Free The Year of the Woman by Jonathan Gash Page A

She walked down the corridor , reached her pod and sat. She closed her eyes for a second. The office still felt the same; her screen still glowed, saving its pixels by a writhing coloured shape. Yet she felt as if she’d suddenly been promoted. The money she’d left on HC’s desk would serve as a reproach. He would be devastated. Let him give it to his grasping failed-gambler wife. (As fail she would, KwayFay felt with delight, in the third race this afternoon at Happy Valley when her miserable beast, straining every nerve under the wild flogging from its Australian jockey in scarlet and white, yellow starred cap, would come in a sorry fifth.) Serve the bitch right.
    “All well?” Alice put her head round. “What were you saying about some horse?”
    Oh, dear. “Just thinking aloud. Has anybody cited that new money?”
    “The Indian Ocean thing? They say America will, before Ice House closes this afternoon.” Alice paused. “Did you hear YeePak’s missing?”
    KwayFay looked up. “HC’s cousin?”
    “Him.” Alice’s whisper intensified. “HC was full of him a month back. Remember, the Carpet Emporium?”
    KwayFay went cold. The office was quiet, people looking her way. Did they know she once advised HC against hiring him?
    “Since last night. The police came round.”
    “Some woman, is it?” KwayFay tapped the computer mouse but she felt sickened. People didn’t disappear. If a man vanished over some woman, all Hong Kong knew within minutes exactly where and why.
    She tapped in another refusal for Bounty Cook Island Republic’s new currency. Whatever office rumour said, no thank you, get lost. Guides, all hedging like crazy, were shoaling in from Central Office, but let them whistle . She’d given her delirious guess, HC could fight it out and set his own rate if he was stupid enough. He’d maybe make another fortune for his wife to squander.
    What respect could she feel for an oaf who hadn’t even the decency to put a small god in there? The CID, head of Hong Kong police, had a diminutive shrine to Kuan Kung, the Ruling Essence of Heaven and Earth, with a red votive light burning before it. The practice originated in Yaumati Police Station long ago, but so? It explained why Hong Kong police were so successful. Obeisance now and again pleased a god, especially one feeling neglected for lack of attention. Stood to reason. Meanwhile, HC feared the derision of chance clients.
    She rejected three other client demands for quotations on the new currency, sweetly ablating their e-mails. Let HC joke all he wanted. He would probably sack her at the day’s end anyway. Maybe the gauntelderly man, Old Man, who strangely felt such concern even about her asking, on a whim, for a black motor car, had felt like this when those Triad threat-men had taken him prisoner? Poor, poor thing.
    She didn’t trust hope. It was a myth, being without numbers, unlike money.

    “You know the place above Kennedy Town?” Old Man said. He was smoking. He only allowed this in special circumstances, as now.
    “Many places there, master.”
    The young suit was guarded. Old Man stood watching as the killers cut away the bound man’s kneecaps and dropped them into the dish. The floor was well sanded with cement mixed well in, according to old traditions. Lime would be sprinkled on the sand-blood mess afterwards , making everything decent.
    The victim had done screaming, given up. His mouth was stuffed with rags, and small bamboo shoots stuffed up his nostrils, green so they would bend into his throat to provide an airway. He could not choke while the pain was inflicted.
    “You must know it. Broad steps go up, those small shops all the way up.” Old Man waited.
    “Green Lotus Terrace!” the suited threat-man said with relief. “The stair steps are Precious Dragon Terrace. Trees along the wall, with a school?”
    “That’s it.” Old Man nodded at the torturers’ quick glance. They resumed cutting wide flaps from the victim ’s