There was no question mark to this question. I told him I had.
‘How did that go?’
‘It was a useless waste of my time. They told me she must have run away to the north. I know she hasn’t.’
He hastily grabbed the notebook that the ashtray was sitting on and leafed through it. Without looking at me he said, ‘What is her name?’
‘Nisha Jayakody.’
‘Where do you live?’
I told him and he continued to search his notebook, his finger running along the pages. He took another deep drag of the cigarette and I watched him as the fan swirled the smoke around him, as his eyes skimmed over the words, as he turned the pages, flicking forwards and back again, as he placed the cigarette in the ashtray and ran his hand through his hair. I’m not sure what he was searching for but then he grabbed a pen and jotted something down.
‘In the last month,’ he said finally, ‘two other maids have been reported missing to me.’ He stressed the last two words and looked up with a deep frown, his eyebrows raised at the edges.
‘Two?’
‘Both Filipino. One worked in Akrotiri, the other in Nicosia. Where is your maid from?’
‘Sri Lanka.’ He jotted this down in the notebook too. I felt my body turn cold, despite the heat in the booth. Two other women had gone missing.
‘What could this mean?’ I managed to say. I found that I couldn’t speak much, my mouth dry, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Perhaps sensing this, he called out to one of the maids who was passing the booth.
‘Bilhana! Bilhana!’
A woman in an orange sari turned on her heel and arrived in the open doorway of the booth.
‘Tell Devna – two coffees.’ He spoke slowly, holding up two fingers. ‘Sugar?’ he said to me.
I shook my head. ‘Do you think they are connected?’ I said, once the woman had gone.
He responded by raising his eyebrows and opening both of his palms – he was at a loss. ‘I knew there was a problem when the first girl went missing,’ he said. ‘Rosamie. I placed her. She came here three years ago through an agency; she worked for a man who was no good to her. He beat her. God knows what else. She came to me for help. With some difficulty, I got her out of the clasp of her agent and found her a better home. She moved in with a British family in Akrotiri. They were good to her, and she was pleased with them. She would come here on Sundays, eat and talk with the other women. She was a good dancer too, loved the music here. One Sunday she didn’t come.’
He paused there. The phone rang again, but this time he turned it over and ignored it. ‘Billie Jean’ was playing in the back hall, and a couple of women were standing close to the booth chatting.
‘The next Sunday,’ he continued, ‘she didn’t turn up again, and I thought it was odd. The following one, her employer came here to tell me that she’d gone.’
‘She’d gone,’ I repeated. It seemed the only thing I could manage to say.
‘Mrs Manning went to the police, but they convinced her that Rosamie had run away to find employment in the north of Cyprus. Poor woman didn’t know what to believe. But I knew Rosamie. She came here beaming every Sunday because her bruises had faded, because she was happy with Mr and Mrs Manning. She would bring me a cake or biscuits, always thanking me. She said I had saved her life. Why would she run away? It doesn’t make sense. You see, when you clump people together and don’t understand their personal stories, you can make up any bullshit and convince yourself it’s the truth.’
By now the ash from his cigarette was long and he threw it in the ashtray and took another out of the box, holding it between his fingers without lighting it. At this point Devna came in with a tray of coffee, two glasses of water and a plate of sesame fingers. She was a slim girl who looked like she could easily have been fifteen, but there was an assurance and confidence to her movements and posture which made me think she was older. I hoped she was, at least. She wore faded jeans with slits at the knees and a brightly coloured shirt. Large, silver, hooped earrings shone through her dark hair as she leaned over the desk, placing the tray on top of some paperwork.
‘They don’t know anything about life,’ Tony said, looking at Devna. ‘They’ve come from small communities, labourers in fields.’ I watched Devna’s fingers as she took the glasses and cups from the tray, placing them on the table – long, dark, beautiful fingers, her nails painted earth-green.
‘They say they want to send money to their families, but a lot of them come to find freedom. They think they’re going to be flying free in Europe. Back home they usually earn 200 euros a month; here it’s around 500. But what do they do? They look at TikTok and photographs on their phones all day and think about which boys they like. Isn’t that right, Devna?’