‘There’s no need to be afraid, we just want to ask you one little question,’ said the man who’d knocked the chambermaid to the ground in Lisa’s cabin. He spoke English with a harsh accent.
The young woman, whose bonnet was no longer perched on her black hair, blinked in fear after she’d picked herself up again. She was terribly thin; her arms, which she crossed protectively against her chest, were no thicker than a broom handle. From his vantage point, hidden behind the bed, Tiago could only see her profile and back in the mirror on the wall. She was stooped, her bony shoulders tensed. Her vertebrae poked through her top like pearls on a necklace.
Tiago didn’t know the cleaning lady, or at least he hadn’t noticed her before, but that wasn’t a surprise given the army of people working aboard this ship.
Nor did he have any idea who the two men threatening her were.
Judging by the golden stripes on his uniform the guy doing the talking was the classic type of low-ranking officer you found on ships – a navigator or engineer – while the taller and more muscular of the two was wearing green trousers and a short-sleeved, grey polo shirt. He didn’t have shoulder pads or stripes, which marked him out as a member of the crew, probably a workman who wouldn’t attract attention if he came up to the passenger area for a while to carry out repairs.
Paradoxically, both of them looked like friendly chaps. Colleagues smiling in travel brochures with their smooth, tanned skin, freshly shaven faces and clean fingernails. The worker had a broad pout which softened his harsh features, whereas it was the officer’s mischievously tousled blond hair that made him look like a Californian surfer rather than a thug.
It’s easy to be fooled.
‘I hear you’ve been spending quite a bit of time in Hell’s Kitchen recently,’ the officer said, gesturing with his finger to the worker, who put the chambermaid in an armlock.
‘Is there anything down there I ought to know about?’
The hunched woman shook her head, frightened.
The officer bent his knees to bring him eye-to-eye with the chambermaid again.
‘Really? So you’re playing the innocent, are you, whore?’ From close up he spat in her face.
‘She’s lying,’ the taller man declared, pushing her arm further upwards, which elicited a howl of pain.
Like the officer, the worker spoke with a strong German, Swiss or Dutch accent. Tiago found it difficult to place the two men with geographical accuracy. In a similar way the chambermaid, with her dark, cinnamon-coloured skin, could be from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh or somewhere else.
‘Are you taking the piss, Shahla?’ the officer asked.
The young woman shook her head without wiping away the spittle running down her cheek.
‘You’re assigned to deck 7. This week you shouldn’t be cleaning in the staff area at all.’
‘Was changed. Not know why,’ she stammered.
‘The rumours suggest something different. The rumours suggest you’re looking after a stowaway in Hell’s Kitchen.’
She opened her eyes even wider. ‘No!’
Something she ought not to have said. The officer’s fist buried itself in her stomach.
The noises Shahla made sounded as if something far too big was trying to battle its way out from right inside her, while at the same time she tried to avoid any jerky movements which might put her shoulder out.
Dios mío, what am I doing? wondered Tiago, who was scarcely better equipped than the battered chambermaid to take on the two clearly experienced fighters.
He watched in horror as the officer reached for the water glass on the bedside table and smashed it on the edge. With a devilish smile he picked out a piece the size of a bottle top from the shards. Then he walked past Shahla and his accomplice into the bathroom, returning soon afterwards with a dressing gown belt.
‘Open up!’ he shouted at the chambermaid, who could do nothing but obey him, because the worker behind her increased the pressure on her shoulder joint further. The officer shoved the shard of glass in the mouth she’d opened to scream. Shahla’s expression was contorted with terror, but she stayed as calm as she could with a half-dislocated shoulder.
Tears streamed down her cheeks and snot ran from her nose. She whimpered when the puppy-eyed officer looped the belt around her head and tightened it into a gag in front of her mouth, thereby making it impossible to spit out the piece of glass. At a sign, the worker loosened the armlock.
‘Okay, let’s start from the beginning again, Shahla. You can say Yes. But you can’t say No. But you mustn’t lie either. Not unless you’re keen on having a second breakfast.’ The thug clenched his fist.
With a moan Shahla shook her head. Like Tiago, she’d understood what would happen if the madman punched her in the stomach again, triggering a swallowing reflex if she tried to breathe through her mouth in spite of the gag.
‘You found a little white girl, didn’t you?’ the officer began his interrogation.
She nodded without hesitation.
‘And the girl’s still on board?’
Another nod.
‘In Hell’s Kitchen?’
The cleaning lady answered this question in the affirmative, and the next one too. ‘And you’re getting lots of money for looking after her?’
‘Hmmmm!’
The man asking the questions laughed to his mate and switched to their mother tongue so that Shahla couldn’t understand him. Unlike Tiago, who was a wizard at languages. Besides his native Spanish, he could read and write German, English, and French, while Dutch wasn’t a problem either as he’d lived in Holland for three years as the son of a diplomat.
‘Didn’t I tell you this tart is sitting on a goldmine?’ the officer said to his accomplice. ‘They wouldn’t be making such an effort otherwise. I see large amounts of cash here for us.’
The taller man gave an inane grin. ‘Really? What’s your plan?’
‘We’re going to let Pussy here take us to the girl and—’
Tiago would never discover the second part of the plan.
At a frantic signal from his chum, the worker let go of the chambermaid, whose eyes suddenly looked as if they were going to pop out of their sockets. She tore the gag from her mouth and staggered into the narrow gap between the television and the bed. Grabbed her throat. And opened her mouth. So wide that, in spite of his poor viewpoint from the floor, Tiago could see her tongue in the mirror. Stretched out.
Red.
Shining.
Without the shard of glass, which was now somewhere halfway between her throat and windpipe, perhaps deeper, and which Shahla was desperately trying to disgorge.