The art was impressive. Monet, Pica.s.so, Manet, Klimt. Small canva.s.ses, tasteful. The gallery was open to the public but the place was empty - everyone was at the tables.

"I talked to Steve Wynn before I opened this place. You know Steve?" Coulter asked.

"No," Killian said.

"His idea. America's money is now China's money. And what do the Chinese like to do more than anything?"

"I don't know," Killian said.

"Gamble! They're complete degenerates. Not like us. A wee tote on the National and the Derby. These guys are all in. Even the women."

"I see."

"Anyway, this is a small casino by Macau standards, but we're attempting to pull in a more select clientele. I tell you, son, when the British Airports Authority kills the goose and the airline business goes belly up this place will still be a cash cow."

They walked through the empty gallery into the contemporary art room which was also deserted about from a couple of uninterested security guards.

"You like art?" Helena asked.

Killian nodded. "I do. I'm trying to expand my horizons."

"Aren't we all. Come on, let's go eat," Coulter said.

The Pearl restaurant in the Coulter Macau was packed. The chef was already gunning for a Michelin Star even though the place had only been open a couple of weeks. It was Portuguese-Catonese food, rich and exotic but because of the boat trip Killian ignored the truffles and strange fish and ordered the steak; he had it well done which scandalised the chef.

Wine flowed.

Convo flowed.

Helena talked about growing up in southern Italy, about her early days modelling, about coming to Dublin for some car show, about meeting Richard. She name checked Paris, LA, Milan, London, New York and, unlike some models he'd met, she actually knew the cities, not just the convention centres or the tented area in Bryant Park. He liked her and Coulter was growing on him too. It was unusual for a high flyer in Coulter's circle to have dinner with such a lowly potential employee as himself and Killian knew that it wasn't because of his dazzling personality. Except when he needed to turn it on for business he wasn't much of a yakker and he didn't have anecdotes to tell. He couldn't talk about his tinker childhood. He couldn't talk about New York. He couldn't talk about his Belfast underworld days. There were a lot of stories but none of them were appropriate. And besides he preferred to listen: to her accent and Richard's tales of the London A-list.

Killian knew he was a good listener. Sean said that that was his best characteristic. And it was a rare one to have in Ireland.

Two tables over Coulter's heavies were trying to be un.o.btrusive. Killian had spotted them immediately. Chinese goons. Three of them. A tough wee crew. Not that clever looking, maybe, but hard.

They beaded him for a while and one of them lip-curled when he touched Richard on the shoulder, but as time pa.s.sed everyone relaxed. The restaurant was full, the service impeccable, the meal excellent.

"The Chinese name for Macau is The Oyster in the Mirror Sea," Coulter explained. "It's a gift of the ocean, especially today with so much of it built on reclaimed land."

"I like that," Killian said, and from the best seat in the house he looked out at the blackness of the South China Sea and the occasional lights of container ships pa.s.sing in the dark like some ma.s.sive luminescent sea creature.

His gaze slipped back to Richard and Helena. They were holding hands under the table like kids. Helena appeared to really love him and of course he was nuts about her.

He tuned in for the punchline to Coulter's latest story and laughed when she laughed.

Coulter was self-deprecating and funny, but at the back of his stories it was always that hard-working Presbyterian farm-boy thing. He never talked about what had really got him going in the seventies - the fact that he had been in the right place at the right time and had somehow been very lucky with his breaks.

Few people wanted to credit luck rather than their own sweat and Killian didn't mind. And not that it mattered now anyway. Rich men could tell it like they saw it. That was their right.

They had two and a half bottles of exquisite wine and Killian was more than a little jazzed. He said goodnight. Coming out of the bog he took the silly risk of b.u.mping into one of the goons who was either coincidentally going in to p.i.s.s or, more likely, to check up on him.

He took the goon's wallet and as he followed the mental map Coulter had given him back to one of the three Presidential Suites, he looked at the notes which all seemed to have a zero too many.

Some cleaner was going to get the tip of her life tomorrow.

He put the card key in the door and opened it.

They was a brown envelope lying on the floor. He picked it up. It was the full case file on Rachel Coulter along with a personal note from Tom Eichel apologising again that he couldn't have a proper meeting with him.

"It's nothing," he muttered.

"Who are you talking to?"

He flinched but it was only Peggy, the girl from the bar, sitting in a leather armchair eating room-service ribs and flipping between the TV channels.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

She got up, walked to him and kissed him on the cheek. Her breath smelt of champagne.

"A nice Irishman told me that you were 'indisposed' but if I wanted there was a helicopter waiting that would take me to you. What's a girl to do? How could I say no to an offer like that?"

"Easily - whole thing including me could have been a set up, you could be on your way to some seraglio in the Gulf right now."

She hiccuped and kissed him again and asked: "What's a seraglio?"

"What are you eating?"

"I'm pigging out. Follow me, there's a hot tub on the balcony."

"The balcony?"

"Yeah."

The balcony.

Another stunning Blade Runner scape. Casino-hotels. Neon signs. Nightclubs. Shopping malls. Helicopters. He was right, America's money was now China's money and a good chunk of it was being gambled at roulette wheels, poker tables and mah-jong tables within the confines of this pseudo state.

The hot tub was perfect. Peggy had changed into a bikini top. Where had she gotten that?

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"Kansas, what about you?"

"Belfast."

"Ireland, right?"

"Right."

"And they call you Killian?"

"They do."

She waded across the hot tub. "You remind me of someone," she said.

"Oh Jesus, don't say your dad. I'm not that ancient."

She laughed. "Let's go down to the tables."

"Are you kidding? Absolutely not."

"Okay, let's go to the bar on the roof, they have a bar on the roof."

The problem with young people is that they always wanted to move, he thought.

"Okay," he said.

The roof-top bar: rat-pack muzak, low-key neon, a few men in suits making their way through the single malt menu.

"A martini, please," she asked the Cantonese barman.

"I'll have the same," he concurred.

They were underdressed, she in her work polo shirt, he in his suit trousers and shirt. They were still damp from the tub. She drank her martini and slid the empty back across the bar. The barman caught her eye; she nodded and he began making her another.

"Let's get a booth," she said.

Killian followed her. He waited for her to sit. But she pushed him down and sat on his lap. She kissed him. She sat next to him in the curved booth and rummaged in his pocket for his smokes.

"What are you doing here, Killian?" she asked him.

"A job interview with Mr Coulter."

"Did you get it?"

"He wants me to do it and I'm thinking it over."

"He's rich, you should take it."

"I think I might."

They had two more drinks. Killian felt drunk. She pulled him close, lifted his shirt and slid her hand under the waistband of his pants. She felt his d.i.c.k harden. She kissed him and he pressed his knee against her crotch and through two layers of cloth he could feel the moisture in her pubis.

"Come on!" the barman yelled.

They went back to the room and stripped and kissed and made love and when she came he came and for a fraction of a second, for an intake of breath, for a heartbeat, life was sweet.

Sweet.

While she slept he slipped back onto the balcony, lit a cigar and adjusted the chair so that it was almost flat.

He looked at Tom's file on Rachel.

The firm they'd hired to find Rachel weren't bad at the raw intelligence but they'd rented the heavy mob to bring her in. Russians resident in England. He skimmed their report which was half-a.r.s.ed and full of excuses.

He thumbed the 10 x 8s. She was an attractive woman. Thirty with curly, reddish hair, a retrousse nose, green eyes. A little like Helena. Coulter had a type.

He read the lawyers' brief. A lot of claims, but a lot of evidence to back those claims. He skimmed the bio. She too was from the Ballymena area. She'd gone to Queen's for a year. She'd taken astronomy. That was about the only interesting thing about her. The rest was boilerplate. Of course she'd quit and drifted, eventually moving to Dublin, getting a hostess job in Temple Bar. He yawned. There was a lot of information and he was very tired. He set down the folder and looked at the Southern Hemisphere stars. He'd liked astronomy too when he'd been a kid. Astrology, to be more strictly accurate.

"Killian, where are you?" the girl asked from the bedroom.

He picked up the briefing notes and put the photograph of Rachel Coulter back in the folder. He had told himself that he wasn't going to take the case until after he'd met Coulter but now there really wasn't any alternative: to turn down this much money would be obnoxious. And he liked Richard and he liked Helena.

He back went to bed and they fell asleep in each other's arms but when she woke early the next morning Killian had already gone.

CHAPTER 5.

LAWYERS, GUNS AND MONEY.

It took her an hour to find a payphone that worked. It wasn't that they'd been vandalised, it was just that no one used them anymore and gradually they'd all been taken away. In the end she had to go Derry City Hall.

Her head was throbbing.

She hadn't had meth, or indeed anything, for three days. I his was the cold turkey.

But this was not the way to quit. She was not in "a place of healing", she did not "love herself", she was not "submitting to a higher power".

Her head felt like it was going to split in half.

She dialled Ballymena first. She was praying that she'd get the answer- phone but her stepmum picked up.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"h.e.l.lo, Gillian."

"Oh my G.o.d, where are you?"

"Gillian, I can't tell you."

"Rachel, what are you doing?"