‘It’s all right, Georgina. I have him covered. Give me the gun now.’

Mann took a few steps forward and signalled to Li to find something to tie Chan’s hands with. Georgina still didn’t move, and she didn’t take her eyes from Chan. Mann inched closer – he was within a few feet now.

‘He can’t hurt you any more, Georgina. Give me the gun.’

She wasn’t listening. Her shoulders rose and fell with her rapid breathing.

‘I want to kill him.’

Her hands shook. Not for one second did she take her eyes off Chan, and not for one second did Mann doubt that she was capable of shooting him.

‘No, Georgina – you have suffered enough. If you kill him it will only make it worse. It’s not your job, believe me – it’s not yours.’

Keeping his eyes on Chan, Mann walked the last few paces and gently prised the gun out of her hands. He held her to him for a few seconds before steering her over towards the door and out of harm’s way.

Li had returned with a length of fisherman’s cord he had found outside. ‘Tie his hands tightly, Shrimp.’

Chan began to laugh at Georgina as she retreated. ‘I can’t believe you would do such a thing, Georgina, after all we’ve meant to each other!’

‘Leave her out of this, Chan.’

‘Why should I? She belongs to me. I own her. Besides that, she likes me really. She needs me. Don’t you, Georgina? We are quite a couple, even though we have our ups and downs, as you can see.’ He laughed at her again. She turned her head away. He turned back to Mann. ‘I don’t know what you think you are doing here. I know for a fact you don’t have enough evidence to touch me. The brothers have confessed to most of it, and the rest, unfortunately, has gone up in smoke.’

‘The staff didn’t feel like burning to death. Sorry, but the place is still standing. We have a team of SOCOs out there right now, going through it with a sieve. They will find enough to have you shot.’

Chan laughed. ‘I don’t think so, somehow. I do believe I’m cleverer than that, Mann. For a start, it’s on the mainland – can’t see the Chinese government being awfully helpful, can you? As you probably realise, many of them know about it already. Never mind what you find out there, none of it will be enough to get me to court, let alone convict me – and you know why, Mann? Because I am untouchable. I have the world’s richest perverts looking after my back, and they know that one day I will be Dragon Head of the Wo Shing Shing. Everyone knows it – even CK can’t stop it.’

‘You will have to be alive to enjoy it.’ Mann turned to Li. ‘Stay here. Look after Georgina. Watch out for anyone else.’

‘You don’t want me to come?’

‘No, Shrimp – stay here. I will be back shortly. Chan and I are going to talk about old times – we have some catching up to do.’

Mann pushed Chan through the adjoining room and out before him onto the sandy lane, down towards the boat. He looked behind him as he did so and saw Stevie in the shadows. He saw the way he carried himself; saw the way his right shoulder was raised, his arm steady – ready to fire his gun. But he didn’t.

Chan kept looking for him too. He had expected Stevie to rescue him by now. What was he doing? Waiting till the last fucking moment?

It was when they reached the water that the first real signs of panic crossed Chan’s face. Since the incident back when he and Mann were boys, he had hated the water. A big ferry was bad enough, but a small boat was something he’d never been able to get into. He turned, ready to run, but Mann anticipated it, held on to him tightly, as he climbed into the boat. Mann cast off, sat Chan in the seat beside him and started the engine.

Mann throttled the boat, reversed it, eased it round and headed out to sea, leaving a gentle ripple in their wake. He looked behind him. Stevie was edging away from the shoreline, his way forward now clear. He had chosen his path.

Chan sat back and smiled at Mann, pretending to enjoy the ride.

‘This is all very pleasant, but we both know you can’t do anything to me.’

Mann steered the boat out into open water. Nothing but the blackness of the still ocean lay ahead.

114

‘You won’t kill me. You’d be the most wanted man in Hong Kong. The whole of the Wo Shing Shing would be out to get you.’ Where the hell was Stevie Ho? Chan thought. Surely Stevie wouldn’t let him down? ‘You can loathe me all you want, Mann. I am what I am.’

‘You had choices just like everyone.’

‘Did I? Even when we were kids you never understood what it was like for me. At school in England we lived as brothers. We were inseparable. But there was one big difference – when we came home in the holidays you went back to your parents’ nice home in the Mid-levels. I went back to government housing – ten to a room. I suffocated in the heat and dirt. One hundred and fifty people shared four open toilets. I saw the violence and the depravity of living without dignity, without money. Going to England showed me I could be anyone as long as I had money. Being sent to the UK for my education was the one piece of luck I had –’

‘It wasn’t luck, it was paid for by your hard-working relatives and you repaid your benefactors by joining the Wo Shing Shing?’

‘I had no choice. In my neighbourhood you did as you were told. I was recruited the summer I was fifteen. I hated it, but it brought its rewards. I accept I could have led a more honourable existence. But you never understood how it was for me. I had to take every opportunity I could in my life. I had to make it at any cost. You didn’t have that terrible weight of poverty and desperation hanging over you. All you had to deal with was being mixed race. It didn’t hold you back. You had the best of both worlds. You could choose to step effortlessly into either world, whereas I belonged to only one – a world that will get you if you don’t get it first. I had to climb my way out of the gutter.’

‘Yes, you had it tough, but you didn’t have to turn your back on everything decent. Life is full of choices, Chan, of roads to walk. You chose the lowest path you could find.’

‘The night of my father’s death. You were ordered to keep me away from the house until a certain time.’

‘Yes, I was ordered to.’

‘My father was a good man. He treated you like a son.’

‘Huh! He treated me like a poor relative. He kept me at arm’s length, made it quite clear he didn’t want his son mixing with me.’

‘You checked your watch so many times that night. I remember saying, “What is it? You late for a date?” You laughed and all the time you knew that my father was being tortured.’

‘I could do nothing to prevent it.’

‘Then, at the allotted time, you left me at my gate and you knew they were waiting for me.’

‘I told you – I had no choice. Triad orders.’

‘I was made to watch his execution. Do you know what that did to me? It didn’t make me fear the triads. It made me determined to wipe every one of you out.’

Chan looked about him. The water was closing in. He was becoming frantic now – Stevie was leaving it very late.

‘For friendship’s sake, Mann, take me back to shore. Let me disappear. You’ll never see me again. For the boys we once were?’

Mann didn’t answer him. He kept his eyes ahead and steered the boat further into the darkness. ‘Do you want to know how Helen died?’ Chan said, desper ation in his voice. ‘Do you want to know the man who killed her? If I tell you, will you let me go? I have a film of her death. I will give you that film if you take me back to shore.’

Mann cut the engine. The boat bobbed on the still water. The only sound was the distant horns of passing ships and the lapping of the water around the boat’s hull. Behind them, just a few lights from Cheung Chau’s seafront restaurants and bars winked at them from the shoreline. Mann thought of Helen. Her calmness, her strength, her beauty. He knew what he must do. Across the darkness, their eyes reflecting the iridescent white of the boat’s hull, they stared at one another.