How often did we actually eat like that, Marta thought; how often did we go hungry or put up with cabbage and potato day after day? Their daydreams were a far reach from the reality of life back home. But dreams didn’t cost anything.
After they had eaten the eggs, Rosa had pulled a bag from the drawer where she had hidden it; spilled the bars onto the table.
‘Chocolate!’ They chorused.
‘With tea, proper tea,’ Marta decided. Shunning the instant coffee and the milk, she found glasses, made drinks with sliced lemon and sugar.
Marta climbed quickly out of bed. The air was nippy and goose pimples rashed her arms. Rosa had been happy then, she thought, that Easter morning. I could write maybe, tell her family about that. Her kindness, buying us treats and recreating a little piece of home.
*****
Richard tried not to be distracted by the skimpily dressed girl giving it her all on the pole. The rest of the club was deserted, plunged into gloom but the girl swayed in an isolated pool of light. Harper was watching from a table nearby. The place was chilly and the cold seemed to intensify the aroma of stale beer and cigarette smoke that the soft furnishings soaked up.
‘Bit early, isn’t it?’ Richard drew up a chair beside Harper.
‘Audition – we’re one girl down.’
Richard gave him a look.
‘The show goes on.’ He was unapologetic.
‘Lee Stone, your doorman – were you aware he had a criminal record?’
Harper shrugged.
‘Car theft amongst other things. He’s helping us now with our enquiries into the hit and run accident.’
Harper’s attention shifted sharpish from the dancer to Richard. He frowned. ‘You think Stone nicked my car?’ Surprise was replaced by outrage as the full meaning hit home. ‘I’ll bloody have him… The bastard!’ He ran a finger round the collar of his shirt.
‘Any trouble between you?’
‘Nothing that I was aware of. And I think I’d have known; he’s not exactly subtle.’
‘So why would he steal your car?’
The girl hooked one knee round the pole, arched backwards, her hair almost sweeping the floor, one hand running slowly from her collarbone, over her breasts and down to her thigh. Richard wrenched his gaze back to Harper.
‘Search me. But if you do find out let me know, won’t you?’ He shook his head with disbelief. ‘Bloody idiot.’ He gestured to the dancer to stop. Moved to turn off the music. ‘Thanks, love, I’ll give you a bell.’
The girl nodded, wandered off to get dressed.
‘I’d book her,’ Richard muttered. He leafed back a couple of pages in his daybook, to the notes of Harper’s first statement. ‘Rosa didn’t turn up for work on Monday. What about Stone?’
