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he said. ‘They’ll handle it, but I guess they’ll want to talk to you about it.’
    ‘It’s not fair!’ said Dugan.
    ‘Life’s not fair, Dugan. Don’t be dumb. You’ve plenty of cases.’ He nodded at the stack of files on the desk.
    ‘This one’s different. It’s a big one.’
    ‘It’s triad-related.’
    ‘I know it’s triad-related, that’s why I want to work on it.’
    ‘Look, Dugan, that’s what the anti-triad unit is for.’
    ‘There are plenty of guys in Commercial Crime working on triad cases, you know that.’
    ‘Yeah, but they don’t have relatives running one of the biggest triads in Hong Kong, do they?’ said Tomkins, beginning to lose his temper.
    ‘Is that what it’s about, my brother-in-law?’
    ‘There’s nothing I can do, Pat. The word has come down from on high. You’re to be kept off this case.’
    ‘Christ! He only married my sister,’ said Dugan. ‘It’s not as if I sleep with him or anything! What do they think I do, go over all my cases with him? Is that what they think?’
    ‘Don’t fight it, Pat, you’ll be pissing into the wind.’ He held out his hand and with a snort Dugan thrust the file at him. Tomkins took it and started to say something but Dugan waved him away.
    ‘Forget it,’ said Dugan. ‘Just forget it.’

    Howells booked into the Holiday Inn Harbour View. The hotel was about ten minutes’ drive from the single runway of Kai Tak airport, on the mainland, close to the bustling shopping arcades of Tsim Sha Tsui. It was a modern, comfortable room with light teak furniture and a picture of a golden peacock on the wall.
    It was early evening and Howells lay on the bed, his legs crossed at the ankles, slowly rereading the three sheets of papers that held the life, and death, of Simon Ng. Chinese name Ng Chao-huang, but to his friends and associates he was Simon Ng. Simon Ng was the Lung Tau – Dragon Head – controlling a drug and vice empire that pulled in tens of millions of dollars every year. Simon Ng, who lived with his family in a closely guarded complex in the New Territories, surrounded by triad soldiers. Simon Ng, who had to die. The two black and white photographs lay by his side. They showed a good-looking Chinese man in his early forties, smooth-skinned with a small dimple in the centre of his chin. The face was squarish, the hair closely cropped so that it stood up almost straight on the top of his head and was shaped around his ears. He had thin lips that didn’t look as if they had the habit of forming a smile. Simon Ng looked hard. And if Grey’s notes were to be believed, he was hard.
    The triad leader had a wife, an English girl called Jill, and a daughter, eight years old, called Sophie. He had two brothers, one in San Francisco, the other in Vancouver, and a sister who’d stayed in Hong Kong and married a Chinese banker. Father had retired to a large house on the Peak where he spent his time polishing his collection of jade. The father used to be the head of the organization, but now the power lay with Simon Ng.
    Howells rang down to reception and asked if he could hire a car through the hotel. It was easily arranged, said the girl who answered, and yes, the hotel could supply him with a road map, she’d send one right up.
    He’d travelled on his own passport but booked into the hotel under Donaldson’s name. He’d brought Donaldson’s passport with him, and his credit cards, and his glasses, just to be on the safe side. He didn’t look much like the man buried under the flagstones of the villa in Bali, but neither did the picture in the passport, and with the glasses on he was close enough.
    The map arrived and he studied it until the phone rang and the receptionist said his car was downstairs. It was a blue Mazda, almost new, with a pine air-freshener fixed to the dashboard. The agent who’d delivered it to the hotel had left the aircon running so it was pleasantly cool. He dropped the map on to the passenger seat and