by D J Harrison
‘It’s too horrible, I can’t tell anyone.’
‘What about Chris, surely you can tell him, then?’
Panic shows on her face, her hand grips the table tightly. ‘No,’ she gasps, ‘not Chris, especially not Chris. If he knew then he would send me home. He’d never look at me ever again. It would be over between us.’
I watch her as she rocks backwards and forwards in her chair, head down, groaning and wailing as if in pain. After a few minutes of this she looks up at me, her face streaked by tears.
‘I told you lies.’ Her sobbing begins again. ‘I told Chris lies, it’s all so very bad. I’m a horrible person, I’ve been doing such horrible things.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ I say. ‘I know you, Lottie. You wouldn’t hurt Chris, I know you wouldn’t.’
‘No, that’s true, but if Chris knew who I really was, he’d hate me.’
She looks at me and meets my eyes. ‘The way I told you, how I met Chris, that wasn’t true.’
‘You said that you met on the internet, then he came over to meet you in person,’ I say.
‘We agreed to tell people that, Chris said it sounded better.’
‘So what really happened?’
‘Chris came to Odessa on holiday. A special sort of holiday where foreign men meet Ukrainian girls. That’s how we met.’
‘So it was a sort of dating agency. What’s wrong with that?’
‘That’s what Chris believes. He thinks he met a normal girl, that we fell in love. That I was so in love with him right from the start that I stayed with him and made love with him. That it was special.’
‘And wasn’t it?’
‘No. I worked at that hotel, meeting foreign men, having sex with them. That was my job. I’d already met hundreds of men like Chris, he wasn’t even the first one I’d had sex with that day.’
‘But he was special, Lottie. He married you,’ I say.
‘You don’t understand, Jenny. I’d do anything to get away from Ukraine, to get a foreign husband. If Chris knew, he’d never forgive me. He’d never trust me.’
‘And can he trust you, Lottie?’
‘Of course he can. I love him. I’d never hurt him, I’d never let him down.’
‘Then he need never know. Although I’ve a feeling he must know a lot more than you think. Why are you telling me all this?’
‘It’s Kat. She worked at the same place as me, she tried to do the same, find a nice Englishman. Then she said she’d got a job in England through an agency, she was very happy for it. A good job, secretarial work, good wages, so she could easily send good money back to our family in Odessa. But now she’s disappeared. I think she’s in really bad trouble.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Seventeen, same as me of course. Here, I have a photo, look.’ She shows me a stunningly beautiful girl with short blond hair who looks much younger than Lottie because of her boyish figure and unflattering plain dress. ‘What’s her full name?’ I ask.
‘Ekaterina,’ Lottie replies. ‘Ekaterina Federenco.’
‘Write it down for me, please, also her date of birth and her address.’
As she writes slowly and neatly, she asks ‘Why are you wanting this, Jenny, what are you doing?’
‘I don’t know yet, Lottie, I need to start somewhere if I’m going to help you find your sister. I have a friend in the government, you met Alex didn’t you? He might be able to help, you know, pass on the information to the right people maybe. We’ll try to find something out. Can you let me have the name of the agency?’
‘I’ll ask my mother if she knows, I think they were Bulgarian, Kat went by boat to Varna when she left. What do you think has happened to her, Jenny?’
‘I really don’t know, Lottie. There are some bad people that I’ve come across who are doing this kind of thing, bringing in young girls to this country and forcing them to do very unpleasant things. I imagine that’s how they do it, pretend to have good jobs for them then transport them illegally into this country. Once they are here they’re at the mercy of the men who brought them. I hope Ekaterina isn’t one of the girls I’m talking about.’
‘But what can you do?’ Lottie looks sad and worried, but not shocked by my reading of the situation.
‘I don’t know what I can do, all I know is that it’s happening right here in Manchester and I’m going to try to stop it.’
‘I’ll help,’ Lottie says. ‘Tell me what to do.’
‘The men involved are very dangerous, if you help there’s a chance that you and your family in Odessa could be put in danger. You need them to be very careful if they start asking questions about the men who took Ekaterina. We need to find out how they operate over in Ukraine, though.’
‘We’ll do anything if it will help Kat.’
‘Then get them to find details of these Bulgarians, the name of their organisation, telephone numbers, addresses, the people who work there. As much information as they can, but please tell them to be discreet. They might be putting themselves at risk.’
‘Anything else?’ Lottie asks.
‘Yes, I need your Chris to build another one of his special trackers.’
58
Alex is sitting cross-legged on the carpet, supporting me with a strong hand on my lower back. I can feel the tip of his penis resting at the entrance to my vagina as I sit astride his warm nakedness. He holds me gently in position, his other hand soft between my breasts. I want to feel more of him, I need to impale myself completely. As I shift my lower body to bring him further inside me, he adjusts our position to prevent it.
‘Keep still,’ he instructs in a low voice ‘Feel into how this is. Breathe in down your front. Follow your breath down your body, enjoy the sensations it brings then let them travel up your back and through the top of your head. Be still. Only breathe. See how that is, how it feels.’
He places my hand over his heart and looks deep into my eyes. I obey. I visualise my breath, it is flowing like water down my front, it suffuses my genitals with warm desire. I can feel myself expanding, opening. Then the tingling passes up my spine and into my head. Each breath is a nourishing pleasure.
The feelings in my groin are getting stronger. Alex remains perfectly still apart from the rise and fall of his chest under my hand. His penis is barely touching me, yet I am getting those beautifully familiar ripples of pleasure. I concentrate on them, holding on to them, urging them to intensify.
‘Breathe,’ Alex whispers. ‘Let the energy flow into you and then away again. Let go. Relax. Don’t try to control what you feel, let it be how it is.’
I’m trying to understand what he’s telling me to do but I really do need him to fuck me properly now. He’s got me going, now I want him to get on with the job. I’m so desperate for him, a few deep thrusts is all it’s going to take and I’ll be there. I manage to get more of him inside me by slowly moving my hips. I feel the beginnings of a more satisfactory fullness as I manoeuvre myself.
‘Breathe,’ Alex repeats. ‘Breathe deeply and fully. Touch the roof of your mouth with your tongue, keep it there. Relax.’
As he speaks, he draws me towards him slightly and enters me very slowly. I gasp, give out little moans of pleasure, see Alex’s calm face. I breathe in deeply, then out completely. I feel like my breath is sucking his cock inside me, I can feel it sliding deeper with every breath. I breathe in, hold the feeling, breathe out and release it.
He’s moving us both, rocking slightly now. I try not to tense into orgasm, and instead continue to enjoy my blissful breathing. It’s getting more difficult to breathe away the pleasure as it suffuses my whole body. I want to grab it and hold it. I want it to concentrate and intensify. My head feels as if it might explode, I’m tempted to stop breathing altogether and let it.
We gaze at each other, I hold his eyes, watch his ecstasy, feel my own.
Then they start. Unstoppable waves coming from deep inside my belly, a white heat that builds until I can no longer breathe
it away. My head can’t contain it any more, I convulse and scream and rejoice. Still they come, coursing through all of me until I try to catch them, hold them still, make them stay. Then the waves dissipate, lap gently until the waters still completely and I collapse, shuddering with tears, into Alex’s arms, wrapping myself around him.
Alex takes me gently over to the bed, places me on the edge, penetrates me fully and begins long, slow gentle thrusting. It’s what I’ve been longing for, he fills me with searing pleasure, brings me crashing into spasms of release. As I lie back, spent and glowing, he withdraws and stands over me, both his hands resting on my thighs and his penis above my belly.
I see him draw in a deep breath then the tip of his cock begins to twitch. A long stream of ejaculate squirts past my head, then several more in quick succession. The whole length of my body is striped by warm pearlescent liquid by the time his unaided cock quietens.
Alex slides onto the bed and we lie together, entwined in the sticky mess.
59
The entrance to Trafford Trailers is almost opposite the huge Unilever complex on Ashburton Road that most of the lads refer to as the Typhoo. The gatehouse is a modest affair, sitting in the middle of two red and white striped barriers. For good measure at night, the black steel gates are drawn across and padlocked. Ian Telfer, GOD Security’s replacement for the sadly departed Alan, clumsily unfastens the chains and allows me entry.
It’s not often I experience the quiet tedium of being a security guard. Three-thirty in the morning is a challenge to anybody’s senses. To be expected to stay alert and capable in the early hours is probably too much to ask, even of men who are alert and capable normally. Most of my guys, bless them, are neither at any time of the day or night. Ian is pleasant enough, red haired, tall, rangy and able to brew a cup of tea without scalding himself too severely. He has a rather stale odour, a state common to workers who work long hours and bathe infrequently. Being cooped up in this stuffy cabin with him on a tepid summer night isn’t high on my bucket list.
‘They said it’s tonight, boss,’ he repeats as if I’m holding him to account for them keeping me waiting.
‘When you say they who exactly are they?’
‘Don’t know. I just get the word from the manager. He says, ”they’re on for tonight”, or ”they’re coming tonight, watch out for them”.
‘And these aren’t the same people who did for Alan?’
‘No, course not. Alan was helping this gang, just like I do now.’
‘So that was another lot, the ones who stole the trailer and killed Alan?’
Ian shrugs. ‘Must have been.’
‘You don’t know anything about them?’
‘Not me.’
‘So who are these people then, the ones bringing in the girls?’
‘No idea. All I do is let them in and keep my head down. I’m not sure telling you about tonight is a good idea. We could all get into big trouble.’
‘Yes, but you let them in, don’t you, you must see who they are?’
‘Only the drivers and they don’t say much on account of them being foreign.’
‘Where are they from?’
‘Europe, at least the truck is, I’ve seen BL and PL plates on them, that’s Bulgaria and Poland. My mate once went on a holiday to Bulgaria, said it was a terrible long way away, on the plane for hours and hours and when he got there he said it wasn’t a patch on Greece, sort of dull he said, nobody doing anything much, bland I think he described the place.’
‘If they’ve driven all the way from Bulgaria, we’ll have to expect them to be a little flexible on time.’
‘Talk of the devil…’ Ian points out headlights in the distance. ‘I think that’s the van now, the truck won’t be far behind.’
He saunters out of the gatehouse and fiddles with the lock. Two headlights envelop him with brightness as he struggles to pull the gates apart. I sit in the shadows hidden by the high counter, hoping nobody decides they need to come in here. The twelve-seater passes noisily by. Two men sitting in the front, nobody that I recognise. I’m surprised at how disappointed I am about this. I must have expected a nice neat package, all wrapped up, more than I realised.
Almost as soon as the van disappears behind the maintenance building, the lorry turns up. The driver is perched high in his Scania unit, hauling a long curtain-side semi-trailer in his wake. If he bothers to look down he could see me sitting here. Once the truck’s back end clears the gatehouse I make my move. Taking care to avoid being caught in his mirrors I follow in a crouching run. Lying flat on the greasy tarmac underneath a parked trailer, I watch as an electric forklift is used to remove one pallet of shrink-wrapped goods from the curtain-sider.
One man clambers onto the deck, a female appears tottering on the edge, uncertain how to get off. The forklift returns with an empty pallet and offers this as a platform. As she steps unsteadily out of the shadows, I can see she is young, late teens maybe, dressed in a tiny skirt and short sleeved top. She is clutching a sports bag. Voices are raised, male and female, girls are being ushered off the truck, lowered to the ground and directed into the waiting mini bus.
One girl is standing by the truck shouting, refusing to move. A man grabs her roughly and tries to push her towards the van but she resists, kicks out with her foot, screaming loudly. A second man runs over, begins punching the girl in the face. He throws her to the ground and kicks her viciously. I’m feeling the sickening blows in my own stomach and I half rise, desperate to intervene, to put a stop to the horrible cruelty. Then I remember my ear being cut, my overwhelming sense of helplessness and I duck back into the shadows. Her screams turn to moans, he keeps lashing out at her with his foot, even when she goes silent and is lying still. The two men half drag, half carry her to the mini bus and throw her inside. The other girls’ voices diminish in volume, the doors are slammed shut and I am left shaking with frustration at my own powerlessness to intervene and help.
I wait while the two remaining men de-couple the trailer unit and leave it parked in a row of identical ones. I make sure the lorry and the men are long gone before I venture out of my hiding place and with unsteady hands attach the device that Chris supplied to the trailer with the secret compartment.
60
‘They could be gay.’
Emma laughs at my suggestion. The office atmosphere is becoming lighter every day now as the acquisition proceeds. I’ve had to take Emma into my confidence, she has been heavily engaged in feeding information to Security Group’s accountants, but her natural exuberance remains undiminished. She is the one element of this business that I will miss.
‘Then they could try with a man, it’s the same result.’ Emma twists her face in distaste. ‘Either way it’s a sure giveaway.’
‘Are you sure what the police procedures are?’ I ask.
‘Yes, Ben says they’ve been tested in the courts and everything. It was all to do with some peace protestors or green activists or something similar. The undercover policeman was having a relationship with a woman in the camp, even though he was already married and had children.’
’And you’re saying that the police condone that sort of thing?’
‘Encourage it,’ Emma says with disgust. ‘I’m not letting them send Ben on undercover work.’
‘But surely it’s a matter for the individual. Your Ben wouldn’t get up to anything like that.’
‘But it’s like I already said, they test you to find out if you are a policeman, if you don’t have sex then you’re suspicious, I mean it stands to reason doesn’t it?’
‘I thought you said the police allowed sex for undercover officers?’
‘Yes, that’s my point, Ben said in the case he’s talking about, the undercover cop spent four years getting the activists’ trust. When he testified in court they were really pissed off and tried to get his evidence thrown out on the basis that he was having an affair with one of the main women. The judge said it was perfectly reasonable, he woul
d wouldn’t he, being a man. I bet he wished he could do it.’
‘So, it’s legally permissible for an undercover policeman to have sex with a suspect?’
‘Exactly, how awful is that? It’s practically encouraging them to do it.’
‘Does Ben work undercover?’
‘No, don’t be silly. I’m just saying that if he did, then that would be it as far as I’m concerned. He could tell them to stick their lousy job up their smelly bottoms, I’m fed up with him being a policeman anyway. Because of the cuts they’re getting no pay rises, less overtime and no promotions for five years. But at the same time Ben has to suffer they’re spending millions and millions and millions on things like the National Crime Agency that the politicians have dreamed up.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The NCA, I don’t know. Ben says it’s the only way to get promotion, but normal policemen probably won’t get a look in. The adverts he’s seen want specialists like forensic accountants, not policemen at all.’ She looks at me, her eyes widen. ‘That would be a good job for you, Jenny, you know when SG take you over, you could do that sort of thing, I bet you’d be good at it.’
‘Damn right I would,’ I laugh. ‘As long as it involves lots of undercover sex.’ We collapse into fits of giggles, but when I emerge from the laughter, something about our conversation continues to gnaw at my insides.
61
‘How’s your retirement going, Mick?’
The uncertainty that flickers in his eyes tells me more than his words can.
‘Fine thanks, Jenny, life is good.’
‘I was just checking that you were still up for the football parking. It’s the City match on Sunday, we can double the prices.’
Joan waddles into the lounge bearing mugs of tea and a plate piled high with chocolate digestives.
‘He’s driving me mad,’ she says as she delivers the refreshment. ‘Can’t you get him out from under my feet?’
