Before It's Too Late (13 page)

The first sheet was a print-out of a message from Russell which read, ‘Best photo of Qiang Li taken around fifteen years ago’.

Jackman looked at the photo. At first glance the image looked more like a mug shot than a family photo, although when he peered closer he saw what appeared to be a sparkle in Qiang’s eye, as if he was deliberately pulling a face for the camera. Jackman stared at it a moment. Qiang’s head was tilted slightly, held at an angle that obscured his left ear, but he could just about make out the grooved scar on the side of his cheek.

Gray sniggered as Jackman passed it across. “Bloody hell.” He ran his finger along the broken line that ran through the middle where the original photo had been folded. “Couldn’t they find a better one?”

Jackman took a sip of his coffee and placed the mug on the round table in front of them. “He probably looks quite different now, but at least it’s a start.”

“What we really need is Ken,” Gray said, “the local beat officer for the Chinese Quarter. He’s British-born Chinese. Built up a lot of connections with the local community, even speaks Mandarin.”

“Great, let’s get hold of him.”

Gray frowned. “No can do. He’s sunning himself in Greece. Flies back in the morning.”

Twenty minutes later, a thick stench of diesel hung in the air as Jackman and Gray parked up and wandered into Birmingham’s Chinese Quarter. The afternoon heat radiated from the mortar in the surrounding buildings. Gray turned his head sharply as they passed a couple of women in short floral dresses.

“There it is,” Jackman said. He halted on the corner of a narrow side street and pointed at The Oriental Garden. “Let’s go have a word.”

Gray took another passing glance at the ladies and reluctantly followed Jackman through the entrance. Elaborate lacquered prints of Chinese figures decorated the red walls of the restaurant. They climbed up grey carpeted steps and immediately faced an oversized, gilt-edged mirror that gave the impression of a room double the size. A family of four turned their heads from a table in the corner beside an aquarium containing a shoal of cichlids that glided around serenely.

A floor-walker grabbed a couple of menus, plastered a smile on his face and approached them. Jackman introduced them both and his smile instantly disappeared.

He made a play of replacing the menus in the nearby stand and looked back at them anxiously, “How can I help you?”

Jackman dug into his pocket, pulled out the photo and unfolded it. “Do you recognise this man?”

The waiter gave it a fleeting glance and shook his head.

“And you are?” Gray chipped in.

“Hui Zhang.”

“We were told he used to work here,” Jackman added.

The man glanced across at him, his face deadpan, and handed the photo back. “Must have been a long time ago.”

Jackman sighed. “Can we speak to the manager please?”

The man nodded and moved away, through a door behind the bar area and out of sight. He returned almost immediately with an older Chinese man in casual trousers and a checked shirt.

Jackman held out the photo and repeated his question.

The elder man cast a quick glance at his colleague. When he spoke, his words were broken. “I don’t know him.”

“Are you sure?” Jackman asked. “Take another look. His name is Qiang Li, although he might have been using another name. He has a very distinctive scar.” Jackman pointed to the side of the face in the photo and explained that his left earlobe was missing.

Hui Zhang started to translate but the older man cut through his words. “No.”

“What about any of your staff?”

“I don’t think so. I’m sorry.”

They left the restaurant, crossed the road and entered the Arcadian precinct. Red lanterns hung merrily over head. They paused at a shop offering acupuncture, the window inset with an ornate red Chinese dragon, and moved inside. A middle-aged Chinese woman with a bobbed hair cut looked up from behind the dark counter and smiled, but as soon as Jackman introduced them both, her head bowed. When he showed her the photo she cast her eyes to the floor and shook her head. They tried the restaurant next door and faced the same response.

“I bet if we were ordering food they’d understand us perfectly,” Gray said as they left.

A mixture of heat and irritation was bubbling beneath Jackman’s skin as they continued down Cathay Street. He halted near the end, just outside a Chinese supermarket and wandered inside.

The shop assistants behind the till were all busy serving customers. Jackman glanced around as they waited. He was just examining the wide range of different rice beside the door when Gray nudged him. He turned his head to find that the queue had run down and two of the assistants stood idle.

Jackman moved in towards the one on the end, raised his card and smiled. He held up a photo of Qiang and asked the assistant if she’d seen him.

She shook her head, short sharp shakes. A colleague peered over her shoulder and said something in Chinese and they both exchanged a look. Jackman swore he saw a flicker of recognition on their faces.

He leant in closer. “Qiang Li,” Jackman repeated. “He may have been using another name. Do you know him?”

The second girl looked up at him, bit her lip anxiously. “I… ” Suddenly she gazed past him and froze. Jackman heard footsteps behind him and turned to see a Chinese man walking towards the tills.

He could hear shuffling behind him as the ladies dispersed. He raised his card, held up the photo.

The man glared at him and shook his head. “The girls need to work.”

Jackman ground his teeth as he left the shop. He would come back tomorrow. Maybe he’d have more luck with the local officer or an interpreter on board. He hoped so.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

All afternoon I ground the nail into the concrete, working the metal over the same line, time and time again, to deepen the groove. It was cathartic at first. I imagined it was my captor. I was carving my name into his chest, pushing the sharp edge in deeper with every mark. Even when my fingers ached I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I had no idea how much longer I had and now that I’d set my mind to the task I wanted to complete it
.

Finally I sat back and surveyed my work. My name stood out, clear as day, etched into the concrete. First in English, then in Chinese. It wasn’t neat or tidy. The ‘M’ was wonky, the ‘I’ too long, but it was clear. A slight moment of pride was almost immediately smothered by a blanket of sadness. If I died in the pit, this would be like an epitaph on my gravestone
.

My knuckles were bleeding. The earlier grazes stung as new dust became ingrained in the crevices. I looked around for some relief. I couldn’t spare any water. My eyes rested on my skirt. I grabbed the corner, pulled hard. A slight rip. I pulled again with all my might, tore a strip of material off and wrapped it around my knuckles. The silk was soft and slipped through my fingers as I wound it around and around
.

The skirt had cost £30.00. More than my food budget for a week. I’d seen it in a shop window in Stratford centre weeks ago and wandered past it several times, looking on longingly. Finally, last weekend, I plucked up the courage to go inside and try it on. The assistant told me it suited my slender figure and she was right. I loved the way the grey silk glistened in the sunshine and swished around my calves as I walked. I’d lived in my student jeans for so long, but this felt feminine, different. It cheered me up, made me feel special
.

A lump filled my throat as I looked down at the torn material. A broken nail snagged the fabric as I ran my finger along the ragged edge. It had meant so much, and yet today it just looked like a grubby rag cast aside in the gutter
.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

A couple of hours later, Jackman pulled off the main dual carriageway and turned left into The Grove industrial estate. The car park was heaving and he had to drive up to the far end to find a parking space. He got out of the car and surveyed the surrounding area. A mechanic’s garage was flanked by a factory unit that made car parts. A printing company sat in the corner.

Davies reached up and gave him a wave. She was stood outside a long metal unit with a glass front at one end and a rolling factory door at the other. The blue sign above the door read Atom Conveyors.

“Any luck with the uncle?” she asked as he approached.

Jackman shook his head. “Nothing yet. How’s it going here?”

“Okay.” She made for the side of the building and gave a sideways nod indicating for him to follow. He climbed over the blue and white police tape and paused next to three large, pink industrial waste bins huddled together, the bright livery on the side advocating the fight against breast cancer. A few scraps of paper and a sliver of cardboard indicated the space where the brown bin used in the ransom drop had stood.

Davies tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “These bins are rented by Atom Conveyors. They have three 1100 litre bins,” she pointed her toe forward, “for landfill waste and one for cardboard recycling which houses all the packaging that comes through this place – that’s the one used for our drop. It’s collected once a week on a Wednesday morning, usually between 10am and 12pm. We’re working our way through the staff, interviewing everyone, then we’ll take it wider to the neighbouring units. No potential witnesses yet. Biggest problem is the time of the drop. Most of these units shut up shop by 7pm. Even if somebody had forgotten something and popped back, they were likely tucked up in their bed by midnight.”

She pursed her lips in thought. “One thing they were able to tell us is that the bin’s stacked out by Wednesdays. So much so, they’ve even been considering ordering another.”

“It’s collected every Wednesday? The collection company stick to that?”

Davies nodded.

“And it’s always placed in the same location?”

“Yes.”

“So, we are possibly looking for someone local, someone who knew what the bin contained, the collection times. When they sent that demand, they knew the bin would be almost full. It’d make it easier to retrieve a package if it sat on top of something.” Another thought nudged Jackman. “Aren’t industrial bins usually locked?”

“According to the staff they were locked every night. The keys hang in the office. But we’ve already checked and the keys are pretty universal. There are only about three different types out there. Even the secretary said they’re easy enough to source on the internet.”

Jackman glanced at his watch. It was 4.10pm. He looked back at the remaining bins, “What about those?”

“They’re emptied on a Monday.”

Jackman walked back towards the car park and turned around. What struck him was the complete lack of vegetation. No trees, hedging. It was like a concrete jungle. “No cameras?”

Davies shook her head.

“What? I thought Birmingham was the home of CCTV?”

Davies chortled. “Oh, there’s plenty on the main roads. We’ll get those checked. But this is a private estate. They have an alarm for out of hours and a security firm does a beat call at night. Didn’t see the need for cameras. A couple of companies have their own, but they’re situated further up.” She pointed along the line of businesses. “We’ll get them checked of course, but it wouldn’t be difficult to avoid them. They hang off the front of the buildings like beacons.”

Min’s parents had confirmed that the drop was made at 12.30am. Min was due to be released half an hour later. He looked back down the row of bins. The bin in question was situated at the far end, obscured by the others. He tried to imagine someone rummaging through in the darkness. Even if a car had passed it was unlikely they’d have been spotted tucked away down there. It was the perfect location and somebody had gone to great lengths to seek it out.

Jackman wasn’t sure what made him turn, but as he looked around he saw a taut, pointed face at the window. He stared at it a moment before it moved back, away from the glass. “Who’s that?”

Davies followed his eye line. The outline of the figure was just about visible in the distance, although he’d turned and appeared to be having a conversation with somebody else in the room. “Oh, that’d be Mr Lewis, the managing director. Very austere. Something tells me he’ll be happier when he gets his new bin and we stop keeping his staff from the production line. If time is money, he measures every second.”

Jackman shot a fleeting glance back to the window but Lewis had disappeared completely now. He turned three hundred and sixty degrees, glanced at the surrounding area and then back at the spot that had housed the bin. “Shame he’s not so vigilant in the early hours of the morning. We’ll need a background check on him and all of his employees. Check out the company that rent the bins too – the collectors will be familiar with the locality, and the security firm. Whoever organised this must have been here several times to examine the area. See if anyone spotted anything untoward over the past few weeks, or earlier that evening.”

The intermittent loud beeps of a vehicle reversing swallowed his words. He looked up to see two long metal pipes protruding from the back of a lorry’s rear bed as it approached. Thick diesel fumes filled the air. A couple of men in navy coveralls emerged from the factory to talk to the driver, another hopped into a fork lift and reversed, carefully avoiding the police tape as he worked.