Dragon Head - A Beatrix Rose Thriller: Hong Kong Stories Volume 1 (Beatrix Rose's Hong Kong Stories Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

Sports Ground, the Royal Yacht Club and the Police Officers’ Club. Eventually, they reached the docks and Chau turned off just before North Point Ferry Pier. He swung onto Wharf Road, passing beneath the thicket of cranes that serviced the freighters that delivered and collected goods from the port.
    Beatrix turned to Gao. “I’m sorry about this. I would have made an appointment, but things are urgent and I doubt that you would have taken it.”
    He replied with another flurry of furious Cantonese.
    “English, please. I know you speak it.”
    He glared at her, but switched languages. “Do you know who I am?”
    “I do.”
    “Then you know that this will get you killed?”
    She held up the gun again. “You’re in no position to make threats. And it’s rude, especially when I’m here to help you.”
    “To help me?”
    “You’ll agree in a minute.”
    “Who are you?”
    “That doesn’t matter. What matters is what I want to show you, and what it means for your immediate future.”
    His eyes flashed. “What do you mean?”
    “Here. Look.”
    She took out the cell phone that she bought earlier and tossed it onto the seat next to him. The video was queued up and ready to play. She watched his face as he looked down at the screen. His expression was of irritated curiosity to start with, but, as he looked at the still image, he must have remembered where it had been shot and what the footage might contain. His eyes widened and she saw him swallow.
    “Play it.”
    He didn’t look away as he pressed his finger to the screen. The soundtrack was tinny through the phone’s cheap speakers, but more than clear enough for the nature of the transaction to be audible. Gao stared at the screen, unable to take his eyes away. He watched it for twenty seconds before he pressed his finger to the screen again to stop it and handed it back to her as if it was suddenly scalding his fingers.
    “You’ve seen that before, haven’t you?”
    He looked out of the window, his jaw clenching and unclenching. His skin had a blotchy funereal pallor.
    He didn’t answer.
    “I’m guessing it was emailed to you. The girl—what was her name?”
    “Liling.”
    “That’s right. And Liling tried to blackmail you with it, didn’t she?”
    He folded his hands in his lap and looked down at the floor of the limo.
    “Look at me,” she said. He did, and she proffered the Glock. “If you don’t answer my questions, I’ll shoot you in the knee. Do you understand?”
    He nodded.
    “What did she do?”
    “She emailed it to me and said that it would be sent to the press if I didn’t pay her. One million US. That was her price.”
    “And?”
    “And if I had paid her, what good would that do me? She would still have the video. She would come back for more and I would be in the same situation again. I am a family man. My company relies on family values. Chinese values. This would be…it would be very destructive. My companies would suffer. Jobs would be lost.”
    “And so you told your triad friends.”
    He nodded. “She brought it on herself,” he said, as if that was justification enough for what Beatrix now knew must have happened to Grace’s sister.
    “They killed her?”
    He looked away.
    Beatrix slapped him with her left hand. “Answer the question.”
    “They said that they would make the problem go away. They said it was finished.”
    “But she didn’t have the video on her.”
    “No. But they said that they would be able to find it.”
    She laughed without humour. “They tried.”
    “You knew Liling? She gave it to you?”
    She held up the gun again. “See this? It means I’m asking the questions.”
    “So, what is this? You are going to blackmail me now? How much do you want?”
    “I don’t want money.”
    “Then what do you want?”
    “Just your help. You are a very wealthy and influential man, Mr. Gao. Well connected in the Hong Kong underworld. Would that be a fair assessment?”
    He shrugged