decided to start in the Delhi Grill and pay her respects after the death of Hafiz. They would need reassurance now at this tricky time. She stood in the queue. The people turned to stare at her and the queue disappeared until there was just her in it. When the lift came she stepped in alone. Victoria’s heart was hammering. It was a bad enough experience coming to the Mansions without feeling like everyone knew who she was. She pressed the button for the third floor and waited. She looked around the walls. They were covered in the leaflets. She gasped as she tore one down and read it.
She looked frantically all around. Everything was covered in the leaflets, the floor was littered with them. She knew she had been set up. Someone wanted to see her killed. She was never going to get out alive.
She pulled out her phone and phoned Mann’s number. He didn’t pick up. She was on her own.
Chapter 104
Mann was in Miriam’s Cantina bar when he saw Victoria’s number light up as his phone rattled on the bar top. He didn’t answer it. The barman looked over at him.
‘Is Miriam around?’
The barman shook his head. ‘Do you want me to call her? She’s just upstairs. She’ll want to see you. She asked me to call her if you came in.’
Mann shook his head. ‘That’s okay.’
Mann heard the clash of a symbol from his message alert. He had voicemail. He picked it up and looked at the screen. He hated the fact that he wanted her, that when he listened to her voice his heart leapt. He had done nothing but try and not think about her and achieved the opposite. Now, he heard the frightened girl in her voice, whatever else she had lied about in her life, she wasn’t lying now. He knew she was in big trouble.
Chapter 105
Victoria dreaded the lift door opening. She pulled a small handgun from her bag and loaded it. The lift came to a stop. She stepped onto the landing and looked across at the Delhi Grill. She saw PJ staring back at her; his face sad, angry; he was shaking his head. She tried the door, it was locked. It was then she heard the whistles and the feet running up the stairwell and she knew they were coming for her.
Victoria made a run for it. She pulled open the door to the next flight of stairs and listened. The shrill whistles had reached a deafening shriek, feet were like thunder on the stairs. There was nowhere else to go but upwards. Victoria sprinted up the twelve flights of stairs; her throat rasping and sore with the exertion. Her lungs screaming. She came to the end of the landings. She stood panting staring wide-eyed at the approaching mob. Only the stairwell to the roof remained. She had nowhere else to go.
Chapter 106
Mann hadn’t even got a few paces inside the Mansions when he knew something major had kicked off. David came towards him. ‘You need a hand, brother? You’re Shrimp’s colleague, right?’
‘Have you seen a smartly dressed Chinese woman, mid-thirties come in?’
David nodded. ‘Victoria Chan? They were waiting for her.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘You come to help her?’
‘Yes. She needs a fair chance. She’s been set up.’
‘She is about to be killed. They’ve got her on the roof. Come on, I’ll take you.’ David shouted to his friends to come with them.
By the time Mann reached the lifts, the Africans were thirty strong, armed with sticks and batons. Some took the lifts, some the stairs. Mann came out onto the top landing and listened. He heard the whistles coming from the roof.
When Mann stepped onto the roof with David and the other Africans, it was dusk. In the half light he saw Lilly carrying the urumi. The eagles would soon be going back to roost, for now they cruised the evening sky and watched. Mann looked around him. He stepped cautiously out armed with only a baton. He had his weapons inside his jacket and his gun in his holster but he wasn’t planning on using them. He looked at them now: they were a wild bunch of bloodthirsty kids, but they were still kids.
Lilly was in front. She had the urumi in her hand. She looked full of panic. Victoria was talking to her.
‘We can work this out. Don’t believe them, Lilly. I would never lie to you. I always intended to take you with me.’ She looked at them: around seventy scrawny kids, frenzied with excitement. They were inching Victoria back towards the parapet.
‘Kill her. Kill her,’ they chanted.
Lilly drew the urumi up into the air but she couldn’t do it. She brought it down either side of Victoria but was careful not to touch her. Victoria screamed and scrabbled to get away but she was pushed up onto the ledge. Below her the busy Nathan Road traffic hooted up.
‘Please…I promise, I will take care of you,’ she begged.
‘This is our home. You’re going to knock it down. You don’t care about any of us,’ Lilly said.
‘Kill her. Kill her,’ the Outcasts chanted, more insistently now than ever.
‘Stop now.’
The Outcasts turned at the sound of Mann’s voice.
‘Stop now and come away from the edge.’
The children turned and drew back when they saw the Africans. So many together scared them. They looked to Lilly for guidance.
‘Go away, Mann, otherwise I will kill her,’ Lilly shouted.
‘You’re not going to kill her, Lilly, and you know it. She’s your best friend. Haven’t you told the others yet that you and her are in all this together?’
Lilly gave a nervous laugh and brought the urumi crashing down a whisker away from Victoria.
‘No, you haven’t. You don’t care whether the Mansions get knocked down because you know you can just move into a luxury penthouse and be Victoria’s little pet.’
Lilly tried to speak. The mob had turned their full attention to her. They were waiting. She shook her head, she spluttered. She didn’t know what to say.
‘It’s true,’ said Victoria. ‘Lilly and I are a team. Lilly knew about everything.’
Mann advanced. ‘It stops here on this roof. It stops before anyone else gets killed.’ He lowered the stick. ‘Come on Lilly, give that to me.’
‘Kill him…use it,’ they chanted as Lilly stood there shaking, panic written all over her face. She stared at Mann. ‘Show us if you want us to believe you’re with us. Show us…kill him.’
Mahmud appeared behind Mann. ‘Don’t do it, Lilly. We’ve had enough killing.’
Voices went up from the mob: ‘Lilly has betrayed all of us. She’s as bad as all the rest.’
Lilly raised the urumi and brought it down on Mann. He felt the bands of razors slice: one into the muscles on his arms, one across his chest and another cut his eyebrow open with its tip. The urumi wound its way around the stick and chopped it in half. The Africans surged forwards to help. They cut a path through the Outcasts.
Victoria looked at Mann and saw how badly he was hurt, her eyes were wide with terror, her hair streaming out behind her. She was a she-wolf trapped on the ledge. She looked behind her nervously. One slip and she would be gone. She looked to her right. She watched as the attention shifted on Lilly. She saw a gap appearing to her left. She hesitated, they sensed she was about to run and they surged back towards her.
‘Lilly…’ Mann called, drawing their attention away again he clutched his bleeding arm to his side and wiped
