Death Trip by Lee Weeks Page A

came up on the pad; he pressed clear and thought about it. She was forty. He knew that much. He pressed one, nine, six and six, the year she was born—and the alarm stopped beeping. Alfie held his breath—was itabout to go ballistic? He waited, ready to run, but no. Alfie stepped inside. He raised his eyebrows and looked around appreciatively. She had good taste. It was the opposite of his and Magda’s place. This was chic and minimal—and very expensive. It was gadget world. He had no idea how she afforded this kind of luxury on her salary. The kitchen was black marble, as was the bathroom. Alfie looked at the mirror beside the bath; he wet his finger and dabbed it on the white trail, then he tasted it.
    He walked into her bedroom, animal fur, teak furniture, black walnut floor. For a minute he thought it doubled as an office because it had a PC, until he saw the biggest webcam he had ever seen. She was big into Skype, thought Alfie. He jogged the table as he passed and the screen lit up.
    She had left herself signed in. Big mistake, thought Alfie. He sat down at her desk and opened her contacts. She had ten new emails. He guessed this was a personal account. Not many people called themselves katcream69, not at work anyway. He opened her emails. Most of them were from different men. They appeared to be clients, lovers. That must be how she afforded this apartment, thought Alfie; either Katrien was a highly paid call girl or she dealt in some heavy-duty drugs. One of them was an appointment for the following day, Friday, at the Erotica Museum. Alfie tried to access her other accounts. Two others came up when prompted. Alfie pressed the link for ‘forgotten password’. He was presented with two queotions. The place she was born and her favourite colour. He wrote down the email addresses and shut the PC down.
    Alfie got outside and called his friend in surveillance—he would need a concealed camera. He smiled to himself. Now Alfie was about to uncover a lot more about Katrien than she would willingly show him. He might not fancy her but the Bitch performing sex acts on the webcam, that was too good to miss; and now he knew she had deep dark dirty secrets she really didn’t want anyone finding out.
    That night katcream69 signed in again.
Yes … Show me.
    ‘What do I get, Big Man?’
    You know what you get. You get my undivided attention. You get my devotion.
    Katrien laughed. ‘What else? Say it. It makes me excited to hear it.’
    You will be richer than you’ve ever imagined.
    ‘I have a rich imagination.’ She giggled. ‘But you’re right. I can’t wait to be able to cut out the middle men and grow my own opium, and then we’ll all be rich. But, for now, we’re still reliant on those greedy drug baron friends of yours. Is the next shipment ready to come over?’
    They want to wait. They’re getting nervous.
    ‘No waiting, this is the time to act. We need all the funds we can get hold of if we are. Are they ready for him in the hills?’
    Everything is in place, as long as he doesn’t fuck it up.
    ‘He won’t. This means everything to him.’
    The only thing that means anything to him is revenge.
    ‘And I have seen to that. We will all have what we want from this. Each one of us will come out a winner.’
    Show me.
    She slipped the bra straps off her shoulders and rolled her hard nipples between her fingers.

17
Hong Kong
    Mann came off the night flight from Amsterdam, took the first high speed train of the morning into Hong Kong, followed by the MTR link to Central, and then went on to his flat in Tai Koo Shing. He was glad to be back. He was always glad to return; Hong Kong was always in Mann’s heart, she always drew him back home. But he didn’t like getting back to his empty flat. It held nothing but memories for him.
    He punched in his door code, said hello to the doorman and took the lift up to his floor. Stepping out onto his landing should have felt good but it didn’t. Every time he came