Kiss & Die
Lee Weeks

For my Aunt, Jean Rossiter.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Fourteen Days in Summer

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

Chapter 110

Chapter 111

Chapter 112

Chapter 113

Chapter 114

Chapter 115

Chapter 116

Chapter 117

Chapter 118

In Conversation with Lee Weeks

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the Same Author:

Copyright

About the Publisher

Fourteen Days in Summer

Chapter 1

August 2006

He would be beginning to feel the pain now, the dehydration. In a few seconds he would try to move his arms but he would not be able to – his tendons were cut. He would try to lift his legs but she had strapped them to the bed whilst she cut through his hamstrings. Now he would feel the panic. Now he would feel the true meaning of pain and pleasure. Now he would understand the price he had paid for it.

He would open his eyes and look around the room and then he would understand he was just waking to die.

‘Hello, Mr Big Businessman.’ Ruby pulled up his eyelid. ‘Wakey, wakey. Feel that?’ Ruby twisted the scalpel into his shoulder joint and scraped it against bone. His body was covered in lacerations. His flesh was sprayed across the walls and ceiling.

He groaned in pain behind the ball gag. His eyes rolled in his head. He tried to move. He wasn’t going anywhere. ‘You’re as helpless as a baby, aren’t you, big man?’

His eyes were locked on hers. He was fully awake and terrified. He stared at Ruby, wide eyed, not understanding how or why he had ended up in hell with this angel. His eyes pleaded with her. He looked back and forth from her to the door. They could hear noises outside in the corridor. There were people passing. They heard a man mutter and swear as he made his drunken way down to his room.

She followed his eyes as he looked desperately at the door, so near to help but so far. She swigged from the champagne bottle and then turned back to stare at him, a cynical smile on her face. ‘What? You’re not having a good time? You want to leave? You want your money back?’

She picked up his trousers from the floor and took the wallet out of the pocket. She came around to the side of the bed and leaned over him; her long black hair fell in his face as she tilted her head one way and then the other and tutted. ‘But we’re not finished yet.’ She flipped open his wallet and took out his money. ‘Now, how much am I worth? I’ll tell you: more than the champagne.’ She started taking out the notes. ‘More than the cost of this room.’ She took out more. Then she opened the wallet out fully and pulled out a photo. ‘Nice family you have.’ A pretty blond woman was kneeling between two pretty blond kids, a boy and a girl. A golden retriever sat in front of them. The little girl had a tooth missing at the front. The boy was lean, strong, with broad shoulders and freckles across his nose. She turned the photo over. Love you Daddy from Belinda and Ben. P.S. Goldie says woof. ‘Very cute. Very sweet, your kids.’

Ruby removed the protective cup from his cock, lifted his limp member and injected into the shaft’s base. ‘We’re still having fun, aren’t we, big boy? You ready for more?’

He groaned.

She leaned closer and watched his cock grow hard. The process never ceased to amuse and delight her. She went over to the cloth she had laid out on top of the mockleather writing desk. Her instruments were neatly lined up. There were two left that she had yet to use. One was a butcher’s knife that she would need afterwards; the other was a long, thin spike. Ruby came back to him and tightened the length of thin wire she had tied around his testicles. She twisted it until they bulged purple. He whined in agony. She ran her fingers over his body, and poked her fingers into the deep cuts in his flesh. He rolled his eyes and snorted in pain. Ruby climbed on top of him, her sex already eager, wet. She talked to him as she slid herself over him. Her palms outstretched on his chest, they slid beneath her. Ruby rocked back and forth, her pelvis sliding on his blood.

He turned his head from side to side, aware of the pain, not aware of the pleasure. Each of his joints was cut to the bone, his tendons, his muscles sliced through. She took him inside her like a child sucks a thumb – for security, comfort, familiarity. She was addicted to the sensation. It always made her feel special, wanted, loved. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to forget everything else and concentrate on the pleasure. For those few moments as she rocked back and forth on him and rolled her hips to take him deeper, she felt contented.

But it didn’t last long. She reached behind her and picked up the end of the wire attached to his testicles and wrapped it around her hand and pulled so hard that his scrotum tore open. His body went into spasm with the shock and the pain. She picked up the scalpel from the bedside table and sang to him as she began to make deep cuts over his heart, ‘Cross my heart and hope to die…’

She reached across him and picked up the photo, now bloody with her prints. ‘Nice wife, nice kids. A dog even. You have everything.’ She leaned forward and ran her fingers through his hair.

He groaned, his eyes rolled back.

She held the photo in front of his face. ‘But it wasn’t enough was it, Mr Big Man? You wanted Ruby didn’t you? You wanted big fun.’

She twisted the point of her scalpel into the wounds on his chest, deep bloody slashes that now exposed his rib. She scraped it along the bone. He squealed with pain. Ruby giggled. She rocked until she lost herself in ecstasy. She sat for a few minutes to recover, head down, body spent. Then she tilted her head and looked at him as she smiled.

‘I’m finished.’ Ruby picked up the spike and positioned it above his open heart. ‘You ready to die?’

He thrashed his head wildly back and forth and screamed into the gag.

She looked across at his family photo. ‘Hello Belinda…Hello Ben…Hello Goldie…’ She pushed the spike into his beating heart. ‘Say goodbye to your daddy.’

Chapter 2

‘Yap, yap.’

A toy puppy turned somersaults in the air. It was 10 p.m. and the night market was heaving. A tall man, athletic build, broad shoulders, wearing a black t-shirt and jeans was making his way through the market stalls. The height came from his mother’s side. He was half English, half Chinese. He had a face that reflected his soul: scarred, but with a beauty beneath the sadness. His eyes were always searching. He was thirty-seven but looked older. He had seen a few hard winters. He pushed his ragged fringe back from his eyes, pulled his shades back down and kept walking, weaving his way through the stalls in Mong Kok’s night market. He could have been mistaken for any other tourist except he wasn’t sweating; he was used to it, this was his home. He wasn’t shopping for knick-knacks either, Detective Inspector Johnny Mann of the Hong Kong Police Force was tracking the Triads that were moving through the market. Every few seconds he stopped to listen. Above the noisy bang and beat and Cantonese barking he was listening for one sound: signature whistles. Triads were calling to one another with their high-pitched beeps that varied in length, in intensity. Each society had their secret signs. One society was moving as a pack tonight.

Mann signalled to his officers to fan out. He turned the corner onto Saigon Street where the night market spread into seafood restaurants and noodle bars and spilled out over the roads and pavements. It was August 2006. It was the twenty-fifth day of the Chinese month. It was the chosen day. Beneath the feet of the unsuspecting tourists, a Triad initiation ceremony was being held.

The young recruits stood nervously waiting to pass beneath the sacred archway of crossed swords. Amongst them were five young women and three boys, all of Indian descent, dressed in their plain sackcloth robes, ready for the ceremony. Their feet were bare and their faces smeared in dirt. They had come to give themselves as penniless urchins to the society and be reborn as brothers and sisters, committed forever to the family; 49s in the Triad order. Amongst them was fourteen-year-old Rajini. She waited nervously with the others in the corridor outside. She looked at her hands, there was no ring but it was not a bad age to get committed to someone or something. She looked at her feet; she was barefoot. She didn’t mind that. Her family had walked many miles barefoot on the way to Hong Kong. They had crossed through China and joined the thousands of others making their way to paradise. But paradise was not the place she thought it would be. For twelve hours a day she sat at a machine and sewed. She dreamt of being a doctor, a teacher. But if Hong Kong had taught her anything it was that if you had money you could be anyone you wanted to be. She would become a 49, the rank of a Triad foot soldier, and climb the ladder and earn good money doing whatever they asked her to; she knew there would be risks but she also knew there would be big rewards and then she could pay for herself to go to college and then she could be anyone she chose.

She followed the others under the archway of crossed swords and into the airless, dark room, filled with people, pressed in, hiding in the shadows. The heat in the room took her breath away. There was the sound of a chicken flapping its wings against the side of a crate. The incense smoke was thick in the dark room, which was lit only by the candles on the altar. In the gloom she could make out the Incense Master. He was old, tortoise-like, dressed in the robes of office, a long crimson silk stole over a cassock of white. He wore only one grass sandal, the other foot was bare. On his head was a three-pointed knotted scarf.

‘Who is your sponsor?’ asked the Incense Master. He stood with his index fingers curled into his palm to denote his rank.

‘I am.’ A young woman stepped forward from the shadows.

‘Call forth your recruits.’ The Incense Master lit the joss sticks on the altar and began reciting the sacred poems that had been handed down since the beginning:

‘“I passed a corner and then another corner. My family lives on the Five Fingers Mountain. I’ve come to look for the temple of the sisters-in-law…”

‘You are children of the Wo Shing Shing. You are a group born from its spirit. But now it is time for you to stand alone. You are the Outcasts.’ He finished with a warning. ‘Break the sacred oath you are about to take and you will die as this rooster now dies.’

The sound of the chicken panicking reached a crescendo, the noise of flapping wings and the gurgle of blood escaping from its cut throat rose above the squawking. Its twitching body was held above a brass bowl on the altar.

‘You will die as he did. No mercy will be shown. We come together today to be reborn. You leave your last life behind you. You are 49s. Four for the oceans that our ancestors believed surrounded the world. Nine for the sacred oaths. You belong to an ancient family dating back to the time of the Qing dynasty. You belong to one another. Never forget you are brothers and sisters, forever joined in blood.’

From the corner of her eye Rajini watched the officers close in around the door and secure it. She looked back to her sponsor. The Incense Master swung the smoking silver perfumed ball in the air and chanted the oaths. The body of the chicken lay still on the floor and the bowl of blood was tipped into a cup from the altar. The Incense Master came to each recruit in turn. Rajini waited. He repeated the oaths to each one.

‘With this blood we are united. With this blood we are one. Together we remain until death.’

Each recruit replied: ‘I will never disclose the secrets of the Outcasts, not even to my parents, my brothers or sisters; I will be killed by the sword if I do so. I shall never disclose the secrets for money; I will be killed by the sword if I do so. I will never reveal the Outcasts’ secret signs or oaths when speaking to others outside the Outcast society; I will be killed by the sword if I do so.’

The Incense Master passed the cup to each recruit in turn. ‘You will be like no group before you. You will kill without mercy. You will belong only to your new family, cast away the old. You belong to the Outcasts.’

‘Bound forever to serve one another.’

Rajini closed her eyes as the blood tasted thick, warm, it touched her upper lip and coated it. She sipped from the chalice.

The Incense Master looked deep into her eyes. ‘No one leaves. No one ever betrays.’ The blood sat in her mouth like the taste of a nosebleed. ‘This is your new family. You will serve no other.’

Rajini bowed her head to him.

‘Yes, Master,’ all the recruits repeated together. The incense left a plume of smoke overhead as it passed along the line, each one tasting the blood of the killed chicken. At the end of the line the Incense Master placed the chalice back onto the altar. He stood and looked at his disciples.

‘You are now 49s, foot soldiers. But, one of you here has already transgressed. One of you has spoken of their coming here tonight. One of you gave information away. Now that one must be punished. They will be an example to you all. The Outcasts will not tolerate betrayal. When you leave this place you must do so quickly and disperse fast. Outside now there is one who is coming. He comes because we have a traitor amongst us.’

The Incense Master looked towards the sponsor. She nodded. ‘All who are present here must witness the result of your transgression.’

He turned to Rajini. ‘You share the fate of the rooster.’

As Mann turned the corner he saw the telltale sign: a red card taped above a doorway. Two girls came out, one Indian, one mixed race. Mann hung back and watched; an Indian lad was the next to emerge, he staggered out of the doorway and looked about to throw up. Mann hung back out of sight. He signalled to his officers to follow the lad, whilst he headed towards the entrance. It was the same as all the other buildings on the street and yet it wasn’t. Above its door was a shirt maker’s sign. The night shift should have been pounding away but the place was quiet. To the right a flight of stairs led up to a pink neon sign advertising a woman’s services and a massage parlour. To the left was a small Chinese medicine store selling loose herbs, dried fish and centipedes by the scoop. In between was a corridor. A metal grille, unlocked and half opened, gave way easily when Mann pulled it. Mann stepped into the corridor and listened. Further on, a solitary light bulb gave off a stark hue against the black walls.

Mann unclipped the gun holster that was strapped around his waist, but left the Smith and Wesson revolver where it was. Instead, he reached down and took out the knife from his boot. This was not a place to fire a gun. He needed silence, stealth. He needed caution. He held the knife tightly now as he walked on down the corridor and stopped at the door on the left. Above its arch were the symbolic crossed swords. He pushed the door open and stood in the doorway. The room was dark except for the light of one candle at the far right of the room. The air was thick with the smell of incense, smouldering paper and heat of the people, now gone. He heard the scratch of a rat’s claws as it ran the perimeter of the room and stopped and the sound of another joining it. Cockroaches scurried over walls and ceiling to watch the rats. He looked down at his feet; he was walking on the red summoning cards of hundreds of Triads. He crossed the threshold, beneath the arch of swords, and propped the door open with a discarded wooden thread spool. There was little else to show that this had been a garment factory, so far as he could tell the room was empty of equipment: the machines all gone. All that remained were tatters of material and empty crates. The candle on top of a stack of upturned crates: a makeshift altar. Mann walked across to it. Beside the altar were the discarded sackcloth robes of the Triad initiates, left to rot, no longer needed, and on top of them a shimmering Indian sari. From the corner of his eye he saw a rat jump into a box, two sticks protruded from its end. Mann got close. They were not sticks; they were arms. He looked down into the box. The rats were already feasting on the young girl’s body, the cockroaches tumbling from the box’s sides on top of her.

Chapter 3

Mann picked up the squealing rat from the box and flung it at the far wall. He stood in the solitude with the dead girl, listening to the police siren scream to a stop outside.

‘Looks like the party’s over.’

Mann turned to see a large frame in the doorway: Inspector Tom Sheng of the Serious Crime Division. ‘The ambulance is on its way.’

‘Too late. She was dead when I got here.’

Sheng and Mann had crossed paths more than either wanted. They weren’t the best of friends. Tom was brash, arrogant. He played hard and worked even harder. He was a hard-hitting movie-type cop who forgot he wasn’t an actor and life wasn’t a set.

Sheng walked in and shone a light around and into the box with the dead girl. He squatted level with Rajini’s arms, just visible at the rim of the box, held in front of her face as if she were offering them. ‘Why did they cut her hands off? Why torture her first? Why not just execute her? We’ve never seen them mutilate like this before.’

‘They must have wanted to show what they were capable of, put the fear into their new recruits,’ said Mann, picking up the discarded initiation robes and Rajini’s sari.

‘Why strip her first?’

‘Not worthy to wear the robes, more degradation. New rules, new society. Set the tone, scare the hell out of the new recruits. Kids are bound to be different.’

‘Fucking kids are like that these days. Playing sick video games, watching sick movies. Their minds are warped…Plus…’ Sheng stood, pulled at his tie. ‘This fucking summer is driving everyone mad. This was supposed to be my first night off in a fucking month.’

Mann didn’t answer. He knew that if Sheng had been somewhere important when the call came it wouldn’t have been at home. He spent his few nights off playing poker and trying to stay out of his family’s way. He loved his kids but he no longer loved his wife. He did things his way or not at all. But his way wasn’t Mann’s way. They could both be brutal. It was in Sheng’s nature. It was nurtured in Mann.

Tom Sheng moved his torch to the ground. ‘This place is littered with red slips. It must have been a big meeting. We’re going to have to be quicker than this if we’re ever going to catch the bastards.’ He flicked light up at the ceilings to see the cockroaches scuttling into the corners. ‘We’ll let CSI get in here. I’ll see you in the office at six.’ He dusted off his hands and walked back over the stone floor towards the door. He paused in the exit. ‘I have a poker game waiting. Try not to fuck with anything before they have a chance to get in here.’

Mann didn’t answer. He knelt, picked up the burnt oath papers and debris from the stone floor and crumpled it in his hand. Amongst the red dust on his finger tips was a tinge of yellow. He went back over to the box. Beside the young girl’s body in the box was the rooster, headless, draped on paper over her hands. He reached in and eased the paper from beneath and held it up to the light of the candle. On it he saw a circle outline, inside was a lone wolf howling to the sky.

Chapter 4

Mann waited until the girl’s body had been taken to the morgue before he headed home. He needed a change of clothes. He needed to shower away the smell of death.

Mann lived in a vertical village built around a shopping mall. It was devoid of character. The only trees were in pots. It housed thousands of middle earners. He lived on the fortieth floor in one of the older two-bedroomed flats. It had parquet floors, white walls and minimal furniture: a table and two armchairs and a large home cinema system. He had bought the flat eight years ago. It was a great location for work, just a few stops away on the MTR. But, it didn’t matter how convenient it was, Mann was hardly ever in it. He lived there alone, but he hadn’t always done.

A woman got out of the lift as he stepped in. He didn’t recognize her. Even though he didn’t know his neighbours well, he knew them well enough to nod to them when he saw them in the lift. This woman was a stranger. New tenant, visitor? He didn’t know which. She wasn’t keen to make eye contact. She hurried past him, her hair over her face, sunglasses on. Mann looked at her feet: pretty shoes. By the time he looked up she had gone.

He got to his floor, walked along the corridor and came to a halt outside his flat door. He put the key in the lock, turned the key and hesitated. Why did he always do that? He walked in, slammed the door shut behind him and threw his keys angrily down onto the coffee table. He knew that one day he’d break the glass top by doing it. It was a white cane table shaped like an elephant – ludicrous, feminine. He stepped over the piles of papers, documents his lounge was littered with and took off his t-shirt. Secured across his chest and beneath his arm he wore a pouch containing two sets of throwing stars, shuriken. Shuriken meant ‘hidden in the hand’. They were the weapons of his enemy: concealed, versatile street weapons. Sometimes they were homemade or customized. Mann had designed his own. He had been fascinated ever since one cut a groove into his face when he was young. He still bore the scar high up on his left cheekbone, it was pale like a quarter moon.

He unstrapped the leather pouch from his arm. It contained six six-inch darts. They were feather tipped, needle pointed, weighted for direct, fast, hard impact. He took a slim dagger named Delilah from his boot and placed her on the table as well. She was his favourite; she had saved him many times.

He poured himself a vodka on the rocks and then stood looking out of his window. The block opposite was lit up sporadically: squares of life in the darkness.

He checked the messages on his home phone. His mother’s voice came over clipped and awkward. It made him smile the way she talked to the answer phone machine as if she expected it to answer her at any moment. Pausing, giving it time to answer her back and then continuing in a fluster when it didn’t. He would call her tomorrow. She didn’t ask, but she needed him to. She wasn’t one for showing or asking for affection. She was a great bottler of emotions but the past few months had left her needing reassurance. Mann was all she had. Her world had been rocked by secrets that refused to stay hidden. And, where there was one, there were a hundred.

He phoned his boss.

‘I heard it was you who found her.’ The voice of Chief Inspector Mia Chou. Always succinct. Straight to the point. They had known each for a long time. ‘The ceremony was definitely an initiation one?’

‘Not just…I found yellow papers.’

‘So a new branch of a society has been created.’

‘I found an emblem printed on paper: a lone wolf.’

‘Anyone see anything?’

‘No, the tourists never see anything; it’s all strange to them. The locals see it all but they pretend not to. The building had been empty about twenty-four hours. It only took them a few hours to set it up. Tom Sheng’s called a meeting for six.’

‘Good.’

Mann could hear in her voice that she knew already. Whatever conversation she had had with Sheng it was probably face to face. Mann knew his thing with Mia wouldn’t last. Sheng had been through most of the good-looking women at the station. It never bothered him to mix work and pleasure.

‘We’ll know more after the autopsy. Grab some rest,’ said Mia. ‘See you at the office in a few hours.’

He stripped off and went in for a shower. He bowed his head in the water and let the needle jets pummel his tired shoulders. He hadn’t been back home for days. It wasn’t home. It was a punishment, a reminder of mistakes made. He should sell the apartment but it would be admitting defeat.

He came back into the lounge in his boxers and dropped the louvre blinds. He sat down in one of the two armchairs, plonked his vodka on the elephant table then he sat back in the chair to close his eyes for a few minutes, try and get some rest. He rolled the vodka glass across his chest. The only noise in the flat was the sound of the ticking clock in the bedroom. He closed his eyes, they felt as if they had sand under the lids. His jet black hair fell across his forehead. The image of the dead girl flashed into his head. His eyes snapped open. There would be no sleep for him tonight. He went into his bedroom and pulled open the laundry pack his maid had left. He slipped on a fresh t-shirt and pulled on his jeans. He picked up his weapons and keys from the elephant table and slammed the door on the way out.

Chapter 5

It was 4 a.m. when Ruby slipped out of the hotel room, into the lift and out onto Nathan Road. She took a taxi to Stanley on the east side of Hong Kong Island, a place famous for its markets selling replica goods and for its beach. But Ruby wasn’t interested in either. The hour was late. It was a winding road that took her there. Wrapped in plastic, the head rocked gently in her lap. She placed her hand on it to settle it.

She told the driver to drop her at the market, then she crossed the street and slipped out of view. The dark night gave her the cover she needed. She turned away from the brightly lit restaurants and bars and headed towards the water. She knew just the place. She walked quickly; her bag was heavy. The head knocked gently against the outside of her thigh as she walked. Inside her thighs were wet. His semen was inside her and his blood on her hands. She reached the place and, in the darkness, put the bag by her feet and leant over the wall, feeling for the line. She found it and pulled it up; she had strong arms, hard hands. After five minutes, the basket came to the surface. Ruby pulled away the strands of seaweed caught in the bamboo struts and rested it on the jut in the wall just below sea level. She reached down and took the head from the bag, unwrapped it, then she placed it just inside the basket and leant over the wall as far as she could whilst holding the head in her hands. She felt the cold water cover her wrists as she gripped the head and lowered the basket into the water. She held it there for a moment, waited until the water had made it too heavy for her to maintain her grip. She stared into the half-closed, glassy-looking eyes before she leant further over the parapet. The sea water was cold as it rose over her wrists. Her hands lost their grip as she gasped, ‘Goodbye my faithless lover.’

The head stared back at her as it sank. Ruby turned away and left to go back home.

Back in the Mansions she turned the key in the door, slipped inside her flat and into her room, then she leant against the door, closed her eyes and sighed, relieved. She was safe but she had the feeling she always got afterwards: lost, empty. Her heartbeat was calming. She opened her eyes and looked around and smiled. Her dolls stared back at her, their bright eyes looked at her adoringly.

‘I’m sorry, my babies, I couldn’t bring your daddy back with me. He wouldn’t come, I had to leave him in the hotel room. He wasn’t a very nice daddy. He wasn’t kind to Mummy. We didn’t like him, did we?’ She looked around the room at her dolls. They stared back. ‘Mummy will find you a better one tonight. Mummy will find you one we can keep forever.’ She clapped her hands in delight. From inside a cupboard a baby cried in answer. Ruby opened the cupboard door and took the baby doll from the shelf; it was still crying, ‘Mummy, feed me, Mummy.’

‘Shush,’ she patted the baby’s back, ‘in a minute my love, Mummy will feed you in a minute.’

Ruby put the doll back and as her hand lingered in the cupboard it traced the outline of something lying there. It was small, no bigger than a mobile phone, it was dry and hard. Ruby touched its face and started to cry. ‘Daddy wasn’t nice to Mummy at all.’

Chapter 6

Kin Tak, the mortuary technician, looked at the clock on the wall: it was almost 5 a.m. ‘Quick, quick,’ he said out loud. ‘No wasting time now. Finish the job. Finish it.’

Kin Tak had a form of Tourette’s syndrome that had been allowed to grow in the dark environment of the mortuary. He tried to curb it. He tried to suppress it but he was on his own for most of the day and night and he talked to himself incessantly. He talked to the people in the drawers. He talked to the dead that roamed his icy rooms, looking for their heaven.

He had worked through the night to make the girl ready. He washed her young body. He worked methodically, meticulously, marvelled at her beauty as he passed a cloth over her young skin. He talked to her as he washed her hair to remove the blood. Now he dried it with a towel, it crinkled into black glossy waves. Kin Tak held it in his hand, ‘Lovely, lovely.’ It was as soft as cotton wool, as springy as air. He marvelled at her slender arms, her slim thighs. She had no imperfections. Her skin was smooth and flawless as the day she slid from her mother’s uterus, fighting for breath in the outside world.

Now he hummed to himself as he pierced the young girl’s eye with the syringe and extracted fluid from the back of the eye. He was practising. Now that the pathologist had done his work it was Kin Tak’s turn. The fluid, vitreous humour, was a vital source of information for determining time of death. But they knew when she had died. She had died a few moments before they had run away and a few moments after they had cut off her hands and slit her throat. Now Kin Tak was allowed to practise his forensic skills before he did what he liked doing best.

Kin Tak was a diener, a mortuary technician. His job was to assist the pathologist in a post mortem examination, take tissue samples, weigh organs, take samples for the lab and record the findings of the post mortem. But Kin Tak was more than that – he was a student of the art of beautifying the dead and he was a student of pathology. He was a devoted mortuary technician who lived and slept amongst the dead. His skin seldom felt the sun, wind or rain on it. It had become cheese-like in its appearance. He practised his stitching whenever he could. Choppings gave him plenty of practice. But this was not a chopping tonight; these were wounds he had not seen before. He picked up the severed right hand. It was not a clean cut. It was a broad, layered wound, some of the flesh was missing. He would have to improvise by stretching what skin he could to stitch neatly. But not yet, he wasn’t ready yet. He moved down her body. Her small hips, not yet spread by childbirth. He combed her pubic hair.

The bell rang. Kin Tak felt the excitement turn his stomach but he was agitated. He hadn’t finished with the young woman’s body. It would have to stay where it was.

‘Fuck. Fuck.’ He snorted a giggle out of his nose and clamped his hand over his mouth to suppress it. ‘Sex. Sex.’

He knew she would come tonight. She wouldn’t mind the young woman’s body being on view. She would be pleased. She was still learning and he had such a lot more to teach her. She would pay him the way she always did. She would give him her body. She would take off her clothes and lie on the autopsy table; he would gently part her naked thighs and stroke her warm wet sex; but she would never let him do any more. She said that if she did, she would have to kill him.

He rushed to answer it. He squinted at the bright security light at the entrance haloed in moths. He was ready for her, he opened the door and stepped back, startled as he saw Mann standing there. He craned his neck to look past him into the darkness to see if there was anyone else and then he shook his head, agitated, disappointed: ‘Fuck.’

He stood back to allow Mann inside, then he scurried behind him almost tripping over in his haste to overtake him and get through the doors first. ‘Fuck. Shit. Too late now.’

Inside the autopsy room he turned and stared at Mann. He couldn’t take his eyes from Mann’s face. He remembered all too well every bereaved, haunted person who ever stood in that place. He felt the sorrow as well as the beauty of death: he collected it like a library of loss. When he looked at Mann he remembered the dead person that Mann had loved. He remembered Helen. Kin Tak had developed his senses to a point where he could see the restless spirits as they followed the living around. Helen followed Mann. She hadn’t always done. She had come back for a reason now. With a shiver, he unfroze his stare.

Mann followed him into the curtain of cold that lay behind the mortuary door. The place was always the same; even though it had recently had a facelift – new equipment, tables, the works – it still smelt the same: formaldehyde and meat.

‘How’s it going, KT? I hope you don’t mind me dropping in. I knew you’d be here. Is the autopsy completed on the Indian girl brought in last night?’ Mann looked over at the girl’s body laid out on the autopsy table.

‘Yes, very busy. Just finishing.’

‘I want to know your opinion about the weapon that was used to cut off her hands. What can you tell me?’

‘Ah. She was killed when her throat was cut. But…’

‘Yes?’

‘She would probably have bled to death just as quickly. The severing of her hands cut through the main artery. The blood must have been everywhere.’ Kin Tak’s eyes darted from Mann to the girl.

His eyes settled back on Mann and he waited. He wasn’t prepared to go on until Mann had met his side of the deal. Give a little: get a little in exchange. Give and take. Mann understood. In Kin Tak’s dead world his entire existence relied upon the knowledge of the whole story; he must know every detail about the death and how they came to have a date of birth on the outside of their mortuary drawer and a date of death ticket wrapped around their toe. But Mann could see that as much as Kin Tak wanted to know the details, he kept looking at the clock on the wall – he was nervous.

‘There must have been two hundred people there. She was part of a Triad initiation ceremony. We don’t know why she was killed. I found her in a dungeon. She was hog tied, her throat had been cut. I found her hands in the box.’

‘Okay, thank you, Inspector.’ He held up his hand, closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose. ‘That’s all I need to know.’ He snapped his eyes back open and stood up straight, business-like. ‘I can tell you, Inspector, that, after my examination, I conclude that her hands were severed by something other than a chopper or a saw, or a knife. They were severed by something as sharp as a razor but with three blades to it. It bit into her wrists, it snagged there and it cut right through. Yes, each cut is clean but there are so many that her wrist was torn apart.’

‘Have you ever seen that kind of damage before?’

‘No. Now you must excuse me, Inspector. I have much to do and the morning is coming. It is good to see you, come again soon.’ Kin Tak paused and turned and looked at Mann, as if he wanted to say something, then he shook his head and scurried on towards the door.

Mann walked back across the gravel car park to his car, his feet crunching on the surface. When he got to his car he paused and stood there for a few seconds. Whether it was the sound of his feet on the gravel or the smell of the shrubs around the edge of the car park that had done it, his memories would not allow him to get into his car or drive off. They demanded to be acknowledged. He stood for a few moments in the dark, listening to the first bird calling dawn, and he remembered that day when he had said his final farewell to Helen’s body. When he had stood where he was standing now, but could not cry. All he could do was rage inside. Two years ago he had felt as near to the edge as he had ever been. That was, until now. Now, he felt he had built a platform over that edge and he was living, sleeping, existing on it and all around him was a sheer drop.

Chapter 7

It was 8 a.m. when Mann stood with ten other officers in the incident room. Next to him were the two men he shared an office with: Detective Sergeant Ng and Detective Constable Li – a.k.a Shrimp.

‘Okay, this is how I see it.’ Tom Sheng addressed the new team.

The incident room was on the twentieth floor of the police headquarters building. It was split into three sections. The first section at the entrance was where the Senior Investigating Officer set up base. The SIO was the person in charge of the enquiry and decided which line it would take. A screen separated that from the largest part of the room, the central section that had the bulk of the PCs, filing cabinets, and a large desk with four interfacing PCs. Along the back of the room was one long desk and a further five PCs and a phone between each. The third section was a staff room and a general ‘spilling over’ room for impromptu meetings. Each section was separated by screens. Each screen a multi-purpose white board.

‘We work together on this. We need to move fast.’ Tom Sheng paused and looked around the room. ‘Collaboration is the key word here. I want no fucking egos taking over on this one. Chief Inspector Mia Chou and I will be allocating jobs to those best qualified, not those in a certain department.’

Mann looked over at Mia. She was perched on the edge of the central table with her arms crossed over her chest. She was immaculate as ever, just a small strand of hair had worked its way loose from the knot at the back of her head. She flicked it away irritably. She never wore lipstick. She played her looks down, looks distracted from the seriousness of her career. She was a good cop, conscientious, steady. That’s why she’d been promoted over him. There were very few other female officers of her rank. She’d worked hard for it. Mia did everything by the book. Mann did everything by his own rules. They were chalk and cheese but somewhere in the middle they both wanted the same things.

‘There will be no favouritism,’ Tom Sheng continued. ‘First of all, let’s be clear about events. What happened last night, Mann?’

Mann stepped up to the white board. He began pinning up photos. They were images of Rajini’s body squashed into the box; her arms were sticks in front of her face, held up to the camera. Her hands and the rooster were thrown into the box with her. There were shots from the autopsy. Mann didn’t need to look; he had it all stored in his brain whether he wanted it or not.

‘We got an anonymous call through to the hotline at 9 p.m. saying that there would be an initiation ceremony taking place that evening in Mong Kok.’

‘Any trace on it? Any chance of voice recognition?’ asked Sheng.

‘No. I’ve played it back. It’s someone being paid to read the details. It’s been sent via a third party. I left with Officers Li and Ng and we split into three teams, each covering a different section of Mong Kok.’ Mann put up a map of the area. ‘There were thirty officers altogether.’

‘So, you didn’t have enough manpower?’ Tom Sheng interrupted.

‘It wouldn’t have mattered if we’d had a fucking hundred times that amount,’ Mann snapped back. ‘It’s the most densely populated area in Hong Kong. Every doorway leads to a dozen more. In the end, it was all bullshit. It was in Yau Ma Tei, not in Mong Kok. It was off the night market here…’ Mann pointed to it on the map. ‘We were set a false trail. We were never meant to arrive on time, just meant to arrive.’

‘Why would someone want to run the risk of you finding it?’ Tom Sheng asked.

‘Because it was a special night. They knew we wouldn’t find it but they wanted to make sure it was acknowledged. Not only was the girl sacrificed but a new society was born. It is a branch of the Wo Shing Shing. I found their emblem amongst the burnt oaths. And I found this…’ Mann pinned up a photo of a lone wolf howling inside a circle. ‘Someone wants their birth announced.’

‘What’s the purpose of these new societies? Why change the format? Why start recruiting girls and ethnic minorities? What is the need for it?’ asked Sheng.

‘The Triads have always targeted the teenage underdog. The young Indian population feel abandoned. They feel marginalized. They can no longer compete. The Indians and the other minorities used to be on a level playing ground, now someone’s dug up the goal posts and moved them. School places are allocated by a points system and the higher up the social scale you are the more points you seem to have. Plus you have to read and write Mandarin.’

‘What do we know about the victim?’

‘We don’t have a name for her yet. The autopsy showed she died due to asphyxiation when her throat was cut. We know she was of Indian descent, approximately fourteen years of age.’

‘What’s the latest on Operation Schoolyard?’ asked Sheng.

Mia answered, ‘We have one operative in the school. She’s twenty but looks much younger. It’s been hard to infiltrate; hard to get someone convincing enough. She joined a month ago as a student in the senior school. Her aim is to infiltrate into the new gangs. It’s a tricky area, new to us, dealing with girls, and immigrants.’

‘This initiation was brutal,’ said Mann. ‘She’s young to handle this.’

‘She’s twenty,’ said Mia. ‘There are people in this room who went undercover at that age. The difference is, she’s a woman. But that isn’t a problem. We need to play the same game and keep up.’

‘All right.’ Tom Sheng looked around the room. ‘There’s one thing we haven’t covered. Operation Schoolyard is all about infiltrating the ranks of the new Triads. What we need now is someone to give us an insider’s view on what is really going on at the top. We need to know who’s making all the decisions that filter down to these kids. Who’s pulling the strings? We need an insider.’ Tom Sheng looked at Mann, He had a hard job keeping the smug look off his face. ‘I think that’s your job, Mann, don’t you?’

Chapter 8

Mann was grateful to get out of the building. He left Headquarters and walked through the small lush garden that fronted it. The palms were being watered with a fine mist. It clung to his skin and cooled quickly as he took the steps up to the elevated walkways slung between Hong Kong’s buildings like Tarzan ropes, allowing the city’s seven million residents to escape the pavements and move from building to building all in the name of commerce. Money was king, queen and country.

Mann stood six foot two and weighed a hundred and eighty pounds. It was less than his usual weight. But he had been ill. He’d caught malaria in the jungles of Burma. He’d nearly died rescuing his eighteen-year-old half-brother who was supposed to be building a school for refugees and ended up getting kidnapped. Mann had had no choice but to go.

He checked his watch; he was early. He had time to phone. He stood on the walkway and took out his phone.

‘Mum?’

She was pleased to hear his voice, he could tell. ‘Are you better? I haven’t seen you properly since you came back from Burma.’ Her accent was old school English: loosened a little by modern times but still tight, taut.

‘I’m all right, Mum. I’ve been busy.’

Mann allowed the pause that followed. He was used to pauses when he talked to his mother. They had so many things to say and yet they said very little. They loved one another but they were too alike. If one closed emotionally then so did the other.

‘Have you time to come over soon?’

‘I’ll see. I have so many things to sort out at home.’

‘Your father’s affairs?’ A frosty, hurt voice.

‘Yes.’

Mann rubbed his face with his hand. He was irritable now. Talking to her agitated him at the moment, he couldn’t help it. He took a deep breath.

‘Look Mum, I have to go. I’ll call you later.’

Mann closed the phone and slipped it back in his pocket. Now he really felt like shit. He knew what she’d be doing. She’d be staring out of the French windows, listening to the carriage clock tick. Her grey eyes would be filled with the colour of the sky. Her prim, upright figure would be stiff shouldered. She would be feeling like shit. Just like Mann.

Now his father’s secrets were out, Pandora’s Box was open. His father hadn’t just had another family in Amsterdam; he had supplied most of Europe with heroin. His father wasn’t just any Triad, he was a very good one. The chatter of the birds greeted him as he walked up into the botanical gardens off Albany Road at the top of Central district. Apart from that it was quiet; it was too early for the tourists. The place had the smell of the tropics, freshly washed, birds squawked. Fountains filled the air with their fresh cool sound. Across the square he saw a small figure sat on a bench, her head down, her feet scuffling at the seeds and fallen leaves that had yet to be brushed up by the park attendant. Mann thought how young she looked, a skinny little slip of a girl. She might be twenty but she looked twelve. That’s why they’d been able to use her. He sat beside her but made sure they didn’t look as though they were together. He turned his head from her. Neither acknowledged the other. He rested his arm on the back of the seat. The sparrows gathered around their feet.

‘How’s it going? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?’ Mann asked.

‘Yeah, but I’m building up my rep as a wild child.’ Tammy sipped her can of Coke. ‘I’ll go in a minute. I’m just missing maths.’

‘Did you hear about last night?’

‘I heard about it. I heard that someone got killed.’

‘Yes. A young Indian girl. We are still waiting for formal identification. Do you have any idea who she is?’

‘They say she was someone from the Mansions. Her family lives there, they have a tailors on the first floor.’

‘Why was she killed, Tammy?’

‘I don’t know. There are a lot of rumours. They say she was an informer from another society, that she had told someone outside about the ceremony, that she had accepted money in exchange for information. I don’t know. I think maybe she was just picked as a show of strength. Now everyone is really scared. A lot of the girls are really shaken up by it. I have seen them huddled together, whispering, crying. It’s finally hit home that it’s not a game.’

‘Maybe now they will want out.’

Tammy didn’t answer at first. ‘I don’t think so, Boss. They are tough kids, scary tough. They don’t care about anything but money, MP3 players, watches. If anything, I think this death will bond them, strengthen their loyalty. These are just kids but kids see the cruelty of the world differently than we do. They frighten me. I think they will increase their members by this. It becomes more real, more exciting. They have no concept of death, of dying or being killed. They have no concept of the rest of their lives either. They feel no hope.’

‘Who’s doing most of the recruiting?’

‘Older girls. Sometimes from outside school. They wait for the kids when they come out. The one who is recruiting me is called Lilly Mendoza. She is in my year. She’s mixed race. Her mother is a singer in the hotels. They live in the Mansions.’

‘I know her mother – Michelle. I’ve known her since before Lilly was born. Try and find out more about who’s further up the ladder. We know they’re a breakaway branch of the Wo Shing Shing, we need to know a lot more. We need to know what their specific aims are, who their high-ranking officers are. Keep pushing, Tammy. The faster we find out what’s going on, the faster we can get you out.’

‘Yes, Boss.’ Tammy paused. ‘Boss…how much longer do you think I will have to stay undercover? I miss the real world. I miss seeing my boyfriend, seeing my parents.’

‘I hope it won’t be for much longer, Tammy. This was only meant as a short operation. I know it’s a hard one. You’re doing a good job. Not many officers would have had a hope in hell of infiltrating this group. You’ll be guaranteed a place in the Bureau after this. It will be great to work with you when you get out of this operation.’

‘If I get a place in the OCTB it will be worth it, sir.’ Tammy stood and picked up her bag. ‘I gotta go, Boss. Got my school uniform to change into. See you later.’

‘And Boss, I have a name for you for the new society: the Outcasts.’

Chapter 9

It was early evening when Ruby slipped in with the crowds and walked out onto Nathan Road. It was heaving. A new dump of rain had brought a sparkle to the air. The bamboo scaffolding was still dripping from the summer downpour. Ruby stepped out of the way of the drips and wove in and out of the crowds. She had heels on; she didn’t want to get her feet wet. She headed towards the harbour. She took a right and walked up the steep narrow road to the first of her destinations: the Walkabout, the Australian theme pub. Sometimes it was full of youngsters: young and rowdy with no wedding rings on their fingers. But at this time of the evening it offered a good deal for lonely businessmen who didn’t want to eat alone. They could watch the sport and eat a steak. The perfect place for her to start hunting.

Ruby walked in. She kept her head down as she walked to the far end of the bar and ordered a Coke from the young blond surfer type, his head a mass of springy curls. She took her drink and went to sit at a table in the corner. A cricket match was on. She made eye contact with a few of the older men. They were distracted by the match. Ruby drank her Coke and left. She didn’t have time to waste. Ruby was always in a hurry.

She walked back up the road and took a detour to check out The Western, a saloon-themed pub. Ruby peered through the window; Annie the patron was swinging her gun-toting hips down the empty bar. She moved on. She knew what she was looking for. Hong Kong had lonely businessmen arriving by the hundreds every few minutes. Ruby could afford to be fussy. Plenty of fish in the sea.

Ruby continued on Nathan Road to a four-star hotel right in the heart of Tsim Tsat Tsui. Vacation Villas was in a great location, right next to the metro in the heart of the business hub, Kowloon side, and it was always busy. Businessmen stayed from all over the world. It had seventeen floors, a business centre on top, a rooftop pool and a good gym. But the main reason the businessmen liked it was because it had a twenty-four-hour cocktail bar.

Ruby came into the hotel by the Nathan Road entrance, past the few shops there and walked straight to the lifts. It was just one floor to the cocktail bar. The bar itself was not one of the stark new types, it was dark enough so that you could be lost in the shadows, just part of the wood panelling and the heavy brocade curtains. It was a bar to be anonymous in. It was noisy, busy enough so there was never silence, with singers to stare at to occupy a frazzled mind. It suited lonely businessmen and cops.

Ruby looked around the bar. Here there were lots of opportunities for her. It was early but the place was already full of lonely businessmen sitting by themselves. Ruby didn’t risk going to the bar. The light was sharp at the bar, clear. It left her open to being recognized. She chose one of the tables at the edge of the bar. They were raised, two tall stools, perfect for showing off Ruby’s legs in her short skirt.

Her eyes focused on a sweet-looking man. She liked his blond curls. He had wire-rimmed glasses, an open-necked shirt. His broad forearms rested on the bar as he turned his phone over in his hands. He looked restless. Ruby turned in her seat so she could be sure he’d get a good look at her legs.

She stared hard. It took him a few minutes. Others looked at her but she ignored them. Her focus was on him. The thought of it sent a thrill through her stomach. It sent a pulse to her sex. It had a heartbeat of its own. It tightened in anticipation and felt warm and wet and plump with desire.

Fifteen minutes in she had done enough. He stood and walked over.

‘May I?’ He gestured to the stool next to her.

‘Please do.’

‘The name’s Steven.’

‘Hello Mr Steven.’

He laughed. ‘Steven’s my first name. Littlewood’s my family name. Friends call me Steve.’

Ruby lowered her eyes and smiled up through batting lashes. She glanced over his body. He was tall but not strong looking. She guessed he wasn’t a gym user. That was good. She guessed he weighed about one hundred-eighty pounds.

‘Hello Steve. We can be friends. My name is Ruby.’ Ruby turned to face him and looked up into his eyes, cocked her head to one side and said, ‘You have beautiful eyes – blue like the sea.’

He grinned stupidly as he leant forward and peered at her through his glasses. ‘They like what they see.’ He was slurring, embarrassed like a schoolboy at a village dance. He coughed to clear his throat and his head.

Ruby giggled as she smiled and slipped off the stool. ‘You hungry? I take you for something to eat and then we have fun. I have all night.’

He shrugged and nodded. He was starving. He hated eating on his own. ‘Yeah, sure.’

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out to see who had messaged him. It was his wife. He switched it off.

‘You ready?’ She smiled beguilingly at him.

‘Oh yes.’ He grinned inanely back at her.

‘Do you like Indian food?’ she asked as she led him through the lounge, down in the lift and out into Nathan Road.

‘Love it.’

‘I know the best Indian restaurant in Hong Kong. Very cheap too.’

He closed his eyes and put his hand on his heart. ‘I’d die for a good Indian right now.’

Ruby giggled. She put her hand over her mouth to try and hide it. He saw her and laughed with her.

She led him through the side entrance of the Mansions. She hurried him past the Indian supermarkets, porn sellers, Visa shops. She took his hand and led him up the stairs.

‘Christ, where are we going?’ He stopped and looked around him as they walked along a landing on the third floor that faced into the middle of the five tower blocks. ‘It looks like a prison.’ The opposite landing was so near you could almost have reached over and touched it.

‘This is the centre of the Mansions. This is the most famous place for Indian food. You will see.’

Wafting up from the vents was the smell of curry. They walked up a further two sets of stairs.

‘Christ, how many more? It better be worth it.’

‘Nearly there, big man.’

He wasn’t unduly worried. He was used to Asia. He was used to strange smells and dirty alleyways and heat and grime and he was used to places not feeling quite right. The small buzz of fear that he had felt when he first found himself alone as a foreigner on a faraway street had long since left him. Once every few months he made the same trip to Asia. He had lost his wonderment, his adrenalin rush at the fear of the unknown. He didn’t care for Chinese food any more. Now he longed for curry and a cold pint of beer. Now he just sat in cocktail lounges that could have been anywhere in the world. Ruby understood it. She knew he was used to being out of his comfort zone and he would not back out now. He had come this far. He would have it all now.

They reached her apartment door.

‘This isn’t a restaurant.’ He looked around, still smiling, a little less relaxed, a little less tipsy.

‘This is where I live, big man. Come in and I will ring the restaurant and get us the best table. While we wait I will get you a drink, make you happy…’ She smiled teasingly and brushed her hand over his crotch, softly, lingeringly. ‘I like you a lot. I am going to give you a real good time.’

‘Sounds good to me.’ He pulled her to him, held her by the bottom and thrust his hips at hers. She quickly opened the door and led him inside.

He stood just inside. ‘Are you boiling gammon? I haven’t smelt that since I was young. My grandmother always boiled gammon.’

Ruby didn’t answer; she led him past the kitchen where steam rose from boiling bones, now stripped of their flesh and rattling in the scummy water. The bones belonged to a man named Matt Simpson. His glasses were still on the side of the sink. His head was feeding the lobsters. His photo was sitting in the arms of a boy doll dressed in a blue bonnet and blue booties.

Ruby took his hand and steered him into her room, she closed the door behind him.

Five men had entered her room, stepped into her secret world. Five men had entered, none had left. He was the sixth.

Chapter 10

Mann took the MTR over to Central, Hong Kong Island. He walked up towards Soho (short for ‘south of Hollywood road’, an area of chic and not so chic wine bars, open fronted, pavement style, in cobbled streets and steep alleyways. Mann stepped outside of the noise and took out his phone.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be sharp.’

He heard her sigh. ‘You have every right, son.’

‘No, I don’t. You did the right thing in keeping the truth from me for most of my life. It was great while it lasted.’

‘It would have lasted longer if she hadn’t got in touch.’

‘It wouldn’t have gone on much longer, I would have always found out in the end. His assets existed whether you wanted them to or not. Anyway…I’m glad she, Magda, did get in touch. I liked her, Mum, whatever Dad was or wasn’t he loved her and I was proud to know her in the end. It was difficult, it was uncomfortable but I found a brother I never knew I had. I hope you will agree to meet him one day.’

‘Perhaps, son.’

‘I’ll see you soon, Mum.’

The Cantina Bar was decorated with a mix of sci-fi memorabilia. It was a place he felt comfortable, cherished even, amongst the chirrups of R2D2 and the hyperdrive floor that seemed to collapse as you walked on it before it spun you off into a black hole. But, most of all, what attracted Mann to the Cantina was Miriam. She looked like an Italian sex siren from the fifties, with her cinched-in waist and ample chest and the outline of her voluptuous body beneath her tight dress. She was older, an English woman, a Japanese Yakuza widow: her husband had been a Yakuza member – the Japanese mafia. He had taken the fall for others. There was honour amongst those left behind. Now the Yakuza looked after her. They made sure the local Triads didn’t overstep their mark. The Japanese Yakuza were brothers to the Chinese Triad; big players in the Asian Triad market. When necessary, when business crossed borders then the two could be bed mates. In Miriam’s case the Triads left her alone to run her bar knowing that if they didn’t they would answer to the Yakuza. Miriam had large dark and sultry hooded eyes that oozed sexual promise. A Roman nose, broad mouth and glossy black hair tumbled down her back in waves; her lips were red to match her dress. Mann and Miriam had a thing going which went back a few years. They understood one another, or so he thought.

‘Where you been, Johnny?’ she said as she turned on her stool and watched him approach. He leant down to kiss her. She turned her face and he kissed her cheek. It was then that he realized he was in trouble. ‘You look wrecked.’

‘I’ve been to hell and back, Miriam. I could do with some intensive nursing.’

‘I left you a few messages.’ She tried not to smile.

‘I’m sorry, Miriam.’

The barman glanced over and batted his eyelashes. Mann smiled back. What was it with gays? They always fancied him. He brought him over a vodka on the rocks. Mann thanked him and took a large swig.

‘I was worried. I heard you got ill.’

‘I got malaria. I’m fine now. I just can’t sleep. I need a bedtime story and a glass of milk. Let me buy you dinner, I’ll tell you all about it.’ Mann realized he was getting drunker than he meant to. He needed to eat. But not in the Cantina – the food was a variation on tapas and Mann needed a proper meal. He kissed her hand and followed it as it went back to her lap. Beneath his palm he felt the slide of silk stocking. There was a smile creeping in, a curl of soft red lips. But it wasn’t yet the smile that she gave him which meant he wouldn’t be sleeping that night, not yet.

‘I was really worried, Johnny.’

He smiled, looked into her eyes. ‘I’ve missed you, Miriam. I’ve missed the way you laugh. I’ve missed the way you pretend to be angry at me. I’ve so missed feeling you fall asleep in my arms. But, work has had me running around like a headless chicken and, to be honest, I haven’t been good company.’

She stood and stepped closer to him. Mann could smell her perfume. He touched the curve of her waist, the smoothness of her dress as it rounded her hip. She was relenting. She was giving in. She brushed her breast against his arm and touched the side of his face with her soft hand. She smiled, her eyes full of mischief. ‘Let me pick up my nurse’s kit on the way.’

Back at his flat, Mann stood back to allow Miriam through. She was a few paces in the room when she turned.

‘It’s been a while since we did this.’

He pulled her close. ‘Too long.’ He kissed her neck. She drew back.

‘But you haven’t been lonely.’

He pulled back at looked in her eyes. They were searching his.

‘You’re the only woman who comes here, Miriam, honest.’

‘Really? Since when have you been wearing perfume?’

Mann turned his head and smelt the air. Miriam was right; there was a smell of perfume and it was one that he knew very well. The smell of Miss Dior was in the air; the scent of Helen.

Chapter 11

‘Gin and tonic, right, Steve?’

Ruby was working fast to put him at ease. She could see by his face as he looked around her room that he was wondering if he’d made the right decision. He was wondering why they hadn’t just gone to his hotel room or straight to the restaurant. You hungry, big man? You want some fun? Spend the evening with me? Now he wasn’t so sure.

‘Yes, Ruby. I thought we were going for something to eat? Is this where you live?’ He looked around the tiny apartment. ‘Jesus, what a shithole. Sorry – no offence. Is this it? Everything in this room: kitchen, bathroom? What’s in there?’ He pointed to the curtain.

‘That is my bedroom.’

He got up, pulled back the curtain and tried the handle. ‘You keep it locked?’

Ruby giggled. ‘Maybe I let you see my bedroom.’

He squinted at the shadows. ‘Plastic flowers…roses…and what are they? Dolls? Fuck, they’re everywhere.’ He laughed but at the same time he spun round and peered into the dark corners. Hundreds of pairs of eyes looked back. ‘Fuck…what is this place?’

‘Hey, big man,’ Ruby tried to distract him, ‘have a drink. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.’ She handed him the glass.

He took a big slug of it. ‘Jesus, that’s strong.’ He wiped his burning mouth.

Ruby lifted her glass against his. She pressed him backwards. ‘Cheers. Sit. Sit.’

He sat on the sofa. ‘Drink. Drink…’ She drank her water down and poured him another gin.

She began to strip for him; he drank as he watched. He undid his shirt. Stripped to the waist, he eased back on the sofa, propped up on an elbow. She whirled around the room like a spinning top, laughing as she went. He laughed and tried to grab her as she danced around him. Ruby was down to her knickers. She straddled his lap and grabbed his hair. She ran her hands down over his arms. She looked at the tattoo he had on his upper arm.

MUM

She made a pouting face. ‘Ahhh. You a mummy’s boy?’

‘Of course.’ He grinned. ‘Safer than putting a girl’s name. It’s hard to rub off when it’s over.’

She stood and pulled his mouth to her sex. He drew away.

‘Hey, shouldn’t we use something? Ouch…go easy. You’re pulling my hair out.’ He laughed. He stood. ‘Come on then, you dirty girl, let’s go into your bedroom.’ He lurched sideways. ‘Jesus – I feel pissed.’

She eased him towards the locked bedroom door. She had the key ready in her hand.

‘You just need to relax. You need to lie down.’

‘Good idea.’ He grabbed her bottom and squeezed it hard. ‘Fucking hell!’ He lost his balance and crashed into the wall.

Ruby looped his arm around her shoulder as she unlocked the door and pushed it gently open. It was complete darkness inside. He stumbled forwards and hit his shoulder on the doorframe. ‘Where are we going? Through the secret door?’ He laughed.

‘You’ll see…’ She giggled and guided him inside, half dragging him now as his legs had started to buckle. ‘Time to lie down, big man.’

Ruby steered him forwards. ‘Lie down now. You’re okay, big man. Just lie back.’

He resisted for a second and then with a half laugh, half sigh, he gave in and lay back heavily on the mattress. Ruby ran her fingers through his hair, soothing him as he slipped further into unconsciousness and she moved around in the darkness tightening the restraints.

Chapter 12

In the morning Mann dropped Miriam back at the Cantina and he drove to Tammy’s school to give his talk.

The hall was darkened for the slide show projecting onto a screen behind him. He stood to one side. Three hundred children sat in front of him, in rows. A sea of white shirts and blue ties. They were hushed as the first ten images flashed up one after the other. Each image stayed up for three seconds unless he clicked to halt it: a girl dying with a needle in her arm, a boy whose face was badly disfigured from a chopping.

‘Triads deal in death,’ Mann continued. ‘In some form or another, it’s all about death. Whether its drugs, people trafficking, robbery, kidnapping. They aren’t fussy. They will make money any way they can. They don’t care who gets killed along the way. They use their members to fight battles just because they can. They don’t care how many get killed. Why should they?’

Mann stopped at the eleventh.

A young woman lay face down, a rope around her neck. Her hands were tied behind her back. ‘This is Zheng,’ Mann said. ‘She was on her way to study in England. She was looking forward to it. She was going to come back here and take her university entrance. When she arrived in London she was met by her contact but he didn’t take her to the school, as promised, he took her to this bedsit you see in the photo.’ Mann waited as all eyes studied the image of the girl lying face down. The room was in complete silence. ‘They cut off her little finger.’ Mann pointed to her left hand in the photo. ‘They sent that back to Hong Kong to her parents and they asked for ten million Hong Kong dollars.’ The hall gave a collective intake of breath. ‘Zheng’s parents couldn’t raise that kind of money so they raped and murdered her.’ The next photo to flash up was of a boy lying in a pool of blood, his chopped body twisted in death.

‘This is Zheng’s brother. He was an addict. He sold the Triads the information about his sister: which flight she’d be on, how much he thought his family would be able to find. They tricked him of course. They asked for ten times the amount his parents could pay and so, when they couldn’t pay, they killed him too. Nobody wins with the Triads. If you want to be somebody in Hong Kong society you have to stand out from the crowd, not just be another 49, another number.’ The lights went back on.

He looked along the rows. The front ten rows seemed to be solely occupied by girls, all looking up at him.

‘Any questions?’

About ten hands went up from the front. Mann pointed to the first hand. It was a girl from the fifth row back. She was mixed race. Part Chinese, part Filipino. She had come off well with the mix. She was striking looking, fair skinned. She had a touch of Spanish about her from the Filipino side, fair skinned, black haired. Mann realized he knew her, but he couldn’t place her.

‘Sir, do you give this talk to all the schools?’ she asked.

‘Pretty much.’

‘Even the schools where the parents have money and there aren’t any immigrants like there are here?’

The headmaster stepped forward to the mike to intervene; Mann waved him back.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Lilly.’

‘Lilly what?’

Lilly was a pretty girl with bags of attitude. ‘Mendoza.’

Her mother Michelle was a part-time hooker; Lilly must have slipped past the condom. The father looked like he must have been Chinese. Hong Kong was not a great ambassador for mixing the races. The Chinese liked to keep to their own kind. But something else was bugging him: he’d seen Lilly last night. She was one of the two girls who ran from the building just as he got there.

‘Okay, I know what you’re saying. You feel like this is a problem for kids from poorer backgrounds. Yeah, well I agree. The Triad organizations are always looking for an angle. They have mostly, not always, recruited from the poorer side of society. They know the recent changes in the education system discriminate against people coming in from other countries, non natives. They know it makes it tough so they exploit that.’

Another hand went up from a young Indian girl. ‘Are you mixed race, sir?’

‘Yes. My mother is English, my dad was Chinese.’

‘Is it easy to get into the police force when you’re mixed race?’

‘It isn’t easy to get into the police force whatever race you are. You need a good level of English. You need to be able to read and write Mandarin.’

There was a muttering all around the hall. Lilly spoke up again. You need to be able to read and write Mandarin to clean toilets now.’

The children laughed. The headmaster coughed loudly.

Mann waited until the laughter subsided before he spoke again. ‘Yeah, it sucks. It sucks that there isn’t a level playing field any more. It really sucks that a lot of what made Hong Kong great is being wasted. Talents that you all have to give are being handed over to the Triads because we are turning into a two-tier society. But…’ There was a general whispering. The headmaster looked nervous. ‘…but all I can tell you is that you have to be smarter than everyone else. You have to work harder than everyone else. You have to prove them wrong. You join a Triad organization and, in the short term, sure, you will get new trainers, you will get told how great you are. In the long term you will be pushed down alleyways, asked to repay favours, asked to fight, kill, you will be ordered to become part of a drug run, part of a human trafficking chain. You might be sold into prostitution yourself or sell other kids. And there will be no escape for you. You will be a number to be called whenever they choose. In the short term you may think it offers you hope. In the long term you will never be free to make it.’

‘Sir?’

‘Yes, Lilly?’

‘If your father is a Triad do you have to be one?’

‘No. Everyone has a choice.’

Lilly had a smug look on her face. She made sure she was heard. ‘And sir, is it true your father was a Triad?’

Mann felt the headmaster’s stare as his head swung round to look at Mann. Mann’s focus on the room slipped. His hands went cold. His pulse slowed. He looked to the back of the room. Right at the back the exit door was open to allow the breeze through. He could see the rectangle of blue. He refocused on Lilly.

‘Yes.’

‘What happened to him, sir?’

‘He was chopped to death because he disobeyed the society.’

‘Did he make a lot of money, sir?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘Did you inherit it, sir?’

Mann nodded. He was losing control. The hall burst out in chat. The headmaster stepped forward. ‘Thank you very much for coming, Inspector. We have taken up a lot of your time. We are very grateful—’

Mann stopped him mid-sentence. He took over the microphone and looked around the room, waited the two minutes it took to obtain absolute silence. ‘My father was executed when I was just a bit older than you. I was made to watch. That day has stayed with me forever. I didn’t know he was a Triad then. I do now. I have to deal with the legacy of my father’s Triad involvement. I have to deal with his mess. I used to be proud of my father when I was young. He was someone I looked up to. He didn’t have a lot of time for me, he was always working, but I loved him and respected him. Until I found out that he made his money by manufacturing and supplying heroin. My father was a drug baron. When I look back now my memories of him all seem like a lie. I question everything I ever had from him and ask myself did it come from drug money? Did someone have to die with a needle in their arm to buy me that?’

The room fell silent. All eyes were on Mann.

‘But, when you become an adult you are judged on who you are, not who your parents were or are. You stand alone. You have a choice. Yes, you may have it hard but that will make you harder. Yes, you may have it tough and that will make you tougher. And you need to be. Hong Kong can fulfil all of your dreams or it can be the cruellest place on earth. You can be anyone you want in Hong Kong. It doesn’t matter who your father was. It only matters what you achieve in your life and what you do with it. Don’t throw it away on being just a number. The girl who died yesterday evening was left to die alone in a cardboard box. She was left like a piece of rubbish. That’s all you are to the Triad bosses. I saw her body. I found her. No one should die like that. That’s what happens when you join the Triads. They make you feel like you matter but you don’t. In the end they use you and control you and you are not free to make your own decisions. When I look around this hall I see a lot of familiar faces looking at me. I know some of you were involved in what happened last night. I have come here today to offer you help. I will leave my card on the notice board in the corridor. Anyone want to talk to me? I will listen. I will be able to help. As Lilly pointed out, I know first hand about the dangers of belonging to a Triad society. I know what it can do. You ring me. We’ll fight it together.’

Chapter 13

Lilly stood up and slow clapped Mann’s speech. She pushed the girl in front; the whole row collapsed amidst lots of giggling. Lilly looked across at Tammy and grinned. Tammy had felt the tension grow in the hall. Now Lilly’s eyes lingered on Tammy as if she knew. Tammy grinned back. Mann got down from the stage and called Lilly over. They were left alone in the hall.

‘Sit down.’

Lilly sat and looked around the room as if she were bored.

‘Tell me, Lilly, what’s a bright girl like you doing coming out of a Triad initiation ceremony?’

She turned and stared hard at him, tried to read his expression. Her eyes were the colour of caramel. She had freckles across her nose. Her skin was light. She was taller than most girls her age.

‘I saw you coming out of the building where the girl got murdered last night.’ Mann could see from the way her eyes had stopped seeing him that her thoughts were backtracking. For a second she looked worried and then she rolled her eyes and looked at her nails, chewed off a bit of loose skin, made her finger bleed, and smiled as she looked at him as she sucked the blood from her finger.

‘Not me, Officer. I was at home last night doing my homework. Now, if you don’t mind I have a lesson to go to. You know what it’s like for us mixed-race kids – we have to work hard. We don’t all have our dad’s money to fall back on.’ She went to stand.

‘Sit. You’ll go when I say.’

She sat back down with a groan and looked at her watch.

‘Let me explain something to you. You’re in shit up to your neck. The girl who died last night was mutilated, her hands cut off before she had her throat severed.’

Lilly snapped her head as she looked at him. ‘I wasn’t there.’

‘But you were in the area. What do you think happens when people play with Triads, Lilly?’ Mann watched her. ‘What do you think you are going to get from all this? They’re playing with you, Lilly. It could be you next week lying in your own blood. They’re just sitting back and waiting and watching and enjoying the spectacle of kids like you killing one another. You’re disposable.’

A crack appeared in Lilly’s bravado. She looked towards the hall entrance, agitated, fidgety. She went to stand again.

Mann pushed her back in her seat. ‘We can continue this at the police station if you like or we can do it here. What’s the big global message they’re selling you, Lilly? Somehow I don’t think a designer handbag is what you’re in this for. Tell me, Lilly. You want to belong, don’t you? You want to leave your mark on the world but this is not the way.’

She blew an ‘I don’t give a fuck’ out of the corner of her mouth. But he could see her bravado starting to dissolve. She was just a scared little girl. From the corner of his eye, Mann saw the headmaster standing at the edge of the stage. He knew he’d gone far enough without taking her in. He knew there would be no point in doing that. She would say nothing; she’d be a lot more frightened of her Triad masters than she would be of the police.

‘All right, Lilly, you can go, but it won’t be the last we see of each other. I will be watching every move you make from now on.’

Lilly got up from her seat in her own time and she pushed the chair back noisily, it grated across the floor, and then as she walked past Mann she stopped in front of him. She smiled up at him. ‘Go ahead. I like being watched.’

Lilly left the hall and caught up with Tammy on the stairs.

‘Hey, what did you think of the talk?’ she shouted as the din of the girls hurrying on to their next class filled the stairwell.

‘Yeah…it was…’

‘Exactly – bullshit.’

‘Were you there?’

Lilly nodded.

‘What was it like? Did you see the girl get killed?’

Lilly shook her head. Tammy wasn’t sure whether she believed her or not.

‘Doesn’t it worry you, Lilly? Don’t you wonder if they might do that to you?’

Lilly shrugged. They stepped out of the way as other kids passed them. ‘It won’t happen to me. She must have done something bad. We are told the rules. She must have broken them. It serves her right. There’s a code. Anyway, it’s worth it. You’ll see. It will be your time soon.’

They were stood at the long window, overlooking the car park below. Tammy glanced down at Mann walking across to his old BMW. A part of her wished she could go with him, another knew she had a job to do and it would be worth it. Lilly followed her gaze.

‘He’s hot. It would be great to get him in bed.’ Lilly laughed at her expression. ‘Sure…I’ve had other policemen. In the evenings I see them in the bars. I can always spot them. They have this way of looking at everything. They don’t relax. But him…’ she watched Mann drive off, ‘…I see him out a lot, but never with a woman. He’s a loner.’

‘How did you know that about his father?’

Lilly was proud of herself. She had put Mann on the spot. ‘Everyone in the Mansions knows about him. He’s the bent gweilo cop. He takes bribes.’

Tammy had a hard job not showing what she felt. There was no way Mann took bribes. He was one of those cops that would cross the line when it meant bringing someone to justice but he would never cross it for his own gain.

Lilly laughed at the look on Tammy’s face. ‘What? What, does he mean something to you? Do you fancy him?’

Tammy shook her head in disgust.

‘He pretends to be a big moral man; really he’s as dirty as they come.’

They stared out at the last of Mann’s tail lights as he drove out of the car park.

Chapter 14

Mann headed back to Headquarters. The Organized Crime and Triad Bureau was spread over two floors, he was on the upper level. He’d been in the bureau for four years on and off. The off was ten months banished to the hinterland of the New Territories because of his tendency to piss off anyone who mattered in the police hierarchy. But the truth was, they needed him. They didn’t want to but they did. No one was as devoted as Mann to catching Triads. No one hated the cancer in the Chinese society more than him. But then, no one else had his reasons.

He fed his card into the slot, took the escalators that were surrounded by so much glass they seemed to be outside, fed his card into another slot and then took the lift up to the twenty-third floor.

He negotiated the last security check, an enclosed glass turnstile affair that provided bombproof screens between the stairs and the department, and then he walked along the usual police corridors, the same anywhere in the world: abandoned file cabinets, fluorescent strip lights overhead and thin, stained carpets underfoot. A no frills environment, not softened with decoration, only the odd plant managed to survive on the ledge along the corridor.

The floor was laid out with offices around the outside, interview rooms, identity parade suite in the centre.

Ng and Shrimp were out of the office. Mann needed to clear his head. He picked up yesterday’s sandwich from his desk and took the elevator to the top floor, and then the fire escape up onto the roof. It’s where he always came to think. He needed head space now more than ever.

From below the sound of traffic was building. His eyes searched the horizon and spotted what he was looking for. He took a deep breath of smog-free air and smiled as he watched an eagle ride the air currents and circle over the buildings nearby. It flew by his window sometimes. It looked at him. It pitied him. It was free, ruler of the skies. Mann would have given anything to be able to jump on its back and fly away. He saw its mate on the horizon. They paired for life. He did not envy them that. He never wanted to feel the heavy burden of being in love, of caring too much, ever again.

He walked across the roof, past the massive tanks and noisy air conditioners that kept Headquarters’ heart beating and lungs breathing. He broke the sandwich in two and laid the pieces out on the parapet before turning his back to the sun and walking across to the dummy. He smiled when he saw it. Shrimp had obviously been using it. He had dressed it in a seventies Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts. It made for a good target. Mann walked away from the dummy, took off his jacket and left it hanging over a pipe. Across his chest he had the sets of shuriken. His throwing stars. Each set contained ten. Each one of the ten was different from the others. Different in size and in design. They were weighted to wound, maim or kill. The smaller shuriken were perfect for disabling an opponent. They could be fired several at a time and do serious damage to several opponents at once. The bigger the set the more deadly until the ultimate – the death star. There was just the one. He carried it in its own pouch but he did not carry it routinely. He had designed it himself; it was a thing of beauty and of precision. But he could only fire it once. It had to find its target. It was silent, deadly and able to arc in the air so that it could curve around the side of a wall. It could cut a man’s head off.

Mann picked out the spikes from the sleeve on his arm, turned and ran towards the dummy; finding his mark he let fly the throwing spikes as he picked up pace. Three spikes embedded in its face, the other three across its chest. Mann turned at the sound of giant wings. The eagle kept one eye on him as it walked across the parapet. It picked up one half of the sandwich in its beak whilst grasping the other in its talons and it gave one last look at Mann before it dropped off the edge and turned and glided effortlessly away, the sun on the tips of its wings.

‘How big is that eagle’s wingspan?’ It was not a question. ‘Can I join you?’ Mia came to stand beside him. She knew where he’d be.

‘Sure.’ Mann picked up a discarded feather from the eagle’s tail. ‘It’s a black-eared kite eagle. Huge wingspan, weak legs, that’s why it spends most of the time soaring on the air currents. See the way it moves in the air? There’s no other bird like it for manoeuvrability. It’s all in the tail feathers, like a rudder but far more sophisticated. I could watch it for hours.’ He glanced across at her. ‘What is it, Mia? You didn’t come up here to talk about eagles.’

‘I know things are tough for you at the moment, Mann, but I have faith in you. I wanted to add something to what Sheng said. I know he’s not the best at putting stuff into words.’

‘That’s because he’s a twat.’

Mia shrugged and looked away for a minute. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. But even so he has a point. You are the best one for the job. It was a terrible thing finding out about your father but you can turn it to good. You want to make a difference, Mann. You could play with fire. You could step over to the dark side for a while.’

Mann looked at her to see if she was serious. She was.

‘You have the connections. Use them. Jump into the lions’ den. This is your chance to put your connections to good use. Go and see CK.’

Chapter 15

CK Leung stood at the window, staring down at Hong Kong’s harbour. He was a slim, upright figure, narrow shouldered in a traditional black Chinese suit. His hair was silvered at the temples, neat, short at the neck before it touched the edge of his mandarin collar. He was watching the afternoon sun as it ignited the dark blue waters and blazed against the skyscraper walls. From the top floor of the Leung Corporation building he had a first-class view. A view like that didn’t come cheap but CK could afford it. He was one of the wealthiest men in a place where the term wealthy was pushed to new parameters. Hong Kong was long famed for having the most Bentleys per square mile and the most billionaires. Lots of it was Triad-connected money. Triads had been in Chinese society for centuries, originally they did some good and supported the people but after the Cultural Revolution they turned to crime. Now they were the Chinese mafia. They ran minibus companies, taxi firms and laundered their money through nightclubs and film companies. CK was the biggest Triad boss in Hong Kong, the Dragon Head of the Wo Shing Shing – the largest Triad society, not just in Hong Kong, but fast spreading to the rest of the world. CK was a great opportunist, always looking for new ways to make money, always ahead of the game. Right now the Wo Shing Shing was leading the world in pirate computer programs and child pornography.

The PA gave a flustered protest as he stood in the doorway and attempted to stop Mann from getting through. He hadn’t a hope in hell of stopping him and he knew it. They had met on a few occasions and they weren’t pleasant memories for the PA. Now CK allowed him to save face. ‘Let him enter.’

He shrieked as Mann’s shoulder caught him and knocked him back against the doorframe.

‘Sorry,’ Mann grinned, pulling him upright by his tie. ‘Didn’t see you there.’

Mann stood in the entrance and looked across the dimly lit office: plush, chrome, cool black and dark mahogany, a mix of carved Chinese furniture and elegant Western style. Lamps lit the enclaves: calculated chic. The cold in the room hit Mann full frontal; it was like a fridge.

Mann’s Armani soles made no sound as he walked across the black wood floor. The room was silent except for the low growl of the oxygen machine as it sucked in air, re-oxygenated it, and blew it out in an exasperated ‘Pah’.

CK turned from the window just long enough to gesture that Mann should sit.

Now, as he leant back in the cool folds of the black Italian chair and felt it cradle him like a baby, he was not sure he should have come. His jet black hair fell as a broken crow’s wing across his espresso pool eyes. In this chair, in this place, he found some comfort. Here he had something real and alive to hate, not a ghost, not a memory, not a nightmare. He had CK. Mann sat back in the chair and rocked gently. He turned his head towards the oxygen machine. He breathed in deeply as it breathed out. Pah.

CK turned away from the window and came to sit opposite Mann. Like everything about the room, the polished black mahogany desk was uncluttered by personal touches: a writing block, a laptop, but no photos of family. CK began slowly nodding his head as if answering an unspoken question. His expression hardly ever changed, only his eyes betrayed his humour; they changed from bitter chocolate to churned-up riverbed green.

Mann looked across at his enemy.

‘The Outcasts…ring a bell? The new branch of the Wo Shing Shing. You recruiting from the kindergarten now, CK? From the minorities? What’s going on? You running short of people to recruit?’

CK gave a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘I do not want to talk about such petty aspects of business. I know nothing of street matters. I do not handle recruitment. I leave that to others. But there will always be those marginalized in society, those who need the help of their brothers. Society must look to itself for the rise of the Triads.’

Mann sat back and surveyed CK. ‘A leader must still know where his armies are at all times. It will always be his job to approve changes. You must have approved the birth of the Outcasts. Who is in charge? The rumours have it that your daughter Victoria Chan is heading it.’

‘A man can only rise to be the head of an organization by delegating, by trusting those beneath him to do their jobs. The tiers beneath him must be made strong to take his weight. The Leung Corporation is changing, expanding. We are branching out into new worlds and my daughter is part of this new generation.’

Mann pushed the fringe away from his eyes and stared back at CK. They had been enemies for as long as he could remember.

CK looked at Mann, his face shaded as he sat back in his chair. ‘What really brings you here, Inspector? If that is all you are here to ask me then our conversation will be a short one. I was hoping for more from you. I have been waiting for this time for many years. You have found out much that has changed in your life. You have found out about your father?’

‘I found out that he had a double life. He had another family across the world in Amsterdam. His life was a lie. He was not the man I believed him to be. You could have told me that a long time ago.’

CK leaned forwards, rested his elbows on the chair arms, and he pressed the ends of his fingers together. They interlocked in the air like long, thin, bony chopsticks. Without the sun the room had become dark, heavy, brooding.

‘I have watched and waited over the years, hoping that one day you would come to me with the knowledge of who you are and who you were destined to be. Yes. I could have told you but it is always better to allow a man to follow his own path.’

‘Yeah.’ Mann turned away and allowed his eyes the comfort of the darkened room. He spoke quietly. ‘Well, let me tell you. It’s not a path I ever wanted to travel. I was happier in ignorance. I wish I had never found out what kind of man he really was.’

‘And what kind do you think he was?’

Mann shook his head and smiled ruefully. ‘If I said he was a personal friend of Mother Teresa, a defender of human rights and a generous benefactor of the poor, would that do?’

‘I could say yes but we’d both be lying.’

Amusement came into CK’s eyes. CK rarely smiled. He was not a man to give in to pointless or telling gestures. In the Triad world showing emotions was considered a weakness. Every movement he made was calculated to give away as little as possible to his enemy. Mann understood and he played the same game. But CK had practised it for longer and Mann’s quick temper always let him down in the end. It was fast to flare. But at full flame, it turned ice cold, his body slowed, his pulse barely ticked over. It was then that he could kill calmly and methodically if he had to, and he had to sometimes. Justice came in many forms. Over the years he had come close to killing CK many times.

‘What he was…’ CK continued, ‘…was a clever man with a shrewd eye for business. But he was troubled. He was a man with his feet in two worlds. He was a man whose emotions overtook him sometimes and he made mistakes.’

‘He was a Triad: greedy, self-serving and worst of all he was naive. He was a fool who played with fire and got cremated.’

‘No, you are wrong. He was a genius. He was a clever entrepreneur. He saw the wisdom of belonging to a great organization.’

Mann looked away in disgust.

CK remained calm as he returned to nodding slowly, deliberately. ‘You need to rethink your mindset, Inspector. Triads merely adjust to their environment. They are a reflection of society and cater to its needs. If handled correctly a Triad organization can do much good for the community it serves. There is no denying that it can also further an individual’s career. Your father was proof of that. It is a pity his mind warped in the end and it went badly for him.’

Mann counted to three as he took in a breath, held it for three then expired slowly. His heart rate slowed. ‘My father realized his mistake and was executed when he tried to leave the society.’

CK inclined his head. ‘Of course. When one joins a society, one pledges allegiance to his brothers until death. It is an ancient oath that must be honoured.’

‘There’s nothing honourable in belonging to an organization whose main purpose is to launder money, peddle drugs and sell people.’ Mann stared coldly across at CK.

CK leaned forward, over the desk. ‘Tell me, Inspector Mann, your loyalty in the Hong Kong Police must be in question, is it not? Son of a Triad…who would trust him?’

Mann did not answer. His head was freezing, his hands hot.

‘Your father’s assets continue to grow after his death. The time has come for you to step into his shoes. You will be a better Triad than he ever was.’ CK’s eyes turned the colour of seaweed. ‘There are those waiting who will grow tired of waiting…’ He leaned forward. ‘If you wait too long they will come looking for you.’

‘Let them come.’ Mann felt the cold calm take him over. He leaned forward in his chair, no longer cradled. ‘I feel the mortal shame of having a father who was a Triad. I have nothing now to live for except my honour and serving those who need me. Warn those that would come looking for me: I fear life more than death and I will kill them.’

CK pressed his fingertips together. He sat back in his chair. In the dusky light his eyes glowed.

‘All this talk of death in one so young. All this talk of fear and fighting. Is there not one piece of your soul that longs for happiness? Money can buy you a little joy in this difficult world. Everyone deserves that, don’t they, even you, Inspector? Dine with me tomorrow and let us continue our talks. I needn’t be your enemy. I could be the best friend you ever had.’

Chapter 16

Ruby closed the door behind her. She hummed to herself as she took off her disguise and unbuttoned the front of her uniform. She opened the cupboard and placed her wig back on its stand. She went into the bathroom and switched on the light. She removed her make-up meticulously. She stood looking at herself. She turned her head from side to side to examine her face from all angles. She saw a blank canvas. Ruby was lucky to have good bone structure. Her skin was light. Her features were regular, nondescript. Only her eyes gave away her roots but that too she could disguise with make-up if she wanted to. Her eyes filled with tears as she stared into the mirror at her reflection. She asked herself: who did Ruby want to be? She wanted to be the person she once was: the child full of hope, the girl with dreams still intact. She wanted to turn back the clock and decide her own destiny. There had been a time when she was happy. A long time ago when she had sat on her mother’s lap and her mother had brushed her hair and sung to her. She had felt loved. But that was before it all went wrong. That was before it happened. Ruby had believed in love once. She had trusted a man. She had been betrayed.

She glanced towards the locked door. She loved the feeling of knowing he was waiting for her, of knowing he was all hers. She undid the last few buttons and slipped the dress from her shoulders, then glanced at the clock on the wall. She had time. She would use him one more time before the end. She heard a noise. She paused as she slid her knickers to the floor. She held her breath as she listened and then she grinned in the darkness of the room that never saw the light of day.

She picked up one of her dolls and tipped it upside down. It cried one long realistic cry like a baby. Ruby held it to her breast and cooed to it as she pressed her nipple into its plastic mouth. ‘Come on, baby. Mummy wants to feed you.’ Ruby’s nipple grew hard as she brushed it against the doll’s cheek. She stopped to listen; he was calling her. He was in a lot of pain. She felt her stomach tighten. She felt her pulse quicken as her imagination took her down that delicious dark road of torture and sex. This was Ruby’s favourite place now. It was all she ever thought about, all she had left.

‘Coming, my love.’

Ruby picked up a small handheld saw and pulled back the curtain and opened the door, saw in one hand, baby doll in the other. The room was pitch black, sweltering hot. She switched on the electric light – one bulb hung down from the ceiling. The white on the walls gave off an eerie sheen. There were hooks hanging down from the ceiling. In the centre of the room the man lay naked on a plastic mattress. His arms were tied to a chain above his head. His legs were tied together and chained to the floor. The room had a toilet in the corner, a wash basin, a hose for washing and a drain in the floor that had once been enclosed behind a small screen. Ruby had removed it. The room was tiled completely with white tiles. Most of the Mansions’ guest rooms had white tiles. It made them easier to keep clean. It meant the bedbugs and cockroaches had fewer places to hide. For Ruby it meant that she could hose off the blood easily.

Steve was strapped into the bonds waiting for her. Naked, his body now stripped down to its bare functions. Ruby put down the saw and finished injecting the penis. He was sweating. Of course he was, the heat in the room was 40° C. His chest hair had turned black as it stuck in wet rivulets and waves across his skin. It was hot in the room because there was no air con. She only switched the air con unit on afterwards. He was breathing deeply. He was scared but his cock was raging. She had injected four doses into the shaft’s base. It would keep it hard long after he was begging her to end his life.

Steve stared at her. His chest rose and fell. He tried to talk but the black rubber ball gag filled his mouth. Ruby set the doll down, propped up against the wall, level with the man’s head.

‘There, you can watch Daddy now.’

Ruby knelt beside him and covered his cock with the hard plastic sheath. She taped it down. Then she stood and went over to the sink, bent down and picked up a weapon, a metal whip. In the confined spaces of the room she had to be careful not to hurt herself when she wielded it. She stood in the corner of the room by the door and lifted it above her head and brought it down across his body. He squealed in pain and twisted his body, trying to get away from the strokes. The wounds opened up before her eyes. The razors were so sharp that at first they slid through his flesh invisibly and then the delay and they split open. Now his body was bleeding onto the plastic mattress, the blood making its way down onto the tiled floor. He was frantic now.

‘You see, baby, Daddy didn’t come back for us, did he? And so Daddy has to be punished.’ She struck him again, three more times across his legs, his chest. His flesh flew out in slithers. The doll’s face was dripping with his blood. ‘Daddy said he was single. Daddy said he loved us but Daddy was a liar, wasn’t he?’

Ruby picked up the saw and pressed the button to start the motor. Unearthly noises escaped from the man’s gagged mouth as he shook his head and pleaded with his eyes. Ruby took off the plastic sheath from his cock, straddled him and eased herself on him. She rocked, forgetting the saw in her hand that bounced and sang. It came to rest on the ball gag and slid back and forth across his face. Ruby didn’t see it – she was coming close to orgasm. Only when she had finished did she remember that she had the saw in her hand. She looked at him and laughed. It had taken off most of his face.

She looked at the doll, its bright blue eyes still sparkling, the blood dripping from its face. Its mouth open in a sweet chuckle. ‘Now that’s not very nice, is it, baby? You mustn’t laugh at Daddy.’

Chapter 17

Ng took one look at Mann when he walked back into the office that evening. He’d come straight from CK’s.

‘Don’t bother taking your jacket off, it’s late. We’re going. That’s enough work for you. I’m taking you home.’

Mia appeared in the doorway. ‘Any news on the girl’s identity?’

‘Not yet,’ answered Ng.

‘Mann…did you see CK?’

‘Yes, I saw him and I arranged to see him again tomorrow night. He’s going to show me the world he thinks I belong in.’ Mann shook his head.

Mia looked at Ng. ‘Ng’s right. You need some time out. Let Ng take you home. Grab an hour’s rest. I’ll see you in three hours. Now go.’

Mann started to protest but gave in. He wasn’t going to win an argument with Mia and he knew she was right. This was no time to be slack.

Mann sat beside Ng in the passenger seat of his brand new Mazda and laid his head back on the leather headrest. The car was Ng’s pride and joy, but then Ng didn’t have to spend his money on his family or a mortgage. He’d inherited a flat from his parents, in what was once a slummy part of town – now the chicest address in Wanchai.

Mann watched the neon whiz by. He didn’t know if he was drunk or just so tired that his world was spinning. He caught Ng looking across at him as he rested his head on the back of the seat, his eyes half closed.

‘A couple of hours’ sleep, something to eat, a few coffees, you’ll be sorted,’ Ng said.

‘Yeah.’ Mann looked out of the window. ‘Somehow I think it’s going to take more than that, Ng.’

The two fell silent. Ng switched on the radio and then switched it off. He had something he wanted to say.

‘I don’t think you should be the one to talk with CK or Victoria Chan. You’re vulnerable right now. I see it in you. All the years we have known one another I have watched you struggle with things but I have never seen you so withdrawn. It’s as if you don’t exist in this life sometimes. You are not listening. You are not hearing what is said. I see your eyes always on the horizon, Mann. But the way is in the heart, not in the sky. Be kind to yourself right now. Stop punishing yourself and accept some help. I will take over talking to CK.’

Mann looked across at his old friend and he smiled. ‘Thanks, Ng. You’re a good friend. But somehow I don’t see that working. I have something they want. I have my father’s inheritance. I have to use it to bring them down if I can.’

They parked up in his space outside his tower block and walked to the entrance. ‘Fuck it – they’ve just changed the code,’ he said to Ng, who was patient as ever. ‘I’ve forgotten what it is.’ He waved at the security guard. The old man behind the desk grinned at Mann and nodded enthusiastically as he came over to let them in.

‘Hello, sir. You forget your number? No problem,’ he said, letting them through the gate. ‘Your cleaner was here earlier, sir.’

‘My cleaner?’ Mann shook his head to try to clear it. ‘Okay.’ He hadn’t asked her to come; maybe she was just bringing back his laundry.

They took the lift up to the fortieth floor.

‘Jesus, what kind of cleaner is she?’ Ng stood in the doorway. ‘This place looks like a student’s bedroom and it smells like a brewery.’ He stood amidst the remnants of meals left untouched and copious amounts of empty bottles. The louvre blinds were closed, the air in the room was dark and rank. Ng stepped over the piles of papers and document folders mixed up with the mess. He stood in the middle of the small lounge and surveyed the carnage.

‘What’s going on, Genghis?’ Ng had called Mann that ever since he had first seen him as a wild-eyed, wild-haired youth, joining the police force to change the world, full of anger and mistrust, his world shattered from the death of his father. He was older now but he was just the same inside.

Mann shook his head, threw some things off the armchair and plonked himself in it. His face was blotchy and his eyes were darker than ever, hooded and haunted. He reached forwards, tapped a Marlboro out of its packet and lit it.

Ng went to snatch the packet away. ‘You quit, remember?’ But a look from Mann and he thought better of it. Instead he began tidying, picking up the scattered papers and piling them on top of one another.

Mann drew on the cigarette.

‘What are these papers?’

‘These are my father’s life.’

Ng looked around at the mountains of paperwork. ‘All this?’

Mann nodded. ‘These files have been like reading a diary for me. They document his life in business. Over there, behind you…’ Ng turned to see that the piles, seemingly indistinguishable from one another, were actually in messy groups on the lounge floor, ‘…that was when my father started out in business. It was a small business, he made some clever moves. By the time he was twenty-one he had bought his first property. He expanded, bought up a few rival companies, made a good profit but it obviously wasn’t enough for him. To your left…’ Ng turned; there was a large triple pile of papers stacked next to one another, ‘…that represents ten years when he made money slowly, steadily, ticked along, some years were good, some bad, until…scan the pile just by your right foot, the biggest piles, this group stretched across the floor. That’s when he decided to get some help. That’s when he turned a corner and suddenly he expanded his business so fast his feet didn’t touch the ground. He had money pouring in. That’s was the year he became a Triad. I haven’t sorted through all of these yet. There is still a load to collect from the solicitors.’

‘What about that pile?’ Ng turned and pointed to a pile left just behind the door of the flat.

Mann stopped, stared. ‘I didn’t make that pile.’

Chapter 18

Mann threaded his way through the thousands of people who had come to watch the first race of the season at Happy Valley race course. The noise of thousands of excited Chinese was deafening. He put a few hundred dollars on a horse called Last Chance. Horseracing was the only legitimate form of gambling allowed in Hong Kong. More money could be taken in one night in Happy Valley than a whole year at a fixture in the West.

Mann looked upwards towards the private members’ boxes. People looked down from their balconies and watched the races like Roman dignitaries standing in their amphitheatre, giving their thumbs up or down to the contestants. The race course was an oasis of green surrounded by skyscrapers and tower blocks.

Mann headed upwards through the stands. He had an appointment. He watched the screen as he made his way up. The race began. His horse, Last Chance, was tenth out of the stalls.

He took the lift up to the top floor, the private landing. He showed his ID. He walked on past the bowing hostess, her cheongsam in CK’s colours: black and gold. CK was well known at Happy Valley. He had invested big money in horses. It was a great way to launder money. The private viewing room was in the centre of the stadium, prime position to look down on the races below.

‘Good evening, Inspector. Thank you for accepting my invitation to meet here. The first race of the season is always the most exciting.’ CK stepped forward to greet him. ‘People have contained their eagerness for two months, not a small feat in Hong Kong. I see you have already placed your bet.’ He pointed to the slip in Mann’s hand and then looked up at the large screen that ran along one whole wall of the room. Above it flashed a continuously updated message as to each horse’s position in the race. Last Chance was now sixth. CK spoke to the elfin-faced waitress hovering with a tray of champagne and she bowed, walked backwards and left to fetch his order for Mann’s drink.

‘Yes. Have you got one running?’ Mann looked around the room. Beside him were twenty or so guests, top Triads and their officers, all trying not to stare at Mann and CK as they talked. Mann realized he was being given a rare honour of favouritism that most of these men had probably never seen.

‘Asian Gold.’

Mann looked at the screen. ‘The favourite and in the lead. Foregone conclusion then?’

CK acknowledged Mann’s compliment but made it clear he didn’t take it seriously.

‘And you, Inspector?’ He looked at Mann’s ticket. ‘You have backed Last Hope? When will you stop backing the underdog?’

Mann smiled. ‘I see it as an opportunity. I don’t see the underdog. It’s called Last Chance. There’s a difference.’

‘Walk with me.’ CK led Mann out to the private balcony above the track where they stood alone to watch the race.

The track was lit up like day. The thunder of hooves echoed around the auditorium. The screams of the people became one massive roar. Last Chance was coming up on the outside. Asian Gold was hanging on to first place. The jockey’s whip was flying around its head. A huge scream of dismay went up in unison, a gasp of disbelief. Asian Gold had fallen. Last Chance was in second place. He was gaining on the lead. His head nosed in front. He was ten metres away from the finishing line. He was a nose ahead when he seemed to slow just before he hit the line. He came second. The crowd’s roar dropped to a rumbling silence as they stood and watched the team of vets and medics run across to where Asian Gold lay. The jockey was up and on his feet. There was a few minutes’ wait and then the sound of a shot echoed through the auditorium.

‘I’m sorry,’ Mann said to CK.

‘One more beautiful creature lost to this world. But I must also apologize. The jockey on Last Chance is one that I bought some time ago. He held him back at the end.’ He turned to Mann, the merest hint of agitation in the hard line of his mouth. ‘We will dine.’

The balcony door opened. The jockey who had ridden Asian Gold stood before them, still looking shaky from his ordeal. He was holding his arm. He had hurt himself in the fall. From below came the strange sound of sadness as Asian Gold’s carcass was winched up and onto the back of a transporter.

‘But first I would ask you to excuse me for a few minutes.’

The slight Irish jockey stood with his head bowed. The elfin-faced hostess appeared to escort Mann to his table in the restaurant.

As he entered the last of the customers was being escorted out. The place was being cleared. Three of the customers were glued to the window, their hands over their mouths in horror. Mann saw why. The restaurant overlooked the racetrack. The young Irish jockey in black and gold had fallen from CK’s balcony. His body was being transported away at the same time as the horse.

‘Sorry to keep you,’ CK said as he entered the now empty restaurant and took up a seat opposite Mann at the window table. ‘The death of a horse must be investigated. Everyone involved in the event must take some responsibility.’

‘I see the jockey took it hard.’

‘Ah, yes.’ CK glanced out of the window and realized that Mann must have had a good view of the events. ‘I tried to console him but he was very distraught. He was dedicated. He lived for that horse.’

CK waited as the waiter placed his napkin across his lap.

‘This is not the best restaurant in Hong Kong of course. But I like the traditional decor, the views; I like its atmosphere. I like the silence.’ Now there was just the sound of twenty waiters with nothing to do but cater to two men’s needs as they walked softly over the stone floor and wound their way between the heavy rosewood furniture.

The waitress was a pretty girl from the mainland, traditional beauty: slight in figure, delicate, child-like, dressed in a chic coolie outfit. She spoke to them in Mandarin. CK kept his eyes on her as she waited to take their order. Mann ordered his usual – large Zubrowka vodka, ice, twist of lime. CK ordered a bourbon straight. The waitress didn’t need to take a food order. The chef was ordered to prepare everything on the menu. They would never eat it all but in Hong Kong waste equalled wealth. Duck heads arrived for them to pick at. CK watched the waitress walk away before he turned back to Mann. Mann smiled. He was oddly amused by CK’s lechery. It was the first time he had seen a weakness for the flesh in CK.

CK studied Mann. ‘I am pleased that you reconsidered your position and accepted my invitation, Inspector.’

‘My father has left me no choice. There are some things that I will have to deal with. There are decisions that will have to be made whether I like it or not. I think there are some companies with which I can be involved and not harm my integrity.’ As Mann said the words he had rehearsed in his head they sounded strangely true and he felt oddly calmer for having said them. Now he was really worried.

‘I am glad that you have finally begun to see reason. There is no escaping one’s destiny.’

CK paused and waited until the young waitress was out of earshot. He stopped picking at the duck eyes and replaced his chopsticks on their holder. ‘I can help you. I will make you an offer that I believe will be perfect for us both. You get to keep your integrity, I get the rewards I feel I deserve. After all, I have been looking after a portion of your father’s assets for years. This is a deal for your ears only.’ CK paused.

They were interrupted by the owner of the restaurant who came over and whispered something in CK’s ear. The waiter hastily laid another place beside CK. CK nodded his agreement and picked the napkin from his lap as he prepared to stand.

‘We have a guest.’

Mann looked behind him to see a Chinese woman walking towards them. She was taller than average, more athletic looking. She had curves. She was elegant, in her mid-thirties, perfectly groomed, sharp features, with her hair pinned high on her head, her fringe short, blunt. She was twinset and pearls, pencil skirt, box jacket, conservative. But then Mann took a look at her shoes, patent leather, black, five-inch heels. He heard the rustle beneath the skirt. Mann didn’t need an introduction, he knew her. She was CK’s daughter and the widow of his one-time best friend, Chan, now one more drifting set of bones in the South China Sea. She was CK’s only legitimate child; his other was a younger daughter, borne by a concubine and still at school in England.

When Mann was tracking Chan he had made a study of Victoria. He knew what size dresses she wore, which perfume she liked, where she played tennis, which lunch venue she preferred when she was entertaining her friends. Mann also knew that Victoria Chan married beneath her. She was privately educated in England. She had gone to Oxford and studied English. This was a woman who had juggled Chinese and Western cultures, had tried to catch the balls and then realized she hadn’t been passed any. This was the woman who had done what her father ordered, but along the way she had compromised herself. He stood as she approached. She looked from CK to Mann, where her eyes stayed as she walked towards them.

Mann knew what she must be thinking: Let’s get a good look at the man who killed my husband.

Chapter 19

Mann waited whilst Victoria was seated. She declined food but ordered tea. He looked across at her. She was difficult to read. Surely she could not want anything from Mann? They had every reason in the world to mistrust one another. Yet they had things in common. They were both educated in boarding school in England. They both had a Triad for a father. But Mann didn’t intend to follow in his father’s footsteps. She obviously did. He waited for her tea to be poured and for the waiter to step away from the table. Mann wondered what she was really like beneath the cool exterior.

‘My daughter has a business proposal she wishes to put to you.’

Victoria studied Mann as if he were on the menu. After she seemed satisfied about which bit of him she would eat first, she gave a slight curl of her perfectly defined vampire-red mouth. When she spoke she had the merest hint of a lisp. The tiniest gap between her front teeth. ‘Good evening, Inspector. I trust you have enjoyed the evening’s events so far. Did you win?’

‘No. My horse had a better offer right at the end.’ Mann sat back, sipped his vodka and studied her in turn. ‘Tell me, Victoria, what is it with you? I just don’t get it. Well-educated, independent woman of the new order. You could be anything you want. Why choose the life of a Triad?’ Mann’s eyes flicked towards CK. He wouldn’t interfere. He was studying them both as if he were the proud coach of two prize fighters indulging in pre-match banter.

‘I am proud to be working for the Leung Corporation.’ She smiled, her eyes lowered and she inclined her head in a deferential bow towards her father. CK inclined his head back to her. His eyes lit up with menace as he listened with pride to his daughter.

Mann put down his drink, leaned forwards and smiled at Victoria. The ice maiden had nerves of steel. Mann wondered how long it would be before CK had to watch his back; when the pupil became the master. ‘You can use your money, pretty it up to make it look respectable but we all know where it comes from in the beginning. It never crosses your mind that it’s made from selling children into brothels, killing teenagers with drugs. It never for one tiny second crosses that mind of yours to feel a sense of disgust at the way you make your money?’

‘All money comes down to a dirty beginning. I merely accept it once it comes into my hands and I use it to the best of my ability. We have donated large sums of money to local children’s projects in Hong Kong. We are happy to reinvest in Hong Kong’s future.’

‘Schools?’

‘Yes, part of our investment is in schools.’

‘You’re happy to recruit from the kindergarten, you mean?’ Victoria Chan went to answer. He didn’t give her the chance. ‘Which schools? Schools on the immigrant, no hope, wrong side of the track?’

‘If you mean the disadvantaged, then, yes. We aim to provide a better level of education for those struggling in this present system. A voice for the ordinary man who won’t get heard.’

‘That sounds almost democratic. If I hadn’t seen the result of your policies myself I might have gone part way to believing you. A young girl was murdered at one of your initiation ceremonies. I found her body dumped in a box and being eaten by rats. You didn’t give her a voice, did you? You and your underprivileged school kids are murdering one another on Hong Kong’s streets.’

Victoria Chan eyeballed Mann. She was as cool as a cucumber; he had to give her that.

‘The young girl’s death had nothing to do with me. As a goodwill gesture, as I believe the name of the Wo Shing Shing was somehow implicated, I intend to offer compensation to her family, when you establish her identity. Believe me, I was horrified. It is not my vision of the future, to take a young woman’s life who had so much to offer Hong Kong.’

‘Don’t make me laugh. Admit it; you don’t give a shit about girls like her, they’re ten-a-penny, plenty more where she came from. You’ve created a monster that you don’t have the experience or the knowledge to deal with, it’s out of control.’

CK went to intervene. Victoria’s flick of the eyes, the tiny lift of her perfectly manicured hand told him, No, let me handle it.

‘You have no evidence against me, Inspector; otherwise you would have arrested me already. I sincerely hope that you get whoever killed that poor girl.’ Victoria reached down and opened her briefcase and extracted a slim clear folder. ‘I thought you might be interested in seeing how I intend to help people like that girl’s family and many more. Since my father asked me to take over his business concerns, I have found many things. It seems that your family and mine are linked.’

She smiled politely but remained as cold as steel. Mann looked across at CK. He was enjoying every minute of it.

‘It seems our allegiance goes back even before my father took over the running of the company.’ She pulled out a paper from the file and handed it over to Mann using two hands and with a small bow of the head. It was quaint how they still managed to keep to Chinese etiquette whilst selling souls.

Mann picked it up and glanced at it. It was a photocopy of a handwritten document of the kind rarely seen nowadays. He recognized his father’s signature at the bottom. He recognized the wax seal, red stamp of his father’s Triad organization, the Golden Orchid. Mann had seen it many times in the last few months. His lounge floor was covered in papers with the same seal. But he hadn’t seen this one. He placed it back on the table and pushed it across to Victoria.

‘Let me summarize it for you.’ She was unperturbed, perfectly controlled. ‘It’s a copy of a document that I believe you hold. It is an old legal document that states that your father and the Leung Corporation were two of the original owners of the Mansions and together we hold the majority share. As you are aware, there have been many moves in the past to knock down the Mansions and build a luxury development. It is the best site in Hong Kong for redevelopment, right on the peninsula, right in the heart of the business district.’

Mann shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re mad.’

She cocked her head to one side and her eyes narrowed to a feline stare as her mouth froze into a mirthless smile. ‘On the contrary, Inspector. For years no one knew who owned the majority share. That’s why no development of it was possible. But I have the evidence here…’ she glanced down at the old piece of paper, ‘…your father was the missing major shareholder.’

‘It’s full of immigrant workers and refugees with nowhere else to go. Where is your community spirit now? Don’t you care?’

‘Oh, I care, Inspector. It’s a fire trap. It’s only a matter of time before it burns down.’ Her eyes settled on Mann’s face, they were shining in the candle light, their colour changing, churning up the riverbed, exposing the weeds. She picked up her tea and sipped it, hardly wetting her lips as she did so.

‘Don’t even think it.’ The place fell silent with the atmosphere. The waiters slunk away to the other side of the restaurant.

‘You misunderstand me, Inspector.’ She smiled demurely, her red lips curling at their edges into a smile. ‘I am only stating the obvious. I am not insinuating that it is in my control. What I propose is that we turn it into the luxury development it was always meant to be but maintain some guesthouses, a restaurant or two.’

‘Keep a flavour, you mean?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And exactly how stupid do you think I am? Got any other propositions? That one stinks.’ He pushed the paper back across the table. He looked at her. She had a smirk on her mouth that said she had picked the ace from the pack and her magic trick had hit its mark. It had shocked one, thrilled the other. Mann’s heart began to slow; the blood in his veins started to freeze. He felt the anger rise inside him. Mann sat back in his chair and looked hard at Victoria. All those years married to Chan must have been her incubation period. Now she had hatched into a black widow spider and Mann was on the menu.

Victoria Chan didn’t flinch. She had learnt to suppress her emotions. Outwardly serene, but like a beautiful snake with exquisite markings, she lured and then waited to strike. She picked up the deed and closed the file shut, then she looked across at her father and bowed. ‘Excuse me, Father, I have many things to attend to.’

CK inclined his head slowly in a gesture of compliance.

‘It was nice to finally meet you, Inspector. Thank you for sparing me your precious time.’ She stood and bowed ceremoniously: low and slow. ‘Don’t discount future dealings between us. Some things have a habit of forcing themselves on you whether you like it or not. Now that you know about your father’s businesses, they can no longer stay hidden. Think about it and let me know.’ She handed him a business card two handed, she bowed, looked up at him from beneath her perfectly arched eyebrow. Her eyes emerald, her mouth smiling.

He took the card from her and studied it. It was elegant, embossed, sharp edged, a lot like her. He turned it over in his hands; it was written in five other languages. Maybe Tammy was right – she did intend to conquer the world.

‘We are not allies, Victoria. If you have taken over from your husband then you and I will be enemies, make no mistake. I don’t care how much stuff you dig up about my father’s sordid dealings; I don’t care if it ends up we are twins, you will never make a friend of me.’ A knowing smile crept across her beautiful mouth. Victoria’s eyes flicked towards her father then flicked back to Mann. CK was enjoying the spectacle. He was intrigued to watch it. Mann was beginning to feel caught in a web with two predatory spiders.

‘I can wait.’ Victoria kept her eyes fixed on Mann’s. ‘I have only begun to look into the ways our paths cross and I am making it my business to find out all about your father: his partners, his investments, his legacy, your legacy. Whether you like it or not our paths have joined, and…’ she inclined her head in a respectful bow, ‘…I believe we have a bright future together. It’s just that you don’t see the light yet, but you will.’

Chapter 20

It was late by the time Mann got back to the office. Shrimp and Ng were out. That left just him, a massive file mountain that he was too wired to tackle and a few sickly looking spider plants on his windowsill. He sat at his desk and closed his eyes for a few seconds. The evening had given him a lot to think about. His personal life seemed to be meeting his professional one head on.

‘Mann?’

A hint of rose banged on the bridge of his nose like smelling salts. Mann didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. ‘Hello, Boss.’ He swivelled his chair around to face her; his head still resting on the backrest. Mia Chou stood in the doorway.

‘How did it go?’

‘Interesting. I met Victoria Chan.’

Mia raised an eyebrow. ‘What was she like?’

‘Ruthless, serpent-like, ice cold like her father, just like he was in the old days, greedy for power and wealth. She has taken over Chan’s job of advisor – Paper Fan.’

‘CK seems on board?’

‘Yes. I’d say he’s grooming her to take over one day. But this is her proving time. She has to get this right.’

‘Why is she interfering with recruitment?’

‘He’s letting her make decisions on all levels. He is letting her prove herself. She doesn’t have to work her way up the ranks. She’s jumping straight in at the deep end.’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.