Beneath It All

The emaciated corpse lay cloaked under a Union Jack flag, the dried blood staining the cement beneath. It was an odd scene, even for the eyes of seasoned Hong Kong Police Detective Angus Poon, and he immediately knew this case could spell trouble.

His partner, Wong, a rookie barely six months out of the academy, fidgeted nervously beside him. “Did you know about the tunnels here?” he asked.

Poon didn’t answer. He’d walked past Leighton Hill countless times and never noticed the tunnel entrances. Ten years in the force, and the city still found ways to surprise him.

“Take it off,” he muttered to his partner. “The flag. It will only make things more complicated.”

The case would certainly get attention. Leighton Hill was one of the wealthiest residential developments in Hong Kong, a body found underneath it would make headlines. The wealthy would demand answers.

His work had changed over the years. Everything had become more political. A decade ago, British officers had trained him, now, the UK government treated the force like the enemy. It was all deeply disappointing.

***

A few weeks earlier, a few hundred feet away, the busy street of Jaffe Road buzzed with activity.

Jaffe Road was built on reclaimed land in the early 1900 to house the influx of immigrants from mainland China. The squatter homes and workshops of the 1990s had transformed to today’s car repair shops, neon-lit bars, overcrowded public schools, and maze-like public housing estates, all pressed together and painfully aware of each other’s presence.

The rich of this world live on the top of the hill, and the poor live crowded together on the bottom.

Claire Blakestone woke in her apartment on Jaffe Road, and smelled the fumes from the repair shop below. She flicked on a light, hoping not to see anything scurry into the shadows. Nothing moved, not that it mattered. The SPCA was only a block away, and that’s where she would spend her days tending to animals. Stray dogs with ticks. Cats left in boxes. The pets no one wanted.

Having left Norwich England and taken a two-year contract in exotic Hong Kong all initially felt like a dream come true.

Claire locked her door and stepped into the humid air. On the walk to the SPCA, she stopped at Foundation Coffee. A trendy coffee shop, it was seemingly the first sign of gentrification on Jaffe Road.

Her morning flat white was her one moment of calm before the chaos of the day began.

“Morning,” a voice said, one which emanated from a man sitting at the counter—young, well-groomed. He was a familiar face she had catalogued in her mind the way you do with strangers you see often enough.

“Hi.” She chimed back.

“I see you here often. Work close by?”

“At the SPCA.”

“Nice. An animal lover. I’m Damien, by the way.”

“Claire.” She nodded, and sat on the other side of the cafe. Soon, Damien got the hint and left. She watched him get into a Tesla parked out front and drive off. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so terse.

That afternoon, she saw Damien again, in the lobby of the SPCA.

“Hi Claire!” He gave her a warm grin. “I came in to look at the animals.”

“Are you adopting?”

“Someday. My mother is allergic.”

Claire was about to ask him if he lived with his parents, and possibly about why he was here, but he spoke first. “Do you ever get out of here? And go anywhere but here and Jaffe Road?”

“Not often.” She realized she had done nothing but work and subsist in a dark tiny apartment for months.

“Let me take you someplace new?”

Damien’s forwardness would have earned him an eye-roll in Norwich, but here, it felt somehow normal, and somehow flattering.

She took his mobile number, and he was off again.

Their first date was at the Craigengower Cricket Club. At the front door, a members-only sign blocked her path until a receptionist nodded at Damien and opened it for her. The club’s colonial facade looked like a relic from another era. Inside the courtyard, middle-aged couples in white strolled around a private lawn, playing what appeared to be lawn bowling. They took a sear inside in the dining room. Claire felt out of place in her Temu dress, but Damien didn’t seem to notice.

“We have a family membership,” he said. she realized this club signalled an upper echelon of wealth. Damien was rich. Interesting.

“How did your family succeed here?” she asked, stirring her drink.

“School uniforms,” he said matter-of-factly. “No one thinks about them, so no competitors, and parents pay triple what they cost.” He said it like it was an inside joke that he himself didn’t think was very funny. “I live over there.” He pointed at the gleaming apartment towers on a hill across the street. “Leighton Hill.”

“Nice place!” she said, and smiled. Was it an invitation? Suddenly she wondered why he was so interested in her. A fetish about blondes? There weren’t many in Hong Kong. She decided definitely not to go to his apartment today.

Damien looked at her with curiosity. “You are probably wondering why I talked to you. I went to school in Gresham. I heard your Norfolk accent when you were at the coffee shop.”

“Really? Gresham. I know that school.” Her school teachers would mention James Dyson, the vacuum cleaner guy, who went to school there in Norfolk. The private boarding school was certainly out of her parent’s price range.

“My parents thought it would be good for my education, or maybe they just wanted to get rid of me,” he said, and then had a sip of his drink.

She mentioned the places she knew in Norwich, but Damien didn't know any of them, claiming the boarding school didn't let their students out much.

Later, after the gin and tonic had warmed her enough to make her feel fuzzy, he leaned in. “I can tell that country clubs probably aren’t your idea of fun. If you want an adventure, let’s check out some World War 2 tunnels I know tonight.”

“What tunnels?”

“The ones under Leighton Hill over there. Most of the entrances are locked, but I found one that opens.”

She studied him. “Did you ever go in?”

His smile froze. “Only the entrance. I was afraid to go in by myself.”

They drank for hours, and later that night an adventure seemed like a grand idea.

The alley where Damien said the tunnel entrance was quiet, its only occupant a bored Filipino helper walking a corgi while staring at her mobile phone. They waited until she left before he tugged at a rusted metal door.

“Get in, quick.”

The air inside was damp and smelled of mold. Damien’s flashlight lit its interior, revealing graffiti, dust, and the occasional beer can. She wanted to turn around.

“Don’t be scared,” he said. The confidence in his voice motivated her to follow him.

The tunnel branched at an intersection. Suddenly, everything went black. Claire screamed.

The light flicked back on. “Just joking!”

“Don’t do that again,” she hissed.

She felt his warm hand touch her shoulder. “It will be fine,” he said. Damien pointed the light up at his face, and grinned. Around a corner, he swept the beam upward, illuminating a ladder bolted into the wall. “Let’s check it out.”

They climbed. At the top, Damien helped her onto a narrow ledge then turned, his flashlight catching on something behind them.

A skeletal corpse. The body was slumped against the wall, its skin shriveled. A British flag was draped over it like a shroud.

“He must’ve used the flag to try to stay warm,” Damien said, eerily calm.

Claire’s throat tightened. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

“Probably a 2019 student protester. Hiding from the police.”

“And he just died here?”

Damien shrugged. “They were afraid of getting caught by the police.”

Claire felt like she was going to throw up.

“What happened if the protesters were caught?”

“They were beaten up, and then released after 48 hours.”

“It beats this,” Claire said looking at the body, the unintended pun curdling in her throat.

After they got out of the tunnels, Damien was hesitant, but Claire insisted they call the police. Soon, police arrived in vans with flashing lights, crowded around, and wrapped yellow tape around the tunnel entrance. A Detective Poon took their statements with the weariness of a man who had seen too much chaos.

“We’ll contact you if we need anything more,” he told Claire.

The day felt like it should have been a bonding experience, but she couldn’t take the image of the damp tunnel and the dead body out of her mind. She received a text from Damien the next day. “Let’s meet for a drink?” “Busy this week, let’s try for next,” she replied. She threw herself into work, avoiding Foundation Coffee. The free espresso at the SPCA office tasted flat, but it was better than running into him and being reminded of her brush with death.

Weeks passed. A message blinked onto Claire’s screen:

“Need to go to Vietnam to manage the family factory for a while. Text you when I get back, Damien.”

She typed, “Good luck—” her fingers shook while typing a follow-up about the Border Collie she’d rescued that morning—how it had trembled in her arms. She deleted the story. Sent only the two words.

A reply, or any update at all, never came. Maybe he didn’t have mobile access in Vietnam.

By summer, her contract ended. As she packed her suitcase, her time in Hong Kong played through her mind—the endless days at the clinic, the humid streets, and that single shocking night in the tunnel. Looking back, Damien's timing seemed too perfect. Had he known what they'd find down there? Had any of it been an accident?

The plane lifted into the heavy sky, carrying her away from the crowded city. Soon she'd be back in Norfolk, where an assistant veterinarian position waited, and where everything that had happened in Hong Kong would fade into her past.