“Did you try to find her?”
“I spent two weeks on the island, Ko Tao, but there was no trace. No one would help me either, they all pretended not to understand the questions I asked. There’s only a few ways off that island, so someone must have known something.” Leo paused as drinks arrived. “I’ve spent the last two years looking for her online. I set up a website, Missing People International, and that’s how your dad found me, I think.”
“You help a lot of people like this?”
“I help a lot of people through the website. I tell them where to go and who to contact, but I’ve never helped anyone like this before… or actually found them.”
“So why now?” Allissa was pushing to the heart of the issue. Leo had decided he would answer honestly – truth deserved truth.
“I lost my job.”
“What did you do?”
“I was a journalist at a local newspaper.”
“How did you lose it?”
“The editor thought I recorded a court case, got the paper into loads of trouble. It wasn’t me, it was this other guy who worked there.”
“Convenient that is, isn’t it?” Allissa said, folding her arms. She softened with the higher ground.
“What?”
“That you can do something my dad wants. Then you lose your job. Then he approaches you to help him.”
Leo hadn’t thought of it before. It was true, but Stockwell couldn’t be involved, surely?
“Why did you get blamed for filming the court case?” Allissa asked.
“I was the only person, I thought, with the social media passwords. But it turns out another guy, Callum, had got them somehow and logged in on his phone.”
Allissa looked beyond Leo and out into the square. Leo leaned forwards on his right elbow.
“Callum,” she said to herself, thoughtfully. “My brother had a friend called Callum who, last I heard, was a journalist. Dad was using him for leaking all sorts of government info, mostly lies about his rivals. Callum was doing well out of it though because it sold papers. What was his second name?”
Leo had to think. The world of Brighton, the incessant rain; the newspaper seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Martins?”
“That was it, I’m sure!”
Leo looked across the table at Allissa. For the second time in an afternoon he felt a lump grow in his throat. His breathing quickened. He took two deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself.
Could Stockwell really have arranged the whole thing? Why had he wanted a man with nothing to lose?
Leo waited a moment, calming with each breath.
“Why would he send someone who had never done this before?” he asked. “Better to send someone experienced, as he could afford to pay for it.”
“Because he’d be afraid they’d do him over. They could learn why he wanted to find me so much and then blackmail him or something.”
“Well, why would I not do that?”
“Because you’re an out-of-work journalist who’s still bitter about the loss of an ex-girlfriend.”
Allissa’s words were cutting, but Leo knew that was how people could see it.
“What’s he so scared about me knowing?” Leo said.
Allissa looked at him, straight and hard. Her voice, angry and bitter.
“What he did to my Mum.”
Chapter 59
Lights in the windows surrounding the small square clicked on as afternoon dissolved to evening. Allissa looked at the guesthouse, the top floor of the building opposite, its bright colours becoming smothered by the coming night.
With a deep breath, she looked hard at Leo across the table. She didn’t have to tell him, there was no obligation, but in a way he was a victim too.
“I found out two years ago and haven’t been back since,” Allissa said. “I can’t bear to see him. And he knows I’ll tell anyone I want, because she was my mum.”
Leo said nothing.
“As you probably know, I grew up with my father, step-mum and half-brother and sister. To be honest they’re lovely. Lucy, Archie and me used to get on so well. It was clear I was different to them, we all knew it, but it wasn’t a problem. No one was bothered. In many ways I was very lucky, I went to great schools and had good friends – I’d never really wanted for anything.” Allissa paused, finished her drink and signalled for another, asking this time for a beer.
“I knew that Eveline wasn’t my mother. They’d told me that from a very young age. I assumed, when I was old enough to, that Dad had an affair with my Mother, then after my mum died, I came to live with them. That wasn’t the whole story though… I used to ask Dad about my Mum, and he used to tell me things. But soon I realised that Eveline, my step-Mum, didn’t like it, so I stopped. When Dad and I were alone together, though, I’d ask. He’d only tell me little things, but to me they were so important. All I really know about her is from those moments.
“She was from Kenya – they met while Dad was over there. He had to go a few times and they struck up a relationship. He can be pretty charming by all accounts. He gave me a photo of her. She was a beautiful, tall, elegant woman with this incredible smile. In one picture she’s standing with other people; they must be my relatives, I just don’t know who. He told me, what I believed for so long, that she’d gone back to Kenya to see some family and while she was there, she had an accident and died. That was a lie.”
Beers arrived at the table and Allissa took a long drink. Her eyes began to sparkle. Leo said nothing but leaned forward, listening.
“Then, one evening, things weren’t going well at uni. I got in an argument with someone, I can’t remember who now, but I went home. I just needed to get some space. I let myself into the house as I normally would – no one was home. Lucy and Archie were away, too. After a while, hearing Dad and Eveline come in, I went down the stairs to tell them I was back, surprise them. It sounds stupid now. From outside the door to the kitchen I heard them talking. Something in their voices made me stop and listen…”
* * *
“You’re doing it again, aren’t you?” Eveline says, her voice raspy, angry, violent.
Stockwell doesn’t reply.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you? I know you’ve been doing it… but why?”
Silence.
“Didn’t you have enough of that last time?” Eveline continues – she’s shouting, now.
“Well I sorted it last time, didn’t I?” Stockwell says, finally, his voice a whisper.
“You sorted it? You sorted it? We’ve been stuck with the result of it every day. Everyone can see it. Everyone knows. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t even say she was mine. And now you’re at it again.”
“Don’t say that about our daughter,” Stockwell answers, his voice rising.
“Your precious daughter! Does she know what you did to her mother because you were so desperate to be a family? Does she? Let’s see how much she loves her dad when she does. I’ll call her right now…” She reaches for a mobile phone on the kitchen counter. “I’ll call her right now. And then we’ll see how much she wants to be your daughter!”
“Give me the phone,” Stockwell commands, taking a step towards his wife.
“No, we’ll sort this out now.”
Stockwell makes a grab for the phone. Eveline moves out of his way twice, but on the third time he overpowers her. He’s twice her size. She loses balance and falls into a cabinet of painted china. The sound of breaking plates hangs in the air.
“She needs to know at what cost this family is built.” Eveline’s voice is venomous. “How you waited for her mother to be out of the country, had one of your Home Office mates reject her visa renewal and then had her held at the airport. Two days she waited at Heathrow. All she wanted was to see her daughter, but she couldn’t even do that. You had them put her on the next plane back.”
“You need to stop talking now.” Stockwell’s voice is a rumble.
“Then, as if
that wasn’t enough, you got the courts to take the poor baby from her relatives. Because you wanted that, too.”
“Shut up, shut up!”
The sound of broken glass.
“And I’m just supposed to be okay with that? Just accept that?”
The sound of a fist.
Gasping for air.
Another fist.
A stifled scream.
A door slams.
* * *
Leo watched Allissa wipe a napkin across her face; he felt as though he’d not taken a breath in minutes.
“The man’s a monster,” Allissa said. “Eveline was taken into hospital that evening. They said it was a riding accident. They never knew I’d been back.”
“And this is the guy I’ve been trying to help,” Leo said, feeling responsible for the pain of the woman opposite. “I’d never have taken his money if I’d known…”
“That’s not all,” Allissa said, their eyes meeting across the table, jewels sparking in her eyelashes. “After hearing that, I knew I had to try and find her. It had given me hope, such hope that she might still be alive. I knew that if she was in Kenya, I could find her. It took me a few days to find my auntie living in London. I’d stayed with her when I was little, until he took me. There were photos of me as a baby on their walls.”
Allissa stifled a sob with a draught of beer.
“My auntie told me what happened. For five years my Mum had tried to get back to me. She spent every penny she had on it, but nothing helped. Every application was rejected. Every time one of her relatives tried to get near me, his security was on hand. She knew I was there, and she couldn’t get to me. After five years of trying, penniless, without hope, she was killed in a protest. She wasn’t even attending – wrong place, wrong time, my auntie told me, all those years later. Because of that man, that man.”
Allissa’s body shook with grief. She wrapped her arms across her chest and closed her eyes tight. Leo moved around the table and pulled her sobbing head towards him. He didn’t know the girl, she didn’t know him, but he was there, he was involved.
“Let’s get out of here,” Allissa said when the tears had subsided minutes later, “I need a drink and a change of scene.”
Chapter 60
Half an hour later, Leo and Allissa walked into the sepia glow of the restaurant with the Chinese lanterns. At the tables, drinkers and diners chatted noisily about past adventures while relentless waiters replenished food and drinks.
As Leo led Allissa to the back of the restaurant where he’d sat the previous night, he explained that Jack and Tau may join them later. Sitting opposite each other, Allissa ordered two beers from a passing waiter.
“What brought you to Kathmandu?” Leo asked, the hubbub of the restaurant losing focus around them. They’d talked a lot on the journey, where they’d grown up, where they’d been, where they wanted to go.
“I was travelling through, like most people,” Allissa said. “I worked my way up through India, making it up as I went along. The only thing I knew was that I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t really like it at first, but one afternoon I got talking to a group of people who were here working for a charity,” Allissa explained, telling of her trip out to the remote villages of Nepal, returning with the idea of setting up the guesthouse.
As beers arrived they both paused to drink.
“I like how you’ve used money your dad gave you to do something so good,” Leo said. “There’s an irony there.”
“Yeah, he may be a monster, but he is very rich. He’d given me a trust fund which I knew was worth a lot of money. I had Lucy transfer it for me and got the guesthouse. The girls used to be victims, now they’re business people.”
Leo got the impression, watching Allissa pause to drink, that there was more to it than that.
“We’re getting there,” Allissa said. “The place is finally together now, the girls know what they’re doing and the first few guests have arrived. I’m not sure they even need me.”
Allissa stopped, letting the words rest.
“It’s such a good thing,” Leo said, catching Allissa’s eye.
“Yeah, it’s gone really well.”
“Don’t the police or authorities do anything for these girls, though?”
“Yes, well, they are getting better,” Allissa replied. “They used to just ignore the problem – there’s a massive stigma attached to it in Nepalese society. They would brush it under the carpet, leaving the girls with nowhere to go. Although in the last few months they’ve really started to crack down. A couple of men from the gangs got long prison sentences last year. Hopefully that’s made an example to those still doing it.”
Leo nodded.
“It’s started to make a difference to the girls. That’s the important thing. Just the idea that the authorities care about them. It’s reduced their shame.”
Looking beyond Allissa and across the restaurant, Leo watched the lanterns swing in the thick evening air. The thunder had stopped, but pressure in the air prophesied its return, maybe making it to the city later.
Leo’s eyes were drawn to the door, the beads swinging open as Jack walked in. Leo waved him over. Jack’s expression showed confusion by the presence of a woman in the chair opposite.
“This is Allissa,” Leo said as Jack reached the table.
“Hey, you found her!” Jack replied, taking her hand lightly and then sliding into the seat next to Leo. Allissa smiled back in greeting.
“That wasn’t too difficult, was it?” Jack said. “Leo told us he was looking for you a couple of nights ago,” appeasing Allissa’s confused look.
“I don’t know what all the fuss was about,” Leo said, smiling too and telling how he and Tau had found Allissa, leaving out the details of their conversations since.
“Good work,” Jack said. “I knew you’d do it. Does it make you feel important to have people out looking for you?”
Allissa had no time to reply as an Australian voice punctured their conversation.
“Alright guys, mind if I join ya?”
Chapter 61
“He’d always be having these meetings,” came the voice of Ann Bailey, Stockwell’s old housekeeper from Green’s mobile phone. “They’d be shut up inside his office for hours. All sorts of important people would come and go, some of them with security guards and everything. When…”
The voice was interrupted mid-sentence by the phone ringing, vibrating loudly on the table top in Green’s home office. Green sighed and reached for it to cancel the call; he didn’t need disturbing tonight.
Seeing the editor’s name flashing on the screen, he answered with excitement instead.
“Green,” the editor said, without waiting. “Got something for you.”
This relationship wasn’t right , Green thought, he was supposed to be the one feeding the newspaper information, not the other way around. Although he couldn’t complain at the assistance.
“As you know I’ve put a team on this, I think it’s going to blow up in a big way,” the editor said, not waiting for Green’s response. “It’s a bugger we can’t do a bit of phone tapping, that would blow this thing right open. Bastards like Stockwell are loving it. Anyway, we’re still good to do a bit of old-fashioned pursuit. We’ve had a couple of lads tailing him and the arsehole’s been stopping at a village phone box near where he lives. What does he think this is, the Cold War? Well, there’s no law about having a listen into that, not that I’m aware of anyway, it’s basically public property. I’ve got a few calls you’d be interested in hearing, I’ll send them over now. Call me back when you’ve listened.”
Green pulled his laptop from the bag on the floor beside him, shoved aside his notes and opened it on the table. The e-mail was already waiting in his inbox. Clicking on the attachment, a fuzzy recording started to play.
“I need you to do something,” came a voice, echoing in what Green assumed was the phone box. It took a couple of seconds for Green to realise it was S
tockwell himself.
“I’ll arrange for her to be taken there, yes. You’ll do everything else, yes?”
Then after a pause.
“Yes, she’s already in Kathmandu.”
Green turned the volume up to max, straining to hear the voice on the line through the hum.
“It’ll be tonight or tomorrow, you need to look out for her,” Stockwell boomed from the laptop’s speakers.
“I need to know you’ll do everything, there can’t be any loose ends.”
“A woman in her late-twenties,” he continued after a pause, “mixed-race. I’m not sure who she’ll be with but I don’t care about them. Do what you like.”
“Right, sure.”
It sounded as though Stockwell was writing something down.
“You’ll get your money, call me when it’s done.”
Chapter 62
“I see you’ve got a space,” the Australian voice continued, calling the attention of the three towards its owner. “This place is pretty busy, mind if I join ya?”
“Yeah, no problem mate,” said Jack, indicating the empty seat next to Allissa. Beers had arrived and the three were going through them quickly.
“I’m Miles,” the stranger said, offering a thick, tanned hand around the table.
Leo watched him closely, feeling a strange sting of recognition which he forced into a smile before taking the bear-like hand.
“What are you doing in Kathmandu, Miles?” Jack asked, after the introductions called for a change in conversation.
“Living the dream, mate,” said the Australian with a laugh.
“What do you think of the place?” Jack asked.
“It’s not as good as last time.”
“When was that?”
“1978,” Miles said as his beer arrived. “I was twenty, younger than you guys I’d say. Living in South London at the time. Me and my brother bought a van. It already had about a hundred thousand miles on it. Yellow and rusty as hell. But my brother knew a bit about engines, and he fixed it up nice. I painted it. We got mattresses in the back, sleeping bags, and one morning we set off. We were on the ferry to Calais at eight forty-five.”
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