Trafficked

She stopped and looked at him incredulously before aiming the rest of the bun at a bin ten feet away and scoring a direct hit.

‘Thanks.’

She unlocked the car and got in, put her coffee in the cup holder in the centre of the red leather dashboard and started the engine. She switched the Bose sound system on and drove out of the car park.

‘Thanks for picking me up,’ Mann said.

She turned to look at him. He smiled.

‘That’s okay…you’re welcome.’

‘Did you have trouble recognising me?’

She giggled—deep and throaty, dirty, almost. She had a lovely broad mouth, strong laughter lines—a healthy tom-boy beach-babe look. She looked like she would be the last girl left at the campfire, drinking beer with the boys, long after the other girls had gone to bed.

‘Six foot, Eurasian, snazzy dresser—no trouble. I did my research. I have booked you into a B&B near to where I live. I thought it would make sense for us to be close.’

‘Sounds great.’ He gave her a mischievous smile.

‘Chief Inspector Procter—he’s the man in charge of the kidnapping—wants to see you as soon as poss. I said I would fill you in on the way to the school. Then we go and meet the rest of the team. Hope that’s okay?’

‘It all sounds good. I bet the rest of the team can’t wait.’

She swung him a look to check if he was joking, saw that he was and broke into that deep, rich laugh again. Her eyebrows and her eyes were a few shades darker than her hair, he noticed, which was the colour of gold, and her eyes were fringed with long, dark lashes. It gave her a striking Northern Italian look. She wore no makeup.

‘Yeah, right! Pleased as punch. No one’s quite figured out who asked for you. We didn’t think we needed help.’

‘Don’t worry. I didn’t want to come. Offer I couldn’t refuse—that kind of thing. But it’s nice to be here.’ He looked wistfully out of the window. It was early and the air had that spring brightness, that expectancy to it that the sky was just waiting to burn off the morning haze and reveal a blue day. The roads were also just beginning to get choked with commuter traffic. ‘I haven’t been back here for a long time—too long.’ Mann stared out of the window. ‘Where are we going first?’

‘The school in Rickmansworth. In this traffic it should take us about an hour.’

‘You’ve been out there already; what was your impression?’

‘Posh school…awfully nice people but clueless. Let her walk out with a complete stranger. We get to see the Head at ten, thought you’d like to look around first.’

‘Did you work on the other kidnappings?’

‘Yes and no. We didn’t even know about them till after the event. When Amy Tang went missing we sent out an alert around the boarding schools with Chinese kids. We got some information back about the abduction of two others—both boys, from two separate schools on the outskirts of London. One was ten, the other was twelve. Both were released after the ransom was paid.’

‘Big money paid to release them?’

‘Two million US each.’

‘How did the ransom demands come?’

‘All the same way—by email, via one of those scam sites for claiming an inheritance that you never knew you had.’

‘Has it been traced?’

‘We’re still working on it. Someone knows his computers. He sent it around the world first. It came back with the logo of a bogus company plastered on it—BLANCO. We checked it out—there are a lot of companies called that, unsurprisingly. We traced it back to a Nigerian working in a taxi rank—he didn’t have a clue how someone got hold of his dodgy identity. We decided it was a red herring.’

‘Where was the money dropped?’

‘In all three cases it was a different route, but same method. In Amy Tang’s case it was dropped in a bin off Gerrard Street in Chinatown.’

‘By whom?’

‘By an employee of CK’s, apparently, no one knows who. Getting cooperation from any of the Chinese families has been very hard. They would rather just pay up and shut up. A local crack addict was then paid to pick it up; he gave it to a lad on a courier bike and we think the courier had it taken off him at some lights. I don’t know whether that was the end of the chain or not. It was elaborate and it worked. We lost it. We only got that much from CCTV footage.’

‘Did he use the same method of abduction? Was it always the same man?’

‘Hundred per cent it’s the same man, though he was more cautious with the first two abductions. But the emails were written by the same person. The collection was virtually the same.’

‘Were the other children able to give a description of him or where they were held?’

‘No, they said they were kept blindfolded and that they slept a lot. Must have been kept sedated.’

‘Did the others have triad links?’

‘Both kids were from Mainland China—mega-wealthy parents but no direct triad links that we could find. The usual suspect business partners along the way, but nothing obvious.’

Becky beeped hard at a green MG that cut her up. Mann smiled to himself—he could see that she loved her car. She whizzed in and out of the traffic and she drove it with a passion—like a man—hard on the revs, aggressive, unapologetically.

‘How’s the investigation going?’

‘We’ve drawn a blank. We’ve been out searching all vacant, newly rented properties in a ten-mile radius—so far, nothing. She could have gone anywhere from there. There are links to motorways north and south. She wasn’t reported missing until Sunday evening—that’s thirty-six hours after she left. She could be anywhere.’

‘She wouldn’t be being held where there are large groups of Chinese—she’s much too hot a property. There would be quite a few people eager to ingratiate themselves with CK and tell him who’s got her. She would be hidden somewhere nondescript, a bland mix of cultures. Maybe a satellite town or a new vertical village somewhere where people are anonymous. Do you have good undercover agents in Chinatown?’

‘One really good one called Micky. He’s infiltrated the Flying Dragons. He’s been undercover for two years now. He doesn’t break his cover for anyone and he keeps in touch by phone. I already talked to him, told him you were coming. He has no news about her whereabouts but says the feeling is that this isn’t a home-grown problem—it goes back to Hong Kong.’ Becky turned the radio off. She was perking up, the coffee had worked. ‘Were you born here?’

‘No. I am a Hong Konger, a Eurasian—half Chinese, half British. But I spent the best years of my life here, although you know that anyway—you’ve seen my stats.’ He grinned.

‘I only know the official stuff, plus I found out a bit on the grapevine. Micky told me a few interesting facts, he knew all about you. I guess as we are going to be working together for a while I will have plenty of time to fill in the gaps.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Mann.

She gave him a sidelong glance and giggled, embarrassed.

‘But, you’re kidding, the best years of your life, really?’

‘School—didn’t you like yours?’

‘Nope…Couldn’t wait to leave.’

‘Where did you grow up?’

‘Islington—where I still live. Bought a flat there three years ago—in Highbury. Went to a local girls’ school—I did okay, but I didn’t enjoy it. I was a sporty kid. We didn’t have the provisions for that in the inner city. I beat all the boys at their school when it came to cricket practice.’