Kiss & Die

‘That is my bedroom.’

He got up, pulled back the curtain and tried the handle. ‘You keep it locked?’

Ruby giggled. ‘Maybe I let you see my bedroom.’

He squinted at the shadows. ‘Plastic flowers…roses…and what are they? Dolls? Fuck, they’re everywhere.’ He laughed but at the same time he spun round and peered into the dark corners. Hundreds of pairs of eyes looked back. ‘Fuck…what is this place?’

‘Hey, big man,’ Ruby tried to distract him, ‘have a drink. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.’ She handed him the glass.

He took a big slug of it. ‘Jesus, that’s strong.’ He wiped his burning mouth.

Ruby lifted her glass against his. She pressed him backwards. ‘Cheers. Sit. Sit.’

He sat on the sofa. ‘Drink. Drink…’ She drank her water down and poured him another gin.

She began to strip for him; he drank as he watched. He undid his shirt. Stripped to the waist, he eased back on the sofa, propped up on an elbow. She whirled around the room like a spi

MUM

She made a pouting face. ‘Ahhh. You a mummy’s boy?’

‘Of course.’ He gri

She stood and pulled his mouth to her sex. He drew away.

‘Hey, shouldn’t we use something? Ouch…go easy. You’re pulling my hair out.’ He laughed. He stood. ‘Come on then, you dirty girl, let’s go into your bedroom.’ He lurched sideways. ‘Jesus – I feel pissed.’

She eased him towards the locked bedroom door. She had the key ready in her hand.

‘You just need to relax. You need to lie down.’

‘Good idea.’ He grabbed her bottom and squeezed it hard. ‘Fucking hell!’ He lost his balance and crashed into the wall.

Ruby looped his arm around her shoulder as she unlocked the door and pushed it gently open. It was complete darkness inside. He stumbled forwards and hit his shoulder on the doorframe. ‘Where are we going? Through the secret door?’ He laughed.

‘You’ll see…’ She giggled and guided him inside, half dragging him now as his legs had started to buckle. ‘Time to lie down, big man.’

Ruby steered him forwards. ‘Lie down now. You’re okay, big man. Just lie back.’

He resisted for a second and then with a half laugh, half sigh, he gave in and lay back heavily on the mattress. Ruby ran her fingers through his hair, soothing him as he slipped further into unconsciousness and she moved around in the darkness tightening the restraints.

Chapter 12

In the morning Ma

The hall was darkened for the slide show projecting onto a screen behind him. He stood to one side. Three hundred children sat in front of him, in rows. A sea of white shirts and blue ties. They were hushed as the first ten images flashed up one after the other. Each image stayed up for three seconds unless he clicked to halt it: a girl dying with a needle in her arm, a boy whose face was badly disfigured from a chopping.

‘Triads deal in death,’ Ma

Ma

A young woman lay face down, a rope around her neck. Her hands were tied behind her back. ‘This is Zheng,’ Ma

‘This is Zheng’s brother. He was an addict. He sold the Triads the information about his sister: which flight she’d be on, how much he thought his family would be able to find. They tricked him of course. They asked for ten times the amount his parents could pay and so, when they couldn’t pay, they killed him too. Nobody wins with the Triads. If you want to be somebody in Hong Kong society you have to stand out from the crowd, not just be another 49, another number.’ The lights went back on.

He looked along the rows. The front ten rows seemed to be solely occupied by girls, all looking up at him.

‘Any questions?’

About ten hands went up from the front. Ma

‘Sir, do you give this talk to all the schools?’ she asked.

‘Pretty much.’

‘Even the schools where the parents have money and there aren’t any immigrants like there are here?’

The headmaster stepped forward to the mike to intervene; Ma

‘What’s your name?’

‘Lilly.’

‘Lilly what?’

Lilly was a pretty girl with bags of attitude. ‘Mendoza.’

Her mother Michelle was a part-time hooker; Lilly must have slipped past the condom. The father looked like he must have been Chinese. Hong Kong was not a great ambassador for mixing the races. The Chinese liked to keep to their own kind. But something else was bugging him: he’d seen Lilly last night. She was one of the two girls who ran from the building just as he got there.

‘Okay, I know what you’re saying. You feel like this is a problem for kids from poorer backgrounds. Yeah, well I agree. The Triad organizations are always looking for an angle. They have mostly, not always, recruited from the poorer side of society. They know the recent changes in the education system discriminate against people coming in from other countries, non natives. They know it makes it tough so they exploit that.’

Another hand went up from a young Indian girl. ‘Are you mixed race, sir?’

‘Yes. My mother is English, my dad was Chinese.’

‘Is it easy to get into the police force when you’re mixed race?’

‘It isn’t easy to get into the police force whatever race you are. You need a good level of English. You need to be able to read and write Mandarin.’

There was a muttering all around the hall. Lilly spoke up again. You need to be able to read and write Mandarin to clean toilets now.’

The children laughed. The headmaster coughed loudly.

Ma