Harm

by Hugh Fraser

The cicadas suddenly fall silent, as if impressed by the information.

  ‘I am sorry for what happened to the car of the minister before.’

  ‘Do you know who did it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Another organisation that Gonzales was receiving money from, that had been attacked by the army.’

  ‘Like you?’

  ‘Yes. The difference is that they want it to be known that they have killed him so that the next one they bribe will play ball and protect them. I do not. That is why I send you to take out Gonzales quietly.’

  ‘So how do you get the next one to play ball?’

  ‘I give him money wrapped in the face of Gonzales.’

  As I consider the undeniable pragmatism of the strategy, a familiar figure approaches carrying a tray.

  Juanita smiles at me as she puts the drinks on the table and says, ‘Good evening, Señorita.’

  ‘Hello, Juanita,’ I reply.

  Manuel says, ‘Señorita Walker has returned and I think will be staying with us.’

  He looks inquiringly at me. ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘Please make her comfortable.’

  ‘Si, señor.’

  Juanita bobs a curtsey and returns to the house. I take a sip of whisky and listen to the warm breeze riffling the leaves of the palm trees.

  After a while Manuel says, ‘So. You do not drive all this way to have drink by the pool, I think.’

  I turn and look at the guards lounging against the wall of the house. Manuel signals to them to leave us and they walk away.

  I let a few moments pass before I say, ‘My late associates left behind some unfinished business.’

  ‘I understood they came here to kill a man.’

  ‘And buy a million dollars’ worth of cocaine.’

  Manuel sips his drink, looks at me and says, ‘And you wish to complete this business?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have the money?’

  ‘I know where it is.’

  ‘Here in Mexico?’

  ‘El Paso.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I need you to get the coke over the border and meet me there.’

  ‘I see.’

  Manuel looks thoughtful. As he raises his glass to his lips, a burst of machine gun bullets rip holes in the paving stones in front of us. Manuel pitches forward into the pool. I throw myself onto the ground. The water in the pool turns red. Bursts of gunfire and shouts come from inside and around the house. Hands grab each of my arms and legs, carry me face down across the grass into the house, and throw me into a chair. The muzzle of a machine gun wavers inches from my face. Guido leers behind it, shaking with rage.

  ‘No Manuel no more, gringo bitch. I the king! I the boss! No Manuel, no Carmela, I Guido! I the top now!’

  I can see four or five guards standing behind him with AKs and machine guns, and three dead guards on the floor. Guido stands back from me and raps an order to a couple of the guards. They grab me and take me through the door into the entrance hall. There are bursts of gunfire from above and outside the house as one of them unlocks a door at the back of the hall and we go down a flight of stairs to a dimly lit passageway with metal doors leading off it. A door is unlocked and I am pushed into a dark room. The door shuts behind me and I struggle to see anything at all in front of me.

  As my eyes become accustomed, I see a large, low-ceilinged room bathed in a dim orange light with another room leading off it. Four or five shadowy figures are sitting or lying on beds that line the walls, along with various chests and cupboards. They look up at me with varying degrees of interest and I see that they are all young women. One of them is holding a baby at her breast. Another comes in from the adjoining room holding a bowl of something hot. She glances at me, sits beside the one with the baby and offers the bowl to her. I linger by the door, take in the listless atmosphere and breathe the faintly perfumed air.

  A slender girl rises from a bed in the far corner and comes towards me. She has long black hair, olive skin and dark eyes that have a ghostly faraway look. She wears a short white silk shift and I guess that she is about twenty.

  She takes my hand, leads me to a bed and motions me to sit down. She settles next to me and says, ‘You are American?’

  ‘English.’

  ‘I am Pilar. What is your name?’

  ‘Rina.’

  One of the other women, a slim teenager with auburn hair, moves closer to look at me.

  Pilar says, ‘Why have they put you here?’

  ‘I was captured.’

  She nods and looks around at the others. ‘As are all of us.’

  ‘For a long time?’ I ask.

  ‘Some of us long time, others not.’

  ‘For Manuel?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I feel a wave of revulsion, and then joy as I remember that he is lying at the bottom of his swimming pool with bullet holes in his silk shirt. I want to know these girls’ stories, but this is no time for conversation.

  I say, ‘You know he is dead?’

  She is suddenly alert. ‘What you say?’

  ‘Manuel has been shot.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘About ten minutes ago.’

  She repeats the news and all the girls surround us. Pilar puts her arm round the one holding the baby and I can see that it is tiny and has its eyes tightly closed. Its mother looks about fifteen years old and none of the other girls seem much older.

  Pilar looks at me and says, ‘What has happened?’

  I relate the sequence of events to Pilar, who appears to be the mother hen, and she translates for the others. They react to Guido’s name with revulsion and then talk animatedly for a while, before gradually subsiding into a morose silence and drifting back to their beds.

  I look at Pilar and ask, ‘What were they saying?’

  ‘They are glad Manuel is dead, but they think that Guido is worse.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘We will see.’

  I look around for a means of escape. There must be an air supply to underground rooms like these. I go through the door behind the beds and find a bathroom with a stove and a refrigerator and a table in one corner. There are shelves stocked with tinned food and a metal grill in the ceiling above the table. I go over to take a closer look and see a ventilation shaft inside the grill, which looks just wide enough to crawl along. The sound of distant gunfire reminds me that if Guido has killed most of Manuel’s armed guards, security will be disorganised, but not for long. I stand on the table and inspect the grill.

  Pilar comes over and says, ‘It will not open. We have tried.’

  I take off my belt and loop it over one of the metal cross pieces. I grip the belt, pull down hard and the metal bends a little. Pilar joins me on the table and takes hold of the belt higher up. We pull together and the frame of the grill squeaks in protest. Some of the other girls come to see what’s happening and one of them climbs up and adds her weight to the belt. We swing in mid-air, like some overweight trapeze act, until the remaining girls push the table away, put their arms round our waists and pull. There is a clang as the grill breaks free of the ceiling and we collapse in a heap on the floor. The grill lands on top of us in a shower of plaster and brick dust.

  I roll out of the melée, get to my feet and brush the dust from my hair. The baby starts crying in the other room. The faces around me are now alight with excitement and anticipation. I put my belt back on, retrieve the table, stand on it and put my head into the mouth of the shaft. I can see that it climbs gently for a couple of yards and then levels off. It is just big enough to get along by lying flat and using elbows and forearms for traction. Some light is creeping along it, which indicates other hatches along the way and a possible exit.

  I say to Pilar, ‘Wait here while I take a look.’

  Pilar nods, gets onto the table and makes her hands into a stirrup. I place my foot in it and climb into the shaft. I pull myself
up the initial gradient and onto the flat run. A welcome current of air envelops me and I see that the length of the shaft is punctuated by three grills that look similar to the one I have entered by. Light shines into the shaft from the two furthest away. I slither towards the first one, cross over it and see nothing but darkness below.

  I crawl to the second grill and look over the edge. Racks of rifles and machine guns line the walls of the room below. Cases of grenades are stacked on tables next to rows of hand guns. A long white cabinet that looks like a deep freezer lies against the wall beside the door.

  I make my way to the next grill and look down. A black plastic box with a dial on the front, which could be a radio but for the electrodes dangling from its sides, stands on a table next to a stretcher with leather straps buckled across it. There are chains and manacles bolted to the walls of the cell along with various hooks and spikes. A chainsaw lies in a corner next to an electric drill.

  I move on and wonder what other facilities this corridor might have to offer in addition to a harem, an arsenal and a torture chamber. I reach the end of the straight section, manoeuvre myself around a tight right-hand bend and come up against a metal grill with a fan turning slowly behind it. Beyond it is daylight and the trunk of a palm tree.

  I shake the grill. It is absolutely solid and of much heavier construction than the one the girls and I ripped apart. I look at the welded edges and conclude that there is no way through it. I make my way backwards, finally reaching the grill above the armoury, which I can see is bolted to the rim of the hatch from inside the shaft. I try to loosen the bolt nearest to me, but it is rusted in and will not shift. The one to my left is loose and unscrews easily, as does the one furthest away. The one to my right is more obstinate but finally gives way. I move back and as I bend the grill up and towards me it snaps off at the edge. I drop it through the opening into the cell, ease myself down after it and land on the floor.

  As I am surveying the array of guns, I hear movement in the shaft above, and Pilar’s head appears. She jumps down from the hatch and is followed by three other girls. The last one to land reaches up to the hatch and a small bundle is lowered into her outstretched arms. The bundle gives a faint squeak as its mother drops through the hatch, takes it in her arms and gives me a sheepish smile. A tiny hand emerges from the bundle and reaches up towards her face.

  I say to Pilar, ‘I told you to wait.’

  ‘We have been waiting for years.’ Pilar brings the mother and baby to me and says, ‘This is Paloma and Tomas.’

  I look at the baby’s pink little face and think of Jack when he was first born. He snuffles in his sleep and I want to hold him, then I remind myself that this is not the time to be cuddling babies. Pilar names the other three girls as Lucía, Adriana and María and we exchange nods and smiles.

  While the girls look around the cell and take in the grenades and the weaponry, I check out the lock on the door and find it solid and heavy duty and unlikely to give way to a blast from an AK 47, which would be dangerous anyway because of the ricochet. I check the armoury and find plenty of ammunition for the AKs. I search the boxes of grenades and handguns and then open the freezer. Gold bars and bundles of thousand dollar bills are stacked next to a padlocked metal box. I put the box on the floor and smash the padlock with a rifle butt. I feel excitement mounting as I open it and find waxed paper packages with the familiar words Polar Ajax stamped on them. I have found a store of good old fashioned gelignite, which will blow the door open nicely if only I can find a detonator. I get Pilar and the girls to open the remaining boxes, but find nothing but more grenades and guns.

  I am about to give up when I notice a small canvas bag at the back of one of the gun racks. I open it and find two aluminium detonators with fuses attached and a battery operated one that is shaped like a twelve bore cartridge. If we can find some matches we are in business.

  ‘Pilar, can you see any matches?’ I ask.

  ‘There are matches in our cell,’ she replies. She rattles off some Spanish to Lucía, who goes next door to fetch them.

  I open one of the packs of gelignite and begin to pack the explosive into the keyhole using a small stick to push it all the way into the key cavity. I unravel the fuse of the detonator and gently push the metal tip, containing the ultra-sensitive base charge, into the gelignite.

  Lucía arrives with the matches and I turn to Pilar.

  ‘This will blow the lock out of the door and we’ll be able to get out.’

  ‘That is good,’ she says.

  ‘So far as it goes.’

  ‘I understand, yes. We could be killed.’

  ‘Yes.’ I look at Paloma and Tomas, then I say to Pilar, ‘How old is the baby?’

  ‘Almost one month.’

  ‘Is it Manuel’s?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  I try not to imagine what the girls must have gone through. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ I say.

  ‘Wait a moment.’

  Pilar speaks to the girls, who have been standing in a silent group, watching me check the place out, and unleashes a torrent of comment and argument. María, a sandy-haired waif who can’t be more than thirteen, picks up a hand gun and gesticulates with it to reinforce her point. Pilar finally shouts at them and they fall silent. A more reasoned debate seems to take place in which Paloma takes an active part.

  Pilar finally turns to me and says, ‘They are resolved to go with you if you will allow it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they be safer back in the cell?’

  ‘There is no safety in that cell, only abuse and humiliation for them.’

  Seeing the force of her argument, I say, ‘Can they handle guns?’

  ‘I am sure, if you show them. They know guns. They are the children of farmers.’

  I weigh the odds of getting out of here with five young girls and a newborn baby, and every instinct tells me to blow the door and leave them behind to take their chances.

  I look at the young but old faces around me and know that I can’t.

  16

  When the undertaker showed me the coffin I thought it looked too small, but he said he’d measured our Jack and it was the right size for him.

  Two days later, I’m standing with Georgie and Lizzie beside the grave in Kensal Green Cemetery, with Claire and her mum on the opposite side. The sky’s full of dark clouds and there’s a cold wind blowing the leaves up around the gravestones. The sexton and his assistant lower the coffin into the grave with two straps that go underneath it. The vicar from St John’s is reading from a book. We’re all crying so much I can hardly hear what he’s saying. I think it’s something about a woman called Martha and she’s talking about Jesus arising again from the grave. I put my arm round Georgie and I can feel her shoulders shaking as she weeps into a handkerchief.

  The coffin lands on the floor of the grave and the vicar stops reading and closes the book. I think of little Jack lying inside the coffin and I cry out in anger at the unfairness of it all. Georgie grips my arm and looks up at me. I bow my head and watch the men drop the straps into the grave on top of the coffin. We stand quiet for a bit and then the sexton hands the vicar a trowel and he scoops up some earth and drops it onto the coffin. He gives the trowel to me and I do the same and pass it on to Georgie and the others. The vicar shakes hands with each of us and says how sorry he is for our Jack’s passing, then he says goodbye and walks towards the gate with his black robes billowing out behind him. The men start to shovel earth into the grave.

  As we’re walking away, I go to Claire’s mum. She’s wearing that much make up to cover the cuts and bruises on her swollen face, I can hardly recognise her.

  ‘Thank you for getting the vicar to come, Mrs Welch,’ I say.

  ‘That’s all right, Rina love.’

  ‘It was …’

  I can’t finish what I’m saying. She puts her arm round me. ‘Call me Maureen, love.’

  We walk through the gate and along Harrow Road to where Sammy’s waiti
ng in the car. Claire gets in the front and the three of us squeeze into the back. We drive in silence down Ladbroke Grove, turn into Kensal Rise and on to our street.

  • • •

  I pour out the sherry for everyone and give Georgie some orange juice. Mum’s up at the table now and Maureen’s trying to talk to her, but Mum’s just staring into her lap and not saying anything. Maureen doesn’t drink and so I offer her a cup of tea. Claire and Lizzie are talking and looking out of the window and Georgie’s gone into the bedroom to read her book. I go to the cooker and light the gas under the kettle. I see Jack’s face in the shine of the kettle and start crying again. I put my finger into the gas flame and I feel the burn and the pain shoots up my arm and then I’m all right.

  Sammy comes over, stands next to me and says, ‘I’m sorry, Reen.’

  ‘Thanks for coming, Sam.’

  ‘No bother.’

  ‘Nice to have the car.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He looks at me and lowers his voice.

  ‘This ain’t really the time but …’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’ve got a message for you.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘A bit of an accident that happened down Walmer Road the other night.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  I turn and look at him.

  He says, ‘Dave Preston’s been grassed for it. He’s at the nick and he’s saying he was down the Malibu with you.’

  He’s talking about a club in Westbourne Grove. I look at Sammy and I know he’s being straight.

  ‘I never knew you were on their firm,’ I say.

  ‘I am now.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I done a bit of work with a mate. They found out, we had to give them a taste and that was it.’

  ‘How do they know what he’s saying in the nick?’

  ‘They’ve got a copper on the take in there.’

  ‘Who’s grassed him?’

  ‘One of the Bailey mob, I reckon. They’re saying Nick done Johnny Preston and Dave shot him for it.’

  ‘Sounds about right.’

  ‘I never knew he had the bottle.’