on the notice board in the corridor. Anyone want to talk to me? I will listen. I will be able to help. As Lilly pointed out, I know first hand about the dangers of belonging to a Triad society. I know what it can do. You ring me. We’ll fight it together.’
Lilly stood up and slow clapped Mann’s speech. She pushed the girl in front; the whole row collapsed amidst lots of giggling. Lilly looked across at Tammy and grinned. Tammy had felt the tension grow in the hall. Now Lilly’s eyes lingered on Tammy as if she knew. Tammy grinned back. Mann got down from the stage and called Lilly over. They were left alone in the hall.
‘Sit down.’
Lilly sat and looked around the room as if she were bored.
‘Tell me, Lilly, what’s a bright girl like you doing coming out of a Triad initiation ceremony?’
She turned and stared hard at him, tried to read his expression. Her eyes were the colour of caramel. She had freckles across her nose. Her skin was light. She was taller than most girls her age.
‘I saw you coming out of the building where the girl got murdered last night.’ Mann could see from the way her eyes had stopped seeing him that her thoughts were backtracking. For a second she looked worried and then she rolled her eyes and looked at her nails, chewed off a bit of loose skin, made her finger bleed, and smiled as she looked at him as she sucked the blood from her finger.
‘Not me, Officer. I was at home last night doing my homework. Now, if you don’t mind I have a lesson to go to. You know what it’s like for us mixed-race kids – we have to work hard. We don’t all have our dad’s money to fall back on.’ She went to stand.
‘Sit. You’ll go when I say.’
She sat back down with a groan and looked at her watch.
‘Let me explain something to you. You’re in shit up to your neck. The girl who died last night was mutilated, her hands cut off before she had her throat severed.’
Lilly snapped her head as she looked at him. ‘I wasn’t there.’
‘But you were in the area. What do you think happens when people play with Triads, Lilly?’ Mann watched her. ‘What do you think you are going to get from all this? They’re playing with you, Lilly. It could be you next week lying in your own blood. They’re just sitting back and waiting and watching and enjoying the spectacle of kids like you killing one another. You’re disposable.’
A crack appeared in Lilly’s bravado. She looked towards the hall entrance, agitated, fidgety. She went to stand again.
Mann pushed her back in her seat. ‘We can continue this at the police station if you like or we can do it here. What’s the big global message they’re selling you, Lilly? Somehow I don’t think a designer handbag is what you’re in this for. Tell me, Lilly. You want to belong, don’t you? You want to leave your mark on the world but this is not the way.’
She blew an ‘I don’t give a fuck’ out of the corner of her mouth. But he could see her bravado starting to dissolve. She was just a scared little girl. From the corner of his eye, Mann saw the headmaster standing at the edge of the stage. He knew he’d gone far enough without taking her in. He knew there would be no point in doing that. She would say nothing; she’d be a lot more frightened of her Triad masters than she would be of the police.
‘All right, Lilly, you can go, but it won’t be the last we see of each other. I will be watching every move you make from now on.’
Lilly got up from her seat in her own time and she pushed the chair back noisily, it grated across the floor, and then as she walked past Mann she stopped in front of him. She smiled up at him. ‘Go ahead. I like being watched.’
Lilly left the hall and caught up with Tammy on the stairs.
‘Hey, what did you think of the talk?’ she shouted as the din of the girls hurrying on to their next class filled the stairwell.
‘Yeah…it was…’
‘Exactly – bullshit.’
‘Were you there?’
Lilly nodded.
‘What was it like? Did you see the girl get killed?’
Lilly shook her head. Tammy wasn’t sure whether she believed her or not.
‘Doesn’t it worry you, Lilly? Don’t you wonder if they might do that to you?’
Lilly shrugged. They stepped out of the way as other kids passed them. ‘It won’t happen to me. She must have done something bad. We are told the rules. She must have broken them. It serves her right. There’s a code. Anyway, it’s worth it. You’ll see. It will be your time soon.’
They were stood at the long window, overlooking the car park below. Tammy glanced down at Mann walking across to his old BMW. A part of her wished she could go with him, another knew she had a job to do and it would be worth it. Lilly followed her gaze.
‘He’s hot. It would be great to get him in bed.’ Lilly laughed at her expression. ‘Sure…I’ve had other policemen. In the evenings I see them in the bars. I can always spot them. They have this way of looking at everything. They don’t relax. But him…’ she watched Mann drive off, ‘…I see him out a lot, but never with a woman. He’s a loner.’
‘How did you know that about his father?’
Lilly was proud of herself. She had put Mann on the spot. ‘Everyone in the Mansions knows about him. He’s the bent gweilo cop. He takes bribes.’
Tammy had a hard job not showing what she felt. There was no way Mann took bribes. He was one of those cops that would cross the line when it meant bringing someone to justice but he would never cross it for his own gain.
Lilly laughed at the look on Tammy’s face. ‘What? What, does he mean something to you? Do you fancy him?’
Tammy shook her head in disgust.
‘He pretends to be a big moral man; really he’s as dirty as they come.’
They stared out at the last of Mann’s tail lights as he drove out of the car park.
Mann headed back to Headquarters. The Organized Crime and Triad Bureau was spread over two floors, he was on the upper level. He’d been in the bureau for four years on and off. The off was ten months banished to the hinterland of the New Territories because of his tendency to piss off anyone who mattered in the police hierarchy. But the truth was, they needed him. They didn’t want to but they did. No one was as devoted as Mann to catching Triads. No one hated the cancer in the Chinese society more than him. But then, no one else had his reasons.
He fed his card into the slot, took the escalators that were surrounded
