Yin Yang Tattoo (27 page)

My journey resumed on a creaky old bus that had seen better days, and soon crossed the short bridge linking the south coast of the mainland to Geoje Island. Tower cranes and a blanket of rust marked a massive shipyard on our left, and shortly after that I changed to another bus that continued south. It laboured through hilly countryside that shrugged off all signs of modern architecture or industry, and terminated at the tiny fishing-and-seafood resort of Haekumgang. A picture-postcard bay and spectacular offshore rock features gave the place its name –
diamond mountain of the sea
. On the hill overlooking the bay stood the village's one modern
yogwan
. Walking from the bus stop I heard steps behind me, and at a corner I sneaked a backward glance at a Western woman, casually-dressed and toting a small backpack. At the reception desk of the inn, she hung back, politely giving me space while I checked in and made my next mistake. The middle-aged lady behind the counter complimented me on my Korean as she pointed the way to my room, through the door directly behind the Westerner, who stepped forward to the desk. As we passed she nodded, and I mumbled a quick ‘hello' in English from under my hat, cursing my stupidity. Being unable to speak Korean was part of my new identity, and already I had fucked up.

The room's red-tiled bathroom had a small mirror blotched by fungus that seemed to grow in the light of a tired fluorescent tube that dangled from rusted chains of unequal lengths. I stripped to the waist, pulled a battery-operated beard trimmer from my toilet bag, and set to work. The trimmer made heavy weather of cropping my hair, tugging and tearing painful slow sweeps across my scalp, and it took the better part of an hour to achieve what I wanted: every last curl flushed down the toilet and only the shortest of hairstyles remaining in place.

Stage two was complicated by Korean-only instructions on the bottle of dye. Products like this were the only reason so few Korean men have grey hair. The stuff had to be straightforward to apply, but the instructions taught me next to nothing. I understood something about ‘three minutes', which was how long I left the first mucky application before rinsing it out. The mirror over the desk in the bedroom showed me the results. The hair was uneven in length and in colour, whole patches showing flashes of dirty blond – and half the lines on my forehead had taken to the dye best of all.

I went back to the sink and this time worked the dye into every short hair on my head, ruining a soft shaving brush in the process. After another three-minute spell of growing panic I took a long hot shower, scrubbing hard at hair and scalp and forehead.

Back to the room mirror, where things looked much better, if shockingly black. Another couple of minutes of probing scrutiny passed before it finally dawned on me what was wrong. I returned to the bathroom, this time to take a toothbrush to my eyebrows. I spent another hour tweaking and trimming with the scissors, trying to get rid of that home-made look.

I propped myself against a pile of pillows at the head of the bed and thought about the stranger in the mirror. Maybe if I saw him often enough he would start to look natural. Natural was important, but what I needed most of all was to be different. So different from my photograph that I could walk the streets without the constant fear of a strong hand landing on my shoulder. I would find out soon enough.

Less than thirty-six hours had passed since I fled Seoul. Yet today's newspapers, proud bearers of yesterday's news, were full of me, which meant that Chang or the police, or both, had gone public as soon as I went missing. I knew I had to speak out and make my case, which was where the purple telephone came in.

The phone at the other end rang eight or nine times before being picked up. To my relief I got a real human being to talk to, not an automated answering service to negotiate.

‘British Embassy, how may I help you?' A Korean woman, complete with near-perfect Home Counties accent.

‘Eric Bridgewater, please.'

‘I am sorry, but consular hours are from – '

‘Believe me, he will want to take this call. My name is Brodie.'

A long pause.

‘Can you tell me your name again?'

‘Brodie, Alec Brodie.'

Another pause.

‘Please hold the line, Mr Brodie, and I will see if Mr Bridgewater is available to take your call.'

A few seconds later:

‘Eric Bridgewater.'

‘We met at the K-N reception in the Shilla Hotel, when Bobby Purves introduced us and told me never to call you if I was in trouble.'

‘I remember. Where are you calling from?'

‘Do you want the address of the nearest police station while I'm at it?'

‘You have caused the Embassy a great deal of trouble, not to mention embarrassment.'

‘If I had just foreseen being falsely accused of a hideous murder, maybe I could have saved you the ordeal of a few awkward phone calls.'

‘Witnesses put you with the dead prostitu – '

‘Her name was Miss Hong. And yes, I knew her, but I didn't kill her.'

‘So why did you run? Our advice in such cases is always the same. If you are innocent, surrender yourself and let the authorities take care of it. You are only making things worse.'

‘Worse than WHAT?' In the mirror above the small dressing table, my face was bright red, a forehead pulse point throbbing so hard that one eyelid flickered out of control. ‘Do you know how I spent the other day? Let me tell you – five hours in a Seoul police station, getting my kidneys pounded with phone books and my head held underwater for so long paramedics had to bring me back from the dead. The police wanted a confession. To a murder I know nothing about. Now there is a nationwide manhunt under way with my mugshot on the front of every newspaper in the country. Tell me, wise counsel, just how much fucking worse can it get?'

He let that one sit for a few seconds.

‘If you are arrested and charged while still on the run it will make things worse. Anything that hints at guilt can only work against you.'

He had a point.

‘But I'm being set up.'

‘You will have to do better than that. This is Seoul, not Hollywood.'

‘I assume you're taping this.' I said, ‘Just for the benefit of anyone with a brain who might listen later, I did not kill Miss Hong. The last time I saw her, she was alive and well, and pouring whisky into my belly button – not the typical behaviour of anyone under threat from a murdering maniac.

‘Next. I don't know who killed her, but I have a fair idea why they did it. To blackmail me into participating in the massive con game that K-N Group are pulling off with their GDR issue – '

‘Blackmail, too. What are you going to claim next, that – '

‘Shut up and listen. The GDR issue is a complete fraud. K-N is facing bankruptcy, and the GDR is their last chance. K-N needed my photographs from recent visits to North Korea, along with credibility they could borrow from my trips to the North to help convince the Due Diligence team of the GDR's viability. They also had me fake photographs of what was supposed to be an existing K-N plant in the North, photographs I took last week in a warehouse in Cholla province. The fake photographs are right there in the brochure K-N Group is using to promote the GDR.'

‘Apart from hearing you admit to participating in this supposed act of fraud, I fail to see how your finger-pointing might in any way provide you with any defence – '

‘Precisely. You get the point, at last. If I turn myself in just now, K-N's powerful mates and Chang's money bury any hint of trouble with the GDR. And at the same time, they bury me.'

He mulled that one over.

‘And what are you suggesting the Embassy might do?'

‘Begin by looking into the GDR. The Due Diligence team that's being suckered is British, as are the banks and many of the investment funds behind the issue. The chief banker involved in the scam is British – Martinmass – who works for a British bank. Bobby Purves' son was abducted for two hours on Sunday and his family were threatened with violence – most of them are British, too. And then there is me. British. As in citizen of Her Majesty's United Kingdom. As in what the fuck happened to British Diplomatic Service responsibilities to its overseas citizens.'

‘OK, OK.'

‘OK? I'm warning you ahead of time about a threat to British citizens and companies, and the open criminal involvement of a Briton who is a regular guest at British Embassy functions. So get this: letters telling everything, including the fact that you are already aware of this, are on their way to the Press in London and Seoul as we speak. Another copy is addressed to your bosses at Whitehall. So if you have any desire to hang onto your job, you might want to start doing it, and now.'

‘Now hold on right there – '

‘Get to work, you useless prick.'

I switched off the phone and set it aside. It was time to get started on those letters.

Night had long since fallen when at last I descended into the village in search of the first proper food of the day, and if the meal was overdue, the darkness could not have suited me more. Bare-headed for the first time since I left Seoul, I was testing public reaction to my new look, and even the prospect of a near-deserted fishing village on an island off the south coast scared me.

Narrow twisted lanes were dark but free of threat, an occasional curious face peering out from corner store or tidy courtyard. The flickering blue of televisions lit households from within; a pro-baseball match was under way and, by the sounds of it, much of Haekumgang was following the action.

Nearer the harbour a wider lane took on the green cast of fluorescent strip lights suspended at odd angles along the outsides of seafood restaurants, most of which sat deserted. In the lower halves of windows, murky glass tanks teemed with live fish, eel and squid. Five minutes after watching their choice swing from tank to kitchen in a dripping net, customers would be putting chopsticks to dinner – cooked or raw. Freshness re-defined.

Selecting a place to eat out of a dozen lookalike establishments was never easy, but tonight the decision was made for me. A cheery middle-aged woman stepped onto the street and ushered me indoors, not about to take no for an answer. The restaurant was exactly as I would have pictured it. Concrete floor, powder blue walls with vertical lines of dark red Korean script advertising its menu, and a small wooden counter by the door for diners to lean on while they argued over who would pay the bill. About ten customers dotted the dozen or so tables, and I was pleased to see that the obligatory television screen was blank.

I could have done without the small group at a corner table where the Western woman from the
yogwan
sat with two European men. Walking straight back out would only draw more unwanted attention, so I took a window seat in the opposite corner as far from them as I could get. Earlier, I was too busy hiding my face to notice how attractive the woman was. Her lightly-freckled cheeks were aglow with alcohol, and she wore wavy brown hair in a long pony tail that she fingered absent-mindedly as she talked. She was somehow familiar, yet only in the vaguest of senses, as if we might have crossed paths recently in a taxi line or subway car.

The cheery
ajimah
stood patiently by my table, battered red worker's hands flat on the hips of her apron, talking non-stop at me, unconcerned that I had yet to utter a single word in response. From now on unlike that guy in the newspapers, this foreigner spoke no Korean. I pointed to the menu painted on the wall, shoulders shrugged and palms raised in a pantomime apology. She shuffled off, plastic slippers grating on concrete, and plucked something from between the two men at the table in the other corner. The foreigner's menu, a small album of laminated photographs labelled with prices.

I knew exactly what I wanted but pored over the photographs for a minute before pointing at the blurry image of
hwae top-bap
. Almost as an afterthought, I did the sign-language for drinking.

‘Beer?'

‘
Maek-ju
' said the
ajimah.

‘Yes,
maek-ju.
One bottle of
maek-ju,
please
.
' This was a lot easier in Korean.

Visibly pleased with herself, my helper headed for the kitchen, and emerged a few seconds later with a tall bottle and a glass.

‘
Kam-sa-hamnida.'
I made my speech clumsy and uncertain.

She bowed her head politely and left smiling broadly at the foreigner who could almost say ‘beer' and ‘thank you'.

I drank my beer and tried not to stare at the trio in the corner. I wanted to avoid attention, to project the impression of a tourist without a care in the world, not the terrified look of the hunted man I had seen in the shop window that morning.

The three spoke English, small talk about the food and the beer and prices of things and places they had visited. I made her for about thirty years old, and American. Her companions sounded French and German, and looked five or six years her junior. They called her Rose. She looked like an office professional on holiday, while the other two had the air of budget travellers, hair unkempt, clothes faded, tired footwear fraying at the seams. The German called out, a brusque demand for more
soju
, and I saw a flicker of concern in the face of the
ajimah.
At the end of their table stood five empty bottles, more than enough to sink three
soju
novices without trace. The German grabbed the new bottle and made a production out of re-filling the Frenchman's shot glass. Rose covered hers with one hand in a firm gesture that said ‘no'.