Chapter 124
Poe’s initial plan had been to take Océane’s evidence, including a video statement and a summary of what their investigation had uncovered, fashion it into a social-media-friendly package and threaten the Red Chamber with public exposure.
He’d hoped the prospect of their business model being severely disrupted might be enough to make them release Esmerée unharmed.
If what they did, what they really did, got into the public domain, it would, in theory, dampen the recruitment of concubines. And no concubines meant no business.
It could have worked. The triads were profit-orientated. Money was their god. Threatening their income, their extravagant lifestyle, might have given them food for thought. Letting everyone get on with their lives would be the pragmatic choice.
Only the Red Chamber were triads. Hardened gangsters.
They couldn’t always make the obvious choice.
Sometimes they needed an impact statement.
It was why Mexican drug cartels still hanged bodies from overpasses, why paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland used kneecappings as a punishment, and why Frenchwomen accused of ‘horizontally collaborating’ with the Nazis had been tarred and feathered.
The Red Chamber might decide the pragmatic choice was to take a temporary hit on recruitment but reinforce the message that they were serious players.
Ruthless gangsters. Not to be messed with.
And the cold reality was that there would always be vulnerable women and there would always be men to exploit them. The Red Chamber would find a way to recruit such women. Their lies about the pot of gold at the end of the twenty-year rainbow would be believed.
When Poe had run some mental calculations, he figured his plan had a fifty-fifty chance of success.
It was why he’d given Towler and his merry men the nod to assist. If the Red Chamber decided they were better off making an example of them all, Towler would effect a noisy and messy – no guns – extraction.
It would be a temporary reprieve, though.
Detective Chief Inspector Gilliard had confirmed that if Océane agreed to testify against the Red Chamber, she would get the bells-and-whistles protected witness status.
Esmerée too, if she wanted to go with her.
Everyone else would have to fend for themselves.
And it would be for months. Years even. Océane’s evidence was compelling, but there was no forensic chain of custody.
It might be enough to get an arrest, a warrant for some dawn raids, but it wouldn’t take the Red Chamber off the streets for long.
And even if the agencies investigating them did manage to join the dots and build a transnational case, because of the way the Red Chamber was compartmentalised they wouldn’t get everyone.
They wouldn’t know everyone. Dongyang Dong’s so-called legion of members would be left to carry out retaliatory attacks.
Bradshaw had said that was unacceptable.
That the risk was too great. She’d said she had a better idea.
And holy guacamole, did she. When Poe had finally convinced her to tell him what it was, she’d said she didn’t want to appeal to the Red Chamber’s pragmatic side, she wanted to appeal to a higher authority.
He’d said, ‘God?’ but he’d been on autopilot.
He’d asked her to continue. She had. And when she’d finished, the only thing he could think to say was ‘Crikey’.
Because her plan didn’t threaten the Red Chamber’s business model, it threatened their lives.
She’d asked him who the Red Chamber feared.
He’d said no one. They had money, they had connections and they were ruthless.
They were virtually untouchable. She’d said that wasn’t true.
So Poe had thought about it some more and said, ‘Of course.’
Because the Red Chamber did fear something.
They feared the Forty-Fours.