Death Trip. Lee Weeks

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ