Blackout

by Dawson, Mark

  He felt a dampness on his skin and then the sensation of something moving up and down in a gentle pattern. He opened his eyes. Isko was crouched next to him. He had poured the water from his mug onto Milton’s forehead, and now he was very carefully brushing it across his face with the tips of his fingers. The water was tepid, but his skin was burning hot and it felt good. The old man washed it over the cuts and bruises, gently brushing away the dried blood.

  “It was Mr. Fitz again?”

  Milton managed a moan. “And the big guy.”

  “You were unconscious when I got here. He beat you worse than last time.”

  Milton wanted to tell Isko that he had embarrassed Tiny and that he didn’t think it had gone down very well, but the sentence was too long and he didn’t have the strength for it.

  “We need to do something,” the old man said. “You can’t go through this every day.”

  Milton tried to speak, but all he could manage was an uncontrollable cough.

  “What?”

  Milton waited until it subsided. “Got any ideas?”

  “Not really.”

  Milton managed to raise himself to a sitting position. “Fitz,” he said. “He said he was getting out.”

  “You think that will make things better?”

  Milton shook his head, but the movement was dizzying and it made him feel sick.

  “No,” Isko said, finishing for him. “I don’t suppose it would.”

  “Message,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Need to get message out.”

  “To who?”

  “Manila,” he said. “Can you help?”

  “Perhaps. I might be able to find an inmate who has a visitor. I am friendly with some. Perhaps they could arrange it. Who do you need to speak to?”

  “Police,” Milton said.

  44

  JOSIE’S MOTHER didn’t want her to go to work.

  She had to reassure her that it was the right thing to do, but the effort meant that she was half an hour late getting out the door. She had never driven in from Taguig before, and the traffic was terrible. It meant that she was forty minutes late in getting to the station.

  She tried to hurry along the corridor to the desk, but she hadn’t managed to get more than a handful of paces beyond Mendoza’s open door when he called out to her.

  “Where have you been?” he asked her.

  “Angelo is sick.”

  He feigned concern. “What’s the matter?”

  “A temperature.”

  “I’m sorry. Poor boy. Are they at your mother’s place?”

  He fixed her with an inquisitive look as he put the question, and Josie knew, for sure, that he knew very well that they had moved and that he was probing to see what she would say.

  She was prepared to call his bluff. “They are,” she said.

  Mendoza nodded solicitously. “I hope he feels better soon. If you need to leave early tonight, that’s fine.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She turned to go.

  “Wait,” he said. “Shut the door.”

  She found that her throat was dry. She did as he asked.

  “You were at the hotel last night.”

  It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. “Yes,” she said carefully.

  “You saw the fire.”

  “Yes. How do you know that, sir?”

  “The fire department report mentioned your name. What were you doing there?”

  She remembered what he had told her about not pursuing the investigation. “I was driving home,” she said. “I saw the smoke.”

  “Really? It was just a coincidence?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense. It’s not on your way home. You go south on the Skyway. The guesthouse is north. So don’t lie to me—why were you there?”

  She thought on her feet, finding the expression of concern that would be expected of someone who had just been accused of dishonesty by their boss. “I was seeing an informant,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “I met her in Intramuros.”

  Mendoza let the answer hang in the air and then smiled, almost as if he hadn’t just accused her of dishonesty. “Just a coincidence, then?”

  “Yes. I was passing.”

  “That’s good. Because we talked about that case and how there was no point wasting time on it.”

  “We did. And I understand.”

  “Excellent. You’ve been working long hours, Josie. Don’t stay late tonight. Go home to your boy.”

  The mention of Angelo made her flinch. “Thank you, sir. I will.”

  “He needs his mother. You should spend more time with him. I appreciate your dedication, but you’re working too hard. And Manila is a dangerous place.”

  She knew exactly what that was: a threat.

  “Thank you.”

  She was barely halfway out the door when Mendoza said, “One more thing. Your informant.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Who is it?”

  She prayed that she could maintain her composure. “Her name is Fleur.”

  “Get her details for me, please. Leave them on my desk before you go home.”

  “What for?”

  “I want to speak to her.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She felt dizzy as she left the office. The bathroom was beyond her desk, and that was fortunate. She tried to look as nonchalant as she could as she headed to the door, but, as soon as she was inside and she was sure that she was alone, she locked herself in a cubicle, leaned over the toilet, and vomited.

  45

  JOSIE WASHED her face with cold water and then went back to her desk. She sat down and stared at her blank screen for five minutes. She needed to think, but it was as if her thoughts had been coated with Vaseline. She couldn’t focus on anything for more than a few seconds. She kept thinking about Angelo, the car outside the house and the bullet that had been slipped beneath the door.

  She knew that she should ignore the murder of Jessica Sanchez. She had been warned, explicitly, what would happen to her and her family if she kept putting her nose back into it. She thought again of the bullet and the photograph of Angelo, and what Mendoza had said to her this morning. She thought of the owner of the bar and how his death was so obviously linked to whatever had happened to Smith.

  She thought of the fire.

  And, even though she knew it was folly and that she would be putting herself and her family in danger if her disobedience was found out, she couldn’t do as she was told.

  She picked up her phone and called the forensics department. She asked whether the autopsy had taken place on the body of Jessica Sanchez. She was connected to the pathologist.

  “I took a look at her last night,” he reported. “Cause of death was strangulation. Extensive bruising around the neck, as you would have seen. In addition to that, there was clear evidence of asphyxiation: pinpoint haemorrhages in the skin and the conjunctiva of the eyes.”

  “What else?”

  “There isn’t too much to report. It was very straightforward.”

  “Toxicology?”

  “Nothing. What were you expecting?”

  Josie made a leap. “Had she been drinking?”

  She heard the man tap on a keyboard. “Eight milligrams of alcohol per hundred millilitres of blood.”

  “That’s hardly anything.”

  “A single shot of spirit. Half a glass of wine.”

  She made a second jump. “I sent in a specimen that we took from a suspect,” she said. “John Smith. Could you check if that’s been tested?”

  “This isn’t convenient, officer. I’ve got two autopsies to do this afternoon.”

  “Please? It would be very helpful.”

  The man sighed. “Hold on.”

  There was a pause. Josie grabbed her car keys and left the building through the door that led out to the yard.

  She was in the parking l
ot when the man spoke again.

  “We tested his blood this morning,” he said.

  “And?”

  “It was clean.”

  “No alcohol?”

  “No,” he said. “Not a drop.”

  * * *

  THE HEADQUARTERS of Malate Fire Volunteer and Rescue was on Mabini Street. The squad’s two tenders were parked at the kerb and their operations were managed from two huts on opposite sides of the street. Josie parked in a space between the two bright red fire trucks and approached the nearest building. It was painted white, blue and orange, and there was a portrait of President Duterte stuck to the pane of glass in the door. Josie pushed it open and stepped inside.

  “I’m looking for Andrada,” she said.

  “He’s in the back. Who are you?”

  “Officer Hernandez. I met him last night.”

  “Stay there.”

  Josie waited while the officer went back into a room at the rear of the building. When he returned, the officer that Josie had spoken to last night was with him.

  “Hello, Officer,” he said.

  “You remember me, Chief?”

  “Sure I do. You were at the Makabat fire last night. How can I help?”

  “You got anything else on it?”

  “On what caused it?”

  She nodded.

  “We do. Come with me.”

  He took her through a door that led into a yard at the back of the building. There was a wooden lean-to built against the office. He collected a large jerry can inside a clear plastic evidence sack and put it on the ground at her feet.

  “We found that around the back of the office. It had gasoline inside it. Pretty obvious what happened. Someone poured it out as an accelerant and then torched the place.”

  He put the can back where he had found it and headed over to a vending machine next to the office door. “You want anything?”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  He reached into his pocket for change and dropped some coins into the slot.

  “Are you investigating it?” he said as he collected a can of Coke.

  “No,” she said. “Arson’s not really my scene.”

  “Not because of the arson,” he said. “Because of the bodies.”

  “What bodies?”

  “You don’t know?”

  She shook her head.

  He popped the top of the can and took a long swig. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe the report hasn’t been processed yet.”

  “What bodies?” she pressed.

  “The door to the office was locked when we tried it, so we broke it down. There were two bodies inside.”

  Josie swallowed hard. “Male and female?”

  He nodded. “We had forensics come over right away. A man and a woman, like you say. We couldn’t tell shit, they were so badly burned up, but they were able to ID them from their teeth.”

  “Oscar and Imelda Santos?”

  “That’s right, Officer. The manager and his wife. They took them away and autopsied them. They’d both been shot in the head. So we’re thinking it’s obvious what happened. Someone kills them, locks the door and sets the office on fire to burn the bodies.”

  “Thank you, Chief,” she said.

  “You need anything else?”

  “No,” she said. “That’s it.”

  * * *

  JOSIE DROVE back to the station and went back inside through the rear door. There was no sign of Mendoza, and, as she glanced up the corridor, she saw that his door was closed.

  “Where’s the boss?” she asked Dalisay.

  “Went out an hour ago,” the officer said.

  Josie’s desk phone rang. She picked it up.

  “Hernandez?”

  It was Gloria, out in the reception. “Yes?”

  “You got a visitor.”

  Josie hurried along the corridor and into the reception area. Gloria pointed to the old man waiting there for her. He was pacing back and forth.

  “Hello, sir,” Josie said. “I’m Officer Hernandez. You wanted to see me?”

  “I have a message for you.”

  “I’m sorry—I don’t know you, do I?”

  “You don’t. But you want the message or not?”

  The man was clearly uncomfortable in a police station.

  “What is it?”

  “My son, Hector, he is in Bilibid. And Hector knows another man there. Isko. And Isko says that he has a message for you from a prisoner he knows. This man is English. His name is Smith.”

  Josie turned. The only person she could see was Gloria. But she wasn’t prepared to take chances.

  “Come outside, please,” she said.

  If the man found her suggestion odd, he did not say so. Instead, he followed her out into the broiling heat.

  “What’s your name, sir?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You know Smith or you don’t? Isko said you’d know who he was.”

  “I know who he is. Go on.”

  “Isko says Smith wants to see you. He says he has information you need. He says you need to go there as soon as you can.”

  “When did he say this?”

  “I don’t know, lady. Hector called me this morning, said I had to say it was urgent. I’m just delivering the message.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  The man shook his head and then flinched as two officers ambled by them on their way into the station.

  “Thank you,” Josie said.

  The man shrugged and, without another word, turned and retreated quickly down the street.

  46

  MENDOZA HAD told Josie to think about Angelo, so she took him up on the suggestion. She called the station and said that his sickness was worse and that she was going to take the rest of the day off so that she could stay with him. Without allowing herself the luxury of second-guessing herself, she got into her car and drove out of the city, heading south toward Bilibid once again.

  * * *

  SMITH WAS waiting for her in the visiting room, but it took her a moment to recognise him. His face was bruised much worse than it had been the first time she had been here to see him. His right eye was swollen almost completely shut. There were abrasions beneath both eyes and around his nose, and his top lip had been split. The right side of his jaw was inflamed as if he had lost teeth.

  She sat down opposite him.

  He gestured up to his face before she had a chance to speak. “I know,” he said, the words mumbled around a swollen tongue. “I’ve made some excellent new friends.”

  “You look terrible.”

  “Felt better.”

  She looked around the room. It wasn’t private. The guards at the door were eyeing the prisoners and their guests with sour watchfulness. Josie felt vulnerable. Mendoza was a powerful man with extensive connections, and she had no doubt that his reach extended from Manila all the way down to the prison. There was no guarantee that he wouldn’t come to hear of her visit. She was taking a risk, yet she hadn’t been able to resist it.

  She tried to put that out of her mind.

  “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yes,” Smith said. “Thank you for coming.”

  “What is it?”

  “I know what happened to me. The murder—I can explain it now. I know what happened.”

  She thought of the additional information that she had accumulated since she had seen Smith, the questions that she needed to have answered. She would wait, though, and see what he had to say. “Go on.”

  “There was an inmate here. His name is Fitzroy de Lacey. He’s English. Very rich and very powerful. He made his money running guns. He was released yesterday.”

  “What does he have to do with you?”

  “There are some things I haven’t told you. About me. I said I was on holiday.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “No. And my name isn’t Smith.”

  “So what is it?”


  “Milton. John Milton.”

  “Why would you lie about that?”

  “Because I don’t travel under my own name. I made enemies during my career. People like de Lacey.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ve driven two hours to get here, so I might as well indulge you. What did you used to do?”

  “I was involved in the intelligence service.”

  “Like a spy?”

  “That would be one way to describe it.”

  “You told me you were a cook.”

  “Would you have believed me if I said I was a spy?”

  “I don’t suppose I would.”

  He spread his hands.

  “And you were involved with de Lacey?”

  “In a fashion. He had a big organisation. He did deals all around the world. I got into the business and found the evidence to shut him down. He was working on a deal with the communists in Manila.”

  Milton—Josie was about to think of him as Smith, but caught herself—shifted in his chair and looked at her, as if gauging her reaction.

  “Let’s say I buy all that,” she said. “What does de Lacey have to do with you being here?”

  “He blames me for what happened to him. He framed me. He orchestrated everything, and I fell for it. He knew that I knew Jessica. I don’t know how he did it, but he arranged for her to contact me. I told you what she told me: she had a child, and she thought it was mine. I believed her, she told me to come out here, and I did. The night we met, de Lacey had her killed and he made it look like I did it. I don’t think I was drinking. It wouldn’t have been like me, but I just couldn’t remember.”

  “You weren’t drinking,” she said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “We tested your blood. There was no trace of alcohol in yours.”

  “And Jessica?”

  “She had had one or two drinks.”

  Milton’s relief was evident, but it was quickly supressed. “The bottles in the hotel were left there to make it look like we’d been drinking.”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  He shook his head. “It’s more than that. That’s exactly what happened. Whoever de Lacey got to do this made sure it looked that way. First they drugged us—my money would be on flunitrazepam because of the memory loss—and then they killed her and set me up. You said the owner of the bar was shot.”