‘Attempting to bribe a police officer is also an offence. Have the car removed or I’ll have it scrapped.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I think you do. You might think you are being clever, Victoria, but you fail to understand the thing that makes us so different and that will always separate us.’

‘There is no difference that cannot be compromised. No deal that cannot be struck.’

‘But I don’t want anything. You cannot sell me something I don’t want. If you have taken over the role of your husband then you will be my enemy, just as he was.’

‘Do not tar me with the same brush as him. I hated my husband. He never added up to one good thing in all of his life.’ A different light came into her eyes. It was a look that took her somewhere else for a few seconds, somewhere unpleasant. At least Mann knew she was honest in her hatred of her husband, honest about one thing at least.

‘And you? What do you want to add up to? Don’t think for one minute that I am taken in by your Little Miss Victim act. You have played your way into the top seat at the Wo Shing Shing. If I was your father, I’d watch my back.’

‘My father has made mistakes. He has had his time. Together, you and I can turn the face of the Triads around. It can go back to serving the people, the way it once did. Together we can make a difference.’

‘I don’t need you in my life. Why would I?’ She was inching towards him.

‘I can create a need in you.’ She breathed her perfumed breath into Mann’s face and her eyes melted on his as she reached out and ran her hand up his shirt. ‘A need so strong that you cannot ignore it. I know you are searching, I see it in you. You have needs. I recognize the same ones in myself. We are special, you and I; we will not find happiness easy to come by. We do not feel it the same way as others do. I can be everything you’re looking for.’

The nearness of the lift was getting to him; Mann felt her creep forwards as she dug her heels into the floor, her hips brushed his, her head tilted to one side as she smiled provocatively. But her eyes betrayed her, they were focused inside herself not on anything else. Her body was a thing she gave easily. Her soul belonged to no man.

Mann wasn’t playing; he looked down at her hand and lifted his eyes to look at her, dispassionate and cold. She withdrew her hand immediately and stepped back. The smile disappeared. The eyes narrowed.

‘Or…’ she held up her manicured index finger and made small circles in the air, ‘…I can pick up your world and the people in it and spin it around my finger till everything you care about is falling off it. I have the power.’

Mann took a step towards her and she stepped backwards until she was pressed against the lift wall. She didn’t panic. She stared up into his eyes and seemed to expect, welcome, the anger. Mann watched as her eyes turned deep river green and she came so close to his face that he felt her breath on his face, tasted it, that adrenalin, that blood sugar.

Outside the noise of engineers clanking away at the mechanism to get it restarted echoed and then the lift started moving and Victoria pitched forwards. Mann held on to her, instinctively. He felt the curves beneath her dress. He pressed her to him. She looked up at him and closed her eyes. He leant forwards and stopped. He slid his hand up over her breast and caught her around the throat. Her eyes snapped open.

‘Don’t cross me, Victoria. You are a small girl playing with the big boys. Don’t fuck with me. You will regret it. Every day I see my life slipping away. I am beyond fear. Beyond happiness. I just might take you with me.’

Chapter 29

‘Immigration police?’ David asked.

Shrimp shook his head, slowly, cautiously, not sure what would be the best reply.

David reached out and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Good,’ he said in a deep strong voice, still maintaining the grin but this time accompanied by a laugh. David turned and nodded to his friends at the door. ‘He’s okay. Bring him a drink.’

David turned back to Shrimp. ‘You will have a drink with us, Shrimp?’

‘Sure.’

David took the top off a bottle of Coke and handed it to him. Shrimp looked him over. The heat in the room was unbearable. The heady smell of the plastic clothes wrap was overpowering. Shrimp looked back to the corridor. More Africans were staring in at him. Shrimp drank his Coke.

David slapped him again and boomed laughter. ‘I like you. Come.’ He stood and picked Shrimp up by the arm. ‘We will talk of the Mansions with you.’

He led Shrimp to the bar next door. They sat on stools in the small space, just two tables and a dozen stools. David angled a tabletop fan onto them.

‘I’ll help you if you help me. What trouble are you here about? This place is nonstop trouble.’

‘Have you heard of a new young group of Triads called the Outcasts?’

David nodded. He began rolling a cigarette; he licked the edge of the paper with his pink tongue.

‘Of course. They are running wild in here. They take a block at a time. They were running this evening. Every night they pick on someone else. They pick on us a lot. That’s why we stick together on this landing. They don’t dare take us on together. Like little rats they watch all the time. They wait. They whistle up and down the corridors, calling to each other. It wasn’t always this bad.’ He shook his head sadly, looked down at his glass and then out at the corridor. Outside life had returned to normal. The sound of laughter and music returned. David’s face clouded with thought, his eyes filled with a faraway sorrow. ‘This place has been my home for six months. I came here looking for my brother. He’s been missing for a year now. I ask everyone here. I show them this photo.’ He took out a photo from his shirt pocket and slid it across the table to Shrimp. ‘This is my younger brother, Ishmael.’ It was a sunny photo of David with his arm around the younger man’s shoulders, he was taller than David by a few inches. He was less bulky, his young face was full of laughter. He had a baseball cap on his head. On the right side of his face he had a scar that sliced his face from his ear to his mouth.

‘Somewhere in the Mansions there is the answer to where Ishmael has gone. If I cannot find him alive, I will find his body and have something to take home to our mother. Ishmael was a peaceful man. He liked his women, but he didn’t like to get into fights. I want to know what happened to him. Do you understand?’

‘Yes. Can you get me a copy of this photo?’

‘Yes. Take it. I have many.’

‘Do you think it has anything to do with the kids in the Mansions?’

‘Yes. I do. Someone here knows something. One of these kids knows what happened to him. Now I have watched them grow these last few months. They have lost their minds. They are out of control. They have become their own masters. They run around the roof like rats. They are always watching. They kill whoever they want to. They show no mercy. They care for no one or nothing. They are Satan’s children. I will show you something.’

They stood and David led Shrimp through to the kitchen. The smell of rotting meat was intense. Sections of a skinned goat’s carcass were hanging from the ceiling and crawling with flies. David led Shrimp into a room off the kitchen. In the corner a mattress had been laid out on the floor. A black man lay on it, on his side. His breathing noisy, his body very still. He had large wounds, pink in his dark flesh.

‘What happened to him?’

‘He was drunk. He laughed at them. They came after him with knives. The attacked him for no reason. They cut him to pieces.’

‘He needs a hospital.’

‘No. He is an overstayer, an illegal immigrant, and he is dying. He will be dead before dawn. It is better that you go.’

They left the dying man where he was and went back out to the corridor.