Killian thought for a full half minute and then said: "Aye, why not."

"Good. I booked your flights. Non-refundable."

"You booked my flights?"

"Boston to LA, LA to Hong Kong. Coulter wants to talk to you in person."

Killian stared at the phone for a moment. He knew that he should be angry. Sean had gone ahead and the booked the trip?

Was he really so predictable?

"What time do I have to have to be at Logan?"

"Eleven o'clock. UA 323."

"Eleven o'clock this morning?"

"Yes."

"I suppose I better get some kip then."

"Aye, that might be a good idea."

CHAPTER 4.

AN OYSTER IN THE MIRROR SEA.

The airport came from the bottom of the ocean, dredged up Dutch-style and poured into gigantic rectangles from which the water was pumped. It was the newest and flattest part of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Fans turning overhead, heavies watching the line from behind a part.i.tion. Good heavies, really focusing.

Many of the people getting off the planes had that humorless fixation, that manic whiteness about the eyes of the degenerate gambler.

"Purpose of visit to Hong Kong?"

"Tourism.

"How many days will you be staying here?"

"Two days.

"Thank you, sir."

"Thank you."

He walked through the overlit, white, antiseptic Green Channel and nodded to a short young man who was holding up a sign that said "Killian".

Behind him Killian could see sharp, brown hazy mountains.

"Are you waiting for me?" Killian asked.

"Mr Killian?"

"That's me."

The young man bowed slightly and tried to take Killian's bag from off his shoulder. Killian didn't let him.

"This way please," the man said.

"Okay."

"Do you have any objections to taking a boat?" the man asked.

"No," Killian said nervously.

"Excellent. This way."

The man didn't take him to a car or a boat. Instead they rode a train into the city. Killian honed his pitch and spent the rest of the ride watching very pretty Chinese girls on the flat-screen TV explaining the multifarious delights of Disney World Hong Kong.

They got off at Hong Kong Central and took an escalator to the first floor.

"Merely a short walk," the escort said.

Some people might have thrown a huff now, demanded a car, not this subway/walking/boat operation, but Killian couldn't care less. He'd been in a box for fourteen hours, hoofing it was fine.

They yomped an air-conditioned corridor to the Kowloon Ferry Terminal. He caught glimpses of office buildings and apartment blocks dizzyingly perched on terraces cut into the mountains. The streets were full of small Chinese-built taxis and German luxury cars. Few people outside. Most were inside buildings or air-conned walkways. Close to the ferry terminal exit a crowd of sweating Chinese people poured into the corridor, all of them going in the opposite direction, short bustling elbowy people. Killian was six foot four and here he felt like b.l.o.o.d.y Gulliver.

Coulter's man led him through a set of sliding doors to the outside.

Heat. Humidity. Spain could do 110 but he'd forgotten what 90 per cent relative humidity felt like. It was late in the day, nearly five o'clock in the afternoon, but it probably wasn't going to cool down any time soon.

"Jesus," he muttered to himself and took off his jacket.

"This way," the nameless young man said and led him towards a pier on the water's edge.

Concrete gave way to a boardwalk, gla.s.s walls to food stands, newspaper outlets and a ticket office. A western girl standing behind a row of taps in a large, air-conditioned bar caught his eye. She had blonde hair in a short crop. She was pale, wan. The place was empty. He smiled at her. She smiled back.

"Down here," Coulter's man said.

"Where?"

"Down here," the man said pointing to a wooden staircase that led to a jetty on the water.

He looked back at the girl and she was still smiling at him. He nodded and then negotiated the rickety, heaving staircase.

A long speedboat was tied to the jetty. A driver was waiting for them, ominously dressed in a splashcoat and waterproof leggings.

His guide untied the boat from its moorings.

"Would you care to step in?" he asked.

Killian fought the blind panic and made sure that it didn't show on his face.

He shook his head. "Smoke first, okay?"

"Okay."

He lit himself a small cigar and walked back up the steps. He crossed to the bar, went inside and sat down in front of the girl. His hands were shaking. Sean hadn't said anything about boats.

"What would you like?" the girl asked.

"Your name and a gla.s.s of cold beer."

"Peggy and a beer's coming up," she said with a generic American accent. She was about twenty-five. Lithe, slender, with green, sylvan eyes. She was wearing a white polo shirt that said "Pier #n Pub" on it.

"Peggy, now there's a name you don't hear that much these days, I like it."

"It's short for Margaret."

"Yeah, I think I knew that," he said, wondering what year she was born in. 1985? 1986? By '86 Killian's father had drunk himself to death, his mother had killed her boyfriend in a knife fight, four of his nine siblings were in borstal, his younger sister Keira was pregnant and Killian, sixteen years old, had stolen fifty cars, had been the getaway driver on a post- office robbery, couldn't read or write and was in love with a girl called Katie.

"What do you do?" the girl asked and pushed a cold Carlsberg in front of him.

"I'm in human resources - I find people, manage people, you know the kind of thing," he said.

She nodded. "Headhunter. Isn't that what they call it?"

"Yeah, that's it."

He drank half the Carlsberg and grinned at her, but this time she didn't smile back. She was a million miles away. "You look lonely," he thought and found to his annoyance he had actually said it. Too personal too quick.

She shrugged. "I am a bit, but I'm okay. I'm fine."

He drank the rest of the beer in one gulp. He pa.s.sed her a twenty- dollar bill.

"You take US?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Listen, I have a boat waiting for me. I've got to go, but, uh, you wouldn't want dinner tonight or something? I know this is-" Yes.

"When do you get off?"

"Midnight."

"See you back here around then," he said, picked up the jacket he'd left on a bar stool, and made for the door.

"Wait a minute," she said.

"What?"

"What's your name?"

"Killian."

"See you at midnight, Killian."

"Until then Cinderella."

Back at the boat a trim, tall, balding man, with wisps of grey hair, a perma-tan, sungla.s.ses and a linen suit was talking into a mobile phone.

He had a long Gallic nose and under the sungla.s.ses, Killian remembered, grey eyes. "There you are! I thought I was going to miss you," he said, offering Killian his hand.

"Good to see you again, Mr Eichel," Killian replied.

"Have we met?" Tom Eichel asked.

"Yes, but it's been a while," Killian said.

Eichel frowned. He obviously did not remember the encounter, which had been at a party in the Gresham Hotel in Dublin years ago, before Killian had even gone to New York, must have been 1989 or 1990. Killian was still a kid and had been lifting wallets from the coat check and Eichel had had two of Coulter's bodyguards take him out the back and knock the living s.h.i.te out of him, while Eichel laughed and called him "a thieving wee tinker b.a.s.t.a.r.d".

Eichel had been about thirty-five then and he looked much the same. Good doctors or good genes or both.

"I meet so many people," Eichel said apologetically.

"It's okay," Killian said.

"Of course Sean and I go back," Eichel said.

"Aye, I know."

Eichel looked at his watch. "Listen, I was hoping to catch you, I'm afraid I can't join you tonight, but if Richard likes you, I'll have someone leave off the files later, okay?"

"Okay."

"Great. I'm really sorry but I've got to go. Richard's doing the whole ribbon-cutting thing tomorrow and as you can imagine nothing's ready. It was nice meeting you again. I'll talk to you for real in Belfast," Eichel said and turned. He was about to walk back to a white BMW which had been waiting for him but instead he took his sungla.s.ses off, turned and looked Killian in the eye.

"You'll consider it won't you? Sean says you're trying to move out of this line of work."

"I'm looking for a change of direction, yes, but Sean says this time we're on the side of the angels."