The Trafficked

22

‘I could have come to your house; you didn’t need to meet me in town.’ Mann had been waiting for David White in Caffe Nero on Regent Street. He got up to shake his hand.

‘It’s okay-I don’t get out much. I welcome the chance to sample the delights of decent coffee.’

It was nine thirty in the morning. There were only a few others in the cafe. Mann sat back in the lounge seats in the window and watched as White queued for coffee. He still found it strange to see David White in civvies, but he thought his old friend looked better than he’d seen him for years. The tension had disappeared from his shoulders. He watched him banter happily with the Polish girl behind the counter. He heard him laugh; he hadn’t heard him do that for a long time. White came over to join Mann with his briefcase tucked under one arm, an Americano in one hand and a biscuit in the other. He set it down on the small circular glass-topped table before sitting down opposite Mann.

‘It’s good to see you, David. How’s it going?’

‘I stand by my decision to come back. I just couldn’t afford a decent standard of living in Hong Kong on my pension, but I am finding it hard to adjust, shall we say, but happy to be working again, albeit briefly. Where’s the investigation at right now?’

‘You heard about the fire in Hackney?’ Mann dropped two sugars into his double espresso.

‘Yes, I did.’ White shook his head sadly. ‘What a terrible waste of life. Do you know who the victims were?’

‘They were young Filipinas. It is looking likely that they were brought in by the new trafficking ring I told you about. If that is the case then it can’t be a coincidence. They must have died for a reason, and it must have something to do with why Amy Tang has not been released. The two things cannot be random acts. There seems to be a lot going on in the Philippines right now. I could do with an insider. Are you still in contact with that mayor, Fredrico something? He looked like Castro and was mad about rugby and tried to get us to tour?’

‘Sorry.’ White shook his head. ‘Lost contact years ago. Any news on the girl’s whereabouts?’

‘No. We’ve heard nothing. It’s two and half weeks now since the ransom was paid by CK.’

‘Do you have any more leads?’

‘The man slipped in an out without leaving a trace. The school is off the M25. She could have been driven anywhere from there. She could be out of the country. I feel like I’m trying to referee a game when I don’t even know the rules. I want to know who the players are and what they want and what’s the best way to stop them getting it, whilst getting this child back unharmed.’

‘Who’s your undercover guy here?’

‘He is in the Flying Dragons, name of Micky.’

‘Have you met him? Is he secure?’

‘I think so. How are you getting on posing as the new paedo on the block?’

‘I set myself up as a likely customer. I’ve had to submit pornographic pictures of kids being abused, supposedly by me and my friends, in order to join. They are checking them out right now. Once they trust me I should get somewhere.’

‘Jesus Christ! Where did you get the photos?’ Mann pulled his chair forward so that an elderly Italian could squeeze past with his coffee and paper. Outside Regent Street’s shops were opening. The shop assistants were filing in to get their skinny lattes to go.

White lowered his voice and leaned in closer as the Italian behind them shuffled his papers and grated his coffee cup on the edge of the saucer.

‘I asked a favour from an old mate here who works in child protection. He gave me some amateurish ones that had been confiscated. They won’t have been seen before. Then I will be able to access the cyber-sex sites that specialise in Filipino kids. As soon as I get something I’ll let you know. I have made contact with a few sex tourist firms. There are just a few main players. There’s a whole range of services on offer, from going from resort to resort and being part of a thirty-strong whorists’ package holiday, to hiring a house on your own for a week and choosing a child from the Internet to share it with you. I’m cross-referencing phone numbers, names and sorting out who does what. I keep coming up with two men from Puerto Galera.’ White opened his briefcase and pulled out two plastic sleeves with press clippings inside. He handed them to Mann. Mann could see that White was pleased with himself. He had enjoyed being back at work.

‘Here we have Bob English and Harry Moyles-alias English Bob and Fat Harry. They have a company called Paradise Beach. They seem to have an interest in just about everything seedy.’ He waited whilst Mann speed-read the stories on them. ‘Do you know of them?’

‘I remember reading about Harry Moyles a few years ago. He was a sergeant in the Royal Ulster Constabulary. He retired early, some say he jumped before he was pushed, after a few too many scandals involving bribe-taking. He cashed in his pension and bought himself a bar in Olongapo. He was caught offering underage girls for sex, but he disappeared.’

‘He turned up again in Puerto Galera. He married a Filipina, which is how he has the licence to trade. In the beginning it was marketed solely to Irish perverts, now he’s branching out and, with his new friend-English Bob-is wanted for child sex offences in Thailand and in the UK. I managed to trace them via a website. Paradise Beach is quite an impressive organisation. It’s no small enterprise but I still think they’re getting help from someone bigger, and the company definitely has Hong Kong links. It even boasts of it on the website. Could well be CK. Get Ng to work on who actually owns it all-see if we can come up with a connection to any new players. What’s the score on CK?’

‘I will find out now when I get back. He’s playing games with me, that much I do know. There are too many things linking up here. It’s not sitting right. There’s some global networking going on. I think he intends to use this as an excuse to wage war. I can’t let that happen.’

‘Maybe it’s time CK was taken out, Johnny? He’s just one man. You chop off the dragon’s head and the rest of it dies. People like Fat Harry wouldn’t get far without the triad gangs to get a supply of girls for them. And a lot of those gangs are members of the Wo Shing Shing.’

Mann gave him a wry smile. ‘Huh! Yeah…in an ideal world. If he wasn’t hiding behind the cloak of respectability it might be possible. But for now I will settle for stopping him trafficking any more women and kids. One thing at a time, huh?’ He smiled. ‘You’re getting bolshie in your old age.’

White smiled back. ‘This Internet stuff is getting to me. I am surprised how much of it is done on the Internet these days. People think they can do whatever they want and remain anonymous, invisible. We could do with putting some Trojans on their PCs.’

‘Trojan?’

‘It’s a gift horse that contains something nasty-a program that delivers a virus, infects a computer. The Trojan can perform various tasks. We need a RAT-remote access Trojan. Then we will be able to log keystrokes. The virus kicks in when certain words are spelled. You can program it to respond to a particular word, in our case “child” or “Circle”, whatever. When it hears that word it will show you everything that is being written at that time. You can read people’s emails, get passwords, everything. You can spy on exactly what they are doing.’

‘That’s impressive. Can you do it remotely?’

‘Yes, as long as the receiving PC doesn’t recognise it as a virus, otherwise you need to type it in to their keyboard and upload it manually. Another thing-ask your man Micky in the Flying Dragons to start asking questions about Stevie Ho, see what he comes up with. Someone in Chinatown must know what’s going on.’

‘I will, but I don’t think this is Chinese, David. How many Chinese do you know who would be stupid enough to want the money dropped in a bin in Chinatown, no matter how elaborate the scheme? Why not just have it wired to a Chinese bank and get a few favours called in to launder it? The person who has the audacity, the stupidity, to take on CK isn’t Chinese-someone wants to make this look Chinese.’

White sat back in his chair and finished off his biscuit. The cafe was filling up with people looking to kick-start their day. Outside on the street, the shops were lifting their shutters. White looked like he was preparing to go. He zipped up his briefcase. Then he remembered something.

‘Was Ginger all right? Did you check up on your mum before you left?’

Mann grinned and gave a slow nod of the head. ‘Put it like this: Ginger has adjusted very well to life without you.’

‘Ha…that’s good to hear. What about your mum? How is Molly?’

‘She’s loving having the cat, but I don’t know how she is really. She seems in reflective mood at the moment. When I went to see her this time she wanted to talk to me about my father. I mean really talk, about their marriage, about him as a person. But at the last minute she clammed up, the way she always does.’ Mann looked across at White, who had put his coffee cup down, and watched him as he instinctively ran the palm of his right hand across his head, smoothing the hair that had long since disappeared. Mann waited for White to make eye contact with him.

The old man’s pale blue eyes stared back as he shook his head.

‘It’s not for me to comment on your parents’ marriage. I always thought that it was strong, that it was what both of them wanted. People remember things differently as they get older.’ He drank the last of his coffee and picked up his briefcase. ‘Now, I must get back to work. Ha…that sounds good. It’s great to be busy again: I’m going home to surf the cyber-sex world.’

‘I’m pleased I’m not the one having to do it. The thought of infiltrating that dark world makes me sick to the stomach.’

‘Yes, it’s yet another sad indication of the state of the planet-money can buy anything.’

‘But at a massive cost, David.’

They shook one another’s hands as they parted outside the cafe door. The old man held on to Mann’s hand, stared straight into his eyes and smiled.

‘Take care of yourself, Johnny.’

Mann watched him walk away, heading home via the tube. He looked a small figure headed towards Oxford Circus and he was soon lost in the crowd of shoppers. Mann cut through side roads then he headed up Oxford Street. He was off to pay someone a visit, but he wasn’t expecting to be welcomed with open arms. As he walked along he felt the cold steel against the skin inside his wrist. He smiled to himself. There were a few things in life he could always count on-Delilah was one.