The Trafficked (6 page)

15

 

Amy pulled the blanket up to just under her eyes and listened hard. She had come to know the sounds in the flat and what they meant. She could identify who it was by the sound of their footsteps and by the way they closed the door. There was the one who had gold teeth and stank of aftershave, who was always watching telly. His name was Sunny. He always had the volume up really loud. He was always eating and farting. The other man, Tony, had spots, and he was the one she had seen that first night. He always walked around a lot. He talked on the telephone. He watched soaps on the telly. Then there was Lenny and a woman. Amy hadn’t seen her, but she had heard her. The woman was always shouting at the men. She only stopped moaning when Lenny arrived. Then she laughed like anything. She must fancy Lenny a lot, thought Amy.

Amy lay still and listened to the woman talking. The woman was Chinese—from Hong Kong—and spoke Cantonese. But Amy never saw her. The only person Amy saw to talk to was Lenny; she saw him every day. She liked him the best, even though he had been the
man to take her from the school. He had explained all that to her and said that he had no choice. That he was, in his own way, a prisoner like her, and that when her father paid up they would both be free.

At least Lenny was nicer to her now. They had stopped giving her the sleeping pills every day, and Amy only looked out of the window now, she never banged on it. She understood the rules. She was used to rules. She was also used to fitting in to a pecking order; boarding for so many years had taught her that. She was an observant child and she knew how to watch and appraise others without being seen to do so. She knew how to get on people’s good sides, even when she didn’t like them.

It was a lucky thing that Amy had her drawing pad and her Macramé in her bag. Now she had nothing to do, she would do that. She sat on the chair by the desk. First of all she would draw a picture of Lenny. She sucked the end of her pencil as she thought hard about his face. She wanted to get it right. She wanted to get it so perfect that everyone would know who it was.

16

 

Mann made his way through Heathrow, picked up his small suitcase and headed out through ‘Nothing to Declare’, where he was handed his weapons’ case, which had been carried separately, locked away in the hold, before he followed the signs for the exit.

The ragged line of people holding cards up behind the flimsy barrier looked hopefully at Mann. He had reached the end of the line when a short-haired blonde woman in her early thirties wearing dark trousers and a slim-fitting brown shirt rushed up to him, coffee cup in one hand and a sticky bun in the other.

‘Detective Inspector Mann?’

He nodded.

She introduced herself. ‘DC Rebecca Stamp, but you can call me Becky. You hungry? Need to stop for a coffee? Long flight?’

‘I’m fine, thanks. I slept well. Lead the way.’

He followed her through to the car park. He watched her as she strode along beside him. She had that athletic gait that policewomen had, as if she were marching along with a rucksack on her back. Women competing
in a male-dominated world didn’t lose their femininity, it just changed—became more assertive—showed they knew what they wanted and how to get it. She was no more than five foot two and came to just under his shoulder, but she wasn’t one of those women you should offer to reach things for.

She was still holding her bun in one hand and her coffee in the other when they arrived at level three of the short-stay car park. They stopped at a black Audi A2. She put her coffee on the roof whilst she looked for her keys.

‘Shit! Sorry, my keys are somewhere. I had them in my hand a minute ago.’ She put the bun in her mouth whilst she searched.

‘Left-hand jacket pocket.’

She stopped and looked at him incredulously before aiming the rest of the bun at a bin ten feet away and scoring a direct hit.

‘Thanks.’

She unlocked the car and got in, put her coffee in the cup holder in the centre of the red leather dashboard and started the engine. She switched the Bose sound system on and drove out of the car park.

‘Thanks for picking me up,’ Mann said.

She turned to look at him. He smiled.

‘That’s okay…you’re welcome.’

‘Did you have trouble recognising me?’

She giggled—deep and throaty, dirty, almost. She had a lovely broad mouth, strong laughter lines—a healthy tom-boy beach-babe look. She looked like she would be the last girl left at the campfire, drinking beer
with the boys, long after the other girls had gone to bed.

‘Six foot, Eurasian, snazzy dresser—no trouble. I did my research. I have booked you into a B&B near to where I live. I thought it would make sense for us to be close.’

‘Sounds great.’ He gave her a mischievous smile.

‘Chief Inspector Procter—he’s the man in charge of the kidnapping—wants to see you as soon as poss. I said I would fill you in on the way to the school. Then we go and meet the rest of the team. Hope that’s okay?’

‘It all sounds good. I bet the rest of the team can’t wait.’

She swung him a look to check if he was joking, saw that he was and broke into that deep, rich laugh again. Her eyebrows and her eyes were a few shades darker than her hair, he noticed, which was the colour of gold, and her eyes were fringed with long, dark lashes. It gave her a striking Northern Italian look. She wore no makeup.

‘Yeah, right! Pleased as punch. No one’s quite figured out who asked for you. We didn’t think we needed help.’

‘Don’t worry. I didn’t want to come. Offer I couldn’t refuse—that kind of thing. But it’s nice to be here.’ He looked wistfully out of the window. It was early and the air had that spring brightness, that expectancy to it that the sky was just waiting to burn off the morning haze and reveal a blue day. The roads were also just beginning to get choked with commuter traffic. ‘I haven’t been back here for a long time—too long.’
Mann stared out of the window. ‘Where are we going first?’

‘The school in Rickmansworth. In this traffic it should take us about an hour.’

‘You’ve been out there already; what was your impression?’

‘Posh school…awfully nice people but clueless. Let her walk out with a complete stranger. We get to see the Head at ten, thought you’d like to look around first.’

‘Did you work on the other kidnappings?’

‘Yes and no. We didn’t even know about them till after the event. When Amy Tang went missing we sent out an alert around the boarding schools with Chinese kids. We got some information back about the abduction of two others—both boys, from two separate schools on the outskirts of London. One was ten, the other was twelve. Both were released after the ransom was paid.’

‘Big money paid to release them?’

‘Two million US each.’

‘How did the ransom demands come?’

‘All the same way—by email, via one of those scam sites for claiming an inheritance that you never knew you had.’

‘Has it been traced?’

‘We’re still working on it. Someone knows his computers. He sent it around the world first. It came back with the logo of a bogus company plastered on it—BLANCO. We checked it out—there are a lot of companies called that, unsurprisingly. We traced it back
to a Nigerian working in a taxi rank—he didn’t have a clue how someone got hold of his dodgy identity. We decided it was a red herring.’

‘Where was the money dropped?’

‘In all three cases it was a different route, but same method. In Amy Tang’s case it was dropped in a bin off Gerrard Street in Chinatown.’

‘By whom?’

‘By an employee of CK’s, apparently, no one knows who. Getting cooperation from any of the Chinese families has been very hard. They would rather just pay up and shut up. A local crack addict was then paid to pick it up; he gave it to a lad on a courier bike and we think the courier had it taken off him at some lights. I don’t know whether that was the end of the chain or not. It was elaborate and it worked. We lost it. We only got that much from CCTV footage.’

‘Did he use the same method of abduction? Was it always the same man?’

‘Hundred per cent it’s the same man, though he was more cautious with the first two abductions. But the emails were written by the same person. The collection was virtually the same.’

‘Were the other children able to give a description of him or where they were held?’

‘No, they said they were kept blindfolded and that they slept a lot. Must have been kept sedated.’

‘Did the others have triad links?’

‘Both kids were from Mainland China—mega-wealthy parents but no direct triad links that we could
find. The usual suspect business partners along the way, but nothing obvious.’

Becky beeped hard at a green MG that cut her up. Mann smiled to himself—he could see that she loved her car. She whizzed in and out of the traffic and she drove it with a passion—like a man—hard on the revs, aggressive, unapologetically.

‘How’s the investigation going?’

‘We’ve drawn a blank. We’ve been out searching all vacant, newly rented properties in a ten-mile radius—so far, nothing. She could have gone anywhere from there. There are links to motorways north and south. She wasn’t reported missing until Sunday evening—that’s thirty-six hours after she left. She could be anywhere.’

‘She wouldn’t be being held where there are large groups of Chinese—she’s much too hot a property. There would be quite a few people eager to ingratiate themselves with CK and tell him who’s got her. She would be hidden somewhere nondescript, a bland mix of cultures. Maybe a satellite town or a new vertical village somewhere where people are anonymous. Do you have good undercover agents in Chinatown?’

‘One really good one called Micky. He’s infiltrated the Flying Dragons. He’s been undercover for two years now. He doesn’t break his cover for anyone and he keeps in touch by phone. I already talked to him, told him you were coming. He has no news about her whereabouts but says the feeling is that this isn’t a home-grown problem—it goes back to Hong Kong.’ Becky turned the radio off. She was perking up, the coffee had worked. ‘Were you born here?’

‘No. I am a Hong Konger, a Eurasian—half Chinese, half British. But I spent the best years of my life here, although you know that anyway—you’ve seen my stats.’ He grinned.

‘I only know the official stuff, plus I found out a bit on the grapevine. Micky told me a few interesting facts, he knew all about you. I guess as we are going to be working together for a while I will have plenty of time to fill in the gaps.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Mann.

She gave him a sidelong glance and giggled, embarrassed.

‘But, you’re kidding, the best years of your life, really?’

‘School—didn’t you like yours?’

‘Nope…Couldn’t wait to leave.’

‘Where did you grow up?’

‘Islington—where I still live. Bought a flat there three years ago—in Highbury. Went to a local girls’ school—I did okay, but I didn’t enjoy it. I was a sporty kid. We didn’t have the provisions for that in the inner city. I beat all the boys at their school when it came to cricket practice.’

‘I noticed the bowling action with the bun, back in the car park.’

‘Yeah, the trouble is all we ever did was
practice.
I did swim for the borough. I still keep my hand in—still go to the gym, swim a few times a week.’

‘Is that what keeps you sane outside work?’

‘Yes, plus I help out at a youth rehabilitation centre for young addicts and homeless women. I teach self-defence to the women. It’s a major problem for them
on the streets. They get attacked all the time, raped. I try to teach them how to diffuse it and, if they can’t, how to defend themselves.’

‘How long have you been in the police force?’

‘Since I left uni. I did a degree in psychology. Then I joined the police force.’

‘Been married long?’

‘Ten years.’

‘What does your husband do? Is he in the force?’

‘Huh! That would never suit him. No, he’s one of those entrepreneurial types; never quite know what he’ll try next. At the moment, amongst a million other things, he is helping out a friend and running a language school. Don’t ask me what the other things are!’

No sticky fingers on the dashboard. The car was tidy
,
neat, uncluttered—no kids
, thought Mann.

‘Actually, Al has a relative in Hong Kong.’

Mann looked at her and grinned.

‘You’re going to ask me if I know him, right?’

She gave that deep chuckle again; she still had a lot of the child left in her, thought Mann.

‘Maybe. And you?’

‘Marriage, you mean? Never felt the need. No kids. No commitment. Better that way.’ Mann closed his eyes for a few seconds and leaned his head back onto the headrest.

Becky put a CD on—a homemade compilation that was a strange mix of dance hits and soul—reggae and Leonard Cohen.

Helen came into Mann’s head. The film of her being
tortured, the sound of her screams. His eyes snapped open.

‘Eclectic tastes,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the sound system.

‘Not mine—my husband Alex’s—he loves Leonard Cohen. I don’t—so miserable. The dance tracks are mine. We are…very different. God knows how we ended up together. Chalk and cheese.’ Her laugh disappeared into the air, ‘So, no wife hidden away? No long-term girlfriend?’ She nodded her head knowingly. ‘A bit of a Jack the lad—obviously.’ She flashed him a mischievous look.

‘I prefer to keep my options open, let’s put it that way. But I have a few ground rules.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Tell me…’

‘No little girls lost. No newly divorced and still bitter. And absolutely
no
married women.’ He grinned at her.

She smiled, despite trying not to, and blushed again.

‘Like I said! Jack the lad.’ She hummed along to Shakira.

They turned through the impressive school gates and followed a narrow winding road that was signposted to the main building and the visitors’ car park. Ahead of them was a once-magnificent estate, now a very prestigious school.

‘Great place,’ said Mann.

‘It’s a former stately home, parts of it dating back to the sixteenth century. It stands in a hundred acres.’

‘Let’s just drive around first. Are there any other exits by car?’

‘No. All traffic comes in one way and goes out the
same way. Behind the school are the playing fields. You can only exit there on foot.’

‘Let’s see how many other car park options there are.’

They drove past the visitors’ allotted spaces and through a narrow section that opened out to a small lawn area and two large boarding houses. It was rush hour—eight-thirty lessons were about to start and there was the inevitable panic to make it to class on time. They waited whilst the last of the children dropped books, tucked shirts in and scrambled past on their way to lessons. Past the houses, at the end of the road on the right, was a larger overflow car park for teachers and match days. They turned the car round and headed back to the visitors’ area at the side of the main entrance, parked and sat. A sudden stillness had descended on the place as the frantic rush to lessons on time was over. There was not a child to be seen. A teacher, dressed in a tracksuit with a whistle around his neck, passed and smiled in at them. Becky smiled back and whispered under her breath.

‘Like I said, this place isn’t exactly a fortress. Nobody has asked us who we are or what we’re doing here.’

‘It would have been really easy for him to check this place out first. All he needed to do was come at rush hour, like we have.’ They watched the sports teacher disappear up a few steps and into a side entrance. ‘There’s not even any need to use the main entrance. All the action seems to come and go from over there.’ He gestured towards the disappearing teacher. ‘You ready? Let’s go.’

They left the car and walked around to the front of the building, up the impressive sweep of granite steps and through a carved arched doorway. Then they followed the signs to reception. A charming receptionist—beautifully spoken, impeccably polite—asked them to sit whilst she went to find the headmaster’s secretary. Two minutes later both women reappeared and the detectives were led to the headmaster’s suite to wait. They skimmed through the usual literature about the school, the current glossy magazine full of sixth-formers’ excursions to South America and poems by a six-year-old genius.