by Susan Lewis
‘How did it go?’ she asked, as Tom sat down in the shade of the red and white Brahma umbrella while Antônio went over to talk to one of the deck-chair vendors.
‘Good and bad,’ Chambers replied. ‘Where’s Cavan?’
‘He should be here any minute,’ she answered.
Chambers took out a mobile phone and started to dial. ‘Did you read that?’ he asked, indicating the report on the table.
She nodded.
Chambers pursed the corner of his mouth, then making the connection he started to speak in rapid Portuguese.
As Michelle listened, she wondered what it was about him that always made her think of Michael. It had to be something in his manner, she thought, for his warm grey eyes, which relayed the only humour or gentleness in his otherwise hard and rugged face, and his large, muscular body were nothing like Michael’s. Michael was taller and leaner, much more clean-cut and better looking. Yet there was a similarity in the two men which she found as disturbing as she did intriguing. She thought it probably came from a shared confidence and inner strength that was as reassuring to be around as it was sometimes maddening. Or maybe it was simply that she was thinking about Michael a lot lately, so no matter who it was, his brother or a virtual stranger, she was going to be reminded of him.
Chambers was still on the phone when Antônio came back and sat down. He had such a cheeky and happy look about him that it was almost impossible to credit the terrible life he had led – the imprisonment he had survived and torture he had endured – for his sunny, chocolate brown eyes were never far from mischief and his smooth, dark-skinned face bore none of the scars of his suffering. His body was a different story altogether, though, for thanks to the acid bath he had been forced to sit in while in police custody at fifteen years old he would never bear any children of his own.
‘Tom said good and bad,’ she told him as he picked up his beer. ‘Did you see the public prosecutor?’
Antônio nodded and drank.
‘Is he really on our side?’
Antônio nodded again. ‘He doesn’t want us going to his office,’ he said. ‘He thinks it’s too dangerous – for everyone. It’s best if he at least appears to be towing the line of corruption, so no one will look at him too closely.’
‘And if we manage to get some evidence against Pastillano,’ Michelle said, ‘where can we reach him?’
‘He’s given us a number where we can leave a message,’ Antônio replied. He glanced at Tom who was still engrosed in his call, then turned back to Michelle. ‘Did Tom tell you about Márcio, the boy we took in a few weeks back? The one who turned out to be a member of the Estrela street gang?’
Michelle shook her head and frowned. ‘What about him?’ she said. ‘I thought he went back to the streets.’
‘He did. He was shot and killed by the police late yesterday afternoon.’
‘Oh no,’ Michelle murmured, remembering the boy’s fear and arrogance, and the terrible sense of futility she had felt when he had chosen not to stay. ‘What happened?’
‘We found his brother outside the shelter last night,’ Antônio answered. ‘He’d been shot too. A couple of gang members carried him to us and dumped him. He’s at the hospital now. Sister Lydia’s with him.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’ Michelle asked.
He nodded. ‘He should be. He’s conscious, anyway.’
Michelle glanced at Chambers as he ended his call, then turned back to Antônio.
‘Tom made some official enquiries this morning,’ Antônio continued, ‘and the police are claiming there was an incident with drug dealers in the Guararapes favela, where the Estrela gang usually hang out. For incident read shoot out, which is probably not too far from the truth, except once again we have no police injuries, while three teenage boys are dead and one is seriously wounded. So it doesn’t look very likely that the boys were armed.’
‘I take it the dead bodies were removed from the scene of the crime before the civil police had a chance to get there,’ Michelle said.
Antônio nodded. ‘I went over to the favela a couple of hours ago,’ he said. ‘According to the neighbours one officer stood over Márcio, who was lying on the ground already wounded, and shot him three times in the face.’
‘Oh my God,’ Michelle murmured. ‘Is anyone prepared to come forward and say that?’
‘Not that I could find,’ Antônio answered.
‘The real problem,’ Chambers said, ‘is the police being allowed to carry a second gun without having to register it. So all they have to do is open fire with their legitimate weapon, fire a couple of shots into the ground from the other and plant it on the body. Et voilà! A shoot out. And no one’s ever going to look too deeply into it, because after all, armed or not, these boys are known criminals. Forced into it maybe, but there’s no forum for mitigation here.’
Michelle looked at him. No matter how many times she heard these stories she never failed to be affected by the tragic loss of life, nor appalled by the terrible injustice that was meted out to these people.
‘There’s something else that might interest you about Márcio,’ Antônio said. ‘He has a baby son,’.
Michelle looked at him in astonishment. ‘A son?’ she echoed.
Antônio nodded. ‘His name’s Enéas. He’s ten months old. I met him this morning.’
‘But …’ She shook her head, trying to make herself think. At fifteen Márcio was certainly old enough to father a child, in fact it wasn’t so unusual here, but she just hadn’t expected it. ‘Where’s the mother?’ she asked.
‘Dead from a drug overdose,’ Antônio answered.
Michelle groaned with pity. ‘So what’s going to happen to the little boy now?’ she asked. ‘Did you take him to the shelter?’
Antônio glanced at Chambers.
Michelle watched them and seeing the way Chambers was looking at her she started to frown. ‘What?’ she said.
Chambers took a breath, then said, ‘It would appear Márcio told his brother about Cavan and you, the fact that you’re American – that’s what he thought – and that you might take care of the child should anything happen to him.’
Michelle’s eyes opened wide with shock. ‘You mean he wants us to adopt the boy?’ she said.
Chambers shrugged. ‘I can’t say for sure what he meant,’ he answered.
Turning away, Michelle stared down the beach to where Cara and the children were still splashing about in the waves and seeing little Robbie and Larisa paddling frantically in to the shore she felt a very strange sensation passing through her. ‘Where’s the baby now?’ she repeated, turning back to Antônio.
‘With a woman in the favela,’ Antônio answered. Then, laughing he said, ‘Don’t look so shocked. This kind of thing happens all the time with people who come here to help.’
‘I know,’ Michelle answered. ‘But it’s a first for me.’ Then a sudden suspicion hit her and her eyes shot back to Chambers. ‘Don’t tell me this is the good news,’ she said. ‘That I’m about to add another child to that brood out there.’
Laughing, Chambers shook his head. ‘That’s for you to decide,’ he replied. ‘As far as I’m concerned the good news is that Antônio found out about someone this morning who spent some time at Pastillano’s Inferno.’
Michelle’s attention was instantly focused. ‘And he got out?’ she said.
‘Some do,’ he reminded her.
She turned to Antônio. ‘Who is he?’ she asked. ‘One of the Estrela gang?’
Antônio nodded.
‘Will he talk?’ she said.
‘I’m working on it,’ Antônio answered. ‘After what happened yesterday, there’s a chance. But it’ll probably mean going against the rest of the gang and they’re not going to want any more trouble than they’ve already got, so don’t hold out too much hope.’
‘Will he at least speak to us?’ she said. ‘Even if we don’t take anything down in writing, it’ll be a start.’
&nbs
p; Chambers raised a cautionary hand. ‘This is the best lead we’ve had so far,’ he reminded her, ‘we can’t rush it.’ As he finished he was looking past her and starting to grin.
Michelle turned round and seeing Cavan paying for a taxi she got to her feet. ‘Darling,’ she said, putting her hands on his shoulders as he reached her. ‘I was starting to worry.’
‘And so you should,’ he responded, his blue eyes shining with mirth as he looked over her shoulder to Antônio. ‘You set me up,’ he accused.
Michelle turned to Antônio and saw a picture of unabashed guilt. ‘Not me,’ he protested, holding up his hands.
‘The hell it wasn’t you,’ Cavan laughed, pulling out a chair to sit down. ‘He roped me in to giving the sex education class this morning,’ Cavan explained, ‘and who was there but Cristiana and all her chums from the night shift.’
Chambers burst out laughing and slapped Antônio on the back.
‘So I take it you know how to do it now?’ Michelle remarked as they sat down.
Antônio howled with laughter, while Chambers signalled for another round of beers.
‘I wouldn’t have minded,’ Cavan protested, ‘but Sister Teresa was sitting guard outside the door to make sure no one left without proper education and condoms.’
Michelle grinned. Sister Teresa might be a Catholic, but she was also a realist.
Having spotted Tom and Cavan sitting with Michelle, the children were racing up the beach to see who could get there first. As they tumbled on to the pavement, Cavan swung Robbie and Larisa up in his arms, while six-year-old Tomasz, the eldest of the three, attempted to look too grown-up to care that he’d been left out. Noticing, Chambers immediately scooped the boy on to his lap and offered him some beer.
Michelle watched them, loving the way the men were so at ease with the children and smiling at the way Robbie in particular took such delight in their attention. He was a handsome little boy, with a strong, independent spirit and such a hopelessly mischievous nature that it wasn’t really any surprise that he and Cavan had bonded so well. Catching Cavan’s eye, she felt an unexpected tremor in her heart and had to quash a sudden desire to touch him. Lately, he had begun to talk of putting their relationship on a more permanent basis and though she’d never asked precisely what he meant by that, she knew that the time would soon come when she would have to make a decision one way or the other and it was a day she was dreading almost as much as the one when she and Michael would have to meet again.
But Cavan wasn’t Michael. He was different in so many ways that were it not for the looks she could almost doubt their connection. She never felt threatened or overwhelmed by Cavan. With him she could be her own person and not feel railroaded into a life and ambition she’d never even been sure was her own. But she had loved Michael so much that for a long time she had believed that everything he wanted she wanted too. She’d have done anything to make him happy and even now, with so much distance and so many years between them, she still thought about him all the time and longed for him in ways he would probably never know. But what they had ended up doing to each other could never be repaired now, perhaps never forgiven either. Lowering her eyes to Robbie, she wondered if her affair with Cavan was to punish Michael for what he had done. Or maybe it was to try and make him take her back, even though she was the one who’d left.
Finding her thoughts too painful to pursue she quickly put them aside and turned to Antônio. ‘The woman who’s looking after Márcio’s son,’ she said quietly. ‘Is she a relative of Márcio’s?’
Antônio’s eyebrows went up as he nodded, giving Michelle the impression he’d been waiting for her to ask.
‘Mother? Aunt? Grandmother?’ she said.
‘Aunt,’ he answered.
‘Did she see what happened yesterday?’
‘So she says.’
‘Do you think she’ll talk to me if you arrange it?’
Antônio had no chance to answer before Chambers cut in. ‘Forget it,’ he said.
Michelle turned to look at him, surprised he’d heard and irritated by his tone.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Chambers told her, dodging Tomasz’s head as he swung back to avoid Larisa’s punch.
Michelle’s expression darkened as sitting back, she made room for Robbie on her lap. ‘I thought the point of us being here was to gather evidence,’ she challenged.
‘It is,’ he confirmed, glancing at Cavan who had just become aware of the conversation, ‘but if anyone’s going in there to interview it’ll be me. Especially after yesterday’s shootings.’
‘The women might feel more comfortable speaking to me,’ she said, trying to keep the edge from her voice.
‘You’re here as a back-up,’ he reminded her. ‘If they won’t speak to me, that’s when we bring you in.’
‘And by then they might not want to speak to anyone at all,’ she responded tightly. ‘If they’re even alive to do so. And what about the baby?’
‘The baby’s a different issue.’
‘What baby?’ Cavan asked.
Michelle glanced at him. ‘I’ll explain later,’ she answered. ‘I’d like to see it,’ she said to Chambers.
‘We’ll arrange for it to be taken to the shelter,’ he responded and raised his glass to his lips as though pronouncing an end to the subject.
Though Michelle was still bristling, she’d had enough experience of him to know when to back down. If she didn’t he’d probably end up organizing her ticket out of Brazil and after coming this far there was just no way she was going to be forced out now. In fact, angry as she was, she understood his caution, for he had already lost one woman in the course of his work, so there was just no way he was going to risk losing another.
Hugging Robbie closer while Cara put sodas on the table, Michelle watched Chambers as he and Cavan, in a way that was so typical of men, managed to put aside the vital matters of the moment and launched into a heated debate on the football game they had attended at the Maracanã stadium two nights ago. Wanting to join in, Robbie scrambled from her lap, hesitated a moment as Cara told him to slow down, then climbed back on to Cavan’s knee. Tomasz was still with Chambers and as the two little boys began echoing the men Michelle and Cara set about ordering hot dogs.
Though Chambers never talked about Rachel, nor gave any sign of the terrible guilt he had suffered following her death, Michelle knew how often he thought about her and how hard it had been for him to come to terms with her kidnap and murder. As a journalist herself, Rachel had been with Tom in Colombia reporting on the latest shock statistics to come out of the country – that street children were being exterminated at the rate of two thousand a year. Sadly, it was Rachel’s kidnapping that had made headlines all over the world, rather than what was happening to the children, as had the discovery of her murdered body in the coastal town of Cartagena. But it wasn’t her bold and impassioned reports on the plight of the children that the Colombians had objected to, it was Chambers’s investigation into the infamous Condoza drug cartel. Had Rachel not been Tom’s lover she would probably never have been a target; as it was, they had snatched her as a warning to Tom to back off, now! Had he done that, then what had followed might never have happened, but he hadn’t, and it was for that mistake that he’d never stopped paying.
Though he’d wanted to go in search of the killers, a friend and senior editor at the Washington Post had sent a couple of ex-paras to force him out of the country before he got himself killed too. The Post along with New York Times and the Times Picayune in New Orleans, had then taken up the story of Rachel’s murder, which triggered a long and bitter dispute between the US and Colombia, as Washington demanded the immediate arrest of those responsible for the killing and the Colombian government, who were all but controlled by the Condoza family, consistently failed to comply. It was only after more than a million people took to the streets of the Southern States, most particularly in New Orleans, Rachel’s home town, to protest against what had ha
ppened and try to force the government to take stronger action, that the Colombians finally named the killers. The fact that at least one of them had been shot and killed by a rival cartel two weeks before Rachel was taken was a detail that Washington had very neatly overlooked in its bid to re-establish relations and calm the civil unrest that was starting to spread to the Northern States.
Had Chambers not taken himself off to Sarajevo by then, in an effort to put it all behind him, the story might not have slipped from the spotlight when it did and the chicanery and deceit would have been exposed. As it was, he had been so disgusted with the performance of his own government, never mind the Colombians, that he had left before the killers were named. And by the time the news reached him he was too caught up in the war in Europe to do anything about it. Indeed, it was his failure to act at that time that he found so hard to live with now, for not only did he hold himself responsible for Rachel’s death, he couldn’t forgive himself either for allowing her killers to go unpunished.
It was because of his past and the grief he still bore that Michelle was prepared to bite her tongue now and allow him to take the decisions. After all, they’d already received one warning from Pastillano which no one had so far heeded, so there wasn’t much doubt that they were being watched and the moment they appeared to be getting close to anything that might in any way cause Pastillano even the slightest embarrassment or anxiety, the danger they were in would increase to proportions it was probably best not to dwell on.
Michelle looked at the children again and watched young Larisa flashing her lovely blue eyes at Antônio. Though it was highly doubtful Pastillano would risk an international scandal by threatening the lives of three European children, arrangements had nevertheless been made for them to be whisked into hiding the very second anything untoward occurred. But without a single deposition in hand, or the guarantee of one in the near future, they were a long way from having to implement the plans yet. Unless, of course, Márcio’s aunt and the Estrela gang member really did have some information worth pursuing.