The Trophy Taker (9 page)

Johnny Mann was heading east from Lan Kwai Fong, the nightclub end of Central District, and working his way along towards Causeway Bay, when he decided to pay another visit to Club Mercedes. He didn’t intend to stay long. He’d come back to the club in the hope of talking to Lucy and taking some more details from her about the foreign women who had stayed in her flat. When he got there he found out from Mamasan Linda that Lucy was out with a customer and that there was a new foreign girl working there – Lucy’s cousin. So he asked to interview her.

It wasn’t busy. He was given a table at the front of the club. It was an area far enough from the band that you could talk easily and be heard, but it didn’t afford the privacy of one of the VIP booths around the dance floor.

He was deep in thought when pink toes and gold strappy sandals appeared in his line of vision. Then there were long legs, smooth rounded thighs, a tiny waist and small full breasts to get past. But it didn’t even end there …
Shit! That was a face to die for
… It was heart-shaped with high cheekbones and large amber-coloured eyes. She had pale skin, a splatter of freckles across her nose, a long, slender neck and espresso-coloured hair that cascaded around her shoulders in pre-Raphaelite curls. She was not just pretty. She was breathtakingly beautiful.

‘Miss Johnson … is that right?’ he almost stuttered.

She nodded and a small anxious smile flitted across her beautiful face. As it did so, Mann saw that her mouth formed an almost perfect circle, topped with a cupid’s bow complete with a small turn up at either end – perfect.

‘Please sit down.’

She did so in a slightly uneasy fashion, as if she were neither used to the dress nor the heels. She seemed very young, thought Mann, and very out of place.

‘Mamasan says you’ve just started at this club. Is that right?’

‘Yes, tonight is my first night.’ She perched on the edge of the seat.

‘Did you work anywhere else before here?’ He tried a smile to relax her.

‘No.’

‘When did you arrive in Hong Kong?’

‘Two days ago.’

‘And what reason did you have for coming to Hong Kong?’

She paused, reluctant to answer, then blurted: ‘I came to find my cousins.’

‘Cousins? Ah, yes, Lucy! Have you any other relatives here?’

‘No. Just Lucy and her sister Ka Lei.’

‘You came all the way here to find them? It’s a long way.’

Mann felt a pang of pity. He wondered why someone so obviously inexperienced in life had come to the other side of the world, and at the worst time possible?

He paused for a moment and studied her. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-two.’

Yes, she could be twenty-two, he supposed: she had the face of someone much younger but the body of a grown woman.

‘Why did you choose a job in a nightclub?’

Georgina looked uncomfortable.

‘Do your parents know you are working here?’

‘I never really knew my dad. My mother died two months ago.’

Her amber eyes clouded over and she turned her face away. He instantly regretted asking the question. He knew what grief was like. Just when you thought you had it sorted and you could cope with people’s questions – BANG! The emotions came at you from behind like a tidal wave suddenly appearing over your shoulder. From a young age, from the time his father had died, Mann had learned how to cope by turning grief to rage – anger made a much better survival tool than pity. He learned to read the signs, to know when it was coming. So when he knew the wave was just about to outrun him he turned and faced it, waited for the spray to hit, then he jumped on board and rode the mother all the way to the beach.

‘Here in Hong Kong?’

‘No, back in England.’

‘I am very sorry to hear about your parents.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, with a flicker of a smile.

‘That’s your home – England? London?’

‘Devon, in the countryside. Do you know it?’

‘Not well. I was sent to school in England, in Hertfordshire. I went to Devon with the rugby team. We got hammered. They were all enormous – farmers’ sons.’

She laughed and sat forward in her chair, animated. ‘How did you end up in a school in England?’

‘My father was Chinese but my mother’s English. It was her idea.’

‘So you’re Eurasian, like me?’

Mann was struck by the strangeness of her childlike naivety as she beamed at him. This new knowledge had instantly bonded them in her eyes. It was like a secret handshake between them. ‘Now I can see it,’ she said. ‘You have Chinese eyes.’

Mann laughed. ‘Chinese eyes, a Celtic chin and ears like Mr Spock from
Star Trek
. See!’ He turned his head to the side and brushed his hair back with his hand.

‘They are a bit pointy,’ she admitted. Her laugh was young and spontaneous. There was more to her than met the eye. ‘Did you go to university in England?’

‘No.’ He hesitated, unused to divulging his life history to a stranger, but if it was putting her at ease it was worth it. ‘No, my father died. I had to come home to look after my mother. I wanted to,’ he corrected himself. ‘Then I ended up joining the police force.’

‘Is your mother still here?’

‘Yes, she is. She lives in a flat out at Stanley Bay in the south of the Island. I go over for Sunday roast when I can, take her some washing, keep her happy. Have you been to the market out there? Although we are not supposed to encourage the sale of counterfeit goods, it’s a great place to buy every type of fake T-shirt or Armani watch.’

‘No, I haven’t done much sightseeing yet. I’ve just been sort of settling in.’ Her voice trailed off again.

‘You haven’t been to the Peak?’

She shook her head.

‘You’ll have to do that. Take your camera, there are some fantastic views. You can see all over Hong Kong.’

He held her gaze and smiled reassuringly. She was a little girl lost in a big world. He just managed to stop himself from offering to take her sightseeing.

‘Do you ever go back?’ she asked, searching his face – looking for answers of her own.

‘To England?’

She nodded.

‘No, I haven’t been back there since I left in the sixth form. Hong Kong is my home. It always has been. What about you? How’s it working out here?’

‘I think I’m going to like it here.’ She beamed with a mix of conviction and bravado. ‘It’s a great place.’

‘Good. I’m glad you like it here. Hong Kong
is
a fantastic place. But the nightclub world is a dangerous one. You need to watch yourself here – be careful who you trust.’ He opened his wallet and took out a card. ‘On the back is my home number … just in case you need it. Don’t hesitate to call. If I can help you, I will.’

She smiled and thanked him.

‘And please inform your cousin Lucy that a Detective Sergeant Ng will be in touch tomorrow to take a statement from her.’

Georgina got up to leave.

‘Remember what I said, Miss Johnson – I don’t want to see you here the next time I come.’ He leaned closer, out of earshot. ‘This is not the place for a nice Eurasian girl like you.’

Once he got outside he checked his watch. It was one a.m. He stopped just round the corner from the Polaris Centre and pulled out a list of places he had to visit and decided where he would start. Tonight he was on a mission to cover as many hostess bars, karaoke bars and general ‘girly’ bars as he could get through. He wasn’t doing them in any particular order. They just had to have one thing in common – they had to have foreign girls working in them.

It was as he paused to push up his shirtsleeves and sling his Armani jacket over his shoulder that he felt a cooling breeze pass over him and prickle the hairs on his arms. He turned his eyes towards the starry sky and sighed gratefully.
Thank God for that – clear – no rain
. Summer’s one hundred per cent humidity and searing heat were coming to an end at last: the ‘cool season’ was on its way.

He took a diversion to the waterfront. It wouldn’t hurt him to take a few minutes out from his bar trawling. He needed to pace himself, keep himself fresh and alert. A bit of cool sea air would help him focus. He loved the water: it had a centring effect on him. Luckily, in Hong Kong it was never far away.

He rested his hands on the waist-high harbour wall. Dipping his head forward, he pushed against the cold stone to stretch the muscles in his neck and upper back. Releasing his stretches, he sighed heavily and took a few deep breaths. Lifting his weary head, he looked across the bay to mainland Kowloon. In the day the skyscrapers stood like gold-capped teeth crammed together, strong and immovable – the mouth of the harbour. At night they were transformed into illuminated beacons of delicate beauty. They shone their laser lights heavenward into the fuzzy-edged, tarmac-black sky, and bled pure primary colour into the deep still water of Hong Kong’s harbour.

Mann inhaled deeply and smiled to himself. He never got tired of Hong Kong; never got bored. Six years ago, in 1997, he had stood on this spot and gazed across this harbour and wondered how Hong Kong would survive the Handover and in what form. On that wet night Old Man China marched in at midnight.
Britannia
sailed home with a very wet Prince of Wales on board, plus the whole distraught Patten family. Old Man China had stood over his decadent daughter and stripped her of her colonial make-up. He had issued a new set of house rules, none of which was aimed at giving more freedom. He had allowed the triads to spread more freely than ever and he had made the police’s job a lot harder. There was still no witness protection scheme in place, so no one wanted to testify, and when they did manage to bring someone to court they did not have the power to seize their assets. How was that ever going to work? But, fundamentally, Hong Kong was the same wild girl she’d always been. She was strong, pushy, and a little dirty. Whereas the rest of Asia was famous for its nubile maidens lying on their backs saying ‘take me’, Hong Kong was renowned for being a gaudy old whore, opening her legs wide, saying, ‘It’ll cost you but there’s plenty of room.’

Mann wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else. He would live and die in Hong Kong’s arms. Which probably wouldn’t be difficult or take very long, the way that he was going. He knew it was a fault in him. He was too reckless. He had no conception of self-preservation – he recognised that. He never thought twice about a situation; he was always the first man in. But then, he hadn’t found a reason
not
to risk his life, and he didn’t want to find one either. The day his father was murdered, Mann’s dreams became distant memories. From boy to man in those few seconds. The boy died; while the man emerged damaged and burdened. His life, from that day forward, was spent trying to make recompense for that day.

Mann looked around – a few courting couples, small groups of overawed tourists enjoying the skyline – nothing untoward. He sat down on a bench, suddenly weary from the kind of tiredness that doesn’t so much creep up on you as hit you like a bus from behind, when you least expected it. His heavy head rested back onto the polished granite seat. He closed his eyes for a few minutes and his aching body relaxed. The cool breeze brushed across his face, and, before he could stop it, his mind drifted away.

His thoughts turned to England. He didn’t know why he thought of England so often. It must be the ‘cool season effect’ – autumn in Hong Kong was so like spring in England, with hot days and cool nights. Or perhaps, and more likely, it was because the time he had spent in England had been a precious time of carefree youth. But they were bittersweet memories – Chan was always part of them.

Mann shrugged off sleep and sat up. He instinctively touched the scar on his cheek. It was the scar that Chan had given him when they were boys. After a summer spent running with the street kids, Chan had brought a ‘throwing star’ back from Hong Kong. It was a triad street weapon, designed to maim rather than kill. He’d been showing off, demonstrating it to a group of boys, and had thrown it as Mann walked past. It had spun across Mann’s face, slicing a groove into his cheekbone where the skin was tautest, and left a scar shaped like a crescent moon. It had been impossible to make the wound neat with stitches. The school staff had been horrified. Chan had been sorry. But, in real terms, a scar never hurt a lad, and Mann wore it with pride. It left his smooth face with a touch of ruggedness, and the girls loved it.

Mann still had the star. It was part of a collection he had made of triad weaponry. He’d taught himself to use them – the stars, the throwing spikes. He had become an expert over the years. Combined with his martial arts training it meant he hardly needed to carry a gun.

He settled back onto the bench and made the mistake of closing his eyes again. Just for a few minutes he allowed the memory of summer rain, mown grass and humming bees take him spiralling back. Then, BANG. He saw his father forced to kneel. He watched a man swing a meat cleaver and strike the chopper hard into his father’s strong frame. He saw his father’s body judder and lurch as the chopper snagged, caught in muscle and bone, before it was freed by the assailant’s boot against his father’s back. His father remained upright until the last blow that split his skull.

Mann jolted himself upright. Sweat was pouring down his face and back. He stood up, shook his head and wiped his brow. The nightmare of his father’s death would never go away. The worst part was watching it, not being able to stop it – not being able to reach him in time; not being able to save him. It would haunt Mann forever. But he had been just a lad, and had been held back by three strong men. He had been made to watch in triad-style retribution, a warning to Mann and to others – what happens when payments are not met. He was just a boy, but still Mann blamed himself for not being a superhero, for not saving his father.

He looked about him in a panic, relaxing when he realised where he was. The courting couples had progressed slowly on their promenade and the tourists were still there. He leant against the harbour wall and steadied himself for a few seconds. He looked across to Kowloon. The stars were out. The laser beams were shining into the liquorice sky. The water was still. He shivered as the breeze cooled the sweat on his back, then he pulled out his list of nightclubs.

The Bond Bar would be next.

Lucy slid into the centre of the waterbed and flipped onto Big Frank’s stomach like a wet fish. They lay panting together for a few minutes. Lucy could hear his heartbeat through the wiry carpet of silver-grey chest hair. She lay there, smiling to herself. Big Frank was getting more adventurous every time. It wouldn’t be long before he was hooked. He could be the answer to all her prayers. God knows, she deserved it! He could get her out before Chan had any chance to look for her. Big Frank had big bucks, Lucy could tell – she was used to men with money – she’d known many. He was generous and eager – that was a good sign. Lucy would work hard on him, devote everything to winning his heart and soul. But she’d better hurry up: the clock was ticking and the debt was mounting.