‘Did the boss of the refinery speak of his home much? Did you know exactly where he came from in China?’

‘He said it was an island where buildings were made of gold and where men could lose their entire fortune on one roll of a dice. Hong Kong, I think.’

Mann frowned. ‘That is not Hong Kong. But, I know where that place is. It’s a place where triads rule.’

He made another call to Ng.

‘Go to Macau.’

77

It was a bright sunny morning when Ng stood outside the seventeenth-century church of St Dominic in central Macau. The former Portuguese colony was a small piece of Europe in the middle of Asia. The sun was shining on the front of the beautiful, canary yellow, wedding cake of a church with its bright green shutters and its neoclassical arches. All around Ng in the busy cobbled square, tourists and locals were going about their business in shops, schools and offices. Half of Macau’s income came from tourism, the other half from gambling. Casinos were what Macau was most famous for and casinos brought triads in their droves. And where there were losers, there would be loan sharks.

Ng was waiting for a man that he knew well. His name was Split-lip Lok. He recognised him now as the fat old man walking slowly across the cobbled square towards him. He had once been a notorious triad and had served ten years at her majesty’s pleasure in Hong Kong, courtesy of Ng and Mann. He had put on a lot of weight since those days. He walked slowly, his frame crumpling under the weight of years and porous bones. He had risen in the slums of Macau; it hadn’t been easy to survive with a hare lip. He’d done it by being funny and cruel. But the years in prison had been too much for his old bones. He now looked like a puffer fish.

‘Walk with me,’ Split-lip said when he got within range of Ng. He led the way across the busy square and down the steps of the Café Mozart, past the display of beautifully decorated gateaux.

Split-lip chose a booth at the side, from where he could see the steps to the street. Ng sat opposite him.

‘Thank you for agreeing to meet me.’

Split-lip shrugged and signalled to the waitress. ‘What else do I have to do? Besides, you are like an old friend.’ He chuckled. ‘More! You have accompanied me on my life’s journey. Sometimes you have even forced me down certain paths.’ He chuckled again. ‘And where is your young detective—the one who looks like a gweilo?’

‘Mann? He is busy.’

Ng sat back as the waitress brought the menu, opened it and placed it in front of him. Split-lip held up his hand to indicate there was no need for a menu for him.

‘The usual,’ he said. ‘Extra cream on the strudel.’ He gave Ng a wry smile. ‘It is good to maintain one’s sense of pleasure.’

‘Chocolate gateau and tea,’ Ng ordered and gave the menu back to the sullen-faced waitress.

‘You are looking well, Split-lip. How are you finding retirement now?’

‘I survive. Many people are very kind to me.’

‘There would be many of them serving time if you hadn’t served it for them. They owe you.’

‘Debt is not a thing to quantify when it comes to favours; one simply knows when it is paid off. I belong to a large family.’

‘The proper word is triad society.’

‘It is illegal to belong to such an organisation.’

‘It’s all right, Split-lip. I did not come here to trick you. I came for information.’

‘I do not know how anything I say could be of interest to you. I know very little these days.’

‘I need information on the past.’ They paused as the waitress brought their order. Split-lip looked at him curiously. ‘You were a share holder in a consortium that went under the name of the Golden Orchid.’ Split-lip looked startled for a moment.

‘It has been a long time since I heard that name.’

‘You remember it?’

‘Of course. It was one of my first business ventures, a trading company. We brought goods from Thailand and Burma, we repackaged them and sent them over to sell in Europe. Why do you ask now? This company is long dead.’

Ng sipped his tea and hacked away at his gateau. ‘But you didn’t just sell toys, necklaces, did you? It was a front for processing heroin. You had a refinery on the Thai border with Burma.’

Split-lip stopped spooning the cream into his mouth and looked at Ng incredulously. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Because Johnny Mann was at the refinery and he found the evidence.’

‘All right.’ Split-lip sighed and shook his head. ‘Yes…it was during the days when Khun Sa leased the refineries to us. I did not know at the time, of course.’ He paused. ‘I did not know that opium was being refined there. I thought we were importing toys, not heroin.’

‘Of course. What happened to the heroin?’

‘It went the way of all goods, through Amsterdam and on to Europe, or to America via courier.’

‘How many of you were in it? Who were they?’

‘There were four of us. We all had different roles in the company. Mine was the accountant.’

Ng chuckled. ‘They must have been mad to leave you in charge of the books.’

Split-lip smiled. ‘I was not well known to them at the time.’

‘And the others?’

‘Jobs crossed over but basically someone was in charge of the running of the refinery and the others handled the sales and the Amsterdam distribution.’

Split-lip concentrated on dissecting his strudel into sections. Ng had spread his gateau across his plate and, soon, over the table. Ng called for the waitress to take his plate. He hated seeing the crumbs sat there as a reminder that he shouldn’t have eaten it.

‘The business collapsed when Khun Sa surrendered. That’s when I lost my money.’

‘I looked it up—it’s still trading.’

Split-lip leaned over his strudel and Ng caught the whiff of cidered apple from his breath. He could see the cream caught in the crevice of his hare lip.

‘Let me just put you straight on that. Your records are incorrect. The company might be, but in name only.’

‘What happened?’

‘We fell out.’

‘How?’

‘I should never have trusted like I did, but I was young. I lost a lot of money. I grew up after that.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Some lost more than money: some lost their lives.’

‘I want the names of those others in the consortium.’

‘They are dead now.’

‘No…someone is still trading. Names, Split-lip.’

Split-lip picked up his paper napkin and wiped the cream from his mouth. ‘You really don’t know?’

78

Saw eventually called a stop for the night at a collection of half a dozen dwellings where a rice farmer and his extended family lived. Jake got Lucas down from the mule and washed his face and gave him drink. Anna helped Jake carry him inside and Thomas followed mutely. The four of them sat inside the hut. There was no furniture inside, just bare matting. Toad came in to tie their wrists. They sat in the corner of the hut and watched Saw raging outside as he stormed back and forth past the hut. He looked about to kill the opium farmer and his family. There was no food to be had in the place, just rice and a few prawns the farmer had caught that day. The farmer held up the prawns to Saw, who knocked them out of his hands. His wife offered him opium. Saw took the package, wrapped in banana leaf, and opened it. Inside was a sticky brown square of opium. For a few minutes he studied it, smelt it and then he threw it in her face. Saw was incensed. Jake watched him pace. There was no liquor and there was no food. As much as he beat the woman and her husband, they could not produce the pig that he accused them of hiding.