1

‘Shhh, stop crying. The white man will hear you. What’s your name?’

‘Perla.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Eleven.’

‘I’m Maya. I’m eight. You from Mindanao?’

‘Yes.’

‘Me too. Where are we?’

‘Angeles City.’

‘Why are we chained up? Are we in prison? Why does that Kano hurt everyone? What will happen to me?’

‘You will be sold.’

‘Sold?’

‘Sold to a man.’

‘What will the man do with me?’

‘He will have sex with you.’

‘I’m just a girl. I can’t. I’m going to run away. Let’s do it, Perla. Let’s run home to Mindanao.’

Perla stated to cry again.

‘Don’t cry. Kano will come. He will hurt you. He will poke you with the electric stick again.’

‘My legs are wet. I am bleeding.’

‘Don’t cry, Perla. I’ll be your friend. I’ll tell you a Mickey Mouse story.’

By the time Maya finished her story Perla was dead.

2

Detective Inspector Johnny Mann was at the end of the bar. He held on to a glass and rolled it in his hands, savouring the cool condensation, before allowing it to slip through his fingers and land in the centre of the barmat. He checked his phone – another message, same as the last one. He pushed his dark hair back from his sun-sore eyes and signalled to the barman that he was ready for another vodka.

Mann was one of nine men sat in the Boom Boom Bar – a palm-thatched, rattan-floored beach hut. Apart from a dozen stools, there was a tatty couch that had lost half its back and had two threadbare cushions to sit on. There was no fan in the Boom Boom Bar, only the breeze to cool it down and tonight there was not a breath of wind. Five of the ten men were watching a boxing match on a small television set suspended from the ceiling. The other three stared at their drinks, willing the alcohol to hit. Mann’s t-shirt stuck to him in the suffocating heat, tracing the contours of his strong, lean frame.

A cockroach dropped from the roof and landed on the barman’s back. It clung to his shirt.

‘How’s it goin’, bro?’

Mann felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Jojo, the proprietor, a short, fat, fifty-year-old Filipino wearing a pink shiny shirt with Boom Boom Bar embroidered on the back. His soft afro hair ballooned over his shoulders.

‘Good, Jojo. Place is busy, I see.’

Mann gestured toward the area of candlelit tables on the beach outside. Most of them were occupied.

‘Yeah, pretty busy, man. We gotta real good singer tonight.’

A young brown-skinned singer, his hair in a wide ponytail, was wailing a Bob Marley song on a small stage pitched into the sand. Next to him, a young musician sat on a drum box with his back to the sea. His eyes were closed. His long bony fingers beat a rhythm on the box’s stretched skin. His name was Rex. He was Jojo’s eldest son.

The barman set another drink down in front of Mann. As he did so, the cockroach crawled onto his arm. He knocked it off and stamped on it hard.

‘Stick around, Johnny, it’s gonna be a good night. Plenty of people about.’

Jojo was about to walk away when Mann caught him.

‘Thought about what I said?’

Jojo laughed uncomfortably. ‘I told you, bro, this is paradise – you should know, you been comin’ here for long enough. Best place on Mama Earth.’

He disappeared to play the ‘happy patron’, circling the bar and talking to his customers. After twenty minutes he came back to stand at the end of the bar. Mann proposed a toast to Boracay.

‘To paradise – where every hour is ‘happy hour’. You’re right, Jojo.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve been coming here a long time. I’ve known you since I was a rookie and your son, Rex….’He nodded in the direction of the youth on the drum box.‘…was a small boy.’

‘Long time, bro, long time.’ Jojo nodded his head.

‘Remember that time you were suicidal over a woman? What was she called?’

Jojo screwed up his face, struggling to remember her name.

‘Janie,’ Mann recalled, ‘that was it. Then there was the time the local police shut you down when you didn’t pay them enough. Never seen you so angry. But the worst was when I came here and there was nothing left. Typhoon Rosy took everything. You were devastated – remember?’

Jojo closed his eyes, put his hand on his chest and sighed.

‘That storm was one I never forgot.’

‘But do you know what? In all the years I’ve been coming here this is the first time I’ve ever seen you scared.’

Jojo wiped the sweat from his eyes with his shirt sleeve. He was smiling but he didn’t look like a happy man.

‘Listen to me, old friend.’ Mann held his gaze. ‘I know the Chinaman came through here. I followed him from Hong Kong. Tell me what he wanted.’

‘You gonna get me killed, Bro.’ Jojo looked around nervously. The boxing was still going on. The others were still staring at their drinks, waiting to find that ‘happy place’. Jojo turned his back on the bar and looked hard at Mann. ‘I in enough trouble.’

‘Tell me. I might be able to help.’

‘A Chinaman come here ten days ago. He rent my house – real nice place I have behind here.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Not as tall as you, but tall for a Chinaman – goatee beard, bald, mean-faced, thirty-five maybe?’

‘That’s the man. Anyone else?’

‘Come wid five other Chinese – his monkeys. Same time as he arrive come four white guys. They stay up at the end of the beach. Come wid whores from Angeles.’

‘What did he want?’

‘He wanted me to sell ’im somethin’ – somethin’ I own.’

‘What?’

‘I have businesses in Mindanao, down south. He want me to sell them to him – cheap.’

‘What kind of businesses?’

‘A bar, a small hotel. Nuttin big. Nice place – on de coast.’

‘What did you agree to?’

‘Not agree nuttin. He said he be back. He left wid white guys here. Bin here a week. Deese are bad fuckers,’ he whispered. ‘One of de whores is beat up nasty. Dey got money – plenty – pay off de police. I see them talking wid dem like old friends.’ Jojo shrugged and shook his head. He stared hard at Mann. ‘I tell you, bro, I gonna be in big trouble when dat Chinaman come back.’

‘Are they here tonight – the white guys?’

Jojo signalled for Mann to wait whilst he walked out of the bar and across the narrow sandy lane that ran the length of the mile-long white sugar beach’. Halfway across the lane he started swaying to the music…He began dancing with three of his sons who touted along the lane for him. As Jojo swang his hips to the rhythm, Rex on the drum box got a nudge from the singer. Rex opened his eyes. He stopped rocking his dreadlocks and began drumming faster. Jojo tried to keep up. He couldn’t. He staggered back into the bar, amidst laughter and applause, clutching his hand to his chest as if he were about to have a heart attack.

‘Bastards.’ He laughed, talking to the men watching the fight and rolling his eyes in the direction of the beach. ‘You give dem your name an’ they treat you like shit. Kids.’ He took a beer from the barman and waited for the fuss to subside before making his way back over to Mann. Jojo fanned his face with the bar mat.

‘They here?’ Mann asked again.

Jojo leaned in. ‘One of dem is here….sat left of de stage wid a young Filipina…Big white guy… peak cap.’ Jojo turned away from Mann and leaned his back against the bar, pretending to be interested in the boxing match which had reached its fifth round. He kept his eyes diverted from Mann and kept smiling, ‘Anuder ding,’ he whispered. ‘Dat old white guy’s got somethin’ hard in his pocket an’ it ain’t his big old cock. You gonna spoil my business you make trouble here, Johnny.’

‘Relax, old friend. They’ll be no trouble.’