by Mark Dawson
“That’s fine,” she said. “Thanks for looking.”
The man shrugged. “Anything else?”
“Yes, actually, there is.” She pointed up at the glossy lens of the CCTV camera on the wall above the till. “I’d like to have a look at the footage from last night.”
The request flustered the man. “Really?”
“Is that a problem?”
“There’s no problem,” he said, trying to recover. “It’s fine. I just need to make sure it was running.”
“Could I have a look now?”
He shuffled. “No,” he said. “I mean, yes, you could, but the video is in the storeroom and I just need to make sure it’s okay to go in. We’ve just had a delivery.”
He was stalling. Josie was sure now that he was hiding something. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she said. The bar was hinged at the end so that a section could be raised to gain access. She reached for it and started to push it up.
“Josie?”
She stopped, returned the hatch to its lowered position and turned.
Bruno Mendoza was behind her. He was smiling warmly.
“Hello, sir,” she said.
“What are you doing?”
“Following up on the murder this morning,” she said.
“Come over here, would you?”
He put a hand on her shoulder and guided her toward one of the empty tables. He pulled back one of the chairs and held it for her. She sat, clenching her jaw as he trailed his finger across her shoulder. He took the other chair and sat down opposite her.
“Why are you wasting your time, Josie?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“The case is finished. The Englishman did it. It’s done.”
“I’d rather be thorough.”
“It isn’t necessary. The prosecutor called. There’s enough to bring a case. Smith will be charged tomorrow. We don’t need anything else to convict him. He did it and now he’ll get what he deserves.”
She bit her lip.
“What?”
“There’s something about him.”
Mendoza shook his head. “Come on, Josie.”
“What if he didn’t do it?”
Mendoza stared at her with something approaching disbelief. “What’s the matter with you? He was found in the same room with the girl. He can’t explain what happened. What more do you want?”
She felt unbalanced by Bruno’s certainty and instinctively knew that she should be cautious. “You’re probably right. I just like to make sure everything lines up.”
“And that’s one of the reasons you’re such a good officer.” He reached across the table and patted her hand. He nodded his head toward the barman. “What did he tell you?”
“He doesn’t remember Smith.”
“You showed him a picture?”
“Yes. Nothing.”
“Anything else?”
“I asked if I could see the video from last night. They have a security camera over the bar. He didn’t seem all that keen on me seeing it.”
“Good idea,” Mendoza conceded. “Leave it to me. I wanted to speak to him anyway.”
“What for?”
“There was a killing outside this afternoon,” he said. “Drugs. The usual—they found his body in an alley, tape around his head.”
“What does that have to do with you?” She spoke abruptly, and, at his cocked eyebrow, she added, “I didn’t think you got involved in investigation anymore.”
“You know how we’re stretched. There’s no one else. All hands to the pump.” He stood. “Go home, Josie. It’s late. See your son. I’ll take care of the video. We can talk about it tomorrow.”
Josie said goodbye and went outside to her car. An old man had wheeled a banana-que stall to the roadside and was starting to cook. She got into the car and started the engine. Something about this case was wrong. She didn’t know what it was, but there was something that was prickling at her, an itch she couldn’t scratch.
She shook her head and tried to put it out of her mind. She was too tired to think about it tonight.
She wondered if Angelo might be awake when she got home. She hoped so. There was nothing that she wanted more right then than to have a long, cool shower and then to hold her boy in her arms.
25
A KLAXON sounded.
Milton opened his eyes and, for a moment, he didn’t know where he was.
He was on his back, lying on a thin mattress that did nothing to cushion his back from the hard floor beneath it. He saw the marked walls, the single light bulb, and, as he turned his head, the bars that blocked him inside the tiny cell.
He felt groggy. It had taken him several hours to fall asleep. He had tried again and again to pierce the veil that had descended over his memory of the evening with Jessica, but, despite his best efforts, it was hopeless. He was unable to fill in the blanks between the moment that he had met her in the bar and his sudden awakening the following day.
He heard footsteps approaching and barked commands in Filipino that he didn’t understand.
The guard reached his cell and drew his billy club back and forth across the bars. “Get up,” the man said in English. “Bring your plate and mug. Breakfast.”
THE CELL door opened and Milton followed the rest of the inmates as they shuffled along the landing to the stairs. They gathered there, covered by a guard with a shotgun in a glass-fronted booth above them. There was a shouted command and the men at the front of the queue started to make their way down. Milton followed, very aware that he was the only westerner in the throng.
He followed the crowd along the corridor that led away from the lobby at the foot of the stairs. He had come into the building in the opposite direction last night, so he paid close attention to his surroundings in an attempt to assemble a more complete understanding of where he was being kept. He saw an open archway that led to a large communal shower room, another that opened into a large bathroom, and then another row of barred doors that guarded cells from which the prisoners were not being released.
The corridor bent around to the right before they reached a set of double doors that had been wedged open. Beyond the doors was a large mess hall. There were four rows of tables separated by a passage that led to a serving area, with metal cabinets and a hatch where the inmates who worked in the kitchen doled out the food that had been prepared. The tables were busy with men who had already been served. There were guards around the perimeter of the room. It was noisy and raucous.
Milton joined the queue of men waiting for food. The meal was tapsilog, pieces of cheap beef marinated in soy sauce and served with eggs and rice. Milton proffered his plate to the server. The man doled out a meagre amount. Milton waited, expecting another ladleful, but the server scowled and then Milton was nudged firmly in the back by the inmate waiting behind him.
He took the plate and looked for a place to sit. The tables were busy, but he noticed one with empty spaces at one end and set off toward it.
He sat. The others around the table looked at him with undisguised hostility but, when they saw that their aggression did not faze him, they returned their attention to their food and ignored him.
Milton ate. The food was unpleasant, but he hadn’t been given anything to eat since his arrest and he was famished. The men were not trusted with cutlery, so he fed himself with his fingers, the stringy meat leaving greasy stains on his skin.
He was shovelling the soggy rice into his mouth when he realised that he was being watched by the men at the next table. He looked over at them and held their gazes until they returned their attention to their food.
Milton knew that he was about to face his first test.
He finished his water, put the plastic cup on the table with his plate, and, taking a breath, he stood.
The men who had been watching him stood, too.
There were four of them. None of them was large—none of them taller or heavier than Milton—but they had the tough, wiry buil
d of men who had nothing better to do than work out for hours every day. They were tattooed, with every inch of flesh covered in ink, and, as they got up from the table, he could see that he was in trouble. They fanned out around him, demonstrating enough knowledge of basic tactics to come at him from different directions at the same time.
He decided not to wait.
If he was going to take a beating, he would hand some out himself.
There were two ahead of him. Milton feinted in the direction of the man to his left and, as the man stepped back, he pivoted and threw a left-handed punch at the man to his right. The man was caught by surprise, and, as Milton’s knuckles crunched into his jaw, he dropped to his knees.
The other men in the canteen stopped what they were doing and turned to watch. There was a moment of quiet and then exclamations of glee at the promise of free entertainment.
The other man ahead of Milton took a step back, but Milton surged forward and hammered him with a left to the ribs. The man gasped, and Milton followed up with a jab that landed flush in the middle of his face, collapsing the bones of his nose.
The inmates responded with whoops of bloodthirsty appreciation.
Milton saw the guards on the perimeter of the room. None of them looked interested in intervening.
The third man leapt onto Milton’s back, looping his arms around his neck and squeezing. Milton bent forward sharply, throwing the man so that he flipped through the air and crashed down onto the table. He jack-knifed, sliding backwards and landing on the floor. Milton crouched down, jabbing his straightened fingers into the man’s throat. The strike caused a spasm in his trachea, making it difficult for him to breathe.
Milton was about to stand when he saw a flash of motion to his left. It was too late to evade and he felt a crash as a chair broke across his shoulders. It shattered, wooden fragments falling all around him.
He propped himself against the table and turned to see that the first man was back on his feet again.
The man with the broken nose was also standing.
Milton glanced down at the next table and saw a plastic cup that was filled to the brim with hot tea. He swiped it and, in the same motion, threw the hot liquid into the face of the first man. He squealed in pain, clawing at his face.
Many of the other inmates had closed in now, forming a tight semicircle that pinned Milton and the two men between them and the wall. Milton glanced at the faces of the orange-shirted inmates all around him: their eyes bulged and their mouths hung open as they screamed their encouragement.
There was a tray on the table. Milton grabbed it and backhanded the man with the broken nose in the face. He went down for a second time.
Milton took a step away, looking for the fourth man, but, before he could retreat—if that was even possible—he felt a sudden blow to the side of his head. Pain flashed out and he felt blood in his eye.
He danced back. The man was at his side, opening and closing his fist.
Milton put his fingers to his brow and, when he looked down at them, he saw that they were daubed with his blood.
He felt the usual surge of adrenaline and rode it.
Perhaps the inmate noticed the steel in Milton’s eyes. He took a step back, away from him, but the wall of orange-shirted men watching the display did not part, and the man was shoved hard in the back. He stumbled forward, right at Milton, and Milton put him down with an elbow to the side of his head.
That was the four of them.
Milton looked left and right, staring into the avid faces of the spectators, daring any of them to step up.
None of them did.
Milton sat down, waiting for the guards to tell him and the others what to do. He felt the throb of the blow he had taken to the side of his head, but he didn’t acknowledge it. He knew that the others were watching him, and he was not about to undermine the display he had just given them by showing any signs of weakness.
26
IT WAS six in the morning when Josie awoke and checked her watch. She had been back in time to put Angelo to bed, but she wouldn’t see him this morning. She showered and dressed, pulling on the uniform that her mother had ironed for her. She collected her gun belt, strapped it around her waist, and left the room. She stopped in Angelo’s bedroom on the way out of the house. He was asleep, clutching his teddy, with his bare arms and legs sticking out of the light blanket that she had covered him with last night.
She took a slug of orange juice from a carton in the refrigerator and went outside. It was already warm; the forecast on her phone suggested that it was going to be another burning hot day.
She got into her car and set off. It was thirty kilometres from Alabang to Manila, a trip that would normally have taken her an hour. But it was Independence Day, and the traffic on the Metro Manila Skyway was already dense. She was stuck in a slow-moving snarl of vehicles five kilometres from the city as the sun rose over the grasping fingers of the downtown buildings. The temperature inside the cabin almost immediately started to increase and, as she cranked the dial of the aircon to try to compensate, she found that it was barely working at all. She slammed her fist against the console and was rewarded with a pitiful puff of air and then nothing.
She groaned and wound down the windows, prepared to breathe in the smog in exchange for a little air to circulate.
MENDOZA WAS in his office.
“Morning, sir.”
He looked up and smiled at her. “Good morning, Josie. How’s Angelo?”
“He’s fine,” she said.
“And ready for today? Did you think about what I said? I’d love to take you both to the fireworks.”
“He’s too young,” she said. “Thank you for the offer, though.”
“Another time, perhaps?”
“That would be nice,” she said. She found his small talk excruciating and moved the conversation along. “Did you get it?”
“Did I get what?”
“The video. From the bar.”
She saw a flash of irritation before he shook his head. “Wasn’t working,” he said. “The owner said it hasn’t worked for weeks. There’s nothing there.”
“He didn’t say that to me,” she said. “He said—”
“I went and looked myself,” Mendoza interrupted her. “He showed me the unit in the back. It’s just there for show. But it doesn’t matter, does it? What would it have shown us? Smith said he met the girl there and we know what happened next. I don’t know why you’re so interested in it. The case is closed, Josie. It’s finished. Why are you pressing?”
“Because I don’t think it’s as straightforward as it looks.”
“I disagree.”
“Bruno—”
“No. Drop it. I don’t want to hear anything else about it. File the evidence for his trial and move on. You’re too busy to waste time on cases you’ve already solved.”
She stood in the doorway, her cheeks burning and her fists clenched, but she managed to stop herself from retorting. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
She excused herself, pulling the door closed behind her. She clenched and unclenched her fists. Mendoza was wrong. It wasn’t as simple as he thought it was. She looked right, down the corridor to her desk, but decided against it.
She turned left and started toward the way out.
She wanted to see for herself.
27
SHE GOT back in the car, pulled out and headed through Ortigas toward Poblacion. She passed the jail in Quezon, so full to overflowing that it was becoming a national embarrassment. It was where Smith would be spending his time until he was tried. She navigated the traffic, plotting a series of shortcuts until she arrived outside the Lazy Lizard. The doors were closed and, as Josie drew closer, she saw that they had been fastened with a heavy chain.
She got out of her car and approached. It was obvious that something was wrong. She put her face to the window and looked inside. The room was dark, just partially lit by the glow from th
e neon sign for Czech beer that was fixed to the wall above the bar. The chairs had been stacked upside down on the tables. There was no sign of anyone inside.
“Not opening today.”
Josie turned. The vendor who owned the banana-que stall in the street next to the bar was looking at her.
“What happened?”
“The owner.”
“What about him?”
“Dead. They said he was selling drugs. Shot him as he came out last night and left him in the street right where you’re standing.”
Josie felt sick. “Did you see it?”
“It was a man. Shot him after he locked up and then shot him when he was on the ground. Three or four shots. Then he left. No one tried to stop him.”
“Did you see his face?”
“He had pale skin. Not from around here, I think.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“You want to thank me, why not buy one of my bananas?”
“No,” she said. “I’m not hungry.”
THE TRAFFIC was dreadful, and it took two hours to cross the city to the Makabat Guesthouse. Josie parked in the lot, facing the room where the body had been found, stepped out and crossed to the office.
The door was ajar; she pushed it open and went inside. The manager, Santos, was standing in the middle of the room, his back facing her.
“Good morning,” she said.
Santos turned at the sound of her voice. “Oh,” he said. “I was about to call you again.”
She frowned. “I’m sorry? Call me again?”
“I left you a message last night.”
“I haven’t had a chance to check my messages. What is it?”
