A Bitter Taste

by Annie Hauxwell

  ‘How does she spend her time? What’s she into? Has she got a mobile or a Facebook page? Any mates?’

  ‘Oh, you know, she just hangs around. She’s always found it difficult to make friends. The kids at school would tease her and say she was . . . ’ Sonja raised her hand to her temple: touched in the head. ‘She stopped going. Maybe it was because I had her so late. At forty-one she was a surprise.’ She stared into space, seeking inspiration. ‘She makes things up,’ she added, and lapsed into silence.

  Berlin could see her drifting away. That was the end of the exhaustive description of Sonja’s daughter. She asked herself again what she was getting into and why.

  But the photo of the child in her hand left her with no choice. No one had bothered to say ‘smile’. The dark eyes held Berlin’s; the soft, unformed face was perplexed, the slight frown defiant. A picture of innocence was always compelling.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ said Berlin. ‘Call me if she turns up, okay? You’ve got my mobile number.’

  No reply.

  ‘Sonja?’

  She looked up.

  ‘What’s she called?’ asked Berlin.

  Sonja looked stricken, as if for a moment she’d forgotten her daughter was missing and Berlin had just reminded her of this unpleasant fact. ‘You will find her, won’t you? She means everything to me,’ she said. Desperation shone through the dope haze.

  ‘What’s her name?’ said Berlin.

  ‘Princess.’

  10

  Berlin didn’t even try to catch up on her sleep when she finally got home. At least during the heatwave she didn’t endure sleeplessness alone; nobody could rest. She rubbed her shoulder, which she had wrenched using the Asp. It had been a long time and she was out of condition. No doubt the creep was suffering a lot more. She hoped so.

  She made a pot of strong Arabica, fired up the computer and journeyed to Google Earth, where she could think strategically about the task at hand.

  She had to start somewhere and she was working alone, so she would limit the field of operations. Sonja’s place was ground zero and she would fan out from there, superimposing a grid on the map to prevent doubling up.

  She swept across the cyber-landscape to get a feel for the terrain and identify abandoned buildings, houses with sheds and old workmen’s huts. Classic hiding places for runaways. The satellite images might be out of date, but the pace of change had slowed considerably since the financial crisis.

  She would log the CCTV cameras when she got out there. If there were any, she might be able to get the operator to review their tapes. Although without a court order it would cost.

  She would inspect abandoned cars, refrigerators, culverts, tunnels and stormwater pipes. Anywhere a kid could crawl inside and sleep. Presumably Princess had little or no money, unless she’d been thieving, and she’d be unlikely to travel far from what she knew. If she’d been left to her own devices most of the time she would have a much better grasp of the area’s topography than her mother.

  Printing out the results of her research Berlin slipped them into a plastic envelope. Opening a file, preparing logs, mapping the intel. As if it were a proper job.

  Was she really doing this to assuage some absurd sense of guilt she felt about Sonja? After all, Sonja had made her own bad choices. Perhaps it was more about keeping herself sane, working, or pretending to work, at something that was a step up from errant wives.

  Perhaps she wanted to take her mind off heroin and the impending nightmare of detox and methadone or subutex. Maybe she was just keeping busy, as her mother would say.

  11

  His ear was throbbing, probably infected. It would go septic quickly in the heat. But he couldn’t go to the hospital. It was too risky. He couldn’t afford to leave her alone.

  He hadn’t meant to frighten her, quite the opposite. He just wanted to talk to her, to explain that he wasn’t going to hurt her. But he couldn’t get near her without a scene, which would attract the attention of the other residents. That could complicate things and his patient vigil would be wasted.

  His scalp was itchy under the cap. He kept his coat collar up and a thick scarf wrapped around his face, defying the heat, so there was very little chance anyone would recognise him. He didn’t want to bump into any old acquaintances. And he didn’t want anyone remembering his face.

  She had been here two nights and she hadn’t gone unnoticed. He would watch and wait a little longer, but he couldn’t afford to let it drag on. If he got it wrong, things could turn nasty. Very nasty. It would be better done under cover of darkness, so he would have to endure another long, trying day. Then he would make his move.

  Sooner rather than later.

  12

  There were times when Berlin didn’t recognise her city. It had become a dazed and petulant beast, slithering into a pit, lashing out in confusion as it sank. Its descent was observed by mechanical eyes, which at three in the morning tracked her progress from Trafalgar Square to Temple Bar.

  She tramped from shelter to hostel to soup kitchen, leaving photos of the kid with agencies that could be relied on not to contact the police. She felt as if someone was watching her. Of course, they were. She just had to keep reminding herself that it was nothing personal.

  Small, vicious acts of vandalism, and ideologically motivated attacks on a grander scale, had combined in an overwhelming discourse of threat. Surveillance had been the response. She gazed at the skyline. The reassuring icons that marked out English liberality – Parliament, St Pauls, the Old Bailey – were cowering beneath the weight of the state.

  Everything was political these days.

  The theatres on the Strand were dark and the tourists safely ensconced in their hotels in air-conditioned comfort. Charles Dickens had lived right here. Berlin had no doubt he would be unsurprised to see charities feeding these dwellers at the margin, who crept from doorways and beneath bushes to feed on supermarket discards.

  Her mobile rang. It was Sonja. ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘I wondered if there was any news, you know, if anyone’s seen her, or —’

  Berlin broke in. ‘It’s early days, Sonja,’ she said, although it wasn’t. The kid had been gone for forty-eight hours, which statistically was about twenty-four too long. ‘I’m doing the rounds, letting people know to look out for her.’

  ‘People?’ Sonja sounded nervous.

  ‘People we can trust. I’ll call you if there’s any news.’

  She hung up.

  What she couldn’t tell Sonja was that her search was doomed to fail: one pair of boots on the ground was ridiculously inadequate. Working alone also meant there was no one to test her approach or challenge her assumptions. She could be overlooking something. What did she know about kids?

  At ten years old she was helping her dad, Lenny, in the shop on Saturdays, polishing the rings. It was a different world then.

  There was no point approaching hospitals or morgues. If an unidentified child of that age turned up she would have seen it on the news. Missing children were found quickly or never.

  ‘Never’ meant sold or dead.

  Princess was not strictly missing; she had run away. This put her in the category of not wanting to be found.

  It made no difference.

  Chances were she would still be sold or dead.

  13

  He crouched deep in the shadow of his container, rubbing at his painful ear. It was beginning to smell. He had struggled to keep his eyes open until the night was absolutely still. But now he was wide awake: two figures were approaching down one of the long, narrow passages between the rows of containers.

  It was a pair of hoodies, stumbling through the darkness, half-pissed or stoned, and all the more dangerous for that. Their voices grew louder, bouncing off the sheer steel walls.

  ‘Where is she?’ whispered the smaller one.

  ‘If I knew that I wouldn’t be fuckin’ looking for her, would I?’ said the taller, thickset one. He was trying to keep his
voice low, but failing.

  ‘Wassa plan then?’ said the smaller one.

  ‘We don’t need a fuckin’ plan,’ came the reply. ‘Just grab her.’

  By now the girl must have heard them.

  He swore. He had run out of time, and patience. The last thing he wanted was a showdown with this pair of toe-rags. It was dangerous and he could lose the initiative.

  Something rattled. It sounded like a chain being dragged through the dust. He crept away from his container, crawled over to her lair and tapped on the plastic.

  ‘They’re coming,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t let anything happen, promise.’ He had to win her over somehow.

  There was no response.

  ‘Come out,’ he said. ‘You’re not safe in there.’

  The stumblers were getting very close.

  He had a torch, but didn’t dare use it.It was now or never. He slid back the plastic.

  The container was empty. The kid was one step ahead of all of them. Fuck it.

  When she reappeared – if she reappeared – it was over. No more Mr Nice Guy.

  14

  Trudging up Bethnal Green Road towards home at the end of a long and fruitless night, Berlin made a call. It was answered on the second ring.

  ‘Hello, Del,’ she said.

  ‘It lives,’ said Del. She hadn’t been in touch for a while. Delroy Jacobs had been her partner when she worked for the government chasing illegal moneylenders. Loan sharks.

  ‘How are you, mate?’ he said. Genuine concern. No complaints about the fact that she’d woken him before dawn, just a mild reproach that he hadn’t heard from her, but now he had and it was okay. He just wanted to know how she was doing.

  ‘I’ve been better,’ she confessed. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m a dad now,’ he said.

  ‘That was quick,’ she said.

  ‘Not really. The standard nine months.’

  Berlin remembered.

  Linda had come with Del to the hospital once, when she was pregnant. It had been a mistake. When she saw the state Berlin was in she put even more pressure on Del to get out of the operational side. Their outfit was disbanded soon after, so he’d gone to work for a prestigious private intelligence company as a manager. Safe and sound behind a desk. Berlin knew he must hate it.

  ‘What’s that like?’ asked Berlin. ‘Parenthood?’

  ‘It changes everything,’ said Del.

  ‘What do you know about ten-year-olds?’ asked Berlin.

  Del laughed. ‘It’s a bit soon to be worrying,’ he said. ‘I know they grow up fast these days, but . . . ’ He paused. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’m working on a missing kid,’ said Berlin.

  ‘That’s heavy,’ said Del. ‘How long?’

  ‘Getting on for sixty hours.’

  She listened to Del breathing and knew what he was thinking.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asked.

  Berlin heard the thin wail of an infant’s cry in the background. ‘Look after your kid,’ she said. And just be there for me, she thought, that’s enough.

  15

  The canal was a grey ribbon of sludge. The broad road under which it ran took a bend, so there was no light at the end of the tunnel.

  Low and dark, the arch dripped a ceaseless tattoo on the oily surface of the water, melding with the soft coo of pigeons and faint rodent squeaks in a subdued soundtrack of menace.

  A thin child, a girl, had been stuffed into a crevice that some thoughtful Victorian engineer had provided for strangers who must pass on the narrow towpath.

  The small broken body lay undisturbed by the clamour.

  31˚C

  16

  Berlin woke to another torpid morning, feeling as if she had slept for about five minutes. She stumbled out of bed to find she had run out of bread and milk. And Scotch.

  She’d been neglecting her surveillance of Mrs Demir. It was a waste of time anyway, and she was just putting off delivering the bad news to the husband. She’d have to pay Mr Demir a visit before she went any further with the search for the missing kid.

  On the way out she pulled her usual trick of dumping her empties into a neighbour’s dustbin. She didn’t want to get a reputation as a heavy drinker.

  Murat was occupying the stool behind the counter. Commuters about to brave the malodorous furnace that was the Underground were cranky as they bought their newspapers and bottles of tepid water. The temperature had risen to 47 degrees on some lines; posters implored travellers to stay hydrated.

  Berlin suspected a conspiracy between the bottled-water companies and London Transport. The lord mayor had once offered a substantial cash prize to anyone who could come up with a solution to the problem of the overheated tunnels, but the competition ended without a winner.

  Mr Demir wasn’t getting any prizes either. She was going to give him the heads-up on his wife’s early morning activities, take her last bag of groceries and draw a line under this job that wasn’t even a job. It was barter. No invoice. No tax. No comeback. Now he wasn’t even here.

  ‘I’d like to speak to your father,’ she said to Murat.

  ‘What do you want with him?’ he said.

  His demeanour was cool, and there was no hint of the aggression he had displayed the other morning. This smug confidence was somehow more unnerving.

  ‘Just tell him Berlin would like a word,’ she said.

  He continued to serve his customers until there was a brief lull, then disappeared out the back. A moment later he returned with Mrs Demir.

  Berlin had never seen her this close. Her deep brown eyes were puffy, ringed with dark, ingrained circles. Years of insufficient sleep. Her hair was flecked with grey.

  ‘May I help you?’ she asked Berlin.

  Berlin didn’t miss a beat.

  ‘Hello. My name’s Catherine. Mr Demir was kind enough to complete a brief consumer survey for me the other day. I’m just following up on that.’

  Mrs Demir glanced at Murat. Anxious.

  ‘I’m afraid my husband is unwell,’ she said.

  ‘Oh. Nothing serious, I hope?’ said Berlin.

  There was no response. Murat watched her, his gaze hard and steady.

  Berlin picked up the East London Advertiser and put sixty pence on the counter.

  ‘I’ll call another time then,’ she said.

  After Berlin had gone, Murat left his mother to run the shop and went out the back to stack cartons of canned lager. He threw each one higher and faster than the last. The taller the pile, the more his arms ached, the greater the justification for his fury. The stack of cartons swayed. He could see the whole edifice come tumbling down in a heartbeat.

  He leant against it, resting his forehead on the cardboard and wrapping his arms around the quivering pile. He had worked so hard, he couldn’t give up now. Failure was not an option. He had to do something.

  Rolfey was taciturn, not his usual cheery self. Berlin wondered if he had personal problems, or if he was just running out of patience with her. He scribbled her script, then handed it over.

  She checked: he had prescribed fewer caps. First the reduced dose, now this. She stared at it for a moment, assessing its implications.

  ‘An old acquaintance of mine has turned up. A patient of yours. Sonja Kvist,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Former patient,’ said Rolfey.

  ‘One of your success stories,’ she said.

  She saw him struggle to meet her gaze and affect ignorance of the sarcastic slur.

  ‘How is Sonja?’ he asked.

  ‘Her kid’s run away,’ said Berlin.

  ‘Oh?’ said Rolfey.

  ‘Do you know the kid?’ asked Berlin.

  Rolfey stood up. ‘I’ve got patients waiting,’ he said.

  She sighed. He was such a lousy liar.

  Rolfey glanced with longing at a painting of a yacht on the wall.

  ‘She’s ten. This is the third day,’ said Berlin. ‘Do you know what t
hat means?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ he snapped. ‘What do you take me for?’ He pulled himself together and continued in a more measured tone. ‘Sonja brought the girl with her a couple of times. I asked her not to. This is no environment for a child.’

  ‘Sonja said she’d seen me here. Did you ever talk about me?’ said Berlin.

  ‘She may have asked about your scars. I mentioned what you did for a living, you know, what happened last winter.’

  Berlin raised an eyebrow. ‘And what else, Rolfey?’

  He obviously didn’t have the energy or the temperament.

  ‘Okay. You got me. She called in a distressed state and said she needed to get in touch with you. She wanted you to help her find Princess. I urged her to go to the police, but she wouldn’t hear of it.’

  So that was Sonja’s first lie. She had told Rolfey about the missing kid. It would have tugged at his heartstrings.

  ‘You told her where I lived,’ said Berlin.

  ‘No,’ exclaimed Rolfey. There was a pause before he muttered, ‘I told her when you had your next appointment.’

  Berlin shook her head and tut-tutted, as if he were a naughty little boy.

  ‘The General Medical Council are on your case, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘A breach of patient privacy may be a minor infraction. But on top of everything else.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Rolfey, defensive.

  She brought out her big guns.

  ‘Like junkies using a vice to break their arms so they can get a referral to your clinic during the drought.’

  All those plaster casts on the arms and wrists of Rolfey’s patients were no coincidence. The method of ensuring a clean break was hot gossip and Berlin even had the name of one local mechanic said to be doing a brisk trade.

  The look on Rolfey’s face was enough. He couldn’t deny it. Any clinician would have picked up the pattern among new clients. Rolfey had plenty of experience and constant contact with addicts. He couldn’t plead ignorance. By prescribing for them it was arguable that he was encouraging an epidemic of self-harm. If it became public, the scandal would destroy him. The CQC would close the place in a flash.