Hungry Ghost by Stephen Leather Page A

metal grilles and sweeping floors. The traffic was denser; there were at least a dozen cars between them, and Howells was having trouble keeping the Mercedes in sight. He came to a busy crossroads and drove straight on, seeing too late that the Mercedes was indicating it was going to turn right again. Howells checked his watch. They’d been driving for twenty-five minutes and he doubted if the girl’s school was much further away. He’d pick them up at the crossroads tomorrow morning. Now he had some shopping to do.
    He found a diving shop in Tsim Sha Tsui, not far from the hotel. It used up about a third of the cash that had been left over after he’d paid for the ticket from Bali, but he got everything he needed. The guy in the shop must have thought it was Christmas – a customer who didn’t bother bargaining and who paid in cash. He carried his purchases back to the hotel in two nylon bags and spread them out on his bed.
    There was a single steel cylinder that the salesman had filled with a compressor at the back of the shop, a demand valve, flippers, a mask and a snorkel. Howells had thought about a wetsuit and discarded the idea, because he didn’t plan on being in the water for long and the South China Sea wasn’t particularly cold. And if he didn’t wear a suit he wouldn’t need a weight belt; the cylinder would just about balance his natural buoyancy. He’d bought a pair of trunks and a large knife and scabbard to strap to his calf. He already had a diving watch, a gold-plated Chronosport that he’d owned for going on fifteen years, but he’d paid for a good underwater compass. He didn’t need a depth gauge.
    He’d been prowling among the shelves when he spotted a small metal cylinder with a mouthpiece attached to its mid-point that he’d never seen before. He’d seen one in a James Bond movie once – Thunderball , he thought – but that had obviously been faked because it had only been six inches or so long, hardly enough for a couple of breaths even under very high pressure. The packaging on this one said that it was an emergency air supply and could be used for approximately thirty deep breaths. It was, the blurb stressed, only for emergency use. Howells bought one. The shop also sold a range of security equipment: truncheons, torches, Mace sprays and the like. Howells included a pair of handcuffs in his purchases.
    He laid them all out on the bed and checked each item again before repacking them and putting the bags in the bottom of the wardrobe. Then he got the Yellow Pages out of the cabinet under the TV and began looking for a firm that hired out boats.
    The first one he went to see was moored a couple of hundred yards from the shore of a place called Hebe Haven, about half an hour’s drive from the hotel. There were hundreds of boats there, all shapes and sizes, yachts and junks, but the nearest was at least fifty metres away, a small, white and red cruiser that obviously wasn’t lived on. He wouldn’t be disturbed, he was sure of that, and if pushed he could always move it.
    It was built in the style of an old-fashioned junk, shiny teak boards with a raised deck at the back and a single mast, but no sail because down below there was a powerful diesel engine. It bobbed in the water to the sound of ripples slapping against seasoned wood.
    ‘You like?’ asked the tall, gaunt Chinese boy standing next to Howells, leaning over the rail and staring at the sea.
    ‘It’s a good boat,’ said Howells. ‘How old is it?’
    ‘Four years,’ said the boy. ‘Built Kowloon-side. For banker.’
    ‘What happened to him? Emigrate?’
    The boy laughed, showing yellowed teeth. ‘No emigrate. He steal from bank. Go Taiwan. Bank sell boat. Now I rent.’
    It seemed perfect, thought Howells. The hull looked solid, and the portholes were small, too small for even a child to climb through. Below decks was a large master bedroom and a thick, teak door which opened to reveal a small chemical toilet, and