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I heard doors being slid open and the welcoming, happy-to-be-here lilt of Sophie’s voice. I couldn’t make out what she was saying at first, but the volume steadily increased. Then I heard, ‘Yes, he’s in excellent condition. We should have everything coordinated by the start of next week. I’m confident of it. Don’t worry, we take great pride in everything we do.’

I sank back down on the foam and played fucked as two heads appeared from beneath the mesh-covered window. They must have stepped up onto the bench. Sophie was on the left, all teeth and hair.

The older Chinese face beside her only came up to her ear. Slick grey hair, a side parting, collar and tie, the shoulders and lapels of what I assumed was a grey business suit. They both looked down at me like I was the runt of the litter.

‘Well, this is Nick. Nick has been a very naughty boy, telling me he was a customer when he wasn’t.’ She turned to her new mate. ‘Nonetheless, I can assure you that he is the perfect candidate.’

She turned back in my direction. Her smile was still in place, but her eyes told a different story.

She glanced down to her right as the bolt was thrown and Bruce appeared with a Velcro strap and a sterile, shrink-wrapped syringe pack.

His English was almost public schoolboy. ‘Stay where you are. Stay calm and I won’t harm you.’

He wrapped the Velcro round my free arm, snapped on a set of rubber gloves, then tore open the sterile pack and started to set it up. I kept my hands squeezed to hide the cuts.

Sophie continued with the sales pitch. ‘The X-rays, ultrasounds and blood tests demonstrate he’s in excellent health, just like I said. There’s no sign of nicotine, drug or alcohol abuse.’

As the needle punctured my vein I swallowed another gob of blood and saliva to prevent them seeing the condition of my mouth. So far, he hadn’t noticed the can was missing.

The moment the syringe was full, Bruce plunged it into a vial, which he then poked through the mesh. The Chinese guy checked the seal and slipped it into his top pocket.

Bruce undid the Velcro, leaving the puncture to bleed down my arm and onto the foam.

Sophie nodded for Bruce to leave. ‘You’ve seen that the blood matches the other samples and that everything is in order. There were some residual traces of sedative, but nothing else remotely abnormal in the preliminary tests. I think you will be very, very pleased with what we have here.’

The door slammed shut and the bolt was thrown again. Both heads disappeared from the window frame, then Sophie’s bobbed up once more. ‘Why don’t you both go to the office and I’ll be with you in a minute?’

I couldn’t be arsed to get a lecture from her, so I jumped in straight away. ‘Where’s Katya?’

‘Nowhere you’d expect, Nick.’

‘She still alive?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Does Anna really have CKD?’

‘Did your husband?’

She beamed. ‘It seems we both like telling stories.’

I swallowed another mouthful of blood and saliva, wedging my tongue against the sliver of aluminium to make sure I didn’t lose it.

She shrugged. ‘But it doesn’t really matter now, does it?’

I straightened my back against the wall. ‘Now you’re going to cut me up? Kidney, heart, liver? Make a few thousand dollars out of me.’

She gave the sort of patronizing laugh my bitch aunties did when I asked a question they thought was stupid. ‘Nick, you’re so last century. I’ve told you, we’re on the cutting edge here – if you’ll forgive the pun.’ She tilted her head. ‘Vital organs no longer have the greatest value. Do you know how much bone marrow you have in that body of yours?’ I did, actually, but she didn’t wait for my answer. ‘Someone of your age and build will have about two point six kilos. We’re going to sell that at twenty-three thousand US per gram. We won’t be able to suck it all out, but that still makes you worth fifty-seven million US, even before we auction off the other goodies.’

I made sure I could still feel the aluminium against my cheek after my next swallow.

‘Even your antibodies could be worth up to about seven
million. And your DNA – we might get as much as nine million for that. Which brings us back to your organs: perhaps another million? So you know what, Nick? When you wake up and say you feel like a million dollars, that should really be seventy-four million. And if that doesn’t give you a good enough feeling, think of all the other people you’re going to make happy. I feel sorry for you, really I do – you fucked up, you got caught. But look on the bright side. You’re not going to be wasted.’

‘So why are you fucking about with livers and kidneys?’

She shrugged again. ‘That’s what we do. But, as you’ve seen, our new business is almost ready to roll. It’s taken us three years to set up, to develop the know-how, to attract the right people, the backing. And now you’re going to be the guest of honour at our grand opening!’

And her head disappeared from the frame.

I moved the aluminium sliver up between my front teeth with my tongue and spent about ten minutes rolling it tight.

Plasticuffs are made of polycarbon resin. They’re a grown-up version of the used plastic ties that littered the floor, operated by a roller-block retention system, a little square buckle at one end that locks onto the teeth of the cuff itself and holds it in place. Normally the only way to get out of these things is by cutting them off, like Bruce had done with his
kukri
.

I manoeuvred my tightly rolled aluminium pin between the roller block and the teeth of the cuff and pushed. The pin slipped. At my second attempt I put pressure on the cuff with my secured hand to expose more of the area where the cuff went into the roller block, worked the pin back into position using my mouth and my free hand, and bit down hard. The block disengaged and the cuff started to come undone.

I widened the loop but didn’t undo it totally. If they came back, I’d need to look like I was still their prisoner. I squeezed my swollen hand out of the cuff, popped the pin back into my mouth and stood up.

I pulled up my boxers and jeans. I didn’t button them or fasten the belt because that wasn’t how they’d expect to find me, but at least they were over my arse and the zip held them in place.

Keeping well away from the window, I scanned what I could of the warehouse. I saw the Toyota and a left-hand-drive Merc van
with PRC plates. Fuck knows where the other had gone – and, more importantly, for how long – but this was a good sign. Absent vehicles meant absent people.

I couldn’t see any sign of a camera in my cabin, but these things were so small I couldn’t be sure. But if there was one on the roof, looking down at the door and window, I’d soon know.

The installation was a new-build. There weren’t any tyre marks on the polished concrete floor. It had the feel of a council leisure centre: white concrete blocks about two-thirds of the way up the walls, then pressed steel. The whole area was roughly the size of half a football pitch – plenty big enough to house a bunch of Portakabins.

A steel landing ran from the top of the steps that Sophie had climbed when we arrived, along the front of all four cabins. There were lights on at the top level, but I couldn’t see any movement. There wasn’t any down below either.

I moved to the door and started to push – first at the top third, then at the lower third, trying to work out where the bolt was. I was sure I’d heard only one being thrown. Both top and bottom gave a little, so it was probably in the middle.

I crawled beneath the window and rose to my feet to its left. The mesh was chain-link with a plastic covering, anchored by steel bars on the outside of the frame. It gave a little when pressed, but unless I suddenly found a pair of bolt-cutters under the foam, this wasn’t my way out.

I pushed my head against the mesh to stretch it as far as I could. It budged just a centimetre or so, but enough for me to see the far side of the door and, most importantly, what was keeping it shut. The bolt was just over a metre away. It was a rusty old thing, about eight inches long. All I had to do now was find a way of pulling the fucking thing open.

I eased myself back down, checking above me and along the walls in case I’d missed a hatch. I hadn’t. Either I was going to open the door and get out covertly, or it would be opened for me and I’d have to fight my way out. The first option was favourite, because it gave me some element of control. The second was a lottery at best – and at worst a gangfuck.

I heard the sound of footfall on the steel walkway, then voices. Maybe there was a camera after all.

I scrabbled back to the foam, making sure I could get my hand straight back into the cuff if they did come in. I checked with my tongue that the pin was still in place and started pulling down my jeans. I got them to mid-thigh, then crouched in a semi-squat with my back against the wall. I could just see the tops of the vans and movement from the top cabins. I could no longer hear the echoing footsteps. Sophie, Bruce and the Chinese suit must have reached ground level.

There was laughter as they moved towards the vehicles. I risked moving so I could see more. Two more guys in jeans and short-sleeved shirts – maybe the ones who’d done the donkey-work last night – emerged from behind the ground-level cabins. They joined the others at the van, slid the door open and powered up the roller-shutter that gave access to the compound. At first glance, they looked like two lads who enjoyed a lot of pork balls with their steamed rice. But there was something brutal in their faces and about the way they held themselves.

Sophie and Bruce shook hands with the suit. He climbed into the back of the Merc van as the two chubbies swung themselves into the cab. Sophie and Bruce stood in silence for a couple of seconds after the shutter had unwound once more, then Sophie pumped a fist in the air and did a little victory dance. She looped her arms around Bruce’s neck and they kissed. I was glad the day had been a success for somebody.

My next task was to sort out all the discarded plastic ties with my sausage fingers and start feeding the free end of each into the roller block of the next. It didn’t matter what colour or width they were, as long as the teeth engaged. By the time I’d finished, I had one continuous white, green and black daisy-chain about a metre and a half long, with a loop at the end, like one of those joke leads that are supposed to make passers-by think you’re walking an invisible dog. You look a complete twat when you’re holding one, but someone always smiles.

I moved back to the window to check for movement or noise. The place seemed deserted.

I pushed my head against the mesh until it ballooned.

Some of the feeling had come back into my fingers, but I still fumbled as I fed the loop of the dog lead through the left side of the fresh forehead-shaped bulge and on towards the bolt. I took a break after a while to rub the pins and needles out of my hands and realized I was totally fucking it up. My makeshift plastic lasso had dropped below the hasp, so I started pulling it back into the container with my teeth. No way was I going to let my sausage fingers drop this thing.

I gave the mesh another shove with my head, a couple of feet higher this time, and started the whole process again, about two-thirds of the way up the frame. I didn’t bother to check for movement or sound out there. I needed total focus on this job,
and if they’d seen me, I’d just have to deal with it the best way I could.

The loop was more or less in range of the bolt, but I had to keep twisting it to keep it flush against the outside wall. It had to catch the handle when I finally pulled it back towards me. My neck ached with the strain of forcing my head against the mesh. I was concentrating so hard I dribbled a stream of blood-flecked saliva down the front of my shirt. I had no idea where the pin had gone. For all I knew I might have swallowed it.

Half a lifetime later, my lasso fell over the bolt head like a fairground hoop around a prize. I didn’t just jerk the lead and hope for the best. Slowly, slowly, I closed the loop, kept the tension, and pulled. There was a very satisfying metallic rasp as the bolt squeaked back. I kept pulling until it completely disengaged and the door drifted open.

I retrieved the two razor-sharp discs I’d managed to fashion out of the drink can from beneath the foam then slid outside. I released the loop and threw it back into my Portakabin before closing the door and resetting the bolt.

I quickly checked the other two cabins next to mine. They were full of boxes, banding and polystyrene moulds, whose former contents were, no doubt, on display in the newer cabins.

I half ran, half stumbled to the Toyota. My first instinct was to get the fuck out of there, but right now I had other priorities. I had to find out if Sophie and her mates really had chopped Katya into tiny pieces – and I wanted that photo back. Just one fucking happy-snap after all these years, and this shit had happened.

Besides, if I really was in the PRC, I didn’t know how far I was from the border, or which direction to go. And without docs, I’d have to pull an II stunt to get back into Hong Kong.

The ignition keys were lying on the tray between the two front seats. I grabbed them and headed for the yellow junction box to the right of the shutter. I turned a big red handle to switch off the power. No one was getting in or out of here in a hurry.

My next target was the new white Portakabin complex.

As I got closer to the eight cabins I saw there was an identical row behind them, making the set-up a large rectangular block of sixteen. I moved round the corner to the right, where the driver and his mate had appeared earlier, and found a half-glazed entrance into the rear section. I stopped and listened, then gently pushed down on the handle with my wrist, a jagged drink-can disc in each hand.

The floor tiles were highly polished and there was a strong smell of antiseptic. Almost immediately I came to a set of white double doors. A corridor the far side of them opened onto a series of separate rooms. There weren’t any scuffmarks on the floor, not even a fingermark on a glass panel. There were noticeboards, but no notices. This place had just been lifted out of the box; it was a brand-new ghost town.