Last Resort (53 page)

Sombillo's head came up and a quick panic bit into Penny's heart as she saw the expression on his face

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was a burlesque of the long-suffering attorney who had heard it all before.

"It's true!"

Penny cried.

"I'm telling you, someone planted it."

Sombillo didn't answer as he continued to scan his notes.

"Have you contacted the British Embassy?"

Penny demanded.

"Do they know I'm here?"

He nodded patiently. Tes, they know."

Then I want to see someone. Surely I have that right."

"I'm sure they will send someone in due course/ he answered, looking down at the case notes again.

"Now, let me see. One point two kilograms of heroin."

He nodded again and raised his eyes back to hers. This is a very grave situation, Miss Moon."

"I'm aware of that/ she snapped.

"But I'm telling you, it was planted on me/

His solemn eyes gazed at her through the thick lenses of his spectacles.

"I should advise you/ he said earnestly,

"that to change your story at this stage is not going to look good when we go in front of a judge."

"What do you mean, change my story?"

Penny said, her head starting to spin.

"I haven't spoken to anyone until now to give a story."

"I understand that you were informed of your rights at the time of your arrest/ Sombillo said.

Penny shook her head.

"I don't know/ she answered.

"I think so, but it all happened so fast..."

"It says here/ he told her,

"that you were informed of your rights, but that you waived them and confessed to being in possession of an illegal substance, namely heroin."

t\J e dizziness in her head increased to such an extent tnat her stomach churned with fear.

"I never confessed to tnmg/ she told him.

"Why would I when the heroin wasn't mine?"

Sombillo sighed and folded his hands on the desk.

"I

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should advise you that it would be in your own best interests if you were to make a clean breast of this now and provide me with the details of how you came by this heroin and for what purpose you intended it,'

Penny stared at him in abject horror.

"Didn't you hear a word I just said?"

she demanded.

"The drugs were planted on me, so why don't you try asking me who might have planted them?"

Sombillo grimaced.

"OK. Tell me/ he said, as though

humouring her.

T think/ she said, forcing her rising temper under control,

"that it was a Chinese by the name of Benny Lao."

"I see. And who is Benny Lao?"

"He's ... he's a Hong Kong Triad member."

Sombillo's eyebrows arched incredulously towards the ceiling. Then, continuing as though she'd never mentioned Lao, he said,

"Who sold you the heroin?"

T don't believe this!"

Penny cried, hitting her hand on the table.

"Why aren't you listening to me? It's your job, your duty as a lawyer, to hear what 1 have to say, so why are you presuming I'm guilty before you've even heard

my side of the story?"

"Because, Miss Moon/ he said,

"you told the police you

were guilty."

That's a lie!"

she shouted.

"And in my opinion/ he went on,

"your association with a certain Christian Mureau is not helping the situation."

"Then fuck your opinion/ she cried, infuriatingly close to tears.

"To become abusive with me isn't going to help your case at all/ he admonished.

"The only thing that is going to help my case is for you to listen/ she cried.

"I'm telling you that I have never smoked, snorted, injected, smuggled, bought, peddled or even touched a single milligram of an illegal substance in my life. You can check it out. Speak to the

I

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people at the Embassy, they'll tell you. I don't have any kind of criminal record at all."

He frowned curiously and looked back at his notes. Then how do you account for the fact that it says here that you are wanted in your own country for the falsification of passports, travelling under an assumed name and, er, let me see, ah yes, that you are also wanted in France for the harbouring of a known criminal/ He stopped and looked up at her with a benign little smile.

All Penny could do was stare at him as the numbing chaos in her mind splintered her anger into a thousand pieces and left her reeling with shock and terror. It was as though her last flicker of hope had just been extinguished by a raging wind of injustice.

This information was delivered to me this morning by your Embassy/ he informed her.

"So it would appear that whilst you don't actually have a criminal record as such, you do have a number of charges outstanding against you/ He pressed down the top of his pen, annotated the document in front of him, then said,

"Now, perhaps we can return to the matter at hand. One point two kilograms of heroin were found in your possession last night'

"Whatever charges might be outstanding against me,"

Penny cut in,

"they bear no relevance to what I am charged with now/

"Quite/ he said.

"I was merely pointing out that your claim that you have no criminal record, whilst true at this moment, is quite probably a temporary situation. To continue: a narcotics test was carried out at the premises of the Aurelio Hotel at approximately ten o'clock last night which showed the substance found in your bag to be of an illegal nature."

He looked up.

"China White, to be more precise/ he stated blandly.

Penny's fear was like acid burning into her thoughts, leaving them ragged and unformed and making it imost impossible for her to g uge what she was saying.

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'Have you arrested Christian Mureau?"

she demanded.

"I'm afraid that is priviliged information/ he responded.

"If you have/ she persisted,

"then he will tell you that

the heroin was planted on me."

"I'm sure/ he said, leaving her in no doubt that Christian's word would carry about as much weight as it would take to transport her to jail for the next twentyfive years.

"It was put in my suitcase by a man called Benny Lao/ she went on doggedly.

"1 swear 1 had never seen it before the moment the police officer took it out of the case."

Sombillo blinked, then turned towards the door as a lower-ranking officer knocked and put his head in.

"Telefono,"

he said.

"You will excuse me/ Sombillo said, getting up from his chair.

Penny watched him walk to the door, then sank her head into her hands as it closed behind him. She had never known such a terrible sense of foreboding as this. Discovering that she was wanted in England and France had added new and horrible dimensions to her already terrifying sense of abandonment. And Sammy, what the hell was happening to Sammy now?

Defeat was creeping into her bones, telling her that there was no way she was going to get out of here: she was going to have to face whatever judgment was passed on her and maybe spend the best part of her life in a Filipino prison for a crime she hadn't committed. The appalling injustice of it made her want to lash out at this preposterous little man who was refusing to listen to ] a word she said. What the hell kind of lawyer was he to I presume his client to be guilty without even hearing what she had to say?

There was something terribly wrong here, something that wasn't adding up at all, but in her weakened and agitated state she seemed unable to make her mind function.

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Then quite suddenly her head jerked up as she finally realized who was missing here. Chief Superintendent Jalmasco. No arrest was ever made for a charge like this without an immediate interrogation and no one had asked her a single damned thing from the moment she'd been arrested until now. And yet there was a confession. Jesus Christ, how could she have been such a fool? Why hadn't she worked this out before? Jalmasco and Sombillo were both in Benny Lao's pay. They were all in Lao's pay.

Her heart was racing as she tried to make herself think clearly. Then her eyes fell on the file in front of her. She grabbed it and spun it round on the desk. Please God, she wasn't going to find a forged confession. But she did.

It was there in black and white and signed by a hand that was so like her own that under any other circumstances she'd have sworn it was hers. Trembling with outrage and terror, she sifted frantically through the papers, scattering them over the desk in her hunt for the Embassy-headed notepaper that would tell her whether or not the charges in England and France were real. She found nothing bearing either the Royal crest or the Republican insignia of France, but what she did find turned her blood to ice.

Picking up the photograph, she sat back in her chair, too stunned for the moment to do anything but stare down at the clear, smiling image of her own face as her mind flashed back to the moment when Jalmasco had introduced himself the night before, looking first at her, then at something he was holding in his hand. Everything in her was recoiling from the sudden onslaught of all the ramifications this photograph presented. The background was fuzzy, but not too fuzzy tor her to see where she was when the photograph had j en taken. She remembered trie moment clearly: she'd n m the gazebo in the Chinese Gardens with <-nnshan when a Filipino boy had appeared out of 417

nowhere and asked if he could take their picture. Yet there was no sign of Christian in the photograph she was holding. It was of her and her alone.

Her eyes moved sightlessly to the middle distance as the unthinkable question loomed horribly in her mind: had Christian known what the boy was doing when he'd set up his camera and, as the evidence here showed, focused his lens only on her? She could only conclude that Christian must have, for being in the position he was in he would surely never have allowed a stranger to take his photograph. And if he had known and that photograph had now turned up here in the hands of a lawyer who was so bent on establishing her guilt... ]

The photograph slipped from her fingers as shock drained the blood from her face. She couldn't be right about this. Surely to God she couldn't. He loved her, he'd do anything in the world for her, give her anything, take her anywhere; he'd even come back for her if David ... Her eyes closed and, taking a breath, she forced herself past it. She'd believed everything he'd told her, she'd felt nothing but love and pity and heartbreaking empathy with his suffering. And all the time he had been ... Her hand flew to her head. She was unable to form the words, unable to make herself believe that he would do this to her. He'd bought the photographer, the police, the lawyer ... Dear God in heaven, who else had he bought? But why? Why would he do it? To punish her for not going with him? It was the only explanation she could , think of, yet

Hearing Sombillo's voice outside, she hurriedly stuffed the photograph and papers back into the file, , spun it round to face his side of the desk and waited for the door to open. She had no idea how she was going to play this now, whether she should let him know what she had discovered or whether, for the time being, she should keep it to herself.

T apologize for the interruption,"

he said, coming back

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into the room.

"I took the opportunity to order you a coffee. I imagine you could use one."

"I believe/ she said, looking him straight in the eye,

"that I have the right to change my lawyer at any time of my choosing. I wish to exercise that right as of this moment."

"I see/ he said, scratching his face and showing no sign of either surprise or offence.

"May I ask why?"

"No."

Then may I remind you of the seriousness of the charges you are facing?"

"It is precisely because of their seriousness that I wish to change my lawyer/

she said, unable to keep the tightness from her voice.

"I should advise you/ he said,

"that I have tried a number of death penalty cases"

He stopped as the shock registered on her face.

"Do I take it/ he went on carefully,

"that you were unaware that the possession of more than forty grams of an opium-based drug is punishable by death in the Philippines?"

Weak with hunger and beaten half senseless by the repeated onslaughts of fear and shock, Penny started to sway in her chair.

"Death?"

she repeated dully as the image of the geomancer closing her hand flashed in her mind.

"I'm afraid so, Miss Moon/ Sombillo answered.

"I thought a woman in your position would have known that."

"No, I didn't/ she said, her voice barely more than a croak as a single, unbearable thought circled her mind. He had sentenced her to death. Christian, the man who

h h03'16 10Ve t0 her so tender]y"

the man for whom she had so very nearly given up everything, had sentenced her to die in a Filipino jail.

would a glass of water help?"

Sombillo offered. soeawT at him with unblinking eyes.

"I want to

K to someone at the British Embassy/ she said 419

hoarsely.

"All in good time/ he said, smiling.

"Didn't you hear me!"

she suddenly screamed.

"I want to speak to my Embassy!'

"Now, please, try to keep calm,"

he said soothingly.

"I understand what'

"I am demanding my rights as a British citizen to speak to my Embassy,"

she yelled.

"You can't hold me here without notifying the British Government'

"On the contrary, Miss Moon,"

he interrupted. The police are empowered to hold you for up to thirty-six hours without informing anyone, which they frequently do. So perhaps you should consider yourself one of the lucky ones, since your Embassy are already aware of your arrest and you already have a lawyer/

"You call yourself a lawyer!"

she spat.

"What kind of lawyer is it that hies to persuade his client to sentence herself to death? What kind of lawyer takes money from a known criminal to make sure that death..."