In Denial (24 page)

Adam glanced at the couple to his right who were still holding hands but now they were also gripping the arm rests as tightly as they could. Adam had dozed on and off throughout the flight but he still felt tired and dehydrated. He looked out of the window but the aircraft was still above the clouds. Gabrielle Brooks’ face came into his mind as it had done on numerous occasions during the flight. He’d thought about her a lot, the enormity of what she had done for him only really hitting home since he’d had time to stop and think. He wondered what she was doing. Looking at his watch he reckoned it was about a quarter to one in the UK so she’d be asleep or sitting in the vicarage kitchen drinking yet another mug of coffee and worrying over the sermon she was going to give on Sunday. She had told him she always started them too early and that she ought to wait until the Saturday night before even thinking of the topic, let alone putting anything together.

He smiled as he pictured her pretty face and the sadness in her eyes as they had said their goodbyes. For all the right reasons she was certainly somebody he would never forget.

*  *  *

Gabrielle was still trying to get to sleep.

She had tossed and turned, thrown off the quilt and dragged it back over her again, but all the time her thoughts kept on whirring around in her mind. She had decided what she was going to do next but it was what she was going to do in the longer term that caused her even more concern. Before her meeting with Jeremy she had not given much thought to doing anything other than walking up to the front door of Adam’s house in Ashbourne, ringing the bell and saying, ‘Look who it is,’ or words to that effect.

Now with Adam in or en route to Hong Kong she had no idea what to do. She could not go chasing him halfway round the world, could she? She had never been any further afield than the Mediterranean and anyway she hadn’t brought, indeed did not own, the right clothes for the Far East. What did they wear over there, loose fitting white cotton?

She had already dismissed Jeremy’s bizarre theory as a mere ruse to ask her to have a drink, then dinner and then whatever he might have planned once they got to her room. His theorising was too fantastic to even contemplate. She thought even less of him now for intending to use such a serious situation to his own advantage. She certainly would not be having coffee with him in the morning. Any unanswered question she might have would have to be posed to other people.

Throwing the quilt onto the floor for the umpteenth time, she leant over and took a sip of water from the glass on the bedside table. Her travel alarm clock told her it was nearly one o’clock. She swung her legs off the bed and padded across the room towards the bathroom. During the autumn and winter she normally wore a pair of men’s pyjamas to bed because the central heating system in the vicarage was old and not that efficient. During the summer and when the weather was warmer she tended to opt for a T-shirt but when she was away she always wore a pair of pants as well, just in case. She often wondered what she meant by just in case. It was rather like mothers who said their children had to be dressed in clean underwear when they went out just in case they were involved in an accident.

Looking in the mirror while she was washing her hands she thought back to the incident with Jeremy. The change in him was incredible.
God
, he must have thought,
I touched a female vicar’s breasts through
her blouse! God, should I be using the word God?
He was in such a state of confusion after he discovered what she really was.

But then she thought of the feeling that fleeting but intimate touch had aroused in her. It had not been unpleasant and it was not as though she’d never been touched there before. Kevin Blackburn had been mesmerised by her breasts and had taken every opportunity to touch them. Even when his hands started to drift downwards and he was told to stop, he had seemed happy as long as he could return to her breasts. What was it about Kevin Blackburn and breasts? What was it about men in general and the fixation they had with women’s breasts? Did they all have an Oedipus complex? One evening after Kevin spent most of the time touching, stroking and kissing her breasts she remembered looking up the definition of what she thought his problem was. She could remember it word for word:
the Oedipal complex is a term used by Sigmund Freud in his theory
- there was that word again -
of psychosexual stages of development to describe a boy's feelings of desire for his mother and jealously and anger towards his father. Essentially, a boy feels he is in competition with his father for possession of his mother. He views his father as a rival for her attentions and affections.

So does every man see his mother when fondling other women’s breasts? Perhaps she was wrong and the fixation was for other reasons. She had asked a female friend the same question and was told that God had created women in a form which had to be attractive to men; women’s breasts were created to nourish the aftermath of men fondling them. They were a fertility symbol.

Gabrielle smiled cynically at her reflection and turned off the bathroom light before climbing back into bed, but she lay awake for another hour before eventually falling asleep. As she looked up at the lights dancing about on the ceiling she wondered how many people, if asked, would advise her, jokingly or not, to turn to her profession for guidance. Surely God would know what she ought to do? Soon after joining her parish and when she was called upon to explain why God allowed this and that disaster to happen, and why religion was used as an excuse for wars, she always replied in the same way -
God has already given us his guidance: it is up to us to put his words into practice. If we make mistakes we learn. It just takes some people longer to learn than others. Suffering is part of the learning process. Without it there would be no joy and happiness.
Some accepted her words but others went away muttering. She even heard one parishioner refer to her explanation as unadulterated claptrap, but he was still there for her next service.

Gabrielle had never come to terms with her words either. And not being able to explain it to herself made it difficult in giving others an explanation they so desperately wanted and she so desperately wanted to give. She always came from the angle that to prove his real worth man had to do good unto man. God had laid down the rules in the Ten Commandments and they could not be changed just because some failed to abide by them; it was they who needed changing, not the rules.

But the mission she was on now had nothing to do with God or his rules, so she hoped He would forgive her if she used Him in what she planned to do after breakfast.

*  *  *

On Level Five of the airport Adam cleared passport control and customs without incident.

His only problem was he still didn’t know where he was going to stay. He knew there would be no difficulty in getting a hotel room but it was longer-term accommodation that was concerning him.

He was still pondering which hotel to go to as he pushed his trolley towards the exit signs for the taxis, only half aware of the throngs of people who were there to meet the incoming flights.

It was clear that Adam was totally unaware that his brother Patrick was watching him move across the concourse with the other passengers.

Patrick caught Number Thirty-Nine’s eye.

She was standing about twenty yards away, her eyes scanning the passengers and watching Number Sixty-Six at the same time. She saw him nod and point with his eyes at Adam Harrison. She recognised him straight away because not only had Number Sixty-Six described him to her but also her quarry stood head and shoulders above the other passengers.

She liked what she saw.

He was tall, as many gweilo men were, and she liked tall men. She also liked his floppy light brown hair, his broad shoulders, slim waist and athletic physique. He was handsome and he walked with an air of confidence. She was going to enjoy this assignment.

It wasn’t going to be difficult at all.

Number Thirty-Nine found Number Sixty-Six’s eyes, nodded in confirmation that she had spotted the target before moving away from the edge of the crowd.

Number Thirty-Nine had dressed casually this morning: a pair of faded blue jeans with the designer tears in them, white trainers, a pale green sleeveless top, and she carried a large shoulder bag. At age thirty-six, Number Thirty-Nine was pleased with the way she looked. She put it down to never having married and never having had any children. She worked out daily and was a Black-Belt Seventh Degree in Taekwon-Do. She chose Taekwon-Do because its philosophy fitted perfectly with her own philosophy: pursue only one goal at a time; once it has been determined serve only one master with unshakable loyalty and gain victory in one blow.

Number Thirty-Nine had been a member of The 7th Dragon Triad since she was fifteen. She joined just a few months before Number Sixty-Six’s initiation ceremony. The start of his ceremony was the end of hers. Over twenty years later she remembered that day when she knelt naked in front of him, her head bowed. She remembered his hands round her throat, his fingers squeezing, the terror as she thought he was not going to let go, but then the release as the Master told him to stop.

He had passed and she had passed.

Her final test had been the ultimate in trust. She was taken to death’s door and it had opened, but then she was pulled back from the black abyss engulfing her.

Number Thirty-Nine also remembered taking Number Sixty-Six to her room afterwards. She led him by the hand, his eyes glazed as though he was drugged. She remembered standing naked in front of him, lifting his hands and guiding them over her body. At first it appeared he was never going to come out of the trance he was in but then suddenly he became fully aware of what she was doing and what she wanted him to do.

At sixteen it was the first time Number Sixty-Six had ever had full sex with a woman. He had experimented with some of the girls at school and he had a sort of girlfriend, but Number Thirty-Nine made sure that one of the more pleasurable aspects of the initiation ceremony would be engraved on his mind forever.

And it was as much on his as it was on hers.

The Master had been pleased.

*  *  *

Number Thirty-Nine’s full-time day job was in a travel agency in Kowloon at the bottom of Nathan Rd at the junction with Jordan Road. She was also still a member of The 7th Dragon Triad, as was Number Sixty-Six. Nobody she worked with knew of her membership. Anybody looking at her would not believe she was associated even in the slightest way with one of the most notorious criminal organisations in Hong Kong.

Number Thirty-Nine had killed twice but her main role was to do exactly what she was doing now with Adam Harrison. When she was given a target, she would befriend them, sleep with them if necessary and report whatever information she found out to her controller. Number Sixty-Six was Number Thirty-Nine’s controller and he was the only other member of The 7th Dragon Triad who she knew by sight. She did not know his name. The less she knew the less she could pass on to the police if she were arrested.

Although she had killed twice, Number Thirty-Nine had never been arrested. She had not even had a parking ticket. Other than being on the National Database, Number Thirty-Nine was a nonentity. She had a job, paid her bills and led what many others thought was a very boring life. The other women in the travel agency had decided she was a lesbian, but a very discreet one. They all admired and envied her beauty, although they thought she had let her skin become too dark. But as she never mentioned a man in her life, had never been married and did not have children and was thirty-seven, she had to be a lesbian.

There was a man in her life and it was Number Sixty-Six.

Since that first time, she had never slept with Number Sixty-Six again; it was not allowed. Controllers and those they controlled were denied any form of emotional attachment after the first time. They knew the rules and if it were discovered that such an attachment had occurred then other unknown members of The 7th Dragon Triad would ensure that the only hunger ever to be satisfied again by her body would be that of the fish at the bottom of Hong Kong harbour. The rules did not scare Number Thirty-Nine. If she knew the rules then she could live by them. As she had never had a parking ticket she had also never broken any of The 7th Dragon Triad rules.

If she wanted a man she would go and find one.

Number Thirty-Nine was now ten paces behind her latest target. He was a lot younger than most of the hundred or so men she had been assigned to over the years. Many of them had been fat, ugly and hairy - and smelly - and she had been almost sick as they sweated and writhed on top of her or made her do things that even she found repulsive. There had been businessmen - mainly businessmen - politicians, military officers and civil servants, all of whom were visiting Hong Kong or on attachment to Hong Kong organisations.

She had very few failures.

All of her assignments wanted what they saw, took what they wanted and were quite happy with the assured anonymity that went with what they did. Few asked why she did it; most were arrogant enough to believe it was their power and authority which attracted her, and some even insisted on paying her to salve their own consciences. She entered their lives, stayed with them for as long as it took and then disappeared, never to be willingly seen again. They took what they wanted and she got what the the Master wanted, which was information.