Dead Tomorrow

ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.
    That summed up his seventeen years in this strange but beautiful city, in this strange but beautiful country. He was winning. Step, by step, by step. Little victories. Kids and sometimes adults saved from the streets, and housed here in Casa Ioana. Before he left, he would do his rounds of the little dormitory rooms, as he did every night. He planned to take with him the photographs of the three teenagers Norman Potting had sent him, to seeif any of the faces jogged someone’s memory. It had been good to hear from that old bugger. Really good to feel involved in a British police inquiry once more. So good, he was determined to deliver what he could.
    As he stood up, the door opened and Andreea came in, with a smile on her face.
    ‘Do you have a moment, Mr Ian?’ the social worker asked.
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘I went to see Ileana, in Sector Four.’
    Ileana was a former social worker at Casa Ioana who now worked in a placement centre in that sector, called Merlin.
    ‘And what did she say?’
    ‘She has agreed to help us, but she’s worried about being caught out. Her centre has been told not to talk to any outsider–and that includes even us.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘The government is upset, apparently, about the bad press abroad on Romanian orphanages. There is a ban on visitors and on all photography. I had to meet her in a café But she told me that one of the street kids has heard a rumour going around that if you are lucky, you can get a job in England, with an apartment. There is a smart woman you have to go and see.’
    ‘Can we talk to this kid? Do we have her name?’
    ‘Her name is Raluca. She is working as a prostitute at the Gara de Nord. She’s fifteen. I don’t know if she has a pimp. Ileana is willing to come with us. We could go tonight.’
    ‘Tonight, no, I can’t. How about tomorrow?’
    ‘I will ask her.’
    Tilling thanked her, then fired offa quick email to Norman Potting, updating him on his progress today. Then he balled his fists and drummed them on his desk.
    Yes! he thought. Oh yes! He was back in the saddle! He’d loved his days as a police officer and being involved now felt so damn good!

72
    Lynn sat at her Harrier Hornetswork station, aware it was eight at night, working through her call list, trying to make up for the time she had lost earlier today at home and then seeing Mal.
    Her mother had been at the house earlier, then Luke had come over, so Caitlin had company–and, more crucially, someone to keep an eye on her. Even moronic Luke was capable of that.
    Few of her colleagues were still at work. Barring a couple of stragglers, the Silver Sharks, Leaping Leopards and Denarii Demons work stations were all deserted. The COLLECTED BONUS POT sign was now reading £1,150 . No way she was going to get near it this week, the way things were progressing.
    And her heart was not in it. She stared up at the photograph of Caitlin that was pinned to the red partition wall. Thinking.
    One hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds would determine whether Caitlin lived or died. It was a huge sum and yet a tiny sum at the same time. That kind of money, and much more, passed through these offices every week.
    A dark thought entered her mind. She dispelled it, but it returned, like the determined knock of a double-glazing salesman: People regularly stole money from their employers .
    Every few days in the paper she would read about an employee in a solicitor’s office, or a hedge fund, or a bank, or any other kind of place which big sums passed through, who had beensiphoning off money. Often, it had been going on for years. Millions taken, without anyone noticing.
    All she needed was a lousy £175,000. Peanuts, by Denarii’s standards.
    But how could she borrow the money from here without anyone knowing? There were all kinds of controls and procedures in place.
    Suddenly she saw a light flashing on her phone. Her direct line. She answered it, thinking it might be Caitlin. But, to her dismay, it was her least favourite client of all, the ghastly Reg Okuma.
    ‘Lynn Beckett?’ he said, in his lugubrious voice.
    ‘Yes,’ she said stiffly.
    ‘You are working late, beautiful one. I am privileged to have connected to you.’
    The pleasure’s all mine , she nearly said. But instead she answered, ‘What can I do for you?’
    ‘Well,’ he said, ‘here is the situation. I applied yesterday to buy myself a new motor car. I need