24

Susie was demanding but I gave her everything she wanted, everything she asked for. We made love until we fell asleep. Then, in the morning we wakened, and we had some more.

I was lying face down, my left cheek buried in the pillow, looking at her out of my right eye alone, when she ran a nail gently down my spine. ‘I’ll promise you something, Oz,’ she murmured. ‘Even though you haven’t asked me.

‘After I go, that’ll be it. I’m not going to hold anything over you, or threaten your marriage.’

‘What if that isn’t the way I want it?’

‘Don’t make me laugh.’ She did, nevertheless. ‘You’re too smart for that,’ she chuckled. ‘You’re not going to dump Dawn Grayson’s sister, or your movie career will be over almost as soon as it’s started. You’ll work it out with Prim; at least you will for as long as it takes you to become established. And isn’t this the man who told me twenty-four hours ago that he loved his wife dearly?’

‘A lot of things can change in twenty-four hours. I feel like I don’t know her any more.’

‘So get to know her. Maybe you’ll find that, inside, she’s even better than the woman you thought you knew. Did you really think that she was just a little innocent who’d forsworn men for ever after you dumped her? Are you that naive? No, I don’t believe that for a minute.’

‘Yeah, but I chose to believe what she told me. If she’d told me the truth … Ah, I don’t know. But come on. Answer my question. What if, just suppose, out of all this, I want you?’

‘You can’t have me. Simple as that. I’m going to be no one’s second string. I’m going to run my business for a few more years, then either sell it or take it public and become incredibly rich in the process. Somewhere along the line I’ll find a suitable husband, with a title, preferably, who’ll give me a couple of nice kids then bugger off.

‘I’ve just had one narrow escape; I nearly became Mrs Mike Dylan. No way would I get myself tied up with somebody as volatile. . and as easy to seduce. . as you.’ She jumped out of bed and stood there, red hair tousled and tangled. ‘I will do one thing for you. I’ll make you breakfast. Fancy some freshly squeezed orange juice, scrambled eggs and coffee?’ She took my robe from behind the door and put it on.

‘Yeah, okay. You do that, I’ll have a shower.’ I tossed her the remote alarm control and told her to press the ‘disable’ button from the top of the stairs, so that she didn’t set the thing off.

I was towelling myself down when I heard the front door bell ring. I had no idea who it could be. Shirley would have phoned, and I couldn’t think of anyone who’d be calling on me at quarter to ten on a Saturday morning, apart from Fortunato, perhaps. Automatically I headed for my robe, then saw the empty hook on the door.

Faint sounds came from downstairs, the clop of wooden-soled sandals. . Susie had borrowed Prim’s. . the squeak of a rusty hinge as the door opened. I strained to hear, but couldn’t pick up any conversation. Then I heard footsteps trotting upstairs and drawing closer.

She appeared in the doorway and looked at me, frowning. ‘Oz,’ she said, severely, ‘there’s a prostitute at the door. Go and deal with her.’

‘How do you know she’s a prostitute?’

‘I’ve lived in Glasgow for long enough to know what a prostitute looks like.’

‘So can’t you deal with her?’

‘She doesn’t seem to speak any English; nothing but Spanish. Now go on; see what she wants.’

I finished drying, and dressed quickly.

Susie had closed the front door on our caller, reasonably so, I suppose. If a mysterious prostitute presented herself at your premises, you’d hardly ask her in then go off and leave her alone, would you?

She was still there when I opened it again: a tiny girl, as bizarrely turned out for the first Saturday in January as anyone I’ve ever seen. Her oily black hair was piled up on top of her head and lacquered stiff, she had blusher on her cheeks and her eyelashes buckled under what must have been a whole thingy of mascara. She was wearing a yellow gypsy-styled top, trimmed with red and showing most of what little chest she had, a short, fluffed-out white skirt, white tights with gold spangles and red shoes with dangerously high heels.

It was a cold, grey morning, and a light skin of rain was falling. She stood there, a black umbrella clutched in her right hand, with goose pimples standing out on her damp shoulders. In her left hand she carried a small suitcase.

Si?’ I began.

Tu es el hombre?

‘No,’ I answered, in Spanish, more than a bit cagily. ‘I am a man, not The Man. Step in out of the rain and tell me what it is you want.’

She did as she had been invited. ‘I was told to come here,’ she said.

This was something I had heard before. I took a closer look at the girl. She wasn’t the same one who had called a few weeks earlier but, if I had to guess, she was of the same nationality. Beneath the pancake make-up she was brown-skinned, and her eyes said Oriental. Given that Spanish seemed to be her native language, I guessed that she was Filipina. She was also very young, sixteen at most.

‘Who told you?’ I asked her. As I spoke I heard, from behind me, Susie clopping downstairs, still wearing Prim’s shoes and my robe. Whether that frightened the girl in any way, I wasn’t sure, but her eyes went from me to the floor and she clammed up.

‘Put down that case and come into the kitchen.’ I said it not as an invitation, but as an order. Our visitor obeyed, without a word, following me round the stairway and through to the back of the house.

Susie had got as far as breaking half a dozen eggs into the blender, and heating oil in a saucepan. ‘Make enough for three,’ I told her quietly. ‘This kid looks as if she’s starving.’

‘Freezing too. You mix more eggs and give her some coffee. I’m going to get her something warmer to wear.’

I poured her a mug from the percolator, added some milk and handed it to the strange girl. She gave me her first smile as she took it, wrapping both hands round it for warmth, taking a sip, then holding it to her chest. ‘Gracias,’ she whispered.

I didn’t try to question her as I broke more eggs into the mixer. She probably wouldn’t have heard me, anyway; she was looking at the mug too intently. I took some focaccia from the freezer, defrosted it in the microwave for a few seconds then put it in the oven to bake. As I closed the door, Susie returned; she had her red sweater, and she motioned to the girl to put it on. I felt a pang of regret: I liked her in that jumper, and she sure filled it better than the youngster did.

She went off again, leaving me to cook. I stayed silent, letting her get used to me. . Whoever or whatever she thought I was.

I looked across at her as I took the pot off the hob. ‘Huevos?

Si, si. Por favor.’

I tipped half of the eggs on to one plate and shared the rest out evenly. I took the warmed through focaccia, cut it into wedges on a chopping board, then set the lot out on the breakfast bar. Susie returned as I did so, in her tan trousers and another red sweater, a polo-neck that I hadn’t seen before.

The girl ate so voraciously that I wondered when she had last seen food. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked her quietly, in English, as she picked up her fourth chunk of the Italian herb bread.

‘Gabrielle,’ she replied, without thinking, then gave me a guilty look as she realised how easily I’d slipped through her ‘No hablar Ingles,’ pretence.

‘Where are you from?’ I poured her some more coffee.

‘Manila.’

‘Have you just arrived in Spain?’

Si.’›

‘How?’

‘On a ship, a big ship from the Philippines to Barcelona.’

‘Did you work on board this ship?’

Si. I help in the galley and I clean the crew’s cabins.’

‘Nothing else?’ asked Susie, fairly heavily. The kid looked at her, then back to me, with a puzzled expression on her face.

I put it another way. ‘Did you have to be friendly to the crew?’

She shook her head until I thought she’d dislocate something. ‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘The man in Manila told me not to be friendly with the sailors. He said that if I did, you would know and I would be sent back home.’

‘He would know?’ Susie sounded incredulous. I waved her to indignant silence.

‘Okay, Gabrielle,’ I went on, gently. ‘Why did you come here, to this house?’

‘When the ship came to Barcelona, the captain gave me some Spanish money. Then he took me to the bus station and he put me on a bus and he told me to get off in L’Escala and to take a taxi to this house.’ She lifted up the sweater, delved into the gypsy blouse and produced a folded sheet of paper from her cleavage. ‘Here it is; he gave me this address.’

I took it from her and checked; sure enough, there it was, written in a big scrawl in ballpoint. Villa Bernabeu, Carrer Caterina, L’Escala, Girona.

‘So,’ I said. ‘You were sent from Manila to Barcelona, then here to see me. What were you told will happen now?’

Gabrielle looked up at me; she was a pretty wee thing, very pretty. She didn’t need any of that make-up. ‘You will look at me, and you will talk to me, and you will have a doctor examine me. Then I will go to work.’

I knew what was coming; I could tell from Susie’s expression that she did too. ‘Where do you expect to be working?’

‘In your club, senor; the Bluebird Club, the man in Manila told me it was called that. He tell me to dress nice, so you will like me.’

‘And what do you expect to be doing there?’

‘I ’spect to be a hostess; to wait on the tables, to serve the customers their food and drink, and to be nice to them.’

‘How nice? You mean friendly? Like you were told not to be friendly with the sailors?’

She frowned at me as understanding began to dawn. ‘The man in Manila did not say that. He only told me I would wait on tables and be nice, and I would make a lot of money and could send it home to my father and mother. My father is sick, so he cannot work. The man in Manila give him dollars; that’s why he let me go to Spain.’

‘You mean he sold you?’ Susie exclaimed.

Gabrielle caught the anger in her voice; it scared her. ‘No,’ she protested. ‘The man give him money to let me work for his friend. That was all.’

‘So you can go back to Manila any time you like?’ I asked her.

The youngster’s face fell. ‘No. The man said that I must stay in Spain and work at the club till you tell me I can go home. If I run away, he will hurt my father, and my mother.’

‘Tell me about this man. Do you know his name?’

She nodded. ‘He is an African man; Moroccan. His name is Hassani.’

‘Shit,’ I whispered. Susie was looking at me now; completely bewildered.

‘What’s my name?’ I asked Gabrielle.

‘Senor Capulet. You are Senor Capulet; isn’t that right?’

I shoved the last piece of bread towards her, across the breakfast bar.

‘No. I am not Senor Capulet, and I don’t own the Bluebird Club, or any other club for that matter. Capulet has been gone from here for over a year now. I don’t think the man who paid your father can have known this at the time.

‘I’ve never heard of the Bluebird, kid, but there are plenty of places like it in Spain. Do you know what a brothel is?’ She shook her head. ‘En Espanol, un burdel?

Si.’ She nodded, and I saw her colour rise beneath the make-up.

‘Did you really not know that’s where you would be working?’

‘No. My father said it would be all right for me to go there.’ Her face fell. ‘Can you find out where it is, senor? For I must go there. If I don’t, the African man will do things to my father.’

‘No way are you going there, kid,’ said Susie. ‘Do you want to go home?’

Gabrielle was silent for a few seconds, then whispered something, so quietly that I couldn’t make it out, but I knew that it was ‘Yes,’ in one language or another.

‘Then that’s what will happen,’ I told her.

‘Susie,’ I said. ‘Take Gabrielle upstairs and put her in a hot bath. Then she should sleep for an hour or two. While you’re doing that, I’ll make a phone call.’

She nodded and squeezed my arm. ‘You still have a soft side left, then,’ she whispered, as she slid off her seat.

‘Don’t you go getting maternal on me,’ I answered her, more than half seriously.

‘What’s your surname?’ I asked the girl.

‘Palacios. Yo soy Gabrielle Serafina Palacios.’

Left alone, I scratched my chin and thought carefully. Logically, there was only one guy I could call, but I was hesitant. There was a Catalan Society magazine lying on the bar, beside the telephone. I looked up ‘Useful Numbers’ and found the British Consulate in Barcelona. The telephonist told me that the only person on duty that day was the Commercial Counsellor, Ms Willis.

‘Anyone will do,’ I said. I introduced myself, and was wounded; the name meant nothing to her. I explained the situation, exactly as it had happened. ‘Phone the police,’ she advised at once. ‘She’s a foreign national, obviously an illegal; she’s not your problem.’

‘She turned up cold and hungry on my doorstep, expecting a job in my brothel!’ I replied. ‘Of course she’s my problem.’

‘What have you done with her for now?’

‘My girlfriend’s …’ I paused. I had used the word without a second thought. Well, it was true for a day or two. ‘. . giving her a bath.’

‘That’s a relief,’ Ms Willis exclaimed. ‘You’re not alone with her; you have a female there. Otherwise she could have accused you of anything. Please, Mr Blackstone, call the Guardia at once.’

‘I don’t know anyone there; I do have a friend in the Mossos though.’

‘Technically this has nothing to do with them, but if it’ll make you feel happier, call him. Meantime, I’ll get in touch with my opposite number in the Filipino Consulate. Give me all the details again.’

I repeated the girl’s name, gave her my phone number, and Fortunato’s, then caught him by telephone at home, just as he was about to leave for his office in Girona. He was on my doorstep within half an hour. By that time Susie had bedded Gabrielle down in one of the spare rooms. When I introduced her to the policeman she gave him one of the most unashamedly appraising looks I have ever seen, but thankfully said nothing beyond a polite, ‘Hello’, then went off, unasked, to make more coffee.

I told him all of Gabrielle’s story, beginning with her father’s sale of her in Manila to her arrival at the address to which she had been sent.

‘The Bluebird Club,’ Fortunato murmured, when I had finished. ‘I know it all right; it is just outside Figueras, on the road to Girona. By name, it belonged to a farmer and the licence was his, too, but we knew that there were other people behind it. They had papers for all the women there, so they were allowed to do business.

‘I guess now that Capulet was the other man.’

‘Is there a third Hassani brother?’

The policeman nodded. ‘As I recall there is. His name is Nayim, and he has a small prison record in Spain for dealing in stolen property. If you asked me to guess, he bought the girls in Manila. . You say the first one who turned up here could have been Filipina too?’

‘Yes, for sure. She was a bit older than Gabrielle, but not much.’

‘That’s the game then. He buys them young and fresh, finds them a cargo ship where they can work their passage, with some money to the skipper as well to ensure that the crew don’t fuck them useless before they get to Spain. Once they’re here, the skipper walks them off the vessel and sends them up to L’Escala, to Capulet.’

‘So why are they still coming?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Nayim can’t know that Capulet has vanished. But sooner or later he will run out of money; then there will be no more girls.’

‘Where did Sayeed fit in?’

‘My guess would be that he delivered them to the Bluebird, once Capulet had given them the okay. The Frenchman wouldn’t have been seen dead near a place like that, even if he did own it.’

‘Speaking of being seen dead …’

‘No,’ said Fortunato, firmly. ‘There’s no sign of him.’

‘How about the story I told you yesterday, about Susie’s investment?’

‘Hah!’ He laughed. ‘You know, Oz. I am not sure if I want to be a friend of yours; they are all very unlucky. However that one has taken wings; there is no longer a need for Susie to make a formal statement. I arrested Toldo, the lawyer, yesterday afternoon; for a while he tried to claim that he also had been a victim of Chandler and Hickok, but there were letters in his office which prove that he knew all about the plan.

‘Once I took his statement, I phoned the Fraud people in London to tell them about it. Not long afterwards, they called me back. The British police are now looking for Senor Chandler, or Fowler, for the murder of his partner, Senor Wild Bill Hickok. So, among others, are the Guardia Civil.

‘They can place him on the Costa del Sol a month ago, but there have been no sightings since then.’

‘Is Susie in danger?’ I asked.

‘Why should she be? The story of the murder, although not of the fraud, is all over the newspapers in England, and television has shown a photograph of Fowler. He’s nowhere in Europe by now, I’ll bet you. But neither is the money, unfortunately.’

‘I heard that last part,’ came a voice from behind us. ‘How much is this man Toldo worth?’

‘Not enough to make it worth taking him to court,’ the policeman told her. ‘You will have to trace it all the way through from Barcelona to wherever it is now.’

Susie winced. ‘That could be difficult. Once money goes black, it tends to move around a lot, and fast. Could we have any comeback against the Spanish bank?’

‘Not unless they broke their own rules in making the transfer, and did it on one signature instead of two. I don’t think that is likely, senora.’

‘In that case. I’ll just have to hope that the Fraud Squad is up to the job.’ She gave us each a mug from the tray which she had brought from the kitchen.

‘Now,’ she said, fixing Fortunato with a stare, ‘what are we going to do about that poor wee girl upstairs?’

‘She’s a good girl, you say?’ he asked; a question for a question.

‘She seems to be. She’s lost, and scared, and thousands of miles from home, but she seems like a decent kid.’

‘Then I’ll look after her myself. I know she’s a Guardia Civil responsibility, but if I give her to them, they will put her in a detention centre. These things can move slowly; she could be there for months, among all sorts of bad people.

‘I will take her under my protection and arrange her return to Manila directly with the consulate.’

‘Where will she stay?’

He gave Susie a shrug which said, Where else?

‘She will stay with me tonight at least, if Veronique agrees. I will go home now and discuss it with her. I’ll be back for the girl in two or three hours.’

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