‘Is it okay to meet here?’ Magda asked as she looked down at the antics below. ‘Have you been to Amsterdam before?’
‘First time here. But…’ He shrugged and then smiled. ‘…I didn’t come to see a sex show. I can see plenty of those at home. Your email said you needed to see me?’
The email had come to him via ‘customer relations’ in Police Headquarters. It had said just as much as it needed to to get him on a plane: no more, no less. It said that Magda had been his father’s mistress and that she needed to speak to him in person.
‘It must have been a shock, finding out about me.’
‘It was,’ Mann replied. ‘Why did you choose to tell me now and why did you need to see me urgently? What is it about?’
‘Can I ask you…have you ever been to Thailand?’
Mann looked perplexed. ‘I have, a few times, why?’
‘Did you hear about the five Dutch kids who were kidnapped recently from a refugee camp there?’
Mann nodded. ‘It was a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it? They were working on a volunteer programme on the Burma border.’ He shook his head. ‘The world is full of teenage kids travelling the globe like it’s just one big Disney ride. It was bound to happen sooner or later. But something like that is every parent’s nightmare.’
‘Yes, it is.’ Her eyes fixed on his, the strain showed on her face as she fought back tears. ‘One of them was my son. Your brother.’
Despite himself, Mann felt a pang of something new twist his stomach. No one had ever said ‘your brother’ to him.
Mann looked down towards the stage. A female dancer had come on in stockings and suspenders and was laying out her props: a riding whip, a bunch of bananas and a large pink dildo. She moved energetically between and around the poles at either end of the stage, stripping as she went. The Americans leant over the balcony, they had fallen predictably quiet.
‘Jake is eighteen. He and the other four kids were helping to build a school when the camp was attacked and they were taken across the border to the Burmese jungle. We have not been able to raise a ransom and we have heard nothing for over a week now. Please help us.’
Mann was reeling. To find his father had a mistress on the other side of the world was one thing, but to find he had a whole family was quite another.
‘Believe me, I am deeply sorry for your situation but I am not sure I can help,’ Mann said.
Magda looked away and stared down towards the stage. But Magda didn’t see the dancer. Downstairs the audience was rowdy—the stag party was queuing up to take part in the audience participation slot. Magda’s eyes were watery when she turned back to him.
‘Someone has to do something,’ she said, desperation in her voice as she fought to stop herself from crying. ‘We are going out there, my partner Alfie and I, he is a policeman like you. We will do everything we can, but…but…’ She looked at him as she shook her head in despair and a tear broke free. ‘We have no idea what we are doing.’ She wiped her eyes, angrily.
He waited for her to compose herself. ‘What do you think I can do?’
She turned sharply back to him, steeliness in her eyes. ‘You do not know me, but I know you. Alfie and I have followed your career. We have seen that you are a man who takes risks.’ She hesitated. ‘I know that you are not afraid to cross the line. I know that you were involved in a case where western women died in snuff movies.’ Magda searched his face. ‘I know that one of those women was someone you loved. I am sorry, Johnny. I understand your pain. That is why I asked you to come here. That is why I think you are the only one who can help me. We share some of the same pain. We both lost your father.’
It had been nineteen years since he had witnessed his father’s execution and two years since his girlfriend Helen’s lifeless body had been found. She had been tortured to death. The more Mann tried to make sense of his life, the more hollow he felt inside. He was haunted by memories. Sometimes he felt buried with the dead.
‘That might be so…’ Mann shook his head ‘…but I don’t know anything about jungle warfare. If you have the Dutch government negotiating there’s little else you can do.’
‘The whole region is politically unstable, who knows what deals they are making? You have contacts all over Asia. You can find out what has happened to Jake—I know you can. You can get my son back. There is no one else who cares. He is just a boy and he is your brother.’ Magda looked close to breaking. She shook her head miserably. ‘I’m sorry. I would not have troubled you if I did not have to. Believe me.’ She looked up at him, her eyes imploring. He did believe her. She was a mother who would do anything for her child and Mann was her last hope. And he knew she was right. Now he knew about Jake, there was nothing left for him to do. He had to help.
He smiled and nodded his acceptance.
‘Thank you.’ The tears in her eyes spilled over and she wiped them quickly. ‘He looks like you,’ she said as she pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. The Americans turned at the noise, but just as quickly turned their attention back to the stage where a group of lads was lining up to eat a banana from the dancer’s vagina. Mann stood and picked up his coat.
‘Let’s go somewhere else to talk.’
They were greeted outside by a blast of icy wind. Flanked by the tall houses that leant over as if magnetically drawn towards the water, the canals acted as wind tunnels. Magda steered Mann left. It was Saturday night and De Wallen was busy. People and bikes were filling pavements and spilling onto the roads. Bikini-clad prostitutes smiled and pouted from behind their windows, their bodies softened by neon. They chatted to one another and drummed their nails on the glass to attract passersby that they liked the look of, and then they stopped to take up negotiations at the door. Mann looked around for the men in the puffer jackets. There were enough suspicious-looking types hanging about doorways to warrant paranoia but those particular two were not amongst them.
He caught Magda watching him as they walked alongside each other past the Granny and the Tranny quarters, where young men and old could indulge their confused fantasies.
‘You’re taller than I thought you’d be,’ she said.
‘And you’re younger.’ He smiled. ‘The height’s from my mum’s side.’
Magda pulled up her fleece around her neck. ‘Did she tell you about me?’ she asked, not looking at him.
Mann shook his head. ‘No.’
Magda nodded as if it was what she had expected.
The will had been read a few weeks after his father had died. Mann had been eighteen. He remembered his mother being led into a private room and emerging some time later, ashen faced. She had never told him what had gone on in there but that’s when she must have found out about Deming’s indiscretions. It must have broken her heart. She never spoke about his father again. She sold the house, got rid of many of their belongings and she never touched the money he left behind. If Magda hadn’t got in touch it was unlikely Mann would ever have known about the existence of a brother. What hurt him now was the knowledge that his father was so evidently missing something in his life that he had to travel to the other side of the world to find it. It left Mann feeling insecure, unsettled. His world had turned on its head.
‘What about Jake, is he tall?’
‘A bit taller than me. But I think he is still growing. He’s just eighteen.’ Magda’s voice softened as she talked about him—he was clearly the light of her life.
They stopped outside one of the prostitutes’ windows and Magda waved at the occupant who was dressed in a