Those Who Feel Nothing

by Peter Guttridge

  Sebastian gives his goatee a little tug and leans forward. ‘This isn’t about antiquities or looting ancient sites.’

  You sit back. ‘It isn’t?’

  Sebastian shakes his head.

  ‘This is about smuggling people on a massive scale.’

  ‘Human trafficking is a huge problem,’ Phyllida says. ‘It took off in the early years of this century when the Soviet Union opened up and the Balkan conflict ended. But now it has broadened.’

  ‘Cambodia has been on various watch lists since 2007 because it doesn’t do enough to combat trafficking of adults,’ Sebastian says. ‘It has a National Anti-Human Trafficking Day but it’s mostly for show. About ten years ago the deputy director of the police department charged with stopping trafficking and protecting juveniles was jailed with some of his colleagues for complicity in the trafficking.’

  ‘And Paradise is implicated,’ you say.

  ‘Indubitably. We’re pretty certain those indicted were on Paradise’s payroll but we couldn’t prove anything against him – he uses too many cut-outs.’

  ‘There are big fines and long jail sentences for people caught trafficking anyone, but it still goes on,’ Phyllida says. ‘First, like every other Asian country, it traffics children from rural areas to cities. But what makes Cambodia special – in a horrible way – is that as well as being a key destination for sex tourists it is also a key transit point. If you know your history you’ll know about the old Silk Routes. Sadly, we now live in an age of Slave Routes.’

  ‘Sal told me he’s involved in trafficking, but only within Cambodia,’ you say. ‘He claims to have some moral compunction about trafficking people across Cambodia’s borders.’

  You’d thought it was because he liked to be kingpin in Cambodia and knew he’d be mixing it with some big boys anywhere else. You’ve mixed it with some pretty nasty Balkan gangsters in your time and know what they are capable of.

  Phyllida gives you a sour look. ‘You believe him?’

  ‘He said he focuses on slave labour. He traffics men for work in agriculture, fishing and construction. His women aren’t usually sexually exploited – he puts them to work as domestic slaves or in factories.’

  ‘And children?’ Sebastian says.

  ‘Some kids he uses in organized begging rings and for street-selling,’ you say. ‘Drug mules too.’ You spread your hands. ‘Look, I know he’s involved in prostitution but most of that in Cambodia is operated by Vietnamese pimps. They bring in their own, more or less willing, Vietnamese girls.’

  ‘You’re forgetting the people forced into it from other ethnic groups,’ Phyllida says. ‘The sex slaves don’t get paid. They scarcely get fed. They’re prisoners with armed criminals as warders.’

  ‘You’re saying that’s Paradise?’ you say.

  ‘You know what the third most profitable criminal activity in the world is?’ Sebastian says.

  You smile. You think. It could be a snarl for all you know.

  ‘No disrespect, guys, but I don’t have time for a quiz.’

  ‘Child prostitution,’ Sebastian continues. ‘Worth twelve billion dollars a year. And Cambodia is at the heart of it. In Cambodia itself there are about five thousand child prostitutes for the sex tourists – you know, those men who take in a bit of culture between exploiting underage girls and boys.’

  ‘The depressing thing is that everybody is in on it,’ Phyllida says. ‘Not just crime syndicates but parents, relatives and neighbours.’

  ‘Parents?’ you murmur.

  ‘When you’re starving, your children become a commodity,’ she explains. ‘It’s always been like that. It’s the same situation in parts of India, say, or even Mexico. Most Cambodians earn less than fifty cents a day. When you are just about surviving on subsistence rates, selling your five-year-old makes economic sense.’

  Sebastian leans forward. ‘I know of one Cambodian couple who delivered their ten-year-old and twelve-year-old to some German creep’s hotel room to do with them whatever he wanted. He paid them a pittance but they took it.’

  You sit back and swirl your drink around in your glass.

  ‘That’s unusual though,’ Phyllida says. ‘Normally, virgin children are auctioned. High-ranking military, police, government officials and businessmen take part in the auctions. The highest bidder gets to deflower them and afterwards the kids are put to regular sex work.’

  ‘And Sal Paradise is implicated in this,’ you say tonelessly.

  ‘Paradise owns a village a few miles outside Phnom Penh that is pretty much all brothels,’ Sebastian says. ‘There are about fifty of them. You can buy five-year-olds for sex there. And every night dozens of westerners go out there and do just that.’

  ‘The children are starved and beaten,’ Phyllida says. ‘They live in cages and are brought out just for sex. Drugs keep them pliant.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with you here in Budapest?’ you say.

  ‘He’s moving into the export business,’ Sebastian says. ‘We think he’s using us to dispose of his rivals so he has a clear run.’

  ‘This man I was asked to deal with …?’

  Phyllida and Sebastian exchange looks.

  ‘We’ve been wondering about that,’ Sebastian says. ‘Slavitsky is well protected. Taking him out would have disrupted things for a Russian outfit but you wouldn’t have survived.’

  You look from one to the other. ‘I do survive.’

  ‘Go back to England,’ Phyllida says. ‘Forget here. Finish the job you started in Cambodia if you must. But steer clear of Sal Paradise. Trust us. We’re taking care of him.’

  You look from one to the other again. The cavern reeks of this red wine splashing out of the fountain. Reeks of more than that.

  ‘It’s not Sal Paradise I’m after,’ you say quietly.

  ‘You took the words out of my mouth,’ Phyllida says.

  Blake Hornby was sitting just behind the new police commissioner in the Bath Arms. He wondered why Watts seemed to be keeping an eye on the antiques shop across the road. Hornby himself was definitely interested in it.

  Life had been hard for Hornby since he’d lost his job on security at the museum and art gallery. That nasty piece of work, Bernard Rafferty, was behind his firing, he knew. And he knew it was because of the theft of that painting, The Devil’s Altar, on Hornby’s shift. Hornby had laughed like a drain when he’d read what a perv Rafferty was with his grave-robbing antics. He hoped he’d end up in jail. But that hadn’t helped him find work.

  So Hornby was making a bit of a departure, branching out into a new line of business. Blackmail. He hadn’t quite figured out how to do it but he thought the thing Youk Chang had told him must be worth something to keep quiet about.

  He sipped his beer and smiled when he saw a familiar figure walk up the alley and step into the antiques shop.

  You call your friend’s mobile. There’s a little background noise when he answers.

  ‘You out and about, Bob?’

  ‘In the Bath Arms, Jimmy,’ Bob Watts says. ‘Shall I set them up?’

  ‘Soon,’ you say.

  ‘You’re coming back from Cambodia?’

  You look out of the window at the planes on the Gatwick runway. You’re waiting for the queue to die down at the hire-car counter.

  ‘Oh, I’ve been to Budapest since then.’

  ‘You’re moving right along, aren’t you?’

  ‘Have you had a chance to find out about the antiques shop?’

  ‘Sort of. I’m sitting looking at it now. But your man isn’t there.’

  ‘The owner?’

  ‘Not sure,’ Watts said. ‘Listen, I want to know how you’re doing. You know, when you told me about your wife I was stunned and sorry for you, but I was also cross with myself that in all this time I’ve never asked you about personal stuff.’

  ‘That’s not the currency we trade in. Our friendship goes deeper.’

  Watts is silent for a moment.

  ‘I h
ope so. Nevertheless, tell me about your wife. You’ve never known what happened to her? Is the not knowing the worst?’

  You toy with your beer. ‘That’s not the way my mind works. I don’t quantify bad things. Bad is bad.’

  The truth is you have not allowed yourself to think about what might have happened. That way madness lies. But you have allowed yourself to hope that one day you will find out what did actually happen.

  ‘There was this Cambodian girl,’ you say. ‘Michelle. I married her. My friends died trying to save her life. I thought.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Towards the end of the Khmer Rouge.’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘Unofficially.’

  ‘This girl? What happened?’

  ‘Hell.’

  ‘They were rough times,’ Watts says. ‘You say she died in an ambush?’

  ‘With my friends. I thought.’

  ‘You mean she didn’t die?’

  ‘She definitely died. I thought the others died too.’

  ‘And these best friends are the men you asked me to find out about?’

  ‘One of them,’ you say. ‘Fucker is still alive. Which changes pretty much everything.’

  You sip on your Hungarian beer. You were surprised to find it here. It is called Freaky Wheaty but tastes better than the name might suggest.

  ‘What are you doing in Budapest, Jimmy? Hunting him down?’

  You don’t say you’re not there any more.

  ‘Sort of. A side trip. It just got more complicated.’

  ‘You have a plan?’

  You are quiet for a moment. ‘Not any more.’

  Watts laughs. ‘Jimmy – you always have a plan. And a back-up.’

  ‘That was back in the day. The day when the plan involved mostly killing people.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re not planning to kill anybody now? I’m relieved to hear it.’

  You are silent. Then: ‘You’ve read about doppelgängers?’

  ‘I know what they are,’ Watts says.

  ‘Wilkie Collins believed for years he had one called Bad Wilkie.’

  ‘The guy from Dr Feelgood?’

  ‘The writer.’

  ‘I know,’ Watts says. ‘Well, first of all he was a dope fiend so his judgement should not necessarily be relied on. Second, I’m not sure I like where this is going. If you’re about to say it’s not you who is going to be killing but your doppelgänger then I won’t be impressed.’

  ‘That would be a bit of an opt-out,’ you agree. ‘I’m happy to take all the blame for whatever I do. What I mean is that ever since Italy I have not been connected to myself, if that makes any kind of sense.’

  Watts is silent for a moment. Then: ‘How has it got more complicated in Budapest?’

  ‘I made a deal with a man who only deals in misery.’

  ‘What kind of misery?’

  ‘The worst kind.’

  ‘Well, we’ve both dealt in our share of that, Jimmy.’

  ‘No, not killing in war. Not like that. We had some kind of right on our side.’

  ‘You believe that?’ Watts says.

  ‘Of course. You don’t?’

  ‘I guess,’ Watts says after a moment. ‘Who is this guy you’ve made an arrangement with?’

  ‘His name is Sal Paradise.’

  ‘Catchy.’

  ‘The deal was he’d let me go after my man if I dealt with a problem he had with another man here in Budapest.’

  ‘Dealt with?’

  ‘We left that kind of vague.’

  ‘The Jimmy I know wouldn’t agree to that kind of deal.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been telling you. I don’t think I am the Jimmy either of us know any more.’

  Watts doesn’t respond to that. He says instead: ‘How has it got more complicated?’

  ‘There’s a different game being played. A long game.’

  ‘And you’re in the middle of it?’

  ‘Dead centre.’

  ‘And that’s also what is bringing you to Brighton?’

  You clear your throat but say nothing.

  ‘Jimmy, I hope you’re not going to cause trouble here.’

  You give a little cough. ‘I hope so too. That wouldn’t be a good idea.’

  ‘For any of us,’ Watts says.

  Another pause.

  ‘If you want to think of it like that,’ you say and hang up your phone.

  Blake Hornby listened in shamelessly on the lengthy conversation Watts was having with someone called Jimmy. If you’re going to have a private conversation with somebody don’t do it in a bloody pub on a mobile phone. It was the same on buses, especially with girls. He didn’t want a blow-by-blow account of their problems with their boyfriends, but what choice did he have when he could hear them loud and clear, however far away he was sitting from them?

  He was intrigued by the conversation he was earwigging because it was definitely something to do with the antiques shop across the alley.

  Hornby snuffled and blew his nose loudly. Watts left his tablet on the table and went to the bar for another glass of wine. He glanced back and saw Hornby staring at him. Hornby quickly dropped his eyes. He stood and put his coat on then walked out of the pub without looking at Watts again.

  He had recognized Bob Watts because the disgraced ex-chief constable had once been his next-door neighbour. Hornby lived in a tiny cottage in Frederick Gardens. He’d been born in it. His mother had been born in it before him. She used to go on about growing up in this narrow alley with the row of cottages on one side and the Regent Iron and Brass Foundry on the other belching out heat and noise and sooty smoke.

  ‘And we had an orchard at the end of the alley,’ she’d cackle. Daft bint. All he knew was that his tiny bedroom when he’d been growing up had looked out on the back wall of the Royal Mail’s sorting office about five yards away. The orchard and the foundry were long gone.

  As he’d grown up he’d outgrown his tiny room and the tiny house. There certainly wasn’t room for the two of them, his mother with all her clutter. Once he’d solved that problem though he’d been able to spread out a bit.

  He’d been surprised when Watts had turned up one day with a pile of boxes and moved in next door. Hornby had hoped for sight of him with that policewoman he’d been shagging. She was a bit of a heifer, but then so was Kelly Brooks according to some, and no man in his right mind would turn her down.

  Hornby’s lascivious thoughts were disturbed when he turned into his gate and saw a short, red-faced man in a dark suit standing on his doorstep. By the time he’d switched his mind to carrying on down the alley the man had turned.

  He looked no more than a boy, actually – and he looked familiar. He seemed to recognize Hornby too.

  ‘Mr Hornby, isn’t it? From the museum and art gallery?’ The man stepped forward. ‘Detective Sergeant Heap. We met when the Gluck painting was stolen.’

  Hornby nodded.

  ‘I don’t work there any more.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Heap frowned. ‘I’m actually here because I understood a Youk Chang lodged at this address.’

  Bob Watts was still thinking about his old friend, Jimmy Tingley, but he was also wondering about the tall man with the crew cut who had dipped his head to enter the antiques shop across from the pub whilst they were talking on the phone. He looked familiar but it took a moment for Watts to realize it was the skipper of the steam yacht he’d seen a few days earlier. Interesting.

  Watts took his drink back to his table and speed-dialled Sarah Gilchrist. When she answered she sounded like she was on the move.

  ‘Bob – I mean, Police Commissioner.’

  ‘Bob is fine.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Listen, there’s an antiques shop in the Lanes you might want to take a look at.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Jimmy Tingley asked me to check it out.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘Nope.’ Watts spread his big hands. ‘I w
as wondering about illegal import of antiques.’

  ‘From Italy?’

  Watts frowned, then remembered the last Gilchrist had heard about Tingley he was still recuperating in Italy. ‘Asia.’

  ‘Big continent,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Is it a continent?’

  Watts shrugged, although there was no point doing so. ‘I would know that how?’

  ‘University education.’

  He snorted. The phone was muffled for a moment then: ‘Bellamy says it is,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘I take his word,’ Watts said. ‘The guy has offices in Budapest and Cambodia. Jimmy is in Hungary. On some kind of pursuit over there.’

  ‘An office in Cambodia?’ Gilchrist said. ‘And Jimmy is in Budapest?’

  Her voice was flat. Watts picked up on it.

  ‘Is there something I’m not getting?’ he said.

  ‘Not at all. There’s probably something I’m not getting. This shop in the Lanes …’

  ‘Full of statues of the Buddha and other Asian stuff. What aren’t you getting?’

  ‘I can’t say. Ongoing investigation and all that. Sorry, Bob.’

  ‘You’re doing your job,’ Watts said. ‘You’re not supposed to discuss ongoing investigations with anyone outside the force.’

  Gilchrist laughed. ‘And when has that ever stopped me? Remember when Rafferty found the Trunk Murder stuff in a basement storeroom of the Pavilion?’

  ‘How could I forget?’ Watts said.

  ‘Well, he put something in the storeroom in its place.’

  Watts made a face, again pointlessly. ‘Bones?’

  ‘We did find bones, yes. But we also found some crates full of antiques. Well, not antiques exactly. Statues and carvings – you know, of the Buddha, but Hindu stuff as well.’

  ‘Angkor Wat,’ Watts said slowly.

  ‘Possibly,’ Gilchrist said. ‘And we’ve just found a murder victim down there. Recent.’

  ‘I should make inquiries at this shop if I were you. It’s called Charles Windsor Antiques.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Mr Windsor is a person of interest to us. We’re trying to locate him now but we understand he could be anywhere in the world.’

  ‘He’s in Brighton,’ Watts said. ‘Or at least he was a couple of days ago. I think he’s still here since I’ve just seen the skipper of his yacht go into the shop.’