Chapter 74
‘Lay out their business model for me,’ Poe said.
‘As we understand it, and there is plenty we don’t understand, the recruitment process begins in schools and colleges around the world,’ Susan explained.
‘Spotters are instructed to look for a certain type of girl. Conventionally beautiful. From a good family, but financially unstable. Someone who’s used to missing out on the things her friends take for granted.
We think this is easier now, with mobile phones and designer clothes being allowed in schools.
A lack of money stands out if you know what you’re looking for. ’
‘They prey on the vulnerable.’
‘They do. But they aren’t traffickers or modern slavers. The girls all volunteer. The contract is laid out to them right at the beginning.’
‘Is there a contract? Like an actual document to peruse and sign?’
‘We haven’t seen one, but we’re told there is,’ Susan said.
‘It’s signed on their eighteenth birthday, which signifies the start of a three-year training programme.
They attend a finishing school in the Swiss Alps for part of it; the rest is largely unknown.
One of our sources said there is extensive training in how to physically please a man. ’
‘You’re talking about sex?’
‘Yes, sex. These men want virgins, but they also want a skilled courtesan. In other words, although the girls must pass a purity test on the day the contract begins, the men want someone who can hit the ground running.’
‘My source said they understand body language,’ Poe said. ‘That they can anticipate their benefactor’s needs. I assume that’s more than fetching his pipe and slippers after a long day at the office?’
‘That’s our understanding as well. And it’s why the spotters don’t just look for beauty, as subjective as that is, and vulnerability – they’re also looking for intelligence.’
‘What happens to the girls who fall by the wayside? The ones who don’t pass the purity tests, the ones who mature and think, sod this for a game of soldiers, I don’t want to be a concubine, I want to be a doctor or an astronaut.’
‘Yeah, haven’t these jerks seen Barbie?’ Esmerée said. ‘A woman can be anything she goddam wants to be.’
Poe had seen Barbie. Estelle and Bradshaw had made him sit through it. After it had finished, Estelle had said, ‘Make my tea, Ken.’ Poe had laughed all the way to the kitchen.
‘They’re let go,’ Susan said.
‘They aren’t punished?’
‘No. A German source said that only around thirty per cent of the girls make it all the way to the end. And even if they finish the first two years of training, manage to pass the purity test, that doesn’t guarantee a match.
A man still has to buy them. If they don’t pass the training, or don’t get a contract, they’re paid for their time and given a bus ticket home. ’
‘If that’s the case, why don’t you know more about the training? Surely there’s an unhappy pappy out there willing to spill the beans?’
‘You’d think.’
‘But?’
‘But nothing. We think the fear of triad reprisal is enough for them to stay quiet.’
‘How many contracts are the Red Chamber running at any one time?’ Poe asked.
‘I think what you mean to say is, what’s their annual revenue?’
‘Tomaytoes, tomartoes.’
Esmerée scowled. ‘It’s tomaytoes.’
‘The Red Chamber model could be scaled up, but why would they? It’s the exclusivity that allows them to charge the amount they do.
We don’t know all the countries they operate in, but in the ones we do know about, there are only ever three Red Chamber concubines at any one time.
They’re called the primos, after the primary colours. ’
‘Red, blue and yellow?’
Susan nodded. ‘They’re given a variant of their colour as a surname. The yellow primo might be Gold or Amber, the red primo might be Scarlet or Carmine, and so on. The man who buys her is allowed to select the girl’s given name, but it must be associated with her primo name.’
‘The woman I’m looking for is called Océane Blue.’
‘We know.’
‘Do you know her real name?’
‘We do not.’
Poe took his time with his next question, aware that it had the potential to kick-start an upsetting chain of events.
It had to be asked, though, and Esmerée had the right to hear it.
Whatever happened next, they’d deal with it together.
He cleared his throat and glanced at her before he spoke.
‘You said that concubines in pre-modern China were recognised sexual partners and were expected to bear children for the man they were attached to.’
‘I did.’
‘What happens to the Red Chamber children? Are they legitimate? How does that work?’
Susan shook her head. ‘It’s never been an issue.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because men like that don’t want the complication of children. Before the contract begins, the girls are sterilised. Their fallopian tubes are tied before they even meet the man who has bought them. A Red Chamber child cannot exist.’