‘The head of the Outcasts is Victoria Chan, right? What contact have you had with her? Does she come to the Mansions?’

Mahmud stared down at his hands whilst he considered what to say. He looked at the guard. He was shaking again.

‘Sometimes she comes. She came to our restaurant first a year ago. She sat down with all of us. She told us that the time would come when the Mansions would be knocked down. We didn’t believe her. It has been the same for so long. She said we could sign a document that would mean we would definitely have a place in the new Mansions, better, bigger. She made it seem like we were special. She said as we had been there so many years we could expect extra-special treatment. And what she wanted was to help us have a place in the new Mansions. We only had to let things happen: let the Outcasts do what they wanted, let people be murdered every day, let decent people live in fear. She said our family would be okay. But they’re not.’

‘What happened that night? If you tell us who organized the fight then we can help you. Was it Rizal? Why should you be banged up in here while he is free to do what he wants on the outside? Mahmud, listen to me…you want me to get you out, I will do my best. Tammy was a friend as well as a police officer. She was young, sweet, so sure she could make it. She had a boyfriend, she had parents. Their lives are ruined now. She was their only child. I want to get the person who did this.’

Mahmud shook his head. ‘She says different things to different people. She hooked in the Outcasts to do her dirty work. I don’t know if there were orders to kill the officer. I was just in the wrong place and was passed the knife, nothing more. I can tell you nothing else.’

‘I need something more to work with if I’m going to get you out of here. I need a name. Was it your brother? Was he ordered to target the officer?’

Mahmud lifted his eyes slowly and looked at Shrimp incredulously as he shook his head and then stood to leave. ‘You do not understand anything. Soon it will all be too late to help any of us. I have nothing more to say. If you love Nina then save her.’

Chapter 62

‘It’s not your fault, Genghis.’ The office was subdued. The news of Tammy’s death sat heavily on the whole of Headquarters. Questions were on everyone’s lips as to why she was put at such risk. Mann was staring into space and seeing nothing but his thoughts when Ng came back into the office and found him.

Mann shook his head angrily. ‘I should never have put her into a mission like that. I pitched her against the skills of Victoria Chan. Why didn’t Tammy get out when I told her?’

‘It was always just going to be a matter of time before we put a female agent in there and before it went wrong. It just means she was unlucky – it happens. There’s nothing you could have done; it wasn’t just your decision. We’re a team, remember?’

Mann shook his head. ‘No, Ng. I was her operator. The buck stops with me. No matter what you say, it doesn’t help. Maybe others have lost agents, maybe it happens, but it hasn’t happened to me before and it was my duty to protect her.’

‘She knew the risks. Every undercover cop knows them. It’s a dangerous world to go into but, even with the rewards and promotion, it isn’t always worth it. I was eighteen months undercover in the end. I got so used to it, I hardly knew where I belonged any more. Every undercover cop crosses the line. Otherwise it wouldn’t work. When you come out it’s really hard to go back to your ordinary life. I was used to leading the life of a highly paid Triad. I drove fast cars, snorted cocaine, slept with beautiful hookers. I had so much money. You’re told to use it, to exploit your talents, to gain trust. You are told it will be worth it for your career. But you are never the same again. I had looked deep inside myself and seen something that could be harnessed and used for evil. I have spent the rest of my life telling myself I did a good job but knowing that it came easy. It takes a stronger man than me to come out untarnished with your soul intact.’

‘You never took the promotion,’ Mann reminded him.

‘No.’

‘Tom Sheng did.’

‘Tom Sheng liked what he saw when he walked on the dark side. I turned into someone I didn’t like; he respected the man he saw in the mirror, I hated him. Sometimes our paths crossed, Tom and me. We were both undercover at the same time. Both as members of the Wo Shing Shing. We were in different branches, responsible for different things. I was part of the team in charge of getting the drugs into Hong Kong. He was part of the one responsible for getting it distributed. We liaised as Triads, never as policemen.’ Ng paused. ‘I didn’t take the promotion because I wasn’t sure what I did was right. I wasn’t sure it made me a better cop. I want to save lives not help distribute the drugs that end them, even if the overall goal was a good one. I have been a Buddhist ever since. Your father was a Buddhist; he tried to do good in the end. He just ran out of time.’

‘My father still has a hold on this world. His legacy lives on and now I have to wonder whether even Tammy has paid the price for it. Was I too distracted with my father’s business that I wasn’t thinking straight? Did I fuck up?’

Mann read Ng’s eyes. There was a sadness in them that he understood. The sky above was faultless, the sun bounced off the rooftops. Mann looked for the eagles. He saw one watching him as it hovered by the window. Mann turned back to Ng.

‘I wish I had the one answer to it all, Ng.’

‘You do have, in your heart. Your eyes are on the horizon again, Genghis. Remember the way is in your heart, not in the sky.’

There were no stars that evening, just cloud. Mann had been to see Tammy’s mother. Ng had offered but Mann wanted to. He wanted to feel the full weight of it. She thanked Mann, comforted by his concern. It was all Tammy had ever wanted – to be a police officer. She died doing something she loved. She died making a difference.

It was bullshit. Mann had to look away when she said it. He felt like he had personally sent Tammy to her death. He felt like his was the hand that held the knife. His mood was beyond just getting drunk. It was still steeped in anger. Five hours later Mann had bypassed any comfort he might have hoped to get from the alcohol he consumed that evening. It didn’t seem to matter how much he drank; he just got more sober. He headed for a side of town he hadn’t been to in a while – old Wanchai; a small remnant from the Suzie Wong era. In his pocket he had the piece of bondage tape used to tie Max Kosmos’s legs.

Halfway through the evening he headed down the steps to one of his old haunts, the Bond bar in Wanchai. He hadn’t been in the Bond bar for a while. It used to have a Bond Girl theme, not anymore. He’d heard it had been revamped. A big muscled doorman stood at the entrance. He was dressed like a gladiator. He looked Mann over as if trying to find a reason not to let him in. He grunted something and stood back to allow Mann to pass. As Mann walked through to the bar he could see that the place still specialized in sleaze; the bar was darker than ever. Each girl was sat in the middle of a raised podium bar, her body very close, and at eye level with her customers who sat around.

Mann went to sit at one of the far podiums. Four other men were sat around on black leather stools. The Bond bar had changed into the Bondage bar. The main attraction hadn’t changed: it was still half-naked girls, mainly foreign.

The blond girl in front of him was wearing a collar around her neck, a tight black PVC bodice around her middle that ended just below her large bare breasts, and a strap with a big buckle that went between her legs.

‘Hello, Johnny.’ She spun around on her revolving podium and picked up a glass to mix him a drink.

‘Hello, Lola. How’s business?’