Hungry Ghost

by Stephen Leather

  ‘OK,’ said Howells. ‘Now, when I stop I want you to run, and don’t stop running until you’re on the train.’

  ‘I will,’ she promised. ‘Be careful.’ She leant forward and kissed him on the cheek, and spoke to him hurriedly in Chinese. Howells slammed on the brakes and the car behind him sounded its horn as he screeched to a halt. Amy flung the door open and ran for the entrance without looking back. Howells reached over the back of the seat with his left arm and closed the door behind her before driving off. Dugan had his head slumped back and he was breathing heavily, almost snoring. As Howells accelerated again Dugan’s head rolled forward on to his chest.

  ‘What did she say?’ asked Howells.

  ‘She said she loved you. You’re a bastard. You know they’ll catch her.’ He slurred his words as he spoke.

  Howells grinned. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But it’s rush hour so she’s got a fighting chance. And she’ll keep them occupied. While they’re following her, I’ll dump the taxi and disappear into the next MTR station. Then you can go and collect your niece.’

  Howells thought it best not to mention the fact that just feet behind Dugan, lying in the boot, was the body of the owner of the taxi, his neck broken. He hadn’t told Amy, either. He’d gone out on his own and returned with the taxi, telling her that he’d paid a few thousand dollars to borrow it. He’d considered just knocking the man out but he couldn’t take the chance of him coming round and calling the police, so he’d told the driver to take him up a deserted sidestreet behind a foul-smelling dyeing plant and he’d grabbed his head and twisted, feeling the neck crack and enjoying it.

  ‘She’s out of the taxi,’ Lin screamed into his walkie-talkie.

  ‘What about Dugan?’ said Ng, his voice crackling in Lin’s ear.

  ‘He’s still there. Heading your way.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Yau Ma Tei MTR. At the junction of Waterloo Road and Nathan Road. She’s in the station.’

  ‘With the case?’

  ‘Yes, she’s …’

  Ng didn’t let him finish. ‘Go after her. Don’t lose her. We’ll pick up Dugan.’

  Lin threw the door open and jumped on to the pavement, the detector in his hand. Lam scrambled over the seat and ran after him. ‘Come on,’ Lin screamed at Tse. ‘Leave the fucking van where it is.’ Tse did as he was told and as the three stormed into the entrance of the MTR station the drivers blocked in behind the van began to sound their horns impatiently.

  The three triads stood outside the door to Amy’s flat. Suen had his gun in his hand, cocked and ready, while the two Red Poles had large knives by their sides. Suen knocked on the door and listened carefully for footsteps. Nothing. He knocked again. Still nothing.

  ‘Break it down,’ he said to Ah-wong, the bigger of the two heavies. Ah-wong stepped back and kicked the door hard, just below the lock. It gave a little and there was the sound of tearing wood, then he kicked it again and it sagged on its hinges. It caved in on the third go and the three men spilled into the small flat. It took only a few seconds to see that there was no one there, but they spent some time searching it thoroughly for a clue as to where the girl and the gweilo had gone.

  Ah-wong found a bloodstained pillow case at the bottom of a black plastic bag of rubbish in the kitchen and he brought it triumphantly into the lounge. Suen went through the bathroom cabinets. He found a half-empty bottle of hair dye there and he noticed that the sink was stained black in places, though someone had tried to clean it with a cloth. There was a pair of scissors in the cabinet, too, and the drain in the sink was clogged with bits of hair.

  ‘Look at this,’ called Ah-wong. ‘Look what I’ve found.’ Suen went back into the lounge and Ah-wong waved the bloodstained material under his nose. ‘We’re in the right place,’ he said to Suen.

  ‘But at the wrong time,’ replied Suen.

  ‘Let’s get back to the car,’ said Ah-wong, heading for the door.

  ‘Fuck your mother,’ said Suen. ‘We phone Ng first.’

  One by one Ng called up the cars that had been following behind Lin, told them the girl had taken the diamonds down the MTR station and gave them instructions to get there as soon as possible and follow her down. While he was talking to the Red Poles the car phone rang. Ng Wai-sun leant over and picked it up. It was Kenny Suen.

  ‘We found where the gweilo was hanging out,’ said Suen, obviously pleased with himself. ‘He was with a girl from one of the Wan Chai bars. She’d let him stay in her flat while Dr Wu treated him. They’re not there now.’

  ‘The girl, what does she look like?’ the old man said.

  ‘Medium height, high cheekbones, she looks a bit Shanghainese. Dr Wu says she’s about twenty-four years old.’

  ‘We have seen her,’ said Ng Wai-sun. ‘We are pursuing her now.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Suen, sounding disappointed.

  ‘She collected the ransom for the gweilo,’ Ng Wai-sun explained. ‘But we have not seen the gweilo yet. We think she is on the way to see him.’

  ‘Did she look twenty-four?’ asked Suen. ‘I mean, could she be older?’

  ‘No, she was a young girl, dressed more like a teenager than anything else. Why?’

  ‘There was hair dye all over the sink, it was a real mess. I thought maybe she had dyed her hair. But if it wasn’t her …’

  ‘Then it must be the gweilo,’ said the old man, finishing the sentence for him. ‘You have done well. Very well indeed.’

  He replaced the phone and waved his finger to attract his son’s attention. Ng took the walkie-talkie away from his ear to listen. ‘The gweilo has dyed his hair,’ said Ng Wai-sun softly. ‘Black.’

  ‘The driver!’ hissed Ng. ‘And he’s behind us.’

  ‘How far?’ asked his father.

  ‘Less than half a mile.’ He told Hui to stop the Merc, no matter how much it annoyed the drivers behind. ‘Put the hazard warning lights on, let them think we’ve broken down. He’ll be here within two minutes.’ He asked his father to open the glove compartment and the old man reached in and handed over the handgun that he found there. Ng took out the clip and then banged it home again, checking that the safety catch was off. He caught his father looking at the gun with a worried frown. ‘It will be all right,’ he said. ‘As far as we know he is not armed. But we can take no chances. The man is a killer.’

  ‘Be careful,’ said Ng Wai-sun. ‘I have already lost one son.’

  Ng began calling up his triad soldiers, ordering Lin and his team, and one other group of Red Poles who had already arrived at the MTR station, to keep after the girl. The rest were to catch up with the taxi as soon as possible. But from the sound of it the gweilo would reach the Mercedes at least a minute or so before any of the Red Poles would be close enough to make a difference.

  Amy was fumbling for her MTR card as she ran into the station, and it was in her hand by the time she got to the barrier. She slotted the plastic card home and then collected it from the return slot at the top of the ticket machine before pushing the barrier and running for the down escalator. As always the Hong Kong commuters seemed reluctant to walk down the moving metal staircase and Amy had to push and shove her way down, all the time repeating ‘m goy, m goy’, but even so she was cursed and glared at.

  It seemed to take a lifetime before she reached the platforms. The one to the left was for trains heading for Tsim Sha Tsui and on to Central, that on the right was for those going out to the New Territories. She felt a warm wind on her right cheek and knew that that signified a train coming. She ran to the edge of the platform and stood there, her legs shaking and her chest heaving, panting for breath. She looked behind her at the escalator, but all she saw were lines of impassive faces, nobody seemed to be chasing her. She heard the roar of the train and it sped out of the blackness of the tunnel and into the light. It growled to a stop and the doors gushed open, disgorging its passengers. Amy forced her way through before the last of them had got off and leant against the steel p
ole in the middle of the carriage. From where she stood she could see right along the line of connected carriages, two hundred metres or more. People flooded in, diving to get a place on the long, polished metal seats or a space to the side of the door so they could be first off at their station. The people of Hong Kong treated their mass transit system the same way that they lived their lives – the strong got the best places and got where they were going, the weak were left behind, standing on the platform when the doors closed. That’s what it would be like come 1997, Amy thought. Those that pushed and fought would get out, those apathetic or incapable would be swamped by the one billion Chinese on the mainland. Amy knew that alone she would never be able to escape, but with Geoff Howells, maybe, just maybe, she would find a way out. He was strong, he was confident, and he had money. And she was helping him. In return, she knew, he would help her. But first she had to get away from the men who were chasing her.

  She saw them then, at the top of the escalator. She heard the driver warning passengers to stand clear of the doors, first in Chinese and then in mumbling English, as three hefty men began shouting and pushing people out of their way as they scrambled down. One of them, a big man with bulging forearms and a small pigtail, almost made it, using his sheer bulk to force his way down. He leapt on to the platform but at the same moment the doors hissed shut. He ran forward and tried to claw his way into the carriage next to where Amy was standing but he was too late; the train pulled away, slowly at first and then picking up speed until the advertisements on the walls blurred. The man with the pigtail screamed and kicked out at the moving train and then Amy was in the black tunnel, heading for the New Territories with the attaché case clasped to her chest.

  Behind her on the platform, Lin watched helplessly as the needle on his receiver slammed over to one side. ‘Fuck your mother, bitch,’ he cursed, and put the walkie-talkie to his mouth.

  ‘They’ve lost her,’ Ng said to his father. ‘She got on to the MTR. I’ve told Lin to catch the next train and go after her, but she could be anywhere by now.’ He looked out of the back window at the queue of cars waiting to pass.

  ‘Any sign of the gweilo?’ said Ng Wai-sun.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Ng. ‘But he is not far behind. Hui Ying-chuen?’ The elderly driver stopped waving at the cars behind to overtake and turned round. ‘When I give you the word I want you to put the car in reverse and ram the taxi.’

  Hui’s face fell and he looked as if he was going to protest. In all the years he had been driving for the Ng family he had never, ever, been involved in an accident. It was a record he was proud of, but he did not argue. He just nodded and thanked the gods that he was in the Mercedes and not his beloved Daimler.

  Ng told his father to make sure he was well strapped in and that his head was against the headrest. ‘The Mercedes is much bigger and heavier than the taxi, we’ll barely feel it,’ he said. ‘But better to be on the safe side. Once we’ve stopped them I’ll hold the gweilo until our Red Poles get here.’

  He held the gun down near the floor of the car, his finger clear of the trigger so that it wouldn’t go off accidentally when the cars collided. The rest of the traffic was now streaming past the parked Mercedes and its flashing hazard warning lights.

  Chief Inspector Leigh was becoming more confused by the minute. His men in the Toyota closest to Dugan’s taxi had told him how it had stopped near Yau Mat Tei MTR station and how the girl had run into it carrying his case. The Special Branch man had continued after the taxi, but the officer in the Nissan following behind had called in to say that a group of cars had converged on the station and that more than a dozen triads had gone haring down after her.

  Dugan was now heading towards Tsim Sha Tsui, alone. Leigh tapped Chan on the shoulder and told his constable to get a move on, to get closer to the taxi so they wouldn’t lose him in the rush-hour traffic.

  ‘Get up behind the Toyota,’ he ordered. ‘Keep that between us and Dugan’s taxi and he won’t see us.’

  Chan put his foot down and began overtaking, thumping the horn as a makeshift siren. He had little trouble making headway and they soon left the green Mitsubishi behind. The Red Poles knew they couldn’t follow the Rover without attracting attention to themselves, especially when the police sped past the airport and drove through two sets of red lights before reaching the neon signs of Yau Ma Tei. They drove past the MTR station and the cluster of badly parked cars outside it. The lights at Nathan Road were against them, but Chan edged the car through, carefully because it was one of the busiest roads in Hong Kong. Every second car seemed to be a taxi now and Leigh knew they’d have no chance of spotting the one Dugan was in, but they soon caught up with the Toyota and edged up behind it. The traffic had slowed down to a virtual crawl.

  ‘Where is he?’ radioed Leigh.

  ‘Three cars ahead of us,’ came the reply from the Toyota.

  ‘What’s the hold up?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some sort of accident up the road.’

  At least it meant they wouldn’t lose Dugan, thought Leigh. At last something was going his way.

  ‘I see them,’ said Ng. ‘Third car behind us. Be ready, Hui Ying-chuen. Put it into reverse now, and as soon as the two cars have passed us, hit him. Hard. Are you all right, Father?’

  His father grunted and settled back into the seat, his head pressed against the headrest. Ng lay down, his face against the leather upholstery.

  Howells was beginning to get impatient. The traffic hardly seemed to be moving in his lane. Eventually he saw the source of the trouble; a large Mercedes had broken down and in typical Hong Kong fashion the driver had made no move to get it off the road, the passengers just sitting there waiting for someone to come and sort it out for them. During his short time in Hong Kong Howells had seen several accidents but had yet to see a Hong Kong Chinese with his head under the bonnet or pushing his vehicle off the road.

  He could see the entrance to Jordan MTR station up ahead and considered leaving the taxi where it was. Then the car ahead indicated it wanted to pass and Howells did the same, but the vehicles in the right-hand lane were reluctant to let them in, deliberately keeping close, bumper to bumper, the drivers keeping their eyes fixed straight ahead. The car in front managed to squeeze in between a delivery van and a minibus and Howells tried to do the same. The reversing lights of the Mercedes came on, shining whitely next to the flashing yellow lights.

  ‘What the fuck’s he playing at?’ asked Howells.

  Dugan leant forward to see what was happening, and as he did the big car leapt backwards, rushing towards them. Dugan yelled and groggily threw himself down on the seat. Howells grabbed at the door handle but realized he wouldn’t have time to open it so he dropped across the front seats, the handbrake handle biting into his stomach as he pulled his legs up out of the footwell, his knees up against his chest.

  The Merc slammed into the front of the taxi, smashing the lights and crunching the bumper, forcing the air from Howells’ chest. The thin metal of the Toyota cab screamed and buckled, the mass of the bigger German car seeming to meet no resistance. Water hissed and spurted from the radiator and still the Mercedes reversed, pushing the taxi back as Ng’s driver kept his foot to the floor. There was a second bang then as the rear of the taxi crashed into the car behind it, and only then did the Merc stop. Water flooded around the front of the taxi and bits of metal and glass tinkled to the ground. The distorted car groaned and shuddered like a dying animal. Dugan pushed himself up and looked groggily around, his reactions dulled by the combination of the sedatives and the crash.

  He could see startled faces watching from the pavement: an old woman with grey, crinkly hair and her front teeth missing; a young couple in matching Tshirts and stone-washed denims; a man in a grey pinstripe suit with a portable telephone in his hand, a bare-chested teenager carrying a refill for a distilled water dispenser on his shoulder. All were staring at the accident with wide eyes. Dugan smelt petrol and suddenly had a vision of himself a
nd Howells engulfed in flames. With a mounting sense of panic he clawed at the left-hand door, but it had warped in the crash and wouldn’t move. He shuffled along to the opposite side of the cab, his legs wobbling as he moved, his arms numb. Howells groaned in the front seat and then pulled himself up, using the steering wheel for leverage. He kicked open his door and fell into the road. He got to his feet to see Ng get out of the Mercedes, gun in hand.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ Ng shouted, pointing the gun at Howells’ chest, holding it steady with both hands. He was eight feet at most away from Howells, and he knew he wouldn’t miss.

  ‘There’s been an accident, sir,’ said Constable Chan. ‘The taxi’s hit the car in front.’

  Leigh stuck his head out of the window in time to see a well-dressed Chinese man threatening to shoot the taxi driver while Dugan staggered out of the cab into the road wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. The plainclothes officers in the Toyota pulled out their guns, one stepping on to the pavement and steadying his gun arm on the roof of the car, another crouched down behind the driver’s door. Leigh’s sergeant got out of the Rover and also drew his gun, telling his constables to do the same. Leigh left his in his holster. They had more than enough firepower. The pedestrians began screaming then and running for cover – the Hong Kong police had a reputation for firing first and asking questions later.

  ‘Drop the gun,’ Leigh yelled. ‘Drop the gun or we’ll fire.’

  The surprise showed on Ng’s face and his aim wavered. Howells turned to see who was shouting and he too looked stunned to see so many police only yards away. Dugan was the last to turn and he almost lost his balance when he saw Leigh, his stomach wobbling over the top of his shorts. He looked like a drunken bull seal, thought Leigh. Dugan opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again. He was dribbling and he wiped his chin with the back of his hand.

  ‘Drop the gun. This is your last warning,’ shouted Leigh.

  Howells stepped to the right, getting Dugan in between himself and the police and then stepped up behind him, drawing the kitchen knife from inside his jacket. He grabbed Dugan with his weak right arm and held the blade close to Dugan’s neck with his left. ‘Don’t move, Dugan, or I swear to God I’ll kill you,’ he whispered.