Free China Wife by Hedley Harrison Page A

prejudice, hoping to move out and on to a better life in Canada and beyond.’
    â€˜Beyond,’ said David without thinking.
    â€˜There’s evidence that some high-value illegals are being seized in Canada and moved on – we suspect, to Australia.’
    It was a switch of departmental spokesperson. It was obvious that this aspect of what was being described was either new or unusual, but David got a sense that many of those present didn’t rate it as important as the larger-scale activities. The term ‘high-value illegals’ grated with David.
    â€˜Identities are being established in Canada, even if the jobs that the illegals are doing don’t live up to their homeland qualifications, and then they are being selectively snatched and they are disappearing from Canada.’
    The Home Office speaker didn’t provide any more details. But, since the number of these women was tiny, the interest wasn’t actually in them; it was more the men who were getting past the system. These men formed two categories: IT and computer specialists, and general and semi-skilled workers. The belief was that the specialists moved on to Britain and Europe – Russia too – while the others were dispersed in a fairly obvious fashion around Canada. Easily picked up and deported, the Canadian authorities saw these men as a smoke-screenor cover for the more valuable workers.
    The problem of the trafficked educated women formed no further part of the meeting. David thought this surprising; Susie, for whom this was a major issue, was furious, but the agenda that she was having to work to was not hers but came from on high.
    There was detail here. There was reference to documents held, and court cases pending, but the consensus was that these were only scratching the surface.
    It was also apparent that much of what needed to be done to shut down the trafficking operations, which were undoubtedly continuing, was outside the borders of the UK and outside of the control of the British Government. The suspicion was clearly there, however, that at least some major areas of the activities, even if they were worldwide, were being managed from inside the UK. This made it a British responsibility, even if the overall controlling function might not be in the UK. Such intelligence that was emerging about this controlling function always seemed to point to mainland China.
    But the meeting was drifting and Susie reasserted her control.
    â€˜Everybody knows what’s going on,’ she said. ‘Our people in Brazil tell us that it appears to be mainly the Chinese who are leaving, both legally where they can and illegally when they can’t. The Government doesn’t want them to go. Too many of them are educated and professional and so represent a significant drain of resources.
    â€˜But – and there’s always a “but” – they are not indigenous. Indigenous being descendants of the early Portuguese and Spanish settlers. According to the Government, they are not discriminated against but nonetheless they seem to be resented by the increasingly vocal and active indigenous people. And, as Brazil gets more prosperous, which it is doing at a pretty smart pace, the resentment is increasing as these incomers are perceived to be taking an unfair share of the growing wealth.
    â€˜That said, our sources in Brazil also suggest that this perception is far from universal. But there is a degree of mainland Chinese interference going on both in resource exportation and in other less official areas of activity. It is also increasingly this that is causing the resentment and the backlash against the local and settled Chinese.’
    David began to think he could see where this was going.
    The UK was building strong commercial links with Brazil and there was no way that anything was going to be allowed to interfere with that. Yet haemorrhaging professionals and the like was a problem. Britain could not be