Chapter 83
Poe had worked with Special Agent Melody Lee twice before.
The first time was when she’d warned him about a murder-for-hire psycho who called himself the Curator.
She’d been in FBI exile at the time, the pain-in-the-ass agent who believed in the existence of the figurative bogeyman, but she’d reached out when Poe’s case bore striking similarities to her own.
And the following year she’d travelled across to the UK and helped him break up a gang who smuggled looted antiquities.
Poe had always seen a kindred spirit in her.
She had more write-ups on her personnel file than he’d had when he was in the NCA.
And he’d had a lot. But more importantly, she had just as many collars.
‘What’s new, Poe?’ Lee said. ‘Tilly tells me you married that pathology chick.’
‘Professor Lady Doyle-Poe is sitting next to me and you’re on speakerphone.’
‘But I am a bit of a chick, Special Agent Lee,’ Estelle said, winking at Poe.
‘I didn’t know you and Tilly kept in touch,’ Poe said, eager to nip this conversation thread in the bud.
‘Sure we do. She schedules regular video calls. We catch up with all kinds of shit. That’s how I know you two got hitched. Gotta tell you, Poe, I’m kinda hurt I didn’t get an invite.’
Poe rolled his eyes. ‘You were invited, Special Agent Lee. You RSVP’d that you couldn’t make it.’
‘Yeah, I know. I was just busting your balls. I had … a thing. Serial killer. Needed my undivided attention.’
‘You catch him?’
‘Her. And yes, sir, we did. Now, what can I help you with?’
‘Vincent du Buk.’
‘Even if you were still NCA, I couldn’t tell you what we have, Poe. You know that.’
‘I do.’
‘Yet my jambalaya cools before my eyes.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Ah, it’s OK,’ she said. ‘DC restaurants can’t cook it for shit anyway. They don’t get the spice right. And if this is andouille sausage, my pop was a Klansman.’
‘I don’t need what you have,’ Poe said. ‘I need what you don’t have.’
‘Colour me intrigued.’
‘I know all about the Red Chamber’s business model. How the women are recruited, how they’re trained. The horrific way it ends.’
‘Sick fucking bastards,’ Melody Lee spat. She took a moment to gather herself. ‘Although I can’t give you anything official, I’m glad you’re up in their assholes, Poe. They’ve been getting away with this shit for far too long. What’s this thing you need that we don’t have?’
‘I was told all the women are sterilised before the contract begins.’
‘I heard the same.’
‘That their fallopian tubes are tied.’
‘Yup.’
‘My medical doctor wife tells me that this procedure can be undone.’
‘It’s called tubal ligation reversal,’ Estelle said.
‘Okaaay,’ Lee said.
‘We have a theory,’ Poe said.
‘Go on.’
‘We think Vincent du Buk’s Red Chamber concubine might have had this procedure.’
‘Why do you think that, Poe?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’ll have to report this conversation.’
‘And you think those Red Chamber assholes have eyes on the investigation?’
‘I can’t discount it.’
Poe told Melody Lee about his encounter with Dongyang Dong, the guy with the boss-eyed dragon tattoo.
That the Red Chamber had intercepted him in Newcastle as he was searching for their tattooist, and he still hadn’t figured out how they had known where to be.
It was a loose end, and loose ends were the pea under Poe’s mattress. They kept him awake.
‘Océane Blue’s on the run,’ Lee said. ‘Suspect numero uno in the murder of Vincent du Buk. Even if she wasn’t, these girls didn’t lead regular lives, Poe.
They didn’t have OB-GYNs. They weren’t battery hens, but they weren’t exactly free range either.
In other words, I can’t check her medical records as there won’t be any medical records. ’
‘I agree.’
‘You do?’
‘Checking her medical records would be a waste of time. However, because this tubal ligation reversal is an invasive procedure, if Océane Blue did have it done, it would have been at the behest of Vincent du Buk. Estelle says she wouldn’t have been able to keep it secret from him.
She would have needed time to recover. The procedure leaves a scar. ’
‘And if it was his idea, he’d have paid for it,’ Melody Lee said thoughtfully.
‘Estelle’s checked with a doctor friend of hers in New York.
He reckons that after anaesthesia, surgery and hospital fees, you’re not getting much change out of twenty grand.
And because Vincent du Buk was supposedly in bed with some unsavoury characters, it’s likely all his non-crook business would have been beyond reproach. ’
‘You want me to check his transactions? See if something jumps out?’
‘If you can. I’d ask Tilly, but she can only check his electronic dealings. She might miss a cash payment.’
‘How long ago?’
Poe did some mental arithmetic. Esmerée said she was fifteen years old. She hadn’t seen her birth certificate, though, which meant she couldn’t be sure. ‘If I’m right, she’ll have had this done between sixteen and eighteen years ago. Better do a couple of years either side to be safe.’
‘You don’t have a DOB?’
‘A DOB for who, Special Agent Lee?’
‘I had to try,’ she chuckled.
‘It’s just a theory at this point.’
‘And is this simply to assuage your curiosity?’ she said, serious now. ‘Or might it actually lead somewhere?’
‘Truthfully, I don’t know. Half of me wants you to get a hit on this. The other half is desperately hoping you don’t.’