The Trafficked djm-2 Read online

  The Trafficked

  ( Detective Johnny Mann - 2 )

  Lee Weeks

  Lee Weeks

  The Trafficked

  1

  Philippines, March 2004

  A child whispered in the darkness.

  ‘Shhh…stop crying. The Kano will hear you.

  What’s your name?’

  ‘Perla.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Eleven.’

  ‘I’m Maya. I’m eight. You from Davao?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Me too. Where are we?’

  ‘Angeles City.’

  ‘Why are we chained up? Are we in prison? Why does that Kano hurt everyone? What will happen to me?’

  ‘You will be sold.’

  ‘Sold?’

  ‘Sold to a man.’

  ‘What will the man do with me?’

  ‘He will have sex with you.’

  ‘I’m just a girl. I can’t. I’m going to run away. Let’s do it, Perla. Let’s run home to Davao.’

  Perla stated to cry again.

  ‘Don’t cry. The Kano will come. He will hurt you. He will poke you with the buzzy stick.’

  ‘My legs are wet. I am bleeding.’

  ‘Don’t cry, Perla. I’ll be your friend. I’ll tell you a Mickey Mouse story.’

  By the time Maya finished her story, Perla was dead.

  2

  Philippines

  Detective Inspector Johnny Mann was sitting at the covered end of the Boom Boom Bar on a beach in Boracay. Five young locals were watching a boxing match on a small television set at the front of the bar, whilst Mann and three other tourists sat on stools around the bar, staring at their drinks and willing the alcohol to kick in.

  The Boom Boom Bar was no more than fifteen foot square, with a threadbare palm roof and a floor made from reclaimed wood. It looked like a piece of flotsam that had been found by an enthusiastic beachcomber, dragged up the beach and put to use. It was named the Boom Boom Bar because of its nightly entertainment, when dreadlocked youths took it in turns to sit on a drum box on a small stage pitched into the sand, with their eyes closed and their backs to the sea, beating out a rhythm on the drum’s skin.

  Inside the bar there was a Caribbean theme: bongos, bongs and Bob Marley posters hung from every section of wall space and jostled for position on sand and salt greased shelves. In addition to the bar stools, there was an old rattan sofa with half its back missing and a few threadbare scatter cushions just inside the entrance where the beach met the bar.

  Mann held on to the glass and rolled it in his hands, savouring the cool condensation before allowing it to slip through his fingers and land in the centre of the bar mat. He checked his phone-another message. He rubbed his face with his hands and wiped the sweat away from his brow.

  Mann was thirty-five but he looked older. His once beautiful face-a mix of Chinese and English-had been made hard and handsome by life’s knocks. On his left cheek, where the skin stretched taut across his high cheekbone, a crescent-moon-shaped scar stayed pale against his tanned face. It was there as a memento of a childhood friendship that had gone very wrong. His large espresso-coloured eyes had seen more sadness than any person was meant to, and in his heart he carried the pain of having screwed up.

  There was no fan in the Boom Boom Bar, only the breeze to cool it down, and tonight there was not a breath of wind. Mann’s clothes stuck to him in the suffocating heat. He wore faded baggy jeans and an old surfer’s T-shirt. It was his favourite-he had bought it on his first visit to the Philippines fifteen years earlier, when he’d discovered the delights of lying on sand as fine as flour and swimming in a transparent turquoise sea. Then the T-shirt had hung off him; now it clung like a shark’s gills as it followed the contours of his adult muscular frame.

  He looked around at the other three men sitting with him at the bar, and smiled ruefully to himself as he wondered if they were all destined to meet here, same time, same place, with the same sense of fuck-up.

  His phone vibrated again. Mann knew who it would be. Ng knew him well. He knew that Mann would be sitting at a bar drinking vodka, contemplating the universe, and that it was a task best cut short. Mann would ignore him for a while longer. He had come to Boracay to lie on its white-sand beaches and to let the world wash over him, like he always did in times of stress or sadness. The place gave him headspace. Usually it allowed him time to repair and regroup, but this time it hadn’t been able to work its magic. There was no escaping the past for Mann. No matter how many times he ran it through his mind it still looked the same-he had a self-destructive streak a mile wide, and just owning up to it didn’t make it go away.

  He pushed his dark, choppy hair back from his sun-sore eyes and signalled that he was ready for another drink. He watched the young barman with slicked-back hair and aspirations of talent scouts and film agents, mix five drinks at once behind the cramped bar. Another youth, skinny and scrawny, was washing glasses in the corner. As the barman juggled the spirit bottles, a cockroach dropped from the roof and landed on his back. It clung to his shirt.

  ‘How’s it go-in, bro?’

  Mann felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Jojo, the proprietor-a short, fat, fifty-year-old Filipino wearing a shiny pink shirt with the Boom Boom Bar logo embroidered on the back. His soft Afro hair ballooned over his shoulders.

  ‘Good, Jojo. Place is busy, I see.’

  Mann gestured toward the beach outside where the Boom Boom Bar stretched out into low candlelit tables pitched into the cool soft sand. Most of the tables were occupied.

  ‘Yeah, pretty busy, bro. We got a ree-al good singer to-night.’ His voice was high-pitched and lyrical, each word split into its separate syllables and each syllable taking it in turns to go up then down then back up at the end of the word. It was an accent between Pakistani and Jamaican. Jojo gestured towards the stage, where the beat box drummer had been joined by another young brown-skinned man, his hair caught into a wide ponytail at the base of his neck. He was wailing a Bob Marley song.

  The barman set the drink down in front of Mann. As he did so, the cockroach crawled onto his arm. He knocked it off and stamped on it hard.

  ‘Stick a-round, Johnny, its go-in’ to be a good night. Plenty of people about.’

  Jojo went to walk away but Mann caught him as he went past.

  ‘Thought about what I said?’

  Jojo laughed uncomfortably. ‘I tol’ you, bro, this is pa-ra-dise-you should know, you bin com-in’ here for long enough…ah? Best place on Mama Earth…ah?’

  He disappeared to play the happy patron, circling the bar and talking to his customers. After twenty minutes he came back to stand at the end of the bar. Mann proposed a toast to Boracay.

  ‘To paradise-where every hour is “happy hour”. And you’re right, Jojo.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve been coming here a long time. I’ve known you since I was the same age as your son, Rex, over there…’ He nodded in the direction of the brown-skinned youth on the drum box.

  ‘Long time, bro, long time.’ Jojo smiled and nodded his head wisely. ‘Remember that time you were suicidal over a woman? What was she called?’

  Jojo screwed up his face, trying to recall her name.

  ‘Janie…’ Mann said. ‘That was it. Lovely Janey with the husband and four kids she never tol’ you about. Then there was the time the local police shut you down when you didn’t pay them enough. Never seen you so angry. But the worst was when I came here and there was nothing left. Typhoon Thelma took everything. You were devastated-remember?’

  Jojo closed his eyes, put his hand on his chest and sighed.

  ‘Dat storm was one I never forget…ah?’

  ‘But, do you know what? In all the years I’ve
been coming here, this is the first time I’ve ever seen you scared.’

  Jojo wiped the sweat from his eyes with his shirt sleeve. He was smiling but he didn’t look like a happy man.

  ‘Listen to me, old friend.’ Mann held his gaze. ‘I know the Chinaman came through here. I followed him from Hong Kong. Tell me what he wanted.’

  ‘You go-in’ to get me killed, bro.’ Jojo looked around, smiling nervously. The boxing was still going on. The others were still staring at their drinks-waiting to find ‘happy hour’. Jojo turned his back on the bar and looked hard at Mann. ‘I in enough trouble.’

  ‘Tell me. I might be able to help.’

  ‘The Chinaman come here ten days ago. He rent my house…ree-al nice place I have bee-hind here.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Not as tall as you, but tall for a Chinaman-goatee beard, bald, mean-faced, thirty-five, maybe?’

  ‘That’s the man. Anyone else?’

  ‘Come wid five other Chinese-his monkeys. Same time as he arrive come four white guys. They stay up at d end of d beach. Come wid whores from Angeles.’

  ‘What did he want-the Chinaman?’

  ‘He want me to sell ’im some-thin’, some-thin’ I own.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Biz-nesses in Mindanao-down south.’

  ‘What kind of businesses?’

  ‘A bar, a small hotel. Nuttin’ big. Nice place, on d coast.’

  ‘What did you agree to?’

  ‘Not agree nuttin’. He said he be back. He left d white guys here. Bin here a week. Deese are bad fuckers,’ he whispered. ‘One of d whores is beat up nasty. Dey got money, plenty, pay off police. I see dem talking wid dem-like old friends.’ Jojo shrugged and shook his head. ‘I tell you, bro, I go-in’ to be in big trouble when dat Chinaman come back.’

  ‘Are they here tonight-the white guys?’

  Jojo signalled for Mann to wait whilst he walked out of the bar and across the narrow sandy lane that ran the length of the mile-long ‘white sugar beach’. Halfway across the lane he started to sway to the tune of ‘No Woman, No Cry’ and began dancing with three of his sons who touted for his bar along the lane. As Jojo swung his hips to the rhythm, Rex on the drum box got a nudge from the singer. Rex opened his eyes, grinned, stopped rocking his dreadlocks and began drumming faster. Jojo shimmied his old hips as fast as they would go to keep up with the ever-increasing tempo, but he was forced to abandon the task and staggered back into the bar, amidst laughter and applause from the beach.

  He clutched his hand to his chest as if he were about to have a heart attack. ‘Baztads,’ he laughed, talking to the men watching the fight and rolling his eyes in the direction of the beach. ‘You give dem your name n they treat you like shit-kids.’ He took a beer from the barman and waited for the fuss to subside before making his way back over to Mann, fanning his face with a bar mat.

  ‘They here?’

  Jojo leaned in. ‘One of dem is here…sat left of d stage…wid a young Filipina…big white guy…peak cap.’ Jojo turned away from Mann and leaned his back against the bar, pretending to be interested in the boxing match, which had reached its fifth round. He kept his eyes diverted from Mann and kept smiling. ‘A-nudder ting,’ he whispered. ‘Dat old white guy’s got some-thin hard in his pocket an it ain’t his big old cock. You go-in’ to spoil my business you make trouble here, Johnny.’

  ‘Relax, old friend. There’ll be no trouble.’

  Mann picked up his drink and walked across the lane. He sat on the end of a table of Dutch tourists, directly behind the man. It was hard to see his face, hidden beneath the peak cap, just the candlelight and crescent moon to help. But Mann could see that he was big, strong and weathered, ex-military, with tattoos covering his upper arms. He wore khaki shorts and a sleeveless shirt. He chain-smoked whilst texting fast, impatiently. The young Filipina sat a little apart from him, waiting nervously by his side. The text messages came back every few minutes-no jingle from the phone, just a light and a vibration. His leg twitched with adrenalin as he read a new text. He called a number, said a few words, then finished the call abruptly and slammed the phone down onto the table. He pulled off the peak cap and rubbed his sweaty head. His silver ‘short back and sides’ was indented with the outline of the cap. Mann saw his face, mottled and puffy, dominated by bulbous eyes that made him look what he was-mad angry. Mann recognised him straight away. It was the man they called the Colonel-one of the biggest traffickers of women and children in the Philippines.

  3

  Hertfordshire

  Amy Tang’s oversized bag banged against her short, stumpy legs as she ran full pelt, arms flailing, down the long school corridor. It was Saturday afternoon and all the pupils had finished morning lessons and were dispersed at either sports matches or common rooms to enjoy the start of the weekend. But not Amy: she was getting a weekend pass. She was getting out. When the exeat list had been read out the previous evening, Amy had not been listening-she never expected her name to be on it. The teacher had had to repeat it: authorized exeat…friend of her father…shopping… She didn’t hear the whole message because she was shrieking so loudly.

  Now she ran down the corridor, even though it was against school rules to do so. She didn’t care. She was twelve and she had been at boarding school since she was four, and this was the first time she had ever had an exeat. Other girls went to relatives for the weekend but Amy didn’t have any family in the UK. She had plenty in Hong Kong-on her mother’s side-but she didn’t know much about her father aside from the fact that he was rich and powerful and that he didn’t live with them and that he wouldn’t marry her mother. Sometimes Amy thought he didn’t care about her or her mother at all. But now, finally, there was proof that he did-he had organised an exeat for her, the email said. She was going to be taken to Alton Towers, to the funfair there. Then she was being taken out for dinner and shopping. The other girls were so jealous. For once it was Amy who was going to have the best weekend.

  She hadn’t had a difficult time choosing her outfit-she only had one. Her mother had sent it over from Hong Kong: pink skirt and purple leggings, white trainers and a pink hoody. It was her special outfit that she hadn’t got to wear yet. It was a bit tight because her mother always thought she was thinner than she was, but that didn’t bother her today. Nothing bothered her now, she was on an exeat!

  Her footsteps echoed as she ran flat-footed down the long, empty corridor, slapping the worn paving slabs with her heavy feet. She barged through the first set of fire doors and passed the paintings by talented fourth-formers. She turned side-on to the second set of doors and pushed her shoulder so hard against them that the right-hand door swung open and ricocheted off the corridor wall. She stopped to realign her bag across her shoulder before running on-past sports trophies and press cuttings that she never featured in. She was arty, they said-but Amy didn’t see any of her pictures on the wall.

  She ran so fast that when she finally arrived at the man waiting for her at the end of the corridor, her face was scarlet with exertion and excitement and she was breathless. She tried to talk but her braces got in the way and she spat out a breathy hello.

  ‘Amy?’

  Amy stared at him. She didn’t recognise him.

  ‘Yesh.’

  Her tongue protruded like a panting dog on a hot day as she rested her hands on the tops of her knees and bent over to catch her breath.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked.

  She looked up at him. She couldn’t help feeling disappointed-he wasn’t what she had expected at all. He was wearing a suit for a start! He looked like a teacher. This man didn’t look like he was ready to take her to Alton Towers, then shopping.

  A group of girls in netball kit with swishing pony-tails and rustling gym skirts passed by on their way to tea. Amy and the man stood back to allow them through. The girls giggled and chatted to one another but none of them acknowledged Amy. It was as if she was invisible to them: the beautiful and the gif
ted.

  ‘Let’s be off, shall we?’ The man took her bag and placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘Let’s get you out of here and have some fun. Your father has insisted on it and we don’t want to disappoint him, do we?’

  He steered her towards the side exit. Amy glanced back along the corridor to the glass-panelled oak doors that led to the old library. She could still hear the girls laughing and the kitchen staff putting out the plates ready for match tea. She could smell the pizzas cooking. She looked back at the man. Something told her not to go with him. Something told her to run as far away from him as she could.

  ‘Call me Lenny,’ he said, holding the door open for her. ‘We are going to be such good friends.’

  4

  Hong Kong

  ‘You got some colour-you look more like a wild man than ever.’ Sergeant Ng was there to meet Mann at Hong Kong’s international airport on Lantau Island. Ng was an old friend and he and Mann had worked together on and off for many years. But it was the first time Mann had seen him up and about for three months, since he’d got shot on the last case they’d worked on. Ng was a dedicated policeman who gave his life to the job and had almost lost it, in the line of duty, on more than one occasion.

  ‘Yeah, and you’ve lost weight, Ng. Getting shot suits you.’

  They shook hands warmly. Mann picked up his bag, slung his jacket over his shoulder and followed Ng through the airport terminal to the car park.

  ‘Why the hell was I recalled? I was supposed to be having a vacation-just about to go surfing, for Christ’s sake! What was so bad it couldn’t wait a week?’ asked Mann.

  Ng shrugged, walking faster than he wanted, to keep up with Mann’s long stride.

  ‘New Super ordered it. Forget surfing-take up golf. And don’t bullshit me-I know you were working. You couldn’t resist it. Did you find out who’s buying up all the property on the trafficking routes out there? Are the rumours true that there is a new super group muscling in?