In Denial (36 page)

Adam was already dressed and was standing by the window looking at the ferries plying their way between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Below the hotel the traffic was heavy as the rush hour began to take hold. He heard what Leila asked and knew what his answer ought to be.

Neither.

It had all been a mistake.

He should never have allowed anything to happen. Sharing the taxi should not have happened, the dinner should not have happened, and taking Leila back to his hotel room should not have happened.

‘
Adam?’

Turning from the window he looked at her. She really was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen and what she had tried to do for him, for whatever reason, should have made her even more attractive. But there was something in the depths of his brain telling him he must try to salvage what had been, and then follow what could be. If he had paid Leila for what she had done, what
they
had done, then it might have been different. But he had not. In the space of only a few hours he had become emotionally and sexually involved with a complete stranger, and even after what they had done she was somebody who was still a stranger. He knew she was deep thinking and he knew her body but he did not know anything else about her, and yet he still felt this longing to just hold her and pretend she was really his.

He wanted her to be Lucinda.

‘
I think it would be best if …’

Leila lowered her head. She had guessed this was going to happen and knew she should not have let the feelings that had been dormant for so long to even begin to emerge. She should have suppressed them the moment she felt anything out of the ordinary was happening. She was a fool. She had a job to do.

‘
You want me to go?’

‘
That makes it sound awful.’

‘
Is there any other way of putting it?’ Leila crossed the few feet between them and took hold of Adam’s hands. She smiled. ‘Adam, this is no big deal. Even after such a short time I thought that perhaps we might just have something going for us but,’ she squeezed his hands, ‘obviously you don’t feel the same. It’s sad but that’s life, isn’t it?’

‘
I feel so guilty …’

‘
Don’t you dare say you feel guilty about last night and this morning. I’m a grown woman and I took from you as much as you did from me. I-’

‘
You’re very different, aren’t you?’

‘
What do you mean?’

Adam shrugged. ‘Well, you’re just different. There’s something very special about you.’

Leila reached up and let her lips brush against his ‘I suppose that’s some consolation and one way of describing it. Right, I hate goodbyes, don’t you? You’re a lovely man, Adam Harrison, but you have to move on. It’s what Lucinda would have wanted.’

She picked up her bag from the bed. For a few more seconds before she crossed the room she stared into Adam’s eyes. Then she walked to the door and turned round abruptly. ‘I could have loved you, Adam, and that would have meant more to me than to you.’

The door closed gently behind her.

Adam suddenly felt very alone.

He went to bathroom to swill his face with cold water and as he looked into the mirror he saw that she had anticipated the last few minutes. On the mirror she had written in lipstick her telephone number, followed by the words:

If you change your mind, call me Lx.

‘
Blood?’ Gabrielle repeated.

‘
Yes, Miss, she got blood on her hands, her body and her legs.’

‘
And where was Patrick?’

‘
Master Patrick he standing next to her with a knife in his hand.’

‘
A knife? Are you saying that Patrick hurt Lucinda?’

Lolita shook her head slowly. ‘I not know, Miss, it all happen quickly. I open door, see Miss Lucinda and Master Patrick, the blood, and I scream, run away. I hear Miss Lucinda scream as well. I in panic, not know where I go or what do.’

Gabrielle saw tears forming in Lolita’s eyes but she had to let her go on. ‘I run downstairs to my room but Master Patrick he catch me and push me into kitchen. He very rough.’

Lolita paused.

‘
What happened? Did he hurt you?’

‘
He very strong, Miss. Yes, he hurt me. He push me against table and he rip my top open. He hold knife here,’ Lolita indicated a spot between her breasts, ‘and he say he kill me if I tell what I see.’

‘
And you never told anyone?’

‘
No, Miss, not till now.’ Lolita picked up a napkin from the table and wiped her eyes.

‘
But Miss Lucinda can’t have been hurt. Her mother and father would have noticed.’

‘
Yes, Miss, I mean no. She not hurt. She have shower and blood all go away. I think it some sort of rit ... rit ... some sort of ceremony.’

‘
You saw her?’

‘
Yes. She come to me after when she clean and tell me same thing as Master Patrick.’

‘
And you’ve never told anyone about this?’

‘
No, Miss, not till now.’

‘
And why now?’

‘
Because of Mr and Mrs Yong, Miss, because you with church.’

‘
I understand.’ Gabrielle did not want to ask her next question but she had to. ‘You said what Patrick and Lucinda were doing was some sort of ceremony. Have you any idea what Patrick and Lucinda were actually doing, Lolita?’

‘
No, Miss.’

*  *  *

Gabrielle did not ask any more questions. She felt she had put Lolita through enough. But what Lolita told her made her even more determined to go to Hong Kong and find Adam. She would go and see Christina Yong in hospital before she left, and make sure Lolita understood she would be all right no matter what happened. Gabrielle wanted to leave the country with a clear conscience about both women.

She turned over, away from the window so the moonlight was not in her eyes. The images that had flashed through her mind preventing sleep earlier, returned immediately. She saw a naked but faceless Lucinda covered in blood, she saw Lucinda’s brother Patrick, again faceless, standing next to her with a knife in his hands - and she wondered.

Patrick had not used the knife to punish his sister. If he had, her parents would have known.

Gabrielle opened her eyes wide.

She did not have any answers but there had to be a connection.

There had to be a connection between what Lolita saw and what happened in Ashbourne twenty years later.

*  *  *

Leila waited.

She contacted Number Sixty-Six and was told they would meet at the Star Ferry Terminal on Hong Kong Island. The locations always varied and she was happy with this one because she was able to use an overdue visit to one of the Travel Centres on the Island as an excuse.

She waited at the right place for nearly thirty minutes.

She was worried.

Normally she had something to report but on this occasion she had nothing. Adam had told her nothing more and she had not asked any more questions.

She saw Number Sixty-Six coming towards her and when she caught his eye he nodded towards a door which led out onto a viewing area. It was a pleasant morning, the temperature was in the seventies and there was a light breeze coming from the harbour. Leila went over to the rail and Number Sixty-Six joined her a few feet away.

Except for an old man sitting on an upturned box thirty feet away they were alone. It was too early for sightseers and tourists.

‘
Report,’ Patrick Yong said, his eyes scanning the harbour.

‘
There is nothing to report.’

Patrick glanced sideways, his expression showing his dissatisfaction. ‘You know what any form of failure means, Number Thirty-Nine. It means your usefulness is over. Do you wish to reconsider your reply?’

Despite it being a warm morning Leila shivered. ‘When I say there is nothing to report I mean there is nothing the Master would be interested in,’ she said boldly.

‘
Since when have you decided what the Master may or may not be interested in? Let’s start with something very simple. Confirm your target’s name and his age.’

‘
Adam Harrison and he’s thirty-five years old, nearly thirty-six,’ Leila said and as she spoke his name she felt as though she was being disloyal. It was a strange sensation.

‘
So you did find something out,’ Patrick said sarcastically. ‘Did you sleep with him?’

Leila lifted her head and focussed on a distant liner docked on the other side of the harbour. ‘Yes.’

Patrick nodded. ‘So this Adam Harrison is at least human. And did he enjoy what you had to offer him?’

Number Sixty-Six had never done this before. He had always been professional and businesslike; he had never goaded her before, not like this. ‘I don’t see what -’

‘
If you slept with him, Number Thirty-Nine and he took from you then he must have offered something in return because if he didn’t you really are losing your touch, and as I said, your future is down to your continued usefulness.’ Patrick let his words rest for a few seconds. ‘Now, am I going to have to drag every detail out of you or are you going to tell me willingly?’

Leila looked down at her hands. He was right, she was being stupid. She had found out as much as she could. It had happened before where there had been nothing to report, nothing that would have interested the Master anyway. These men had either been very small fish in a very big pond and not worth bothering with, or it was a case of mistaken identity. Adam Harrison, she believed, fell into this latter category. The Master or his advisers had thought he was somebody he was not and by confirming that fact interest would be immediately lost. Leila knew she was reluctant to tell the truth because by doing so she would have to move on - as she had advised Adam to do - and any need for contact would be lost.

She took a deep breath. ‘Adam Harrison is in Hong Kong because he is mourning the loss of his wife and his children. His wife, her name was Lucinda, and his son and daughter, Charlotte and Timothy, were murdered a few months ago. They lived in Ashbourne in England. The murders have never been solved.’ Leila took another deep breath. ‘Adam and his wife were born in Hong Kong, in fact they grew up together as brother and sister because Adam was adopted by Lucinda’s family after his own parents were killed in a plane crash.’ Leila lifted her gaze so she could see Lion Rock in the far distance where the crash had happened. ‘He is here because he either wants to bury the memories or he wants to relive them. He doesn’t know which it is.’

‘
And?’ Patrick said, encouraging her to go on.

‘
There really is no more. I do not believe Adam Harrison is involved in anything that the Master would be interested in.’

‘
As I told you earlier you are not qualified to decide what the Master is or is not interested in. What else did he tell you?’

‘
There is nothing more.’

‘
He didn’t mention anybody he was planning to see while in Hong Kong?’

‘
No, he didn’t seem to have any plans at all. He mentioned a brother, I think his name was Patrick, but it was just in passing.’ Leila turned and looked into Patrick Yong’s cruel and distant eyes. ‘He is a tourist and with no other reason for being here than to find something he is looking for but he doesn’t know what that something is.’

Patrick Yong allowed an eager smile to cross his lips. ‘Then the task the Master has set you should be very easy,’ he said.

‘
Task? What task?’

‘
Number Thirty-Nine, you are to kill Adam Harrison.’

*  *  *

Settling back into her seat, Gabrielle marvelled at how quickly events happened once she confirmed she did not need a visa for her visit to Hong Kong. She managed to get on a British Airways flight within a day. As London disappeared under the low cloud covering the city, she could not believe the decision she’d taken while still in Loch Lomond would result in this. She was en route to Hong Kong but she didn’t have the faintest idea what she was going to do once she got there.

After a fitful night’s sleep in the Yong mansion, she had done her best to put Lolita’s mind at rest and then rushed down to Bournemouth to see Christina Yong. It was not a successful visit. She was told that Christina was recovering from a major operation and although it was believed everything had gone well, she was heavily sedated and it would be hours before she would be fit enough to see anybody.