light pat. Protecting her. She was ashamed that she’d lied. She was ashamed that she’d been abandoned on the beach. It was horrible that people were dying in the sea.
The police officer grinned. ‘How would we do that? So far we haven’t found anyone alive.’
‘But I told you he had a tattoo,’ Terese said.
‘They already know that,’ said her father. Terese bit her lip. Reprimanded, just like a child. Yet she was twenty years old.
‘If they’re Moroccan, we contact the Moroccan authorities directly,’ said the officer. ‘And they’re here within twenty-four hours. But if we’re talking about sub-Saharans, there’s not much we can do. They have no identity papers, and even if they were alive, we couldn’t get them to tell us where they’re from.’ He shrugged. ‘We take blood samples and fingerprints, of course. And keep them on file.’
He shuffled all the papers into a neat little stack. Terese looked down at her hands. She could feel his eyes on her. Her bottom felt sweaty against the plastic of the chair.
‘And you didn’t see anything else on the beach?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘It was totally deserted. Nothing but a few seagulls.’
The officer turned to Stefan. ‘If she saw anything that might lead us to the smugglers, we want to know about it. These are criminals we’re talking about here.’
Stefan turned to Terese. ‘So you really didn’t see anything? No boats? No people?’
She shook her head as she spun the ring she was wearing. It was gold, in the shape of a heart. A confirmation present from her father.
‘Then all we need to do is write up your statement,’ said the officer. He pressed a button on his desk and a buzzer sounded outside the door.
‘My assistant will take care of it. We’ll want the precise time and where the victim was found.’
He narrowed his eyes and leaned across his desk.
‘And I also want the name of the person you were with. Or maybe there was more than one.’ His gaze slid over Terese’s body. She shuddered, thinking that she would need to take another shower when she got back to the hotel. That was how he made her feel. Dirty.
‘Did you get paid for it, or do you let them do it for free?’ he said.
At that point her father finally stood up and slammed his hand on the desk. ‘Enough. Stop harassing my daughter. She’s told you everything she knows.’
The door opened and another police officer came into the room. Terese recognized him. He was the one who had shown them in when they arrived. He looked nice. She got up and turned, about to leave.
‘We also need to report that your passport was stolen,’ said Stefan.
‘No, don’t, Papa,’ said Terese, taking him by the arm, but it was too late. He had already started talking to the officer about her missing passport.
‘Are you telling me it was stolen on the beach? But she said there wasn’t anyone else there. That doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand.’ The officer smiled broadly, the gap in his teeth like a black hole in his mouth. ‘So which of them do you think took your passport? Or was it a form of payment?’
His gaze settled on her body, as if licking her up and down, and then back up again to force its way between her breasts.
Terese squirmed and tugged at her father’s arm. She hated her arse and thighs, which were too fat, and her nose, which bent slightly in the middle. But her breasts were perfect. Round and naturally big. The only part of her body she was completely satisfied with.
‘I probably just dropped it somewhere,’ she said. ‘Come on, Papa, let’s go.’
‘No matter what, we need to file a report,’ said her father without budging.
‘For that, you’ll need to talk to the local police.’
‘We have to talk to the local police,’ Stefan Wallner translated for Terese, but she was already on her way out of the door.
‘I want to go home,’ she said when they were out in the corridor.
‘But we have a whole week left of our holiday.’
‘Didn’t you see how he was staring at me? He’s bloody disgusting.’
Her father looked over his shoulder at the door that had closed behind them. The officer’s assistant stood next to them, shifting from one foot to the other, holding the official form in his hand.
‘Somebody like that should be reported,’ said Stefan, putting a protective arm around his daughter. ‘Come on, sweetie, let’s get this over with. Then we’ll go out and have a really good lunch. Just you and me.’ He gave her a poke in the side. ‘And we’ll sit in the sun and have a glass of white wine. I think we need it. Both of us do.’
Paris
Wednesday, 24 September
With a shiver of anticipation, I turned the key in the lock of room 43. As if he would just be sitting there. And he’d get up and come towards me with open arms and a look of surprise, wondering what I was doing here, laughing at me. What an impulsive thing to do, flying to Paris.
But all I found was emptiness. And the faint scent of lavender soap.
The door closed behind me with a muted click. Eight days and eight nights had passed. All traces had been carefully cleaned away.
I threw open the window. A damp gust of wind against my face. Beyond the rooftops rose the dome of the Panthéon. In front of me the university buildings were spread over several blocks.
It was here that Patrick had stood when he had called, in this very spot. I remembered his voice on the phone. I miss you so much … I’m headed straight into the darkness …
The wind was fluttering the curtains, which billowed up and then sank back to the floor. I turned around and took in all the details. The big bed, the open-work white coverlet with a floral pattern. On the wall, a framed poster of a sidewalk café. The telephone on the nightstand. That was the phone I’d heard ringing in the background. Someone had called to tell Patrick that something was on fire. But tell me what’s going on, in God’s name!
The room was exactly four metres wide and five metres long. After all my years as a set designer, I automatically took measurements. Four times five metres, twenty square metres. Those were the physical dimensions of loss.
In the corner of the far wall stood a small desk. That’s where he had sat to write, bending low over his computer. Patrick always sat that way, as if he wanted to smell the keyboard, breathe in the words. In reality he needed glasses, but he was too vain to get them.
In the bathroom I met my own face in the mirror. Pale, with blue shadows under my eyes. My skin creased with fatigue. I rinsed my face with ice-cold water. Splashed water under my arms, and rubbed my skin hard with a towel.
Then I got clean clothes out of my suitcase. I was going to turn over every single stone in this city if that’s what it took.
The price of a slave. That’s what it said at the top of one page. Followed by numbers, amounts that appeared to be sample calculations:
$90 - $1,000 (= $38,000 = 4,000 for the price of one.)
Mark up = 800% profit = 5%
30 million – 12 million / 400 = 30,000 per year. Total?
The last calculation had been crossed out. Next to it were also a few words scrawled across the page, underlined and circled:
Small investment – lifelong