Mann headed back to Headquarters. He went straight to find Sheng. He caught him in the locker room; he smashed him back against a locker, held him by the throat.
‘Did you order Tammy to carry on with Operation Schoolyard?? Did you countermand my order?’
Sheng breathed in his face. He waited until Mann loosened his grip and then he shook himself free.
‘No. I didn’t. You don’t need help fucking things up, you can manage it all by yourself.’
Mann let him go. He took the lift up to the top floor and the stairwell up to the roof. He needed to breathe. He felt his lungs collapsing. The only calm for him was on the roof. He pushed open the fire escape door and immediately the heat hit him. The sun was directly overhead. The sun was in his eyes. The dazzling light bounced off buildings and windows. He put on his sunglasses and stood, breathing deeply. The air was clean. The smell of the ocean. The sea was vast and beautiful on the horizon.
He walked across to the parapet. The eagle had been there and left its droppings, full of tiny bones. Mann picked up three black tail feathers, beautiful, flawless. He knelt down out of the wind, wrapped them in cloth and placed them inside his shuriken pouch.
‘I thought I’d find you up here.’ Mia walked across the roof and stood beside Mann looking at the harbour and the sea beyond. ‘What’s the latest on Tammy?’
‘Still critical.’
‘I heard you paid a visit to Victoria Chan’s office.’
‘News travels fast.’
‘Only some news – only when it’s to certain people’s advantage. You better stay away from them now, Mann. I’ve been told by the top brass to warn you off. You can’t go in there and threaten her. This was supposed to be stealth not aggression.’
‘I’m playing the game, Mia. I’m doing what they expect. Any less and they’d know it wasn’t for real.’ He shook his head and took a deep breath in. ‘It’s beginning to feel like whichever way I play it I can’t win. Victoria Chan knew about Operation Schoolyard. She knew about Tammy.’
‘How?’
‘She made it her business. She paid someone here at the department.’
Mia wasn’t having it: ‘It’s not possible. She’s lying. Only a handful of us knew the details about Operation Schoolyard. It’s gone wrong before, Mann, it doesn’t mean that someone’s corrupt in this department.’
‘It’s not the first time we’ve had corrupt police officers either though, is it? Why the hell didn’t Tammy do as I ordered?’ Mann shook his head, slow, heavy. ‘Tom Sheng denies he had anything to do with it. I don’t believe him.’ He stared hard at Mia. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me, Mia?’
‘Like what? I know as much as you do.’ She turned back to stare out at the rooftops.
Mann shook his head, exasperated. ‘Some people have waited a long time to see me in this kind of a mess. My judgement’s all to hell. I am not thinking straight.’
Mia reached out and rested her hand on Mann’s arm. ‘I know you have too much in your head right now with your father’s mess but don’t be such a hard man. You’re not always in this alone. You want to talk, I’m here.’
‘Thanks, Mia, but it’s probably best for me to work it out alone.’
‘What about your mother? Is she helping with it?’
‘No. She is doing what she does best, ignoring it and hoping it will go away. I don’t blame her. I’ve done my best to do the same but it’s not working so well for me.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘It seems like a massive task. I thought I could walk away from my father’s past. But I can’t. Now it’s up to me to finish the job. The thing is, all the years my mother chose to ignore it and leave it untouched, his wealth has been growing, the investments are now huge. I own a large part of a company that mines diamonds in Sierra Leone; I own several cocoa plantations on the Ivory Coast. Each project could take me a year to unravel in order to try and do something positive with it. I wish I could give it all away and forget it existed.’
‘What about the family in Amsterdam? Do they have a say?’
‘My brother Jake is named in some of the documents. I will try and guide him through it all when I’ve negotiated my own way first. His stepdad Alfie is a nice guy. He’ll want me to do what I think best. He’s a cop. He’s not going to want Jake inheriting Triad money. I’ll talk to him. I keep meaning to call. I just don’t know what to say. I wish my dad’s business could wait until the murder investigation was over but with Victoria pushing me and causing chaos I think I have run out of time. I feel like she’s out to break me. I feel like she knows every move I make. Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind. I can’t stop thinking about Helen. I even feel her presence in the flat, smell her perfume. I feel like someone’s been in there, someone’s been looking through my drawers, looking through the papers.’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe I’m just getting paranoid. But now, with Tammy going against my orders I’m wondering if I ever gave her them. Did I not make it clear?’
‘Let’s see if the Indian boy can tell us any more. He’s waiting to be interviewed now.’
‘Okay but…’ Mann sighed. ‘I don’t think it’s him, he’s covering for someone he cares about.’
Mann left the bodyguard’s finger on the parapet for the eagle and followed Mia off the roof.