Hungry Ghost (28 page)

‘I know, Dr Wu,’ she said. ‘He came to me for help. He said not to call the police.’

‘A gweilo frightened of the police?’ said Dr Wu. ‘Very strange. He is a friend of yours?’

‘No Dr Wu, he is not. I only met him a short time ago.’

‘No matter, no matter. First we shall make him well, then we shall discuss what must be done.’ He did as Amy had done earlier and checked the front of the shoulder for an exit wound. ‘The bullet is still in the shoulder,’ he said, and Amy nodded. Wu peered at the bullet hole and gently brushed it with his fingertips. ‘A small calibre, I think, possibly a .22. He is a very lucky young man.’

‘He will be all right?’

Dr Wu looked over his glasses, this time pushing them up the bridge of his nose. ‘He is lucky that you called me so quickly. He has lost some blood, but not so much that his life is in danger. And while the damage appears bad the bullet did not destroy any major blood vessels. Once the bullet is out and I have tidied up the wound, he will recover. He will be in considerable pain for a while, but I can give him something for that. Now, I have everything I need except for clean towels and hot water. And you can get that for me, and quickly please.’ He put his bag on the bedside table and opened it. A gweilo who has been shot and who does not want to go to the police, he mused. Very curious.

Dugan waited until he was in his own office before ringing Jill. His stomach was still queasy from the previous night’s aggressive drinking spree and he forced down a couple of aspirins with a cup of machine coffee. So much of what Petal had told him didn’t make sense, and the bits that did make sense made his head spin.

That she had tried to kill a gweilo in the Hilton Hotel seemed to be beyond doubt, that she was a Chinese agent he could just about accept. But he could think of no possible reason that the Chinese would have for wanting to kill his brother-in-law, or to get involved in any sort of violent action in Hong Kong during the run up to 1997. The colony’s six million population was so jittery about being handed over to Communist China that such direct action could easily spark off a violent reaction. Hong Kong was no stranger to riots in the streets and it would only need one more heavy-handed example of a Beijing clampdown to ignite a powder keg of resentment.

He could also think of no reason why the Chinese would kill an assassin who was supposed to do their dirty work, unless, as Petal had suggested, he had backed out. Maybe he’d been paid in advance and had refused to pay back the money. But killing the guy seemed to be a massive over-reaction.

The method that Petal and her two assistants used, or had tried to use, also didn’t make sense. Killings over money were usually violent and bloody, a warning to others. Using an injection sounded more like they wanted it to look like natural causes. He’d meant to ask Petal what it was she had been trying to inject into the gweilo but he’d been so upset it had slipped his mind. He’d have to wait until the lab had finished its investigation. For now he wanted to speak to Jill, to check that her husband was all right and to warn him to stay out of harm’s way.

He tapped out the number and it was answered on the third ring by a guttural Chinese voice. In English he asked for Jill and was told she wasn’t in. He asked for Simon and got the same answer.

‘Do you know where they are?’ he asked.

‘They are out,’ replied the voice. Probably one of the bodyguards; he couldn’t place the voice, but he recognized the attitude. That was odd; usually Jill got the phone herself and if she was out one of the maids would answer. Jill didn’t like Ng’s men in the house.

He switched to Cantonese. ‘When will they get back?’

‘Who’s calling?’

‘Dugan. Pat Dugan. Mrs Ng’s brother.’

‘I’ll tell her you called,’ the voice growled and hung up.

At least they were OK, thought Dugan. He picked up one of the files on his desk and began to read it. He was beginning to feel better.

Thomas Ng stood in front of the immigration officer, tapping his foot impatiently. The man in the uniform looked as if he’d barely left school. He flicked through the pages of the US passport for no other reason than to see how many countries Ng had visited. There were a lot.

‘American, huh?’ grunted the youngster, and he looked up at Ng. Ng had seen the look before when presenting his travel documents at Hong Kong immigration. It was the sort of look bestowed on the passenger of a jumbo jet with engine trouble, a passenger with a parachute strapped to his back. No one knew for sure what would happen when the colony and its six million inhabitants were handed back to the Communists, but there was always an unspoken envious resentment directed at those who had a safety route already mapped out by those who feared they would be left behind. The rush to emigrate had been frantic enough before the killings in Tiananmen Square. Now it bordered on hysteria.

‘Yeah, American,’ said Ng, using his very best San Francisco accent.

The boy stamped the passport as if he was burying a hatchet into Ng’s neck.

Ng walked past the desk and when he had collected his single suitcase walked unheeded through customs, turning left towards the greeting area. The electric doors swished open and the babble of three hundred voices washed over him, Cantonese, Filipino, English, Indian, an international potpourri that reflected the racial mix of Hong Kong. He walked slowly down the ramp, looking right and left for a glimpse of a face he recognized.

He heard his name called and saw Lin Wing-wah waving at him. Standing either side of him were Franc Tse and Ricky Lam, looking grim. So they fucking well should be, thought Ng. Their job, their sole
raison d’être
, was to protect Simon and their failure was written all over their faces. He nodded at them, masking his anger, but Lin’s was the only hand he shook.

‘Elder Brother, you look fit and well,’ said Ng. Like all triad members he referred to Lin as Elder Brother, rather than by his rank or his given name.

Lin’s grip was strong and dry. ‘
Ho noy mouh gin
. America has been good to you, Mister Ng.’

‘What is this, Elder Brother. You have forgotten my name?’

Lin looked awkward. ‘Now you are Lung Tau, the Dragon Head. You are to be accorded the respect that is due.’

Ng looked at him levelly. ‘Have you found my brother’s body?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Lin.

‘Then my brother is still Lung Tau. Come, tell me everything that has happened.’

Lin walked by Ng’s side as they headed towards the waiting Mercedes, talking quietly, while Tse and Franc walked behind, nervously checking faces. They had lost one Dragon Head – they would not be caught wanting again.

Ng didn’t recognize the driver but nodded to him as he climbed into the back seat after Lin. Lam moved in after him while Tse took the front passenger seat. As the car pulled away from the pavement Lin told him about the handover of the money, how his brother had disappeared under the water, how they had searched for hours but found nothing.

‘We have no idea what the gweilo looks like, or who he is?’ Ng asked.

‘We do not know his name. And the only person who has seen his face is the headmistress at Sophie’s school.’

‘So we can get a description from her?’

‘We should be able to do better than that,’ said Lin. ‘Once it became clear that we had lost your brother I arranged for men with video cameras to cover the whole area, filming everyone around Hebe Haven for hours afterwards. We might have him on film.’

‘How many cameras?’

‘Three,’ said Lin. ‘And they filmed for about ten hours. So we’ve got about thirty hours of tape. If he left the area that day we should have his picture.’

‘A big if,’ said Ng. ‘But a good idea.’

Lin smiled broadly, but in the front seat Franc Tse glowered. It had been his idea but he could see that Elder Brother was going to take the credit. Fuck his mother.

‘So now you will show the tapes to the headmistress?’

‘That is the idea.’

‘Good. She a gweipor or Chinese?’

‘Gweipor.’

‘Best to pick her up and take her to the house. She’ll be able to concentrate there. And it’ll cause less fuss.’

‘It shall be done, Mister Ng. But what if she refuses?’

‘I shall come with you and explain to her how important it is she helps us. If that fails I shall offer to buy her school the latest computer. And if she still doesn’t help us you can hold her down and I will break every bone in her body until she changes her mind.’

Lin nodded. He could tell from the man’s voice that he was serious. He had not gone soft in the United States.

‘We’ll go to the school first, drop the gweipor off at the house, and then I must go and see my father. He has been told?’

‘Yes,’ said Lin. ‘Master Cheng visited him yesterday.’

‘How did he take it?’

‘Not well, Mister Ng. Not well at all.’

Howells dragged himself out of a dreamless sleep. He was lying on his front, his head to one side, the pillow beneath his cheek damp with saliva that had dribbled from his mouth. The room swam in and out of focus, but even when his vision had cleared he did not recognize the place. He tried to lift his head but winced and dropped back. The pain passed quickly and he realized he’d been drugged, and so long as he didn’t try to move the injured arm he felt relaxed and slightly light-headed. There was a bandage around his shoulder, too, but he wasn’t in a hospital bed. From where he was lying he could see a bookcase filled with toy animals, a fluffy white cat, a green crocodile with gaping jaws and a long red tongue, a monkey with cross-eyes, an elephant with floppy tusks, and on one wall was a framed cinema poster advertising some sort of Cantonese gangster movie.

He remembered the fight in the hotel, and the shooting, he remembered the pretty Chinese girl and the hypodermic and the way she smiled as she moved on top of him, and he remembered getting into a cab, but that was all. Amy walked through the door then and it all came back to him.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

She smiled, and quickly moved her hand up to hide her teeth. ‘I thought you would never wake up,’ she said.

‘What time is it?’ he asked.

‘Midday.’

‘Where am I?’

‘My home,’ she said. ‘You said you didn’t want to go to hospital so I brought you here.’ She held up a white carrier bag. ‘I bought you a new shirt. Your old one was ruined,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ he said again.

‘No need,’ she said.

‘Who put the bandage on? You?’

‘No,’ she laughed. ‘A doctor friend of mine. He took the bullet out, too.’

‘You can keep it as a souvenir,’ smiled Howells. ‘How good a friend is the doctor?’

‘I don’t think he will tell anyone,’ she said. ‘He is used to dealing with patients who can’t go to hospital. Besides, I have only paid him half his fee. I promised him the rest later, once you are on your legs.’

‘Feet,’ said Howells. ‘On my feet.’

‘On your feet,’ she repeated. ‘Thank you for English lesson, Geoff.’

‘No need,’ he said, before he spotted the trap. ‘How did you find out my name?’ he said quietly, but smiling. She’d already demonstrated her loyalty; if she was going to betray him she’d had plenty of chance while he was unconscious.

‘Your wallet,’ she said. ‘And the passports. Don’t worry, many men not give me real names.’

‘I’m sorry, Amy. My name is Geoff Howells.’

She nodded. ‘Pleased to meet you. You buy me drink?’

They laughed together, Howells ignoring the pain in his shoulder as it moved.

‘Howells,’ she repeated. ‘Like a wolf.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Like a wolf. But a different Howells – not the same spelling.’

‘Do you want water?’

‘I’d rather have coffee.’

‘Doctor said only water.’

‘What does he know?’ said Howells. ‘Coffee, black with no sugar. It’ll give me strength, I promise.’

‘OK,’ said Amy, and she went to the kitchen to boil the kettle. The smile faded as she left the bedroom. She liked this man, this Geoff Howells who smiled so easily but whose eyes seemed to belong to a long dead animal, but she could sense that he would bring trouble to her ordered life.

Behind her Howells closed his eyes and let himself be sucked back into the black clouds of sleep.

Rosemary Quinlan was worried, more worried than she had ever been in all her fifty-four years, and if the truth were to be told it was her own future that preyed most on her mind. To be sure, she was frightened for Sophie, but in the scales of her mind it was her own career and pension and reputation, and the loss of it, that were tipping the balance. She sat behind her large oak desk and polished her glasses as Thomas Ng followed her secretary into the office.

‘Mr Ng,’ she said, and offered her hand limply. Ng shook it and nodded.

He quickly explained what had happened to his brother, and to Sophie. She interrupted once to say that Simon Ng had called her to explain that it was all a misunderstanding, but Ng told her that things had changed. His brother had not told the truth because he hadn’t wanted to alarm her. Now they needed her help.

The headmistress looked at him gratefully. It wasn’t going to be as bad as she had feared, he wasn’t angry, and she thanked God he hadn’t arrived with the police. Or worse, a lawyer. God knows what would happen if it became known that she had handed one of her charges over to a man claiming to be a policeman. Why, oh why, hadn’t she checked with the police station? Why hadn’t she examined his identification? Why hadn’t she spoken to Mrs Ng first?

‘Miss Quinlan, I need your help.’

‘Of course; I will do everything I can to help,’ she said, the words coming out in a rush. ‘Anything, absolutely anything. Have the police been . . .’

Ng held up his hand to quieten her, shaking his head. ‘No, the police have not been notified. And, Miss Quinlan, I must have your assurance that you will not call the police, or tell anyone what has taken place. It is very important that the authorities are not notified, and I am sure that you would prefer that the authorities do not find out what has occurred. Do we understand each other?’