Bitter Sweet

by Mason N. Forbes

  ‘Another thing,’ he said. ‘Don’t at any stage mention the word escort. The prosecution will do that, make them look bad by association; they’ll use the word often enough. You must remain the charming student.’

  ‘And what,’ I said, ‘if I’m asked why the rescued girls won’t testify?’

  ‘That’s good; the rescued girls. Be positive, the prosecution is the negative. Always stick to the truth, as far as possible. They’ve been trafficked into the country. Those responsible are still at large. The girls fear for their own safety and that of their families at home.’

  Wow, life as an escort had been one of always being positive, but with a heck of a lot of lies and deflections. I was rapidly adjusting to the truth game.

  ‘I thought the jury is supposed to decide based upon the evidence?’

  ‘That’s the theory,’ Oscar said. ‘Reality is otherwise. The members of the jury are often unable to stop their opinions and prejudices from interfering with their judgement. This is all down to winning their hearts and minds. They must see you as Tina Thompson the student, and not as Nina the escort.’ Oscar smiled and winked at me. ‘What you wear we’ll decide later.’

  I put my hands over my forehead. If the jury didn’t believe me? I looked at my phone, tempted to give Paul a text, asking what the heck was keeping him.

  ‘This is all a bit like flipping a coin,’ I said. ‘It goes up in the air spinning, spinning – heads or tails. It’s all a matter of swaying the jury. The law, the courts and the police become meaningless. ’

  ‘Meaning is only an idea.’ Oscar pointed at the wall of books. ‘On Wednesday all the ideas contained in those law books take on concrete reality. The court is like a board game with all the pieces set out to play their role. A game in which your liberty is at stake, a high-stakes game, one of cunning and wit.’

  Oscar looked at his watch. ‘When we are finished, if you like, we can go to one of the pubs where the legal fraternity meet up for a drink on a Friday evening—’

  ‘A drink?’

  Oscar laughed. ‘All right, a few drinks. There, they’ll be laughing and joking, and had you been in court a few hours before you’d have sworn some of them were the bitterest of enemies.’

  My phone rang. Yes, it was Paul. ‘Have you got a name?’ I asked.

  I thanked him, ended the call and looked at Mike and Oscar in turn. ‘Jeff Fletcher. He retired about a year ago.’ I closed my eyes. ‘He now lives in Spain, near Gibraltar. That’s all that Paul could find out.’

  Oscar lifted the phone and dialled. ‘Eileen,’ he said, ‘before you go, I need you to urgently trace Detective Jeff Fletcher, retired and now lives in Spain somewhere close to Gibraltar.’

  Oscar put the phone down and looked at his watch. ‘She’ll do the best she can, it’s almost five. We have a few contacts for tracing people but I don’t know what they can accomplish over the weekend.’

  ‘Someone,’ I said, ‘will have to go and talk to Jeff. I can’t, I’ve no passport.’

  ‘I’ll phone him as soon as we’ve tracked him down.’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘It’s too important. It has to be face to face. He must know how crucial it is.’

  ‘He’s a long shot, anyway.’

  ‘He might be the only shot if the jury goes against me.’ I had already dismissed the idea of Mike going, although he’d offer to go. It had to be Ivonne. She might be able to charm the man into talking, and maybe he’d sense the gravity of the situation coming from her. ‘As soon as we get an address Ivonne goes, complete with the prosecution file and a letter from you, Oscar.’

  ‘Done,’ Oscar said. ‘You never know, if Jeff reads the file he might see a chance to revenge himself.’ Oscar sat upright. ‘I’ll have Eileen type up a letter of introduction and organise a copy of the file.’

  I winked at Mike and then looked at Oscar. ‘Who’s buying?’

  ‘My pleasure,’ Oscar said with a grin. Mike shook his head, smiling.

  I was feeling rebellious. I wanted to see the reactions on the faces of Oscar’s fellow lawyers as he stood me a drink.

  44

  Every internet search for Jeff Fletcher drew a blank. I supposed people who’d retired to Spain weren’t of the internet generation.

  I met up with Ivonne on Saturday and she agreed to fly out on the first available plane.

  The rest of the weekend was one of hoping for a call from Oscar, telling me that Jeff Fletcher had been found, and nervous inactivity – there was nothing to do. Even what I was to wear on Wednesday had been agreed with Oscar; jeans, a plain top and maybe a cardigan or something similar. Under no circumstances, in view of the likely media interest and more specifically the jury, was I in any way to look tarted up.

  First thing on Monday morning, I went to my bedsit, and with the help of a couple of the guys in the house carted all my stuff down and into my car. Since I would no longer need the bedsit, either I’d be moving away, or God forbid, be found guilty and be spending time at Her Majesty’s discretion, I had cancelled the lease.

  Just as the last carton was loaded on to the back seat, a Ford Mondeo cruised past and came to a halt. I saw the driver grab something from the passenger seat. I didn’t wait and jumped into my car. As I went to close the door, a camera flashed. Shit, now the press had the make of car and the number plate. Worse still, I could already see the photo of the heartless tart driving off in a BMW. The jury would see the photo and it wouldn’t exactly sync with Tina the student.

  It was already eleven o’clock and no phone call had come from Eileen. Back in the apartment, I checked for emails, maybe Eileen hadn’t been able reach me because a phone mast wasn’t working. There were no emails.

  Next, I updated the table of flights to the Gibraltar area. I’d made the assumption that Jeff lived somewhere between Malaga to the east of Gibraltar and, considering the inaccurate description, Faro on the Portuguese side. This had given me a list of four airports; Seville, Jerez, Malaga and Faro. The latter two had the most frequent flights from UK airports that could be reached within an hour’s drive.

  All of the remaining flights for Monday still had capacity. The last flight of the day was at 6pm. Okay, there was a flight at 8pm out of Gatwick. However, it would be a hard drive to make that flight, if we overshot the 6pm flight. And even if Ivonne made one of those flights, would she be able to approach Jeff so late at night – the Gatwick flight landed, local time, at midnight.

  I had Ivonne’s passport number and all the other relevant details at hand, ready to make the booking.

  By two o’clock I was fighting the constant urge to nibble at my fingers. I was clock watching and struggling not to pick up the phone and contact Eileen. The call would come. Oscar had told me that a private detective, with contacts in Spain, had been engaged to trace Jeff Fletcher with the utmost expediency.

  At three o’clock, I was sitting on the sofa with my back and shoulders curled with tension.

  My brain then clicked into action. Did Ivonne have enough credit on her phone or did her calling plan allow for unhindered pan-European use? I phoned her to check and asked if she had everything ready for an immediate departure. She told me to stop fussing and gabbling and that she was in a taxi headed to my place. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I checked the time, damn; there were only two planes left and the Gatwick option. And in less than an hour’s time the rush-hour traffic would begin.

  I went over to my laptop and brought up a website with traffic updates. On another browser, I opened up a maps site and gave in Gatwick airport as the destination. It was almost all motorway with an estimated journey time of two hours.

  I subtracted the journey time, and half an hour to allow for check-in, passport control and boarding. The call would have to come in by six o’clock.

  Shit, by that time the chambers would be closed for the day. A flight, first thing on Tuesday morning would put Ivonne at a huge disadvantage. The first of Tuesday’s flights landed in Malaga at 10am
. If Jeff had gone fishing for the day, or whatever, she’d miss catching him in the morning and would have to wait the whole day. That didn’t bear thinking of; Jeff needed to be on a plane to the UK, tomorrow, Tuesday.

  I phoned Eileen. Before I could ask any questions, she told me that the private detective hadn’t yet phoned. Then I told her what I was thinking and the deadlines. She gave me the man’s name and telephone number, but told me not to phone, she’d do that and instruct him to phone me directly the moment he had traced Jeff Fletcher.

  The intercom buzzed; it was Ivonne. She came in and gave me a big hug, just what I needed. Coffee and making sure that she had everything she needed, including the copy of the prosecutor’s file and the letter from Oscar brought us up to four o’clock.

  There was a flight at five, but I needed half an hour to get to the airport and by a quarter past four, I struck that flight from the list. The next and last flight, bar the Gatwick option, had a take-off time of 6pm – slap bang in the rush-hour traffic which meant there was no leeway for any hold ups.

  Unable to contain myself any longer, I phoned Eileen. She told me that she had spoken to the private detective, had given him my phone number and had confirmed that he would phone me directly. I pressed for any more information. Eileen attempted to calm my nerves; the detective himself was awaiting a call from Spain and was confident of tracing Jeff Fletcher by the end of the day.

  The end of the day!

  I thanked Eileen and told Ivonne.

  ‘Mañana,’ she said.

  ‘That’s a cliché.’

  ‘Clichés are based on the truth.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to accept that one. I’m booking you on the 8pm Gatwick flight.’

  45

  At five thirty I’d had enough of being cooped up in the apartment unable to do anything and decided to take Ivonne to Gatwick airport. With the decision made, I berated myself for not having decided to put her on a plane earlier. Okay, we didn’t know if Jeff lived in the Gibraltar area, but at least if Ivonne was in Malaga she could react quickly.

  Getting out of the city was slow and frustrating – stop-start traffic and a wave of red lights. Once on the motorway, I immediately took the outside lane and wound the speed up and watched the miles on the navigation app on my phone erode.

  Not accustomed to driving on the motorways at that time of the day, I was shocked as the traffic began to slow five miles in advance of the indicated road works. The traffic almost ground to a halt, only to surge forward reaching fifty-miles-per-hour. This pattern of stop and surge, repeated itself ad nauseam. With mounting irritation, I watched the comfort zone on the satnav of my phone diminish.

  Three lanes reduced to two at the road works and, once that occurred, the traffic flowed more smoothly. I stayed in the outside lane and with every opportunity tailgated the cars in front, attempting to force them into the inside lane.

  Clear of the road works and, with the time to Gatwick exactly matching that projected by the satnav, I floored it. My adrenalin began to flow and my top stuck to my body under the arms as I tried to maintain a constant one-hundred-miles-per-hour whilst keeping a sharp lookout for police-patrol vehicles.

  The satnav showed the time buffer increasing. The half way point came and went. The next road works were coming up and I was forced to bring the speed back down to seventy. Two miles short and I was down to fifty. The time buffer was just holding. I entered the road works – a brand new road surface. Jeez, there wasn’t any work going on, it was all finished, but the speed restrictions were still in place. The traffic flowed smoothly, but not fast enough. I went back to tailgating the cars in front of me.

  At the sight of the first average speed camera, I eased the speed back. A real sneaky system, but I knew the car’s speedometer overestimated the speed – it would have to, otherwise everyone caught speeding would sue the manufacturers. I reckoned with the built-in tolerance and that allowed by the cameras, it would be safe enough to hover just over the sixty mark.

  We went into the road works with a twenty minute buffer and came out with a ten minute one.

  The phone rang; I didn’t recognise the number. Totally focused on driving, I’d forgotten about the private detective. The man’s voice came through the car’s speakers. Yes, he’d done it. Jeff Fletcher existed and with an address on the Spanish side of the Rock.

  ‘Mañana, or what?’ I said to Ivonne.

  She stuck her tongue out.

  With a sense of relief, I put the foot down.

  Two-thirds of the way and ten miles short of the M25 London orbital, the satnav warned me of an accident.

  ‘Oh shit!’ I said, but kept the speed up. ‘Ivonne can you get that thing,’ I pointed at the phone, ‘to give us an alternative route?’

  The traffic started to bunch up. I was forced to slow to seventy. In my peripheral vision, I watched Ivonne operate the satnav – the options didn’t look good.

  ‘If we can get to that junction,’ she said, holding her finger over the screen, ‘we can circle around and join the M25.’

  ‘But,’ I said, ‘we’ve got to reach that junction.’

  ‘That’s your job.’

  The traffic continued to slow. I looked nervously at the satnav. Two miles short of the junction, my foot stayed on the brake pedal – standstill.

  ‘Ivonne, what’s worse; going to jail for a crime you didn’t commit because you failed to reach a witness in time, or breaking the law by driving along the hard shoulder?’

  ‘That’s a pretty stupid question.’

  I put on the indicator, and forced my way across two lanes of traffic on to the hard shoulder.

  After thirty excruciating minutes of a detour, we joined the M25. The time buffer was now minus ten minutes. Either I had to make up the lost time, or hope that Ivonne could check-in, clear passport control and board in twenty minutes. There was no way I wanted her arriving in Malaga at around eleven in the morning and having to cover some one hundred miles to where Jeff lived. She had to be on his doorstep first thing in the morning.

  Gripping the steering wheel firmly, I rammed my foot down and the speedometer rapidly reached the one-hundred-and-ten mark. At that speed, I knew I could make up the time.

  As we approached the southwest sector of the M25, my speed was reduced by three solid lanes of traffic. I tailgated, flashed my lights and hooted the horn, forcing cars out of the way.

  The time buffer increased from minus ten minutes to minus seven as we approached the junction to the M23. It was seven-twenty-seven pm and I had three minutes to cover ten miles.

  I put the hazard lights on and the headlights to high beam. At one hundred and ten, the first five miles disappeared rapidly. I pumped the horn, flashed the lights and swore blindly at any car that even seemed to be in my way.

  With two miles to go, I spotted the police Land Rover Discovery. Too late; he’d seen me coming.

  ‘Ivonne get ready to jump out and run.’ I tilted my head to the left. ‘The police.’

  I kept going – no blue lights or sirens, yet.

  The signpost for Gatwick airport came up. I checked the rearview mirror. Shit, blue lights flashing. The siren started.

  Exit half a mile. I put on the left-hand indicator, but didn’t slow down. The Land Rover Disco was coming at me hard. I surged across the two inner lanes racing for the exit. I selected third gear and raced up the ramp. Roundabout at the top. I scanned right; there was a gap. I tapped the brakes adjusting my speed and shot on to the roundabout doing seventy. I braked hard and leaned my body into the right-hand bend, accelerating. The electronics kicked in, stopping the back tyres from losing their grip.

  I came out of the roundabout doing eighty. Signpost – next roundabout less than a mile. I checked my mirrors; the Disco hadn’t closed the gap – two and a half tons doesn’t corner well. I pressed down on the accelerator. Three lanes heading into the roundabout. I hogged the outer one. I touched the brakes and flew across the roundabout on to Airport
Way. I tramped down on the accelerator. Hell, car in the way – horn and lights. I was holding my own against the police Disco.

  Next roundabout.

  ‘Which way?’

  ‘There,’ Ivonne said, pointing.

  I took the second exit and eased up on the speed. A left-hand bend and then a right. I slowed going up the ramp to the departures area. The police Disco closed up behind me. I turned right and drew to a halt outside the terminal.

  ‘You’d better run.’

  Ivonne grinned, grabbed her bag and opened the door.

  I opened my door.

  Two policemen were walking towards us.

  ‘On three,’ Ivonne said.

  I frowned. ‘Suppose so.’

  We both got out of the car.

  Ivonne hefted her bag and smiled at the cops. ‘Sorry boys,’ she said. ‘I’ve gotta fly.’

  I cringed.

  Ivonne turned and started to run; she was wearing skinny-cut jeans. The two cops couldn’t help themselves; their eyebrows went up and their mouths parted.

  The older cop grinned and shook his head.

  It cost me a speeding ticket. Thankfully, they hadn’t clocked me doing one hundred. They didn’t do me for failing to stop – something about the cameras in the Land Rover not functioning. I didn’t know what they meant and I didn’t ask.

  46

  Ivonne texted me with constant updates. She’d made the flight, it had arrived on time in Malaga, she’d hired a car, driven down to Torreguardiaro, had checked Jeff’s address and had found a hotel for the remaining few hours of the night.

  I gave her a wake-up call, just to be sure. She went to Jeff’s apartment at eight o’clock and rang the bell. Jeff’s wife answered. At first she was reticent talking to a six feet tall blond. Ivonne used her charm and the woman opened up.

  Jeff Fletcher, to supplement his pension worked as a tour guide. He wasn’t due back until late afternoon. Ivonne could not go chasing after the bus; it was on a tour in the Sierra Nevada National Park – it would take four hours to get there and four to get back.