by Lee Weeks
Magda arrived back at the apartment and punched in her door code. No cat this time. She walked up the stairs, and it was as she took the last few steps onto her landing that she had a sudden sense that something wasn’t right. As she turned the corner at the top of the stairs, she saw something that chilled her to the bone. Her legs buckled and she clasped her hand to her mouth in horror. Someone had nailed the cat to her door.
24
Mann drew up a chair and sat beside Shrimp as he drank his coffee. ‘What have you got for me?’
‘This.’ Shrimp picked up a glossy printout next to the PC and unfolded it. Mann recognised some of the photos on it. They were of Patong Beach. He’d seen them on the wall at NAP. There were before and after photos of the tsunami, and photos of projects that were being worked on. As Mann studied them, he thought of Daniel and of Magda’s account of that Boxing Day. Never again would he be able to look over the beach at the horizon in the same way.
His thoughts were disturbed as, from outside in the corridor, came the sound of a familiar male voice flirting with Pam. Ng came around the corner, his briefcase under his arm, smiling to himself. He was holding a piece of paper. He winked at Mann and fluttered the paper triumphantly in the air.
‘The old dog’s still got it—new girl, white blouse, tight skirt.’ He looked very pleased with himself.
Mann shook his head bewildered.
‘You must be fucking joking…How did you get her number?’
Ng always looked as if he’d just got out of bed. But the dishevelled look suited him and his sideways grin and puppy dog eyes brought him more than his fair share of female attention. He stopped mid-step when he saw Shrimp and feigned massive surprise.
‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you dressed like a normal person?’
‘This is my “project manager’s outfit”. I’m just trying it out for size. Buff-coloured trousers show that I am a professional used to working on sites, plus…’ Shrimp pulled the leg of his trouser to reveal sturdy lace-ups. ‘I have hard-topped boots—always safety first on the site. The vacancy just popped up. I couldn’t turn it down. I am going off to help rebuild a children’s nursery on Patong Beach that was destroyed by the tsunami and which they are halfway through completing.’
‘Huh?’ Ng tried to follow Shrimp’s quickfire dialogue. He always spoke too fast for him. Ng looked from Mann back to Shrimp and shook his head, confused. ‘I told you to look into it, not get yourself hired.’
‘No way, Shrimp,’ said Mann, shaking his head. ‘I appreciate it, but there’s no way I want you getting involved. You would get in serious trouble if the boss found out you were helping me. I thought you were studying for your law degree? You can’t afford to take time off.’
‘Forget it, boss, the law degree is in its final stages. I just need to find a case to show off my skills. Plus, I live for the adrenalin, you know that.’
Ng shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘You might make a good lawyer—in the end—but, God, haven’t those children suffered enough? What do you know about building walls and laying floors?’
Shrimp thought for a couple of seconds and then shrugged. ‘I will pick up a book on it at the airport. I got Ting in Anti-Fraud to fix me up some credentials and references and they hired me subject to interview, which I did via webcam. I pretended I was from New York. To be honest, I would have hired me, Ting made me look so good. Plus they’re desperate.’
‘Ha.’ Ng shook his head, stupefied. ‘Good luck…’ He slapped Shrimp hard on the back. ‘You’ll need it.’
Ng sat down at his desk. As untidy as Ng was in his person, his desk was immensely organised: papers were gathered in neat piles, sharpened pencils lay in tidy rows.
‘Who interviewed you?’ asked Mann.
‘Versace suit, black—this season—grey silk Dior chemise underneath: understated chic.’
‘That’ll be Katrien—classy but as cold as ice. Okay, Shrimp. I do appreciate it but keep a low profile. Remember you have no jurisdiction there. Neither of us do. We get into trouble, we’re on our own. If the governments aren’t able to help the five missing kids, they sure as hell aren’t going to help us.’
Mann had been through many scrapes with Shrimp and Shrimp had always put himself on the line for Mann.
‘No sweat. I am just there for back-up for you. I want to do it and…I think you’ll need me out there. Besides, I’m owed a lot of leave so figured it could almost count as a vacation.’
‘He’s as bad as you. He never takes a vacation,’ grumbled Ng. ‘I wish I was owed leave. Let him go, Genghis. I will cover for him here.’
‘Okay,’ said Mann, reluctantly. ‘I guess there’s nothing I can say to change your mind. Thank you. I will pick up the bill for it all, Shrimp. When do you leave?’
‘Tomorrow evening.’
Shrimp scrolled through the pages on his screen and clicked on a link to YouTube at the bottom. Devastating images of the tsunami came up: the empty beach, the massive wave on the horizon, and the muffled voices of people in the background, screaming for help. Mann wanted to turn away but couldn’t. The tsunami had become personal to him now.
‘You prepared, Genghis?’ Ng turned his chair around to look at Shrimp’s screen. Mann was still staring at the screen.
‘Some things you can never prepare for.’
25
Burma
For three long days Saw marched the five north to the mountains of the Golden Triangle. They crossed the muddy Meekong river and trekked ever upwards until the air became cooler every day. Now they were passing through poppy fields that stretched over hill tops and swayed with the gentle breeze in a wave of red. In the fields the peasants stopped and watched as the strange band of pale hostages and wild men passed by.
On the third evening they marched up a track and passed a field where the poppy heads stood erect, grey and fat. They were dried now and ready for harvesting. A woman was working in the field, cutting fine vertical slashes into the poppy head and releasing the white latex. Her children were harvesting the opium they had left to dry twelve hours before, scraping off the brown gum from the poppy heads. As they passed the woman, she stopped her work to watch them. Saw beckoned to her. She looked nervously around and at her children, then back at Saw and she nodded. She handed her tools to one of her children and followed them.
The sun came down fast and the five sat on an elevated platform outside the woman’s opium farm to watch it setting. The sky dipped from deep turquoise to charcoal.
‘How long has it been, Anna?’ asked Thomas.
‘It’s been sixteen days,’ said Anna without hesitating.
‘Do you think anyone knows we are alive?’ he asked. None of the five answered him. ‘Do you think someone will come looking for us?’
Jake lay on his back and looked at the stars above and wondered which one his mother was looking at right now.
Lucas managed to sit up. He smiled at Jake. ‘Wassup?’ He was shivering.
‘You cold?’ asked Jake, pleased to see his friend awake and smiling, although he could see he was being brave rather than feeling better.
‘Freezing.’
Jake’s feet and hands were tied, but he shuffled on his bottom over towards Lucas and looped his arms around him.
‘What’s happening, Jake?’ Lucas whispered.
‘I don’t know. I don’t think we were meant to still be here. Whatever it is, it doesn’t look good.’
Saw seemed to be brooding and waiting. He rested whilst his men stood guard. The woman and her children prepared food for them all. Pots of rice boiled furiously and the children were sent to get food from neighbours. They returned with parcels wrapped in banana leaf. As the woman was busy cooking she cast a nervous eye over Saw and his men, the rest of the time she stared at the five. She had never seen westerners before. She looked at them all with a mixture of bewilderment and concern. She could see they were in a bad state and that Lucas was very ill.
When she thought she wasn’t being watched she brought them over some water. Squatting beside them, she washed Lucas’s face with a cool damp cloth and fed him some herbal tea. When she went back to her cooking, Jake watched her cautiously push a small knife out of her own reach, towards the five. She pushed it behind one of the pots, then she looked at Jake, down to his tied wrists and finally to the knife. He thanked her with a smile.
26
Alfie raced back to the flat. It looked as if a tornado had passed through; the place was turned upside down, pictures smashed, sofas slashed, plant pots tipped upside down. Magda stood in the middle of it, holding the dead cat in her arms. She turned as Alfie came in and his heart broke as he looked at her face.
‘I found it nailed to the door. Who would do that?’ She bowed her head and started sobbing.
He stepped over the debris, glass crunching beneath his feet.
‘Come here, Magda. Come.’ He held on to her and the cat.
He could feel her bones. Every time he held her she felt thinner. He didn’t like it. She had never felt small in his arms before. It didn’t feel like his Magda. She was dying and in so much pain; she missed her sons so much, and now she had all of this too. Alfie was so angry he knew that he would happily kill the person who had done it.
‘It’s all right, Magda, these are only things. We can buy new things. It will give us the chance to get rid of some of this clutter.’
She leaned back to look at Alfie. ‘I can’t find any of my precious things, the mementoes from when the children were small—it’s all gone. They went into the boys’ rooms and wrecked them. They tore Daniel’s surfing posters off the wall. Why did they do that?’
Alfie swallowed hard and held her tightly. She sank into his chest and hid her face as she sobbed. His shirt was soon wet from her tears.
‘You cry as much as you need to, Magda.’ He soothed her and patted her back. ‘We can buy the same poster again. I will put it back as it was.’
‘The poor cat. Jake will be so sad.’
‘We will tell him it stopped coming and we don’t know what happened to it.’
She pulled away and looked at him. ‘We can’t do that, Alfie. I want him to know it never forgot him. I am going to take a photo for Jake. He’ll want proof.’ Magda handed Alfie the cat whilst she went off to look for the radiator sling that Jake had bought for the cat. She returned, picked the cat up and put it in the sling.
‘It just looks as if it’s sleeping now,’ she said as she disappeared again to look for the camera.
Alfie smiled at her. Once she was out of earshot, he phoned in to work.
‘Double the surveillance, but keep it covert—someone broke into the flat. They turned the place upside down but didn’t take things like an expensive camera.’
Magda came back in the room, sniffing and wiping her eyes with her hanky.
‘I tell you how this makes me feel, Alfie.’
Her face was blotchy from crying. Alfie’s heart sank. He didn’t know how much more of this either of them could take. He knew Magda was so afraid of dying, but she didn’t know how terrified he was of losing her. Every day she slipped further from him. He felt powerless.
‘It makes me feel like fighting harder than I ever fought in my life. I am damned if I’m dying till I get my son back and till I put a stop to all this, Alfie. I won’t do it.’
Alfie’s eyes filled with tears for the first time since Daniel’s death.
Magda stared at him. ‘Alfie, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise how much it was all getting to you.’ He put up a hand to stop her.
‘No, Magda, it’s not that. You just made me so happy. I have got my Magda back.’
27
Sometime after they had eaten, Jake saw headlights on the approach to the farm. Saw stood and watched the jeeps approach. He nodded towards Toad who turned and slipped out of sight. Jake and the others sat blinking in the glare of the headlights. The jeeps came to a stop and cut the engines. Four bodyguards jumped out from the first vehicle and then a short bald man in his early sixties stepped out with a younger man from the second.
‘Welcome, Saw. It’s been a long time.’ The older man spoke. Saw nodded.
‘Welcome, Kasem.’
The whole time Saw’s eyes scanned the newcomers.
‘You remember my son, Tai?’ Kasem gestured towards the younger man who stood beside him grinning, his gold teeth flashing and his slicked black hair shining in the glare of the headlights.
‘Turn off the headlights,’ said Saw.
Kasem nodded towards the bodyguards. They killed the lights and now just the full moon and the firelight illuminated the meeting. The woman and her children edged away and hid around the side of the house. Saw’s men moved stealthily around in the shadows until they surrounded the newcomers. The four bodyguards formed a ring around Kasem and his son. One of them held a 9mm Sterling sub machine gun, the others semiautomatics. Their weapons shone in the firelight.
‘I have brought the westerners. We have a deal. Now the land is mine.’
‘Let me see them.’
Saw signalled to Handsome to fetch the five. Handsome cut the ties around their feet and pulled them up by their bound wrists. He dragged them over and made them stand in front of Kasem and Tai. Kasem looked them over one by one and Tai stood nodding and grinning as he stared at the girls. He tried to kiss Silke. She squirmed out of his reach. Tai stepped back, laughing.
‘Please excuse my son,’ said Kasem. ‘He is short of company up here in the mountains. But…’ He turned to Saw. ‘The deal has changed. We take the girls in exchange for a shipment of opium. That is all.’
Saw’s eyes were bright and menacing as he answered.
‘You take them all. You give me the land; I can grow my own opium.’
Kasem shrugged. ‘Take it or leave it. The buyers I had lined up for them are no longer interested. They can’t afford to hold on to them until things quieten down. They are not worth anything to me any more. I will take the girls and do you the favour of shooting the boys.’ Tai nodded in agreement with his father as he grinned at Silke and grabbed at her breasts. Jake looked around. He could still see the knife, its blade just visible behind the cooking pot. He looked back to Saw and the discussions going on. He did not understand their words but he sensed trouble in the air. Saw’s men were becoming jittery. There was movement in the shadows.
Kasem’s bodyguards edged forward.
‘The girls will provide a few weeks’ sport for my men, nothing more. Then I will kill them.’ Kasem turned his head left and right. He too knew the signs.
‘No deal.’ Saw looked across at Handsome. Toad was nowhere to be seen.
‘Then you’ve wasted your journey. That is all I can offer you.’ Kasem held up his hand in a gesture of dismissal and turned back towards the car, anxious to leave.
‘Let’s go,’ he said to Tai.
But Tai was used to getting what he wanted and he didn’t understand why they didn’t just take the girls. He hadn’t the experience of his father. He didn’t know how to judge the situation and he didn’t know Saw. Instead, he glared at his father. Kasem glared back and his tone changed even though he maintained his frozen grin. He edged backwards towards the jeep.
‘Get back in the car.’ There was an understated urgency in it that Tai didn’t pick up on until he saw that the bodyguard with the Sterling was waiting for him to get safely out of the way before he opened fire.
But he waited too long. He never had a chance to hone his intuition skills, Toad had already stabbed him in the back and through the heart.
28
Mann was waiting at the airport when he got the text from Alfie to tell him about the burglary. Mann was about to phone him back, but he decided to call his mother first. He took a deep breath.
‘I understand that you must feel bitter about things.’
Mann waited on the other end of the line. There was no response.
‘Maybe that’s why you haven�
�t used the money Deming left you. But I want you to use it now. I want you to give me the money to put up a ransom.’ He could hear the silence and an intake of breath. He waited; she wouldn’t be rushed.
Then, ‘Yes,’ came the answer, strong, decisive. It was as if Mann had offered her some way to move on and to forgive.
‘I’ll see you when I get back, Mum.’
‘Take care of yourself, son.’
Mann phoned Alfie. He filled him in on the burglary.
‘How is Magda?’
‘She is mad, that’s a good thing.’
‘Do you think they got what they wanted, Alfie?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We can’t afford to wait and see. Let’s make it interesting. Contact Katrien and say you have a chance of getting hold of two million US to put up for their safe return.’
‘Yeah, but we haven’t.’
‘Yes, you have. My mother has put up the money from Deming’s estate. But don’t let’s give it to her on a plate. She has to prove to us she can deliver. I’m still going out there.’
There was a pause; Mann could hear Alfie dragging on a joint. ‘Good. That is a good thing she does. Please thank her from us.’
‘It’s the right thing, Alfie—for everyone. Two million should prove tempting for anyone. Plus it’s enough to make someone careless. Katrien would cut herself into a slice of that, and she’d come out of it looking really good. Now we get to see what kind of a negotiator she really is.’
‘Oh, I already know what kind of negotiator she is. It takes a lot to afford this girl. She does deals with high-earning businessmen. Check this out—the Bitch is either a highly-paid call girl, or a dealer, or both.’
‘Who are her clients?’