Anthony Horowitz - Necropolis

Another man had been waiting for her to arrive. He was Chinese, more smartly dressed than the others – in a grey suit and grey T-shirt – and everything about him radiated confidence and control. Was he the one in charge? He examined Scarlett briefly. His eyes were very dark, almost black, and gave nothing away. There was a thin scar starting high up on his left cheek and then slanting diagonally across his lips so that the two halves of his face didn’t quite meet, like a reflection in a broken mirror. But he was handsome even so. Scarlett guessed that he was barely more than twenty years old.

“How are you?” he said. “You must have been very frightened by your ordeal. I’m sorry that there was no other way.”

“Who are you?” Scarlett demanded. “Where am I and who are these people? What do you want with me? And what was that with Mrs Cheng? They said she was a shape-changer. What does that mean?” Once the questions had started, they wouldn’t stop.

The man held up a hand. He had long, elegant fingers, like a piano player. “We have a great deal to say to each other,” he said. “Would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“But I would.” He nodded and Paper Face hurried into the kitchen. He was obviously used to being obeyed. He turned back to Scarlett. “Please, come and sit down.”

Scarlett went over to the sofa. She was surprised how quickly the drug had worn off. She sat down. The man followed her and sat opposite. He moved slowly, taking his time. Everything about him was very deliberate.

“My name is Lohan,” he said. “Does that answer your first question? I doubt if my colleagues will have very much to say to you but I will tell you their names too. The man in the kitchen is called Draco. And this here…” he nodded in the direction of the Japanese man, “…is Red. Not their real names, you understand. Just the names they use.

“Your next question – what do we want with you? Very simply, we want to get you out of Hong Kong as quickly as possible. Quite frankly, it would have been better for everyone if you had never arrived, but never mind. We couldn’t stop you coming, although we tried. It’s remarkable how many people you’ve already managed to get killed.”

He certainly wasn’t sparing her feelings. But Scarlett wasn’t going to let him intimidate her. “I want to see my father,” she said. “Do you know where he is?”

“I’m afraid not,” Lohan replied. “I have never even met him. For what it’s worth, I would imagine that he is dead. A very great many people have died in Hong Kong in the last weeks. He was probably one of them.”

“You’re telling me my father’s dead! Don’t you care?”

Lohan shrugged. “I’ve told you. I’ve never met him. Why should it matter to me whether he is alive or dead?”

Draco came back in from the kitchen, carrying a tray with a small porcelain bowl and a jar of some sort of spirit – vodka or sake. He set the whole thing down in front of Lohan, bowed and then took his place on a seat beside the front door. Lohan poured himself a drink. He held it briefly between his index finger and his thumb, then threw it back and swallowed. He set the bowl back down.

“You want to know where you are,” he continued. “This apartment is in Mong Kok, a couple of blocks north of the Tin Hau Temple, where you had your fortune told. The entire building belongs to us and with a bit of luck, nobody will come up here. While you remain in this room, you are safe. Every minute you spend outside it, you are in more danger than you can possibly imagine.”

“You mean shape-changers.”

Lohan ignored her. For a moment he gazed past her, as if focusing on something outside the room. Then he began.

“You have to understand the nature of a city,” he said. “You live in London and so maybe what I’m about to say will be obvious to you. All cities are the same. They have an atmosphere. More than that. You might call it a flow. The traffic moves in a certain way. The trains pull in and out of the stations. People go to work, they have their lunch, they go shopping, they go home again. Postmen deliver the post. Policemen patrol the streets. Sweepers and refuse collectors come out in the evening. The night bus arrives at the right time and picks up the people who are waiting at the stop and takes them where they expect to go. Everyone is obeying the flow, even if they don’t realize it, because if they didn’t life would descend into chaos.

“Now… consider Hong Kong. It is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. There are more than seven million people living here. That works out at around 6,500 people per square kilometre. A few of them are rich. Most of them are very poor. And then there are the millions in between – the doctors and dentists, the shopkeepers, builders, plumbers, teachers…”

“I think I get the point,” Scarlett interrupted.

“No, Scarlett. I don’t think you do.” Lohan hadn’t raised his voice. His face was as impassive as ever. But Scarlett realized that she shouldn’t have spoken. He wasn’t used to being interrupted. “This is the point,” he went on. “How many of those people could die, do you think, before you noticed? How many of them could be shot or knifed while they lay in bed before the city seemed any different? Fifty of them? Or five hundred? Or how about five hundred thousand? Can you describe to me, accurately, the man who sold you the ticket when you boarded the tram this morning? Or the driver who took you to The Peak? Or the man who was sweeping the leaves away when you began your walk? Suppose they had all been taken away and replaced with people who looked a little like them but who were not the same? Would you notice? If they and their entire families had been murdered, would you care? We see only what we want to see because that is the way of the city. In a village, in the country, people notice things. But on the streets, we are wilfully blind.”

“Are you saying that’s what’s happened?” Scarlett asked. “Ever since I’ve been here, I’ve been seeing weird things. And there’s nobody living at Wisdom Court. The whole place is empty. Are you saying they were all killed?”

“In the last three months, Hong Kong has been taken over,” Lohan replied. “It happened very quickly, like a virus. It is impossible to know how many people have been killed. Anyone who has noticed what has been going on or who has tried to fight it has been removed. What has happened has been so huge, so terrible that it is almost impossible to understand.

“Of course, some people have guessed, or half-guessed, and they have managed to get out, taking their money and their families with them. Ask them why they have gone and they will lie to you. They will say they wanted a change or they had new business opportunities. But in truth they have gone because they were afraid. Other people are aware that Hong Kong has changed. They have stayed here because they have no choice, because they have nowhere else to go. They are frightened too. But they keep their heads down and they go about their daily business in the hope that, if they ask no questions, they will be left alone. If you are poor, Scarlett, if you run a tiny stall in the street, what does it matter who controls the city? All you care about is your next meal. The city can take care of itself.”

“Who has taken over Hong Kong?” Scarlett asked, although she already knew the answer.

“They are called the Old Ones,” Lohan said. “At least, that is what you call them. In the East, we talk of gwei, evil spirits. We have many names for them.”

“I know about all this,” Scarlett said. “It’s what Father Gregory told me.”

“Who is Father Gregory?”

“He’s a monk. I went through a door in a wall and I met him…”