Dead Tomorrow

Romania and England are partners in the EU together!’
    Ian Tilling placed the three sets of fingerprints, the three e-fit photographs and the close-up of a primitive tattoo of the name Rares on the man’s desk.
    Looking at them, Constantinescu suddenly asked, ‘And how, by the way, are all your pretty girls working for you?’
    ‘Yep, they are fine.’
    ‘And the beautiful Andreea, she is still working with you?’
    ‘Yes, but she’s getting married in a month’s time.’
    His face fell. ‘Ah.’ He raised his head, looking disappointed.
    The Subcomisar occasionally popped into Casa Ioana on some pretext or another. But Tilling always knew the real reason was to chat up the girls–the man was an inveterate womanizer, and every time he came, he tried, unsuccessfully, to hassle one or other of them for a date. But being good diplomats, they were always polite to him, always leaving a faint window of hope open, just to keep him onside for the hostel.
    Trying to steer the meeting on to business, Ian Tilling pointed at the E-Fit and fingerprint sets, then explained their provenance. The Romanian was distracted twice by internal calls, and once by what was a clearly personal call from his current squeeze, on his mobile.
    ‘Rares,’ he said, when Tilling had finished. ‘Romanian, sure. Interpol have the fingerprints?’
    ‘Would you do me a favour and run them yourself? It will be quicker.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘And could you getcopies of these photos of the three kids circulated to your other police stations in Bucharest?’
    Constantinescu lit his third cigarette since the meeting had started and then had a bout of coughing. When he finished, he poured himself another slug of whisky and offered the bottle to Tilling, who declined.
    ‘Sure, no problem.’
    He burst again into a series of deep, racking coughs, then, when he had finished, he slipped the photographs and fingerprints into a large brown envelope and, to Tilling’s dismay, slid them into a drawer in his desk.
    From long experience dealing with the man, Tilling knew he had a habit of forgetting things very quickly. He sometimes suspected that once something entered that drawer it never came out again. But at least Constantinescu was a man who actually did care about the plight of the city’s street kids–even if his motivation was to try and bed the women who looked after them.
    And hey, better safe in that drawer than lying, screwed up, amid those other balls of paper littering the floor in front of his desk.
    In seventeen years of battling the authorities in this country, Ian Tilling had learned to be grateful for small mercies.

69
    Mal Beckett neverfound it easy talking to his ex-wife, and sitting opposite her now, in the quiet café on Church Road, despite the new shared bond of their daughter’s plight, he felt as awkward as ever.
    The problem went back to the early days of their separation, when he had left her for his then mistress–and now wife–Jane. Out of guilt, and concerned for her mental stability, he had made a point of seeing Lynn every few months for lunch. And she would always begin with the same question, Are you happy?
    It left him in a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t situation. If he told her that yes, he was happy, he sensed that would make her even more miserable. So during those first meetings he would reply that no, he was not happy. Whereupon Lynn would immediately relay this to her friends. With Brighton being both a big city and a tiny village at the same time, word would rapidly get back to Jane that he was not happy being with her.
    So he had learned to parry the question by replying with a very neutral, I’m OK . But now, as he spooned the creamy froth from his cappuccino into his mouth and stared across the plastic table, he realized they had both outgrown this game. He felt genuinely sorry for Lynn, still being alone, and was shocked by how much weight she had lost since they had last seen each other, a couple of months ago.
    Lynn never found it easy seeing Mal either. Looking across at him, dressed in a faded blue sweatshirt, with a chunky anorak slung over his seat back, she saw he was ageing well; if anything, he was getting even better-looking, more rugged and manly with every passing year. If he asked her to come back to him, she would have done so in a blink. That was not going to happen, but God, how she needed him!
    ‘Thanks formaking the time, Mal,’ she said.
    He glanced at his watch.