Chapter 49
Poe started to feel uneasy. A potential triad link changed things.
Ordinarily he’d have dismissed their involvement as a racial stereotype.
A Chinese person disappears so the omnipresent big bad triads must be to blame.
But Mark Buckby’s torture and murder had been arranged in the blink of an eye.
A two-hour window. That screamed organised crime.
The NCA was involved. The FBI was involved …
Triads. That was all he bloody needed.
‘How do I find Kai Jin, Hester?’ he said.
‘I’m not sure I’m the best person to help you with that, Poe.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because the Kai I knew lived to paint. That there have been no new Kai Jins on the market since he disappeared means he isn’t painting.
Yet that tattoo is evidence he’s alive. It’s a dichotomy.
What would stop him painting? Why would he be doing tattoos?
He didn’t do them before he disappeared.
And it can’t be for the money. A new Kai Jin would fetch seven figures.
There’s too much here for me to unpick.’
‘Let us worry about that, Hester. Just tell us what you can. If we assume he’s alive, and in the UK, where might he be?’
Hester frowned. ‘I don’t think it would be London. There are too many art schools and galleries and people like me. Someone would recognise him.’ She said nothing for almost a minute. ‘If you were sticking a gun to my head …’
‘Poe would never do that!’ Bradshaw said.
‘It’s an expression, Till-meis … Tilly,’ Esmerée said.
‘… I would say Newcastle. It’s where he’s originally from.
It doesn’t have the art scene that say London or Glasgow, Bristol or Brighton have, but it does have a large Chinese community.
And he was very close to his mother. If she’s still alive, he won’t be too far from her, and she’s too entrenched in her community to move. ’
Which sounded like somewhere to start. Poe thanked Hester. Told her that if she thought of anything else, she shouldn’t hesitate to get in touch. And in return they would keep her informed. Let her know if they found him.
‘And Hester?’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Please don’t tell anyone about this. It didn’t end well for the last person.’