Free To Tell the Truth by Anna Smith Page A

prostitution racket that in turn was part of their empire. She took a deep breath and leaned towards Taha.
    ‘Taha,’ she said. ‘Why are you telling me about the boat and the Russian? What has this got to do with what you told me earlier? About the little girl and the British man?’
    Taha looked at her surprised.
    ‘He was there,’ he said. ‘The man. The British man in the picture card I gave you. He was on the boat too. WithMr Daletsky. I saw them drinking champagne, and another man was there too. I think he also English. They were laughing together. I was working in the kitchen and I saw from the doorway the man I was with. But he didn’t see me.’ He leaned towards Rosie and spoke softly. ‘I saw a picture in the English newspaper of the man on the card I give you. He is a big politician.’
    Rosie hoped her eyes hadn’t popped. Carter-Smith and a Russian millionaire! It was a headline in itself. Most of the Russian tycoons were gangsters who had plundered and murdered their way through the country after the fall of the Soviet Union, then legitimised themselves in business in the new Russia. But scratch a Russian oligarch and you found the same corruption and ruthlessness the world over.
    Daletsky. Whoever he was, he was worth looking at. The very fact that Carter-Smith was rubbing shoulders with a guy like him on a yacht on the Costa del Sol was a story in itself. She would run a check on Daletsky on the web when she got back, and then talk to McGuire.
    ‘Can you tell me any more about Viktor Daletsky?’ she said.
    Taha shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Just that he has a big company that exports things. But all the people who work for him are bad people. Leka. He is the worst. Drugs. And also they sell people. Girls from Russia and other places. Lithuania and Ukraine. They kidnap them and sell them. That’s all I know. And this man, this British man in the picture I give to you, was with them on the boat.’
    Rosie looked at him but said nothing. He was brighterthan she’d thought: smart enough to know that a politician on a boat with a bunch of Russian and Albanian gangsters was worth something. She waited for him to ask.
    He ate the sandwich and they sat in silence. Then he spoke.
    ‘I want to go away from here, Rosie. Can you help me? I need to go.’
    ‘Why do you want to go away?’ Rosie said.
    ‘I think now it is dangerous. I think I should not give you the card with the picture of the man. Now I am frightened because he knows Leka and Daletsky. I didn’t know he knew them so much.’ He swallowed and looked at his feet.
    ‘But they don’t know you had the pass. The man could have dropped it anywhere. He might not even talk to anyone about it. If anybody asks you, just say you have no idea. He won’t know where he lost it.’
    ‘I cannot do that,’ Taha said. ‘I know how they are. They won’t just ask me. They will just start to beat me and beat me until I tell them the truth. I have to go away before they ask me, because they won’t believe me, and if they keep beating me I will tell them. Then they will kill me.’ He looked away. His eyes filled with tears.
    Jesus. He was just a kid, and Rosie could sense his fear was genuine. It was a different world these days, with the Russian and Albanian gangsters moving in on all the rackets from drugs to people-smuggling. A boy like this was nothing to them, just someone who could be supplied to a client until they had no further use for him. By thetime he was all used up, he’d probably be a hopeless junkie and they would toss him into the gutter. But that would be the least of his worries. For talking to her, and for giving her the security pass of someone who must be one of their top clients, he was already a dead man walking.
    ‘Do you think you can give me some money, Rosie? I want to go somewhere tonight. Just get in a train and keep going. Maybe Barcelona. Maybe France.’
    Rosie looked at him.
    ‘Why do you have to go immediately? I know