Katrien stepped out onto the tarmac and smiled to herself; it was good to be home. Now she was back for good. She hadn’t expected to have to get out of Amsterdam on such short notice. She had been hoping to tie up a few loose ends—but she’d managed one at least. Now she’d burnt her bridges and she was home for good. They could investigate her all they liked. They’d never find her in the Burmese jungle.

She checked in her bag and pulled out Johnny Mann’s card. His mobile number and his satellite phone number were on it. When the time was right, she would make that call.

She looked around for her ride. She had someone special waiting for her. This was the start of her new life. She smiled to herself. She had done a good job of playing the men. She prided herself in being able to juggle them all and come out the winner. But then, after all, men were like dogs, they only ever wanted the same things. If you knew that, you could lead them anywhere. She looked around for her lift and saw him. He was out of uniform. Shame, he never looked so handsome out of it. He was touching his moustache the way he always did when he was nervous.

49

After leaving King’s bar, Mann went back to Mary’s. The evening seemed to have livened up there. The volunteers that he had seen in King’s were now carrying on the party back at base. There seemed to be an opendoor policy up and down the corridor and there was a lot of giggling coming from the rooms. Mann wasn’t bothered by the noise. It was the quiet he couldn’t stand. That’s why he never liked going back to his apartment. It was just so empty. He knew that he could have someone in there, a woman to share his bed and make him feel wanted, but Mann didn’t intend to fall into that trap; it wasn’t fair to anyone. He had seen too many men do it. Just live with anyone rather than be on their own. What was it with men? They couldn’t bear to be alone? They left their mother’s house and moved straight in with a woman? As much as he loved women, mothering was something he had never needed from them.

He closed his door and walked along the corridor. The first door was open but no one was there. The second was open and a woman stood looking at Mann as he appeared in her doorway. She had on a loose cheesecloth blouse and a sarong wrapped around her hips. She had the look of a middle-aged hippy with money. She had a thinness to her that smacked of years with no appetite left for anything but alcohol and sex.

She stopped mid-swig of a beer and put the bottle down.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I saw you talking to one of the medics in King’s. I was there with the rest of the NGOs.’ Her voice was raspy from too many cigarettes.

Mann leant on the door frame and waved a hello with one hand, brandishing a pack of beer with the other.

‘Johnny,’ he said. ‘Can I come in?’ He handed her the beers.

‘A stranger bearing gifts—fantastic. Sit down.’ She pointed to the bed. ‘I’m Hillary.’

‘How long have you all been here?’

Mann sat, she stood, Hillary shook her head and screwed up her face. ‘About six months. This is our last night. They’re flying us out because of the troubles. What about you? Strange time to arrive when everyone else is leaving.’

‘Ah, well, never could plan a holiday right.’

‘Is that what this is, a holiday? We thought you must be a new medic of some kind.’

‘No, just a traveller. So, you’ve been staying here for six weeks?’ Hillary nodded. ‘At Mary’s?’ She smiled and nodded again as she opened a beer. ‘So you were here when the five volunteers were kidnapped?’ Hillary stopped drinking.

‘Oh, so that’s it?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You’re a reporter of some kind?’ Mann didn’t answer. ‘Well, thanks for the beer, but I’ve already said all I know about it.’

‘What if I told you I am here to help find them?’

‘Then I’d still say, sorry, no comment. I was interviewed by the police. NAP have been very good to us. I’ve said all I will.’

‘So you don’t give a shit, basically?’

The atmosphere in the room was tense.

‘Please leave.’

Mann went back into his room. There was certainly no more party going on now, his presence had definitely put a dampener on things. He checked his phone. He had a message from Alfie. He called him back.

‘What is it, Alfie? You all right? I can hardly hear you.’

‘I am not supposed to use my phone. I am in hospital. I followed Katrien when she met up with the guy she was emailing. I got knifed. I took a photo of him—he’s been identified as one of a ring of drug traffickers under surveillance here. It’s a Burmese connection. They import massive amounts of heroin and methamphetamine, ice. She’s into the big league.’

‘Is he the one who knifed you?’

‘No. It was the two guys that you met outside Magda’s flat that night, the Asians…’

‘You must be doing something right to piss Katrien off so badly she’s called in her friends. What about the two-million ransom money? How did she take that?’

‘She was straight on the webcam, wetting her knickers and telling someone how it was all going to work out peachy for them. But she has left Amsterdam in a hurry. She was about to be hauled into an investigation about where the money from NAP has gone. I think things have got a bit sticky for her. She decided to get out while she could. Anyway, she’s headed your way, Mann.’

‘She must have a plan for getting her hands on the two million.’

‘Yes, she’s too greedy to fuck it up now.’

50

In the morning Mann sat next to Sue in her old Toyota as they drove along the main road out of Mae Sot, towards the mountains and Mae Klaw. The road began to straighten and level out and they crossed a wide bridge. Mann looked down and saw the people beneath the bridge by the side of the river, flanked either side by thick forest. People were washing themselves and their clothes in the shallow banks of the fast-flowing river, children were playing, and downstream a man was cleaning the wheels of his scooter. Palm-thatched roofs started appearing on the left, rising as if organically from the wide leaves and verdant greenery. From far away it looked like an idyllic jungle village. But Mann had been in refugee camps before—they were only one up from squatter towns like the ones he knew well in the Philippines. Here the houses weren’t made from cardboard boxes or flattened Coke tins, they were made from recycled forest material. There was not a corrugated iron sheet in sight, just thousands of tiny bamboo huts on stilts ringed in by a barbed wire fence. It was a pretty place—but was still nothing but an overcrowded prison.

‘It’s a big camp. How many people live here?’ asked Mann. He could see that the huts stretched as far as the horizon and the start of the mountains.

‘At the moment there’s two thousand but more arrive all the time.’

‘Is Riley a medic too?’

‘Not officially, but he’s sat in on enough operations to make a good go at sewing someone up or delivering a baby if he has to,’ said Sue. ‘Riley has been here for so long that he has had to learn to do everything. That’s the way it is here, people can be what they want to be, you can reinvent yourself, start afresh.’ She looked across at Mann and he could see that her eyes were shining, whether with pride or with love, he wasn’t sure. ‘There is no one else who cares about these people as much as Riley. He lives, eats and breathes the refugee camps and the Karen people; it’s all he really cares about. They have even made him an honorary Karen. You’ll like Riley. He’s a good guy.’