Hungry Ghost (18 page)

She went through it, the phone call from the man calling himself Holt, and call to her brother, and then the one from the headmistress. He could smell alcohol on her breath.

‘Has anyone called since you spoke to me?’

‘The phone rang twice, but I did as you said and didn’t answer it.’

‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be all right.’ He tried to sound confident but it belied the cold dread in his heart and Jill knew it. ‘Wait here, I have to speak to Franc and Ricky. Do you want another drink?’

She shook her head fiercely. Alcohol wasn’t a crutch she needed when he was there.

Lam and Tse were standing in the hall, unwilling to intrude on the family’s grief. They’d heard enough from the phone conversation in the tailor’s shop to know what was going on but he quickly explained anyway.

‘I need Double Flower White Paper Fan. And tell Elder Brother to be ready.’ Ready for what, he didn’t know. Lam and Tse scurried off.

Elder Brother wasn’t related to Ng, it was slang for the triad’s Hung Kwan official, the man who controlled the twelve fighting sections, almost 250 fighters in all, Red Poles like Lam and Tse. White Paper Fan meant adviser, and the prefix Double Flower identified Ng’s most senior confidant, Cheng Yuk-lin. Cheng had been appointed White Paper Fan by Ng’s father and Ng himself had promoted him to Double Flower soon after his father had retreated to the Peak and handed over the mantle of Lung Tau – Dragon Head.

Ng went into the kitchen and helped himself to a Coke from the fridge before joining Jill in the lounge. She was still wearing the silk suit, but the black bow had disappeared and her hair was a mess; yet she was still the most attractive woman he’d ever seen and he loved her passionately. She was looking straight ahead with blank eyes and at first he thought she was in shock until he realized she was looking at Sophie’s photograph in the bookcase. He walked over and picked it up, a colour picture of her in her school uniform taken six months earlier. He handed the brass-framed portrait to her and she sat with it in her lap.

Neither of them knew what to say, how to put their grief into words. It had been a difficult birth eight years ago, one that had nearly killed Jill and which had left doctors in no doubt that Sophie would be an only child. To have her taken from them now was more than they could bear. Ng would pay, or do, anything to get her back. He sat down next to Jill and rested his head against her cheek.

‘I’m sorry,’ was all he could say, and then she started crying again, tears plopping down on to the glass covering the photograph. He reached for her but the phone rang, startling them both.

Ng picked it up. ‘Yes?’ he said, using English. Jill clasped the photograph to her chest.

‘Simon?’ said Dugan. Ng cursed inwardly but kept his voice pleasant.

‘Pat, how are you?’ He’d have checked up on Holt by now.

‘Fine, is Jill there?’

‘She’s upstairs, can I take a message?’

‘Er – I’d rather speak to her if she’s there, Simon. She rang me earlier.’

Ng knew that if he tried to stop him he’d set alarm bells ringing so he placed his hand over the receiver and said quietly to his wife: ‘It’s your brother, you’ll have to talk to him. Don’t let him know there’s anything wrong. Understand?’

She nodded and wiped her eyes on the back of one hand. Ng handed her the phone.

‘Hiya, brother of mine,’ she said. Her voice wavered slightly so she shook herself and sat bolt upright.

‘Are you OK?’ asked Dugan.

‘Of course,’ she said brightly. Ng could see the tears were about to start again.

‘I’m ringing about that Holt thing. Just as I thought, there is only one Holt. I’ve checked all the departments and the ICAC.’

‘Must be somebody fooling around,’ said Jill. She closed her eyes tightly to hold back the tears.

‘Maybe, and maybe not,’ said Dugan. ‘But it seems a bit more than coincidence that someone steals his warrant card and then you get a call from an imposter wanting to speak to Simon. Have you told him?’

‘No, I mean yes.’ Christ, she was getting confused. ‘I just told him. He said it was probably a joke, one of his friends trying to fool him.’

‘Simon doesn’t have too many gweilo friends, does he?’

‘No but, oh I don’t know, Pat. I’m sure it’s nothing worth bothering about. Thanks for checking but just drop it.’

‘OK,’ said Dugan. ‘I’ll see you Sunday then.’

‘Sunday?’ said Jill.

‘Yeah, you invited Petal and me around for a barbecue. It’s still on, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, yes of course. Look, Pat, I have to go. See you.’

She hung up and began sobbing again as she rocked backwards and forwards on the sofa. Ng sat down next to her and held her hands, waiting for the tears to subside. A discreet cough from the doorway made him look up. An old man stood there, dressed in the traditional Mao-style jacket and trousers made from black Chinese silk, plastic flip-flop sandals on his feet. His head was egg-shaped and totally bald, the eyebrows thin and stiffly arched, the eyes pale and watery, the lips bloodless and curling downwards. It was not a friendly face, it was a face that led to some of the younger and more irreverent triad members calling Cheng Yuk-lin ‘The Vampire’ behind his back. It was a face that had barely changed over the thirty years or so that Simon Ng had known it; there was nothing left to age, no more hair to lose, no smooth skin left to be wrinkled. The only step left in the ageing process for the triad’s trusted Double Flower White Paper Fan was death.

‘Cheng Bak-bak, thank you for coming,’ said Ng, getting to his feet and walking over to greet him. The old man nodded slowly and gravely and Ng knew that he’d already been told about Sophie. Only in private did he call his adviser Bak-bak, or uncle. It would give neither of them face to be so informal in front of other triad members, but there was a bond between them that went way beyond the normal relationship between a Dragon Head and a White Paper Fan. If Cheng hadn’t loved Ng like a son he would have retired long ago and Ng had always been grateful for his guidance. Cheng had his own cottage on the opposite side of the compound, screened by a clump of palm trees; there he could tend his small garden and listen to his collection of songbirds in peace.

Ng took Cheng through the hall and into the book-lined study. It was an incongruity in the hi-tech house; old-fashioned, heavy English furniture that would have been more at home in a London club. There were framed hunting prints on the walls and a brass swan-necked lamp on the leather-topped walnut desk. The windows overlooked the gate and guardhouse where Ng could see Lam talking earnestly to the three men on duty. Locking the stable door after the horse had bolted, Ng thought ruefully. He sat on the captain’s chair behind the desk and rested his elbows either side of the blotter as Cheng carefully lowered himself on to a generously upholstered Chesterfield.

‘Would you care for tea, Bak-bak?’

‘No thank you, Chao-huang.’ Cheng was the only person, apart from his father, who called Ng by his Chinese name. ‘Just tell me what happened.’

Ng went over it for the old man, and when he finished he realized how little information they had.

‘Your wife is sure it was a gweilo?’

‘Definitely. And he used the name Inspector Holt.’

‘Then you realize this is not a brotherhood problem. It is either a simple matter of extortion, or something personal, an individual or organization trying to hurt you, almost certainly from outside Hong Kong. Locals would surely not bring in gweilos, not when help is so readily available from Taiwan or the mainland. I suggest you compile a list of all those non-Chinese who might want to cause you harm. And your fathers and brothers should do the same. Other than that there is nothing to do but wait until he calls again.’

‘He might have done that already,’ said Ng. ‘I told Jill not to answer the phone and it rang before I returned home.’

The old man nodded, and as he did so the phone on the desk rang, giving them both a start. Ng grabbed for it and had the receiver to his ear before the echo of the first ring had faded.

‘Yes?’ he said. It was the gweilo.

‘Simon Ng?’

‘Yes.’

‘Listen and listen well,’ said Howells. Ng scrambled in his right-hand desk drawer for a writing tablet and took a pen from the crystal pen stand in front of him. He gestured towards the door and mouthed the word ‘extension’ and Cheng eased himself off the sofa and padded out. Before he’d crossed the hall Ng heard a click on the line and realized that Jill had picked it up. He hoped she’d be sensible enough to keep quiet.

‘I have your daughter,’ said Howells.

‘I know,’ said Ng.

‘This is what you must do if you want her back. Do you have a pen?’

‘Yes.’ The monosyllabic answers were clipped and efficient. Ng was not a man to waste time.

‘I want one million dollars from you. One million Hong Kong dollars. I want it by tomorrow morning, seven o’clock.’

Ng began to protest, trying to play for time, but Howells interrupted. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence, most of your businesses involve cash. I will call you at six o’clock tomorrow morning. If you do not have the money by then, she dies. Is that clear?’

‘How do I know you have her?’

‘How many ransom demands have you had today?’

‘Then how do I know she is all right?’

‘You don’t. But if I do not have the money by seven o’clock I can guarantee that she will not be all right.’ The connection went dead.

Ng joined Jill and Cheng in the lounge. She was drying her eyes with a white linen handkerchief. She blew her nose loudly. Rose came in and stood by the sofa, wringing her hands, knowing that something was wrong but not sure what it was.

‘Sorry to bother you, Mrs Ng, but Manny wants to know if there is anything you want collecting from town when he goes to pick up Sophie,’ she said.

‘Tell Manny that Sophie won’t need picking up today,’ said Ng. ‘She’s going to a party with one of her schoolfriends straight from school. And could you fetch my wife a cup of tea, please.’

When the amah had left, Ng asked Cheng what he thought. The old man held his arms out at his sides, hands wide open, palms up.

‘One million dollars is not a lot of money,’ he said simply.

The thought had already occurred to Ng. Anyone who knew him would know that he would pay a lot more than that for his daughter’s life. Why not two million? Or five? There were a hundred other families in Hong Kong that could just as easily be hit for a million bucks – why risk the wrath of a triad? Unless it was personal. That was the only thing that made sense.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Jill. ‘What do you mean, it’s not a lot of money?’

‘Mr Cheng means that we’ll have no problems raising it,’ said Ng, pacifying her. There was no sense in getting her even more agitated. In fact, he already had at least a million in the safe in their bedroom. Getting the money was the least of his problems.

‘I will come back tomorrow morning,’ said Cheng, taking his leave as Rose returned with Jill’s tea. Ng took it off the tray and lifted it to his wife’s lips and waited while she drank. She wiped her eyes again and sniffed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘What for?’

‘For being so weak.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, hugging her and burying his face in her hair. ‘It’ll be all right, I promise I won’t let anything happen to her.’ He wished he felt as confident as he sounded.

‘You seem miles away tonight,’ said Petal.

Her voice jolted him out of his reverie and Dugan smiled. ‘Just tired I guess,’ he said. They were in a noisy, boisterous Taiwanese restaurant in Causeway Bay. The cinema had been packed, not a seat to be had, and they had decided to go and eat instead.

‘You must be exhausted to daydream in a place like this,’ she laughed.

It was true. The restaurant was packed to the red velvet-lined walls with Chinese families, never quiet eaters at the best of times. At the table nearest them were three squabbling children, one playing with a small electronic game that had an annoying ‘beep beep’ and the others having a shoot-out with plastic guns that flashed lights and whirred. Two old men were shrieking at each other and jabbing their chopsticks into the air as if impaling flying insects while a middle-aged woman lowered her head to the grubby pink tablecloth and noisily spat out a mouthful of chewed chicken bones. A waiter swaggered up and slopped tea into their cups from a stained and chipped teapot, the lid tied to the handle with plastic twine. The air was alive with arguments and laughter, with the clicking of chopsticks and the clunking of bowls, and the rattle of metal trolleys piled high with dirty crockery being pushed to the kitchen. Even the fans overhead grated and shook as they tried in vain to stir the smoky atmosphere.

Petal and Dugan were sitting side by side at a table big enough for six. They’d polished off prawns fried in garlic, sweet and sour soup and beef with green peppers and white cabbage in a creamy sauce and were now filling what little space was left in their stomachs with fried rice. Dugan’s chopsticks had been suspended three inches above his bowl of rice before Petal broke into his thoughts.

‘I miss the old Berni Inns,’ he said.

‘Huh?’ She made the soft grunt that the Chinese used to mean a thousand different things, anything from ‘Pardon’ to ‘I agree’ to ‘The Restaurant’s On Fire But We’ve Still Got Time To Finish The Rice.’ Dugan guessed that in Petal’s case it meant she didn’t understand.

‘A restaurant chain in England,’ he explained. ‘Steak, chips and frozen peas, a prawn cocktail to start and Black Forest Gâteau to finish. And virtual silence throughout your meal. Bliss.’

‘Do you miss England that much?’ she asked.

‘No, I’m only joking. And the food is one of the best things about living in Hong Kong, being able to choose any one of a hundred sorts of cuisine: Thai, Korean, all the different kinds of Chinese, Japanese, and even British pub food. No, I don’t miss England that much.’