‘Okay,’ he calls. ‘She’s all yours. You’re not going to be happy, though.’
The water is ankle-deep, all the way up the hall. The seal on the door is clearly effective. They slosh through it and stand on the threshold, looking in.
‘Oh, my word,’ says Ursula.
The room is drenched. Soggy carpet, soggy chairs, a film of water on the surface of the coffee table, slowly dripping off. Paulo is at the sink, turning off the tap.
‘Yep,’ he says. ‘Jesus, Mercedes, you’ve done a pretty thorough job here. You left the plug in, did you know that?’
‘Oao,’ says Ursula. ‘My God.’
Mercedes squelches in and surveys the damage. ‘Oh, God,’ she says, ‘she’s going to kill me.’
‘Yeah, I’m afraid there’s no way we’re covering this up,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry, Mercedes.’
She sits down, hard, in an armchair. It’s wet under her bottom, soaks through her layers of uniform. Surreptitiously looks at the drawers where the DVDs live. No locks. Of course not. This entire room is a strongbox.
‘We’ll do what we can,’ says Paulo comfortingly. ‘I’m sure we can get this a lot better before she gets home. Arturo’s got that pumping thing in the garden store, for the pool.’
‘I had no idea this was here,’ says Ursula again. ‘What are all the screens for? Are they recording us?’
Mercedes shakes her head, despairingly. ‘I just … oh, God. All these electronics … I can’t even … ’
‘I suppose,’ says Paulo, and picks up the remote control from where it sits on a shelf beneath the giant screen, ‘we might as well find out the worst.’
‘No! Oh, my God, what if you short it?’
She leaps to her feet. Tries to snatch the remote from his hand. Paulo laughs and holds it out of reach. He’s enjoying this, she thinks. The bastard. Most fun he’s had all month.
‘If I short it now, it’s already shorted. Look. It doesn’t look like the water got above the arms of the chairs, and the sockets are way above that level. And the screens. Server looks pretty fucked, but you can’t have everything.’
‘But … ’ she begins.
‘We may as well find out,’ he says, and presses the On button on the remote. ‘Might as well know what you’re … ’
The screen springs to life.
A video. A woman’s face, close up, blown up to the size of a pony. A pulp of cuts and bruises. The expression dulled, hopeless, unmoving. Tears long dried on broken skin. The face moves jerkily back and forth, back and forth across the screen. Slides across some shiny surface, wet with blood.
Mercedes feels her legs give way beneath her.
It’s Donatella.