Death Trip

He smiled and nodded his acceptance.

‘Thank you.’ The tears in her eyes spilled over and she wiped them quickly. ‘He looks like you,’ she said as she pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. The Americans turned at the noise, but just as quickly turned their attention back to the stage where a group of lads was lining up to eat a banana from the dancer’s vagina. Mann stood and picked up his coat.

‘Let’s go somewhere else to talk.’

They were greeted outside by a blast of icy wind. Flanked by the tall houses that leant over as if magnetically drawn towards the water, the canals acted as wind tunnels. Magda steered Mann left. It was Saturday night and De Wallen was busy. People and bikes were filling pavements and spilling onto the roads. Bikini-clad prostitutes smiled and pouted from behind their windows, their bodies softened by neon. They chatted to one another and drummed their nails on the glass to attract passersby that they liked the look of, and then they stopped to take up negotiations at the door. Mann looked around for the men in the puffer jackets. There were enough suspicious-looking types hanging about doorways to warrant paranoia but those particular two were not amongst them.

He caught Magda watching him as they walked alongside each other past the Granny and the Tranny quarters, where young men and old could indulge their confused fantasies.

‘You’re taller than I thought you’d be,’ she said.

‘And you’re younger.’ He smiled. ‘The height’s from my mum’s side.’

Magda pulled up her fleece around her neck. ‘Did she tell you about me?’ she asked, not looking at him.

Mann shook his head. ‘No.’

Magda nodded as if it was what she had expected.

The will had been read a few weeks after his father had died. Mann had been eighteen. He remembered his mother being led into a private room and emerging some time later, ashen faced. She had never told him what had gone on in there but that’s when she must have found out about Deming’s indiscretions. It must have broken her heart. She never spoke about his father again. She sold the house, got rid of many of their belongings and she never touched the money he left behind. If Magda hadn’t got in touch it was unlikely Mann would ever have known about the existence of a brother. What hurt him now was the knowledge that his father was so evidently missing something in his life that he had to travel to the other side of the world to find it. It left Mann feeling insecure, unsettled. His world had turned on its head.

‘What about Jake, is he tall?’

‘A bit taller than me. But I think he is still growing. He’s just eighteen.’ Magda’s voice softened as she talked about him—he was clearly the light of her life.

They stopped outside one of the prostitutes’ windows and Magda waved at the occupant who was dressed in a black rubber corset and stockings, and sitting on a stool in the window.

The woman grinned back and gave a small wave of the hand.

‘That’s Carla—she has been working this window for a few months. She does the evening shift from eight until two, or until she’s had enough.’

Carla mouthed something and pointed to Mann and began drumming her long nails on the window. Magda turned to him, amused.

‘She says special rate for you—suck and fuck, thirty euros.’

Mann pretended that he was giving it serious consideration and then tapped his watch and mouthed that he was sorry, he didn’t have the time. Carla shrugged and winked back at him.

‘She a friend?’ he asked as they walked away.

‘Carla? Yes. Sort of. The girls come and go but the window stays the same. I wanted to show you this window because…’ Mann looked at her. Her eyes were burning in the reflected light from the street lamps, watering from the icy wind. ‘This is where I met your father.’

4 (#ulink_e06ab3c4-c426-54a2-abf6-3b82b1246d24)

Burma

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.

5 (#ulink_d3893bd6-d15b-5910-bea1-6bac0530410f)

‘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.’