In Denial (25 page)

Number Thirty-Nine was able to count her failures on one hand. Two of her targets she assumed had been gay and had kept the fact very quiet, and two had turned her down flat with no reason given. Her success rate was excellent and Number Sixty-Six told her the Master was delighted with her work and the information she gleaned was priceless to The 7th Dragon Triad.

The two killings had added to the memories.

One was only six months ago and the other five years earlier. She had not known she would be expected to kill her assignments in either case, and she also didn’t know that if she had become a police suspect in the murders she would have disappeared from the face of the earth and her dead body cremated.

She had no idea either why she’d had to kill.

In both cases she’d been sleeping with her assignments, one a German middle-aged drug dealer and the other the American publisher of a pornographic magazine, when Number Sixty-Six told her she had to kill them.

Number Thirty-Nine was trained to kill in many different ways. She could handle a silenced pistol as well as any man, she was particularly good at using a stiletto and she knew what poisons to use and how to get hold of them. Her martial arts expertise was a bonus.

Her first victim fell from a tenth floor balcony so neither weapon nor poison were necessary. The police discovered his naked body lying on the grass at the base of the building and he was still wearing an unused condom. A couple of the young policemen who attended the scene had found that very amusing.

Her second victim was found fully clothed in Hong Kong harbour but the pathologist was able to establish from the bloated and decomposing body that he died from single stab wound - probably a stiletto - between the fifth and sixth ribs and straight into his heart.

Number Thirty-Nine was never a suspect in either murder and therefore lived to be able to follow Adam Harrison towards the taxi rank outside the airport. She wondered whether he knew he needed a red taxi.

*  *  *

Adam did know because he’d read in the literature on the aircraft about the various coloured taxis and where they took their passengers. He and Number Thirty-Nine reached the next available taxi at the same moment.

‘
The Peninsula Hotel please ... oh, I’m sorry,’ Adam added when he became aware that there was a woman standing next to him.

‘
I think I was next in the queue,’ the woman said, her hand on the rear door handle.

‘
Queue? I’m sorry I didn’t see a queue. Er, of course, I’ll get -’

The woman smiled at him. ‘Did I hear you say the Peninsula Hotel?’

‘
Er, yes, but I’ll get the next -’

‘
No, don’t be silly. By coincidence I’m also going to the Peninsula and I’ve got no luggage, so why don’t we share?’

The taxi driver was watching the exchange with interest and was probably thinking that Adam would be a bloody idiot if he didn’t accept the offer. She was bloody gorgeous - her skin was a bit dark but the rest of her made up for that. Come on, you stupid gweilo, what a welcome to Hong Kong.

‘
It’s all right, I’ll …’

‘
Look, I insist,’ the woman said covering Adam’s hand with hers.

Adam looked beyond her and saw that the next two red taxis were being boarded so he reluctantly turned to the woman and agreed. The taxi driver breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled the boot release catch.

‘
So is this your first time in Hong Kong?’ Number Thirty-Nine asked Adam as the taxi pulled away from Arrivals. ‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘that was rude of me. Let me introduce myself. If we’re going to share a taxi we at least ought to know each other’s name. My full name is Lei Lay Sung but my friends call me Leila for obvious reasons.’ She reached across the back seat of the taxi and proffered a delicate hand to Adam.

‘
Er, yes,’ Adam said, looking at her hand. ‘I’m Adam Harrison.’ He took her hand and shook it gently. He felt the tips of her fingers curl into his palm.

‘
And what do your friends call you, Adam Harrison?’ She took her hand away but rested it on the seat a few inches from Adam’s thigh.

‘
Nothing original I’m afraid, just Adam.’

Adam had regained a little of his composure.

He came out of the terminal building having settled on the Peninsula Hotel for a couple of nights until he decided what he would do for more long-term accommodation needs, and the next thing he knew he was sitting in the back of a taxi with what he could only describe as a beautiful Chinese woman. He particularly liked her skin; it was darker than normal and it reminded him of Lucinda’s. This mystery woman had probably been brought up in one of the shantytowns where skin colour was not a priority: the women from the shantytowns did not do everything they could to keep their skins as pale as possible because survival was just a little more important.

‘
Adam,’ Leila repeated, although she pronounced it Ay-Dam. ‘So let me ask my question again. Is this your first visit to Hong Kong?’

Lei Lay Sung was a false name, but by courtesy of The 7th Dragon Triad, it was the one on the driving licence and ID Card she carried in her shoulder bag. She knew nothing about Adam Harrison. Her instructions from Number Sixty-Six were simple: she was to find out why Adam Harrison was in Hong Kong, how long he was staying, and to do whatever was necessary to discover other information that may be of interest to the Master.

What Leila also didn’t know was that the Master knew nothing of this latest assignment. On this occasion she was working purely for Number Sixty-Six.

Adam watched the water on either side of the causeway between Lantau Island and what he knew was Tung Wan Island. He had never seen the new airport let alone the motorway which had been built between it and Kowloon. On his way back to school over twenty years earlier, he’d flown from Kai Tak. He was amazed at what he saw and just a little disappointed. He thought of the couple on the aircraft and what they would make of the many more changes they would see.

‘
No, Leila, this is not my first visit,’ he said almost absentmindedly. ‘I was born here.’

‘
You was born in Hong Kong?’ Leila asked, her surprise genuine. ‘I know,’ she added enthusiastically, ‘your father was in the army.’

‘
No, my father was a businessman living in Hong Kong.’ Adam caught the driver’s eyes in the rear-view mirror and smiled. The driver winked and raised his eyebrows. No, not on my first night back in Hong Kong, Adam thought, not on my first night and most likely not at all.

‘
So the business is now yours?’ Leila asked, moving ever so slightly so that her arm was touching his. She could smell the slight male mustiness that comes from not washing straight after a long haul flight. She did not find it unappealing. Most European gweilos had a special smell anyway: she’d been told it was from drinking milk and eating so many milk products.

This one was going to be easy. It was probably the business the Master was interested in.

He was free with his answers already and he did not know who she was. She would sleep with him anyway just for the fun of it; maybe he would be good. He looked as though he ought to be good and considerate. He had kind eyes and his hands were kind also. You can tell a lot from a man’s hands, she thought. Some of her assignments were kind to her and wanted to please her as much as they expected her to please them. Most, though, were selfish. Then there were the few who wanted her to do things and do things to her that she found revolting. With them she hoped she would be told by Number Sixty-Six they were to be eliminated but no such luck. The two she had killed had both been good to her and she was sorry to see them die, especially the one she had helped over the balcony rail.

‘
No, my father died many years ago and the business was sold.’

‘
It didn’t go to your mother?’

‘
My mother died at the same time as my father. She and my father were killed in a plane crash.’ Why am I telling her all this? Adam thought. She’s a stranger sharing a taxi to the hotel and I’m talking to her as though she’s a long-lost friend.

Lucinda flashed into his mind, followed swiftly by Gabrielle’s smiling face.

She had been different.

Gabrielle and Doris were the only two people in the world who knew he’d been on the point of suicide and he trusted them both to keep the facts to themselves. And it hit him suddenly that they were both responsible for him being here now.

‘
Oh, I’m sorry,’ Leila said. ‘That must have been awful.’

‘
I was only five, so the full impact wasn’t really there.’

‘
Five? You was only five? That’s awful too. What happened to you?’ Leila put her hand on Adam’s thigh as if to emphasise the compassion she felt.

‘
I survived,’ he told her, taking hold of her wrist and lifting her hand off his thigh.

They had left the causeway and were now heading south and Adam saw signs for the Cheung Tsing tunnel. He did not recognise where he was.

‘
Are you staying at the Peninsula?’ he asked.

Leila had no luggage so he assumed she’d been at the airport seeing somebody off. Her clothes were simple but not cheap; her shoulder bag was Gucci and her sandals appeared to be handmade. Her long, jet-black hair was shiny and beautifully shaped, the little make-up she wore expertly applied, her finger and toenails manicured and her perfume - he thought he recognised it - was expensive. Her skin was darker than most Hong-Kong Chinese, but smooth and healthy, and her slim figure well proportioned. Her English was very good except for the odd and insignificant grammatical error, and she oozed both sex appeal and charm. If she wasn’t a guest at the Peninsula then she could be a much-appreciated employee.

‘
No,’ Leila told him. ‘My boss flew to Tokyo this morning with a client and that’s why I was at the airport. His client was staying at the Peninsula and he thinks he left an expensive gold cigarette lighter in his room. He asked me to go and check before going to work.’

‘
Where do you work?’

‘
I’m the PA to the Managing Director of Exotic Holidays. Its main office is at the bottom of Nathan Road, very close to the Peninsula.’ Leila laughed. ‘So if you want a holiday while you’re on holiday you know where to come.’

He laughed. ‘I certainly do.’

The taxi left the West Kowloon Highway and after a few unrecognisable twists and turns Adam realised they were in Jordan Road and then Nathan Road. A feeling of security came with recognition.

Minutes later the taxi pulled up outside the Peninsula Hotel. As the driver got out both back doors were opened by smiling hotel employees. Adam watched his two suitcases being loaded onto a trolley. The meter in the taxi said one hundred and fifty Hong Kong dollars, so he gave the driver two hundred and told him to keep the change.

‘
Sank you, sir,’ the driver said, ‘velly genelus.’

‘
My pleasure,’ Adam told him.

‘
She give pleasure also but you pay no more dan two thousand,’ the driver said solicitously and to one side.

‘
I think you may have misunderstood -’

‘
Not me, sir. You, sir, you misunnerstood. You picked up. It an old trick, share taxi, share bed, you pay … but not more dan two thousand.’

‘
All right, not more than two thousand,’ Adam repeated, smiling as he walked away from the taxi.

Leila was waiting for him just in front of the entrance. ‘What was that about?’

‘
Oh, nothing really. He wanted to know whether I wanted some company tonight.’ It was out before Adam realised he’d said it.

‘
And do you?’ Leila asked before going through the doors into the hotel.

Opened in 1928, the Peninsula Hong Kong is one of the world's legendary grand hotels and one of the three best luxury hotels in Hong Kong. Created nearly eighty years ago in the glamorous 1920s, the renowned "Grande Dame of the Far East" continues to set hotel standards worldwide, offering a blend of the best of Eastern and Western hospitality in an atmosphere of unmatched classical grandeur and timeless elegance.

Adam caught up with Leila at the reception desk, if its opulence allowed it to be called that. She had attracted the attention of one of the under-managers and had started talking to him before Adam could speak.

‘
Yes, sir?’ another under-manager enquired to Adam’s right.

‘
Er, yes. I’m afraid I don’t have a reservation but I wondered whether you had a room available.’

‘
Without a reservation I’m afraid that’s unlikely, sir.’ The under-manager, a Chinese man in his mid-twenties gave Adam the once over before consulting the computer in front of him. ‘For how long would it be, sir?’