BLOOD DRAGON by Freddie Peters (books to get back into reading .TXT) 📕

Her grandfather calls her Bo. It’s her Chinese name and he asks her to approach him. She looks at her mother who nods at her and mouths “It’s okay.”

The old man bends forward. She can smell his breath, and she almost recoils, but has learned to be polite. The serious face comes closer to hers and breaks into a smile. He takes something out of his pocket and hands it over to her. It’s the most exquisite carving and she is struck by its beauty.

Nancy hadn’t recalled this early memory for years. She never discussed it with her father nor her mother. All that might have helped her trace her ancestry has been thrown away. Anger had not been a good counsellor.

Most of the papers that her father and mother had carefully saved on their perilous trip to escape China had been burnt to a cinder. It had been reckless but there it was.

She looked at her watch, another three hours to go before she must leave.

Was it all worth it? Discovering whether her father had been an ally of Deng? But the anxiety of not knowing who he truly was would not disappear until she had the answer.

She gave a short exhale and returned to the screen.

She browsed a few websites. After all, everything was on the net these days, and, nevertheless amazed, she found a web page dealing with Chinese ancestry. It was written in English since it was targeted at the Hong Kong market.

She inputted with feverish fingers the name of her father, Li Jie Wu, his birth date and Chengdu, the main city of Sichuan province, and pressed the return button. The English page remained blank but a link appeared to two pages written in Chinese.

Nancy thumped the desk in frustration and abandoned the search. She went to the small box in which she kept some of the older papers. A couple of them were written in Chinese. She had kept them because the calligraphy on the finest rice paper was exquisite.

She tried to recall the meaning of the characters but it had been too long.

It was hopeless. She needed more time. She would need to expand the search when she had reached Hong Kong.

There was a more pressing matter that needed her attention. To convince Cora not to follow her on the trip. She was going alone. She had to.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“I have spoken again to the Jersey bank that holds Ollie Wilson’s bank account. I’ve investigated their track record, and called the FCA to check their credentials. Nothing major to report, a few incidents like in any other bank. The guy I spoke to on the phone was helpful. He was cautious but I didn’t sense he felt guilty about the transactions we discussed. He is coming back to me with an explanation as to why they didn’t query the flows when they started happening regularly.”

“But was he the person in charge of Wilson’s account?” Pole was sitting at his desk, toying with the mobile phone that lay on it.

“No, he runs the team of advisors who speaks to the clients direct.”

“So could the person who authorised the transactions, have left of their own accord or even being sacked?” Pole had hung his jacket over the back of his chair and rolled up his sleeves, tie loosened from around his neck.

The cold spell outside had pushed the office temperature to almost tropical … the women in the office loved it, but the men not so much so … so far, the women were winning.

Andy scrolled through his iPad. “Ollie Wilson’s account has been allocated to a new person … you’re right. His predecessor took early retirement.”

Pole stopped playing with his phone. “He ‘s been paid off.”

Andy removed his thick glasses from his nose, fished a well-used tissue out of his pocket and dabbed his eyes. “That’s a good point, Guv … he could have been offered good money to keep quiet about the regular payments.”

“Once the first payment is authorised, and as long as the other payments are for a similar amount, they don’t trigger the money laundering alert.”

“That must be what happened here.” Andy was meticulously cleaning his glasses with the corner of his shirt. He replaced the spectacles on his nose with a smile … much better. “And no one is going to do another check on the origin of the funds or the identity of the account holders.”

“What about the banks making and receiving the payments?”

“Some progress there … from Malta we’ve reached an account in Estonia with Deutsche Bank.”

Pole loosened his tie a little more. “We are getting closer to identifying the owner of the account?”

Andy nodded.

“Check again with Yvonne, will you, about the composition of the drug that sent Ollie Wilson over the edge. Rob’s NCA contact sent me the molecular composition of what they intercepted from the Russians. She’s already got that.”

“You think there might be a link?”

“I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I would say yes … That would link Wilson to a Russian drug cartel.”

“You don’t seem to be convinced, Gov.”

“I might have been convinced if Branning hadn’t turned up the documents Wilson sent to his colleague in Hong Kong. Wilson seemed to be a damn site more concerned and involved with China than the Russians …” Pole interrupted himself, his attention diverted by a voice he seldom heard on his floor … an excellent thing in his view.

Marsh walked from the lift onto the open plan office. He stopped, as he always did whenever he honoured them with a visit, to speak to some poor sods who were trying to do their jobs.

At least Pole had the advantage of knowing he was on his way, his booming voice carrying across the space.

Andy began to look a little nervous. Pole for once shared his DS’s feelings as he remembered Marsh’s plan for a