by Dawson, Mark
She still felt uncomfortable. The prospect of her lying here, in a place belonging to a man that she didn’t know, was against every one of her instincts. She had been right about it when she awoke for the first time. She was vulnerable, and the thought of that set her teeth on edge.
“Are you hungry?”
She was. She nodded and waited as Chau got up and went over to the kitchen. “Sit,” he said, pointing at the armchair that he had just vacated. “I make dinner.”
The chair was the only one in the flat. She didn’t demur and, as he busied himself taking ingredients from the fridge, she watched the film. “You like Bruce Lee?” he asked her.
“It’s all right,” she said.
“You know, he grew up in Hong Kong?”
“I did.”
“He was in gang. The Tigers of Junction Road. In Kowloon. Not far from here.”
That made her wonder where she was, but she let the question pass. She did feel vulnerable. But if anything was going to happen to her here, the chances were that it would already have happened. Chau had looked after her. Trust was something she rarely accorded anyone, and certainly not a man like him, but there was no reason for suspicion. She owed him that, at least.
Chau had left a bowl of chicken breasts in the fridge to marinate in soy sauce. He seared batches of the chicken in a wok, adding chillies, peppercorns, spring onions and peanuts. He made a sauce with Shaohsing rice wine, Chinese black vinegar and chicken stock. It wasn’t long before the room began to fill with a delicious, fragrant aroma.
“It smells good, yes?”
She conceded that it did.
“It is gunpowder chicken. My mother used to make it for us. It is a dish from Sichuan province. That is where my mother and father came from. They came here to escape the communists. Do you like chilli, Beatrix Rose?”
“It’s Beatrix.”
“I am sorry?”
“My name. You can call me Beatrix. Just Beatrix.”
He flustered. “Yes, of course. Beatrix.”
“And yes, I like chilli.”
“Very good.”
He served the chicken in two pretty bowls. He gave her a bowl and a set of chopsticks. She ate quickly. The food was delicious and she was hungry. Chau sat cross-legged on the floor, eating more slowly, watching her. When she was done, she rested her chopsticks in the bowl and looked at him.
“You want to tell me what happened in the bar?”
He looked down, the discomfort obvious, and pursed his lips. He didn’t answer.
“They were triads, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
“Once,” he said. “No more.”
She noticed that a third of the little finger on his left hand had been amputated.
Chau saw that she was looking at it. “The yakuza call it yubitsume,” he said. “Translated, it means ‘finger shortening’. It is apology to another. You take knife, slice here”—he pointed to the nub above the top knuckle—“and present it to the Dai Lo.”
“Dai Lo?”
“The boss.”
“Once wasn’t enough for him?”
“If more offences are committed, you take off another knuckle, or if there is no more finger, then first knuckle of next finger.”
“What did you do?”
“It is what I would not do,” he said quietly. He sipped his tea, hoping that she would leave his answer unpressed, but she held his eye and waited until he spoke again. “I chose not to work with them any more. The Dai Lo did not like that. The men he sent were to persuade me to reconsider.”
“But you shot them.”
“They would have killed you.”
“They would have tried.”
He smiled and nodded.
“But you did kill them. The Dai Lo won’t like that.”
“I already made my decision. I will not change my mind. What I did to them is irrelevant.”
There would be no chance to change it now, she thought. That die was most certainly cast. The thought came to her that being with Chau might not be the safest option for her.
“They will look for you?”
“Do not worry. They do not know about this place.” He put his hands together and made a respectful dip of the head. “I must thank you for what you did. I am grateful.”
She shrugged.
“It was foolish, but very brave.”
It was certainly foolish, she conceded to herself. Now, in the cold light of day, she couldn’t really remember why she had allowed her emotions to overwhelm her reason. She was growing sentimental. Soft. It had nearly killed her.
“You had a gun, Chau. Why didn’t you use it, tell them to stop?”
“They are triads. You do not threaten triads.”
“You’d let them chop off your finger?”
“No. I tried to persuade them not to.”
That was going well, she thought.
“But if you couldn’t…?”
“They think I should apologise. Perhaps they are right.”
“But you shot them.”
“By that stage, there was no choice. You had intervened. They would have killed you, then me.”
She wondered whether it would have been better to let them take off his finger.
“May I ask, Beatrix—do you have hotel?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You must not return to it. The triads will look for you now, too. They have many sources of information. I think it is not a difficult thing for them to find blonde Western woman, especially one as striking as you.”
She frowned. She knew that he was right, that getting herself involved in his affairs would have consequences for her, too. If she had moved quickly, the same night of the attack, she would have been able to return to her room and collect her things. But she had been incapacitated. She was weak, and she would have bled out.
A week, though?
If they were looking for her, they had been handed more than enough time to find her.
But she needed to visit the hotel.
Chau noticed her discomfort. “What is it?”
“I need to go there.”
“It is not safe.”
“There is something there that I can’t leave.”
He looked concerned, his brow furrowed and his lips puckered. Then, he stood and brushed the crumbs of his breakfast from his shirt front. “The hotel. Which one?”
“The Peninsula.”
“Then we must go now. Maybe we are still ahead of them.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAU LED the way to a communal lobby and summoned a single, wheezing lift. They descended ten floors and emerged into a warren of corridors. Chau led the way into the maze, seemingly confident of his direction; Beatrix was quickly lost. There were metres of electrical cable festooned across the ceilings, twisting stairwells that led up and down to who knew where, crumbling concrete and graffiti in multiple languages. They took what she guessed was a shortcut, a concrete passageway that was a shooting gallery for two old Gurkhas with loosened tourniquets around their elbows and plastic syringes discarded on the floor amid the dirt and trash.
“You know where you are?” he asked her as they descended a flight of stairs.
“Chungking Mansions.”
“Have you been here before?”
“Not for a long time.”
“Do you like Star Wars, Beatrix?”
She shrugged.
“This is crazy place, like the Cantina.”
They walked along another corridor lined with small restaurants, touts doing their best to lure the backpackers and tourists to dine at their restaurant rather than the identical joint next door. Steam poured out of noodle shops, and dealers hawked fake Rolexes, dried tiger penis, counterfeit clothes, cheap electrical goods, computers and mobile phones returned by European consumers within their warranty and sold on. A stall offered pirated Bollywood titles. The place had the same complex smell that Beatrix remembered
from before: curry, garlic, aftershave, sweat, excrement and rot.
A young man, wearing a red Adidas tracksuit and with both ears bearing diamond stud earrings, pushed away from the wall and walked with them. He took out a laminated plastic sheet that displayed the Rolexes and Seikos that he swore were the real deal. Chau spoke to him harshly and, when he gave up and retreated to his spot, Chau was a little paler.
“Was he a triad?”
“Yes,” he said. “A maa jai.”
“What?”
“It means little horse. Someone very junior.”
Chau was even twitchier as they walked on. Triads were everywhere, Beatrix knew. They ran most of Hong Kong, let alone Chungking Mansions. The odds of one of them recognising either her or Chau were slim. But there was a chance, and the reality of that prospect had spooked him.
“You live here?” she said, trying to distract him.
“Emergency place only. No one knows I am here.”
“You have family?”
“Not here. Thank God.”
They found a door that deposited the throng onto Nathan Road, a six lane highway that ran the length of the Kowloon Peninsula. They passed through a phalanx of Pushtun locals, Nigerians slinging fake Rolexes and Indian hookers in garish saris. Beatrix turned back to look at the building. Chungking Mansions were comprised of five seventeen-storey buildings. The top fifteen floors formed a single, imposing, concrete block that had seemingly been dropped atop a neon-splashed two-storey mall. The accommodation comprised guest houses that had been converted from the building’s original residential apartments.
Chau led the way to the underground parking lot where he had left his Mercedes. They got inside and he set off.
“You know about triads, Beatrix?”
“What do you mean?”
“History.”
Beatrix knew plenty, but she let Chau talk.
He said that the triads were formed as secret societies dedicated to the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the restoration of the Ming. When the Qing fell, triad societies no longer had a dedicated cause and so they adjusted their purposes. Some became devoted strictly to criminal activities. Others became martial associations. Still others became labour unions and trading associations. Many were some combination of all of these.
“Joining a triad does not mean you are criminal, although most are,” he said. “The greatest advantage is that you join international fraternity of like-minded individuals. You can receive assistance and protection when you need it. It is like, in America, when people who want job list their fraternity as Phi Beta Kappa. They hope that the employer is also Phi Beta Kappa. You understand my English, Beatrix?”
She kept her eyes fixed out of the window and said that she did.
Chau explained how triad interests were extensive, including protection rackets in the entertainment industry, drug running, prostitution, control of hiring on building sites, and loan-sharking. He explained how their illicit businesses operated alongside respectable ventures in the property and finance industries.
“And the man who wants you dead? The Dai Lo?”
“His name is Donnie Qi. There is nightclub. That is the side of himself that he presents to the world. A sleazy, unpleasant nightclub. It is appropriate, but it is not the whole of it. He is involved in all of the usual things. He is also involved in drugs.”
“You said no to him because of that? Because of drugs?”
He shook his head. “That is not why he wants me. I am a cleaner, Beatrix. My business, before all this”—he waved his hand, taking in the madness of the street around them—“I cleaned offices, warehouses. It was simple job. I enjoyed it. I brought order out of chaos. It was satisfying. You know about feng shui?”
“Yes.”
“That was what I did. It was good feng shui.”
“So why aren’t you doing it now?”
He pulled out around a taxi that braked to an abrupt stop. “I was asked to clean for triad. This was different. There had been a murder. Donnie Qi paid me to make the evidence disappear. They offered a lot of money and I was greedy. I did what they asked of me. I did it too well, perhaps. There were other jobs. Many of them. And then he asked me to kill woman and make her disappear, and I told him that I would not. That is why he is angry with me.”
“There’s no one you can appeal to?”
“Donnie is not popular among the other triads, but I am an outsider. You do not appeal, Beatrix. You do.”
Beatrix knew that he was holding something back. But they were nearer to the hotel now and she had to concentrate. She zoned out, all of her attention dedicated to their surroundings. Chau noticed and, growing tense himself, drove on in silence.
He pulled up outside the Peninsula Hotel. Beatrix assessed. There was another hotel across the street with an underground goods entrance. She pointed at it and Chau drove, rolling over a bump and then down and into the semi-darkness. There was a large wheeled bin next to a laundry van, but no one around.
He turned to her. “What is your room?”
“What?”
“The number of your room. You stay here, Beatrix. You are weak. I go.”
She looked at him and allowed a smile to break across her face. He had no idea. It was almost cute.
“You are laughing at me,” he complained.
“No, I’m not. It’s just that you’ve been making assumptions about me.”
“It is dangerous, Beatrix.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Chau. Really. Not the first thing.”
“But you are injured.”
“I feel much better.”
“What do I not know about you?”
“I’ll explain later.”
He frowned his disapproval.
She asked, “You have your gun?”
He pulled up the tails of his colourful shirt. She saw the butt of the small Kel-Tec P-32, poking out from beneath his leather belt. She was tempted to take it from him, but there was a chance he might need it.
“Stay here,” she said. “Keep a watch. I won’t be long.”
“Be careful. It is the triads.”
“I’m not afraid of triads, Chau.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
BEATRIX WALKED through reception. She moved with confidence, presenting the outward appearance of a guest with no reason to excite the attention of the staff. Her room had been reserved for a month, so there was no reason why they would be looking for her. Her attention was focussed on the other men and women around her.
A family checking in at the front desk, the father patiently explaining something to the clerk as his children ran riot behind him.
Two businessmen reading newspapers in the comfortable chairs next to the bar.
A bellhop pushing a trolley laden with luggage.
She walked through to the elevator lobby and summoned a car. A man and a woman strolled after her, standing a little too close as she waited for the lift to descend. She saw their reflection as the polished stainless steel doors parted. They spoke in English. She stepped in. They followed. She asked them what floor they wanted, having them choose first. The man asked for the third floor. Beatrix pressed the button, and the button for the tenth floor for herself.
The elevator stopped and the couple disembarked.
It continued up to the top of the building.
It stopped again and the doors parted. Beatrix stepped out into an empty lobby. It was quiet, the passage of a cleaning trolley muffled by the thick carpet. The lighting was subdued, the corridor darkened further by wooden panelling.
Beatrix turned right and made her way to her room.
She slid her card key into the lock. She nudged the door with the toe of her boot and allowed it to swing open. The room beyond was the kind of anonymous, blandly decorated accommodation that could be found in any hotel that catered to businessmen and women the world over. Beige walls, dark veneer furniture, a cream carpet. Designed to be inoffensive. The curtains were open and, beyo
nd, she saw the impressive view over Victoria Harbour.
She saw her bag on the end of the bed, just as she had left it.
She saw her cellphone on the bureau. She was relieved. The locket was draped atop it.
The locket had Isabella’s photograph inside it. She had left it there when she had gone out for a drink. She didn’t have another picture. There was no way she could consider leaving it.
It was all she had left of her.
She held her breath, listening hard, and edged inside.
The door clicked to a close behind her.
She checked the bathroom. Empty.
She checked the rest of the room that was hidden from the door by the angle of the wall. That was empty, too.
She went to her bag and started to pack away the things that she had taken out. She folded her T-shirts and the spare pair of trousers and laid them inside, then went to the bathroom for her toiletries. She stopped before the mirror, frozen there by her own reflection. She looked tired and there was a haunted look in her eyes that had not been there before. The last weeks had been impossible. She flashed back, again, to what had happened to Lucas and Isabella. When her focus returned to her reflection, she saw the wetness in her eyes and scrubbed at them before the tears could fall.
She ran the tap and filled the sink with cold water. She dunked her head into it, letting the sudden shock send the fatigue away. She dried her face.
She would avenge Lucas.
She just needed to find Isabella first. There was nothing she could do as long as Control had her.
She needed money to do that.
As she stared at her reflection, an idea began to take shape.
She was still staring when she heard the gentle tapping at the door.
She moved as quietly as she could back to the bed. She reached into her bag and took out the sheathed combat knife that she always kept in her go-bag. She dropped to the floor, sliding beneath the bed. It had been made up with a valance, the frilled fabric obscuring her from view save a half-inch gap above the floor through which she was able to peer out.
The tapping came again, a little louder and, then, after a short pause, there was the sound of a keycard being pushed into the reader. The lock retracted with a solid chunk, the door opened, and Beatrix watched as three men entered. The first man was wearing an expensive looking leather jacket. The second was wearing a crimson tracksuit and trainers, and the third had a vertiginous quiff that had been dyed with a white streak down the middle. The first man had a silenced pistol. His comrades were carrying meat cleavers.