Searching For Celia Part 12

"When do you leave?"

"Early tomorrow morning."

Still facing me, she reaches behind her back and feels frantically for the door handle, turning it slowly. "Hmm. I've got a cla.s.s at nine. I'll phone you to say good-bye."

"Let me call you a cab." My voice sounds raspy and desperate. "You might wait awhile to catch one this time of night."

"No, that's fine." She slowly, silently, inches open the door and slips her foot into the hallway. "The night bus runs all hours."

"You don't have to go," I offer, but she is out the door before I finish the sentence. The quick patter of her running shoes picks up speed as she flies down the hall toward the staircase. "Edwina," I call after her, stepping into the corridor, desperate not to wake the neighbors. "Please come back. Please? Don't leave this way."

She doesn't respond; instead she simply disappears down the stairs. I turn back into the flat and close the door behind me.

With Edwina gone I feel utterly and completely alone, while the ghost of my lost child reverberates around the room, tormenting me with his presence. Now that his name has been released into this sad s.p.a.ce, something of him remains, so close and yet impossible to see or touch or taste or feel. I fall facedown onto Celia's stacked mattresses and begin to pray: And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son.

In a matter of moments I am asleep and dreaming. In the dream I prepare to send Rory away, but first I must bathe him at the riverbank, because if he is clean and s.h.i.+ny and smells nice, whoever finds him on the other side will love him even more, hold him awhile longer, and salt his tender skin with kisses. I immerse him in the swift current, dunking him up to his tummy, as his chubby legs thrash madly in the rus.h.i.+ng water, water whose warmth recalls a womb so recently vacated that it still holds his shape, still remembers his dimensions.

Once he is clean and dry, I dress him carefully in pajamas, socks, and mittens, and a white knit cap to cover his vulnerable crown, the breach in the bone that pulses steadily beneath his soft brown hair.

And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein, and laid it in the flags by the river's brink.

Once dressed, I place him in a basket woven tightly from reeds and cover him with a blue-and-white blanket, right up to his cleft chin, tucking it tightly all around. "It's all right," I coo as he fights to free himself and his round cheeks redden. "Don't struggle. Mama's here."

And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side.

I kneel, kiss his feverish forehead, and gently launch him into the river, where his woven cradle parts the water and floats slowly away, drifting achingly beyond my reach. His knit cap is the last thing I see before he falls below the horizon, his white cap indistinguishable from the other whitecaps cresting the waves.

And she saw the ark among the flags, and sent her handmaid to fetch it.

Celia. Celia will be there. She will find him on the other side.

And she opened it, and saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept.

Yes. Celia spreads her arms and casts her net upon the water. "Come, baby, come," she beckons, capturing him within the arc of powerful strokes that bring him ever closer, bobbing up and down, until he settles, coming to rest in the dark cleft between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

And she called his name Moses, and said, because I drew him out of the water.

No. His name is Rory. Call him Rory. He belongs to me.

Chapter Fifteen.

Thursday 12:02 a.m.

My dream is broken by a distant yet insistent knocking. As I rise from the despairing depths of sleep, I realize that someone is at the door. I squint at Celia's alarm clock: 12:02 a.m. I've been asleep for less than an hour. Edwina, I think hopefully, returning to see out the night by my side.

Still dressed in a T-s.h.i.+rt and sweatpants, I stumble out of Celia's bed and open the door. I'm shocked to find not Edwina but Detective Constable Andrea Callaway, looking lank haired and tired, still wearing her oily trench coat and with a beige canvas messenger bag slung limply over her shoulder.

"DC Callaway," I croak. "Is something wrong?"

"Sorry to wake you, but you'll want to know-the body we pulled from the Thames this afternoon was not Cecelia Frost."

My mind, still foggy from sleep, struggles both to a.s.semble a coherent thought and to maintain the secret that I've known for several hours. "Are you sure?" I ask, rubbing my eyes.

"Yes. May I come in?" Callaway angles her long torso through the doorway so I have no choice but to usher her inside.

"I'm sorry. Please do." I open the door and light from the hallway spills into the darkened flat, creeping across the threadbare carpet to single out the broken lamp, my riffled pile of clothing, the beige patina of flour still dusting the kitchenette floor.

As Callaway steps inside I close the door behind her and flip the light switch, bathing the flat in a harsh yellow glow. "I got your message that the place had been ransacked," she says, turning a full circle. "I expected worse."

"Edwina and I tried to clean up." I take Callaway's coat and drape it over the doork.n.o.b, then guide her to the kitchen table while I take the seat across from her. I have a feeling that her visit is about more than the ident.i.ty of the dead body, and I steel myself for what is to come. "If it wasn't Celia you found, who was it?" I stare at the table, unable to make eye contact. Shakespeare said, There is no art to find the mind's construction in the face, but the fact that Celia is still alive, and I have seen her, feels visible, as if written on my skin.

Callaway folds her bony hands and rests them on the table. A tiny muscle twitches just above her lip. "Claire McAvoy. A twenty-three-year-old waitress."

"Oh." Celia is alive, but another woman isn't. And somewhere in London, a family grieves. "How did she die?" I ask softly.

"Strangled. Following a s.e.xual a.s.sault."

I shudder. "That's awful."

Callaway's deep, rodent-like eyes dart around the flat, evaluating everything. Her gaze settles on the two used winegla.s.ses still gracing the kitchen table. "I see you've had a visitor," she says evenly.

"That's right." She waits for me to say more, so I do. "Edwina."

She nods, raising her chin. "Indeed. And where is Edwina now?"

"At her flat, I'd imagine. Or maybe at her brother's." I look up suddenly. "Do you need to talk to her?"

"No. Well, yes," she corrects. "To inform her about the body, of course."

"Of course." I pause. "But that can probably wait until morning, don't you think?"

"I expect so."

A strained silence descends. In the absence of other sound, I can hear Callaway breathe and swallow. She holds me in her gaze, unblinking.

"DC Callaway, is there something else?" I finally ask. "Because if there isn't, I'd like to go back to bed. It's been a long day."

She sighs heavily, dropping her shoulders in a surprising release of pent-up tension that leaves her looking not just younger, but almost vulnerable. "It's late, so I'll level with you." She pauses. "I think you're hiding something."

"Hiding something? Like what?" I try to sound casual, but the break in my voice betrays me.

"I think you have information regarding the whereabouts of Cecelia Frost."

"What makes you say that?" My heart pounds and I feel my face redden. "Just because it wasn't Celia you found doesn't prove she's still alive."

"Perhaps not. But it seems less likely that she's dead."

"Look, if I knew where she was, why wouldn't I tell you? I want to find her as much as anybody does. I want to know if she's okay."

Callaway s.h.i.+fts in her seat, leans to one side, and reaches into her messenger bag. She pulls out a stack of photographs in a variety of shapes and sizes. "Have a look," she challenges, sliding the photos across the table.

"What are these?" I ask warily.

"Just take a look."

I shuffle through the pictures, which are horrific. They are police evidence photographs of victimized children, mostly girls but some boys too-bound, tortured, engaging in s.e.x acts, with adults, with objects, with each other. The children's eyes and some facial features have been redacted, pixilated or blacked out to obscure their ident.i.ties, but the terror can be read in their body language, in their rigid limbs and gaping mouths.

Before I make it through the entire pile, Callaway slaps another photo down in front of me, of a beautiful East Indian girl with soulful eyes, long black braided hair, and a dazzling smile, wearing gold necklaces and a colorful sari. "This is Asha. At age thirteen. Before her virginity was sold for one hundred and fifty pounds."

Callaway slaps down another photo. "This is what she looks like now."

My stomach twists as I push the picture away.

"Prep.u.b.escent girls are highly prized because they can be raped without using a condom," Callaway continues. "Those who refuse are mutilated and killed."

Another photo.

"This is Olga. From Moldova. She's seven years old. Lovely, isn't she? Or at least she used to be. The pedophiles insist Moldova has Europe's prettiest children."

Callaway's next photograph shows a group of scantily clad teenage girls rus.h.i.+ng out the front door of a semidetached suburban home in what looks like a police raid, struggling to hide their faces and their naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"These girls are older," she says softly. "Aged sixteen to nineteen. From Albania, Belarus, and Ukraine. Rescued last year from a house in Romford. But they can never go home. They have shamed their families and would likely end up back on the streets."

I close my eyes, not wanting to see more, but Callaway is relentless.

"Of course the victims aren't only Asian and European." She waits for me to open my eyes and look down. I do, then wish I hadn't.

"This child was purchased at a market in Abidjan, in the Ivory Coast, where little girls, their hair neatly braided and wearing their best Sunday dresses, can be purchased for as little as five to ten American dollars."

The next photo is a landscape scene featuring a rural dirt road lined by large convoy trucks and tin shacks with corrugated roofs. Picturesque mountain peaks are visible in the background.

I look up at Callaway, confused.

"This is Salgaa," she explains. "By day it's nothing but a dusty traffic stop on the Nakuru-Eldoret highway, the main road linking Kenya and Uganda. By night it's the world's biggest brothel, where hundreds of men pay as little as one or two pounds for s.e.x. AIDS is rampant. Locals call the disease mikingo, meaning slow puncture, or kauzi, slim as a thread."

The next photo shows an African woman, naked and skeletal, lying on a narrow cot, her ashy skin slick with open sores and her hollow, unseeing eyes sunken deep into her bony skull. "This is Jelita. She is"-Callaway corrects herself-"she was nineteen." She pauses. "Her daughter has AIDS as well."

I can't bear it anymore. "Detective, what does any of this have to do with Celia?"

Callaway pauses before speaking. "We believe that Cecelia Frost has been working with a loosely organized Eastern European gang who traffic young women and girls into the UK and then around the world."

I shake my head. "You're wrong. Celia gets girls like these off the streets."

Callaway stiffens, squaring her shoulders. "She'd have you believe that."

"What do you mean?"

"She's created a reasonable cover," Callaway continues. "Apparently she rescues girls who are mentally deficient or too frail, ill, or damaged to be sold and finds them charity placements here in Britain. The stronger, healthier girls she helps groom for distribution. Then, once the girls are on their way, the mobsters give Celia a cut of their profits."

I force a hollow laugh. "Look around you, Detective. Does this look like the home of someone taking payoffs from the mob?"

Callaway gives the flat a cursory glance, then takes a deep breath before continuing. "No. But Cecelia may have set up an overseas bank account under a false name."

Marguerite Alderton. My stomach seizes. It can't be true.

"And she may also be funneling money into that account so as not to raise suspicion here."

When I don't respond, Callaway continues. "Perhaps she plans to leave the country and take up residence overseas under this a.s.sumed name."

Stunned, I say nothing.

"You didn't know she had an arrest record, did you?" Callaway asks gently.

I shake my head. "No. But those were only minor offenses," I add quickly. "Celia was never convicted of anything serious."

"Yes. She was."

"Of what?"

"Does it really matter, Dayle?" Callaway leans across the table, her breath hot against my cheek. "Aren't you at all curious as to what else she didn't tell you?"

I sit, speechless, trying to take it all in.

Reaching again into the messenger bag, Callaway removes two eight-by-ten-inch photos from a side pocket and pa.s.ses them to me. "I hoped I wouldn't have to show you these."

Hand trembling, I look down at the first photo. It's a shadowy surveillance photo of Celia, in profile, standing across from two large, muscular, Slavic-looking men in black leather jackets, with a young blond woman cowering in the narrow s.p.a.ce between them. The woman, early twenties, is thin and hunched, dressed in a tiny miniskirt and sheer nylon blouse with her arms crossed tightly across her chest, as if trying to hug away her fear.

Just behind the men and the woman is a white van with its back doors open, surrounded by what look like large, multicolored s.h.i.+pping containers. The photo might have been taken in the hold of a ferry, or in a large garage or storage unit.

In one man's clenched fist a small, rounded, light-colored object is visible. Celia reaches for the object.

The second photograph shows the same scene, only in close-up. The man's fist, now clearly visible, holds a roll of 50 notes, inches from Celia's waiting fingertips.

"This doesn't prove anything," I offer feebly.

Without saying a word, Callaway reaches into her canvas bag one more time, withdraws another photograph, and carefully places it on top of the stack of images in front of me.

I glance down at the photo and nearly gag. The picture shows three young women, dead, naked, and soaking wet, their bodies arranged side by side on a gravel beach beside a dark body of water. Their expressionless faces are creased and bloated, their hands bound and their feet encased in concrete. Their b.r.e.a.s.t.s have been hacked off, as if with a machete.

"This is what happens to those caught trying to escape their enslavement," Callaway says, her voice devoid of emotion. "It sends a message, keeps the other girls in line. The man responsible for this particular atrocity is Milan Gregorovich." She pauses. "He's the taller of the two men you see there in the photograph with Cecelia."