home for holiday. She has grown so big.'
'It must have been hard to leave her,' Lynn said.
'Of course. But there is no life for me there. I am making life here; then I will bring her. Now I am a student.'
'A student?'
'Yes. I learn Tourism and Hospitality. And English. We have to learn English.'
'Your English is very good.'
'Thank you.'
'And the job at the sauna?'
Andreea blushed and looked at the floor. 'I have to earn money.'
'There must be other ways.'
'Yes, a few. I could work, maybe, at night in factory. Pork farm?'
'Pork farms, yes.'
'Some of my friends, they do this.'
'But not you.'
'No, not me.' She flicked ash from the end of her cigarette. 'I try it once.' She made a face. 'The smell. You cannot get rid of the smell.'
Lynn went to the counter and fetched a packet of biscuits and two more cups of tea. Aside from a few elderly people sitting alone, the cafe was more or less empty. The workmen-plasterers, electricians, labourers-who had been there when Lynn and Andreea had arrived had now gone.
'Tell me again,' Lynn said, 'what you saw when you went into the room.'
Andreea stirred one and then a second spoonful of sugar into her tea. 'Viktor, he was standing there, his hand like this'-she reached one hand across her chest-'holding his shoulder. He was bleeding.'
'And Nina, where was she?'
'I think… I said… she was on the floor.'
'You're not sure?'
'No, I am sure.'
'She was on the floor?'
'Yes.'
'Whereabouts on the floor?'
'I don't know, beside the bed. It must have been, yes, beside the bed.'
Was she simply nervous, Lynn wondered, or lying? Something about her eyes, the way they would never focus on Lynn directly when she answered, that and the way she sat, fidgeting, restless. She was lying, Lynn thought, but she didn't know by how much or why.
'Sally says you came running into the reception area shouting that Nina was dead.'
'I don't remember.'
'You don't remember shouting, or-'
'I don't remember what I said.'
'But was that what you thought? That she was dead?'
'Yes.'
'How could you be sure?'
Andreea's voice was so low, Lynn had to strain to hear. 'There was so much blood,' she said.
Lynn leaned back and sipped her tea. She stripped the cellophane from around the biscuits and offered one to Andreea, who shook her head.
'Before you got to the room,' Lynn said, 'you didn't see anyone else? Someone running away?'
'A man, yes.'
'The man who had been with her?'
'Yes, I think so.'
'Can you describe him?'
'Yes. He was bald and with tattoos, here.' She touched her fingers against the side of her neck.
'The left side?'
'Both, I think. I'm not sure, it was so quick.'
'What was he wearing, can you remember?'
'A shirt, some kind of T-shirt, a football shirt, perhaps. And jeans.'
'No coat? No jacket?'
Andreea thought. 'No, I don't think. No, no.'
'The shirt, can you remember the colour?'
'White. I think that it was white.'
'An England shirt?'
'Maybe.'
Andreea stubbed out her cigarette, drank some more tea.
'When you got to the room,' Lynn said, 'Viktor apart, was there anybody else there?'
'Only Nina.'
'And the knife,' Lynn said. 'Where was the knife?'
'On the floor. Between them. On the floor.'
'You're sure of that? Absolutely positive?'
'Oh, yes.'
Lynn sat back and sighed. Earlier that morning, she had heard Viktor Zoukas's version of what happened. When he got to the room, he said, Nina and one of the customers were already fighting. A short man with a bald head, shaven. Viktor didn't think he'd seen him before. They were struggling for control of a knife. He thought Nina was already wounded, bleeding. When he tried to intervene, the man lashed out and stabbed him in the shoulder. He tried to get the knife from him, but fell and knocked his head against the wall. For a short while-seconds, maybe-he must have lost consciousness. When he came to, the man had gone and at first he thought Nina had, too. Then he saw her, underneath the bed, the knife close by. He picked up the knife and went back out into the corridor, and that was when the two policemen arrested him.
It wasn't only Andreea who was lying, Lynn thought, it was Viktor, too. Somewhere between them lay the truth.
'Nina,' Lynn said, 'did you know her well?'
'I know her a little,' Andreea said. 'Not well.' She had removed her jacket and hung it from the back of the chair. There were bruises on her arms, faded but still distinct.
'Had she worked there long?'
'I think, maybe, six, seven months.' Andreea lit another cigarette and tilted her head back, letting the first shallow stream of smoke drift up towards the ceiling. 'This her first job in this country. Since she came from Croatia. Her English is not very good. She and Viktor, they argue all the time. She won't do this, won't do that. She is always telling me that she will run away, leave.' Andreea shook her head. 'She is frightened of him, Viktor. She owes him money. I think, for bringing her to this country.'
'She was here illegally?'
Andreea shrugged, a small, slight movement of her shoulders, barely noticeable.
'When he argued with her, Viktor, did he ever strike her?'
'Hit?'
'Yes.'
'Yes, of course. He call her names and hit her. 'I kill you,' he says, 'I fucking kill you,' and Nina, she cries and says to me she will leave, but next day she is there again.'
''I'll kill you,' that's what he said?'
'Yes. But this is because he is angry. He does not mean.' She balanced her cigarette on the table's edge. 'She make good money for him. The men like her. Why would he kill her?'
Lynn looked at her watch. 'Listen, Andreea, I have to go.' She took a card from her bag and placed it in front of her. 'If you think of anything else, or if you just want to talk-about Nina-or about anything-give me a call.'
She got to her feet and leaned over. Up close, she could see, beneath the makeup, the dark violet patches of
