Claire began clearing away the plates. “You could always try working. You know, getting a job? It’s this thing where you go into an office and do stuff for other people, and they pay you for it. It’s really catching on.”
“Ha ha,” said Matt. “I have a job. I’m a filmmaker.”
“Oh!” Claire’s eyebrows shot up sarcastically. “I see, Ingmar Bergman. And how’s the great opus going? Was France everything you dreamed it would be?”
“It was great.” Matt’s eyes lit up for the first time that morning. He told his sister about his meeting with Danny McGuire and the unexpected developments in the Didier Anjou case, with Irina leaving her husband’s estate to charity, just as the other two widows had done. “I know it’s the same killer, the man who killed our dad. And I’m pretty sure McGuire knows it too, though he’s cagey about promising too much.”
Claire frowned. “Andrew Jakes was not ‘our dad.’ Dad was our dad. Jakes was just some fucking sperm donor.”
Matt was taken aback by her anger. “Okay. Maybe he was. But he didn’t deserve to have his head hacked off by some psycho, and for the guy to get away with it.”
“Maybe he did deserve it?” said Claire, loading Matt’s dishwasher with a series of loud clangs. “Maybe he was a lousy SOB. Maybe they all were.” She turned to face her brother. “You’ve already lost your marriage, Matt. Mom’s upset with you, I’m upset with you. You’re flat broke. Isn’t it time you gave up this wild-goose chase and got your life back together? If three police forces and Interpol have all failed to solve these murders, what makes you think you can do it?”
“I’m smarter than them?” Matt grinned, earning himself a look of withering disdain from Claire. He knew she was right. He had to find paid work, and soon, if he was going to survive this divorce and keep a roof over his head. He could still work on the documentary, still keep in touch with Danny McGuire. But he couldn’t let the unsolved murders consume him the way they had been.
The phone rang. They both stared at it, thinking the same thing. Raquel.
“Keep your cool,” cautioned Claire. “Don’t yell at her. And don’t cry.”
Matt picked up the handset, shaking. “Hello?”
Danny McGuire’s voice sounded distant and tinny, but the excitement and adrenaline were both clear as a bell. “There’s been another murder. Last night, in Hong Kong.”
“Is it our guy?”
“Same MO,” said Danny. “Rape, bodies bound together, rich elderly victim. Miles Baring.”
Matt was silent for a moment. It took a few seconds for the full import of what McGuire was telling him to sink in. The killer was not only still out there. He was becoming bolder and more active. It had barely been a year since his last hit, and yet here he was, striking again on the opposite side of the world. Almost as if he knew that someone was watching him, knew that someone had finally found the scattered puzzle pieces and cared enough to try to arrange them into a coherent picture. After ten long years, he’s playing to an audience, Matt found himself thinking. He’s playing to me.
“Where’s the widow?”
The elation in Danny McGuire’s voice was unmistakable. “That’s the best part. The Hong Kong police have her in protective custody. I called the guy in charge and told him what happened with the other wives. Lisa Baring’s not going anywhere.”
Matt hung up in a daze.
“Who was that?” asked Claire. “Not Raquel, I take it?”
“Hmm? No,” said Matt. “I need to go pack.”
“Pack?” Claire looked at him despairingly. “Matthew! Have you listened to a word of what I just said?”
Matt walked over to his sister and kissed her on the cheek. “I have. And I agree with it all. You’re absolutely right, and I promise to look for a job the moment I get back from Asia. In the meantime, how are you fixed for time? I don’t suppose you could give me a lift to the airport, could you?”
PART II
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HONG KONG WAS LIKE NOTHING MATT Daley had ever seen before.
He considered himself a man of the world. Not in the James Bond sense, obviously. No one could call Matt Daley sophisticated; still less, suave. Most days he considered it an achievement if he remembered to go out wearing matching socks. But neither was he some Midwestern farm boy who’d never been exposed to other cultures. Matt might have grown up in a small town, but he’d lived in New York and traveled extensively in Europe and South America when he was in his early twenties. Even so, Hong Kong filled Matt Daley with genuine awe.
Central, the island’s main commercial district, was packed with towers so impossibly tall they made Manhattan look like Lilliput. Lan Kwai Fong, the nightlife quarter and red-light district, glittered and screamed and stank, its narrow streets packed with some of the weirdest specimens humankind had to offer: juggling midgets, armless dancers, blind transvestite hookers and the ubiquitous, wide-eyed U.S. servicemen on shore leave, drinking it all in. It reminded Matt a little of Venice Beach, multiplied to the power of a thousand. Come to think of it, the whole of Hong Kong was like that. Intensified. The grass out in the New Territories was so green it glowed like a cartoon. In New York and London, shopping streets were crowded. Here they were overrun, infested, alive with humanity like a rotting corpse riddled with maggots. Matt’s overriding impression was of a place where everything happened in excess. Noises were louder, scents were stronger, lights were brighter and days were longer, apparently endless. Forget New York. Hong Kong was the real “city that never sleeps.” After a week Matt still couldn’t decide whether he loved it or hated it.
Not that it really mattered. He wasn’t here on vacation. He was here on a mission.
It had seemed such a simple proposition on the phone to Danny McGuire. Danny’s division at Interpol was now “actively assisting” the Hong Kong Chinese police. In practice, this meant little more than that the two organizations were exchanging information. There was no talk of a response team on the ground or anything like that. But McGuire at least now had the legitimate Interpol-endorsed go-ahead to devote time to the case, including delving deeper into the prior murders “where relevant.” Matt’s job was to fly out to Hong Kong, meet with Lisa Baring, the widow of the latest victim, and find out whatever he could. He would then feed that information back to Danny—strictly off-the-record, of course.
“If my bosses found out I was using civilian contacts in the field, or meddling in a member country’s domestic investigation, I’d be canned faster than a dolphin in a tuna net.”