I hope that we will all be okay.’
Ali was looking at Mann when he spoke. Mann didn’t answer. He was feeling claustrophobic in the tiny room. It was impossible to tell where ceiling began and wall ended. Large white tiles were everywhere. He’d seen a place like this in one of his nightmares.
‘Do you know a girl named Lilly Mendoza?’ asked Shrimp.
‘Yes, I know Lilly. We all do. She’s a little tramp but she has it hard. Her stepdad Rizal is a nasty piece of work. He will try it on with any of the women. He doesn’t care who they are. He has a bad streak a mile wide.’
‘Does he try it on with your sister?’ asked Shrimp.
Ali looked shocked at the suggestion. ‘If he did I would kill him. And look, I’d like to help about the girl Rajini but I don’t know most of the Indians living here. We tend to stick to our own kind.’
‘The caste system?’
Ali shrugged. ‘In a small way. No one wants to admit it but there’s no way I would marry someone from a lower class than my own. It just isn’t an option.’
Mann and Shrimp left Ali in his office and waited for the lift.
‘What do you make of him, Shrimp?’
‘Fly boy. Likes his wealth on display. He’s a nice enough guy but he’s streetwise rather than clever. He thinks he’s being clever, telling us stuff he hopes will steer us away from his brothers. He’s protecting his family.’
‘Exactly.’ Mann gave Shrimp a sideways glance and a grin. ‘His sister Nina likes you, Shrimp. I think you should come back tomorrow, follow up some leads.’
‘Her family won’t like that.’ Shrimp gave an embarrassed smile. ‘Did you hear the way her brother talks? I reckon a Chinese guy would rank among the untouchables, don’t you?’
Mann slapped him on the back. ‘Yeah, but your mission is to boldly go where no man has gone before.’
Mann took out the hair ornament that Flo had given him. Her pewter and white hair was woven into a tight clasp. Helen’s image flashed into his head. It took his breath away. Mann saw her twisting at the end of a rope, a black hood over her head.
‘You all right, Boss?’ Shrimp was staring at Mann.
Her body covered in blood. He saw the hand raised to whip her.
Mann rubbed his face with his hands as if trying to erase the images in his head. ‘Yes. I’m all right, Shrimp. I just want to focus on work. Let’s go and find Rizal.’
Chapter 44
Mann and Shrimp walked back down to the ground floor where the Mansions’ arcades fanned out and ran parallel to the main hub. Around them was a dilapidated row of backpacker suppliers. They found Rizal playing dice amongst the knocked-off North Face backpacks. A young Filipina with bad skin and heavy features was sat on Rizal’s lap, her arm around his neck; she had on shorts and a top that pushed her small breasts into a cleavage. They stopped playing dice and looked up as Mann and Shrimp approached. The girl kept her eyes on Mann whilst nuzzling at Rizal’s ear.
Rizal was playing dice with two other Filipinos, one slick, expensive-looking glasses perched on his head, black trousers, shirt open to his waist, he looked like a musician from one of the many Filipino bands in Hong Kong. The other one was slobby with a badly stained, shiny red shirt, a manual worker, tough, strong.
Rizal looked them up and down. He recognized what they were straight away. ‘The food is finished, sold out. Come back tomorrow.’ Then he turned to the others and grinned as he spoke under his breath in Filipino. The other two men laughed.
Mann grinned back. ‘That’s okay. We’ll wait.’ Mann indicated that Shrimp should pull up a spare stool. There was only one. Shrimp dragged it over and sat next to Slick.
‘Wait for what?’ Rizal rolled his eyes at his friends and raised his voice an octave. ‘Huh? Wait for what? The Food Is Finished,’ he said as if they might not understand English.
Mann pulled a stool out from under Slick. Slick fell on the floor, jumped to his feet and went to retaliate. Shrimp reached out to stop him.
‘You were ready to leave, weren’t you? We mean no harm, we come in peace.’ He nodded gravely and then grinned. ‘Now fuck off.’
Mann resisted the urge to smile. He had seen Shrimp change over the years, grow to be a man. He had seen him come off the worse in some fights, and seen him pull it out of the bag. Now he was seeing him act as a hard man when inside he was still a little boy learning about life, boundaries, the universe. The older guy in the red shirt was still watching the scene unfold. Mann saw the knife in his belt. The girl got off Rizal’s lap and disappeared to pastures greener.
Rizal leaned back to look Mann over. He wiped his hand on his dirty vest, a cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth. ‘I told you, the food is finished. We are all out of pork. Come back tomorrow.’
Slick, still seething, was obviously weighing Shrimp up to see if he could take him. He probably could, muscle for muscle – but then it wasn’t about how much muscle, just how you used it. Shrimp had yet to flesh out. Slick laughed at Rizal’s retort. Mann caught him mid-throat with the side of his hand. Slick clutched his throat and tried to breathe and then Mann slammed the flat of his hand between his shoulder blades. ‘Sorry – thought you got something stuck in your throat.’
Slick fell onto his knees, choking.
‘Just trying to help. Shrimp here is an expert on all things. What do you say, Shrimp?’
‘He needs to go away somewhere quiet for a few hours and contemplate his life.’
‘Okay, I don’t want any trouble.’ Rizal told his friends to go. ‘What do you want?’ Rizal put his cigarette on the edge of the card table whilst he packed up his dice.
‘To tell you something for a start. Michelle’s in custody.’
Rizal didn’t blink. He picked up his dice and put them in his pocket. ‘Whatever she did, ain’t got nothing to do with me. What was it this time? Stealing from a john?’
‘She’s on a possible murder charge.’
‘Huh?’ Rizal looked at Mann, his jaw dropped and then he burst out laughing. ‘Michelle? You have to be kidding. If she had it in her she’d have killed me a long time ago.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I said, but then someone pointed out you might have put her up to it which is why I’m here. We need some blood from you. We need to take your prints. I can take you in now or you can save us a job and go there yourself.’
Rizal shook his head, rolled his eyes, irritated. ‘You ain’t got nuttin’ on me. If Michelle is banged up it has nothing to do with me. You wanna find Lilly, her daughter. I won’t have any curry to sell. How am I going to feed my kids? You should let her go. We have real live problems round this place. People die every fucking day here and no one cares. Just coz it’s some rich foreigner there’s fucking trouble.’
‘This new group of kids, the Outcasts, have you heard of them?’
‘I know them. Outcasts, lone wolves.’ Rizal snorted with derision. ‘Just a pack of mangy dogs. Just a bunch of ugly kids. That little bitch Lilly’s one of them. She’s always looking for trouble. Don’t worry. I’m going to teach her a lesson she won’t forget.’
‘Do you know who’s doing the recruiting?’
Rizal locked his eyes on to Mann’s and then he looked away and shrugged. ‘I think it’s Chinese. I have seen some new faces in the Mansions, expensive suits, and expensive-looking women.’
Mann heard footsteps coming along the corridor. He looked over at Shrimp. Shrimp had moved to the far side and was watching someone approach. Slick and a new man appeared; he was as broad as he was tall. A strong- looking fighter. They had the Filipino’s choice of weapon – the street knife: solid, long bladed. It was the art of Eskrima, the Filipino martial art. Its masters trained in street alleys, barefoot on broken glass, where space was limited and you had to kill quick and get away fast. Hands were used as weapons, blocking, breaking bones.
Rizal looked pleased with himself. He jumped up and scurried to the back of the newcomers. One of them stepped forward, bare-chested, his scarred torso showing years of fighting. He was the oldest, around forty, strong and stocky.
