Kiss & Die - Lee Weeks [84]
‘Michelle is a hardworking woman. Do you ever help her out?’
‘Sometimes, when she needs things doing and Rizal is busy. I don’t mind helping.’
‘She’s an attractive woman. Does she ever ask you to join her in the hotel sometimes? Sometimes she entertains guests, alone. They need a bit of something extra? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
Mahmud shook his head and blinked at Shrimp. He didn’t understand.
‘What about Rizal? Do you get on well with him?’ Shrimp continued.
Mahmud flushed with anger. ‘Rizal is a scumbag. He has something going on in every part of the Mansions. He thinks he owns the Mansions the way he struts around, and he abuses Lilly. She’s told me. She hates him. She would kill him if she could.’ Mahmud stopped, controlled his anger and remembered he wasn’t talking to a friend.
‘The head of the Outcasts is Victoria Chan, right? What contact have you had with her? Does she come to the Mansions?’
Mahmud stared down at his hands whilst he considered what to say. He looked at the guard. He was shaking again.
‘Sometimes she comes. She came to our restaurant first a year ago. She sat down with all of us. She told us that the time would come when the Mansions would be knocked down. We didn’t believe her. It has been the same for so long. She said we could sign a document that would mean we would definitely have a place in the new Mansions, better, bigger. She made it seem like we were special. She said as we had been there so many years we could expect extra-special treatment. And what she wanted was to help us have a place in the new Mansions. We only had to let things happen: let the Outcasts do what they wanted, let people be murdered every day, let decent people live in fear. She said our family would be okay. But they’re not.’
‘What happened that night? If you tell us who organized the fight then we can help you. Was it Rizal? Why should you be banged up in here while he is free to do what he wants on the outside? Mahmud, listen to me…you want me to get you out, I will do my best. Tammy was a friend as well as a police officer. She was young, sweet, so sure she could make it. She had a boyfriend, she had parents. Their lives are ruined now. She was their only child. I want to get the person who did this.’
Mahmud shook his head. ‘She says different things to different people. She hooked in the Outcasts to do her dirty work. I don’t know if there were orders to kill the officer. I was just in the wrong place and was passed the knife, nothing more. I can tell you nothing else.’
‘I need something more to work with if I’m going to get you out of here. I need a name. Was it your brother? Was he ordered to target the officer?’
Mahmud lifted his eyes slowly and looked at Shrimp incredulously as he shook his head and then stood to leave. ‘You do not understand anything. Soon it will all be too late to help any of us. I have nothing more to say. If you love Nina then save her.’
Chapter 62
‘It’s not your fault, Genghis.’ The office was subdued. The news of Tammy’s death sat heavily on the whole of Headquarters. Questions were on everyone’s lips as to why she was put at such risk. Mann was staring into space and seeing nothing but his thoughts when Ng came back into the office and found him.
Mann shook his head angrily. ‘I should never have put her into a mission like that. I pitched her against the skills of Victoria Chan. Why didn’t Tammy get out when I told her?’
‘It was always just going to be a matter of time before we put a female agent in there and before it went wrong. It just means she was unlucky – it happens. There’s nothing you could have done; it wasn’t just your decision. We’re a team, remember?’
Mann shook his head. ‘No, Ng. I was her operator. The buck stops with me. No matter what you say, it doesn’t help. Maybe others have lost agents, maybe it happens, but it hasn’t happened to me before and it was my duty to protect her.’
‘She knew the risks. Every undercover cop knows them. It’s a dangerous world to go into but, even with the rewards and promotion, it isn