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 have 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
