Chapter 50
Tammy slipped back out of the alley and took a round-about route that led her back to the middle of the night market. It was only just getting going, stalls were still being set up. She picked up a black peak cap from a stall with Iron Maiden written on the front and threw the stallholder some money. He looked at her, looked at the note, shrugged and put it into his money pouch as he turned away without a word of thanks. Pulling the cap down over her eyes, she headed towards the busiest part of the market, between the road junctions. The plastic canopies that met above the busy street trapped the heat and the din of toys and music and shouted Cantonese.
She pulled on the cap, kept her head down and attached herself to other groups of people. Tourists were out early with their kids. The market was full of foreign voices. But, above it all, Tammy heard the whistles. She lifted her eyes enough to look either side, to the back of the stalls where they met the pavement, and sensed movement alongside her. They were looking for her. She was being closed in on. She stopped, ducked down beneath a stall and crawled on her hands and knees over the boxes of merchandise, the discarded food cartons and the scavenging rats. She only had to wait a few more minutes. It wouldn’t take Mann longer than that to get a unit here. She just needed the noise of a police siren to scare them off. She could hear her breath as she squeezed through the minute spaces. She doubled back on herself slowly, crouching low, and waited. Above her head a stallholder was arguing with an irate mother whose child had bought a duff toy an hour ago.
Above their arguing she heard sirens and her heart leapt. She shook her head in relief. It was then that the stallholder saw her and reached in and dragged her out. ‘Thief! Stealing my toys whilst I am being distracted. What are you? A team of thieves?’
Tammy tried to shut him up. ‘I’m a police officer. Do as I say. Shut up for Christ’s sake. Please…shut the fuck up.’
The stallholder lifted his voice again. ‘Thief!’ He had heard her well enough but he wanted a distraction away from the argument with the irate mother.
She had no choice but to run. She looked up to see what appeared to be the whole market closing in on her. Either side of her the tourists stared as the gang members wove between them. Tammy saw the first knife flash bright amongst the tack and plastic. She ran.
Chapter 51
‘Police officer down,’ Detective Inspector Johnny Mann shouted into the radio.
The noise all around him was deafening.
‘I said police officer down. For fuck’s sake get an ambulance here.’
The woman clutched her little girl to her as she stood staring down at Mann and Tammy who was convulsing on the pavement amidst the nodding puppies, replica toys, t-shirts and sunglasses.
‘At the junction of Saigon Street. There could be other casualties…I don’t know…Just move it.’
Mann knelt over Tammy’s unconscious body and pushed his fingers over the wound in her chest to try to stop the bleeding. ‘Give me that. Quick…’ he shouted to the woman who was still holding the white silk shawl she had been haggling over. ‘Another one…more. Quick! Quick!’
She looked around, flustered, threw it to him. He pressed the fabric into the wound. Above the screams of frightened tourists, Mann heard Ng shouting for him.
‘Over here, Ng. It’s Tammy, she’s hurt.’
Ng crouched beside them for a second. Shrimp ran past. Ng called out to him: ‘Check if there’s any sign of them, Shrimp.’
‘I’m on it,’ Shrimp answered, leaping over the smashed stalls, dodging the screaming tourists who were caught in the middle of it, frantic to get away. He caught sight of the backs of running gang members and increased his pace. As he exited out from the tunnel of stalls he heard voices. He came face to face with an Indian boy holding the bloody knife in his shaking hand.
Shrimp pinned him to the ground and read him his rights.
The ambulance screamed down Saigon Street and came to a halt as its lights filled the night sky above the bright stalls.
Mann felt Tammy’s pulse…nothing. He knelt over her, locked out his arms, placed one hand above the other over her chest. Tammy’s body bounced under Mann’s pressure as he pressed hard and fast rapid presses onto her chest. Blood seeped through his fingers turning the white silk shawl crimson.
Chapter 52
Mann watched one of PJ’s customers dip naan bread into the bright red tandoori sauce and wipe it around the metal bowl. His stomach knotted. Tammy’s blood was ingrained in his fingertips. It had been a terrible night and it showed. Mann was ashen faced and his eyes were smudged and dark with tiredness. Mann had helped the paramedics for forty minutes. They had stabilized Tammy before leaving the market but she was barely alive. He waited for PJ to finish wiping his hands on the white starched napkin that hung over his arm, traditional waiter style, then he called him over.
‘Is everything all right, Inspector?’ PJ smiled, but his eyes showed concern as he looked at Mann’s face. Mann gave a small nod and half a smile by way of answer and thanks for the concern. He took a sip of water and wiped his mouth on the cloth napkin – a nice touch, cloth napkins in a place where all you could eat came for less than a coffee in a plush hotel.
‘Please sit down at a table, eat.’
Mann kept one eye on Hafiz as he talked. He kept glancing over. He worked hard to serve all of the tables; the place had a hundred customers all crammed into what was only ever meant to be someone’s front room.
Mann raised his hand and shook his head. ‘No time, thanks, PJ.’
He looked across at Hafiz who was waiting on the tables. Mann watched him work the tables. Hafiz passed them on the way to the kitchen. Mann grabbed his arm, held on to it tightly. ‘You all right?’
Hafiz was sweating heavily. He looked at Mann’s hand on his arm and then he turned to answer the shouts for service that went up from a table behind them. He nodded. Mann released his arm.
‘Walk me to the hall, PJ. I have some questions.’ Mann got up to leave.
PJ did as he was told and they stood in the airless landing outside the restaurant. PJ stood eye to eye with Mann. The two men: tall, broad-shouldered Mann, PJ with the weight of fifteen more years around his girth and too many poppadoms.
‘Tonight there was trouble in Yau Ma Tei. The Outcasts were involved. Several were wounded. Many were arrested. A young police officer was badly hurt.’ Behind them, through the glass door, Mann could see Hafiz watching them.
‘I am so sorry, Inspector. It is a terrible thing. When people risk their lives in public service.’
‘The thing is, PJ, some Indian youths were amongst those arrested.’ A look of confusion crossed PJ’s face. Mann continued. ‘And your son Mahmud was one of them.’
PJ gasped as he clutched his apron. ‘No, he can’t be.’ PJ shook his head and then instinctively swung round to look through the glass door at Hafiz who was staring back at his father. ‘I do not understand how this has happened. My cleverest son. He will be a doctor, a lawyer. He is the one who has gone bad?’ PJ turned back to Mann. ‘It must be a misunderstanding. It cannot be true…’
‘It’s serious, PJ. We’re still holding him. He’s not talking to us. He won’t tell us why he joined up and he won’t tell us who recruited him. I can’t help him unless he helps me. He was caught with a knife in his hand.’
The colour drained from PJ’s face.
