Kiss and Die

Chapter 43

‘Thanks for your time.’ Mann and Shrimp were back in the Mansions. ‘I just want to ask some more questions about the death of the young girl. We know her identity now. She lived here in the Mansions. Her name was Rajini Singh. Her father works on the first floor.’

‘Sure. Let’s go somewhere to talk.’ PJ’s eldest son, Ali, led them up two floors. They came out onto the landing and turned sharp left, past the open maintenance shaft. At the bottom of it the African’s body was just beginning to smell. Ali called out to an old blind Indian woman sat just behind a metal grid and beneath a sign that read Delhi Guesthouse. She was turning beads in her hand and sanding them with fine emery board.

‘Hello, Grandma. I’ve got two men with me. Nothing to worry about.’

The old woman rested her work in her lap and held up her hand in greeting. Her hand was covered in white dust. She cocked her head to one side to listen to the strangers pass.

Mann stopped by her. ‘How are you, Flo?’ He squeezed her hand.

She searched her memory to find the voice. Slowly a smile cracked across her face. Her eyes were milky with cataracts. She had no teeth, just wizened gums. ‘Well, I never. Inspector Mann?’

Mann knelt down and kissed her cheek. ‘Clever as ever and still as beautiful, Flo. Are you well?’

She laughed and held on to his hand. ‘I can’t complain. I sleep nearly all the time. My granddaughter Nina looks after me. Who is that with you?’ She tilted her face towards Shrimp. ‘He smells very nice. I like a man who looks after himself.’

‘My name is Li. Nice to meet you, Flo.’ Shrimp stepped forward and took her hand. She held on to his as she seemed to savour his voice for a minute and then she turned her head back towards Mann. ‘Where is Helen?’

Shrimp glanced Mann’s way. He hadn’t meant to. He had been there when they found her body in a bin bag. He had been there at the autopsy. He had been there all through the investigation but he hadn’t seen what Mann had seen. He hadn’t seen the tape of Helen being raped and murdered.

‘She’s not here right now, Flo.’ Mann had no intention of telling her the truth. She was dead and so was the man who killed her. There were lots of secrets that Mann carried alone.

She lowered her head and shook it as she took a moment to assimilate the knowledge. ‘Here…’ She felt in the pile of beads, carved chopsticks and hairpins and she pressed a small, round object into his hand. He opened his palm and looked at it. It was a hairpin with real hair woven into a plait within the clasp. ‘I made it myself. It’s my own hair. Give it to Helen when you see her next.’

‘Thank you, Flo, I will.’ He put it in his pocket.

She went back to her work whilst they walked on down the passage. There were no lights on. The old woman needed none. There was no natural light in the closed-in corridor. Everywhere was white-tiled, linoleum floor. The fizzing smell of rotting food in the heat and humidity permeated everything. Ali wiped his brow with his handkerchief.

A young Indian woman in her early twenties stepped out from one of the rooms. She had beautiful, turned-up, brown eyes, long lashes, light skin with smooth jet black hair hanging in a thick plait to her waist. Mann knew her.

‘My sister, Nina,’ said Ali. The young woman’s eyes fixed on Mann and she nodded in recognition. Her eyes lingered on Mann before they moved to Shrimp and he got a smile from her.

Ali caught her smile. ‘Go to the market now,’ he said, sharply. ‘The cook is waiting to start marinating for the tandoori. And take Grandma back up to rest now. She spends too long sat in the doorway.’

‘No she doesn’t,’ Nina snapped back. ‘She needs to be out of the room when she is not sleeping. She needs to interact with people. She needs to be useful, to be still a part of the world.’ Nina scowled at her brother as she turned and slipped away, covering her hair in a beautiful shimmering veil of purple as she went.

Mann smiled to himself. She was the real boss of the family; like so many other Indian families, they were matriarchal. He watched her turn and look back at them as she waited for the lift, her headdress pulled further over her face as she held it over her nose and mouth. Mann could see her eyes were still smiling in Shrimp’s direction.

They turned and followed Ali along the corridor until he stopped and opened one of the doors. It was a bedroom with a tiny en-suite. The room was turned into an office: laptop, filing cabinet, table and chair, the bed pushed up against the left-hand side, white tiles on the wall the same as they were in all the guesthouse rooms. Ali shut the door behind him. He motioned for them to sit on the one chair and stool, whilst he sat on the bed. Ali switched on the air con, a noisy box cut into the window. A thin piece of old sheeting was cut around the air con box for a curtain.

‘Do you live here?’ asked Shrimp.

Ali flicked his head towards the right. ‘Next door. I was born in these Mansions. This is my home; rough on the outside but it has a big heart. Or it used to be. We have nothing but trouble here now.’

‘Did you know the dead girl?’

Ali shook his head. ‘There are so many here now. It’s the newcomers causing the trouble.’

‘Have you heard of the Outcasts?’

‘Sure. That’s all we hear about at the moment. Their graffiti is all up the walls. They call themselves the lone wolves, draw it on the walls. They look like kids, but when they get in a group they are more like animals.’

‘Have they threatened you?’

Ali thought for a moment before he replied. ‘Not me, but my family. First we started getting offers to protect the restaurant for a cut of the takings. We paid them off like we always do. It’s part of life here. But last week a new group came in demanding money and making threats. “Give us the money or else we will torch the place.” That kind of thing.’ He looked at Mann. ‘It’s the one thing we all dread in the Mansions – fire. It’s not exactly the place you want to be if that happens. The restaurant is on the third floor. They start a fire there, the seventeen floors above have no chance.’

‘Did they speak to you?’

‘I wish. No, they waited until I wasn’t there. They spoke to my uncle. He works on the till. He’s an old man.’

‘What did he tell them?’

‘He told them to fuck off. Then they kicked the shit out of him. Indians in Hong Kong don’t get the fucking respect they deserve. When it was a colony it was different. We were all under the same British umbrella, so to speak. Indians had respect. But not now. The kids can’t get jobs. They go for interviews but they never get the work. It’s the same all over. You have to be able to speak and write Mandarin. Who the fuck can do that? We are pushed further from the mainstream Hong Kong business world. Now the young ones are coming up with no prospects. The Indian community is big on education, these are smart kids. They don’t want to work in the restaurants, become tailors, sell fake goods. They want to be lawyers, top businessmen. They are not getting the chance.’ Ali looked at Mann and realized he’d missed out a vital piece of information: ‘These were not your usual Chinese bullyboys – Triads. We get enough of them and we pay up when we have to. These were different.’ Mann waited. Ali lowered his voice. ‘These were just kids. Well, not just any kids; these were Indian kids turning on their own kind; newcomers, they are to blame for all the trouble.’

‘What about your brothers? What do they think?’

Ali fidgeted. ‘My brothers? Mahmud is a bright lad – he will go far.’

‘And Hafiz?’ asked Mann.

Ali hesitated. ‘Look, Hafiz is a bit wild. He is a good boy at heart. He gets a lot of flack from the old man. I hope he will be all right in the end. I hope, if things turn out well for the Mansions, if we get someone to invest in it, I hope that we will all be okay.’

Ali was looking at Mann when he spoke. Mann didn’t answer. He was feeling claustrophobic in the tiny room. It was impossible to tell where ceiling began and wall ended. Large white tiles were everywhere. He’d seen a place like this in one of his nightmares.

‘Do you know a girl named Lilly Mendoza?’ asked Shrimp.

‘Yes, I know Lilly. We all do. She’s a little tramp but she has it hard. Her stepdad Rizal is a nasty piece of work. He will try it on with any of the women. He doesn’t care who they are. He has a bad streak a mile wide.’

‘Does he try it on with your sister?’ asked Shrimp.

Ali looked shocked at the suggestion. ‘If he did I would kill him. And look, I’d like to help about the girl Rajini but I don’t know most of the Indians living here. We tend to stick to our own kind.’

‘The caste system?’

Ali shrugged. ‘In a small way. No one wants to admit it but there’s no way I would marry someone from a lower class than my own. It just isn’t an option.’

Mann and Shrimp left Ali in his office and waited for the lift.

‘What do you make of him, Shrimp?’

‘Fly boy. Likes his wealth on display. He’s a nice enough guy but he’s streetwise rather than clever. He thinks he’s being clever, telling us stuff he hopes will steer us away from his brothers. He’s protecting his family.’

‘Exactly.’ Mann gave Shrimp a sideways glance and a grin. ‘His sister Nina likes you, Shrimp. I think you should come back tomorrow, follow up some leads.’

‘Her family won’t like that.’ Shrimp gave an embarrassed smile. ‘Did you hear the way her brother talks? I reckon a Chinese guy would rank among the untouchables, don’t you?’

Mann slapped him on the back. ‘Yeah, but your mission is to boldly go where no man has gone before.’

Mann took out the hair ornament that Flo had given him. Her pewter and white hair was woven into a tight clasp. Helen’s image flashed into his head. It took his breath away. Mann saw her twisting at the end of a rope, a black hood over her head.

‘You all right, Boss?’ Shrimp was staring at Mann.

Her body covered in blood. He saw the hand raised to whip her.

Mann rubbed his face with his hands as if trying to erase the images in his head. ‘Yes. I’m all right, Shrimp. I just want to focus on work. Let’s go and find Rizal.’