Before It's Too Late Read online

  “Good work,” Jackman said. “Get yourself across there. Hopefully somebody will remember something. If we’re lucky they’ll also have CCTV.” He turned back to Davies, “Anything on the bin?”

  Davies shook her head. “We arranged for Birmingham CID to pick it up. They are examining it as we speak.”

  Her words conjured up images of CSIs in white coveralls, hoods and booties picking through the contents of the waste bin, brushing it for fingerprints. But Jackman was pretty certain they wouldn’t find anything. It was unlikely that whoever had taken the trouble to plan in such detail would forget to cover their tracks and wear gloves. “Right. We need to get out to the location of the drop in Birmingham.”

  “What about surveillance on the boyfriend?” Davies asked.

  Jackman pressed his lips together and switched his gaze to Janus. “We have authorisation for twenty-four hours, right?”

  Janus gave a swift nod.

  “Then we leave it there for the moment,” he said. “The note makes it seem unlikely, but doesn’t rule out the possibility that he still may be involved in some way.”

  “We need to establish a press strategy,” Janus said.

  Jackman was aware of the normal press shutdown in the wake of kidnappings. But this abductor’s demand had been met and still the hostage hadn’t been released.

  He thought hard. “The ransom note said no police, no press,” Jackman said. “If there is any chance she might still be alive we need to be very careful how we treat it. Let’s step up the press campaign, re-iterate that she is missing and get the public to look out for her. It’s still possible that she has been dropped somewhere and is wandering around confused. We need to establish a motive,” he continued. “If this is an attempt by organised criminal gangs, or a rival business interest, then there may well be more to it. Maybe this is somebody’s warped way of trying to muscle in on Mr Li’s business.”

  “There’s something else.” Russell’s soft tone spoke up, “There’s a brother. Min Li has an uncle in the UK.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I stood and rapped my fists on the wall, screaming as I banged one after the other, harder and harder until they burned with pain and my knuckles, now split and grazed, oozed with blood. I took a deep breath and sucked them into my mouth as Grandmother’s voice rung in my ears, ‘You are a strong woman, Lan Hua. You can win.’

  I suddenly remembered being around five or six years old, sat at the table with my grandmother, practising my writing. Pressing the pen down hard, tearing into the paper; my grandmother gently telling me to press lightly. I’d always been heavy-handed.

  An idea formed in my mind. I glanced around the pit. The slice of light from above was at its brightest at this time of day. I grabbed a small stone and scraped it down the wall beside me. It barely made a mark. I tried again, pressed harder this time. A faint mark appeared in the rough concrete. But as soon as I ran my hand over it, it disappeared into a cloud of dust.

  I pulled back the blanket and moved the food packets around to search beneath. Desperation itched at me. I got down on my hands and knees, running my hands across the uneven floor. But there were no loose pieces of concrete I could pick out, no sharp edges. It wasn’t surprising really. The first morning in here, I’d had to sit and pick so many small stones from the skin on my arms and legs that afterwards I’d spent most of the day moving across the floor, my bare hands sweeping loose stones and rocks into a pile. I sat back on my heels as my eyes landed on the far corner. That pile now lay beneath the crisps packets, the leaves, the rubbish.

  A strong smell of fresh ammonia rose to meet me as I approached and crouched down. I grabbed the empty bread packet, pushed my hand into it like a glove, then reached in and sorted through the leaves. The smell of stale faeces floated up into the air. I turned my head back, covered my nose with my free hand and retched. But I couldn’t stop now. Eventually I felt the blunt edge of metal and pulled out a rusty nail. I wiped it down the side of the bag before applying it to the wall.

  It made a faint mark. I went over it again, and again, then rubbed it with the corner of the blanket. The mark didn’t move. This was going to work. I dug the nail in and kept carving.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Janus followed Jackman into his office, planted her briefcase on his desk and rested a hand on her bony hip. “I don’t like this,” she said as if speaking to herself.

  Jackman massaged his temples and turned to face her. He was still digesting the fact that Min had an uncle living in the UK. “Look, an uncle in Birmingham gives us a lead, especially when the drop was made there,” he said. “And we’re pretty sure that the sender of that email understood Mandarin.”

  “Why haven’t they told us this before?”

  Jackman recalled Russell’s feedback. She’d gone on to say that the family claimed he moved to England twelve years ago to work in a restaurant, waiting tables. They lost contact with him around ten years ago. “Perhaps they didn’t think it would be relevant.”

  Janus didn’t answer.

  “It’s a new lead,” Jackman continued. “We have a name, Qiang Li. The family weren’t sure whether or not he had a permanent visa. We need to get that checked out. If not, it’s unlikely we can make the usual checks, but that doesn’t mean we can’t trace him. Give it time.”

  “Time? We’ll have the world’s press on our doorstep before we know it,” she snapped.

  Jackman felt her frustration too, but for different reasons. The new revelations: the ransom call, the uncle, the time lapse, bothered him. He thought of the kidnapper’s words, ‘we will fail to meet her basic needs’.

  “Maybe I should get in someone more senior.”

  “Hey!” He shot her a hard stare.

  “I don’t mean for them to take over, just a media front, to show we’re taking it seriously. Reilly’s tied up with the Readman murder. That’s another bloody debacle,” she said.

  “I don’t need a media front.” Jackman spoke through gritted teeth. “I’ve worked kidnappings before.”

  “This is different,” Janus said. “We’re dealing with cultural differences that span 5000 miles and parents that aren’t giving anything away.”

  “We can’t rule out their involvement either.”

  “What?”

  “Well, you heard Russell. What’s with all the secrecy? They didn’t exactly react in the normal way to the news yesterday. What if the parents arranged this? We need to press the Embassy for their personal bank records, get a list of their business clients. Look,” Jackman continued, “if you are going to give me more resources, put them at the college to guard the kids. It hasn’t even been forty-eight hours. Give me a chance.”

  She removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes, “What about the link with the others?”

  Jackman grimaced. “It’s possible, but a ransom call is a risky change of direction. More likely it’s separate. How did Reilly’s team get on with the restaurant?”

  “Still working on it.” She sniffed and replaced her glasses. “Will, are you sure you’re up to this?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He watched her stand and grab her bag. “Keep me informed.”

  As Janus swept out of his office and through the incident room, his mobile buzzed on the desk beside him. He grabbed it. A message from Celia.

  Hi Dad, Hope you’re having a good day. Love you. x

  A warm feeling filled his chest. It would have been so easy to let go of the world after his wife’s accident; to drift through the days, weeks, months that followed, skydiving through a weightless eternity of nothingness. The only thing that stopped him, that pulled him out of his depression in those early days, was Celia.

  After Alice’s diagnosis he’d all but convinced himself she was going to die. But Celia fervently believed her mother was going to be one of the minority that made a decent recovery and refused to accept any alternative.

  Even after he’d persuaded her to return to university, when that i
nner voice of temptation spoke with such lingering seduction – encouraging him to binge on junk food, give up work, lock the world out – Jackman resisted. He hadn’t touched alcohol since the night of Alice’s accident. He ate relatively healthily and he ran and cycled as often as the job would allow, usually accompanied by the ever-keen Erik, and threw himself into his work.

  He looked back at his phone and smiled. She’d probably never realise how much that one text meant.

  Jackman stared into the faces of Min’s parents that filled the computer screen before him. The Skype meeting had been relatively easy to set up, but almost half an hour of questioning hadn’t offered any new leads. He was fully aware of the eight hours’ time difference and the likelihood that Mr and Mrs Li had barely had any sleep since Monday, but he was starting to feel little pinheads of frustration prick away at his skin.

  Mr Li’s hair was peppered with grey and spiked into a fringe that framed his weary face. In spite of the interpreter on hand, Mrs Li said nothing. Her pale face was cast downwards for the whole of the interview. Jackman wasn’t sure if she was under the effects of sedation, didn’t understand or was just frozen in grief. Yet they didn’t look guilty. Just frightened. And immensely sad.

  “I repeat, every tick of the clock is important now. You have to help us and tell us everything you know. Who are the contacts that arranged the ransom money and delivered the payment for you in the UK?”

  Thick tramlines collected on Mr Li’s forehead as he took an audible breath, “I’ve already said, I cannot tell you that.”

  He formed his words slowly and carefully and whilst Jackman couldn’t fail to be impressed by his grasp and pronunciation of English, he was beginning to feel exasperated. “There is a chance they could be involved in this in some way.”

  “It’s not my contacts that are the problem. All they’ve done is what I asked and tried to help me. We need to find my daughter.”

  “Finding them could lead us closer to Min. Even if they are not involved, they might have seen something, heard something…”

  “They’re not involved. I can guarantee that.”

  “Then you won’t mind sharing their details?”

  A muscle flexed in Mr Li’s jawline. “I cannot.”

  “Why not?”

  He stared at Jackman. “You don’t know what these people are like. They work on trust. If you betray their trust, they come after your friends and family.”

  “We’ll get you protection.”

  Mr Li shook his head. “You have no idea.”

  Jackman decided to change direction. “You said you have a brother living in the UK. Can you describe him?”

  “About five foot six inches tall, average build. His left earlobe is missing and there is a scar down the left side of his face.” He ran his finger down his own cheek to illustrate. “Agricultural accident when he was a child. We are trying to find a photo. It’s been such a long time.”

  “When did you last hear from him?”

  “Not for years. We were never really close.”

  “He came over to work in a restaurant?”

  “Yes. He was always good with people. He seemed to have a gift for learning different languages.”

  “Okay, if you can find the last address you have for him and send it through to Detective Russell with a photo and anything else you can remember, that would help.”

  “You don’t think he could be involved?”

  “We have to follow up every line of enquiry,” Jackman said gently. “What about the money you agreed to pay for the ransom?”

  Mr Li looked downwards. “Somebody will be in touch. That’s all I know.”

  Jackman leaned into the screen. “This is important. Please get in contact as soon as they do. We need to talk to them. It could help us to find Min.”

  He glanced across at Mrs Li, just as a single tear rolled down her cheek.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  DS Gray passed Jackman a mug of steaming black coffee and folded himself into the chair next to him. The seated position pulled the already strained shirt buttons across his belly to new limits, exposing intermittent blobs of hairy white flesh.

  After the Skype meeting, Jackman deployed Davies and the rest of the team to the industrial estate where the ransom drop was made and drove straight to Birmingham’s police headquarters in an attempt to track down Qiang Li. He was now seated in Lloyd House at Colmore Circus, a large high-rise set in the heart of Birmingham’s city centre. Jackman waited for Gray to place his coffee down on the circular mock-pine table in front of them before he spoke. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me,” he said. “What can you tell me about Qiang Li?”

  Gray exhaled loudly. “Nothing much. We reckon he’s an illegal immigrant who outstayed his tourist visa. After your phone call, we got a team straight out to the last address the family gave in Lever Street, just off Hagley Road, but all we found was a group of students that claimed they’ve lived there since September. We spoke to the landlord, a Trevor Smith. He doesn’t know anyone of that name, although he said he has had a Chinese guy living there that meets the description. He’s come and gone a few times over the years. Keeps himself to himself. He was there last summer, although Smith chucked him out because he was behind with the rent.”

  “Did he say what name he was using?”

  “He doesn’t remember and hasn’t kept any of the paperwork, conveniently.” Gray rolled his eyes. “It’s a three-storey terrace with individual rooms to rent. I’d say he works mainly in cash. I don’t think he cares as long as he gets paid.”

  “So we are thinking Qiang’s using a different name?” Jackman said, almost to himself. “What about local intelligence?”

  Gray shook his head. “He’s not known to us. Mr Smith mentioned he might have worked at The Oriental Garden in the Chinese Quarter, but it’s unlikely they’ll have any records under his real name if he’s here illegally.”

  “So he’s just disappeared?”

  Gray took another sip of his coffee. “He’s kept off the radar for the past twelve years. No reason for him to make himself known now.”

  Jackman heard footsteps and turned towards the door. Two brisk knocks were followed by the click of the handle. A female officer appeared, carrying a couple of sheets of A4. She looked across at Gray, “Sorry to interrupt,” then turned to Jackman. “These just came for the inspector.” Her mouth formed a thin smile as she handed them over and left the room.

  The first sheet was a print-out of a message from Russell which read, ‘Best photo of Qiang Li taken around fifteen years ago’.

  Jackman looked at the photo. At first glance the image looked more like a mug shot than a family photo, although when he peered closer he saw what appeared to be a sparkle in Qiang’s eye, as if he was deliberately pulling a face for the camera. Jackman stared at it a moment. Qiang’s head was tilted slightly, held at an angle that obscured his left ear, but he could just about make out the grooved scar on the side of his cheek.

  Gray sniggered as Jackman passed it across. “Bloody hell.” He ran his finger along the broken line that ran through the middle where the original photo had been folded. “Couldn’t they find a better one?”

  Jackman took a sip of his coffee and placed the mug on the round table in front of them. “He probably looks quite different now, but at least it’s a start.”

  “What we really need is Ken,” Gray said, “the local beat officer for the Chinese Quarter. He’s British-born Chinese. Built up a lot of connections with the local community, even speaks Mandarin.”

  “Great, let’s get hold of him.”

  Gray frowned. “No can do. He’s sunning himself in Greece. Flies back in the morning.”

  Twenty minutes later, a thick stench of diesel hung in the air as Jackman and Gray parked up and wandered into Birmingham’s Chinese Quarter. The afternoon heat radiated from the mortar in the surrounding buildings. Gray turned his head sharply as they passed a couple of women in short floral dres
ses.

  “There it is,” Jackman said. He halted on the corner of a narrow side street and pointed at The Oriental Garden. “Let’s go have a word.”

  Gray took another passing glance at the ladies and reluctantly followed Jackman through the entrance. Elaborate lacquered prints of Chinese figures decorated the red walls of the restaurant. They climbed up grey carpeted steps and immediately faced an oversized, gilt-edged mirror that gave the impression of a room double the size. A family of four turned their heads from a table in the corner beside an aquarium containing a shoal of cichlids that glided around serenely.

  A floor-walker grabbed a couple of menus, plastered a smile on his face and approached them. Jackman introduced them both and his smile instantly disappeared.

  He made a play of replacing the menus in the nearby stand and looked back at them anxiously, “How can I help you?”

  Jackman dug into his pocket, pulled out the photo and unfolded it. “Do you recognise this man?”

  The waiter gave it a fleeting glance and shook his head.

  “And you are?” Gray chipped in.

  “Hui Zhang.”

  “We were told he used to work here,” Jackman added.

  The man glanced across at him, his face deadpan, and handed the photo back. “Must have been a long time ago.”

  Jackman sighed. “Can we speak to the manager please?”

  The man nodded and moved away, through a door behind the bar area and out of sight. He returned almost immediately with an older Chinese man in casual trousers and a checked shirt.

  Jackman held out the photo and repeated his question.

  The elder man cast a quick glance at his colleague. When he spoke, his words were broken. “I don’t know him.”

  “Are you sure?” Jackman asked. “Take another look. His name is Qiang Li, although he might have been using another name. He has a very distinctive scar.” Jackman pointed to the side of the face in the photo and explained that his left earlobe was missing.