by Anna Smith
CHAPTER 38
Jenny Lennon stepped outside onto the patio with a mug of coffee and sat down wearily at the wooden picnic table. She stared out at the deserted stretch of beach and the tears sprung to her eyes. It was the same every morning when she came out here. Amy was everywhere – squealing with delight as she held her hand and they jumped over the waves. She could hear her giggling, see her little legs run across the sand with Martin roaring playfully and chasing her.
Then Jenny saw herself that morning when her world had ended. She shivered as she remembered those frantic moments, running up and down the beach calling Amy’s name. The notion that she would never, ever see her daughter’s face again was something she hadn’t dared consider. She closed her eyes to shut out the image of her and Jamie writhing on the bed. She would never – could never – forgive herself for what she had done. This wasn’t her life any more. Her life had gone the moment she came out onto the beach and realised Amy had vanished. Only now was she beginning to understand the possibility that she might never see her again. Whatever life she was living now, she felt that she was merely a spectator in it. This was her fault. She had made it happen.
The only thing Jenny was certain of was that she didn’t want to go on living. She didn’t know who to tell or what she would do, but she wanted it to end. The hope had died some time during the three weeks since Amy had vanished, but she couldn’t remember exactly when. She only knew that inside she was already dead. There was nothing else to live for if Amy was really gone forever. Martin was broken. What they had been to each other had gone, along with their little girl, and there was nothing left.
It had been so still and quiet since everyone left. The Reillys and the others had stayed on an extra few days after they were due to go home because they’d wanted to support their friends. But their lives had to go on, and it was Martin who insisted they go home. In the end, Jenny was glad to see them leave. They all knew the guilty secret of her and Jamie. It was the elephant in the room each time they got together. She knew they judged her, and they were right to judge, but she also felt their sorrow and sympathy for the price she had paid for her mistake. Jenny hadn’t even gone to see them the day they left because she didn’t want to be anywhere near Jamie. She’d taken to her bed and left it to Martin to say their goodbyes.
The pair of them would stay on at the villa, working with the police investigation and praying each day for some scrap of hope. But so far there had been nothing. It was as though Amy had vanished into thin air.
Jenny and Martin were suffocating under a blanket of grief. They rarely spoke to one another unless it was about Amy and the investigation. She could hardly eat and her weight had already dropped by a stone. Pictures of her anguished face, with its hollow cheekbones, had appeared in the newspapers. They’d been snapped walking together on the beach on the advice of the police to help keep their story alive for the press. Jenny had stopped reading the papers. She couldn’t cope with all the speculation and theories about what might have happened to Amy. One newspaper suggested she was snatched by gypsies, another that she had been stolen for a childless couple in America. One trashy publication even suggested Martin and Jenny had killed her and disposed of the body. The Spanish police had come down heavily to quash that notion and the newspaper apologised.
But yesterday there had been a bombshell of a story in the Post that shook everyone, and made her feel even worse. Their front page said that British Home Secretary Michael Carter-Smith had been in a villa nearby when Amy was taken. He’d been with a rent boy, and they had both witnessed a little girl being taken from the beach by a man. Martin had exploded when he heard the news, smashing plates onto the floor and punching the wall until his fist was bleeding. The bastard Home Secretary had kept quiet about it until the newspaper confronted him. If Carter-Smith had come forward earlier, it might have helped the investigation at the start. But according to the paper, the politican had defended himself, claiming he’d barely noticed the man who took the child. They’d assumed it was an innocent scene of a father with his child. And, in any case, everyone knew that within an hour of being on the motorway the kidnapper could be anywhere. However, Carter-Smith did resign his Cabinet post over the issue. Jenny couldn’t even muster any rage about him. He didn’t make this happen, she did.
She assumed the reason Martin had been summoned by the Guarda Civil in Marbella was because of the Carter-Smith story. He had left at eight-thirty that morning when they sent a car to pick him up. The police wouldn’t discuss the situation when they’d phoned him last night, and would only say that they wanted to talk to him. Martin told Jenny there was no need for her to come. It was the only conversation they’d had all day yesterday.
Now she heard him come in through the back door and steeled herself for another day of silence. She heard him go to the fridge, followed by the rattle of a glass on the worktop. She glanced up when he came out onto the patio and sat opposite her, and gave him an inquiring look. But she could see from his face that whatever the police had wanted to tell him, it was not good news.
‘We need to talk, Jenny.’
Jenny couldn’t remember when in the last two weeks he had spoken her name. She looked at his grey face and her heart sank at what was left of their lives.
‘What is it, Martin?’
‘There’s something I didn’t know about Dad.’
‘Your dad?’ Jenny was confused.
‘Yes.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Something I didn’t know about. I just found out. The Guarda Civil told me.’
‘What? Why? I don’t understand, Martin. Why are the police talking to you about your dad?’
‘They said it’s all connected.’ He buried his face in his hands. ‘Oh, Jenny. Oh Christ, Jenny.’
‘Martin. What are you talking about? What’s connected? Your dad? Amy?’ She stood up and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Martin, talk to me. What the hell are you saying? Tell me. Do you mean Amy?’
He nodded, sniffing. ‘Yes. Oh, Jenny … Sit down. I need to tell you everything.’
Jenny sat stiffly, various scenarios raging through her mind before Martin spoke.
His father, he had been told, had been involved in the death of some Russian prostitute in a Moscow hotel room. He had left the country in a hurry. Jenny remembered her father-in-law being in Russia last year on a business trip, but he had often done that as he’d tried to build up foreign property contracts in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin wall. They’d already sold property in Poland and the Czech Republic as holiday homes for eager Western investors. The old Eastern bloc, Martin senior had said, was where the next property boom would come. Smart estate agents were the ones who got in on the ground floor.
Jenny sat open mouthed with shock and Martin sounded confused. He said wasn’t a hundred percent sure of the detail. He had been so stunned when the police told him that he was barely able to take it in, but apparently the property dealers they’d met with the day after they arrived in Spain were all connected to Amy’s disappearance.
‘What are you saying, Martin? That … That they took Amy?’ She stood up. ‘Martin, this isn’t making any sense. I want to talk to the police. Why didn’t you take me with you?’
‘Sit down, Jenny. Sit down and listen.’ He pulled her by the hand. ‘Please, Jenny. This is so fucking important.’ His voice was shaking.
Jenny sat down.
‘It was all a set-up, that’s what the police are working on. They have inside information – don’t ask me how because I don’t know – I’m only saying what they told me. They said Amy was kidnapped for revenge, because the big boss down here – some Russian mafia billionaire who owns everything corrupt in the Costa – because, they said … they said the prostitute who died, who dad had been with, was the daughter of this man’s best friend. And they took revenge for her death by kidnapping Amy.’
Jenny felt as though she’d been shot.
‘Hold on, Martin. Are they saying your dad kill
ed this prostitute in Moscow?’
‘Well, they believe he’s responsible because he didn’t get help. Christ, I don’t know.’
Jenny stared at him. Suddenly things seemed clear to her.
‘Martin. Don’t lie to me, just tell me. Did you know about your father and this … this dead Russian prostitute last year?’
Silence. It didn’t matter what his answer was. She knew.
‘You knew, didn’t you, Martin?’
‘No. I didn’t know.’ He avoided her eyes.
‘You fucking liar.’ Jenny raised her voice.
‘Oh, that’s good coming from you.’
Jenny stood up.
‘You’re lying, Martin. It’s written all over your face. You can’t tell me the truth about the Russian and your dad, because now you know it’s all connected you can’t afford to tell the truth.’
Martin got up and went inside. Jenny went in after him. She grabbed hold of his arm and tried to turn him round.
‘Tell me. You can’t tell me, can you?’
‘You mean like you couldn’t tell me you were fucking my best friend when someone stole Amy? What the fuck would you know about truth?’ He spat the words at her.
‘Listen, you bastard. You … it was you who took us to meet some fucking Eastern Europeans. You let us take our daughter with us. And all the time you knew that your father had been involved in something dodgy in Moscow.’ She slapped his face. ‘You are as guilty as I am. What the hell were you thinking about, going anywhere near these people if you knew about your dad? And you’ve kept this to yourself all along. I can’t believe this.’
Martin slumped onto the sofa. He put his head in his hands.
‘I didn’t want to believe it either, Jenny. I’m sorry. I didn’t know the full story about Dad in Russia. He just said to me there was a problem with some girl he picked up when he was drunk one night. I only found out now, this morning, that she had died. He told me that I could do the next trip to Russia because he left in a bit of a hurry. That’s when he explained a little about the girl. He said it wasn’t important, and I didn’t think for a minute the people we were meeting here were connected to that. How could I?’
Silence. Jenny stood looking at him for a few moments before she spoke.
‘They took our little girl for revenge because of something your father’s supposed to have done? I don’t believe this is happening.’ She began to cry. ‘Oh, Martin … Have they killed her? They have, haven’t they? They’ve killed Amy. Is that what they told you? Please, Martin, just tell me everything. Please.’
She sat down beside him while he answered her.
‘They’ve been watching and waiting for some time, the police told me. That’s why they phoned me in Glasgow and asked to set up the meeting when I told them we were coming here on holiday. They said if we met here, it would save them coming to Glasgow and it would be easier.’
Jenny wiped her tears.
‘So,’ Martin went on, ‘those phone calls and emails I got from the property dealer here, who wanted us to see the off-plan apartments that Dad had been negotiating to sell … It was all a set-up.’
‘Didn’t you even consider what your dad had been involved in with the prostitute?’
‘No, Jenny. He only spoke about it once and said it was nothing and that he thought she was alive when he left her. He told me she’d just fallen over because they were drunk. And because there were no police or follow-up I just assumed he was telling the truth. The last thing I expected was anything to come of it a year down the line.’
Jenny wiped her face with her hands.
‘So, is it possible they’re holding Amy somewhere? What do they think? Do they want money, Martin? We’ll find the money. We’ll sell the house, the business – everything. If it’s revenge they want, they … they can take me. They can kill me if they want.’ Tears spilled out of her eyes.
‘The police don’t know, Jenny. Nothing has been mentioned about ransom. The police are working on the theory that Amy’s in Morocco. They think that’s where they took her.’
A light went on somewhere in Jenny’s head.
‘Martin,’ she said, sniffing. ‘I think Amy’s alive. They could have killed her as soon as they took her so why take her to Morocco?’
Martin took her hand. ‘The police think they’ve sold her. Could be anything. I don’t even want to think about what they might have sold her for.’
‘No, Martin. Don’t. She’s alive, Martin. Amy’s alive.’ Tears streamed down her face. ‘We’ll find her. I know we will.’
She put her arms around Martin and held him as he sobbed on her shoulder.
CHAPTER 39
‘Why the fuck did you look, Rosie? Are you nuts?’ Javier flicked the lighter to the cigarette between his lips as he drove.
‘I couldn’t help it. I just did it from instinct.’ Rosie pushed the palms of her hands onto her eyes. ‘Christ, I wish I hadn’t.’
‘Are you alright?’ Matt squeezed her shoulder.
‘Yeah. Let’s just pray we get through this day. We’ll be okay. We’ll dine out on it when we get home.’
‘You bet.’
Rosie stuck her head out of the window to stave off the nausea she was feeling. Javier said there was no time to throw up, they had to keep up with Adrian’s car in front as he followed Besmir – all three cars now rattling along faster than was safe on the narrow, twisting roads. They turned off through a concealed entrance and then up a narrow track, bouncing over the potholes. Rosie rubbed her damp palms on her trousers. Javier wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
‘You okay?’ Rosie touched his arm.
‘Of course.’ He didn’t look at her.
In the distance, Rosie saw what looked like farm out-buildings, made from corrugated metal sheeting like the kind she’d seen in shanty-town slums in various parts of the world. They drove behind Besmir into the yard, littered with rubbish and a couple of burnt-out rusting cars. He stopped just before the window of one of the dilapidated buildings and he and Hassan jumped out. Rosie couldn’t hear what he said, but he seemed to be issuing instructions to Adrian at the window of his car. Then Besmir and Hassan went towards the door and opened it, disappearing inside. Suddenly they heard a woman screaming and glass smashing. Then nothing. Rosie, Javier and Matt looked at each other. Rosie’s mobile rang and all three of them jumped nervously.
It was Adrian. ‘When Besmir comes out, just do as he says. Follow us.’
‘What was the screaming? I heard a woman screaming?’
‘She is the old bastard who is supposed to look after the children. She is always drunk. Besmir and Hassan were just shutting her up.’
Rosie was frightened to ask any more.
‘Where are the children?’
‘In the place next door. Like a stable or something. You see it?’
She looked at the ramshackle barn. ‘Yes.’
‘When Besmir comes, we go in there. We take the children and put them in our cars. Then we go.’
‘Where?’ Rosie ventured.
‘Doesn’t matter. Away from here.’
When he hung up, Rosie relayed the information to Javier and Matt.
‘This is mental,’ Matt said. ‘Fucking mental.’
A few seconds later, Besmir, Hassan and Adrian emerged from the building and went to their car. They took Amy from the back seat and carried her to Rosie’s car.
‘Come,’ Besmir said to Rosie.
She got out of the car. He handed her the sleeping child.
‘You must take her. Keep hold of her.’ He turned. ‘Come, we get the other children.’
Hassan and Adrian followed Besmir.
‘Let’s go.’ Rosie looked at Javier and Matt who didn’t move. ‘Come on, guys. We don’t have an option here.’
‘Let’s go, Matt.’ Javier opened his door and got out. ‘I can’t fucking believe I’m doing this.’
Nothing could have prepared them for what they saw whe
n Besmir kicked in the door. The overpowering stench hit them. Death has a distinctive, unmistakable, rancid smell, and a rotting corpse will knock you off your feet. Even if it’s your first encounter with a decaying body, you don’t need to ask what it is. You just know.
‘Oh, fuck!’ Matt’s voice was a whisper.
As their eyes adjusted to the dark, they became aware of things moving on the ground. Then scurrying.
‘Fuck! Rats! Fuck!’ Matt kicked something at his feet.
Then came the sound of a child crying. Rosie peered into the darkness and could see what looked like cages. Behind the bars, a little figure tried to stand up, but it fell down again.
‘Look, Adrian, a little kid … Over there … in the corner, in a cage … Jesus wept!’ She held Amy tight to her chest, thankful that she was sound asleep
Besmir picked his way across the floor. He reached up and pulled down the loose planks of wood blocking a high window, suddenly exposing the place to the harsh glare of the sun. Another child started crying, then another, like the sound of cats wailing in a night when sleep won’t come. Rosie stood rooted, her eyes flicking across the room. Don’t dare pass out, she told herself.
Inside the cages – there were four of them – there were toddlers, and a few a little older, maybe four or five. In the light, Rosie counted at least eight or nine children. Ragged, filthy little things, staggering around barely able to walk, some reaching through the bars, others cowering, sobbing, in the shit-caked straw. Rosie caught a glimpse of the stricken look on Besmir’s face, and in that moment, she thought she saw something close to an answer as to why it had come to this, what had brought them here.
‘Quick. Get the children. We must move fast. Get them out of here.’ Besmir pulled open the cages. He picked up a weeping child, then another.
Matt looked at Rosie, shaking his head slowly in disbelief.
‘Come on, Matt, grab these children. Over there.’ Javier took him by the shoulder and ushered him to a cage in the corner where two children were lying.
Rosie tried to pick up a tiny girl who was bawling. She couldn’t hold both kids in her arms, so put the girl back down and clutched her hand tightly, while trying not to be sick from the smell of excrement. Adrian already had two children in his arms, and Hassan was climbing over a rusty wheel to get to a kid who was hiding in the corner.
