Second Sister Read online

  Nga-Yee let out a shaky breath and started wondering why N had listed this website. This was the only address that linked to the adult section of Popcorn. Perhaps this was one of Siu-Man’s classmates, and the picture had something to do with a private grudge between them. When she looked at the background of the third photo, though, she saw a blue school uniform on the bed. This was nothing like the Enoch uniform, which was white.

  Maybe that bastard’s playing a prank on me, she thought, having wasted a half hour staring at the pictures. Then another possibility occurred to her: N had realized that she would go through his entire list thoroughly, and so included an embarrassing link to punish her. If she complained, he’d probably say this proved she should have stayed out of it and left the detective work to the professionals. In that case, continuing to look at these images and the other hundred web links would just play into his hands. She shut down the computer, left the virtual world that had completely absorbed her for the last two days, and realized it was already ten o’clock on Sunday night.

  She dreamed about her sister again that night, a dream that shocked her into wakefulness. A tubby man with a pixelated face was groping Siu-Man in a nightclub while a group of men stood nearby watching, their faces obscured, taking pictures and videos with their phones. Looking winsome, Siu-Man let the large man do whatever he liked as she loosened her clothing, apparently enjoying his hands roaming over every part of her. As the man pressed himself onto her little sister and started to grind, Nga-Yee screamed. Siu-Man, lying on the couch without a stitch on, shot her an annoyed look, as if to say, “What’s it to you?”

  The next morning, fragments of the nightmare clung to her mind. Rather than dwell on them, she forced herself to be strong and set off to meet N at the school.

  It seemed that fate had it in for her. As she was heading out, she found an aggravating letter in the mailbox.

  The Housing Authority had sent her a moving notice, letting her know she’d been allocated a new apartment and summoning her to the admin department before July 7 to deal with the paperwork. Her new address would be Tin Yuet Estate, at Tin Shui Wai in the New Territories. She decided to ignore this for the moment. She had the right to turn down two offers, after all—though there was no guarantee the next two wouldn’t be in even more remote locations.

  The sky was gray and overcast, matching her mood. Although it kept threatening to rain, not a single drop fell. Now she stood at the school gate, looking up and down the street, hoping to see N appear. Instead, the only people in sight were an old lady who looked like she scavenged trash for a living, a man in a suit standing by the side of the road, and two older gents, probably retirees, chatting away as they ambled along. The four-star Cityview international hotel was across the road, but it wasn’t checkout time yet, so only one tour bus was parked there, with no sign of the noisy Mainland tourists who would appear later.

  Ten minutes went by, and she glanced at her watch to see that it was half past eleven. Just as she was cursing N for his lack of punctuality, a thought occurred to her: Could he have phoned Miss Yuen and changed the meeting time without telling her? She pulled out her cell phone and dialed his number.

  A ringing sound came from her left. When she turned, there was N, walking slowly toward her, looking down at the old-style phone he’d used to call Miss Yuen.

  “Impatient people never accomplish anything,” he said, hitting the button to reject her call. Typical, that the first words out of his mouth would be an insult rather than an apology for his lateness.

  “Why didn’t you dress properly?” Nga-Yee said. She didn’t have time for his rudeness, because his appearance was more of a concern. As usual, he was in cargo pants and a red hoodie, and although it was zipped up, she was pretty certain that under it would be his usual wrinkled T-shirt.

  “I wore shoes,” he protested, holding up a foot to show that he was in sneakers rather than his usual flip-flops. “This is very cool streetwear. You just don’t have an eye for it.”

  “You told Miss Yuen you were my good friend. I don’t want her thinking I date badly dressed men!”

  “What’s your problem?” He grinned nastily. “You think you’ll ever see her again? Are you planning to become best friends? Who cares what she thinks of your taste in men?”

  She couldn’t think of a single rebuttal.

  “There are a lot of morons today who only care how other people see them. They think the world revolves around them. Stop reading novels. Have a look at Richard Feynman’s What Do You Care What Other People Think? or Yoshihiro Koizumi’s The Self-Obsessed Pig,” N sneered. “Don’t forget, our objective today is to find some people who’ve been hiding on the internet. If it turns out that Miss Yuen is kidkit727, will you still care about her opinion of us?”

  Nga-Yee kept her mouth shut.

  “Let’s go.” N was already walking. “If you can’t keep up, I’ll investigate on my own. Oh, and remember, my name today is Ong.”

  They entered the school and told the desk clerk why they were there. He gave them visitors’ passes and brought them to a classroom on the third floor of the central building, where Miss Yuen was waiting. As soon as Nga-Yee stepped in, the teacher stood and came to greet her.

  “I’ll do the talking,” N murmured as Miss Yuen approached. Nga-Yee couldn’t argue. Miss Yuen would have heard.

  “Hello, Miss Au. Are you doing all right?” asked Miss Yuen. “And this must be Mr. Ong.”

  “Hi there,” said N, having switched to a friendly expression, shaking hands warmly with the teacher. “Thank you so much for everything you did for our Siu-Man.”

  Nga-Yee was shocked, but she managed to keep her expression neutral. N had said “our” as if he were family. Once again, the speed with which he’d changed personalities astonished her. He was probably trying to annoy her, she thought. Now that she’d made it clear that she didn’t want Miss Yuen to think they were an item, of course he was going to make himself out to be Siu-Man’s future brother-in-law.

  “Siu-Man was a good girl, but …” Miss Yuen trailed off, as if unwilling to bring up something so sad. “But let’s not stand around talking. Please, come with me.”

  She led them to a small meeting room that was furnished with a square table and eight chairs around it. There was a drink machine in a corner of the room, from which she poured two cups of tea for the visitors.

  “These are the books Siu-Man left in her locker,” she said, placing a white plastic bag and a small notebook on the table. The bag looked like it held six or seven textbooks.

  “Thanks,” said N, reaching out to take them.

  “And this is where her classmates wrote their condolences.” Miss Yuen indicated the notebook. “She left us very suddenly, and her classmates found it hard to cope. We asked them to put their thoughts down here, in the hopes it would comfort them.”

  Nga-Yee flipped through the loose-leaf notebook and found almost the same phrases on every page: “I’ll always miss you,” “Rest in peace,” “Condolences,” and so on. Many of them were unsigned, and Nga-Yee wondered if they’d treated this as yet another piece of homework, to be done quickly and never thought of again. In the twenty-odd pages, only a couple of entries were longer than a few words. One of them caught Nga-Yee’s eye:

  “Siu-Man, I’m sorry. Please forgive my cowardice. Since you left, I can’t stop wondering if it’s our fault. I’m so, so sorry. May you rest in peace. I hope your family can recover from their grief.”

  No signature. There was no way to be sure, but Nga-Yee couldn’t help wondering if this might be kidkit727. Would the culprit feel guilty about what happened to Siu-Man? But what did this “cowardice” refer to? Nothing about kidkit727’s messages seemed cowardly.

  As Nga-Yee went through the notebook, N said, “Thank you, Miss Yuen. I’m sorry it’s taken us this long to come.”

  “Not a problem.” She smiled and nodded. “I thought you probably needed more time.”

  “Thank you for y
our understanding.” N bowed slightly. “I hope this hasn’t caused you too much trouble. It can’t be easy for the school to deal with something like this.”

  “We follow directives from the Education Bureau, so everything’s under control.” Miss Yuen looked sidelong at Nga-Yee. “We had already set things in motion during Siu-Man’s incident on the MTR. When the accusation was posted in April, we set up a response team to deal with it. A handful of parents complained about our handling of the situation, but they don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes. The students have mostly calmed down. It’s not been much trouble.”

  “The Popcorn post must have caused quite a stir,” said N. “If you don’t mind me asking—was the student body investigated to see if anyone here was responsible for the false accusations? After all, the school was affected too.”

  Nga-Yee was startled that N would cut straight to the chase like this, though she wanted to hear Miss Yuen’s answer.

  The teacher’s face sank. “You’re right, Mr. Ong. That post did cause quite a bit of harm. As educators, though, our main concern is our children’s futures, and we have to think of them first. We couldn’t afford to heighten the fear and unease. After Siu-Man’s death, we brought the same attitude to counseling the students on their grief so as to rebuild their trust and sense of security.”

  “It’s been hard on you. I’m sure the school’s protocols are very thorough, but it’s hard to be prepared for the unexpected, and there’ll always be bad luck,” said N, nodding. “Now, if I remember right, you teach Chinese?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to know what Siu-Man talked about in her composition homework. I don’t mean her reasons for doing what she did, but it would help if we just knew what she was thinking at the time, and if there was anything on her mind we weren’t aware of.”

  “I don’t remember anything in particular …” Miss Yuen paused. “If you wait a moment, I’ll go have a look. We keep the students’ essays and publish the outstanding ones in the school magazine. The rest get returned at the end of term. I’m sure her writing will mean much more to you, of course.”

  “That would be great.”

  Miss Yuen left the room. Nga-Yee made sure she was gone, then turned to ask N what he wanted with Siu-Man’s homework. As soon as she opened her mouth, he said, “Let’s talk about this later.” And so she sat in silence, studying her surroundings. When she saw the school crest on the wall, it suddenly sank in that her sister had been in this place almost every weekday for the last three years. She’d been alive here. Through the window of the meeting room, Nga-Yee could see a corridor in the other wing of this L-shaped building. A girl was skipping along in her white short-sleeved uniform, textbooks clutched to her chest, animatedly chatting with her companion. Nga-Yee imagined she could see Siu-Man’s shadow trailing behind them.

  But Siu-Man was no longer here.

  In an instant, her nose twitched, and she found herself holding back tears. But she knew her purpose: to find her little sister’s killer. She silently vowed not to shed another tear till the culprit had been brought to justice.

  She glanced at N, who was sitting bolt upright and looking composed, playing the part of the bereaved family member to the hilt. He actually wasn’t dressed too badly, she realized. The cargo pants and hoodie were regular clothes and didn’t seem too casual. It also helped that he was clean-shaven. Now that Nga-Yee thought about it, it was only at their first meeting that he’d looked like a homeless bum. Every time she’d seen him since, there hadn’t been a hint of stubble on his face. Perhaps his outfit was why Miss Yuen had lowered her guard—someone in a suit asking this many questions might have provoked suspicion. Looking at him now, no one would have thought he was a detective.

  Perhaps this was more social engineering, Nga-Yee thought.

  Miss Yuen soon returned with a stack of dog-eared papers. “This is all her homework for this year, ten pages in all.” She placed the essays in front of them. Nga-Yee felt a wash of sadness at the familiar handwriting, but she refused to let herself be distracted as she reached out to look through them. The topics were the usual: “Planning for the Year in Springtime,” “My Dream Job,” “Tea House Observations,” and so on. There were a few more difficult subjects, such as “An army can change its general, but a man can’t change his ideals. —The Analects. Discuss.”

  “Siu-Man’s grades weren’t too good, were they,” N said, glancing through the stack. Her handwriting wasn’t bad, but every essay had been given a grade of around 60.

  “She was average—not too good and not too bad,” said Miss Yuen, smiling. “Most students aren’t able to produce good writing yet. Siu-Man was better at science, and no one can be the best at everything.”

  Miss Yuen was selling it well, but the comments she’d left on the assignments told a different story: “Quite smooth, but you haven’t said very much and didn’t address the main point.” “Your argument is unclear. Please write with more attention.” The essay on “My Dream Job” had the lowest score, and Miss Yuen had written, “You’re going around in circles. Just say what you think.”

  “Siu-Man wasn’t great at writing,” said Miss Yuen, noticing that Nga-Yee was going through the essays in detail. “Her vocabulary was all right, but she lacked substance. Probably she hadn’t experienced enough of life. If only—no, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s all right. Thank you for giving these to us, Miss Yuen.” Nga-Yee felt as if she were seeing an unfamiliar version of her sister in these pages, and it might help her mourn. Now that she thought of it, once Siu-Man started secondary school, she’d stopped asking for help with her schoolwork, and that’s why Nga-Yee had had no idea about her grades.

  “Did Siu-Man behave herself in class?” N asked.

  “She was a little playful in year one—I taught her Chinese that year—but she gradually learned to behave.” Miss Yuen turned to Nga-Yee. “In the second half of year two she grew quite introverted, probably because—because of your mother’s illness.”

  Nga-Yee felt a burst of sadness.

  “Did she have friends in class?” N asked, still playing the part of a close family friend. “She did mention one or two names, but I can’t remember …”

  “Well, she did spend a lot of time with Lily and Kwok-Tai at one point, though they seemed to drift apart later.”

  “This is Lily Shu and Chiu Kwok-Tai? Now you mention it, I do remember. They came to visit once, I think, though I haven’t met them.”

  It took everything Nga-Yee had to sit quietly through N’s blatant lies, but she told herself that he must have a plan.

  “Yes, that’s them. I don’t know what happened, probably some kind of love triangle. Young people these days grow up so soon.” Miss Yuen sighed.

  “Love triangle?” The words were like needles stabbing into Nga-Yee. She’d thought of her sister as a little girl, nowhere near ready to start dating, but she had no way of knowing whether this was true. Less and less certain that she knew her sister at all, she thought of the picture kidkit727 sent, and the accusation in the post that Siu-Man had stolen someone’s boyfriend.

  “Apart from them, was there anyone else? Any other schoolmates?” N asked.

  “Mmm, not that I can think of. She seemed to get on fine with people. If you’re asking whether she was bullied, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t.”

  “No, no, nothing that serious. I didn’t mean to imply that.”

  “After what happened to her on the MTR last year, there were some rumors going around the class. The boys especially came up with all sorts of embellishments. Then the school sent them all for counseling, and the children understood that their behavior was hurting the victim a second time, so they stopped. When that post appeared, I didn’t notice any unusual reactions among the students, maybe because we’d already counseled them.”

  “Could we meet some of her classmates, Miss Yuen? Just for a chat. Lily and Kwok-Tai were at Siu-Man’s funera
l, and we’d like to thank them.”

  “Um …” Miss Yuen hesitated a moment. “All right. The exams are over, so they’re spending their morning making up lessons and checking their answers with each other. The afternoon is self-study and extracurriculars. It’s almost lunchtime now; I’ll bring you to their classroom.”

  “Thank you,” said N, thrusting the plastic bag of textbooks at Nga-Yee. Apparently carrying these would be her task, while he took the essays and condolence book.

  Miss Yuen led them out of the meeting room, but as soon as they got to the corridor, N pulled her aside and whispered into her ear. By the time Nga-Yee noticed this, Miss Yuen was nodding and saying she had to go take care of something in the staff room.

  “What was so urgent?” Nga-Yee asked curiously. The two of them were now alone in the corridor.

  “I didn’t want her to get in our way, so I got rid of her.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said you were sick.”

  “What?”

  “I told her you had chronic insomnia after what happened to your sister, and the doctor said that speaking to her friends might help you get past some of your psychological blocks,” N said, back to his regular monotone. “I said that if she was there, the kids might be inhibited, and that wouldn’t help your rehabilitation. So she told me where the classroom is. We can go in as soon as the bell rings.”

  Nga-Yee bit back her annoyance at this fake illness—again, she had to trust that he was doing this for a reason. “Miss Yuen seems nice,” she said instead.

  “Nice, my ass.” He glanced back at the staff room behind them.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind that for now.” He shoved Nga-Yee toward the stairs at the end of the corridor.