They passed a sign on the road: a young girl in a tight white bodice was holding a bottle of whisky:

Have you ever tasted a fifteen-year-old?

36

Maya needed to go to the toilet. She was hungry and she was dirty. She was not chained up like the other girls, but she was too frightened to move in any case. Maya was not allowed to leave the room. She was only allowed to walk as far as the toilet. She was not allowed to talk to anyone, and she was told that if she stepped outside the windowless room she would be killed straight away. The other girls were older than her and had been there for a long time. Maya listened to them talk to one another. They had to go with men all day long. Downstairs, where there were rooms. The men would come and then all the girls had to go and sit in a room and the men would choose which ones they wanted. The girls were never allowed to leave the Bordello. When they were finished with one man they had to go back in the room and wait for another. At night-time they came to sleep for a few hours and the Kano chained them up.

Now Maya must wait until the Kano came to unlock the chains and then she could go to the toilet. At the end of the room was a sick girl. She did not go to work with the others—she was too ill. The more Maya looked at the girl, the more uncomfortable Maya became. She seemed to just be laying there staring at Maya. Was she dead too, like Perla? Then the sick girl coughed and Maya jumped. The sick girl smiled at her and held her hand up to beckon Maya to her. Maya looked at the arm—it stayed suspended in the air, thin and black like a spider’s leg. The girl started coughing again. She turned away from Maya and coughed for several minutes, spitting blood out over her blanket before laying back down, exhausted. For a few minutes Maya watched the girl’s chest rise and fall and listened to the squealing noise of her difficult breathing, then the girl turned and beckoned Maya forward again.

Maya walked gingerly towards her. When she got to her side Maya saw that she was not much older than Perla had been.

‘My name is Rosie.’ The girl pointed to herself and then pointed at Maya. ‘You?’

‘Maya.’

‘Come,’ Rosie smiled.

Maya climbed onto the bed and lay down beside her and Rosie wrapped her arm around her and drew her in close. They lay like two spoons in the murky darkness of the quiet room and listened to the sound of the other girls sleeping.

‘Listen to me, Maya,’ Rosie whispered. ‘And I will tell you what you have to do to stay alive…’

37

‘It’s a lovely place, Father.’

They pulled up outside the white-painted villa, shaded with mature palms that left their shadows on the white walls. A mosaic front of blue tiles gave the place a Moorish feel.

‘We renovated an old government building, but it has a beautiful Spanish feel to it, and it’s important that we are in the city where the trouble is. But it is not as beautiful as the refuge in Angeles—that is built on the side of a mountain, surrounded by forest—you will see it, I hope.’

‘And how many children do you have here?’

‘Five more than we should—thirty-five, at the moment. We have expanded the refuge so many times over the years and still it never is big enough, but we are always working on ways to improve it. We have created small centres in the countryside. We realised early on that it was not enough just to rescue the children from the brothels and the prisons and streets. There was no point in just returning them to their families. The whole family needed to change. We are providing them with an income by reviving traditional techniques, basket-weaving, coconut-shell jewellery, that kind of thing. We sell the things over the Internet and to trade fares. It has really taken off in the last two years. We now have five hundred families supported by the scheme. Supporting themselves and supporting each other.’

‘Where did most of the children come from?’

Father Finn’s face turned distant and troubled as he turned to talk to them.

‘From the streets, from the jails. The children are not supposed to be imprisoned any more. They have their own detention centres. But they are, sadly, not much better than the prison. They have very little to eat and no exercise; there are eighty to a cell that was only meant to house twenty. They have to take it in turns to sleep and the place is regularly flooded.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘We

still

find children locked up with adults, even though the government promised that it would stop. We go around regularly, usually every Saturday night, and see if there are any children locked up. We find it often.’ The Father looked back to the door to make sure he had time to tell them before they got inside the refuge. ‘When we found Eduardo he was locked in a cell with twelve men, made to clean their faeces around the stinking hole that is the toilet in the corner of the cell, and he was passed from lap to lap, raped in the corner of the cell. If he refused to let them have sex with him he was beaten and starved. If he cried he was beaten and starved. When we found him he was lying on the floor of the cell, covered in sores and septic wounds, bitten by cockroaches and mosquitoes. He wasn’t even allowed the dignity of clothing…’ Father Finn banged his palm against the steering wheel and the anger returned to his face. ‘That’s why it is important to bring Eduardo’s case before government. They must be held accountable, no?’

Excited faces had begun appearing at the windows as soon as Father Finn parked up. Small hands waved furiously at them. The Father excused himself and marched off in his usual military fashion, as he went inside to organise the staff and children to come and greet their guests. Mann got the cases out of the boot and walked around to the front of the car. Becky stood and stared at him over the bonnet.

‘How can he bear it?’ She shook her head incredulously and shrugged her shoulders.

Mann could see that she was shell-shocked by the volume of human misery that they had encountered in one day. Maybe he had become desensitised over the years.

‘It’s one horrible story after another,’ she said quietly.

They heard the sound of excited children being organised at the front door. Then Mann thought it was not so much that he had gone numb; more likely he had been infected by Father Finn’s relentless hope.

‘He can bear it because he has enough love and hope to see it through. He will never stop trying. As long as the world allows it to carry on, Father Finn will keep fighting, and along the way he makes a big difference to people’s lives. He saves so many of them.’

‘But it’s hard to believe that such things go on here, the place is so beautiful and the people so positive and happy. It just seems so wrong. They are lucky they have the Fathers to fight for them. I’m surprised that they are not deported.’

‘People try and get rid of the priests all ways. Some of the Father’s friends have been murdered, others have been beaten up. Father Finn has the scars to prove it, that’s why he walks so fast everywhere. He lives under the constant threat of assassination. The paedophile westerners that he attacks would just love to see him dead.’

Father Finn came back to hurry them and escort them into the refuge. He was obviously immensely proud of it and all the people inside it.

‘Come on, Becky, I would like to show you some of the work we do here and introduce you to the staff.’

‘That would be great, Father. I would love to see around.’

By the time they reached the door, Becky had ten girls hanging off her arms.