Ruby came out onto the first floor. The place was chaotic. She looked around for Mann and the other officer. She eased her way through the crowds of people noisily negotiating the prices of a new shipment of clothes just arrived from the mainland. She headed towards the end where the tailors had their shops. There the touts took over. Fluorescent lights flickered above the heads as they assaulted unwary people with fake Louis Vuitton bags or copy Rolexes, promises of made to measure everything. They didn’t bother Ruby. She had her eyes on Mann and the one in a suit. She watched them making their way down the corridor asking about anyone who knew a young Indian girl who hadn’t been seen for forty-eight hours. In Mann’s hand he held a piece of the sari he had picked up next to the box with the girl’s body in it.

‘Getting warmer,’ Ruby said to herself as she watched them working their way. ‘Getting very warm…Boiling!’ she said after half an hour when they had stopped outside a tailors shop. Ruby stopped opposite, out of view, she was tucked behind the shelves in a small Indian supermarket. She smiled to herself, her heart beating fast. Her hands sweating as she pretended to browse through the DVDs. They were all porn. The old Indian who owned the supermarket stared at her, his eyes feasting. Ruby let him. She didn’t know him and he didn’t know her but they might one day have something each other wanted.

Ruby watched the Indian man sitting on the floor and sewing leather belts. It was Rajini’s father. Mann would be coming to him any minute. Rajini’s father looked up at Ruby and his eyes momentarily questioned. He wondered what she wanted and then Mann blocked her view of him. Ruby was watching Mann’s back. She wanted to hear the words being spoken but she couldn’t. She wanted to hear Mann ask him if he had a daughter, if she was missing. All Ruby heard were the gasps of panic in the belt maker’s voice. Ruby was content. She had done her job and a little more. She had been promoted to a Red Pole in the Triad ranks; the rank of an officer. She had shown her strength and proved she was worthy. It would be some time before any of the girls would show disrespect to her again. Rajini had been nothing to her, she meant nothing. Only the chosen could make it up the ladder. Ruby was one of the chosen. Rajini wasn’t, it was simple.

Ruby moved on further down the corridor and waited there, out of sight. She watched Mann call on his radio. A female officer came, they left. Ruby followed them as they made their way down the stairs to the ground floor and back out through the crowds. She stopped short of the entrance and engaged a money changer in some conversation. She watched them talking on the steps and then saw them go their separate ways. The sun had set outside. But Ruby’s day was just beginning. She walked past Shrimp as he stood on the steps and she followed Mann.

Chapter 24

As soon as he was sure the policemen had gone, PJ pulled Hafiz into a quiet corner of the restaurant.

‘You bring nothing but trouble on our heads. What is it the detective knows that you’re not telling me? Why was he here talking about a young woman’s death? Who was it?’

‘I don’t know, Dad.’ He pulled his arm back from PJ’s grip. ‘It has nothing to do with me.’

‘I’ve seen you hanging out with those kids. They’re a bad bunch. You’re just like them. You don’t care about working hard and making it, you only care about designer shoes and phones and you aren’t prepared to work for them. Nothing comes for free, my lad. If you have signed up to some Triad society the price will be big. These Mansions will be running with blood soon: Indian against Indian, child against child. You have no idea about what you’re involved in. If you had something to do with that poor girl getting killed I’ll have nothing more to do with you.’

Hafiz looked at his father, stony faced. ‘You’re always blaming me. It’s not always my fault, you know.’ He took off the serving napkin from over his arm and threw it down. ‘You know what? I’m not interested any more. I’m sick of working here for nothing. I don’t want this to be my life. I want more. I hope the Triads do take over. I hope this place does burn down.’

PJ went to strike him. His eldest son Ali appeared beside them and stepped between his father and Hafiz. ‘Don’t, Dad. I’ll see to it.’

PJ shook his head sadly. ‘I am glad your mother cannot listen to you talk. She would have put a stop to it better than me. She would have seen it coming the way she saw everything coming.’ PJ wiped his face with his serving cloth and looked close to tears. ‘If she were alive, she’d have put a stop to it all.’

From the kitchen a bell sounded for the third time. A meal was waiting to be taken out. Mahmud hurried past the door, laden with plates. ‘Thank goodness for the fact I have one son who believes in working hard.’

‘I’m going out,’ Hafiz said and he threw down his serving cloth as he left.

Ali looked at his father accusingly. ‘You should go easy on him. These days are difficult for Hafiz. He’s always chasing Mahmud’s tail.’

‘Yes and he’s never going to catch it or add up to him.’

‘We are all different, Dad, you should remember that. Nobody’s perfect, not even Mahmud.’

‘I know. I’m sorry but I’m worried for our future. You find out who that young girl who died was and if Hafiz had anything to do with it. You do the right thing, Ali. I want her family compensated.’

‘No, she’s not our caste.’

PJ looked at him, shocked. ‘You know the girl?’

‘Only the rumours. The kids talk, I listen. Her father is a leather worker, her mother cleans toilets. She sews in a tailors on the first floor. We must keep our heads down. That’s why it is important to get the right friends, Dad. We have to protect ourselves. Don’t talk to Inspector Mann. Let me do it. Don’t let Hafiz or Mahmud or anyone talk unless I am there. Victoria Chan warned us when she came to see us. She said things would start to go wrong here. Things would get so bad that they would push for the Mansions to be demolished. She told us to keep our heads down and we would be guaranteed a new restaurant after the refurb.’

‘But how do we know she’s telling the truth?’

‘We don’t. But we have no choice. She’s been good to us this last year. She’s proved herself to be a friend since Mother died. Say nothing, Dad. Do nothing to stop it.’

PJ looked at his son incredulously and he nodded, stern faced. It was that exact moment when the roles were reversed. When his son had grown old enough, wise enough, strong enough and knew more than his father.

Chapter 25

Mann and Shrimp stood talking on the steps of the Mansions.

‘Shrimp, take the girl’s parents to see her body and then come back here for me. Start asking some questions; loosen up some tongues. PJ was obviously nervous. We know Victoria Chan is stirring things up in there. Let’s try and tweak a few consciences and see if anyone wants to share some information about the Outcasts. Someone must know something.’

‘Yes, Boss.’

‘I’m meeting Tammy. I’ll see you back at the station.’

Mann passed the old Indian prostitute leaning against the railings on the corner of Mody Road, her foot up on the fire hydrant, folds of yellow chiffon tucked as trousers between her legs. When it came to sex, Hong Kong had something to cater for everyone’s taste. She’d been there for as long as Mann could remember. She played with the end of her thick black hair, woven into one plait that she wore on the side, gold bangles up her arms and rings through her earlobes. She shimmered in the sharp evening light after the deluge of rain.

He headed down into the subway to get away from the heat; the approaching storm had sent temperatures through the roof and humidity to 90 per cent. He walked in the cool of the long, straight, airy tunnels that took the echo of his shoes and bounced it around the clean walls, took voices and amplified them. The subway was an artery carrying the workers to all the vital organs of Hong Kong. It made him feel like running along the endless tunnels: white, stark, cooling on his head, tolerable on his tired eyes. But something jarred on his ears; from behind him came the click of a woman’s heels and the rustle of a mac. The heels grew louder. He turned to see a woman passing, her head down, her blond hair hanging down her back, thick, neat. She didn’t walk like a tourist: she wasn’t frantically looking at the exit signs in a panicked fashion. Mann watched her walk by. She had a good figure beneath her mac, small waist, long, slim calves. She walked quickly in her heels, black snakeskin with a matching handbag. It was a big bag, the new trend for women. Mann looked back to her hair. Nobody in Hong Kong had hair that colour; that amount of bleach would have destroyed it. If she wasn’t a foreigner then it was a wig. She passed him and disappeared into the crowds.