Nine Dragons - A Beatrix Rose Thriller: Hong Kong Stories Volume 1 (Beatrix Rose's Hong Kong Stories Book 2) (6 page)

The girl’s face was ashen and her eyes stared ahead, unresponsive. Beatrix recognised the beginnings of shock.

“It’s going to be fine, Grace. I’m going to take care of it for you.”

No response. Beatrix felt overwhelmed. She didn’t know what to do. She had been a mother, once, but that seemed a hundred years ago now. She had never been particularly maternal, although she loved Isabella with all her heart. The responses and reactions that came naturally to some mothers did not come as easily to her. She’d had to work at it, constantly reminding herself to focus on her child’s needs.

“Grace,” she said. “That’s a cute name.”

“My mother liked it.”

That was an opening. “Your mother… where is she?”

“I have no mother,” she said, before she realised that she had betrayed her lie from before.

“The woman in the flat?”

“She is
not
my mother,” she said, with a little heat.

“Then…?”

“My mother is dead. That is my sister.”

Beatrix stopped. Her
sister
? The woman didn’t look young enough to be her sibling. Whatever it was that she was addicted to—heroin, or ice, or crack—it had scoured the youth from her face.

Grace looked down at her lap.

“Then where is your sister?”

“I do not know. I have not seen her for a week. And I do not care.”

She stared at Beatrix and, without warning, began to weep.

Beatrix hovered before her, unsure once again what she was supposed to do. She knew that she was being drawn into a situation that she might come to regret. But the girl was so pitiful and helpless that it was impossible not to think of her own daughter.

Isabella had watched her father’s murder.

She had watched her mother kill.

She had watched her mother abandon her.

Beatrix hoped that the men and women responsible for Isabella’s abduction would show her compassion, despite the circumstances. This was not so different. Grace was a child confronted by the most obscene situation and unable to work out how to react.

And she was alone.

Beatrix drew the girl into a hug, stroking her glossy black hair with the palm of her hand.

“It’s all right,” she said. “You’re safe.”

She disengaged herself with a sudden jerk. “I am not safe,” she said, her eyes full of desperation. “He is
triad
. They come for me.”

Beatrix held on to her shoulders. “No,” she said. “They won’t.”

“Beatrix. The men he work with, they are
dangerous
.”

“I’ll look after you, Grace.”

“They are killers.”

“Grace, you’re not listening—”

“No, Beatrix,
you
not listening.”

“They don’t know what has happened to that man. We will make him disappear. And then we will make you disappear, too.”

“You cannot hide from triad. Triad are everywhere. Triad
are
Hong Kong.”

“They won’t be able to hurt you, Grace. You have my word.”

Did she believe it herself?

Not really.

She hoped the girl didn’t hear the uncertainty in her voice.

BEATRIX GAVE her bed to the girl. Grace was tired, her eyes rimmed with red, and it would be better for everyone if she was oblivious in sleep.

Chau worked through the night to dispose of the dead man. Beatrix had often assisted him during clean-up, but this time she left him to it. She stood guard as he left the flat to go and collect his butchery equipment, returning with his large leather satchel and the large blue plastic sheet that he would spread over the floor to collect the blood when he started to dismember the body. The door to the flat remained closed for the next two hours. She knew that he would be removing the arms and the legs, decapitating the corpse and then bagging up each individual body part in one of the large vinyl bags that he bought in bulk from a Kowloon trader. Each bag would be delivered to the Goodbye Dear Pets Cremation Centre. Chau knew the owner and, for a decent sum, their large industrial incinerator could be called upon to make the earthly remains vanish for good.

It was a little after two in the morning when she heard the door open and close and the rattle and clank of the lift as it was summoned to their floor. Ten minutes later, she heard the lift ascend again, and then heard the door as it was unlocked, opened, and closed. This sequence repeated itself four times until, finally, she heard a gentle rap against her door.

She looked through the peephole, saw Chau, and opened the door.

He gave a single nod and stood aside.

Beatrix crossed the landing and went into the opposite flat.

The triad was gone.

There was no sign of blood or any other evidence that might have offered a clue as to what had happened here. Beatrix knew how fastidious Chau was, and that he would have scrubbed up the blood and then used luminol to identify any residue that he might otherwise have missed.

“All good?”

“It is done. I will dispose of him.”

“Thank you, Chau.”

He gave her a shallow bow.

She turned and walked out of the flat. Chau followed and she closed the door.

“What will happen to girl?”

Beatrix locked the door. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I need to think about that.”

He paused, his mouth open as if there was something else he wanted to say.

She went to the lift and pressed the button to summon it to the floor.

“Don’t come back here,” she said. “Use the Facebook page when you need to contact me.”

The lift arrived and she opened the door and then pulled the cage back.

“Be careful, Beatrix.”

She nodded as he bowed again and got into the lift.

She waited until the car had descended and then went back into Grace’s flat. She looked around, opening the cupboards and seeing cans of chicken chow mein and dried noodles. There was nothing else, and Beatrix realised that the girl must have been living off just these basic foodstuffs. She closed the cupboards and gazed at the room. Everything was colourless and drab. She felt a flash of pity. The girl’s life had been difficult enough as it was, and then it had worsened.

She found a bag in the bedroom and packed it with a selection of clothes that she found. Grace couldn’t stay here, that much was for sure. Chau had been correct. They did need to be careful. Beatrix didn’t know whether anyone else knew where the dead man had gone, but she couldn’t assume that he was working alone. There was a chance, at least, that others would come. Grace needed to be gone.

She closed and locked the door and crossed the landing to her own apartment. She laid out two bath towels on the floor, set a sheet over the top and took the cushion from the chair. She locked the door and, staring at it, took the chair and propped it at an angle so that the top was jammed beneath the handle.

She took the Glock and placed it on the floor next to her bed. She lay down, rested her head, and closed her eyes. She quickly fell asleep.

BEATRIX WOKE early the next morning. She carefully opened the door to the bedroom and saw that Grace was still asleep. She took the Glock and hid it in a box of cornflakes and then hurried down to the store at the foot of the apartment block to buy breakfast for them both. She bought dim sum and congee with pickled vegetables, aduki beans, peanuts, tofu, and meats. Grace was still sleeping when she returned, and she remained that way until the noise of the kettle woke her.

She came out of the room, rubbing her eyes.

“Hungry?”

She nodded.

Beatrix busied herself, taking a plate and laying out the
gao
and
bao
and doling out the congee into two bowls. The girl sat cross-legged on the floor and devoured the dim sum. She ate quickly, shoving the dumplings and steamed rolls into her mouth with her fingers and then began to set about the rice porridge. Beatrix thought of the drab tinned chow mein that the girl had evidently been living off. No wonder she was eating so enthusiastically. Beatrix brought her a cup of tea and then offered her second helpings. Grace finished the rest of the congee and, when she was finally done, she leant back against the wall and gave Beatrix a small smile.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Grace looked across the room and recognised the bag that Beatrix had used to pack her things. Perhaps she had been ignoring what had happened last night, but seeing the bag must have served as a reminder. Her chin began to quiver and Beatrix thought she was about to cry.

“You’re going to be all right,” she said, trying to calm her. “The man is gone.”

“But I cannot return.”

“No. That wouldn’t be safe.”

“Then where can I go?”

“Your sister?”

“I told you. I do not know where she is.”

And I’m not sure that I’d be happy passing you over to her
, Beatrix thought. Whatever the extent of the situation she found herself in, one thing was clear: the sister was responsible for it.

“Do you have any other family?”

“I have aunt. In Tianjin.”

Tianjin was two hundred kilometres from Beijing. It was a full day’s travel by train and bus from Hong Kong.

“You can get in touch with her?”

“Of course,” she said. “I email.”

“You could go there?”

“Yes,” she said. “But I have no money for ticket.”

“Don’t worry about the money. Could you email her today?”

She shrugged. “Of course. I use café in road. I know man there. Lets me use Internet for free.”

“I’ll take you down there this morning.”

“She doesn’t check her messages every day. No computer at home. She use café, too. Checks every week only.”

“That’s fine. You can stay with me until you hear from her.”

The girl looked at her with a mixture of gratitude and confusion. “Why you do this, Beatrix? Why you so good to me?”

“I have a little girl, Grace. A long way away. I haven’t seen her for a very long time. If she was in trouble, I would want someone to look after her, too.”

“Your girl. What is her name?”

Beatrix took the locket that she wore around her neck, opened it and passed it to Grace.

“She is very pretty.”

“Her name is Isabella,” Beatrix said.

She felt a knot of emotion in her stomach. She busied herself with tidying away the breakfast things, turning away so that Grace didn’t see her as she bit down hard on her lip.

BEATRIX WAS washing the dishes in the tiny sink when she heard a loud impact from the hallway outside.

Grace looked over at her with alarm.

Beatrix dried her hands as there came a second impact and then, as she started to the door, a third. This one was immediately followed by the noise of a door splintering.

Beatrix stood at the door and put her eye to the peephole.

There were six men gathered in the small hallway. They were wearing tracksuit tops and new sneakers. Two of them were carrying meat cleavers. Three had pistols. One had a short-barrelled shotgun
.

One of the men, the biggest, addressed the battered door, drew back and booted it again. The wood splintered as the lock tore through the frame and the door flew back, bouncing off the wall.

Grace tugged at her sleeve. “What is it?”

“Get in the bedroom,” Beatrix said quietly.

“Beatrix?”

“Get in the bedroom, Grace.”

“I—”

“
Now!
”

She glanced back to make sure that the girl had done what she had told her to do. She hurried over and closed the bedroom door, then went and took the cereal box from the kitchen cupboard. She opened the flaps at the top, reached inside the box and took out her Baby Glock from its hiding place. The ten-shot magazine was full and there was a round in the chamber.

She went back to the door and looked through the peephole again.

Two of the men were waiting in the hallway. The others had gone into the flat. She saw them through the open doorway, turning the place upside down.

They were looking for something.

She stayed where she was, watching.

Her view was distorted by the narrow angle of the peephole lens, and restricted by the two men left to guard the hallway. But it was obvious from the urgent, barked Cantonese that she could hear from the apartment that, whatever it was, it was something the triads wanted very badly.

The flat was tiny. It only took them five minutes to tear it apart.

The four men who had gone inside had now rejoined the two in the hallway. They conferred for a moment. Beatrix assessed them. It was obvious that one was senior to the others. He was wearing a white tracksuit top unzipped to the navel. The skin underneath was festooned with tattoos. He wore a heavy gold necklace and chunky rings on his fingers. And he was angry.

She heard the door creak behind her.

She turned back and saw Grace, watching through the crack just as there came a heavy knock on the front door.

Shit.

She waved for the girl to go back inside the bedroom.

The knocking came again, angry and insistent.

She switched the Glock to her left hand, dropped the steel door chain into the receiving plate, unlocked the door and opened it.

“Yes?”

The man with the tattoos was standing in front of the door. She saw the butt of a pistol in the waistband of his Levis. His face was spiteful, with small eyes that were a little too close together and a bulbous nose. He looked at her and a moment of surprise passed across his face. She knew why: this was a poor, unpleasant place to live, not the sort of accommodation that would appeal to a
gweilo
.

He spoke in awkward, guttural English. “Woman who live there. You see?”

“No,” Beatrix said. “Not for several days.”

“Sure about that?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“Know her?”

“No. Not at all.”

The man looked at her. “I good at smelling bullshit,
gweilo
.”

“Why would I lie?”

“And where girl?”

“What girl?”

“Girl from flat. Young girl. Where she?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”