Hong Kong

by Luke Richardson

“There’s almost nothing,” Allissa said. “It’s very strange. People put all sorts of stuff online, but not this pair. There’s hardly a trace. A few pictures where they’ve appeared with other people, a couple of professional shots, that’s it.”

  Leo nodded. He’d been researching the company Jamie had worked for in London and the one he had planned to work for in Hong Kong. Similarly, nothing interesting stood out to him.

  “It makes you think someone has been cleaning up after them, doesn’t it?” Allissa said, but Leo was distracted by the receipt of an e-mail.

  Silently he read for a minute. It was from Adam Price, Jamie’s brother. It contained the documents Leo had requested and confirmation of the down payment. Leo replied in thanks and then set to opening the attachments. The first was a scan of Jamie’s passport. In the picture his hair was styled and his jawline bristled with the beginnings of a thin beard. Leo printed it to be added to the evidence on the coffee table.

  Next, Leo opened a document which he had asked Adam to put together for him. It amounted to a sort of CV, detailing all the places Jamie had worked or lived, places he’d been and the interests he held. Adam had done a good job. The list was detailed and meticulous, especially considering it had only taken him a couple of hours. Leo sent that to print too.

  “There’s a lot here,” Allissa said, picking it up from the tray.

  “I know. But in this case, we’re better to have it because getting in touch with Jamie to check something isn’t easy.” Leo thought of the long grey corridors. He really didn’t want to go back there.

  Allissa nodded and took the papers over to the coffee table where she arranged them around the picture of Isobel in the middle. Both hoped that soon a pattern or link would appear.

  Leo opened the final attachment, Jamie’s most recent bank statement. The red and white document filled the screen. At the top his current balance was displayed. Leo nodded, impressed. Jamie was a well-paid guy. Then, wanting to read it chronologically, Leo scrolled back a week. It looked as though all the payments were outgoing, mostly bills and house expenses.

  “That’s after he was arrested,” Allissa said, reading over Leo’s shoulder.

  Leo scrolled back a further two pages. There, the statement became more densely populated. Jamie seemed to be someone with a busy and affluent social life. Seeing some of the amounts he spent in designer clothes shops and expensive restaurants, Leo exhaled.

  “That definitely wasn’t a meal for one,” Leo said, pointing at one payment for a sumptuous restaurant he’d heard of in central London.

  “He paid for a hotel on the same night too,” Allissa said.

  “That was a week before Isobel made the claim.”

  “I think we’re dealing with a bit of a player here,” Allissa said, sinking into a crouch beside Leo.

  Continuing to scroll, Leo noticed that, as expected, the number of outgoing payments dropped off shortly before the date of his arrest.

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” Leo said. “Look at the total in the account here,” he pointed towards the screen, “it’s smaller than the current total at the top of the bill.”

  “He’s been making money while in prison?”

  “Well he could have some investments or something, but it’s a lot smaller.”

  “Scroll up, let’s see.”

  “There look,” Leo said, pointing out the current total.

  “Yeah, so where did that come from?” Allissa said, as the pair began to scan down the document. It didn’t take them long to notice the payment that had been made into the account.

  “There look,” Allissa said again with a gasp, her finger extended towards the screen. Leo smiled. Things had started to fall into place.

  Chapter 31

  Leaving the offices of OZ Architecture, Isobel felt a sense of calm that she hadn’t for a very long time. Sure, she was impersonating someone else. She knew the risks were high, but so were the rewards. And the first day had gone well.

  After Yee’s awkward introduction to every member of the team, she spent the afternoon going through the systems they used. Some of them she’d seen before, others were new. She had a lot to learn but was confident she could do it.

  The best thing – she was no longer dancing to someone else’s beat. No longer begging for the recognition she deserved. Isobel was now in control. She was making things happen and that felt good.

  Sure, time was limited. She knew someone may come to look for her. But it would probably take them a couple of months and by then she would have proved herself. She could do better than all these men who spent half their time at boozy lunches on the company’s money.

  In an attempt to buy her as much time as possible, before leaving the UK, Isobel had taken down all of Jamie’s social media profiles. The ease involved proved her point about him being undeserving for the role. She had just walked into his office and used his computer while he was out enjoying a long, company-funded lunch. Sure enough, the browser was set to remember the passwords, so all she had to do was change them herself and set the browser to remember the change. Jamie didn’t even notice.

  Then the night before she disappeared, Isobel logged on at home and disabled the accounts.

  As the train rumbled beneath the strip of water separating Hong Kong Island from Kowloon and the rest of mainland China, Isobel smiled. Things were looking up. This was her chance, the chance she’d never had. It was a dream that, with a bit of initiative, was now coming true. She was going to be an architect.

  Heading towards the street at Ho Man Tin metro station, Isobel’s optimism started to dip with the thought of her grimy hotel. She hadn’t minded after her long journey. Now, having seen the elegance of the company’s offices and the pictures Yee had showed her of the apartment that would be hers once the finishing touches were applied, the darkening street which she was turning onto seemed unappealing.

  On either side of the narrow road, concrete towers blocked out the darkening sky. Night fell more quickly here. The only surviving light was neon glow from the shops and restaurants and the occasional swish of passing cars. This was the problem with doing things unofficially, sometimes you had to take things as they came.

  Yee had offered to put her up in a hotel, but hotels required a passport. Isobel couldn’t have used her own as the names didn’t match, nor could she risk using the fake one for anything non-essential.

  So, reluctantly, she’d told the company she would enjoy spending a few days with friends and had booked into a cheap hotel using her own name.

  It wouldn’t be for long, she told herself again as she pressed the buzzer on the grimy door.

  Without knowing why, Isobel looked left and right down the street. The shadows were thick and within them she thought she could see a vague figure walking towards her. She squinted into the impermeable gloom.

  A neon light overhead buzzed to life; its glowing scrawls indecipherable. Looking back down, Isobel saw nothing. The street was empty.

  With an involuntary shudder, despite the warmth of the evening, Isobel pulled her jacket tight around her. Now she was seeing things too.

  “Shi,” came a grizzly voice from the door entry speaker. The man in the reception had given Isobel the creeps yesterday. She shuddered thinking of his bulging eyes moving across her body. She pulled her jacket around her tightly. She didn’t want to encourage his leers.

  The door clunked as the lock disengaged. Isobel pushed it, and with a final look down the empty street, stepped inside.

  Climbing the tight staircase, Isobel again thought of the apartment Yee had showed her. It was part of a new building the company had designed themselves. It looked incredible. From one side the view stretched as far as Hong Kong Island and The Peak and on the other the bustle of Kowloon faded into the glinting ocean.

  As Isobel reached the top of the stairs, the buzzer of the hotel’s door sounded again. The greasy receptionist picked up the phone amid the noise of the game show on the small TV and ba
rked an answer. Isobel ignored him, glad for his distraction. Pulling the key from her bag, she unlocked the door of her room.

  * * *

  Why he had been told to follow the girl he didn’t know. Sure, she wasn’t bad to look at, but this really wasn’t his job. Head of Personal Security it said on the door of his office, not some kind of second-rate private detective.

  Seeing her turn, he stepped into the doorway of a launderette. The street was darkening by the moment. That was lucky – following people was easier in the dark.

  The metro had been a challenge. He had watched her for the entire journey in the reflection of the darkened windows. She hadn’t noticed. Of course she hadn’t, he was a professional.

  Why he had to follow her, he wasn’t sure. The boss had just said to keep an eye on her. He was always cautious but didn’t normally go to these lengths.

  Peering from the doorway, a neon sign above flickering into life, he saw her entering a building up ahead. As she disappeared, he covered the few paces quickly. It was a hotel. The sort of cheap hotel that was really just a few rooms above a shop.

  Looking at the windows above, he pressed the buzzer.

  A light clicked on in one of the rooms above.

  “Shi,” came a rough voice from the small speaker.

  He exchanged a few words with the voice and the door buzzed again.

  Instinctively, he looked left and right before stepping from the dark street into the hotel’s dank stairway. He had a deal to make.

  Chapter 32

  “What does that mean?” Leo said. The numbers he stared at on the screen showed a payment made into Jamie’s account from OZ Architecture. That was the company he was supposed to be working for in Hong Kong.

  “Well, it could be a mistake, they could have –”

  “Paid him even though he’s not turned up for work?” Leo interrupted.

  “Yeah, it’s not likely. Although I wouldn’t mind working for them if so.”

  “I’m really not sure.” Leo rubbed his chin. “Let’s give them a call and see if they’ll tell us anything.”

  “What time would it be in Hong Kong now?”

  Leo pressed a few keys on the computer. “Just after six p.m.”

  “Someone should be there still.” Allissa picked up her phone. “Get the number.”

  Since he and Allissa had started working together, Leo found himself constantly impressed by how she could get people to open up. Maybe as a result of her time working with vulnerable young women, she had a soft and friendly manner that people seemed to instantly warm to. Leo, on the other hand, seemed to wind people up. He just said what he thought and asked the questions he needed the answers to. A technique which rarely got the answers he wanted.

  As such the pair had an unspoken agreement that if there was something to analyse or arrange, that fell to Leo. But if someone needed to be persuaded to give some information, if sensitivity was needed, Allissa was the person for the job.

  “Good afternoon,” Allissa said when a female voice answered. “I’m looking to get in contact with an employee of yours, Jamie Price.”

  “What’s it concerning?” the voice replied. Allissa thought fast. “I’m from the Tax Office in the UK. It seems your employee is owed a rebate on last year’s earnings but we’re not sure where to send it.”

  “What name again?”

  “Jamie Price.”

  There was a silence on the line. In the background one voice called and another answered.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t pass on personal information,” the voice came back.

  “I’m not looking for personal information, just to speak with Jamie Price.”

  “I can’t do that. Not in the office.”

  “Can you at least pass on the message?” Allissa said, pushing for a confirmation. Again, there was a silence, a flurry of typing keys.

  “Yes, fine, I’ll do it tomorrow. Goodbye,” the voice said, before the call was disconnected.

  For a moment, Leo and Allissa continued to listen, then they turned to look at each other.

  Neither spoke but both minds raced to the same question; how could the receptionist pass on the message if Jamie Price was in a London prison?

  “That was some quick thinking.” Leo tilted his chair back and knitted his fingers together. “I think we need to go to Hong Kong.”

  Chapter 33

  “It was my birthday yesterday,” Leo says to Mya as their boat crosses the ocean of faultless blue from Champon to Kao Tao.

  “I knew it was at some point this week,” Mya says, without moving. They’ve been travelling all night on the train from Bangkok. They caught some ragged sleep between midnight and 4am before changing onto a bus to the port. Then, still in darkness, they boarded the boat for the five-hour crossing.

  “Did you want me to sing happy birthday to you?”

  The top ridge of the sun appears from beneath the lightening ocean.

  “No,” Leo forces a laugh. “That’s okay. Being here is a present, I wasn’t expecting anything.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Mya says, looking at Leo sitting next to her for the first time. Leo notices a glimmer in her eyes. “You must be getting really old now. You’ll have to give up soon and go back to wearing those slippers.”

  “You’re catching up,” Leo says, putting his arm around her waist and pulling her close. He ignores a resistance in her posture. He doesn’t want to think that anything could be wrong.

  They’ve been travelling for nearly two months and home is beckoning. For the last month, Leo has been carrying an engagement ring in his wallet. He’s been waiting for the perfect time, the time when the planets align, when things will just feel right. So far it hasn’t appeared.

  But time is running out. They’re going home soon.

  What he doesn’t know, what he can’t know, is that asking the question will be the easy part. It’s what happens later that will be much harder. Because today is the final day they’ll spend together. For the next two years it will run through his memory. He will decode and analyse every word and action. Was there a clue? Was there any indication that Mya was planning to go?

  Did she know that today would be their last day together? Had she planned all along to slip away under the inky blue of the Kao Tao sky?

  He’ll find himself clutching at straws for over two years. Two years of searching until he will receive a picture. In that picture Mya will stand, arms outstretched, her smile as wide as ever, her eyes glistening in the private way Leo loved so much, in front of the skyline of Hong Kong.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until the plane circled Hong Kong International Airport that Leo thought about Mya. Once he did, he couldn’t stop.

  It wasn’t that Allissa had replaced Mya at all. They were just friends sharing good times and working together. But Allissa did fill his life with an easy-going contentment he hadn’t felt for a long time. In many ways spending time with Allissa was easier than it had ever been with Mya. Mya challenged him. Their whole trip, the trip she didn’t come home from, had been her idea. Leo couldn’t imagine Allissa ever doing that. If Leo ever said he didn’t want to do something to Allissa, she’d smile, possibly sigh and do it alone. Mya took such reservations as points of conflict and wouldn’t stop until Leo submitted to seeing things her way.

  Swallowing hard, Leo watched the mottled islands of Hong Kong below as the plane tilted in the thin spring air. They were lining up for landing.

  But was Mya still here? Leo knew she had been at some point. There was a picture to prove it. For a moment, Leo wished he knew what Stockwell had known when he’d sent him the photo. The deal had been simple: information on Leo’s missing girlfriend for the location of Stockwell’s missing daughter. But after what he and Allissa had been through in Kathmandu, Leo knew that wasn’t an option. For a fleeting moment, just a heartbeat, he had considered it. He had wanted to see Mya for so long it had felt like a breakthrough. But then, watching Allissa sleeping in
the hotel room they’d shared in Pokhara after escaping Stockwell’s killers in Kathmandu, Leo knew he couldn’t. To do that would be worse than the people who had taken Mya. Or worse than Mya herself if she’d chosen to go. And Stockwell couldn’t be trusted anyway.

  Mya couldn’t still be here, could she?

  That picture might have been a year old already by the time he got it. She was probably just visiting for the weekend. She’d be long gone by now. Or maybe, Leo thought as buildings came into view, she was down there somewhere. Somewhere in the city between the glimmering seas.

  “Are we nearly there?” Allissa said, waking slowly with the jolts of the manoeuvring plane.

  Feeling Allissa move beside him, Leo felt a pang of guilt that he hadn’t told her about the picture. There just hadn’t been the right time. He hadn’t kept it from her on purpose, he hadn’t lied to her. They had been through so much at the time he received it that he didn’t want to add to her concern. Then when they got home, they were wrapped up in Stockwell’s trial and then business picked up.

  “Oi, dopey,” Allissa said, pulling out one of Leo’s earphones. “Is this Hong Kong?”

  Leo turned to see Allissa’s dozy morning smile.

  “Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “We’re here.”

  Chapter 34

  “Are you on tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, on the afternoon shift.”

  “Brilliant, well don’t stay up too late.”

  “Just having one or two, see you!” she says, waving to her colleague behind the counter of the coffee shop and stepping out into the early evening.

  Pausing for a moment beside the door, she prepares herself for the gauntlet of Nathan Road. The busiest street in Kowloon, even in the evening, it’s teeming with shoppers, returning workers and those going out for dinner or drinks. But it’s the hawkers, selling everything from cheap gold to expensive drugs, that annoy her. She’d expected that after almost a year of seeing her walk to and from work every day they’d recognise her and stop trying to offer her the same shit. Even a hand in the wrong place can see a salesman try to attach a watch to it, the removal of which is always time-consuming, awkward and fraught with their attempts to sell, sell, sell.