Майкл Ридпат - The Marketmaker

Nelson sighed. ‘He says he doesn’t know anything about Isabel.’

‘Ask him to find out where she is.’

Nelson shrugged, and asked the question. Euclides grunted ‘ Não .’

‘Ask him why not.’

Nelson repeated my question in Portuguese, and Euclides mumbled something. ‘He says his friend might be able to find out. But Euclides doesn’t want to ask too many questions. It would be too dangerous.’

‘Tell him it’s Cordelia’s sister. Her only sister. He has to help us find her.’

Euclides picked up the urgency in my voice and lifted his eyes towards me. Nelson asked the question. Euclides glanced guiltily at Cordelia and shrugged.

‘Does he have a sister?’

‘Yes,’ Cordelia answered. ‘She’s here.’

‘No, ask him,’ I said.

She asked the question and Euclides nodded.

I asked a string of questions, which I insisted that Nelson translate. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Marta.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Eight.’

‘Do you love her?’

A pause. ‘Yes.’

‘Do you like Cordelia?’

Another pause. ‘Yes.’

‘Well, if you lost your sister, would you do anything you could to help her?’

The boy didn’t answer. He looked closely at me. I held his brown eyes. They carried so much for a child of twelve. Bravado, fear, insecurity, but also, somewhere, warmth.

‘Cordelia has saved many children’s lives who have come here. Now you can save her sister.’

He still didn’t answer. But I could see he was wavering.

Then Nelson bent down and took something out of a holster strapped to his ankle. It was a small revolver. The metal gleamed in the dim light of the store room. He handed it to Euclides. Cordelia and I looked on, shocked.

The twelve-year-old took the gun, and stuffed it into his trouser belt. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll find her for you.’

Friday disappeared, and the weekend dragged on. Luís remained in London, supported by reinforcements from Banco Horizonte. We didn’t hear from Euclides.

We did, however, hear from Zico. I was alone in the apartment when he called.

‘Hallo?’ I said.

‘Who is that?’ The deep voice growled.

‘Nick Elliot. Luís is in London.’ Luís had warned Zico that I might answer the phone while he was away. Zico, it seemed, spoke some English.

‘OK. Is the takeover stopped?’ His English was slow and precise, as though he had rehearsed the sentence. His accent was strong. Stopped became stop-ped.

‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘But Banco Horizonte is still making a bid. We hope to delay things so that Bloomfield Weiss will give up.’

‘I see. Well, I hope you succeed. Because when someone take over Dekker, Isabel dies. Anyone you understand? Bloomfield Weiss or Banco Horizonte.’

‘I understand,’ I said.

The phone went dead.

I put my head in my hands. Next Wednesday only one of two things would occur. Either Lord Kerton would sell to Bloomfield Weiss or he would sell to Banco Horizonte. Neither would satisfy Zico.

I shuddered. What was Euclides doing?

Cordelia and her husband had arrived at the apartment on Friday night. They said they would spend much of the weekend with me to keep me company, and to stay near Luís’s phone. Fernando brought a copy of Dr Zhivago in Russian with him, which he had acquired through a friend from the university. I accepted it thankfully. I had read it before but I could read it again, and I was able to lose myself in it for half an hour at a time, before worry about Isabel brought me back to the present.

‘Do you think Euclides just took the gun and ran?’ I asked Cordelia, during a subdued supper.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so. He’s a brave boy, and he’s proud of his courage. A lot of these kids are.’

‘People don’t seem to care so much about death here,’ I said.

‘You’re right. Life is cheap. Do you know what train-surfing is?’

‘No.’

‘It’s a big sport for the street children. They leap on trains as they are moving, and climb on to the roofs. The most dangerous part is when the trains go through tunnels. The kids compete with each other to see who is the last to jump off. Dozens die every year doing this. Euclides had quite a reputation as a train-surfer.’

‘But will he find Isabel?’

‘I think he’ll try to look for her for me.’

‘He’s very attached to you.’

Cordelia’s shoulders sagged. ‘Yes. So he takes a gun and he risks his life with people who would kill him if they knew what he was doing. He’ll use that gun one day, you know.’

Fernando put his hand on hers. ‘You had to give him the gun, minha querida. It is not like the normal world. In the favelas you have to do things for your family that you would not do outside. You know that. You’ve seen that.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen others resort to guns and violence,’ Cordelia muttered. ‘But I never believed I would.’

After supper, as we drank caipirinhas on the balcony, Cordelia watched me, smiling. It was a bit like her sister’s smile, though stronger, more self-confident. But still a reminder of Isabel. It was nice.

‘It’s funny, finally, to meet one of Isabel’s boyfriends,’ she said.

‘Does she keep them well hidden?’

‘She claims there aren’t any. Or none since Marcelo, anyway.’

‘That’s what she told me.’ I decided not to mention Ricardo. ‘What was this Marcelo like?’

‘Good-looking. I mean, really good-looking. But he knew it.’ Cordelia wrinkled her nose. ‘Isabel was completely gone on him. And I think, when he was with her, he was in love with her. But then when she went to the US his attention wandered. I knew it would. Isabel took it badly. I think it’s good they never got married.’

I agreed with that. ‘Anyway, I don’t know if I qualify,’ I said.

‘As a boyfriend?’ Cordelia’s eyes twinkled. ‘I’m sure you do, if she’s got any sense. And Isabel has got sense.’

‘We’ll see.’

We talked a lot, that weekend, Fernando, Cordelia and me. I was really beginning to feel part of the Pereira family. Yet Cordelia’s words had both encouraged and disquieted me. I sometimes felt I hardly knew Isabel herself. She had already spent more time in captivity than I had known her outside it. If we did get her out alive, would our relationship ever come to anything? Logically I couldn’t be sure. But from what I had seen of her, and the way we were together, I had to believe it would amount to something. She had to live, so that I could find out.

By Sunday there was still no news from Euclides. We only had three more days.

Cordelia went to the shelter early on Monday morning. She phoned me at the apartment soon after she arrived. Euclides was there, waiting for her. He had found Isabel.

Once more Nelson and I made our way up to the shelter. We met Euclides in the same room we had seen him in before. This time he was much more talkative, his eyes shining from his adventure. His friend had not known where Isabel was held, but he did know a couple of her captors, and had shown Euclides where they parked their pick-up truck, which was always full of junk. On Sunday, Euclides had hidden in the back, and had been driven up to the hills behind Rio. The truck had eventually passed through a village and up a dirt track, to a deserted farmhouse. Euclides had taken note of the name of the village. Fortunately, he hadn’t been discovered, although if he had been, he said he had a story ready about how he was trying to hitch a lift out of town. It seemed to me he had taken an absurd risk, but I was very glad he had.

The name of the village was Sao Jose.

Euclides agreed to show us the place. We went in Nelson’s car, and he stopped on the way to buy a baseball cap for me so that my pale English features would be partly obscured in the car. We drove for an hour and a half northwards, through a range of steep green hills of pasture and forest, before coming to the village of Sao Jose.