“You still can't undo the past.”
He finished his beer. “I really thought I could do it, Lace. For a moment, I thought I would. I mean, what is there left to live for?”
She fumbled in her purse for her car keys. If John Keelan was going to destroy himself there wasn't anything she could do to stop him, no matter how much she loved him or how unjust it all was.
“Don't get mad,” he said, softly.
“I'm not mad. Truth is, I don't give a damn.” She finished her drink and headed for the door. She was in no mood to wait for the ancient elevator. She ran down the fire stairs, Keelan got up and followed her.
“Wait,” he said.
When they stepped outside the wind hit them like a physical blow. The typhoon was headed their way.
Chapter 85
Pokfulam
THE wind stripped a blizzard of leaves from the trees. A torrent of mud and vegetation washed down the Peak and choked the nullahs. Sheet lightning flickered on the horizon. Evening came halfway through the afternoon.
The storm had knocked out the power to the apartment. Without air conditioning, and unable to open the windows because of the wind, the apartment became unbearably hot. Charlotte went in search of batteries for her transistor radio, so she could get updates on the storm's progress, but she searched everywhere and could not find any the right size.
Charlotte hated typhoons. Her village near Quezon City had been destroyed by a cyclone when she was eleven years old and an uncle and cousin had been killed. The memories of that terrible night, and the mudslide that followed in the early hours of the following morning, had never left her.
She lit all the candles she could find, and fell on her knees in her bedroom before a small statue of the Virgin and prayed for deliverance. She hoped the mistress would get back soon. She did not want to sit out the storm alone.
At around five o'clock she heard the doorbell ring. Lacey had her own key but Charlotte thought she might not be able to find it in her bag in the darkened corridor.
She threw open the door.
Vincent walked straight in, jammed the Chinese-made Makarov against Charlotte's forehead. The silencer on the barrel made the weapon seem insanely huge, like a small cannon. He slammed the door shut behind him.
“Name is Vincent,” he said. “Do not want to hurt you, okay. But you make any sound they will send you back to Manila without your head.”
***
Rain slammed against the windshield and Lacey's Toyota rocked in the wind. The traffic lights on the corner of Lockhart and Fenwick were out and Lacey crept through the intersection in first gear. Except for a few taxis ploughing through the flood, the streets were mostly deserted.
Neither she or Keelan spoke for a long time.
“There is no point to this,” Lacey said at last.
“Just give me some time.”
“How long do you want? I mean, I've known you for nearly six months, yanqui.” This was not a good time to be doing this. She felt raw and punished after the shooting in the street. She had been looking to Keelan for refuge.
“It's not you, it's me,” he said.
“Oh, piss off!” Her left arm shot out.
Keelan stared at her, astonished. She had punched him. “What did you do that for?”
“Because you're a bastard.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence. She turned onto Shek Pai Wan Road and headed north towards Pokfulam. The car splashed through twitching pools of rain.
“I have to stop by my apartment before we go to Mac's,” Lacey said. “I want to check on Charlotte. She's terrified of big storms. The last time one came through here I found her a blubbering mess under the bed. It's worse than having a cat.”
“Had her fixed?” Keelan said, trying to defuse the tension.
“Charlotte is a good Catholic girl. I don't need to.”
“You don't have a bad left jab for a southpaw.”
“If I didn't have to keep both hands on the wheel I would beat you unconscious.”
***
Vincent saw Lacey's Toyota swing into the undercroft. There would not be time for a thousand knives, he decided. But there were twenty five bullets in the clip and he would use them all. He thought he would start with the knees first.
Chapter 86
THE barrier in the undercroft was raised and unattended. She supposed the cyclone had sent the attendant scurrying home before the end of his shift. Lacey parked the car in her designated space.
“Want to come up?” she said.
“I don't want to outrage Charlotte.”
Lacey shrugged and got out of the car. Outside the rain hissed down like molten shot. The wind was channeled through the concrete tunnels of the undercroft, and Lacey had to lean into the downdraught to make it to the elevators.
***
It could be different, Keelan thought.
If I turned my back on everything that has happened to me, if I forgot about Caroline and Anna, if I forgot about Bertolli, if I forgot that I was to blame for all of that; then it could be different between Sian Lacey and myself.
But what if I wake up one morning and find myself loving her as much as Anna? Or if she comes home one day and tells me she is going to have our child. It wouldn't be fair and it wouldn't be right. If I cannot make amends with Bertolli then at least I won't compound their tragedy with forgetting.
Lacey's mobile rang. He picked it up.
“Who is that?”
“John Keelan. Who's this?”
“Detective Sergeant Kwok. Can I speak with Inspector Lacey please? It is urgent.”
“She's just gone up to her apartment.”
“Tell her to wait for me there. There has been a threat against her life. We will need to organize protection.”
“Who made this threat?”
“I will be there in a quarter of an hour. Please ask her to wait.”
He rang off.
Keelan replaced the handset on its dashboard cradle. His mind raced. He had met Kwok a couple of times. A calm, quiet sort of guy. Something must be very wrong.
He wiped the condensation from the window. On the other side of the undercroft there was a red BMW parked across two bays. He read the license plate. RW-163. Ruby Wen had boasted to him once that she had paid one hundred and twenty five thousand Hong Kong dollars for those tags,
“Jesus Christ.”
He got out of the car and the wind pounded him. Getting to the stairs was like running through soft sand.
***
There were pools of water in the foyer, blown in by the wind. The power was out, there were no lights, no elevators working. Keelan threw open the fire door. Almost pitch dark. He felt his way up the first flight of concrete stairs, heard her footsteps far above him on the stairwell.
“Lace!”
A fire door slammed shut. She had reached the fourth floor. She could not hear him now.
He tried to run, slipped and banged his shin against one of the steps. Cursing over the pain, he scrambled up two more flights. One to go. His heart banged in his chest. The BMW meant something. Why would Ruby Wen be here? Or perhaps Ruby had brought someone ...
Or someone she knew was using her car.
He reached the fourth floor and threw open the fire door. The corridor was in darkness. He saw the glow of a key light, heard Lacey fumbling with the lock.
“Lace!”
“John?”
“Wait!”
He ran towards her, fumbling along the wall. She shone the key light towards him. “John?”
He knocked the light out of her hands.
The door opened, someone inside the apartment flicked on a very powerful torch. Lacey threw up a hand to shield her eyes. Keelan threw himself around the door and kicked out. He heard a soft popping noise like someone removing a champagne cork. Something smacked into the wall a few inches from his head, showered him with concrete splinters.
He heard two more muffled concussions. He lay s
tunned, fighting the heaviness in his limbs. The torch was on the floor, the beam directed at the doorway. He saw a man's silhouette.
***
Vincent had expected her to be alone. Who was the man? Panicked, he tried to finish her off but then she was coming at him, and a blow numbed his wrist, he felt the pistol drop out of his hand. Lacey's heel hit him in the ribs. He fended off a blow to his groin, to his face. She was fast, and very, very good.
Vincent was no fighter. He swung wildly at her with his fist but she blocked him easily and he yelled in pain as her heel went into his knee. He scrambled in the darkness for his gun. How did this all go so wrong so fast? He heard a man's voice, shouting something. Then the torch beam swung up into his face. He heard the pop of the silenced Makarov, twice, three times. He ran blindly.
Chapter 87
LACEY slumped against the wall. Her knee would not take her weight and a blow to her head had left her dizzy and nauseous. She heard the fire door slam.
She swung the torch around and saw Keelan lying in the doorway of the apartment. There was a dark slick of blood on one side of his face from a deep laceration just above his hairline.
“Are you all right?”
People were coming out of the neighboring apartments with candles and torches. Frightened voices called out in Cantonese and English. Lacey shone her own torch down the corridor towards the stairwell. There was no sign of Vincent.
She tried to help Keelan to his feet. “Can't seem to get my balance,” he said.
“Stay here,” she said. She limped towards the fire stairs, supporting her weight against the wall. She pushed open the fire door. The torch beam picked out black bloodstains on the concrete. She followed them down, leaning on the guardrail for support.
Third floor.
Second.
Suddenly there were no more bloodstains.
He was behind her.
***
“Missus Lacey?”
Keelan recognised Charlotte's voice. She was standing over him, holding a candle. She stared at the spreading bloodstain on his shirt, her eyes wide.
“Yanqui.”
Keelan pulled himself upright against the wall and stared at the hole in his shirtfront in bewilderment. “Hello, Charlotte,” he said. “I seem to have a bit of a problem here.”
***
Lacey spun around with the torch. Vincent had propped himself upright in the corner of the stairwell. He was smiling and there was blood on his teeth.
He raised his hands to shield his face from the torch beam and then pushed himself upright and clawed for her eyes. She reeled back out of range, but her injured knee would not take the weight. She fell backwards down the stairs. Her hand snaked out for the guard rail to stop herself, she dropped the torch and heard it smash on the concrete below.
Now there was utter blackness.
She had dropped the Makarov. She heard Vincent scrambling around, looking for it. She used the guard rail to pull herself to her feet and dragged herself down the stairs. There was a soft concussion, and a spray of concrete hit her in the face.
“Monkey bitch! Fucking your mother! Now you die! Your turn to die, monkey leper bitch!”
He fired again and again, spraying the silenced bullets around him in the darkness. Lacey curled herself into a ball on the concrete landing below him, making herself as small a target as possible.
Then silence.
He was dragging himself down the stairs towards her.
His breath was labored, like an asthmatic. “Coming for you, monkey bitch. Coming for you!”
***
She waited.
She felt for the rail, eased herself back to her feet, trying to keep her weight off her injured leg. There was sweat stinging her eyes, soaking into her shirt. She knew he was close, she could hear him breathing. How many bullets left in the clip?
He fired again.
The bullet ricocheted around the stairwell, she ducked her head out of instinct, and slipped, falling headlong. Her ankle turned underneath her, her head hit the rail. She lay on her back, stunned.
She couldn't move her leg.
***
Brian Kwok's Nissan screeched into the apartment forecourt. He grabbed a flashlight and jumped out.
There was no one at the security desk and the elevators were out. As he groped his way towards the fire door he heard the muffled but unmistakable sound of a gunshot. Dew neh loh moh! He fumbled for the .38 in the holster in the small of his back and pushed open the heavy door.
He heard shouts above him.
“Inspector Lacey!”
“Brian, be careful!”
He sprinted up the steps, three at a time. His flashlight made him an easy target. A volley hit him in the chest but the adrenalin kept him running.
***
Lacey heard Brian Kwok dying. He was very close. Vincent was almost on top of her.
“Going to kill ... you ... monkey bitch.”
Chapter 88
TYLER watched the ambulance crews load the bodies into the ambulance. The rain hammered onto the concrete forecourt, leaked down the zippered green body bags, poured down the road in torrents. Christ Almighty. What a year.
A wind gust blew open the foyer doors. He ran outside and ducked inside his car.
Lacey sat in the passenger seat, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her face was specked with tiny scabbed cuts made by flying concrete. She was shivering.
“Well this is just shit,” Tyler said.
“I didn't know he was hurt,” Lacey said.
“Wouldn't have made any difference, Lace. Charlotte called the ambulance straight away. They got here as fast as they could.”
“I could have stayed with him.”
“I'll get you to the hospital,” he said.
“I wish I'd stayed with him.”
“Any consolation, I would have done the same thing.” He felt the car rock in the wind. “What happened on the stairs?”
“Brian saved my life.”
Yes, poor bloody Brian. Someone would have to tell his family. Sweet suffering Christ. I suppose it had better be me.
“I thought I was going to die. He was standing right over me there in the dark. And then he just fell on top of me.”
“Who shot him, Lace?”
“I did. I shot him outside the apartment. Took him that long to die.”
She was shivering harder now. Shock.
“I thought he was never going to die.” She put her head on his shoulder. He thought she would cry, but she didn't.
Chapter 89
THE typhoon moved north, towards Japan, leaving the air sparkling and clean. The next day the sky was watery blue, just wisps of horsetails over the mainland. From her balcony at Pokfulam, Lacey saw islands in the distance she had never known were there. A jetfoil streamed away towards Macao, a tanker plodded out to the Gage Roads.
She and McReadie sat side by side on director's chairs on the balcony. “Mac,” Lacey said, after what seemed like an eternity. “There’s something I have to ask you. It's about Ruby Wen.”
“What about her?”
“Was she paying you off?”
“Jesus Christ!”
“I have to know, Uncle Mac,” she said in the same flat voice.
“What kind of a question is that?”
“When Keelan came back from Bangkok, he said Ruby told him you were Eddie's eyes and ears in Arsenal Street. It was how he got away after we issued the warrant. He knew all about it.”
“Ruby Wen was a pathological liar, God rest her rotten soul.”
“Keelan swore me to secrecy. I haven't told anyone else, neither did he.”
“You can tell whoever you damned well please. I have plenty of enemies out there, Lace. A cop is always a soft target.”
“When you weigh one thing against the other, I think Keelan should have taken the money, don't you?”
“Jesus.”
“Well, don't you? The system couldn't get Bertolli, th
ey couldn't bring back Keelan's wife and his daughter, couldn't pay him back for everything he had given.”
McReadie was quiet for a long time. Finally: “I did take some money, once. But not from Eddie Lau. From one of his enemies. I did it to set him up, and if I hadn't taken the cash they wouldn't have believed what I was telling them.”
“And what happened to the money?”
“I gave it to the children's hospital down the road.” He knew she didn't believe him. That was the problem with the truth, a good lie always sounded more plausible. “Christ Lace, it wasn't me.”
“Then who?”
“Jesus, let it be. He's dead now.”
After a while Lacey said: “Brian?”
“Tyler rang me this morning. Brian's wife knew about it all along. I don't think he was taking kickbacks. These guys live among the gangs, we can't understand the kind of pressure they live with every day. So just let it be, he saved your life, didn't he? Let's not crucify him now.” McReadie stood up. “I'd better get in to work. Take it easy.” He changed his mind, came back. “You are so fucking self-righteous,” he said.
“I'm sorry, Mac. I had to ask.”
“Tell me something. Did Keelan believe Ruby Wen?”
“No.”
“Just shows you. You can rely on your friends before your family.”
***
After he'd gone Lacey sat there staring at the swell on the ocean, the blue and beating heart of the world. Beyond the horizon was a vast and rapidly changing world.
“Oh, John,” she murmured. Surely now he had paid his price.
Chapter 90
QUEEN Mary Hospital, Pakfulam
Lacey held up a small plastic jar no larger than her thumb. Inside the glass was a small, shapeless piece of metal. “I asked the surgeon to save this,” she said, “in case you were thinking of starting a collection.”
Chasing the Dragon: a story of love, redemption and the Chinese triads (Opium Book 2) Page 34