by Dawson, Mark
And she was alone.
Beatrix drew the girl into a hug, stroking her glossy black hair with the palm of her hand.
“It’s all right,” she said. “You’re safe.”
She disengaged herself with a sudden jerk. “I am not safe,” she said, her eyes full of desperation. “He is triad. They come for me.”
Beatrix held on to her shoulders. “No,” she said. “They won’t.”
“Beatrix. The men he work with, they are dangerous.”
“I’ll look after you, Grace.”
“They are killers.”
“Grace, you’re not listening—”
“No, Beatrix, you not listening.”
“They don’t know what has happened to that man. We will make him disappear. And then we will make you disappear, too.”
“You cannot hide from triad. Triad are everywhere. Triad are Hong Kong.”
“They won’t be able to hurt you, Grace. You have my word.”
Did she believe it herself?
Not really.
She hoped the girl didn’t hear the uncertainty in her voice.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BEATRIX GAVE her bed to the girl. Grace was tired, her eyes rimmed with red, and it would be better for everyone if she was oblivious in sleep.
Chau worked through the night to dispose of the dead man. Beatrix had often assisted him during clean-up, but this time she left him to it. She stood guard as he left the flat to go and collect his butchery equipment, returning with his large leather satchel and the large blue plastic sheet that he would spread over the floor to collect the blood when he started to dismember the body. The door to the flat remained closed for the next two hours. She knew that he would be removing the arms and the legs, decapitating the corpse and then bagging up each individual body part in one of the large vinyl bags that he bought in bulk from a Kowloon trader. Each bag would be delivered to the Goodbye Dear Pets Cremation Centre. Chau knew the owner and, for a decent sum, their large industrial incinerator could be called upon to make the earthly remains vanish for good.
It was a little after two in the morning when she heard the door open and close and the rattle and clank of the lift as it was summoned to their floor. Ten minutes later, she heard the lift ascend again, and then heard the door as it was unlocked, opened, and closed. This sequence repeated itself four times until, finally, she heard a gentle rap against her door.
She looked through the peephole, saw Chau, and opened the door.
He gave a single nod and stood aside.
Beatrix crossed the landing and went into the opposite flat.
The triad was gone.
There was no sign of blood or any other evidence that might have offered a clue as to what had happened here. Beatrix knew how fastidious Chau was, and that he would have scrubbed up the blood and then used luminol to identify any residue that he might otherwise have missed.
“All good?”
“It is done. I will dispose of him.”
“Thank you, Chau.”
He gave her a shallow bow.
She turned and walked out of the flat. Chau followed and she closed the door.
“What will happen to girl?”
Beatrix locked the door. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I need to think about that.”
He paused, his mouth open as if there was something else he wanted to say.
She went to the lift and pressed the button to summon it to the floor.
“Don’t come back here,” she said. “Use the Facebook page when you need to contact me.”
The lift arrived and she opened the door and then pulled the cage back.
“Be careful, Beatrix.”
She nodded as he bowed again and got into the lift.
She waited until the car had descended and then went back into Grace’s flat. She looked around, opening the cupboards and seeing cans of chicken chow mein and dried noodles. There was nothing else, and Beatrix realised that the girl must have been living off just these basic foodstuffs. She closed the cupboards and gazed at the room. Everything was colourless and drab. She felt a flash of pity. The girl’s life had been difficult enough as it was, and then it had worsened.
She found a bag in the bedroom and packed it with a selection of clothes that she found. Grace couldn’t stay here, that much was for sure. Chau had been correct. They did need to be careful. Beatrix didn’t know whether anyone else knew where the dead man had gone, but she couldn’t assume that he was working alone. There was a chance, at least, that others would come. Grace needed to be gone.
She closed and locked the door and crossed the landing to her own apartment. She laid out two bath towels on the floor, set a sheet over the top and took the cushion from the chair. She locked the door and, staring at it, took the chair and propped it at an angle so that the top was jammed beneath the handle.
She took the Glock and placed it on the floor next to her bed. She lay down, rested her head, and closed her eyes. She quickly fell asleep.
#
BEATRIX WOKE early the next morning. She carefully opened the door to the bedroom and saw that Grace was still asleep. She took the Glock and hid it in a box of cornflakes and then hurried down to the store at the foot of the apartment block to buy breakfast for them both. She bought dim sum and congee with pickled vegetables, aduki beans, peanuts, tofu, and meats. Grace was still sleeping when she returned, and she remained that way until the noise of the kettle woke her.
She came out of the room, rubbing her eyes.
“Hungry?”
She nodded.
Beatrix busied herself, taking a plate and laying out the gao and bao and doling out the congee into two bowls. The girl sat cross-legged on the floor and devoured the dim sum. She ate quickly, shoving the dumplings and steamed rolls into her mouth with her fingers and then began to set about the rice porridge. Beatrix thought of the drab tinned chow mein that the girl had evidently been living off. No wonder she was eating so enthusiastically. Beatrix brought her a cup of tea and then offered her second helpings. Grace finished the rest of the congee and, when she was finally done, she leant back against the wall and gave Beatrix a small smile.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Grace looked across the room and recognised the bag that Beatrix had used to pack her things. Perhaps she had been ignoring what had happened last night, but seeing the bag must have served as a reminder. Her chin began to quiver and Beatrix thought she was about to cry.
“You’re going to be all right,” she said, trying to calm her. “The man is gone.”
“But I cannot return.”
“No. That wouldn’t be safe.”
“Then where can I go?”
“Your sister?”
“I told you. I do not know where she is.”
And I’m not sure that I’d be happy passing you over to her, Beatrix thought. Whatever the extent of the situation she found herself in, one thing was clear: the sister was responsible for it.
“Do you have any other family?”
“I have aunt. In Tianjin.”
Tianjin was two hundred kilometres from Beijing. It was a full day’s travel by train and bus from Hong Kong.
“You can get in touch with her?”
“Of course,” she said. “I email.”
“You could go there?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I have no money for ticket.”
“Don’t worry about the money. Could you email her today?”
She shrugged. “Of course. I use café in road. I know man there. Lets me use Internet for free.”
“I’ll take you down there this morning.”
“She doesn’t check her messages every day. No computer at home. She use café, too. Checks every week only.”
“That’s fine. You can stay with me until you hear from her.”
The girl looked at her with a mixture of gratitude and confusion. “Why you do this, Beatrix? Why you so good to me?”
“I have a little girl, Grace. A long way away. I haven’t seen her for a very long time. If she was in trouble, I would want someone to look after her, too.”
“Your girl. What is her name?”
Beatrix took the locket that she wore around her neck, opened it and passed it to Grace.
“She is very pretty.”
“Her name is Isabella,” Beatrix said.
She felt a knot of emotion in her stomach. She busied herself with tidying away the breakfast things, turning away so that Grace didn’t see her as she bit down hard on her lip.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BEATRIX WAS washing the dishes in the tiny sink when she heard a loud impact from the hallway outside.
Grace looked over at her with alarm.
Beatrix dried her hands as there came a second impact and then, as she started to the door, a third. This one was immediately followed by the noise of a door splintering.
Beatrix stood at the door and put her eye to the peephole.
There were six men gathered in the small hallway. They were wearing tracksuit tops and new sneakers. Two of them were carrying meat cleavers. Three had pistols. One had a short-barrelled shotgun.
One of the men, the biggest, addressed the battered door, drew back and booted it again. The wood splintered as the lock tore through the frame and the door flew back, bouncing off the wall.
Grace tugged at her sleeve. “What is it?”
“Get in the bedroom,” Beatrix said quietly.
“Beatrix?”
“Get in the bedroom, Grace.”
“I—”
“Now!”
She glanced back to make sure that the girl had done what she had told her to do. She hurried over and closed the bedroom door, then went and took the cereal box from the kitchen cupboard. She opened the flaps at the top, reached inside the box and took out her Baby Glock from its hiding place. The ten-shot magazine was full and there was a round in the chamber.
She went back to the door and looked through the peephole again.
Two of the men were waiting in the hallway. The others had gone into the flat. She saw them through the open doorway, turning the place upside down.
They were looking for something.
She stayed where she was, watching.
Her view was distorted by the narrow angle of the peephole lens, and restricted by the two men left to guard the hallway. But it was obvious from the urgent, barked Cantonese that she could hear from the apartment that, whatever it was, it was something the triads wanted very badly.
The flat was tiny. It only took them five minutes to tear it apart.
The four men who had gone inside had now rejoined the two in the hallway. They conferred for a moment. Beatrix assessed them. It was obvious that one was senior to the others. He was wearing a white tracksuit top unzipped to the navel. The skin underneath was festooned with tattoos. He wore a heavy gold necklace and chunky rings on his fingers. And he was angry.
She heard the door creak behind her.
She turned back and saw Grace, watching through the crack just as there came a heavy knock on the front door.
Shit.
She waved for the girl to go back inside the bedroom.
The knocking came again, angry and insistent.
She switched the Glock to her left hand, dropped the steel door chain into the receiving plate, unlocked the door and opened it.
“Yes?”
The man with the tattoos was standing in front of the door. She saw the butt of a pistol in the waistband of his Levis. His face was spiteful, with small eyes that were a little too close together and a bulbous nose. He looked at her and a moment of surprise passed across his face. She knew why: this was a poor, unpleasant place to live, not the sort of accommodation that would appeal to a gweilo.
He spoke in awkward, guttural English. “Woman who live there. You see?”
“No,” Beatrix said. “Not for several days.”
“Sure about that?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“Know her?”
“No. Not at all.”
The man looked at her. “I good at smelling bullshit, gweilo.”
“Why would I lie?”
“And where girl?”
“What girl?”
“Girl from flat. Young girl. Where she?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play stupid, miss.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
She tightened the grip on the Glock. The man with the shotgun was the one she was most worried about. A spread from short range like this would take the door out and anything that was behind it. He was behind the two men with cleavers. That was good and bad. He wouldn’t be able to shoot without taking them out, but, conversely, he was shielded from her. This was delicately poised.
The man in charge reached a decision. “Open door.”
“Why?”
“Open door,” he snapped. “Open door now or we kick door in.”
“Okay. Take it easy.” She pushed the door closed and quickly slid the Glock into her waistband, the cold steel sliding down and nestling against the small of her back. She saw that the bedroom door had closed again.
Taking a breath, she slid the chain out of the receiving plate, let it fall free, and opened the door.
The man pushed it all the way open and hustled inside.
“Take it easy,” she repeated.
He looked around the flat. “Where woman?”
“I told you. I don’t know her. I don’t know anyone else here.”
She kept her back to the wall, hiding the pistol. One of the men with a cleaver came inside. The small space already felt crowded. Beatrix felt her options constrict.
“When you last see woman?”
“A while ago. Maybe a week.”
The man walked over to the bookshelf and took down Beatrix’s copy of Great Expectations. He opened it and flipped through the pages. Beatrix gritted her teeth in frustration. This guy was an amateur, and this was an amateur’s play. He was showing her that he was in control, that he didn’t care about social niceties by invading her space and interfering with her things. Trying to make her feel uncomfortable. It didn’t work.
She stretched out her fingers and then made fists.
His funeral.
She concentrated on the bulk of the pistol against her back.
“Girl, then. Where she?”
“I don’t know. How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know her and I don’t know her mother. I don’t know anyone.”
“Girl have video. You know about this? You know about video?”
“No,” she said honestly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The man nodded at her answer, tossed the book onto the floor, turned away from her and started to the bedroom door.
Beatrix was all out of options. If they found Grace, they would take her away.
The girl would have no future.
They would probably kill Beatrix, too.
Nothing else for it.
She reached around, pulled the pistol and shot the man in the back. The bullet passed through him, painting a vivid splash of blood on the wall.
She kicked the front door shut, drew down on the man with the cleaver and shot him, too.
She heard shocked voices from outside.
Anger.
Confusion.
She aimed at the door and fired three shots through it. She heard a scream from the hallway. One fortunate shot, maybe another if she got really lucky. It would give them something to think about, maybe slow them down a little.
Three slants of light cut into the room from the fresh holes in the door. She turned the key in the lock. It wouldn’t keep them out, especially not with that shotgun, but even a few extra seconds might make the difference. She crossed the room to the bedroom door. She opened it, went inside and closed it.
There was nowhere to hide
. Grace was in the corner, as far away from the door as she could manage.
“We need to leave,” Beatrix said.
“Triads come? For my sister?”
“Yes. We need to get out.”
There was a crash from outside as the men in the hallway tried to force the door.
Beatrix crossed the room, unlatched the sash window and pushed it all the way up. She put the Glock away again and beckoned Grace over to her.
The girl was frozen still by fear. “If we stay here, they will kill us. Understand? We must go. Now. Do you understand?”
The girl swallowed, her larynx bulging, but she nodded that she did.
#
THERE CAME a tremendous boom from the other room. That was the shotgun blowing out the lock.
They had seconds now.
There was a rectangular metal frame for the drying of washing bolted to the wall beneath the casement, and her window box rested on the sill. She pushed the box off so that she could climb out of the window without being impeded by it. There was a pause and then a crash as it shattered against the ground below.
“Get on my back.”
Grace came over and passed her arms around Beatrix’s neck. She locked her right hand around her left wrist and wrapped her legs around her waist. She was heavier than she looked.
Beatrix held onto the ledge with her right hand, bent her knees and pushed up. The fingers of her left hand found the next ledge up, her boots slithering and sliding on the bricks until they stubbed up against an uneven finish. Grace held on, her forearms locking around Beatrix’s neck almost too tightly. She reached up with her right hand, transferring her weight. The masonry had been weakened by the weather, and the first ledge she reached crumbled to a rough dust in her hand. She stretched across in a desperate lunge and, just as her momentum failed and gravity hungrily claimed her, her fingers closed around a protruding metal stud.
She heard a shout from the room below them.
Come on.
She shot her arm up again, scrabbling for the bracket that held a rusting waste pipe to the wall. She transferred her weight to it and the pipe tipped backwards, the retaining screws nearest to her popping out of rotting masonry and skittering off the wall as they tumbled away from them. Beatrix closed her eyes, knowing that she was committed and that there was no way for her to get off the pipe with Grace on her back. The girl screamed as the sudden backwards jerk loosened her legs from around Beatrix’s waist and, for a moment, she was left to dangle there. Her locked wrists dug into Beatrix’s windpipe. The metal screeched, but the remaining screws held and their plunge was arrested.