by Lee Weeks
‘Is that the best you have for me, Ponytail?’
‘They say that CK has set the whole thing up. He wants this war so that he can wipe out all the opposition in one go and take over all the profitable trafficking routes. They say he is in charge of the new group using the Caucasian traffickers who are already established in the Philippines to do all the work for him, and then he will get rid of them.’
‘Why would he order the arson attack on the trafficked women in London?’
Ponytail shook his head, screwed up his face. ‘To throw us off the scent. To make it look realistic. I don’t know, but I know anything is possible with him.’
Mann looked at Becky and gestured toward the pile of bags.
‘You can’t leave without one.’
‘Take your pick.’ Ponytail pulled a sheet from a pile behind the door, pulled off a Kalashnikov rifle from the top of a pile and revealed high-quality Chanel replica bags. He put the gun to one side. ‘Here, have this one-it’s the best. Goes with your outfit.’ He handed her a dainty cream clutch bag.
‘Thanks.’ Becky took it reluctantly but looked secretly pleased. Mann wondered when was the last time she had been given something.
‘That’s five hundred Hong Kong, Mann.’
‘Fuck off! I’m not paying for that shit. Three hundred, tops.’ He grinned.
Ponytail shook his head. ‘Four.’
‘Throw in a couple of matching travel bags and it’s a deal.’
31
Suzanne sat on the chair at Amy’s desk whilst Amy brushed her hair. Suzanne said the brush was made from real boar bristle. Amy wanted to ask Suzanne where the bristles came from, and did she mean a wild boar, like a pig? But she didn’t ask because Suzanne got cross when Amy talked. She liked Amy to be quiet and concentrate on the brushing, and if she didn’t then Suzanne would be horrible to her again. She would make her drink the salty water like the day before, and then Amy had been sick all night. Amy had had to sleep by the toilet because she mustn’t be sick in the bed, because Suzanne would hit her.
The bristle brush was soft. That meant that Amy could brush Suzanne’s hair with long hard strokes, the way she liked it. Suzanne closed her eyes.
In the next room, the spotty one, Tony, had left the telly on when he’d left, and Amy could hear EastEnders. Amy recognised the theme tune. She didn’t watch it normally. It came on at a time when she was doing prep, but she had sometimes seen the omnibus on Sundays.
Suzanne was getting drunk. Amy had seen people drunk a few times. She’d even seen her own mother drunk. She would start happy, laughing and singing, and then become miserable. Sometimes Amy had been fast asleep and her mother had come and woken her up to tell her how much she loved her, and Amy had smelt the booze on her breath. But, she did love her-that was the main thing. Amy could tell that Suzanne didn’t even like her. And Suzanne had such bad moods. Amy didn’t know what she was going to be like from one minute to the next.
‘Suzanne?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you married to Lenny?’
Suzanne closed her eyes again and took a swig of gin.
‘I will be, just as soon as he dumps his wife. He promised me he’d have it done by now, but he still fucking hasn’t.’
Suzanne waved her hand in the direction of her glass and Amy picked it up.
‘How did you meet Lenny?’
‘I met him at home in Nanjing. He had business there. I was working as an interpreter.’
‘That’s why you speak such good English.’
‘Yes…’ She gave a drunken giggle. ‘…and I’ve been fucking western guys since I was not much older than you. I lived with a German for three years from when I was sixteen. That’s why my English has an accent.’
‘Yes, you have a strange accent. Not strange…’ Amy corrected herself quickly as Suzanne opened her eyes and glared at her ‘…but different…’
Suzanne tapped the glass with her false nails. She was still waiting for Amy to go and refill it. Amy took it from her and went out into the kitchen to do it. Amy had become an expert on gin-mixing in the few days that she had been left alone with Suzanne. She had even been allowed to go next door, into the lounge and the kitchen, to fetch the gin and tonic and to refill the ice tray when needed. Now Amy knew where lots of things were. She saw where they slept, when they took it in turns to stay over in the flat; she saw where Tony hid his porn magazines; and she saw where the spare keys for the front door were.
Amy came back in with a fresh drink for Suzanne, who was waiting for her.
‘Every woman has to make the best of herself, Amy. I have had to-you will have to. In this life women need to make use of all the assets they have to make it.’
‘Yes.’ Amy started reeling off a list. ‘Women need to be strong, intelligent…’
‘Of course we’re fucking intelligent.’ Suzanne’s eyes snapped open and she swung an angry look at Amy before settling back into her seat and signalling for Amy to continue brushing. ‘We’ve always been more fucking intelligent than all those pricks…Women need to know how to work the system, Amy: use your…’ She opened her eyes and looked Amy up and down. ‘…use anything you have. That’s what I will teach you, Amy. I have plans for you. Things have changed. Stand over there, Amy…’ Suzanne pulled Amy’s arm roughly, making her stand in front of her. ‘Take off your clothes. Let me look at you.’
Amy batted her eyes and her brace got dry and made the sucking sound.
‘Take that fucking brace out of your mouth. You’re not going to need it any more anyway.’ Suzanne sighed, exasperated, and looked Amy up and down. And don’t even bother to take off your clothes-I can see exactly what you look like; we need to put you on a strict diet. Come here…‘Amy inched towards her. ‘Give me that thing in your mouth…spit it out.’
Amy reached into her mouth and dislodged the plate.
‘Throw it in the bin-do it.’
Amy went to the bin and dropped it inside.
‘Suzanne-let me do your hair now. I love your hair. You’re so beautiful, Suzanne-like a model. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Please let me do your hair…’
Suzanne’s phone rang. She answered. Amy knew it was Lenny on the phone because of the way Suzanne’s voice changed. Then Amy saw her smile disappear as she listened hard, concentrating on what Lenny was saying. Something wasn’t right.
‘Yes. Yes, I will do it now. Yes, okay. You know I will.’ Suzanne closed her phone.
‘Was that Lenny?’
‘Shut up and hand me my bag.’
Amy did so reluctantly. She knew what that usually meant. She watched Suzanne dig into the large leather bag and bring out the bottle of pills that Amy had seen many times since she arrived at the flat. Suzanne tipped out one into her palm.
She passed Amy the glass of gin and tonic.
‘Take it.’
Amy screwed up her face as she tasted the gin, but she knew better than to cross Suzanne.
‘Now lie down and go to sleep.’
Amy did as she was told. Suzanne watched her take the sleeping pill, then she went into the lounge to get ready. Amy lay down on her bed and pulled up the duvet. She waited for the familiar heaviness to come down on her. She listened to the sound of Suzanne tidying up the kitchen, washing the coffee cups. She heard her moving around the lounge; occasionally she heard her come back to Amy’s door, feeling her presence as she looked in to see if Amy was asleep yet, then went back to the lounge.
It wouldn’t take long for Amy to fall asleep. It never did. Suzanne peeped in. Yes, Amy was snoring away. She really needed to get her adenoids seen to, thought Suzanne, as she went back into the lounge and checked her watch. She should have been gone by now.
Fucking men! They couldn’t do one thing right. Suzanne didn’t understand why Lenny kept changing his mind. She didn’t see why they were bothering to keep the child alive now. What was Lenny stalling for? That was the part that worried Suzanne. The side of Lenny that was capable o
f double-crossing anyone and everyone. Did that mean he would do it to her? She didn’t really believe that-they were the same type, him and her. They were meant for one another. He wouldn’t double-cross her. He must want the child alive in case the plan changed. He was smart; he was rich; he was good-looking-she didn’t need to worry. But she did need a contingency plan, and she had it. If things went wrong, Suzanne had it all worked out what she was going to do. Amy was her ticket to freedom. With the money she could sell Amy for, she could retire.
She headed over to check on the new arrivals. She had better keep a more watchful eye on this lot. She couldn’t trust the men where the women were concerned; they weren’t using their brains to think. They were easily distracted. They had been responsible for the loss of the women in the fire-she had warned them that it was only a matter of time. She had told them to move the women earlier. But had they listened? Now Lenny was gone to try and sort it out and she was left to manage the idiots. Things had not turned out the way they were supposed to.
She locked up the flat and called a cab. The journey took her twenty minutes as she headed north off the M25. She reached her destination-a scruffy end-of-terrace on a road that was high up on a demolisher’s list.
Tony answered the door. Suzanne went past him and straight through to the kitchen. ‘It’s freezing here. Put the heating on.’
‘It doesn’t work.’ Tony followed her through to the back.
‘I thought you were going to tart this place up after we sold the other girls on.’
‘The Albanians screwed us over. We didn’t get a lot for the girls, in the end. They weren’t worth much-they were finished.’
Suzanne looked at him. She knew he was lying, but it didn’t matter to her, she hadn’t handled the deal-if the shit hit the fan it wasn’t her mess to clean up.
‘Well, get the heating fixed before we start getting punters in here. They’re going to be too cold to get their clothes off. Ring someone and get them round…no, wait, leave it-I’ll do it tomorrow.’
Suzanne had decided that the men were best given minor tasks. She couldn’t risk another disaster. She set the bags of bread, pasta, jam and milk down on the kitchen table. A bare electric light bulb swung down over their heads. A small portable television was blaring out from the corner of the worktop. The house was ex housing association. It had been bought at an auction and needed a lot of money spending on it, which it wasn’t going to get.
‘You have four hours max. I have had to dope the girl as there is no one there to look after her.’
Tony was disgruntled. ‘We can’t manage them, just the three of us. It’s too much.’
‘It’s not too much if everyone does their fucking job. We’re already fifty grand down with the loss of the others.’
‘That had nothing to do with me.’
‘Yes, it did. You should have known the Chinese would come. You should have backed me when I said to move them on quicker and you should have kept an eye on that black guy. He wasn’t thinking with his brains.’
Tony shrugged. He was looking sheepish. He was up to something or he’d done something, thought Suzanne.
‘Where are the girls? Upstairs?’
Tony nodded. She could see by his face that he was hiding something.
‘What kind of condition are they in? They’ve been cooped up in the back of a lorry for a week. Are any of them sick?’
Tony turned his back on her and started to unpack the groceries.
‘Not sick, but they were playing up-making a noise. I had to get rough with them. Had to make them do as they were told, show them who’s boss.’
Suzanne could see by his face that he’d had his fun.
She went upstairs to look at the girls.
The house had four bedrooms. Six girls slept in one room and the other three were going to be used to entertain clients.
As Suzanne made her way up the stairs there was an eerie silence coming from above. The front door sounded loud as it juddered shut behind the exiting Tony. She opened the door to the girls’ bedroom. Two of the girls were sitting on their beds, facing each other, talking. Two more were lying curled on their mattresses. The other two sat together on the floor, their backs against the wall. The room smelt damp and dirty. Suzanne blamed the mattresses. Tony had found them on a skip. He was a cheap little hood, but Suzanne had to work with what she was given. She was still a minor player in the league but was working her way up the ladder. She and Lenny would be a great team one day, a formidable team. But for now she must look after a few frightened Filipinas-schoolgirls, kidnapped and sold to the highest bidder, which just happened to be Suzanne’s new boss.
The girls on the bed turned and stared at her as she entered. She went over to the two on the floor. One of them was the youngest of the six girls, at thirteen. Her fifteen-year-old sister had her arm around her. Tony had done a good job by raping the youngest first-they looked frightened, traumatised, exactly as they should look, thought Suzanne.
32
‘How long are we in the air? Do you think the plane is safe? It seems really old to me…and what are those drops on the wing?’
Becky and Mann were sitting on a small domestic aeroplane heading for the island of Mindanao.
‘Just relax-just takes a couple of hours, that’s all. I can’t believe you are frightened of flying. I thought you loved travelling.’
Mann was having a hard job keeping the smile off his face.
‘I love to travel but I hate getting there.’
‘Just relax, close your eyes, try and sleep.’
‘No way-at any minute I might have to fly the plane.’
Mann laughed. ‘This plane is made out of bits of chicken wire and soggy cardboard, God knows how it stays in the air as it is-if there’s any trouble we are going down fast…’ He looked at her panic-stricken face-her eyes were huge. ‘I didn’t mean it. This airline has a better safety record than Qantas-believe me, there is nothing that can go wrong-why don’t you read a magazine and forget about it.’
Becky slumped in her seat and took the in-flight magazine from Mann, but continued to stare at the water droplets that ran in ragged paths across the wing.
They were on the second leg of their journey now. They had stopped at Cebu, sat in the suffocatingly hot departure lounge, paid boarding tax, luggage tax, departure tax and now they were sitting on the connecting plane that would take them to Davao, the capital of Mindanao. It was a small old plane with one very short-skirted hostess and a pilot who coughed incessantly. Becky was wearing cut-off jeans and a vest top. She looked at the hostess and was glad she had chosen not to wear shorts. She wouldn’t want to begin to compete with those legs.
They flew out of the cloud and Becky looked down below to see white-rimmed islands floating dream-like in the transparent turquoise ocean. She felt calmer. They had a chance now they were over water. She had rehearsed the escape from a plane in the sea many times in her head. She was a good swimmer; she could afford to relax for a while. She opened the magazine and started reading about Mindanao. She turned to ask Mann a question but he was asleep. His sunglasses were resting on his head; his black hair and choppy fringe were pushed back from his forehead. She studied his face. His broad forehead had a permanent crease, a frown line across it, even when he was resting. His eyebrows were black and thickest where they arched over the centre of the eye. The scar on his cheek sat right over the cheekbone in an otherwise quite beautiful face, thought Becky.
She looked at the way his faded blue T-shirt folded softly around his bicep and his washboard stomach. He was a lot like Alex, thought Becky, in the way he liked to look good, but Mann was understated, he liked to be well-groomed, not flash. Alex liked people to know how much his suit cost; Mann liked to keep them guessing.
Mann knew she was looking at him. He was resting his head and trying to take his mind off the fact that he was so tall that his knees were jammed against the seat in front. He was aware of her turning towards him and he fel
t her soft breath on his face-a hint of mouth-wash. He snapped his eyes open.
Becky quickly turned back to her magazine.
‘Says here that Davao is one of the safest cities in the Philippines. I thought Mindanao is where the rebels are?’
Mann leaned over to look at the magazine on her lap.
‘Some parts of the island are no-go areas-terrorist strongholds-but Davao has been transformed into a crime-free zone. It’s held up by the government as a model city, crime rates falling, vagrancy dealt with.’
‘How come?’
He sat back. ‘It’s called the forty pesos solution. Forty pesos is the cost of a bullet. Davao has a death squad. Two men dressed in black ride shotgun on a motorbike-the Davao Death Squad. They target anyone undesirable. It used to be rebels but now it’s petty thieves, drug dealers and vagrant kids who live off the streets.’
‘They kill children?’
Becky looked past Mann and became aware that she was speaking too loudly, as across the aisle an old Filipina was staring at her looking annoyed.
‘The Philippines has a massive vagrant child population.’ Mann kept his voice low and smiled over at the woman who smiled hesitatingly back. ‘The country is eighty per cent children. The average size of the family here in the Philippines is six. The streets are clogged with children, they live off refuse and they sleep on the pavements. They have no papers and no identity. Lots of the kids don’t have any birth records. They don’t exist, so far as this city is concerned.’
‘And so they just get rid of them?’
‘The DDS do. The kids are either stabbed or shot by them. They are bad for tourism, unsightly. Their bodies are dumped in a killing field outside the city.’
‘My God! That’s awful. Why are we going there? What has it got to do with this investigation?’
‘Because, recently, they seem to have stopped killing them. There have been reports of children being snatched off the street. There are rumours that they have started trafficking them instead. Making money from them instead of just killing them for fun.’
