“Whoa,” he says, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Slow down. What have you found out? And for heaven’s sake start at the beginning.”
I take in a big breath and then another.
“OK look at this Instagram post of Zelena’s.” I open my phone, find the post and show it to him.
“So,” he says.
“It says, 'Look what I found in the Stanley Market. Helloooo extremely lovely person?’ The first sentence is something Zelena would say, but the second sentence is kind of odd. I thought it might have been written by someone whose first language isn’t English. But it isn’t. It’s an acronym: Hello Extremely Lovely Person. H E L P. Zelena’s sending a message.”
“Hmm, could be, I suppose.” He doesn’t sound convinced.
“Now look at this,” I grin at him and show him Zelena’s text to Steph. “It says 'I am so enjoying my new life here in honkers. Hope everything looks perfect.’ The first sentence was definitely her normal style—she called Hong Kong 'honkers’—but look at the second sentence, it’s awkward English and it’s another H E L P.”
“Ho-ly! You’re right.” A big smile spreads across his face. “You are amazing.” As I sit here glowing, he thinks it over for a bit and I smile, because I know what’s coming next. “But how do we communicate with her?” he asks.
I remind him about how I logged into her Instagram and made her follow the fictional Matt Standing, which is the account we use to see her posts, and how the name is similar to her actual friend Matt Standish. “So I sent her a text on Steph’s phone that said, 'I understand how everything looks perfect. btw matt standing says hi and watch out for his posts.’ She will know someone understood her message and that everything posted by the fictional Matt Standing is a message back to her.”
“What’s the time in Hong Kong?” he asks.
I check my phone. “Six o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“OK, let’s wake Rogan up. He’ll want to hear this.” He gives a short laugh. “If we get that girl back, there is a big bonus in your future.”
He thinks a bit longer and his face becomes grim. “Provided we’ve still got a future.”
It’s a bit of an anticlimax now. Cal is going to think how he can best communicate with Zelena while Nick and I are working on the cases of our remaining clients. I’m just about to do a google search for a client’s supposedly wayward husband when Nick says, “Coffee time.” He wheels over to the kitchen area and after a few moments comes back with a tray on his lap with three mugs and a plate of the inevitable chocolate digestive cookies. “Coffee, Luce,” he calls.
We gather round his desk and sip appreciatively. Somehow our coffee tastes better when Nick makes it. “We’ve done good work today,” he says. “Or I should say, you guys have.”
He looks a bit down. Lucy spots it too. “What’s up Dad?” she says.
“Nothing really.” He picks up his second cookie and takes a bite. “It’s just that I’ve been nosing around on the dark web to see if I could find Marly’s financial details, you know, bank account numbers, Social Insurance Number and so on, but I couldn’t find anything. It bugs me that her boyfriend could find it but I couldn’t.”
Lucy smiles. “Don’t sweat it Dad. She did say her boyfriend’s in the computer business; maybe he’s a pro at that sort of stuff.”
“Yeah, but it still bugs me. I really want to look at what might be out there,” he says.
“If you think it’s important Nick,” I say, “go with your gut. Give her a call and get her boyfriend’s details, then give him a call. Maybe he can point you in the right direction.”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll do that. Good idea.” He takes a bite of his cookie.
Lucy gives him a long look. “I know you Dad,” she says. “That’s a delaying tactic. If you mean it, do it now.”
“OK, OK,” he says and grabs his phone. When Marly picks up he says, “You were saying your boyfriend found your financial details out there on the dark web?” There is a slight pause. “Yes,” he says. “That’s right.” A look of shock appears on his face. “Could you repeat that please,” he says. The look of shock slowly transforms into that grin: the wolf-with-the-lamb-in-his-sights grin. I can almost see the wheels turning in his head as he thinks through whatever it is he’s just learned. “Yes, I’m still here,” he says into the phone. He thinks some more. “Can you come back into the office?” He listens some more. “In that case, you’d better come back in right away… Cancel and don’t say anything… Definitely, right now…OK… Good. We’ll see you in half an hour.”
He hangs up.
The grin is back. “You know what? Criminals always make a mistake,” he says.
16
Nick
She sits down at the conference table. “What’s this all about, Mr. Stammo?” She looks a bit ticked off at being asked to come to our offices for a second time, without any explanation.
“Do you have any pictures of your boyfriend?” I ask.
“Why?”
“When you told me his name over the phone, it rang a bell, shall we say.”
She frowns. “Sure.” She takes her phone out of her purse and after a few taps, hands it over to me. I show it to Adry and she nods. The smiling face staring out at us belongs to the guy who calls himself Connor McCoy.
“What?” Marly looks equal parts worried and annoyed.
“Connor’s the CEO of Dark Energy Systems?” Adry asks.
“Yes, why?”
Adry turns her laptop around so Marly can see the screen. “This is their website. That’s the real McCoy, as you might say.”
Marly reaches over and scrolls up and down. “There must be a problem, maybe they got the pictures mixed up.”
As Adry tells about her visit to Dark Energy Systems, Marly’s face begins to crumble and when Adry tells her that her boyfriend is the one who scammed us, a tear runs down her cheek, holds for a moment on her chin and then drops onto the table.
We give her time.
After a moment, she says, “I sure know how to pick boyfriends, don’t I? My husband was gay, Bob Pridmore was an abusive slime and Connor is a con-man.” Another tear appears and I push across our ever-present box of tissues.
She takes two, dries her eyes, then takes a big breath in and straightens her back. “So, what’s the plan?” she says.
I nod at Adry.
“It’s pretty obvious that if someone is trying to ruin both you and us, then it’s almost certain Bob Pridmore’s behind it. He’s the only connection between us who would want to harm us both. It’s almost five o’clock, so we have to move fast.”
As she tells Marly our plan, I can see she’s not too happy with one aspect of it, but she knows she’s got to go along with it. I feel bad we’re having to ask her to do this but it’s the only way we’re all going to get out of the mess the phony Connor McCoy has got us into.
It’s a flashback to just over a year ago. I’m sitting in my truck outside Marly’s house, waiting for her boyfriend to leave. The only difference is that it’s a different boyfriend, with a different car and Adry is here in the truck, sharing a pizza and keeping me company.
“Game on,” she says.
I look up. She’s staring out of the window.
Marly and 'Connor’ are standing in the doorway. He gives her a peck on the cheek then goes to the blue Prius in the driveway.
“He bought the migraine story,” Adry whispers.
“Also known as 'not tonight honey, I have a headache,’” I grunt as I hand her the paper plate holding my third slice. “He didn’t give me time to finish my pizza. Now I really don’t like him.”
As he drives away, I follow. Before long, we are on Marine Drive and I can let a couple of cars get between us. We follow him over the Lions Gate and into Vancouver. We start-stop, start-stop in the rush-hour traffic all the way along Georgia Street until we get onto the viaduct. Two blocks along Prior, he hangs a left onto Princess but now there are three cars in front
of me and the lights go red. Quietly fuming, I wait until they go green again but I can’t turn left because of the oncoming traffic. Beside me, Adry is muttering swearwords under her breath.
Finally we make it onto Princess but the Prius is not in sight. “We’ve lost him.” Adry spits out.
“Maybe,” I say.
“How the hell are you going to find him?” she asks.
I give her my favourite answer. “Watch and learn,” I say. I know that phrase drives Rogan nuts, Adry too if her grunt is anything to go by. “This is a residential area. You don’t take Princess Street to go somewhere else. He’s going home. I’ll bet you a buck, his car is going to be parked within a four-by-four-block area.”
“Huh,” she says.
She sits in silence as I drive up and down, block by block, until we see the blue Prius. It’s parked on a block with a wide variety of old buildings. Some are little houses, some are big; some are gentrified and some are run down; some have been converted to multi-family dwellings. He could be in any one of twenty buildings.
I drive on past the Prius, hoping 'Connor’ isn’t looking out of a window at his car and recognizing my truck as the one parked outside his girlfriend’s house in West Van.
“OK, I owe you a buck,” Adry says. “But we still don’t know what his real name is and where he lives.”
She’s right. Rogan’s the one who knows the ins and outs of the downtown east side. And so he should; he lived on the streets here for long enough. Then it hits me. I know how to find out where 'Connor’ lives. Connor. Stupid millennial name! Why Connor? Oh! I feel the grin appear on my face.
“True,” I say trying to keep the smugness out of my voice.
“So what are we going to do? Sit in your van all night watching the Prius and hoping he comes out to use it in the morning?”
“No need. By the morning, we’re going to know where he lives and maybe, just maybe, what his real name is.”
“How?” she asks.
It takes a lot of control not to say my favourite phrase.
17
Cal
Saturday
For what feels like the hundredth time, I check Instagram. Nothing. As Matt Standing, I posted a comment on her post where she’s with the guy in the Stanley Market. 'Looks cool. Where are you staying in Stanley?’ but there’s been no response. Not that I expect her to give me an address, but at least an acknowledgement that we’ve made contact would ease my fears.
My phone burbles. FaceTime.
When his face appears on the screen he has a big smile on it. He’s in his truck. “Hey Nick.”
“Hey Rogan, guess what.” He tells me about what’s happened with Marly Summers and the discovery of the phoney Connor McCoy. He outlines his idea and I give him the information he asks me for.
“Sounds like a plan Nick. Well done,” I say.
“So how’s it going over there?”
“I’ve been hanging around in the Stanley area, walking around the streets. I don’t have any great expectation of running into Zelena but if this is where she’s living or being held captive, it’s good to get a sense of the neighbourhood. Every time I’ve seen a shop or café I think she might like, I’ve gone in and shown her picture around but no one has shown any signs of recognizing her.”
“Good old-fashioned police work,” he says. “Have you been to the Stanley Market, where she said the picture was taken?”
“I’m standing outside it right now, just about to go in.”
“Great. How’s Tina doing?”
I feel the broad smile take over my face at the mention of her name. “Great. She’s made good progress with the protester groups,” I say. “Under promise of strict anonymity, she’s managed to get interviews with some of the leaders of the movement and she’s very excited about the article she’s working on.”
“Good for her,” he grins at me. “You should take her for a nice night out.” Clearly the break in the 'Connor’ case has put him in a good mood.
“Already planned, dinner and a nightclub. Phil Jiang has promised to hang out at IF tonight and see if he can spot the man in Zelena’s post, so I don’t feel too guilty about taking the evening off.”
“She’s a keeper Rogan. You take good care of her.”
“I will Nick, I will”
We say our goodbyes and hang up.
The Stanley Market is not what I expected. For some reason, I thought it would be a street market but it’s in an old building that looks like a warehouse. I walk up the steps and am faced with a vast array of market stalls. Most of the customers look like locals and the stalls all sell items that locals would buy. There are stalls selling meat, herbal medicine, pots and pans and colourful clothing of all types. It has a nice, friendly vibe.
I take out my phone and find Zelena’s post where she’s posing with the guy in the market. As I walk around I check it against the various stalls but can’t find anything that looks like where the picture was taken. Maybe it wasn’t actually taken here. I look more closely at the post. Right at the edge of the frame there is the head of a chicken in what looks like a cage. I turn to a man at a stall selling meat and show him the photo. I point to the chicken. “Can you tell me where I can find this stall?” I ask. He says something in Cantonese and points upward. I remember there was an escalator at the entrance. “Mgòi, mgòi,” I thank him, trying out one of the three words of Cantonese I learned on the plane. I backtrack and make my way up to the next level. Right there, twenty paces from the top of the escalator, is a stall with a cage containing three live chickens. I walk over and recognize a face. He is standing beside the stall with an older lady who looks like she might be his mother. It’s the well-dressed young man posing with Zelena in the post.
I walk over. “Hi,” I say, adding a silent prayer that he speaks English.
“Hi,” he says. “You want to buy chicken?”
Saying a silent thank you, I show him the post. “Do you remember this girl?” I ask.
A big grin breaks out on his face. “Oh, yes. She was very pretty. Very nice lady.”
“Was she alone,” I ask?
“No, she was with two men.”
I scroll to Zelena’s first post after she went missing, the one that says 'My new guy.’ “Was this one of the men?” I ask.
He takes a long look at the picture. “Maybe, without the hat. Yes, maybe.” He nods. “He was the one took the picture.”
“Have you seen her since?”
“No, sorry.”
“Did she say anything to you?”
With a sad look, he says, “No.”
After last night at IF, I remembered the value of having cash in my pocket and paid a visit to an ATM this morning. I take a five-hundred Hong Kong dollar bill from my wallet and give it to him with my business card. “If you see her again, follow her and find out where she lives. If you can take me to where she lives, I’ll give you five thousand.” Janusz and Francesca Gutkowski can easily afford the thousand Canadian. For a second, I remember that Janusz told me to forget his daughter and look only for his son. But I have no other lead to his son than through his daughter.
I leave the young man talking excitedly with his mother and begin the long, slow job of going from stall to stall with Zelena’s photo, asking if they’ve seen her.
It’s not the restaurant you would associate with a romantic dinner. The tables and chairs are green plastic and placed outside on the sidewalk. There are no cars allowed on this street in the evening. On one side of us is the restaurant and across the narrow street is the fish market where you can choose the fish or lobster you want them to cook for you. The maitre d’ doesn’t stand behind a lectern but patrols the street competing with the other restaurants for customers. And the food is fabulous. We have eaten ourselves to a standstill. Lobster, chow mein and ribs, washed down with a couple of Heinekens—people in Hong Kong seem to love Dutch beers—and I’m a happy camper. Tina went for more exotic foods including chicken feet but I’m n
ot that brave.
“That was great and I managed not to spill anything on my dress,” she says.
“That’s good.” She is wearing a stunning white dress with a delicate pattern woven in gold thread. I’m no expert on women’s clothes, but I’m betting it cost a lot.
“I’m stuffed,” she sighs. “Why don’t we take a walk through the market and burn off some of those calories before we go to the nightclub?”
“It’s a deal. If I can get out of this chair.”
The street we are on intersects Temple Street, the home of Mong Kok’s famous night market. Hand-in-hand, we stroll the few paces towards the market. Temple Street is narrow with stalls cramped on either side. Behind the stalls are strips of sidewalk lined with shops, all open and ready for business. The market runs in both directions. I point north. “This is the general direction of the Golden Dragon,” I say. To our right is a stall with brightly coloured women’s dresses and robes, and on our left is one with kids’ backpacks. We walk between them. Immediately the stall owners start their sales pitches and before long Tina has bargained the owner down by thirty percent and purchased a bright-red, high-collar dress. “I love this place,” she grins.
Unlike the Stanley market, the customers here look to be mainly tourists. We manage to make it through a couple of blocks, with Tina buying only three items, but when she stops at a leather goods stall to bargain for a purse, I wander ahead past four stalls selling electronics parts, dolls, china and tee shirts respectively. The next stall on my left has what must be a thousand watches. “Very fine watches,” the owner says. “Look at this one. Perfect for you.” He holds a garish sports watch with an orange and grey strap.
Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set) Page 59