China Wife (3 page)

5

Alice Hou never knew why she had been singled out for kidnap.

Her life in Brazil had been hardly ideal and she knew that girls like her could have a better life in North America. But she was equally aware of the horror stories of abuse and violence at the hands of people traffickers. However, confident in her ability to look after herself, such stories hadn't put her off.

Ending up wet and uncomfortable after a remote river crossing into Canada, somewhere on the border of Michigan and Ontario, the horrors that she had endured weren't those that she had been led to expect. How she got to such an isolated place within the generally crowded confines of the border area she had no clear memory of. Having arrived at her final destination after a journey up the length of America from Mexico, all she felt was relief and optimism.

But she soon found that the original stories of abuse and violence were true.

Settled in a low-paid job, she was forced to part with most of her earnings and live under the close supervision of the Chinese man who had in effect bought her from the traffickers. Unusually she was not subject to sexual violence, but was groomed both to improve her employment status and to fast-track for citizenship. The Chinese man who ruled her life knew all about value added and the returns that could accrue to himself if Alice could earn more. And her value as a Canadian citizen was even greater.

But in the specific world of women trafficking there were levels of sophistication and villainy that Alice was unaware of but which came to dominate her life. The modest returns and ongoing income that Alice's gangmaster was earning from her were easily outbid. After only a few short months in her new life in Calgary she was sold on to a commodity supplier far more ruthless and internationally connected than the men who had got her into Canada.

Alice Hou wasn't her given name; the belief of her earlier traffickers was that she would be less conspicuous and more easily assimilated with a Westernised name. The commodity supplier was unconcerned about any such subtleties. The clients he worked for were Chinese Chinese; they were equally uninterested in what anybody outside their peer group in China thought.

The Canadian immigration authorities knew full well that Chinese girls were being smuggled into the country, often from South America, but as fast as they closed down one entry route another was opened up. The US authorities stretched beyond limits by the human flow from Mexico were much too interested in the Hispanic horde descending on them to worry about the odd Chinese woman. It was this lack of attention to detail that first the ordinary trafficker and then the commodity supplier were able to take full advantage of.

And then, unwillingly, Alice was on the move again.

The packaging tape over Alice's eyes and lower face was pulled tight and allowed her little facial movement. As she returned to consciousness she could taste the vomit in her mouth. She panicked. Struggling for breath and unable to do anything but keep swallowing back the burning bile that kept surging up, her whole body seemed to be on fire. She knew that, if the reflux got into her nose, she would die.

As she attempted to writhe into a more comfortable position, she began to understand that she was naked and the same tape that covered her face bound her wrists behind her
back and her ankles. With something stuffed into her ears she could only feel through her skin as all her other senses had been neutralised.

Jesus
, she thought, something of her lost Catholic upbringing beginning to emerge.
Help me, save me!

Her writhing and the crawling feeling on her skin continued. Forcing herself to be still, she realised that the crawling feeling was something moving beside her.

Then everything settled down and the only sensation that she was aware of was a swaying motion that suggested that she was in something that was moving.

In common with many immigrants, both legal and otherwise, Alice was better educated and much more intelligent than her short career as a Canadian waitress would have suggested. Had she known, it was these particular characteristics that had attracted the commodity supplier and led to her present situation. The fact that she had a rarity value as a virgin wasn't something in the coming days and weeks that occurred to her.

What the hell's happening to me?

She would have said it out loud had she been able.

Having at last mastered her breathing and her stomach, she cautiously moved the only part of her body that she could. As she probed sideways with her bound legs, her heel touched upon something hard but with a textured surface.

God, that feels like hair
, she thought.

Whatever she was touching moved away and the calf of her leg in its turn touched upon something warm, firm but soft. She felt it move against her.

It's someone else!

It was another thought that would have been articulated had her mouth been fully available to her.

What hit her on the back of the head she had no idea. Stunned, she instinctively straightened herself up and drifted into semi-consciousness. The same warm, firm but soft feeling of something moving against her was lost to her as her senses
momentarily switched off. The back-heeled kick that had rattled her brain was equally instinctive.

It was only when the Canadian authorities became aware of the disappearance of four Chinese women, all of whom were overqualified waitresses, that more than the usual alarm bells began to ring and the various sections of officialdom began to wind themselves into action. Investigation of the immigration status of the women, Alice Hou, Janice Liang, April Cheng and Patience Zhang, rapidly revealed both the unlikely synthetic nature of their names but also the apparent replication in exact detail of their entry into Canada. At least, that was true of three of them. How Janice Liang got into the country was shrouded in more than the usual mystery. But since she had disappeared any consideration of this was deferred until she had been located.

As the police probed more deeply the shape of the people trafficking organisation that had apparently brought them to Alberta at last began to emerge, along with the apparent dissimilarity of the four women from the generality of single Chinese women who sought a new life in Canada. It also emerged that these dissimilarities had made it much easier for the four women to acquire citizenship. That the four were Canadian citizens made the search for them more intense, if increasingly fruitless, and led the police and senior immigration officials to postulate that the citizenship issue was somehow significant.

‘I think I'd put money on it that they've been kidnapped for a very specific purpose.'

The senior investigating officer from the Alberta Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been around long enough to see the obvious patterns in the information that he was receiving and the behaviour that it was characterising.

‘I'd also put money on our never finding out!'

It wasn't that he was naturally pessimistic; it was more that,
as they trawled more and more into the depths of Chinese female immigration, they found that such disappearances, although extremely rare and one-off, had occurred before. Bodies were never found and there was never anything to suggest that the women had been spirited away into the wilder areas of Canada where bodies had a better chance of never being found. The senior officer's instinct was not challenged. But Interpol was informed.

It was an unusually warm late-May Sunday afternoon. For the inhabitants of Victoria Island and for the streams of visitors attracted from the oppressive atmosphere of Vancouver, seeing how the other half lived was a regular pastime.

Big houses, private jetties and sometimes very big ocean-going cruisers were very much the grist to this sightseeing group's mill. But only the adventurous or the insatiably curious would have taken the trouble to get close to the jetty where the biggest of all the cruisers was moored.

‘So what d'you reckon that's worth?'

The two minimally clad students were adventurous. They had chosen the spot overlooking the boathouse and jetty more for is seclusion and its suntrap potential than to be able to gape at hardware that they would never in their wildest dreams be able to afford. The two girls watched the luxury vessel glide alongside the jetty. It was obviously too big to get into the boathouse.

‘My dad says seagoing cruisers belonging to Russian oligarchs can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.'

Since neither girl really had much of a clue about such things the conversation lapsed.

‘I wonder what they've got in there?'

A large flat crate was being carefully manoeuvred along the jetty and then was lifted by a small mobile crane on to the afterdeck of the cruiser. What happened once it had been taken on board the girls couldn't at first see, but as the vessel
immediately put to sea they saw that it had been moved inside the superstructure.

‘Must be valuable. They wouldn't be that careful if were just a load of provisions for the voyage.'

Dozing in the warmth of the sun, the two girls had soon forgotten both the cruiser and its seemingly precious cargo. The idea that they had just acquired some information that would be valuable to the police, not only in Canada but also in Australia and China, needless to say, never occurred to them.

European Times
UK Edition – Thursday, 27 May 2010
SUSPICIOUS BODY IN THE SEA

Dorset Police confirms that the body found in the sea off the Jurassic Coast near Bridport was that of an East European man with connections with organised crime, in particular with people trafficking. The identity of the man was known but has not been released by the police.

The exact cause of death has yet to be determined. A postmortem is being carried out in Dorchester but the police confirm that they are instigating a murder enquiry.

Dorset Police declined to confirm or deny speculation that the man was connected with a series of increasingly violent clashes between rival gangs of suppliers of illegal farm labour. East European and Chinese gangs have been involved in a number of incidents reported to the Lincolnshire and West Midlands police forces.

The UK Human Trafficking Centre, in a report to the Home Office leaked to the press, have identified an increasing trend for the trafficking gangs to be controlled not only from East Europe but also now from mainland China. Greater Manchester Police in a separate report to the Home Office has also reported an increase in inter-gang violence between the traditional Chinese gangs most usually centred on Liverpool and a loose confederation of much better organised and resourced groups. The new gangs were beginning to not only expand into protection and the sex trade but were targeting the trafficking of both legal and illegal immigrant labour. The Manchester conclusion confirmed the Trafficking Centre's analysis.

‘The thing that distinguishes these new gangs,' said the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, ‘is their active opposition to drug trafficking in the areas that they are seeking to dominate.'

None of the police forces involved in the people trafficking
or drugs trade were prepared to comment on the significance of this unusual feature.

The body in the sea in Dorset was said to be of a powerfully built man showing no signs of drug or any other abuse.

‘Definitely not one to meet in a dark alleyway,' was the comment of the police sergeant who first secured the body from the sea.

The discovery of the body has been reported to Interpol and Dorset Police say that it will be forwarding details of the man to its colleagues in Eastern Europe directly, as a part of the established cooperation on people trafficking.

6

Melbourne trams were one of Julie's delights. The sleek, articulated modernity of the trams appealed to her as more European than British and different from anything that she was familiar with.

Than Australian! Julie corrected herself.

It was one of many things that Julie found that she was admonishing herself for. But as hard as she tried she found it very difficult to distinguish an Australian persona for herself from a British one. It was a common problem for newcomers and soluble only with time.

Trundling down St Kilda Road sedately and unhurriedly, she took time to rehearse her story for the interview. Her confidence in herself renewed, she knew that her reasons for upping sticks and coming to Australia made sense to her but she acknowledged that to a potential employer her behaviour might have seemed ill considered, even fickle.

The tram stopped and Julie scurried across in front of the halted traffic to the pavement. Since she had never had a car in Britain and her resources didn't stretch to one in Australia, she found, as a non-driver, the multi-streams of traffic down streets like St Kilda Road a little intimidating. With the trams running down the middles of the streets she could understand why the traffic needed to stop, but there was nonetheless something counter-intuitive to her way of thinking for the arrangement of traffic to be as it was.

Her watch told her that she didn't have too much time to
dwell on the vagaries and benefits of trams versus traffic and the other oddities of driving in Melbourne.

She could see where she was heading. The curved glass-fronted face of the building where her interview was to take place towered above the other buildings in its immediate vicinity. All she needed to do was negotiate a couple more road crossings and she would be there. This she quickly did.

Used to wearing the characterless black business suit uniform of a woman civil servant, Julie was determined as a part of her new Australian personality to be more adventurous in what she wore. The light seemed to her to be brighter and the women that she had seen seemed to wear more colourful, if still restrained, clothing that combined fashion with comfort. Within her reasonably extensive wardrobe she decided to follow their lead.

They'll have to take me as they find me!
she had thought to herself as she had appraised herself in the mirror before setting out.

Julie wasn't unaware that there was a serious risk in her attitude, but she was instinctively adopting her father's ‘start as you mean to go on' approach that had usually worked for her. And, if she didn't get this job, she could read beyond the employment agency's professional optimism to know that there were other opportunities out there.

At least my ankles don't hurt any more. All that walking seems to have cured the problem.

It was only when she got back to her apartment the previous day that she had made this discovery, and now on the Tuesday she happily pulled on the same boots but now with the only miniskirt that she possessed. She had scarcely ever worn it before – since Tariq had always let his Muslim upbringing show through and criticised her for its immodesty. It was another conscious decision to be more true to herself. Never a feminine, girly girl she nonetheless was fashion conscious in her own way and felt good about what she was wearing even
before she drew some admiring looks on the tram. Her black leather jacket, that signalled the tight figure underneath it, did nothing to discourage the looks of approval either. Her short black hair was blown askew by the gusting wind, but with her usual understated make-up it gave her a confident enough look that reflected how she both felt about herself now and about her prospects at the interview.

In the sterile glass splendour of the office building that she was entering she was quick to notice that the same purposeful activity in terms of comings and goings was apparent that she had noticed in Spring Street and the surrounding area. She liked the sense of urgency about getting on with life and getting things done that was usually well hidden in Britain. Melbourne, she knew, was the thriving business capital of Australia, but she hadn't expected to see its manifestations so obviously displayed.

Still, if I've learned anything in the last few weeks, it's that Aussies are nothing if not up-front
.

As Julie approached the reception desk in the building foyer, the ebb and flow of people had left a void. There was only her and the receptionist. At least, so she first thought.

‘Miss Kershawe?'

The broadly smiling Chinese girl clearly knew that she could only be Julie Kershawe because she directed her around the reception area to the bank of lifts behind it in an elegant but very clear movement of her right hand. With a major Chinese population in Melbourne, it wasn't her racial origins that set Julie into alert mode. Later, when she thought through her day, she acknowledged that it was the unlikely circumstances of one of the applicants for a middling administrative job in an organisation being met and whisked through the formalities of arrival in such a slick and professional manner. What limited experience she had told her that generally you were left to flounder in this situation, despite your potential employer's pious protestations that it was a good test of character to see
how you overcame the vagaries of organisational indifference to get to your interview.

As they entered the lift, the Chinese girl handed Julie an already prepared visitor's identity badge. Used as she had been to looking for and seeking out anomalies in people's behaviour and presentation, Julie knew that somehow this particular middling administrative job on offer was going to be different. But she didn't have the time to generate this as more than an impression before she was in the interview room. And still there were no signs of the expected roomful of other nervous candidates; in fact there were no signs of any sort of anteroom. Julie's level of alert cranked up. This was not looking like a normal interview at all.

The room that she was shown into immediately gave her a feeling of unreality. Her perception that something very unusual was going on was heightened. The Chinese girl disappeared as mysteriously as she had appeared. It felt almost James Bond-esque, but she didn't really get time to consider whom and what she was being confronted with before the obvious dynamic of the situation forced her to concentrate.

The room was large and carpeted thickly, forcing her to pick her feet up to avoid catching her heels in its pile. The sense of unreality increased. The room was unlit. Whatever was decorating or furnishing the side walls and the rest of the room she didn't register. She was drawn, as she realised she was supposed to be, towards the end of the room. The floor-to-ceiling windows flooded the end of the space with light. The table backing the window and the three people sitting at it were formed into silhouettes. There was a single chair placed to face the table.

What on earth is going on?
she thought.

Julie couldn't restrain an amused grin. In the full light, the grin was immediately apparent to what she instantly characterised as her ‘interrogators'.

This sure as hell is going to be different!
she told herself before focusing on the panel of people in front of her.

She walked up to the chair and sat down.

‘Do sit down, Miss Kershawe,' the voice in the centre of the three people said equably, the boldness of her action not seeming to bother him. It was almost as if he had been expecting her to be as positive.

Julie tried to discern something of the man in front of her against the bright light behind him; she didn't get much of a chance.

‘James Frederick Kershawe, father, banker, Hong Kong resident for seventeen years.'

The man on the right of the chairman, as she looked at them, started off on a monologue that instantly got Julie's attention.

‘Li Chou Yu, aka Alicia, married to said James Kershawe in Hong Kong thirty years ago. The daughter of a local Hong Kong businessman and entrepreneur, a university lecturer and a well-known opponent of Chinese Communism.'

Julie's heart missed a beat; she had never heard her mother's origins identified in such a way before.

‘Now resident in Ewell in Surrey, two daughters both born in Hong Kong but pre-Handover and British citizens.'

‘Julie Alicia Kershawe, twenty-five, single, UK Border Agency enforcement section, now unemployed.'

It was the man to the left of the chairman who was now speaking.

Julie hadn't taken much interest in the body shapes in front of her. Now as the third man spoke she found herself concentrating very hard. It was the voice. She knew at once that she knew the voice. Where from? It was recent.

Everything was going at such a pace that she was momentarily seized with panic.

What
is
this all about?

And as the question formed itself in her mind she knew.

‘Alan you already know,' the central voice said.

Alan she already knew!

The ocean-going cruiser that edged its way into the isolated inlet in the North Queensland coast had made its way across the Pacific in a series of careful stages calibrated to its needs for fuel and other supplies, but – having made the trip several times before – in an easy and trouble-free way.

That was a relief for the crew, although they well knew that the most difficult part of the long journey for their passenger cargo was still ahead of them. After their last trip they had received intelligence that the Queensland Police had been asking questions. A party of Brisbane students, partying in celebration, had seen their vessel, had been surprised by its size and luxury, and had shared their experience along with several very cold beers with the locals in a nearby pub. In a small community where everybody knew everything about everything, there was mild consternation that they had missed something interesting and unusual.

And what was interesting and unusual inevitably came to the notice of the local police. Equally in this case it also came to the notice of the owner of an out-of-town Chinese buffet restaurant in Cairns and thence a warning was sent to the operators of the mysterious ocean-going cruiser.

So, as the cruiser dropped anchor on its latest trip, precautions had been and were being taken, both onshore and on board, against any unexpected intrusion into their activities. The nervousness was understandable. The step-up from drugs, currency and other contraband to human cargo had been a first for the cruiser's Chinese crew, one which was highly paid, but with risks that were commensurate with the high fee.

Alice Hou and her three companions had been set free from their packing case once the cruiser was well out to sea off the US west coast and out of range of coastguard vessels. Sightings of other vessels were rare; their route was chosen not only to
manage their supply situation but also to avoid recognised shipping routes. Their only moment of concern was when they had crossed the path of a US aircraft carrier group, but this was more about making sure that the much larger vessels saw them and avoided them rather than any fear of discovery of their business activities. The fouled and evil-smelling packing case that the girls had initially travelled in had been dumped overboard and girls clothed from stocks held on the boat. Their ankles had been manacled but they had otherwise been left free in order that they could be used as slave labour in the service of the crew of the vessel.

Speaking a mixture of Spanish and English, the girls sought to cut themselves off from the crew and avoided speaking Mandarin Chinese unless addressed. It was the fearful and instinctive reaction of strangers in a frightening and seemingly hopeless situation. They each showed their fear in various ways. April Chang was almost terrified into rigidity to start with while Janice Liang seemed to be able to cope with her fears much better than the others. Alice and Janice gravitated together because of their better command of English. None of the girls did more than cooperate minimally with the crew, and only then when they were driven to it. Discipline was in the hands of a man that Alice Hou equated to her Canadian gang-master. He was unforgiving but, to the girls' relief, rigid about the crew's behaviour as well.

Despite the fact that escape was impossible, unless they sought to drown themselves, they were watched continually and locked up whenever their cleaning and cooking duties were complete. They were separated at night. This was supposed to be as much for the girls' protection as anything.

‘We don't want damaged goods arriving in Australia,' was the instruction.

And in the organisation that was moving the girls around the world such instructions were obeyed.

On approaching any of the ports of call, Alice Hou and her
companions were generally restrained again and stowed out of sight below decks and in the bowels of the vessel. Accommodation had been prepared for as many as six girls to be hidden in this way.

Mobile phone calls were made the instant the cruiser had anchored in Australian waters. A practised sequence of actions was then initiated.

By the time the Queensland Police got wind of the arrival of the vessel it had already discharged its cargo of Chinese women and gone. Not, of course, that the police had any bankable evidence that that was what it was doing. Their inevitable assumption was that, if the cruiser was doing anything illegal, it was more likely to be drugs than people. People trafficking to Australia tended to be a much cruder activity, utilising barely seaworthy vessels rather than million-dollar yachts.

That was not to say that there weren't people in Australia who knew much more about what was going on in the Queensland inlet than the people traffickers would have liked them to.

Of course, Julie already knew Alan. He was hardly someone whose physical attributes made him forgettable, although, as Julie realised later on, handsome as he was, his features were nonetheless surprisingly difficult to actually define beyond their Greek-god purity. It was something that mystified her.