British Girl Found Dead by Rowland Stone

Author:Rowland Stone [Stone, Rowland]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books

I’m running out of the consulate, nearly tripping over Fermin on my way out, going as fast as I can to get to my car. Jump in the driver’s seat, get Freddie on hands-free and start heading to Magaluf, fast.

He talks as I drive. He got a call from one of the hotels on Torrenova. They thought they had a drugged-up English girl hiding in one of the service areas under their main public swimming pool. She was refusing to come out. Not making the connection to Kayleigh, and not wanting to upset customers by causing a scene, they called Freddie first because everyone on Magaluf knows he helps out British tourists in trouble.

Freddie arrives, goes round to the back of the pool, where the bins, the gas canisters and the emergency generator live, and the public don’t go. He crouches down and can see that, hiding under the pool, in a space barely big enough for a cat to crawl in, are two eyes with a body attached, and it’s moving. Breathing. Not a lot, but enough to show it’s alive.

So he tries talking to it in English. Explains who he is. Explains that he can help. Sits there trying to talk this thing out for the best part of half an hour.

Nothing.

He’s about to leave and tell the hotel management to let the police deal with it, when it occurs to him that this might be the missing girl and that there’s a reward.

Which is when he rings me.

I’m there in twenty-five minutes, breaking the speed limit on the MA1, swerving through traffic, wondering whether to call the police and have done with it, or check it’s her first.

I park on a side street and head to the Marina Hotel. It’s famous, one of the landmarks of the area. The main entrance is opposite a restaurant called El Sombrero, which is crowned by a twenty-foot sign saying ‘Tex-Mex’, with a neon sombrero on top – just in case any holidaymaker might be unsure as to what type of ethnic cuisine they’re likely to get inside.

I head across the road and enter the hotel grounds, walking up to reception. Nobody stops me. It’s early morning, so quiet. At the back is the pool. It’s a big, kidney-shaped affair with a Hawaiian-style bamboo bar in the middle. Two people are asleep on sunbeds, fully clothed with a half-empty tequila bottle and a used condom lying to the side.

I walk past them and make my way around to the back.

Can’t see Freddie.

I call. He answers and starts directing me: tells me to head for a row of leylandii trees, to go around the back of them, then walk along and down a slope. He meets me at the bottom and walks me around to the left, to the service area. The back of the pool.

‘She’s in there,’ he says, and points to a space about a foot and a half high, underneath a big concrete block that’s jutting out above the ground – the base of the swimming pool above.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.