J.F. Kirwan - 88° North

Jake looked up, smiling. ‘Must have been good.’

‘It was Blue Fan,’ she replied.

His smile stalled, then vanished. Hanbury whipped out his phone and began talking urgently, then yelling in Chinese, losing his composure for the first time. Cantonese seemed like a good language to shout in. Sharp, choppy syllables. Maybe she could pick some up if she had the time.

Nadia told Jake – who knew some basic Cantonese from his last trip here – what Blue Fan had said.

‘It means good luck ,’ he said.

She gazed back to the crowd, where a group of people consoled their defeated champion. A squad of police entered the park, exactly from where Blue Fan had exited. They had to have passed her. They stopped and surveyed the scene, and one of them spied Nadia across the park. He was smiling. It was Chen. The smile looked genuine this time.

It figured. She turned back to Jake. ‘We need guns.’ She stared at the place where Blue Fan had demolished her opponent. ‘Lots of guns.’

Chapter Two

The pizza delivery man arrived, and placed the box on the coffee table in their suite overlooking the harbour. He didn’t wait for payment.

‘Four cheese is my favourite,’ Nadia said, recalling how Katya used to poke her forefinger down her throat in disgust at the very thought.

Jake lifted the cover of the box. ‘How about Quattro Pistoleros?’

‘This slice is mine,’ she said, plucking the matt black Beretta Cougar from the box. She sprung the cartridge, checked it, then re-inserted it. ‘Zero cholesterol.’

Jake delved into the box, and picked at his metal food a moment. ‘A classic Marguerita for me,’ he said, retrieving an M9.

She knew he didn’t really care about guns like she did. Knives or spear guns were a different story. And on that point, she fished out a knife. ‘Dessert,’ she explained. And then she wondered. There had been another knife in the box, and she hadn’t seen Jake take it. She folded her arms.

Jake shrugged. ‘An MI6 move. Old habits die hard.’

She pocketed her knife. She had to admit she’d almost been hoping to find a pizza in there. She was having difficulty eating, what with the nausea gnawing at her guts, and pizza always smelt so good. To make it worse, Jake had been stealing glances at her when he thought she couldn’t see. He knew something was going on – going wrong – with her. He’d probably figured it out. MI6, as he’d said. She’d rehearsed various ways to tell him. They all sucked.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Jake said. ‘Check out the place where Hanbury sent his men yesterday.’

It seemed like a long shot, but why not. She grabbed her lightweight jacket, partly in case it rained, mainly to cover the Beretta handle sticking out of the back of her jeans.

‘Ready.’

Tonnochy Road lived up to its seedy night-time reputation. At one end were the hotels, including the one where Nadia and Jake were staying. But towards the middle it took a downturn. They passed a couple of busy bars, one where a band was playing, the singer doing an impressive rendition of Sinead O’Connor in her heyday. But those treading the sweating pavement slowly shifted from small groups of tourists and Western couples, to single men, some arm-in-arm with attractive, mini-skirted Asian girls in cliff-edge heels. Nadia and Jake walked briskly past the girly bars, where typically an older woman sat outside with two young, very attractive girls, as if in easy conversation. The straggling parade of single guys continued to crawl along, checking out the merchandise, sometimes moving on, other times stopping to chat with the girls. Occasionally this ended with the man walking into the bar with a girl, or even both girls, whereupon new girls would emerge.

A smooth operation. A straightforward business model. Nothing that didn’t have its counterpart in most major cities in the world, though not always so blatant. But something made her stop. Katya . Nadia’s sister had been forced into prostitution for five years. She’d never complained about it, but right now it was as if her dead hands rose up through the uneven paving slabs and seized Nadia’s ankles, anchoring her to the spot. This was a bad idea, she needed to focus on finding Salamander. But she owed her dead sister. Part of the deal that had gotten Nadia out of prison the first time, meant that Katya had been trapped into being – the word stung her – a whore, for five years. She’d see Katya soon, maybe. She wanted to be able to say, ‘hey, I did something for you’. It wouldn’t make it right, but it would be something.

Jake continued a couple of paces then stopped and gave her a quizzical look.

‘Let’s go inside,’ she said.

The older woman who’d been nursing a cigarette, chatting to one of the girls, jerked her head up.

Jake’s eyes narrowed. He walked up to Nadia, and spoke quietly. ‘We’re kind of on the clock here. Whatever the reason you want to go inside, it’s not going anywhere. It’ll still be here tomorrow.’

Exactly. She breezed towards the entrance. The older woman rose quicker than Nadia would have given her credit for, and intercepted her at the doorway. The two girls watched with big eyes.

‘I help you?’ she said. She glanced toward Jake, as if to enlist him. A single woman entering such an establishment was clearly out of the norm.

‘I’d like to go inside.’

‘Like girls?’ the older woman asked. No judgment, just a business question.

One that put Nadia on edge. ‘I’d like to go inside.’ She turned to Jake. ‘Come with me?’ she said.

The older one beamed, a sly smile. She gestured for both of them to enter. As soon as they were inside, everything changed. Super-strong aircon, dazzling purple-white lights that fluoresced the underwear of all the girls inside through their schoolgirl white blouses and short pleated skirts. Four of them danced – well, gyrated – on top of the bar, while half a dozen others milled about with the three punters inside. Ice buckets filled with bottles of champagne – cheap labels she’d never heard of – cluttered the place. The girls with the men were all smiles and giggles, focused on their clients. The others wore faces on a sliding scale between bored and wary.

A local girl, petite with smoky, bedroom eyes, and a tall, vivacious blonde with perfect skin joined Jake and Nadia at a round, stand-up table. ‘Hello handsome,’ the blonde said to Jake, with the hint of a Scandinavian accent, while the dark-haired one came close to Nadia, and stroked her upper arm.

Nadia shut her eyes a moment, clamped her lips together, and imagined Katya. How she must have felt, so many times. Her stomach tightened into a knot, nothing to do with her sickness. Why hadn’t she gotten Katya out of there sooner? Five. Fucking. Years. She opened her eyes.

‘Do you want to get out of here?’ she said, addressing both girls, barely keeping her voice under control. Jake stared at her, like he had no idea what she was doing. That made two of them.

The blonde threw her head back and laughed. ‘It’s customary to have a drink first.’ She waved a lazy finger towards the bar, and a young girl, barely a teen, grabbed a metal bucket, rammed a bottle into the crushed ice, and brought it over. She popped the cork like a pro, deftly filled four glasses, shoved the empty bottle upside-down back into the bucket, and disappeared behind the bar again.

‘I mean get out of this life,’ Nadia said. The other girl was still stroking Nadia’s arm. Her smile had gone, but she said nothing.

The blonde pouted. ‘Oh baby, you’re not going to be a bore, are you? If you’re not here to fuck, you should leave.’ She leaned into Jake, her crimson lips close to his, her breasts pushing against his chest. ‘Be honest, baby. Don’t you want both of us? I only go with Western tourists, never with the locals.’