The Trafficked

17

They spent the afternoon at the office in south London. The building had been constructed in the sixties and hadn’t been refurbished properly since then. It was seriously jaded: polystyrene ceiling tiles on the linoleum flooring. It was a warren of small offices and long corridors.

Becky worked in a unit of ten. Her usual partner was Sergeant Jimmy Vance. He looked like a seventies cop: his hair was dangerously close to being a mullet, short on the top, long on the sides, and he wore brown slacks and a paisley shirt. There were sixty others in the SOCO department, most of whom were working on the kidnapping.

Superintendent Proctor called Mann into his office to welcome him and have a one-to-one. Proctor was a tall, long-legged man with a head of short-cropped wavy silver hair. He thanked Mann for coming and asked him to pull up a chair.

‘Sorry about the state of this place. We are waiting to be relocated to a purpose-built office a few miles away.’ He had a straight-talking Yorkshire accent. ‘We have assigned DC Becky Stamp to be your partner whilst you are here because we feel she has the insight into the case you are looking for. She was instrumental in finding out about the other kidnaps, befriending and liaising with the Chinese parents in those cases, and we are fortunate she managed to get the information she did-as you know, the Chinese community often chooses to keep itself to itself.’

‘I’m sure we will work well together. She seems very competent, thank you.’

‘We will be happy to cooperate with any line of inquiry you wish to pursue. Our sole aim is to get this girl back. We have allotted you an office, but basically we will meet here every morning and keep in touch by phone throughout the day. I don’t expect you to be here more than you have to, but I do expect to be kept informed night and day. I hear that you are a man who likes to do things his own way-I have no problem with that, so long as you run things past me first.’

Mann thanked Proctor for his support whilst thinking, Don’t hold your breath. I’ll phone when I wantsomething-till then, don’t expect to see me.

Jimmy Vance was waiting for Mann in the corridor outside. He pulled him to one side and grinned at Mann.

‘Watch her-she doesn’t take prisoners.’

‘Thanks for the advice.’

‘Another thing…’ He leaned in to say what he had really come to say-the reason why he was waiting for Mann in the corridor. The smile disappeared. ‘…her husband, Alex, watch him. Becky knows how I feel about him-he’s a nasty bastard. He was done for GBH when he was young. Beat the other guy with an iron rod and almost killed him and it wasn’t for lack of trying, if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t put it past him to knock her about. She’s like so many strong women. She’s tough at work and soft at home…

Jimmy was all set to open the floodgates of information when Becky came looking for her new partner.

‘Not telling tales on me, are you, Jimmy?’

He held his hands up in a ‘Who me?’ gesture and grinned.

‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’ Jimmy stood and watched them leave.

‘He’s a nice guy,’ said Becky. ‘I am really fond of him but he doesn’t have a family, just a dog, and he has adopted me to worry about.’ She gave Mann a sidelong glance that said she could guess what Vance had said. ‘He really doesn’t like my husband.’

‘Really? He never said.’ Mann shook his head. They headed out towards the car park. By the time Mann got back to his accommodation at six he felt the jetlag hit. It was a beautiful Georgian terrace at the top of Highbury Fields. He thanked Becky for the lift and got out of the car.

‘See you for dinner at eight.’

‘Thanks. I’ll be there.’

He left her and went inside. She had done a good job choosing the accommodation for him. He met the landlady, exchanged pleasantries and went to his room. It was spacious, crisp, cool, and genteel; it overlooked the front of the house and the top of Highbury Fields. There was a double bed-clean, starchy sheets, duck-down duvet. There was a small lounge area, two chairs and a coffee table. It had Earl Grey tea in the complementary tea service. There were real plants in the large en suite bathroom and a stack of towels on a rail in the corner.

Mann felt a tinge of nostalgia as he stood by the sash windows and looked out of the windows down onto Highbury Fields below. It was a picture-postcard of London in spring: new pea-green grass was sprouting at the base of trees in full bud. A steady stream of commuters were walking home and women were pushing buggies, with toddlers running alongside; a smoker sat on a bench enjoying the last of the spring light. He lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He thought about Georgina. She had been on his mind ever since he landed on UK soil. She wasn’t far away. He could get on a train, go down to Devon and see her. He wondered if she was still on the same number. He got out his phone and scrolled through the list. There she was-just seeing her name made him feel strange. He hadn’t gone to dial her number for three months. His finger hovered over the call button but then he snapped the phone shut-now was not the time.

Mann unpacked and laid everything out on the bed. He had brought two suits with him-three white and two blue shirts, four white and four black T-shirts and a pair of jeans. He had also brought a light cashmere overcoat. Mann chose his clothes carefully. He chose his weapons the same way-handmade, bespoke.

He took them out of their leather pouches and laid them on the bed.

Mann had been collecting and customising triad weapons for fifteen years, ever since he had had his cheek sliced by one. It was a shuriken-an adaptation of a throwing star-and it had spun across his face, cutting a crescent-moon-shaped groove where the skin stretched tightest across his left cheekbone. The scar had done him no harm. The shuriken that had caused it fascinated him. Shuriken meant ‘hidden in the hand’ and was a collective term for sharp things that could be thrown: knives, spikes and throwing stars. Now Mann had added a few variations of his own. He preferred them to a gun: they were silent, just as deadly, but also served to maim rather than kill if chosen and they were objects of beauty and precise engineering. They could arc in the air, spin and curve around and over a building. They could kill an enemy even though he could not be seen. Each blade had its speciality. Each type was of a different weight, different thickness and needed different handling.

He unwrapped five double-ended throwing spikes, six inches long, five millimetres thick, from their cloth rolls, and strapped them onto a holster around his arm. They were for pinning down an opponent, disabling him, not necessarily killing him. Next he chose a set of medium-sized stars, each one a slightly different shape but all of the same weight so that he could stack them in his left hand and pass quickly to his right to throw them in quick succession or sometimes all eight at once.

Each of Mann’s weapon sets had a pouch all of their own, but one weapon had a pouch all to itself. The Death Star-DS-was six inches in diameter, heavier than any other throwing star. Reinforced with steel rivets, its four points were curved and along its razor-sharp lengths were small teeth. It was a deadly thing of beauty that could cut through muscle and splinter bone. It was a perfect decapitating tool.

But Mann’s favourite was a multipurpose shuriken: simple to look at, a thin nine-inch dagger, tassel-ended for fast retrieval and for continuous hits. It could be thrown or used for close combat. Its name was Delilah. He kept Delilah separate from the others in a discreet holster that he could tie around his wrist so that the blade was hidden inside his shirt, or around his calf so that it was hidden in his boot. Today he tucked Delilah into his boot.

Mann picked up his phone and looked up a number. It took a few seconds to get through.

‘What’s the matter with you? Thought you would have got yourself a Labrador and trained it to bring you your slippers by now.’

‘Very bloody funny,’ David White answered.

‘You okay?’

‘I tell you, Johnny, I’m not ready for this retirement game. It’s too cold here. Can’t see me staying in England for long. Maybe I’ll head to Spain and start a new life dating widows.’

‘I’m sorry it ended up like this, David, I’m sorry for my part in it.’

Mann had known White all his life. He had been a friend of Mann’s father, and when his father was murdered White took on the role of keeping an eye on Johnny.

By the time White had left the Hong Kong police force the once-big man rattled around in his uniform. The end had not been gentle; he hadn’t been eased into retirement. His association with Mann, and Mann’s disregard for orders, had cost him dearly, and White had jumped before he was pushed. White had disregarded orders and helped Mann to bring his kind of justice on Chan, CK’s son-in-law. Everyone knew it was never going to happen otherwise. There were too many people pulling strings at the top. The only way justice was ever going to get done was Mann’s way-but it wasn’t popular.

‘Don’t be…We took a few heads with us. Besides, Johnny, I’d rather go out this way than just fade away. It’s a pity we never got CK, but there we are-his time will come.’

‘Maybe it has already. The case I’ve been sent over to help with…it involves CK. His daughter, by a girlfriend, has been kidnapped from a school in Hertfordshire. He paid the ransom but they haven’t given her back. It looks less and less likely that they intend to. We don’t even know whether she is still alive, or, if she is, whether she is still in the country. We are linking her abduction to the birth of a new trafficking society-a super group-bigger than the rest. Bigger than anything we’ve ever seen before. Stevie is involved, that’s for sure, but we don’t know how involved yet. It looks as if the group intends to go for immediate dominance over the others. It must have some serious money and connections. They are muscling in on all aspects of the sex industry in the Philippines, buying up every available beach resort.’

‘Let me help you with the case.’

‘Sure, if you want to, you can put your Internet skills to use and find out more about the new trafficking ring. Who’s offering brand-new deals for sex perverts? Who’s got the hottest deals on paedophile holidays? Still want the job? Will you be able to do it undercover? I don’t want to read about an ex-cop up on paedophile charges.’

‘I didn’t help computerise the Hong Kong police force without picking up a few skills along the way. Don’t worry, I can plumb the depths of the cyber-sex world without leaving my signature. I’ll start straight away.’

Mann had been given directions to Becky’s-it was a ten-minute walk at most. He left thirty minutes early, shutting the door behind him and cutting across the top of the fields. He was hit by the smell of energised air-the world was warming up: the tarmac, the trees, all collectors of that first heat of spring. He stopped just past the smoker who was sitting at the same spot that Mann had seen him twenty minutes earlier. He was a slight Chinese man in a grey polo shirt and jeans. His hair was cut short at the sides, left long and gelled on the top. He sat with his elbows on his knees, deep in thought as he dragged on a cigarette through a cupped hand.

‘You must be Micky?’

The man looked up, surreptitiously checking out the space around Mann. When he was satisfied that it was as it should be, he nodded.

‘You wanted to see me?’

Mann sat next to him.

‘Yeah, I need some information. I need to know who has the balls to take on CK here.’

Micky tilted his head, looked sideways up at Mann and grinned.

‘You tell me.’ He shook his head and drew the cigarette from a cupped hand. ‘Manufactured-new society-come from nowhere. Came out of fuckin’ thin air! All Chinatown is asking the same question.’ He shook his head again incredulously. ‘How did someone get that big that quick?’

‘Maybe several of the big guns have got together to mount a challenge.’

Micky grunted his agreement. ‘Yeah, you’d expect it to come from existing triad societies.’ He flicked his cigarette into the bushes.

‘What’s the talk?’

Micky shrugged and shook his head. ‘It’s nobody from the 14K or the Flying Dragons. It’s not a recognisable style. Kidnapping such high-profile kids takes organisation-know-how. There has to be somebody home-grown helping with this. Stevie Ho was here. You been tracking him? He’s always in the thick of it.’

Mann nodded. ‘I followed him to the Philippines. He’s expanding trafficking routes, setting up new bases. Seems that Stevie wants more than his fair share of the Asian run. He has some muscle behind him. He was in Boracay at the same time as three white guys. The Colonel was amongst them.’

‘Would they take on CK? They’re not triads, they’re traffickers. Would Stevie cross CK?’ Micky shook his head. He wasn’t buying it.

‘Maybe Stevie changed allegiance?’

‘He was in the Wo Shing Shing all his life. His life will be over if he double-crosses CK.’

‘Or unless CK has given him permission to ally with another society. Maybe CK is playing yet another game. Keep in touch, Micky.’ Mann got up to leave.

‘Another thing, Mann, before you go, the talk is that you are in CK’s pay. They say that you helped him dispose of his troublesome son-in-law.’

‘What do you say, Micky?’

Micky sat back, looked up at Mann and grinned.

‘I know your reputation-the triad annihilator. But everyone has their price.’

‘Maybe, Micky, but mine isn’t money.’