The Teacher got up and went back inside. The heat was getting to him.

‘I better go with him. Keep an eye on Sophia for me.’

Terry picked up his beer and followed Teacher inside the villa. Reese drank some more beer and grinned to himself—

paradise—

it certainly was. He watched Sophia wiggling her legs in the water.

51

Becky sat on the bed for a moment after Mann had left. She felt a wave of guilt. She realised she wasn’t really missing Alex. She took her phone from her bag and tried phoning him; he didn’t pick up and it went straight to voicemail. She phoned Jimmy Vance. It was 7 a.m. in the UK, and she knew Jimmy would be getting ready to leave for work to make Proctor’s meeting by eight.

‘I am just slightly concerned, that’s all, Jimmy, I haven’t heard from him for a few days. He might ring you if he has an emergency of some kind. Also, can you pop into the flat for me, make sure everything’s okay? Thanks, Jimmy.’

She finished speaking to Vance, changed, slipped on a beach robe and closed the hotel-room door behind her. She walked down the stairs and through reception and was just about to head towards the beach when she had an urge to explore the rest of the resort.

She turned left instead of right and headed round the back of the reception. She followed the sandy lane that wound past the villas and then opened out onto a shaded pool. It was surrounded by tall palms; leaves rustling like paper as they shimmied in the breeze. There was a row of sturdy wooden sun-loungers, with thatched umbrellas between each pair to the left of the pool. To her right was a low wall that marked the boundary of the pool area, and straight across the other side of the pool was a pool table shaded by an awning. Becky could hear the sound of a girl laughing, but she couldn’t see the child.

She left her beach bag on one of the empty loungers and walked over to the pool and down the ladder, dutifully obeying the rules not to dive, even though she was tempted. She submerged herself beneath the cool, crystal water. All sound was muted into a dull roar as the cold water filled her ears and covered her hot scalp in blissful cold. She swam a length then emerged at the end and floated on her back. She closed her eyes and let the filtered sun coming through the palm leaves warm her face, before swimming a few lengths of front crawl. She stopped to catch her breath at the far end. Two girls had come out to play pool. The small one was the giggler that Becky had heard before. The elder girl wore a tiny silver bikini and matching silver stilettos. Her small breasts were padded out and forced into a cleavage. The bottom of the bikini had panels cut into it, revealing almost all that she didn’t yet have. She arched her body over the pool table, looked up and giggled at a western man who had come to sit on the low wall beside the pool. He wore small, round ‘John Lennon’ type sunglasses. He sipped his beer and watched Becky. The older girl giggled and wiggled around the pool table, leaning over and forcing the younger girl to laugh with her. She was watching the man watch Becky. He sipped his beer, slow and languid, and as he leaned his back against the palm trunk behind him, his baggy shorts gaped. His balls showed white against his tanned leg. He shouted to someone who appeared briefly in the villa entrance, next to the pool.

‘Come on out and get some sun. The pool looks great.’ His eyes followed Becky’s every movement. She swam to the end, climbed out of the pool and took the towel offered to her by the pool attendant. The man on the wall took a swig of his beer and lifted his head almost in a gesture of recognition as he grinned at her.

In recognition of what?

thought Becky.

How dare he…

It hit her and she was angry that just because she was white it somehow associated her with him. She was boiling with rage by the time she reached Mann. He was waiting on a lounger. She stomped towards him, wet and angry, the towel pulled tight around her.

‘What’s the matter?’ He sat up as she approached.

She threw the towel down. Mann watched her march off towards the sea. Her arse was too round to stop the bikini from riding up as she tried to walk fast in the hot sand. He sprinted down and caught up with her.

‘What is it?’

She strode into the water, knees high.

‘Some perve at the pool. Obviously with an underage girl, she’s dressed up like a tart. Plus—a really small girl, mixed race.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Old…surfer type, bandana around his head and hippy sunglasses—a real creep. He had someone else with him but I didn’t get a good look at him—another white guy he was calling to. They’re staying in a villa right next to the pool.’

Reese had no objection to the woman’s frostiness. It excited him in some way and she looked like one of the girls he’s known when he was young, back home. She made him feel nostalgic for the chase. He slid down from the wall, adjusted his shorts, and stared over at the man who had arrived and now stood at the other end of the pool. Stevie Ho stared back.

52

Becky and Mann had finished looking around the beach property that they had agreed to view at four—it was a bit dilapidated but ripe for conversion into a small hotel—and were now waiting for the owner to return. He had disappeared to consult his partner about the price. Becky had a message alert on her phone. It was from Alex…

Hi Baby. Sorry keep missing your calls. Reception crap.

Am fine. V busy here in Hong Kong. Will call you in a

cuppla days. Love Al. Xx

She was in the middle of texting him back when her phone went.

‘Hi Jimmy? Anything wrong?’

‘I think so. I’ve just been around to your flat and there was a woman there. She said she was a friend of a friend. Said she’d been told her that you were thinking of renting the flat out and that she was given the key to come and have a look whilst you were away. I told her who I was and she gave me back the key and left. She definitely didn’t like me finding her there, Becky.’

‘I don’t have a clue what that’s about. Did she give you a name?’

‘No.’

Becky finished the call and went to rejoin Mann.

‘Anything wrong?’ He looked at her face and saw that she was troubled.

She frowned. ‘Not sure really. Is the phone reception in Hong Kong bad?’

‘The best there is—we practically invented it, for Christ’s sake. Why?’

‘It’s just that Alex has been trying to get through. He says the signal’s bad there.’

Mann shrugged. ‘I’ve never known it to be.’

‘And there was something else strange going on back home…but I’m sure it’s nothing…Jimmy’s looking into it for me.’ She gave a flicker of a smile but Mann could see she was worried.

Becky didn’t want to say any more. She had to try and work out what it meant. Why was there a woman in the flat? The owner returned with his brother-in-law.

‘We are sorry, sir, but we have already sold the house. It is no longer for sale.’

‘You have had an offer?’ asked Mann.

‘Yes—a very good offer.’

‘Who made you that offer?’

The two men looked at each other and spoke in their dialect.

‘A Chinese man.’

‘The offer was made today? Did he come here?’

‘No. He made the offer by phone.’

‘And you accepted it? He could cheat you. I can give you a payment right here.’ Mann pretended to fish in his pocket.

‘No, no…’ They shook their heads and looked decidedly edgy. ‘We know this Chinese man. He has made a good offer. We accept.’