He pushed the doors open and stepped inside. Here, for once, their presence was noted. A group of men sitting on the floor – dressed in dirty puffa jackets and threadbare wool overcoats, beanies and woolly hats pulled low over their heads –looked up with a mix of fatigue and suspicion.
Tapper smiled feebly at the men as he approached. Beyond, the room seemed to stretch for two hundred metres. A terrace outside that overlooked the scrubland could be seen through some double doors. There were two dome tents pitched outside.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Do you speak English?’
‘Little,’ one of them muttered. His voice was muted, as if the volume had been turned down in every aspect of his life. A defeated human being.
Tapper crouched down so he was at their level. He saw one of the men glance at his new trainers.
‘I’m looking for a woman from Eritrea.’ He paused as he realised the journalist story wouldn’t wash at this stage in their enquiry. Why would a hack be looking for a specific refugee? Another idea came to him. ‘I’m a lawyer. I was helping her in the UK.’
The man he’d been addressing lifted himself, with some effort, off the mattress and stood. He was roughly the same height as Tapper but at least two stone lighter, the trousers at his waist bunched tight with a length of twine.
‘Come,’ he said.
Tapper and Wallace followed the man through the centre of the room. Large windows magnified the heat of the sun and with the slight lift in temperature came the unmistakeable smell of unwashed bodies, of soiled bedding. They passed, he guessed, nearly a hundred people in the space of less than a minute – a group of mothers chatting while their toddlers played on the floor with battered old plastic toys; children in a makeshift classroom, a teacher pointing to a map of the world with a stick; four old men, cheeks pinched and hollow, playing cards in silence at a table; a man with his arms round a silently sobbing woman.
Finally the man stopped and pointed at an old canvas tent to their left.
‘Immigration,’ he said. Then he grinned, a mouth full of perfectly straight and very white teeth.
Some in-joke, thought Tapper. He and Wallace stepped inside the tent. There was a portable gas fire in one corner. In the other, two women – one black, the other white – sat at a large table. The white woman had a pile of scrappy papers before her. She was reading aloud from the one in her hand while the black woman typed the information into a laptop. That done, the white woman placed the scrap of paper to one side and reached for the next one in the pile. Behind them, tacked to the walls of the tent, was a banner that read ‘Caritas – ending poverty, promoting justice and restoring dignity’.
The women were so engrossed in their work they hadn’t noticed the presence of the two men. Tapper coughed gently. The women looked up, giving the visitors a once-over.
‘Yes?’ the black woman said. She wore a denim jacket over a dark t-shirt, a necklace of brightly coloured beads. Framed by a cloud of curls, her face shared the same high forehead and penetrating eyes as Zahra. Tapper felt a slight tremor. She could have been her older sister.
‘I’m looking for a former client, Zahra Idris.’ The lie began taking shape as he spoke. ‘I was working on her case in the UK. Helping her with her application for asylum. I think she might be here.’
The two women exchanged puzzled glances. ‘You came all the way here to find her?’ said the black woman, her English lightly accented with Italian.
He could sense the disbelief. The hole in his lie. Why would an overpaid lawyer bother with a poxy asylum case if the client had done a bunk?
He felt exposed suddenly. He’d uttered her name. Made his visit here more conspicuous.
‘I think she’s in trouble,’ he said. Which was, of course, true. ‘I want to help.’
He shaped his face into a look of genuine concern, even if it was only for his own skin. The black woman softened a fraction. She tapped the laptop with the nail of a finger.
‘We try and keep a record of who comes in and out of Salaam Palace. Just in case family or friends turn up, looking for others. And people also make contact when they’ve settled in other countries in Europe. They tell us where they are – and whether there’s accommodation and jobs that others can go to. It’s like a database. A very basic one. What did you say her name was?’
‘Zahra Idris,’ said Tapper, with a cough. His throat had gone dry. With its permanent chill, shifting migratory population and lack of sanitation, this whole building had to be rife with germs, a breeding ground for dysentery, malaria and god knows what else.
The black woman was typing at her keyboard. The other woman looked at Tapper. She seemed to be drinking him in. She was bigger than her colleague, clad in a tent-like dress of white cotton, badly dyed blonde hair pulled tightly back from a round face.
‘Ah yes,’ said the black woman. ‘We have three women called Zahra Idris. Two are living in Germany. Moved there in 2014. The other stayed here earlier last year and then made contact in the autumn from an immigration detention centre in the UK.’
‘Any news since?’ Tapper could feel the whole operation slipping like sand through his fingers.
The woman looked up from the screen. ‘Nothing. If she was here, we’d know. Piccola Asmara is a tight community. People look out for each other.’
It was then the larger woman muttered something in Italian.
Her colleague sighed. ‘She could be in the city centre. Some people choose to stay in a camp there.’ She leaned back in her seat, ran both hands through the curls of her hair. She looked tired all of a sudden. ‘Some find life in this building a little claustrophobic. Which I can understand. And if you’re in the city centre, it’s easier to beg. But life in the city is not any easier. There are many residents who do not like immigrants. Who do not even like black people. It’s not always safe.’
Tapper’s feet were straining inside his trainers.
‘And where might we find this camp?’
Chapter 36
Rome
The cab circled the Colosseum and then, minutes later, came to a halt on a street corner opposite the camp. Tapper paid the driver, and they stepped out.
It was evident that they’d walked straight into tension.
A group of about thirty men chanted angrily and waved placards and flags. It didn’t take a linguist to understand what their overarching message was. It was the clothes they wore, the scattering of shaved heads, and the black and red colours of their banners that gave the game away. Now was clearly not the moment to make enquiries.
Tapper and Wallace positioned themselves on the opposite side of the street. A group of immigrants emerged from the camp and began shouting back at the protestors. This immediately prompted the men to stop chanting the same message and begin hurling individual insults, accompanied by angry jabbing fingers.
A battered transit van pulled up. The back doors were opened and more protestors jumped out. Additional banners and flags were raised, the angry noise swelling as extra voices joined in. Tapper sensed that things were reaching a peak. That, sooner or later, there would be violence. He wondered whether this might serve his purposes. If Idris and Keddie were in the camp, they’d be flushed out.
One of the protestors, a man dressed like Wallace but wiry in frame, sprung from the group and charged at the nearest shelter, kicking ferociously at it with the sole of a Doctor Marten’s boot. From across the street, Tapper and Wallace watched as the shelter began to collapse, its skeletal structure able to withstand wind and rain, but not the angry and relentless kicks of a man possessed. A plastic sheet tore and fell, exposing timber supports and an interior of mattresses that sat on top of wooden pallets. The man was inside in an instant, dragging blankets and plastic bags full of belongings from the shelter and flinging them on to the pavement.
The immigrants outside the camp, who’d been concentrating on the main body of the group, spotted this destruction and ran at the wiry skinhead.
A battle soon brok
e out. It was clear to Tapper that the undernourished and fatigued immigrants were no match for their well-fed opponents. He watched as one African was head-butted and collapsed to the ground; another was punched in the stomach, bending double in agony. More immigrants emerged from inside to the point where protestors were outnumbered. But Tapper knew this would make little difference.
More shelters were brought down, the protestors slowly eating their way through the flimsy structures with their hands and boots. Tapper heard the sound of a woman screaming as a wall of tarpaulin was ripped from its frame, exposing a mother and two small children.
It was then he saw the fire. It was just to the left of the protest, a spot far enough away to go unnoticed, at least until the flames caught. One of the protestors had clearly lit something – perhaps the dry timber of a palette – and now a fire was spreading with extraordinary speed. The fight stopped as everyone turned to stare at the latest development. Then, as if a switch had been flicked, the immigrants rushed back into the camp to raise the alarm.
The protestors were now standing back to admire their work. Tapper watched with some fascination at how indifferent they were to the peril of those inside the camp. It was as if they were enjoying a bonfire in the garden.
Two shelters were now engulfed with flames, great black plumes of smoke climbing into the sky. Tapper could smell the sharp, acrid whiff of burning plastic. He heard shouts from inside the camp, screams of alarm.
Immigrants were emerging from the camp by the opening nearest the protest. An old man coughing, a women clutching a child protectively to her chest, others stumbling into the light, a look of shock on their faces. Tapper sensed that this spot was the main way in or out – that everywhere else, the outer walls of the camp were tacked tightly to the ground to create some security. Understandable, but fatally flawed when it came to an emergency like this.
Tapper had a thought. If there was just one way out, Idris and, with luck, Keddie, would soon emerge if they were inside – or be burned alive. But he had to be sure. He turned to Wallace. ‘Can you check round the back?’ he said. ‘We need to know if they’re leaving the camp at any other point.’
Wallace moved off at a pace.
At the camp’s exit, shock was quickly turning to anger. Some of the immigrants were turning on the protestors, a barrage of abuse flying between them.
The fire was spreading, the flames climbing higher to lick the lower branches of the umbrella pine trees that lined the street, the resinous foliage catching with a crackling noise.
Against this backdrop, Tapper heard the sound of sirens. Moments later, four police cars and two vans turned into the street. They parked across the road to block any traffic. Police spilled out, wading into the commotion and peeling apart the two sides. Tapper watched as a truncheon was raised and then swung down with force, whether on an immigrant or protestor, he couldn’t be sure. Finally the two sides were separated. Another policeman stood by the exit point, ushering the immigrants out with rapid hand gestures. To anyone on the outside of the camp who could see how quickly the fire was spreading, it was clear those inside had limited time.
Everyone was being asked to move across the road away from the edge of the camp. Tapper found himself surrounded by protestors, and inched to their right to make sure he wasn’t lumped in with them if and when arrests were made.
The line of people exiting the camp had dried up and Tapper was certain that Idris and Keddie hadn’t emerged. A fire engine turned into the street. Soon the place would be overrun by the authorities.
Tapper was in a no-man’s land between immigrants and protestors. With a sense of detachment, he glanced at the people to his right. There were about seventy, maybe eighty of them. Some of the men had bloodied faces. All shared a look of exhausted defeat.
His phone rang. It was Wallace.
‘I’m following a woman,’ he said. ‘She crawled out on all fours and started running away from the camp.’
‘Is it her?’
‘Can’t be sure.’
‘Has she seen you?’
‘Don’t think so.’
Tapper scanned the group to his right once more. He couldn’t see Idris, or Keddie for that matter, among the faces.
‘I’m right behind you.’
Chapter 37
Rome
Having spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly around the Palatine and dodging selfie-stick salesmen and overweight men dressed as Roman soldiers at the Colosseum, Sam wasn’t feeling optimistic as he walked under a carved archway into the porch of the church. Back in the UK, his counselling room was designed to be free of unnecessary distractions. In his experience, Catholic churches, with their loaded imagery of mutilation, pain and bloodshed, were exactly the opposite.
A gaggle of chattering Japanese were queuing to reach the far end of the porch. From there, camera flashes filled the space with blazes of white light. In a gap between two tourists was a ghostly and immediately recognisable circular carving. A man’s face, bearded, his mouth partially open to form a hole large enough to fit a hand. The Mouth of Truth. How ironic, Sam thought, that he should find himself here now, as he searched for an elusive truth of his own.
He pushed a heavy wooden door open, its hinges creaking and groaning, and stepped inside. He was struck immediately by an eerie stillness. Ahead of him there was a small nave bordered by pillars and, above, pale walls that rose to tiny arched windows sitting beneath a roof of painted timbers. Instead of pews, there were about twenty wooden chairs arranged in rows on the floor, all facing forward. There was a marble altar at the end and, in the shadows beyond, the curved back wall of the church, some hint of fresco in the darkness.
Behind him, the door closed with a loud bang and Sam flinched. He exhaled and moved down the nave. He now reckoned that the only distraction that might cause a problem was not visual. It was the heavy smell in the air, the sweet and spicy whiff of incense.
Beyond a reference to Zahra’s religion as Catholic in her referral notes, they’d never discussed the subject. Did she find this church somehow comforting, a reminder of a calmer period in her life?
He sat. Just ahead was a stand on which dozens of votive candles flickered. Individual prayers – hopes, wishes and fears climbing into the air.
Sam’s mind drifted back to the first time that he and Zahra had met. He’d arrived early at Creech Hill, the visiting room reverberating with noise around him. He was always slightly anxious before meeting a new client, but this time his nerves were exacerbated by a concern about the far-from-ideal conditions – that he’d not be able to hear her or that, if they over-compensated and raised their voices, others might over-hear what should have been confidential. But in the end, none of that had mattered. Her voice was soft but clear, her manner immediately friendly, as if she recognised that Sam was there to help. There was, however, a slight shyness and inhibition, which led to a brief moment of friction. Hoping to find a starting point for the therapy, Sam referred to the notes Linda had given him, and gently mentioned the scars on her back – the reason she’d been referred for counselling in the first place. It was a stupid mistake. It was up to her to decide what they talked about and he should have left that emotionally loaded detail out. Her head dropped and he thought he’d upset her. But she was not upset, or at least not in the way he expected. A second passed, then she pulled her head back up and spoke, her voice firm: ‘I’ll talk about anything. But not the scars.’ The subject never came up again.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dark shape move to the right and his head darted in that direction. An old lady, clad in black, was sweeping the marble floor of the aisle to his side. She looked up at him, eyes magnified behind thick lenses, then resumed her work.
Sam relaxed, aware now of how nervous he really was.
He was clutching at straws. As he understood, every summer, thousands of migrants crossed the Mediterranean. What were the chances of anyone in that small camp knowing what happened on Zahra�
�s voyage? Her fellow passengers would have been scattered to the far corners of Europe by now.
Sam heard the door’s hinges creak and turned. A figure stood in the doorway, instantly silhouetted as a flash went off in the porch behind. Sam blinked but found he had the silhouette imprinted on his eyelids. He blinked again and realised the figure was now moving towards him. He tensed. It had to be Zahra but recent experience had made him decidedly edgy.
The gap closed between them and Sam breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Hi,’ said Zahra, as she sat down next to him.
She seemed unnaturally calm, as if something had broken inside her.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘OK.’
The light from the windows above was dimming. The votive candles glowed in front of them.
‘I used to come in here when I was staying at the camp,’ said Zahra, her eyes staring ahead to the altar, dark shadows playing across her face with the movement of the candles’ flames. ‘Not to pray. Just to remember. It reminds me of home. There’s a big cathedral in Asmara. We went there every Sunday when I was a child.’
She looked down to her lap. ‘Now I’m not sure God even exists.’
In therapy, Sam would have explored this feeling, but today’s conversation was about one thing only, information.
‘Did you talk to people in the camp?’
‘I asked if anyone knew anything about the boat. And whether anyone had heard from Abel.’
She closed her eyes.
Sam could see how hard this was for her. In the UK, she’d been living in a state of permanent uncertainty, waiting for news of her asylum claim and the possibility of bringing her son over from Eritrea, while hoping that her husband made contact. Despite sending out feelers, joining Eritrean forums online, setting up a Facebook page, there was nothing. Sam could only conclude that Abel was either in some form of trouble, or didn’t want to make contact. But now, of course, there was even less hope to cling on to. And she would not see her son again unless she returned home.
Denial (Sam Keddie Thriller Book 2) Page 13