Kiss and Die

Chapter 12

In the morning Mann dropped Miriam back at the Cantina and he drove to Tammy’s school to give his talk.

The hall was darkened for the slide show projecting onto a screen behind him. He stood to one side. Three hundred children sat in front of him, in rows. A sea of white shirts and blue ties. They were hushed as the first ten images flashed up one after the other. Each image stayed up for three seconds unless he clicked to halt it: a girl dying with a needle in her arm, a boy whose face was badly disfigured from a chopping.

‘Triads deal in death,’ Mann continued. ‘In some form or another, it’s all about death. Whether its drugs, people trafficking, robbery, kidnapping. They aren’t fussy. They will make money any way they can. They don’t care who gets killed along the way. They use their members to fight battles just because they can. They don’t care how many get killed. Why should they?’

Mann stopped at the eleventh.

A young woman lay face down, a rope around her neck. Her hands were tied behind her back. ‘This is Zheng,’ Mann said. ‘She was on her way to study in England. She was looking forward to it. She was going to come back here and take her university entrance. When she arrived in London she was met by her contact but he didn’t take her to the school, as promised, he took her to this bedsit you see in the photo.’ Mann waited as all eyes studied the image of the girl lying face down. The room was in complete silence. ‘They cut off her little finger.’ Mann pointed to her left hand in the photo. ‘They sent that back to Hong Kong to her parents and they asked for ten million Hong Kong dollars.’ The hall gave a collective intake of breath. ‘Zheng’s parents couldn’t raise that kind of money so they raped and murdered her.’ The next photo to flash up was of a boy lying in a pool of blood, his chopped body twisted in death.

‘This is Zheng’s brother. He was an addict. He sold the Triads the information about his sister: which flight she’d be on, how much he thought his family would be able to find. They tricked him of course. They asked for ten times the amount his parents could pay and so, when they couldn’t pay, they killed him too. Nobody wins with the Triads. If you want to be somebody in Hong Kong society you have to stand out from the crowd, not just be another 49, another number.’ The lights went back on.

He looked along the rows. The front ten rows seemed to be solely occupied by girls, all looking up at him.

‘Any questions?’

About ten hands went up from the front. Mann pointed to the first hand. It was a girl from the fifth row back. She was mixed race. Part Chinese, part Filipino. She had come off well with the mix. She was striking looking, fair skinned. She had a touch of Spanish about her from the Filipino side, fair skinned, black haired. Mann realized he knew her, but he couldn’t place her.

‘Sir, do you give this talk to all the schools?’ she asked.

‘Pretty much.’

‘Even the schools where the parents have money and there aren’t any immigrants like there are here?’

The headmaster stepped forward to the mike to intervene; Mann waved him back.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Lilly.’

‘Lilly what?’

Lilly was a pretty girl with bags of attitude. ‘Mendoza.’

Her mother Michelle was a part-time hooker; Lilly must have slipped past the condom. The father looked like he must have been Chinese. Hong Kong was not a great ambassador for mixing the races. The Chinese liked to keep to their own kind. But something else was bugging him: he’d seen Lilly last night. She was one of the two girls who ran from the building just as he got there.

‘Okay, I know what you’re saying. You feel like this is a problem for kids from poorer backgrounds. Yeah, well I agree. The Triad organizations are always looking for an angle. They have mostly, not always, recruited from the poorer side of society. They know the recent changes in the education system discriminate against people coming in from other countries, non natives. They know it makes it tough so they exploit that.’

Another hand went up from a young Indian girl. ‘Are you mixed race, sir?’

‘Yes. My mother is English, my dad was Chinese.’

‘Is it easy to get into the police force when you’re mixed race?’

‘It isn’t easy to get into the police force whatever race you are. You need a good level of English. You need to be able to read and write Mandarin.’

There was a muttering all around the hall. Lilly spoke up again. You need to be able to read and write Mandarin to clean toilets now.’

The children laughed. The headmaster coughed loudly.

Mann waited until the laughter subsided before he spoke again. ‘Yeah, it sucks. It sucks that there isn’t a level playing field any more. It really sucks that a lot of what made Hong Kong great is being wasted. Talents that you all have to give are being handed over to the Triads because we are turning into a two-tier society. But…’ There was a general whispering. The headmaster looked nervous. ‘…but all I can tell you is that you have to be smarter than everyone else. You have to work harder than everyone else. You have to prove them wrong. You join a Triad organization and, in the short term, sure, you will get new trainers, you will get told how great you are. In the long term you will be pushed down alleyways, asked to repay favours, asked to fight, kill, you will be ordered to become part of a drug run, part of a human trafficking chain. You might be sold into prostitution yourself or sell other kids. And there will be no escape for you. You will be a number to be called whenever they choose. In the short term you may think it offers you hope. In the long term you will never be free to make it.’

‘Sir?’

‘Yes, Lilly?’

‘If your father is a Triad do you have to be one?’

‘No. Everyone has a choice.’

Lilly had a smug look on her face. She made sure she was heard. ‘And sir, is it true your father was a Triad?’

Mann felt the headmaster’s stare as his head swung round to look at Mann. Mann’s focus on the room slipped. His hands went cold. His pulse slowed. He looked to the back of the room. Right at the back the exit door was open to allow the breeze through. He could see the rectangle of blue. He refocused on Lilly.

‘Yes.’

‘What happened to him, sir?’

‘He was chopped to death because he disobeyed the society.’

‘Did he make a lot of money, sir?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘Did you inherit it, sir?’

Mann nodded. He was losing control. The hall burst out in chat. The headmaster stepped forward. ‘Thank you very much for coming, Inspector. We have taken up a lot of your time. We are very grateful-’

Mann stopped him mid-sentence. He took over the microphone and looked around the room, waited the two minutes it took to obtain absolute silence. ‘My father was executed when I was just a bit older than you. I was made to watch. That day has stayed with me forever. I didn’t know he was a Triad then. I do now. I have to deal with the legacy of my father’s Triad involvement. I have to deal with his mess. I used to be proud of my father when I was young. He was someone I looked up to. He didn’t have a lot of time for me, he was always working, but I loved him and respected him. Until I found out that he made his money by manufacturing and supplying heroin. My father was a drug baron. When I look back now my memories of him all seem like a lie. I question everything I ever had from him and ask myself did it come from drug money? Did someone have to die with a needle in their arm to buy me that?’

The room fell silent. All eyes were on Mann.

‘But, when you become an adult you are judged on who you are, not who your parents were or are. You stand alone. You have a choice. Yes, you may have it hard but that will make you harder. Yes, you may have it tough and that will make you tougher. And you need to be. Hong Kong can fulfil all of your dreams or it can be the cruellest place on earth. You can be anyone you want in Hong Kong. It doesn’t matter who your father was. It only matters what you achieve in your life and what you do with it. Don’t throw it away on being just a number. The girl who died yesterday evening was left to die alone in a cardboard box. She was left like a piece of rubbish. That’s all you are to the Triad bosses. I saw her body. I found her. No one should die like that. That’s what happens when you join the Triads. They make you feel like you matter but you don’t. In the end they use you and control you and you are not free to make your own decisions. When I look around this hall I see a lot of familiar faces looking at me. I know some of you were involved in what happened last night. I have come here today to offer you help. I will leave my card 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.’