‘Yes. She was. A good friend.’

Mann stood up. He looked around. ‘There are four stations by the look of it …’ He glanced at the ceiling. ‘And each one has a camera trained on it.’

‘There’s a water hose here.’ Ng stood next to a table with leather straps at its four corners. ‘This must be for tying the victim down. And this …’ he picked up a length of wire hanging from the wall, ‘looks like an animal snare.’

‘The hose is probably to wet the victim down prior to electrocution. This must be where Roxanne Berger met her death.’ Mann looked at the cattle prod and clamps. He saw the image of the young woman from Orange County dressed in animal hide with the lasso around her neck. He saw the cattle prod forcing her further into the tightening noose, and then he remembered something else – the branding iron. He looked up and saw it hooked onto a shelf above the snare. Mann looked along the set of interchangeable heads – the F was missing.

‘This is a two-way mirror.’ Ng pointed behind him.

Mann looked above him. ‘And we’re being filmed.’ A light blinked at him from one of the cameras. ‘Let’s take a look behind the mirror, Ng.’

It was a small, dark, rectangular room. Its main feature was the mirrored window directly ahead, which took up half the room and afforded 360 visuals into the torture chamber next door. In front of the mirror, a bank of six computers were housed on an oval desk area. They were black-screened and vacant, except for one PC – it was on and linked to the camera trained on the station where Kim had been. It was still running – filming the empty space where she had been left hanging. Around the rest of the room were shelves and cupboards.

Mann touched the screen and tracked the camera down and left. He turned to Ng.

‘Ever seen anything like it, Ng?’

‘Once. On a sex-trafficking case – some women from Thailand were promised good jobs here. When they arrived they were being used for live porn shows. Some of them were underage. I was part of the raid. This looks like similar equipment. You don’t need a lot to make your own films these days.’

Mann looked around the room. The cupboard doors hung open, revealing emptiness – not tidy, sorted, cleaned-up emptiness, but the left-in-a-hurry, no-time-to-sort-anything-out, just-take-everything-you-can-carry kind.

‘It looks like the place has been stripped. Whatever films were made here, the hard evidence is gone. They left in a big hurry. Can’t have been more than a couple of hours ago. Still, they might have left some evidence.’

‘Whatever there is will be in those.’ Ng pointed to the computers.

‘And on the walls of that room in there.’

On the screen they saw Li cover Kim’s body with a sheet, before he joined them.

‘Down the corridor I found the bedroom set used for those snuff movies we saw. This whole floor seems to be where they do the film production. There are sets and storerooms full of expensive equipment.’

‘Call the Super for me, Ng, and get him to send a team out here right away. They can’t argue with this evidence. They’ll have to do something. Then let’s finish here as fast as we can. I want to catch that bastard before he gets too far. We’ll briefly sweep the rest of this building then we’ll head over to the Six – see how our friends are doing.’

Mann returned to Kim. He pulled the sheet back and leaned over to kiss her forehead. ‘Be seeing you, Pussy.’ Then he pulled the sheet back over her face, stood up and wiped his eyes.

Ng was waiting at the door for him. He handed Mann his jacket.

‘There was nothing you could have done to save her, Genghis.’

‘Not now – no. But a long time ago I had the chance to rid the world of Chan and I saved his life. If I have any regrets, that’s the one.’

‘Maybe one day you will get to correct that mistake, but for now Kim had her own path to tread and you could not alter it. Look to help those who can be helped now.’

98

Mann, Ng and Li walked briskly through the corridor that connected the two buildings together and into the main section of Six. They radioed to Commander Ting. He told them they’d found a bit of resistance.

‘There are twenty of them altogether, sir, mainly women. They weren’t expecting police. They knew something was going on when Chan had a massive clear-out and took half the security with him. He had to scramble three helicopters to get all the clients out. Apparently he tried to torch the place but these people here put the fire out. They aren’t going to answer any questions about Chan. They might be scared of the police, but they’re much more frightened of him.’

‘Bernadette?’

‘Not so far.’

Mann led the way into the tail section of Six. There were rooms with bunk beds, clothes, a few personal effects: make-up, jewellery, feminine things. The place still felt warm. There was the smell of people.

‘There are kids here, boss.’

Li stood back from the entrance to one of the staffrooms. As Mann looked inside about twelve children stared back at him. They were a mixed bunch, mainly Chinese but there were some Filipinos among them. Some were asleep on mats, while others lay on their backs, staring into space. One little boy was rocking in the corner of the room.

Jesus Christ! thought Mann. What’s the matter with this world?

‘We’re not going to hurt you. It’s all right, children. You’ll be safe now.’

One little girl stepped forward, attached her hand to Ng’s and smiled up at him. Her grip was tight, her eyes desperate.

‘Take me,’ she said. ‘Please, take me.’

Ng looked at Mann. He was a sucker for kids, and already his puppy brown eyes were melting as she held tightly to his hand.

Mann answered for him. ‘We can’t take any of you now, but help will be coming very shortly for you all. I promise.’

‘Please. Don’t leave me here.’ Her grip intensified on Ng’s hand. She wouldn’t take her eyes from his face. Mann knelt down to talk with her. She tried to hide behind Ng’s legs.

‘We cannot take you with us, there isn’t room, but help is coming and some men will stay here to look after you until we can get you out. No one will hurt you again, I promise.’

Ng knelt down and she wrapped her skinny arms around his fat neck and held on tight.

‘I promise to come and find you as soon as you get back to Hong Kong,’ he said. ‘I promise. Now, be brave.’ He pulled a bar of chocolate from his pocket. ‘Share this out and stay put. I’ll see you very soon.’

They met up with the PTUs at reception.

‘We’ve found Bernadette,’ said Commander Ting.

‘Alive?’

He shook his head. ‘Been dead for several days. There’s a cold storage place in the other building. It’s laid out as a morgue down there. She was on a trolley.’

‘Any idea of the cause of death?’

‘She looked like she’d been strangled, tortured. What do you want us to do? Shall we come back with you or shall we stay here and help the teams when they come?’

‘Stay here. Protect the kids. Keep looking. You shouldn’t have to wait long. Ng has phoned the Super – there’s a team on the way.’

The three detectives walked back across the tarmac one at a time, towards the waiting helicopter. Peter Wong was ready to take off. Mann was three-quarters across and Ng was halfway when they heard the young girl’s shouts. The child who had latched on to Ng’s hand was now running at full speed to catch them up. As her young cry echoed around the quarry-base, so did a flash of gunfire and a volley of bullets a millimetre from their heads.

Mann and Ng ran towards the child. Ng pinned her to the floor just as a further volley of shots was returned by three rounds from Li’s M16. Then there was silence.

‘Okay, Ng, we can move now. Li must have got him. He’s getting better with that thing.’