by Lee Weeks
Jimmy was all set to open the floodgates of information when Becky came looking for her new partner.
‘Not telling tales on me, are you, Jimmy?’
He held his hands up in a ‘Who me?’ gesture and grinned.
‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’ Jimmy stood and watched them leave.
‘He’s a nice guy,’ said Becky. ‘I am really fond of him but he doesn’t have a family, just a dog, and he has adopted me to worry about.’ She gave Mann a sidelong glance that said she could guess what Vance had said. ‘He really doesn’t like my husband.’
‘Really? He never said.’ Mann shook his head. They headed out towards the car park. By the time Mann got back to his accommodation at six he felt the jetlag hit. It was a beautiful Georgian terrace at the top of Highbury Fields. He thanked Becky for the lift and got out of the car.
‘See you for dinner at eight.’
‘Thanks. I’ll be there.’
He left her and went inside. She had done a good job choosing the accommodation for him. He met the landlady, exchanged pleasantries and went to his room. It was spacious, crisp, cool, and genteel; it overlooked the front of the house and the top of Highbury Fields. There was a double bed—clean, starchy sheets, duck-down duvet. There was a small lounge area, two chairs and a coffee table. It had Earl Grey tea in the complementary tea service. There were real plants in the large en suite bathroom and a stack of towels on a rail in the corner.
Mann felt a tinge of nostalgia as he stood by the sash windows and looked out of the windows down onto Highbury Fields below. It was a picture-postcard of London in spring: new pea-green grass was sprouting at the base of trees in full bud. A steady stream of commuters were walking home and women were pushing buggies, with toddlers running alongside; a smoker sat on a bench enjoying the last of the spring light. He lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He thought about Georgina. She had been on his mind ever since he landed on UK soil. She wasn’t far away. He could get on a train, go down to Devon and see her. He wondered if she was still on the same number. He got out his phone and scrolled through the list. There she was—just seeing her name made him feel strange. He hadn’t gone to dial her number for three months. His finger hovered over the call button but then he snapped the phone shut—now was not the time.
Mann unpacked and laid everything out on the bed. He had brought two suits with him—three white and two blue shirts, four white and four black T-shirts and a pair of jeans. He had also brought a light cashmere overcoat. Mann chose his clothes carefully. He chose his weapons the same way—handmade, bespoke.
He took them out of their leather pouches and laid them on the bed.
Mann had been collecting and customising triad weapons for fifteen years, ever since he had had his cheek sliced by one. It was a shuriken—an adaptation of a throwing star—and it had spun across his face, cutting a crescent-moon-shaped groove where the skin stretched tightest across his left cheekbone. The scar had done him no harm. The shuriken that had caused it fascinated him. Shuriken meant ‘hidden in the hand’ and was a collective term for sharp things that could be thrown: knives, spikes and throwing stars. Now Mann had added a few variations of his own. He preferred them to a gun: they were silent, just as deadly, but also served to maim rather than kill if chosen and they were objects of beauty and precise engineering. They could arc in the air, spin and curve around and over a building. They could kill an enemy even though he could not be seen. Each blade had its speciality. Each type was of a different weight, different thickness and needed different handling.
He unwrapped five double-ended throwing spikes, six inches long, five millimetres thick, from their cloth rolls, and strapped them onto a holster around his arm. They were for pinning down an opponent, disabling him, not necessarily killing him. Next he chose a set of medium-sized stars, each one a slightly different shape but all of the same weight so that he could stack them in his left hand and pass quickly to his right to throw them in quick succession or sometimes all eight at once.
Each of Mann’s weapon sets had a pouch all of their own, but one weapon had a pouch all to itself. The Death Star—DS—was six inches in diameter, heavier than any other throwing star. Reinforced with steel rivets, its four points were curved and along its razor-sharp lengths were small teeth. It was a deadly thing of beauty that could cut through muscle and splinter bone. It was a perfect decapitating tool.
But Mann’s favourite was a multipurpose shuriken: simple to look at, a thin nine-inch dagger, tassel-ended for fast retrieval and for continuous hits. It could be thrown or used for close combat. Its name was Delilah. He kept Delilah separate from the others in a discreet holster that he could tie around his wrist so that the blade was hidden inside his shirt, or around his calf so that it was hidden in his boot. Today he tucked Delilah into his boot.
Mann picked up his phone and looked up a number. It took a few seconds to get through.
‘What’s the matter with you? Thought you would have got yourself a Labrador and trained it to bring you your slippers by now.’
‘Very bloody funny,’ David White answered.
‘You okay?’
‘I tell you, Johnny, I’m not ready for this retirement game. It’s too cold here. Can’t see me staying in England for long. Maybe I’ll head to Spain and start a new life dating widows.’
‘I’m sorry it ended up like this, David, I’m sorry for my part in it.’
Mann had known White all his life. He had been a friend of Mann’s father, and when his father was murdered White took on the role of keeping an eye on Johnny.
By the time White had left the Hong Kong police force the once-big man rattled around in his uniform. The end had not been gentle; he hadn’t been eased into retirement. His association with Mann, and Mann’s disregard for orders, had cost him dearly, and White had jumped before he was pushed. White had disregarded orders and helped Mann to bring his kind of justice on Chan, CK’s son-in-law. Everyone knew it was never going to happen otherwise. There were too many people pulling strings at the top. The only way justice was ever going to get done was Mann’s way—but it wasn’t popular.
‘Don’t be…We took a few heads with us. Besides, Johnny, I’d rather go out this way than just fade away. It’s a pity we never got CK, but there we are—his time will come.’
‘Maybe it has already. The case I’ve been sent over to help with…it involves CK. His daughter, by a girlfriend, has been kidnapped from a school in Hertfordshire. He paid the ransom but they haven’t given her back. It looks less and less likely that they intend to. We don’t even know whether she is still alive, or, if she is, whether she is still in the country. We are linking her abduction to the birth of a new trafficking society—a super group—bigger than the rest. Bigger than anything we’ve ever seen before. Stevie is involved, that’s for sure, but we don’t know how involved yet. It looks as if the group intends to go for immediate dominance over the others. It must have some serious money and connections. They are muscling in on all aspects of the sex industry in the Philippines, buying up every available beach resort.’
‘Let me help you with the case.’
‘Sure, if you want to, you can put your Internet skills to use and find out more about the new trafficking ring. Who’s offering brand-new deals for sex perverts? Who’s got the hottest deals on paedophile holidays? Still want the job? Will you be able to do it undercover? I don’t want to read about an ex-cop up on paedophile charges.’
‘I didn’t help computerise the Hong Kong police force without picking up a few skills along the way. Don’t worry, I can plumb the depths of the cyber-sex world without leaving my signature. I’ll start straight away.’
Mann had been given directions to Becky’s—it was a ten-minute walk at most. He left thirty minutes early, shutting the door behind him and cutting across the top of the fields. He was hit by the smell of energised air—the world was warming up: the tarmac, the trees, all collectors of that first heat of spring.
He stopped just past the smoker who was sitting at the same spot that Mann had seen him twenty minutes earlier. He was a slight Chinese man in a grey polo shirt and jeans. His hair was cut short at the sides, left long and gelled on the top. He sat with his elbows on his knees, deep in thought as he dragged on a cigarette through a cupped hand.
‘You must be Micky?’
The man looked up, surreptitiously checking out the space around Mann. When he was satisfied that it was as it should be, he nodded.
‘You wanted to see me?’
Mann sat next to him.
‘Yeah, I need some information. I need to know who has the balls to take on CK here.’
Micky tilted his head, looked sideways up at Mann and grinned.
‘You tell me.’ He shook his head and drew the cigarette from a cupped hand. ‘Manufactured—new society—come from nowhere. Came out of fuckin’ thin air! All Chinatown is asking the same question.’ He shook his head again incredulously. ‘How did someone get that big that quick?’
‘Maybe several of the big guns have got together to mount a challenge.’
Micky grunted his agreement. ‘Yeah, you’d expect it to come from existing triad societies.’ He flicked his cigarette into the bushes.
‘What’s the talk?’
Micky shrugged and shook his head. ‘It’s nobody from the 14K or the Flying Dragons. It’s not a recognisable style. Kidnapping such high-profile kids takes organisation—know-how. There has to be somebody home-grown helping with this. Stevie Ho was here. You been tracking him? He’s always in the thick of it.’
Mann nodded. ‘I followed him to the Philippines. He’s expanding trafficking routes, setting up new bases. Seems that Stevie wants more than his fair share of the Asian run. He has some muscle behind him. He was in Boracay at the same time as three white guys. The Colonel was amongst them.’
‘Would they take on CK? They’re not triads, they’re traffickers. Would Stevie cross CK?’ Micky shook his head. He wasn’t buying it.
‘Maybe Stevie changed allegiance?’
‘He was in the Wo Shing Shing all his life. His life will be over if he double-crosses CK.’
‘Or unless CK has given him permission to ally with another society. Maybe CK is playing yet another game. Keep in touch, Micky.’ Mann got up to leave.
‘Another thing, Mann, before you go, the talk is that you are in CK’s pay. They say that you helped him dispose of his troublesome son-in-law.’
‘What do you say, Micky?’
Micky sat back, looked up at Mann and grinned.
‘I know your reputation—the triad annihilator. But everyone has their price.’
‘Maybe, Micky, but mine isn’t money.’
18
Mann walked on around the top of the Fields to the end of a parade of shops and took a left. Halfway along the road he stopped at number twenty-five—a Victorian terrace. Becky Stamp greeted him at the door dressed in jeans and T-shirt.
‘Is that for my benefit?’ He gestured towards the T-shirt, which had a picture of Bruce Lee on the front. She looked particularly sexy and sassy tonight, thought Mann.
‘Of course.’ She grinned. ‘Do you only wear white shirts?’ she asked, ushering him inside and closing the door behind him.
‘Not always—saves me thinking too hard, though. Anyway, it shows off my tan and my great physique.’ He grinned.
She chuckled. ‘You’re a bit vain, you know that, Mann?’
She led him through the narrow hall past a neighbour’s open door and the thumping sounds of techno, and up the two small flights of stairs into her flat. They passed a kitchen on the left and continued into the lounge straight ahead. She opened a bottle of wine and poured them both a glass.
‘Just make yourself comfortable. I need to check the food.’
She excused herself for two minutes whilst Mann looked around the lounge. It was small but nicely decorated with a mix of modern and antique. On the walls were two very different paintings. One was an Andy Warhol poster. The other was a black and white photo of a couple saying goodbye at a train station. She liked her knick-knacks, thought Mann. There were two alcoves filled with a mix of souvenirs from around the globe: a carved black rhino, an African Maasai warrior, a collection of Russian Matryoshka dolls and a family of wooden wild boars in varying sizes, lined up along the shelf.
There were other photos, landscape shots of deserts and rainforest all in ornate silver frames. There was one of a younger fresh-faced Becky with flowers tucked into her shoulder-length hair, smiling out of a wedding photo. The man beside her was blond, good-looking. They made a handsome couple.
‘You’ve travelled a lot then?’ Mann said as Becky returned. He held the black rhino in his hand.
‘I did before I was married. Then Alex and I went around India, safari in Kenya, that kind of thing. We haven’t been anywhere much for a few years. Alex takes off on business trips. That seems to be enough for him. I keep meaning to plan a trip, but I’ve got a bit bogged down with work. You know what it’s like? It’s hard to book something in advance when you don’t know what case is about to come up. I think about it a lot. That rhino you’re holding is from Zimbabwe. We had our honeymoon there.’ She looked sad, thought Mann, as he watched her move the smallest of the wild boars next to the largest. She looked around the shelves of souvenirs. ‘I watch all those travel programmes—have a real wanderlust, just never seem to get anywhere any more. I have to go and finish the food. You can pick some music for us if you like, then come in and chat with me.’
Mann took his time choosing the Eagles’ greatest hits before following her into the kitchen. She was busy peeling onions on a smart granite worktop. It was a well-designed kitchen, all wood, stone and chrome. It had a breakfast bar to the left of the entrance and a huge American fridge. Becky was stood in front of a window that looked out towards a distant block of flats and down to a row of walled gardens below. Mann sat on a stool and watched her.
‘Can I help?’
‘I don’t know. What are you good at?’
‘Grinding, chopping, opening bottles, multi-talented really.’
‘Are you going to get your famous knife belt out?’
He laughed. ‘So you have done your homework on me, after all?’
‘I found out a few things.’ She gave him a small smile.
‘I usually save the knife belt for when I’ve exhausted all my other pick-up moves.’
‘Well then, just sit and talk. You must be shattered.’
‘I’m all right. Been thinking about that school. You know what struck me today? Something that secretary said. She used the word resilient to describe Amy. Odd choice of words, don’t you think? What about her friends? Did you talk to any of the children in her dorm?’
‘She shared with one other girl. There are two to a room. The days of long, windswept dormitories are over, apparently. These days they have a max of two and even an en suite bathroom. I talked to her roommate. She was a jumpy little thing. She was also Chinese, new to the school. The teachers said she’d been put in with Amy to settle her in.’
Becky left the onions caramelising and came over to join him and refresh his glass.
‘Do you think we’ll find her alive, Mann?’
‘I don’t know. So far, someone has CK’s money and his daughter—they are giving him the finger whilst issuing a challenge. This is much more than a kidnap. I think we are being used; we are pawns in a game and we are not being told the rules. If we follow the path they expect us to—normal lines of inquiries, etc.—then we haven’t got a hope in hell. I saw Micky.’ Becky stopped mid swig of her wine. ‘On the way over here, he was waiting for me.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Chinatown’s jumpy. No one knows who the new muscle is, but the implication is that CK has pissed people off or that there is a new domination war about to kick off. Either way, it spells trouble.’
‘He’s a big guy, CK?’
‘As big as you get.�
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‘But he’s a triad, that’s illegal. How does he get away with it? Why isn’t he arrested?’
‘He has friends in high places. He’s the head of numerous respectable, legit businesses. He launders money through film production, taxi firms, nightclubs, to name a few. Some of his ventures even have government backing.’ Becky’s eyes widened. ‘Yeah, I know, and to top it all off he’s suspected of being the biggest trafficker of people from Asia into the UK and Europe.’
‘The flesh trade is replacing all the others. It’s overtaken drugs, guns or money laundering, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes, it has. Human trafficking is big business and getting bigger ever day. Girls abducted on their way to school or sold by their mothers for the price of a new TV. Women chained to their beds, forced to work twenty-four hours a day. It’s becoming an everyday occurrence all over the world.’
Becky shuddered. ‘I know. We’ve even had it in tiny villages here. They are finding under-eighteen-year-old girls who have been conned and lied to and ended up as sex slaves. Mainly from the Eastern Bloc. I talked to one woman who had been rescued. She was a respectable woman, conned into going across the border to fetch some merchandise to sell on a neighbour’s market stall, just to have the neighbour sell her when she got across the border.’
‘Life is way too cheap, that’s for sure. If we don’t watch it, we will all become as mercenary as the Chinese, and that would be a big mistake…’
He looked at her, watched her reaction. At first she didn’t know whether to smile, but then she did. At the sound of a key in the door, the smile froze. She stopped mid-stir, hovering wooden spoon in hand, her eyes opened wide, puzzled for a second at the sound of the front door closing followed by a man’s footsteps on the stairs.
‘Hi darling—we’re in here,’ she called out, recovering quickly. Mann watched her reaction with interest and wondered what it meant. ‘My husband, Alex,’ she said, by way of explanation. ‘Didn’t think he would make it—that’s nice…’ she continued, as she gave Mann a fleeting smile before concentrating on her stirring again. Mann could see that she was ruffled.