The Trafficked

77

‘You all right, Johnny?’

Mann awoke lying on his back, staring up at the blue sky with Father Finn’s face blocking his view.

‘I’m okay, Father. How are the others?’

‘They’re recovering, Eduardo is awake and he’s fine. Becky is just coming around, the doctor is with her. Just rest now, Mann, you’ve lost a lot of blood.’

‘What time is it?’ Mann felt a pain in his lungs as he talked.

‘It’s three o’clock. You have been asleep for a few hours. You are very weak, Johnny. Mercy has cleaned you up, the bullet is out, but you need stitching. The doctor is on his way.’

Mann was on a makeshift bed under the trees in the garden. A gentle breeze fanned his skin. The sun flitted through the leaves and skipped across his face. The sky was blue, but ash and soot still floated past. He turned his head to see that the refuge was destroyed. Ramon was busy keeping the house dampened with the hose. Some of the staff were helping him, some others were making lunch in a field kitchen. The children were running around shouting excitedly. They were splashing in the pools of water that had landed on hard ground and had not yet evaporated or been absorbed. Their arms outstretched as wings, they were re-enacting the moment Remy’s plane dumped the lake on their heads.

‘Thank God you all got out, and thank God for Remy. He managed to empty eight hundred gallons of water right on target.’

‘He did a good job.’

‘He’s a good man, all right. He phoned me to say he’s landed at Clark now, he’s making his way over. I said we’d crack open that bottle of malt you brought over with you. We will need to camp out at the workers’ houses until we can rebuild the centre. I’ve already started working on the designs. I have decided it was a blessing in disguise. Now we can build a bigger centre-specially designed for our needs. I have organised for you two to stay with Ramon and Mercy until we can arrange something else.’

‘It will be just for a night for me, Father. I can’t stay. I leave tomorrow. I have to get back to Hong Kong as fast as I can. It’s not over till I make sure the trafficking ring is broken. We have to finish it off now that it’s wounded, and I have to make sure CK sticks to his side of the bargain. I can’t do that from here.’

Father Finn left to help Ramon and keep the flames from reigniting in the intense heat. Mercy and the others moved the children back and away to the cool of the gardens.

Mann stood, checked that he wasn’t about to fall down, looked and saw that the others were too busy to watch him. He was looking for something that he hoped no one else would find. He had a hunch that the DDS would leave something behind. He looked around him and began searching.

He made his way across to the far side of the driveway. There was an area that Father Finn liked to call his garden shed. It was a cluster of small wooden structures, some used for storage, others just palm-thatched open-sided summer houses for tranquillity and a bit of peace. As he neared the space between two of the huts, he found what he was looking for-Alex Stamp.

Mann knelt beside him and looked him over. He had seconds rather than minutes left, thought Mann. His chest was saturated with blood. His face was grey. His breathing was so shallow that Mann couldn’t be sure he was still alive. Mann checked for a pulse. As he pressed his fingers to the carotid artery, Alex opened his eyes.

‘Come to gloat?’ He could barely speak.

‘No…death comes to all of us.’

Alex Stamp smiled ruefully.

‘Yeah, well, don’t let me keep you.’

‘I’m not here to give you the last rites, but I will hear your confession. Where is CK’s daughter? You do that and I’ll do my best to keep you alive.’

‘You’re too late. She’s already dead. Tell Becky I am sorry. Tell her…’

‘I’ll tell her nothing. She’s suffered enough. Go to hell.’

Mann listened to the sound of death-the last gurgle of laboured breathing as Alex’s lungs became waterlogged. He covered the body with a piece of sacking and then he moved into the shade of one of the summer houses. He sat down and looked at his phone. It was late afternoon. He had several missed calls. He phoned Shrimp first.

‘Boss, you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I have some awesome news. Amy Tang walked back into school minutes before the deadline was up this morning.’

‘How?’

‘No one really knows. She said she got a taxi. None of the firms can confirm that, she said she thought it was a minicab that she hailed outside a flat. She gave a vague statement to the police. Said she just walked out. But, get this? Before she turned up we got an anonymous tip-off as to where she was being held. When we got to the flat, it was the weirdest thing. A Chinese woman was dead in there. Lying out on a bed in the back room. The autopsy is being done, but it looks like she died from strangulation. There was a string necklace type of thing around her neck-it had beads and stuff. The place was like an oven in there. Initial blood examination also indicated that she was heavily sedated-we found a half-empty bottle of sleeping pills in her bag. Apart from that the place was orderly. Clean, no sign of a fight. The woman had been drinking-there was an empty gin bottle in there. Nothing else, absolutely nothing else, and no little girl. Then I got a call from the school to say that she had just walked back in. She’s been interviewed. She’s drawn pictures of the suspects. One of them was definitely Alex Stamp, the other was the dead woman. She said that she was babysat by two other Chinese men-she drew one of them, London Chinese, named Sunny. He says he is a member of the White Circle. He’s not saying anything else. She couldn’t remember what the other one looked like, or even his name. She says she had put the necklace around the woman’s neck as a leaving present. Strange child.’

‘She’s not strange. She’s CK’s daughter. She’s resilient’

‘Another thing, boss. Information at the flat led us to another location. We found a group of six Filipinas, all of them under eighteen; all of them illegally trafficked in via Amsterdam in two lorries. They were in a bad state. It took them a month to reach the UK. It was a very slick outfit. They are being looked after for a few days and then they’ll be flown home.’

‘Do we know who is the head of the White Circle yet, boss?’

‘He’s about to show his hand, Shrimp.’

Mann made another call.

‘You managed it then, Micky?’

‘After I got the tip-off it was easy. Common goals, common aims, the Flying Dragons were keen for me to infiltrate the White Circle. I had to change allegiance for a while. But it worked and I managed to get myself hired as her bodyguard. I still don’t know where the tip-off came from. That little girl-Amy Tang-she’s smart. She said to me “Drop me off here at the end of the school driveway. I will tell them that I caught a taxi here. Don’t go back to the flat.” She was already changed into a school uniform; she had it all planned. She just got out of the car and walked up the driveway, her bag over her shoulder. She looked like nothing had happened.’

‘Well done, Micky-thanks for your help, now get the fuck out from undercover.’

‘You know what else she said? “One day I will be the Dragon Head of the Wo Shing Shing, Pat, and I will remember you.”’