by Kylie Chan
‘Where are you now? Where’s Simone?’ Michael said.
Water police, Leo said with misery. I herded them all onto the life raft, and the water police picked us up — the boat’s on the bottom of the harbour, with the front end blown completely off, and Simone’s taken off and won’t reply when I call her, and this boy is … he’s … she killed him, Emma. What do we do?
‘I need to get back down there right now,’ I said to Michael. ‘But nobody except Simone is big enough to carry me. You need to take me back to the Celestial Palace, and then meet me at the Nine Dragon Wall in the car.’
‘One of the Academy drivers will meet both of us there,’ Michael said. He concentrated for a moment.
Water Police Headquarters in Central, Leo said. Across the road from The Centre.
‘That’s not too far from Wan Chai, only about a fifteen-minute drive,’ Michael said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Contact Gold, ask him about the legal implications on the Earthly of the boat exploding in Hong Kong and the children being put in danger, and of this boy disappearing while in our care,’ I said to Michael as we rode his cloud back to the Celestial Palace. ‘Ask him to also check the Celestial implications of the fact that Simone’s killed this kid — the Celestial will know she’s done it and they’ll want to pursue her for breaking Celestial law.’
‘Done. Gold says he’ll meet you at the water police station. All the kids are there, and their parents are on the way. There’s a lot of hysteria from the parents already there, Emma, and Leo’s bearing most of it. They’re blaming him.’
Michael stopped at the top of the stairs leading back down to the Earthly. ‘It would be a shame to lose all that information the Archivist put together for you, Emma. Let me go back and put it on some disks for you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’ll pass them along to you later,’ he said.
The dragons were silent as I slithered down the stairs. I changed back to human form and walked to the kerb to meet the car.
‘Good luck, Emma!’ a voice called behind me — one of the dragons. I turned to thank it but the wall had returned to its normal form, the dragons unmoving. I nodded to them and got into the back of the car. Marcus was driving; Monica, who’d obviously been crying, was sitting in the front.
‘I heard what happened, ma’am, and I’m sorry we didn’t go along to watch over the Princess,’ Marcus said as he pulled away from the kerb.
‘No need to apologise, Marcus, Leo was there,’ I said. ‘We could never have predicted that this would happen.’
‘Have we heard from little Simone?’ Monica said.
‘Nobody’s heard from her, Monica, but she’s just run away. She’s fine.’
Monica dropped her head and blew her nose with a soggy tissue. ‘She’s not fine, ma’am, a horrible boy tried to have his way with her and she killed him. No little girl should have to face things like that.’
Marcus thumped the steering wheel. ‘Trying to hurt our little Simone! She is so innocent, and he tried to take that innocence! He deserved it, the little …’ He dissolved into Tagalog, roundly cursing the boy involved.
It was mayhem at the water police headquarters. Parents hugged hysterical teens, shouting over their heads at the policeman behind the counter. When they saw me enter, the parents mobbed me. I pushed my way to the counter, the parents shouting abuse and threats at me. Gold was already there and he looked relieved when he saw us.
I yelled to the police officer, ‘Where is Leo Alexander?’
‘Why you ask about that dark-lei?’ one woman shouted. ‘Why you not ask about my daughter? You nearly killed my daughter!’
‘You are killer, just like that neeg-la in the wheelchair!’ a man shouted. ‘He kill that boy and that girl with rubbish boat and now he hides!’
‘Who are you?’ the policeman said, straining to be heard over the noise.
‘This is Emma Donahoe, the majority owner of the boat,’ Gold shouted over the counter. ‘I’m her lawyer, Gold Gam.’
‘That’s right, gweipoh, bring a lawyer, because we are going to sue you for everything you own. Go back to your own country!’ a woman yelled behind us.
The policeman nodded, and went through a door behind the counter. He opened a door in the wall and gestured for us to enter. He stopped Monica and Marcus. ‘Family only.’
‘Lock her up!’ a Filipina shouted. I turned to see her. She was clutching a sobbing blonde girl; she was obviously the domestic helper come to collect the teen.
I went through the door and the policeman led us down a corridor to an interview room where Leo was waiting. He sat at the table, his face grim. The room looked more like a corporate meeting room than the rooms you see on crime dramas on television. It held a large, eight-seater table with conference chairs around it, and had windows giving a grand view of the harbour. The water police had recently moved to this new building in the reclaimed land of Central.
‘Sit here,’ the policeman said, and went out, leaving us alone.
I put my hand on Leo’s. ‘She’s alive, Leo, we know that for sure.’
He grabbed me and pulled me into a clumsy hug; the handles of his wheelchair got in the way and dug into my ribs. ‘She’s killed someone, Emma, how is she ever going to live with herself? God, poor Simone, she’s so young to face so much.’
I held him tight and buried my face into his shoulder. ‘She’ll survive, Leo, she’s the strongest of all of us.’
‘We need to find her and set it up so that she can survive this,’ Gold said. ‘We can’t have the police thinking her dead; her identity will be lost and we’ll have to make another one for her.’
‘Always thinking of the practicalities, two steps ahead,’ Leo said. He took a deep breath. ‘Any word?’
I shook my head.
The policeman came back with a stack of forms and accompanied by another officer from the regular police force, who was carrying a thick file.
I tapped the stone and covered it with my hand.
Gold is coaching Leo in what to say, the stone said. We’re getting the story straight and making sure it will keep the police happy. All you have to do is insist that the boat was safety-checked, and that you don’t know what happened because you weren’t there. We will fix this.
The two officers sat at the table and the marine policeman nodded to the regular police officer to begin.
‘I’m Lieutenant Cheung,’ the regular policeman said. ‘We need to complete a full report on what happened. The coroner will be involved, as both the young boy and girl were killed in the explosion.’ He glanced down at the file. ‘Simone Chen is the girl who was killed, is that right?’
‘We can’t be sure she’s dead, Lieutenant,’ I said.
‘I think we can, ma’am, because you’ve lost all of your family now.’
I hesitated. ‘No, my parents are fine, and my sisters … Nothing’s happened to them, has it?’
He flipped open the file. ‘Michelle LeBlanc, died 1999. After she died, you moved in on John Chen Wu, but he died in 2004, leaving you in charge of the family assets in trust for Simone Chen, who’s now —’
I jumped to my feet. ‘Just a goddamn minute! Don’t try to suggest this is murder! Simone’s out there somewhere and we’re going to find her.’
‘We’ll raise the boat and find out exactly what happened, ma’am. Now.’ He turned to Leo. ‘How long have you and Miss Donahoe known each other?’
‘Okay, look,’ Leo said, and rapped his hand on the table. ‘I haven’t told you the whole story, but I will now. This is how it happened. I’m in a wheelchair, I can’t go up or down stairs, so I was stuck in the main saloon of the boat. I saw Simone and … Brian?’
‘Bevan,’ the policeman said.
Leo nodded. ‘That’s right, Bevan. They’d gone into the cabin. I never saw them go in — one of the other kids must have distracted me while they sneaked in. They’d closed the door but a wave jarred it open and I saw them. They were naked, and they
were getting ready to light up some marijuana cigarettes —’
Quick. Shocked. Now, the stone said.
‘She was having sex and smoking pot on the boat?’ I yelled at Leo.
Yes, blame him. Good.
‘Look, I’m sure Simone gets up to a lot of stuff that you don’t know about, Emma. This is the first time I’ve actually caught her in the act,’ Leo said. ‘I’ve smelled smoke in her room before, and you know those times when she says she’s having a sleepover with a girlfriend …’
‘She’s with a boy?’ I shouted.
‘Ma’am, everybody outside can hear you,’ Gold said, trying to calm me. ‘I think the press have turned up.’
I made a hugely obvious effort to control myself. ‘I hope you stopped them, Leo.’
‘For the sex part, it was too late, but I told them to throw the pot over the side and get dressed,’ Leo said. ‘Then I wheeled myself to the back of the boat to check on the kids on the roof …’ He hesitated, and took a deep breath. ‘That was when the whole front of the boat exploded.’
‘Was anybody cooking on the boat?’ the marine policeman said.
‘We warmed up some pizza in the boat’s oven,’ Leo said.
‘Gas?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you smell any gas?’ the policeman said.
Leo grimaced. ‘Yeah, I did, and this is my fault. I should have made sure they didn’t light up; instead I just told them to throw the drugs overboard and walked away. I was embarrassed because they had no clothes on, and I was really upset to see Simone like that. I smelled the gas, but I thought it was just from starting up the oven — it hadn’t been used in a while. It would have been okay if they hadn’t lit up … but they did.’ He put his head in his hand. ‘This is all my fault.’
‘You walked away?’ Lieutenant Cheung said. ‘You can’t walk!’
‘Wheeled. Walked. Same thing for me.’
‘When was the boat’s last safety inspection?’ the marine policeman said.
‘Two months ago; you should have the records of that,’ Gold said with confidence. ‘I can retrieve the documents from my files.’
‘And when was the last gas-bottle swap?’ Lieutenant Cheung said.
Gold hesitated. ‘I don’t know. The crew arrange that.’
‘Was it due for a new hose?’
Gold appeared embarrassed. ‘I don’t know, sir. That was the responsibility of the crew. It is possible they may have forgotten to have the hose replaced.’ He grimaced. ‘And we see those advertisements on the television all the time saying that hoses need to be checked.’
The marine policeman glanced at the regular policeman; he appeared satisfied but Lieutenant Cheung obviously didn’t want to let it go.
Oh crap, this is the policeman that interviewed you when that copy of you was found in a dumpster about nine years ago, the stone in my ring said. He was after you then, and he has the seniority to really go after you now!
Leo and Gold shared a look; they’d heard.
The door opened and another policeman stuck his head through. ‘Girl turned up alive,’ he said in Cantonese. ‘Boy is dead. They washed up on the shore in Pok Fu Lam. We have an ambulance down there picking them up.’
‘Simone’s alive, ma’am,’ Gold said. ‘They found her.’
If you can burst into tears of relief right now that would be helpful, the stone said.
‘Oh, thank God. Thank God,’ I moaned, and put my head in my hands.
Gold leaned over and patted me on the shoulder. ‘She is being taken to the hospital?’ he asked the policemen in Cantonese.
‘Yes. Queen Mary,’ the marine policeman said.
Cheung was staring at me, obviously not believing my relieved act.
‘She’s in Queen Mary Hospital, ma’am,’ Gold said.
I jumped to my feet. ‘Let’s go!’
‘We need to take statements first,’ Cheung said.
‘Can’t this wait?’ I said. ‘I want to see my stepdaughter —’
‘Did you marry this girl’s father?’ Cheung said.
‘No, we were engaged, but she’s like a daughter to me.’
‘Humph,’ Cheung said and looked down at the folder he had on us. ‘Then don’t call her your stepdaughter. That is wrong.’
‘Then she’s a little girl who means the whole world to me!’ I snapped.
Cheung glared at me. ‘Sixteen is not little girl.’
‘She is to me!’
‘Can we see her and come back to do the paperwork?’ Gold said in Cantonese. ‘We just want to be sure she’s okay.’
Cheung turned his glare on Gold. ‘No. You fill in the paperwork first. I want to hear all the stories.’
The marine officer snorted with disgust, roughly put his papers together and rose, shoving his chair back. ‘Can I talk to you outside?’
Cheung rose as well and they went out of the room together.
‘Let me relay,’ Gold said softly. His voice changed to that of the marine policeman: ‘This is chee seen. Crazy. This is the third gas-bottle explosion in the last year on a boat from this bad batch of gas-bottle hoses. You see conspiracies everywhere.’
‘This girl’s mother, grandparents and uncle were murdered in Ho Sheung Heung. Then her father had his head cut off after this gweipoh moved in. Now the little girl nearly dies on their boat. Can’t you see what’s going on here?’
‘I think you see too much, my friend. With all due respect, this really looks like a standard gas-bottle incident. We’ll raise the boat and find a blown-up gas oven.’
‘We’ll see,’ Cheung said. ‘Let’s take their statements. Miss Donahoe with me; Mr Alexander with you. I bet you a hundred that their stories fall apart after ten minutes.’
‘You’re on,’ the marine policeman said, and they came back into the room.
‘Miss Donahoe, you will give your statement to me,’ Lieutenant Cheung said. ‘Mr Alexander, go with Senior Marine Constable Tin. Mr Gam, stay here, please. An officer will keep you company while you wait.’
Don’t worry, it’s all under control, Gold said silently. Go with him, and I’ll help out. He continued speaking to me as Cheung led me down the corridor to another room similar to the first. What they’ll do is take extremely detailed statements, asking the same questions over and over, asking for a detailed time line, that sort of thing. They’ll be trying to find a hole in your story, or any discrepancy between your statement and Leo’s.
But I wasn’t there!
Even so, they’ll want you to tell them exactly what you were doing and when, and tell them over and over without changing a single detail. If you’re lying, you’ll eventually make a mistake or contradict yourself. If you’re telling the truth, your story, no matter how detailed, will be consistent. Hang tough, Emma, we can do this.
I just want to get to Simone.
Gold’s voice changed slightly in my head. The Celestial has summoned all of us. We have a hearing in the Celestial Palace in four hours.
Oh no, not right on top of this, I said. ‘Poor Simone,’ I added out loud.
‘She is a lucky girl,’ Cheung said.
‘I don’t know whether I should hug her or punish her when I do see her,’ I said ruefully. ‘I thought she was better behaved than this.’ I sat at the table in the interview room and put my head in my hands. ‘I’ve failed as a parent. Sleeping with boys and smoking pot — how could she do these things?’ I sat up and wiped my eyes. ‘This is all my fault.’
Bravo! the stone said, the hint of sarcasm in its voice made all the more cutting by its British accent.
‘How is the boy?’ I said. ‘You said they found them both?’
‘The boy is dead,’ Cheung said. ‘Head injury from the blast.’
The boy was Jade, Gold said. The real Bevan was yinned, gone completely. Jade won’t be back for a while; she’s in the tenth level of Hell now.
I rested my head in my hands again. ‘Oh no, that’s awful. What am I going to say to his par
ents?’
‘Worry about that when you get there. Right now,’ Cheung opened a folder and pulled out some forms, ‘I need you to give me a statement. So why weren’t you on the boat?’
Repeat after me, the stone said: I was at the Immigration Department …
‘I was at the Immigration Department,’ I began, and followed its coaching for the next forty minutes.
Finally, after he’d grilled me on my movements four times, Cheung closed the folder. ‘I’m sorry to have to put you through this, Miss Donahoe,’ he said, and smiled. Smiling made him seem much more human and approachable, and I relaxed slightly. ‘I think I’ve been mistaken. You obviously do care for Miss Chen and you’re doing your best to look after her. I will have to pursue this further when the boat is raised, but in the meantime please go visit her in the hospital. If there’s anything else I need, I’ll be in touch.’ He rose and held out his hand; I rose too and shook it. ‘I wish you good luck in talking to Miss Chen,’ he went on. ‘She will probably need counselling after this.’
‘I’ll arrange it. I just want her to recover and be happy again,’ I said with feeling. I nodded to him. ‘Thanks so much for being understanding, Lieutenant. I hope you see that I really do care for Simone very much.’
‘Oh, I do,’ he said, and opened the door for me. ‘This way.’
Is he lying as much as I think he’s lying? I asked the stone.
Twenty-four-carat lies. He’s after you; he’s convinced you and Leo have been picking them off for their money, Leo being the brains and you the muscle. Watch your face!
I carefully controlled my expression. Leo the brains and me the muscle. Yeah, right.
Oh, well done, Emma! the stone said, even more sarcastic now. Way to go, he didn’t miss that triumphant smirk!
Geez. And I was doing so well.
Emma, do me a favour, dear, get that demon essence cleared out of your system so you can go live on the Celestial Plane …
I know. Where I won’t have to deal with over-zealous police officers.
Exactly.
And what about Simone, who wants to live on the Earthly?
The stone was silent at that.
Fortunately, the parents had left by the time we returned to the reception area. Monica and Marcus were sitting on the plastic chairs waiting for us.
