White Tiger

let’s order something.’
    ‘Suddenly I’m starving.’ Louise’s eyes sparkled. ‘Owns the hotel, huh?’ She sat down and looked at the sashimi. ‘Raw fish? Did we order raw fish?’
    ‘No, you ordered raw fish.’
    ‘Oh.’ She picked up a menu as if nothing had happened. ‘Did you hear about April?’
    ‘I heard she’s in some trouble,’ I said, wondering how much Louise knew, and how much I could give away.
    ‘Her husband has another wife. That’s why he didn’t go to Australia. Did she tell you?’ ‘Yes, I know all about it.’ ‘Baby too?’
    I nodded. ‘She didn’t have an abortion, did she? I’d hate to think she aborted the baby just because her husband didn’t want it.’
    ‘She negotiated with him and they came to an arrangement. He’s paying for her to live in a flat in Discovery Bay, a long way away. She’s going to have the baby, and he’ll pay for the flat and a domestic helper forher. Apart from that, they have hardly any contact at all.’ She sighed. ‘God, Emma, her life’s a wreck. But you know what?’ ‘What?’
    ‘She’s happy ,’ Louise hissed. ‘She says that Australia was too boring. She’s looking forward to having the baby and going back to work.’
    ‘Well,’ I said, picking up the menu to find something vegetarian, ‘women do incredibly stupid things for the love of a man.’
    ‘I wonder if Tiger comes past here often,’ she pondered quietly. ‘Owns the hotel, huh?’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
    T he train taking me home rattled along the outdoor line, through the Lion Rock Tunnel and into Kowloon. Kowloon Tong station was next, and the interchange with the MTR.
    I stepped off the train and joined the crowd heading into the MTR station. I felt the coldness behind me and knew immediately what it was. I didn’t bother looking back; there were thousands of people all around me, the post-lunchtime crowd.
    They followed me all the way to the MTR train; four of them. They stood in the middle of the train and ignored me. They looked like salesmen, in their mid-twenties and wearing cheap suits. I stood at the end of the carriage, next to the driver’s cab. I called Leo as the train rushed through the darkness of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel.
    ‘How far away from the pick-up point are you, Leo?’
    ‘I’m already waiting for you. Hurry up, I could get booked again.’ Then he inhaled sharply. ‘You got some?’
    ‘Four,’ I whispered into the phone. ‘About level fifteen or twenty. Too big to take by myself.’ ‘There should be a lot of people around.’
    ‘There are. I’m okay. I’m glad you’re there, though.’ ‘So am I. Stay on the phone—keep me informed. I’m coming down to the platform to wait for you.’ ‘What about the car?’ ‘To hell with the car.’
    The train stopped, the doors opened and just about everybody piled out to take the Island line. I stayed on the train to go to Central. I stole a glance through the nearly deserted carriage; there were only three or four other people left now.
    The demons saw me looking at them and wandered up to me, smiling, acting like they knew me.
    ‘They’re coming for me, Leo,’ I hissed.
    The train stopped at Central station and the doors opened. The remaining people left the carriage. The demons stood between me and the doors. I realised I should never have stood so far from the exit; I hoped I’d have a chance to learn from my mistake.
    The doors closed again. Trapped until the next station.
    Leo charged through the demons and they scattered. He grabbed my arm and dragged me down the carriage aisle. There were no partitions between carriages on MTR trains, to make it more difficult for muggers. We walked as quickly as possible to the middle of the train, where an elderly couple sat together, asleep on one of the side benches.
    The demons followed us.
    As we approached the elderly couple they rose. I realised with an ice-cold shock that they were demons too.
    I looked back. The other demons were right on top of us. The ones in front of us stood and waited.
    The train stopped and the doors opened. We hustled off the train and along the platform to the exit. The demons followed us.
    ‘Damn,’ Leo whispered.
    Sheung Wan was one of the quietest MTR stations. We had five storeys of escalators and stairs to go up to reach ground level, with endless corridors in between. And nobody around.
    We took the escalator, running up the steps to reach the top faster. A long corridor with a curved tiled