by Les Cowan
“So, if whoever is behind PGC can post a threat against Reverend Hidalgo right onto the screens of the team supposed to be tracking them down, I’m not sure we can regard anything else on these computers as secure right now. And that applies to the safe house as well. Only the officers concerned knew that David was going home to pack instead of being at the party when the shot was taken. We’re not accusing anyone, of course,” Gillian kept the sweetest of smiles, “but there does seem to be some sort of information problem. David and I have discussed the situation. We’re not willing to wait for the next shot or the next computer attack. We’ll be making our own security arrangements from now on. I thought it was only fair to let you know.”
“I see, Dr Lockhart,” Stevenson said slowly. He was not a happy man and didn’t hide it. “And are we permitted to know where you’re likely to be?”
“We think it would be best just to keep that on a need-to-know basis. We’ll still be getting email and we’ll have mobiles so we can be contacted. Now, if that’s all we can contribute, if you don’t mind, we’ve got some packing to do.”
“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” David said as they drove through the afternoon traffic towards Bruntsfield. “That was a scary performance. You are one awesome lady.”
“I just found that guy so annoying,” Gillian replied as she put her foot down and shot past a dithering tourist. “We were clearly there just to rubber stamp whatever he’d already decided. I thought I should just clarify the agenda a bit.”
“Which you did with a vengeance.”
“Well, they didn’t seem to have any interest in what had just happened to you. I was just a tigress protecting her cubs, that’s all.”
“And considerably more attractive than my last cub mistress, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Don’t mind a bit. I’m not willing to let them have another shot at you just when you’ve agreed to take me on a Caribbean cruise for two weeks.”
“Did I agree to that? Oh yes, sorry. Must have slipped my mind. Will two weeks be enough?”
“I was actually planning to spend the rest of my life with you. But two weeks can do for starters.”
David quickly threw a selection of bits and pieces into a case. The bedroom window had been boarded up but there were still fragments of glass lying around. Clearly ballistics didn’t see property reinstatement as part of their job. He lugged it downstairs and shoehorned it into the tiny Mazda boot. Next stop was the Scots Language Department office in David Hume Tower on the corner of George Square. While none of the modern buildings came close to matching the character of the old tenement blocks, George Square library at least made a reasonable attempt, while DHT looked like it came out of the drawer labelled “cheap, ugly, and lacking in imagination”. That’s what you get for being an empiricist philosopher, David reflected, functional, practical, and horrible. Besides, David Hume was the man who had concocted the weakest of arguments against the possibility of miracles so he shouldn’t expect one for his eponymous seat of learning. However, that notwithstanding, Becky in the office always brightened things up and sometimes managed a few miracles of her own. The entire staff were utterly intrigued with Gillian’s new status – engaged to that minister, the rescuer of lost girls, drug gang buster, and now apparently involved in yet another cloak and dagger enterprise – but none more than Becky. In spare moments around the office she toyed with the idea of actually getting a dragon tattoo and waiting to see what might happen next. Maybe some dashing sleuth would sweep her off her feet as well, though David Hidalgo could hardly be considered exactly dashing, and he was a bit on the old side. Still, appearances can be deceptive. Just look at Daniel Craig – not necessarily an icon, but once he gets that shirt off walking through that surf… She felt a shudder running down her spine as she typed in the photocopier password.
Gillian Lockhart appeared at the hatch.
“Hi Becky,” she said brightly. “I think you have some tickets for me?”
“Hi Gillian. I do indeed. Please come in.”
“Hi Becky. How are you?” David put in, lurking in the background. “I hope asking for the extra seat wasn’t a problem.”
“No bother. You’ll get the bill.” She pulled a folder out of a desk drawer and opened it up.
“Here you are. Two seats, Edinburgh to Heathrow to Barajas Madrid, couple of hours’ layover, then to Santiago de Compostela. There’s a car booked for you. It’s about two hours to Ribadeo. Have a nice time!”
“We will. Anything we can bring you back?”
“Yes, Antonio Banderas if possible. If not, some more of that nice turrón you gave me for Christmas. Yummy.”
“No problem,” Gillian smiled. “Consider it…”
Just then the phone rang. Becky held up a hand as if to say, just hang on till I get this.
“Hello, Scots Language Department. Can I help you? Certainly, I’ll just see if she’s available.” Becky looked at Gillian and pointed to the phone with a question on her face. Gillian shook her head. They needed all their time to get to the airport. No point in getting caught up in something now.
“I’m sorry,” Becky carried on. “I’m afraid Dr Lockhart isn’t available just now, and she’s going to be away for some time. Can I take a message? No, I’m sorry; I’m actually not at liberty to say where she’s going or when she’ll be back, but I’m sure she’ll call you as soon as possible. No, I’m sorry; I’m not at liberty to give that information. No, I’m afraid that isn’t possible. But if you… oh – they hung up! That was weird.”
“What?” Gillian asked.
“Some bloke wanting to speak to you who wasn’t at all happy that I wouldn’t tell him where you’re going.”
“Accent?” David said, a touch more strongly than he’d meant to. “What sort of accent did he have?”
“Hmm. Not sure,” Becky murmured. “Not your average. Foreign, I think. I’m not too good at that. I can get the number they called from if you like. No, it’s been blocked. Funny.”
“What do you think?” Gillian asked with a shudder as they headed down in the lift. “PGC?”
“Maybe. Was it Max himself on the phone? Or maybe just a colleague from some overseas university genuinely wanting to talk to you and cross that they couldn’t.”
“The more I think about it the happier I am we’re going away for a bit. A week’s conference in the sun sounds ideal. Sorry the departmental budget isn’t up to booking a Parador though.”
“So what have we got?”
Gillian handed him the folder as they emerged into the light of an autumn afternoon on George Square. Leaves were beginning to fall, giving the place an air of back-to-business after the summer. Lectures must have just come out to judge by the throng of students and staff. It looked like a meeting of the undergraduate branch of the UN: African, Asian, European, Middle Eastern, and every style of dress and fashion.
“I love this multicultural buzz,” David commented, shuffling through the papers. “It reminds me of the more ethnic bits of Madrid. When I was growing up here Edinburgh was much more uniform.”
“You should hear some of the accents in my tutorial groups,” Gillian remarked. “It’s just as well they don’t get marked on Scots pronunciation.”
“Here it is.” David found the sheet and brought it to the front of the bundle. “Seems like we’re not getting a hotel at all. It’s the Aparthotel O Retorno – lounge, kitchen, bathroom, and shower, two bedrooms.
“Retorno – is that just return?”
“‘Homecoming.’ Seems like a good sign. How long are we planning on staying?”
“The conference is a week but I’ve given Gary the basic overview. As far as I’m concerned, we stay until it’s safe to come back.”
Chapter 17
THE CONSPIRATOR’S TALE
I’ve heard the main reason there’s a problem with drugs in prison is bent prison officers smuggling them in more than relatives. Even prisoners of war used to get the guards
to bring in stuff they could use to forge passports and identity papers. But I’ve never yet heard of a punter doing favours for a girl before – until now. The guys we have to deal with are young or old, offhand or brutal, well off or average, local or foreign. What they have in common, though, is that they basically treat you like a piece of meat. They come here with an appetite for something tasty; I get served up. They indulge themselves until they’ve had enough. Then they pay up and go home till the next time. Apparently we’re both members of the same species but there’s no human interaction – no conversation about wives and families, no chat about work or holidays or last night’s TV or football scores or what books you’ve read. They don’t want to think that you’re a human being at all who might be interested in any of these things. You are a sex “facility” to be used and forgotten about till the urge comes on again and the bank account can stand it. That’s the pattern, but every now and again an exception turns up. Pat is an exception.
He’s probably in his late sixties. Punters don’t tell you anything about their normal lives for obvious reasons, but Pat tells me everything. He says he used to run a hardware shop but then he sold it for a good profit and retired. His wife wasn’t well for the last ten years of her life and he had to look after her more and more, but in spite of that he loved her and misses her. So when he comes to me, he’s not trying to prove his virility or just get a kick; I think he’s trying to remember what it was like with his wife when they were young. He’s shown me pictures of her. She was lovely – beautiful bobbed hair in a London 1960s style and wearing the latest fashion. I know it sounds ridiculous but she reminds me a bit of Audrey Hepburn – that same petite frame and elfin face. Maybe I remind him a bit of her; I don’t know. He’s gentle when we’re together. Maybe it’s his age but he’s very slow and deliberate, and he talks to me. He tells me about their life together. His shop must have done well because they travelled a lot – all the European capitals. He showed me a photo of them sitting at a table in the Champs-Élysées, another in Rome, and another in Madrid. He has copies of postcards they sent home from forty years ago. I know he’d like to ask more about me but we both know that’s pointless; he doesn’t want to face the fact of who I am and what I’m doing here. He just wants me to be his wife when she was twenty-three. And I don’t try to confront him with the reality. We both know that if I push him he’ll just clam up or go somewhere else to try to recreate his lost love. So, is he a hypocrite? Of course. Should he be charged and convicted for what he’s doing? Absolutely. Is he part of the demand that leads to girls like me being tricked and conned out of our savings, our freedom, our hopes and dreams? Without a doubt. But in Pat’s case it’s not an entirely one-way street. Life cheated him too. He was in love. His love grew old and sick and then died. He misses her and wants to get back any reminder he can. Is that entirely wrong? For how he goes about it, yes, but not the longing itself. Even in the midst of this disgusting exploitation there’s something that once was good in Pat. I think of it like a mirror that’s been smashed with a hammer. What you see is distorted, shattered, fragmented, but it may still have been beautiful once.
That’s why I don’t take a length of cable and make a noose at one end and a knot at the other and jump off a chair like Elvira did last night. I heard the sound and barged into her room. I didn’t get there in time. She had stopped breathing and her face was purple. I couldn’t do anything to bring her back. I shouted for help and one of the other girls went for a minder. He just cut her down and carried the body upstairs. I have no idea where she is now – in hospital or in the river. I don’t expect to see her again. It’s because I still believe in the real image, not just the broken one, that I haven’t given up. For my own sake, for Elvira, for all the other girls, I have to find a way out of here. That’s where Pat comes in.
Last week Elvira had a birthday party – twenty-eight years old. I suppose there’s never going to be another one now. The girls made birthday cards for her. I started thinking about Andrei still in Belarus. It’ll be his birthday soon. I was thinking I’d like to send him a card just to let him know I’m alive. The last time he saw me was when I was getting on that bus. Maybe he wonders why I don’t contact him. Maybe he worries that something has gone wrong but he doesn’t know what or how he could help. If only I could send him a little card signed “from Tati”, at least he would know I’m not dead. Then he might try to follow the trail and see where it leads. I know he liked me. Maybe he was even in love with me but he knew I was going to leave him so he didn’t make a fuss. If he knew I was in trouble I think he would do whatever he could to find me.
So that’s what I’ve decided to do – send him a birthday card. I made it out of a sheet of paper from Lara’s sketchpad. I drew a picture of a forest with a castle in it on the front. If you looked carefully there’s a girl behind the window of the highest tower but the window has bars on it. Inside I wrote him a message. His English was never that good so it’s in Belarusian. If Max or Mikhail find it they’ll probably kill me anyway so I didn’t see any point in saying anything other than the truth. I told him everything that had happened as briefly as I could. And I told him about the White List and the Black List, and “Mike H.” with a red line and “David H: Pastor”, who was next on the list. If David H. is on the Black List, he may be my only friend in this country, even though he doesn’t even know I exist. He must be some sort of threat to Max and Mikhail or he wouldn’t be on the list. What has he done? What does he know? Is there a way he could help? So I told Andrei that sometimes we get let out to go shopping if we need something new for a Special night. There’s one coming up in a fortnight. It’s going to be a really big deal. Silvia heard Boris talking about it to another of the minders. He said it’s for a bunch of VIPs and that fifteen girls are going to be needed. He was saying what he’d give to get a piece of the action. I’m going to tear up as much of my stuff as I can; I’ll try and make it look like some punter did it, which happens pretty often. I’ll say I can’t do a Special until I get new stuff. He has to take me shopping. When we do go out we always go to the same place – Sally-something on the main street. And it’s always on a Thursday afternoon. Mikhail once got drunk at a Special and told me I’m “quality” and that they get 25 per cent more for me than the other girls. “That’s why you get to wear nice stuff,” he said. So, I’m going to make it work for me. I’ll tell Andrei to try to find someone who’s a pastor in Edinburgh called David and second name starting with H. There was also a computer IP address on the list so I put that in too, though what good that might do him I have no idea. Then I’ll tell him to get David to be at that shop at the time I say. I’ll try to get out then. I don’t know how I’ll recognize him but maybe I’ll have good luck. I’m certainly due some. Then the hardest part. I’ll ask Pat to post it for me, to my brother to wish him a happy birthday. If he gives it to Max or Mikhail I’ll probably end up as dead as Elvira. If it doesn’t arrive or is late or Andrei is on holiday or has moved or doesn’t open his post regularly or can’t find David H. or if I can’t get out that day or we go to a different shop or David doesn’t show up – a million ways it can all go wrong; only one way for it to work. If there’s a God in heaven I need it to work. I need a break. If Pat posts it I’ll show him how grateful I can be.
Chapter 18
RIBADEO
There was something about landing on Spanish soil that made David Hidalgo feel grounded metaphorically as well as physically. There hadn’t been time to get out of the airport in Madrid, so as the Iberian Airbus A320 landed in Santiago de Compostela and they collected their bags and finally got out into the sunshine, David felt a weight lift off him and breathed a sigh of relief. On the one hand he was sorry that they were going to be away for Mike’s funeral, but on the other hand they needed to find somewhere safe and this just seemed too good an opportunity to miss. Gillian was having to be there and he could tag along till things calmed down. Juan, Alicia, Mrs MacInnes, and all of Sam’s own congreg
ation would be there for her. No, this felt like the right thing in the circumstances.
Still, it wasn’t as if nothing bad had ever happened to him in Spain. The whole Álvarez affair had been played out around Toledo, one of his favourite cities, and his deeper personal tragedy happened in Madrid. It was just that everything somehow seemed more manageable in what still felt like his own front yard rather than elsewhere. Edinburgh was a fantastic city and he could operate perfectly well in Scottish culture, but he knew that, in a pinch, under the skin, he was more Spanish than Scots, and landing in Spain felt like coming home. Galicia in particular was a special kind of homecoming since his grandparents had lived on the Lugo coast – what the locals called A Mariña. So even when his father was still persona non grata in Franco’s Spain, he was sent to spend the long, hot summers with his grandparents on the beaches of Viveiro, Foz, Barreiros, and Ribadeo. A trip to Lugo, A Coruña, or Santiago was a treat, but Ribadeo was where they had lived, so naturally he thought it the most attractive town on the coast. Now Gillian had a week’s conference on the status of regional languages around the Celtic fringe, hosted right in Ribadeo. Perfect.
Despite all of Juan’s protestations about luck, he felt they were definitely due a lucky break, and if Edinburgh wasn’t safe, he couldn’t imagine a better place to be. No doubt the fine constabulary of Edinburgh would track down the gangsters behind Power and Glory soon enough, uncover the location of the brothels bringing in the money (if that’s what it was), find out if these were simply local girls with drug habits to fund or illegally trafficked foreign nationals, give them the help they needed, and wrap the whole thing up. Next he knew it he would be reading about it in The Scotsman and the Evening News or watching Max and Mikhail being hustled into court under blankets on Reporting Scotland and that would be that. So the fact that they needed somewhere to lie low for a bit and that Gillian had been delegated to attend a week’s event here seemed a no-brainer. While she was presenting results of her research on how Scots influenced and was influenced by standard English in vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and idioms, he could swan around the waterfront and the park, sit out on the terrazas of El Cantón, wander through the shopping streets on Villafranca and San Roque, and generally just chill out. After the strain of the past few weeks he felt he needed it. Chilling out, swanning around, and hanging out were normally not very high on the Hidalgo agenda but this time he would make himself slow down and watch the world go by. The first priority was therefore to get the hire car, get out of the city and onto the autovía, find their accommodation, and start relaxing in earnest. But Gillian had other ideas.
