In Denial (41 page)

Elizabeth had frequently been looking out to sea as they drank their tea and chatted. ‘That looks like the build-up of a typhoon to me. I’m surprised the taxi driver didn’t say anything.’

Eric shrugged. ‘Just a storm, dear. Don’t worry.’

‘
I’ll check the radio,’ Elizabeth said as she left them to go indoors.

‘
She’s probably right,’ Eric suggested as he flicked through the address book. ‘She normally is about most things.’

Gabrielle heard a radio being turned on somewhere in the flat. She had of course heard the word typhoon but wasn’t too sure exactly what it meant. ‘Is a typhoon the same as a hurricane?’

‘
Interesting,’ Eric said, stopping at a particular page in the address book. Then he looked up and smiled. ‘Yes, but although they can be pretty scary they tend not to be as bad as in the Caribbean. We’ll have to batten down the hatches for a few days and let it pass. Elizabeth will want to go shopping and buy in enough supplies for a month,’ he added, smiling. He tapped the address book. ‘There’s an address in here for a Patrick Yong over in Mongkok. Is he any relation as far as you know?’

‘
Yes -’ Gabrielle started to say just as Elizabeth came back onto the balcony.

‘
As I thought,’ she said, ‘and it’ll hit early tomorrow morning.’

Eric looked at Gabrielle and smiled.

‘
Sorry,’ Elizabeth added, sitting down and looking at the horizon with some satisfaction, ‘did I interrupt?’

‘
Not at all,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I was just going to tell Eric about Adam’s brother.’

‘
Brother? What? Here in Hong Kong?’

‘
This address book suggests so,’ Eric replied.

Elizabeth checked her watch. ‘If his brother is here and you have an address that will certainly help.’ She turned to Gabrielle. ‘Do you feel up to a bit of shopping, Gabrielle? I must get a few things in if we’re going to be flat-bound for a couple of days.’

‘
Yes, of course.’

‘
Thank you. Eric hates shopping.’

Eric winked at Gabrielle.

*  *  *

Leila and Adam eyed the house from across the road. ‘Is it as you remember it?’ she asked.

‘
Down to every last detail but obviously the trees and shrubs have grown and there’s been a lot more building in the general area, but …’ Adam shook his head. Although previously he had not wanted to go anywhere near the house, Leila was quite persuasive. She told him that if he wanted to bury ghosts, or even find them, then the house he had lived in was the obvious place to start.

Adam had no idea how many times the property had changed hands since he last saw it twenty years ago in 1984. He had hoped successive owners would have made significant alterations; he had wanted to see that life had moved on, as his must move on now.

But it had not.

The house and its immediate surroundings were exactly the same.

He pictured each of the rooms, the swimming pool and the garden. He could see himself, Lucinda and Patrick playing outside with Ah Ho watching over them. He could see Lucinda’s bedroom window, he could see the bed where their mother had discovered them. He could have told Leila every detail of every room. Perhaps coming to the house was a mistake but, as Leila suggested, it was the only way he was going to get rid of the ghosts of the past.

‘
Can we get a better view of the back of the house from anywhere else?’

‘
No,’ Adam replied. ‘That was one of the reasons father bought it. The privacy at the back was excellent.’

‘
We could always break in. There doesn’t seem to be anybody about,’ Leila suggested jokingly.

She looked at Adam. Everything seemed so natural and normal. Normal? Yes. She felt everything she was doing was normal, but under very bizarre circumstances. How could she have been ordered to kill this man? He was exactly what he said he was: his heart was broken and he was looking for somewhere to have it repaired.

‘
Would you mind walking down towards the beach?’

‘
Of course I wouldn’t, but …’ Leila shielded her eyes from the setting sun. ‘… it looks as though the forecasters got it right. Those clouds are definitely the forerunners of a typhoon.’

Adam looked in the same direction. ‘A typhoon! I used to love typhoons when I was a child. The wind, the rain, but most of all we couldn’t go to school.’

‘
All right for you in a place like that,’ Leila said, indicating the house. ‘But think about the poor souls up in the shacks on the mountainside. A storm like the one brewing could wash away their very existence.’

‘
I remember my mother using almost exactly the same words. When did they say it would hit?’

‘
Tomorrow morning, early,’ she said.

‘
We’ve time to walk down to the beach, find a taxi and then back to the hotel where I’ll treat you to the best meal you’ve had in a very long time.’

‘
Sounds good to me,’ she said, smiling and linking arms with Adam, while inwardly she was screaming, why? why? WHY?

*  *  *

‘
Typhoons last a week at the most,’ Eric commented when he saw the huge number of bags Elizabeth and Gabrielle deposited in the kitchen.

‘
You can never be too sure,’ Elizabeth said, stealing a look at Gabrielle. ‘Now, we’ll leave you to put everything away while Gabrielle and I take a glass of wine onto the balcony to enjoy the calm of the evening before the storm arrives.’

‘
Yes, dear,’ Eric replied.

‘
So,’ Elizabeth said as she and Gabrielle settled into the wicker chairs on the balcony. ‘Sorry to have put you through that but it really was a pleasure having you help me rather than Eric. He is the worst person to shop with.’

‘
It was my pleasure and an experience. That was the first Far Eastern supermarket I’ve ever been in and I can’t get over how like home it was.’

‘
With a few extra items,’ Elizabeth remarked. ‘So where is home? I’m normally good with accents but when you throw in a very educated voice it’s difficult to pinpoint the precise location.’

‘
Well …’

‘
No, let me guess? Edinburgh perhaps. Or somewhere very close.’

‘
Edinburgh is close enough. I was born not far from Leith and lived there for most of my childhood until Daddy retired and we moved to Rutherglen, near Glasgow where Mummy was from originally. But I now work in the Loch Lomond area.’

‘
And what is work? What do you do?’

‘
Would you like to make another guess?’

Gabrielle had enjoyed her time shopping with Elizabeth. They had chatted about everything and nothing, but Elizabeth had not used the opportunity to ask any more questions about why Gabrielle was in Hong Kong.

‘
All right, I will. You’re a very pretty young girl, you know, and not unlike Jane when she was your age.’ Gabrielle saw Elizabeth look wistfully out towards the sea and wondered if she should ask more but decided not to. ‘You’ve travelled a long way to find somebody, somebody who maybe doesn’t want to be found.’ Gabrielle wondered why the smile that had been on Elizabeth’s lips momentarily disappeared. ‘I think you are in love, or you think you are in love. Maybe you need to find this man to convince yourself one way or the other, but as I said you have come an awful long way so I hope you discover that you are indeed in love.’

Gabrielle felt embarrassed. In love? No, she did not think so. She was in Hong Kong because … oh, all right, so why was she in Hong Kong? Elizabeth was right. You don’t travel half way round the world chasing after a man simply for spiritual and Christian reasons. She had made a promise to a woman who could have been dying, who may already be dead. She had promised Christina to bring Adam home - that’s why she was in Hong Kong. Wasn’t it? But hadn’t she decided to come to Hong Kong before she met Christina Yong?

‘
But as far as what you do for a living is concerned, Gabrielle, I’m afraid I’m not going to be as forthcoming. I think you provide a service, because I don’t think you’re ruthless enough to be in the commercial sector. I think if you ever hurt anybody you would feel their pain. So, police? No. Doctor or nurse? Maybe. Social worker? That’s another maybe. Probation service?’ She shook her head. ‘That’s another no. So, where does that leave me? You help other people but in what capacity?’ Elizabeth fell silent.

Gabrielle smiled. ‘And you’ve learnt all that in the space of just a few hours?’

‘
Put it down to my age, dear. You don’t get to your seventies without learning a thing or two about people. You’re a good person, Gabrielle, but maybe you still have a lot to learn.’

Eric appeared at the doorway. ‘I’m knocking together a curry,’ he informed the two women, ‘is there anything you don’t like, Gabrielle?’

Gabrielle smiled as she looked up at him. ‘No, there’s nothing I don’t like and I’m particularly partial to a curry.’

Eric nodded. ‘Good, good. It’ll be ready in about half an hour.’

‘
He makes an excellent curry,’ Elizabeth said, once Eric disappeared back inside, ‘but I hope you like yours hot. He does tend to over egg the pudding.’

‘
I love curry and the hotter the better.’

‘
We’ll see,’ Elizabeth whispered with a smile so that Eric would not overhear them. ‘Now am I very far off the mark?’

‘
No,’ she whispered back, smiling and coming to a decision. ‘I’m a minister in the Scottish Episcopal Church.’

Elizabeth’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘A minister? But that’s incredible, quite incredible.’

‘
Why?’

‘
Because that’s what Jane …’ Elizabeth stopped, and as she turned her head towards the sea, Gabrielle saw tears forming in her eyes.

“
What are you two whispering about?” asked Eric from the kitchen.

“
Nothing, dear,” Elizabeth managed to say.

*  *  *

Leila looked up at Adam. His eyes were still closed. ‘I think I might just lock you away in a cage and only allow you out when I need you,’ she said. ‘That was fantastic.’

Opening his eyes Adam smiled. ‘I think maybe you had something to do with it.’

‘
Whether I did or not, I just hope that ...’ The same feelings, the same thought processes, the same everything. She was jumping from one dream to another, but the nightmare always won.

‘
What’s the matter, Leila? You’ve suddenly gone all serious on me.’ Adam lowered himself so that their bodies were touching wherever possible. ‘Are you the one who’s now having second thoughts?’ He kissed her gently.

‘
About what?’ she asked, their lips still touching.

He lifted his head slightly. ‘I don’t know, I suppose that was rather a stupid thing to say.’

‘
People say stupid things at a time like this.’

‘
Do they?’

‘
In my experience, yes, they do.’

‘
And how often have you said something stupid at a time like this?’

‘
That would be telling.’

‘
So tell me.’

‘
Not very often.’

‘
Then you have defeated your own argument.’

Leila gazed into the eyes that were laughing at her. ‘Who are you, Adam?’

‘
You know who I am.’

‘
I’m no longer so sure. There must be more to you than you’ve told me.’

He smiled. ‘Why? Because in the space of just a few hours I’ve gone from rejecting you to wanting you all the time? Is that why you’re confused? You’ve taken me from not knowing what I wanted to seeing there is future after all, not just a past, and then you thank me for thanking you. What am I supposed to do or say? I am what you see, Leila, and what you see is what you get. I arrived in Hong Kong looking for answers when I didn’t even know what the questions were, and you are there by my side before I can even set foot out of the airport. What am I supposed to think?’

Moving slightly so that she could put her hands on his shoulders, Leila cocked her head to one side. ‘I thought I was asking the questions.’

‘
You asked me who I am and I suppose in my own way I’m trying to tell you. I thought I had lost everything. I thought my whole world had fallen apart and then out of the blue you come along and, and you do something to me that I didn’t know was possible. How am I supposed to feel? You ask me who I am. At this particular moment, Leila, I haven’t the faintest idea who I am but all I know is that whoever I am let me be that person forever.’