by Mark Dawson
She looked down at the table and cursed in Arabic.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Milton said. “He would have killed me.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“No,” Milton said. “Who?”
“He is one of them. The Albanians who run the brothels. I think he is very senior. They will kill you for what you’ve done.”
“No, they won’t,” Milton said. “They have no idea who I am.”
“They had a camera.”
“I took the hard drive. It wouldn’t matter. They won’t be able to find out who I am. And they won’t know where you are, Sarah. Please, try to relax. It’s over. You’re safe now.”
She paused, her fingers tapping against the Formica. “Okay,” she said at last. “What do we have to do now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t go to the police.”
“You don’t need to do anything. I told you: you’re safe here. No one knows where you are.”
“I can’t stay here forever. What do I do next?”
“I’ll help you.”
Anna brought over the drinks and the cake just as the café door opened. The bell tinkled cheerfully and the girl looked up in panic. Milton turned. An elderly man shuffled to the counter with the aid of a stick, took off his flat cap, and ordered a pot of tea.
“Enjoy,” Anna said as she went back to the counter to serve the newcomer.
Milton looked back to the girl. He slid the cake across the table. “Have some,” he said, with no idea if that was the right thing to do. “It’ll make you feel better.”
She took the fork, sliced off a portion and put it in her mouth. Milton waited. She finished the first mouthful and quickly took another. She was hungry.
“My name is John,” he said. Milton saw that her fingernails had been bitten down to the quicks. He tried to think how he could get her to lower her guard. He was going to need her to trust him. “Where are you from?” he asked.
“Syria.”
“Where?”
“Tartus.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A month.”
“You were there the whole time?”
“Yes.”
“The people who ran the house—they brought you into the country?”
“Yes.”
Milton indicated that she should elaborate.
“I came over by boat. They said they would help me. They had factory jobs, they said. They took me to France and then brought me to England. When I got here, they said that I owed them money and that the factory jobs had all gone. I was stupid. I knew what would happen, but I ignored it. They said I would have to work to pay them back. They meant I would have to work in the houses.”
She reached out for the mug and put it to her lips. Milton waited for her to put the mug back down again.
“In the flat?”
“The brothel. They have lots. All around London.”
“Do you know where the others are?”
She shook her head.
“There was a girl in the house,” Milton said. “A black girl. Her name is Nadia.”
“She is from Eritrea.”
“You know her?”
“A little.”
“Where is she now?”
“They moved her yesterday night.”
“Why?” Milton asked.
“They move all the girls. We work at one place for a while, then we go somewhere else. Variety. So the men do not get bored.”
“But you haven’t been moved before.”
“No,” she said. “I haven’t been here long enough. But there is talk. The other girl tonight, the one who ran? Her name is Maryana. She’s worked for them for longer. Months. She said that was her fourth house.”
“Would Maryana know where the other houses are?”
“I expect so. You would have to ask her.”
“Do you know where she might have gone?”
The girl shook her head.
Milton felt a flicker of frustration. He was getting nowhere fast. “Do you know who they are? The people who ran the house?”
“They are Albanian.”
“You said. And their names?”
“The one who was there—” she paused and swallowed “—the one you killed, his name was Drago. He had been with us for a week. The man who normally ran the flat was small and thin, big teeth, like a rat. His name was Ilya. But there had been trouble. A rival gang had threatened to burn down the flat, and Ilya was frightened. Drago was there to make sure the flat was safe. Drago has a brother. A twin brother.”
“And his name?”
“Florin. He came now and again to collect the money. Maryana said there were others, like Ilya, but I never met them. I just met Ilya, Drago and Florin.”
Milton could see that he was unlikely to get anything much more useful out of her. She was too new to the brothel. She didn’t know anything.
“What do I do now?” she said, when she sensed that his questions were at an end.
“I’ll take you to the police.”
“No,” she said, her face losing colour. “I told you. I can’t.”
“Relax—”
“They said the police would just bring us straight back to them again. It’s just like home, in Syria—you can’t trust them. The police are corrupt.” She rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. “The police can be bought.”
Milton understood why she was reluctant. The police in the places that were familiar to her were tools of the regime. They were corrupt, not to be trusted—criminals with a badge. And she had no experience of the police in this country and no reason to think that they would be any different from the authorities at home. It would take time to persuade her otherwise.
“It’s not like Syria,” he said with as much reassurance as he could muster. “It’s different here. They’ll look after you.”
“And then what? I’m not supposed to be here. The police will hand me over to the immigration people and they’ll deport me. And I can’t go back to Syria.”
Milton paused to think. She had a point, but he wondered whether she was being overly pessimistic. He had read in the newspaper that the government was resettling several thousand Syrians who had fled the conflict. Given that she was already in the country and that she had suffered an ordeal, he suspected that would improve her chances. But he was no expert. She would need a lawyer to help her claim asylum, and he doubted that she had the money for that. He would have to help her.
“Okay,” he said. “This is what we’ll do. I’ll get you fixed up with an immigration lawyer. They’ll help you claim asylum, and then you’ll be able to stay—get a proper job, away from the Albanians. But you can’t stay on the streets. They’ll find you.”
“So where do I go? I have no money for a hotel.”
“You can stay with me.”
She looked at him with an expression that looked like disappointment. “And what would you expect in return for that?”
Milton could see what she meant: she thought he was going to ask for sex in return. “No,” he said, raising his hands. “Nothing like that. You don’t have to do anything.”
“Really? I don’t believe you. All men are the same. Nothing in life is free.”
“I’m not interested in that.”
She frowned, and he sensed that he was digging himself into a deeper hole. She thought that his expression of disinterest was a slight.
“That’s not what I meant,” he stumbled. “I’m not handling this very well. I’m offering to help because it’s the right thing to do. I’m making a mess of this, aren’t I?”
She smiled and, with that, her face brightened and he saw how pretty she was. “A little.”
“No strings. I don’t expect anything in return.”
He was conscious that he had lost control of the conversation and now he was blundering through it like a fool.
“Where do you live?”
“Bethnal Green.
Very close. I’ve got a little place.”
“All right. I will come.”
Chapter Twelve
IT WAS ONLY A SHORT DRIVE from Bethnal Green Road to Milton’s flat at Arnold Circus. He parked the car in an empty space, the sodium glow of the streetlamp overhead reflecting off the windscreen. He turned to the girl. She had fallen silent again in the car, and now she showed no signs of being ready to move.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I want to help you.”
“But you don’t know me. I still don’t understand.”
Milton paused, resting his hands on the wheel as he tried to find the words to explain his motives to her. “I used to have a job where I had to do things that I shouldn’t have done. I did it for a long time and I have a lot of things on my conscience. I decided that the only way I could make up for the things that I’ve done was to help people who needed it.”
“Is this your place?”
“Just over there. I have a ground-floor flat. Nothing special, but you’ll be safe there.”
“And no—”
“And nothing. No obligations and no strings. Just somewhere you can stay until you’ve worked out what to do next.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
She opened the door and stepped out.
#
MILTON LED the way across the path to the building. The door to his flat was in a concrete lobby that was often used by the local junkies to shoot up. Milton moved them on whenever he saw them, and he was relieved to see that they were elsewhere tonight. Sarah had followed close behind, and, when he turned to check on her, he saw that she was anxiously looking to the left and right. He was as confident as he could be that they had not been followed, but anxiety on her part was reasonable given what she had experienced.
“Here we are,” Milton said. “Home sweet home.”
He took his key from his pocket and unlocked the door. He opened it, went inside and then stepped aside so that Sarah could follow.
The flat was small. He had one bedroom, a compact sitting room, a kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. Milton made sure to keep it neat and tidy. He always started his day by making his bed, and the discipline of that routine extended to ensuring that the rest of the flat was kept in good order. It was a hangover from his days in the army, but it had remained important to him.
Sarah stood in the small hallway as Milton came inside and locked the door behind him.
“You can hang your coat up there,” he said, pointing to the row of hooks on the wall. There was nothing else on the hooks. Milton had only one coat, and he was wearing it.
She took off her jacket and hung it up.
It didn’t take long to show her around. He started with the lounge, then the kitchen and bathroom. He finished in the bedroom.
“You have just one bedroom?” she said.
“Yes. But you can have it. I’ll sleep in the lounge.”
She didn’t argue. She sat down on the edge of the bed, unzipped her knee-high boots and worked them off.
“You know they will try to find you,” she said.
“They don’t know where we are. You don’t need to worry.”
“And you don’t know them. They are dangerous.” She put a hand to her face and scrubbed her eyes. She was tired. “There was one man,” she said. “A customer. He beat Maryana. Ilya was there, but the man beat him, too. Drago found him. He said they knew where he worked. Drago and Florin, they visited him. They beat him very badly. They took videos of him, after, and showed them to us. ‘We protect you,’ they said. ‘Don’t worry, we look after you.’ They are frightening, John. They know things—find things. You say I am safe here, but how can you know that?”
“Because I know that we weren’t followed. If you stay inside, there’s no way that they could possibly find you here.” Milton wanted to add that he was dangerous, too, and that it would take more than an Albanian thug to worry him, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to make her feel worse for the sake of his own ego.
“Do you want a drink?” he said instead.
“Please. Could I have a coffee?”
He pulled the bedroom door closed and went through into the sitting room. His laptop was on the table and he switched it on. It was an old machine, woefully underspecified by today’s standards, and it always took five minutes to boot properly.
Milton went into the kitchen and made two mugs of coffee, then took them and a packet of biscuits to the bedroom. He knocked on the door and, at her quiet response, went inside.
Milton put one of the mugs and the biscuits on the bedside table. “Here,” he said.
She reached for the mug and put it to her lips. “Thanks.”
“I’m just in the other room,” he said. “Shout if you need me.”
“What are you doing?”
“Just looking through some stuff. You hungry?”
“A little.”
“You like curry?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll cook. We’ll eat in an hour. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
Milton left the door partially ajar and went to the sitting room. The computer was ready. He took the bag of things that he had taken from the brothel and removed the hard drive that had been attached to the security camera. The USB cable was still plugged into the drive. Milton took the free end and plugged it into his laptop. The icon for the hard drive was visible after a moment. Milton clicked on it. The software that powered the device created new folders for every day that the camera was operational. The hard drive had a capacity of half a terabyte, and Milton expected that the software would start to overwrite older files once its capacity was reached. He scrolled down the files for all the available dates; there were two weeks’ worth, more than long enough for yesterday to still be available.
He opened the folder. Two files were inside: they were labelled ‘AM’ and ‘PM.’
He clicked on the file marked ‘AM’ and waited for his computer to open its default video player. He saw a static angle from the wall to the side of the doorway. The view included the cage to the left and a square of light that fell from the lamp on the door to the flat that was opposite the brothel.
The time and date were overlaid atop the image. The player had the standard navigation options; Milton clicked play and then set the footage to scroll through at ten times normal speed.
The door opened for the first time at 12.10 a.m. A man emerged, turned away from the camera before Milton could see much of him, did up his coat, and then headed into the lobby and out of the camera’s line of sight. A customer.
A man appeared from out of the lobby at 12.25 a.m.: a nervous shrew of a man who glimpsed into the camera long enough for Milton to see his face. He knocked on the door, it opened, and he went inside. Thirty minutes passed before the door opened again and the man hurried out. A second customer.
The view was uninterrupted for the next eight hours.
At 8 a.m., the light from the other side of the hall was interrupted by a line of shadow that was caused, Milton guessed, by the door opposite the brothel being opened and closed. Milton guessed that the occupant of flat number one was going to work.
Another two hours passed before the next visitor came into view. Milton slowed the feed to run in real time. It was a man of reasonably large build, with a shaven head and a broad, flat nose. He knocked on the door, waited, then knocked again. He was impatient. He turned his head and looked over into the lens of the camera. He had small mean eyes, brows that protruded a little, and a stern line to his jaw. Milton could see the resemblance immediately between him and the man that he had killed inside the brothel.
Brothers, then.
The door opened, there was a brief conversation, and the man went inside.
Milton found that he was clenching his fists in anticipation.
The man came out again after eight minutes. He was carrying a leather bag in his right han
d. The night’s takings, perhaps? He stepped aside to allow a woman to pass through the door. She was black, much shorter than the man, and very pretty. She stood nervously as a third person came out of the doorway. Milton recognised him at once. It was the man he had killed. All three of them were in shot for twenty seconds. The two men conversed, laughed at a joke, pointed at the girl and laughed again. The men were identical. Milton watched. The twins embraced before the man with the bag reached out for the girl, grabbed her by the arm and led her away.
Milton scrubbed backwards through the footage. He added start and stop points, copied the fragment, pasted it into an email and sent it to himself. His phone chimed to confirm that it had been received.
He went back into the hall and peered into the bedroom. Sarah was still on the bed.
“Can I show you something?”
She looked up. “Of course.”
He took out his phone and opened the clip that he had sent himself. He put the phone down on the bed so that she could see it.
“Can you tell me who these people are?”
She pressed play.
Milton watched her face as she watched. Her expression changed: she became fearful.
“Who are they?”
“That man is Drago.”
“What about the other man?”
“That is Drago’s brother. Florin.”
“And the girl?”
“That is Nadia.”
Chapter Thirteen
MILTON PUT ON HIS COAT and went back into the sitting room. The girl looked settled. She had moved into the sitting room and was sitting on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket that Milton had collected from the bedroom, and was watching junk TV. Milton had cooked a big pot of curry for them both and they had eaten together. Her empty bowl was on the floor by her feet. He stooped down to collect it.
She looked up and saw that he was wearing his jacket. “Where are you going?” she asked, her face betraying a flush of concern.
“I’m going to the shop,” he said. “I need to get some bits and pieces. Do you need anything?”
“Do you have any beer?”
“I don’t drink.”
“Not at all?”
“No. Not for a long time. But it’s fine. Buying you a beer isn’t going to be a problem. What do you want?”
