of it. I knew that girl who was killed.’
‘So did I. I didn’t like it any more than you.’
Lilly walked alongside him. Mahmud looked hard at her. He searched her face to see if she was telling the truth. ‘It’s all going wrong, Lilly. I don’t know what’s happened to you. You never used to like the gangs either. You’ve changed. Hafiz has changed too. I’m not having any more to do with it.’
‘Nobody asked you to. But remember, Mahmud, we’re all in this together. We are doing this so that we can have a better life.’ Lilly turned frosty. ‘Where’s Hafiz, anyway?’
‘He’s working. He’s in enough trouble with Dad, he doesn’t need any more.’
Lilly shook her head, shrugged. ‘A lot’s happened. Things that you don’t know about. I have to look out for myself now, Mahmud. I can’t rely on anyone else. That’s why I need the Outcasts. Victoria Chan has promised I will do well with them. She said she’d personally look out for me. She says I have what it takes.’
‘Yeah, but what does she want you to do for it, Lilly? You heard what the inspector said at school. Once you’re in you can’t get out. They will kill you if you try.’
‘Yeah, but you know what? Most days I feel like I am dead anyway. I don’t have anything to live for right now.’
They stopped outside Rajini’s father’s tailors. Inside they could see her father sewing on the machine. On the chair next to him her mother was sobbing as she sewed.
‘You’d think they’d take a day off. They only care about the money they’re not going to get from her.’
Mahmud looked at her, his eyes full of anger and sadness. ‘They are making Rajini’s shroud.’ Lilly walked briskly on. She was cross. He caught her up. They waited in silence for the lift. ‘Let’s go and sit on the roof. We haven’t done that in ages.’
Lilly looked at him and smiled. ‘Okay.’
They sat on the ledge and dangled their feet over Nathan Road. The sun was going down. As they sat their hands inched towards one another and rested, barely touching.
‘Tell me what you want to be, Lilly.’
Lilly took her hand away and kept her legs still as she stared down at the busy road below. She looked down at her lap as she replied. ‘I want to be rich. I want to have a house on the Peak. I want to have all designer clothes.’
Mahmud stared at her profile. ‘Is that all that matters to you?’
She looked towards the sunset. A slither of orange was beginning to stretch across the evening sky. She looked everywhere but at Mahmud. ‘Pretty much. I want to get out of this place. I want to have nice things.’
‘Is that why you joined the Outcasts?’
‘Yes.’ She looked down at her lap again. ‘It’s all right for you, Mahmud; your father will find the money to pay for you to go to college. You are smart. You can achieve anything you want to. You will be able to afford to escape from here.’
‘But I’ll never be rich enough to have a house on the Peak. I might become a doctor and travel. I might have a good living, enough to support a wife, a family, but I will never be rich, Lilly. It’s not important to me.’
Lilly turned and looked at him, her eyes catching the light from the sky, her face glowing. ‘I will, Mahmud. It’s everything to me.’
‘What about love?’
She turned away. ‘I don’t care about love. My mother loves Rizal, what good is love?’
‘The Outcasts are dangerous, Lilly; they could turn on you just as quick as anyone else. They don’t answer to anyone any more, they’re out of control. Victoria Chan is a terrible person. Ever since she came into our lives things have just got worse.’
Lilly was angry. ‘Victoria Chan is smart and beautiful. She’s everything I want to be.’ But she couldn’t stay cross at Mahmud. She knew he was only worried for her. She knew he had always loved her. ‘Listen to me, Mahmud. I know what you’re saying,’ she smiled sadly and looked at him, ‘but she can give me things, things I could never get on my own. She can get me out of this place. You are so clever. You will get where you want to go without people like Victoria Chan.’
‘I thought we could make it, you and I. I was hoping, you know? I always thought we’d stay together.’
She turned and looked him in the face, her eyes searching his. She reached over and kissed his cheek. ‘Save your hopes for someone else, Mahmud. You are too good for me. I am not the girl you kissed when we were ten. I am not the girl I was.’ Lilly slid her legs back around and stood to leave. ‘Forget me, Mahmud. You and I could never be and I am in too deep now to get out.’
Chapter 36
Victoria moved to her bedroom to answer her phone; it was too noisy to talk in her lounge. She lived in a luxury penthouse apartment on the road to Stanley. She was giving seven of her top lieutenants a special treat – she had provided her men with the entertainment. They were simple creatures; easy to read, easy to please. Tonight was a victory celebration of sorts. It was to celebrate the beginning of the end. The beginning of a fight that would take her all the way. There was no stopping her now. She would court the best of the lieutenants in the Wo Shing Shing. As each of her pieces slotted into their roles she controlled them like a conductor played an orchestra. They were the new breed. They were loyal to her father, loyal to the organization but they would want a new Dragon Head when she showed them her power. Victoria sat on the chair in her bedroom in the semi-darkness. Her black leather cat suit traced her strong curves like a second skin, her diamond earrings caught the flash of lightning as she turned her head towards the window and watched the storm coming in.
‘You have done well, my daughter. But we need him broken before he can be rebuilt. Push for the prize now. Use every weapon you have. The Mansions are proving a suitable testing ground for you. You have been courting the right people. You have turned them on one another.’
‘They all want the same thing. They want money, power. They want bigger, better. They don’t think of the consequences. They don’t think of tomorrow. The Outcasts are unique, fearless. They are easy to please. There is one amongst them who is the most talented and most ruthless I have ever known; she will stop at nothing and yet she wants nothing in return except to be allowed to serve. I only have to suggest something and it’s done. I only have to dislike someone and they are dead. She sees me as her saviour.’ Victoria laughed at the notion.
‘Be careful, my clever daughter. He who treads softly goes far.’
‘Trust me, Father. I know what I am doing. But when I have done it, will you be ready to hand it all over to me?’
‘Yes. When you have proved yourself.’
Victoria closed her phone and walked back through the lounge. There was an orgy going on in her apartment. Two naked Russian girls snorted cocaine from her expensive glass table. Another sat on a man’s lap as he played cards, eyes rolling in his head. She was passed one to the other. A girl in her early teens danced naked in the centre of the room, so tired she lurched as she twirled. Her nose was clogged with methamphetamine; her head was buzzing but her body spent.
Victoria passed through and came out to stand on her balcony to look out to sea. Out on the balcony the air was charged with the electricity of the storm. The gales were picking up, caught on a typhoon’s tail. She held tight to the railing as the gusts tossed her hair into the air. Victoria smiled to herself. The night had been a good one; it would be over soon. Victoria turned back to face the wind. It took her breath away as it picked up her hair and whipped it across her face. All those years arranging flowers, holding dinner parties, watching her husband lavish his concubines with expensive gifts. All those years she took the pill without him knowing. There was no way she was going to bear a child of his. There was no way she would allow the tyranny to continue. Lucky for her he had never managed to father a child elsewhere. Now she was free and now she stood and tossed her head in the wind and laughed with the exhilaration of it all. Yes, Mann had done her a huge favour when he took care of her husband and whether he liked it or not they were joined to each other. She and Mann would rule the Triad world together. One day he would have nothing left but her.
The balcony doors slid open. The young dancer stood there naked, trailing a blanket behind her. ‘Come here, Lilly.’ Victoria beckoned her closer to the railing. The wind began to subside. They looked out as the first signs of
