Mark Morris: Dead Island

‘Can we talk privately?’ he asked Jiao.

Jiao flinched and clenched her fists, as if his words had punctured her like a flurry of arrows, but she nodded. She glanced briefly at Xian Mei, who was shocked to see that her mother looked as frightened as she herself felt. As Jiao ushered Paul towards the lounge, Xian Mei stepped forward. Though her mouth was dry she forced herself to speak.

‘What’s happened to my father?’

Once again, Paul turned those desperately sad eyes on her. Usually so confident, at that moment he looked lost, uncertain what to say. Jiao saved him from having to say anything by stepping in front of him.

‘Go back into the kitchen and finish your homework,’ she muttered almost angrily.

‘But—’ Xian Mei began.

‘No arguments! Just do as I say. Your grandmother will be here soon.’

Jiao all but pushed Paul into the lounge and closed the door. Xian Mei retreated into the kitchen but she didn’t finish her homework. Instead she sat cross-legged in the open kitchen doorway, listening. She heard Paul speaking, but his voice was too low and muffled for her to make out the words. Then he fell silent, and there was a pause that seemed to Xian Mei to stretch out for ever.

And then — suddenly, shockingly — her mother cried out. It was a harsh sound, the kind you might expect to hear from someone who had been stabbed through the heart. It made Xian Mei jump, then wrap her arms around herself protectively. But although the cry was bad, the sound that followed was much, much worse. Xian Mei had never heard her mother weep before, but now she began not just to weep, but to wail , almost to scream. It was an awful, heart-rending sound; to Xian Mei it seemed to encapsulate all the despair and misery that existed in the world. Frightened by the intensity of her mother’s grief, she clapped her hands to her ears and squeezed her eyes tight shut. If she had any doubts before, the noises her mother was making now had confirmed without question that whatever had happened tonight was the very worst thing ever.

The rest of the evening seemed to pass in a terrible, murky fog. When the door to the lounge finally opened, it wasn’t Jiao who emerged, but Paul Ho. He let out a huge sigh and rubbed a trembling hand over his face. Then he realized Xian Mei was sitting in the kitchen doorway, staring at him. For a moment he looked almost guilty, as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t, then he walked across and knelt beside her. His damp jacket smelled of the city — of rain and petrol and dark places.

‘You’re going to have to be very brave and look after your mother, OK?’ he said quietly.

Xian Mei looked up at him. His skin was saggy and his eyes were red, and for the first time she thought he looked old.

‘Where’s my father?’ she asked.

Paul hesitated. ‘You need to ask your mother that question.’

‘Is he dead?’ Xian Mei persisted.

Paul made a face as if he’d tasted something sour. Then he leaned forward and kissed Xian Mei gently on her forehead. ‘I’ll see you soon,’ he said.

Xian Mei couldn’t get her mother to speak to her. She tried, but Jiao had locked herself in the bathroom. She didn’t emerge until grandmother Li arrived almost half an hour later. Even then the two women went into the bedroom and Xian Mei was forced to wait outside. When they finally came out, both were pale and grim-faced. Jiao told Xian Mei that Li would look after her, then she went out without answering her daughter’s questions.

‘Why is Mother being so mean to me?’ Xian Mei said.

Her grandmother shook her head wearily. ‘She’s not being mean. She’s just upset. She’s protecting you.’

‘I don’t need protecting,’ Xian Mei said. ‘I’m strong.’

Li smiled. ‘Maybe you are.’

‘I am ,’ Xian Mei insisted. She looked at her grandmother. ‘Won’t you tell me what’s happened?’

Li averted her gaze. ‘Maybe in the morning.’

‘ Now ,’ Xian Mei said. When her grandmother didn’t reply, Xian Mei said almost defiantly, ‘Father’s dead, isn’t he? Something happened to him tonight, and now he’s dead.’

Li’s eyes brimmed with tears, and she nodded. She wiped her face with a trembling hand. Eventually she said, ‘He was very brave. He died a hero.’

It wasn’t until the next day, or the day after that, that Xian Mei found out the full story. Her father had been killed in the line of duty, shot dead while trying to apprehend a gang of drug smugglers. It wasn’t until he was gone that Xian Mei really discovered how loved and revered her father had been. In the days following his death, many people came to the house to pay their respects, and each of them had a story to tell about her father’s courage, or humour, or kindness, or loyalty. As Xian Mei helped her mother prepare the house for his funeral — covering the statues of deities with red paper, removing the mirrors so the reflection of the coffin would not be glimpsed in the glass and bring bad luck, hanging the white cloth over the doorway and placing a gong to the left of the entrance — she vowed she would honour her father’s name by following in his footsteps.

It was a vow she neither forgot nor relinquished. For the next few years, driven by a steely determination and a single-mindedness she liked to think she had inherited directly from her father, she strove for excellence in all areas of her life. Always a good student, she now became an exceptional one, achieving the highest grades possible in every subject. But she knew that academia alone would not secure her a place in one of the toughest and most ruthlessly efficient police forces in the world, so she took up Changquan and trained tirelessly, day after day, pushing herself through physical barrier after physical barrier, until she became one of the foremost martial artists for her age and gender, not only in China but in the world.

The day she was inducted into China’s first all-female Special Forces squad was the greatest day of her life. Throughout the ceremony, as she stood there in her beautiful black and grey uniform, she thought only of her father and how proud he would be. Indeed, she strongly believed his spirit was there with her, standing at her shoulder, revelling in her success.

It took almost no time at all for the dream to turn into a nightmare.

What became apparent to Xian Mei and her fellow inductees very quickly was that China’s first all-female Special Forces squad was, in effect, little more than a glorified PR stunt. Xian Mei had had high hopes of becoming a pioneer, of helping to usher in a new age of equality in China, but almost as soon as the induction ceremony was over, the squad was broken up and its members distributed around the globe on ‘special assignments’. Xian Mei’s assignment was to come here, to the Royal Palm Hotel in Banoi, and to spy on the decadent rich, using her receptionist’s job as cover. What Xian Mei found particularly insulting was that her superiors didn’t even bother to pretend she was doing vital work. It was abundantly clear to her that she had been shunted aside simply for the sake of convenience — a case of out of sight, out of mind.

Although it was another gloriously sunny day in Banoi, Xian Mei felt her spirits plummeting as a bus pulled up outside the main doors, transporting the latest batch of holidaymakers from the airport. Although she planted a smile on her face, she wondered what her father would think if he could see her now. Would he be ashamed of his daughter or angry on her behalf? If the latter, she wished his spirit would give her some guidance on how to escape from this trap. Not only was she under strict orders to maintain a constant vigil and supply her superiors with weekly reports (reports in which she was finding it increasingly hard to say anything of value), but her government had paid for everything — her flights, her expenses — and she could not leave without their say-so. Even resigning from the Special Forces squad and flying home by scraping together her own meagre savings was out of the question. She would be ostracized and labelled a trouble-maker, and it would bring great shame on her family. Despite the idyllic surroundings, therefore, in many ways she felt just as much a prisoner as the rapists, murderers and terrorists incarcerated in the high-security jail a couple of miles offshore.