by Holly Seddon
There is no Wi-Fi in the hotel – temporarily, David claims – but there’s not even a bar of phone signal to make calls. Not that Greg has anyone to call. Marianne will be in class and has to have her phone locked away, and he’s using a day of annual leave from work and no one ever calls in on their day off.
He plays an old game he’d forgotten he had downloaded months ago, then gives up as it zaps so much battery. Next time, he will bring a charger. Next time – how easily that idea formed.
He moves across to the velvet window seat and watches the sky change colour. In a far-off field, just skimming the horizon, a speck of a tractor zigzags like a bug across the brown soil.
Finally, the doctor knocks on the door. He didn’t offer Greg his name, but the nurse referred to him as Henry. Henry is older than Greg, wiry grey hair at his temples, bushy eyebrows that seem to grow in all directions. He has the reassuring baritone of an archetypal surgeon. Life is safe in my hands.
‘It was a success,’ his voice rumbles softly, as if delivering news about a loved one. He waits, for applause or dismissal, Greg doesn’t know. The doctor has little beads of blood on his scrubs and when Greg looks closer, his skin is coated with a sheen of sweat.
‘Good,’ Greg says and the doctor nods, then turns on his heel to leave. His big hand shakes as he grips the door handle.
Greg pats down his pocket for his return ticket to London. He watches a sleeping Kenza from the doorway of her room, where she’s being monitored by the nurse – a blonde woman around his age with black rings under her eyes.
‘How long will Kenza need to stay?’ Greg asks the nurse, even though he’s been told before.
‘Four days,’ the nurse says. ‘But she’ll need to take painkillers after that.’
‘And if something goes wrong?’ Greg asks. The doctor and nurse look at each other but say nothing.
Greg hears footsteps behind him and wheels through possible excuses as he turns, expecting a curious porter or cleaner. It’s David Ross. He gives a hollow laugh. ‘Don’t look so jumpy, mate. The skeleton staff is just me, there’s no one else here.’
‘How long will the client stay?’ Greg asks him.
‘She’ll be our guest for a week but she’ll come back for check-ups.’
‘What about food and …’
‘This is a hotel, young Scottie. It’s all part of the service. I trained as a chef back along, I think I can handle a few meals. We’ve even got the dining room set up for when she’s ready.’
‘But what if she still needs …’ Greg starts, wishing he’d not read the NHS webpage about this. Wishing he didn’t know all the things that could go wrong.
‘Trust me,’ David says, pointing to the client. ‘The money this one has, she’s got her own machine ready and waiting at home. She wanted us to do a home visit,’ he laughs, ‘but you know who said no. Too many variables outside of our control that way.’
‘I don’t know who.’
‘You don’t know who is employing you?’ David looks amused.
‘Employing? Twisting my arm up my back more like.’ Greg pauses. ‘It’s not you, is it? The messages?’
David just shakes his head, chuckling softly. ‘I’m not the organ grinder, mate. Just another monkey.’
Greg stares across at the beds. The two women have been covered with fresh bedding, wrapped in paper sheets like gifts. The far bed contains the client, honey blonde hair just visible under the surgical cap, mouth agape as she sleeps. She looks to be in her forties or maybe fifties, it’s hard to tell when someone has enough money. Despite the rigours of surgery, her complexion has the solidity of a paid-for tan, her cheeks unnaturally smooth and round.
Kenza has the complexion of the eighteen-year-old that she is, her skin greyer than before but unlined, untampered with. Swathes of her black hair are held back by a matching surgical cap, which bulges with the weight of it. Her eyelids are perfectly still, her mouth clamped shut. Even in sleep she looks cautious.
‘Right,’ David says, unlocking the door again. ‘Rosie, I’m going to drop Scottie back to the station and then I’ll come and check on you all. Not that it’s my place to say but in the absence of our all powerful overlord, I’d suggest you get Lady Muck back into her own room and spend most of your time in there. She’s paying, after all.’
‘When do I get paid?’ Rosie says, sharply.
‘Take that up with you know who.’
‘Who is you know who?’ Greg asks her, but she just scowls.
*
‘How much are you getting for this?’ David asks as he steers fast into a bend, glancing at Greg in the mirror.
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing nothing or just not money?’
‘Nothing.’ Greg shrugs.
‘You weren’t joking about someone twisting your arm up your back?’
Greg looks across at him. David is wearing that same shit-munching smile he wore earlier. He knows nothing, Greg realises. Nothing at all.
‘Eh?’ David needles. ‘You being bribed then? Been a naughty boy?’
Greg’s too tired for this, too worried about Kenza. Should he really be leaving her? Trusting her care and rehabilitation to this bunch of jokers, stuck out in the middle of nowhere? It’s dark outside already. He’ll be joining the train back to London at commuter time and the idea of an anonymous crowd appeals. To get lost appeals right now. And to get home to his inner sanctum, to cook for his healthy wife, to sleep in a bed that isn’t wrapped in paper.
‘You’re another one like Rosie, then. Interesting,’ David says in a voice loaded with accusation.
‘I don’t know what that means.’
They near the junction back into Godstone; David Ross slows but doesn’t stop, swinging out fast and then stepping on the accelerator as he tops forty then fifty miles an hour through the quiet village. ‘Come on, mate, you saw the state of her.’
‘Does she need—’
‘Drugs, Scottie.’ David laughs with surprise and shakes his head. ‘Not the street kind either. Full-on pharmaceuticals. The kind that could kill a pony.’
‘My name isn’t Scottie, it’s Greg,’ he says finally, as the car squeals to a stop in the station carpark. ‘And I’m not doing this for drugs.’
*
In the evening, Marianne falls asleep next to him on the sofa, her feet curled up underneath her. She looks peaceful, doll-like; whatever the daily stresses and strains beneath her eyelids, they are normal and above board. He’s jealous of her ability to sleep soundly, but why shouldn’t she? She’s a good person, with a clear conscience. She’d never get herself into this kind of ridiculous jam, no matter what was offered.
He wants to wake her. Shake her foot, grip her ankle, climb up her leg and grip onto it, pleading with her to take this whole shitting shambles away from him and fix it. Tell me what to do! He puts his hand on her foot, strokes the skin of it, pulls at one toe. She fidgets but doesn’t wake. How could he even begin, anyway?
He leaves her sleeping and takes his laptop into the kitchen, pours a measure of Christmas whisky and opens up the secret email account.
One new message.
The transition was a success. Here is the location of eight women you will be interested in. We expect another suitable candidate soon or you know what the consequences will be.
He looks through the door at Marianne sleeping on the sofa. Minutes ago the truth was right there, wadded up in his mouth like chewing tobacco, ready to be spat out. But now, the thought is insanity itself. The words, the truth – my God, he would sound like a lunatic.
Hey, Marianne, I delivered a trusting young girl to a backstreet butcher to have her organ sliced out today. Surprise!
And then it hits him. This, today, is far worse than the fake video he was threatened with. Because this isn’t fake. He really did take Kenza to the Bluebell. He really did wait on an unmade hotel bed while an illegal operation took place down the hall.
There’s no explaining that.
/> He imagines Marianne packing a bag, shock and repulsion written across her face. Imagines her voice, the voice he knows better than any other, telling him to stay away from her. Imagines the shape she’d leave if she was hacked out of his life. And now that he’s gone through with this, he’s on their hook even more.
‘They’ – these shadowy figures that operate above him, above Rosie and David and the other ‘monkeys’ as David calls them. What can’t they do? They seem to have access to everything, able to fake videos and take over whole hotels and god knows what else.
They could show Marianne what he did, and he’d lose everything. He’ll have to keep coming up with fresh meat or he’s finished. Everything is finished. How the hell did he end up here?
He writes down the address and details of the eight women of whom ‘they’ have sent details. He thinks about asking, ‘Who is this? How many of you are there?’ but they have no reason to reply and plenty of reasons to turn up the heat under him.
Instead he replies: ‘You’ll get a candidate soon.’
*
This time, he doesn’t turn up himself at the dilapidated old villa in Catford for the ‘rescue’. Instead, he watches the house for a couple of days on his way back from work, bike propped behind him on the wall. When he’s as sure as he can be, he tells Eloise that someone rang in with a tip-off. It’s flagged to the police, along with the names of the pimps that the ‘caller’ provided.
Eight women are found.
‘Well done, Greg,’ Eloise says, patting his shoulder when they hear the women are out. ‘You did good.’
Samantha
Monday, 21 October 2019
‘I can’t. I can’t do that.’
And I can’t. I really cannot. The latest assignment involves extracting a list of items from a private address. Burglary in other words. The private address is in Kensington, in a block of apartments that – as far as I can tell from Google Streetview and luxury property websites – has a concierge and a full suite of security cameras.
There’s no way I can get in and out without being seen, without being arrested. And if I’m arrested, and my fingerprints are taken, my ID will be requested and all this will be for nothing. I have told them this. What they hold over me will disintegrate if they make me go through with it.
They don’t reply at first. I imagine them finding an alternative use for me, though a tiny shard of optimism I still hold hopes that they realise they’ve taken me as far as they can. That they release me from this rollercoaster I’ve been strapped into, let me climb back into my small and comfortable life, and lick my wounds.
Instead, they send a photograph of a woman. She’s a bit older than me or perhaps less pampered. The caption says: Look familiar?
She does. Something around the eyes, the shape of the forehead maybe. I chew my acrylic nails – a supposed barrier to stop me shredding my own fingers – and wrack my brain. I suspect she is someone from my younger days, someone who lived in the same house as Cristina and me or was some part of the chain that brought me here.
We’ve all aged so much that she could be anyone.
‘No,’ I reply. ‘And I really cannot help you anymore.’
Then they send another message. A name, home address and place of work. And I feel like my heart might turn black and stop.
The woman is called Emily Redfern. She lives in a small cottage in Norfolk. She works in a bookshop. And she’s Joe’s biological mother.
You can do this. It’s not impossible. Or this information will be sent to your ‘son’.
I feel faint.
I can do this. It’s not impossible. And now I really do have to.
I knew Emily was out there, of course I did. So did Joe, though we never talk about it and we never knew where she was or if she was well. Whenever I’ve tried to raise it, he shuts me down. ‘You’re my mum,’ he says, emphatically.
I found out more from Paula than Steve, who finds it almost impossible to talk about what happened.
*
Emily left for the last time when Joe was eighteen months old, but she’d come and gone before that. She was ill, in ways they’re better at treating now.
Paula told me that she and Steve had taken Emily to the doctor in a mob-handed effort, strapping her into the car as she stared dead ahead like a statue. Paula stayed in the waiting room and when they reappeared, Steve shook his head in disbelief. The GP said it was the baby blues.
‘It was nothing like the baby blues,’ Paula whispered when she retold it. ‘Some days, she would walk out and leave Joe in the house, hungry and crying, and have no recollection of doing so. Steve would come back from work and find him in his playpen. Or I’d pop in to check on them and find him in his crib.’
My heart broke at the thought.
When Emily was well, she would talk about that other Emily as a monster. But she was never a monster, she just needed help. Repeat visits to the GP led to prescription antidepressants, which numbed her completely. At one stage, Steve’s mother – still alive then – paid for a stay in a private facility. After a week, Emily broke out and walked barefoot to the family home. Joe was terrified when she banged on the window to be let in.
And then, Steve told me, one day she packed her things and told him she was leaving. She didn’t want to be their problem anymore. She would go and leave them here where they would be better off without her.
He tried to find her. Even Jonathan was roped in to tracking her down, trying to use what was then fledgling internet technology. But she was a ghost. True to her word, Emily stayed away. And Steve’s hopes died, replaced by anger that she could leave, and then fear that she could come back and snatch Joe.
For Steve, she was a warning shot. He had tried and failed at the normal route to having a family and a marriage. And it had become so toxic and frightening that he wouldn’t risk it again. Not the usual way.
As soon as I knew about Emily, I was prepared to protect Joe at all costs. Ready to fight for him, to do whatever it took. If Emily had shown up when he was little, with all my instincts still at their peak, I know exactly what I would have done. Over the years such panic seemed unfounded and she faded to a sad shadow in Joe’s background.
Now, in this photograph, she is made flesh. And if she’s working and has a fixed address, if she’s finally stable and well, she could feel ready to come back into his life with just a little prompting. Who could resist?
And if he was sent her details, would he really be able to stifle his curiosity?
More than any of that, the most frightening thing for me is that they are now bringing Joe into this. I can’t let this escalate, I cannot have him tainted.
I’ll do the assignment.
*
‘Are you sure the target isn’t home?’ I message, tugging at my uniform as I approach the moneyed block.
He will be out until late evening.
The flat is on the fourth floor of a mansion block not far from Harrods. Each apartment has its own glass balcony, looking out over the traffic fumes towards Kensington Palace Gardens. This is the London that is bottled and sold to people abroad, a million miles from most people’s realities. I wonder what the man who lives here did to jump that queue.
Before I left this afternoon, I filled a rucksack with cleaning equipment from home. It had to look well used so I didn’t want to buy it fresh. I have a duster poking out of the top of the bag. On the walk from Kensington Station, I called in at Ann Summers and bought a French Maid’s outfit two sizes too big to attempt to negate any raunchiness. I feel ridiculous, the uniform peeking out from under my plainest coat. I probably look ridiculous too, but at least nerves work as part of my disguise.
The concierge is playing a game on his phone when I walk in and he places it screen side down and smiles up at me.
I open my mouth and opt to use an accent I’ve hidden for over twenty years.
‘Is Mr Derbyshire in his apartment?’ I ask.
‘Dr Derbyshire?’ the
man says, with a frown.
‘Yes,’ I nod.
‘I’m teasing,’ the man smiles. ‘I’m sure he gets that all the time. Who shall I say is calling?’
‘Danja,’ I say. ‘From the cleaning company.’
‘I’m pretty sure he went out earlier, but let me call up for you.’
If he is home, I will have to run – he’ll know full well he’s not booked a cleaner today – but thankfully, the phone rings out.
The concierge shakes his head and I start to cry, letting a few fat tears roll down my cheeks.
‘Oh dear,’ he says.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my accent as thick as it was on my very first day in the city. ‘I was supposed to bring the key and I left it at home. It’s my first time for Mr, I mean Dr Derbyshire and I’ll lose my job. What can I do? I can’t go back and get the key or I’ll be late starting, then I’ll be late for the next one too and lose my job.’
The concierge is up and out of his seat before I’ve cuffed my nose and wiped my eyes.
‘Come with me,’ he says, patting his pocket and striding to the lift.
‘What are we—’
‘I need to be quick, I’m only supposed to leave the desk for toilet trips,’ he smiles, punching in the floor number and closing the lift doors after us. As the lift rushes up, he pulls out a master key.
*
The computer is easy, it’s lying on the badly made bed in the master bedroom. I slip it into my rucksack behind the cleaning things. The SIM card is proving harder. No desk drawers to look through. For such an expensive apartment, there’s not a lot in it. In fact, there are indents on the plush lounge carpet where pieces of furniture used to be, marks on the walls where paintings once hung. He’s either in the midst of moving out or selling things off.
