The Year of Dangerous Loving
An enthralling tale of courtroom drama, blackmail and high adventure in Hong Kong in the last year of British rule, from the bestselling author of Hold My Hand I’m Dying and Roots of Outrage.Adventure, romance, political insight and dramatic locations – ingredients that have established John Gordon Davis as a major name in international adventure thrillers. Now he has added his own experience as a lawyer in Hong Kong to create an action-packed tale, filled with powerful courtroom scenes, set against the dramatic background of a city preparing for political upheaval.Al Hargreave, Hong Kong’s Director of Public Prosecutions, is taking a break in nearby Macao to recover from the collapse of his marriage when he meets Olga, a beautiful Russian. Almost before he knows what’s happening, they are planning a new life together – the only problem is that Olga’s pimp has other ideas.Suddenly Olga is snatched away, and Al is presented with an impossible dilemma. Either he commits professional suicide by intentionally losing a case against a Russian Mafia boss, or he gives up any chance of happiness, and leaves Olga to suffer an unknown fate at the hands of her captors in Moscow.
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JOHN GORDON DAVIS
THE YEAR OF
DANGEROUS LOVING
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1997
Copyright © John Gordon Davis 1997
Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com
John Gordon Davis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007574377
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2014 ISBN: 9780008119331
Version: 2014-12-19
To Buck and Diana Buchanan
Contents
‘Send a policeman to arrest me – I’ve just shot my husband!’
That was the dramatic announcement Elizabeth Hargreave made when she telephoned Jake McAdam at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club that hot Friday night. McAdam thought she must be drunk and he asked to speak to Hargreave.
‘He’s driven himself to hospital,’ Liz said, and hung up.
Then McAdam took it seriously. He went back to the bar and asked Max Popodopolous to go to her immediately and keep her away from the police while he went to look for Hargreave.
McAdam traced him at the Jockey Club Clinic. Ian Bradshaw was in attendance, and said that Hargreave would be all right: the bullet missed the lungs.
‘Thank God for that. How did you get involved in this?’ McAdam asked. Ian Bradshaw was an expensive surgeon who did not hang around casualty departments of hospitals.
‘Called me at the yacht club – he refused to let a government doctor treat him, he doesn’t want any official reports. You can’t see him, he’s still under anaesthetic.’
‘Did he tell you how it happened?’
‘Says it was an accident. Gun went off unintentionally. Don’t say anything to the police. Nor to the press.’
‘Of course not. But the press are going to love this.’
‘How embarrassing,’ Ian said. ‘Did you know the marriage was rocky?’
‘No.’ McAdam added in Liz’s defence: ‘She sounded as if she’d been drinking.’
‘Al had been drinking too. We all drink too much in this town but we don’t wave guns at our spouses. He doesn’t play around, does he?’
‘No,’ McAdam said, ‘nor does Liz.’
‘What will the police do about this?’
‘Nothing, if it was an accident.’
‘But pointing a gun at somebody is a crime, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but it’s the sort of thing that can happen in a marital row. The police can’t do anything if Alistair doesn’t lay a charge – which he certainly won’t; he’ll want it hushed up.’
‘I hope you’re right, I like Liz. And Alistair. Amazing, isn’t it, what can go on in a marital bedroom without anybody else suspecting? Just goes to show, marriage can be one of the most stressful of undertakings. Well, I’ll go’n finish my dinner. You can see him in the morning.’
McAdam then telephoned Hargreave’s apartment. Max answered.
‘Okay, she’s gone to bed with a sleeping pill, the neighbours have been looking after her. I’ve fended off the cops, told them she’s not in her sound and sober senses and can’t make a statement.’
‘Any press around?’
‘Somebody alerted them; they’ve been clamouring at the door. I fended them off too.’
‘And what’s the scene-of-crime look like?’
‘The bullet hit the book Alistair was reading before hitting his chest. Another bullet-hole in the wall above the bed.’
‘Jesus, she fired two shots?’
‘After the first shot Al grabbed the gun, they struggled for possession of it and it went off a second time, hitting the wall.’
‘Al was reading?’
‘Apparently he was lying in bed, pretending to read, ignoring her. They’d been quarrelling.’
