Reliable in Hong Kong: An Asian Thriller (The Reliable Man Series Book 3) by Valerie Goldsilk & Julian Stagg

Author:Valerie Goldsilk & Julian Stagg [Goldsilk, Valerie & Stagg, Julian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thaumasios Publishing Ltd.
Published: 2019-08-15T23:00:00+00:00

19

The sea was choppy but it was a pleasant ride as the high speed ferry raced towards the gambling enclave of Macau. We zipped past freighters loaded with containers and the outlying islands of Hong Kong, most of them too small or rocky to be inhabited. The sun shone brilliantly on the mirror surface of the sea.

The interior of the ferry looked like an extra wide 747 jet, down to the seat belts and the stewardesses in uniform. The Captain even came onto the intercom introducing himself and giving details of the journey. It took under an hour to reach the Portuguese colony. We didn’t intend staying long because we had a plane to catch to Manila that evening.

I’d never been a great fan of Macau. It had no real economy except for the money that Hong Kong men and women brought across the water and left in the casinos and nightclubs that had mushroomed everywhere. Macau was a service centre, pure and simple, for Hong Kong’s jaded palates. Because it was so lucrative the Triads were fighting over it for control but as far as I could tell that had no particular bearing on our investigation, except peripherally, like everything else linked to the run-up to the Chinese handover.

No, the real answers were in Hong Kong and even though it had cost them their lives, Chew and Horsfield had at least given us another solid lead, which we would need to follow up when we got back from the Philippines. Today, I thought ruefully, they should be sitting beside us and we should be honouring our side of the bargain by helping Vyvian escape. Instead they were both lying beside each other in North Point morgue.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Jane said. She was wearing a pink jumpsuit that made her look like a delicious marshmallow. I wanted to sink my teeth into her. Resisting temptation, as I’d done all morning, I simply smiled grimly.

“Still thinking of Vyvian and Monty?” she asked, refusing to accept my silence.

“In a way. I was thinking of what they told us and whether they needed to die in order for us to learn it.”

“I thought we’d been over that?” she scolded.

In front of her, on a fold-down table, stood a cup of coffee that I knew from experience would be awful. She’d only taken a few sips. The boat bounced gently over the waves and felt like being in a plane passing through a cloud formation.

“We’ve been over it,” I agreed but my mind had returned several times to the topic, not ready yet to relegate it to the storeroom of my mind. All men, however successful, are always haunted by a sense of impending failure. Sooner or later younger, brighter, faster, smarter men step in and wrestle the crown away from us. It’s why I had decided to retire. Because I didn’t want to be like some tennis champion who kept on going beyond his time only to be crushed by a rival on the court in the first round.

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