‘Kill it,’ the voice said. ‘Now!’
Without looking at any of his human audience, Patrick stroked the cat’s head before gripping its neck with his thumb and forefinger and then jerking as hard as he could. The cat screeched and struggled, its claws raking Patrick’s arm. He tightened his grip and twisted again, using his other hand to pull the cat’s head back as far as it would go. The animal screeched once more before going limp.
Patrick threw the body on the floor.
The man nodded and leant forward. ‘Equally impressive,’ he said. ‘Now let us witness whether you have any compassion in you at all. Do not misunderstand me, Number Sixty-Six. I hope the coolness you have displayed so far stays with you through the next and final test.’
Patrick sensed the atmosphere change.
The men either side of the leader who had done all the talking took deep breaths as their attention focused on what was happening behind Patrick.
This time Patrick did not want to turn round.
She was small and maybe Patrick’s age or a little older.
He could not tell because there was a black hood over her head, a chord pulling it into her neck. Her hands were tied behind her back.
She was also naked. Her skin was a light brown.
She was forced to her knees in front of the hooded men. There was not a sound, not even a whimper. Her head was bowed, her spine prominent. In contrast with the rest of her, the soles of her small feet and the palms of her hands were white.
‘You know what you must do,’ the man in the centre said, his eyes boring into Patrick’s. ‘There will be no hesitation. Hesitation will show weakness and if you are to join us we must be certain that you are utterly ruthless and dependable under all circumstances, and no matter who your victim might be. Do it.’
Patrick closed his eyes for less than a second before stepping forward so that he was standing just behind the girl. He bent down, untied the chord round her neck and then because he wanted to see the girl he was going to kill he pulled the hood from her head. Her long black hair spilled out over her shoulders.
An image of Lucinda flashed into Patrick’s mind.
The girl kneeling in front of him could so easily be Lucinda. He could not see her face but if he imagined it was Lucinda then maybe it would be easier.
He removed the gag from around her mouth and untied her hands.
The girl lifted her head slowly before standing up.
She scanned the men in front of her before turning round to face Patrick. Her jet black eyes seemed to claw their way into Patrick’s very soul.
In Patrick’s mind her features became Lucinda’s features.
She did not flinch as he lifted his hands and encircled her long slender neck with his fingers, his thumbs pressing against her windpipe. Her lips parted slightly and her eyes looked surprised as he began to squeeze. The pressure forced her head backwards as she gripped his wrists weakly with her hands.
Her eyes did not leave his.
Patrick squeezed harder.
The girl’s eyes were glazed.
‘Stop!’
The command did not register.
‘Stop!’
Patrick felt himself being yanked backwards, but still his hands remained around the girl’s throat. Then suddenly the girl brought her knee up between Patrick’s legs and he fell to the floor, the pain hitting him instantly.
He lay on the floor groaning, his hands between his thighs as he tried to ease the pain.
Engulfed with a different sensation when he was doused with a bucket of freezing cold water, he spluttered and swore, not knowing what to do. But at last he managed to open his eyes sufficiently to see the hooded men looking at him.
‘You have left us in no doubt that you would have killed her,’ the man in the centre said. ‘Good.’
‘But why -?’
‘Did I order you to stop?’
Patrick nodded weakly.
‘Number Sixty-Six, your victim was Number Thirty-Nine.’
The girl moved into Patrick’s line of sight. She lifted her hand to her neck ‘I’m sorry I had to do that but you were … you were reluctant to do as the Master ordered.’
‘You are …?’
‘Yes, I am.’ She smiled as she reached down to him. ‘Now, I’m sure The Master will not mind if I take you from here and help you ease the pain I caused you.’ She helped Patrick to his feet before, and still holding his hand she turned and bowed to the Master and his council.
Patrick also bowed.
‘You have done well, Number Sixty-Six. Only very few get to this stage and those that don’t pay the price ... Go with Number Thirty-Nine and enjoy what she has to offer because when we next meet you will be ready.’
Chapter Thirteen
Singapore/Hong Kong 2004
Jeremy Jacobs was right; Adam was somewhere over the Indian Ocean but he shouldn’t have been. Cathay Pacific Flight CX252 was on finals for an unscheduled approach to Singapore’s Changi International Airport having earlier developed a technical problem with its starboard outer engine. The Captain had assured his passengers it was a minor setback but it did mean a stop-over for probably a couple of hours to get the fault corrected. He apologised for any inconvenience this may have caused but further assured his passengers he would do all he could to make up for lost time once they were airborne again. However, they should expect their arrival in Hong Kong to be delayed.
There was an audible sigh from the passengers.
The probable delayed arrival time for Flight CX252 had already been registered at Hong Kong International Airport. As Patrick Yong looked up at the arrivals board he saw the delay would mean the flight would arrive at 0850hrs rather than 0450hrs. He was pleased because it would mean he could get a couple of hours more sleep.
He exited the airport, tapped out a number on his mobile phone and said, ‘Sixty-Six. Flight delayed. Be here at 8am.’
‘Thirty-Nine, I will be there,’ the female voice said on the other end of the phone.
‘And you are happy with what you have to do?’
‘Happy is perhaps the wrong word but I am aware of my duty.’
‘I will give you the sign as he passes through passport control.’
‘I’ll be watching. Where is he staying?’
‘I don’t know, that is for you ...’
‘I understand.’
Chapter Fourteen
Ashbourne 2004
‘Hong Kong?’ Gabrielle repeated.
‘ ’Fraid so. He flew out at lunchtime today.’
‘But why?’
‘Even he could not answer that one. But having heard what you’ve said then perhaps a few questions do now have answers.’
Jeremy had almost finished his rack of lamb but Gabrielle was still picking at her salad. The news of Adam flying to Hong Kong that very day was quite devastating, not to say ironic.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well I had no idea he’d been to Scotland let alone his reason for going was to top himself. I -’
‘You make it sound so matter-of-fact. We’re talking about a man’s life here.’ Gabrielle put her knife and fork down on a half-eaten salad.
‘I know and I’m sorry if I sound blasé and just a little insensitive but I suppose after years in the legal profession it makes you that way. What happened to Lucinda and the children was horrific and my heart went out to Adam and his parents, but life goes on. We must move forward. If we spent all the time looking backwards we wouldn’t progress at all.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.’
‘What you’ve told me makes me ask whether he has gone back to Hong Kong to bury a few ghosts, or whether …’ Jeremy hesitated.
‘What? Go on.’
‘I really don’t know. The children had never been to Hong Kong so their ghosts are here not there. I just think … as I said, I really don’t know.’
‘There’s obviously something you want to tell me,’ Gabrie
lle suggested. ‘If you believe you know why Adam has gone to Hong Kong then say so.’ She could hear the frustration in her own voice.
‘You’re making me nervous. Your beautiful eyes are quite penetrating.’
‘And why are you nervous?’
‘As I said, because of you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you.’ The waiter approached the table. ‘A generous brandy for me and for madam …’ Jeremy looked at Gabrielle.
‘Just a coffee for me, please.’
‘What about that pudding?’
‘No, no thank you. A coffee will do.’
‘A generous brandy and two coffees, please.’
‘You’re very good at not answering questions,’ Gabrielle said. ‘You should have been a politician.’
‘I would never stoop so low. And what questions haven’t I answered?’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘You know exactly what questions I’m referring to.’
‘I think I told you earlier you should smile more often. It makes a perfect face even more perfect.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Jeremy, can I make one thing perfectly clear?’
‘What’s that?’
‘I agreed to meet you for a drink and then have dinner with you because I wanted information. There are no hidden messages, there’s nothing you should read into my motives, so you can stop the compliments.’ Once again Gabrielle touched his fingers with hers. ‘I don’t mean that nastily but I just wanted to make things perfectly clear.’
‘Are you suggesting, delectable lady,’ Jeremy said, looking down at Gabrielle’s hand which she quickly withdrew, ‘that I have designs on you? Are you inferring I was perhaps expecting more from you than your exquisite company, and wanted to give you more than the information you so obviously desire? ’
‘Jeremy! You’ve had three pints of lager and the best part of a bottle of wine. I -’
‘Delectable lady, you are more intoxicating than the strongest of lagers and the most palatable of wines. You have come to me from my dreams, you …’
‘Jeremy, will you please stop it!’
‘Only if you let me have the coffees and my brandy redirected to your room and then, and only then, will I tell you why I think Adam Harrison might have gone to Hong Kong.’
‘No, that’s blackmail,’ she told him without hesitation.
‘Then must it really end like this? When we are in the dawn of a relationship are you going to -’
‘We are not in the dawn of any relationship and if you don’t stop it I will walk out.’
‘To where, delectable lady? Where will you go? You are staying here.’
‘I’ll go and find a good solicitor.’
‘Delectable lady, you have found one. I am that good solicitor. What may I ask is the problem?’
‘I’m being pestered.’
‘By whom?’
‘By you.’
‘By me? Am I to play both parts? Am I to question and cross-examine myself and ask why the delectable lady thinks I am pestering her?’
‘You’re mad,’ Gabrielle said but she couldn’t resist smiling. She could see right through him but to her surprise his little-boy-lost tactic had a certain amount of charm.
‘I suppose I am, just a little. It’s what being a solicitor does to you.’ He leant across the table and took both of Gabrielle’s hands in his. ‘If I promise to be a good boy and behave myself impeccably may I divert the coffees and brandy to your room? What I have to tell you will sound a lot more convincing in the privacy of one of The Station Hotel’s more superior rooms than in here, in a crowded dining room.’
The waiter arrived at the table.
‘What is it to be, delectable lady? Here or …’
Gabrielle looked from Jeremy to the waiter and then back again. She knew if she wanted to hear what Jeremy had to say she had no choice. ‘Room twenty-one,’ she said, ‘but -’
‘Room twenty-one it is,’ Jeremy said, smiling at Gabrielle and then to the waiter. ‘Please ask room service to deliver the coffees and brandy to Room twenty-one and put the bill on my account.’
‘Certainly, Mr Jacobs,’ the waiter said, looking sideways at Gabrielle as he spoke.
A few minutes later she was standing at the window in her room looking down Station Road towards Church Street. Room service had delivered the coffees and Jeremy’s brandy. Jeremy removed his jacket and tie and was lounging in one of the two easy chairs either side of a coffee table.
When she’d booked in, Gabrielle was surprised by the quality of the room: an impressive oak panelled four-poster bed, a chaise longue, and a genuine looking Victorian dressing table with everything on it she could have wanted.
‘So, delectable lady, do you want to know?’
‘I wish you’d stop calling me that,’ she said, ‘and I also wish you’d start being serious.’
She saw his reflection in the window as he crossed the room and stood behind her. She froze. He put his hands on her hips and gently brushed his lips against the back of her neck.
She shuddered.
She could not remember the last time she’d been touched in that way and regardless of all the promises she had made to herself she found that she enjoyed having Jeremy standing so close, his lips brushing against her skin. As his hands began to move upwards over her ribcage she wanted to scream at him to stop, but she couldn’t. She felt his warm breath on her neck as his hands cupped her breasts. She felt him pushing himself against her.
But suddenly he took his hands away and she heard him re-cross the room to the chair. Gabrielle stayed looking out of the window but could no longer focus on anything. She closed her eyes.
‘Right, delectable lady, as you suggested, it’s time for me to be serious. Come and make yourself comfortable.’
She opened her eyes and looked at her reflection in the window. She could see that he was watching her from the other side of the room. Why had he stopped? There was no need for him to know what she really did for a living. She was a woman who had been starved of physical affection for years. Previously she had deliberately steered away from any chance of an encounter because she was devoted to her calling. Then Adam Harrison walked into her life and stirred something within her that had lain dormant for so long. And now she was with a man she really didn’t know, had let him touch her intimately and had not stopped him. She wanted to be hugged, she wanted to be held, she wanted to be made to feel as though she was a woman and not just God’s guardian. Just as she did not know who he was, he did not know anything about her. Tomorrow she would be gone. Tomorrow he could sit in his office and think about her as another conquest because that’s all she would be to him.
‘Are you going to join me? Your coffee’s getting cold.’
She took a deep breath, turned round and walked unsteadily across the room without making eye contact with Jeremy. It must not happen. Regardless of how much she wanted it to happen, it must not happen.
She sat down in the chair on the other side of the coffee table.
‘That was just to say thank you for a lovely meal,’ he said.
She still could not make eye contact. ‘A simple thank you would have sufficed,’ she said in a slightly husky voice. She coughed.
‘I don’t think you mean that but … are you going to look at me? That moment of intimacy was supposed to lower a few barriers, not create more. Come on, you can look at me. I’ll begin to feel a little foolish if you don’t.’ He leant across the gap between them and put his finger under her chin. ‘That’s better.’ He smiled that smile. ‘We are two grown adults, Gabrielle. If at any stage you want me to stop talking, touching, whatever, you just have to say so.’
‘I shouldn’t have to say stop in the first place,’ she said. ‘I told you downstairs not to misread the situation. You already have.’
Jeremy inclined his head a little and raised his eyebrows to let her know, once again, that she did not mean what she’d just said. He picked up his brandy and swirled t
he contents round the glass. ‘Did you know your accent is as attractive as the rest of you?’
‘Jeremy, stop it. Please, stop it.’
‘Right, compliments have ended,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘How much did Adam tell you about his childhood days in Hong Kong?’
She hesitated for a few seconds before answering, still thinking about what did happen and then could have happened. ‘He told ... he told me about why he was adopted, his childhood, the way he and Lucinda became inseparable, and the day their mother discovered them in bed together and what happened after that.’
‘He really opened up to you, didn’t he? Did he mention Patrick, his … er … brother, I suppose you’d call him?’
‘Only in passing really. Although he didn’t say as much I got the feeling they didn’t get on too well. He implied that Patrick objected to Adam and Lucinda being such good friends and, as it turned out, more than just good friends.’
‘I think what you’ve just said may be the other reason Adam has gone to Hong Kong.’
‘What do you mean exactly?’
‘Did Adam tell you he thought Patrick might have joined a Triad when he was still only sixteen?’ Jeremy took a sip of his coffee and screwed up his face. ‘It’s cold. Would you like me to order some more coffee?’
‘No, not for me, thank you.’ She thought for a moment. ‘No, he made no mention of a, what did you say, a Triad?’
Jeremy nodded. ‘Yes, they’re called Triads. Before mentioning what the connection might be with Adam, I want to tell you what I found when I did a bit of research on what these Triads are because I wasn’t too sure myself. Do you want to hear what I discovered? What I found out made fascinating reading.’
‘Will it help my understanding of what you’re going to tell me about Adam?’ Gabrielle asked.
Jeremy nodded. ‘Yes, I think it will.’
She folded her legs under her and saw Jeremy’s gaze drop to her knees as she did so. ‘Then tell me,’ she said.
He took a sip of brandy. ‘Well, after the Japanese invasion of China during World War Two, the Triads, which had existed for centuries and about which there was much folklore, offered to work for the invaders. In Hong Kong the Triads operated criminal enterprises for the Japanese but they were disorganised so the Japanese united the gangs and called them the "Hing Ah Kee Kwan" or the Asia Flourishing Organization. The ...’
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