by Mark Dawson
“A single shot of spirit. Half a glass of wine.”
She made a second jump. “I sent in a specimen that we took from a suspect,” she said. “John Smith. Could you check if that’s been tested?”
“This isn’t convenient, officer. I’ve got two autopsies to do this afternoon.”
“Please? It would be very helpful.”
The man sighed. “Hold on.”
There was a pause. Josie grabbed her car keys and left the building through the door that led out to the yard.
She was in the parking lot when the man spoke again.
“We tested his blood this morning,” he said.
“And?”
“It was clean.”
“No alcohol?”
“No,” he said. “Not a drop.”
THE HEADQUARTERS of Malate Fire Volunteer and Rescue was on Mabini Street. The squad’s two tenders were parked at the kerb and their operations were managed from two huts on opposite sides of the street. Josie parked in a space between the two bright red fire trucks and approached the nearest building. It was painted white, blue and orange, and there was a portrait of President Duterte stuck to the pane of glass in the door. Josie pushed it open and stepped inside.
“I’m looking for Andrada,” she said.
“He’s in the back. Who are you?”
“Officer Hernandez. I met him last night.”
“Stay there.”
Josie waited while the officer went back into a room at the rear of the building. When he returned, the officer that Josie had spoken to last night was with him.
“Hello, Officer,” he said.
“You remember me, Chief?”
“Sure I do. You were at the Makabat fire last night. How can I help?”
“You got anything else on it?”
“On what caused it?”
She nodded.
“We do. Come with me.”
He took her through a door that led into a yard at the back of the building. There was a wooden lean-to built against the office. He collected a large jerry can inside a clear plastic evidence sack and put it on the ground at her feet.
“We found that around the back of the office. It had gasoline inside it. Pretty obvious what happened. Someone poured it out as an accelerant and then torched the place.”
He put the can back where he had found it and headed over to a vending machine next to the office door. “You want anything?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
He reached into his pocket for change and dropped some coins into the slot.
“Are you investigating it?” he said as he collected a can of Coke.
“No,” she said. “Arson’s not really my scene.”
“Not because of the arson,” he said. “Because of the bodies.”
“What bodies?”
“You don’t know?”
She shook her head.
He popped the top of the can and took a long swig. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe the report hasn’t been processed yet.”
“What bodies?” she pressed.
“The door to the office was locked when we tried it, so we broke it down. There were two bodies inside.”
Josie swallowed hard. “Male and female?”
He nodded. “We had forensics come over right away. A man and a woman, like you say. We couldn’t tell shit, they were so badly burned up, but they were able to ID them from their teeth.”
“Oscar and Imelda Santos?”
“That’s right, Officer. The manager and his wife. They took them away and autopsied them. They’d both been shot in the head. So we’re thinking it’s obvious what happened. Someone kills them, locks the door and sets the office on fire to burn the bodies.”
“Thank you, Chief,” she said.
“You need anything else?”
“No,” she said. “That’s it.”
JOSIE DROVE back to the station and went back inside through the rear door. There was no sign of Mendoza, and, as she glanced up the corridor, she saw that his door was closed.
“Where’s the boss?” she asked Dalisay.
“Went out an hour ago,” the officer said.
Josie’s desk phone rang. She picked it up.
“Hernandez?”
It was Gloria, out in the reception. “Yes?”
“You got a visitor.”
Josie hurried along the corridor and into the reception area. Gloria pointed to the old man waiting there for her. He was pacing back and forth.
“Hello, sir,” Josie said. “I’m Officer Hernandez. You wanted to see me?”
“I have a message for you.”
“I’m sorry—I don’t know you, do I?”
“You don’t. But you want the message or not?”
The man was clearly uncomfortable in a police station.
“What is it?”
“My son, Hector, he is in Bilibid. And Hector knows another man there. Isko. And Isko says that he has a message for you from a prisoner he knows. This man is English. His name is Smith.”
Josie turned. The only person she could see was Gloria. But she wasn’t prepared to take chances.
“Come outside, please,” she said.
If the man found her suggestion odd, he did not say so. Instead, he followed her out into the broiling heat.
“What’s your name, sir?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You know Smith or you don’t? Isko said you’d know who he was.”
“I know who he is. Go on.”
“Isko says Smith wants to see you. He says he has information you need. He says you need to go there as soon as you can.”
“When did he say this?”
“I don’t know, lady. Hector called me this morning, said I had to say it was urgent. I’m just delivering the message.”
“Is there anything else?”
The man shook his head and then flinched as two officers ambled by them on their way into the station.
“Thank you,” Josie said.
The man shrugged and, without another word, turned and retreated quickly down the street.
46
MENDOZA HAD told Josie to think about Angelo, so she took him up on the suggestion. She called the station and said that his sickness was worse and that she was going to take the rest of the day off so that she could stay with him. Without allowing herself the luxury of second-guessing herself, she got into her car and drove out of the city, heading south toward Bilibid once again.
SMITH WAS waiting for her in the visiting room, but it took her a moment to recognise him. His face was bruised much worse than it had been the first time she had been here to see him. His right eye was swollen almost completely shut. There were abrasions beneath both eyes and around his nose, and his top lip had been split. The right side of his jaw was inflamed as if he had lost teeth.
She sat down opposite him.
He gestured up to his face before she had a chance to speak. “I know,” he said, the words mumbled around a swollen tongue. “I’ve made some excellent new friends.”
“You look terrible.”
“Felt better.”
She looked around the room. It wasn’t private. The guards at the door were eyeing the prisoners and their guests with sour watchfulness. Josie felt vulnerable. Mendoza was a powerful man with extensive connections, and she had no doubt that his reach extended from Manila all the way down to the prison. There was no guarantee that he wouldn’t come to hear of her visit. She was taking a risk, yet she hadn’t been able to resist it.
She tried to put that out of her mind.
“You wanted to talk to me?”
“Yes,” Smith said. “Thank you for coming.”
“What is it?”
“I know what happened to me. The murder—I can explain it now. I know what happened.”
She thought of the additional information that she had accumulated since she had seen Smith, the questions that she needed to have answered. She would wait, though, and s
ee what he had to say. “Go on.”
“There was an inmate here. His name is Fitzroy de Lacey. He’s English. Very rich and very powerful. He made his money running guns. He was released yesterday.”
“What does he have to do with you?”
“There are some things I haven’t told you. About me. I said I was on holiday.”
“And you’re not?”
“No. And my name isn’t Smith.”
“So what is it?”
“Milton. John Milton.”
“Why would you lie about that?”
“Because I don’t travel under my own name. I made enemies during my career. People like de Lacey.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ve driven two hours to get here, so I might as well indulge you. What did you used to do?”
“I was involved in the intelligence service.”
“Like a spy?”
“That would be one way to describe it.”
“You told me you were a cook.”
“Would you have believed me if I said I was a spy?”
“I don’t suppose I would.”
He spread his hands.
“And you were involved with de Lacey?”
“In a fashion. He had a big organisation. He did deals all around the world. I got into the business and found the evidence to shut him down. He was working on a deal with the communists in Manila.”
Milton—Josie was about to think of him as Smith, but caught herself—shifted in his chair and looked at her, as if gauging her reaction.
“Let’s say I buy all that,” she said. “What does de Lacey have to do with you being here?”
“He blames me for what happened to him. He framed me. He orchestrated everything, and I fell for it. He knew that I knew Jessica. I don’t know how he did it, but he arranged for her to contact me. I told you what she told me: she had a child, and she thought it was mine. I believed her, she told me to come out here, and I did. The night we met, de Lacey had her killed and he made it look like I did it. I don’t think I was drinking. It wouldn’t have been like me, but I just couldn’t remember.”
“You weren’t drinking,” she said.
“How do you know that?”
“We tested your blood. There was no trace of alcohol in yours.”
“And Jessica?”
“She had had one or two drinks.”
Milton’s relief was evident, but it was quickly supressed. “The bottles in the hotel were left there to make it look like we’d been drinking.”
“That’s a possibility.”
He shook his head. “It’s more than that. That’s exactly what happened. Whoever de Lacey got to do this made sure it looked that way. First they drugged us—my money would be on flunitrazepam because of the memory loss—and then they killed her and set me up. You said the owner of the bar was shot.”
“The same night I saw him.”
“Maybe that’s why. Maybe he had the drugs. Maybe he was a loose end. Maybe you frightened him when you went to investigate. Or maybe your going to see him frightened someone else. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise.”
One of the guards cleared his throat. She looked over at him anxiously, but he was looking the other way.
“There’s something else,” she said, leaning closer to him. “I only found out this morning. The owners of the hotel where you were staying were killed last night. I went to see them and the security footage was gone. Someone broke in and took the drive. And then I went back again and the place was on fire. They were inside. They’d been shot.”
“Someone’s cleaning up behind themselves.”
“Everything about this is wrong. The bar. The hotel. And you being moved here—that shouldn’t have happened.”
“You said your boss did that.”
“He did.”
“Then he’s involved.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she hissed. “I’ve been threatened, too. There was a car outside my mother’s apartment. They took a photo of my son coming out of school, put it in an envelope with a bullet and pushed it under the door.”
“It was him?”
“He told me I needed to be careful. He’s not subtle. I’m sure it’s him.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if de Lacey has him on his payroll. You need to be careful.”
She let her head hang. “This is getting out of control.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I have no idea.”
“I could help.”
“How are you going to do that, Milton?” she hissed. “You’re in fucking prison.”
“Then get me out.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll just go and get the rope out of my car and throw it over the wall.” She clenched her fists and fought to control herself. “I don’t know. Maybe I can dig into it. Maybe… maybe I could give you something to go to the court with. You got a lawyer?”
He shrugged. “A public defender.”
“Who is it?”
Milton frowned as he tried to remember the name he had been given. “García.”
She groaned. “Great.”
“Not good?”
“Eddie García is a drunk,” she said, before remembering that Milton was an alcoholic. “Sorry, I—”
“Forget it,” he said, waving her embarrassment away.
“And he’s corrupt. That’s worse. I could give him evidence that says there’s no way you were responsible and it’d make no difference. If this is a conspiracy, he’d just bury it.”
“So we have to think of another way.”
“Got any great ideas?”
He placed both hands on the table and looked straight at her. “There is something.”
“What?”
“If I can get out of here, I’ll be able to make progress that you can’t make.”
“What does that mean?”
“The people we’re dealing with—they don’t play by the rules. That means we can’t play by the rules either.”
“You say ‘we’—this isn’t a team, Milton.”
“Dress it up however you like. But we share the same goal. I want to fix this. And when I do, I’ll fix it for you, too.”
“It doesn’t matter what you say you can do. I can’t get you out of here.”
“Not officially. But you can still help.” He looked around. “I told you before. I need to get a message to a friend. He’d be able to help, but they won’t give me a phone call. He doesn’t know that I’m here. No one does.”
“You want me to contact him?”
“If you want to help me, that’ll be the best way.”
“And assuming I did… What could he do?”
“Could you get him in here to see me?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Probably. But what difference would it make? You’d still be here.”
“I was a soldier,” Milton said. “My friend was, too. We have the same history. The same skills.”
“You’re going to try to break out?”
“Unless you can do it another way?”
“What’s the man’s name?”
“Alex Hicks. Do you have a pen and paper?”
“No,” she said. “But I have a good memory.”
Milton recited a telephone number. “It’s an English number,” he said. “Call him. Tell him we’ve spoken. Tell him he needs to fly out here as soon as he can.”
“And he’ll do that? Just like that?”
“Hicks owes me. And he’s a good man. He’ll come.”
“And then?”
“Bring him in here to see me so we can talk.”
The clock ticked over to the hour and a buzzer sounded. “Time up,” one of the guards shouted. “All guests out—now.”
Josie tried to assert some order over the chaotic parade of thoughts that flashed through her mind. It was a mad flurry: the threats against her and Angelo; the murders at the hotel and the bar; Mendoza’s complicity; Milton’s untruths, and whether she could trust som
eone like him. She had always worked to lay down solid foundations upon which she could build for the future and now, for the first time since her husband had left her and Angelo, it felt as if those foundations were unstable. Her options seemed limited. Milton had lied to her, but, despite that, she couldn’t get away from the conclusion that he was as invested in solving this mess as she was.
It wasn’t saying much, but he was the best that she had.
“Josie?” Milton said.
She stood. “I’ll do it.”
47
MILTON WAS taken back to the cell. He walked on, conscious of the guard behind him, and wondered whether Hernandez would follow through. He realised that he was relying on her. If she didn’t deliver the message, there would be very little that he would be able to do. He knew that he stood no chance of winning his freedom at trial; she had made it very clear that the deck was stacked against him. He couldn’t even say with certainty that he would make it as far as the trial. The beatings were taking it out of him. He was at Tiny’s mercy.
He would have to try to fashion his own escape, but, despite subjecting the security arrangements to as detailed an assessment as his limited opportunities allowed, he had not discovered any serious weaknesses that he would be able to exploit on his own. He would have to ask Isko to tell him about the weakness that had been fortified, or push him to consider other weak spots that would be worthy of investigation. If worst came to worst, he would find a way to get over the wall, but, as Isko had made clear, even if he managed to get away, he would be an obvious target in an unfamiliar and hostile landscape.
He would try, but the odds would be long.
He needed help.
First, though, he needed time.
Isko was waiting for him. He was brushing his teeth with a toothbrush he kept in a cloth washbag with a cake of old soap.
“She came?”
“She did,” he said. “Thank you.”
“They came for you again,” he said. “The four of them who work for de Lacey.”
“I’m sure they’ll be back.”
“You can’t carry on like this.”
“No,” he said. He looked at the toothbrush and had an idea. “Could I borrow that?”
Wordlessly, Isko handed it over.
