‘I wonder whether you know any of these people,’ said Jillian, bringing with her a newspaper on the third morning. Each morning when the clock struck eight, the woman came in with breakfast.
Her stomach growled at the thought of the bread and cheese and the small bowl of grain and almonds and milk. She got up and limped over to the window. The day before she had torn away a little corner of the cardboard so she could peek out. She saw low houses painted white, and flowers climbing a vine in a garden, dark red blossoms against the white. The sky was blue with white clouds. A moped leaned against one wall.
Jillian put the newspaper on the bed and then pushed over a little table. She set the tray on top.
‘They found a dead African immigrant here in Tarifa, and two more outside Cádiz. The Moroccan coastguard has reported finding more bodies in the straits.’
She couldn’t resist casting a glance at the newspaper. The headline read: Immigrants Found Dead on Costa del Luz. It was an English-language paper. She saw a photo of people standing on the beach, and a little map with the town of Tarifa circled. Her heart was pounding. It wasn’t far from there to Cádiz.
‘They think the immigrants tried to cross in a rubber dinghy that capsized in the sound in the early hours of Sunday,’ said Jillian, picking up her own cup and stirring the tea.
Her eyes scanned the text. Someone had seen a rubber raft leaving a beach west of Tangiers in the night, but there was no indication that it had ever reached the opposite shore. Nor did the Moroccan coastguard have any reports that it had returned. She thought about the smugglers. Had they drowned too? She’d heard the motor start up, and then they were gone. She thought about Taye, and searched the article for anything that would tell her he was not among those who had drowned. The bodies of two men and one woman had been found. The woman had been pregnant. She closed her eyes. Heard the whispering all around her in the dark. Zaynab. Catherine. Toyin. Who decided who would live and who would die? Or that she would be the one to hold onto the rope? When she was sinking and had lost all hope, the rope had resisted. She pulled and pulled on it with all the remaining strength in her body, and came up to the surface to draw the night air into her lungs. The rope had got caught on a buoy. She must have pulled the rope off the boat when she was struggling to hold on. The buoy was rocking in the water, and she clung to it with all her might, bobbing in the black waves. She could no longer see the rubber raft. She couldn’t see any of the other passengers. There was nothing but sea all around her. A light flashing somewhere. She could no longer feel her legs in the cold water. Using the rope, she managed to lash herself to the buoy. She didn’t want to let go even if she died, because then she’d sink to the bottom and become food for the fish. Then her mother would never know what had happened to her next oldest daughter.
‘I see you can read English, at least,’ said Jillian. ‘So I think you must understand what I’m saying.’
She poured a little milk into her tea.
‘I can’t hide you here for ever,’ she said.
Later that day the man named Nico had brought a small TV into the room. He was younger than Jillian, really just a boy, with long hair and sandals on his feet. She thought maybe he was Jillian’s son, though he didn’t live in the house. Maybe he was her young lover.
Now the TV stood on top of a cabinet in the corner. She didn’t dare turn it on until Jillian had brought her breakfast. She was able to get the BBC. Late at night she’d watched a film about a man who worked as a police inspector in a village in England. She had quietly repeated the dialogue to herself, trying to mimic the elegant melody of the language, but it was nearly impossible. She had allowed herself to dream, imagining that someday in the future she would be married and live in a village like that, even though it would probably seem quite dreary. The years she’d spent at the university in Nsukka had given her a taste for freedom. She no longer wanted to live in a village. She didn’t want to get married, at least not for a long time. Sefi was the one who was going to marry. She thought it was lucky she’d taken her sister’s place. Sefi could never have survived at sea. She was timid and weak and vain.
‘You’re already awake?’ said Jillian, coming into the room carrying the tray. ‘You look much better. Let me feel your forehead.’
Jillian’s hand, adorned with many rings, felt cool on her forehead. One of the rings was in the shape of a snake curling around her finger.
‘I think the fever is definitely gone.’
Chapter 8
Paris
Saturday, 27 September
I leaned against the sink, splashing cold water on my wrists and then taking several big gulps of water. Black streaks appeared on the towel when I rubbed my face hard, trying to wake up properly. My face in the mirror looked as pale as a dishrag, with mascara smeared into a black wing along one temple.
Come on, I thought, getting out a bottle of painkillers. Pull yourself together.
‘And besides,’ I said out loud to my mournful image in the mirror, ‘if the baby ingested a percentage of what I drank yesterday, then it also needs a fraction of this pill too.’
I swallowed the tablet (which was not recommended for women who were pregnant or nursing) and placed my hand on my stomach. There was actually something inside there that was greedily sucking in everything I drank and ate. For the first time I had a profound sense that it was no longer just me, alone.
I went back into the room and threw the window wide open even though it was raining. I turned on my laptop and spread out my sketch paper on the floor. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, but time was getting away from me out there.
In order to get a handle on what had happened during the days before Patrick disappeared, I’d drawn a timeline. And on it I’d entered what I knew about his movements and the people he’d met. A logical, coherent picture was starting to emerge.
On Thursday he’d been thrown out of Taillevent for pestering Alain Thery and his important friends. I’d drawn a line from Thery’s name to my notes about slave labour. The consulting firm was nothing but a front. I was positive that he was a spider in a web, which was the focus of Patrick’s investigations.
On Friday he had interviewed the young men at the hotel. After that, he’d spent the evening getting drunk and then phoned me, elated about the story he was writing.
Then the hotel burned down. Someone had called him that night. Who? I’d written, underlining the word and adding a big question mark.
On Saturday he’d met with Arnaud Rachid. He had also talked to the police, telling them that the fire had been deliberately set. Seventeen people had died, and he knew three of them. The police had subsequently dropped their investigation. I knew that must have infuriated Patrick. The question was, what did he do then? And where had he gone? Maybe he’d met one of the human traffickers called Josef K. When I’d asked about Josef K, I’d been threatened. Somebody wanted me to leave the city. Who?
More question marks.
I looked up and found myself staring at a pigeon. It was perched on the iron railing outside the window. Grey as the sky and the day. Grey as this whole fucking city.
I went over to my computer where the number seven was flashing red on my inbox. I thought about how sometimes Patrick would send me two emails in a row, one right after the other. ‘By the way’ it might say in the subject line, and in the email I’d find three little words: I love you. That was all.
There was no email from Alain Thery, but there were two from Benji. ‘Help!’ it said in the subject line of the first one.
‘Do I have to?’ he wrote. He’d made his way through two of the seventeen articles about Alain Thery, understanding only half of what he’d read. Words like ‘synergies’ and ‘strategic development’ were terms that meant nothing to him even in English. ‘The guy’s very successful,’ Benji wrote. ‘A businessman of the new era who hobnobs with celebrities, and sponsors sailing competitions. Clearly, a mother-in-law’s dream.’ Benji wondered whether I really wante
d to know what the rest of the articles said or whether he could devote his time to set design instead. We had a meeting booked with Cherry Lane Theatre on Monday at 2 p.m. ‘Looks like they’re expecting to see sketches,’ he wrote.
I replied that he could forget the articles about Thery for the time being. And I’d get back to him about Cherry Lane.
The other emails were spam, plus an invitation to a Broadway premiere the following week. I deleted all of them and went into the bathroom to stand under the shower. I let the hot water sluice over my body as I thought about everything.
The man named Alain Thery seemed to keep slipping away as soon as I glanced in his direction. A shadow figure who refused to be caught. In my mind’s eye I saw the blurry photographs of him. Maybe he’s not what’s important, I thought. Maybe it’s the other men in the pictures, the ones he was with. Politicians and celebrities, Benji had written. I knew nothing about either group, since I always fell asleep during Patrick’s favourite French films. The president was the only French politician I might recognize in a photo, but only if his name appeared in the caption.
As I was stepping out of the shower I remembered Richard Evans saying something about a political reporter. He couldn’t recall her name, and he’d lost her business card.
Quickly I dried off and got dressed, then entered the URL of The Reporter’s home page. A stringer in Paris that we sometimes use, Evans had said. A political journalist … I think I gave Patrick her name too.
It was the middle of the night in New York, plus it was the weekend, so it probably wouldn’t do any good to email Evans.
I hesitated for a few seconds before typing the name of the French president into the search box on the page. Links to eleven articles came up. Two were anonymous wire stories from the AP, but the rest were lengthy commentaries about the fires in the suburbs around Paris that had occurred a few years back, the terrorist attacks on a restaurant and a concert hall, and the uproar on the border with England when refugees tried to make their way through the Channel Tunnel. I also scrolled past some political analysis about the rise of the extreme right of the Front National and the harsher policies on immigration ever since the former president started shouting about ‘clearing the riff-raff from the streets’. The by-line on the articles was Caroline Kearny.
I clicked on her name and got a French email address. I wrote a brief, formal message, signing it Alena Sarkanova. Then I erased the whole thing and started over. I told her I was Alena Cornwall and that Richard Evans had given me her name. I said that I needed to meet with her asap.
It felt odd to speak the truth, but Evans might have already mentioned me to the woman. Besides, the editor’s name carried a certain weight. Kearny was probably also a freelancer, and she needed to stay on good terms with her clients.
I went downstairs to the breakfast room to get a bowl of cornflakes and some juice. The email icon was flashing on my screen when I got back to the room. Kearny wrote that she was busy all day, but she suggested meeting for drinks at Les Deux Magots around five o’clock.
I took the memory stick with the photos out of my laptop. Caroline Kearny might be able to help me identify those anonymous men.
Everything is here, I thought, looking down at my timeline spread out on the floor. I just need to figure out the chronology and fill in the remaining gaps. Then I’ll understand.
There was an empty spot next to Monday, 15 September, the day before Patrick checked out of the hotel. ‘The market?’ I’d written above it. And then the names, as if they were parts in a play.
Luc — purse vendor
Josef K — human trafficker
I put on an extra sweater under my anorak and left the room.
The rain was blowing horizontally. Under the canopies the air was sultry from weed and smoke, with music swinging on the backbeat. I was walking along rue Jean Henri Fabre and had already passed seven vendors selling purses. The longest queue was in front of a stall advertising North African tea products.
When the market stalls thinned out and the wares became mostly second-hand goods, I went back to the last purse vendor.
‘Is this a copy?’ I picked up a purse purporting to be a Louis Vuitton.
‘Oh yes, very good old new copy,’ said a guy wearing a knitted Rasta cap who came sauntering over. ‘For you, only forty-two euros.’
‘Are you the one named Luc?’
The guy reached out to straighten a row of wallets. ‘Who wants to know?’
I stepped forward so I was under the canopy and held up the photograph of Patrick.
‘Do you recognize him?’ I asked. ‘He’s American.’
He cast a quick glance at the photo and shook his head. Then he turned away and began rolling a cigarette. At the next stall two young girls were trying on second-hand army jackets.
‘He was here two weeks ago,’ I said. ‘I think he was asking for someone named Luc.’
The guy shrugged and stuck the cigarette between his lips.
‘You can have it for forty if you decide quickly.’
‘The only reason he came here was to look for you,’ I said. ‘On Sunday or Monday two weeks ago. Try to remember.’
‘OK, OK.’ He pointed at the purse I was holding. ‘Special price for you today. Only thirty-five euros.’
‘No problem,’ I said, taking out my cell. ‘I’ll call the police instead. I’m sure they can get the information out of you.’
‘Hey, come on.’
‘But first I’m sure they’re going to be real interested in having a look at your papers. Isn’t it the eighth department of the Préfecture de Police that’s in charge of people like you?’
I began tapping in a random number.
‘Put that away, merde. Stop.’
‘Don’t worry, Luc my friend. You’ll get food and a roof over your head in a nice little detention centre on Île de la Cité before they throw you out of the country. Provided you don’t have papers proving you’re a legal citizen of the Republic of France, of course.’
‘I don’t even know what it was all about. I just did what they said.’
‘Who’s they?’
Luc pulled off his knitted cap and ran his hand through his hair. I let my index finger hover over my phone.
‘Look on the bright side,’ I said. ‘You won’t have to stand out here in the rain any more, trying to sell purses.’
‘They paid me. OK? This guy said I’d get 200 euros if I talked to him when he showed up. That’s all.’ He tapped his foot on the off-beat to some West Indian music playing from the next stall. ‘He was supposed to come here and ask for Luc. That was the signal.’
‘And what were you supposed to tell him?’
I was still holding my cell, like a gun with the safety off.
‘I was just supposed to give him a phone number and say something like “call this number and say this, and you’ll get what you need”.’ Luc grinned. ‘I thought it was a joke. It sounded like he’d get … well, you know.’ He made a few bump-and-grind motions with his hips. I glared at him.
‘The eighth department,’ I said.
‘It was crazy. It didn’t mean anything.’ He kicked at a pile of cigarette butts floating in the gutter. ‘They told me to say: “I want to talk about Josef K”.’
‘And that’s what he was supposed to say when he made the call?’
Luc shrugged. ‘I told you it didn’t make any sense.’
A mother and a teenage girl with bleached hair crowded in next to me and began picking up purses. They were speaking Russian to each other.
‘Who paid you?’ I asked.
‘Come on. I’ve got a job to do here. It wasn’t anybody I know.’ Luc looked around.
‘What did he look like? Black? White? Tall? Skinny? Fat? Rich?’
He gave the teenager a strained smile. ‘You can have it for thirty,’ he said, pointing at a cat purse. Then he turned back to me.
‘He was white. Just a guy in a suit. Don’t ask me anything else.�
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‘Did he have really pale eyes? Almost white?’
‘Come on. Those guys all look alike.’
The Russians were on their way to the next stall. Luc shook his head and put his cap back on. ‘I’m telling you, that’s all I know.’
I crossed boulevard Michelet and continued east, into an industrial area. In my mind I was adding facts to the timeline.
Patrick had been given the information about Josef K. He’d checked out of the hotel on the following day. There’s just one more thing I have to do, he’d written to me on the postcard. Was he going to meet the human trafficker?
I turned left and walked along a huge railroad yard with power lines criss-crossing overhead. The burned-down hotel was less than two kilometres away. In Patrick’s notebook there was one other address in this area.
I paused to lean against a brick wall. The rain had stopped.
There was something about that night of the hotel fire that I couldn’t figure out.
Patrick’s sources, the young men from Mali, had died in the fire. Yet almost no one knew where they were hiding. Except for Arnaud Rachid. But he denied phoning Patrick and said that he’d turned off his phone for the night. Why would he lie about something like that? And it was highly unlikely that the person or persons who had set the fire would call a journalist to tell him about it. So who else knew the hotel was burning?
I took my cell out of my pocket and tapped in Arnaud’s number. After seven rings, he finally answered. Time to wake up, I thought.
The Forgotten Dead Page 14