Exert from Memories of Midnight
Prologue, p.1-2“It must look like an accident. Can you arrange that?”
It was an insult. He could feel the anger rising in him. That was a question you asked some amateur you picked up from the streets. He was tempted to reply with sarcasm: Oh, yes, I think I can arrange that. Would you prefer an accident indoors? I can arrange for her to break her neck falling down a flight of stairs. The dancer in Marseilles. Or she could get drunk and drown in her bath. The heiress in Gstaad. She could take an overdose of heroin. He had disposed of three that way. Or, she could fall asleep with a lighted cigarette. The Swedish detective at L’Hotel on the Left Bank in Paris. Or perhaps you would prefer something outdoors? I can arrange a traffic accident, a plane crash, or a disappearance at sea.
But he said none of those things, for in truth he was afraid of the man seated across from him. He had heard too many chilling stories about him, and he had reason to believe them.
So all he said was, “Yes, sir, I can arrange an accident. No one will ever know.” Even as he said these words, the thought struck him: He knows that I’ll know. He waited.
They were on the second floor of a building in the walled city of Kowloon that had been built in 1840 by a group of Chinese to protect themselves from the British barbarians. The walls had been torn down in the Second World War, but there were other walls that kept outsiders away: Gangs of cutthroats and drug addicts and rapists roaming through the rabbit warren of crooked, narrow streets and dark stairways leading into gloom. Tourists were warned to stay away, and not even the police would venture inside past the Tung Tau Tsuen Street, on the outskirts. He could hear street noises outside the window, and the shrill and raucous polyglot of languages that belonged to the residents of the walled city.
The man was studying him with cold, obsidian eyes. Finally, he spoke. “Very well. I will leave the method to you.”
“Yes, sir. Is the target here in Kowloon?”
“London. Her name is Catherine. Catherine Alexander.”
