The Trafficked

85

Mann waited till he got back to his apartment to make the call.

‘Why did you do it, David?’

He heard his old friend sigh deeply down the phone. He knew that he would have his eyes closed and he would be smoothing the top of his head with his free hand. For so many years Mann had watched him do that, sitting behind his big oak desk at Headquarters, surrounded by rugby trophies and family photos. Now Mann recalled one person on those photos that he should have recognised earlier.

‘I knew you’d find my connection to him in the end. I swear to you that once I realised what he was up to, I tried to put a stop to it at once. I left a message for Micky. He’s a good cop, I knew he’d manage to infiltrate them. Is Amy Tang safe?’

‘Yes, she’s safe. We never counted on the X-factor-the CK genes. She’s more than safe as she killed her jailor. How did you get into it in the first place, David?’

‘Alex Stamp is my nephew. I thought you might have recognised him. He came out to Hong Kong a couple of times when he was a lad. I had a photo of him and my sister in the office. I always had a soft spot for him. He didn’t have much of a childhood; his father was a pig to him. He asked me for help to get some new business off the ground. I agreed to introduce him to contacts I had made over the years. One of them was Fredrico. From there it just snowballed. I think there isn’t a villain that Fredrico doesn’t know. It was only when I started investigating for you that I found out the extent of Alex’s misdeeds. I am sorry. I will hand myself in.’

‘You don’t need to. Nobody else knows about this but me, Shrimp, Ng and you. They are too fond of you to see you put inside for it. By way of penance I have volunteered you to help Father Finn in his fight against the western paedophiles. It will mean flying out to the Philippines every few months, and quite a lot of hard work in-between. It takes him a long time to set up strong cases against these men.’

‘Hard work is what I need, Mann.’

‘Are you ready to trap Blanco?’

‘Did you manage to do that thing I asked you to?’

‘Yes, I did, sitting at a beach bar in Puerto Galera.’