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Paulo is on guard under the portico, silently watching. Missing nothing.
‘Hey,’ she says.
‘No rest for the wicked,’ he says.
‘When does your watch change?’
‘Not till six.’
‘Lord,’ she says.
‘It’s what they pay me for. His bodyguard’s a jobsworth, though. Did his twelve hours and not a minute more.’
‘Ugh,’ she says, sympathetically. ‘I’ll bring you some coffee before I go off duty.’
‘Thanks,’ he says.
‘Something to eat, too?’
‘No, you’re busy enough.’
‘I’ll bring you a sandwich,’ she says. ‘I’ll wrap it so you can eat it whenever.’
Paulo beams. Nothing endears you to him more than food.
*
She goes to the roof to get the linens in. Late night is always best: when they’re dry, but before there’s any danger of dust blowing in from the Sahara. It’s a job she generally enjoys. The last duty, usually. Up in the cool, the breeze coming off the sea, the yacht people’s voices faded to a murmur.
The sheets are dry. Strung out across the rooftop, three to a line, five lines altogether. She drags the laundry basket over to the first row. Unclips the first of the clothes pegs.
A cough, over by the road parapet.
Mercedes stops, peers into the gloom. There’s a person there, curled up in a ball like a baby waiting to be born.
‘Hello?’ she calls.
No answer.
She puts down the pegs, ducks under the sheet. Goes closer.
It’s Gemma, the little curly-top. The one who looks as though she’s barely grown breasts. Stick-thin arms wrapped round stick-thin legs, forehead pressed to her knees. She doesn’t seem to register Mercedes’ presence.
‘Hello?’ she says again. ‘Gemma? Are you okay?’
Slowly-slowly, the head lifts and the girl stares at her. She’s been crying. Her eye makeup is streaked and her face looks grey.
‘Are you all right?’
The girl coughs again. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I seem to be having a spot of asthma.’
Thoughts rush through her brain. Has she taken something? Been given something? She looks awful.
‘I wanted a breather,’ says the girl, and manages to laugh round her laboured wheezing, ‘and I left my inhaler downstairs. Ironic, eh?’
Mercedes steps closer again. ‘I’ll get it for you,’ she says.
The girls looks so surprised at this kindness that Mercedes is overwhelmed by sadness. Has nobody been kind to you in your life? Oh, you poor child. Is that what it is? That you’ve had so little kindness that you think that this … life you’re living … is normal?
