“Well, he didn’t find us,” she said. “So yes, I suppose they could.”

“Did he leave the clinic?”

“I don’t know.”

“Better stay here for a bit,” Courchene said. He went to the hospital canteen to get us a bit of supper. There wasn’t much. Watery soup, a small bowl of rice each, Chinese cabbage fried with a few thin strips of meat that we hoped was pork. Courchene had a deck of cards and we played whist to take our minds off the horrors that would otherwise have occupied us as the rain poured down in the darkness outside.

It was after midnight when I heard someone coming down the hall, pounding on doors as he went. I heard the inhabitants of our residential wing coming out of their rooms, one by one. Dr Lai was furious about being wakened again. Someone thumped on Courchene’s door. None of us went to open it. The thumping came again, louder. Emily swallowed a hiccup. More thumping. Feeling our anxiety, little Raymond began to cry.

A gunshot sounded at the level of the lock.

“Holy Mary,” Professor Duffy whispered.

“We’re in for it now,” Courchene said. “Hide.”

But there was no time.

The door opened and into the room stepped Cheung Tak-Wing, the Angel of Vengeance himself, face as red as a wound, eyes blazing. “Now,” he said to Emily. “Get.”

Emily shook so hard she could barely stand. She tried to hand Raymond to me.

“The baby too,” he said. “Didn’t you swear it was mine?”

She paused, then nodded.

He grabbed her and Raymond, keeping the gun pointed at Courchene, Duffy, and me as they left so we wouldn’t get up to follow.

I didn’t realize I’d stopped breathing until I started again. “He’ll kill her. We have to get her back.” In my mind’s eye, I saw him, dragging her by the hair across the city as the Japanese patrols stared. My mind’s ear heard Raymond wailing. I said, “Where did that shape-shifting devil get a gun?”

I noticed Ting-Yan had a guilty look.

“Did you give it to him?”

“Why would I do such a thing?” Her face was pale as a bowl of congee.

“Mother of God,” I said. “It wasn’t you.” Still, she was quiet. But I put two and two together. “It was his dead ghost brother, Tak-Tam.”

“Don’t call my lost husband a ghost. He wanted Tak-Wing to have some protection against the Japanese.”

“You East River people have been smuggling arms.”

She didn’t deny it, so I knew it was true.

CHAPTER 44ESCAPE

September 21, 1942