CHAPTER FORTY

 

Carla rewound the news and read the crawl again. “His body was discovered in a Gold Coast apartment.” She heard bed springs as Will sat upright.

“I don’t have a TV, but I’ll find it online. Could it be the one in East Went Street?”

“It’s the only information they’ve released. That and the fact he was in Chicago to attend a charity ball for Alper’s Research. There’s a photo of him on MSN.”

She heard Will stabbing the keys on his laptop. There was a long pause.

“Will?”

“It’s him,” he said, both words empty of emotion.

Carla studied the picture on her own computer and then the one on TV. It was the same publicity still of a moustachioed Franks beaming from the centre of his square jaw. Will had been the last person to see him alive. She knew the image would be an echo of whatever he’d witnessed in the apartment. “You’re sure?”

His breathing was his only response.

Carla studied her two triangulation maps. “So, you got a room at the Ambrosia.”

He answered eventually. “Looks like she’s settled for the rest of the night as well.”

The other red dot had stopped moving in the Fortuna Gardens district. She was in one of two hotels that were next to each other, the Mercure or the Fantasia.

“Senator…” He sounded distant.

Carla knew it was pointless trying to persuade Will to sleep. She opened up another window. “Jacob Franks’ bipartisan efforts have secured meaningful legislation for Illinois and the first increase in fuel economy standards for more than a decade.” She quickly read it aloud from his official bio. “Franks serves on three Senate Committees providing him with multiple channels to benefit Illinois. He currently serves on the Financial Services and General Government Committee, the Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure Committee and the Senate Ethics Committee.” Her eyes glided down the details of his working class background. “Graduated Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.” She could hear Will’s fingers at the keyboard again.

“Let’s see if he has any connection to the Business and Human Rights Summit. What’s this Alper’s Research organisation?”

Carla lodged the handset further into the crook of her neck to free her hands. “He’s a patron. Alper’s is a neurological disease.” She opened another window.

“Is a member of his family a sufferer?” His syllables were slurred.

“There’s no mention of a family in his bio.” She found the website for the charity and heard Will suck in air through his teeth.

“What happened to you?” She didn’t anticipate a straight response.

“No mention of Franks in relation to the summit, let’s see what we can both find on him. I’m going to try and stay awake, but call me if we get an address on the site or if she moves from the hotel.” He rang off. He obviously didn’t want to speculate about where he was headed next.

She glanced at the clock on her taskbar – 8.47pm. Carla had secured the blinds at the partition window now. She had the whole wing of the floor to herself.

 

Tam’s belly felt like it had started to eat itself. No food had passed his lips since the dinner he’d had with his parents and grandmother. His home seemed like a make-believe place now. He didn’t know how long he’d been in the cage with the girl. He tried counting every time he woke, but he couldn’t even get past a hundred before he lost track. His aching head made him confused, made him lose his place. Acid rinsed through his gut. He was too dehydrated to wet himself.

The girl had been fed. He’d pretended to still be unconscious as somebody had entered the cage, lifted the hood and pushed food into her mouth, but there had been nothing for him. He’d seen her face and she wasn’t hideous. No missing jaw, just a glimpse of a pretty nose.

Who was she? The only thing he was sure of now was that it was the men who were bad and not the girl. He’d been scared of being punished for the secret he’d kept, but saw that what the men were doing was something much worse than his trespass in the factory. What was it they wanted from girls like her and his sister? Was it the same thing Songsuda had allowed them to have that his father had never forgiven her for?

He recalled his father striking his sister, remembered the sound it had made when Skinny Man had used the back of his hand on the girl’s face. He felt as if he would never understand cruelty, even if he got to be grown-up. Why would they want to hurt this girl? Had she lied to them like his sister had lied to him?

Every time Tam moved and dared to peer out of the cage he saw Skinny Man sitting in his chair. But he couldn’t risk giving away his only escape route through the unstapled wire until he was sure he was gone. He had to stay as still as he could, make them think he was dead.

Maybe they were still deciding what to do with him, or perhaps Skinny Man was just going to watch him die anyway. He remembered the way he’d smiled when he was suffocating the girl.

He tensed his legs in the ropes again, gently moved his ankles in a saw motion, so indiscernibly he was sure Skinny Man couldn’t see. It was like his nightmare, being chased but unable to move his feet, but Tam thought that if he kept on gently running he could loosen the ropes.

He heard the cage door unlock and closed his eyes. A weight was on his legs, somebody leaning their whole body on him. He tried not to cry out even as the needle went in his arm and it felt like his head was filling with warm water. He exerted pressure on his nail to repel the drowsiness, but the pain rapidly diminished until it was nothing but a distant beacon in a jet black sea.

 

Poppy surveyed the nondescript office, examining the diploma on the wall. Bachelor of Medicine degree, Guangzhou Medical University, China; she assumed it had been paid for. Leaning against the portable air con unit was a bag of golf clubs. She pictured Dr Ren wheeling them down the fairway of the Serangoon Hills Country Club.

Her presence meant the police would soon dissect everything in the room. Every physical item and then every background detail of Ren’s fifty-three-year history would be scrupulously combed through. There was more than enough for them to work with. The celebrated herbalist’s counterfeit qualifications were as good a place to start as any.

No family. No dependants. People like Ren never accumulated others, only fed on them. She examined the photos of him at balls and charity drives, stood grinning with various social luminaries. Was this all it amounted to? Was a one-bed apartment over his surgery and these framed moments of sycophancy all he’d scrambled to the top of the pile for?

She heard footsteps in reception. Poppy strolled to the window and opened it.

 

Will came violently awake as if he’d just been resuscitated. The lamp was still on, but its yellow light had been neutralised by the day glowing through the blind. He clicked away the laptop’s screensaver and was relieved to find he hadn’t missed an update. The GPS told him the woman was no longer at the hotel, but somewhere behind Serangoon Stadium.

He checked his mobile. No messages from Carla. He’d asked her to call him when she moved from the hotel. She’d obviously let him sleep. 6.22am. He’d been out solidly for nearly three hours. He couldn’t remember losing consciousness, must have blacked out moments after he’d spoken to her. God knows what sort of painkillers he’d taken.

He wondered if her research into Franks had yielded anything. He punched up her number, but had second thoughts about dialling. If there’d been a vital development, she would have called him. If he spoke to her now, they’d do nothing but unnerve each other.

The sensation in his stomach had altered. It wasn’t so intense, but the area of dull discomfort had expanded to his diaphragm. He knew that wasn’t good and chewed a few more tablets.

He couldn’t wait in the room. He had to get away from the cloying smell of damp and paint. Will took the laptop with him.

Once out of the building he waded through the heat and along several quiet lanes towards the sound of cars. He clamped his jaw as he tried to stem the pain. He opened the website and GPS map on the laptop and headed towards the stadium.

 

Pope had observed the dot of the GPS move across town and then halt.

Weaver came out of the bathroom naked from the waist up, dabbing hotel shaving soap from his face. “Still static?”

“Yeah. In Yio Chu Kang Terrace. Maybe she’s stopped for breakfast.”

“Or Frost’s stopped for breakfast.” Weaver draped the towel on the back of his armchair and seated himself next to Pope.

 

Will made his way along the orange frontage of Serangoon’s ultra-modern sports stadium. He weaved around the brand new cars parked at its perimeter and the multi-coloured support struts of its triangular roof. A cooling breeze glanced him as he followed its curve.

He knew his best recourse was to turn back and wait it out at the hotel. What purpose would shortening the gap between them have? Putting himself nearer to her would only present him with a harder choice than he had already. Could he watch while she prepared to kill again? When he considered what had happened at the Chicago apartment he suspected shadowing her gave him little advantage. Even without the GPS she had been allowing him to get steadily closer anyway. When she summoned Will this time would he be forced to witness death instead of just eavesdropping on it from behind a locked door?

He kept marching; working his way clockwise to the east side of the stadium where he suspected someone’s life was running out. Would they have any more relevance to him than the others had? His mobile rang.

“Will, what are you doing?” Carla had obviously been monitoring his progress.

“I need to walk. You should have called me when she moved.”

“Wait for her to release the location or she’ll suspect something.”

He knew she was right. He had to hang back, no matter what that meant for the person targeted. He guessed that was why she’d let him sleep.

“Will?”

“How can we let it happen again?” His pace hadn’t slowed.

“It’s them or Libby,” she said intractably.

Will kept following the curve of the wall, his view ahead unchanging as if he were on a treadmill.

“Go back to the room and wait.”

He didn’t want to stop. Couldn’t be motionless. Will wanted to circle the stadium, circuit after circuit, keep kicking the pain and the thought of what he was allowing to happen a couple of feet in front of him.

He didn’t have to kick it much further.