After Mann had left for the airport, Alfie followed Katrien out of the NAP offices and watched her get into a cab. He got on his bike and followed. An expensive-looking woman like her wasn’t going to live far out of town. He was right: she lived the other side of the Jordaan. She had an apartment overlooking a wide cobbled avenue in the rich part of town. He stayed out of sight, watched her get out of the taxi and then waited outside. He saw the light go on on the top floor. He saw her reflection in the window as she drew the curtains. Now he was sure of where she lived he would come back the next morning.
Katrien finished fixing her makeup in the bathroom. She chopped up a fat line of coke on a mirror and snorted it through a five-hundred-euro note. She never got over the thrill of snorting coke using big money: the smell of the money and the high from the coke went together. She closed her eyes and screwed up her face as the pain hit the top of her nose, between her eyes. She sniffed hard and set herself out another line for later. When she’d finished checking her makeup, she rested her foot on the side of the bath and twisted around to fasten her stocking. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror. It didn’t get much better than this—coke and money and sex. She congratulated herself: Katrien was a clever girl and she wasn’t going to let anyone fuck it up for her. Things might not have gone to plan but she would still come out of this a winner. She finished putting on her stockings, her lacy black thong and her peephole bra, before slipping on her black six-inch stilettos. She walked out of the bathroom but then doubled back to snort the other line. Back in the bedroom she poured herself a glass of Bollinger and sat down to wait for her PC to start up.
‘Hello, darling.’ She pouted into the camera, dipped her finger into the cold glass of Bollinger and ran it beneath the lace of her bra cup as she played with her nipples. ‘Have you been a good boy? Because I’ve got something nice for you—you’re going to like it. Are you ready?’
There was a pause as she read the typed reply.
Katrien gave a stamp of her stiletto.
‘Don’t ask me that now—you’ll spoil the mood. No, I didn’t find it yet…I have told you, I will get it. We will have revenge one way or another. Remember, it wasn’t just your life that was ruined. Now, stay calm. Move them north. Hand them over and we will get what is rightfully ours. It will all be over soon, my darling. Anyway…’ She rolled her eyes and smiled. ‘I know you care about that, don’t you, my darling? But this is also something you care about, isn’t it? I have a surprise for you that you are going to like very much.’ She stood and played with the tie sides to her panties. ‘Are you ready?’ She undid the sides of her panties and let them fall. She adjusted the chair so that the webcam could see her and she sat down and opened her legs wide, leaned into the webcam and whispered, ‘I have seen him. The game has started.’
The next morning Alfie waited until Katrien went to work, then he parked outside her apartment and buzzed all of the flats until someone kindly released the front door catch. He headed up the stone staircase to the top floor. He walked to the door and took out his handy breaking-in kit, which he had used when he was a wayward youngster and which still served him today as a cop.
He was a little out of practice and it took him a few minutes, but soon enough he was in. The alarm started beeping. Alfie slipped a small tin from his pocket, flipped it open and pulled out what looked like a woman’s makeup brush with a powder canister attached. He brushed the keypad, leaving a trace of charcoal on three numbers on the pad. The alarm beeped faster, louder. Alfie looked at the four dark squares: one, nine and six. Now, what was the order? He tried them numeric ally. ‘Error’ 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 it about 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.
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,