‘Yes, Ruby. I thought we were going for something to eat? Is this where you live?’ He looked around the tiny apartment. ‘Jesus, what a shithole. Sorry – no offence. Is this it? Everything in this room: kitchen, bathroom? What’s in there?’ He pointed to the curtain.
‘That is my bedroom.’
He got up, pulled back the curtain and tried the handle. ‘You keep it locked?’
Ruby giggled. ‘Maybe I let you see my bedroom.’
He squinted at the shadows. ‘Plastic flowers…roses…and what are they? Dolls? Fuck, they’re everywhere.’ He laughed but at the same time he spun round and peered into the dark corners. Hundreds of pairs of eyes looked back. ‘Fuck…what is this place?’
‘Hey, big man,’ Ruby tried to distract him, ‘have a drink. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.’ She handed him the glass.
He took a big slug of it. ‘Jesus, that’s strong.’ He wiped his burning mouth.
Ruby lifted her glass against his. She pressed him backwards. ‘Cheers. Sit. Sit.’
He sat on the sofa. ‘Drink. Drink…’ She drank her water down and poured him another gin.
She began to strip for him; he drank as he watched. He undid his shirt. Stripped to the waist, he eased back on the sofa, propped up on an elbow. She whirled around the room like a spinning top, laughing as she went. He laughed and tried to grab her as she danced around him. Ruby was down to her knickers. She straddled his lap and grabbed his hair. She ran her hands down over his arms. She looked at the tattoo he had on his upper arm.
MUM
She made a pouting face. ‘Ahhh. You a mummy’s boy?’
‘Of course.’ He grinned. ‘Safer than putting a girl’s name. It’s hard to rub off when it’s over.’
She stood and pulled his mouth to her sex. He drew away.
‘Hey, shouldn’t we use something? Ouch…go easy. You’re pulling my hair out.’ He laughed. He stood. ‘Come on then, you dirty girl, let’s go into your bedroom.’ He lurched sideways. ‘Jesus – I feel pissed.’
She eased him towards the locked bedroom door. She had the key ready in her hand.
‘You just need to relax. You need to lie down.’
‘Good idea.’ He grabbed her bottom and squeezed it hard. ‘Fucking hell!’ He lost his balance and crashed into the wall.
Ruby looped his arm around her shoulder as she unlocked the door and pushed it gently open. It was complete darkness inside. He stumbled forwards and hit his shoulder on the doorframe. ‘Where are we going? Through the secret door?’ He laughed.
‘You’ll see…’ She giggled and guided him inside, half dragging him now as his legs had started to buckle. ‘Time to lie down, big man.’
Ruby steered him forwards. ‘Lie down now. You’re okay, big man. Just lie back.’
He resisted for a second and then with a half laugh, half sigh, he gave in and lay back heavily on the mattress. Ruby ran her fingers through his hair, soothing him as he slipped further into unconsciousness and she moved around in the darkness tightening the restraints.
Chapter 12
In the morning Mann dropped Miriam back at the Cantina and he drove to Tammy’s school to give his talk.
The hall was darkened for the slide show projecting onto a screen behind him. He stood to one side. Three hundred children sat in front of him, in rows. A sea of white shirts and blue ties. They were hushed as the first ten images flashed up one after the other. Each image stayed up for three seconds unless he clicked to halt it: a girl dying with a needle in her arm, a boy whose face was badly disfigured from a chopping.
‘Triads deal in death,’ Mann continued. ‘In some form or another, it’s all about death. Whether its drugs, people trafficking, robbery, kidnapping. They aren’t fussy. They will make money any way they can. They don’t care who gets killed along the way. They use their members to fight battles just because they can. They don’t care how many get killed. Why should they?’
Mann stopped at the eleventh.
A young woman lay face down, a rope around her neck. Her hands were tied behind her back. ‘This is Zheng,’ Mann said. ‘She was on her way to study in England. She was looking forward to it. She was going to come back here and take her university entrance. When she arrived in London she was met by her contact but he didn’t take her to the school, as promised, he took her to this bedsit you see in the photo.’ Mann waited as all eyes studied the image of the girl lying face down. The room was in complete silence. ‘They cut off her little finger.’ Mann pointed to her left hand in the photo. ‘They sent that back to Hong Kong to her parents and they asked for ten million Hong Kong dollars.’ The hall gave a collective intake of breath. ‘Zheng’s parents couldn’t raise that kind of money so they raped and murdered her.’ The next photo to flash up was of a boy lying in a pool of blood, his chopped body twisted in death.
‘This is Zheng’s brother. He was an addict. He sold the Triads the information about his sister: which flight she’d be on, how much he thought his family would be able to find. They tricked him of course. They asked for ten times the amount his parents could pay and so, when they couldn’t pay, they killed him too. Nobody wins with the Triads. If you want to be somebody in Hong Kong society you have to stand out from the crowd, not just be another 49, another number.’ The lights went back on.
He looked along the rows. The front ten rows seemed to be solely occupied by girls, all looking up at him.
‘Any questions?’
About ten hands went up from the front. Mann pointed to the first hand. It was a girl from the fifth row back. She was mixed race. Part Chinese, part Filipino. She had come off well with the mix. She was striking looking, fair skinned. She had a touch of Spanish about her from the Filipino side, fair skinned, black haired. Mann realized he knew her, but he couldn’t place her.
‘Sir, do you give this talk to all the schools?’ she asked.
‘Pretty much.’
‘Even the schools where the parents have money and there aren’t any immigrants like there are here?’
The headmaster stepped forward to the mike to intervene; Mann waved him back.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Lilly.’
‘Lilly what?’
Lilly was a pretty girl with bags of attitude. ‘Mendoza.’
Her mother Michelle was a part-time hooker; Lilly must have slipped past the condom. The father looked like he must have been Chinese. Hong Kong was not a great ambassador for mixing the races. The Chinese liked to keep to their own kind. But something else was bugging him: he’d seen Lilly last night. She was one of the two girls who ran from the building just as he got there.
‘Okay, I know what you’re saying. You feel like this is a problem for kids from poorer backgrounds. Yeah, well I agree. The Triad organizations are always looking for an angle. They have mostly, not always, recruited from the poorer side of society. They know the recent changes in the education system discriminate against people coming in from other countries, non natives. They know it makes it tough so they exploit that.’
Another hand went up from a young Indian girl. ‘Are you mixed race, sir?’
‘Yes. My mother is English, my dad was Chinese.’
‘Is it easy to get into the police force when you’re mixed race?’
‘It isn’t easy to get into the police force whatever race you are. You need a good level of English. You need to be able to read and write Mandarin.’
There was a muttering all around the hall. Lilly spoke up again. You need to be able to read and write Mandarin to clean toilets now.’
The children laughed. The headmaster coughed loudly.
Mann waited until the laughter subsided before he spoke again. ‘Yeah, it sucks. It sucks that there isn’t a level playing field any more. It really sucks that a lot of what made Hong Kong great is being wasted. Talents that you all have to give are being handed over to the Triads because we are turning into a two-tier society. But…’ There was a general whispering. The headmaster looked nervous. ‘…but all I can tell you is that you have to be smarter than everyone else. You have to work harder than everyone else. You have to prove them wrong. You join a Triad organization and, in the short term, sure, you will get new trainers, you will get told how great you are. In the long term you will be pushed down alleyways, asked to repay favours, asked to fight, kill, you will be ordered to become part of a drug run, part of a human trafficking chain. You might be sold into prostitution yourself or sell other kids. And there will be no escape for you. You will be a number to be called whenever they choose. In the short term you may think it offers you hope. In the long term you will never be free to make it.’