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“It was years ago now, so I know it’s silly, but like I said, it’s an old habit I got into, and whenever I’m in the area, I can’t help myself.” He takes a deep breath. “So, it was winter time, maybe early November, I feel bad for not remembering the exact date. I was home on leave and I got a call from Mama Russo, asking me to come in and help at the restaurant. They had a large partycoming in and the restaurant was fully booked with pre-show diners for the theatre.”
I nod, but inside I’m squirming. My heartbeat is picking up because I don’t believe in coincidences, and a part of me already knows what Wint is going to say. The question is, what willIsay after?
“So I’m heading into town, parking the car, the usual, when Emilia – Mama Russo – calls me again in a panic. Renato, her husband, has cut himself in the kitchen doing prep, and it’s bad enough that he needs to go to the hospital for stitches. He can’t drive himself, so she needs to take him, and it’s too short notice to close the restaurant. Also, she couldn’t bear the thought of letting down the anniversary party she had booked, because she knew a table of twenty couldn’t walk into any place in town with no notice, so she begged me to come faster and to run the kitchen that night.”
“Was he okay? Renato?”
“He was. Twenty-seven stitches and a skin graft later, he was fine.”
“And did you run the restaurant?”
“I did. Mama begged me to cancel all the bookings bar the party, but I refused, saying I could handle it. It was a shit show,” he laughs. “But I was distracted that night.”
“Why?” I whisper.
“When Mama called me, the heavens opened and hail was pelting down, pounding the pavement. I ducked inside an empty shop doorway to take her call because I couldn’t hear her over her sobs and the torrential weather.” He smiles ruefully and sighs. “I thought the doorway was empty, but there was actually someone in there. Someone sleeping rough. I remember ending my call and movement catching the corner of my eye. I turned round to apologise to the person and lost the power of speech.”
My breath catches in my chest when he looks at me and I wonder if heknows.
“Because, it wasn’t some faceless hobo, trashed off their face, living on the street. It was a girl. A fucking child. She couldn’t have been more than in her early teens. Her hair was dirty and matted, and I remember she had this awful bruise on her face – she’d clearly been hit. And she stared at me like I was fucking terrifying. Like I was the one who beat her up.”
“What did you do?” I ask, already knowing the answer. I remember it like it was yesterday, because it was the worst and best night of my life.
The day before I’d refused to suck some drunken asshole’s cock for the two quid he tossed at me, and I’d got my ass kicked for my troubles. It wouldn’t even have been that bad if he and his friends hadn’t then made off with all the money I’d got from begging that day. They left me bruised and broken in a ditch, in the pouring rain.
By the next day I was so sore all I could do was hunker down in my doorway and try to sleep it off. I was so cold from lying out in the rain all night, and I was starving because it had been a few days since I’d eaten anything substantial. When this tall, imposing giant of a man in his polished shoes and smart suit stepped into my doorway to take a call in a foreign language too rapid to identify, I was terrified.
On the streets you hear stories. You see things happen that everyone turns a blind eye to, and watching young girls disappear with handsome strangers never to return again is more common than you’d think. It’s their good looks that lull you into a false sense of security.
So yeah, when Wint stepped into my doorway that night, I was terrified my time had come.
“I’m ashamed to say I did nothing. I was distracted and worrying about Renato and Emilia, shitting myself at thethought of running a restaurant, not wanting to let them down when they’d done so much for me, and conscious that I was just frozen on the spot while they were waiting for me to arrive so they could get off to the hospital. So I turned and walked away and got stuck into my job for the night.”
I’d never been so relieved to have someone turn their back on me and walk away before.
“At the end of my shift, which, like I said before, was a shit show because I couldn’t get that girl out of my mind, I went back to the doorway, but she was gone. I searched every doorway in case I’d got the wrong place, and I asked others about her. No one knew what I was talking about.”
Street code. You see nothing, know nothing, say nothing.
“It was like she’d vanished. Completely disappeared. Or I imagined the whole thing. For the next four days I returned and searched all over for her, vowing I’d find and help her, but then we shipped out on special ops and I was gone for eight months.”
“And you never forgot about her?”
“Never. I kept searching. Even now I can’t pass that doorway without looking for her. I watched lists for missing persons. Contacted the charities. I even had contacts searching the dark web for her in case she ever turned up on auction sites – thankfully she never did. She didn’t ever show up anywhere.”
“She became a ghost.” My voice is barely audible and I know I’m as pale as a ghost.
Wint looks at me, really looks at me, and nods. The game is up. “It costs a hell of a lot of money to become a ghost. And even more money to seal and fabricate files. So my question to you, Candy Grace Canse, is who the fuck are you really? And where did that girl on the streets go?”
DON
“What do you mean she owes you six months’ rent?” I growl, still holding the sleazy landlord by his neck. Going over Candy’s apartment with a fine-tooth comb I found several cameras hidden throughout it and I’m about ready to make this piece of shit meet his maker for it.
“And she’s lost her security deposit because of the oven,” he manages to gasp out. His face is turning purple, so I let up a little on his airway. Only alittlethough.
“What are you talking about?”
“She gutted the place and made off with the appliances. Even the carpets. Selfish bit—”
