LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 17

      Ng took one look at Mann when he walked back into the office that evening. He’d come straight from CK’s.

      ‘Don’t bother taking your jacket off, it’s late. We’re going. That’s enough work for you. I’m taking you home.’

      Mia appeared in the doorway. ‘Any news on the girl’s identity?’

      ‘Not yet,’ answered Ng.

      ‘Mann…did you see CK?’

      ‘Yes, I saw him and I arranged to see him again tomorrow night. He’s going to show me the world he thinks I belong in.’ Mann shook his head.

      Mia looked at Ng. ‘Ng’s right. You need some time out. Let Ng take you home. Grab an hour’s rest. I’ll see you in three hours. Now go.’

      Mann started to protest but gave in. He wasn’t going to win an argument with Mia and he knew she was right. This was no time to be slack.

      Mann sat beside Ng in the passenger seat of his brand new Mazda and laid his head back on the leather headrest. The car was Ng’s pride and joy, but then Ng didn’t have to spend his money on his family or a mortgage. He’d inherited a flat from his parents, in what was once a slummy part of town – now the chicest address in Wanchai.

      Mann watched the neon whiz by. He didn’t know if he was drunk or just so tired that his world was spinning. He caught Ng looking across at him as he rested his head on the back of the seat, his eyes half closed.

      ‘A couple of hours’ sleep, something to eat, a few coffees, you’ll be sorted,’ Ng said.

      ‘Yeah.’ Mann looked out of the window. ‘Somehow I think it’s going to take more than that, Ng.’

      The two fell silent. Ng switched on the radio and then switched it off. He had something he wanted to say.

      ‘I don’t think you should be the one to talk with CK or Victoria Chan. You’re vulnerable right now. I see it in you. All the years we have known one another I have watched you struggle with things but I have never seen you so withdrawn. It’s as if you don’t exist in this life sometimes. You are not listening. You are not hearing what is said. I see your eyes always on the horizon, Mann. But the way is in the heart, not in the sky. Be kind to yourself right now. Stop punishing yourself and accept some help. I will take over talking to CK.’

      Mann looked across at his old friend and he smiled. ‘Thanks, Ng. You’re a good friend. But somehow I don’t see that working. I have something they want. I have my father’s inheritance. I have to use it to bring them down if I can.’

      They parked up in his space outside his tower block and walked to the entrance. ‘Fuck it – they’ve just changed the code,’ he said to Ng, who was patient as ever. ‘I’ve forgotten what it is.’ He waved at the security guard. The old man behind the desk grinned at Mann and nodded enthusiastically as he came over to let them in.

      ‘Hello, sir. You forget your number? No problem,’ he said, letting them through the gate. ‘Your cleaner was here earlier, sir.’

      ‘My cleaner?’ Mann shook his head to try to clear it. ‘Okay.’ He hadn’t asked her to come; maybe she was just bringing back his laundry.

      They took the lift up to the fortieth floor.

      ‘Jesus, what kind of cleaner is she?’ Ng stood in the doorway. ‘This place looks like a student’s bedroom and it smells like a brewery.’ He stood amidst the remnants of meals left untouched and copious amounts of empty bottles. The louvre blinds were closed, the air in the room was dark and rank. Ng stepped over the piles of papers and document folders mixed up with the mess. He stood in the middle of the small lounge and surveyed the carnage.

      ‘What’s going on, Genghis?’ Ng had called Mann that ever since he had first seen him as a wild-eyed, wild-haired youth, joining the police force to change the world, full of anger and mistrust, his world shattered from the death of his father. He was older now but he was just the same inside.

      Mann shook his head, threw some things off the armchair and plonked himself in it. His face was blotchy and his eyes were darker than ever, hooded and haunted. He reached forwards, tapped a Marlboro out of its packet and lit it.

      Ng went to snatch the packet away. ‘You quit, remember?’ But a look from Mann and he thought better of it. Instead he began tidying, picking up the scattered papers and piling them on top of one another.

      Mann drew on the cigarette.

      ‘What are these papers?’

      ‘These are my father’s life.’

      Ng looked around at the mountains of paperwork. ‘All this?’

      Mann nodded. ‘These files have been like reading a diary for me. They document his life in business. Over there, behind you…’ Ng turned to see that the piles, seemingly indistinguishable from one another, were actually in messy groups on the lounge floor, ‘…that was when my father started out in business. It was a small business, he made some clever moves. By the time he was twenty-one he had bought his first property. He expanded, bought up a few rival companies, made a good profit but it obviously wasn’t enough for him. To your left…’ Ng turned; there was a large triple pile of papers stacked next to one another, ‘…that represents ten years when he made money slowly, steadily, ticked along, some years were good, some bad, until…scan the pile just by your right foot, the biggest piles, this group stretched across the floor. That’s when he decided to get some help. That’s

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