“And they’re happy to employ someone here illegally?”
He chuckled, seemingly at my lack of sophistication in these matters. He was right; I was being naive.
“OK, I get it,” I said. “The fact that she would be here illegally could be used as leverage by a private employer. The fear of being detained by the authorities would mean she’d never want to leave the house.”
“Quite so. The detention centres your government has contracted out to private security companies are cruel places, especially for women.”
Sometimes you get a flash of something – call it an insight – which is just your subconscious brain making connections without you knowing it and then knocking on the door of your conscious brain with it, saying: here you go, idiot.
“Did you provide the workers for Mrs Galbraith’s business, the one that had to close down?” I asked Badem.
He smiled knowingly. “I also provide the girls for her current business.” I found it hard to believe she would repeat her mistake.
“They’re here illegally?”
“Legal, illegal, these are just labels assigned by whoever makes the laws within an arbitrarily drawn state border. They are simply artificial limitations to be worked round. Unfortunately a business is not like an individual employer. There’s paperwork to submit and checks are done, so people have to appear legal. Of course that comes at a cost; in this case a small slice of pizza. The lovely Kristina gives me a slice of pizza for providing her with cheap workers, the workers give me a slice of pizza for providing them with the right piece of paper to be here. Everyone is happy.”
“Especially you,” I said, although I was dying to add something about him having too much pizza. Those women must be on a pittance if it was worth Kristina’s while paying Badem rather than paying a decent wage. But perhaps the minimum wage was just another artificial limitation to get round.
“You could have made yourself a nice little finder’s fee for the girl,” he said. “Instead you insisted on playing the hero.”
“Nobody offered me a finder’s fee. How much is a Filipino woman worth these days to people-traffickers?”
“Ah, George, I sense you are being provocative. I do hope you’re not going to invoke the Human Rights Act? The problem with globalised capitalism is that the movement of goods is encouraged, yet the movement of people is discouraged. I’m just facilitating the movement of people.”
“Against their will.”
He folded his hands over his stomach and contemplated me through narrowed eyes.
“I’m willing to bet that if you ask the girl whether she wants to stay here and work, and continue to send money home, she’d agree. Would that make you feel better about it, if it were her choice?” The trouble is he could be right. Having spoken to her about her need to support her family, Aurora might well have agreed to the arrangement, were it not for the desire to visit her daughter.
“Fascinating though this is, it’s academic,” I told him, “since she’s now on a plane to Hong Kong. So why don’t you tell me why the fuck you’re here and then get out.”
He glanced over my right shoulder and I received another mighty blow to the right ear from Derin. I struggled to stay in the chair, my ear ringing painfully. I had to turn my left ear towards Badem in order to hear what he said next.
“Next time I let him use the knife,” he said. Derin waved the item in question in front of my eyes in case I’d forgotten about it.
“I really don’t know what you want from me,” I said, desperate to rub my ear.
“Of course you don’t. You are one of life’s miserable underdogs. It’s in your genes. You Armenians either try to escape your past by overcompensating and becoming millionaires, or you wallow in victimhood. It’s probably why you identify with the dispossessed and downtrodden.” He belched lightly.
“Is this all because your buddy surgeon was seeing one of his staff? He told me about that himself. He was worried Aurora would tell someone but she didn’t. Stupidly loyal to the end, you might say, or perhaps fearful.”
“Men like Bill, who achieve things in life, have needs; they are a way of redressing the balance of achieving greatness. These are perceived as weaknesses by ordinary people so a man in his position has to be careful.”
“So he does a bit of surgery and has to fuck around?”
He reddened dangerously and raised his voice. “You think being crude is the same as being clever, Kocharyan?” He glanced to my right again and Derin must already have had his hand raised because the blow came quickly. Being of hefty build he could put some weight behind it. Being slapped on the same side was getting tiresome, and the cargo strap was pressing on my bladder. I hadn’t been to the toilet since taking Aurora to Heathrow, which was now over three hours ago.
“You are seeing some woman, I understand,” Badem said, picking up the Argus again and showing it to me. “She works for this rag.”
My blood ran cold. How the hell did he know about Linda? Had they been watching the house?
“Ah, you are suddenly silent, or is it that you can no longer hear me?” He chuckled at his own joke and his belly started to heave up and down. Derin showed his appreciation at his uncle’s wit by joining him with giggles. I hoped Badem would go into one of his coughing fits and choke to death but he caught himself at the spluttering stage. He pointed to Linda’s name under the headline. “If I as much as get a whiff of Bill’s indiscretion in this sorry excuse for a newspaper, be it under her name or anyone else’s, then Leonard and Derin will pay her a visit. Is that understood?” Derin patted my shoulder.
The doorbell rang and I hoped to God it wasn’t Linda popping round unannounced. Badem seemed unfazed and gestured to Derin to go and answer. He smiled at me as we waited. I strained to hear who it was but there was no talking.
Derin came back in followed by Leonard, who looked pale and distracted. He ignored me and went over to Badem, leaning over to whisper in his ear for quite a long time, which the ringing in my ear made inaudible.
“How did that happen?” asked Badem, his unwieldy eyebrows coming together in a frown. More whispering followed. Badem nodded but didn’t look happy.
Leonard turned to look at me, smiling. I didn’t like it – it was the smile I imagine a spider has when something is struggling vainly to escape its web.
Badem tried to get up out of the sofa but it had moulded around his huge buttocks. Derin rushed over to help pull his uncle out. It wasn’t a dignified exit for Badem and when he reached the door he stopped.
“Leonard, you nearly forgot,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Sorry, Mr Badem.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out two identical-looking passports. The top one had PILIPINAS in gold lettering at the top. My heart sank.
Badem smiled at me, opened it and showed me the photo, but I already knew whose face I would see.
32
BADEM PUT AURORA’S PASSPORT IN HIS JACKET POCKET WITH its twin. They must have already known about Aurora’s flight from Galbraith, and planned to be there. “Where is she?” I asked, feeling nauseous.
“She’s safe, although it’s not your concern, Mr Kocharyan. She’s no longer your problem. You should be more worried about Linda. If you have any stupid ideas about going to the police, Leonard here has her address and he and Derin would love an excuse to pay her a visit.”
Leonard pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to me. It was indeed Linda’s address, a place where even I wasn’t welcome. He grinned and I quickly tried standing up with the chair strapped to me but Derin pulled me back and put his hands on my shoulders, bearing down with his weight-lifting arms.
“Settle down,” Badem said. “Now, I understand that Leonard and Derin have some brief business to conduct with you but I will wait in the car if you don’t mind, as I’m squeamish. Don’t be too long,” he told Leonard, looking at his watch. “We have to pick Natasha up from her riding lesson.”
“Right you are, Mr B
adem,” Leonard said to his retreating mass. He took a Taser from his pocket, a yellow one this time. I drew some consolation from the fact that his little finger was in a splint and taped to the finger next to it.
“Look,” he said, with exaggerated cheeriness. “I’ve found another one.” He waited expectantly until the front door opened and closed while I thought about spouting some cliché about how he didn’t have to do this, but I guessed that he wouldn’t be swayed. He pressed the Taser to my chest and smiled. “This is going to hurt.”
Being Tasered is much like having severe muscle cramp, except you’re having it in every muscle of your body simultaneously. Paralysed rigid and in appalling pain, time seemed to freeze and I was unable to speak except to make a noise like a tortured goat until he released the trigger and then what came from my mouth was repulsive in both tone and language and aimed at Leonard’s grinning face. I may have spat at his smile. So of course he pulled the trigger again and I think he was telling the truth about having disabled the five-second safety because this time the pain lasted even longer and I felt as if I was disengaging from my body altogether. When he stopped this time I didn’t curse, but so relieved was I that I whimpered like a cowed dog. On instruction from Leonard, Derin removed the strap and I bent double, my muscles stinging. I made my way to the sofa, supported by whatever I could lean on, hardly aware of Leonard or Derin. I vaguely heard them leave and sobbed to myself until I realised that my trousers were soaked. I staggered upstairs, tears coursing down my cheeks. I stripped off and forced myself under the shower, crouching as I didn’t trust myself to stay upright.
I felt more human once dressed but flinched when the doorbell rang. The peephole revealed a fish-eye view of Kamal chaining his bicycle to my fence. I opened the door, checking the street behind him.
“Bloody hell, George, what happened? You look as bad as your car. Were you in an accident?” Without waiting for an answer he pushed past me into the hall. I closed the door, grateful he was here. He was dressed in a corduroy jacket over a proper shirt.
“Do you want a drink?” I asked. “I want a drink.” I went to the kitchen and grabbed a cold beer from the fridge. I took two ibuprofen from a pack on the table.
“It’s not quite five o’clock,” Kamal said, sitting at the table and watching me, disapproving, as I swallowed the pills and glugged from the neck of the bottle. The beer, which was nothing special, felt so good, so satisfyingly deserved, that it was difficult to stop drinking until the bottle was empty. I sat down opposite Kamal who was watching me all the while.
“Are you OK?” he asked, frowning with concern.
“I’ll be fine.”
“You going to tell me what’s going on?”
“I’ve fucked up big time,” I said. “I’ve taken someone out of the frying pan and thrown them into the fire.”
“Maybe I will have that beer.” He got up and took one from the fridge. “Tell me what you can.”
So I told him the whole sorry story without giving too much away although as he already knew about my interest in Galbraith, he soon put two and two together. He stroked his ridiculous moustache.
“Let me get this straight. The Filipino girl I helped you find was working for Galbraith and disappeared with his briefcase because she wanted her passport and you negotiated an exchange and took her to the airport and she’s now in the possession of Galbraith’s patient who was also looking for her because Galbraith had told him his medical notes were in the briefcase?”
“Something like that.” I’d left out the pearls because they were an irrelevant side issue.
“And you can’t go to the police because…?”
“She’s in the country illegally. If she gets into the hands of the authorities they might stick her in a detention centre for weeks, if not months, before deporting her. That’s if they can even be bothered to look for her. It’s conceivable that she might have been convinced to go with them of her own free will. She might have been offered more money to work here illegally for someone else.” I didn’t tell him of the threat made to Linda. I had thought about going to Stubbing unofficially but, knowing her, she would put duty before anything. And I couldn’t see Linda being happy to move again or be placed under protection from some thugs.
“Maybe you should have gone to the police before you took her to the airport,” he said.
“Maybe. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.” I opened another beer and began to feel a little more human and less like a stunned heifer.
“So what happens now?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have another drink and think about it.” But something he’d said was nagging at me. He was asking something about poker but I was only half listening. I was picturing Badem’s notes in the briefcase.
“I’ve got a question,” I said.
“You haven’t answered my question about whether you’re coming to poker tonight?”
“Jesus, is it Friday already? I think I’ll give it a miss, for obvious reasons.”
“Thought so. What’s your question?”
“Patients’ medical notes. There’d be like a sticker or something that identifies the patient?”
“Of course. Patient name, date of birth, hospital number. I transport notes all the time from Medical Records to clinics or the wards, and back again.”
“Really? So could you check to see if someone’s notes were in the hospital?”
“I’m not getting hold of anyone’s medical records, George,” he said, a warning in his voice.
“I’m not asking you to. I just want to know if someone’s notes are in the hospital or not.”
“It’s difficult to tell whether they’ve left the hospital, unless they’ve gone to another hospital. I think the system tells you whose clinic or which ward they were checked out to, but consultants are notorious for keeping notes in the boot of their car… Ah, I think I see where you’re going with this.”
“Good, ’cause I’m not sure myself where I’m going with this. So all you can tell for certain is whether a particular set of notes has been checked out of Medical Records?”
“That’s right.”
“So if I gave you a name, you could check it? All I want to know is if the notes are there or not, and if they are, when they were last checked back in.”
“You think Galbraith lied to this guy about his notes?”
“I don’t know. I just know that I saw what I was told were the notes but they were in a bog-standard grey folder with nothing on the outside.”
“The notes are usually blue, heavy-duty cardboard; they get handled a lot. There’s usually a mess of papers inside, pharmacy slips, test results, you name it.” That didn’t sound like what I’d seen in Galbraith’s case. I wasn’t sure it was worth pursuing but it was something Galbraith didn’t want me to see, and that sort of thing always piques my interest. How it would help Aurora I’d no clue, but you never know what might turn out to be useful.
“Can you check it out?” I asked.
He ummed and aahed but eventually agreed to do so when he was on duty the next day. I wrote down Iskender Badem’s name.
“I better get going,” he said, taking the slip of paper and standing up.
“Why did you stop round, anyway?” I asked. “I’m not on your way home.”
“Yeah, I was, erm, I’m actually on my way to visit someone nearby and wanted to tell you about Chris, my lodger.” I filed the shy reference to visiting someone nearby – a conversation for another time. “You know how yesterday he was going on about his director who was sacked?”
“Yes?”
“Apparently all the computers in the department were taken away by Human Resources this morning. Something about IT needing to audit them because the director had access.”
I was struggling to muster up a reason to care about any of this right now. I just wanted to go upstairs and have a bath with a drink in hand, even though I’d just showered. I got up.
Kamal sensed my ambivalence. “I�
��ll cut to the chase. Chris spoke to someone he’s friendly with in IT who told him that the director’s computer had nothing on it when they had a look, but that the porn was on a USB stick plugged into his computer.”
I nodded, walking Kamal to the front door. “So someone could have just stuck it in his machine and made an anonymous call.”
“Exactly. I mean, maybe Chris is right, maybe this was all to pull the rug out from under the report.”
“It’s a bit extreme,” I said. “I mean what could it possibly say that would justify ruining someone’s career, not to mention their life, like that?”
“Something that ruined your own career?” he said.
As I watched him unchain his bike I wondered whether being Tasered scrambled your brain for the better or worse.
“Listen, ask Chris whether Galbraith would have received a copy of the audit report as a matter of courtesy. And get back to me on those notes.”
“Does this mean I’m on the payroll?”
“I’m giving you free lessons in the vagaries of human nature. What more do you bloody want?”
33
I WAS WOKEN FROM A LONG SLEEP BY SOMEONE LEANING ON the doorbell, followed by knocking, then testing the bell again. I pulled a robe on and staggered downstairs, every bit of me annoyed.
Linda stood there, dangling a paper bag of something.
“Croissants,” she declared, then peered at me. “You look worse today than you did yesterday.” She swept past me into the kitchen and I could hear her fill the kettle as I checked my face in the hall mirror. Things were turning a nice mix of purple and blue.
I went into the kitchen and sat down. I had tinnitus in my right ear – a faint but constant buzzing.
The Runaway Maid Page 16