It would, of course, be necessary at some point if she and Alice stayed together. But she wasn’t ready to take such a giant step. They were bound to ask questions about her job, her past, her family. And she hadn’t had time yet to get her story together. To re-invent herself.

If they became suspicious they might make enquiries. They could find out that her name wasn’t really Maria Rodriquez. And that she didn’t work for the Mexican government’s tourism department. They might even alert the police in order to protect their daughter.

‘They’ve invited us both over to dinner any evening this week,’ Alice said. ‘They live in Chelsea. Please say yes. It’d mean a lot to them and to me.’

Rosa didn’t want to disappoint Alice so she nodded and smiled and said, ‘Of course I’ll come. But the latter part of the week would be best for me.’

That would give her time to either work on her story or come up with a good excuse not to go.

Alice was overjoyed. ‘You’ll love them. I promise. And they’ll love you.’

Only if they don’t see through the lies, Rosa thought.

‘In fact I’ll call them now and suggest that we arrange it for Thursday or Friday,’ Alice said.

Rosa stood up. ‘And while you do that I’m going to the restroom.’

It was an excuse to slip away so that Alice wouldn’t notice that the smile plastered on her face was a false one. A short toilet break would give her time to collect her thoughts and stop the panic from swelling in her chest.

But that wasn’t how it turned out because on the way to the ladies she saw someone who gave her much more to worry about than meeting Alice’s parents.

It was Roy Slack, the man she was working for.

He was looking down at her from the TV screen on the wall above the bar. His face was battered and bruised and he was telling a reporter that he’d been kidnapped by a group of police officers.

61

Slack

He hadn’t expected a camera crew to be waiting outside the hospital’s A & E department. Someone must have tipped them off.

Under any other circumstance he would have told them to get lost. But now he was keen to let the world know what those coppers had done to him.

‘So were the police officers known to you?’ the reporter asked.

‘Only one of them,’ Slack said. ‘The others were wearing balaclavas.’

‘What can you tell us about him?’

Slack grimaced and rubbed a knuckle into both eyes. Then he shifted his weight and looked directly at the camera.