Kiss & Die - Lee Weeks [37]
Ruby came out onto the first floor. The place was chaotic. She looked around for Mann and the other officer. She eased her way through the crowds of people noisily negotiating the prices of a new shipment of clothes just arrived from the mainland. She headed towards the end where the tailors had their shops. There the touts took over. Fluorescent lights flickered above the heads as they assaulted unwary people with fake Louis Vuitton bags or copy Rolexes, promises of made to measure everything. They didn’t bother Ruby. She had her eyes on Mann and the one in a suit. She watched them making their way down the corridor asking about anyone who knew a young Indian girl who hadn’t been seen for forty-eight hours. In Mann’s hand he held a piece of the sari he had picked up next to the box with the girl’s body in it.
‘Getting warmer,’ Ruby said to herself as she watched them working their way. ‘Getting very warm…Boiling!’ she said after half an hour when they had stopped outside a tailors shop. Ruby stopped opposite, out of view, she was tucked behind the shelves in a small Indian supermarket. She smiled to herself, her heart beating fast. Her hands sweating as she pretended to browse through the DVDs. They were all porn. The old Indian who owned the supermarket stared at her, his eyes feasting. Ruby let him. She didn’t know him and he didn’t know her but they might one day have something each other wanted.
Ruby watched the Indian man sitting on the floor and sewing leather belts. It was Rajini’s father. Mann would be coming to him any minute. Rajini’s father looked up at Ruby and his eyes momentarily questioned. He wondered what she wanted and then Mann blocked her view of him. Ruby was watching Mann’s back. She wanted to hear the words being spoken but she couldn’t. She wanted to hear Mann ask him if he had a daughter, if she was missing. All Ruby heard were the gasps of panic in the belt maker’s voice. Ruby was content. She had done her job and a little more. She had been promoted to a Red Pole in the Triad ranks; the rank of an officer. She had shown her strength and proved she was worthy. It would be some time before any of the girls would show disrespect to her again. Rajini had been nothing to her, she meant nothing. Only the chosen could make it up the ladder. Ruby was one of the chosen. Rajini wasn’t, it was simple.
Ruby moved on further down the corridor and waited there, out of sight. She watched Mann call on his radio. A female officer came, they left. Ruby followed them as they made their way down the stairs to the ground floor and back out through the crowds. She stopped short of the entrance and engaged a money changer in some conversation. She watched them talking on the steps and then saw them go their separate ways. The sun had set outside. But Ruby’s day was just beginning. She walked past Shrimp as he stood on the steps and she followed Mann.
Chapter 24
As soon as he was sure the policemen had gone, PJ pulled Hafiz into a quiet corner of the restaurant.
‘You bring nothing but trouble on our heads. What is it the detective knows that you’re not telling me? Why was he here talking about a young woman’s death? Who was it?’
‘I don’t know, Dad.’ He pulled his arm back from PJ’s grip. ‘It has nothing to do with me.’
‘I’ve seen you hanging out with those kids. They’re a bad bunch. You’re just like them. You don’t care about working hard and making it, you only care about designer shoes and phones and you aren’t prepared to work for them. Nothing comes for free, my lad. If you have signed up to some Triad society the price will be big. These Mansions will be running with blood soon: Indian against Indian, child against child. You have no idea about what you’re involved in. If you had something to do with that poor girl getting killed I’ll have nothing more to do with you.’
Hafiz looked at his father, stony faced. ‘You’re always blaming me. It’s not always my fault, you know.’ He took off the serving napkin from over his arm and threw it down. ‘You know