Kiss & Die (29 page)

My love is like a red, red rose
, Ruby hummed quietly to herself.

Sheng was staring at her. She stopped humming and let go of his intestines, twenty feet of blue-grey tube spilled from her lap; she crawled over to him. She was naked, covered in his blood. She reached behind his head and undid the gag mask. His mouth was full of blood where he had broken his teeth biting into the rubber ball.

‘Have you got something you want to say to me?’ she said.

Sheng stared at her. Blood spat from his mouth as he tried to talk.

‘I can’t hear you,’ said Ruby. ‘Speak up.’

‘Go to hell.’

Ruby picked up the saw and switched it on.

Shrimp was back at the hotel, getting ready for the evening’s undercover work, when his phone beeped – he had a message. It was from Nina.

Please Shrimp…I have to see you.

He knew he shouldn’t go. He paced about the room. He tried the rest of his surveillance team; no one else was in situ yet. It was four o’clock. He had an hour. If he slipped in the side entrance to the Mansions, he could get away with it.

He didn’t manage to escape the eye of the watchful Africans. David saw him arrive. He didn’t stop him. David could see as Shrimp flew past him that Shrimp had other things on his mind.

When Shrimp reached her she was in her usual place on the landing. She was agitated, more than he’d ever seen her before.

‘I am sorry about Hafiz.’

‘It was so horrible, Shrimp. I can’t forget it. Chief Inspector Sheng wants to meet with me and talk about it. I don’t want to. He’s a horrible man. Do I have to see him, Shrimp?’

‘No. I’ll talk to him. When I see him, I’ll sort it out, don’t worry.’

‘Thank you.’ She came towards him and wrapped her arms around him and held on to him tightly.

‘Nina. I am sorry, I am working. I can only stay a few minutes.’

She drew back and looked at him panic stricken. ‘Will you come back later?’

He shook his head. ‘I am sorry, Nina, but I won’t be able to see you for a bit after today.’ She pulled away and looked up at him. His heart was breaking. ‘I’ll be back, I promise. I’ll never stop thinking about you, not for one second. It’s just for a few days.’

‘Please don’t leave me now. I need you so much. You have to help me, Shrimp. I feel so afraid.’ Her eyes were fearful, starting to fill with tears. ‘We don’t have time to be apart. Shrimp, please…’ She wiped her eyes. ‘The wedding has been brought forward because of the problems with the Mansions, I’m going to be married next week. The man has money and my father thinks he can help us.’ She clung tightly to Shrimp. ‘You must help me, Shrimp. I need you to take me away.’ The panic was etched in her face. ‘Please. I love you.’

Shrimp pulled back and looked at her. He had never known love before and his heart was aching for her. He wanted to be with her every moment of the day. He couldn’t bear the thought of another man touching her, of her belonging to someone else. He knew this was real because all he wanted to do was to hold on to her and not let go.

Shrimp breathed in the smell from her hair. It was a smell of jasmine or rose and patchouli.

He didn’t want to let go. ‘Will you run away with me, Shrimp?’

He looked down at her and felt himself completely lost in her beauty and whispered, ‘Yes, I will but I can’t leave yet, Nina.’

‘No…’ She started crying.

‘Nina, please, don’t cry. I don’t have a choice. I’m sorry. So sorry. I would do anything for you but I can’t go anywhere right now. As soon as I can I will be with you all the time, I promise. I can talk to your father. I can ask him to call the marriage off. I can tell him how we feel…’

Nina turned away from Shrimp and shook her head. Her shoulders slumped and she began to cry. He laid a hand on her arm.

‘I am so sorry, Nina. I am sorry to let you down. It’ll be the last time I ever do. I promise.’

‘Have you got someone else?’ she asked, her voice shaking.

‘Of course not.’ He smiled at her concern. He hugged her and kissed her head. ‘I promise you, no one else.’

‘Please just sit with me a little longer.’ They moved to sit on the stairwell. ‘I brought you some sweets.’ She handed him two, wrapped in a napkin. ‘Coconut sweets for lovers.’

He smiled, her face was so sad, trying to be brave, he couldn’t say no. She watched him eat them.

‘It’s all over for me then, Shrimp.’ She turned and smiled and in her eyes was more than sadness, it was desperation and something else that Shrimp hadn’t seen before – desire. She kissed him, her mouth hard on his. Shrimp drew back. ‘I don’t want to give myself to an old man and never know what it is to feel the pleasure of someone’s body who
means something to me. I want us to lie together, Shrimp. Then we will never be apart again.’ She leaned forward and kissed him lingeringly on the lips and then she held him tightly.

‘Not like this, Nina.’

‘I know. I shouldn’t say it but I’m begging you, Shrimp. Just hold me. Come to my room, please.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes. My grandmother is asleep.’ She took him by the hand.

‘If I have to get married I’d rather get married knowing what it is to feel love.’

Shrimp followed her, feeling desire and despair at the same time.

The Mansions were a flurry of activity. Hundreds of CK’s employees slipped in unnoticed amongst the thousands of Mansion dwellers. They flooded the place with pieces of brightly coloured paper that seemed to appear from nowhere. They dropped leaflets in mail boxes, stacked them in the lifts, pasted them on all the walls, the stairs, the doors, landings – everywhere. They carried a simple message:

The Mansions are being demolished. You will all lose your homes. No one will be rehoused. No restaurants will be given new premises. It has all been a lie.

The leaflets littered the floors of the Mansions. Panic spread. By five o’clock everyone knew that Victoria Chan was their enemy.

Rizal had tried to warn her. He had not made it in time. His body was at the bottom of the maintenance shaft where it had been dropped. He had crossed Ruby too many times. He had not been worth the effort of kidnapping; anyway, Ruby did not have the room. She had another in mind for her bed. He was very close to it now.

It was six o’clock in the evening when Victoria had her
driver drop her around the corner from the Mansions. She had come to see PJ and the others. She wanted them to sign her deal. If they all signed then she could show Mann she had good intentions. She slipped in unnoticed, keeping her head down. She had dressed down for the occasion. But there was no hiding the fact that her jeans were designer, her sandals Gucci. There was no masking the smell of her expensive perfume. She felt watched. The Africans saw her coming. David and his friends sat on the steps whilst the world passed them by. Mahmud saw her pass. An Outcast pulled a whistle from his pocket and gave three small sharp bursts, gliding it beneath his hand as he did so. The Mansions echoed with the sound of answers.

She kept her sunglasses on as she walked towards the lift. She felt as though her heels were stuck in tar. She moved reluctantly forwards as she watched the people staring at her. She stopped at the lift on the left. She had decided to start in the Delhi Grill and pay her respects after the death of Hafiz. They would need reassurance now at this tricky time. She stood in the queue. The people turned to stare at her and the queue disappeared until there was just her in it. When the lift came she stepped in alone. Victoria’s heart was hammering. It was a bad enough experience coming to the Mansions without feeling like everyone knew who she was. She pressed the button for the third floor and waited. She looked around the walls. They were covered in the leaflets. She gasped as she tore one down and read it.

She looked frantically all around. Everything was covered in the leaflets, the floor was littered with them. She knew she had been set up. Someone wanted to see
her killed. She was never going to get out alive.

She pulled out her phone and phoned Mann’s number. He didn’t pick up. She was on her own.

Mann was in Miriam’s Cantina bar when he saw Victoria’s number light up as his phone rattled on the bar top. He didn’t answer it. The barman looked over at him.

‘Is Miriam around?’

The barman shook his head. ‘Do you want me to call her? She’s just upstairs. She’ll want to see you. She asked me to call her if you came in.’

Mann shook his head. ‘That’s okay.’

Mann heard the clash of a symbol from his message alert. He had voicemail. He picked it up and looked at the screen. He hated the fact that he wanted her, that when he listened to her voice his heart leapt. He had done nothing but try and not think about her and achieved the opposite. Now, he heard the frightened girl in her voice, whatever else she had lied about in her life, she wasn’t lying now. He knew she was in big trouble.

Victoria dreaded the lift door opening. She pulled a small handgun from her bag and loaded it. The lift came to a stop. She stepped onto the landing and looked across at the Delhi Grill. She saw PJ staring back at her; his face sad, angry; he was shaking his head. She tried the door, it was locked. It was then she heard the whistles and the feet running up the stairwell and she knew they were coming for her.

Victoria made a run for it. She pulled open the door to the next flight of stairs and listened. The shrill whistles had reached a deafening shriek, feet were like thunder on the stairs. There was nowhere else to go but upwards. Victoria sprinted up the twelve flights of stairs; her throat rasping and sore with the exertion. Her lungs screaming. She came to the end of the landings. She stood panting staring wide-eyed at the approaching mob. Only the stairwell to the roof remained. She had nowhere else to go.

Mann hadn’t even got a few paces inside the Mansions when he knew something major had kicked off. David came towards him. ‘You need a hand, brother? You’re Shrimp’s colleague, right?’

‘Have you seen a smartly dressed Chinese woman, mid-thirties come in?’

David nodded. ‘Victoria Chan? They were waiting for her.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘You come to help her?’

‘Yes. She needs a fair chance. She’s been set up.’

‘She is about to be killed. They’ve got her on the roof. Come on, I’ll take you.’ David shouted to his friends to come with them.

By the time Mann reached the lifts, the Africans were thirty strong, armed with sticks and batons. Some took the lifts, some the stairs. Mann came out onto the top landing and listened. He heard the whistles coming from the roof.

When Mann stepped onto the roof with David and the other Africans, it was dusk. In the half light he saw Lilly
carrying the urumi. The eagles would soon be going back to roost, for now they cruised the evening sky and watched. Mann looked around him. He stepped cautiously out armed with only a baton. He had his weapons inside his jacket and his gun in his holster but he wasn’t planning on using them. He looked at them now: they were a wild bunch of bloodthirsty kids, but they were still kids.

Lilly was in front. She had the urumi in her hand. She looked full of panic. Victoria was talking to her.

‘We can work this out. Don’t believe them, Lilly. I would never lie to you. I always intended to take you with me.’ She looked at them: around seventy scrawny kids, frenzied with excitement. They were inching Victoria back towards the parapet.

‘Kill her. Kill her,’ they chanted.

Lilly drew the urumi up into the air but she couldn’t do it. She brought it down either side of Victoria but was careful not to touch her. Victoria screamed and scrabbled to get away but she was pushed up onto the ledge. Below her the busy Nathan Road traffic hooted up.

‘Please…I promise, I will take care of you,’ she begged.

‘This is our home. You’re going to knock it down. You don’t care about any of us,’ Lilly said.

‘Kill her. Kill her,’ the Outcasts chanted, more insistently now than ever.

‘Stop now.’

The Outcasts turned at the sound of Mann’s voice.

‘Stop now and come away from the edge.’

The children turned and drew back when they saw the
Africans. So many together scared them. They looked to Lilly for guidance.

‘Go away, Mann, otherwise I will kill her,’ Lilly shouted.

‘You’re not going to kill her, Lilly, and you know it. She’s your best friend. Haven’t you told the others yet that you and her are in all this together?’

Lilly gave a nervous laugh and brought the urumi crashing down a whisker away from Victoria.

‘No, you haven’t. You don’t care whether the Mansions get knocked down because you know you can just move into a luxury penthouse and be Victoria’s little pet.’

Lilly tried to speak. The mob had turned their full attention to her. They were waiting. She shook her head, she spluttered. She didn’t know what to say.

‘It’s true,’ said Victoria. ‘Lilly and I are a team. Lilly knew about everything.’

Mann advanced. ‘It stops here on this roof. It stops before anyone else gets killed.’ He lowered the stick. ‘Come on Lilly, give that to me.’

‘Kill him…use it,’ they chanted as Lilly stood there shaking, panic written all over her face. She stared at Mann. ‘Show us if you want us to believe you’re with us. Show us…kill him.’

Mahmud appeared behind Mann. ‘Don’t do it, Lilly. We’ve had enough killing.’

Voices went up from the mob: ‘Lilly has betrayed all of us. She’s as bad as all the rest.’

Lilly raised the urumi and brought it down on Mann. He felt the bands of razors slice: one into the muscles on his arms, one across his chest and another cut his eyebrow open with its tip. The urumi wound its way
around the stick and chopped it in half. The Africans surged forwards to help. They cut a path through the Outcasts.

Victoria looked at Mann and saw how badly he was hurt, her eyes were wide with terror, her hair streaming out behind her. She was a she-wolf trapped on the ledge. She looked behind her nervously. One slip and she would be gone. She looked to her right. She watched as the attention shifted on Lilly. She saw a gap appearing to her left. She hesitated, they sensed she was about to run and they surged back towards her.

‘Lilly…’ Mann called, drawing their attention away again he clutched his bleeding arm to his side and wiped the blood from his eyes. Lilly raised the urumi again. It caught Mann across his face, his chest and his legs. It had cut him to the bone. In the pause when the three strands left his body and wheeled back into the air to join together and become one again he gritted his teeth and caught the ends of the weapon around his fist and held on to it tightly. Victoria seized her opportunity to run along the ledge and out of reach. The Outcasts stared frightened at the approaching Africans, they retreated towards the parapet, pushing Lilly ever closer to the edge. She held on to the handle of the urumi and Mann held on to the other end as he beat the kids back with what he had left of his baton.

Lilly screamed as she was driven over the edge by the mob. Mann wound the ends of the urumi round his hand and Lilly dangled at the other end. Its razor-sharp edges bit into his hand. He clenched his teeth against the pain. Blood dripped onto Lilly’s upturned face. She looked at
it, horrified. David and the Africans forced the Outcasts to the other side of the roof, away from Mann.

‘Don’t drop me, please, please.’

‘Hold on, Lilly.’ Mann tried to pull against her weight. ‘Reach with your other hand.’ Lilly looked at him, terror and panic in her eyes. ‘Come on, Lilly, try…reach for me…do it.’

Lilly was terrified. She was dangling off the roof of a skyscraper and she was crying. He could see the whites of her knuckles around the hilt of the urumi. Her hand was slipping. Mann reached down with his other hand and tried to grab her, but she was too far away. He wrapped another coil around his wrist. He was so far over the side of the parapet now that he was struggling to stop from toppling over. He pulled with all his might and the urumi bit further into his hand; it was now cut so deep it had became stuck. He looked at her face and saw the splashes of blood, his blood, as the razor blades bit deep.

He heard Victoria screaming in his ear. She was holding on to him. ‘No, Mann, you’re bleeding. You’re losing your hand.’

He pulled harder as he saw Lilly’s hand weakening. She looked at him, terror in her eyes. ‘Hold on…hold on…’ He shouted down to her and with one almighty pull he lifted Lilly two feet upwards. Mahmud reached down and grabbed her other arm and pulled her up onto the ledge. The urumi snaked in the air as its coils unravelled. The only thing still attached to it were three of Mann’s fingers. The Outcasts scattered from the rooftop like scalded ants as they ran back down the stairs and through the Mansions.

Mann lay on the roof. His wounds were deep. He was
losing blood fast. He felt the cold of the concrete under his back. He shivered. He closed his eyes. He heard Victoria talking to him and he heard the whoop-whoop of a machine overhead and then the world went dark.