Bella looked equally astonished – and had no idea what he had said.
The girl shook her head.
Nick turned a page and looked at his notes. Then, harshly, he read out in Romanian, ‘If you are lying we will know. And we will send you back to Romania. Tell me the truth now!’
Startled, and looking scared, the girl said, ‘Vlad. His name.’
‘Vlad, what?’
‘Coz, er Cozma, Cozemec?’
‘Cosmescu?’ Bella suggested.
The girl was silent for some moments, looking at her with scared eyes. Then she nodded.
Twenty minutes later, after having interviewed both girls, they got back into the car.
Bella said, ‘Do you mind telling me what that was all about?’
‘I checked with the UKHTC.’
‘The what?’
‘The United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre. I wanted to establish where the girls were most likely to have come from. Romania was high on the list. And Romania was our brief.’
‘So you learned fluent Romanian in an afternoon?’
‘No, just the phrases I thought I might need.’
Bella grinned. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘Not as impressed as my wife will be – not – when she finds out where I spent my afternoon.’
‘Don’t all men visit brothels?’ she said.
‘No,’ he said, fervently and indignantly. ‘Actually, no.’
‘You’ve really never been to one before?’
‘No, Bella,’ he said snarkily. ‘I really haven’t. Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘I’m not disappointed. It’s good to know there are some decent guys out there. I just don’t seem to be able to find one.’
‘Maybe that’s because my wife found the only one!’ he said.
Bella looked at him, at his thin, elongated, grinning face in the glare of the street light. ‘Then she’s a lucky woman.’
‘I’m the lucky one. What about you? You’re an attractive lady. You must have tons of opportunities.’
‘No, I’ve had tons of disappointments. And you know what? I’m actually content being on my own. I look after my mum, and when I’m not looking after her, I’m free. I like that feeling.’
‘I love my kid,’ he said. ‘It’s an incredible feeling. You can’t describe it.’
‘I should think you’ll be a great father, Nick.’
He smiled again. ‘I would like to be.’ Then he shrugged. ‘Can you imagine what kind of father Anca had? Or the other girl, Nusha?’
‘No.’
‘For life for them in a crummy Brighton brothel to be better than whatever they left behind, I find that incredible.’
‘I find it incredible that you bothered to learn their language, Nick. I’m blown away by that.’
‘I didn’t learn their language. Just a few phrases. Enough so that we could get through to them.’
She looked down at her notes. ‘Vlad Cosmescu.’
‘Vlad the Impaler.’
‘Vlad who?’
‘He was the Transylvanian emperor that Dracula was based on. A charmer who used to impale his enemies on a spike up their rectums.’
‘Too much information, Nick,’ she said, wincing.
‘You’re a police officer, Bella. We can never have too much information.’
She smiled, then said, ‘Vlad Cosmescu.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘By name. He’s a pimp. Was active a few years ago when I was on brothels. He’s a kind of gatekeeper for Romanian, Albanian and other eastern European contraband. Drugs, pirated videos, cigarettes, you name it. He’s been a Person of Interest for the drugs teams for years, but I heard he always managed to keep out of trouble himself. Interesting that he’s still around.’ She made a note on her pad, then said breezily, ‘Right! One down. There are only about twenty-eight more brothels in Brighton to cover before we’re done. How’s your stamina?’
With a baby needing feeding every few hours, around the clock, probably a lot better than my libido at this point, he thought.
‘My stamina? Terrific!’
71
It was just gone seven in Bucharest and Ian Tilling had promised Cristina that he would be home early tonight. It was their tenth wedding anniversary and for a rare treat they had booked a table at their favourite restaurant, for a feast of traditional Romanian food.
He had developed a liking for the heavy, meat-based diet of his adopted country. All except for two specialities, cold brain and cubes of lard, which Cristina loved, but he still could not stomach, and doubted he ever would.
He looked up at the useless clock hooked to the huge noticeboard on the wall in front of his desk. time is money was printed on the face, but there were no numerals, making it easy to be an hour out either way. Pinned next to it was a splayed-out woman’s fan, which had been there for so long he couldn’t remember who had put it up, or why. Below it, sandwiched between several government pamphlets for the homeless, was a sheet of paper bearing his favourite quotation, from Mahatma Gandhi: First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.
That summed up his seventeen years in this strange but beautiful city, in this strange but beautiful country. He was winning. Step, by step, by step. Little victories. Kids and sometimes adults saved from the streets, and housed here in Casa Ioana. Before he left, he would do his rounds of the little dormitory rooms, as he did every night. He planned to take with him the photographs of the three teenagers Norman Potting had sent him, to see if any of the faces jogged someone’s memory. It had been good to hear from that old bugger. Really good to feel involved in a British police inquiry once more. So good, he was determined to deliver what he could.
As he stood up, the door opened and Andreea came in, with a smile on her face.
‘Do you have a moment, Mr Ian?’ the social worker asked.
‘Sure.’
‘I went to see Ileana, in Sector Four.’
Ileana was a former social worker at Casa Ioana who now worked in a placement centre in that sector, called Merlin.
‘And what did she say?’
‘She has agreed to help us, but she’s worried about being caught out. Her centre has been told not to talk to any outsider – and that includes even us.’
‘Why?’
‘The government is upset, apparently, about the bad press abroad on Romanian orphanages. There is a ban on visitors and on all photography. I had to meet her in a café. But she told me that one of the street kids has heard a rumour going around that if you are lucky, you can get a job in England, with an apartment. There is a smart woman you have to go and see.’
‘Can we talk to this kid? Do we have her name?’
‘Her name is Raluca. She is working as a prostitute at the Gara de Nord. She’s fifteen. I don’t know if she has a pimp. Ileana is willing to come with us. We could go tonight.’
‘Tonight, no, I can’t. How about tomorrow?’
‘I will ask her.’
Tilling thanked her, then fired off a quick email to Norman Potting, updating him on his progress today. Then he balled his fists and drummed them on his desk.
Yes! he thought. Oh yes! He was back in the saddle! He’d loved his days as a police officer and being involved now felt so damn good!
72
Lynn sat at her Harrier Hornets work station, aware it was eight at night, working through her call list, trying to make up for the time she had lost earlier today at home and then seeing Mal.
Her mother had been at the house earlier, then Luke had come over, so Caitlin had company – and, more crucially, someone to keep an eye on her. Even moronic Luke was capable of that.
Few of her colleagues were still at work. Barring a couple of stragglers, the Silver Sharks, Leaping Leopards and Denarii Demons work stations were all deserted. The COLLECTED BONUS POT sign was now reading £1,150. No way she was going to get near it this week, the way things were progressing.