Kiss & Die - Lee Weeks [54]
‘Be careful, my clever daughter. He who treads softly goes far.’
‘Trust me, Father. I know what I am doing. But when I have done it, will you be ready to hand it all over to me?’
‘Yes. When you have proved yourself.’
Victoria closed her phone and walked back through the lounge. There was an orgy going on in her apartment. Two naked Russian girls snorted cocaine from her expensive glass table. Another sat on a man’s lap as he played cards, eyes rolling in his head. She was passed one to the other. A girl in her early teens danced naked in the centre of the room, so tired she lurched as she twirled. Her nose was clogged with methamphetamine; her head was buzzing but her body spent.
Victoria passed through and came out to stand on her balcony to look out to sea. Out on the balcony the air was charged with the electricity of the storm. The gales were picking up, caught on a typhoon’s tail. She held tight to the railing as the gusts tossed her hair into the air. Victoria smiled to herself. The night had been a good one; it would be over soon. Victoria turned back to face the wind. It took her breath away as it picked up her hair and whipped it across her face. All those years arranging flowers, holding dinner parties, watching her husband lavish his concubines with expensive gifts. All those years she took the pill without him knowing. There was no way she was going to bear a child of his. There was no way she would allow the tyranny to continue. Lucky for her he had never managed to father a child elsewhere. Now she was free and now she stood and tossed her head in the wind and laughed with the exhilaration of it all. Yes, Mann had done her a huge favour when he took care of her husband and whether he liked it or not they were joined to each other. She and Mann would rule the Triad world together. One day he would have nothing left but her.
The balcony doors slid open. The young dancer stood there naked, trailing a blanket behind her. ‘Come here, Lilly.’ Victoria beckoned her closer to the railing. The wind began to subside. They looked out as the first signs of dawn began to change the light and bring a mauve tint to the stormy sky. ‘You are a good girl, Lilly, beautiful and clever.’Victoria stroked her hair. ‘I have a present for you.’
Lilly shivered. Victoria unclasped a gold bracelet from her wrist and clipped it on Lilly’s.
‘We have achieved much but there is still some left to do. We have to seal the deal. Then you will have so much jewellery, so many fine things and you will be by my side always.’
She wrapped the blanket around Lilly’s shoulders.
‘There’s just one more thing I want you to do for me.’
Chapter 37
The autopsy was due to start at 7 a.m. Mann had driven straight there after writing up his report on the murder at the hotel. He had dozed for an hour in the car whilst he waited for the autopsy to begin. He sat in the car park outside and watched the coroner, Mr Saheed, arrive. Mr Saheed was a tall man of Indian descent, with a dry sense of humour and a bad memory for recalling other people’s lives. Mann gave him ten minutes then he rang the bell. Kin Tak answered. He glanced over Mann’s shoulder as if he saw someone else standing there and then quickly turned away.
‘Stop coming here!’ he shouted out as he turned to lead Mann into the autopsy room.
Mann turned to look behind him. He saw no one there. ‘Who’s there?’ he asked Kin Tak.
Kin Tak shook his head, small nervous jerks like a twitch. ‘No one. No one.’ He went off muttering under his breath, a running commentary to no one in particular and too low for anyone to hear or understand.
Mann was used to Kin Tak’s outbursts. He knew he was harmless. His strangeness was part and parcel of his job. Mann slipped on a white overall.
‘Good morning, Inspector. We were about to start without you. Kin Tak already has some observations that he is bursting to share with you.’
Max Kosmos’s body was lying on the steel