To Tell the Truth (7 page)

The driver pointed to a small stream in the distance and asked if they could stop for a few minutes to eat some food. He had been working since daybreak he said, and was hungry. Besmir agreed, and thought he should give the girl something to eat if she woke up. They got out of the car and the fat man lit a cigarette, walking towards the stream and opening his trousers to have a pee as he went. Besmir opened the back door and could see that the girl was waking up. He crouched down and looked at her face, smiling at her.

‘Hello, little Kaltrina.’ He lifted the bag out to look for
some food, then produced a piece of bread. ‘Look, Kaltrina. Hungry? You want some food?’

The puppy jumped out and leapt up at him. He gave it a piece of bread which it devoured in one gulp. The girl giggled, and put her hands out for some food. Besmir broke off a piece of bread and handed it to her. She immediately stretched her hand towards the dog who leapt up and snatched it from her fingers. Besmir watched her face as she looked up at him, her blue eyes piercing in the sunlight.

‘Kaltrina. Look. Eat.’ He put some bread in his mouth and she put her arms up for him to lift her. He took her out of the car and sat her on the ground, kneeling beside her. Besmir broke more bread and some hard cheese from the bag and gave a small piece to her. He watched as she munched it, then put her hands out for the water and orange juice mix Elira had given them. She was thirsty, and gulped the lukewarm drink. Then she stood up. She fidgeted from one leg to the other, and clutched between her legs. Besmir looked at her, confused, then at the driver, who smiled a gap-toothed smile.

‘She want go to toilet,’ he said, pointing at her. Besmir felt awkward. He looked at the driver.

‘You want I take her?’ he said. ‘I have little sisters. Is no problem for me to take them to toilet.’

Besmir said nothing but motioned with his hand to take the girl. He watched as the driver picked her up and went a few yards away. He seemed to be at ease around the child. How different their lives were, though they were similar ages. He wondered what it must be like to
be easy with people, to be with a family, eating together in the evenings and sitting by the fire. Of course he’d seen it in pictures and on television, but it was alien to him. There was no point in being close to anything or anybody. You could get by in life without all that. Even for sex. You could just do it and feel the rush inside you when you let all the tension go. But you didn’t have to lie around touching the woman, because who knows what that would make you feel. You’d want them to be with you all the time, and maybe they wouldn’t come back and you’d be left on your own – like the old days, before the crying stopped.

Besmir could see the skyline of Tangiers in the distance, apartment blocks stacked close close under the shimmering heat of the late afternoon sun. He was glad the girl was asleep again, but it wouldn’t be for long; as they came closer to the town, the noise of the horns and traffic began building up. He fidgeted in his seat, feeling hot and tired. The driver turned around as though sensing his discomfort.

‘Not long now. Just few minutes.’

The fat man sat up straight in his seat and half turned to Besmir.

‘I been told that when we get to the place, you take the girl in and then you go,’ he said. ‘Your job finish.’ He jerked his thumb towards the driver. ‘He drive you to the harbour and you can take a boat back to Spain.’ He opened, the window, hawked and spat.

Besmir leaned forward. ‘When Leka gets the call from
the man I am delivering to, then I will go. When Leka calls me.’

The fat man shrugged. ‘Leka? I do not know him. My boss is Moroccan.’

‘No.’ Besmir talked close to his ear. ‘You may not know Leka, but he will know you. He will know who you are and where to find you. He will know everything about everyone involved in this. That is how Leka works.’

‘Should I be frightened of this man Leka?’ The fat man was sarcastic, more confident now that he was deep in his own turf.

‘Yes,’ Besmir said. ‘You should be afraid. Very afraid.’ He sat back in the seat and looked out of the window as they continued the rest of the journey in silence.

The girl woke up as they snaked their way through the tight backstreets. Somewhere amid the crowded apartment blocks and buildings, the Muslim call to prayer rose up into the cloudless sky. Besmir smiled at the girl and lifted her onto his lap, surprising himself at how natural it felt. She started crying again, and he tried to shush her, but she was calling for her mother.

‘Look, look,’ Besmir said, trying to distract her by pointing to things outside in the busy street. He wiped her tears with the palm of his hand.

‘We are here,’ the driver said, pulling into a little cobbled street.

They got out of the car and Besmir lifted the girl into his arms. She wrapped her arms so tightly around his neck she almost choked him. The driver lifted the puppy and gestured for them to follow him and the fat man
along the cloistered sidestreet and across a maze of narrow alleyways until they finally came to a two-storey white building with a massive metal door. The fat man knocked twice.

Besmir stood, his face like flint, steadying himself for whatever was behind the door. It opened slowly and the fat man went in, followed by the driver who nodded to Besmir to come. Inside the massive hall the mosaic tiles on the floor and the walls were like an explosion of colour. The air was heavy with the smell of spices and cigarette smoke. A middle-aged woman wearing a flowing kaftan, with a pashmina covering her head, emerged from a corridor and looked at the fat man, then at Besmir. She smiled.

‘The girl,’ she said, her heavily made-up eyes bright. She went towards Besmir with her arms outstretched.

‘What a pretty girl. Does she have a name?’ Her perfume wafted with her every move.

‘We called her Kaltrina. In Albanian, it means the blue girl,’ Besmir said flatly. ‘Look. Her eyes.’

The girl looked confused as the woman tried to take her out of Besmir’s arms. She clung onto him, whimpering.

‘She is beautiful. This blue girl.’ She looked at Besmir.

He was surprised to find himself holding the girl tightly, and the woman stared at him. He loosened his grip, but still held onto her.

A door opened at the far corner of the room and a big, well-built, older Moroccan man with dyed black hair came walking in. He wore white trousers, and a black shirt
open at the neck to reveal a heavy gold chain and medallion resting on his very hairy chest. Two thickset henchmen dressed in Moroccan tunics followed him. Besmir pulled himself up to stand tall.

‘You must be Besmir,’ the man said, striding across the room with his hand outstretched. ‘Leka told me.’ He looked at the girl. ‘And he was not wrong about the girl. A beauty.’

‘The blue girl,’ the woman piped up. ‘They have called her Kaltrina. It means the blue girl because of her blue eyes. Look at them. Look how lovely she is.’

The man nodded and touched the girl’s face softly.

‘My beautiful blue girl,’ he murmured. ‘You are like gold.’

He looked at Besmir.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Your work here is finished now. The driver will take you back to the port. I will call Leka to tell him you delivered safely.’ He smiled to Besmir, his dark skin like creased brown paper.

The woman came forward and put her arms out for the girl, but she buried her head in Besmir’s neck. The woman gently prised the girl off him and held her close, whispering to her. Besmir could still feel the softness of her skin on his. Her eyes filled with tears and she started screaming for her mother. The woman stroked her hair and turned to walk quickly out of the room. Besmir tried not to look as he heard the girl sobbing as she stretched her arms out towards him. He could still see the blue of her eyes as she disappeared behind the door.

‘You can go now, Besmir.’ The man shook his hand. ‘Thank you for your good work.’

Besmir said nothing. He glanced at the fat man whose face was wearing a smirk that he would remember long after this day was over.

CHAPTER 9

‘Let me just run that past you, Rosie,’ McGuire said. ‘In case I’ve blacked out or I’m dreaming. Are you telling me that our esteemed Home Secretary not only may have witnessed the kidnapping of little Amy, but was rogering some dusky rent boy at the same time? Oh, fuck me, Rosie! I think I’m going to faint. Just saying it makes me lightheaded.’

Rosie could almost hear McGuire’s brain rattling as he tried to process the information. Nobody relished the dismantling of a public figure more than he, and she knew even before she phoned him that he’d bite her hand off when she told him what the Taha boy had told her.

‘Yep, that’s right, Mick. The boy might be lying through his back teeth, I don’t know, but as we speak, I have in my hot little palm Michael Carter-Smith’s House of Commons pass. His privileged face is looking right at me.’

‘Jesus almighty.’ Silence. ‘Right, Rosie. We need to stand back and work this out.’

McGuire offered a few scenarios. By this time, Carter-Smith
would have noticed that his pass was missing – though if he was still on holiday, he might not notice until he got back to London. If he’d noticed it was gone, he’d be in a flap, trying to retrace his steps.

‘He’ll be shitting himself.’ McGuire said.

‘I know,’ Rosie said, closing the terrace doors. ‘What I can’t understand is why people like him carry these things around with them when they’re out picking up rough trade of a morning. I mean anything could happen.’

‘Do you think this little poofter is making it all up, Rosie? What if Carter-Smith has innocently dropped the pass out of his pocket on the street, for example, or in a restaurant or bar, and this little toe-rag stumbled across it and decided to invent a story for money. I take it that has crossed your mind?’

‘Of course, but he hasn’t asked for money. Well, not yet. And he didn’t even ask for money when he gave me the pass.’

‘Yeah. But he will. You know that.’

‘I know. But he hasn’t, Mick. And he’s given me the pass.’

‘So you think he’s telling the truth?’

Rosie sat down on the bed, plumped up the pillows and lay back.

‘It’s hard to say, but I don’t think he’s making it up. My instincts tell me that. Just something about him, the way he told the story. I know he looks like a little kid, and that guys from the street like him could probably buy and sell most of us. Yet I get the feeling that he’s just found himself in the middle of something and he
wants to get it out there. His information about someone lifting the kid won’t make a whole lot of difference to the hunt. I suppose he can describe to the cops what he remembers of the man on the beach, though that’s not really going to help track Amy down. It’ll be too vague, plus it’s a bit late. But for us, the story is not just in what he saw, it’s in who he claims he was with. It’s going to take a bit of digging, but it will be massive if we can do it. Massive.’

McGuire went quiet for a moment.

‘Tell you what, Rosie. I need to make a couple of discreet inquiries with my political allies, and see what Carter-Smith does in Spain at this time of year … if he has a place, or visits friends or whatever. We might find out what he’s doing there, and if he has police protection and stuff. And what about this boy? Where is he now? Are you going to see him again?’

‘Yes, I’ve arranged to meet him tonight. He called me a little while ago. He says he has some more information but I don’t know what it is. I need to keep him totally on side so I might drop him some cash. Keep him sweet.’

‘Great. Tell Matt to get a picture of him.’

‘Already done. I called Matt just after we spoke and got him to bag a snatch pic of Taha as he was leaving the hotel.’

‘Excellent. Well, let’s see what he says tonight. I’ll talk to some friends, then we’ll speak again tomorrow. The arse will fall out of the empire if we can run this story.’

Rosie now told him what Taha had said about the man
and the woman coming out of the house, and how it differed from the version given by Jenny and O’Hara.

‘This is beginning to stink a bit, Rosie.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘But there’s a missing girl here, Mick. Let’s not forget the bigger picture.’

‘Yeah, but it’s something we have to bear in mind. We’ll see how it goes. Talk tomorrow.’ He hung up.

Behind the bravado as she talked the story up to McGuire, Rosie was already troubled, again thinking of Mags Gillick. She could see her face, clear as that day when they’d first met in the cafe and Mags spilled the lot about Gavin Fox. Rosie thought she’d dealt with the guilt of Mags being murdered because she’d blabbed to her about the corrupt cops, but this Moroccan kid with his story was bringing it all back. She told herself to get a grip. She had a job to do.

It was already after eight by the time Rosie arrived at the restaurant in Fuengirola. Taha had said he would meet her in the last
chirunguito
, the Spanish name for the beach restaurants strung along promenade. It would be easy for her to find. Matt dropped her off and was waiting nearby. She’d give him a call when the time was right, but Rosie wanted meet Taha on her own and gain his complete confidence.

The restaurant was quiet except for three older Spanish men sitting at a table watching basketball on the wall-mounted television in the corner. Rosie nodded to the waiter and walked past him to sit outside in the warm night air, choosing a table as far away as possible from
two British couples who were finishing their meal and talking loudly. They were moaning that the problem in the Costa was that it took the Spanish forever to do anything.

‘
Mañana
, always
mañana
,’ the leathery-faced English guy with the shaved head and tattooed biceps ranted. His mate chirped in with some anecdote about getting a Spanish plumber to do some work around their house. Their fat women giggled as the guy did a poor impression of the hapless Spanish waiter Manuel in
Fawlty Towers
.

Typical Brits abroad. No wonder everyone hated them. When were they going to get the message that their empire had disappeared up its own arse decades ago.