They turned left into the shade of a side street, walking hurriedly away from the beach and back towards the city.
When she could trust her voice, Lottie said, ‘Okay so. There are five rooms and all appear normal except for one that I presume is his. A bed, probably the size of my bedroom at home. Beside it, a small marble table lined up with heroin paraphernalia.’ She knew she was avoiding the other horror in the room.
‘So he dips into his own product?’
‘Phillips doesn’t deal only in drugs any more. You know he deals in people. Girls… children. Oh Boyd, it was awful.’
‘What did you see?’
‘This wee girl on that monster’s bed… she looked no more than eleven.’
Boyd stopped, grabbed her arm and pulled her to face him. Lottie saw the rage in his eyes.
‘We’re going back. I don’t care about this being unofficial; we need to take that girl out of there.’
‘Stop, Boyd. We’d mess it up. I’ll tell Corrigan the minute we get back. Let him do it through the correct channels. It’s the best way to get Phillips once and for all.’
‘She’ll be long gone by then.’
‘No. I think he’s brazen enough to think we can do nothing.’
‘If you say so.’
She started walking again.
Boyd said, ‘So this analogy he used, about the birds and planes… was he trying to tell us to back off?’
‘I think he was trying to say that what’s going on Ragmullin is only the tip of the proverbial. His main concern is finding his daughter.’
‘So he definitely didn’t have her abducted?’
‘No. He wouldn’t have agreed to meet us otherwise. I think he genuinely loves Maeve and wants her with him, but he hasn’t taken her.’
‘So what’s the story then?’
‘His sex trade business. He’s upset players bigger than him by wanting to change direction. To stop supplying them with girls for sex or organs or whatever they want to do with them. I think that taking Maeve is their way of getting him to play ball.’
‘Damn expensive ball.’
They walked over the dry riverbed towards the train station. ‘Let’s go to the port,’ Lottie said, changing direction.
‘Why there?’
‘Because he told us to. And it’s one of the key areas for smuggling people into Europe.’
As they walked, Lottie thought about the little girl on Frank Phillips’s bed. How pathetic she had looked, dressed up in a baby-blue negligee. And the stench of sex in the air. She felt her heart breaking for the frightfulness of the world and feared for the very soul of the human race. And she felt powerless to do anything about it.
* * *
A ruffling breeze cooled her burning skin as they walked along the paved promenade.
‘The architecture is beautiful,’ Lottie said, glancing up at the wavy concrete canopy above their heads.
A cruise ship blared a foghorn, slipping away from the dock. A flotilla of tug boats heralded the route. Lottie stood beside the glass panel skirting the harbour. She saw a cargo ship. Containers stacked high. Gigantic cranes, manoeuvring, lowering, lifting. The skyline appeared like a contemporary piece of art. Lines and arcs. Mesmerising.
‘So what was Phillips trying to tell us?’ Boyd asked.
‘Look over there.’ Lottie pointed. ‘The ferry. Can you see the name on the side?’
Boyd squinted beneath the shade of his hand. ‘Melilla. Never heard of it. Is it the name of the ship or her home port?’
‘Wait a minute.’ Taking out her phone, Lottie switched on her mobile data and googled the name. ‘It’s a port in Africa. Bordered by the sea and Morocco. Owned by Spain.’ She tapped off her data.
Boyd held up his hands. ‘We’re not going to Africa. No matter how important you think it is. We’d have to get malaria shots. And I’ve read about what that stuff does to your sex drive.’
Lottie said, ‘I’ve worked out how Phillips operated the human trafficking. And it’s way too big for him alone.’
‘So who’s the boss? Our doctor killer?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Neither do I.’ Boyd scratched at his jaw.
‘I’m starving.’ She grabbed Boyd’s arm. ‘Let’s find somewhere to eat.’
‘Best suggestion you’ve made all day.’
‘There.’ She pointed to tables outside an eatery facing the port. ‘That will do. It has free Wi-Fi.’
They ordered two omelettes and got the Wi-Fi code from the waiter. Lottie’s phone pinged with three emails.
‘Who’s writing to you?’ Boyd asked.
‘Jane Dore.’ She opened the first email, the latest one to arrive.
‘Read.’
‘It’s a bit convoluted.’ Lottie scrolled to the end, where Jane had summarised her findings. ‘The last victim we found. She’s different to the others.’
‘Different?’ Boyd took his plate from the waiter and ordered a glass of red wine. Lottie declined with a shake of her head without looking up.
‘She was shot and the wound washed. The bullet was lodged in her heart. But no organs missing.’
‘Plus she wasn’t buried underground.’ Boyd munched.
Lottie ignored her food. ‘A rush job? Why?’
‘Was the same weapon used?’
‘Yet to be determined.’ She tapped open the next email. ‘This one is just Jane’s preliminary autopsy.’ Glancing at the last message, she raised an eyebrow. ‘Dan Russell?’ She read the missive before hurriedly closing her email and slapping the phone into her bag.
‘Must be personal,’ Boyd said.
‘It’s not personal. Not really.’ Lottie picked up her fork and dug it into the hard omelette. Suddenly she had no appetite.
‘What’s up?’ Boyd asked.
‘Forget it.’
‘Lottie Parker, I know when something is upsetting you. What had Russell to say for himself?’
‘Nothing to do with you.’
‘Nothing to do with me? Come on.’
‘It’s to do with his time in Kosovo.’ And Adam, she thought. Was Russell really telling bare-faced lies? She’d have to find out.
‘Kosovo? Is it to do with Petrovci?’
‘It might have to do with Adam.’
‘Your Adam? You’d better explain.’
‘Not now, okay? And I honestly don’t think it is connected to our investigations.’
‘You’re such a crap liar. You already said this Melilla place links back to Kosovo.’
‘That’s not what I said. I think they bring some of the girls through Melilla into Spain and from there to wherever they need them to operate. It’s the murders that have something to do with Kosovo.’
‘And Andri Petrovci is from Kosovo.’
‘And so are Mimoza and Milot. And this mysterious man with crooked teeth. It’s like something out of an Agatha Christie novel.’ She set her lips in a thin line, threw down her napkin and picked up her bag. ‘Are you finished eating?’
‘I am now.’ He laid down his cutlery and gulped the remainder of his wine.
Lottie paid with her card. Boyd asked for the receipt.
Without speaking to each other, they walked the short distance to the main road, jumped into a taxi and headed to the airport.
* * *
On the plane, Boyd twisted sideways to look directly at her.
‘So how does Adam fit into all this?’ he asked.
Buckling her seat belt, Lottie said, ‘I knew the silence was too good to last. I could ask you how does Jackie’s boyfriend McNally fit into all this too.’