Last Resort (52 page)

Penny was numbed by terror. It was a nightmare. It couldn't be happening. But she knew, even before he pinched the capsule to break it, what colour the liquid would turn the instant the chemicals in the capsule contacted the substance.

As the colour seeped into the bag the superintendent looked back at her with a satisfied smile.

"Heroin,"

he pronounced as Penny stared helplessly at the violet-blue liquid.

Then suddenly it was as if the whole world had gon crazy. More men burst in to the room. They moved s swiftly Penny had no chance to stop them. Someone was reading her her rights as her hands were wrenched behind her back, handcuffs were snappe on to her wrists and she was pushed towards the door The room was wrecked as curtains were torn dow furniture was overturned, the beds were stripped ar\

her head.

Her legs were so weak she could barely walk. T yr, men gripped her arms and dragged her downstairs t a waiting car. As they thrust her inside, Penny plea< e(j desperately with them to listen. No one would and as ue car accelerated off into the night her head fell bac against the seat as, with a sense of utter hopelessness ncj terror, she realized that they hadn't actually asked uer

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where Christian was, nor had they seemed to know anything about Sammy. So who, in God's name, were they and where were they taking her?

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Chapter 21

During the moments after Pierre told David that Penny had been arrested there was nothing but an excruciating

silence.

"David? David, are you still there?"

he said at last.

"Yeah, I'm here. What the hell happened?"

"I don't know. I don't have all the details."

"Then give me what you have."

"She was picked up by Narcotics Command at the hotel in Antipole just over an hour ago. They found a

kilo of heroin."

"Jesus Holy Christ/ David muttered.

"I take it you

know what that means?"

"Yes/ Pierre answered sombrely.

"Then let's hope to God she doesn't. Where is she now?"

i

"As far as I know, they've taken her to the local jail."

j David winced.

"Where's Mureau?"

I

"No idea. He's disappeared."

David's face tightened.

"Where are you?"

"At the Shangri-La in Manila."

Then meet me off the plane when I get there. I'll call you from'

"David, are you crazy?"

David's temper suddenly snapped.

"Don't you get it, Pierre?"

he yelled.

"It's all over for me. I've got nothing left to loose. Not even the boys ..."

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'But'

"Don't waste time/ David cut in. 7ust get out there and find her a lawyer before someone else does it for her."

As a milky dawn light crept into the early-morning shadows of the cell Penny watched the old woman who lay crooked in an arthritic jumble on a wooden pallet beneath the wide, barred window. Her jaw was slack, saliva trickled from the corner of her mouth and her wrinkled, leathery face twitched in dream or pain. Outside in the dingy yard a set of pipes gurgled and clanged, then spewed a mass of thick grey liquid into the gutter. As it oozed a path towards the drains a scrawny, tailless cat leapt from the wall and darted across the yard, squealing as it knocked against a pile of tin cans. The noise caused the young girl who was asleep on the pallet beside Penny to stir and turn over.

Penny, who was sitting hugging her knees to her chest on the end of the pallet, wondered how she could sleep on the bare, worm-eaten boards. As the girl's thumb found its way into her mouth she reached above her head with her other hand and twisted her fingers around the hem of Penny's sweater. She could be no more than fourteen years old. Another girl, probably around twenty, was curled up on the floor on a pile of rags beside the old woman's pallet, her thick black hair matted around her face.

It was a cell meant for eight women, though mercifully, considering it had only two beds, contained only four right now, including Penny. It was set in a corner of a high-walled yard littered with rusting oil drums and the corroded frames of bicycles and car parts. When she had been brought there during the night Penny had reeled in horror at the sight of what looked like an animal Pen and tried desperately to struggle free. As she wept and pleaded with them to listen, her handcuffs were moved while someone unlocked the barred gate, and

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then she was pushed inside. The stench had hit her stomach like a physical blow and, seeing her about to throw up, the old woman had thrust a tin bowl at her.

It still sat there, at the foot of the pallet, adding its own nauseating smell to the stinking sewage seeping from the lavatory cubicle in the corner. This place wasn't fit for animals, never mind humans, and Penny knew that if she were made to suffer it for any length of time she'd never pull through.

Her eyes closed as despair enveloped her heart and lodged in her throat. It was all she could do to overcome the urge to throw herself against the barred gate and scream hysterically for

release.

Her throat was parched, but she was afraid to touch the water in the urn. She itched all over, her bladder was filled to bursting. Earlier she'd ventured into the lavatory, but the stinking foulness that had assaulted her had sent her reeling back into the cell. She'd tried again, with the neck of her sweater pulled up over her nose, but when she'd seen the hole in the ground and felt her feet slithering in faeces she'd only just managed to make it to the tin bowl in time.

Now, sensing someone watching her, she turned to look at the young girl beside her. She was staring up at her, her wide brown eyes steeped in awe that a Western woman should be sharing their cell. All three women had stared at her that way when she'd arrived, their soft, cowlike eyes unblinking and disbelieving, and uttered

not a word.

Penny's eyes moved to the patch of pale sky she could see through the bars. It was no good trying to tell herself that this was a nightmare, that she'd wake up any minute and find herself back in France, for the horrific reality of rats combined with the unrelenting dread of what was going to happen to her had kept her awake all night. She still didn't know how the heroin had come to be in her bag, but could only presume that Benny Lao 408

I

had planted it there while she was out with Christian, then tipped off the police. Whether or not they had arrested Christian too she had no idea, for she'd seen no one since they'd thrown her in here and doubted they would tell her even if they had. As for Sammy, she couldn't bear to think what might have happened to her and took shallow comfort from the hope that her captors, whoever they were, had heard of her arrest and had realized that she was now powerless to do as they'd asked.

More hours ticked by, monotonously and agonizingly slowly, as the distant clatter of street life carried into the yard. Now the other women in the cell were staring at her too. Never in her life had she been unable to get up and walk out of a room at any moment of her choosing; she'd never known what it was to be trapped like this. The dank, mouldy walls were closing in on her and the benign scrutiny of her cellmates was working her panic to such a pitch that her whole body shook with the effort of trying to suppress the hysteria.

Her bladder was screaming the need for release and in the end, as the pipes outside splashed another viscous emission into the gutter, she lost control.

As the urine seeped through her panties and leggings and trickled through the wooden slats on to the floor, tears of humiliation and hopelessness ran down her cheeks. She slumped over her knees, sobbing with shame and bitter despair.

How long were they going to keep her here? Please God, they had to let her go soon or she would lose her mind. As it was, the terror and confusion and crazed speculation on what kind of sentence awaited her, coupled with what had really happened to put her there was pushing her closer and closer to the edge.

It took a long time for her bladder to empty. By the time it did, the old woman was sitting beside her holding out a rag for her to wipe away her tears.

Penny took it, then the old woman lifted the water jug and emptied it on to the floor, sluicing the urine towards the gutter 409

that ran beneath the iron bars of the door. Penny tried to thank her, but the act of kindness was making her cry all the harder. She could barely catch her breath as sobs of utter desolation and fear tore through her body.

"You American?"

the old woman said. Penny tensed, unsure she had heard right; then, lifting her head to look at the woman, she saw the hesitant light of friendliness in her eyes.

"No/ Penny sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

"No, English. You speak English?"

"Leetle."

There was a moment or two's awkwardness, then the woman said,

"Why you here?"

Penny bit her lips as fresh tears threatened.

"I don't know,"

she said brokenly.

"It's a mistake. They found

heroin in my bag."

The old woman nodded. Then, turning to the youngest of the two girls, she said,

"She here for drug."

Penny looked at the girl, realizing from the blankness of her expression that she had no idea what was being said.

"How long has she been here?"

she asked, dread of the answer squeezing her heart.

"She here five month,"

the old woman answered. Penny's head fell back against the wall as the sheer horror of it penetrated her.

"Five months?"

she repeated.

"Hasn't she been tried?"

Seeing the woman didn't understand the question, she said,

"Court? Has she been for trial at court?"

"She still wait."

Oh dear God, Penny was moaning inside. Five months in this hell-hole just waiting for trial.

"And you?"

she said.

"Why are you here?"

T here for robbery. They let me go home, but I no have money for bail."

Penny looked at her with a remote yet profound sympathy. She was probably so poor that she had been forced to commit the robbery that had put her here and now she had no way of raising the money to get out.

"Do

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you ever have any visitors?"

she asked.

"My children, they come last week. But they not come often. They have no money for buses."

Penny wished she could think of something to say, but couldn't. So instead she asked why the oldest of the two girls was there.

"Husband leave her with debt,"

the old woman answered.

Penny's eyes closed at the pitiful injustice of it.

"How long has she been here?"

she asked.

The old woman was about to answer, when they heard the heavy tread of boots coming across the yard.

"He bring food,"

the old woman said in answer to Penny's look.

Penny didn't even want to imagine what kind of food it was. All she was interested in was getting someone to find her a lawyer.

The court find you a lawyer,"

the police officer answered, sliding a tray of inedible gunge under the door.

"But when?"

she cried. Tou can't hold me here like this

/

Tou eat,"

he barked.

"I don't want your damned food,"

she raged. T want to get out of here. Have you told the British Embassy you're holding me? You have to tell someone at the Embassy."

"I don't have to do anything,"

he told her haughtily.

Penny's eyes flashed with impotent fury.

"Not one single mouthful of that filth is passing my lips until you get me a lawyer,"

she seethed.

The man grinned; then, sliding a key into the lock, he pushed the door open.

"You in luck,"

he said. The lawyer, he here. Come this way, please."

Feeling the shame of her stained, damp clothes, Penny got up from the bed and, keeping her head high as he snapped on the handcuffs, she followed him across the yard and round to the front of the police station.

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Inside, it was heaving with people, all shouting and waving pieces of paper, or trying to get to the men in the crowded cell at the back. Penny was ushered through quickly and taken into a small, bare office where a portly, middle-aged Filipino with horn-rimmed glasses and a white embroidered shirt worn loose over his navy slacks was waiting for her.

"Ah, Miss Moon/ he said, getting to his feet and waving her to a chair as her hands were freed.

"My name is Atilano Sombillo. I have been appointed by the court to represent you. Please, sit down."

Penny did as she was told, trying to control her badly shaking hands as she pushed a clump of matted, damp hair from her face. Already she was thinking that there was something not quite right about this, that something, or maybe it was someone, was missing from the normal order of things, but she was too nervous and exhausted to grasp the suspicion and pin it to a rational explanation.

The lawyer and policeman spoke for a few minutes and Penny looked around at the peeling paint, frostedglass window and pin-dotted map of metropolitan Manila. It was still hard for her to believe she was there, so very far from home, so terrifyingly isolated from everyone she knew and all that was familiar. As another tremor of fear vibrated through her she reminded herself firmly that she had a lawyer now - someone who was"

going to help her to prove that it was all a mistake, that she had been set up

- and that the living terror that she might never get out of there would soon be a thing of the

past.

At last the policeman left and Sombillo sat down and opened the file in front of him. Penny waited only until the door had closed before saying, The heroin wasn't mine. I had no idea it was there. Someone planted it."