by Lee Weeks
‘La La La. Love Love Love. Kiss Kiss Kiss Me.’
The Colonel always sat in the same place. He had the biggest vantage point. He sat facing his men, back to the wall, with a view to the bar and the street beyond. Nothing happened that he did not see. He looked around his assembled men and smiled.
He splayed his fingers out and rested the palms of his large hands on the table. They trembled without him realising. Almost as if he were a psychic about to go into a trance, his breathing was laboured. He sucked the air noisily in through his mouth and blew it dramatically out. Ever since he was a child he had been aware of his breathing. He had been a tall and gangly child and soon outgrew the cupboards where he hid from his daddy on a Saturday night when he heard him coming back from the bars—all fuelled up and no one to stop him hurting his son. Then, as the child squeezed into the small spaces, his knees pressed up against his chest, listening in the darkness for heavy footsteps, his breaths were quick and short and shallow. There was never enough room in the cupboards for him to breathe properly. So now, whenever he felt under stress, he filled his lungs right up; felt them expand as he opened out his rib cage, straightened his back, sat up erect: tall, strong and proud. But no matter how hard he tried, he could never fill them right up. They were always a bit squashed, a bit stuck together. The more he thought about it, the more obsessed he became and so the noisier was his breathing. Terry knew it. He’d seen the Colonel this way many times. At the moment, with all the stress and excitement, the Colonel was fully wound up and on the edge of exhaustion. He was continually hyperventilating. The Shabu wouldn’t let him rest. The more hyper he was, the more Shabu he snorted.
‘I have gathered you here because I have news on the shape of things to come: changes that will affect us all here in Angeles, in our world. In the kingdom that I created. Christ!’ He banged his palms on the table. Sophia tutted as her crayons rolled off onto the floor. She scrambled under the table to pick them up. ‘I shaped this place. From a scruffy little nothing that provided comfort to servicemen on the Clark military base, I turned it into a world-famous sex resort.’ He looked at the men around the table. They stared back. Nobody was going to disagree with the Colonel, especially when he was in psycho mode. His face was rubbery and feverish. His eyes were the colour of a raspberry split. He licked his dry lips continually. He was as jittery as a fly.
‘For some time I have been telling you about a man who will change things around here; a man who is going to help us turn this place into a five-star paradise. Blanco is coming. Today he sent us a show of faith.’
There was a general look of confusion and concern around the table. The Colonel’s surprises were seldom nice.
‘He has proved to me that he is committed to us. Now, this man wants you all to join him. This is our chance to go global. We can take our empire to the four corners of the world and make millions, or we can stay here in our small kingdom and count our pennies. He offers you the hand of friendship.’
‘He can stick his hand up his own arse,’ said Laurence, and looked at the others for support. Reese sniggered whilst Brandon sat stony-faced, watching and waiting. Laurence grinned and gave a deep chuckle. Terry glared at Reese. Reese, feeling suitably chastised for sniggering, went back to flicking his cigarette packet.
‘We ain’t givin’ up nuttin’,’ said Laurence. ‘We got a good thing goin’ here, don’t we?’
The Colonel swivelled his head round towards Laurence and smiled his ‘nearly smile’.
‘Pro-tec-tion,’ he over-enunciated. ‘Should this world of ours need defending we will have a mighty army at our disposal. We have the government, for Christ’s sake—you can’t get much bigger than that.’
Laurence gave a snort of derision. Brandon stared at him. Terry couldn’t believe that the big guy wasn’t going to shut up. Reese stopped his twirling. Even he knew that the Colonel wanted an audience and wasn’t asking for feedback.
‘We don’t need no fuckin’ protection. Who’s gonna fuck wid us here?’ Laurence tried to redeem himself. ‘In our own fuckin’ country? We own Angeles.’
Terry looked at the Colonel, who merely stared at Laurence and waited for him to dig himself a bigger hole.
‘Excuse me, boss, I mean you own Angeles, and we work for you,’ he said, backtracking as fast as he could.
The Colonel always prized himself on being a good judge of character. He trusted these men in so far as he knew their limits and knew their price. Reese was stupid but predictable. Brandon was a thug. Terry was clever. But Laurence was sneaky. He had become a little pre mature in his ambitions. Laurence was not to be trusted—the worst of all sins.
Terry spoke up. ‘Get smart here. This is no minor league. Blanco heads a syndicate so powerful that it will wipe all others off the board and we’ll be part of it. Not just a part—we are key to its success, right, Colonel? We have been offered the chance of running the whole of Angeles, Olongapo, Cebu and Puerto Galera just the way we want. We will take out all opposition; wipe it off the board. We will set up new trafficking routes, build hotels and bars up and down the islands. The whole of the Philippines will be controlled by one syndicate and…’
‘AND…’ The Colonel turned back to Laurence with not even a nearly smile on his face. His eyes were piercing. ‘If you are not for Blanco, you are against him and us.’
‘Colonel, I didn’t mean…’
The Colonel silenced him with his raised hand.
‘I know what you meant. I know everything. When you came here you were a bum with nothing but pussy and beer on your mind. I gave you all that you wanted. You sit here in your fancy clothes that I paid for and you question my authority?’
The Colonel was spraying the table with spit. Sophia had stopped her crayoning to watch the patterns it made as it landed on the table.
Laurence shrugged and shook his head. He looked hastily around the table and realised he was on his own.
‘I don’t question it, boss. Just want to be sure, that’s all. I like things the way they are.’
‘Do you? You’re happy with what you have, are you, Laurence, not thinking of branching out on your own?’
Panic flitted across Laurence’s face.
‘No way, boss.’
‘Sure,’ said Terry. ‘We have a good life here. But there’s always more. We stick together and we can achieve it. Is that right, Colonel?’
The Colonel relaxed. He could always rely on Terry. Terry was a shrewd businessman like himself. Terry was the brains in Angeles. The Colonel looked at each man in turn.
‘Now it’s our turn to prove ourselves to Blanco. We can’t afford to make mistakes. We are supposed to be professionals, not fucking amateurs. We were given a job. All we had to do was get the women to the UK and liaise with the Chinese, then we would get our money.’ He turned his head slowly towards Brandon and Laurence. ‘What happened in London was a major error. It looked bad…very bad…We looked like fucking arseholes.’
Brandon stared back at the Colonel. Laurence looked around the table nervously. Sophia picked up Princess Pony and held it up to her face and stared at Laurence through the pony’s pink mane. Sweat was overflowing from Laurence’s frown lines and trickling down the side of his face. Sophia was watching a big droplet form at the end of his nose and she was counting the seconds it took to drop.
‘What did happen in London, Laurence?’
Laurence flashed a look at Brandon. Brandon kept his eyes glued on the Colonel. Sophia giggled as the sweat drip landed on the table.
‘We was caught out, is all. They caught us unawares.’
‘How “unawares” exactly?’
‘One of the women needed teachin’ a lesson—causin’ trouble. I was busy, didn’t see them comin’.’
‘And where were you, Brandon, when this punishment was being handed out?’
‘I was called to a meeting with the Chinese, sir.’
Terry and Reese looked at one another. Everyone around the table knew the trut
h. It had been Laurence’s cock-up, his fault. He had been left in charge of maintaining a watch over the women. He had been too busy sampling the merchandise.
Laurence’s phone vibrated on the table. Laurence picked it up and read a text message.
‘I have to use the john.’
‘Anything the matter?’ asked the Colonel.
‘Nothin,’ answered Laurence. ‘Be back in five.’
He got up and walked across to the flight of stairs that led down to the toilets and the lower floor. The Colonel had the ‘nearly smile’ glued to his face as he turned his head first to the right, then the left.
‘And where is Jed?’ He drummed his fingers on the table.
Laurence walked past the seating area and the dance floor. A few couples were getting ready to party, a few others were just getting drunk. He read the text again. Meet me in the john. I need to speak to you.
Something about the text bothered him. A text wasn’t just a text. You could tell who it was from by the way they phrased it. Did they use predictive? Did they abbreviate? The Filipinos were the fastest texters in the world, but Laurence’s friend wasn’t. He made mistakes. This text was perfect. Too perfect.
Laurence walked into the toilet area—the urinals, the two toilets with their half doors that never hid a big guy like him. Empty. Nothing unusual, just the foot bath was missing, that was all. They were clean people, these Filipinos, always washing their feet.
The Colonel looked at each man in turn.
‘Any ideas where Jed is?’
Brandon looked uncomfortable. He didn’t like surprises—‘be prepared’ was his motto. He kept his eyes on the Colonel. Reese looked at Terry. Terry glared back and shook his head as if to say don’t even think about opening your mouth.
‘We are getting sloppy. Some people are making mistakes.’ The Colonel’s eyes rolled backwards, his fingers floated above the table. ‘The time of reckoning is upon us…’
Sophia placed Princess Pony back on the table and silently mimicked the Colonel.
Laurence pushed the back door. It was stuck. There was something against it—a weight blocking it. He shoved it, a small sharp push. It moved. Four small shoves then it was open. Gun in hand, he looked out to the alleyway beyond. Nothing. Then he looked at his feet. There was the missing foot bath. He stood for a few seconds as his eyes made sense of what he saw. Jed’s head was in it, the top of his skull blown away. His eyes were shut, his mouth hung open and his balls were inside it.
Laurence tasted the bile as it surged into his mouth. Adrenalin flooded his system; his legs began to give way. He turned. The Teacher was waiting right behind him. He held the gun against Laurence’s heart, smiled and fired.
The Colonel sat upright. Sophia opened her mouth, held her breath, watched the Colonel and waited, ready to say it.
‘The time of deliverance is at hand…’ They spoke in unison.
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.’