She texted Mann.

Wait near the main entrance to the market for my instructions. Bring the money

She closed her phone, picked up her bag and left the room. The taxi was waiting for her. It dropped her at the far side of the market. From there she made her way furtively, through the side entrance and onto the lane than ran alongside it and came to a standstill outside the lock-up. She looked at the Buddha beside the door, read the inscription and sneered. She knocked lightly on the lock-up door and Weasel opened it a fraction for her to enter. She stood just inside the entrance, hands on hips, and looked around at Saw’s men and at Jake and Anna and she hissed at him:

‘Where are the other kids?’

Jake stared at her as if she had come from another world. She belonged to a different life. He knew her, and yet he didn’t know how, until he realised that it was the woman from NAP. It was the woman who had interviewed him about going away. But she hardly seemed to notice him or the hell that he was in. She barely glanced in his direction. She seemed more annoyed than shocked by what she saw. ‘Is this all that’s left?’ She looked around the room and then looked at Anna. ‘Fucking hell, Saw. Couldn’t you control these animals just once?’

Handsome came up behind her and held on to her hips and rubbed against her as he licked her neck. She pushed him off. ‘Get your fucking hands off me. You stink.’

She glared at Saw. ‘We’ll be lucky to get anything now.’ She looked nervously towards the door and then back at Saw. ‘At least the boy is still alive. He’s the only one who really matters. At least I have fulfilled my side of the bargain.’

‘Is he here?’

‘Yes. He’s waiting for me to text him. And he is bringing the money.’

‘I don’t care about the money.’

‘Fine. You have your fucking revenge and I will keep the money. I will be starting a new life in the hills, growing opium, getting rich, whilst you are dead and gone. But that’s your choice. I have put two years of planning into this, Saw, I am not about to blow it.’

‘They both die here, tonight.’

‘Whatever…but I won’t be hanging around. As soon as he gets here with the money, I am going. You can catch up with me if you’re still alive. I will be meeting Boon Nam in the hills.’

‘Where are the deeds to the land? Did you get them?’

‘Forget that. We have to take what we have and run. We don’t need it.’

‘But I want what was promised. All my life I have waited to get back what was mine. And now here we are, in the very place where Deming promised me it.’

‘You seem to forget, Deming ruined my life too. He took me away from my home. He put me to live with some weird couple who never really loved me.’

‘When the opium lords warred and our village was destroyed Deming took you. I was your brother, they should have given you to me, but they did not listen. Deming had money, they listened to him. He gave you to the missionaries.’

‘They hated me. They left me nothing in their will.’

For a minute Saw’s anger flashed dark and brooding across his face and then he grinned at Katrien. ‘Perhaps they didn’t like you because they knew you were going to kill them.’ Saw grinned and offered her a swig of his rum. Weasel giggled.

She pushed the bottle away. ‘I didn’t do it.’

‘You made someone else do it, the way you always do, hey, little sister?’ Saw stepped close to her and held her chin up to his face. ‘So beautiful, so evil.’

Her eyes were as cold as his. She pushed him away. Saw made another move to touch her. Weasel was still giggling. He turned towards Handsome and the giggle turned into a noise in his throat as if he had swallowed something that got caught, lodged, something that hurt like hell and had stopped him breathing. His eyes opened wide in panic as he twisted his long neck to turn and see what had hit him and then his throat opened like a shark bite and a bubbling plume of blood jetted out several feet. Mann burst through the window.

117

Magda followed Dorothy back along the office corridor.

‘Yes, she was from the Lisu tribe. They live in the hills, they’re the opium farmers. She was rescued by Deming when her village was destroyed, caught up in some local drug wars.’

‘Do you think he was involved in those drug wars?’ asked Magda, dreading the answer.

Dorothy shrugged and shook her head.

‘Who knows? Maybe. But I seriously think he thought he was doing the best thing bringing her over here. He gave her to a missionary couple. They had just returned from working in Africa. They were a nice couple, bit strict, they lived very simply. It was a terrible tragedy when they were killed in the fire.’

They stopped halfway along the corridor just by the orphans of the conflict photo.

‘No one knows who started it?’ asked Magda.

‘No. They left all their money to the church. You would have thought they would have left it to their other child.’

‘What other child?’

‘They had a child of their own before they adopted Katrien. That’s what I wanted to show you in this photo.’ Dorothy put on her glasses and scrutinised the photo. ‘Look, here is Katrien standing beside the missionary couple. Here are the survivors from the attack and can you see there is a child hiding there, just behind the man’s leg, you see?’

Magda moved closer to the photo. ‘The child looks blonde,’ she said, surprised.

‘Yes. She was a beautiful little girl. Her name was Sue.’

118

Shrimp moved around the market and kept out of sight but never far from the lock-up. He kept his phone on vibrate only and held it tightly in the palm of his hand. He could not afford to miss Mann’s call. He was sure he would need him. He had no trouble blending in, no one gave his Oriental looks or his battered face a second glance, unlike the woman he spied from the corner of his eye. She was blonde, a plait down her back. She was an incongruous sight moving furtively amongst the dark and the dreadful of a Mae Sot night. Shrimp watched her as she came into the market from the lock-up lane. She seemed to be hovering like him…He waited until she had passed him and was out of sight, hidden amongst the stalls, before he slipped out onto the lane where she had come from.

A man lay on the ground, moaning in agony. Shrimp knelt beside him and looked at his injuries. He was badly hurt from a single stab wound just below the ribs.

He clutched at Shrimp’s arm.

‘My name is Gee.’

Shrimp recognised the name. Here was the only man trading under the Golden Orchid. He knew enough about him to make him wary, but he had to help him.

‘I will carry you out of here,’ said Shrimp.

‘No, no…leave me. There is no time. Are you a friend of Johnny Mann’s?’ Shrimp nodded. ‘Good, my friend. So am I. His father, Deming, was my friend; he was very good to me when I was young. He gave me a chance when no one else would. I told him I would repay him one day and I have been looking after Johnny. But I cannot help him any more. I was about to go in when she stabbed me.’

‘Was she blonde?’

‘Ah ha, you have seen her. Sue her name is; be careful, my friend, she is mad. She will kill again. Quick now, he needs your help. I have heard them fighting, the window is smashed, Johnny is inside.’ He clutched his chest as he whispered. ‘There is a door at the back of the lock-up. Here is the key.’

119