Kiss & Die (27 page)

Rizal headed down to the bars. He was fuming. He took the stairs all the way until he saw Nina and Flo waiting for the lift on the fifth landing. They were making their way down to the Delhi Grill. The mourning was draining on them all. Hafiz’s body was in the morgue. More people arrived daily to pay their respects. Flo had been for a rest and was now ready to face it again..

Rizal stared at Nina. He stared at the flesh beneath the folds of sari. He didn’t bother to hide it. ‘You’re looking real pretty today, Nina.’

Flo’s head turned at the sound of his voice. She leaned on Nina’s arm. ‘Is that Michelle’s man?’ she asked in Urdu.

‘Yes, Grandmother.’

Flo smiled his way and nodded. ‘He’s a pig.’

Nina smiled to herself.

‘What’s so funny?’ Rizal was weaving on his feet. He stank of sweat. His eyes had turned nasty. The lift was a long time coming. There was no way they could turn back. It took her grandmother a long time to go anywhere.

Nina shook her head. ‘Nothing.’ She was feeling anxious now. Flo had a habit of speaking her mind.

‘He smells like a pig.’ Flo nodded her head. She grinned her toothless grin.

He shook his head angrily. ‘What is it, old woman? What’s so funny? I’ve had enough of people taking the piss. I will wipe that smile off your old mouth in a minute.’ He was getting riled.

‘She means no harm. She’s old. Her brain’s not right.’ Rizal looked ready to flip.

‘I said you are a pig,’ Flo spoke in English. ‘I said you smell like the meat you eat.’ She gathered up some phlegm and spat it out. It landed at his feet.

Rizal froze. He looked down at the phlegm and lifted up his hand to strike her. The lift doors opened. Mahmud stepped out. His eyes were on the floor. When he lifted them he saw Rizal about to strike his grandmother. He charged at him, his arm still in plaster. Rizal wasn’t expecting it. He fell back against the wall opposite and the open windows of the maintenance shaft. He grabbed on to them either side, and landed painfully against the edge as he stopped himself falling into the filthy shaft. Nina hurried Flo into the lift.

Mahmud stood his ground and glared at Rizal before stepping in to join Nina and Flo. ‘Don’t ever come near us again or I will kill you.’

Flo was back in her room when she heard the door open. Nina had brought her back for her nap. Nina was running errands.

‘Nina? Is that you?’ Flo called out. No one answered. She listened to the sound of soft feet walking towards her room. Her hearing was good. She could tell if it was a
man or a woman, she could tell if they were tall or short. Something wasn’t right.

‘What do you want? Where is Nina?’ Flo asked as her door opened and she felt the presence of someone standing in her doorway. ‘What do you want?’ she asked again, trying to put force behind her voice. ‘I am tired, get out. Go away.’ No one answered her. Flo’s head turned as she followed the sound of the person entering her room and walking around to the side of her. ‘Nina. Nina…’ Strong arms held her tight. She clawed at the hands but she could not reach them. She was being strangled.

‘Tom?’ Mia stood in her office calling Sheng’s mobile. It went straight to answer phone again.

There was a knock at her door. Ng walked in with Shrimp behind.

‘Has Michelle been released?’ asked Mia. Ng nodded. She sighed and sat back down, exasperated. ‘With Mahmud cleared as well, we’re back to square one. I had them as our team. I thought they would turn out to be working it together. I keep coming back to Victoria Chan and CK.’

‘Mann’s going to try and take them on alone. He can’t do it at the moment. It takes someone with all his wits about him to take on one member of the family, let alone two. I know CK too.’ Ng was aware of Shrimp staring at him with a new respect. Ng glanced his way.‘Yes, you aren’t the only person to have gone undercover, Shrimp. I was a rookie then. I spent a time in the Triad ranks as a
49
and then a
Red Pole
. It was the most difficult thing I ever did. You have to be able to separate your mind from what is going on around you. You have to immerse yourself completely and still be aware it’s not really you. It’s a very hard thing to do.’

Shrimp patted Ng on the back. ‘Big respect, old man.’

‘It was a long time ago but that kind of experience stays in the mind and CK hasn’t changed at all. Mann is no match for him at the moment. Mann’s father’s estate is a curse. It is attracting trouble to him like an open wound in a shark-infested ocean.’

‘I know, and the trouble is that conflict of interests is going to be a permanent problem unless Mann can resolve it,’ said Mia.

‘Given time, he will make the right decisions,’ said Ng. ‘He needs the pressure taken off him to do that. They are forcing him out of the job he was born to do and back into a world he was born into. It will break him. He will snap if he is forced to bend against his will.’

‘So, we carry on without him and hope that we can clear his name,’ said Mia, sounding as upbeat as she could but feeling anything but.

Shrimp and Ng agreed. It was the only thing they could do. They walked back to their office. Ng reached over to turn on his PC and hung his jacket over the back of his chair. He turned to look at Shrimp whose face was frozen in a puzzled expression. He was staring across at Mann’s desk: papers, files, messages in his in-tray, memos stacking up on his desk.

‘What do you think he’s doing right now?’

‘He’s probably drinking himself into a stupor.’

‘What’s he going to do, Ng?’

‘I don’t know, Shrimp.’

Shrimp looked lost. Mann had been his mentor and his friend. He couldn’t imagine him leaving the force. Mann lived for it more than any of them.

‘I’ve seen him go through some bleak times. I’ve seen him be self-destructive but I’ve never seen him as bad as this. He’s always had his work but it’s not enough at the moment. I think it’s almost like he feels he doesn’t belong here any more.’

‘What can we do?’

‘We have to leave him alone, wait until he comes out of it one way or another and then we have to clear his name.’

‘I’m on it.’ Shrimp picked up his jacket.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I need to get them to leave Mann alone. I’m going to go and see CK. I’m going to face him and tell him we’ll have him in for questioning about the murder charges. We’ll bring his daughter in for inciting racial hatred, for being an accessory to the murder of a police officer.’ Shrimp stood and picked up his vintage denim Gaultier jacket.

‘No. You’ll blow your cover. Anyway, we mustn’t be hasty. We must think it through. He is not a man to be easily outsmarted.’

Shrimp wasn’t happy about it but he shrugged and left, throwing his jacket over his shoulders.

Ng waited until Shrimp was out of the office and then he dialled CK’s number.

‘I need to see you.’

Ruby stood over Sheng’s naked body. The ball gag was in his mouth. His arms were tied together and chained to the wall behind his head. His legs were open and chained to the wall either side of the mattress. The lamp shone down onto him. Ruby was very pleased with herself. She might be young but she understood that sex was every woman’s ultimate killing tool. A woman’s body was her weapon. She had fooled three policemen in one night. Sheng was still recovering from the Rophypnol.

She went over to him and knelt beside him and whispered in his ear:

‘You fell for the oldest trick in the book. Never judge by appearances.’ She ran her hand down his body until it settled on his cock. She stroked it. ‘You were ruled by this weren’t you?’ He didn’t move. ‘Tut tut tut. You should have kept your eyes open. You looked away once too often. I have very quick hands. I have very nimble fingers. I can put something in your drink faster than you can look down my cleavage.’ He was still dopey, coming round slowly. ‘You’re still not listening to me. I know just how to wake you up.’ Ruby picked up the autopsy pliers and
she rested Sheng’s little finger between their open pincers and then she shut them–
snap
– tight.

Sheng’s eyes opened wide. He stared straight at Ruby and then at the finger she held in her hand and he screamed into the gag.

‘One finger, two fingers, three and four.’ Snap snap snap…she cut his fingers off and placed a finger on each of the dolls’ laps and when she had run out she began cutting off Sheng’s toes.

Mann didn’t answer the door straight away. He sat in his armchair in the lounge; Daniel Lu had let Mann keep the lounge furniture. The bedroom was empty; every item removed and now being scrutinized in the lab. The telly blaring. He thought it was Ng. He shouted, ‘Fuck off,’ and turned the volume on the telly up. The knock came again. Then Mann realized the knock was different; it wasn’t Ng’s. He paused the film and slipped out of the chair. He walked to the side of the door and called out.

‘Who is it?’

A woman’s voice answered. ‘Victoria Chan. I need to speak with you. It’s urgent.’

Mann looked through the spy hole. Victoria Chan looked back.

‘What do you want?’

‘To talk, as I said.’

She raised her hand, knuckles at the ready to knock again. She wasn’t going to go away. He unlocked the door and walked back into the room, his back to her. She walked straight in and seemed oblivious to the mess. She was wearing a black pencil skirt, a checked jacket, red
stilettos, matching red handbag, red lipstick. Her hair was tied up.

She strode over to the armchair and sat down. ‘There were things I didn’t want to discuss in public, things that are just between us.’

Mann looked at the TV. He threw the mess off the other chair and sat down. He cleared the glass-topped table and placed the bottle of vodka down on it. He studied her with a cold eye.

‘You have nothing to say that will interest me.’

‘I had nothing to do with the death of your officer. I cannot help the fact that I used the information given to me and told of her infiltration into our ranks.’

‘Shut up. I don’t want to listen to you. I know where the blame for it lies. I have been suspended, and when I look at you, I see you had a big hand in it. Congratulations. But, before you start gloating, it won’t be for long. And just because I am suspended from the force doesn’t mean I have switched sides.’

She sat with her legs to one side, her hands on her lap. She looked around the room. ‘I can’t see you getting reinstated in a hurry, can you? I see that you have been going through your father’s papers.’

Mann studied her. She had balls. She was a woman who would never give up. She looked at the pile next to Mann’s chair. He’d been going over Tammy’s autopsy report. He picked it up and moved it out of her line of sight. ‘Believe it or not, there’s a system to this chaos. Now, can we get to the point? I’m a busy man.’

Victoria settled back into the chair. ‘Take the afternoon off. Let me get some food in. You look like you could do
with some time out. Take a shower, relax. I may not be a friend but I am a business associate whether you like it or not. We have things to talk about. I expect by now you have seen that what I said is true. Many of your late father’s enterprises are linked with the Leung Corporation dealings.’

Mann rubbed his face. He pushed his hair away from his eyes. He suddenly felt completely drained. She was right, at least in that one small thing, he needed a break. ‘Okay.’ He stood up. ‘There’s a list of numbers in the kitchen. They all deliver. You choose.’ Mann got up and began to pick up the piles of papers.

‘I’m surprised you live alone here. No adoring girlfriend?’ she called to him from the kitchen. ‘Although it does look like a woman lived here once. There are things in here that no man would buy.’

‘My private life is none of your business.’

‘Of course it isn’t, but you’re a good-looking man. You are not short of women wanting to marry you, I’m sure. But you choose to stay single. Why is that?’ She took off her jacket and draped it over the chair. Beneath it she had on an expensive white lace blouse sheer enough to see a broderie anglaise slip beneath.

‘Why do you bother asking? You already know all about me.’ Mann marched back and forth to his bedroom, armed with the piles of papers.

Victoria followed him. ‘I knew about Helen, yes. I don’t know all the details but I can guess. I know Chan was capable of terrible cruelty. You weren’t the only one to suffer at his hands.’ Mann turned to see her standing in the doorway, a genuine look of sadness and regret in her eyes. ‘My marriage was a living hell. Every day of it was
torture, physical and mental. I was glad for the fact that he liked to be away from home more than he liked spending time with me.’

‘You knew about his business?’

‘I knew about a lot of it. I followed him when he wasn’t looking. I saw the people he did his business with. I never knew about the existence of his private club where he kept the girls hostage and used them in those films.’

‘Snuff movies. That’s what they were. That’s how Helen died–in the process of pleasing sick perverts like Chan.’

‘I am sorry for you. Sorry for all of us.’

‘But you chose to stay with him. Why did you never leave him?’

She shook her head sadly. Her eyes drifted away as she thought. ‘It is not the Chinese way, is it?’ she smiled ruefully. ‘I was educated in England. I was brought up to feel like I was just like every other young woman–that the world lay ahead for me; anything I wanted to achieve was possible. But then I returned home. Suddenly I had to conform, put aside all my hopes and dreams. I wanted to be a lawyer. Instead of that I was married off to one. He was handpicked by my father: ruthless, ambitious, an asset to the firm. I was his prize for coming into the Wo Shing Shing fold. I was his guarantee that he would someday be chosen to take over as the Dragon Head. I was his insurance. For years I did as I was told by my father and by my husband. I had no one to seek help from. I made up my own mind on how I would handle it. I shut my feelings away. I stayed out of his way. I planned for the day that I would be released. And then you came along and you did it for me. We have a lot in common, you and I.’

‘No, we don’t and I didn’t do it for you.’

‘No, but that was a happy coincidence for me that you were the other person who hated him as much as I did. You did me a favour. You knew you had at the time. Now let me do something for you. Let me help you become the man you are meant to be.’

Mann walked angrily away. ‘I will die before I become a Triad.’

‘You don’t have to join the ranks. Just look on it as a business deal.’

‘It’s dirty money.’

‘All money is dirty, Mann.’

He picked up the last of the piles of documents and took them into his bedroom. ‘There’s no way I trust you not to pry into my business so I’ll save you the trouble of trying whilst I go for a shower in peace.’ He locked the bedroom door and came back into the lounge with a towel and shut the bathroom door behind him.

Mann was drying himself off when he heard music coming from the lounge. The telly had been switched off. He heard Victoria moving around and then he heard her come to stand outside the bathroom door.

‘You know, Mann, I have never felt so much in common with anyone else as I do with you. I have never spoken to anyone before about my life with Chan. In some strange way I feel I can trust you more than anyone else.’

Mann stopped his towelling and listened. In some awful way he understood but it didn’t make him happy. It scared him that she was right. In some ways they understood one another.

The door opened. She stood in the doorway with a drink in her hand. Her hair was down over her shoulders. Her blouse was open to the third button. ‘Thought you might be thirsty?’ She had a vodka in each hand.