‘He just turned up, looking for you. I found him asleep in your room when I went in to look for a T-shirt. What shall I do?’
‘Ring his mother.’ Joe dictated Fliss’ number. ‘And tell them both I’m about to board a plane and should be back in London in around fifteen hours.’
‘He wants to talk to you.’
‘Put him on.’
‘Hi, Dad.’ Hugo’s voice sounded blissfully untroubled.
‘What are you doing there, Hugo? Your mother’s worried. You have to stop doing this. You’re supposed to be at school.’
‘I wanted to see you.’
‘I told you I was going to be away for a few days.’
‘I forgot.’
‘Annie is going to ring Mummy. You must talk to her and tell her you are fine. Okay? I’ll be back soon.’
‘Okay. Love you Dad.’
‘I love you too, son.’
He hung up and slumped back into his seat. Relieved and despairing at the same time. And just slightly proud of a boy who could be so unconcerned about the dangers of the world outside his homes and school. Other passengers waiting for Joe’s flight were starting to fill the seats around him and he noticed a group of three local girls huddling nervously together. They kept checking their tickets and boarding passes, their eyes darting around them as if unsure whether they were in the right place. Every so often they would dissolve into giggles.
Joe noticed that they all had large, well-rounded breasts which they seemed particularly keen to show off in tight T-shirts. It was as though they were new acquisitions which they were exceptionally proud of, if a little uncertain how to wear. If he hadn’t been in so much pain from his face, he would have talked to them. He was willing to bet money that they all answered to the name ‘Doris’.
At the same time as Joe was waiting for his plane, Cordelia had popped into the Gloucester Place flat to see Doris. She blinked with surprise as she walked in. The place was so startlingly clean. The windows had been polished to such a level there didn’t appear to be any glass in them. The sunshine streamed through, bouncing and reflecting on the dozens of different polished surfaces. Doris was on the phone in the kitchen, absent-mindedly wiping a work surface as she talked. She hadn’t heard Cordelia coming in.
‘You just go,’ she was saying. ‘You don’t put up with any more of her shit. She’s ignorant woman. Thinks you her slave. You come here. I give you address. Then we maybe get jobs and earn money and go back home together. Yes?’
Cordelia waited patiently as Doris dictated the Gloucester Place address to someone at the other end and hung up.
‘They won’t be turning up in the next twenty-four hours, will they?’ she asked, making Doris jump and give a little shriek of surprise. ‘It’s just that I need to use the flat tonight for some American visitors I’ve got to pick up from Heathrow. I was going to ask you to come over to Earls Court for the night.’
‘That’s okay,’ Doris said, recovering herself. ‘My friend is working for a bad woman in Brighton. Makes her work night and day. But she not yet ready to leave. She is frightened. She just want somewhere to go if things get too bad. We go to Earls Court now?’
‘I need to get in some shopping. You want to come with me? You’ve done a brill job cleaning this place up.’
‘I like to work. My grandmother always told me that hard work was direct route to heaven.’
‘Yeah, my Nan comes out with stuff like that too,’ Cordelia said. ‘Come on, let’s go shopping. The limo’s waiting downstairs.’
Two hours later they arrived back at the flat, laden down with bags from Selfridges food hall. They stocked the fridge with champagne, Coke, beer, smoked salmon and a dozen different ready-made dishes, and completely filled the bread bin and piled high the fruit bowl.
‘Your visitors very hungry people,’ Doris commented as she emptied the last of the bags.
‘They are people who like to have what they want when they want it,’ Cordelia agreed. ‘And we like to keep them happy.’
When they had finished putting everything away, Doris packed her overnight bag and they went back down to the street to find the limousine. The driver was circling the block while he waited for them to come out.
Had they drawn away two minutes later, Doris might well have recognised the Porsche that turned into the street and nosed slowly along the curb as if looking for an address. She would certainly have recognised one of the three men who climbed out of the car, once they had found what they were looking for and had parked around the corner.
Joe’s face throbbed agonisingly throughout the flight, keeping him in a permanent state of half-sleep as he swallowed painkillers every few hours in the dark roar of the plane’s economy section.
He didn’t see the girls in their tight T-shirts again until they were all queuing to get through passport control at Heathrow. The official in the booth carefully inspected every non-European passport that went by, and seemed to want to know more about the girls and their reasons for coming into the country. Joe was too far back in the queue to be able to hear exactly what was being said, but he saw another official being summoned to question the girls. The queue waited with a nervous, suppressed impatience to be through the ordeal. No one wanted to make a protest about the delay, for fear of drawing attention to themselves and becoming the next objects of scrutiny.
After what seemed like an age, the officials seemed to decide the girls deserved the benefit of the doubt and let them through. The queue continued to edge forward. When Joe reached the front he saw the hard stare of the woman in the booth resting on his face.
‘What happened to you?’ she asked, trying to compare the picture in the passport with the reality a few feet away from her.
‘I had a car accident,’ Joe lied. ‘I cut my face on the windscreen.’
‘No seat-belt?’ she enquired and, for a moment, Joe wondered if that would be enough of a criminal act to have him barred from re-entering the country.
‘Faulty seat-belt,’ he replied. He could feel himself blushing at the lie, but felt confident a little extra colour would not be noticeable amongst the dressings and bruises.
She nodded him through and he made his way to the baggage reclaim area. The three girls were already there, waiting for their luggage to emerge. When it came it consisted of the same pitiful little sports bags he had seen in the bedrooms in Brighton and Eaton Square. They could easily have taken them on board as hand-luggage had they been a little more worldly-wise.
His own bag came out immediately after theirs and he found himself pushing his trolley through the customs channel just behind them as they went ahead, tottering on their cheap platform shoes. A few, apparently bored, customs officials watched them all pass, perched on the edges of their desks. The girls looked like obvious targets for searching to Joe, but maybe that was the point, they simply looked too obvious. None of the officials moved to stop them. In fact, none of them actually registered any facial expressions at all.
Joe came out through the swing doors onto the public concourse behind the girls. There were lines of waiting friends, relatives and taxi drivers leaning over the rails, watching the faces in search of the ones they had come to meet.
A chill of horror rippled through him as his eyes came into direct contact with Max’s. For what seemed like an eternity Max’s watery gaze did not flicker, and Joe thought he was about to jump over the rails and attack him. The eyes disengaged and Max ducked down, coming under the rails and moving towards Joe in the crowd of arriving passengers. Joe looked for an avenue of escape but there was none. Max walked directly at him and Joe prepared himself to punch first. Then Max spoke.
‘Good evening ladies,’ he said to the three girls. ‘My name is Max and I am your driver for this evening.’ The girls giggled and allowed him to steer them towards the exit. Joe could not help thinking that they were like little rabbits gratefully accepting the hospitality of the biggest and baddest wolf in the forest.
As he looked around him, Joe
realised that a number of other people were looking at him, glancing quickly away as he caught their eyes. It was the state of his face that was attracting attention. But it was also acting as a disguise. Max’s gaze had simply been attracted by a man with a bandaged face.
As Max loaded the delighted girls into his Porsche in the short-term car park, and Joe found a taxi to take him to Fliss’ house, Cordelia’s limousine slid to the main doors of Terminal Four. Heads turned as the driver got out and walked smartly round to open the back door and allow Cordelia to step out. She was wearing a blonde wig and a light summer dress which showed off her figure in every way. Any passers-by who troubled to make a judgement as to who she might be, would probably have decided she was a member of a girl band, or a young soap opera star off to New York and the big time.
‘Thanks, mate,’ she said to the driver. ‘I could get used to this lifestyle.’
‘Me too,’ he grinned. ‘Beats mini-cabbing.’
She gave him a wink before throwing her head back and striding into the terminal with the confidence of a supermodel.
She walked across the concourse to the arrivals hall, exactly where Max had been standing just a short time before. She had checked from the car that the flight she was meeting was on time. She had also memorised the pictures which had been faxed to her of the men she was to meet and accommodate. She bought herself a bottle of water and waited patiently with the crowd, watching the arrival doors.
Two flights came through without her targets on board. Then she saw them. They were both in their forties and looked like old-fashioned salesmen in their dark single-breasted suits and conservative ties. They had neat haircuts and handsome, open faces. Cordelia made herself known to them and they both allowed their eyes to roam approvingly up and down her body. She smiled sweetly, biting her bottom lip with her perfect white teeth.
‘If you would like to follow me,’ she said, with a flutter of her eyelashes and a dip of her head. ‘There’s a car waiting. Did you have a good flight?’
The two men made stumblingly flirtatious conversation as they attempted to keep up with her brisk pace. Cordelia was anxious to get out of the airport as quickly as possible. She preferred to be on home territory. There were too many cameras and security staff in airports.
The men sat either side of her in the back of the car and one of them allowed his hand to rest on her bare thigh. The other man followed suit on her other thigh. Both of them ran their fingers upwards, gently easing her legs apart and pushing up her skirt.
‘I think we should get to know each other a bit better first, don’t you, guys?’ Cordelia said, firmly placing both their hands on their own bulging laps and crossing her legs. ‘I should try to get a few minutes sleep if I were you. What with the jet lag and all.’
The men exchanged knowing glances and stayed silent, staring out at the dreary passing scenery of West London, darting the odd glances at Cordelia’s pert profile when they thought she wasn’t looking. Cordelia didn’t miss a single look.
The driver dropped them outside the block of flats in Gloucester Place and unloaded their luggage from the boot. The men picked the cases up themselves and followed Cordelia up the steps and into the block. The driver climbed back in and drove away to find a parking space, whilst Cordelia exchanged greetings with Bernie, the doorman. They then made their way up in the lift.
There was no sign of any forced entry on the front door of the flat. It was only once Cordelia had inserted her key and pushed the door open in a grand gesture, that the sight and smell hit them.
The flat, which had looked like a show home from a glossy magazine when she and Doris had left it, now resembled a particularly foul squat. Everything that could be torn up and destroyed was lying in the centre of the room, like a bonfire awaiting a match. Blinds, furniture, pictures, curtains, rugs, kitchen equipment, bottles from the bar, everything was slashed and smashed and tossed onto the heap. Even the parquet flooring had been ripped up and added to the chaos. Wires hung from the demolished ceiling and everywhere on the walls and windows there seemed to be shit smeared and spread in wild, foul-smelling, nonsensical graffiti.
‘Jesus Christ,’ one of the men said, covering his mouth and nose with his hand.
‘What the fuck happened here?’ the other asked, backing away, his eyes darting in all directions, as if expecting an ambush.
Cordelia already had her phone out. ‘Car’ she said, and the number gave a few rings. ‘It’s me,’ she said as soon as the driver picked up. ‘We have to get out of here quickly. Bring the car back to the entrance. Fast as you can.’ She pushed the men back outside the door. ‘We’ll find you somewhere else,’ she told them.
As they went down in the lift with all their luggage, she put the phone to her mouth again. ‘Len,’ she said.
‘Dad,’ she said when Len replied. ‘It’s me. We can’t use the flat. Someone’s been there. You’ll have to set us up with a hotel room or an alternative address. We’ll be in the car.’
The car hadn’t managed to get back to them by the time they emerged onto the street and the three of them stood together, Cordelia silent and thoughtful, the two men suddenly nervous and showing their jet lag.
Cordelia felt vulnerable in her flimsy dress, exposed on the empty pavement as the traffic streamed by in the cooling night air.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Hugo, in his pyjamas and dressing-gown, was sitting in the kitchen with Geoffrey, his grandfather, when Joe arrived at Fliss’ house. They had obviously just eaten and Rosa, the Spanish housekeeper, was busy tidying around them.
‘Good God!’ his ex-father-in-law exclaimed as he saw Joe’s face. ‘What the hell happened to you?’
‘Minor road accident in Manila,’ Joe lied fluently, catching Hugo in mid-air as the boy launched himself across the room, wrapping his legs around his father’s waist and his arms around his neck. Joe staggered back under the force of the welcome. ‘Boy, you are putting on weight,’ he laughed.
‘Want a drink, old man?’ Geoffrey asked.
‘Thank you, yes. That would be very welcome.’
Geoffrey poured them each a scotch and Joe sat down at the table.
‘Manila, eh?’ Geoffrey said. ‘Knew a chap whose son went out there and never came back. Pevensey. Member of the Landowners’ Association. Place up in Norfolk somewhere. Boy went completely native apparently. Runs a string of brothels.’
‘I met him,’ Joe said. ‘He seems to think he’s landed in paradise.’
‘Dare say he does,’ Geoffrey said, sitting down beside him. ‘There’s not many of us who haven’t dreamed of doing something similar at some stage or another, eh?’
‘What’s a brothel?’ Hugo enquired.
‘Hugo and I have been having a chat.’ Geoffrey went on, ignoring the question. ‘I was telling him I think he’ll end up being a great explorer one day. Or possibly a habitual escapee from some prison camp somewhere. That school doesn’t seem to be able to hold onto him for ten seconds.’
‘Don’t encourage him, Granddad,’ Joe said, with what he hoped was the expected solemnity of a responsible father. ‘He causes his mother a lot of grief with these escapades. And he has got to stop it.’
‘Oh, I’ve told him that,’ Geoffrey agreed. ‘He understands all that. Don’t you, lad?’
‘Yes, Granddad.’ Hugo had clambered onto his father’s knee and was studying the dressing on his face carefully. ‘Is Manila really cool?’
‘It was exciting,’ Joe said. ‘Where’s your mother? I thought she would be here.’
‘She’s gone to a party with Paolo,’ Hugo said. ‘Prince Charles is going to be there.’
‘She said they won’t be late,’ Geoffrey said. ‘She left me on sentry duty. To make sure he doesn’t dig his way out again.’
‘What’s happened to Nanny Harris?’ Joe asked.
‘Nanny Harris has gone into semi-retirement now Hugo’s boarding. About time too. The woman’s older than I am. I believe as we speak she�
��s staying with friends on the Isle of Wight.’
Hugo appeared not to be listening, suddenly absorbed in his own thoughts.
‘How did you get all the way to London, Hugo?’ Joe asked.
‘I was having a Sunday out with Ben and his family. They live in Chiswick. So I caught a bus to Earls Court. I forgot you were going away.’
‘That’s terrible,’ Joe said. ‘Ben’s family must have been worried out of their minds.’
‘Sorry,’ Hugo said and grinned. ‘Where is Manila anyway?’
‘In the Far East. But don’t keep changing the subject. You’ve got to understand that it isn’t safe for a little boy to be running around London on his own. You must never go anywhere without telling us or your teachers where you are. Do you understand?’
‘Yes. The Far East is near Japan, isn’t it?’
‘You’re changing the subject again. Do you understand how important it is you don’t keep doing this?’
‘Yes, Dad.’ There was an edge of impatience in the boy’s voice. ‘You don’t have to keep going on. I understand. Will you be taking me back to school?’
‘Is it that bad?’
‘No. It’s boring, mainly.’
‘Hugo was telling me he doesn’t really have many friends,’ Geoffrey said. ‘I was explaining that sometimes it takes a bit of time to build up friendships. But those are the ones that last.’
‘The others don’t like me,’ Hugo said, all his attention going into building a pyramid with the various plates and cups and glasses that were still standing around on the table.
‘Why do you think that?’ Joe asked, feeling a stab of pain in his heart.
‘They tell me. They’re always saying how weird I am. I get fed up with it.’
‘Well, your mother and I will start to look around for another school. A day school,’ Joe said. ‘But you do have to go back for the rest of this term at least.’
‘No offence,’ Hugo said. ‘But do we have to go in the Fiat?’
‘No,’ Joe laughed. ‘We’ll try to arrange for something less embarrassing. Come on, let’s get you to bed.’
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