White Devil - A Beatrix Rose Thriller: Hong Kong Stories Volume 1 (Beatrix Rose's Hong Kong Stories)

BEATRIX ROSE stepped out of the cyber café and into the mad mêlée of early evening in Kowloon. The sky had been thronged with stacks of black cloud all day, and now it was caught in the hinterland between dusk and night: veins of purple that faded into the grey, like glittering seams of quartz. The plump moon hung high above the jagged edges of the buildings on either side of the street, casting a wan glow that strengthened as the thwarted sun dunked farther and farther into the horizon.

The streets of Wan Chai teemed with people at all times, but, with the switch from day to night, the narrow lanes and alleys were infused with a restless madness that became more and more frantic as the minutes passed. The lanterns that were hung from the metal tubes and poles of market stands had been lit, oases of golden light in the gloom. Traders exhorted passers-by to sample their goods: white and blue ceramic flowerpots, rolls of scallion-green velvet brushed with gold, cellophane bags of Balinese shrimp crisps, amber-coloured durian cakes, starfruit and lychee, bead bracelets with their big red tassels, statuettes of Buddha, fat and self-satisfied, sachets of herbs and spices, crosses made of ersatz silver, knock-off handbags boasting labels from Gucci and Prada.

Beatrix could smell wood smoke, joss sticks, boiling rice and excrement.

Hong Kong.

Heung Gong.

Fragrant Harbour.

Wasn’t
that
a big joke.

She was bustled and jostled, absently allowing the tide of human traffic to carry her along the street. She had no destination in mind, other than the need for a drink—
several
drinks—anything that would help her to forget the increasingly gloomy emails that had been waiting for her in her anonymous Hotmail account.

A local man bumped up against her shoulder, knocking her a step to the left. He spilled the Styrofoam cup of tea he was carrying, sneering his disdain for her, hawking up a ball of phlegm and spitting it at her feet.

She didn’t notice, and wouldn’t have cared even if she had. She was distracted, lost in a pit of despair with no prospect of escape.

Isabella was gone. Her daughter was thousands of miles away and she had no idea how to find her.

She shrugged her backpack across her shoulder and kept walking.

SHE FOUND her way to Nathan Road. The signboards outside the hostess bars welcomed crewmen from the USS
Nimitz
, the big American aircraft carrier that had been in dock for the past two days and which had spilled hundreds of men and women into the streets of the city, all of them searching for the illicit things that were denied them at sea: booze, drugs, and sexual adventure. They were easy to spot, the men with their crew cuts, tailed by attractive young women in miniskirts toting fake Gucci handbags. Beatrix walked vacantly by the go-go bars, where lithe women gyrated around chrome poles and men were persuaded to buy overpriced and watered-down drinks with the promise of sex that would often never come.

A little decisiveness returned. She wanted a drink. Needed one. She recognised a bar that she had visited before, a week ago, when she had first arrived in the city. The clumsy music of a Filipino cover band blared out of the big speakers in the main room, but she knew that there was a quieter bar at the back where she would be able to drink in relative peace.

She went inside, seeing the dozens of girls—mostly Filipinas from Hong Kong’s service community—in tight jeans and short skirts, waiting for a potential mark: businessmen, ex-pats, tourists and, today, eager American sailors. Beatrix knew about these kinds of places. The regular girls would be given a number. If she could get one of the male customers to buy her a drink, she was paid a percentage of the profit. It was brazen, naked capitalism, all the more stark given how close it was to the Communist mainland.

The back bar was quieter, as she had hoped. Once the door closed behind her, the music and the clamour from the main room was more satisfactorily muffled. She looked around. There were three Filipina girls, three Gurkhas, who were trying to impress them, and another dozen Chinese men staring glumly into their drinks. She went to the bar, took one of the battered stools, its stuffing held in by a criss-cross of duct tape, and looked at the bottles arrayed against the mirrored wall.

She ordered a double gin and tonic and reached down for the fabric backpack. She unzipped it and took out the printout of the email that she had received. There were three pages, a scant reward for the twenty thousand pounds that she had spent to get them. She had hired two private investigators to search for Isabella and they had both struck out. There was no sign of her daughter anywhere. She had known that would be the likely outcome, but that didn’t mean that seeing the words in black and white stung any less.

She didn’t blame the investigators. She had given them so little to go on, after all. All she had been able to say was that her daughter had been abducted from her home. That was true. But she had been unable to give them the full story of what had happened. She had not been able to tell them that the man who had abducted her was an assassin who worked for Group Fifteen, the classified agency that arranged for the elimination of domestic and foreign nationals who were injurious to the best interests of Her Majesty’s government. She could not tell them that she, too, had worked for the Group until information that she had discovered had led to her commanding officer, a man she only knew as Control, deciding that she needed to be eliminated. She knew, but could not say, that this was not a case of a jealous husband who snatched his daughter off the street and fled with her. Nor was it a stranger, a paedophile, or a sexual predator. Isabella had been taken by the state. They could change her name, erase her records, concoct whatever story they chose. They could send her abroad without fear of being stopped at the airport. She could be anywhere, with anyone.

She could be anybody.

But that didn’t mean that Beatrix was prepared to abandon her.

Couldn’t do that.

Had to keep looking.

And right there was the problem. She had money—lots of it—but it was spread around several safety deposit boxes in banks throughout the West End of London. There was no way that she could access any of it. She certainly couldn’t
go
to London. She knew that the Group would be looking for her. She would be arrested as soon as she stepped off a plane. There was a little money in the deposit account that she had shared with her husband, but accessing it electronically would have been the equivalent of calling Control with her coordinates and waiting for him to activate the nearest agent to track her down. The same was true of her credit cards.

She needed cash. But she had no way of earning it. It wasn’t that she was unskilled. She was, and prodigiously so. But her talents were very particular. They were not transferable. There was not an agency that she could approach to represent her, to find her the work that she was qualified to do. There was the sprawling Hong Kong underworld, but she had no means of accessing it.

She looked at the emails again. Both agencies were prepared to keep looking, but only if their retainers were paid up front. One was requesting £30,000 and the other, £25,000.

Money that she did not have.

A man took the stool next to her. There were plenty to choose from and she sighed in anticipation of the irritation that she knew was coming. He did not speak immediately. She looked at his reflection in the mirror. He was in late middle age, premature wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. He was wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt, stonewashed denim jeans that might have been fashionable for a week during the eighties, and a pair of box fresh white Nike trainers. He wore a hefty gold necklace, bracelets on both wrists and several large rings. He was completely without taste. He reminded her a little of Jackie Chan.

He looked up into the mirror and realised that she was assessing him.

“Hello, Miss.”

She ignored him.

“What is your name?”

“No, thanks,” she said. “Not tonight.”

He frowned and then, realising that she thought he was hitting on her, he blushed furiously. “I am not…please do not think that I…”

“Forget it.”

He looked mortified. He took a packet of super length Marlboros from his shirt pocket and offered them.

“No.”

“Then at least let me buy you drink.”

“I can buy my own drinks.”

“You like sake?”

“No…”

He didn’t seem to hear her, turned to the bartender and asked for a bottle of warm sake. The bartender turned and bellowed, in Chinese, to a man Beatrix had observed in the back room, ordering him to bring out a bottle.

“This is not bar for tourists.”

“Who said I was a tourist?”

“But you are American?”

“British.”

“My apologies. I am Chau.”

He waited, expecting her to introduce herself, but, when she didn’t, the colour in his cheeks returned.

She felt sorry for him. “Beatrix.”

“I am sorry?”

“My name is Beatrix.”

He smiled and then became grave. “This neighbourhood, Miss Beatrix—it is not safe for Western women.”

“Thank you for your concern, Mr. Chau, but I can look after myself.”

The bottle of sake arrived with two glasses. Chau unscrewed it and poured two measures. He took his glass and held it up. Beatrix still felt irritation at his dumb, oblivious persistence, but the bottle looked inviting, and she was in the mood to drink. She took the other glass, touched it to his and drank. The sake tasted like very dry white wine.

He drank and refreshed both glasses.

“I am sorry. I can see you would prefer to be alone.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chau.” She raised the glass. “And thank you for the drink.”

She got up, took the printed pages and went to one of the spare tables.

BEATRIX WAS reading through the reports for a second time when three men came into the bar. The atmosphere immediately changed; the frivolity was sucked out of the room. Beatrix was glad of the papers. She raised the page she was reading and pretended to study it, glancing over the top of it and assessing the newcomers. The men were wearing identical outfits: track suit tops, jeans and white trainers. They had tattoos on their exposed skin.

It was practically a uniform. She knew the signs.

They were triads.

Two of them stood at the door, one on either side, an unspoken injunction against anyone who wanted to leave. The third walked farther inside, looking around the small room with a proprietary air, and went to the bar. He was carrying a small leather satchel and his dark hair was long, reaching halfway down his back. He took the stool that Beatrix had vacated next to Chau, and began to speak. Beatrix was too far away to distinguish the words, and she doubted that her Cantonese would have been sufficient to make much sense of the conversation, but it was obvious from Chau’s demeanour that whatever it was that was being discussed was not a subject with which he was comfortable. His interlocutor slouched on the stool in a languid posture, punctuating his words with lazy gestures. He grinned at Chau’s evident discomfort, and Beatrix was put in mind of the way that a tiger toys with the hamstrung gazelle that it is just about to tear to pieces.

Not her problem.

She looked down at the papers and started to read them again, from the start, for the third time. Perhaps she had missed something. Perhaps, hidden amid the glum tidings, there was a small nugget of hope. It was all just a question of interpretation.

“No,” Chau said, speaking more loudly. “Please. This is unnecessary.”

She looked up. The man had stood and taken off his tracksuit top, and now he was hanging it over the stool. He was wearing a white vest. Every inch of skin was covered in elaborate tattoos: arms, back, shoulders, chest, even to the tips of his fingers. He was big for a Chinese, perhaps six inches taller and a hundred and fifty pounds heavier than Beatrix.

Whatever it was he was proposing to do, Chau was unhappy about it.

The man opened the leather satchel and took out a meat cleaver. He rested it on the bar. Then he reached across and held onto Chau’s left wrist. He pressed his hand down on the wooden surface, took the cleaver, and said something else.

“No!” Chau pleaded. “I already apologised!”

“Not good enough.”

“Tell him I am sorry. You do not need to do this.”

“No, Chau, we do. You know we do. A gesture, it is required.”

Chau jerked his arm and managed to free his hand. He stumbled across the room in the direction of the door. One of the men stationed there stepped up and hammered him with a stiff punch in the middle of his face. Chau’s legs went out from under him. The man who had struck him picked him up and brought him back to the bar. The second man took his wrist in his right hand and, reaching out, forced his fingers apart. The man in the vest raised the cleaver again.