Passage by Night

Manning gave him the pound and the boy spat on it and grinned. ‘Anytime you want anything, just holler. I’m always down on the wharf there.’

He whistled to his dog and ran back the way they had come.

Manning turned to Seth. ‘I want you to stay here. Give me ten minutes and then come looking.’

Seth frowned. ‘Maybe it’s time we called in the police, Harry. Let them handle it.’

Manning ignored him and moved across the square. The front door was boarded up and he followed a side passage that brought him into a back yard littered with empty tins and refuse of every description. He mounted four stone steps to the door and knocked.

Footsteps approached and it opened a few inches. A woman’s voice said, ‘Who is it?’

‘I’m looking for Juan,’ Manning said. ‘Juan Garcia. I’m an old friend of his.’

There was the rattle of a chain and the door opened. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said and walked back along the corridor.

He closed the door and followed, wrinkling his nose at the stale smell compounded of cooking odours and urine. She opened the door, clicked on a light and led the way into a room. It was reasonably clean with a carpet on the floor and a double bed against the far wall.

She was a large, heavily built woman running dangerously to seed, the coffee-coloured skin and the thick lips an in dication of her mixed blood. She was still handsome in a bold, coarse sort of way and a sudden smile of interest appeared on her face.

‘I’m Juan’s girl – Hannah. Anything I can do?’

There was an unmistakable invitation in her voice and Manning grinned. ‘Not really.’

‘Is it business?’

‘You could call it that.’

‘Well that’s nice.’ She sat on the edge of the bed and smiled. ‘Give me a cigarette and tell me all about it.’

She patted the bed beside her and Manning obliged. The gaudy housecoat she was wearing fell open when she crossed her knees revealing black stockings, the flesh bulging over the tops.

‘I thought I knew most of Juan’s friends. How come you’ve never been here before?’

‘I move around a lot,’ Manning said. ‘Never in one place for long. Where did you say Juan has gone?’