Peter Robinson: Strange Affair

“What happened?” Carmen asked.

“I’ll explain it all later,” Annie said. “I’m happy to meet you at last. I’m Annie Cabot. Will you answer some questions?”

“Where’s Hadeon?”

“Dead.”

“Good. And Artyom?”

“Who’s he?”

“Big man. Ponytail.”

“He’s dead, too.”

“That is also good,” she said, shifting on the bed slightly. Annie could see an expression of discomfort cross her features as she moved. Probably the baby kicking.

“What happened to you?” Annie asked. “How did you get here?”

“Is a long story,” she said. “And a long time ago. I was taken from street when I was a young girl.”

“How young?”

“Sixteen.”

“By who?”

She shrugged. “A man.”

“Where?”

“A village near Craiova, in Romania. You will not have heard of it.”

“You went to see Dr. Lukas at the Berger-Lennox Centre?”

“Yes. She was good to me.” Carmen reached for a cigarette. “She wanted me to stop smoking, but I tell her a girl must have one vice. I don’t drink and I don’t take drugs.” Her English was remarkably good, Annie thought, and she could see what Veronika meant about her being beautiful. There was a sophistication about her beyond her years, and Carmen had the kind of class you don’t usually associate with people in her profession.

Annie wondered how on earth she could stand the life without some form of escape, but what did she know? And what could she presume to know about someone who had been through what Carmen had been through.

“Do you remember Jennifer Clewes?”

“Yes. She works with Dr. Lukas.”

“She’s dead, too, Carmen. Someone killed her.”

Carmen looked alarmed. “Why?”

“We don’t know. We think it might have to do with something you told her. Jennifer and her boyfriend seemed to know something about what was going on here. Did you say anything to her when you were talking last week?”

Carmen looked down at her swollen belly. “The doctor think we do this because we want to,” she said. “I tell her she does not know how bad things are, that none of us are here because we want. I tell Jennifer, too. Some stories of what happen to girls. I should not have said that. But I think I was feeling brave because they were treating me well, different from the others.”

“When did you tell her this?”

“Last time I go to clinic. Not long. Monday, I think.”

“Did Artyom know you’d been talking?”

“He took me back in the car and told Hadeon. They could not hurt me to make me tell them anything. I knew that. But…”

“I think I know,” said Annie. “They threatened to harm your parents back home, didn’t they?”

“Yes,” Carmen whispered.

“So you told them.”

“Yes.”

Annie nodded. “That house in King’s Cross,” she said. “We’ve just come from there. Those girls were treated terribly. I’ve never seen anything like it.

“I have been there. Hadeon always tells me I have been very lucky. For me men pay hundreds of pounds a night, for those girls they must have many men to make such money. Hadeon makes his girls work very hard. He tells me if I am not good he will send me there, too. I am happy he is dead.”

“Do you think he would have people killed who found out what he was doing?”

Carmen nodded. “Harry once killed a girl with his bare hands for refusing to have sex with him.”

“Did Artyom work for him?”

“Yes. And Boris.”

“With the cropped blond hair?”

“That is Boris.”

The driver, Annie thought. “There was another man downstairs.” Annie described him. “Do you know who he is?”

“All I know is that his name is Max and that he brings new girls for Harry. He is not always here. I have never talked to him.”

Annie imagined that when Mazuryk knew Carmen had talked, he or Max had brought Lambert in to handle damage control, and that was what had been going on all week. Mazuryk had also sent Artyom and the driver to keep an eye on Jennifer, watch where she went. Perhaps Lambert had talked to Roy and managed to assure Mazuryk that no one would be ringing the police, but negotiations were tense; then something else happened, something that changed it all.

“Do you know a man called Lambert?” Annie asked.

“Lambert? No,” said Carmen.

Annie gestured toward her stomach. “What’s going to happen to you?”

“I’m going to have my baby. It makes them take good care of me. I get food and they leave me alone. I get bored sometimes. The only times I can go out is to see Dr. Lukas, and then Artyom usually takes me. But it is much better than before.”

“Do you know who the father is?”

Carmen gave her a scornful look.

“And what about the baby? Dr. Lukas told me it was going to be adopted.”

“Yes. They want to sell the baby to a rich man. She will go to a good family and have a good life. That is why they treat me well, to keep the baby healthy. Harry always jokes when he sees me, how he must keep me healthy for Mr. Garrett.” A sudden anxiety came into her voice. “But Harry is dead. What is going to happen me now?”

“I don’t know,” said Annie. “I really don’t know.”

Banks remembered something on his way out and opened the door to Roy’s garage. The Porsche still stood there gleaming and immaculate. He opened the driver’s door and sat down, reaching into the side pocket for the AA road atlas. It was still open to the same page as it had been before, and this time Banks spotted Quainton on the top right. Well, he thought, it was hardly conclusive, but a bit of a coincidence nonetheless. Perhaps Quainton had been Roy’s port of call before he got home, rang Banks and went off to the Albion Club with Lambert. What had he found out there that had disturbed him so?

Banks took the AA atlas, locked up the car, garage and house behind him and headed for the M41 and Quainton. As far as he could gather, after a number of diversionary maneuvers, there was no one on his tail. He had his mobile on the seat beside him and just beyond Berkhamsted Annie rang and told him about the raids, the deaths of Hadeon Mazuryk and Artyom, and about her interview with Carmen Petri. It put a few things in perspective and persuaded Banks that he was certainly heading in the right direction.

An hour and a half after leaving London, he was there.

Quainton stood at the bottom of a hill, a straggling sort of place scattered around a village green. Banks parked there, near the George and Dragon. He paused a moment and glanced at the brick windmill at the top of the hill, then went into the pub. He hadn’t got an address from Dieter Ganz, just the village name, but he guessed the place was small enough that they would probably know Lambert and his Spanish wife at the local pub.

It looked like a good place to eat. Blackboards offered steak and Stilton pie, French country chicken and Thai red curry. Maybe he’d come back after talking to Lambert and his wife. The barman knew the Lamberts and told him they lived in a big house on the Denham Road, and he couldn’t miss it. Banks thanked him and set off.

He found the house easily enough on the outskirts of the village. It looked the sort of place that had had a few additions over the years – gables, an extra wing, a garage – so it was hard to tell in what period the original building had been erected. Banks pulled into the gravel drive, parked out front and went to ring the doorbell.

In no time at all a young woman answered, smiled at him and asked what he wanted. Banks didn’t want to alarm her, so he showed her his warrant card but told her that he was Roy Banks’s brother.

The woman made a sympathetic face. “Poor Mr. Banks,” she said. “Please come in. Gareth is still in London at the moment, but you are welcome to a cup of tea. I know you English love your tea. I am Mercedes Lambert.” She held out her hand and Banks shook it lightly.