Page 88 of The Island of Lost Girls

32 | Mercedes

Laurence, last night. A bottle of whisky from his suitcase and the radio playing scratchy jazz to drown out their voices. They’ve known each other a long time now. She wouldn’t go so far as to think of him as a friend. Knows that theirs is a relationship based on mutual benefits rather than affection. But still: there’s a form of trust between them, and, though what drives them might be different, they still share a common objective.

‘Mercedes,’ he’d said, ‘this money we’re following. Have you thought about where it comes from?’

Mercedes had shrugged. Of course she has. Fraud. Drugs. Heads of broken states, securing their share of the embezzled tax. Plunderers of natural resources, making sure their owners never see the benefit. Any number of crimes and moral misdemeanours, really; not just tax evasion. The Bank of Kastellana doesn’t ask questions. But its fees are astronomical, and the people love their new-found comforts.

‘I know it’s not good.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Thing is, we’ve been aware for a while that the Meades were up to their necks in something much worse than we’d originally thought.’

‘Go on?’

‘They buy and sell people.’

Mercedes lurched inside. Only showed it with a blink. She’s never known if he knows about her own situation. Perhaps he does. Perhaps all the people he’s approached over the years are to all intents and purposes indentured servants.

‘What do you mean?’

‘People-trafficking.’

She thought of the images she’d seen on the news. Those endless rubber boats, floundering in the ocean. The people streaming across borders, marching south to north. The freezer truck pulled up in an English layby, interior stuffed with blue-dead bodies. They’ve always joked about how lucky they were, that La Kastellana seemed to be the only island in the whole of the Mediterranean that didn’t have a holding camp full of shipping-container dormitories. But of course. Not luck. You just don’t shit where you sleep.

‘Those girls up at the house?’ he said. ‘They’re the tip of the iceberg.’

Mercedes’ father thinks Laurence is a bit of a fool. With the clothes and the clipped accent and the stream of gossip, he’s put him in the same category as the idiot honorary consul. It’s a perfect cover. The dilettante Englishman abroad, selling wines to the dodgy rich, getting access to their houses. Recording all the boasting that rings around the tables at Mediterraneo, the diners convinced that exclusivity is the same as privacy.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Bernard Reichs?’ he asked.

She stared at him, blankly.

‘No. Well I don’t suppose you would have. It’s pretty niche stuff. Got arrested in New York a couple of months ago. Thing called a Ponzi scheme. Investment adviser. Took people’s money and pretended to turn it into more money. Staggering returns on investments, all paid out of the money he’d got in from new investors. You’d’ve thought people would be wise to this sort of thing by now, but … well, greed. It’s like gambling. Makes people take leave of their senses. So the whole thing collapsed eventually, and there’s going to be a lot of houses up for sale in Palm Beach shortly. Anyway, he’s in custody, and you know what they say about honour among thieves … ’

‘No?’ said Mercedes.

He had shaken his head. ‘Sorry. It means there is none. Anyway. Bernie. He’s been singing like a tweety-bird ever since they took him in. Pointing the finger at everyone. And one name’s been coming up over and over again.’

‘Matthew Meade.’

A nod. ‘And I’m afraid there’s more.’

The festa has broken up by the time she walks back to the sepulchre, weary to her very bones and certain she won’t see sleep tonight, for her mind feels electrified. Those girls, on the Princess Tatiana. Four went on, three came off. She’s put it to the back of her mind all these years, but now she knows the truth. She wasn’t mistaken. There were four, and then there were three. And what she’s doing at the Casa Amarilla is suddenly a matter of life and death.

The path to the cemetery is unmade: dusty earth beneath her feet, loose stones that can catch one unawares. She walks carefully in the dark.

But it’s not dark, really, ever, here any more. Even up here on her headland, the streetlights of Castellana Town throw her shadow ahead, and over the bluff the dancing illuminations, the distant throb, of the Temple nightclub, still going strong at two a.m. Too bright to see more than the moon in the sky. It’s a long time since I saw full dark, she thinks. They’ve changed everything, these people. They’ve turned a temple into a bordello, and they’ve even stolen the stars.

You could be free, Mercedes. If you succeed at what he’s asked you, you could finally be free.

The thought makes her wince, as though she’s bitten her tongue. And those girls. What of them? All those nameless, faceless children, and all you can think of is your freedom?

With every silver lining there comes a thick black stormcloud.

He’s asleep in the breeze from the fan. Stirs as she tiptoes into bed. ‘You came home,’ he mumbles. Opens his arms. ‘Okay? Are you okay?’

‘Shhh,’ she whispers. Settles into the familiar smell of him. Leather and soap and rolling tobacco, the salt air over the sea. The smell of Felix Marino is her comfort and her joy. ‘Go back to sleep. We can talk in the morning.’

‘What time is it?’