Blood Rose

forty-four

The plump blonde put down her coffee when Clare pushed open the door of the only travel agency in Walvis Bay.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, almost cracking her heavy makeup with the first smile of the day.

‘Morning, Sabina,’ Clare said as she sat down opposite her.

‘Have you been here before?’ The girl looked disconcerted.

Clare pointed to the girl’s name tag.

‘Of course,’ said Sabina. ‘How can I help you?’ She pecked at her keyboard with crimson-tipped nails, bringing the computer to life.

‘I was wondering if you knew Mara Thomson.’

‘Yes.’ The girl’s pretty mouth closed on the single syllable. ‘I booked her ticket home for her. So if you’re looking for her, she’s gone. She would’ve left yesterday.’

‘Will you check her booking for me?’ Clare asked.

‘Sure,’ said Sabina. The printer muttered and whirred. ‘Here you go. Yesterday. Lufthansa. Nine-thirty a.m.’

‘Did you issue the ticket?’

‘Oh yes. A week ago.’

‘How did she pay?’

‘Credit card,’ said Sabina. ‘But it wasn’t hers. Someone from England paid. Look here. Mrs Lily Thomson, it says. Battersea. Where’s that?’

‘It’s in London,’ said Clare. ‘Can I keep this?’

‘Sure. Is there something wrong?’

‘She never arrived. Her mother phoned this morning, frantic.’

‘Shame!’ Sabina’s hand went straight to her mouth, though her eyes glittered at the prospect of gossip. ‘Poor lady. I told Mara she was leaving it late.’

‘Leaving what late?’

‘Telling Juan Carlos she was going home. It’s hard for them when they stay long, these foreigners. I warned her that Juan Carlos would be angry if she didn’t give him enough warning. Her boyfriend. He’s Spanish and a sailor. You know how they like to be the ones who leave, not the other way round.’

Clare did not know that, but she let it slide.

‘You ask my boyfriend.’ Sabina wrote down an address on a slip of paper and handed it to Clare. ‘They had a terrible fight, Mara and Juan Carlos, outside the club where Nicolai works.’

‘Which club is that?’ Clare asked.

‘Der Blaue Engel. You must’ve been there. Everyone goes.’ Sabina paused. ‘Check at the airport first, but if she didn’t leave, go around and wake Nicolai up. He’ll know what’s what.’

As Clare left, she heard the girl sharing the news with a friend over the telephone. Mara’s disappearance and Clare’s interest would not stay secret for long.

The morning plane to Walvis Bay had landed, loaded and taken off again by the time Clare had parked her car and entered the bleak airport terminal.

‘Flight’s left,’ the check-in clerk told Clare as she approached the counter. He settled his shades on his nose and zipped up his bag.

‘I’m not flying,’ said Clare. ‘I wanted to see if somebody flew yesterday.’

‘Can’t help you. The flight lists are confidential.’

‘It’s important. I’m investigating a missing person.’ Official idiocy provoked in Clare an overwhelming desire to inflict grievous bodily harm. ‘A girl who was meant to arrive in London and didn’t.’

‘Then you must get a warrant and come back.’

The man stood up, slipped on his jacket and went through the door behind his chair, closing it in Clare’s face.

Clare suppressed an urge to swear. A customs official drinking tea at the café table gestured to her.

‘Dr Hart,’ the official said. ‘Did you miss your flight?’ It was the large woman who had stamped Clare’s passport when she arrived.

‘I’m not leaving,’ Clare explained. ‘I was trying to find out if somebody left on the Lufthansa flight yesterday.’

‘That plane,’ said the customs official, ‘it was two hours late. It left at eleven-thirty eventually. Everyone was crazy here. Who were you looking for?’

‘An English girl. I can’t find her here, and she never arrived in London. The check-in clerk refused to help.’

‘I can help you.’ The official looked around. There was nobody in the terminal. ‘Follow me.’

The woman led Clare through the restricted area to a heavy metal door. She twisted the combination lock, and the safe swung open, revealing an untidy Aladdin’s cave of boxes, full of small square emigration forms.

‘There must be thousands of them here,’ said Clare.

‘Ja, there are,’ beamed the customs official. ‘If your lady’s here, we’ll find her.’ She picked up a box and cut open the seal. Lying on top was a muddle of forms from the previous day. She gave half of them to Clare. ‘What’s her name?’ she asked.

‘Mara Thomson,’ said Clare. ‘Thin, brown skin, lots of wild hair.’

‘I didn’t see her,’ said the woman, ferreting through the forms.

‘But she could’ve been processed by one of my colleagues.’

They sat down on the floor and rifled through the forms, deciphering the cramped handwriting of yesterday’s passengers. Most of them had ticked ‘holiday’ under ‘reason for visit’, a few ‘business’.

Clare read through the last form for the second time, fear returning, as cold as ice, in the pit of her stomach. ‘It’s not here,’ she said. ‘Could she have got on without handing in a form?’

‘Not at all,’ the woman bristled. ‘We’re very professional. Maybe she just changed her plans, didn’t tell anyone. Young people are like that.’

Clare thanked the woman and went back to her car. She stood without getting in for some time, looking at the horizon. A fiery haze was erasing the thin line separating the sand and sky. A gust of east wind blew sand into her eyes. For the first time since she had arrived in Walvis Bay, she felt the implacable heat of the desert.