You Will Never Find Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

rules. She was drunk and drugged with no idea where she was, with a strange man whose rough, hard hands led her to believe that he was not unaccustomed to violence. Fear was shimmering on the outer reaches of her consciousness as he walked her past the cracked glass of the metal-framed door of the block’s main entrance.
    â€˜Maybe we should go back to the Hotel Moderno,’ she said. He gripped her elbow so hard she winced and couldn’t wrench her arm free.
    The lift worked. The doors opened and he shoved her so hard into the filthy cubicle that she hit the far corner and had to save herself with her free arm. She tried to turn, but he was on her, rucking her dress up over her hips, reminding her of her panty-less state. She looked down at something suspect in the corner that had the tackiness of recently dried bodily fluids. Panic trembled in her throat as she felt his powerful urgency, the animal strength beneath the cold, sodden shirt. The lift door opened at the fourth floor. He backed away from her, pulled her round. She tried to push her dress back down and made a run for the door to the stairs. ‘Don’t do that,’ he said, and leaned forward, pushing her hard so that she missed the door and hit her head against the brick wall next to it. She fell onto all fours, tried to get to her feet, remembering El Osito’s impression of a cow on ice. She climbed up the rough wall, hiding her face behind her arm, not wanting to see what was going to come next.
    It was the turn of
la pata grande
. He slapped her so hard that she collided with another wall, bounced off it and fell to the floor, hot buttocks on the ice-cold tiles. He grabbed her by the swag of her ringlets, shook her like a naughty pup and dragged her to the door of his apartment. He unlocked it with her still hanging from his brutal fist, threw her into the hallway, slammed the door shut behind him.
    In the dark she started to scrabble away from him and he trod down on her leg to stop her as if she were some struggling animal that he still wanted to play with. The only sound was of his belt snarling and snapping through the loops as he tore it from his waist. She remembered that scorpion clasp and the thought of its sting made her whimper.
    â€˜No, please. Please don’t. Please don’t hurt me.’
    She flinched as the black air swished above her head and the scorpions made dull hard contact with her forehead and dragged over her eye and cheek. A warm trickle followed their trail and she had the taste of salt and metal in her mouth.
    â€˜I’ll do anything,’ she said, ‘but please don’t hurt me.’

3

6:30 A.M., S UNDAY 18 TH M ARCH 2012
Mercy Danquah’s house, Streatham, London
    W e need to talk to this guy too,’ said Mercy, tapping the screen. They were up early, posting Amy’s details on the missing persons websites. Mercy had remembered the photo she’d taken of Amy as she’d come into the Gatwick Airport arrivals hall after her cigarette smuggling jaunt to the Canaries the week before. Amy had met up with a good-looking black guy who’d taken the suitcase full of cigarettes off her hands. That shot was now on her computer and Mercy was looking at the two of them, lingering over the man’s face, trying to work out his age.
    Boxer gave her the thumbs-up. He was on the phone to Roy Chapel, the ex-policeman who ran the office of the LOST Foundation. Boxer had already sent him a cropped version of the photo Mercy was looking at. Chapel had said he’d get it out to all the street organisations as soon as.
    â€˜If she’s serious,’ said Chapel, ‘and the picture you’ve painted makes me think she’s worked this out very carefully, she’ll cut all ties. You know how it is: the most successful runaways are the ones who transplant themselves into a new life and never go anywhere near the old one.’
    Boxer said nothing. He knew this very well. That