Читать книгу Rebel City - South China Morning Post Team - Страница 20

Long before the couple’s story sparked a political cataclysm, it was a personal one.

Poon and Chan had met in July 2017 at a company where both were working part time and the former students clicked immediately.

Within a month they were lovers and by December of the same year, 20-year-old Poon told Chan she was pregnant. Chan, 19, appeared delighted and, believing he was the father, splashed out on a romantic getaway to Taiwan to celebrate.

At this point, at least to her friends, Poon had given every sign of being happy with how the relationship was progressing, sharing in her last Facebook post before leaving for Taiwan that Chan had said she was his “first and last girlfriend.”

To her homemaker mother she had been more guarded, waiting until the day of her flight to mention that she was going on holiday with a friend, and even then not sharing the identity of her traveling companion.

She did, however, send a WhatsApp message to her mother in the early hours of February 17 to say she would be returning to Hong Kong that night.

But Poon never returned.

As the days went by her parents became increasingly distraught, eventually deciding to search their daughter’s flat. They found copies of Chan’s arrival and departure cards from the trip and these revealed the name of the hotel in Taipei’s Datong district where the couple had stayed.

On March 5, Poon’s mother filed a missing persons report. Then her husband headed for Taipei to search for his daughter and help Taiwanese police in their investigations.

It was not long before they found a smoking gun. Surveillance footage showed Poon and Chan entering the Purple Garden Hotel on February 16, the night before their flight, but there was no footage of Poon ever leaving. There were only images of Chan checking out the next day, dragging a heavy, pink suitcase.