Dead Tomorrow

went off completely. As the car rolled forward, there was a sharp clunk beside her, like a door lock clicking, and she wondered what it was. Then she felt a sudden panic. Who was this man?
    Seated on the other side of the big armrest, he smiled at her and, in a gentle, reassuring voice, asked, ‘Are you OK?’
    She nodded, bewildered by the events of the past few minutes.
    ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.
    She was still a little wary of him, and there was that smug expression she continued to dislike, but he did not look a bad person. There were strangers, rich strangers, who occasionally came up to you and gave you money or food. Not often, but it happened, the way it seemed to be happening now. She nodded.
    ‘What is your name?’
    ‘Simona,’ she replied.
    ‘What is your favourite food?’
    She shrugged. She didn’t know what herfavourite food was. No one had ever asked her before.
    ‘Do you like meat? Pork?’
    She hesitated. ‘Yes.’
    ‘Potatoes?’
    She nodded.
    ‘Fried sausage?’
    Again she nodded.
    The man leaned forward, took a glass from a cabinet in front of him, poured whisky into it and gave it to her. She cupped the glass in her hand and took a long gulp. She stiffened in surprise at the deep, fiery sensation as it went down her throat. Then, moments later, she felt a pleasant, warm feeling ripple inside her. Stretching her legs out in front of her, she swallowed some more, draining the glass.
    She had only drunk whisky once before, a bottle Romeo had stolen from a shop, but this tasted much better, much smoother.
    The man’s mobile phone rang. He answered it, at the same time pouring more whisky into her glass, then began talking business to someone in America. She knew it was America because he asked how the weather was in New York. He was negotiating some kind of a deal and it sounded important. But occasionally he turned and smiled at her, and each time, with each gulp of whisky she took, she trusted him more.
    The driver, who had said nothing, piloted the car in silence. His hair was cropped to a light fuzz and she suddenly saw, in the flare of oncoming headlights, the top of a tattoo. It was a snake, its tongue forked as if striking, rising out of the right side of his shirt collar, curling around his neck and up towards his chin. Outside, the lights of Bucharest glided past and rain patteredsoftly on the windows.
    Simona had never been in a plane, but she wondered if this was what it felt like to fly. Music came from a speaker somewhere behind her head, a man singing. It sounded English or American, she could not tell which, a soft, rich voice. ‘I’ve got you under my skin’ was playing but she did not speak enough English to understand the meaning.
    She looked out of the window, trying to get her bearings. They were passing the big place that Romeo told her the former president had built. He said it was called the People’s Palace, but she had never been inside it. It belonged to another world, another kind of people, just the way this car, the man in the back seat and the music all belonged to another world that was beyond her reach, and beyond her comprehension.
    But the whisky made it all fine. She liked the man more and more, liked this car, liked the city that she had traipsed through, cold and hungry, just a short while ago, that was now gliding past. Maybe, just maybe, this man could help her to change her life.
    After a short while, the car turned down a street she did not recognize, then slowed. In front of her, electric gates slid open and they drove through them, stopping in front of a tall house with a floodlit entrance.
    The driver opened Simona’s door and took the empty glass from her hand. Feeling drunk and unsteady, she tottered out into the wind and rain. The man stepped out too, put an arm around her shoulder and gently encouraged her up stone steps to a front door, which was opened by a middle-aged woman dressed in a uniform, a maid, perhaps.
    The house smelled of polish, like a museum.
    ‘Her name is Simona,’ the man said. ‘She needs food and then a hot bath.’
    The womansmiled at her. A kind smile. ‘Follow me,’ she said. ‘Are you very hungry?’
    Simona nodded.
    They walked across a marble floor, along a hallway lined with fine paintings, statues and grand furniture, and into a huge, modern kitchen. A widescreen television on the wall was switched off. Simona stared around in wonder. She had never in her life been in a place so grand. It was