Текст книги "The Trafficked"

Автор книги: Lee Weeks

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 23 страниц) [доступный отрывок для чтения: 9 страниц]

9

‘What is that fucking awful smell?’

The Teacher sat back in his chair and waited for an answer. Reese sniggered.

The Colonel paused, beer bottle to his mouth. ‘What smell?’ He lifted his chin and sniffed the air from right to left.

‘The all-prevailing smell of shit in this place.’

Reese giggled nervously. ‘You get used to it, bro.’

‘Don’t you smell it, Colonel, or is your nose buggered from all that speed you shove up it?’

Reese and Brandon looked anxious. It wasn’t often they saw their boss at the butt of someone else’s jibes. He wasn’t the best at taking a joke. But then, he didn’t usually have to suck up to anyone. His word was the law in Angeles. He owned five of the big clubs there: Hot Lips, Lolita’s, Lipstick, The Honey Pot and Bibidolls. They were the best clubs in Angeles with the youngest, prettiest girls—handpicked by him. He also owned several bars and hotels. The Bordello was one of them, the Tequila Station another. The Colonel set his beer carefully down and looked at the Teacher. He smiled.

‘I thought the same when I first got here. I thought “what a shit-hole”. Now I think “what a gold mine”. The smell of shit and the smell of money have become one and the same for me.’

‘Just as well, because this place is an open sewer.’ The Teacher looked about him in disgust. ‘Literally…’ He was referring to the foul running water that ran the length of the street and followed a course beside the cracked and uneven pavement.

The Teacher gave up the conversation and sat back and drank from his beer bottle. There was too much noise to talk. Opposite the Bordello the mosquito drivers with their noisy motorbikes with sidecars, were trying to impress the girls who stood outside Bibidolls in their bikinis. They were competing to see who could rev their machine the loudest—the night was young and they were bored. They belched fumes and beeped at one another whilst the girls giggled at them—although both sides knew it would not end in a coupling. The boys didn’t make enough money and the girls didn’t give it away for free. The girls’ sole aim in life was to marry a foreigner and get off the Fields. They were Guest Relations Officers, GROs. Their job was to entertain the tourists on Fields Avenue. Besides their yellow plastic bikinis they wore permits that hung long around their tanned necks and settled just below their pert cleavages—permits that had their photos and stated they were legally permitted to work in the clubs and that they were eighteen and over. Most of them weren’t; their documents were forged. The girls swished back their hair and pushed their chests forward as they bantered with the whorists as they passed by.

Upstairs in the Bordello there were no GROs. This point on Fields Avenue was the boundary. Here marked the beginning of the descent into unlicensed bars and twenty-four-hour hostess clubs where the girls didn’t wear badges. They often didn’t wear bikinis. They were kept locked in a back room. They were children.

The Colonel flashed the group of mosquito drivers a look that silenced them instantly and they moved hastily away.

‘What about the police? Have you fixed it? Blanco hates fuck-ups.’

The Colonel drank from his beer at the same time as he kept his eyes fixed on the Teacher. He was letting him know that whilst he would take

some

, he would not take a lot of dissent, especially not in front of his men.

He set his bottle down. ‘Blanco doesn’t need to worry. Over the years I have cultivated a good working relationship with the police. Some I have had to trick by providing them with a girl for the night and then informing them that they have slept with a minor. Others, I have had to give a small share of my profits to. Most of the time it has just taken hard currency.’

‘Everyone here has a price, huh?’

‘Not everyone…

he he

…’ Reese was eager to show he could be part of the conversation and saw his chance to impress the Teacher. ‘…not the Irish priests.’

‘Yes…’ The Colonel stared disapprovingly at Reese. ‘…that is true…they are all over the fucking Philippines like a plague.’

‘Yeah, man. They have a refuge just up the road from here and for as long as the Colonel’s been pimping the girls the priests have been saving them. Twice the Colonel’s been to court

…he he…

He had to pay off everyone: the girls’ parents, the police and the fucking court judge.’

‘I think you will find…’ The Colonel glared at Reese and made sure that he understood that he had said enough before taking his eyes from him. ‘…that it isn’t just us bar owners who would happily pay to see the priests shot. Even the local church here doesn’t want them interfering. After all, we bring in big revenue

and

we always give a fucking big donation to charity. But—nevertheless they remain a thorn in our sides. One that I hope you will remove sometime soon—very soon.’

The Teacher nodded. ‘You honour your side of the bargain, I will honour mine.’

Comfort came to the table with a tray of four beers. As she set the drinks down the Teacher ran his hand up over her flanks and bare legs. She giggled, tried to stay upright but was pulled into his lap. She put her arm around his neck and tipped his peak cap up so she could get a proper look at him.

‘Hey, you handsome man.’ She looked at his sky-blue eyes staring back at her. ‘You marry? Wanna nice Filipina wife?’

The Teacher held onto her hair and tilted her head backwards. He smiled.

‘What’s the offer on whores this week—two for the price of one? Buy one, get one free?’ He grinned sarcastically. ‘Hello “Bogof”. Now fuck off, you disease-ridden piece of shit.’ He pushed her from his lap.

Comfort smiled the way that Filipinos always did whatever the situation. She understood the aggression, but not the words. She knew all about the Kano’s temper. She bore the scars on her body from the Colonel’s off-days. She looked at the Colonel for guidance. She had been his favourite when she was ten. Now that she was twenty, she was way past her prime, but she still felt an affinity to him. He had looked after her, in his own way. She still had her uses for him.

‘Ready?’ His expression hardly ever changed. He had been born looking pissed-off, red-faced, angry. His bulbous eyes were puffy above and below like a chameleon’s. If his head was turned upside down his eyes would look the same.

She stood—‘Yes, Kano’—picked up the tray and went back into the bar.

10

Jed wasn’t wasting any time. He’d been in enough of these places to know the score. What you paid for and what you got were two different things. The hotel looked great from outside, but inside it was just a windowless room with a dirty mattress on the floor and no air-con. Still, he wasn’t there for long, and he had just one purpose in mind. He kept his bling on, nothing else. The heavy gold chains swung back and forth beneath his chest, knocking Peanut in the face with every thrust.

He had a hard job controlling himself. He was excited about Comfort. She was that rare Filipina—the one that was confident enough to work it—so many of them were just ‘yes, no, pay now’ girls, but Comfort knew how to be a very good bad girl. She liked sex. She enjoyed it. He was going to take his time, even though Peanut wriggled beneath him. He knew she was eager to get it over with. It was almost time for her to go back to work. He had bought her out from Lolita’s nearly twenty-four hours ago. He’d had his money’s worth. In another hour she would be back dancing in a g-string in front of strangers. The thought of the threesome he was about to have made him thrust harder. But he didn’t want to come. He needed to wait. This was just a warm-up.

He paused, listened. He was sure he could hear Comfort in the corridor outside. There it was, her knock on the door, just like she’d said she would. He took some deep breaths, relaxed. He could wait for the fun to begin.

‘Come in, honey.’ As the door opened Jed felt the rush of air cool the sweat on his back. ‘We bin waitin’ for ya.’ He turned, slow, kept himself hard and strong inside Peanut, who lay motionless beneath him with his crucifix resting on her eye.

‘Where would sir like it? Up the arse?’ The Teacher fired two shots from a Heckler & Koch P7 pistol with the silencer attached. He fired one into Jed’s rectum to immobilise him. Boomph! He fell like a felled elephant on top of Peanut, who lay there, eyes wide, unable to move. Then he fired the other shot into the back of Jed’s head. Brain and skull fragments splattered across the wall above Peanut.

11

Mann boarded the plane and settled down for his twelve-hour flight. Better twelve than eight, he thought. At least he had some hope of sleeping five or six hours and not being force-fed like a laboratory animal every couple of hours. But sleep wasn’t going to come easy. He thought about what his mother had said. She had come to a crossroads in her life, it seemed to Mann. She was in a reflective mood. Today, for the first time ever, his mother had hinted that her marriage had not been as it should. Now Mann had the task of revisiting his memories from a different angle. He had to take away the child’s perceptions, straighten their edges and see them through untinted glasses. It would be a hard task. The most time he had spent with his family had been the years before he was sent away to school—he had started boarding when he was eight—and then there were the holidays when he’d come back to Hong Kong. Was it true that their marriage hadn’t been as strong as he had always assumed? His mother always left out more than she ever said.

He was in for a long night. Thoughts bounced around inside his head. He hadn’t been back to the UK for a long time—seventeen years. The last time he had stood on British soil his father had still been alive. It wasn’t that he hadn’t meant to return, but there had just never been a good time.

Mann practised his particular type of meditation—he shut his mind to all but the pursuit of sleep. Anything unwanted, even sex, that popped into his brain was booted out without being looked at. He pulled his fleece blanket up over his face and mentally put himself on the beach, with not a bikini in sight.

12

‘La La La.

Love Love Love. Kiss Kiss Kiss Me.’

Eight-year-old Sophia sang along to the jukebox in the Tequila Station.

‘Love that one, sweetie. You coloured that real pretty.’

Sophia turned the pages of her book and showed her father her efforts. Terry ran his hand affectionately over Sophia’s soft brown curls, keeping one eye on her work and the other on the door. It was a quarter to eight. The meeting was scheduled for eight. The others would be arriving soon.

The Tequila Station was a large sprawling bar set out on three levels, the most popular bar on Fields Avenue. Just down the road on the same side as the Bordello and within spitting distance of all the best clubs, it was the perfect meeting place for whorists who, in between fucking and partying, came to play pool, relax and get something to eat. It was the favourite place for the younger of them—a home from home. Then, fed and watered, they partied solidly till three in the morning.

Terry and Sophia sat just past the main bar on the right, down two steps in a private seating area that was screened from prying eyes. It had a RESERVED sign permanently on it, although most of the time that wasn’t needed. Everyone understood it was not an area for the general public to sit in. Terry and Sophia were the first ones to arrive.

Sophia was still in her school uniform and was doing her homework whilst Terry talked on the phone beside her. His laptop was open. Terry had installed Wi-Fi so that he could connect with the world from anywhere in the bar.

Sophia sucked the end of her coloured pencils and paused frequently to survey her work. Occasionally she demanded her father’s attention. She didn’t speak—she pushed her face into his as he talked on the phone, and pointed to her work. He smiled and nodded, pretended to be interested.

‘Wait,’ he mouthed to Sophia. She tugged at his arm. He held the phone away from his mouth and covered the mouthpiece. ‘Wait, sweetie. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

She pulled a cross pouty face and went back to colouring, her tongue protruding just a little as she concentrated on keeping the colours inside the lines.

He continued his conversation, a smugly satisfied look on his face.

‘She took a lot of finding. It was thanks to our men in black…Yes…She’s being seasoned right now. Be ready in a week or two. I know, I know,

ha ha

, a nonstop fucking supply of baby whores—couldn’t ask for more. Yes…So far, so good…The deliveries should keep coming regularly. They are standing by their word. But this

is

the Philippines; they might always sell out to the highest bidder…. Yes, the Chinaman, is he still buying up everything? We need to show them we mean business…It’s in hand.’

Terry finished his phone call and gave his attention to Sophia, but she had lost interest in her colouring and had now got out Princess Pony to play with. She started combing its hair. The smell of raspberry-scented pink plastic nauseated her father as much as it delighted her, and he instinctively turned his back on her and watched the door. He knew that the others would all be on time. Only the main man would be late, as was his privilege.

Sophia was making clacking hoof noises and Princess Pony was trotting across the table when the door opened.

The security guard stepped aside to allow Reese through. He didn’t get frisked like everyone else, none of the Fields’ VIPS did. The strict ‘no weapons’ policy all around Angeles City did not apply to them. Brandon walked in behind Reese.

The four young black guys playing pool looked up and watched as the two men entered. One of them nodded in their direction. Laurence also worked for the Colonel and had the job of looking after four of the Colonel’s clubs. The Colonel had taken him under his wing as ex-US army; he had felt a bond with him.

Reese and Brandon picked themselves up a drink, and then went straight over to sit with Terry and Sophia. Sophia looked up from her colouring. She knew them both but she never bothered to talk to them because they did not acknowledge her. Only Reese talked to her sometimes, when her daddy wasn’t around.

Laurence finished up his game of pool and came over to join them. He sat down and checked his watch.

‘Five to eight…same old fuckin’ bullshit. We have to be early, but he rocks up when he fuckin’ feels like it. Then he’s gonna turn up with all that “time of reckoning” shit, spoutin’ stuff from the Bible.’ He looked at the others for support. Only Reese sniggered. The Colonel had a Bostonian accent that Laurence could mimic very well. Terry stared back, expressionless, and Brandon just looked around the bar. He could not afford the luxury of a gripe.

Terry looped his arm around the back of Sophia’s seat. At fifty-six he was the oldest member here. He had been in the Philippines for eighteen years. He’d come as a backpacker and an opportunist and stayed. He had married a local widow with several young children and he had fathered one of his own—Sophia. Terry knew how to keep everything low-profile. He went about doing his work unhindered. He bought houses and then offered them for tailor-made paedophile holidays to people from all around the world. Terry was the Internet king. People contacted him from all over the world and he got them what they wanted. He found them a house, he even arranged for a child to be waiting in their bed when they got there. Not just any old child: one to order, one handpicked and pre-seasoned. Now, with his new contacts, Terry was able to have a bigger hand in child recruitment. He had control of a new gang who were delivering on time and on target. No longer did he have to rely on the small-minded gangs of feuding triads to recruit the girls, he was now in control of a slick team that could locate and capture any number of young girls. Terry was a happy man.

Reese tapped away with his cigarette packet, turning it over and over. He did not have room to cross his legs so instead he jiggled his left foot incessantly. Reese was Terry’s ‘gofer’. He did all the day-to-day stuff. He kept the customers happy. Reese didn’t make a fortune from it, but it kept him in a lifestyle he loved. He got to lie on a beach, smoke weed and have lots of sex. Reese had spent his childhood in care. As the boy with the golden curls, Reese had had a

lot

of attention from the other boys and the wardens. Now he had finally found peace and tranquillity in the laid-back smiling arms of the Filipinos he didn’t want to lose it and he was worried that he would: tension was creeping in everywhere. The Teacher had brought it with him and Reese felt that panic inside him just like when he was a child in the orphanage. He felt he was about to get shafted.

13

‘He didn’t have to hit me.’ Amy’s sobs broke through her words. ‘I was only looking outside.’ She touched her mouth; it was sore from where the rough Hong Kong man, who she now knew was called Tony, had hit her. She could taste the rawness where her brace had cut into the inside of her cheek. She couldn’t stop shivering.

Lenny gave Amy a tissue and she wiped her nose.

‘You are not allowed to look outside. There is no point in banging on the window anyway, the windows are double-glazed and there is an anti-glare film on them, so no one can hear or see you.’

‘Why did he hit me then?’

‘He hit you because he and Sunny’, he gestured towards the lounge, ‘are very angry with your father. You have to be quiet and do as you’re told or they

will

hurt you.’

‘Why did you bring me here?’ She blinked tears from behind the pebble-thick glass of her spectacles. ‘I don’t want to stay here. I need to go back to school now.’

‘You cannot go anywhere until your father pays up. Now, eat this…’ He handed her a Pot Noodle.

She stared at it. She was really hungry. She had not had anything to eat since she got there. She took the carton from him.

‘Can I have my bag please, Lenny?’

‘You can have your bag but not your phone. You won’t be talking to anyone for a long while. Play by the rules here and you’ll be okay—make trouble and you will suffer…Understand?’

Amy nodded, her lip starting to quiver again. ‘Thank you for the food, Lenny.’ She stared at the Pot Noodle but it was no longer in focus as tears filled her eyes. ‘Thank you very much.’

14

The Colonel walked down the street, surveying his kingdom. For most people it was difficult to negotiate the cracked and uneven pavement, but the Colonel knew every inch of it and never needed to look down to know what was there. The Shabu did that to him. The methamphetamine speeded up his reactions, made him super alert and gave him a feeling of elation and euphoria. It also heightened his perception of the world, peeling away the layers of reality like skins from an onion. He could take in and analyse every movement on the periphery of his vision. He floated along the street, watching everything and knowing all around him from the cockroach hiding behind the pipes in his bathroom, to the bartender stealing money from his till.

An old beggar woman, ghostly and barely more than a skeleton, stepped out of the Viagra sellers doorway where she lived, one arm outstretched and her hand open. She was swaying with the effort of keeping herself upright. She did not see that it was the Colonel until it was too late. For a minute he poised, hand raised to hit her as he had so many times, push her back into the alleyway to rot amongst the starving kittens and rat-bitten puppies, but, as she gasped, waiting for the blow, he didn’t do it because he saw that today she wanted it. She was hoping today would be her last. He stayed his hand, lowered his arm and dipped into his pocket. He threw some coins on the ground beside her. If the Colonel wanted her alive, alive she must stay. He was God on Fields Avenue.

He stepped over the pile of dog excrement and passed the schoolgirls touting outside The Honey Pot. Two girls were being measured for their GRO outfits. The girls rolled their eyes towards the mosquito drivers and giggled suggestively at the tailor, who was taking their measurements from waist to crotch.

The Colonel stopped outside the shop. The tailor bowed respectfully, the mosquito riders pretended to clean their bikes and the girls smiled sweetly.

‘Evening, sir,’ they chorused. He didn’t answer.

He walked on into the Tequila Station. He looked around. He was reassured all was as it should be—no unwelcome surprises, not for him anyway. Sophia looked up as he approached the table and smiled, but it wasn’t at the Colonel, she had learned not to look at him at all. He scared her with his red eyes and angry face. She was smiling because her favourite song had come back on the jukebox and now she could happily take no notice of the men whatsoever.

‘La La La. Love Love Love. Kiss Kiss Kiss Me.’

The Colonel always sat in the same place. He had the biggest vantage point. He sat facing his men, back to the wall, with a view to the bar and the street beyond. Nothing happened that he did not see. He looked around his assembled men and smiled.

He splayed his fingers out and rested the palms of his large hands on the table. They trembled without him realising. Almost as if he were a psychic about to go into a trance, his breathing was laboured. He sucked the air noisily in through his mouth and blew it dramatically out. Ever since he was a child he had been aware of his breathing. He had been a tall and gangly child and soon outgrew the cupboards where he hid from his daddy on a Saturday night when he heard him coming back from the bars—all fuelled up and no one to stop him hurting his son. Then, as the child squeezed into the small spaces, his knees pressed up against his chest, listening in the darkness for heavy footsteps, his breaths were quick and short and shallow. There was never enough room in the cupboards for him to breathe properly. So now, whenever he felt under stress, he filled his lungs right up; felt them expand as he opened out his rib cage, straightened his back, sat up erect: tall, strong and proud. But no matter how hard he tried, he could never fill them

right

up. They were always a

bit

squashed, a bit stuck together. The more he thought about it, the more obsessed he became and so the noisier was his breathing. Terry knew it. He’d seen the Colonel this way many times. At the moment, with all the stress and excitement, the Colonel was fully wound up and on the edge of exhaustion. He was continually hyperventilating. The Shabu wouldn’t let him rest. The more hyper he was, the more Shabu he snorted.

‘I have gathered you here because I have news on the shape of things to come: changes that will affect us all here in Angeles, in our world. In the kingdom that I created. Christ!’ He banged his palms on the table. Sophia tutted as her crayons rolled off onto the floor. She scrambled under the table to pick them up. ‘I shaped this place. From a scruffy little nothing that provided comfort to servicemen on the Clark military base, I turned it into a world-famous sex resort.’ He looked at the men around the table. They stared back. Nobody was going to disagree with the Colonel, especially when he was in psycho mode. His face was rubbery and feverish. His eyes were the colour of a raspberry split. He licked his dry lips continually. He was as jittery as a fly.

‘For some time I have been telling you about a man who will change things around here; a man who is going to help us turn this place into a five-star paradise. Blanco is coming. Today he sent us a show of faith.’

There was a general look of confusion and concern around the table. The Colonel’s surprises were seldom nice.

‘He has proved to me that he is committed to us. Now, this man wants you all to join him. This is our chance to go global. We can take our empire to the four corners of the world and make millions, or we can stay here in our small kingdom and count our pennies. He offers you the hand of friendship.’

‘He can stick his hand up his own arse,’ said Laurence, and looked at the others for support. Reese sniggered whilst Brandon sat stony-faced, watching and waiting. Laurence grinned and gave a deep chuckle. Terry glared at Reese. Reese, feeling suitably chastised for sniggering, went back to flicking his cigarette packet.

‘We ain’t givin’ up nuttin’,’ said Laurence. ‘We got a good thing goin’ here, don’t we?’

The Colonel swivelled his head round towards Laurence and smiled his ‘nearly smile’.

‘Pro-tec-tion,’ he over-enunciated. ‘Should this world of ours need defending we will have a mighty army at our disposal. We have the government, for Christ’s sake—you can’t get much bigger than that.’

Laurence gave a snort of derision. Brandon stared at him. Terry couldn’t believe that the big guy wasn’t going to shut up. Reese stopped his twirling. Even he knew that the Colonel wanted an audience and wasn’t asking for feedback.

‘We don’t need no fuckin’ protection. Who’s gonna fuck wid us here?’ Laurence tried to redeem himself. ‘In our own fuckin’ country? We own Angeles.’

Terry looked at the Colonel, who merely stared at Laurence and waited for him to dig himself a bigger hole.

‘Excuse me, boss, I mean

you

own Angeles, and we work for you,’ he said, backtracking as fast as he could.

The Colonel always prized himself on being a good judge of character. He trusted these men in so far as he knew their limits and knew their price. Reese was stupid but predictable. Brandon was a thug. Terry was clever. But Laurence was sneaky. He had become a little pre mature in his ambitions. Laurence was not to be trusted—the worst of all sins.

Terry spoke up. ‘Get smart here. This is no minor league. Blanco heads a syndicate so powerful that it will wipe all others off the board and we’ll be part of it. Not just a part—we are key to its success, right, Colonel? We have been offered the chance of running the whole of Angeles, Olongapo, Cebu and Puerto Galera just the way we want. We will take out all opposition; wipe it off the board. We will set up new trafficking routes, build hotels and bars up and down the islands. The whole of the Philippines will be controlled by one syndicate and…’

‘AND…’ The Colonel turned back to Laurence with not even a nearly smile on his face. His eyes were piercing. ‘If you are not

for

Blanco, you are against him

and

us.’

‘Colonel, I didn’t mean…’

The Colonel silenced him with his raised hand.

‘I know what you meant. I know everything. When you came here you were a bum with nothing but pussy and beer on your mind. I gave you all that you wanted. You sit here in your fancy clothes that I paid for and you question my authority?’

The Colonel was spraying the table with spit. Sophia had stopped her crayoning to watch the patterns it made as it landed on the table.

Laurence shrugged and shook his head. He looked hastily around the table and realised he was on his own.

‘I don’t question it, boss. Just want to be sure, that’s all. I like things the way they are.’

‘Do you? You’re happy with what you have, are you, Laurence, not thinking of branching out on your own?’

Panic flitted across Laurence’s face.

‘No way, boss.’

‘Sure,’ said Terry. ‘We have a good life here. But there’s always more. We stick together and we can achieve it. Is that right, Colonel?’

The Colonel relaxed. He could always rely on Terry. Terry was a shrewd businessman like himself. Terry was the brains in Angeles. The Colonel looked at each man in turn.

‘Now it’s our turn to prove ourselves to Blanco. We can’t afford to make mistakes. We are supposed to be professionals, not fucking amateurs. We were given a job. All we had to do was get the women to the UK and liaise with the Chinese, then we would get our money.’ He turned his head slowly towards Brandon and Laurence. ‘What happened in London was a major error. It looked bad…very bad…We looked like fucking arseholes.’

Brandon stared back at the Colonel. Laurence looked around the table nervously. Sophia picked up Princess Pony and held it up to her face and stared at Laurence through the pony’s pink mane. Sweat was overflowing from Laurence’s frown lines and trickling down the side of his face. Sophia was watching a big droplet form at the end of his nose and she was counting the seconds it took to drop.

‘What

did

happen in London, Laurence?’

Laurence flashed a look at Brandon. Brandon kept his eyes glued on the Colonel. Sophia giggled as the sweat drip landed on the table.

‘We was caught out, is all. They caught us unawares.’

‘How “unawares” exactly?’

‘One of the women needed teachin’ a lesson—causin’ trouble. I was busy, didn’t see them comin’.’

‘And where were you, Brandon, when this

punishment

was being handed out?’

‘I was called to a meeting with the Chinese, sir.’

Terry and Reese looked at one another. Everyone around the table knew the truth. It had been Laurence’s cock-up, his fault. He had been left in charge of maintaining a watch over the women. He had been too busy sampling the merchandise.

Laurence’s phone vibrated on the table. Laurence picked it up and read a text message.

‘I have to use the john.’

‘Anything the matter?’ asked the Colonel.

‘Nothin,’ answered Laurence. ‘Be back in five.’

He got up and walked across to the flight of stairs that led down to the toilets and the lower floor. The Colonel had the ‘nearly smile’ glued to his face as he turned his head first to the right, then the left.

‘And where is Jed?’ He drummed his fingers on the table.

Laurence walked past the seating area and the dance floor. A few couples were getting ready to party, a few others were just getting drunk. He read the text again.

Meet me in the john. I need to speak to you.

Something about the text bothered him. A text wasn’t just a text. You could tell who it was from by the way they phrased it. Did they use predictive? Did they abbreviate? The Filipinos were the fastest texters in the world, but Laurence’s friend wasn’t. He made mistakes. This text was perfect. Too perfect.