Dead Girl Walking

by Christopher Brookmyre

  Heike and I stood close by with our own luggage, determined to really bring the awkward when Jan fronted up.

  We watched him wander across the hotel lobby, bleary-eyed and yawning. He woke up pretty fast when he took in what was in front of him, and made a few rapid and troubling calculations.

  ‘Ladies, what are you doing?’ he asked, in fake puzzlement. ‘Did you forget about the plane? It doesn’t leave until three, yeah?’

  ‘I think the bigger question is what are they doing?’ Heike replied.

  ‘Serpent have already played Milan and Nice,’ I told him, returning his fake confusion. ‘I checked their tour schedule on my phone. Or are the girls connecting to a flight to Oslo?’

  Jan glanced around and upwards for a flustered few moments, like there might be answers printed on the ceiling. It must have been hard to think of an explanation while channelling so much effort into hiding how pissed off he was at both of us.

  ‘They’re bound for a trade fair at the Fiera Milano,’ he said. ‘Bad Candy have a marketing and promo operation these days. They’ll be working a stand for … I think a software company. Video games, you know?’

  ‘Is the video game also called Savage Earth Heart?’ Heike asked witheringly, indicating the T-shirts.

  ‘It’s cross-promotion,’ I answered for him, to show we knew he was full of shit.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘This is not what you think.’

  ‘What do we think?’ Heike asked him.

  ‘I’m just saying, it’s complicated. Very complicated. Over my head, yeah? Just stay out of it.’

  ‘How can I stay out of it? I’m sharing a bus with it.’

  ‘And that’s your choice, okay? I got you plane tickets.’

  ‘Yeah, you did. Why was that?’

  Jan didn’t have an answer, but truth was he didn’t need one. Now that we all knew he was lying to us, it still left the more problematic issue of what we could do about it.

  He found out south of Perpignan.

  French police pulled the bus over into a lay-by short of a pedestrian footbridge over the autoroute. Unlike before, this wasn’t a random check, and it wasn’t because we were a rock band who might have drugs. Heike had looked up the authorities on her mobile, ringing them from a payphone when we stopped at a services area north of Girona, so that the call couldn’t be traced to her.

  They weren’t immigration, simply two uniformed cops responding to a despatch resultant of Heike’s call, and checking whether there was something in need of further investigation.

  Both officers boarded the bus and asked to see everybody’s identification. That was when Jan found out that something was very wrong. He went into his bag to retrieve the girls’ passports, but they weren’t there. Heike had stolen them a couple of hours into the journey, while he was catching up on the sleep he didn’t get the night before. The merch girls were dozing as well, and I wondered if any of them had been the one keeping our tour manager awake.

  It was satisfying to watch him scramble and rummage, no doubt wondering if the whole lot might be sitting on a lobby table back in Madrid. But our pleasure only lasted until we saw the panic that was starting to appear on the faces of our guest passengers. They were looking towards him, then frantically checking their own bags as it dawned on them their documentation was not in Jan’s possession. They looked ashen despite the make-up, and a few were in tears.

  One of them wasn’t panicking, though. She was pointing. So not all of them had been asleep, and this latest development must have helped her explain what she maybe only thought she had seen.

  Before Jan could do anything, Heike held up the passports in her right hand, her left gesturing to him to stay back. One of the police officers stepped purposefully past Jan and reached out to take the documents.

  Holding them back, Heike asked whether he spoke English. When he confirmed that he did, she told him she suspected the girls were here under duress and being taken en masse, possibly against their will.

  ‘I took their passports from his bag,’ she said, indicating Jan. ‘He was holding all of them.’

  The cop talked quietly with his colleague, then called a name from the first passport he opened: Sabina Dumitrescu. Anxious-looking and tearful, the girl put her hand up and was asked to accompany them outside.

  I could see them question her through the window, the cop with the passports holding hers up and occasionally pointing back towards the bus. The girl was shaking her head, speaking quickly and firmly.

  After a few minutes they sent her back inside and called another name: Radka Danchev. It was the girl I had seen in Barcelona, who had hidden her shame behind the mask of, as Heike described it, a fucking robot. Again I saw head-shaking, animated gesticulation and quite a lot of anger. This time she was the one pointing towards the bus, with what I took to be accusation.

  I saw Jan glance towards us, sitting on the edge of his seat with his feet in the aisle. I expected him to be angry but he just seemed worried. You bloody well should be, I thought as I watched the policemen climb back on board, their faces much more grim than before.

  It was huckling time.

  As they walked up the aisle towards Jan, I suddenly wondered what this might mean for the Milan show, and for the rest of the tour. But then they continued past him and instead ordered Heike to follow them outside.

  Only a few minutes later she was making her way back to her seat, her face flushed and her eyes filling with tears of anger and humiliation.

  Some of the girls were glaring at her. One called her ‘a fucking stupid bitch’. Others just looked shaken, not quite ready to feel relief until the bus was definitely back under way.

  I didn’t ask what had been said. She didn’t look ready to share.

  Jan went outside with the cops, talking with them longer than anyone else had. From his body language I was able to predict that the interruption was coming to a halt. Half of Jan’s job was about smoothing over awkward situations, and even with his back to me I could tell he was doing what he did best.

  It was all smiles and handshakes before he came back on board and the cops strolled back to their car. I could imagine how it played out at the end: all a big misunderstanding, temperamental rock-star stuff, crazy chicks having a falling-out. Apologies for your troubles, officers, but have a thought for the shit I’ve got to put up with.

  What I didn’t understand was why the girls handed their passports back to Jan as soon as we were back on the road. Why, if they were being forced, would they lie to the cops when there was a chance to get their documents and escape? And if they weren’t being forced, why did they all look so afraid when the cops boarded the bus and their passports were found to be missing?

  Very little was said after that. Heike stared out of the window for the rest of the journey, occasionally glancing ahead towards where our extra passengers sat with their backs to her.

  We reached Nice around eight in the evening, Jan returning from reception with the news that they only had one room free, so Heike and I would have to share. He claimed he had been assured over the phone that two rooms were available, but I thought he was lying and had booked us a twin on purpose: we weren’t supposed to be here, and he was underlining the fact. Neither of us had started complaining about the twin before he was explaining the situation, so I filed that one under ‘protesting too much’.

  He hadn’t said anything about Perpignan, and I thought he was just going to act like it hadn’t happened, to keep things friendly. Then, as he handed Heike the keycard for our room he glanced in either direction as though checking for eavesdroppers, and spoke quietly but firmly.

  ‘That was a very stupid thing you did, okay? Very stupid. You have no idea what you are messing with. Stay out of this, or you’ll get people hurt. You understand me?’

  I felt something grip me from my stomach to the ends of my fingers. I thought about the fear in the faces of the girls on the bus, and understood why they hadn’t taken the chance to run. Th
ey knew who would come looking for them.

  Late-Night Movies

  There was a taxi stopped in front of the hotel as Parlabane’s cab pulled in behind it. He could make out Mairi in the back seat, handing the driver his fare. He’d spoken to her on the phone only a few minutes earlier, but he still felt a rush at seeing her in the flesh, back here safe and sound.

  She noticed him as he climbed out of the beige Mercedes and came running forward, almost bowling him over as she flung her arms around him and clung on. They stayed like that for a long time, saying nothing. She needed this, he understood, but he was feeling conspicuous being out here in the street. He had to break it off. (Yeah, that’s why.)

  ‘We need to get inside,’ he said. ‘Out of sight.’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘I’m just so glad you’re okay.’

  ‘Bit of late-night parkour, always good for the cardiovascular system.’

  She took a seat in the lobby. Now that she was under decent light he could see she’d been crying but was putting a brave face on it, like she didn’t want him to see how scared she’d been. He felt ultra-protective of her, and not merely because she’d just been thrown in at the deep end. There was something else driving it, perhaps to do with the fact that she was Donald’s sister and he didn’t want to let his late friend down. Or maybe it was that she was Donald’s wee sister, which made her seem more vulnerable.

  (Donald’s trendy wee sister whom he had always secretly fancied.)

  ‘Is this … normal for you?’ she asked. ‘I mean…’ She held up her hands, like she couldn’t begin to describe what had just happened.

  ‘Well, some days I’m mostly on the phone. But it would be true to say that my idea of journalism can be a little idiosyncratic. I don’t crib from press releases. Things might have gone a lot smoother with my wife if I had.’

  (Ex-wife.)

  Mairi looked puzzled.

  ‘It’s not like you’re the one who brought this down on us, Jack. It was me who dragged you into this.’

  ‘Yeah, but Sarah might say that if you’d dragged someone else into it the situation might not have escalated quite so drastically. She claims I’ve got a habit of finding dangerous situations and effortlessly making them worse.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound fair to me.’

  ‘Well, you definitely can’t say I don’t know how to show a girl a good time. We had drinks, went out to dinner, took in some museums, saw a gig, met some interesting new people. To be honest, I don’t know how I’m going to top it on the second date.’

  Mairi laughed, and he felt relieved to see her smile. But then she looked rather serious again.

  ‘Is that what this was? A date?’

  And suddenly there was one last danger to negotiate tonight.

  Parlabane took a moment to choose his response.

  ‘This was work,’ he replied.

  Mairi let out a tiny laugh, as if to say ‘good answer’, but it was clear that a good answer in this instance wasn’t the same as the right answer, or even the wrong one. It was a way of avoiding the question.

  Before she could point this out, he posed her a more pertinent one.

  ‘While you were in the car, did you notice anything or overhear anything that might give us a clue?’

  ‘Afraid not. It was all in German. Actually, that’s wrong: I don’t know what language it was in. Something Slavic, maybe, or Russian. I’m pretty sure I heard the name Boris.’

  ‘That’s what he told me his name was, but I suspect it’s a pseudonym. Did he say anything in English? He must have asked you some questions.’

  Mairi shook her head.

  ‘All the time I was expecting him to, and I was terrified about not being able to answer, or being able to answer but not wanting to tell him the truth. But he didn’t ask me a thing. Just prodded away at his iPad. I’d have thought he would at least ask who I was or what I wanted, but it was like I didn’t exist: I was leverage and nothing more.’

  ‘An iPad,’ Parlabane mused. ‘Did you get a swatch at the screen?’

  ‘The odd glimpse, but he was in the front seat and he had it angled away most of the time. It must have had some important stuff on it, though, because he was keying in a password every time he woke it up, and it went to sleep if it was idle for about twenty seconds.’

  They went to the desk to ask for their room keys, which were attached to metal lozenges the size and weight of a cosh, thus encouraging guests to comply with the hotel’s request not to take them off the premises. The hotel was in a weathered townhouse, with heavy doors on every landing to keep out draughts from the stairwells, and old-school locks on the bedroom doors rather than modern card-swipes.

  Parlabane missed proper locks, from a criminal connoisseur’s perspective. There were easy enough ways to fool a card-reader or bypass a code, but there was something altogether more satisfying and accomplished about successfully picking the old metal tumblers.

  The bloke on the desk was called Ralf according to the name badge. He went to the pigeonholes and promptly turned around, clutching a thin slip of paper. There was a message.

  ‘Mr Parlabane?’ he enquired.

  Parlabane felt himself stiffen. Nobody but Mairi knew he was here.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Ah, good. My colleague said you had requested to view our CCTV files. She is gone home now, but she enquired with Florian, our head of security, and it appears he kept the tapes from the day you asked about as there was a minor incident. I can show you.’

  Ralf beckoned them behind the desk, where a door led into the back office. The lobby was deserted, and Parlabane guessed the guy was only too happy to indulge them in order to break the monotony of his nightshift.

  ‘Here,’ he said, and directed them to a computer monitor.

  Ralf woke up the screen with a mouse and showed them silent footage of the lobby. It was from the day that Heike disappeared, according to the date-stamp. The time was 12:41, not long after Monica said she had last spoken to Heike.

  There was a male figure sitting on one of the couches where Parlabane and Mairi had just been talking. He was facing the door, his back to the camera.

  ‘He is there a long time,’ Ralf said. ‘More than an hour before this.’

  Heike Gunn came barrelling through the lobby, head down, purposeful and hurried in her gait. The man got up and strode out to block her path. There was no audio, but it was clear that he was laying into her: lots of finger-pointing and aggressive body language. Not a lot of ‘I’ statements, Parlabane reckoned.

  He couldn’t say Heike gave as good as she got, as it looked like one-way verbal traffic, but her demeanour suggested any time he wanted to go fuck himself would be fine by her. Eventually she did speak, at which point he really kicked off, prompting the security guard to hurry over and intervene. Heike let loose a parting salvo as he was physically removed from her path, and shook her head like she really didn’t have time for this.

  Mairi was staring at the screen with a look of intense concentration.

  ‘Do you recognise him?’ Parlabane asked hopefully.

  ‘He’s familiar. I’m just trying to place where from.’

  ‘He is on this file also,’ Ralf said. ‘Florian kept all of these in case there was a complaint arising from the incident. This is from the night before.’

  Mairi gaped as they watched more soundless footage featuring the same man as in the first tape. This time he was talking to Monica Halcrow. It didn’t appear to be going any better for the guy, as he looked both crestfallen and pissed off by the time Monica got up and walked away.

  ‘That’s Keith,’ Mairi said. ‘Monica’s fiancé. Ex-fiancé, I should say.’

  ‘Ex because Heike Gunn led his betrothed astray,’ Parlabane observed. ‘And now it turns out he’s the last person to have seen her before she disappeared.’

  ‘I don’t follow how this fits in with what happened tonight,’ Mairi said. ‘It seems to be getting more complicated all the
time.’

  ‘Or maybe it just got a lot simpler.’

  Exposure

  I remember the first time Keith saw me naked; or part of me at least. Actually it was my right breast, but there was something symbolic about it that felt more like a rite of passage than when we were both finally in the altogether.

  It was at his parents’ house on a Thursday morning before Christmas when we were both in sixth year. I had stayed overnight, which was often the case on weekends, but as the last day of term had been the Wednesday, it felt like a Saturday morning. The only difference was, there was nobody else around. Keith’s parents were at work and his sister Ailish was staying over at a friend’s place, which meant I got her bed.

  He brought me a cup of tea and a slice of toast just after nine. I had blissfully slept in while people were showering, eating and getting ready for work. Keith sat on the edge of the bed and chatted as I ate. We talked about our plans for the holidays, by which we mainly meant lazing around watching DVDs and stuffing our faces.

  I remember that the weather was horrible, rain pelting against the windows like it was determined to get in. It made me feel all the more cosy behind the double-glazed windows, with the central heating blasting out warmth from a radiator that Ailish always kept turned up to max.

  We started kissing and I felt so comfortable as I lay there, so snug, so secure and so cherished. When Keith cupped my left breast, which was as far as we usually went, I undid some buttons on my pyjama top and pulled it away from my shoulder.

  I’ll never forget the look we shared: he was a bit surprised, a bit unsure if I was definitely okay with this, and, of course, more than bloody delighted. I smiled to reassure him, and his gaze fell slowly upon my breast, happy in the moment but not staring. We both giggled, then he started kissing my neck really slowly. I knew where he was going, and must admit some impatience to know what it would feel like, but I loved the fact that he took his time.

  When he finally kissed my nipple, my heart was beating so hard I thought it was going to bounce his lips from my chest. It was scary in a good way.