Fight? Brandon didn’t know what the Colonel was talking about, but Terry did. The Colonel wanted a boxing match. He wanted the girls to fight. Terry remembered the boxing matches of old. They had nearly brought about the end to the club scene—they were a step too far. The priests in the refuge had organised pickets and some of the girls had been foolish enough to join them. In the end, inevitably, the ringleader had their throats slit and the pickets stopped, but so did the fights, and it had been bad for business as people stayed away until the fuss died down. It had been fifteen years since Terry had seen the last boxing match here. Now the men had to content themselves with watching girls fire corks out of their pussies at each other, or write Lolita’s whilst holding a pen inside their vaginas. But now, courtesy of the Colonel, they were in for a savage retro treat.

‘Clear some space. Tell the manager to get the boxing ring out of storage. It’s time we gave these guys a show. It’ll be like the old days when the Americans were here. We need an Amazonian contest. We need proper entertainment again.’

Within half an hour a boxing ring was assembled on the multi-coloured stage.

The Colonel called the mamasan over and told her to fetch Comfort and Peanut. It was an unequal contest—Comfort was by far the stronger. Peanut, puny but wily, was still in shock from having been left under Jed’s dead body for an hour before being rescued. But, just looking at her pissed the Colonel off, and he had a soft spot for Comfort—an uneven fight would give a better result. Peanut would be battered to within an inch of her life, the men would be fired up for the night ahead, and the Colonel had plenty of girls waiting. That was the good thing about the young men: they could go through a few different girls a night, they weren’t there to make conversation. The old ones wanted a companion for twenty-four hours. Even with help from the Viagra sellers outside, they still wanted to talk about it first.

Fight, fight!

The Colonel banged his fist on the table and sprayed beer over Terry, who quickly closed his laptop. The Colonel moved Maya nearer to the railings so that they could get a better view.

The men downstairs took up the Colonel’s cry.

Fight

,

fight.

The ring was made ready and the betting began. The girls paraded out in their shiny boxing shorts. Peanut was in red, Comfort in blue. The shorts were too big for Peanut’s skinny legs and had to be rolled at the waist to stop them coming to her knees. The men screamed their bets as the girls struck their poses. Brandon held up their puny arms with the weight of the massive boxing glove attached. The men in the club whooped and clapped and bayed for the fight to begin.

The Colonel was brought a large hand-bell. He leaned over the balcony and roared at Brandon that the time had come. Brandon climbed into the ring to announce that all betting had ceased. A noisy hush descended. The men sat sweating and excited. The Colonel, Maya on his hip, the bell in his hand, raised it and it sounded. Brandon stepped up to the ring. His presence was enough to start the girl’s feet moving. Their skinny legs in shiny boxers’ shorts started shuffling. They reached out and tentatively touched one another with the boxing gloves that sat almost comically on the ends of their puny arms.

A chorus of catcalls went out. ‘You can do better than that. Fucking hit her.’

Comfort swung a left hook and caught Peanut on the side of the head. Peanut staggered backwards, lost her balance briefly and Comfort lunged forward again. She caught Peanut full in the face with a second punch. The cheers went up. Peanut staggered to the corner. Her eyes were watering; blood filled her nostrils and then ran in two straight streams down to her mouth. She tried to wipe it away with the big glove but only succeeded in smearing it across her face. She looked around her in a panic—trying to find a way out of the ring. The wall that was Brandon’s chest stopped her. She turned back to the ring. Comfort was waiting. She was shaking with adrenalin and excitement. She knew she could come out of this the winner if she kept at Peanut. She was sad it was Peanut: they weren’t friends but they knew one another, had seen one another every day, seven days a week, twelve hours a day, for the last year. But they both knew they had no choice. Peanut came forward gingerly. She made no attempt to put her guard up.

‘You can hit me—go on,’ Comfort whispered.

But Peanut was not seeing straight. She didn’t know where she was or what she was doing there.

The men began stamping and screaming.

Peanut closed her eyes, swung her arm out and missed. Comfort punched back as hard as she could. Peanut was hit square in the face. She fell backwards against the ropes and landed near Brandon’s feet. Peanut managed to climb up Comfort’s legs and clung there. Comfort tried to push her off. Peanut clung tight. The men stood up, crowded around the ring and applauded as Comfort started kicking out at Peanut. She kicked Peanut’s head just as she had kicked the green coconuts when she was a child and the anger and the frustration got too much.

The men chanted:

Kill her, kill her.

Brandon pulled Comfort off and raised her gloved hand.

‘And the winner is…Comfort.’

Peanut lay in an undignified pile, trails of blood across the floor behind her. There was blood over Comfort’s legs where Peanut had clung to them. It dripped from her shiny blue shorts. The crowd applauded.

As Brandon held up her arm in victory the rest of her body slumped. She was hysterical, laughing, crying. The men cheered. The ring was hastily dismantled. Peanut was carried away. A cleaner came out with a bucket. The men turned back to their beers, a little sheepishly now. The dancers came back out—girls in plastic yellow bikinis gyrated expressionlessly around the dance floor whilst the cleaner mopped up Peanut’s blood.

The Colonel was elated. He sat back heavily in his seat and rocked it back and forth on its back legs. He felt his lungs open, expand, big, full of air. He drew his shoulders back and snorted from flared nostrils. His body glistened with sweat. He looked at Maya. For a moment his eyes softened. He looked at Terry. He knew what Terry’s eyes said—they said wait—she is not ready. But the Colonel did not want to wait. Fuck

and

fight—he could have both tonight.

43

The next morning whilst they were waiting for Remy to fly them to Puerto Galera, Mann left Becky interviewing the children who had had dealings with the DDS whilst he went to check his emails again. The PC was in Father Finn’s study. It was a small white-walled room overlooking the courtyard at the back. It was wall-to-wall books and thick files, all documenting the years of bringing western paedophiles to justice or trying to get permission to build his refuges.

Mann sat and punched in his email address. The first thing he saw was another message from BLANCO.

Did you enjoy the BarrioPatay?

Give Father Finn a message from me…PRESS

Father Finn’s image appeared with a naked child sat on his lap and a comic-strip cartoon of an exploding gun by his head—

Bang Bang.

‘I’m sorry if I woke you, David,’ Mann said down the phone.

‘It’s okay, I was working anyway.’

‘I got a couple of emails from the kidnapper. In one of them he sent me a photo of Amy Tang with a noose around her neck.’

‘She’s already dead?’

‘No, I think it was a dress rehearsal.’

‘What are they waiting for? Why don’t they just do it?’ asked White.