‘So what were they, and why did you let them into our rooms?’ She glances around to see if anything has been stolen.
‘The real police say they must have been confidence tricksters of some kind. Very professional ones because they had official-looking ID.’
‘Jeez, that must have taken them all of twenty minutes to download from the internet.’ Her mind is on the memory stick sitting safely in her purse, but she checks her trolley bag to see if anything else has been taken. ‘If stuff’s missing, your face is going to end up a bigger mess than mine.’
He shifts nervously and watches her search the small bag.
Mitzi squashes clothes down and refastens it. ‘You got lucky; what little I have is still there.’ She looks at him like she does when one of the girls has pulled a brainless stunt and the other has snitched on her. ‘Didn’t you think of calling the station house and checking things out before you let them in here?’
‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t. Not until afterwards.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘For the record, Dumbo—’
He corrects her, ‘Dunbar, not Dumbo.’
She smiles, ‘No, I think I was right first time. For the record, Dumbo, checking only ever works as a precautionary measure. That means before something happens.’
He feels himself redden. ‘I know. I’m very sorry. To make up for your inconvenience I’d like to have some champagne sent to your room—’
Her mind is locked on the incident. ‘These so-called cops, they have names?’
‘Yes, they were DCI Mark Warman and DS Penny Jackson.’
She scribbles the names on a pad by the bed.
‘There really are officers with those names at Scotland Yard, but they weren’t in your room.’
‘You’re doing that thing again.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He smiles thinly. ‘Obviously they weren’t in the room.’ A thought hits him. ‘Did you have anything in the wall safe?’ He looks towards the open door above the mini-bar.
She nods solemnly. ‘Cartier bracelet. Rolex watch. Some diamond earrings I bought at the Elizabeth Taylor auction. Not much.’
Dunbar’s face is white.
‘Relax. I had nothing in the safe.’ She checks in the bathroom. Her toothbrush, paste, cleanser and pads are all still there. She shouts out to him, ‘You said they searched my colleague’s room — have you told him?’
The manager looks embarrassed. ‘I’m afraid he checked out while I was out of the hotel and we don’t have a forwarding number for him. Perhaps you could have him call me?’
‘I’ll talk to him later. Now, if it’s all the same with you, I’d like you to leave. I’ve gotta make some calls, then I’m checking out.’
‘I understand. I’m very sorry.’
‘You think you can keep strangers out of my room for the next hour?’
‘I’m sure we can.’
‘And you mentioned champagne.’
He relaxes a little. ‘I did.’
‘Make it whisky. The best you have and send cake with it, the most sinful and fattening your chef has baked.’
‘It will be our pleasure.’ He heads for the door, feeling relieved. ‘Thank you for being so understanding.’
‘Oh, I’m still a long way from understanding, so tell the front desk that when I check out, I expect a discount. The kind that will make me feel discreet all the way back to California.’
100
For several minutes, Zachra Korshidi stands in silence and watches her father sleep in the back room of their Bronx row house.
His rickety chair is positioned near the dirt-streaked sash window that overlooks the small yard where her mother tries to grow olives. It seems that the warm afternoon sun and the large meal he’s just eaten have conspired to send him into a deep slumber.
Zachra looks at the food splatter in his grey beard and on his white dishdasha and hates every inch of him, right down to the cheap rubber-soled shoes he has left in the hallway near the front door.
She has been sent to collect her father’s dirty plate and take it to the kitchen for washing. But her mind has turned to more important matters. In her pocket, she touches the tiny tracker tack. All she has to do is jam it into the heel of his shoe.
She listens closely to the rattle of her father’s snores and feels her heart tighten with anxiety as she leaves the room and heads over to the footwear. Her mother is running water in the kitchen, plates clatter on the metal drainer. She puts her father’s tray down and moves quickly. The tack is less than the length of her small fingernail and she almost drops it. One end is needle sharp, the other rounded.
The rubber heel on the brogues is rock-hard. Try as she might, she can’t force it in.
The floor of the hallway is made of old boards so she puts her foot in the shoe and uses her weight to press the tack into the rubber. The pin sinks in but the heel clacks noisily against the wooden board. Zachra takes off the shoe and looks at it. The tack is in.
‘What are you doing?’
Her father’s voice spins her round. He is in the doorway staring at her.
She picks up the other shoe and the tray. ‘I came to collect the dishes and on the way back saw your shoes were dirty.’
He moves towards her, his eyes full of questions.
Zachra studies his hands. Fists so familiar to her. ‘Please don’t hit me. You told me it is sunnah to keep one’s clothes and footwear clean. I was going to polish them for you.’
He knocks them from her hand. ‘Take the tray to your mother. Never touch anything of mine unless I tell you.’ He watches her move past him and then slaps her hard across the side of the head.
The blow makes her ear explode with pain and leaves it buzzing but she doesn’t cry. She won’t give him the satisfaction. Not now. Not ever again. Zachra hopes the Americans catch him. Catch him and kill him for what he did to Javid and what he would have let happen to her.
101
Coyote Point is a big spread of park and woodland, barely ten miles from the city airport, jutting proudly into San Francisco Bay.
Chris and Tess Wilkins set the RV down on an approved site. They turn on the radio, shut curtains and make their big old bus rock and roll for a full hour and a half.
Afterwards, they shower and while Chris barbecues steaks under the veranda, Tess clears a batch of paperwork and makes calls. They eat outside on a fold-up table and chairs saying hi to people drifting by, then they share a few beers with a couple of old-timers to the left of them, seniors from Wyoming who’ve been coming to Coyote for twenty years.
After dinner they walk through a grove of eucalyptus trees down to the edge of the water where otters and bobcats scuttle in and out of their habitats.
‘We get time, we should go see the zoo,’ says Tess. ‘The leaflet I picked up says they’ve got a big aviary there as well.’
‘You seen one zoo, you’ve seen them all. Besides, you know how I feel about cages.’
‘You shouldn’t. Bars are in your mind. Think you’re free and you are free.’
‘You ain’t never done time, little Miss Philosopher, so that’s easy for you to say.’
‘Well, you ain’t never doin’ time again, so you better learn how to start sayin’ it.’
‘Let’s start by not even talkin’ about this shit.’
‘That’s fine by me.’ She squeezes his hand. ‘I love you, baby.’
‘Love you too, sweetcheeks.’
‘You think we’ve been out long enough?’ She swings his hand up and down like a pendulum.