Shadowland

Crime Fiction by Sean O’Leary

A fourteen-year-old girl was missing. Candy had taken the call two hours ago. The father, Peter Ling, sounded like he was in agony when he told Candy his daughter had been missing for two days. Missing or lost forever. That was Candy’s job.  The missing girl’s name was April.

Candy Wong was thirty. She had been a PI in Hong Kong for seven years. Had seen it all. She sat on her cracked brown leather sofa. It was January and cold. She was wearing a grey pleated miniskirt, black leather boots that finished just below her knees, the tops of her white socks poking out, and a long-sleeved, blue Oxford shirt with thin red stripes buttoned to the top.

April had been out with two friends, drinking in a corner of Kowloon Park. The family lived in an apartment in Sham Shui Po, an old neighbourhood of Hong Kong. They lived in one of the few remaining Tong Lau buildings. That they weren’t wealthy went without saying.

The mother, Mei, was in bad shape, close to a nervous breakdown. The police had agreed to assist Candy however they could. What else could they do? They hadn’t found her, but Candy didn’t have any kind of decent relationship with the cops. They viewed her as a recalcitrant pet dog they put up with.

Candy had already spoken on the phone to April’s two friends, who had been with her the night she disappeared. She tried to figure out what to ask them in person, as he reached over and picked up a soft pack of Double Happiness cigarettes, tapped one out, and lit it with a purple lighter.

Candy needed to see Loi, the girl April had been with, in person, to see her reactions to her questions. She played with one of the buttons on her Oxford shirt. She felt like the girl, Loi, had told the truth. That Sheng, the boy who had been with them, was April’s boyfriend. Sheng had denied it to Candy, and she didn’t know why. Why lie about that when so much was at stake? But with kids who knew, maybe Sheng thought it was none of her business, simple as that.

Candy had a photo of April that her dad had sent to her by text. She looked more like twelve or thirteen. Her dad had told Candy that the last time he saw April, she was looking in the bathroom mirror and singing her favourite song. Candy asked him what the song was. Video Games by Lana Del Ray, he had told her. April was wearing a red tracksuit in the photo he sent of her. She looked warm, happy, smiling at the camera as she sat on her bed. Her father had said it was only a few days old.

Candy walked out of her apartment in Tsim Sha Tsui, down in the lift, down a small flight of stairs, onto Cameron Road. It was 10am, and the streets were already super-busy with tourists and locals. Mostly Asian faces, but Caucasian, black, Eastern European, and West Asian faces were all represented. She would normally get the MTR to Sham Shui Po, but time was important, and she might have to go to two or three different locations. She drove an old dark blue Toyota Corolla from the 90s. The best way to describe the car was unremarkable, which is not a bad thing for a PI. It was parked illegally on the street, but Candy had a deal with the parking inspector. She got him cheap cigarettes, and he didn’t put parking tickets on her window.

She was gone out onto Nathan Road in seconds. Nathan Road, the beating heart of the Kowloon side. All traffic, all life passed through or on it. Vehicle and human traffic are always busy. People traipsed along it in search of their lives. Neon lights, even in daytime, shone above street level for massages, pet cafés, travel agents, and some other odd things. For seven years, Candy had lived on this side of the harbour. People told her the old Hong Kong was dead or dying. Candy only knew this. And she loved it.

Candy knew the building where the missing girl lived. She looked out at the fashion store as she drove. They passed Kowloon park, where the girl had disappeared, already searched by the local cops, including some dredging of the lake and ponds. Her mobile phone played an Eddie Money song, a reminder of her dead father. She answered while driving.  It was Peter Ling.

‘Hello.’

‘The police have interviewed a man earlier this morning in relation to the disappearance.’

‘Shit. Give me the name of the cop.’

‘The what?’

‘The interviewing police officer. Who is he?’

‘An Inspector, Lee, Michael Lee.’

‘Do you have his number?’

“I’ll text it.’

‘I’ll be with you soon, Mr Ling. Please be as calm as possible.’

She rang the detective, who had an English accent. She said,

‘This is PI Candy Wong. You picked up someone for the missing girl.’

‘You can’t talk to him.’

‘Who is he?’

‘He’s a nutjob, loner. He’s got form for downloading child porn. The word is he works some of the public toilets in the Mongkok, Prince Edward area. He asks the street sex workers about finding him younger girls. They dismiss him as harmless, but maybe not. He’s in the cells; his lawyer won’t let you speak to him. We have a witness who placed him with the girl on Nathan Road.’

Candy decided to go straight to see Loi. She already told her father she’d be coming. She saw no sense in going to Peter Ling; he was all emotion right now. The wife was worse. She called Loi, and her father was now hesitant, but Candy said,

‘April’s life is ticking away in seconds.’

‘Alright, come now.’

‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’

She turned off Nathan Road onto Austin Road. Loi’s place was another five minutes from there.

***

Loi was wearing baggy blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and bare feet. She had long black hair with a straight fringe, black almond-shaped eyes, and looked older than her fourteen years. She sat next to her father on the sofa in the lounge room.

‘You were drinking in the park.’ Candy said.

‘Yeah, we had a bottle of wine, we weren’t drunk or anything. It was something to do.’

‘Where in the park?’

‘You know when you walk in coming from Austin Road, there’s a set of stairs you go up, then turn left and go past the swimming pool.’

‘Yes.’

‘If you keep walking, there’s another set of stairs on your left. If you go up there, um, we were behind some bushes, but it was nearly dark, no one was there.’

‘And April went to buy cigarettes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which way did she go?’

‘I’m not sure, she walked down the stairs. I saw her. I think she went toward Austin Road.’

‘You think? This is important. Think.’

‘What’s the big deal?’

‘If she went back to Austin Road, not towards the centre of the park, it matters because if she went to Austin Road, she could have gone three different ways; the other way she would have to go to Nathan Road if she wanted to buy cigarettes.

‘Oh wait, yeah, she turned right at the bottom of the stairs towards the centre of the park, where the old people do Tai Chi.’

‘Thank you.’

Candy asked whether Sheng was April’s boyfriend.

‘I don’t know, the three of us, we hang out together, that’s all, like forever.’

Candy left, stood still outside the front of the apartment building in Mongkok. She put her headphones on, found Lana Del Ray and listened to Video Games. Where was she? What did she do when she left the others?

Candy called the cop with the English accent, laid it on him about the different direction April took, and that it meant the sighting with the pervert on Nathan Road could be true. ‘What’s his name? She asked the detective.

‘Tao Chen.’

Candy talked her way into getting to see Tao Chen, but not until tomorrow. Why the fuck couldn’t she get in now? But she is a civilian, a nobody, and the cops hate her because of her past contact with them. Candy talked straight. Hong Kong cops didn’t, not to her leastways.

She went home. She hated what the kid might be going through. Candy took off her boots. Wiggled her toes. She did fashion. She didn’t do furniture. The whole place just came together. The brown, cracked, faux-leather sofa, plus two cheap black vinyl armchairs. A small kitchen table, with a linoleum top and two unmatched, fold-up kitchen chairs.

 She lived in an unremarkable one-bedroom apartment, on an unremarkable block about five hundred metres from Nathan Road. All owner-occupied except hers. No students, no drug dealers, no nosy people, which in a city like Hong Kong is gold. Even better for someone in Candy’s line of work. How did a thirty-year-old, ex-Australian get here and become a PI? And get permanent residency? Some of her jobs were done for wealthy, connected people. She had discretion. They repaid her. She kept her mouth shut and carried on.

She poured herself an inexpensive vodka, a big one, and sipped on it from a big glass.  The vodka calmed her slightly, but she was still fizzing at not getting in to see old man Tao. Candy thought she might go to some local massage parlours where she had connections, plus she knew a few street walkers in the Sham Shui Po area and also a sex worker named Cashmere, not far from the tourist-friendly Temple Street Markets. But that would be later, once night fell. She drifted into sleep.

Woke up to the sound of her mobile ringing. The caller cut the call as soon as she answered. She found her soft pack and pulled out a Double Happiness cigarette and lit it. She had a few debt collections to do for a local bookie and a couple of infidelity cases to finish. April was the type of case she didn’t chase. Too much emotion. Too much damage.

She had a quick shower, changed into black skinny jeans, a white camisole top, and put on a black, shiny, Adidas tracksuit top with three white stripes down each arm, black Doc Martens on her feet. Ready, she felt good, time to do some work. Find this missing kid who liked to sing Video Games into the mirror, even while her dad watched her.

***

Candy parked illegally, found Cashmere in her usual spot on Saigon Street, not far from Temple Street Markets, where tourists and locals played together. Candy didn’t think much of it as a market, no edge to it. Cashmere always wore lilac, a top, a scarf or something in her hair. There was a set of stairs next to her that led her and customers to a small, dank room with a single bed, a sink, and torn blinds. Candy said,

‘You see the news about that missing kid?’

‘Young girl.’

‘Yes, cops have a guy in the cells, his name is Tao Chen. You know him?’

‘No.’

Cashmere was thirty, looked nearer to forty. There was no street romance here; she lived tough. Candy took a one-hundred-dollar note out of her pocket and said,

‘You know any regulars or anyone who liked young girls?’

‘If they’re looking for young girls, they don’t look at me.’

‘Anything that…’

‘There are two young boys who hang out in a car in Sham Shui Po. There’s a car park. More like an empty block with unpaved gravel. They’re in the car most nights.’

‘They live in the car?’

‘No, there’s this guy, a pimp, I guess you’d call him. I don’t have one. But this guy, he has rooms, like my room up here,’ and she points her finger to the stairwell, but these two kids, they trick in the car, and…’

‘She’s a young girl, Cashmere, fourteen and…’

‘She won’t last long, Candy, you better get moving, find her fast.’

‘What kind of car? Come with me. I’ll pay you.’

‘Alright, I’ll come, but you pay me for my time.’

‘I said I would.’

‘I know, alright, come on, it’s a station wagon, but small, not big.’

They drove there as Cashmere gave directions. It was a mild night, around 9pm, but Candy sweated. Young boys selling themselves in cars. It freaked her out. They found the vacant lot. The car was there. Cashmere said,

‘Let me talk to them first,’ and she got out of Candy’s car and walked over to the small station wagon. She knocked on the blacked-out passenger window. Candy wondered again how it was possible. Cashmere got in the car. Candy waited two to three minutes. Cashmere and two young boys, maybe fifteen or sixteen, came and got in the back seat of her car.

Candy told them what’s going on. That April came from a good home; she was not a sex worker, but a scared kid. She showed them photos of April from her phone. Daijon, a dark-haired little rat, took her phone and studied the photo.

‘I saw this girl,’ he said. She was with that old tripper, Tao. But it was two nights ago.’

‘Where?’

The boy sensed Candy’s desperation.

‘One thousand,’ he said. Which was about $200 Australian dollars

Candy felt like he was telling the truth.

‘Okay, okay, the money’s yours.’

She smiled at the boy, and it seemed to reassure him.

‘She was walking with him. They walked into that dodgy motel on Temple Street, between Jordan Road and Austin Road. It’s a thin doorway, hard to find.’

‘What’s the name of…’

‘Can’t remember, it’s small, there’s a buzzer at the door.’

‘I can show you,’ Cashmere said, ‘but that’s it. Don’t ask me anything else.’

‘What time did you see the girl and this guy, Tao?’

‘Around midnight.’

Candy gave him his cash. The two boys got out and ran, but not to the car, away down a lane. Cashmere said,

‘Probably going to score.’

Candy paid her. Cashmere showed Candy the motel entrance. It was just a doorway with an intercom. There were cafés and massage places and neon signs, buzzing, noisy people all around, buzzing with electricity.

 She had parked nearby, she registered to herself that Kowloon Park was a five-minute walk from here, but not from Nathan Road, where Loi thought April had gone. It was a blur; maybe she was wrong. It happened fast.

Candy buzzed the intercom. The street was busy with people. The desk clerk said something, but Candy couldn’t hear him because of the noise of the people and traffic. Two guests used a code, and Candy followed them in. Inside the motel clerk had a name badge, Chin, Night Manager. He was in his fifties, Candy thought, dishevelled, and smoked a cigarette. Candy figured he ripped off guests any way he could. I mean, if he let Tao in there with a young girl. Fuck him. Chin said to Candy,

‘I saw you come with those others. You not a guest,’ he said in broken English. Candy said,

‘You know a guy called Tao Chen?’

‘I don’t know anyone. You out, now,’ he said and hit a button, and came through a side door, down around the counter onto the same level as Candy. Candy reached into her messenger bag, quickly pulled out her riot stick, and pressed the button to extend it. She wasn’t fucking around with this guy. He stopped, laughed, ‘put it away, out now, out now, girl.’

She hit him across the side of the face. He froze. She hit him again. Shocked, he said,

‘No, no. Go, please go, ah.’

Candy grabbed his hair, held the stick high, and pulled her phone out. Showed him the photo of April and said,

‘You know this girl?’

‘No, no. Go, please, trouble, big trouble, please.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Ah, please, I tell. Please, Triad, please.’

Candy backhanded him across the face. Said softly,

‘Fuck Triad. I need to know where. I need to know now.’

Candy pointed to the CCTV.  ‘Two nights ago, ‘she said, ‘I need to see it. I have contacts with the police. You’re in trouble, now.’

Chin didn’t answer, but his eyes flicked to the CCTV. He knew he was fucked.

‘Where is she?’

‘She left with Shu, one or two nights ago.’

‘Name and where he lives now.’

Chin gave her the address of an apartment in Tsim Sha Tsui.

 As Candy ran to her car, she thought, was Chin, the night manager, an abuser too? Shu was a regular, probably along with Tao. Triads. Who knew. Candy didn’t give a shit.

She rushed to her car. Ran into and around and nearly right through people. Yelling and grunting, ‘get out of the way’ as she went. She jumped into her car. Where she was going now was to Shadowland.  The underground that was there every day but never glimpsed by everyday people or even by people such as herself.  Your whole being, your whole psych, was in danger. She careered onto Nathan Road, hit the gas, shops, neon, people flashed by all about her. She shot a red light and nearly hit a red taxi, slowed enough to regain control and composure.  She made it to Tsim Sha Tsui, turned left, right, left through the tight backstreets, and found the apartment block.

There was no lift; it was six flights, but she was trained in martial arts, fit and strong. At the top of the third set of stairs, she stopped, breathed heavy in and out. Held herself, then released and kept going. The kid was there. She knew it.  She reached the door. She could hear the song playing inside. Video Games.

She thumped on the door. Dialled emergency on her mobile phone. Got police. Thumped on the door. She could still hear the song playing inside. It made her gut churn. Like she needed to take a shit. She breathed again, once, twice. Recovered. She turned to her left and side-kicked the wooden door with her right foot. She side-kicked it again and again, and it was breaking. The hinges came off. She crashed into the apartment.

There was a coffee table. Filled with lollies and half-drunk bottles of soft drink. A girl was on the sofa in her underwear. It was April. Candy rushed to the bed, pulled off a rug. Wrapped it around April. Who said nothing. Her vacant eyes stared straight ahead in front of her. Emotionless. The song played on.

One of the soft drink bottles had broken, and there was broken glass on the floor. The bathroom door was closed. Candy said to April, ‘You’re safe now, safe,’ but the kid just stared straight ahead. There was a video camera on the floor. A big screen TV.

Candy hugged her tight, then got up and went to the bathroom door. It was unlocked. She went in. Shu was on the floor, overweight, bloated, naked. His shrivelled cock between his legs like a tiny sea urchin, useless like the rest of his limp body, blood everywhere, his wrist slashed by a piece of a broken Coke bottle. Candy dialled emergency again, this time for an ambulance.

She went back to April, picked her up. She felt light. Candy hugged her tight and said, ‘You’re safe now. He’s gone.’

She walked through the broken door, down the stairs, held the girl tight and said,

‘You’re going to be fine.’

‘I know it.’

‘I know it.’

---

Bio: Sean O’Leary is a writer of crime and literary fiction from Melbourne, Australia. He has published five short story collections, four novels, two novellas and over fifty individual short stories in literary and crime journals. Find his website HERE.

Read more from Sean on The Yard, HERE.

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