Necropolis

by Anthony Horowitz

  Eventually she stopped thinking about it and tried to go to sleep – and that was when the answer suddenly arrived. Maybe not thinking about it had helped. PG. Wasn’t that an abbreviation for page? Could it be that someone was trying to make her look at page seventy? But in what? There were about forty or fifty books in the bedroom, most of them old history books that could have nothing to do with Hong Kong.

  She got out of bed and picked one off the shelf at random. Sure enough, page seventy took her to a fascinating description of the way Paris had been laid out in the nineteenth century. She tried a dictionary that had been lying on the table. Page seventy began with “Bandicoot … a type of rat” and continued with a whole lot of words beginning with B. How about a page in the telephone book? That would make sense if someone was trying to get in touch.

  And then she remembered. There had been one book which she hadn’t packed but which had turned up mysteriously in her luggage. A guide to Hong Kong and Macau.

  She went back to her case. She hadn’t even taken it out – but then she hadn’t needed a guide, not with Karl and Mrs Cheng ferrying her every step of the way. She carried it over to the light, flicking through to page seventy and found herself reading a description of somewhere called Yau Ma Tei – “a very interesting area in Kowloon,” the text said. “Yau Ma Tei means ‘hemp oil ground’ in Cantonese, although you are unlikely to see any around now.” There was a photograph opposite of a market selling jade, which reminded her of the amulet that the chairman had given her. She was wearing it now and wondered if he had bought it there.

  She was about to throw the book down – another false lead – when she noticed something. There was a pencil line against the text. It was so faint that she had almost missed it – but perhaps that was deliberate. The line drew her attention to a single paragraph.

  Tin Hau Temple. You shouldn’t miss this fascinating temple in a quiet square just north of the jade market. Tin Hau is the goddess of the sea, but the temple is also dedicated to Shing Wong, the city god and Tou Tei, the earth god. Admission is free. And watch out for the fortune-tellers who practise their trade in the streets outside. If you’re superstitious, you can have your palm read or your future foretold by a “bird of fortune.”

  And at the very end of the paragraph, also in pencil, was a message: 5.00 p.m.

  Scarlett didn’t get very much sleep that night. Someone was trying to reach her – and the risk was so great that they’d had to take huge precautions. First, they’d slipped a book into her case. Maybe they’d bribed someone at the airport. Then they’d somehow taken over a whole office block to draw her attention to it. The message had been clever too. PG 70. Anyone whose first language was Chinese would have had difficulty working out what it meant. It had taken her long enough herself.

  She had to visit the temple and she had to be there at five o’clock. Maybe someone who knew her father would be there. Maybe they’d be able to tell her where he really was.

  There was a fire in Hong Kong that night. The office building with the giant screen burned to the ground and when Scarlett woke up, the air was even greyer and hazier than ever, the smoke mixing in with the pollution. She looked out of the window but she couldn’t see the other side of Victoria Harbour. The whole of Kowloon was covered in fog.

  Mrs Cheng was more chatty than usual at breakfast. She mentioned that nine people had been killed and insisted on turning on the television to see what had happened. And, sure enough, there it was on a local news channel. The image was a little grainy and the announcer was speaking in Chinese but Scarlett recognized the building, directly opposite Wisdom Court, right on the harbour front. The images had been taken the night before and there were flames exploding all around it, the reflections dancing in the black water. Half a dozen fire engines had been called to the scene.

  But the firemen weren’t doing anything. The camera panned over them. None of them moved. None of them even unwound their hoses.

  They just stood there and let the building burn.

  BIRDS OF FORTUNE

  The Tin Hau Temple was a low, narrow building, crouching behind a wall and surrounded by trees, almost as if it didn’t want to be found. There were tower blocks on every side, the dirty brick walls crowding out the sky, but in the middle of it all there was a space, a wide square with trees that seemed to sprout out of the very concrete itself. Some benches and tables had been set out and there were groups of old men playing a Chinese version of chess. A few tourists were milling around, taking photographs of each other against the green, sloping roofs of the temple. The air smelled faintly of incense.

  It hadn’t been easy getting Mrs Cheng to bring her here.

  From the very start, Scarlett knew she had to be careful. Mrs Cheng had shown her the news report for a reason. She hadn’t been fooled by Scarlett’s act of the night before and she was letting her know it. If Scarlett asked straight out to go to the Tin Hau Temple at five o’clock, she would be more suspicious than ever.

  “Is there any news from my dad?” As they cleared the breakfast plates away, Scarlett asked the same question she asked every morning.

  “I’m sure he’ll call you soon, Scarlett. He’s very busy.”

  “Why can’t I call him?”

  “It’s not possible. China is very difficult.” She flicked on the dishwasher. “So where would you like to go today?”

  This was the moment Scarlett had been waiting for. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “We could go out to Stanley Village. It is on the beach and there are some nice stalls.”

  Scarlett pretended to consider. “Actually,” she said, “I wanted to buy some jade for my friend, Amanda.”

  Mrs Cheng nodded. “You can find jade in the Hollywood Road. But it’s expensive.”

  “Can’t we go to a market?”

  “There’s a jade market in Kowloon…”

  It was exactly what Scarlett wanted her to say. She had read the entire chapter in the guidebook and knew that the most famous jade market in Hong Kong was just round the corner from the temple. If they visited one, they’d be sure to walk over to the other. And that way she would arrive at Tin Hau without even having mentioned it.

  She still had to make sure that they got there at the right time, so after they had finished clearing up she announced that she had some school work to do and they didn’t leave Wisdom Court until two o’clock. Scarlett would have preferred to have taken the subway that went all the way there but as usual, Mrs Cheng insisted that Karl should drive them. And that meant he would be with them all afternoon. They were certainly keeping her close.

  The jade market was in a run-down corner of Kowloon, just off the Nathan Road, which was a long, wide tourist strip known as the “Golden Mile”. Not that there was much gold amongst the rather tacky shops which specialized in cheap electronics, fake designer watches and cut-price suits. The market was located in a low-ceilinged warehouse, sheltering under one of the huge flyovers that seemed to be knotted into the city.

  The pollution was even worse today. The weather was cold and damp and the mist was thicker than ever. Scarlett could actually feel it clinging to her skin and wondered how the people of Hong Kong put up with it. She noticed that increasing numbers of them had resorted to the white masks on their faces and wondered how long it would be before she joined them.

  There were about fifty stalls in the jade market, selling necklaces, bracelets and little figurines. Keeping one eye on her watch, Scarlett made a big deal out of choosing something, haggling with the stallholders, asking Mrs Cheng for advice, before finally settling on a bracelet which cost her all of three pounds. As she handed over the money, it occurred to her that Amanda would actually quite like it – she just hoped that she would be able to give it to her some time soon.

  “Do you want to go back down to the Peninsula?” Mrs Cheng suggested as they came back out into the street. Karl was waiting for them, leaning against the car. He never seemed to ha
ve any trouble parking in Hong Kong. For some reason, the traffic wardens – if there were any – never came close.

  “Not really…” Scarlett looked around her. And she was in luck. There was a signpost pointing to the Tin Hau Temple. They were standing right in front of it. “Can we go there?” she said, trying to make the suggestion sound casual.

  “We’ve already visited a lot of temples.”

  “Yes. But I’d quite like to see another.”

  It was true. They’d already been to the Man Mo in Central Hong Kong and to the Kuan Yin only the day before. They were strange places. Chinese temples seemed to mix religion and superstition – with fortune sticks and palm readers sitting comfortably among the altars and the incense. The people who went there didn’t pray like an English congregation. They bowed repeatedly, muttering to themselves. They left offerings of food and silk on the tables. They burned sacks of paper in furnaces that were kept going for precisely that purpose. Hong Kong had been Westernized in many ways, but the temples could only belong to the East and provided glimpses of another age.

  Tin Hau was just like the others. As Scarlett stepped inside, she found herself facing not one but several altars, surrounded by a collection of life-size statues that could have come out of a bizarre comic book: a cross-legged old man with a beard that was made of real hair, two devil monsters, one bright red, the other blue, both of them more childish than frightening. One of them was crying, wiping its eyes and grimacing at its neighbour. The other stood with a raised hand, trying to calm his friend down. There was a china-doll woman carrying a gift and, in a long row, more than fifty smaller figures, each one a different god, perched on a shelf. The temple was a riot of violent colours, richly patterned curtains, lamps and flowers. The smoke from the incense was so thick that they’d had to install a powerful ventilation system which droned continuously, trying to clear the air.

  Scarlett had arrived on time but she had no idea what she was looking for. There were about a dozen people in the temple, but they were all busy with their devotions and nobody so much as turned her way. Was it possible that she had misunderstood the passage in the guidebook? It had definitely told her to be there at five o’clock and it was already a few minutes past. She waited for someone to approach her, to slip another message into her hand – one of the worshippers, or a tourist perhaps. She even wondered if her father might be there.

  Nothing happened. Nobody came close. Scarlett knew that she could only pretend to be interested in the place for so long. Mrs Cheng was watching her with growing suspicion. She certainly hadn’t shown much interest in temples the day before – so what was so special about this one?

  “Have you had enough, Scarlett?” she demanded.

  “Who is that?” Scarlett asked desperately, pointing at one of the statues.

  “His name is Kuan Kung, the god of war.” Something flickered deep in her eyes. “Maybe you should pray to him.”

  “Why do you say that, Mrs Cheng?”

  “You never know when another war will begin.”

  In the end, Scarlett had to leave. She had lingered for as long as she could but it seemed clear that nobody was going to come. She was hugely disappointed. Of course, the note had only given her a time. It hadn’t told her what day to be there. On the other hand, it was unlikely that she would be able to find an excuse to return, and slipping out of Wisdom Court on her own was out of the question. Nine people had died when the office on the waterfront had burned down. Maybe whoever had sent the message had been among them.

  It was beginning to get dark when they emerged into the square. Karl was sitting on a bench with his arms folded, looking about as animated as the statues that they had just seen. A number of stalls were being set up all around. They didn’t look particularly interesting – selling socks, hats, reading glasses and useless bits of bric-a-brac – but they were attracting quite a crowd.

  “Can we look at them?” Scarlett asked.

  It had only struck her there and then. The passage in the guidebook had described the Tin Hau Temple. But it had also gone on about the square outside. Maybe her secret messenger would be waiting there. Mrs Cheng scowled briefly but Scarlett had already set off. She followed.

  Scarlett pretended to browse in front of a stand selling cheap alarm clocks and watches. She was determined to spend as much time here as possible. She noticed that the next stall wasn’t selling anything. There was a woman with a pack of tarot cards. In fact now that she looked around her she saw that at least half the market was devoted to different methods of fortune-telling.

  She walked over to a very old man, a palm reader who was sitting on a plastic stool, close to the ground. His stall was decorated with a banner showing the human hand divided into different segments, each one with a Chinese character. He was examining the palm of a boy of about thirteen, his nose and eyes millimetres away from the skin as if he really could read something there. Scarlett moved on. There was a woman a little further along, also telling the future. But in a very different way.

  The woman was small and round with long, grey hair. She was wearing a red silk jacket, sitting behind a table, arranging half a dozen packets of envelopes which were stacked up in front of her. On one side, there were three cages, each one containing a little yellow bird – a canary or something like it. On the other, she had a mat with a range of different symbols and a jar of seeds. The woman seemed to be completely focused on what she was doing but as Scarlett approached, she suddenly reached out with a single, gnarled finger and, without looking up, tapped one of the symbols on the mat.

  It was a five-pointed star.

  Scarlett had seen exactly the same thing on the door that had led her to the monastery of the Cry for Mercy. She was careful not to give anything away – Mrs Cheng was standing right next to her – but she felt a rush of excitement. According to Father Gregory, the doors had been built centuries ago to help the Gatekeepers. They were there to help her. Had the woman sent a deliberate signal? Scarlett examined her more closely. She still didn’t look up, busying herself with the envelopes and occasionally muttering at the birds.

  Scarlett turned to Mrs Cheng. “What’s this all about?” she asked.

  “She uses the birds to tell fortunes,” Mrs Cheng explained.

  The old woman had heard the English voices and seemed to notice Scarlett for the first time. She squinted at her and muttered something in Chinese.

  “She’s offering to tell your fortune,” Mrs Cheng translated. “But it will cost you thirty Hong Kong dollars.”

  “That’s about two pounds.”

  “It’s a complete waste of money.”

  “I don’t care.” Scarlett dug in her pocket and took out the right amount. She set it down on the mat and then took her place on the plastic seat on her side of the table. The fortuneteller folded the money and transferred it to a little purse that she wore around her neck. Then she reached for a white card and laid it in front of Scarlett. She said something to Mrs Cheng.

  “She wants you to make a choice,” Mrs Cheng explained.

  There were a number of categories set out on the card, written in both Chinese and English. Scarlett could choose which part of her life she wanted to know about: family, love and marriage, health, work, business and wealth or study.

  “Maybe I should choose family,” she said. “She may be able to tell me what’s happened to my dad.”

  “Your father will be home very soon, Scarlett.”

  “All right, then. Love and marriage.” Scarlett tapped the words on the card and thought briefly of Aidan. She wondered what he was doing right then.

  The fortune-teller took the card away and selected one of the piles of envelopes which she had spread out in front of the three cages. Each one had a door in the front and she opened one of them. The little yellow bird hopped out as it had been trained to do, perched on the line of envelopes, then pulled one out with its beak. The old woman rewarded it with a couple of seeds and the bird obediently hopped
back in again. It was all over very quickly.

  The woman opened the envelope and handed Scarlett the slip of paper which had been inside.

  “Do you want me to translate it for you?” Mrs Cheng asked.

  Scarlett glanced at the sheet. “No, it’s OK,” she replied. “It’s in English.”

  “Tell me what it says.”

  “Good news from Fortune Bird Two.” Scarlett read out the words. “You will find your true love in the month of April. Your marriage will be long and happy and you will travel to many countries. When you are old, you will make a great sum of money. Spend it wisely.” She folded the page in half. “That’s it.”

  “The note only tells you what you want to hear,” Mrs Cheng remarked.

  “The bird chose it for me.” She held out the page so that Mrs Cheng could see it. “There you are. You can see for yourself. I’m going to be rich.”

  Mrs Cheng nodded but said nothing. The two of them and Karl walked back to the car. And all the time, Scarlett’s heart was racing and she kept the piece of paper close to her. She had folded it quite deliberately. She had only shown Mrs Cheng half of what had been written.

  For underneath the printed fortune, there had been another message, written by hand:

  Scarlett.

  You are in great danger. Do not let the woman read this. Come to The Peak tomorrow afternoon. Follow the path from Lugard Road. We will be waiting.

  We are your friends. Trust us if you want to leave Hong Kong alive.

  THE PEAK

  Scarlett knew something was wrong, the moment she opened her eyes.

  A glance at her bedside clock told her that it was eight o’clock in the morning but for some reason the sun wasn’t reaching her bedroom. It wasn’t just cloudy. It was actually dark. What was going on? She turned over and looked at the window. At first she thought that someone had drawn a black curtain across the glass, but then she realized that it wasn’t on the inside. It was outside. How was that possible, twelve storeys up? She propped herself on one elbow, still half-asleep, trying to work it out.