THE YOUNG GUY gripped my shoulders and turned me from the sight of the weeping Ho Meng. I realized it must be Dai, Chang’s brother. They were so alike it was spooky. I caught Mary’s eye and we crept away across the office, back out into the corridor. Dai led us into one of the living areas I’d seen earlier. He closed the door and indicated we should sit on a sofa, pulled up a chair and leaned forward.
“I’m sorry you had to see that.”
I started to reply but he lifted a hand.
“Please. I’m sorry because my father would have been so ashamed if he knew you were there. I’m sorry for him, for me.”
I nodded. It wasn’t the way I would have thought, but I understood what the guy meant – from his cultural perspective.
“We didn’t mean to intrude,” Mary said.
“What is it you want?”
“We hoped to talk to your father about your brother’s murder.”
“He’s told me all about the Triads. I grew up with them as a dark presence in our lives.”
There was a sound from the doorway. Ho Meng was standing with the light from the hall breaking around him. He strode over as Mary and I got up from the sofa. He gripped my hand and then pecked Mary on the cheek. He had transformed from the grief-stricken father in the home theater, and was once again the upright businessman. But he couldn’t completely hide the pain. I saw it in his eyes.
“Please everyone, sit,” he said. “I heard what my son told you, and it is absolutely true. The Triads have hung over our lives like a dark shadow, and they still do. In fact their shadow has grown darker.”
“Meng, this morning I could tell you were holding back. If you want us to work with you in hunting down your son’s killers you have to tell us everything,” Mary said.
He held her gaze unblinking. “You are right. The fact is I am convinced my wife, Jiao, was murdered by the Triads twelve years ago, soon after we came to Australia. She was last seen in Chinatown, in the middle of the day. Next morning her headless body was discovered in Roseville. The police were convinced it was the work of a psycho killer, connected it with two similar unsolved murders from three years before. But they never caught the killer.”
“And that is why you don’t trust the cops,” I said.
Ho merely nodded. “They have consistently let me down. First Jiao, then Chang. I reported him missing. They did nothing. Then he died.”
I felt like saying that the police could not be everywhere all the time, but thought better of it.
Then Mary said, “But Meng, what I don’t understand is this. If you are convinced the Triads killed Jiao, surely when Chang was kidnapped you knew they would be serious about killing him if you didn’t agree to work with them?”
Dai went to speak, but his father silenced him with a look. “You’re missing the point, Mary. The members of the Triads are not honorable men. They would have killed Chang either way. They would have kept him until I fulfilled my side of the bargain, then they would have slit his throat – he knew too much about them to live. Now, perhaps you begin to understand why I don’t trust the police. It was thanks to them I was put in that terrible position.”
Chapter 28
I WAS WITH Johnny again in my office at Private, the door open. We heard voices from reception – Colette talking to a man. Without looking up, I heard Johnny shuffle in his chair, then sensed rather than saw him freeze in surprise.
“What is it?” I glanced up from the papers on my desk and saw a man in the corridor staring at us. “Well, well!” I said.
Micky Stevens was quite a bit shorter than I imagined he’d be. Weird how fame and success puts on inches. He was maybe five-eight and looked every bit the globally famous rock star he was. But he seemed jaded. He was wearing a black suit jacket and T-shirt, leather pants and boots. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days and looked like he had used a little too much gel in his spiky jet black hair.
Next to him stood his bodyguard, a massive, bald Maori in a tight-fitting suit. I guessed he weighed over three hundred pounds and had a chest measurement of at least sixty.
“You must be Craig Gisto,” Micky Stevens said taking a step into my office. He had a light, jaunty voice, and I could hear one of his songs in my head as he spoke.
“How did you work that out?”
“Got the biggest office,” and he glanced around. “You’re obviously Top Dog here.”
I smiled.
Johnny shook Micky Stevens’ hand and was still staring at the pop star with awe. Then he turned to the bodyguard.
“Oh, this is Hemi,” Micky Stevens said. “Looks really mean, yeah? But only with the enemy … otherwise, he’s a pussycat. Aren’t you, Hemi?”
“What can we do for you?” I asked.