to being a supporter of animal welfare, and now she had his endless buckets of money behind her. The Mee Fan supermarkets started carrying organic food—her influence. One day she broke into a lab at Shanghai Second Medical University to release some mice. But while looking for rodents, she went through all sorts of no entry doors, and touched all sorts of things she shouldn’t have touched. She caught some horrible disease and died within three days.’
‘ Aiee! ’ said Flip. ‘Like Ebola or someting?’
‘Something like that. Maybe Ebola or Marburg or SARS. I don’t know exactly. None of this was ever printed of course, but you hear things in the right circles.’
She seemed to have stopped speaking, but Joyce felt the story was unfinished. ‘I thought you were going to talk about Vega—where does he fit into all this?’
‘Her rich husband went crazy with grief and anger. He fled to London. Dropped out of sight. This was maybe two years ago. Then, about seven or eight months ago, people in my circles started hearing about a new animal rights group coming out of London. It was called the Children of Vega and it was run by a young man codenamed Vega. It had a special focus: animal welfare in China.’
‘You reckon that was him? The husband?’
Linyao nodded. ‘I reckon he had decided to glorify his wife’s memory by starting a group in her honour, to fight for animal welfare in China. They don’t do leaflets. They don’t do picketing. They don’t do interviews. They are a real civil disobedience type group—and they have huge budgets: his pockets seem to be bottomless. Their first action was to stage a major raid on a live food market in Guangzhou. A great team of people in black masks descended on the place and held up the stallholders. They stole loads of amazing animals —there were red and white flying squirrels, masked palm civets, Chinese muntjacs, martens, leopard cats and so on. The really cool thing was that they left behind some money for the stallholders—so that, technically, they had bought the animals rather than stolen them.’
‘Wow,’ said Flip. ‘Soun’ like he got style.’
‘Style and scale. He only does big jobs. Their second job was to close down a bear bile farm in Sichuan. They used their weapons in that one, and a security guard got killed, which upset a lot of people in vegetarian circles. But the police never traced it to anyone. Everyone wore masks. I mean, no one knows officially whether either of those jobs were Vega’s gang— no one claimed responsibility for them. But to people in veggie circles, it seems obvious. Who else could it have been?’
‘Why is he coming here tonight?’ Joyce asked. ‘Does he want to sign us up? Masked people and weapons and things— it all seems a bit heavy.’
Linyao shook her head, to the younger woman’s relief. ‘He doesn’t want to sign us up. I told him that we had a small group and were not very into civil disobedience. We just cook tofu. But he’s planning a few operations here, I think, in the next week or two. He’s had the Shanghai Friends of Creation and All Living Things working for him for some time, setting up something. He’s very strategic. He sends an advance team who work with local activists, suss out the scene, and prepare a project. Then he and his main team fly in, do the job, and disappear. He said he needed to be here for a few days and wanted some place where he could be sure the food was strictly vegan, to his personal standards. That’s where we fit in.’
‘Phew,’ said Joyce. ‘So we’re not part of the action. We’re just the caterers.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Armed break-ins, like, so aren’t my thing. But cooking up a decent lentil loaf—that I can manage.’
A tinny burst of pop music erupted below the table. ‘My mobile again,’ Linyao said.
‘You like Cheung Hok-yau?’ Flip commented, his admiration for her ring-tone evident from his face. ‘Classy mama.’
Joyce walked
‘ Aiee! ’ said Flip. ‘Like Ebola or someting?’
‘Something like that. Maybe Ebola or Marburg or SARS. I don’t know exactly. None of this was ever printed of course, but you hear things in the right circles.’
She seemed to have stopped speaking, but Joyce felt the story was unfinished. ‘I thought you were going to talk about Vega—where does he fit into all this?’
‘Her rich husband went crazy with grief and anger. He fled to London. Dropped out of sight. This was maybe two years ago. Then, about seven or eight months ago, people in my circles started hearing about a new animal rights group coming out of London. It was called the Children of Vega and it was run by a young man codenamed Vega. It had a special focus: animal welfare in China.’
‘You reckon that was him? The husband?’
Linyao nodded. ‘I reckon he had decided to glorify his wife’s memory by starting a group in her honour, to fight for animal welfare in China. They don’t do leaflets. They don’t do picketing. They don’t do interviews. They are a real civil disobedience type group—and they have huge budgets: his pockets seem to be bottomless. Their first action was to stage a major raid on a live food market in Guangzhou. A great team of people in black masks descended on the place and held up the stallholders. They stole loads of amazing animals —there were red and white flying squirrels, masked palm civets, Chinese muntjacs, martens, leopard cats and so on. The really cool thing was that they left behind some money for the stallholders—so that, technically, they had bought the animals rather than stolen them.’
‘Wow,’ said Flip. ‘Soun’ like he got style.’
‘Style and scale. He only does big jobs. Their second job was to close down a bear bile farm in Sichuan. They used their weapons in that one, and a security guard got killed, which upset a lot of people in vegetarian circles. But the police never traced it to anyone. Everyone wore masks. I mean, no one knows officially whether either of those jobs were Vega’s gang— no one claimed responsibility for them. But to people in veggie circles, it seems obvious. Who else could it have been?’
‘Why is he coming here tonight?’ Joyce asked. ‘Does he want to sign us up? Masked people and weapons and things— it all seems a bit heavy.’
Linyao shook her head, to the younger woman’s relief. ‘He doesn’t want to sign us up. I told him that we had a small group and were not very into civil disobedience. We just cook tofu. But he’s planning a few operations here, I think, in the next week or two. He’s had the Shanghai Friends of Creation and All Living Things working for him for some time, setting up something. He’s very strategic. He sends an advance team who work with local activists, suss out the scene, and prepare a project. Then he and his main team fly in, do the job, and disappear. He said he needed to be here for a few days and wanted some place where he could be sure the food was strictly vegan, to his personal standards. That’s where we fit in.’
‘Phew,’ said Joyce. ‘So we’re not part of the action. We’re just the caterers.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Armed break-ins, like, so aren’t my thing. But cooking up a decent lentil loaf—that I can manage.’
A tinny burst of pop music erupted below the table. ‘My mobile again,’ Linyao said.
‘You like Cheung Hok-yau?’ Flip commented, his admiration for her ring-tone evident from his face. ‘Classy mama.’
Joyce walked
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