Hong Kong

by Luke Richardson

  “Maybe one day you’ll help me on a project like this,” Yee said looking towards her, “like this building.”

  “I’d like that, I’ve always wanted to design something iconic.”

  Isobel let her eyes linger across his. He had to make the first move, that was key.

  “It must be incredible to have such an impact on the world,” Isobel said, turning her body slightly to face him. His eyes ran across her figure like the swirling lights of the cars below.

  “Yes, it is,” Yee said, putting his glass down on the table.

  For a moment there was space between them.

  In architecture, Isobel knew that the space between things is everything. The difference between perfection and disaster. But feeling Yee’s cold hand on her waist, and seeing him move towards her, she also knew that space, or the lack of it, is control. That was what she needed, control.

  There’s no way he’s getting rid of me now, she thought, smiling.

  Chapter 39

  They’ll be there by now, Jamie thought, lying back on his prison bed. Light from the barred window fanned across the ceiling. It was never dark in his cell, but Jamie didn’t mind.

  He should be there by now, not in here. This should have been the making of his career, everything he had studied, worked and lived for.

  The decisions lapped around his mind, everything that led to this moment, everything that had brought him here. How was he to know? How was he to know that she would do this?

  Was it a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Just kissing the wrong woman? Or was it more than that? Isobel knew that he was in here now, and yet she was letting him suffer. Why? What had he done to deserve this?

  How could she put him through this?

  He felt his fists ball in anger beneath the thin blanket.

  He remembered Isobel in the car park – the way she’d switched emotions. The anger and pain that was so convincing and then a moment later was gone. She could be persuasive and compelling, he knew that. The problem was, no one else did. She could be anywhere, doing anything.

  “I advise you to plead guilty.” The words his lawyer had spoken hours ago echoed through his mind. “You’ll get a lighter sentence. The court will look favourably on your honesty. Say it was an accident.”

  “But I haven’t done anything,” Jamie said, again and again. “I did not kill her. I do not know where she is.”

  “Hair fibres were found on your clothes, and a patch of her blood was found in the boot of your car. How can you explain those things?”

  “She must have put them there.”

  “Why would she want to do this? Why would she want to frame you for this?”

  “You don’t know her, she was angry. I don’t know why. It started after it happened.”

  “After what happened?”

  “After we slept together.”

  “Consensually?”

  “Of course!”

  “What about the complaints to HR? Unwanted advances.”

  The conversation spun in circles. Everything Jamie said was discounted or looked suspicious because of something she had said or done.

  “Why would someone who had gone to the effort of complaining about you to HR sleep with you?”

  “I don’t know – but she did,”

  “When did this happen?”

  “At the Christmas party last year.”

  “Did anyone see you together?”

  Jamie cast his mind back to the balcony above the city. The cold night air. The shapes in the smoke dancing behind them. Thudding music in the distance. Liquid words. The looks of promise and opportunity.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m sure what you say is true,” the lawyer said apologetically. “You’re a good guy in a bad situation. A really bad situation. Nothing you say can be proved. But the prosecution, they have proof. That’s what we need. Proof, evidence. Something that can’t be muddied or confused. Otherwise you’re better off just pleading guilty.”

  They’ll be there by now. They are my only hope.

  A voice down the corridor started to cry.

  My only hope of getting out of here.

  Once the noise started it got louder. The voice was joined by a banging. Not a repetitive thud, but a violent unpredictable strike between screams.

  Jamie shut his eyes against the noise and hoped for the proof they needed.

  Chapter 40

  The banging started when Leo and Allissa had been asleep for an hour. It came from somewhere close. Lying in the darkness they couldn’t work out exactly where. Then when the shouting started, they knew they wouldn’t sleep again.

  “What’s that?” Allissa said, sitting up and rubbing a hand across her face. They heard the noise again, a loud bang echoing through the structure of the building followed by raised voices in a language they didn’t understand.

  “I’m not sure,” Leo said sleepily from the darkness. “They’ll shut up soon.”

  But they didn’t; another bang, another shout. More aggressive this time.

  Allissa reached over and switched on the light. It stung her eyes as she pulled herself up in bed.

  “We’re not getting involved,” Leo said, watching Allissa get up and pull a hoodie over the baggy t-shirt she was wearing.

  “Sure, just going to see.”

  Letting themselves out of the room, they walked towards the balcony. The corridor between the rooms was dark.

  At the door leading out to the balcony, the pair stopped. Allissa was first, resting her hand on the door and leaning close. Another crash. A faint wailing. The noise was nearby now. Depressing the handle, Allissa heard the lock disengage.

  “Slowly,” Leo said. “Careful.” There was frustration or fear in his voice. In the darkness Allissa couldn’t tell which.

  “Course,” she said, pushing the door open.

  Outside, the balconies were still lit but most of the apartments seemed to be in darkness.

  They heard another bang. It was close. They didn’t have to wait long.

  A moment later, the door to the right flew open and four people stumbled out. Allissa recognised them as the family that lived there, a man, a woman and two children. Behind them, forcing them from the apartment, stood three solid-looking men.

  The children sobbed mercilessly and held the hands of their mother. The father, desperate at the state of his family tried to force his way back in. He was easily overpowered and pushed back out. He stumbled across the balcony, collided with the wall and slid to the floor. Seeing this, the family’s wailing amplified.

  Allissa looked at the children, their faces screwed-up in fear. Their eyes streaked with tears. One of them wore their top inside out.

  She recognised them as the children and woman they’d seen waiting for the lift a few hours before. They’d smiled and giggled at her. Shy but inquisitive. Now desperate and if her assessment was correct, newly homeless.

  Watching in silence, Allissa saw the three thick-necked men leave the apartment. The last to leave turned off the lights, pulled the door shut and locked it with a padlock and chain. Then, tucking the key inside his jacket, he considered the family once more before walking away.

  As the men neared the elevators, their bulky shapes becoming part of the gloom, Allissa couldn’t help but think she saw them smiling.

  Allissa and Leo exchanged looks of silent shock. This family had just been thrown from their home in the middle of the night wearing nothing more than a few clothes. Watching from the door they felt helpless, powerless.

  “We need to help,” Allissa whispered at Leo. “We can’t just leave them here.”

  “Wait… watch,” Leo said, as two lights further down the corridor clicked on, then a third and a fourth. Then a woman appeared from her door carrying a thick blanket. Approaching the family, she wrapped it around the children and hugged the mother. Another woman appeared with a warm top which she put on one of the children. And another with a top for the o
ther child. Then on the opposite balcony a door opened. From it a man beckoned the family towards him.

  “This happens all the time,” a Chinese-accented voice said from behind them. Started at the voice, Allissa turned. A girl who couldn’t be more than a teenager stood beside them.

  “The owners of the building want to re-develop it to make expensive apartments,” the girl said. “They cannot force us to leave – that’s illegal, so they have increased the rent four times in the last year. That is also illegal,” she said, “but because they are not physically forcing anyone, they get away with it. We think the owner is bribing someone to ignore it, as we have complained again and again but no one listens. This happens very often when families just cannot pay.”

  Allissa watched the family as they entered their neighbour’s apartment and the door closed behind them. At least tonight they had somewhere to stay.

  The girl who had spoken to them disappeared and the windows around the balcony started to darken. Silence once again fell over the vertical village.

  Allissa and Leo made their way back inside too, closing the door on the events they’d seen.

  Later, lying awake, Allissa remembered something Leo had said a few months before, “you don’t see the world when you travel, but you feel it.”

  Chapter 41

  Waking earlier than usual, Isobel smiled to herself. It wasn’t the grime-covered furniture of the room that made her smile, or the stained sheets she had at first despised but was starting to get used to, it was the events of the previous evening.

  Now, she knew, sitting up in bed and looking towards the window, she was indispensable.

  Across the window, made translucent with the filth of neglect, the shadow of one of the street’s neon signs fell. It was a world away from the view from the office last night when she had let Yee kiss her.

  If Isobel believed in such a thing, she would have thought it romantic.

  The whispered words, as though something secret, private, sexy was going on.

  The lights of the traffic below swirling across the ceiling. Then, with her lips parted, a smile playing at the corners, Isobel had looked straight at him and let him close the gap.

  Afterwards, Yee had seemed almost apologetic, but she’d silenced that with another kiss. His hands explored her body briefly. She didn’t mind. That was just going to make it better.

  Isobel knew Yee was married. Married his high school sweetheart it had said in one of the newspaper interviews she’d read.

  “I really should be going, it’s really late,” she’d said, her eyes lingering on Yee for a moment too long.

  He’d fumbled some reply and shown her back through to the deserted reception, as though she didn’t know the way.

  Then, Isobel laughing to herself at the genius of it all, had paused and looked back at him. Like a hungry puppy, Yee had walked across to her, stretched up and kissed her again.

  Things were starting to go her way, Isobel thought, getting out of bed.

  “Mr Yee,” she said to herself, looking at the depressing room and imagining a conversation she was going to have when she got to the office later. “How’s my apartment coming on?”

  Chapter 42

  Tower 21 stretched upwards in Hong Kong’s milky pre-dawn. The tops of the buildings were mere rumours, drowned in the mist which had rolled in from the sea.

  As Leo and Allissa emerged from the metro station, it felt as though the sun was there somewhere, threatening to burst through at any moment.

  They found Tower 21 easily. It was two minutes’ walk from the station. The building was a square construction of dark windows and chrome details, all running skyward to a tapered point. Despite the early hour, light radiated from every floor. Leo squinted upwards towards the offices of OZ Architecture which occupied the 21st floor. In most cities, Tower 21 would have been considered a tall building. On Hong Kong Island though, it was belittled by its neighbours and The Peak which lay somewhere behind the mist.

  Walking past, Allissa looked into the opulent reception area. Black marble floors gleamed beneath bright hanging lights. A reception desk sat in the middle and a bank of eight elevators waited expectantly. Fortunately, there was only one way in, meaning Isobel would have to cross the plaza in front of the tower.

  “We need to keep moving,” Leo said, “otherwise people in there will get suspicious.” He pointed into the reception desk where the day shift security guard had just turned up to relieve the tired-looking night man.

  “We’ll walk up to the end of the plaza there and back again,” Leo indicated the trickle of people already heading from the station, “that way she’ll have to pass one of us. Make sure you’re ready for the photo.”

  Within a few minutes the trickle of stone-faced people flowing from the station had become a stream. As light seeped further into the sky, it became a torrent.

  “I don’t think this is going to work,” Allissa said after they’d been walking backwards and forwards for almost an hour. “There’s too many people, we could easily miss her. No one will notice us now anyway.”

  Leo agreed.

  “I’ll wait by the station entrance. You wait by the tower. That way we’ve got two chances.” Turning back towards the station, Allissa tried to keep the picture of Isobel in her mind.

  Red hair, pale skin, tall, slender, pretty.

  Another train arrived somewhere beneath the road. A herd of people surged upwards. Allissa scanned them from the top of the stairs. Isobel had to be here somewhere.

  Red hair, pale skin, tall, slender, pretty.

  On the other side of the gushing bodies, a tall woman made her way up the stairs. It could be Isobel, but Allissa wasn’t sure.

  Not wanting the woman to slip by, even if it wasn’t Isobel, Allissa raised her phone and aimed the camera. Stepping forward to get the angle right, Allissa moved into the stream of pushing bodies.

  “Watch out!” someone shouted as they walked into Allissa, ruining the photo and knocking her phone to the floor.

  “Some people,” came another voice, “they can be so rude. Here, let me help you.” The voice’s owner, a woman, crouched to pick up the phone, “I hope it’s not broken.”

  “I don’t think so,” Allissa said, looking down at the pale, slender hands that held the phone. “Thank you.” Taking it, Allissa looked at the woman for the first time. A pretty face framed with red hair.

  Recognition dropped.

  Isobel.

  It was her.

  Allissa knew it.

  Fumbling with the phone, Allissa watched Isobel turn and push back into the stream of people.

  She’d missed the shot. She’d been too slow.

  Allissa started after her. They needed this photograph.

  Isobel was four people ahead as Allissa tried to take a photo. It just showed the red hair. It proved nothing.

  Leo had better be paying attention.

  But Leo was on the right, on the wrong side of the torrent of people to get a clear shot. Pushing out to the left, Allissa saw Leo hold up his phone and take the picture. But there were too many people between them for a good shot. It wouldn’t be clear enough. It wasn’t going to happen.

  Barging forwards and cutting a corner, Allissa got in front. She turned her phone round and took a picture of the people walking behind. No time to check. This needed to be right, it was down to her.

  Tower 21’s automatic doors had no time to slide closed as the stream of people entered. Allissa could feel the cool of the air-conditioner as she pushed into the building. This whole case relied on getting a good, provable photograph.

  Allissa followed the stream of people into the foyer, her informal clothes and frantic expression belying her intentions to try and fit in. Then, stepping out of the crowd heading for the lift, she waited. All ideas of subtlety evaporated in her need for the picture.

  Seconds later, Isobel passed, eyes forward. Allissa fired off five shots of her side profile. These were the pictures. They h
ad to come out. A man’s freedom hung in the balance.

  Chapter 43

  The early morning mist had cleared, leaving the towers of Hong Kong in striking contrast to the surrounding grid of blue sky.

  Yee watched the city from his office on the top floor of Tower 21. The tangled web of light through the buildings of chrome and glass cut a web of shadows in the bright morning sun. He loved the misty Hong Kong mornings. Sometimes, arriving in his office at five as he did every day, the city appeared to be floating on the mist – like a city in the clouds. Normally the view brought him great happiness, but not this morning.

  Drinking the dark, bitter coffee he had flown in from Istanbul, Yee let his mind run through the ten years he’d spent in this office. His business had done well, grown on the reputation of using the best people he could find from around the world. Clients used his firm because of their reputation, their attention to detail, their ability to turn the banal into the incredible, the everyday into the extraordinary.

  Turning from the window, Yee looked around his office. This was the reason he’d got the place. Although, this morning the walls seemed to be closing in on him.

  Running a hand through his hair, Yee looked at the painting on the opposite wall. An original Kandinsky. He knew that to the untrained eye it looked like a mess of colours and shapes, lines, blobs and circles. It was only when you focused on it, analysed it, got inside it, that you could see order in the chaos. First seeing it in a gallery as a young man, Yee had been struck by it straight away. He found it inspiring. There was a lot going on, but to him it had just one clear meaning, one that he had dedicated his life to. Destruction and rebirth. Demolition and recreation. Taking something old and from it producing something new. That to him was beautiful, that was what it meant to be an architect.

  Five years ago, hearing it was for sale, he had bought it for an exorbitant sum that made him wince a little even now.

  Examining the curves and colours, letting them swim as his eyes lost focus, Yee thought of the e-mail he’d just received. It bothered him. A serious accusation against one of his staff. The new girl, she’d only started a few days ago. It was a shame, especially considering the events of the previous night.