paying for white women and locals couldn’t afford them), and had made a detour around the Philippines where there were a lot of lonely wealthy Westerners but no hostess clubs to work out of. Finally they had stopped in Hong Kong en route to Singapore. From there they were headed home to resume their jobs as dental nurses.
Mann asked Angela if she’d had any friends go missing unexpectedly. What? Was he serious? she answered. People were always moving on. What did he expect? Had she heard anything about a problem client? She shrugged. Nothing she couldn’t handle.
Mann interviewed the rest quickly: the other two Australians, who were clones of the first, two Kiwis, three Brits, two Americans, and a tall Irish girl named Bernadette. They all said the same thing – they were used to people disappearing, it happened all the time. People came and went continuously. Hong Kong was a transient society. Girls came to work there from all over the world; they did their business and left. They brought with them a new alias, but their identity was always the same. Mann had seen it many times. They were game players looking for easy money – looking to turn their God-given assets into cold hard cash. But at the moment the game wasn’t going all their way. Someone else was having fun making his own private collection of foreign dolls.
‘Is Lucy working here tonight?’ Mann asked Mamasan Rose when he’d finished interviewing the foreign girls. Mamasan Rose smiled curiously at Mann, said she was, and left to fetch her.
As soon as she entered Mann recognised her as the woman from the lift with the leather trousers. Now she was wearing a lilac-coloured figure-hugging evening dress that she didn’t quite have the figure for, and an extra coating of lip-gloss. He waited while she sat and readied herself.
‘Hello again, Inspector.’ She smiled sweetly, a very practised smile, and adjusted her dress to show a flirtatious amount of leg.
Surprising, thought Mann. She was nothing special to look at; her sickly sweet smile was set into an over-rouged face. But then she didn’t have to be beautiful. According to James Dudley-Smythe she was extremely talented in other ways.
She giggled, batting her eyelashes and feigning shyness under his scrutiny.
‘Are you the only Lucy working here?’
‘Yes, just me, Inspector. There’s only one Lucy.’
‘Well, it must be you I want then.’
Lucy raised an inquisitive eyebrow and pursed her lips into a ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ smile.
‘I have heard that you provide certain services for men who like something special.’
Lucy’s face was a picture of surprise but her eyes betrayed her. Mann could see that she was as sharp and as calculating as they come – but most of all she was a survivor. She had seen right into the depths of men’s souls. It may not have been a pretty sight, but boy was it lucrative.
‘I mean that you cater to certain tastes. Men who like to feel pain, feel it and inflict it.’
Lucy held his gaze, kept the smile, and inclined her head in a small movement.
‘Tell me, Lucy, have you had any problems with a particular client? Anybody go too far? Anyone scare you? Hurt you more than you wanted or were paid for?’
Lucy kept the smile, lowered her eyes and shook her head slowly.
‘No, I don’t think so. It’s just fun – you know?’
She looked up from beneath her lashes with a hint of a proposition, as if maybe he did know and it was always worth her while testing the water.
Mann had the distinct impression she was imagining him with a whip in his hand and his pants around his ankles.
‘What about the foreign girls here? Are you friendly with them?’
‘Quite friendly. I rent some of them a room in my apartment, Inspector,’ she said, moving to sit slightly to one side; her best side.
‘Your apartment?’
‘Yes, I live with my sister in Wanchai. We have a spare room which we let to foreign girls from the club. They pay more.’
‘Any of the foreign girls talk to you about a bad experience they might have had?’
Lucy thought for a few seconds and then swung her head slowly from side to side while keeping her eyes pinned on Mann – still holding that sweet, simpering smile, which was beginning to grate on him.
‘Any of the foreign girls gone missing that you know of?’
She gave an exasperated shrug. ‘They’re always disappearing, just leaving all their things and moving on,’ she said. ‘An American girl, Roxanne, all her belongings are at my flat at the moment. Such a nuisance.’
‘Is it unusual for girls just to leave all their stuff and disappear?’
Lucy rolled her eyes. ‘She’s not the first. Guess it’s just the way they are … Gweilos, they come and go. Do whatever they like, whenever they like. It’s just the way they are.’
Mann let his eyes fasten hard on Lucy for a few seconds longer than she was comfortable with. He could tell she was curious about him. He had no problem with being mixed race, but others did. They didn’t know whether to speak to him in English or Cantonese.
Mann liked feeding their insecurities. He belonged wherever he wanted to belong. Everywhere and nowhere. If Lucy was seriously trying to flirt with him she was wasting her time and his.
‘Can you give me a description of Roxanne?’ He poised, pen in hand.
Lucy’s attitude changed. She knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. She had to accept defeat, at least for now. She covered up her leg, and shifted uncomfortably in her seat as if she were going numb from sitting so long.
‘Curly blonde hair, bit fat, nice hands – liked to do her nails, manicures, you know?’ She twirled her bright red nails in the air as she spoke and glanced towards the door.
‘You say there have been other girls?’ He looked up from his notes.
‘Five or six maybe, over the years.’ She straightened her dress in preparation for the off.
‘You have no idea where they went?’
She shook her head.
‘I will need you to give me details about these girls, physical descriptions, that kind of thing.’
‘Of course, Inspector.’ Lucy nodded sweetly, batting her eyelashes, but her smile had changed. ‘Always happy to help the police. If that is all …’ She slid off the chair, bowed, and left.
After she had gone, Mann was left with the distinct impression that Lucy was as mercenary as they came – a good Hong Kong girl if ever he met one. But, he couldn’t blame her. In fact, he even kind of admired her. Hong Kong wasn’t the most caring mother to her daughters. It wasn’t so long ago that infant girls were left to die on the roadside. Now there was every type of brothel – floating, high-rise or underground – to keep a girl off the streets.
He’d done all he could. It was time to move on. He thanked the mamasans, said he would be back soon, and made his way out of the club, past the ‘lucky’ fish and the Taiwanese bouncers.
He was just about to step into the elevator when two men stepped out. One was a prominent elderly Chinese politician, Sun Yat-sen. Mann recognised him from some recent publicity shots. He was in Hong Kong promoting trade alliances – creaming off a few backhanders. The other man was the same age as Mann. He was shorter by six inches but made the most of his slight frame with expensive suits and well-tailored jackets. He carried himself with authority. His hair was very neatly cropped, smoothly side parted. His face was narrow, angular with a sallow complexion.