LITMIR.BIZ

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twice or maybe three times. She had huge hazel eyes in an oval face. Her mouth seemed a bit too large, but that could have been due to her choice of bright red lipstick. Her very fair complexion and thick, dark brown hair (pulled back at the moment) made her look rather like one of those women in Old Masters paintings. As for the rest of her, she had on a long, heavy coat, so I couldn’t tell much. Physically, she seemed much like any young woman in her twenties: everything had pretty well assumed its final form, but life hadn’t yet imprinted much in the way of character. Only her gaze, steady, patient and intelligent, belied the fact that she was simply just another cute specimen of the human female. One could get lost in those eyes...

      She sighed deeply. “Okay. My name is Regina Mastrocolle. I’m from the States.”

      “I’d noticed that,” I responded dryly.

      Ms Mastrocolle made a face. “You can’t drop me at a station or a bus stop, because I have no idea where to go, where I’d be safe. Those men found me once. I have to assume they can do it again.”

      I nodded. “That seems logical.”

      “I also have a pretty good idea who they are.”

      “Explain.”

      “The first group of men work for my father.”

      “Your father?”

      “He hired them to bring me home.”

      “You’ve run away?” When she nodded, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “How old are you?”

      She drew herself up a bit at that. “I’m going to be twenty-five in a month.”

      “Then why ‘run away’, as you put it? A woman your age should be able to just leave, if she chooses.”

      “You obviously don’t know much about Italian families—and you’ve never met my father. He is il Padrone. The boss.”And from the way she looked at me, I could see that she had a bit of la padrona herself. “Look, obviously I’m in trouble. I’d like to put as much distance as possible between myself and those people you met earlier. You said something about Glasgow. Would it be possible to drop me there? I’ll pay for the gas.” She smiled engagingly. “Whaddayasay?”

      Now that last sentence had sounded like a New Yorker. Only they run words together like that. It had the calculated effect on me, and I put the car into gear.

      “Okay. I’ll take you as far as Glasgow. Just one question. You said that one group of men worked for your father. Who was the other group, then?”

      She turned those big eyes in my direction, and they looked troubled. “I don’t know.”

      Two

      Surprisingly, the weather held for us on the long run to the Scottish border—a real blessing. My hurried patch job on the smashed window wouldn’t have lasted long against heavy rain.

      When you’re travelling any distance in the British Isles during winter, the one thing you can be sure of is that the weather will change several times during the course of your trip—unless you’re exceptionally lucky. Thankfully, we had been so far that day.

      Just passing the junction for Liverpool, into that long, boring stretch where the M6 passes through Lancashire, the fact that I could barely feel my toes finally penetrated my sluggish brain. The heater in the car just couldn’t keep up with the cold air flowing in around my trash bag patch job. I pulled into the next rest area to get something warm to drink and maybe a bit to munch on. Neither of us had felt like crisps or Coke, although we’d polished off one of the bags of nuts I’d bought.

      Regina disappeared into the Ladies, and I am ashamed to admit to the momentary inclination to jump in the car and roar off. I settled for buying coffee for her and tea for me. The scones appeared stale, so I grabbed two muffins instead. I sometimes think that rest area food is supplied by grocery stores that want to get rid of their out-of-date products. Judging by the expression on the woman at the check-out, the stores might be shipping off their out-of-date employees, too.

      As I pulled back into the line of early morning traffic, Regina took a sip of her coffee and frowned. “God, this is bad!” She must have thought better of her outburst, considering that I’d bought her the coffee unbidden, because she quickly added, “At least it’s hot.”

      “You may have hit upon the reason so many Brits drink tea. Assuming the tea packet isn’t horribly stale, it’s usually your own fault if the muck doesn’t taste good.”

      Regina took a few more sips, then staring straight out the windscreen and not at me, said,“Considering all you’ve done, I guess I owe you somesort of explanation.”

      “Perhaps it would be better not to tell me. I helped you out of a tight place, and that’s it. I really don’t need to know any more.”

      “But I don’t have anyone I can talk to about it.”

      “Don’t you have any friends who can help you?”

      “No. And I certainly can’t go to any of my relatives.”

      “A priest?”

      “I don’t know who I can trust,” she answered in a low voice. “You seem kind, and you’re old. I mean you’re older than I am. Maybe you can help me help me figure out how to deal with this.”

      “Look, this is silly. You don’t even know my name. You know nothing about me.”

      “I know you’re kind and generous. I know that you can be trusted in a crisis.” Regina flashed a quick smile. “So what’s your name?”

      “Michael Quinn. As I told you, I’m originally from Birmingham, but I live in Canada.”

      “Where?”

      “Toronto. I run a backline instrument rental company.”

      “A what?”

      “It’s part of the music business. Say you have a band that doesn’t want to tour with their own equipment; you need amplifiers, a drum kit, keyboards and the like. I supply them. Backline refers to things that form the back line on the stage.”

      “Sounds, um, interesting. Do you rent to famous people?”

      “Sometimes. Mostly it’s trade shows, showcases, smaller tours from the States or Europe, things like that.”

      “How long have you been doing this?”

      “Since I arrived in Canada fourteen years ago.”

      “What did you do before that?”

      “I was a musician.”

      Regina smiled again. “Okay, now I know all about you. So can I talk?”

      I didn’t see any way out of this unless I simply told her to shut up. “All right. What’s the problem between you and your father?”

      Judging by the way she’d been speaking, I figured Regina would just lay out the whole problem, and we’d discuss it or something. In reality, it seemed her words had been more bravado than anything else. She turned her head away, staring down at the space between her seat and the door, and I could distinctly hear sniffling.

      After a few minutes, she straightened up, wiped her nose on a tissue she took out of a coat pocket, sniffed once or twice more and looked at me. “I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry about this, that I was old enough not to start bawling.”

      I shrugged. “It’s okay.” “No, it’s not. I’m going to have to be strong if I’m going to get out of this.”

      “It might be easier if you started at the beginning and told it like a story. You know, give yourself a bit more distance.”

      So Regina began speaking and continued almost non-stop as we drove past Lancaster and up through the rolling hills of Cumbria, one of my favourite

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