Page 159 of The Killer’s Mark

‘For my heart,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I will trouble you for some water?’

When Poe returned with a glass of water, Li Jie Wang gulped down his medication.

‘The Red Chamber fools who fled to mainland China have been found and … dealt with,’ he said after he’d put away his pills. ‘They will not be troubling anyone again. A man who called himself the Surgeon, the failed doctor who removed their tattoos, is dead. His body is in Germany, but it will never be found.’

‘And the rest?’

The dragon head reached into his inside pocket. He handed Poe a piece of paper.

‘What’s this?’

‘It’s a location. Or to be precise, it’s a grave. When the authorities exhume it, they will find twelve men. Bound, hooded and shot in the back of the head. One of them also has a nasty bullet wound in his knee, but that wasn’t our doing.’

Poe said nothing.

‘Another has a dragon tattoo on his hand. The eyes are not well drawn. I believe you had already discussed this with him?’

The dragon head straightened in his seat. Gone was the deceptively courteous old man; instead, Poe saw the cold-hearted, ruthless gangster that he was. He held Poe’s eyes. Poe thought this must be what the gopher saw when it had been run to ground by the rattlesnake. ‘The Red Chamber no longer exists, Mr Poe. It has been dismantled. The remaining members – the ones who were unaware the women were being murdered – have been assimilated into my organisation. They are no threat to you or your family.’

Poe had just heard Li Jie Wang say he’d ordered twelve murders. Another in Germany. More in mainland China. He didn’t know how he was supposed to process that. Those men had died because of actions he’d taken. He’d known it was a possibility, of course. Probable even. How could it not be? When you poked the snake, you’d better do it with a long stick, because it was going to bite something. He thought about it some and decided he didn’t care. Those men had been ghouls, the true epitome of evil. With Nazi-like efficiency, they’d monetised murder. And no court in the land could have touched the architects. Some of the foot soldiers might have seen the inside of a cell, but the men who mattered wouldn’t have lost a day’s liberty. It was why the Red Chamber had been compartmentalised the way it had. To protect the bosses from leaks, from intrusive and effective investigations. A compartmentalised organisation didn’t mean shit to the Forty-Fours, though. That was why Poe had used them the way he had.

The dragon head mistook his silence for indifference. He said, ‘You don’t seem upset.’

‘You’ve seen what I’ve done. Tell me, Mr Wang, is there anything you think I won’t do to protect this girl? My family?’

The old man answered immediately. ‘No, I don’t think there is.’ He got to his feet. It looked awkward, painful. He reached for his cane and leaned on it. ‘And now I think our business is concluded,’ he said. ‘You’re an impressive man, Mr Poe. I would very much like it if we never crossed paths again. No good can come of it. I think we would both suffer.’

‘Not so fast, old-timer,’ Poe said.

The dragon head sat back down. Sighed.

‘You haven’t heard my demands yet.’

‘But what else is there? Everything I’ve learned about you tells me that you won’t try to shake me down. If you did, I would pay – you’d leave me no choice – but it would leave an unexpectedly sour taste in my mouth. I think I would be disappointed.’

‘I don’t want your money, Mr Wang.’

‘You’re going to make a citizen’s arrest? Try to tie me to the mass grave I’ve just told you about?’

‘I don’t want to arrest you either,’ Poe said. ‘I’m sure there are active investigations into the Forty-Fours. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I’ll let them get on with it.’

‘Then what?’

‘I want the names of every Red Chamber client. Every rich sociopath who bought a woman and stood by while she was murdered. I want every sick bastard with a film in their safe and a mounted tattoo on their wall. I want their names and I want evidence. The Red Chamber snipped off a piece of each tattoo before the ink had even dried. That could only have been done to preserve DNA. To guarantee the men’s silence. And don’t think of shielding a favoured politician or a man of influence. We’ll run a parallel investigation, and if I uncover just one name you’ve kept from me, the videos go public. We press the button.’ Poe paused. ‘Do you believe me?’

The old man nodded. ‘I do.’

‘Then do we have an agreement?’

‘I’ll get you the names. I’ll get you your DNA evidence. It might take some time.’

‘You have two weeks.’

‘I think that’s possible. Is there anything else?’

‘The girl is safe from reprisals.’

‘That goes without saying. What about the mother? I understand she bred the daughter as a sacrificial lamb.’