Searching For Celia Part 15

Celia has moved on, but I haven't; I remain with the lonely little girl on the swing set, grieving an ice-cream cone and not yet aware of the great loss to come.

"So you see, Dayle, I've deceived you," Celia suddenly confesses.

Is this it? Is she about to tell me everything? "Deceived me?" My heart races as I struggle to keep my voice steady. "In what way?"

Celia drops her chin. "I never came here to imagine what my mother had seen. I came to remember what I had seen, all those years ago. I've often felt there was something more, something I knew then but have since forgotten." She flips the pebble with her foot, then grinds her heel into the dampened soil.

"You didn't have to keep that a secret." I hunch my shoulders against the wind as I realize her revelation is a false alarm. "I would have understood."

She shrugs. "I suppose it's not important, in the grand scheme of things."

"No, I'm your friend. I should have known," I argue. "We can never understand another person's heart, can we?"

"No. We humans are unfathomable." She gives a sly smile that narrows her eyes. "We barely even know ourselves."

"Come on, let's go." I rise wearily from the bench.

She frowns. "We can't return to my flat."

"I know. I got us a room."

"Where?"

"Bayswater. Not exactly five star, but it'll do for tonight." I hesitate. "Are you still planning to take the ten past five to Holyhead?"

"Yes."

"Good. You can get a decent night's sleep before you leave."

"Cheers, Dayle." Her smile is genuine as she too rises from the wooden bench and turns away from the wind. "I owe you, my friend."

We return to the street, where my taxi waits in front of the school. If Celia is not what the driver expected of my midnight rendezvous, he doesn't say a word. "Back to the B and B, please," I tell him as Celia and I climb into the backseat.

My head is still reeling as Celia leans back and closes her eyes. The moment I close my own eyes, I see only the photographs Callaway showed me earlier. How can I reconcile those horrific images with the Celia sitting beside me, so close I can feel her breathing? Suddenly Celia stirs and squints out the foggy window.

"We're like spies, you and me," she says in a tone that's unreadable.

"What do you mean?"

"All this. Me using a false name to evade Russian mobsters." She laughs bleakly. "And you-Miss American Pie, so sweet and wholesome, good Wisconsin girl."

"What about me?"

Celia's face flashes from darkness to light as the cab sails beneath streetlamps. "Here you are, whisked into a van by stone-faced Samoans and deposited at the London Eye, clandestine meetings on a deserted playground, late-night rendezvous at a cheap B and B. You aren't Dayle Salvesen. h.e.l.l, you aren't even Candee Cronin. You know who you are?"

"I'm sure you'll tell me."

"Redleigh Smith. The real Redleigh Smith." She winks. "Turns out your books are actually autobiographical."

"Right."

"No, I'm serious. All you need is the bulletproof Kevlar bra. And the stiletto heel that doubles as a switchblade."

"Don't forget the tampon that transforms into a personal floatation device in the event of a water landing." I smile, in spite of everything. "But if I'm Redleigh Smith, then I have those things already."

"True." Celia folds her narrow arms and shakes her head. "We've come a long way from the two prep.u.b.escent girls writing a musical stage version of Gulliver's Travels."

Instantly I remember-the drafty junior-high lunchroom, the greasy pizza and rock-hard Tater Tots on plastic trays hastily pushed aside to make room for the masterpiece we scribbled into our ring binders and notebooks.

"Tragically bookish, we were." Celia sighs. "Were we always in the lunch room or holed up in some dusty library?"

"We knew how to have fun," I argue.

"We made our own fun," she corrects. "Thick as thieves, Dad used to say." Suddenly her face darkens and she s.h.i.+fts toward the window. We've reached St. John's Wood, a wealthy residential area of luxury apartments and gated, multi-million-dollar homes, and just pa.s.sed Lord's Cricket Ground, a sprawling sports field that is cricket's equivalent to Yankee Stadium. "Excuse me, why did you turn there?" Celia demands of the driver. "You should have taken Edgware Road."

The driver ignores her.

"Listen-cut back over to Edgware Road, please." Celia's voice is taut, angry. "Now. I insist."

"Lisson Grove, miss," the driver mumbles.

"What?" Celia shakes the back of the driver's seat.

"Lisson Grove," I repeat. "This will get us to Bayswater the same as Edgware." I try to sound casual, but I'm scared. I glance over my shoulder to see if we're being followed. We aren't.

Celia says something to the driver in angry-sounding Arabic. He shoots back an angrier reply.

I start to speak, but Celia silences me with a quick scowl and shake of her head. She makes another, quieter comment in Arabic and sits back in her seat. Then she reaches into her pocket for her knife. I'm terrified of what she might do. With her right hand she grasps the door handle while with her left she coolly caresses the half-exposed knife, testing the blade against her fingertip. She nods for me to be ready to flee, should the need arise. We are silent the rest of the way as our unspoken fear rides between us, an unwelcome pa.s.senger taking up too much s.p.a.ce.

She is hardened, I think to myself. This life has hardened her. The truth is, I have no idea what she's capable of.

Celia's fears prove to be unfounded as we reach the Bayswater bed-and-breakfast without further incident. Feeling guilty I tip the driver an extra 30, but his elegant, shadowy face is inscrutable as he pockets the money and speeds away.

Celia and I trudge up the steps and into the B and B, where our after-hours arrival elicits barely a grunt in greeting from the hirsute and surly clerk, leaning back in his chair reading The Sun with his bare, hairy feet crossed atop the check-in desk. Celia glances around the damp, drab lobby, then peers into the darkened breakfast room where thimble-size juice gla.s.ses are stacked upside down on the sideboard, next to a wicker basket of plastic cutlery and a toaster from 1983. With a stab of embarra.s.sment I wish I had found someplace nicer for us to spend the night.

We make our way down the creaky, uncarpeted staircase to the bas.e.m.e.nt, illuminated by the single bulb swinging overhead, throwing just enough light to reveal the lines of damp rising tidally up the walls. I take the key from my pocket and unlock the warped wooden door to our room, struggling to push it free from its ill-fitting frame. Celia joins the effort, ramming the door with her shoulder. Finally the door lets loose and we stumble into the room, righting ourselves just past the transom.

I flip the light switch and notice, with despair, that the room's decor seems to have deteriorated while I was away and the s.p.a.ce no longer appears fit for human habitation. My eyes dart in horror from the thin beige bedspread, stained and cigarette burned, to the high, narrow window caged by rusty metal bars flaking away in shades of orange and fiery brown, to the thin black crack in the fingerprinted mirror hung crookedly above the chest of drawers. The entire room is permeated with the odor of sweat, stale beer, and spoiled tandoori.

"I'm sorry, Celia," I say, unzipping my jacket. "I know it's awful."

"Aw, it's not so bad." She shrugs. "Better than a park bench, anyway. I'm desperate for a hot shower and a lie-down."

"That will have to wait." I take off my jacket and place it on the bed.

"Wait for what?"

"We have to talk. It's important."

"All right." If she's worried about what I'm going to say, she doesn't show it. "But first, I'm dying for the loo." She strides to the bathroom and pees lazily, not bothering to close the door. My heart races while I wait.

"Right." She returns moments later to sit on the edge of the bed, crossing one leg beneath her and sliding off her sweaty boots. "Now what is so b.l.o.o.d.y important?" She scratches her big toe with a fingernail.

I turn the chair so it's facing Celia and sit down, cradling my cast. "The police know we're meeting at the cemetery."

Her head shoots up and she is instantly on edge. "How could they?"

"I told them."

"You told them? Why?"

I take a deep breath. "There's a detective, Andrea Callaway, who claims you work with Eastern European gangsters trafficking young women, and that you profit from this relations.h.i.+p financially."

Celia pales with fury, throwing her blackened eye and fading facial scar into high relief. "And you believed that?"

"No." I shake my head. "Not at first. But then she showed me some photos..."

"Photos?"

"Of women. Children. Victims. They were horrible."

"Dayle, I would never do anything-"

"And you were in one of the pictures."

Her fury turns to shock. "Me?"

"Yes. It was a surveillance photograph of you with a man named Milan Gregorovich. Do you know him?"

She nods, blinking rapidly. "Of course. He's one of the ringleaders. But I never-"

"Met him? Celia, in the picture he was paying you."

"Paying me?"

"Yes. There was a close-up photo of your hand, accepting money."

Celia bows her head and clutches her face. She breathes quickly and for a moment I think she is weeping. "What else was in the photo?" she finally whispers, peering dry eyed from between her slim fingers.

"Another man, Slavic looking, next to Gregorovich." The photo is so seared into my memory I can still see every detail. "And between them, a woman. Early twenties, thin, blond, in a short skirt and sheer blouse, looking terrified."

Celia's words emerge slowly, softened by her hands. "Could you see s.h.i.+pping containers, as if the picture had been taken in the hold of a ferry?"

How does she know this? "Yes."

Celia looks up and her solemn face is spotted where her fingers pressed the skin. "Dayle, Gregorovich wasn't paying me. I was paying him."

"For what?"

"Anastasia. The woman in the photo. Her older sister had been trafficked into Britain six months earlier. Anastasia was working as a prost.i.tute in Kiev when Gregorovich took possession of her. She had TB, so Sophie Jameson offered her placement at Hope House and medical treatment if I got her to London. So I paid Gregorovich at Dover to turn her over to me."

My head spins and it's my turn to be shocked. "You mean you bought another human being?"

"In a word, yes." Celia catches my reaction and her anger flares. "Don't be so nave, Dayle. This is how the real world works. It's not pleasant and it's not pretty, but it's the truth. Anastasia was ill. Her earning potential was limited, so Gregorovich let her go. For a price, of course." She bites the words off bitterly. "If you don't believe me, ask Sophie. Because you can't ask Anastasia. She died three months ago. Caught pneumonia and deteriorated very quickly, I'm afraid."

Oh no. What have I done? To say I'm sorry, seems, at the moment anyway, completely inappropriate. So instead I stare down at the swollen, mottled fingers of my plaster-cast hand. We are both silent, listening to the stumbling lovers and broken bottles rolling through the street above our window. Occasionally a car pa.s.ses, casting drab patterns on the wall and leaving in its wake the echo of a lonely engine whine.

"So what was the plan, exactly, for our meeting at the cemetery?" Celia's eyes are hooded, her voice flat and defeated. "And you had better tell me everything."

I take a deep breath and rise from the chair, stalking the tiny room's perimeter, avoiding my jagged reflection in the fractured mirror. "We meet at the tomb of Radclyffe Hall at nine fifteen. I hand you the duffel bag with the travel items. We separate. The police arrest you at Euston Station this evening, as you board the train to Holyhead."

Celia delves a nervous hand through her brittle hair, strafing her scalp. "Why not arrest me at the cemetery?"

"I asked them not to."

She looks confused.

"I didn't want you to know that I was the one who turned you in."

Her hazel eyes flash. "You didn't think I'd suss it out eventually?"

"I don't know. I suppose so," I admit. "I just didn't want to see your face when you realized it was me. Celia, Callaway made it sound so good! She said that if you testified against the Russians, the police would put you in a kind of witness protection program, give you a new ident.i.ty, money, a home, a chance to start over, with lots of support. That's why I agreed to help them. I thought you'd be better off, in the long run."

"Well, thanks for your concern." Celia throws herself back on the mattress, knees bent and fingers laced behind her head. "What the h.e.l.l am I going to do?"

My mind races, searching for a way to make this right. If I got her into this mess, I can get her out. "It's still the middle of the night," I offer hopefully. "You have time to get away. I'll go to the cemetery at nine fifteen, as if for the meeting, but you don't show up. If the police are there, I'll stall them. Send them off on a wild-goose chase. Meanwhile you take the Eurostar to Paris or something. Just get out of England and we'll connect once you're free. I'll help you get to America."

Celia jumps off the bed and paces, a.s.saulting the stained carpet with her stocking feet. "Does Callaway know I'm traveling as Marguerite Alderton?"

For a moment I'm not certain, then I remember. "Yes." My stomach clenches. "I told her."

Celia shakes her head vigorously. "Then it won't work. It's unlikely I'll be out of England by quarter past nine, and if I don't show up at the cemetery, the police might check airports, ferries, the Channel Tunnel."

"But if you are innocent, why does it matter?" I step toward the bathroom. "Once you explain about Gregorovich, they'll let you go."

"Not necessarily. I can't be sure what the police know, or think they know, about my activities."

I stop dead in my tracks. "What activities?"

"Activities," she snaps. "It's too complicated to explain. But the police may try to charge me with a crime. I have no way of knowing what kind of false evidence they may have. And then I might never get out of England."

"So what are we going to do?"

Celia sinks to the bed and draws her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her narrow s.h.i.+ns and holding them tightly. I step into the bathroom, where I cannot avoid my pale, guilty face in the mirror. I fill a gla.s.s with water and take it to Celia.

"There's only one option." She gulps down the water and then nervously rolls the gla.s.s between her palms.