shopkeepers, builders, plumbers, teachers…”
“I think I get the point,” Scarlett interrupted.
“No, Scarlett. I don’t think you do.” Lohan hadn’t raised his voice. His face was as impassive as ever. But Scarlett realized that she shouldn’t have spoken. He wasn’t used to being interrupted. “This is the point,” he went on. “How many of those people could die, do you think, before you noticed? How many of them could be shot or knifed while they lay in bed before the city seemed any different? Fifty of them? Or five hundred? Or how about five hundred thousand? Can you describe to me, accurately, the man who sold you the ticket when you boarded the tram this morning? Or the driver who took you to The Peak? Or the man who was sweeping the leaves away when you began your walk? Suppose they had all been taken away and replaced with people who looked a little like them but who were not the same? Would you notice? If they and their entire families had been murdered, would you care? We see only what we want to see because that is the way of the city. In a village, in the country, people notice things. But on the streets, we are wilfully blind.”
“Are you saying that’s what’s happened?” Scarlett asked. “Ever since I’ve been here, I’ve been seeing weird things. And there’s nobody living at Wisdom Court. The whole place is empty. Are you saying they were all killed?”
“In the last three months, Hong Kong has been taken over,” Lohan replied. “It happened very quickly, like a virus. It is impossible to know how many people have been killed. Anyone who has noticed what has been going on or who has tried to fight it has been removed. What has happened has been so huge, so terrible that it is almost impossible to understand.
“Of course, some people have guessed, or half-guessed, and they have managed to get out, taking their money and their families with them. Ask them why they have gone and they will lie to you. They will say they wanted a change or they had new business opportunities. But in truth they have gone because they were afraid. Other people are aware that Hong Kong has changed. They have stayed here because they have no choice, because they have nowhere else to go. They are frightened too. But they keep their heads down and they go about their daily business in the hope that, if they ask no questions, they will be left alone. If you are poor, Scarlett, if you run a tiny stall in the street, what does it matter who controls the city? All you care about is your next meal. The city can take care of itself.”
“Who has taken over Hong Kong?” Scarlett asked, although she already knew the answer.
“They are called the Old Ones,” Lohan said. “At least, that is what you call them. In the East, we talk of gwei, evil spirits. We have many names for them.”
“I know about all this,” Scarlett said. “It’s what Father Gregory told me.”
“Who is Father Gregory?”
“He’s a monk. I went through a door in a wall and I met him…”
“This was at the Church of St Meredith’s.” Lohan knew the name. Perhaps he had read about it in the newspapers when Scarlett disappeared, but she doubted it. He seemed to know a lot about a lot of things. She wondered how. She still wasn’t sure how he fitted in. “You have to understand that we have been interested in you for a long time, Scarlett,” Lohan said. It was as if he had been reading her thoughts.
“We?”
“I am referring to the organization to which I have the great honour to belong. In fact, we have been watching you since the day that you were born.” He allowed this to sink in, then went on. “Have you ever wondered how you came to find yourself in the Pancoran Kasih Orphanage in Jakarta? Well, I can tell you. We arranged it. Why were you taken to live in Great Britain, thousands of miles away from your true home? We wanted it.”
“Why?”
“To keep you safe. To hide you from the enemies that we knew would one day search for you.”
“There was an accident in Dulwich. A white van…” Scarlett didn’t know why it had come into her mind right then, but she was suddenly sure that it was connected. She had a sense of everything coming together.
Lohan nodded. “It happened when you were thirteen years old,” he said. “It was not enough simply to send you far away. My organization had a sacred pledge to protect you, even from your own carelessness. When you stepped in front of the van which was speeding towards you, one of our people was there to push you out of the way. He was able to save you once. Unfortunately, he was less successful a second time.”
“He tried to contact me. In London…”
“His task was to give you a message. Under no circumstances were you to come here to Hong Kong. We had hoped to intercept you before you even left for the airport. But by then it was too late. The Old Ones had discovered who you were. They killed him.”
“He was waiting for me at the restaurant – the Happy Garden.”
Lohan nodded and there was a tiny spark of anger in his eyes. Perhaps part of him blamed her for the death. “Three people died in the explosion,” he said. “And the British authorities didn’t even bother to investigate. They just blamed it on us… Chinese gangs fighting each other. What did it matter to them? A few dead fei jais.” He used the Cantonese slang for petty criminals. “To the police, it just meant more paperwork.”
“This all happened because of the church, didn’t it.”
It was all making sense. Father Gregory had told her he was going to hand her over to the Old Ones. Scarlett had managed to escape – but not before she had given him her name and address. That had been all he needed. From that moment on she had been in a trap from which there was no escape.
“As soon as you returned, the Old Ones closed in on you,” Lohan said. “They knew that they had found one of the Gatekeepers and they weren’t going to let you go. From that moment on, they never let you out of their sight.”
Scarlett thought back. She had felt all along that she had been under surveillance but it was only now that she realized how true that had been. Every movement she had made had been watched. She had been pushed around like a piece on a board game and the last roll of the dice had brought her here.
“They used my dad to bring me to Hong Kong,” she said, and felt a sudden ache of sadness. Lohan had said Paul Adams might be dead. He could well be right.
“We never wanted you to come to this city,” Lohan said. “Once you were here, you would be utterly in their power, and you have no idea to what extent that has been true. All day, every day, you have been surrounded by them. Nobody has been allowed to come anywhere near you. Haven’t you noticed? Since you have been here, nobody has approached you. Nobody has come near.”
“There was a man with a letter…” Scarlett began. “In Queen Street.”
Lohan shook his head. “We didn’t send him. We knew that it would never have worked.” He paused. “The Old Ones control the police, the government and the civil service. They have made deals with the Chinese authorities and anyone who has stood in their way, they have killed. The hospitals, the fire service, the newspapers, the television and radio stations all serve them now. They keep constant watch on us through the surveillance cameras in the streets and know what we buy every time we use a credit card. They have taken over the mobile phone network and the Internet and every call is monitored, every one of the millions of e-mails that are sent every day is read by them. Criticize the government… you die. Even try to tell people what you know… you die. We’re back where we started, Scarlett. How many thousands of people can you kill in a city like this without anyone noticing? Only the Old Ones know the answer.
“And they are everywhere. The woman and the driver who pretended to work for your father were both shape-changers. We don’t know where they came from or what exactly they are. Many of the crowds that surrounded you were the same. Why do you think Wisdom Court is empty? They wanted to keep you in isolation and every man, woman or child who might come into contact with you was either taken away, killed or replaced.”
“Replaced with what?” Scarlett asked.
“With creatures that belong to the Old Ones.” Lohan filled the bowl a second time and drank it. The alcohol had no effect on him at all. “The whole city is against you, Scarlett. If you stepped outside now, you would be seen and identified in seconds. That was why you couldn’t travel here, sitting in a car. It was also why we had to be so careful reaching you. One of my people added the guidebook to your luggage at the airport. Then we bribed the supervisor of an office building and transmitted a message on the screen. The fortune-teller is part of our organization and she sent you to The Peak. Four different approaches and each time we had to be certain that you alone knew our intentions.”
“So what am I going to do?” Scarlett couldn’t keep the helplessness out of her voice. This is what it came down to. She was stuck in a room in a dirty block of flats. And outside a whole city was searching for her. She
