Death Trip (8 page)

Alfie kissed Magda goodbye and left for work. On the way out he looked up the street and saw the surveillance car. He thought it best not to tell Magda that she was being followed. She was bound to look around out of curiosity and Mann was right, neither Magda nor Jake had the luxury of time. They had to throw everything they had at it and chase any leads no matter how remote.

After Alfie had left Magda sat in her kitchen and dialled NAP’s number. She had plenty to do now, which was good. She had to try and get all the information she could out of Dorothy and ask for her help.

‘Can I speak to Dorothy, please?’

‘Who’s calling?’

‘Her niece; it’s urgent,’ Magda lied.

‘Hello?’ A nervous voice came on the phone.

‘Hi, Dorothy, I’m sorry. It’s Magda Cremer here. I didn’t want anyone to know who it was calling. Can you meet me for a coffee? There’s a Brazilian place at the end of your street.’

‘I know it. It’s my break in twenty minutes. I can come then.’

‘Thanks—I’m on my way.’

Magda was dressed and out the door in two minutes. She texted Alfie to tell him where she was. He texted his man outside to tell him she was on the move.

Magda sat in the small terracotta-tiled café and waited by the window. She waved as Dorothy appeared. Dorothy was always smart, today wearing a purple pashmina over a mauve jumper and a tweed skirt that ended mid-calf.

‘Thank you so much for coming, Dorothy.’

‘Please…’ Dorothy took off her pashmina and hung her coat on the back of the chair as she ordered a coffee. ‘I am so glad you called.’

She sat down, and looked hard at Magda before smiling kindly.

‘I know you have been ill and what with losing Daniel last year and now this…I thought it best to keep out of your way. But I have wanted to get in touch to tell you how sorry I am and, of course, whatever I can do to help, I will. Sorry…’ Dorothy reached over and put her hand onto Magda’s. ‘…I didn’t mean to upset you.’

Magda shook her head, trying to shake off her tears. She hated the fact that she could no longer get through five minutes without crying. She couldn’t bear people to mention her sons. She had almost lost hope of ever seeing Jake again and she missed Daniel more than ever.

‘Deming would have been so proud of you and the boys. You did a great job raising them.’

Magda looked shocked. ‘You knew Deming?’

Dorothy nodded. ‘Yes, in my youth. I was working as a bookkeeper and I was asked if I would like to do
some secretarial work for a Chinese businessman. And the businessman turned out to be Deming. Those days we didn’t have emails and laptops, we did it all on a typewriter. The secretary was a vital part of the busi-nessman’s life. I liked Deming. He was very generous. He made several large donations to charities.’

‘Did you know about me?’

Dorothy nodded. ‘Not from Deming, of course, I was his secretary, not his close friend. But I saw you together many times. I thought you made a lovely couple. You both seemed happy. Of course, I knew he had a family back in Hong Kong. I knew there was another son: I was responsible for typing letters to lawyers, making arrangements that concerned the will. Johnny Mann, he is called, isn’t he? I recognised him when he came to the office the other day. It was lovely looking at him—he’s such a big tall man, isn’t he? I think he looks most like Daniel.’

Magda smiled and nodded but her eyes filled up straightaway and she bent her head to dig for a tissue in her fleece pocket.

‘Sorry…sorry. I’ve upset you again.’ Dorothy laid her hand over Magda’s. ‘Tell me, what do you want me to do?’ she said in a business-like tone, and Magda knew if Dorothy agreed to do something she would do it well.

But Magda hesitated. It suddenly struck her that, as she was asking Dorothy, a woman she hardly knew, to supply personal information about her boss, she had better choose her words carefully. She didn’t want to blow it. Not only was Dorothy kind, she was also lonely,
and Magda knew Dorothy could be a goldmine of information if handled the right way. But she needn’t have worried; it was as if Dorothy had kept it bottled for so long that once she started to talk, she couldn’t get it out fast enough.

‘I am leaving my job next month,’ she started. ‘Retiring. Although I could stay on, I’m not going to. This last eighteen months have been so terrible—I don’t want to work for a company like NAP. It’s changed so much since that awful woman Katrien took over two years ago.’

Magda leaned forward and whispered: ‘Alfie calls her the Bitch.’

Dorothy put her cup down and whispered back, ‘I know exactly what he means.’ She nodded, her eyes wide. ‘It’s a good name for her. She has got well above her station. I don’t know how she’s ended up with so much authority. She shouldn’t be allowed in charge of any of it.’

‘What do you know about her?’

‘She takes drugs. I caught her once when I went in to her office; she was snorting cocaine. She seems to have plenty of money coming in—she wears designer
everything
and that’s not cheap, although why she bothers, I don’t know; she always wears black, it could be any make. And she’s always taking time off to go away.’

‘Where does she get her money from, do you think?’ Magda sipped her coffee and listened hard.

Dorothy raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes.

‘Men. That’s where from. She plays her little games
with all of them. I’ve seen her out in town. She’s always with a different one. Ugly, dishonest—but always wealthy looking. She’s passed me in the street before now, in some top of the range flash car. She knows all the wrong people if you ask me. But I don’t think she’s planning to stay here much longer. She’s been going to Thailand at least three or four times a year the last two years. I think she’ll go and live there. And good riddance to her…I tell you something, though.’ Dorothy beamed. ‘She was riled the other day when Johnny Mann came in.’ She chuckled. ‘You should have seen her face!’

‘Did she know who he was?’ Magda asked, surprised.

‘I don’t know that but I do know that she cancelled the rest of the day’s appointments and left the office. Oh…look at the time!’ She panicked as she looked at her watch. ‘I have to go.
She’s
probably back in the office by now and that nasty little receptionist will be quick to tell her that I had a longer break than I should. But…’ Dorothy stood and put on her coat and scarf. ‘…I will start doing some serious digging for you and I will call you.’

She hugged Magda.

‘You can rely on me,’ she said as she disappeared.

Magda watched her go and was left with the feeling that she could trust and rely on her. She was happy with the way the meeting had gone. Alfie would be pleased when she told him everything she’d learned. It confirmed his suspicions about Katrien—that she was a nasty piece of work, capable of anything.

Magda arrived back at the apartment and punched in her door code. No cat this time. She walked up the
stairs, and it was as she took the last few steps onto her landing that she had a sudden sense that something wasn’t right. As she turned the corner at the top of the stairs, she saw something that chilled her to the bone. Her legs buckled and she clasped her hand to her mouth in horror. Someone had nailed the cat to her door.

Mann drew up a chair and sat beside Shrimp as he drank his coffee. ‘What have you got for me?’

‘This.’ Shrimp picked up a glossy printout next to the PC and unfolded it. Mann recognised some of the photos on it. They were of Patong Beach. He’d seen them on the wall at NAP. There were before and after photos of the tsunami, and photos of projects that were being worked on. As Mann studied them, he thought of Daniel and of Magda’s account of that Boxing Day. Never again would he be able to look over the beach at the horizon in the same way.

His thoughts were disturbed as, from outside in the corridor, came the sound of a familiar male voice flirting with Pam. Ng came around the corner, his briefcase under his arm, smiling to himself. He was holding a piece of paper. He winked at Mann and fluttered the paper triumphantly in the air.

‘The old dog’s still got it—new girl, white blouse, tight skirt.’ He looked very pleased with himself.

Mann shook his head bewildered.

‘You must be fucking joking…How did you get her number?’

Ng always looked as if he’d just got out of bed. But the dishevelled look suited him and his sideways grin and puppy dog eyes brought him more than his fair share of female attention. He stopped mid-step when he saw Shrimp and feigned massive surprise.

‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you dressed like a normal person?’

‘This is my “project manager’s outfit”. I’m just trying it out for size. Buff-coloured trousers show that I am a professional used to working on sites, plus…’ Shrimp pulled the leg of his trouser to reveal sturdy lace-ups. ‘I have hard-topped boots—always safety first on the site. The vacancy just popped up. I couldn’t turn it down. I am going off to help rebuild a children’s nursery on Patong Beach that was destroyed by the tsunami and which they are halfway through completing.’

‘Huh?’ Ng tried to follow Shrimp’s quickfire dialogue. He always spoke too fast for him. Ng looked from Mann back to Shrimp and shook his head, confused. ‘I told you to look into it, not get yourself hired.’

‘No way, Shrimp,’ said Mann, shaking his head. ‘I appreciate it, but there’s no way I want you getting involved. You would get in serious trouble if the boss found out you were helping me. I thought you were studying for your law degree? You can’t afford to take time off.’

‘Forget it, boss, the law degree is in its final stages.
I just need to find a case to show off my skills. Plus, I live for the adrenalin, you know that.’

Ng shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘You might make a good lawyer—in the end—but, God, haven’t those children suffered enough? What do you know about building walls and laying floors?’

Shrimp thought for a couple of seconds and then shrugged. ‘I will pick up a book on it at the airport. I got Ting in Anti-Fraud to fix me up some credentials and references and they hired me subject to interview, which I did via webcam. I pretended I was from New York. To be honest,
I
would have hired me, Ting made me look so good. Plus they’re desperate.’

‘Ha.’ Ng shook his head, stupefied. ‘Good luck…’ He slapped Shrimp hard on the back. ‘You’ll need it.’

Ng sat down at his desk. As untidy as Ng was in his person, his desk was immensely organised: papers were gathered in neat piles, sharpened pencils lay in tidy rows.

‘Who interviewed you?’ asked Mann.

‘Versace suit, black—this season—grey silk Dior chemise underneath: understated chic.’

‘That’ll be Katrien—classy but as cold as ice. Okay, Shrimp. I do appreciate it but keep a low profile. Remember you have no jurisdiction there. Neither of us do. We get into trouble, we’re on our own. If the governments aren’t able to help the five missing kids, they sure as hell aren’t going to help us.’

Mann had been through many scrapes with Shrimp and Shrimp had always put himself on the line for Mann.

‘No sweat. I am just there for back-up for you. I want to do it and…I think you’ll need me out there.
Besides, I’m owed a lot of leave so figured it could almost count as a vacation.’

‘He’s as bad as you. He never takes a vacation,’ grumbled Ng. ‘I wish I was owed leave. Let him go, Genghis. I will cover for him here.’

‘Okay,’ said Mann, reluctantly. ‘I guess there’s nothing I can say to change your mind. Thank you. I will pick up the bill for it all, Shrimp. When do you leave?’

‘Tomorrow evening.’

Shrimp scrolled through the pages on his screen and clicked on a link to YouTube at the bottom. Devastating images of the tsunami came up: the empty beach, the massive wave on the horizon, and the muffled voices of people in the background, screaming for help. Mann wanted to turn away but couldn’t. The tsunami had become personal to him now.

‘You prepared, Genghis?’ Ng turned his chair around to look at Shrimp’s screen. Mann was still staring at the screen.

‘Some things you can never prepare for.’

For three long days Saw marched the five north to the mountains of the Golden Triangle. They crossed the muddy Meekong river and trekked ever upwards until the air became cooler every day. Now they were passing through poppy fields that stretched over hill tops and swayed with the gentle breeze in a wave of red. In the fields the peasants stopped and watched as the strange band of pale hostages and wild men passed by.

On the third evening they marched up a track and passed a field where the poppy heads stood erect, grey and fat. They were dried now and ready for harvesting. A woman was working in the field, cutting fine vertical slashes into the poppy head and releasing the white latex. Her children were harvesting the opium they had left to dry twelve hours before, scraping off the brown gum from the poppy heads. As they passed the woman, she stopped her work to watch them. Saw beckoned to her. She looked nervously around and at her children,
then back at Saw and she nodded. She handed her tools to one of her children and followed them.

The sun came down fast and the five sat on an elevated platform outside the woman’s opium farm to watch it setting. The sky dipped from deep turquoise to charcoal.

‘How long has it been, Anna?’ asked Thomas.

‘It’s been sixteen days,’ said Anna without hesitating.

‘Do you think anyone knows we are alive?’ he asked. None of the five answered him. ‘Do you think someone will come looking for us?’

Jake lay on his back and looked at the stars above and wondered which one his mother was looking at right now.

Lucas managed to sit up. He smiled at Jake. ‘Wassup?’ He was shivering.

‘You cold?’ asked Jake, pleased to see his friend awake and smiling, although he could see he was being brave rather than feeling better.

‘Freezing.’

Jake’s feet and hands were tied, but he shuffled on his bottom over towards Lucas and looped his arms around him.

‘What’s happening, Jake?’ Lucas whispered.

‘I don’t know. I don’t think we were meant to still be here. Whatever it is, it doesn’t look good.’

Saw seemed to be brooding and waiting. He rested whilst his men stood guard. The woman and her children prepared food for them all. Pots of rice boiled furiously and the children were sent to get food from neighbours. They returned with parcels wrapped in
banana leaf. As the woman was busy cooking she cast a nervous eye over Saw and his men, the rest of the time she stared at the five. She had never seen westerners before. She looked at them all with a mixture of bewilderment and concern. She could see they were in a bad state and that Lucas was very ill. When she thought she wasn’t being watched she brought them over some water. Squatting beside them, she washed Lucas’s face with a cool damp cloth and fed him some herbal tea. When she went back to her cooking, Jake watched her cautiously push a small knife out of her own reach, towards the five. She pushed it behind one of the pots, then she looked at Jake, down to his tied wrists and finally to the knife. He thanked her with a smile.