The Trophy Taker (33 page)

As Mann entered the bedroom he saw the shadowy figures of Georgina and Chan facing each other a few feet apart. They were side-on to the window, both standing absolutely rigid and still. The only things moving were Georgina’s hands; they were trembling as she clenched the gun and pointed it at Chan’s face.

‘It’s all right, Georgina. I have him covered. Give me the gun now.’

Mann took a few steps forward and signalled to Li to find something to tie Chan’s hands with. Georgina still didn’t move, and she didn’t take her eyes from Chan. Mann inched closer – he was within a few feet now.

‘He can’t hurt you any more, Georgina. Give me the gun.’

She wasn’t listening. Her shoulders rose and fell with her rapid breathing.

‘I want to kill him.’

Her hands shook. Not for one second did she take her eyes off Chan, and not for one second did Mann doubt that she was capable of shooting him.

‘No, Georgina – you have suffered enough. If you kill him it will only make it worse. It’s not your job, believe me – it’s not yours.’

Keeping his eyes on Chan, Mann walked the last few paces and gently prised the gun out of her hands. He held her to him for a few seconds before steering her over towards the door and out of harm’s way.

Li had returned with a length of fisherman’s cord he had found outside. ‘Tie his hands tightly, Shrimp.’

Chan began to laugh at Georgina as she retreated. ‘I can’t believe you would do such a thing, Georgina, after all we’ve meant to each other!’

‘Leave her out of this, Chan.’

‘Why should I? She belongs to me. I own her. Besides that, she likes me really. She needs me. Don’t you, Georgina? We are quite a couple, even though we have our ups and downs, as you can see.’ He laughed at her again. She turned her head away. He turned back to Mann. ‘I don’t know what you think you are doing here. I know for a fact you don’t have enough evidence to touch me. The brothers have confessed to most of it, and the rest, unfortunately, has gone up in smoke.’

‘The staff didn’t feel like burning to death. Sorry, but the place is still standing. We have a team of SOCOs out there right now, going through it with a sieve. They will find enough to have you shot.’

Chan laughed. ‘I don’t think so, somehow. I do believe I’m cleverer than that, Mann. For a start, it’s on the mainland – can’t see the Chinese government being awfully helpful, can you? As you probably realise, many of them know about it already. Never mind what you find out there, none of it will be enough to get me to court, let alone convict me – and you know why, Mann? Because I am untouchable. I have the world’s richest perverts looking after my back, and they know that one day I will be Dragon Head of the Wo Shing Shing. Everyone knows it – even CK can’t stop it.’

‘You will have to be alive to enjoy it.’ Mann turned to Li. ‘Stay here. Look after Georgina. Watch out for anyone else.’

‘You don’t want me to come?’

‘No, Shrimp – stay here. I will be back shortly. Chan and I are going to talk about old times – we have some catching up to do.’

Mann pushed Chan through the adjoining room and out before him onto the sandy lane, down towards the boat. He looked behind him as he did so and saw Stevie in the shadows. He saw the way he carried himself; saw the way his right shoulder was raised, his arm steady – ready to fire his gun. But he didn’t.

Chan kept looking for him too. He had expected Stevie to rescue him by now. What was he doing? Waiting till the last fucking moment?

It was when they reached the water that the first real signs of panic crossed Chan’s face. Since the incident back when he and Mann were boys, he had hated the water. A big ferry was bad enough, but a small boat was something he’d never been able to get into. He turned, ready to run, but Mann anticipated it, held on to him tightly, as he climbed into the boat. Mann cast off, sat Chan in the seat beside him and started the engine.

Mann throttled the boat, reversed it, eased it round and headed out to sea, leaving a gentle ripple in their wake. He looked behind him. Stevie was edging away from the shoreline, his way forward now clear. He had chosen his path.

Chan sat back and smiled at Mann, pretending to enjoy the ride.

‘This is all very pleasant, but we both know you can’t do anything to me.’

Mann steered the boat out into open water. Nothing but the blackness of the still ocean lay ahead.

‘You won’t kill me. You’d be the most wanted man in Hong Kong. The whole of the Wo Shing Shing would be out to get you.’
Where the hell was Stevie Ho
? Chan thought.
Surely Stevie wouldn’t let him down
? ‘You can loathe me all you want, Mann. I am what I am.’

‘You had choices just like everyone.’

‘Did I? Even when we were kids you never understood what it was like for me. At school in England we lived as brothers. We were inseparable. But there was one big difference – when we came home in the holidays you went back to your parents’ nice home in the Mid-levels. I went back to government housing – ten to a room. I suffocated in the heat and dirt. One hundred and fifty people shared four open toilets. I saw the violence and the depravity of living without dignity, without money. Going to England showed me I could be anyone as long as I had money. Being sent to the UK for my education was the one piece of luck I had –’

‘It wasn’t luck, it was paid for by your hard-working relatives and you repaid your benefactors by joining the Wo Shing Shing?’

‘I had no choice. In my neighbourhood you did as you were told. I was recruited the summer I was fifteen. I hated it, but it brought its rewards. I accept I could have led a more honourable existence. But you never understood how it was for me. I had to take every opportunity I could in my life. I had to make it at any cost. You didn’t have that terrible weight of poverty and desperation hanging over you. All you had to deal with was being mixed race. It didn’t hold
you
back. You had the best of both worlds. You could choose to step effortlessly into either world, whereas I belonged to only one – a world that will get you if you don’t get it first. I had to climb my way out of the gutter.’

‘Yes, you had it tough, but you didn’t have to turn your back on everything decent. Life is full of choices, Chan, of roads to walk. You chose the lowest path you could find.’

‘The night of my father’s death. You were ordered to keep me away from the house until a certain time.’

‘Yes, I was ordered to.’

‘My father was a good man. He treated you like a son.’

‘Huh! He treated me like a poor relative. He kept me at arm’s length, made it quite clear he didn’t want his son mixing with me.’

‘You checked your watch so many times that night. I remember saying, “What is it? You late for a date?” You laughed and all the time you knew that my father was being tortured.’

‘I could do nothing to prevent it.’

‘Then, at the allotted time, you left me at my gate and you knew they were waiting for me.’

‘I told you – I had no choice. Triad orders.’

‘I was made to watch his execution. Do you know what that did to me? It didn’t make me fear the triads. It made me determined to wipe every one of you out.’

Chan looked about him. The water was closing in. He was becoming frantic now – Stevie was leaving it very late.

‘For friendship’s sake, Mann, take me back to shore. Let me disappear. You’ll never see me again. For the boys we once were?’

Mann didn’t answer him. He kept his eyes ahead and steered the boat further into the darkness. ‘Do you want to know how Helen died?’ Chan said, desper ation in his voice. ‘Do you want to know the man who killed her? If I tell you, will you let me go? I have a film of her death. I will give you that film if you take me back to shore.’

Mann cut the engine. The boat bobbed on the still water. The only sound was the distant horns of passing ships and the lapping of the water around the boat’s hull. Behind them, just a few lights from Cheung Chau’s seafront restaurants and bars winked at them from the shoreline. Mann thought of Helen. Her calmness, her strength, her beauty. He knew what he must do. Across the darkness, their eyes reflecting the iridescent white of the boat’s hull, they stared at one another.

‘I know all I need to know. I will search till I find the man who physically killed her and I will bring him to justice, one way or another. But I know that you are the person who is ultimately responsible for her death. I will have to live with my part in it. I will regret letting her get into that taxi till the day I die.’ Mann took out a knife and reached over to cut Chan’s bonds. ‘But I can undo something I have done. I saved your life years ago, Chan, saved you from drowning when we were boys.’
A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t
correct it commits another mistake
. ‘Sink or swim, it’s your choice.’

‘How long have I been asleep?’

Mann stood at the entrance to his bedroom, watching her.

‘A few hours. You fell asleep in the car on the way here. I carried you in and put you to bed. How are you feeling?’

‘Better.’ Georgina smiled sleepily. ‘What time is it?’

‘It’s nearly ten.’

‘What about you – did you get any sleep?’

‘I dozed a bit.’

Mann came to sit next to her on the bed. She found his hand and held it.

‘Thank you for rescuing me, Johnny,’ she said but her eyes were sad.

‘Please don’t thank me. I am sorry that it took me so long to find you. How are you feeling?’

She didn’t answer; she just shook her head. Her eyes filled with tears. She gripped his hand tighter.

‘Is Ka Lei dead, Johnny?’

‘Yes she is, I’m sorry.’

She gasped. A sob cracked from her throat. She sat up and Mann rocked her in his arms. Gradually the sobbing abated.

‘How did she die?’ she asked, her head still buried in his shoulder. His T-shirt was wet from her tears.

‘She jumped from the balcony.’

She pulled back and looked at him. Her eyes were filled with anguish and pain. It hurt him to see it. ‘I knew she was dead. I felt it, Johnny. I saw it. I was lying on this bed. I couldn’t move. A man had his hands around my throat. I couldn’t breathe. Then I saw her. It was raining. I held on to her hands. We were laughing and spinning around and around in the rain.’ Georgina smiled at the memory. ‘Was it raining the night she died, Johnny?’

‘Yes it was.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘She’s gone. She’s been cremated.’

Georgina rested back against him.

‘I so wanted to see her – one last time. What will happen to me now, Johnny?’

‘The fallout from Sixty-Eight is going to be around for a long time, and in a lot of places in the world. Lots of men will be very nervous for a while. CK says that you will be safe in Hong Kong, as long as you do not talk of what happened in Sixty-Eight. With Chan out of the way, that’s probably true.’

‘Why does CK care so much about me?’

‘You are a witness to things that happened at Club Sixty-Eight – the people who were there.
You
may not know who they were, but
they
know. And CK will feel responsible to them because of Chan’s involvement.’

She hugged his neck. ‘Do you want me to stay, Johnny?’

‘I can’t tell you what you should do. If you stay I will help you to start again. The first thing we are going to do is find an island.’

She smiled. ‘Become castaways?’

‘Yes. Just you and me – hide from the world. Get the colour back in your cheeks. Work on those freckles.’

‘We can’t hide forever, can we, Johnny?’

‘No. And I have to go and show my face at work now.’

‘Don’t go yet!’ She held on to him as he sat up.

‘I will come back. Then we’ll plan, okay?’

She smiled a watery smile and nodded.

‘I will be gone a few hours. If you need something to eat – take the keys with you. I’ll leave you some money on the table, there’s a supermarket a couple of blocks down. Otherwise I’ll get us something when I get back.’

Mann didn’t want to leave her but he had some things that just wouldn’t wait. Two of them were about to face a bullet.

He arrived at Headquarters and went straight in to see Superintendent White, to find him packing his belongings into boxes. The photos, the rugby trophies, memorabilia of forty years of service were all coming down and being neatly wrapped in newspaper and packed away.

Mann stood at the doorway and watched him for a minute. ‘Bit premature, isn’t it, David? You’ve got a few more months yet.’

‘They decided to let me go early.’ White looked up and smiled ruefully.

‘When are you off?’

‘I’ll be here for another week or so. They added up all the holiday I might
not
have had and decided it was time to go now. I have the house to pack up and the cat to find a home for. Do you want it?’

‘I’d love to, David, but I’d forget to feed it. Give it to my mother, give her something to fuss over.’

‘Okay. I’ll do that.’

Mann glanced around the empty room. ‘I’m sorry, David.’

‘Don’t be, Mann. I’ve had enough. I’m ready to go, believe me.’

‘What did they say?’

‘Oh, you know. The usual. Didn’t seem to be able to keep command of the troops any more. Best to hand it over to someone else.’ He paused in his packing, shook his head and sniffed. ‘And maybe they’re right. But I don’t want to follow some of these new orders and I don’t want my men to have to.’ He put down his box and turned to face Mann. ‘I am bloody proud of you, Johnny. Of course, it’s highly unlikely you’re ever going to make more than Inspector now. I think you can kiss promotion goodbye, but you will make a difference to the force and to Hong Kong, and that’s more important. And Mann…your father…he would have been very proud of you. Very proud indeed. He would have expected no less from his son, mind you. He was a good, honourable man, a real gentleman. But you could not have saved him from his fate, Mann, no one could. Live your life now. Don’t try to change the past any more. Draw a line under it and walk your own road. Keep on doing what you think is right, Mann, but try to work within the perimeters of the law. If you step outside too often, even to do good, you become like the men you hunt. There’s a thin line, Mann. Be careful not to cross it. And now, take some leave – you deserve it, plus it would be better to lie low for a bit.’

‘I will, David. Just want to tie up some loose ends first. What’s happening about the brothers?’

‘They’ll be gone in the next day or two, to Beijing and a bullet. We are still getting results back from the lab – we know who the skin and the scalp belong to.’ He handed Mann the sheet of paper with the lab results.

‘Jesus. They must have hated her.’

‘Yes. A bullet is no more than they deserve.’

‘But there are others who deserve it just as much, David.’

‘They will get it in the end, Mann. Karma and all that.’

‘Does karma come with laser sights?’

David White laughed. ‘Just watch it, Mann, and try to stay alive for Christ’s sake. Come and visit me. Maybe you’ll end up back in England one day.’

‘Visit, yes. But Hong Kong is my home. I couldn’t live anywhere else.’

‘Okay. Well, take good care of your Hong Kong. She’s a heartless whore at the best of times.’

‘Yes, and a beguiling mistress at others. But I can handle her.’

‘I have no doubt of it…her and her daughters. By the way, where’s my bloody boat? It better be in one piece?’

‘Back safe and sound at the yacht club.’ Mann fished in his pocket and pulled out the keys. He threw them across to White who threw them straight back.

‘You keep it. Leaving present.’

Mann walked down the corridor to his office to see Li.

‘Did you get your copy of the report into last night’s disturbance on Cheung Chau, boss?’

‘I did. The report was good, Shrimp. The drug-smuggling theme was brilliant. Exaggerating the heroin stash from two grams to twenty kilos was maybe a touch too much, though.’

‘Sorry, boss. I got carried away. But, boss – Peter Farringdon – the surgeon – he’s clean. Can’t find a thing on him.’

‘Keep looking, Shrimp. Everyone’s got something on them.’

Mann stepped outside into the corridor and made his way down the stairs. He was going to see the brothers for the last time.

Max didn’t move as Mann approached his cell. Only when Mann called his name did he slowly turn his head.

‘Did you find her – Miss Geor-gi-na?’

‘Yes. I found her, Max. She is safe. We also found your stepmother.’

Max grinned, and nodded his head, satisfied.

‘She came back one day, to demand more money from my father. We argued. She had a heart attack and died right in front of me. After she was dead, I let Man Po skin her.’ He looked up sharply. ‘They won’t let me see him – my brother!’

‘He’s all right. You’ll be moved soon.’

Max nodded. ‘I know.’ He had accepted his fate. He turned away from Mann and lay down on his bunk. He was finished with conversation.

On his way out, Mann stopped to speak to the sergeant in charge of the prisoners.

‘Move Max in with his brother. Make sure they stay together now, and pass on instructions that they should remain so till they face the bullet, till the last minute – together.’