Blackout - John Milton #10 (John Milton Thrillers) Page 9

  The man stepped aside. Milton didn’t resist. He felt a hard shove in his back and stumbled into the darkness beyond.

  23

  MILTON’S CELL was tiny.

  It was two metres deep and a metre and a half wide and was empty except for a toilet bowl that was fixed to the wall in the far right-hand corner, shielded from view by a waist-high wall made of cement blocks. Water was provided from a tap to the left of the toilet; it dripped, and a slimy puddle had formed beneath it. There was no furniture within the cell. There was just the cement floor, the cement ceiling, and the cement block walls.

  There was a single window. It was high in the wall, with a sill at shoulder height. Milton went over to it. It was bisected with a lattice of sturdy bars with the same mesh screwed down over it on the outside wall. Milton looked out through the mesh. He could see a row of whitewashed buildings, with guards gathering between them. The wall of the compound was visible beyond the buildings and, looming above everything, there was a guard tower with a searchlight and a machine gun pointing over the parapet. The sun was sinking and, as it moved by degrees to the west, the angle opened so that the brightness could seep inside.

  Milton realised that he was carrying his bed beneath his arm. He spread out the bedroll on the floor next to the wall. It was thin and stained, and, as he lowered himself down onto it, he knew that he was going to have a difficult time sleeping.

  The light was better now, and he could make out more detail. The walls had been whitewashed at some point in the distant past and, since then, they had grown dirty and smeared. Some of the stains were from bedbugs and cockroaches that had been crushed against the abrasive surface. There were inscriptions where names and messages had been scratched into the brick.

  Bayani.

  Rodel.

  Sayen.

  Milton couldn’t read the messages, but he could guess at the sentiment. There were downward scratches in groups of six, the seventh mark slashing diagonally across them to commemorate the passing of another week. Other marks were different. There were religious inscriptions. Someone had scratched an image of a woman. There was a patch of wall above Milton’s head where a reddish stain had been left. There was a rough circular patch and then four vertical stripes; Milton reached up his hand and laid it over the stain, realising as he did that it was a bloody palm print.

  Milton thought of the man he had seen outside and the beating that he had taken.

  He was uneasy. He was different from all the other prisoners that he had seen, and he knew that would mark him out for special attention from them and from the guards. And he was accused of murdering a woman. That, too, would play badly for him.

  Milton lay flat. His left shoulder was against the wall and he was able to reach out with his right hand and touch the opposite wall. It was a tiny room, but at least it was just him, at least for now. He closed his eyes and tried to remember back to his training in the Regiment. They had put him in smaller spaces than this, kept him there for hours as they tried to approximate what might happen if he was ever captured by the enemy. That had been unpleasant, but it was very different. He had known, even if he didn’t know how long it would take, that the door to his cell would eventually be opened and he would be allowed to leave. He would be able to get into his car and drive into Hereford and have a drink with the other men in the Regiment.

  This was different.

  He knew that he was going to have to keep a low profile if he wanted to stay alive.

  24

  JOSIE BUSIED herself with her usual duties for the rest of the day. She had a backlog of three murders that had been solved, but still needed to have the paperwork completed. She checked the evidence that had been prepared for a forthcoming trial—another murder—and called the pathology unit to check whether they were going to autopsy the woman from this morning. They said that it wasn’t planned. Josie thought about that and, on a whim, asked them to conduct one anyway. The clerk grumbled that they were busy but that it would be ready in the next couple of days. She told him she wanted it done faster than that, and then she rang off.

  The clock ticked around to six and she decided that she had had enough for the day. She was tired and she wanted to see Angelo before he went to bed.

  Her phone rang as she was getting ready to leave. She thought about answering it, but decided to let it go to voicemail. She closed down her computer, put the evidence for the trial in her bag, and, careful to avoid Mendoza, left the station. She went around to the back, slid into her car and cranked the air conditioning all the way to the maximum. She put the car into gear and set off.

  * * *

  ON IMPULSE, she decided to make a quick stop on the way home. Instead of going south to Alabang, she turned to the east and drove to Poblacion. The Lizard Lounge was a nasty-looking dive fitted with a series of crude neon signs designed to lure tourists inside. Josie parked her car beneath a yellow pint pot with BEER in electric blue and white froth that blinked on and off.

  She got out, passed through the doors and went inside. She went to the bar and attracted the attention of the barman.

  He came over to her. He was in his mid-thirties, with a head of long greasy hair and a sleeve of bad tattoos on his arm. “What do you want?”

  She laid her badge on the bar. “I’m Officer Hernandez.”

  The man shifted nervously. “What do you want?” he said again.

  “The owner.”

  “That’s me,” he said.

  She regarded him dubiously. “Really?”

  “This is my place,” he said again. “What do you want?”

  “Last night,” she said, “were you working?”

  “Yes. I work every night.”

  “There was an Englishman in here. Do you remember?”

  “Don’t know,” he said, with a shrug. “We had a few in last night. The holiday tomorrow—going to be busy all week.”

  Josie took out the mugshot of Smith that had been taken at the station. She laid it on the bar. “This is him. Have a look. He was here. Try to remember.”

  The man made the pretence of examining the mugshot. “I don’t know. Like I say, there were a lot of people here last night. I can’t remember everyone.”

  “He met a woman here. It would have been around eight. Have a look again, please, sir.”

  The man did as he was told, screwing up his face in an approximation of concentration. He shook his head and slid the photograph back over the bar. “No,” he said. “I don’t remember him.”

  Josie watched him. People reacted in different ways when they were spoken to by the police, and nervousness was not unusual. Working in a bar meant that he probably had secrets that he would much rather stayed secret; perhaps he had arrangements with local pimps, or he was paying protection money to underworld enforcers, or he knew that drug pushers operated from his premises and he worried that that might make him a target for the president’s crackdown. Whatever it was, he was anxious.

  “That’s fine,” she said. “Thanks for looking.”

  The man shrugged. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, actually, there is.” She pointed up at the glossy lens of the CCTV camera on the wall above the till. “I’d like to have a look at the footage from last night.”

  The request flustered the man. “Really?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “There’s no problem,” he said, trying to recover. “It’s fine. I just need to make sure it was running.”

  “Could I have a look now?”

  He shuffled. “No,” he said. “I mean, yes, you could, but the video is in the storeroom and I just need to make sure it’s okay to go in. We’ve just had a delivery.”

  He was stalling. Josie was sure now that he was hiding something. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she said. The bar was hinged at the end so that a section could be raised to gain access. She reached for it and started to push it up.

  “Josie?”

  She stopped, returned the hatch to its
lowered position and turned.

  Bruno Mendoza was behind her. He was smiling warmly.

  “Hello, sir,” she said.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Following up on the murder this morning,” she said.

  “Come over here, would you?”

  He put a hand on her shoulder and guided her toward one of the empty tables. He pulled back one of the chairs and held it for her. She sat, clenching her jaw as he trailed his finger across her shoulder. He took the other chair and sat down opposite her.

  “Why are you wasting your time, Josie?”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “The case is finished. The Englishman did it. It’s done.”

  “I’d rather be thorough.”

  “It isn’t necessary. The prosecutor called. There’s enough to bring a case. Smith will be charged tomorrow. We don’t need anything else to convict him. He did it and now he’ll get what he deserves.”

  She bit her lip.

  “What?”

  “There’s something about him.”

  Mendoza shook his head. “Come on, Josie.”

  “What if he didn’t do it?”

  Mendoza stared at her with something approaching disbelief. “What’s the matter with you? He was found in the same room with the girl. He can’t explain what happened. What more do you want?”

  She felt unbalanced by Bruno’s certainty and instinctively knew that she should be cautious. “You’re probably right. I just like to make sure everything lines up.”

  “And that’s one of the reasons you’re such a good officer.” He reached across the table and patted her hand. He nodded his head toward the barman. “What did he tell you?”

  “He doesn’t remember Smith.”

  “You showed him a picture?”

  “Yes. Nothing.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I asked if I could see the video from last night. They have a security camera over the bar. He didn’t seem all that keen on me seeing it.”

  “Good idea,” Mendoza conceded. “Leave it to me. I wanted to speak to him anyway.”

  “What for?”

  “There was a killing outside this afternoon,” he said. “Drugs. The usual—they found his body in an alley, tape around his head.”

  “What does that have to do with you?” She spoke abruptly, and, at his cocked eyebrow, she added, “I didn’t think you got involved in investigation anymore.”

  “You know how we’re stretched. There’s no one else. All hands to the pump.” He stood. “Go home, Josie. It’s late. See your son. I’ll take care of the video. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

  Josie said goodbye and went outside to her car. An old man had wheeled a banana-que stall to the roadside and was starting to cook. She got into the car and started the engine. Something about this case was wrong. She didn’t know what it was, but there was something that was prickling at her, an itch she couldn’t scratch.

  She shook her head and tried to put it out of her mind. She was too tired to think about it tonight.

  She wondered if Angelo might be awake when she got home. She hoped so. There was nothing that she wanted more right then than to have a long, cool shower and then to hold her boy in her arms.

  25

  A KLAXON sounded.

  Milton opened his eyes and, for a moment, he didn’t know where he was.

  He was on his back, lying on a thin mattress that did nothing to cushion his back from the hard floor beneath it. He saw the marked walls, the single light bulb, and, as he turned his head, the bars that blocked him inside the tiny cell.

  He felt groggy. It had taken him several hours to fall asleep. He had tried again and again to pierce the veil that had descended over his memory of the evening with Jessica, but, despite his best efforts, it was hopeless. He was unable to fill in the blanks between the moment that he had met her in the bar and his sudden awakening the following day.

  He heard footsteps approaching and barked commands in Filipino that he didn’t understand.

  The guard reached his cell and drew his billy club back and forth across the bars. “Get up,” the man said in English. “Bring your plate and mug. Breakfast.”

  * * *

  THE CELL door opened and Milton followed the rest of the inmates as they shuffled along the landing to the stairs. They gathered there, covered by a guard with a shotgun in a glass-fronted booth above them. There was a shouted command and the men at the front of the queue started to make their way down. Milton followed, very aware that he was the only westerner in the throng.

  He followed the crowd along the corridor that led away from the lobby at the foot of the stairs. He had come into the building in the opposite direction last night, so he paid close attention to his surroundings in an attempt to assemble a more complete understanding of where he was being kept. He saw an open archway that led to a large communal shower room, another that opened into a large bathroom, and then another row of barred doors that guarded cells from which the prisoners were not being released.

  The corridor bent around to the right before they reached a set of double doors that had been wedged open. Beyond the doors was a large mess hall. There were four rows of tables separated by a passage that led to a serving area, with metal cabinets and a hatch where the inmates who worked in the kitchen doled out the food that had been prepared. The tables were busy with men who had already been served. There were guards around the perimeter of the room. It was noisy and raucous.

  Milton joined the queue of men waiting for food. The meal was tapsilog, pieces of cheap beef marinated in soy sauce and served with eggs and rice. Milton proffered his plate to the server. The man doled out a meagre amount. Milton waited, expecting another ladleful, but the server scowled and then Milton was nudged firmly in the back by the inmate waiting behind him.

  He took the plate and looked for a place to sit. The tables were busy, but he noticed one with empty spaces at one end and set off toward it.

  He sat. The others around the table looked at him with undisguised hostility but, when they saw that their aggression did not faze him, they returned their attention to their food and ignored him.

  Milton ate. The food was unpleasant, but he hadn’t been given anything to eat since his arrest and he was famished. The men were not trusted with cutlery, so he fed himself with his fingers, the stringy meat leaving greasy stains on his skin.

  He was shovelling the soggy rice into his mouth when he realised that he was being watched by the men at the next table. He looked over at them and held their gazes until they returned their attention to their food.

  Milton knew that he was about to face his first test.

  He finished his water, put the plastic cup on the table with his plate, and, taking a breath, he stood.

  The men who had been watching him stood, too.

  There were four of them. None of them was large—none of them taller or heavier than Milton—but they had the tough, wiry build of men who had nothing better to do than work out for hours every day. They were tattooed, with every inch of flesh covered in ink, and, as they got up from the table, he could see that he was in trouble. They fanned out around him, demonstrating enough knowledge of basic tactics to come at him from different directions at the same time.

  He decided not to wait.

  If he was going to take a beating, he would hand some out himself.

  There were two ahead of him. Milton feinted in the direction of the man to his left and, as the man stepped back, he pivoted and threw a left-handed punch at the man to his right. The man was caught by surprise, and, as Milton’s knuckles crunched into his jaw, he dropped to his knees.

  The other men in the canteen stopped what they were doing and turned to watch. There was a moment of quiet and then exclamations of glee at the promise of free entertainment.

  The other man ahead of Milton took a step back, but Milton surged forward and hammered him with a left to the ribs. The man gasped, and Milton fol
lowed up with a jab that landed flush in the middle of his face, collapsing the bones of his nose.

  The inmates responded with whoops of bloodthirsty appreciation.

  Milton saw the guards on the perimeter of the room. None of them looked interested in intervening.

  The third man leapt onto Milton’s back, looping his arms around his neck and squeezing. Milton bent forward sharply, throwing the man so that he flipped through the air and crashed down onto the table. He jack-knifed, sliding backwards and landing on the floor. Milton crouched down, jabbing his straightened fingers into the man’s throat. The strike caused a spasm in his trachea, making it difficult for him to breathe.

  Milton was about to stand when he saw a flash of motion to his left. It was too late to evade and he felt a crash as a chair broke across his shoulders. It shattered, wooden fragments falling all around him.

  He propped himself against the table and turned to see that the first man was back on his feet again.

  The man with the broken nose was also standing.

  Milton glanced down at the next table and saw a plastic cup that was filled to the brim with hot tea. He swiped it and, in the same motion, threw the hot liquid into the face of the first man. He squealed in pain, clawing at his face.

  Many of the other inmates had closed in now, forming a tight semicircle that pinned Milton and the two men between them and the wall. Milton glanced at the faces of the orange-shirted inmates all around him: their eyes bulged and their mouths hung open as they screamed their encouragement.

  There was a tray on the table. Milton grabbed it and backhanded the man with the broken nose in the face. He went down for a second time.

  Milton took a step away, looking for the fourth man, but, before he could retreat—if that was even possible—he felt a sudden blow to the side of his head. Pain flashed out and he felt blood in his eye.