It made sense. They wouldn’t traffic Niamh in town where people would recognize her. “Still.” I gave him a sideways glance.
“Okay. You wait up here. I’ll go down and bring us back some lunch and you a pair of shoes. What size ye be?”
“I have no idea. In America it’s a seven and a half narrow.”
He shook his head and lifted my heel as he measured it with his finger spread. “I’ll do my best.”
I watched his balding scalp as it wound down the path to the village. When out of sight, a trepidation tickled my ear. What if he would rather have more money cross his palms? The town had to have pay phones. Those red British boxes. Did he have enough change in his pockets to inform the manor where I was? Maybe I should strike out on my own, find a place to hide out. A barn, or...or what, Jen? You don’t have an inkling how to hide out in the English countryside.
I tossed a piece of pebble over the edge. I wanted Tom, or at least Glenda. Surely she hadn’t given up the search for me. My mind floated back to the last time with Andrew in Lacock. Most likely he’d not gone to the loo in the back of the bakery but met with the goons who chased Glenda and me. My brain spun. How much talk was I not privy to thanks to their earpieces?
I now knew the woman in the thrift shop was not Andrew’s mother. Had Glenda? Or had she been duped as well?
What if Glenda led me to the barge on purpose? Glenda didn’t put up too big of a fuss when I insisted on going on deck the second time. Was that couple paid handsomely to float me down the Avon so I could be kidnapped? Had Everett lured me above deck?
I thumped my temple. Give it a rest. This was real life, not some spy movie. There was no way they could set up all of this just to snatch me and pull me off as a long-lost, dead girl. Right?
I wobbled my head in my hands. Oh, dear God. Let me see clearly who I can trust. Ahead of me stretched two overgrown paths. One Spud had taken down to the village. The other one, off to the left, skirted back into the woods. I studied one, and squinted to gaze at the second. Which do I choose?
A verse from Proverbs floated to the surface. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart…acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.” Okay, then God. Direct me.
A breeze rustled along the path back into the woods. Leaves scattered to the ground. Suddenly, a loud crash vibrated off the trees. A large oak limb fell across the divergence of both trails. A badger dropped down and skittered away into the bushes.
I jolted from the stump. “Okay, got it. I’ll wait here.” I wrapped my arms around my waist and swayed back and forth as I thought of tunes to sing in my head.
With the limb gone, the sun beamed down onto my face. My eyelids grew heavy. I slid down and stretched my legs out in front of me. I let my head bob, jerked it up with a sniff, but decided to give into the desire to sleep. My vision blurred out the village, the paths and the sunlight as I slipped into a twilight rest.
* * *
A foot shook my leg. The smell of new rubber tickled my nose. “Huh?”
“Wake up, me girl. I got ya wellies and some nosh.”
He dangled a pair of gardening boots in my vision. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “Thanks. What’s nosh?”
He held out a grease-seeped sack. “Fish n’ chips. Courtesy of the Spotted Snail.”
I scooted upright. “You saw her?”
“Nah.” Spud raised his shoulders to his ears. “Probably sleepin’ off her last punter.”
A tear came to my eye. “Poor Niamh.”
Spud eyed me. “Guess she’s rather used to it all now, don’t ya think?”
I grabbed the boots from him and jerked one onto my foot. “Typical male response. When does nightly rape become commonplace? After the fifth man? The fiftieth?”
Spud scuffed the dirt with his boot. “I never thought about it. Figured they enjoyed doing it.”
I jammed on the other boot. “Right. Sweaty, smelly men grunting on you and ripping you inside over and over again, night after night. Sounds like a blast to me. Every girl’s dream.”
He crouched down. “You sound as if you speak from authority.”
A tear escaped and slid into my mouth. “I’ve witnessed it happening to vulnerable teenagers. And I’ve talked to people who counsel girls who have been trafficked. My husband excels in that sort of thing. Which is why I turned him in.”
Spud cast his gaze at the ground. “I’m sorry, lass. I guess us men are only thinkin’ of our needs. Never thought about it from the woman’s side.” He heaved a sigh as he squinted off into the distance. “She’s still there, though. That much I found out. They haven’t moved her.”
I clutched his arm. “But they can’t as long as I am on the run. If people notice us both it might raise questions, right?”
He nodded. “It’s what I be ponderin’. They may have her locked away, or are planning on doing it before tonight’s men start their prowlin’.”
“We need to get to her fast.”
He turned back to me and peered into my face. “Aye. And I think I’ve figured out how. But eat your food before it gets soggy.”
“Spud?” I swallowed a piece of battered-fried fish. “Why are you helping me?”
He took his time picking through his portion until he found the tastiest chip. He popped it in his mouth and grinned. I waited.
“Seems like the thing to do, lass. You need a friend and me…”He dug through the chips some more. “Well. I guess I need to make a difference again. Been a while.”
I noticed a distant sorrow etch his eyes. Poor old man. Once a gallant soldier, now a vagrant. We had plenty of them in the states tucked under expressway bridges. What a way to thank a countryman for his duty. I rested my hand on his arm. “Thanks, Spud.”
He jerked it away but smiled so large the holes where teeth should be showed. “Besides, your husband’s a horse’s you-know-what. And that manor boy? A bloody spoiled little bugger.”
I smiled back. The breeze swirled the leaves in a dance around our feet.
Spud studied my face for moment and reached out two fingers to tuck a strand of fly-away hair behind my ear. Then he coughed and stood up. “I had a daughter about your age once. She died while I was in Kuwait. Suicide they say. Her mum never forgave me.”
I gulped. “Spud, I am so very sorry.”
He kicked a twig. “Well, I can’t be helpin’ her now.” His attention returned to me. “But I can help you, and your twin down there.”
I scooted forward on my stump. “What’s the plan?”
He tossed his shoulders back and held his head straight. He pointed to the village. “First, we sneak down there tonight. Let you eyeball her. Make sure she is Niamh.”
“Okay, but I have never met her. I’ve only seen a few pictures of her.”
He bobbed his head several times. “True, but, I figure you’ll sense if she is who we think she is. Then, we sneak ya in. That way you two can have a good long talk.”
“How?”
Spud scratched his speckled beard. “I’m, let’s say, acquainted with a gent who’ll give us a place to lie low.”
I squeezed my eyebrows together. “And he’ll go along with this?”
Spud laughed. “As long as the Queen’s currency crosses his palm. He has a tendency to bet on the horses.”
“But how do we know she’ll talk to me?”
“We’ll have to pay for her time, lass.”
The blood rushed into my cheeks. What a naïve life I’d led, up until a year ago. I never dreamed the world of trafficking, drugs and prostitution existed a few blocks from my own doorstep, much less CIA operatives and dark agents. It was all TV drama stuff.
We sat silently as we finished our lunch, or nosh as Spud called it. After mulling his plot around for a few minutes, I spotted a gaping hole.
“Spud, one question. How much will it cost for a night with Niamh? What’s left over from Robert isn’t going to make a dent, is it?”
He nodded towards my neck. “That gold cross ou
ght to bring enough.”
I grabbed it and clutched it in my hand. “I can’t. It’s all I have. A gift from my parents.”
He leaned into me. “Just how important is it to ya versus saving that girl down there and thwarting your bloody husband and that young, uppity toff out of their scheme to destroy an old lady and her home?”
The last link to my past life turned icy in my palm. I blinked back the stinging blurriness in my eyes with a hard swallow. “Okay. If it all leads to Robert’s arrest, I’ll do it.” I reached behind my neck, unlatched the chain, and placed it in Spud’s waiting hand.
“Good girl.” He winked and shoved the cross into his hip pocket. “I know someone who will want to buy this.”
I bore into his eyes, searching again for trust. I hoped I’d found it.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
With Spud as my guide, we made our way into the outer alleys and mingled with the everyday folk dashing to and fro. He led me down a narrow, cobblestoned path between two rows of houses, and down another alley. We dodged trash cans, broken beer bottles and laundry as it dangled in the morning breeze. A tabby cat, perched on an old wooden crate, crouched and hissed.
“He thinks we’re gonna take his food.”
I shook my head. “Where?”
Spud pointed with a cock of his neck. “Leftovers in the dumpster from last night. Can’t you smell it?”
My lip curled toward my nose. “Now I can.” I turned to the defensive feline. “All yours. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Here, this way.” Spud weaved around some more stacked crates. Next, he tapped three quick times onto a scuffed green door, waited, and then added two long thumps. Footsteps shuffled to answer. A man’s voice echoed through the keyhole. “Yeah?”
“It’s Spud,” came the raspy whisper. “Let us in.”
“Us?”
Spud tapped again. “Just do it, Mac.”
The hinges complained as if they hadn’t opened in a century. The cat leapt off its crate and slid behind the dumpster. The voice from inside behind the door grumbled. “Suit yourself.”
Spud motioned me with an extended hand. I slipped through the partially opened entry, glad he entered right behind me. I stopped until my eyes adjusted to the dim hallway with paper-peeled walls.
At the end of the narrow hall stood who I assumed was the owner of the gruff voice. I ambled towards him, but Spud pushed sideways past me, hand extended in friendship.
“Thanks, Mac. This here be, uh”—he swiveled back in my direction—“what do you want me to call ya?”
The man’s upper lip rose to the side. “I know who she is.”
“Aye, but ya don’t now, do ya?” Spud winked at me. “She’s a Yank. From Texas. And we need some help.” He dangled the gold cross in front of the man’s eager eyes. “We brought ya bounty for your troubles.”
The man grunted. His eyes scanned me from top to bottom in a slow vertical pattern. I shifted my weight onto my other foot. “Say something.”
“Howdy. I’m Jen from Fort Worth.” I lathered on the drawl.
“Well I be…”After a few moments, he nodded. “Ya better come in.”
The two room flat oozed dinginess. The tattered walls revealed at least three layers of faded wallpaper. A scraggly brown sofa took command in the middle of the room flanked by a blue and red plaid easy chair. Dark stains showed where rear ends had sat in it time and again. Shoved against the room’s only window crammed a wooden table and three chairs. The legs appeared to have been gnawed by decades of dog’s teeth—or maybe termites, if they survived in this damp, cold climate. Our host motioned us to sit in them. “I’ll put a kettle on. Looks like you could use a cuppa.”
Spud plopped his bones down in one chair and waved his hand toward the one opposite of him. “Thanks. Sit, me lass. Take a load off.”
Mac shuffled towards a once-white counter, now yellowed with age and grime. It housed a hot plate, a chipped sink with drippy faucet and a few dinted pots and pans stacked to one side. Above it hung a similar colored cabinet with blue gingham fabric stretched across the doors where I gathered glass must have once been. In silence, he turned the spigot. The pipes groaned at the rude awakening before they sputtered out some water into a yellow metal kettle with roses painted on it. He reached into a cabinet and took down three mugs, wiping the inside of each with his shirt tail.
I grimaced, hopeful the boiling water would kill off enough germs. Outside the dust-caked window wound a paved goat path between the buildings. Brick walls scrawled with graffiti art lay no more than three arms lengths on the other side. Through a tattered laced curtain, a woman rocked a babe as she stirred a pot on a stove. The sound of another child’s wails echoed off the alleyway, clashing with a TV or radio broadcast. In the distance a dog barked. Urban sounds of humanity crammed in close quarters.
A shrill whistle from the kettle yanked my mind back into the room and to the movements of our host. Out of the corner of my vision I noticed Spud’s eyes fixed on me. He leaned in, “With the light of day, I can spot a difference. Maybe it’s the way ya tilt your head. The chin’s not the same. Nor is ya nose.” He pushed back into the chair. “But, they did a bang-up job. Ya might pass for her twin. Right, Mac?”
Two mugs slammed down in front of us. Mac slurped from his, wiped his hand with the back of his sleeve and bobbed his head. “Aye. But why make her look like a high-class hooker?”
Spud scooted closer. “Well, that be a tale worth hearin’ about. If ya got the time.”
Mac grunted and pulled out the third chair. He spun it backwards on one leg, and straddled it. A heartstring deep inside tugged my memories. Tom used to love to sit that way. I wondered where he was right now.
“Well…” Mac cast a glance at his wrist. “My appointment with Her Majesty isn’t for a few hours yet, so I guess I can give ya me ear.”
Spud slapped him on the back and hooted. I smiled and picked at the last bit of nail polish on my fingernail. I cast my gaze to our host, who ran his eyes over me again.
“Go on, lass. It’s your story to tell.” Spud patted my arm. “You can trust him.”
Mac’s golden eyebrow rose as he shifted in his chair.
I ignored his scrutiny. “I guess I should tell you my real name is Jennifer Westlaw.” I paused, as if waiting for someone to crash in and scold me for revealing my true identity. Who cared? I didn’t trust any of the folk I’d met in WITSEC anyway. Certainly not Becky.
“Yeah. So?”
I raised the mug to my face. The steam from the tea tickled my nose. The warmth of the porcelain beckoned my fingers to curl around it. I took a deep sip, nodded, and began my strange tale, one more time.
Mac listened intently. He struck me as good-looking, in a rugged sort of way, with warm azure eyes. Yet, something about him made me both nervous and comfortable at the same time—as if an angel and a devil perched on either shoulder. He had my mind in a tug-o-war. Trust him, be wary. Be wary, trust him.
A few times I paused, glanced at Spud, got his wink to go on, and continued with the details. When I’d finished, both men sat in silence. I became distinctly aware of a clock’s vibrant ticking on the wall opposite of us. I leaned back in my chair. “So, that’s it.”
Mac drew an imaginary squiggle on the tabletop with his forefinger. His eyebrows pushed together and his mouth shoved to one side. “Quite a story, lassie.”
“Well, what ya think?” Spud leaned into Mac’s line of vision. “Will ya help her?”
Mac’s absent stare didn’t change. But his head moved up and down. He raised himself from the chair, swung his leg around and snatched the jewelry off the table. “Let me see what I can get for this.” He jammed it in his shirt pocket. “I’ll get us something moreish to eat on the way back.”
After the door slammed shut, I said, “Moorish? As in Turkish?”
“Huh?” Spud crinkled his face. Then his eyes twinkled. “Oh, no. Moreish means tasty, don’t ya know?”
The fam
iliar warmth spread across my cheeks. “Oh, sorry.”
I rose and walked to the sink. Black spots peeked through the tea-stained porcelain. The drain resembled the color of worn leather. I twisted the cold tap and waited until the murky water cleared a bit. Then, I grabbed some lemon soap and gave my face and hands a good scrubbing.
“Mac does have a bathtub, if ya want to get clean, girl.”
I padded my chin with what appeared to be a decently unsoiled dish towel. “That’s okay.”
Spud rocked back as a smirk slid from ear to ear. “Don’t trust me not to jump ya while you’re in there? Now there’s a compliment.”
Embarrassment spread over my face, chest, and arms like a rippled pond. “No. It’s just Mac doesn’t seem to be too much of the neat and clean type.”
Spud’s hoots of laughter ricocheted off the low ceiling. Above, a muffled woman’s shrill command sounded. “Keep it down now, will ya?”
I slumped onto the sofa and tucked my feet underneath me.
Spud swiveled to meet my eyes. “When he gets back, we’ll buy ya some bleach and bubble bath.”
My arms formed a pretzel weave. “If he gets back.”
To my surprise, Spud replied, “Aye. There is that.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I thrust my palms onto my hips. “Wait, you said you were old pals—that you trusted him.”
Spud’s hands raised in front of him. “Whoa, there. Mac is the one I trust the most. But, he’s an erk like me. I’m hoping he doesn’t go dodgy on us.”
My eyes blurred with anger. “My cross was all I had left.”
Spud hung his head. “I know, lass. I know. Mac’ll do the right thing.”
I slung myself back onto the sofa, pulled my knees to my chest and buried my head in my arms. I prayed for God to stir Mac’s conscience. I asked for the right words to say to Niamh, when the time came. I prayed for Glenda to find me. Finally, the idea filtered into my thoughts to pray for Robert. I shook it away, but it returned with fervent force. Pray for Robert.
Not so easy. Even before I knew what he was and how he really earned a living, the seeds of my mistake in marrying him had sprouted inside my heart. The shackles of his actions still clamped onto my soul. My anger, my hurt, and my disgust left a sour taste on the back of my tongue. A large part of me wanted to cling to the revulsion his image brought to mind.
Legitimate Lies Page 18
