Текст книги "The Trafficked"

Автор книги: Lee Weeks

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 23 страниц) [доступный отрывок для чтения: 9 страниц]

5

‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

The newly appointed Superintendent was young for the post—in his mid-forties. He was ten years older than Mann but he looked a lot more. Mann doubted whether he had ever looked healthy. He was an exam-taker—a pen-pusher. He had spent too many hours swotting in bad light.

Wong was a slight man with a round face that was dominated by square chrome-rimmed glasses. His hair was pressed flat with the straightest side parting and a touch of psoriasis. He tugged at his cuffs now to hide the eczema around his wrists where the shirt-sleeves rubbed. His desk was super neat, just a desk-tidy full of sharpened pencils and highlighters and a photo of his wife and two kids in a dark wood frame. They all looked just like him. It was a lucky promotion for him. Mann could see he was still savouring it. When Wong finally spoke he didn’t look at Mann, but carried on filling in the form in front of him.

‘Don’t think for one minute I want you here, Inspector Mann,’ he said, finally closing the file and pushing it to one side. ‘You’re a trouble-maker, a rule-breaker. In the end you make it hard for all of us. If I had a choice I wouldn’t have men like you in the force at all.’

He replaced his pen back in the desk-tidy, sat back in his chair and stared hard at Mann. Mann could out-stare most men—a thing he’d learned to perfect when dealing with triads.

‘But…it seems I have no choice.’ Wong was forced to blink, but made up for it by smiling sarcastically. ‘You have made yourself some influential friends. Your assistance has been

especially

requested. That is why I had you recalled from vacation. You are to help in a kidnap case.’

‘Find someone else. I’m investigating a new trafficking ring. I can’t afford to take time out.’ Wong was going to drive Mann mad. He paused more than he spoke. Mann hadn’t the time for it. He took a deep breath to let his temper subside. He would play ball, then he would get out and do his own thing—like he always did.

‘As I said, you have been especially requested. Your

friend—

CK Leung—has insisted that you help in the investigation into his daughter’s kidnap.’

Mann felt the hair bristle on the back of his neck. ‘He’s no friend of mine.’

‘Whatever you think of him, Inspector Mann, he is one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest citizens.’

‘Wealthiest triads, you mean. They look after their own. Let them sort it out between themselves.’

‘He happens to be the Dragon Head of the Wo Shing Shing triad society, yes, but he deserves our help like anyone else. Anyway, we have no choice in the matter. It is not a situation any of us like.’

‘The only daughter of his that I know is Victoria Chan, and she’s a grown woman.’

‘Amy Tang is his daughter by a girlfriend. She has been kidnapped—snatched from a boarding school in England. A ransom was paid two weeks ago but she hasn’t been returned. She’s the third wealthy Chinese kid to be kidnapped in the last two months in the UK.’

‘The others were returned unharmed?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did they take her in daylight? Were there any witnesses?’

‘It was during the day. Some children saw her with a man—but their descriptions aren’t good.’

‘He doesn’t know that. People saw him. That’s the point. He doesn’t intend to free her. This is not to do with money—not with

this

child. They’re making a statement. It’s to do with teaching CK a lesson. It’s triad business. Like I said—let them sort it out amongst themselves.’

‘We don’t have that option. You are from England, isn’t that right?’

Mann could see he’d been building up to this.

‘I’m from Hong Kong. But my mother is British. I was educated in the UK.’

‘Well, we are sending you home.’ Wong laughed like a mountain goat falling off a cliff. Mann repressed a shudder. ‘The Metropolitan police have undercover agents in Chinatown but haven’t come up with anything so far. You are to go to London and help with the investigation.’

‘Send someone else.’

‘It has to be you.’

Mann kept his eyes fixed on Wong whilst he dug furtively into his pocket. He found what he was looking for, flicked open his phone and pressed the ‘record’ button.

‘In real terms I have nothing to lose by refusing. You intend to have me transferred anyway, it’s already common knowledge. I want some reassurance if I agree to go. So, here’s the deal…I go to London for you and, in return, I get to stay in the OCTB…for at least the next two years.’

Wong fiddled with his glasses, pulled at his cuffs.

‘All right.’

‘All right what?’

Wong sighed with annoyance.

‘If you go to London you can keep your job at the OCTB for the next two years. When will you be ready to leave?’

‘I need a quick shave and a shower. I’ll catch the overnight flight tonight.’

Wong returned to filling in his form with a grunt. Mann walked back to the office where Shrimp was hovering to hear the outcome and Ng was writing up a report. Ng swivelled around on his chair. He rolled his eyes towards Wong’s office. The Superintendent could be seen tidying his desk.

‘Where have you been transferred to? Tibet? Outer Mongolia?’

‘London.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Temporarily—to help with an investigation.’

‘Awesome. Can we all go?’ Shrimp’s face lit up. ‘London is supposed to be

the

place to get vintage clothes—there’s Carnaby Street, Petticoat Lane, Brick Lane even.’

Mann held up his hand to stop him as he was gathering speed. He shook his head. ‘Nice try, Shrimp, but afraid not. The only Lane you’ll be seeing is the Lane Crawford shop in Causeway Bay.’

‘Why London?’ asked Ng.

‘Did you know CK Leung had more than one child?’

Ng shook his head.

‘Well, he does—a twelve-year-old daughter at school in England, and she’s been kidnapped.’

‘Why you?’

‘Special request.’

Ng wasn’t impressed. ‘Be careful, Mann. Remember:

Deep doubts, deep wisdom, small doubts, small wisdom.

CK has a plan and evidently you feature in it. If they kill that little girl, God help them. If he blames you—God help you.’

‘I know. But it will be worth it to me if I get it right. I have Wong’s assurance…’ he reached into his pocket for his phone, pulled it out and pressed

play.

Wong’s voice came over, muffled but it was definitely him. ‘This says that I can stay in the department.’

Ng rolled his eyes and sighed as he took his wallet out from his pocket and begrudgingly handed Shrimp a hundred-dollar bill.

Shrimp took it from him and grinned. ‘That the way the mop flops, old man—nothing personal.’ He turned to Mann and waved the bill in the air. ‘I bet on you staying, he bet you’d be kicked out. But what about the investigation into the new sex-trafficking ring, Boss? What’s going to happen to that?’

‘I don’t think these events are all random. A spate of wealthy abductions—someone’s raising funds and not just anyone—has to be someone with the clout behind them. We know CK has control of the largest trafficking ring. We know there’s a new boy in town. The other kids were kidnapped purely for money, funds. CK’s daughter’s abduction is more than that. Someone is forcing him to show his hand. Carry on the investigation this side—get out on the streets and listen to the talk. Keep tabs on Stevie Ho. We need to find out who he’s working for—is his allegiance still to CK, or is he with the new boys? According to that list you gave me, Ng, Stevie was in London before he went to the Philippines. He must have had business there. If he’s still working for CK he would have brokered the ransom. Why did they choose this child now? It isn’t by accident and they haven’t got what they wanted from CK. My hunch is that this kidnapping has something to do with Stevie increasing his trafficking routes. That means, courtesy of my new friend, Superintendent Wong, my investigation just went global.’ Mann waved and smiled at Wong through the glass. The Superintendent scowled back at him. Mann laughed. ‘I think I’m going to like this open-plan arrangement.’

Angeles, Philippines

Fields Avenue, Friendship Road, Blow Row—on the surface, Angeles, a ramshackle town a few kilometres north of San Fernando and an hour’s drive north of Manila, had just a few filthy streets with mediocre restaurants and garish bars to offer the tourist. There was not a great deal to do—there was a nearby volcano to climb but no nice beaches. There was little reason to come to Angeles except for sex. The town was created for that purpose.

Angeles was born to service the needs of the men at the nearby American naval base at Clark. When the Americans were pushed out by the do-gooders, the priests and the nationalists who no longer wanted the Americans’ help or their military bases, the whores and the whorists were left with nowhere to go. The Colonel and a few others stepped in to save those communities, and from ‘disaster’ they created ‘opportunity’—a new Angeles was born, a Disneyland just for sex—a city of fallen angels. Now it was a major destination for every whorist and paedophile in the western world.

The Colonel sat with three other men on one of the four tables outside the Bordello on Fields Avenue. He paused, beer bottle pressed against his mouth, and watched Jed, a big black guy, swagger towards him, walking the walk, talking the talk, bling hanging from around his neck in layers of gold chain and a diamond crucifix. On his arm was a tiny Filipina named Peanut. Jed glanced the Colonel’s way, nodded his head respectfully, grinned at the other men and then swaggered on past into the Bordello.

The Bordello was like all the other bars and hotels down the avenue—a facade. From across the road, face on, it looked like a mock-up of a western saloon, but from the side it looked like a cardboard cut-out supported by a scaffold and attached to a windowless concrete block. It was situated three-quarters up Fields Avenue, before the road widened, branched out and the hotels began. They weren’t proper hotels. There were no five-star accommodations on Fields Avenue. Most hotels offered their rooms at an hourly rate.

The Colonel had called a meeting for eight o’clock in the Tequila Station. He had plenty of time till then. He drank his beer and surveyed his kingdom. In the thirty years he had lived in the Philippines, Angeles was where he’d always been. Firstly as a Chief Petty Officer stationed at the nearby American naval base at Clark, and latterly as the self-styled saviour of the city of fallen angels.

Brandon sat directly to the Colonel’s right, British, shaved head, ex-Marine, his voice thick with a Portsmouth dialect, akin to a gravelly cockney. He had tattoos of Chinese script on both his arms and an eagle stretched across his upper back. He was not a man to move hastily. He had learned to sit back and observe. It had kept him alive in the Marines; it would continue to keep him alive, as long as he never forgot it. Brandon had been with the Colonel for eighteen months now. His job was to control the women, make sure that the young ones stayed scared and compliant and that the others felt the back of his hand. Brandon had not found it easy in the beginning. Hitting women was not in Brandon’s nature, but he had got used to detaching his brain from the work. That’s all it was—work. They were merchandise. The Colonel liked him, he knew that. One day he wanted to take over from him. Of course, there were obstacles to that, and that’s why Brandon had to be good at waiting and watching.

Next to him was Reese, an Australian who was stuck in the seventies—a string of love beads around his neck and flowery board shorts on his skinny legs. His surfer’s curls that were once his pride and joy were now straw, and his once beautiful face was now thin and deeply lined. He sat cross-legged, swinging his suspended leg nervously and fiddling with his cigarette packet.

The fourth man called himself the Teacher.

A few westerners sat in the Bordello at the bar enjoying a late-afternoon beer. It was their lull time. The evening unfolded in a regular pattern. The needs of the whorists were always the same—eat, sleep and fuck—but they formed their own patterns according to their age. From lunchtime onwards the younger ones emerged in packs, tired and hung over. They needed food and a good few beers and to socialise with each other. They got rid of one date, sobered up and recharged themselves ready for another evening of heat and sweat and DNA exchange. The older whorists were loners, even if they had come along with another male they didn’t feel it necessary to stay with them all day and all evening. They sat at bars on their own, picked up a girl early. They were after a companion to have dinner with and spend the night snoring next to. They preferred the calm surroundings and the melancholy country music of the Bordello. They needed to pace themselves.

A barmaid named Comfort kept the energy circulating in the bar with a big smile and a substantial push-up bra. Her laugh ricocheted around the walls as she bantered happily with the three men who had nothing else to do but sit and watch her.

Comfort looked up as Jed and Peanut came in and she moved down to the end of the bar where the signing-in book was. She leaned over the book, pen ready.

Jed didn’t acknowledge the other men in the bar. He walked in as if he were on stage. He talked loud, laughed louder. He was showing the older men that he was a young stud.

‘You got a room for an hour, baby?’

He rested his elbow on the counter and leaned over to get close to Comfort and look further down her cleavage. He grinned smugly; his gold teeth flashed in the gloom of the bar. She grinned back. Peanut stood waiting patiently for it all to be over. She was an un educated girl from the countryside, and spoke very little English. She was unattractive: dark-skinned and rough-featured. Her scrawny legs dropped down from beneath a micro denim skirt like two sticks of gnawed liquorice. But Peanut was a hit with men who liked their women to look like undernourished girls. Jed towered over her at six foot four to her four foot nine.

Comfort flicked her hair back from her face and turned her large round eyes, as clear as amber marbles, towards Jed, ignoring Peanut altogether.

‘You go-in’ to need two hour, Big Boy.’

He raised an eyebrow and let out a laugh that boomed out across the bar. ‘Damn! Is that right? How come? You plannin’ on joinin’ us?’ He ran his hand down her forearm. ‘You want a repeat performance?’ He stroked the round of her breast as it rested on the signing-in book. ‘You missed me that much you want some more of the big man?’

Comfort looked up at Jed and bit her bottom lip playfully.

‘You spoil me. Give me ree-al good time larse time.’ She reached out and ran her fingers lightly down his chest to his crotch. She felt the muscles in his abdomen tense. ‘I’m go-in to have to give it to you for free, Big Man. You leave door unlock. I come up an’ party wid you. Okay?’

He grinned inanely. ‘Oh yeah, baby! Me and Peanut here are gonna be waitin’ for you.’

He flashed his teeth and clicked his tongue, placed his hand on Peanut’s tiny bottom and steered her towards the stairs at the far end of the bar. A door there led to the two floors of short-stay rooms. Above them slept the women who serviced those rooms. He turned back and winked at Comfort. She winked back, waited till he was out of sight then turned to look at the Colonel. He was watching her through the window. He tapped his watch at her. She nodded.

7

For a few seconds Amy didn’t know whether her eyes were open or not—it was too dark to tell. She felt around the bedcover with her hands. It didn’t feel like the soft cotton one that she was used to. It felt hard, waxy. She scrunched it in her fingers—no, it definitely didn’t fold in her hand the way it should, it was like cardboard. She blinked again…yes…her eyes were open. She lay there in the darkness and thought hard. She tried to remember what had happened: Lenny picked her up from school; they drove to an apartment block next to lots of others, in the middle of nowhere where lots of buildings were going up all around. They came up in a lift. The flat smelled of paint and had hardly any furniture in it. It didn’t look as if Lenny or anyone lived there. Lenny didn’t know where anything was. He had opened the wrong door in the kitchen when he wanted the fridge. Then he had shown her her room. She remembered sitting in the lounge and watching telly whilst Lenny made a few calls. It was then that she had begun to feel very uncomfortable and she had looked for her schoolbag so that she could make a phone call. When he came off the phone she asked Lenny where it was. He said it was still in the car and that they’d get it in a minute when they went back out. But nothing felt right. Amy had drunk her Coke and pretended to watch the telly but inside she wanted to cry. Then she remembered feeling so tired that she just had to close her eyes for a little while. She gasped now. Was she naked? Had he undressed her? She felt under the bedclothes. It was all right, she still had her clothes on. She blinked again and this time she saw a faint orange glow in the room coming from beneath the door. She looked around; only moving her eyes, she didn’t dare move her head. Yes—there was the desk, the chair, the old lamp. She was lying on a mattress on the floor, not in a bed; it was the room she had seen before. She must have got sick and Lenny had put her to bed. That was it. She could hear the sound of a television in the room next door.

‘Lenny?’ She sat up and called out. ‘Lenny?’

The television went off. She heard the rustle of someone moving; she heard someone approach the door and turn the handle.

A man stood in the doorway. He was Chinese. Amy knew his type: rough Hong Kong low-life type. She had been around types like him all her life.

‘Where’s Lenny?’

The man didn’t answer for a second and Amy could see that he had something behind his back. Only when he came into the room did she see what it was—it was a length of rope with a loop at the end.

8

Johnny Mann went back to his flat to unpack and repack his case before he headed over to Stanley Bay to see his mother and explain why he wouldn’t be over for Sunday roast. He knew she would be looking forward to seeing him. He hadn’t caught up with her for a while. The last case had kept him working twenty-four-seven and then the aftermath had left him needing to get away and recover his sanity.

‘They’re lovely.’

He stood behind her in the hall mirror and finished fastening the string of pink pearls around his mother’s neck. She reached up and touched the hand he had placed on her shoulder and smiled at him in the mirror. Molly was about to hit seventy but she kept herself fit and active and stood erect. She was a good-looking woman, strong-featured with piercing grey eyes and a straight roman nose; she had high cheekbones and ivory skin. Her hair was a beautiful mix of grey and silver interwoven with darker shades. It was long and thick and she twisted it into a bun and caught it with a clasp at the back of her head. Now that Mann stood behind her he realised how slight she was. Her shoulders felt bony beneath his hands.

‘You shouldn’t have spent your money on me, but it’s very thoughtful of you, Johnny.’ She patted his hand before turning away. Mann followed her through to the kitchen.

‘Nonsense—it’s a pleasure. How have you been, Mum?’

She put the kettle on. ‘I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.’

He watched her make tea. He liked the familiarity of her actions—her hands never dithered or wavered. Her actions were always measured and decisive and her fingers moved with grace.

She was not a gabbler or a waster of words. She was a woman who took her time and thought things through. She was a holder-in of emotions. He had never once heard her raise her voice in uncontrolled anger. Molly didn’t boil over, she just simmered. She was prickly, almost, except her heart was soft—not everyone could see or knew that, but Mann did.

He looked around him. Something was missing in the flat—the maid hadn’t come in to say hello to him as she always did.

‘Where’s Deborah?’

‘Day off.’ Molly didn’t turn to look at him as she answered.

‘Mum?’ He could tell by her sudden busyness—looking for a teaspoon in a drawer for seconds that she knew where to put her hand on at once—that she was not telling him the whole story.

She glanced over to him on her way to get milk from the fridge.

‘Well, I don’t need anyone full time. What will I do if I have nothing left to occupy my time? I gave her some money to go back home to the Philippines for a while. She has kids she hasn’t seen for months. It’s not right. I am able to look after myself.’

‘And you have enough money to afford an army of maids—it’s Hong Kong, you have to have a few maids, Mum; it’s just the way it is. You have all the money you could ever need in the bank. Why don’t you spend some of it?’

She brought the tea over to Mann, who was sitting at the kitchen table.

‘When the time comes you will inherit it, then you can decide what to do with it—for now I don’t need the money.’ She was getting agitated.

‘I don’t want it. I want you to make a point of spending every last dollar of it, leave me nothing. You are still young, Mum—you look great for your age. You need to get out more. It’s time to make some more friends: join clubs, go on singles’ holidays.’

‘Ha!’ she laughed. ‘With a bunch of other oldies, you mean?’

‘I am sure amongst all the incapacitated octogenarians you will find a few that are like you. Why don’t you go on a cruise or go around Europe and look up family and friends. Use the money to have some fun?’

She stared into her tea.

‘I don’t want to touch the money. I have everything I need.’ She got up and went to wipe the work surface where she’d made the tea.

Mann could see that the time had come for him to drop it, otherwise she was going to clam up completely. He held up his hands in a surrender gesture.

‘Okay, sorry. Let’s drop it. Please come and sit with me. This must be the only kitchen in the whole of this expensive block of flats in which the owners sit and drink tea. Better make sure no one catches us or you’ll be chucked out of the wealthy widows’ club.’

‘Ha…’ she laughed. ‘If such a thing exists, I don’t think they would ever ask me to join, do you?’

‘No, you’re right—you’d have them donating all their money to the poor and making baskets to sell.’

A ginger cat appeared and wound itself around Mann’s legs. Molly’s face lit up when she saw it.

‘Hello, Ginger—just woken up, have you?’

‘I didn’t think you’d agree to take on David White’s cat…Never thought I’d see you with a pet; I always thought you hated them.’

‘Nonsense, it was your father who hated animals, not me. I always had animals when I was a girl, back on the farm. I grew up with them.’ She leaned her hands against the rim of the sink and stared out through the kitchen windows at the wooded hills that rose in a bank of emerald green opposite. ‘My life was very different then.’

‘I can imagine little Molly Mathews running around with straw stuck in her hair and mud on her knees.’

She turned from the window and smiled, but there was sadness in her eyes.

‘That was such a long time ago, it feels like another life. I hadn’t thought about my childhood for years until recently. Now something comes back to me almost daily—vividly—I’m not sure I like it.’ She sighed and turned back from the window, buffing the taps with a cloth as she did so. ‘Anyway, son, tell me…How is it with you? Did you get the rest you needed?’ She came and put her arm around his shoulder and leaned over to kiss his cheek.

‘I did a lot of thinking. As the saying goes, Mum—you can run but you can’t hide.’

She sat opposite him and leaned forward to hold his hands in hers.

‘You mustn’t be so hard on yourself. You have been through such a lot these last few months.’

‘It’s nothing to what others have endured, Mum, and I feel responsible for some of that.’

‘You mustn’t blame yourself, Johnny. No one could have known that Helen would be killed.’

‘But I let her go, Mum; I have to live with that.’

‘You let her go because you didn’t think she was the one for you. You didn’t know she would be killed.’

‘If Helen had never met me she’d be alive today.’

‘Chan was the one to blame, not you. None of us could ever have imagined he would turn out like that. All those years we knew him as a child, we never realised how envious, how vindictive and downright evil he was.’

‘Father saw it in him. He hated him.’

‘Your father saw something in him: a ruthlessness, a mercenary heart. He knew the triads well and he knew that Chan had been enlisted.’ Molly gave an involuntary sigh and picked up Ginger the cat and held him close to her. ‘You have to be a bit kind to yourself. You have to let it go now. Time will heal, son.’

Mann looked at his mother and searched her eyes.

‘I will never let it go, Mum. In my own way I got justice for Helen, and I will get it for father. I will find out who killed him and I will make them pay.’

‘Your father made enemies. It killed him. We can’t keep raking up the past.’

‘And I cannot forget it…the sight of my father being executed will never leave me. I can see it so clearly. It is branded on my mind’s eye, on my subconscious, in vivid detail. There is no forgetting for me until I get it explained. I want to find out why his death was ordered and I want to get the man who ordered it.’

Molly was staring at him, horrified. Mann felt instant remorse. He had not meant to worry her. He reassured her with a smile and stroked Ginger, who purred in her arms.

‘I never knew that about Dad—that he hated animals.’

She looked at him and met his eyes with her piercing grey stare.

‘There was a lot you never knew about your father.’