To Tell the Truth (16 page)

‘Sit down, Rosie.’ He motioned her to the table, and then barked ‘
Caballero!
’ to attract a waiter.

From anyone else, hailing a waiter by shouting ‘
Caballero
’ may have been considered condescending, but Javier got away with it. Like he was born to rule.

Rosie smiled to herself as she sat down obediently. She’d forgotten how the Javier machismo could reduce you to a mere woman.

He ordered coffee for both of them and handed Rosie a cigarette. She held his hand as he lit it for her, knowing he would like that. He sat back and drew on his cigarette, his chocolate eyes fixing her the way they always had, daring her to take him on.

‘It took you long enough, Rosie.’ He would have his fun. ‘I saw your name every day in the newspaper since the kid went missing, and I half expected a call from you in case you needed my help.’ He shrugged. ‘Of course, a big shot like you probably has several translators and fixers working for you these days – not to mention private investigators.’

Rosie shook her head. When it came to repartee she would struggle to beat him, and right now she didn’t want to fight.

‘No, Javier. I have nobody working for me. I’m with a photographer.’ She paused as the coffees arrived, then continued. ‘I thought of calling you earlier, Javier,’ she said, and she meant it. Life was too short to stay angry.
‘To be honest, the story was all fairly straightforward in the beginning, and because the missing kid is British, the cops have someone translating the statements. And the Guarda Civil, as usual, are saying bugger-all anyway.’

He watched her silently. She wished he wouldn’t do that.

‘As I said I did want to call you, but I thought you’d still be angry.’

‘What’s past is past, Rosie. Forgotten about.’

He sipped his coffee, and ran his hand across his face and through his thick hair, greyer now than she remembered. The face was older too, but just as perfect. Olive skin, lightly tanned but no more, like a movie star growing old gracefully. Javier never sunbathed – he was too conceited to allow the sun to age him.

‘So, how are you, Rosie? You looking for my help, or did you just call to say hello?’

Rosie was on the backfoot. She cleared her throat.

‘Well.’ She sat up straight. ‘Both, I suppose. I wouldn’t have left without trying to meet up, Javier. And, as you said, because you were probably waiting for my call!’ She stubbed out her cigarette and forced herself to look away from him.

‘But apart from that, yes, I am looking for some help. I have a line on the story but I need an inside track.’ She held out her hand with a flourish, as though introducing him on a stage. ‘And who better than you, Javier? The man in the know.’ She leaned closer. ‘Are you working for anyone on the story? Any newspaper? You’re not working for the
Mail
are you?’

‘Nope.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t give a shit about the newspapers. They’re all crap. And they’re all full of crap. Reporters, TV, newspapers. They are all the same.’

Rosie looked away. She could disappear for five minutes and return to find him still delivering the same diatribe about journalists. He had no respect for them. He’d made that clear from the first time they worked together. He called them hyenas. He applauded their cunning, but they were all full of shit.

‘Javier.’ She squeezed his wrist. ‘I’ve heard it all before. Listen. I want to see if you can find some information for me from your Guarda Civil contacts. Do you want to hear?’

Javier smiled, and lit another cigarette. Still the same chain smoker. He cocked his head to one side and pulled his chair closer to Rosie so their knees were touching.

‘So tell me about it.’ He wagged a finger. ‘And don’t even
think
about saying this is just between ourselves, or I walk away now.’

Rosie shook her head. She wondered if they would be tearing each other apart in two days.

‘You never bloody change. You’d think the passing years might mellow you a bit.’

‘I can be mellow when I die. Tell me what you got and what you need.’

Rosie began. Javier listened, smoking, stubbing his fag out, lighting up again. You could almost see the wheels turning in his head. She told him everything she knew, about Daletsky, about the people-trafficking, of Adrian’s sister lured from Sarajevo to Spain with her friend with
the promise of a job. He whistled, shook his head, incredulous, when she told him about the boy Taha and Carter-Smith.

The first thing she’d need, Rosie told him, would be an inside track with the Guarda Civil to see if there was anything, even off the record, about the girl who was found after she escaped the kidnappers. That was the first strand of the story she wanted to tackle. When she stopped talking, Javier looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

‘You finished?’

He sat back, stretching out his long legs, then crossed them, his khaki trousers riding up his leg a little, exposing a slim, brown ankle. Sign of breeding, he’d once told her. Rosie stole a glance at his tanned feet in the soft, buff loafers he always wore.

He took a deep breath and blew out a sigh.

‘To be brutally honest, Rosie, when you mention Albanians and Russians, one thing I know for sure is that it’s time for me to get up and walk away. You mess with these people, they kill you just for fun. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you are, they don’t care. They are a different breed of gangster. You really don’t want to get involved in this. You should walk away now while you still can.’

She knew he was right. Her mind flashed back to the night in Glasgow when she nearly got killed. Javier genuinely had her best interests at heart, but she also knew that he knew she would never walk away.

‘Javier, you know me well enough to know that I cannot
do that.’ She paused. ‘But I understand totally if
you
want to walk away.’

He handed her a cigarette and sparked the lighter as she placed the Marlboro Light between her lips.

‘What?’ He smiled. ‘And leave you to get shot by some Russian gangster?’

He slammed the lighter on the table.

‘No chance, Rosita. I’m in.’

CHAPTER 21

They drove in silence, the windows rolled down, the stifling night air starting to cool a little once they picked up speed. They didn’t speak for some time, and Besmir was aware that Hassan was stealing little glances at him. He knew the driver was afraid to speak.

Besmir had realised quite young that he had a quiet power over people. Instinctively they could sense a danger behind his flat expression. He’d used it to protect himself, but tonight his silence was not about power. He couldn’t blink away the images of what he’d seen: children caged like animals, caked in filth. He remembered that desolation, that fear, from a childhood he’d tried all his adult life to blot out.

A red mist clouded his head. Everything had changed. Everything he had done since he was in Spain, working for these people, gaining their respect, didn’t matter a damn. It didn’t matter that they were much more powerful and dangerous than he. He couldn’t stop himself now. He was out. He would deal with the consequences.

‘Besmir,’ Hassan ventured. ‘Is very late to drive all the way back to the city. You come to my house tonight? Please? Eat with my family, stay with us the night. I will drive you to the port in the morning.’

Besmir didn’t speak. He stared straight ahead. He knew he wasn’t going to the port. Not tomorrow anyway.

‘I will come,’ he said, without looking at Hassan.

They drove the rest of the journey in silence, through tiny villages that were no more than a scattering of tin or wooden shacks, an occasional oil lamp throwing light on the shadowy figures hunkered down around fires flickering on diesel drums. This was the Morocco the tourists didn’t see, where people scratched a living from the land. The smell of spices and cooking meat mingled with the smoke. Ragged children giggled and kicked a burst football in the dark. They drove on along winding roads that led deeper into the countryside. In the blackness, the headlights from the car shone on the stray goats scampering away when the car sped past.

‘Is here,’ Hassan said, pointing ahead. ‘My house. My father’s house.’

Besmir could see smoke circling from somewhere, and a dim light coming from what looked like a house built of corrugated tin sheets and brick. The door opened as the car drew up and a man appeared at the door with a woman behind him. She came out from behind her husband into the yard, and the headlamps lit up the big smile on her face. Hassan got out of the car and went towards her and kissed her on both cheeks. His father came outside and Hassan embraced him, too. They spoke
in Arabic and Hassan’s father looked towards Besmir, his thin face expressionless.

Hassan came back to the car.

‘Come, Besmir. Meet my mother and father. We will have dinner soon. Fresh goat.’

Besmir got out of the car and stood up, stretching his legs after the long journey. He walked towards the couple and held out a hand. The woman smiled and took it. The man, who looked much older than his wife, shook his hand, but eyed him suspiciously.

‘Please.’ Hassan beckoned Besmir to come to the table outside and sit. ‘We will have some tea while my mother cooks.’

The men sat in awkward silence while the woman went to the fire and turned meat over on a long blackened grill. She lifted the lid off a huge iron pot and stirred the contents, smiling over to her son and Besmir. He nodded back, not sure what to do or say next.

The door of the house opened and Besmir blinked when he saw the girl, standing like a vision in the half light. She looked straight at him, then her eyes darted away. He swallowed, stunned by her beauty. He glanced at Hassan’s father whose eyes burned a hole in him. Hassan looked a little nervous.

‘Salima!’ Hassan jumped to his feet and went towards his sister, speaking excitedly in Arabic.

She looked at Besmir. Her eyes were a striking green. He stood up when she came towards the table as Hassan moved to introduce him. The girl put down the tray she was carrying and took the glasses of tea and placed them
on the table. She smiled awkwardly at Besmir as he stretched out his hand. He could feel her father’s eyes on him. He turned and held his stare until the old man looked away.

Later, after they’d eaten, Hassan walked with Besmir around the building, showing him how they worked, proud of his little farm. Besmir feigned interest, unable to get Salima out of his head. He was also unfamiliar with this kind of family warmth, the way they’d sat round the table, laughing, sharing stories and easy in each other’s company. Every now and again as they’d all talked over dinner, Hassan would translate the conversation for Besmir. He told them of his twin sisters, asleep in bed, who would be excited to see the stranger in their midst when he awoke in the morning. Besmir smiled politely, though he had no way of relating to this kind of family spirit.

But he did relate to the modest glances of the beautiful Salima who Hassan proudly told him, was working hard at school and hoping to go Tangiers to study medicine. She’d be a doctor and make the family and the whole village proud. The old man continued to eye Besmir as a threat, but he didn’t care. He’d made his mind up there and then, before he’d ever had a conversation with her, that she would be his. He was never going back to Spain to work for Leka or anybody else.

But his immediate problem was not Salima, it was the blue girl, and the thought that she could end up in cages like the rest of the captured children. He would not allow that to happen. If there was shame inside him for what he had done, for stealing her, he wouldn’t recognise it
as shame or remorse. All he knew was that he wanted to put it right.

‘Hassan,’ Besmir said, as they stood looking out to the pitch darkness. ‘Thank you for allowing me to share this night with your family. But I must ask you something now.’

Hassan looked at him.

‘Yes, my friend?’

‘Can I trust you?’

Besmir asked the question, but he already knew the answer.

‘You can trust me. I think you know that.’

‘I want to help the children, Hassan,’ Besmir said, surprising himself at the choking feeling he had in the back of his throat. ‘I want to set them free.’ He looked away from Hassan into the dark landscape. ‘And I want to find the blue girl and take her back.’

With those words, he knew he was signing his own death warrant. If Hassan was going to betray him then it was already too late. He didn’t care.

Silence hung in the air. Crickets rattled in the scrubland. Besmir was conscious of Hassan scrutinising his face.

‘You took the girl, Besmir. Now you want to give her back?’

Hassan’s tone was measured, but the reprimand was clear in his voice.

‘The blue girl. She is under your skin. I could see that.’ He smiled a little. ‘Like my sister Salima. I can also see that she is under your skin.’

Besmir said nothing.

‘But what you are saying, my friend, will get you killed. I think there are some things that when you do them, you cannot go back. They cannot be undone. You may find out that taking the blue girl was one of them. You cannot fight these people, Besmir. Nobody can. Not even a man as angry as you can fight them.’ He shook his head and looked away. ‘They will kill you.’

They both stood in silence, looking at each other.

‘But they will have to kill us both.’ He reached out and touched Besmir’s arm. ‘Come, we will sit at the table and make a plan.’

CHAPTER 22

‘You must have hollow legs, the amount of food you shift,’ said Rosie, watching as Matt chased the last of the baked beans around his breakfast plate. ‘I had so much to eat last night, I can’t face a big breakfast.’

Matt looked up from his plate.

‘Yeah, yeah, Gilmour. More like you were kept up all night by the big Spaniard, and you’re not fit to eat.’ Matt winked, biting off a chunk of toast.

Rosie ignored his jibe and poured some more coffee, but she knew he wouldn’t let it go. Matt had already been asking what was the story between her and Javier, having watched the chemistry between them at dinner the previous evening.