Red Light (2 page)

On the wall above the sofa-bed hung a faded picture of Saint Patrick, white-bearded and smiling benevolently, with a mass of snakes around his feet, all slithering into the sea. On the sofa-bed itself lay the body of a naked black man, and kneeling beside the bed was a young black woman, wide-eyed, wearing only a purple satin bra. She was so emaciated that her arms and legs looked like black fire-pokers, and her stomach was creased with wrinkles.

She wailed again and raised one arm, shielding her face, ‘
Ba a cutar da ni!
’ she said, in a voice so thin that it was more like a whistle. ‘
Ba a cutar da ni!
’

The sight and the smell of the man’s body had shaken Ciaran and Mr Rooney so much that for almost a quarter of a minute neither of them could speak. When he did say something, all that Mr Rooney could manage was, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God. Fecking state of him, la.’

Both of the man’s hands were missing and the blanket beneath his wrists was black with dried blood. The stumps were alive with maggots, wriggling and twitching as they struggled with each other to feed off his festering flesh. Worse, though, was his face – or what was left of his face. His lower jaw was intact, with a neat black goatee beard, but above that there was nothing more than a huge crimson flower with petals made of meat. Maggots were tumbling all over this blossom and bluebottle flies were clustered around it, busily laying more eggs.

Even more maggots and flies were crawling between the man’s legs, scores of them, giving him the appearance of wearing a huge rippling nappy.

‘Ring the guards, boy,’ said Mr Rooney, in a husky voice, but Ciaran had already taken out his mobile phone and was prodding out 112.

Mr Rooney held out both hands to the girl and said, ‘C’mere, girl, we’re not going to hurt you. What in the name of Jesus are you doing in here with this dead feller?’

‘You no kill,’ said the girl. ‘Please you no kill.’

‘Hey, we’re not going to
kill
you. Why would we want to do that?’

‘Please, you no kill.’

‘Of course we won’t kill you. Come on, you need to get yourself out of here.’

‘Lower Shandon Street,’ Ciaran was saying on his mobile. ‘The sign over the shop says Hungarian Deli. Well, there’s a body here, a black feller with no head. And there’s a girl, too, she’s still alive but I’d say she needs a bit of help. She’s black too. That’s right. No, I don’t think she’s injured at all. Yes. Ciaran O’Malley. Yes.’

He turned to Mr Rooney and said, ‘The cops are on their way. They said not to touch nothing and not to move the body.’

‘Oh, I will, yeah,’ said Mr Rooney. ‘I’m going to pick him up and dance around the fecking room with him.’

‘I think I’m going to have to get out of here,’ said Ciaran. He raised his hand in front of his face to block the view of the body lying on the sofa-bed. ‘I just can’t take this smell any more. And them maggots.’ Just saying the word ‘maggots’ made him bring up another mouthful of bile and his eyes watered.

Mr Rooney unbuckled his raincoat and wrestled himself out of it. He held it out to the girl and said, ‘Here, love. Put this on. At least you’ll be decent so.’

Weakly, the girl reached out for the arm of the chair and managed to lever herself up on to her feet. She was so thin that her pelvis looked like a plough blade. Mr Rooney draped his raincoat over her bony shoulders, but before he did so Ciaran could see that her back was patterned with lumpy diagonal scars, as if she had been beaten, or burned, or both.

They left the room and awkwardly made their way downstairs. As they reached the hallway, the girl stopped and said, ‘
Ba za ta komo, yana ta? Yarinyar?
’

‘Don’t know what the feck you’re talking about, love,’ said Mr Rooney. Despite her being bare-footed, he ushered her out of the front door and into the street. He looked over her shoulder at Ciaran and said, ‘Shut that door, would you, boy, before my breakfast comes back for an action replay.’

It had started to rain, not heavily, but enough to make the road surface glisten and the shores start gurgling. The girl kept glancing around her, very agitated, as if she expected somebody to appear at any moment and attack her. A black man in a dirty red hoodie was sheltering in the doorway of the betting shop opposite, smoking, and Ciaran could see that his presence disturbed her, because she turned her back to him and pulled up the collar of Mr Rooney’s raincoat to hide her face.

‘The cops will be here before you know it,’ he told her. He laid his hand on her shoulder, trying to be reassuring, but she flinched away.

‘What’s your name, girl?’ he asked her. ‘What do they call you? You understand some English, don’t you?’

The girl nodded. ‘Yes. Understand. That woman not come back?’

‘What woman?’

The girl pointed upwards, towards the room where the body was lying. ‘That woman kill Mawakiya.’

Ciaran looked at Mr Rooney and Mr Rooney’s thick grey eyebrows went up.

‘Your man was topped by a
woman
?’ he asked her.

‘With
bindiga
. Gun. Yes. Two times in head.’

‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me, the state of him. Face like a couple of meat cakes.’

‘He was shot?’ said Ciaran. ‘It’s pure amazing that nobody heard it.’

‘Oh, that doesn’t surprise me one little bit,’ said Mr Rooney. ‘Nobody never hears nothing in this city these days, not if they know what’s good for them, any road.’

‘Do you
know
the woman?’ asked Ciaran.

The girl shook her head. ‘I don’t know her. But she say to me, not move. Not move! If you come out of room, I will be waiting for you. I will do same to you like Mawakiya.’

‘So that’s why you stayed there?’

The girl nodded again, and then suddenly her lower lip curled down and she started sobbing. ‘I so afraid. I so afraid. She say to me, if you come out of room, I kill you like Mawakiya. This is promise.’

‘Jesus,’ said Mr Rooney. ‘So that’s why you stayed in there. When did this happen? Like, how long have you been in there?’

The girl held up three long fingers with silver rings on them. Her nails were painted metallic-purple, though they were all badly chipped.

‘Three days? Jesus. And all that time your man was getting stinkier and stinkier and you didn’t have nothing to eat or drink?’

‘I have water. I have biscuit.’

‘Ah well, I don’t suppose a feller with his face blown off could have done much to sharpen your appetite. I was going to have the bacon and cabbage at the White Horse Inn today in Ballincollig but I don’t think I’ll be eating anything at all anywhere for a while.’

‘So what’s your name?’ Ciaran persisted. ‘Where do you come from? How long have you been here in Cork?’

The girl stared at him over the top of Mr Rooney’s raincoat collar. Her eyelashes were crusted with yellow and her left eye was bloodshot. She didn’t answer, but just continued to stare at him as if she didn’t trust him, or any man, or anyone – and never would again.

‘You’re not even going to tell me your name?’ said Ciaran. ‘Well, how old are you? You can tell me that, can’t you? Or don’t you know?’

The girl held up both hands, with all of her fingers spread. Then she held up only her right hand, with two of her fingers folded back.

When Ciaran frowned in bewilderment, she did it again. Two hands, ten fingers, then one hand, three fingers.

‘Mother of God,’ said Mr Rooney. ‘She’s only thirteen.’

At that moment, lightning flickered over the hills towards the south-west and the girl clamped her hand over her mouth as if she had just told the most dreadful lie.

Katie entered the interview room. It was gloomy but not dark enough for the light to be switched on. A middle-aged woman in a red tweed suit was sitting in one of the Parker Knoll armchairs that were crowded together at the right-hand side of the room. She had dyed ginger hair and fiery crimson cheeks, and the drawn lines around her mouth of a woman whose teeth had all been taken out as a wedding present.

She half stood up as Katie came in, but Katie made a patting gesture in the air to indicate that she should stay seated.

‘Mary ó Floinn, superintendent,’ she said, in a stage whisper. ‘It was me that you talked to on the phone.’

Katie nodded. She was more interested in the young girl standing by the tall window, looking out. The window was speckled with raindrops and outside the dark slate rooftops were shiny and wet. Down in the area below, a man with a khaki windcheater covering his head was stacking bricks and smoking. Katie couldn’t be sure if the girl was watching him or if she was staring at nothing at all.

She knew from the records that Nasc had given her that she was eight years old, but she looked no more than five. Her brown hair was unkempt and straggly, and Katie could see crusty brown scabs among the curls. She was very thin, and her emaciated state was exaggerated by the long grey cotton dress she was wearing, which was clean and well pressed, with pink smocking on the front, but two sizes too big for her.

Katie went over to the window and stood beside her. The girl didn’t look up, but continued to stare outside. She had a high forehead and sharp angular cheekbones, and huge brown eyes. She reminded Katie of one of the fairies in the storybooks that her mother used to read to her, except that she had fading yellow bruises on her left cheek and around her mouth, and purple bruises around her neck, too, like finger marks.

‘Corina?’ said Katie, very gently.

The girl looked up at her, and then immediately looked away.

‘Corina, I’m Katie. Have they given you anything to eat?’

‘She had fish fingers for her lunch,’ put in Mary ó Floinn. ‘Mind you, she ate only the one. I had the feeling she’d never been given more than one before and she was afraid what might happen if she ate any more.’

Katie stood looking at Corina for a long time. She couldn’t think of the last time she had felt pain like this. She had to turn away from the window because she had a
tocht
, a lump in her throat, and tears in her eyes.

After a while, though, she swallowed and smiled and said, ‘Corina, why don’t you and me sit together over here and we can talk?’

She went over to the sagging maroon couch on the opposite side of the room and sat down. Corina hesitated for a moment, and then obediently came over and sat next to her, with her head lowered, staring at the carpet.

‘Would you like some chocolate?’ Katie asked her.

Corina shook her head.

‘Are you sure? You’ve had your lunch, haven’t you, so you’re allowed.’

Mary ó Floinn, in the same stage whisper, said, ‘There’s a bit of an issue with chocolate, superintendent.’

‘What do you mean “a bit of an issue”?’

‘She took a square of chocolate out of the fridge, only a dooshie piece, but Mânios smacked her so hard she hit her head on the concrete step, and then he half choked her. So … as you can probably understand, she’s a little wary when it comes to chocolate.’

‘I see,’ said Katie. She smiled at Corina, but behind her smile her pain had turned to anger, an anger that was stronger than almost any anger she had felt before, and in her mind she could see herself stalking out of the room and finding Mânios Dumitrescu at whatever bar in Cork he was drinking in this afternoon, The Idle Hour probably, taking out her .38 revolver and without hesitation shooting him between the eyes.

She unfastened the flap on her bag and took out the Milky-bar she had bought at the newsagent’s on her way here. ‘Let’s share this, shall we? Half for you and half for me.’

Corina stared at her with those soulful brown eyes. Then, at last, she nodded.

While they sat side by side, eating chocolate, Katie said, ‘Do you know where you were born?’

Corina shook her head again.

‘Do you know where you are now?’

Corina nodded.

‘And where is that, Corina?’

Corina closed her eyes and recited, in a soft, hoarse voice, ‘Number thirty-seven St Martha’s Avenue, Gurranabraher, Cork. Telephone number 021 4979951.’

‘Well, at least the Dumitrescus made sure they weren’t going to lose her,’ said Katie. She waited for a moment while Corina finished her chocolate and lifted up the hem of her dress so that she could wipe her mouth. Then she said, ‘What’s your mother’s name, sweetheart?’

‘Marcela.’

‘Marcela is the woman you’ve been living with. I mean your real mother.’

Corina frowned as if she didn’t understand. Katie looked across at Mary ó Floinn, who shrugged and said, very quietly, ‘She believes that Marcela
is
her real mother, superintendent. Remember that she was only three when the Dumitrescus adopted her. We’ve contacted the social services in Bucharest but we were hoping that you could get in touch with the Romanian police to see if they can trace her real family.’

‘Oh, we’ll do that, for sure,’ said Katie. ‘They have a special directorate to combat human-trafficking, just like we do. Meanwhile I’d like to set up some interviews with Corina, when you think she’s ready. We can’t delay it for too long, though. As you say in your report here, the Dumitrescus have adoption papers and they’ve already lodged a complaint to get her back.’

‘The courts won’t make us hand her over, though, will they? Look at her.’

Katie shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Mary. Unless we can find some really sound evidence against them there’s not a lot we can do. Well … you’re the legal experts when it comes to immigrants. If they can get their hands on her again, the Dumitrescus could up sticks and head off to England or back to Romania or wherever in the world they wanted and then we’d never see her again.’

‘God forbid,’ said Mary ó Floinn. ‘The ISPCC have lodged her for the moment with some really grand foster parents in Douglas, Mr and Mrs Brennan. I’ll be taking her there after this. She should be able to talk to you in two or three days, maybe sooner. She just needs to get over the fear that she’s going to get a beating if she tells you what the Dumitrescus have been doing to her. Meanwhile I’ve given you the name of the neighbour who first called us. I don’t know whether she’d be prepared to give evidence in open court, but maybe she could give you some leads to other witnesses.’