Of greyhounds and gangsters

OVER grilled prawns, a hock of boiled ham, fish curry, chorizo, paella, red wine and Scotch, Father Lancelot Rodrigues and his guests—a handful of European priests, mixed-race Macanese, local Chinese and the Irish manager of the dog-track, Brian Murphy—were full of admiration. Lieutenant-Colonel Manuel Antonio Apolinario had actually chosen to come back. Earlier that morning, Father Manuel Teixera, an 84-year-old Jesuit historian, who has spent the most recent three of his 73 Macau years in a hospital room overlooking the new casinos and hotels that are rising from the land reclamation in the harbour, had also brought up the matter of the colonel. “While he was convalescing,” explained Father Teixera, “we became intimate friends. The colonel explained everything, though he swore me to secrecy. But he promised he would come back and get to the bottom of this thing once and for all. Whether they are too big for him or not: that's another matter.”