Death Trip

1

Mae Klaw Refugee Camp, Thai/Burma border, April 3rd 2006

‘Down on your knees!’

Saw Wah Say forced Anna to kneel as he pulled her head back by her blonde ponytail and held a knife to her throat. All around them, bamboo houses burst into flames, sending plumes of sparks up into the night sky.

Saw’s bare chest rose and fell, wet from blood and sweat, glistening in the hellish glare of the napalm. He stood over Anna and twisted her hair in his hand. He watched it fall like liquid gold through his gnarled fingers as he stretched her neck up.

Anna squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath as he ran the blade along her throat. Saw grinned at the other four young volunteers, dragged out from their hiding place and now held at gunpoint. All around them people ran screaming, trapped within the barbed wire walls of the refugee camp, whilst Saw’s men picked them off.

‘What do you want from us?’ Jake cried out. ‘We have no money.’

Saw grinned at Jake; his teeth were stained dark red from betel berries; his eyes were black as a rattlesnake’s. Saw’s head was shaved like a monk’s but Saw was no priest. His soul had long since dropped into some place dark. Anna gasped and a trickle of blood ran down her neck.

‘Stop, you bastard.’ Jake lashed out. But Saw’s deputy Ditaka was strong and he held Jake’s face down in the dirt. Jake could smell the napalm gasoline on his hands. Saw tilted his head to the side to look at Jake. He grinned.

‘You came into my kingdom. I did not invite you. Here I am God.’ Ditaka pushed Jake’s face further into the dirt. Saw’s men began closing in on the five like hungry wolves. Saw threw his head back and howled to the burning sky as Anna whimpered and the blade cut deeper into her neck. Then his black eyes came back to stare coldly at Jake. ‘Your parents will pay, or you will die. The world will know the name…Saw Wah Say.’

2

Amsterdam, April 17th 2006

Johnny Mann was bathed in the pink warm glow of Casa Roso before he got anywhere near it. Two-metre-high photos of flushed-faced couples threw off an oozy glow.

‘With drinks,’ Mann said as he collected his tokens before taking a left and climbing the illuminated stairwell into the bar and small upper viewing area.

In exchange for one of his tokens he got a large vodka on the rocks from the golden-haired cherub behind the bar. Mann looked around. The place was empty except for a handful of bored-looking American lads who occupied the front two rows.

He took his seat and sat back to watch the show. On the stage below, a pink circular bed was beginning its slow rotation and a man, a woman and a bottle of baby oil were in position.

Mann suddenly felt the full weight of tiredness hit him. He’d just come off a thirteen-hour KLM flight from Hong Kong to Schiphol airport, Amsterdam. It was a long way to come for the weekend and he hadn’t been able to sleep. His mind was a jumble of questions but no answers. Now, he needed sleep badly, or he needed a hard, punishing workout. But he wasn’t going to get either. Instead he was sitting in Casa Roso watching one of the eight shows an hour, audience participation welcomed, and he was waiting to meet the person who had asked him to come all this way.

He rolled the iced vodka glass around in his hands and took a good slug of it whilst he watched the couple dispense with the oil and move into position. He glanced over at the American lads. They were trying to make conversation and ignore the act. Mann smiled to himself. He knew that if there was one sure way of spoiling their evening it was seeing a big black guy with a huge cock showing them how it’s done to a white girl.

From his seat on the left side of the auditorium, back against the side wall, Mann watched two men emerge from the top of the stairs. They were short, dark-skinned Asians, wearing black puffer jackets. They bypassed the bar and sat down on the opposite side to Mann and stared at him. Either, thought Mann, they had been in the Casa Roso too often and had seen the same eight shows an hour too many times, or they found Mann more interesting. He stared back. Nestled against the underside of his forearm Mann felt the reassuring coldness of his favourite shuriken, Delilah. Shuriken meant ‘sword hidden in the hand’. He had several such throwing stars: some were no bigger than a coin, individually scored along the edges and made razor sharp. Mann had firsthand knowledge of what they could do. It had been such a coin that had turned his boy’s face into a man’s as it sliced a crescent moon into his high cheekbone; a scar which now always stayed a few shades lighter than his tanned face.

Mann looked across at the men in puffer jackets. One of them was texting; the other was now pretending to watch the show. The black guy was getting a well-deserved round of applause from a stag party in the main auditorium below as he managed to do the splits whilst still continuing to thrust. The Asians hadn’t bought drinks, which struck Mann as odd. The bar was the only reason for coming up to the smaller viewing area.

Just as the act on stage was reaching its truly acrobatic climax, Mann saw a woman emerge from the top of the stairwell. She had long brown hair. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt under a cream-coloured fleece. Mann looked and then looked away. It couldn’t be her—the woman on the stairs was too young, only a few years older than him, forty, he reckoned. But, as he turned back to find her staring at him, he knew it must be her. She went straight for the bar. Leaning across, she kissed the golden-haired cherub on the cheek as he knocked the top off a beer and handed it to her. Mann watched her move; she was solid, armyish—she could have doubled for a policewoman the way she held herself, filling up the space around her with her no-nonsense presence. She picked up the bottle and walked straight over to Mann. The Asians in the puffer jackets got up and left.

‘Thank you for coming.’ Her English was good with only a slight Dutch accent. ‘I am Magda.’

She sat down in the seat next to him. In the gloom of the auditorium the one thing he was sure of was that her eyes were the colour of bleached denim, beautiful but hard.

From the stage came different music. The curtains rolled back. The black guy had been replaced by an equally muscly white guy who was shagging so fast and furiously to the loud techno beat, it was as if the continuation of the human race depended on him, and he only had ten seconds to save the earth.

‘Is it okay to meet here?’ Magda asked as she looked down at the antics below. ‘Have you been to Amsterdam before?’

‘First time here. But…’ He shrugged and then smiled. ‘…I didn’t come to see a sex show. I can see plenty of those at home. Your email said you needed to see me?’

The email had come to him via ‘customer relations’ in Police Headquarters. It had said just as much as it needed to to get him on a plane: no more, no less. It said that Magda had been his father’s mistress and that she needed to speak to him in person.

‘It must have been a shock, finding out about me.’

‘It was,’ Mann replied. ‘Why did you choose to tell me now and why did you need to see me urgently? What is it about?’

‘Can I ask you…have you ever been to Thailand?’

Mann looked perplexed. ‘I have, a few times, why?’

‘Did you hear about the five Dutch kids who were kidnapped recently from a refugee camp there?’

Mann nodded. ‘It was a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it? They were working on a volunteer programme on the Burma border.’ He shook his head. ‘The world is full of teenage kids travelling the globe like it’s just one big Disney ride. It was bound to happen sooner or later. But something like that is every parent’s nightmare.’

‘Yes, it is.’ Her eyes fixed on his, the strain showed on her face as she fought back tears. ‘One of them was my son. Your brother.’

3

Despite himself, Mann felt a pang of something new twist his stomach. No one had ever said ‘your brother’ to him.

Mann looked down towards the stage. A female dancer had come on in stockings and suspenders and was laying out her props: a riding whip, a bunch of bananas and a large pink dildo. She moved energetically between and around the poles at either end of the stage, stripping as she went. The Americans leant over the balcony, they had fallen predictably quiet.

‘Jake is eighteen. He and the other four kids were helping to build a school when the camp was attacked and they were taken across the border to the Burmese jungle. We have not been able to raise a ransom and we have heard nothing for over a week now. Please help us.’

Mann was reeling. To find his father had a mistress on the other side of the world was one thing, but to find he had a whole family was quite another.

‘Believe me, I am deeply sorry for your situation but I am not sure I can help,’ Mann said.

Magda looked away and stared down towards the stage. But Magda didn’t see the dancer. Downstairs the audience was rowdy—the stag party was queuing up to take part in the audience participation slot. Magda’s eyes were watery when she turned back to him.

‘Someone has to do something,’ she said, desperation in her voice as she fought to stop herself from crying. ‘We are going out there, my partner Alfie and I, he is a policeman like you. We will do everything we can, but…but…’ She looked at him as she shook her head in despair and a tear broke free. ‘We have no idea what we are doing.’ She wiped her eyes, angrily.

He waited for her to compose herself. ‘What do you think I can do?’

She turned sharply back to him, steeliness in her eyes. ‘You do not know me, but I know you. Alfie and I have followed your career. We have seen that you are a man who takes risks.’ She hesitated. ‘I know that you are not afraid to cross the line. I know that you were involved in a case where western women died in snuff movies.’ Magda searched his face. ‘I know that one of those women was someone you loved. I am sorry, Johnny. I understand your pain. That is why I asked you to come here. That is why I think you are the only one who can help me. We share some of the same pain. We both lost your father.’

It had been nineteen years since he had witnessed his father’s execution and two years since his girlfriend Helen’s lifeless body had been found. She had been tortured to death. The more Mann tried to make sense of his life, the more hollow he felt inside. He was haunted by memories. Sometimes he felt buried with the dead.

‘That might be so…’ Mann shook his head ‘…but I don’t know anything about jungle warfare. If you have the Dutch government negotiating there’s little else you can do.’

‘The whole region is politically unstable, who knows what deals they are making? You have contacts all over Asia. You can find out what has happened to Jake—I know you can. You can get my son back. There is no one else who cares. He is just a boy and he is your brother.’ Magda looked close to breaking. She shook her head miserably. ‘I’m sorry. I would not have troubled you if I did not have to. Believe me.’ She looked up at him, her eyes imploring. He did believe her. She was a mother who would do anything for her child and Mann was her last hope. And he knew she was right. Now he knew about Jake, there was nothing left for him to do. He had to help.

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

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

‘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.’

‘Whereabouts is your apartment?’ asked Mann.

‘Not far, the end of the next street.’

‘Okay, I’ll catch you up.’

Magda looked at him curiously.

‘I have to see to something. I’ll be a few minutes. Take a detour; go round the block again.’

‘Okay.’ Magda understood the urgency in his voice. She lived with a policeman, after all; she understood that they thought in ways and at levels that no one else did. She walked across the street, took a left turn at the end. Mann continued on towards Magda’s road but the footsteps which had been following now disappeared. Mann stopped, looked back, then turned to hunt down the men who were following Magda.

6

Mann caught up with Magda, approaching her from the opposite direction. She was standing outside a block of flats that looked like it had been built in the fifties. Its yellow balconies jutted out over the street. Beside the metal-framed front door was a notice:

DON’T PISS HERE—PISS OFF

She looked relieved to see him and punched in the code and pushed the door open. Mann followed her in along with a noisy black cat with a pink collar around its neck. The hall light came on automatically as they made their way up the concrete flight of stairs.

They stopped on the third-floor landing. There were four flats in all. As he watched her find her keys he took the chance to study her in the light. Her ice-blue eyes were piercingly harsh and her square face broad, almost Tahitian-looking. Her toughness, her bare-faced attractiveness, was handsome but not pretty. But, no matter whether she was beautiful or not, Magda had meant enough to his father to keep him flying halfway across the world.

She unlocked the door at the end of the landing; the smell of weed being smoked drifted out. The cat walked straight in.

‘Alfie?’ she called out and looked down at the cat which was meowing and looking up at her expectantly. ‘It’s always hungry and it’s not even my cat. Jake always fed it,’ she said as she pushed the door wide.

‘Here!’ came the heavily accented reply.

A large man appeared in the lounge doorway. He had blond, collar-length tight curls. His face was so scarred by acne it looked like fermenting pizza dough. His eyes were set close together and the colour of burnt caramel, fringed with lashes the colour of straw. There was softness, a kindness and honesty about his big face, Mann thought. He had on sloppy jeans and a large eighties-style, big-shouldered black leather jacket with a shirt that was patterned with indiscriminate blue and cream splodges. In his left hand he held a fat joint. With his right hand he took Mann’s hand, shook it and he looked deep into his eyes the way that policemen always did—always looking beyond, below, never quite believing what they were seeing. He was older than Magda by a few years—Mann guessed mid forties.

‘Was nice?’ He grinned at Mann.

Magda stood between them, hands back in her pockets, looking a little embarrassed.

‘He means the show at Casa Roso. He didn’t think I should meet you there. I told him I knew you would appreciate it—anyway, I had just finished my shift.’

Alfie chortled and nodded his head as he dragged on the joint.

‘Was good?’

‘Was great.’ Mann smiled. There was something instantly likeable about Alfie.

‘Stop smoking that shit.’ Magda scowled at Alfie. ‘We need to talk…’

They walked into the L-shaped lounge, which looked like someone had hidden the mess rather than found a home for it. Alfie walked across the lounge and opened the balcony door. He took a few hard drags before blowing the smoke outwards and flicking the joint out over the side of the railing. Magda rolled her eyes.

‘You could hit someone on the head when you do that.’

Alfie chortled. ‘They expect that kind of behaviour from this house. We are the trashy end of the street, remember?’ Alfie disappeared onto the balcony for a few minutes. He came back in and looked curiously at Mann. ‘The street was busy when you came tonight?’

Mann nodded. Alfie studied him for a minute and then took off his jacket to reveal a still strong-looking man, but one who looked like he was on the cusp of loading on middle-age spread.

Alfie was about to throw his leather jacket over the sofa until a glance from Magda told him that he should hang it up in the hall where it belonged.

‘We will sit in the kitchen. I need to show you some maps.’ She gestured towards the door that led off from the lounge.

Alfie caught them up. The kitchen was organised clutter. Spider plants and saucepans on hooks. A collection of fifties cocoa tins. Kids’ drawings. There was no wall space left. Above the sink was a signed photo of Bob Marley—that had to be Alfie’s, smiled Mann.

The kitchen table itself was covered with maps dotted with sticky notes. On the wall above the table there were photos. ‘Is that Jake?’ Mann asked, pointing to a picture of two lads, one obviously Oriental looking, and the other tall, blond.

‘Yes. Jake and Lucas have been friends forever. They have known one another since kindergarten. They are like brothers. Lucas’s dad is a single parent. He’s had mental health problems, depression. Lucas lives here most of