to Hong Kong. They had crossed through China and joined the thousands of others making their way to paradise. But paradise was not the place she thought it would be. For twelve hours a day she sat at a machine and sewed. She dreamt of being a doctor, a teacher. But if Hong Kong had taught her anything it was that if you had money you could be anyone you wanted to be. She would become a 49, the rank of a Triad foot soldier, and climb the ladder and earn good money doing whatever they asked her to; she knew there would be risks but she also knew there would be big rewards and then she could pay for herself to go to college and then she could be anyone she chose.
She followed the others under the archway of crossed swords and into the airless, dark room, filled with people, pressed in, hiding in the shadows. The heat in the room took her breath away. There was the sound of a chicken flapping its wings against the side of a crate. The incense smoke was thick in the dark room, which was lit only by the candles on the altar. In the gloom she could make out the Incense Master. He was old, tortoise-like, dressed in the robes of office, a long crimson silk stole over a cassock of white. He wore only one grass sandal, the other foot was bare. On his head was a three-pointed knotted scarf.
‘Who is your sponsor?’ asked the Incense Master. He stood with his index fingers curled into his palm to denote his rank.
‘I am.’ A young woman stepped forward from the shadows.
‘Call forth your recruits.’ The Incense Master lit the joss sticks on the altar and began reciting the sacred poems that had been handed down since the beginning:
‘“I passed a corner and then another corner. My family lives on the Five Fingers Mountain. I’ve come to look for the temple of the sisters-in-law…”
‘You are children of the Wo Shing Shing. You are a group born from its spirit. But now it is time for you to stand alone. You are the Outcasts.’ He finished with a warning. ‘Break the sacred oath you are about to take and you will die as this rooster now dies.’
The sound of the chicken panicking reached a crescendo, the noise of flapping wings and the gurgle of blood escaping from its cut throat rose above the squawking. Its twitching body was held above a brass bowl on the altar.
‘You will die as he did. No mercy will be shown. We come together today to be reborn. You leave your last life behind you. You are 49s. Four for the oceans that our ancestors believed surrounded the world. Nine for the sacred oaths. You belong to an ancient family dating back to the time of the Qing dynasty. You belong to one another. Never forget you are brothers and sisters, forever joined in blood.’
From the corner of her eye Rajini watched the officers close in around the door and secure it. She looked back to her sponsor. The Incense Master swung the smoking silver perfumed ball in the air and chanted the oaths. The body of the chicken lay still on the floor and the bowl of blood was tipped into a cup from the altar. The Incense Master came to each recruit in turn. Rajini waited. He repeated the oaths to each one.
‘With this blood we are united. With this blood we are one. Together we remain until death.’
Each recruit replied: ‘I will never disclose the secrets of the Outcasts, not even to my parents, my brothers or sisters; I will be killed by the sword if I do so. I shall never disclose the secrets for money; I will be killed by the sword if I do so. I will never reveal the Outcasts’ secret signs or oaths when speaking to others outside the Outcast society; I will be killed by the sword if I do so.’
The Incense Master passed the cup to each recruit in turn. ‘You will be like no group before you. You will kill without mercy. You will belong only to your new family, cast away the old. You belong to the Outcasts.’
‘Bound forever to serve one another.’
Rajini closed her eyes as the blood tasted thick, warm, it touched her upper lip and coated it. She sipped from the chalice.
The Incense Master looked deep into her eyes. ‘No one leaves. No one ever betrays.’ The blood sat in her mouth like the taste of a nosebleed. ‘This is your new family. You will serve no other.’
Rajini bowed her head to him.
‘Yes, Master,’ all the recruits repeated together. The incense left a plume of smoke overhead as it passed along the line, each one tasting the blood of the killed chicken. At the end of the line the Incense Master placed the chalice back onto the altar. He stood and looked at his disciples.
‘You are now 49s, foot soldiers. But, one of you here has already transgressed. One of you has spoken of their coming here tonight. One of you gave information away. Now that one must be punished. They will be an example to you all. The Outcasts will not tolerate betrayal. When you leave this place you must do so quickly and disperse fast. Outside now there is one who is coming. He comes because we have a traitor amongst us.’
The Incense Master looked towards the sponsor. She nodded. ‘All who are present here must witness the result of your transgression.’
He turned to Rajini. ‘You share the fate of the rooster.’
As Mann turned the corner he saw the telltale sign: a red card taped above a doorway. Two girls came out, one Indian, one mixed race. Mann hung back and watched; an Indian lad was the next to emerge, he staggered out of the doorway and looked about to throw up. Mann hung back out of sight. He signalled to his officers to follow the lad, whilst he headed towards the entrance. It was the same as all the other buildings on the street and yet it wasn’t. Above its door was a shirt maker’s sign. The night shift should have been pounding away but the place was quiet. To the right a flight of stairs led up to a pink neon sign advertising a woman’s services and a massage parlour. To the left was a small Chinese medicine store selling loose herbs, dried fish and centipedes by the scoop. In between was a corridor. A metal grille, unlocked and half opened, gave way easily when Mann pulled it. Mann stepped into the corridor and listened. Further on, a solitary light bulb gave off a stark hue against the black walls.
Mann unclipped the gun holster that was strapped around his waist, but left the Smith and Wesson revolver where it was. Instead, he reached down and took out the knife from his boot. This was not a place to fire a gun. He needed silence, stealth. He needed caution. He held the knife tightly now as he walked on down the corridor and stopped at the door on the left. Above its arch were the symbolic crossed swords. He pushed the door open and stood in the doorway. The room was dark except for the light of one candle at the far right of the room. The air was thick with the smell of incense, smouldering paper and heat of the people, now gone. He heard the scratch of a rat’s claws as it ran the perimeter of the room and stopped and the sound of another joining it. Cockroaches scurried over walls and ceiling to watch the rats. He looked down at his feet; he was walking on the red summoning cards of hundreds of Triads. He crossed the threshold, beneath the arch of swords, and propped the door open with a discarded wooden thread spool. There was little else to show that this had been a garment factory, so far as he could tell the room was empty of equipment: the machines all gone. All that remained were tatters of material and empty crates. The candle on top of a stack of upturned crates: a makeshift altar. Mann walked across to it. Beside the altar were the discarded sackcloth robes of the Triad initiates, left to rot, no longer needed, and on top of them a shimmering Indian sari. From the corner of his eye he saw a rat jump into a box, two sticks protruded from its end. Mann got close. They were not sticks; they were arms. He looked down into the box. The rats were already feasting on the young girl’s body, the cockroaches tumbling from the box’s sides on top of her.
Chapter 3
Mann picked up the squealing rat from the box and flung it at the far wall. He stood in the solitude with the dead girl, listening to the police siren scream to a stop outside.
‘Looks like the party’s over.’
Mann turned to see a large frame in the doorway: Inspector Tom Sheng of the Serious Crime Division. ‘The ambulance is on its way.’
‘Too late. She was dead when I got here.’
Sheng and Mann had crossed paths more than either wanted. They weren’t the best of friends. Tom was brash, arrogant. He played hard and worked even harder. He was a hard-hitting movie-type cop who forgot he wasn’t an actor and life wasn’t a set.
Sheng walked in and shone a light around and into the box with the dead girl. He squatted level with Rajini’s arms, just visible at the rim of the box, held in front of her face as if she were offering them. ‘Why did they cut her
