Saw Wah Say ran on ahead and then stopped at the edge of the ravine. He shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun as he studied the horizon and craned his head to listen to the sounds in the air. He looked strong and fresh after the seven-hour march. He carried no extra fat. His body was stripped down to its finest components. He was born to fight and to run.
He looked down towards the teak forest below; there was no sign of a disturbance. No monkeys screeching or birds squawking in alarm. It had been a good plan to take this route. The jungle was a friend to Saw and to his men—it had hidden them well for many years.
He looked at his line of hostages as they passed him. Their wrists were tied together in front of them. Ditaka, his second-in-command, held the girl Anna by a rope around her neck. Saw knew that the others would not try and escape and leave her behind. They looked like adults but they were children. The girls were the ones that Saw admired. They had beauty and strength. He was
fascinated by their blonde hair, their white skin, and strong bodies. He looked beneath their thin tops, he smelt their fresh sweat and he growled inwardly. Saw knew his men were dribbling after the girls and they would have them, but not now. Anna was his favourite. She always looked him straight in the eye. Anna would give him the greatest pleasure. Saw looked across to the distant hills, woolly and green as they rose in sharp peaks towards the north. They had another two hours’ march before they could afford to stop for the night. He looked at the boys and felt nothing but contempt for them; they were babies. Saw had become a man as soon as he could carry a rifle. By the time Saw was their age he had already killed a dozen men. He stared at Jake. Saw had witnessed the affection between Anna and Jake. Saw had never touched a woman with a soft hand. Saw took his women when he wanted them. He never waited for their consent. When the time came, Saw would take these girls too. They would be his prize. He would make Jake watch as he raped Anna.
Saw looked back along the path they had come and he saw the setting sun set fire to the Thaungyin river that separated Burma and Thailand. Tonight he would leave his hostages and head towards the town of Mae Sot. Tonight someone was waiting for him and tonight would decide the fate of the five. In the morning he would hand them over. If not, they would be dead by nightfall.
‘It’s not my business, Magda…’ Mann hurriedly stepped out of the way of a passing bike.
‘Yes, it is.’ Magda stopped walking and refused to move until Mann faced her. ‘I used to work the same shift as Carla does. I need to tell you because I am asking you to become involved in my life, in my son’s life. Now that you know about us—everything is changed. Besides…‘ She gave him a sidelong smile. ‘I know all about you, Detective Inspector Johnny Mann. You will want to know everything.’
Mann smiled. She was right, of course. He was a detective; everything had to be exposed, every layer had to be peeled away for him to examine underneath it.
‘I will answer any questions that you have. I have nothing to hide; all I want is my son back.’
They crossed over the bridge. Lights from the bars reflected in the black water of the canal. The wind picked up again and Magda dug her hands into her jeans pockets. They pushed on at a pace and turned west away from the canal onto a small side road flanked by high-sided narrow canal houses.
‘How often did you see him?’
‘About once a month. He would stay for a few days, sometimes a week.’ She carried on walking and pulled the fleece further up around her ears.
‘Do you want my coat, Magda?’ Mann asked.
She stopped, looked over at him and smiled.
‘Thank you, but no, I never mind the cold and the rain. I wouldn’t live here in Holland if I did.’
‘What business was my father doing here in Amsterdam?’ Mann asked as they crossed the road. She looked over at him and shrugged.
‘He never said what, exactly. There is a strong Chinese community here. Twenty years ago it was even bigger. There were many Chinese-owned businesses then.’
‘In De Wallen?’
‘Yes, some sex clubs, shops. But I am not sure what brought your father here in the beginning. In the end, I think we were the reason he kept coming back. He was a good man. I don’t want you to think badly of him.’
Mann looked across at her; she was striding ahead. He could see what his father saw in her: she was strong, sassy. Just the sort of woman Mann usually went for. Maybe Mann had more of his father in him than he realised. That thought sat uneasily with his conscience. Was he like his father, unable to commit to anyone, always searching, never content? Mann didn’t know the answer, but he knew that his world was too dangerous to bring love into it; people died when they loved him, people got murdered. He knew that only too well.
‘You must have been very young when you met him.’
‘Yes. I was eighteen when I started working as a window prostitute. I met your father about six months after I started. I didn’t feel young. I was a kid with problems. At that time heroin became very big here. It took Amsterdam over for a while and I was hooked. I grew up fast after that. And—despite the way it sounds—I liked being a prostitute. I liked the honesty in it. The window prostitutes are self-employed. No one tells them to work if they don’t want to. They look after each other. If there is any trouble they just press the panic button that’s in every window and the whole street will come running. For me, it was a good life and I earned good money.’ Her eyes were shining in the dark cold night as she stared at him—the streets were less busy now as they got further from De Wallen, only the odd inviting bar tempted Mann in as the chill seeped into his bones. ‘I would have been happy to stay working but your father wanted me to stop; he wanted to look after me.’
‘So what you’re saying is, you gave up a promising career in prostitution for my father?’
Magda looked shocked for a moment, then saw he was teasing her and she laughed, embarrassed as she held up her hands in surrender.
‘Sorry…sorry…It’s so hard for some people to understand, especially when they come from conservative backgrounds. They think prostitute…must be a bad person.’
‘My world is not in the least conservative, Magda. In Hong Kong it doesn’t matter how you get your
money as long as you get it. It doesn’t matter whether your father was a peanut seller or a king, as long as you make your millions—everyone is equal in money. What do you do now?’
‘I work behind the bar at the Casa Roso and I help run the PIC—the Prostitute Information Centre. I give tours of De Wallen, show people what it’s like in the girls’ world, plus I go into schools and talk about sexual health, that kind of thing.’
‘Whereabouts is your apartment?’ asked Mann.
‘Not far, the end of the next street.’
‘Okay, I’ll catch you up.’
Magda looked at him curiously.
‘I have to see to something. I’ll be a few minutes. Take a detour; go round the block again.’
‘Okay.’ Magda understood the urgency in his voice. She lived with a policeman, after all; she understood that they thought in ways and at levels that no one else did. She walked across the street, took a left turn at the end. Mann continued on towards Magda’s road but the footsteps which had been following now disappeared. Mann stopped, looked back, then turned to hunt down the men who were following Magda.
Mann caught up with Magda, approaching her from the opposite direction. She was standing outside a block of flats that looked like it had been built in the fifties. Its yellow balconies jutted out over the street. Beside the metal-framed front door was a notice:
DON’T PISS HERE—PISS OFF
She looked relieved to see him and punched in the code and pushed the door open. Mann followed her in along with a noisy black cat with a pink collar around its neck. The hall light came on automatically as they made their way up the concrete flight of stairs.
They stopped on the third-floor landing. There were four flats in all. As he watched her find her keys he took the chance to study her in the light. Her ice-blue eyes were piercingly harsh and her square face broad, almost Tahitian-looking. Her toughness, her bare-faced attractiveness, was handsome but not pretty. But, no matter whether she was beautiful or not, Magda had meant enough to his father to keep him flying halfway across the world.
She unlocked the door at the end of the landing;
the smell of weed being smoked drifted out. The cat walked straight in.
‘Alfie?’ she called out and looked down at the cat which was meowing and looking up at her expectantly. ‘It’s always hungry and it’s not even my cat. Jake always fed it,’ she said as she pushed the door wide.
‘Here!’ came the heavily accented reply.
A large man appeared in the lounge doorway. He had blond, collar-length tight curls. His face was so scarred by acne it looked like fermenting pizza dough. His eyes were set close together and the colour of burnt caramel, fringed with lashes the colour of straw. There was softness, a kindness and honesty about his big face, Mann thought. He had on sloppy jeans and a large eighties-style, big-shouldered black leather jacket with a shirt that was patterned with indiscriminate blue and cream splodges. In his left hand he held a fat joint. With his right hand he took Mann’s hand, shook it and he looked deep into his eyes the way that policemen always did—always looking beyond, below, never quite believing what they were seeing. He was older than Magda by a few years—Mann guessed mid forties.
‘Was nice?’ He grinned at Mann.
Magda stood between them, hands back in her pockets, looking a little embarrassed.
‘He means the show at Casa Roso. He didn’t think I should meet you there. I told him I knew you would appreciate it—anyway, I had just finished my shift.’
Alfie chortled and nodded his head as he dragged on the joint.
‘Was good?’
‘Was great.’ Mann smiled. There was something instantly likeable about Alfie.
‘Stop smoking that shit.’ Magda scowled at Alfie. ‘We need to talk…’
They walked into the L-shaped lounge, which looked like someone had hidden the mess rather than found a home for it. Alfie walked across the lounge and opened the balcony door. He took a few hard drags before blowing the smoke outwards and flicking the joint out over the side of the railing. Magda rolled her eyes.
‘You could hit someone on the head when you do that.’
Alfie chortled. ‘They expect that kind of behaviour from this house. We are the trashy end of the street, remember?’ Alfie disappeared onto the balcony for a few minutes. He came back in and looked curiously at Mann. ‘The street was busy when you came tonight?’
Mann nodded. Alfie studied him for a minute and then took off his jacket to reveal a still strong-looking man, but one who looked like he was on the cusp of loading on middle-age spread.
Alfie was about to throw his leather jacket over the sofa until a glance from Magda told him that he should hang it up in the hall where it belonged.
‘We will sit in the kitchen. I need to show you some maps.’ She gestured towards the door that led off from the lounge.
Alfie caught them up. The kitchen was organised clutter. Spider plants and saucepans on hooks. A collection of fifties cocoa tins. Kids’ drawings. There was no
wall space left. Above the sink was a signed photo of Bob Marley—that had to be Alfie’s, smiled Mann.
The kitchen table itself was covered with maps dotted with sticky notes. On the wall above the table there were photos. ‘Is that Jake?’ Mann asked, pointing to a picture of two lads, one obviously Oriental looking, and the other tall, blond.
‘Yes. Jake and Lucas have been friends forever. They have known one another since kindergarten. They are like brothers. Lucas’s dad is a single parent. He’s had mental health problems, depression. Lucas lives here most of the time.’
Mann tried to make out what the boys were pointing to in the photos. ‘What’s that on their T-shirts?’
‘It’s a joke. When they were younger they loved to play the Super Mario game with the Budweiser advert in it. They say it to one another all the time—“Wassup”. We got some T-shirts done for them to take on the trip, just a joke, just something silly.’
Magda turned away, her face collapsing as she struggled to keep a hold on her emotions. Below the picture of the boys was an article about the kidnap that had been cut from a newspaper, and there were photos of the five kitted out and ready to set off. Mann looked at Jake standing with his friends. They were all smiles. He had his backpack on, jeans, ‘Wassup’ T-shirt—all ready for his journey of a lifetime. Mann moved in closer to study his face—Magda was right, he did look like him. He had the same high cheekbones and Chinese eyes. He looked very young, thought Mann. Too young to die.
Magda excused herself and seconds later Mann could
hear her crying in another room. Alfie whispered across to Mann:
‘You had trouble? You left one man wounded on the street below? I saw his friend helping him.’
‘We were followed. Two sets of men. I would say unconnected. The two in Casa Roso were dressed in puffer jackets and jeans and the two who followed us back here wore dark suits, expensive coats. They were all Asian. I took this from one of the smart ones.’ Mann handed Alfie a business card.
Alfie studied it. ‘This is from a shop in the Chinese district. I will check it out.’
‘Magda must have something they want, Alfie.’ Alfie shook his head and drew up his shoulders. ‘It’s got to be something that has to do with Jake’s kidnap.’
‘You lost me.’ Alfie shrugged again.
‘Was this flat Deming’s?’
‘He bought it for Magda.’
‘He used to stay here, right?’
Alfie nodded.
‘When he died, he didn’t exactly have time to tie up loose ends. He was a man with lots of business concerns. Perhaps there’s something here of his. Have someone watch Magda at a distance. We have to find out what they want. And…Alfie, you have to trust me on this…I will go alone to find the kids.’
Alfie nodded, resigned. ‘I understand. Magda wouldn’t make it anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Magda has terminal cancer. We are living on borrowed time.’