nails, manicures, you know?’ She twirled her bright red nails in the air as she spoke and glanced towards the door.
‘You say there have been other girls?’ He looked up from his notes.
‘Five or six maybe, over the years.’ She straightened her dress in preparation for the off.
‘You have no idea where they went?’
She shook her head.
‘I will need you to give me details about these girls, physical descriptions, that kind of thing.’
‘Of course, Inspector.’ Lucy nodded sweetly, batting her eyelashes, but her smile had changed. ‘Always happy to help the police. If that is all …’ She slid off the chair, bowed, and left.
After she had gone, Mann was left with the distinct impression that Lucy was as mercenary as they came – a good Hong Kong girl if ever he met one. But, he couldn’t blame her. In fact, he even kind of admired her. Hong Kong wasn’t the most caring mother to her daughters. It wasn’t so long ago that infant girls were left to die on the roadside. Now there was every type of brothel – floating, high-rise or underground – to keep a girl off the streets.
He’d done all he could. It was time to move on. He thanked the mamasans, said he would be back soon, and made his way out of the club, past the ‘lucky’ fish and the Taiwanese bouncers.
He was just about to step into the elevator when two men stepped out. One was a prominent elderly Chinese politician, Sun Yat-sen. Mann recognised him from some recent publicity shots. He was in Hong Kong promoting trade alliances – creaming off a few backhanders. The other man was the same age as Mann. He was shorter by six inches but made the most of his slight frame with expensive suits and well-tailored jackets. He carried himself with authority. His hair was very neatly cropped, smoothly side parted. His face was narrow, angular with a sallow complexion. His eyes were dark-rimmed and hooded and larger than his triangular face could cope with.
Chan and Mann eyeballed each other for several seconds before exchanging places in the lift. They had not always been enemies. They had been friends once, brothers almost. Mann had even saved Chan’s life when they were at school together in England on a school trip to the Lake District. Chan had wandered too far out in the water and a hidden shelf took him unawares. He couldn’t swim, and Mann had saved him. From that day on they had been best friends, shared their hopes and dreams and supported one another through the years of a sometimes-lonely exile at boarding school in England. In the last year of school the boys had come back to spend their summer vacation in Hong Kong, as usual. They had spent the evening together and parted company at Mann’s house. When Mann went inside he found his father held captive by triads and being tortured and beaten. Mann was seized, held, and made to watch his father’s execution. The boys had vowed to be united forever in vengeance against them. But only one of the boys had kept that vow. The other had joined forces with the enemy.
Mann stood rigid now. His tall, muscular frame tensed as his body willed him to take action against the man he hated. But Mann knew that hurting Chan would only give him momentary satisfaction. Okay, maybe it would last for an hour or two. But it wouldn’t destroy Chan in the long run, and Mann definitely wanted to do that. Because Chan hadn’t just joined forces with the enemy. He had become the enemy. Mann watched them walk away and saw Chan glance back.
Keep looking behind you, Chan, because I’m going to be there.
After her interview with Mann, Lucy went back to the Dressing Room to wait for her number to be called. The ‘home from home’ for the girls was a large rectangular space about fifty-five metres long and twenty wide. It was sparsely furnished with lockers and chairs down its left-hand side and starlet-style mirrors arranged in rows down its right. In front of the mirrors were broad shelves used for eating, doing make-up, sleeping. There were stools and chairs scattered around, but never enough.
There were girls everywhere, descended flock-like to roost, at least two hundred at any one time, dressing or undressing. Their glamorous frocks were semi-draped over smooth shiny skin or poured intestine-like from lockers where they had fallen from hangers or been hastily discarded.
The noise of excited girls greeting one another, of locker doors bouncing off their hinges, was deafening, but the camaraderie was touching. Lucy threaded her way through.
‘Hey, Lucy, what’s up?’ The distinctive American tones of Candy could be heard above the racket. ‘You late?’
‘Nah … been out already …’ Lucy sassed over her shoulder as she made her way through.
Candy feigned amazement. ‘Jesus, Lucy! You’re gonna be rich!’
Lucy giggled, then screeched as she heard her number called over the tannoy:
‘NUMBER 169, MISS LUCY … NUMBER 169, MISS LUCY …’
She doubled back and squirmed through the waiting girls to meet her mamasan on the other side of the velvet curtain.
‘You must be good girl now, Lucy.’ Mamasan Linda held on to Lucy’s hand and trotted ahead like a mother escorting a naughty child to receive judgement from a waiting father.
They wound their way through half-full tables, past the Filipino band singing the Police song ‘Don’t stand so close to me’ quite earnestly, considering that a consignment of blow had arrived that day from Manila, past a man from Taipei who was on the dance floor clinging pathetically to the pencil-thin, Lycra-slippery hips of his young date while the changing light patterns on the dance floor stole his drunken feet from beneath him. And past Bernadette, who was leaping from foot to foot in a frenzy of chiffon. Her hair sat rigid on her head like deep-fried roadkill, while the rest of her body hopped madly around the dance floor. Lucy remembered going out on a double date with Bernadette. What a nightmare! She recalled Bernadette straddling a diminutive Taiwanese, his face exploding like a bullfrog on heat at every squeeze of those massive white thighs. Lucy had had to drag her off at the end of the evening with her screaming, But I haven’t feckin’ come yet!
Mamasan Linda stopped in her tracks and turned back to talk to Lucy. She lowered her voice.
‘He’s a good customer. He’s come back many times and asked for you. Look after him, okay? Be a clever girl, huh? Big VIP. He owns all this.’ She swept her hands in the air theatrically.
Lucy gave her a ‘teach grandma to suck eggs’ look and fell into a trot behind her again, following the red and gold cheongsam swishing hypnotically from side to side. They approached a booth that was situated to the back of the club, in the VIP section, overlooking the semicircular dance floor.
‘Here she is.’ Mamasan Linda let go of Lucy’s hand and pushed her forward. ‘Here is Lucy.’
Lucy smiled and slipped in behind the round table until her thigh made contact with her client’s. She studied him but her eyes were still adjusting to the gloom and it took time to recognise him as the man who had bought her out a couple of weeks before and a few times before that. It took time to place body with face – to transcend the gap between leaving the club and leaving the Love Motel. Then she placed him and a surge of adrenalin went through her as she remembered his peculiar tastes that had taken some time to heal.
Chan spent his evenings doing the rounds of the hostess clubs.
