Nine Dragons - A Beatrix Rose Thriller: Hong Kong Stories Volume 1 (Beatrix Rose's Hong Kong Stories Book 2) by Mark Dawson Page B

aside.
    “At bar. He see you now.”
    She followed the corridor around the corner and entered the club. It was a large wide room dominated by a dance floor and a mirrored bar. There were low tables and cheap leather sofas set around the perimeter and, beyond the dance floor, a series of dark booths. A TV suspended above the bar was playing a kung fu movie. The film was muted, and the only sound came from a room behind the bar where bottles and glasses rattled and clanked as they were rearranged. A Filipina was collecting empties in a wire mesh tray.
    A man was sitting at the bar with his back to her. He was drinking a cup of tea. His face was visible in the mirrored wall to the side of him.
    “Mr. Ying,” Beatrix said.
    She recognised him from the Star Ferry. He was in early middle age, his face prematurely marked with lines around his nose and eyes. His hair was parted down the middle and was perfectly black, with not even the slightest hint of grey. He was wearing a mauve tracksuit top, a white T-shirt beneath that, and a pair of jeans. He turned to her, his face impassive and cold. A gold necklace glittered in a spotlight that shone overhead. His eyes were flinty. There was no pity there. No emotion. An occupation such as his, not so different from her own, had a tendency to cauterise all empathy and feeling.
    “You are the woman who works with Chau?”
    “That’s right.”
    He cocked an eyebrow, just a little. Ying already knew that Chau worked with a woman. Ying had set up Donnie Qi so that Beatrix could dispose of him. The hit had gone down in one of his brothels, and she had no doubt that the mamasan there would have reported everything back to him, including the gender of the assassin. Chinese society was patriarchal, and the masculine world of the triads especially so. Beatrix doubted that Ying approved, although it wouldn’t have been possible to question her efficiency. She had demonstrated that on six subsequent occasions.
    “What is your name?”
    “You can call me Suzy.”
    “Suzy.” He nodded, his cold eyes staying on her. “English?”
    “That doesn’t matter. And there’s no point asking anything else about me. None of it is relevant.”
    He smiled at her reticence. “You are very good, Suzy. I have been satisfied with the work that you and Chau have done for me.”
    “I’m pleased to hear that.”
    “Our friend Mr. Doss, for example. Tell me, how did he die? He was poisoned, yes?”
    “That’s right.”
    “With what?”
    “With ricin.”
    He nodded and made an appreciative clucking noise.
    “No more questions.”
    He nodded his assent. “You are a very impressive woman. The pay is good, yes?”
    “Sufficient.”
    “Better than sufficient, I think. It is generous. And it makes it difficult to understand why you have done what you have done.”
    He indicated the stool next to him.
    “No, thanks. I’ll stand.”
    He waved away her rebuff. “I do not care about the men you killed, the men who went to the apartment. You did me a favour. They failed. I do not tolerate failure, so I had no further use for them. It is the fact that you are doing this to me now that is troubling. You are not a failure, Suzy. Far from it. You are very useful to me, and now I cannot use you again.”
    “I’ll have to learn to live with the disappointment,” she said. “Look. Let’s get to the point, shall we? This is about Liling and Zhào. I don’t care if she set him up or whether you did. I don’t care about the video, and I don’t care about him. None of that matters to me. But I do care about the sister.”
    “Yes. The girl. Grace.”
    “The first man you sent attacked her. I killed him.”
    “And the others?”
    “The girl was with me. They forced their way into my apartment. They would have taken her, and I wasn’t prepared to let that happen.”
    “And so you killed them? All of them?”
    “Did I have a choice?”
    “You could have brought the girl to me. We could have found a