me.’
Good luck, love, Carlyle thought.
‘Strictly cash,’ she repeated, holding out her hand.
‘Ah, yes. The money.’ He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a slender wad of twenty-pound notes.
Reaching over, she took the money and counted it carefully before zipping it into a side-pocket of her bag. ‘No tip?’
‘I’m not going to explode.’ Carlyle sniffed.
‘You don’t know that yet.’ She slid off the bed and stepped in front of him, holding out her hand. ‘Give me another fifty.’
‘Come on,’ Carlyle groaned.
Olga stood her ground. ‘Come on?
‘Okay, okay.’ Carlyle sighed wearily and stuck his hand back in his pocket. ‘I suppose a receipt is out of the question?’ he asked, handing over his remaining money.
‘You suppose right,’ Olga smiled. ‘Thank you.’ Sticking the money in her pocket, she sat down next to him on the bed. ‘Okay. Now we’ve got that out of the way, what do you want to know?’
‘What can you tell me about the girl?’
She edged along the bed slightly and turned to look at him. Her eyes seemed to have lost their sparkle, the smile on her face now looking forced and tired. ‘There are many girls. I am one myself. Sometimes it’s not nice, but it’s better than the alternative. .’
‘Yes,’ he nodded, hoping that she would hurry up and get to the point.
‘But the children, this is something else.’
‘Is Ihor responsible for bringing them over?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘So all that stuff about helping kids in orphanages is fake?’ Carlyle asked. ‘Is it just a front for people- trafficking?’
‘No — he does pay for things. But there is also business to be done.’ She made a face, like it was obvious and logical. ‘He sees the two things as separate.’
‘Who does he work with?’
She thought about it for a moment, and Carlyle wondered if she was trying to remember a script. It crossed his mind that this could all be a set-up. Maybe she was actually lying to him, but he would have to run that risk. It wasn’t like he had a lot of other leads to follow.
‘Ihor has business associates here in England,’ she said finally.
‘And who are they?’
‘I don’t know.’
Carlyle wondered about the posh man he saw in Green Park. ‘English?’
‘I guess so. Ihor knows lots of people. All different kinds. He likes to talk about how he doesn’t just mix with scumbags and losers. He knows nice people, too. Some of them might be English.’
‘What about the not so nice people? What about the people who go after children?’
She made a face. ‘The young ones are only for very special clients. Very important men, Ihor says. That’s the thing for these guys. It’s not just about the sex. They can fuck any woman they want, so it has to be more edgy. They want under-age, they want exotic locations. . whatever can give them a bigger, better buzz.’ She held his gaze for one, two seconds. ‘That’s what it’s about — the buzz.’
Carlyle thought about that for a moment. ‘Which ‘‘exotic’’ locations?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Give me some examples.’
She threw her hands in the air. ‘The London Eye is quite popular. They book a whole pod and have a bit of a party.’
‘Where else?’
‘I heard Ihor boasting one time that a guy had paid ten thousand pounds to do it in the House of Commons. He even brought his own rent boy!’
‘Sounds like your average MP,’ Carlyle murmured. ‘What about Buckingham Palace? Did anyone ever do it there?’
Olga thought about it for a moment. ‘Maybe. Why not?’
‘But have you heard of it?’
‘No, but it’s a good idea.’ She patted him on the shoulder. ‘Maybe I will suggest it to Ihor.’
Carlyle wondered what he was actually getting for his money here. ‘Okay, what about my girl?’
She looked at him blankly.
‘The girl I found in the park — Elizabeth, or Alzbetha or something.’
‘There were a couple of young girls recently. I saw them at a house of Ihor’s, near the cafe.’ She reached into her bag and pulled out a scrap of paper, handing it to him. ‘That’s the address.’
‘Are they there now?’
She shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. It was several weeks ago.’
Before the Green Park incident, Carlyle thought. ‘After I found Alzbetha, someone went to the care home she was in and kidnapped her.’
Again, Olga shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I have to go now.’
‘That was a very quick forty minutes.’
‘Darling,’ Olga pointed out, ‘usually when I go to work, it is five minutes total maximum.’ Her grin grew bigger than her face. ‘The clients! They simply cannot control themselves!’
Feeling not very much in control himself, Carlyle looked at the scrap of crumpled paper in his hand. ‘That’s not much for my money.’
‘That is easy for you to say.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘For me it is a lot. I take a big risk talking to you.’ Standing up, she grabbed the bag and slung it over her shoulder.
‘Fair point.’ Carlyle got to his feet. ‘Don’t worry, no one else will know about this conversation. We’ll check out this address. But see what else you can find out in the meantime.’
‘Sure.’ Olga turned to him as she reached the door. ‘I will do what I can.’
As the door closed behind her, Carlyle flopped back on the bed, wondering what else he could do in his expensive hotel room.
The phone was ringing.
The phone. .
. . was ringing.
Slowly, Carlyle came to his senses.
Sitting up on the bed, it took him a moment to realise where he was. He yawned. Then he noticed the time on the clock: 4.23.
A.m. or p.m.?
‘Fuck!’ He scrambled across the extra-king-size duvet and grabbed the handset. ‘Hello?’
Alex Miles sounded more than a little peeved. ‘What the hell are you still doing up there? Your girl left hours ago.’
‘I. .’ Carlyle let out another yawn. ‘I must have dozed off.’
‘I told you not to mess up the sheets,’ Miles grumbled.
‘Don’t worry,’ Carlyle snapped back. ‘I fell asleep on top of the bed. What time is it?’
‘It’s past four in the afternoon. Time for you to check out.’
‘Okay, okay. Thanks for the alarm call. I’ll be down in a minute.’
After washing his face and helping himself to a Toblerone from the mini-bar, Carlyle sheepishly made his way down to the lobby. Alex Miles was still behind his desk, his
