She looked at the way his faded blue T-shirt folded softly around his bicep and his washboard stomach. He was a lot like Alex, thought Becky, in the way he liked to look good, but Mann was understated, he liked to be well-groomed, not flash. Alex liked people to know how much his suit cost; Mann liked to keep them guessing.

Mann knew she was looking at him. He was resting his head and trying to take his mind off the fact that he was so tall that his knees were jammed against the seat in front. He was aware of her turning towards him and he felt her soft breath on his face—a hint of mouth-wash. He snapped his eyes open.

Becky quickly turned back to her magazine.

‘Says here that Davao is one of the safest cities in the Philippines. I thought Mindanao is where the rebels are?’

Mann leaned over to look at the magazine on her lap.

‘Some parts of the island are no-go areas—terrorist strongholds—but Davao has been transformed into a crime-free zone. It’s held up by the government as a model city, crime rates falling, vagrancy dealt with.’

‘How come?’

He sat back. ‘It’s called the forty pesos solution. Forty pesos is the cost of a bullet. Davao has a death squad. Two men dressed in black ride shotgun on a motorbike—the Davao Death Squad. They target anyone undesirable. It used to be rebels but now it’s petty thieves, drug dealers and vagrant kids who live off the streets.’

‘They kill

children

?’

Becky looked past Mann and became aware that she was speaking too loudly, as across the aisle an old Filipina was staring at her looking annoyed.

‘The Philippines has a massive vagrant child population.’ Mann kept his voice low and smiled over at the woman who smiled hesitatingly back. ‘The country is eighty per cent children. The average size of the family here in the Philippines is six. The streets are clogged with children, they live off refuse and they sleep on the pavements. They have no papers and no identity. Lots of the kids don’t have any birth records. They don’t exist, so far as this city is concerned.’

‘And so they just get rid of them?’

‘The DDS do. The kids are either stabbed or shot by them. They are bad for tourism, unsightly. Their bodies are dumped in a killing field outside the city.’

‘My God! That’s awful. Why are we going there? What has it got to do with this investigation?’

‘Because, recently, they seem to have

stopped

killing them. There have been reports of children being snatched off the street. There are rumours that they have started trafficking them instead. Making money from them instead of just killing them for fun.’

‘Does no one care about these kids?’

‘Some people care. They risk their lives to care. We are going to talk to one of those people right now.’

‘Oh God, are we landing?’ She swung round and pinned her face against the small window at the same time as there came the familiar clunk of the wheels being lowered. ‘More planes crash either taking off or landing than at any other time.’ She sat back and quickly fastened her seat belt.

‘I wouldn’t bother doing that—when it catches fire you’re going to want to get out fast.’

Becky thumped him hard on the arm.

Ten minutes later she was following Mann out through Davao’s light and airy arrivals lounge.

There was no air-con, but the place was open fronted and the high ceilings, and cool stone floors kept the air circulating and the temperature down.

Outside, the day was idyllic: a constant breeze, rustling palms and an azure-blue sky. There was a throng of people waiting at the exit. Mann stood for a few minutes and scanned the crowd. He saw who he was looking for and waved. Becky saw a slight, wiry man, late fifties, salt and pepper hair, with a checked blue shirt, who was standing with his legs apart, his hands on his hips, like a military man. The man waved back and walked purposefully over to them. He shook Mann’s hand with both of his.

‘Good to see you, Johnny—can’t stay away, no?’

His voice had a charming, almost comical quality to it. It started soft Dublin then ended in squeaky Filipino as it rose at the end of every sentence.

‘Good to see you again, Father, this is for you…’ Mann handed him a bottle of single malt. ‘And this is my colleague—Becky Stamp, from London. Becky, meet Father Finn O’Connell.’

‘Both you and the scotch are very welcome.’ He shook Becky’s hand. He had a film-star charm about him: his twinkling emerald-green eyes were striking against his tanned face. He had deep laughter lines around his mouth. His eyebrows were as thick as black caterpillars. He shook her hand and gently steered her out of the way of a runaway luggage trolley. ‘How is everything back in the UK? Must be summer, no?’ he asked her.

‘Nearly, Father, but it’s been a long time coming.’

‘Tell me, this is your first time to the Philippines, no?’ He was already on the move, steering them away from the exit.

‘Yes. I have done Thailand before, been to Bali, Goa, but never been here. It’s a beautiful place.’

‘Yes. Beautiful place, wonderful people. They have the most trusting, happy disposition. They try and please. That’s probably their downfall, no?’

‘What about you, Father? You’re a long way from home. What’s a priest doing out here?’

‘Ha…’ His laughter came quick and fast, exploding into the air. ‘I hope it’s God’s work. It keeps

me

busy anyway. I will tell you all about it in great length when we get into the shade. It’s good to have you here. Now let’s go.’

Becky looked around her as Father Finn led the way at speed across the car park. There were lots of people just milling about or sitting in the shade of the palm trees that ran around the perimeter of the airport. It reminded her of a music festival, where there was nothing to do but mill about. To the left was the palmed perimeter of the airport; to the right was the public transport area, where queues were forming to get on the Jeepneys to take people into town. The main form of public transport in the Philippines, the Jeepneys were highly decorated and customised open-sided buses. Father Finn was a few paces in front; he was a fast walker. Becky stayed back with Mann.

‘Are there lots of priests here?’ she asked Mann as they walked past the people joining queues for Jeepneys.

‘Yes, they’ve been here for many years. They are all over the Philippines—mainly Columban order. They do a fantastic job at guilt tripping the government into facing up to a few of the problems. Father Finn here runs a refuge for the kids that get into trouble, one here and one in Angeles City, north of Manila.’ Mann called to Father Finn, who was a few strides ahead. ‘I was expecting Father Vinny to pick us up. I didn’t think you’d be down this way. Here on business, Father?’

‘Yes, I am here to pick up a child—a boy, Eduardo. He is in hiding at the moment. We rescued him from the jail. We found him in there—wrongfully accused of stealing and imprisoned there for two months. He was shut up with men, some of them paedophiles. He was terribly abused. It will be the first case of taking the Philippine government to court. He should have been protected and he wasn’t, no? He will testify against them. They will drag it out for as long as they can. The trial will take a couple of years. I am here to escort Eduardo back to Angeles, where I can protect him. But that is not the only reason I am here. I got a call from a young woman who used to live with us, in our refuge.’ He stopped and turned towards Mann. ‘You remember Wednesday, Johnny?’

‘I remember Wednesday. Cheeky little Amerasian girl, she was with you at the refuge in Angeles for a few months, wasn’t she? That must have been, what, seven or eight years ago, Father? She must be grown up now.’

‘Yes. We rescued her from a paedophile ring when she was twelve. She stayed with us for a few months and then she ran away from our shelter—it is not a prison and we cannot force the children to stay with us. Well, sadly we lost contact. I didn’t know what had happened to her until she phoned me. I assumed, wrongly, that she had gone back to the bars, like so many do, but it wasn’t so. When she phoned me she told me she left because she found out she was pregnant and she felt she couldn’t tell us. That saddens me; there is nothing more joyful to us than the birth of a child, whatever the circumstances. Anyway, she came back here—to Davao. She was thirteen when she gave birth to a little girl. She has been a good mother. But her child has gone missing.’