plant closes. You know the score …’

  ‘So what’s that got to do with you and me sitting here?’

&n
bsp; ‘Tetsuo Kamata is the chairman of Matsubara.’

  ‘I’d just about worked that out.’

  ‘Problem is it’s him and him alone who’s insisting the new factory be in Britain. The rest of his board want it somewhere in the Eurozone.’

  ‘Which might make more sense.’

  ‘Financially. But that’s not what Kamata’s most concerned about.’

  Their discourse was interrupted by the return of the waiter. They browsed the menu quickly. Waddell suggested garlic soup followed by roast suckling pig.

  ‘They do it crisp as a biscuit here.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Sam.

  ‘Sopa de Ajo and Cochinillo Asado, Manuel,’ said Waddell in his best Spanish accent.

  The waiter bowed his head and was gone.

  ‘So …’ Sam pressed, ‘what is Kamata concerned about?’

  ‘I’ll tell you a little story. Oh, but first … any idea how old Kamata is?’

  ‘Not a clue.’

  ‘Nearly eighty.’

  ‘Christ! No pensions at Matsubara?’

  ‘Took over the reins of the company from his father. Won’t give them up while he’s still got strength in his arms.’

  ‘What’s his age got to do with anything?’

  ‘A lot. The story starts in 1943 when Tetsuo Kamata was a young officer in the Japanese Army, carrying out his Imperial duty in Burma. His unit captured several British soldiers. You know about the Chindits?’

  ‘Wingate’s lot. Airdropped behind Japanese lines. Aiming to terrorise the enemy with sabotage raids. An awful lot of them died.’

  ‘Exactly. A particularly low survival rate amongst the few who got caught. Sixty per cent of those imprisoned ended up being buried in Burma.’

  They paused again as the soup was set in front of them.

  ‘That’s quick,’ Sam muttered.

  ‘They have a huge vat of it out there. Everybody orders it.’ Waddell savoured the liquid with half-closed eyes. ‘Last time I had this was in Seville earlier in the year,’ he murmured.

  ‘Holiday?’

  ‘No. International security conference.’

  ‘Getting around these days, aren’t we?’ Sam had always seen Waddell as a back office man. He tasted the soup too. ‘But you’re right. This is good. Go on about Kamata.’

  ‘Well he was as brutal as any of them. Used to personally supervise interrogation sessions. Holding a hose over the face until lungs and stomach were filled with water.’

  ‘Nice chap. His past is public knowledge?’

  ‘It is now. The tabloids have been having a field day. Monster turned angel – all that sort of stuff. Anyway, as you’ve probably gathered, Tetsuo Kamata’s most recent actions are motivated by the desire to make amends.’

  ‘A late attack of remorse.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘What brought that on?’

  ‘Time, I think. Fifty years of thinking about it.’

  ‘Did they do him for war crimes after the Jap defeat?’

  ‘Absolutely. He was incarcerated in Rangoon prison until early ’49. But when he got home, his war record was brushed under the carpet. As you know, in those days in Japan the gory details of what the Emperor’s warriors did to their enemies were never discussed. Men returning from the prisons of the Far East were treated as war heroes, not criminals.’

  ‘So Kamata junior slipped comfortably into the family business?’

  ‘And rose steadily in the hierarchy, until he became chairman on his father’s death in 1980.’

  ‘War record conveniently forgotten.’

  ‘Looked that way. But things began to change in Japan when Emperor Hirohito pegged out in 1989. People no longer felt the need to maintain a respectful silence about the war. Talked about it openly for the first time. And eventually – ten years later to be exact – this new spirit of openness filtered through to Kamata. He maintains he’d been racked with guilt for a long time but didn’t have the courage to address it until the national culture changed. Anyway, he decided to try to make amends to those he’d maltreated. Did it anonymously at first with donations to British ex-servicemen’s organisations. Then he got braver and decided to try telling his former victims in person that he was sorry for what he’d done. Those still alive.’

  ‘That must’ve taken quite a lot of courage.’

  ‘Worries about the afterlife were what was driving him, I think. Whatever, he was desperate for them to pardon him.’

  ‘Fat chance! Or?’

  ‘Some were prepared to forgive, but others refused to have anything to do with him. Which is what stung him into making a much bigger gesture. Towards the whole British nation. Just in time for Christmas …’

  ‘Even if it amounted to financial folly for his company.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And his directors are letting him?’

  ‘No choice. What Kamata says goes. While he’s still alive …’ Waddell fixed Sam with a meaningful look.

  ‘I see.’ At last he understood where this was leading.

  The waiter reappeared suddenly. They’d finished their soup. He cleared the plates and scraped breadcrumbs from the cloth. Sam waited until he’d left before posing the obvious question.

  ‘You’re saying there’s some doubt about how long Kamata will stay alive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because of his age?’

  ‘No. Kamata’s surprisingly sprightly. A natural death is not seen as likely in the near future. No. The problem’s of a different complexion.’

  ‘One of his victims wants revenge?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘But they’re all geriatrics.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  Sam pondered for a moment. There had to be a reason why they’d brought him back from Singapore for this.

  ‘And this former victim – he’s resident in my neck of the woods?’

  ‘Resident, no. But since his target seldom leaves the Far East we’re assuming that’s where he might try to do the deed.’

  ‘This is getting more far-fetched by the minute. Who is he?’

  ‘Peregrine Harrison.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Usually known as Perry. He wrote a book about his experiences in Burma. Came out in the 1970s. Gave some vivid descriptions of the techniques used on him, with a particular reference to a certain unidentified Japanese Lieutenant who’d ordered the water torture and had him beaten senseless a few times.’

  ‘How old is Perry?’

  ‘Seventy-seven.’

  ‘And full of piss and wind, no doubt,’ Sam protested. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting he could hunt Kamata down?’

  ‘He has the determination for it. In his book he was quite specific about what he hoped to see happen to his tormentor – if he could ever be traced. Wanted him strung up by his hands until the sun dried him to a husk.’

  ‘But you said the book came out twenty, thirty years ago. Harrison must have mellowed since then.’

  ‘Apparently not.’ Waddell’s eyes lit up. The suckling pig had arrived. ‘Pretty as a picture.’

  ‘Smells good,’ Sam agreed. He was seeing his controller in a new light. Until now he’d thought him devoid of normal human appetites.

  When they were on their own again, Waddell leaned forward, eager not to lose momentum.

  ‘The point is this. It was only in December that Tetsuo Kamata had to go fully public about his past. After Matsubara made its surprise bid to take over the Walsall factory one of the old soldiers who’d been approached privately by him revealed what was behind the gesture.’

  ‘You mean we didn’t know Kamata’s motive at that point?’ Sam asked, surprised. ‘Or his record?’

  Waddell shook his head. ‘Never occurred to anybody to check. Anyway, when the press told Kamata’s story, Peregrine Harrison realised this had to be the man who’d tortured him. A man whose name he’d never known.’

  ‘Must’ve been quite a mome
nt for him.’

  ‘It was. So much so that he wrote a letter to The Times about it. Arrived on New Year’s Eve, but wasn’t published. You’ll see why when you read the last line.’

  Waddell wiped his mouth with a napkin, then pulled a photocopy from his jacket pocket. Sam unfolded the sheet and held it towards the light. The first paragraph was stirring stuff. A call for Britons to stand up for principle and refuse to accept the blood-stained money of a Japanese monster.

  ‘Can’t imagine this’d cut much mustard in the working-men’s-clubs in Walsall.’

  ‘Dead right. What they want in the Midlands is work, and they don’t care who’s paying the wages. Pork good?’

  ‘Excellent.’ Sam read on to the end.

  It would be foolhardy in the extreme for the British Government to support Matsubara’s offer to take over the Walsall works. It is predicated entirely on the autocratic decision of one man. Remove that man and the Matsubara board will instantly reverse the decision, leaving the Walsall workforce in the lurch. And make no mistake about it, now that Tetsuo Kamata has finally owned up to his dreadful past, his sudden and bloody removal from this life can only be a matter of time.

  Sam stroked his chin. ‘I see what you mean …’

  ‘That’s a threat in anybody’s language, Sam. People who know him say Peregrine Harrison is still as fixated about his torturer as he was fifty-five years ago. And …’

  Waddell leaned forward with his knife poised over his plate

  ‘… since writing that letter Harrison has disappeared. Gone to ground, Sam. Why? Why else but to lay a trap for the Jap?’

  He put his cutlery down and sat back.

  ‘Even if it kills the careers of several thousand car workers in the Midlands.’

  ‘Perry Harrison’s driven by obsession. Other people’s wage packets don’t rank high on his list of priorities.’

  ‘And the fact you’ve summoned me back from Singapore to tell me all this means the firm’s been told to stop him?’

  ‘Exactly. The PM is adamant. Says it’s a matter of vital national importance. It’s not just the Matsubara Motor Corporation he’s worried about. If we let a British national murder one of Japan’s top businessmen because of something that happened over fifty years ago, the knock-on effect on Japanese investment in this country could be devastating. There must be hundreds of thousands of people in Britain working for Jap companies.’