Then Matt remembered what the driver, Alberto, had said. Fabian was waiting for them at a hotel. What was its name? It took Matt a few moments to get his brain back into gear. The Hotel Europa. That was it. The Hotel Europa in Miraflores.
The boy was still waiting for him to say something. Matt tapped himself on the chest. “Matt,” he said. There was no point in hiding behind a false name now.
The boy nodded. “Pedro.”
So that was what he was called. And the strange thing was that Matt knew his name before he said it. Could he have heard it when he was asleep?
“Do you know the Hotel Europa in Miraflores?” he asked.
Pedro looked blank.
Matt tried again, more slowly. “Hotel Europa.” He pointed to himself. “I go.”
“Hotel Europa?” This time Pedro got it. “Si…”
“Can you show me the way?” Matt gestured down the street. “Do you understand?”
Pedro understood. But he wasn’t agreeing to anything. Matt saw the doubt in his eyes. Why should he help this foreign boy?
Matt took out the ten pounds. “If you take me there, I’ll give you this. It’s a lot of money.”
Pedro’s eyes zeroed in on the banknote. It was what he had been looking for in the first place. He nodded a second time. “Hotel Europa,” he repeated.
“Let’s go.”
The two of them set off.
It took them an hour to reach the hoteclass="underline" a modern building, twelve storeys high, with a drive that swept up to the front door, where a uniformed doorman was already standing waiting to receive early-morning guests. Miraflores was one of the most exclusive parts of Lima. The streets were quiet and ran between well-manicured lawns decorated with palm trees and fountains. There was an expensive-looking arcade boasting the sorts of shops and restaurants that wouldn’t have been out of place in London. The whole suburb was perched on the end of a miniature cliff. Far below, the sea formed a giant crescent, stretching into the distance with the rest of the city barely visible, a mile away.
Hotel Europa. Matt felt a surge of relief as he saw the name written in large, white letters above the entrance lobby. And there was something else. He hadn’t noticed them at first, but there were two police cars parked outside. He had no doubt at all that they were there because of him. Fabian would have been waiting for him and Richard to arrive. When they hadn’t, he must have raised the alarm.
Matt started forward but Pedro reached out and grabbed hold of him.
“Yeah. All right.” Matt took out the ten-pound note and offered it to the other boy. “Here you are. Thanks.”
“No!” Pedro was looking scared. He pointed at the two cars and uttered the single word that was almost the same in so many different languages. “Policia!”
“It’s OK, Pedro. I want to see them. It’s not a problem.”
But Pedro was worried. He shook his head and seemed unwilling to let Matt go.
Matt broke free, pocketing the note. “I’ll see you around,” he said, knowing that he never actually would.
He walked up the drive and into the hotel. The doorman glanced briefly in his direction and then decided to let him in. He was a child and he was scruffy – but he was a European and that was all that mattered. Somewhere inside himself, Matt knew that Pedro wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near.
The front doors opened onto a large reception area with leather sofas, antique tables, oversized potted plants and mirrors. Matt had hardly ever been inside a luxury hotel before – and never on his own. He felt uncomfortable walking into this enormous space. The Hotel Europa was a place for rich tourists and businessmen and he was neither. There were two smartly dressed women standing behind the slab of marble that served as a reception desk and they watched him with faces of frozen politeness as he walked over to them.
“I need your help,” he said.
“Yes?” The younger of the two receptionists sounded surprised, as if helping wasn’t part of her job description.
“My name is…” Matt hesitated. What name should he give? He decided not to bother. “I was meant to meet someone here.”
“Who are you meeting, please?”
“His name is Mr Fabian.”
The receptionist tapped at the keyboard of a computer hidden just below the level of the desk. Her nails clacked against the keys. A moment later, she looked up. “I’m sorry. There is nobody of that name staying at the hotel.”
“He may not be staying here.” Matt tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. “I arrived at the airport yesterday. I was on the way here to meet him. But I got delayed.”
“Where are you from?”
“From England.” Matt took out his passport and laid it on the desk. He hoped the cover, with its gold lettering, would impress the girl more than he could.
The girl opened it and looked at the name underneath the photograph. “Paul Carter?” She glanced at him strangely, as if she had been expecting him. The other girl picked up a telephone and dialled a number. “Where is your brother?” she asked.
“My brother?” Matt realized that they were talking about Richard. So he was right. They were expected. “I don’t know. Where is Mr Fabian?”
“Mr Fabian is not here.”
Next to her, the second girl had been connected. She spoke briefly in Spanish, then put the phone down.
A side door opened.
Four men came out, walking purposefully towards him. There was something menacing about the way they walked. They could have been coming out of a bar, half drunk, looking for a fight. If it weren’t for the police cars parked outside, Matt would have assumed they were soldiers. They were wearing grey trousers, tucked into their boots, dark-green jackets that zipped up the front and caps. Their leader was a huge, pot-bellied man with a heavy moustache and leathery, pock-marked skin. His hair was dark. Was there a single man in Peru who didn’t have dark hair? He had the body of a wrestler. His hands were enormous. Everything about him seemed brutal and oversized and Matt had to remind himself that he was the one who needed the police, that he hadn’t himself committed any crime.
Or so he thought.
“You are Paul Carter?” the policeman asked. Even from the four words, Matt could tell that his English was good. He had a heavy Spanish accent but there was a certain rhythm to the way he spoke. And despite his looks, his voice was soft.
“Yes. My name is Captain Rodriguez. I have been waiting for you. Where is your friend…” He smiled unpleasantly. “…Robert Carter?”
“He’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
Matt was becoming increasingly nervous. The policeman had referred to Richard as his friend, not as his brother – which was what he was supposed to be. And he had spoken the names as if he already knew they were false. Pedro had warned him not to go into the hotel and Matt was beginning to wish that he’d listened. He certainly hadn’t been expecting this degree of hostility. The senior policeman was standing right in front of him. The other three had moved to surround him. They weren’t treating him as if he needed help. It was more as if he was a suspect, a wanted criminal.
“Did Mr Fabian call you?” Matt asked.
“Fabian? Who is Fabian?”
“Listen… I was attacked last night. I need help.”
“Your name is Paul Carter?”
“Yes.” Even as Matt spoke the word, it died on his lips. The policeman knew who he was. He had only asked the question to test him. Slowly, he reached for the passport and turned it around, handling it as if it was something dirty. Then he picked it up and opened it. For a long moment, he squinted at the photograph at the back.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“It’s my passport.” Matt felt a nameless terror opening up beneath him.
“This passport is a forgery.”
“No…”
“Tell me your true name.”
“I just told you. It’s Paul Carter. Didn’t you hear what I said? I was attacked last night. There were men with guns. You have to ring Mr Fabian…”