The car moved away from the kerb. ‘Once again I must apologise for my behaviour when we first met,’ Patrick Yong told Gabrielle. ‘I’m afraid your visit did take me by surprise but hopefully I’ll be able to explain before we meet Adam.’
‘There’s no need to explain,’ Gabrielle said, looking up towards the Elliotts’ balcony.
She felt herself shiver.
* * *
Watching Number Sixty-Six’s car move away, Number Seventy-Five grinned to himself as he imagined what his controller would be doing to the gweilo woman. From what he’d seen in his wing and rear-view mirrors, she was young and good-looking. He wasn’t that keen on white women himself - their round eyes made them look so solemn - but for somebody like her even he would be willing to make an exception.
When the tail lights of his controller’s car had disappeared, Number Seventy-Five stepped out of his own car and slipped behind the bushes that surrounded the base of the building.
He would use the back entrance.
* * *
‘I hope you’ll accept my apologies for my behaviour,’ Patrick Yong said as he expertly overtook four slower cars on the Stanley Road. ‘I allowed my sentiments to come to the fore before I had time to assess the situation.’
Gabrielle wanted to scream at him. What planet are you from? And where did you learn to speak English like that? But instead she smiled to herself and said, ‘That’s all right, we did descend on you unannounced.’ She let a few seconds pass. ‘What did Adam say when you told him I was in Hong Kong?’
‘As I told you on the phone, he was very surprised.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘He said how lovely you were but having met you I had to correct him. You are even lovelier than he described.’
‘I think -’
‘He told me you’d had quite an impact on him and one of the reasons he’d come to Hong Kong was to try to escape from his feelings.’
‘He told you that?’
‘He did. And, once again, having met you I can understand why he feels the way he does.’
‘Mr Yong, I think -’
‘Patrick, please, and may I call you Gabrielle?’
‘Well, yes ... of course,’ Gabrielle murmured.
‘Thank you. You were saying?’
‘I was going to say that between you and your brother you have the gift of the blarney stone.’
‘I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of such a stone but I’m going to take what you said as a compliment.’
Gabrielle relaxed for the first time since getting into the car; the shiver she had felt moments earlier was also forgotten. She leant back against the headrest and closed her eyes. She could see Adam’s face. She could see his smile, the furrows on his forehead, the concern, the anguish, the remorse. She could see all the emotions he had shown her in the few hours they’d spent together. He had told his brother that she’d had quite an impact on him - let that be true. If it were true then her journey had most certainly not been in vain. She was, after all, in Hong Kong because she now believed she had fallen in love with him.
How astute Elizabeth was.
What did a man mean when he said a woman had made quite an impact on him? If perhaps it meant he loved her in return, then leaving Hong Kong together would be a dream come true.
She would also have kept her promise to Adam’s mother.
* * *
The back entrance was easy.
Number Seventy-Five was inside the building and ascending in the service lift within minutes of leaving his car.
He had never questioned his ability to kill other human beings. For him it was an occupation. It paid well and if he remained as good as he knew he was he would never get caught; he would never even be suspected.
He had lost count of the number of his victims. He didn’t regard them as such. To him they were products of a lucrative profession whom he had shot, stabbed, garrotted, throttled or simply suffocated. As he travelled up in the lift he wondered if he might make use of the height of the building - a suicide pact?
He never asked questions.
He received his orders and he carried them out. Neither he, his products nor his controller needed to know the answers. Dead was dead and the dead didn’t reveal anything. He would kill and then go home to his wife and two young children. He worked when required to do so, but even his controller didn’t know his products were not always only as a result of what the Master had ordered. There had never been a problem with a bit of freelancing; he was sure everybody else did it, even his controller, so why shouldn’t he do it as well.
As the lift slowed to a halt, Number Seventy-Five stopped his musings.
He must concentrate.
He had lasted as long as he had because he always concentrated.
He was a professional.
The day he stopped being a professional he would stop altogether.
* * *
‘She is so young,’ Leila said, quietly sipping the tea the girl had brought them, ‘so young and yet the sadness in that pinched little face suggests she is years older.’
‘She’s hardly said a word.’
‘She doesn’t need to. I -’ Leila stopped what she was about to say as the girl came back into the room.
She stood in front of Leila and Adam, her head bowed and her hands clasped in front of her. She opened her mouth to speak.
‘Go on,’ Leila encouraged her, leaning forward in her chair.
The girl lifted her head slightly. ‘You,’ she said, her eyes on Adam, ‘are the second white man to come to see my master.’
Adam kept his voice as soft as possible. ‘You’re saying another European has been here?’
‘Yes,’ the girl replied.
‘When?’
‘Earlier today. An old white man, a woman who I think was his wife and a young white woman. They are looking for a man and they think my master might know where he is.’
Adam and Leila looked at each other. ‘Did these people who visited your master give their names?’ Leila asked.
The girl nodded. ‘I am not very good at pronouncing white men’s names but they were called Erriart. It sounded like Erriart anyway.’
‘Erriart,’ Leila repeated, ‘I think she means Elliott, or something like that.’
‘Yes,’ the girl said, ‘that’s what I said, Erriart.’
‘Do you know anyone called Elliott?’ Leila asked Adam.
‘Not in Hong Kong, at least I don’t think so. I know some Elliotts back in the UK, but not over here.’
‘The younger woman the Elliotts had with them, was she their daughter?’
The girl shook her head. ‘I don’t know, but maybe. She had a very strange name.’
‘And it was?’
‘Gablielle,’ she girl said. ‘They called her Gablielle.’
Adam’s eyes widened. Was it a coincidence? There must be thousands, hundreds of thousands of women called Gabrielle. It had to be a coincidence.
He took a deep breath. ‘Can you describe her?’
‘Gablielle?’
‘Yes, Gabrielle.’
The girl seemed to become more confident and sat on the arm of the chair opposite Adam and Leila. ‘She was, I don’t know, maybe twenty-eight or twenty nine …’
‘How old are you?’ Leila asked.
‘Me? I am fifteen, sixteen next month.’
‘And how long have you been working for your master?’
The girl’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Eh,’ she counted on her fingers, ‘nearly two years now.’
‘Gabrielle,’ Adam said, ‘you were describing her.’
‘Yes,’ the girl continued. ‘Twenty-eight or maybe twenty-nine and she was very pretty. Her hair was like gold, long and very silky. I wanted to touch it for luck but I was too scared. She had very blue eyes.’
‘Who were you scared of? Gabrielle?’ Leila asked.
‘No, my master. He would be very angry.’
‘You were telling us
about Gabrielle?’ Adam said, breathing fast.
The girl looked from Leila to Adam and smiled for the first time. ‘As I said she was very, very pretty. I wanted to talk to her, I so wanted to talk to her, ask her about England, the green fields and trees. I have seen so many pictures but I have never had them really described to me. The smell of the flowers, the birds, the butterflies, there was so much I wanted to ask her.’
‘Why her?’ Adam asked, his head buzzing. It can’t be, he thought. Why would she be in Hong Kong?
The girl lifted a finger to her lips. ‘‘She, she was very, I am not sure what word I can use, she was very sensitive. I see it in her eyes.’
‘Did you hear what her second name was?’ Adam asked. He caught a swift look from Leila.
‘Elliott, Mai Ling has already told us, their name was Elliott.’
‘No,’ Mai Ling said, ‘her name was not Erriart, her name was Blooks.’
* * *
Number Seventy-Five hesitated outside the door but only for a few seconds. He could hear the sound from a television but nothing else. This was going to be easy: Number Sixty-Six would be pleased. Perhaps he would have a bit of fun, perhaps he would play with his victims before they were finally despatched. He would see what they were like and then make his decision.
* * *
‘I thought you said The Kowloon was on Nathan Road,’ Gabrielle said as Patrick Yong turned off the main road after the tunnel.
‘It is,’ he replied, ‘this is a short cut. Have you been in Hong Kong for long?’
‘I arrived just before the typhoon struck. The Elliotts were kind enough to take pity on me when we met at the airport and I’ve been with them ever since.’
‘You didn’t know them before you came to Hong Kong?’
‘No, I’d never met them before. We were on the same flight. They’d been back to England for their daughter’s funeral …’
‘Funeral?’
‘She died of cancer.’
‘So they had no idea you had come to Hong Kong solely to look for Adam?’
‘They had no idea who I was, let alone why I was here.’
Patrick gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. He didn’t like killing for killing’s sake but it was too late. There was no way he could contact Number Seventy-Five now.
* * *
Number Seventy-Five stood back in the darkened hall.
The television was on and the sound was very loud. One of them, if not both must be deaf, he thought. He could see the top of a man’s head above the back of the chair and a pair of legs sticking out to the front. He couldn’t see the woman. She must be round the corner.
Number Seventy-Five only understood a few words of English but a newscaster was the same whatever television station was being watched. There were pictures of what he guessed were of Iraq, and then the British Prime Minister.
He would wait.
Number Seventy-Five moved slowly back along the corridor towards the kitchen.
One of them would come out shortly.
He hoped it would be the man first.
* * *
‘You know her, don’t you? This Gabrielle Brooks, you know her.’ They were outside and walking back towards Argyll Street, looking for a taxi.
‘If it is who I think it is then, yes I know her. But I can’t give you a reason for her being in Hong Kong.’
‘Mai Ling gave us that. She was looking for you.’
‘Yes, but who are the Elliotts? I’ve no idea who they are.’ Adam steered Leila to one side so that she would miss a group of youths coming towards them.
She gripped Adam’s hand a little tighter. ‘How well do you know your brother?’ she asked.
‘I recognised him but that’s all. I don’t think I could say that I’ve ever really known him, but now -’
Leila pulled Adam into a shop doorway. ‘As I keep telling you, he’s a very dangerous man.’
‘I gathered that,’ Adam said, smiling. ‘You were ordered to kill me, remember? And unless I’m dreaming, here I am still on this earth and holding hands with my potential assassin. How bizarre is that and what does it tell you about my brother?’
‘It tells me that maybe I have fallen in love with you, but it also tells me that your brother is no less dangerous.’ She looked up at him. ‘The Elliotts and your friend Gabrielle Brooks are in a lot of danger.’
* * *
Eric Elliott turned on the kitchen light. He wanted to make Elizabeth a mug of Ovaltine and one for himself. But then again perhaps he would have Drinking Chocolate tonight for a change. It was all a matter of routine. They had said very little since Gabrielle left, but they both knew what the other was thinking. She had been in their lives for only a few days and yet she’d become part of their lives. Initially she was a pleasant alternative, such a nice figure and a remarkably sweet face. But then her depth, her personality, her warmth had engulfed them both.
It was almost as though she was there because of the daughter they had just lost.
Gabrielle was the last person Eric Elliott ever thought about.
As the razor sharp knife was drawn across his throat his breath left him as swiftly as his life blood gushed towards the floor.
There was not even any pain.
* * *
‘Where are we going?’ Gabrielle asked. The streets were darker and more threatening.
‘As I said, this is a short cut.’
‘You’re lying.’ She shivered. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Gabrielle,’ Patrick Yong said, his voice confident, ‘you and I have a few things to discuss before we meet your Adam.’
‘What do you mean? And he is not my Adam.’ Gabrielle looked through the side window of the car. They were entering what she could only guess was the docks area. The buildings were a mixture: offices and warehouses. ‘What is there to discuss?’ She felt desperation creeping into her voice but had no idea why.
‘That’s for me to decide,’ Patrick Yong told her as he stopped his car at the entrance to a small and very old looking quayside warehouse. ‘May I suggest you do as you are told?’
‘Where are we?’
‘You will see.’ Patrick Yong turned the key in the ignition and the engine died.
There was silence.
‘What the -?’
‘Miss Brooks, the time for informalities is over,’ Patrick Yong said as he rested the muzzle of the 9mm Beretta against Gabrielle’s temple. ‘If you’ll just do as you are told, please.’
Gabrielle froze.
Her brain told her what was happening but it would not take her thoughts that one stage further and provide her with an explanation. ‘What -?’
‘Miss Brooks, I’m going to get out of the car and then you and I are going to walk into this building. Do you understand?’
* * *
Mai Ling remembered her master writing the Elliotts’ address on a piece of paper. She had found it in the bin by the phone and gave it to Adam and Leila. They were twenty minutes away from Plantation Court when Number Seventy-Five put his hand over Elizabeth Elliott’s mouth a second before drawing his knife across her throat.
* * *
Gabrielle stumbled.
It was dark and the air smelt dank.
‘Over there,’ Patrick Yong said from behind her. ‘Go towards that door in the corner.’
In the dim light it wasn’t easy to see what was in the large space they were crossing but Gabrielle assumed it was an open-plan office that had been allowed to rot after it was emptied. The surface underfoot felt like a carpet and she could see the outline of rows of desks on either side of the aisle. Through the filthy windows the lights from other buildings gave her some hope.
She reached the door.
‘Open it,’ Patrick Yong ordered.
She did as she was told and waited.
‘Inside.’
* * *
Number Seventy-Five slipped out of the building the same way he went in.
T
he job was done so Number Sixty-Six would be pleased.
He had not taken anything.
There was no point.
He would burn his clothes and then wait for the next assignment.
Reaching his car, Number Seventy-Five smiled. He had seen nobody and there was no reason why anybody would notice him.
As he left Plantation Court and began to turn left, a car was parked too close to the junction and he had to pull out into to the road to see if it was clear. As he did he only just missed the taxi which was indicating to pull into Plantation Court.
The taxi driver swore and apologised to his passengers.
Leila smiled but Adam was preoccupied with the fact that Gabrielle Brooks was in Hong Kong and looking for him.
Why?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Patrick Yong stood in front of the chair to which he had tied Gabrielle. ‘Miss Brooks, whether you leave this building alive or whether I feed you piece by piece to the fish is dependent on your co-operation. Do you understand?’
Gabrielle’s arms were already aching. Her wrists were fastened behind the chair and her ankles were also tied together.
‘I ... I understand that,’ she said in as steady a voice as she could manage, ‘but what ... what I don’t understand is why you, Adam’s brother, have … have brought me here and … and why you feel the need to tie me up.’
In Denial Page 33
