Chapter 15

The situation gets red hot, more than once, and hotter each time.

After Ron was told of the impending police raid on the brothel, the three of us went out into the corridor. There was a lot of movement and rushing of customers and prostitutes. Half-dressed men and women were moving hurriedly through the corridors. Ron led us back to Mary’s room, who was waiting at the door. Someone must have notified her, like the rest of the rooms, but, like Matthew or me, Mary didn’t know what to do in a case like this or where to turn.

When we were all together, Ron said, “Let’s go see David; he wants to talk to you, Matthew,” and led us back to the office of David, Matthew’s friend who ran the brothel.

As we entered David’s office, we passed another of his men coming out of there.

As we walked in, David said to Matthew, “Matt, I need you to do me a favour. I don’t have all my people here, and the ones who are here are well known to the police. The raid they want to do is looking for a stash of drugs I just got. It’s in a van parked on this very street. It needs to be taken somewhere else, and I can’t use any of my guys. You have to do it yourself. They don’t know you.”

Matthew turned pale and asked, almost stammering, “You want me to take a van full of drugs?”

“Yes,” David replied.

“And what do I do with it?”

“I can’t keep it in any of my warehouses. They’re going to search them too. Do you have a garage at the house where you live?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s perfect. You keep it there until things calm down. In a week or earlier, I’ll send someone to pick it up.”

“But ... But ... If the police stop me and search the van...”

“Don’t worry, they’ll be focused on the place and my men, not the customers or my whores. When you get out, they’ll think you’re a client leaving in their vehicle.”

“It’s too much of a risk, David. I can’t do it.”

David hardened his tone, “Matthew, you have to. We’ve known each other for years, and besides, I just gave you a good share of the profits this whore will provide. There are many millions at stake in that shipment, and I have to hand it over to another group, as they paid me part of it, so I’m not going to take no for an answer. You will do as I ask, understood?”

Matthew nodded sheepishly, perhaps realising too late that his partner in youthful revelry and hooliganism was an unscrupulous criminal who, just as he was willing to take advantage of Mary, would use Matthew himself if he had to.

David gave him the keys to the van and gave him the location, model, and number plate, then told Ron to show us out and said goodbye to Matthew.

Ron led us through the corridors to a back door. The three of us went out and stood there for a few seconds trying to get our bearings. We thought we saw a man watching on the pavement in front of us, probably a plainclothes policeman keeping watch.

We walked along, trying not to draw attention to ourselves, until we reached the spot David had indicated and saw the parked van. Coincidentally, the car we had come in was about 20 meters away.

Matthew looked around to see if anyone was following us or watching us, but, as David had guessed, we had probably been taken for customers accompanied by a hooker, and that was not the aim of the police that night.

Matthew nervously got into the van, started it, and headed down the street while Mary and I made our way to the car.

Once inside, I hugged Mary and asked her, “How are you?”

“It was awful!” she said, on the verge of tears.

“I can imagine; I’m so sorry.”

“In poker games, Matthew had already forced me to be with several men one night, but this was more degrading to me. That friend of Matthew’s treated me like a commodity, like a piece of meat, and servicing clients like a prostitute in a whorehouse is maybe going to the bottom. I couldn’t put up with it every day.”

“If our plan works, we’ll get rid of Matthew. Courage, I know you’re a very strong woman. You’ve held on so far; don’t give up!”

“And David? You’ve seen that even if we get rid of Matthew, his friend is determined to have me work as a whore for him.”

“I think our plan may allow us to get away from both of them. That said, I’m thinking that, for it to work, we need to get Matthew to lose or forget his mobile so he can’t be called while he’s away.”

“I’ll take care of it. I’ll try to take it from him at the airport and make him think he’s dropped it.”

“Perfect. We’re a good team; now, let’s go home. Matthew will start wondering where we are. Get some rest.”

I kissed her and then started the car, while she pushed back the seat and rested after a night that must have been exhausting, physically and, above all, mentally.

When we got home, Matthew had pulled the van into the garage of our house and closed the door. I parked in front of the house, and Mary and I got in.

Matthew was very anxious and said nervously, “I don’t know why I accepted that David made me carry the drugs. I was thinking the whole trip that I might get stopped by the police and they would find all the drugs. Well, we’re going on a trip tomorrow, and I’ll be away; and the house is in your name, so if they find the drugs, you’re the prime suspects.”

That night we all went to bed quite restless, each for different reasons. I kept thinking about whether our plan would work.

The next afternoon, I drove Mary and Matthew to the airport and returned home to put the plan into action.

For some time, with the excuse of repainting and maintaining the house, I had been buying small quantities of paint and paint remover. I had made sure that both were as flammable as possible. They were stored in the garage, just where Matthew had kept the van. I had also bought a lot of printer paper under the guise of a bargain—paper that was stored in the room we used as an office when we worked at home.

It was a room that also had a lot of shelves with books and documentation, so there was a lot of paper of all kinds. That room was where our safe was, the one Matthew had kept, and where the videos and images Matthew was blackmailing us with were stored.

We had some very long candles that we had bought a long time ago when we had an electricity failure in our house and the power was out. I lit one of them and left it leaning over a pile of sheets of paper so that it would burn and drop wax. As the flame reached the paper, the paper would ignite. I counted on the flames spreading to all the papers on the table and, from there, to the shelves and to the whole house, including the garage.

I took a few belongings and family mementos, which we did not want to lose, such as photos of our wedding, some jewellery that Mary inherited from her grandmother, along with her famous apple pie recipe, some presents I had given Mary, some of the clothes Mary was very fond of, I added our passports and a few essential documents, put everything in a bag that I put in the boot of the car, and said goodbye to the house to go for dinner far away to a restaurant where I had booked a table. I knew that I would never again see that house that we had been decorating little by little with so much enthusiasm and effort after having lived through so many hardships during the beginning of our marriage.

I felt very sad and tried not to look back, but I couldn’t help looking back before leaving the street. I was on the verge of tears.

Once I was away, I prayed that, since I was burning down the house, at least what was stored in the safe would be totally destroyed. I had checked the information in our safe, and those of this domestic category, although they could withstand the fire, could not prevent the temperature from rising inside. A temperature that, although it prevented the contents from burning, was enough to demagnetise the discs and USB-Drives inside, so that Matthew, on his return, would find useless and empty devices. However, this was the theory; there was always the possibility that the data would not be totally destroyed.

There was a new factor, which was Matthew’s friend’s van full of drugs. He wasn’t going to be happy about it burning with all its contents. I’m sure the stash of drugs was worth many millions, but we couldn’t turn back. The alternative of Mary having to work in the brothel was out of the question. All we needed was for David not to find out about the fire until we were out of the country. For that, we needed Matthew to be isolated without his mobile phone. If one of David’s employees went to the house to pick up the van, as he had said, and saw everything burnt, Matthew was not to know about the fire until he and Mary returned from their trip.

As for getting out of the country, we were counting on the insurance money from the house. We were indeed cheating the insurance company, as the fire was not an accident, but we felt morally entitled to cheat them. When we had the previous electrical failure, which could have caused a fire like the one that was going to happen now, the insurance company refused to pay for the repair of the electrical circuit, even though it was included in the insurance clauses. We had to fix it ourselves. Well, now the fire would be attributed to that uncorrected fault, and the company would see how expensive it is to be greedy and not honour contracts.

As much as it would hurt Mary and me to lose the house, it would hurt Matthew, David, and the insurance company just as much, if not more.

I arrived at the restaurant worried and in a bad mood, so I had no trouble complaining about everything, calling attention to myself so that customers and employees would remember me, securing an alibi, and finally asking for the complaints book to complain about the poor quality of the dinner, which increased the time I spent in the restaurant.

When I returned home, the street was occupied with a fire engine and some police cars. The house was completely burnt down. With all the combustible material, it had burnt at full speed, and the firemen had only been able to extinguish some of the debris.

I appeared totally ignorant and expressed great sorrow for the loss. After answering a few questions from the police and firemen, I went to sleep in a hotel, where I stayed until Mary and Matthew returned.

That night, I received a call from Mary’s phone. It was Matthew asking for his cell phone. I didn’t tell him I wasn’t home. I pretended I was looking for it and told him I couldn’t find it, that maybe he’d lost it at the airport. Matthew hung up in a huff.

Then I sent a message to Mary: ‘I miss you so much. I think I’m going to miss a lot of things too’.

She understood the message and texted me back, ‘I’m sure your day went well. I’ll be back soon, and, at least for me, you won’t have to miss me. I love you.’.

We didn’t want to discuss it clearly in case Matthew took her mobile phone. Also, if, for some reason, the police investigated and checked our communications, we didn’t want to refer to the success of setting a fire.

First thing Monday morning, I called the insurance company to claim payment. As with the electrical fault, they put up obstacles, but when I threatened to go to the media and make it public that because they had not fixed the previous fault, the house had burnt down, they changed their attitude and agreed to pay quickly on condition that I did not make it public and agreed not to claim for the initial fault.

So, by the day Matthew and Mary returned, I had the money the house was worth. I called a neighbour of our house to ask her how everything was, and she told me that the previous day, she had seen a strange man going through the ashes. She also told me that he had come back later with two others, and they seemed to have been rummaging through everything in a rage. When I checked the news, I read one that I knew was related to the nervousness of these thugs, and that made me very happy.

I went to the airport to pick them up with the car ready to travel. As they walked out the door, I hugged Mary and said in her ear, “How can we get rid of Matthew?”

“I’ve thought of something, you’ll see,” Mary replied, smiling.