Joshua nodded his head. He’d been thinking the very same thing. It wouldn’t be in the girl’s interest to talk.
‘What about Saskia? Was she with you?’
‘Saskia? The new girl? Why would she be with me? She clocked off as soon as her shift finished.’ Misty shrugged, praying that her version of the story sounded convincing.
The silence between them lengthened as Joshua tried to process what Misty was telling him. His head was spinning. He felt sick to his stomach.
His brother’s death had floored him. For the first time in his life, Joshua Harper didn’t know what to say, what to feel.
‘Are you okay?’ Misty asked seeing Joshua’s face pale, tears brimming in his eyes.
‘’Course I’m not fucking okay. Vincent just had his throat cut open… He’s fucking dead… ’ Caught off guard by his sudden loss, Joshua had tears streaming down his face now.
Grabbing a tissue from her handbag, Misty passed it to him.
Embarrassed, Joshua wiped his face. Trying to pull himself together.
‘I’m going to shut the club for a while. I need a fucking break from all this shit,’ he said now, his voice solemn.
He’d had enough. The club, the boats. He’d made his fortune.
He was done.
‘Can you sort the girls out for me? Just give them a week’s pay. I’ll get Jonjo and Tyrell to sort everything else out.’
‘’Course,’ Misty said, offering a small smile. ‘Anything I can do to help; you know you’ve only got to ask.’
Joshua appreciated it.
There weren’t a lot of people he trusted in this world, but Misty had proved herself loyal to him to the end. She was a good girl.
‘I’ll get Jonjo to take you home. And thanks, Misty. I know tonight must have been horrific for you, but you did the right thing not involving the police. Calling me first. I’ll make sure that you are looked after for that.’
Joshua got out of the car then. Forlorn, he made his way back over to where Jonjo stood.
Misty sunk back in the chair, her heart pounding inside her chest. Her palms were sticky with perspiration.
Joshua had just bought every word of her story, and why wouldn’t he?
She had no reason to lie to him, did she?
53
It was light now. Morning had arrived.
Peering out from her hood as the rain eased off now, Saskia could see the sun peeping out from between the bare branches of the trees as she made her way back through Battersea Park.
Reaching the gate, she climbed over the black iron railings. Paranoid, she scanned the road before she crossed. Exposed, no longer being able to hide under the blanket of darkness, she quickened her pace, worried that any car that passed her might be Joshua or one of his men from the club.
Misty had told her that she would make things right. That she was going to keep Saskia’s name out of it, but she still wasn’t sure. However, she wanted to trust Misty now. After everything they had all been through she wanted to believe that Misty had meant what she said about this being the way that she could help Lena, by taking all the blame herself.
Even if she did, Saskia wasn’t sure that Joshua Harper would believe her. He might still come looking. She was paranoid now, but she couldn’t help it. Not after everything she had gone through in the last few days.
There was no one around yet. It was still too early. The morning commute would start soon though. She was almost home.
Reaching the front gates of her house, Saskia made her way up the pathway and, turning the key in the lock, she stepped inside. Taking a minute to gather herself, she took a deep breath, then she stepped into the lounge – where Lena was waiting.
The girl was already on her feet. Her eyes alert. Her body guarded.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’ Saskia pulled her hood down. ‘It’s only me. Here, I got it for you… ’
Pulling out Lena’s bag from her jacket, Saskia handed it over. It had been stuffed right at the back of Misty’s wardrobe. Buried under piles of Misty’s shoes and handbags. Saskia, in a hurry to get back to Lena, hadn’t even bothered to check the contents, but whatever was in there, Lena had certainly not wanted anyone to find it.
Now wasn’t the time for questions. Saskia could see that Lena was too fragile. The girl needed a break. She’d been through so much. Saskia was surprised that Lena hadn’t had some kind of breakdown.
She’d cried for an hour solidly when Saskia had first brought her back here a few hours ago.
Saskia didn’t want to push her. Not now. Not when she knew the girl was so fragile. So instead of asking what was inside she took a seat opposite Lena.
The room was silent. Lena sat down then too.
‘How is Roza?’ Saskia asked.
‘She’s good. Sleeping.’
Lena looked irritated. On edge. Now that she had her bag back, Saskia suspected Lena was eager to leave. She couldn’t blame her either.
The further away Lena could go right now, the better.
Reaching down to her own bag, Saskia placed the envelope that she’d tucked down inside on the table between them.
‘I meant what I said when I told you that I want to help you, Lena. It’s not much but, here, I want you to take this.’ Holding out her earnings, Saskia smiled warmly. ‘This is why I was late to meet you last night. I had to work so that I could get you some money. It’s enough to get you home, to your family back in Albania… I want you to have it. Please.’
Saskia had tears in her eyes now.
She wanted Lena so desperately to see that she really cared – for her to believe her when she told her that she wasn’t alone – that Saskia would help her, but she could still see it so clearly in Lena’s eyes.
The doubt.
The mistrust.
It was as if nothing Saskia said or did would make her trust her.
‘I can’t take your money… ’ Lena shook her head.
‘Please, I want you to,’ Saskia insisted. ‘For Roza—’
‘I don’t need it.’
Saskia couldn’t understand.
‘I’m offering you a way home, Lena. The money, it will get you there.’
Reaching down to the bag at her feet, Lena unzipped it and slid it over to Saskia, willing her to take a look inside.
‘I have money of my own.’
‘I don’t understand? Where did you get this?’ Saskia asked, eyeing the bundles of creased euros.
‘It’s mine,’ Lena said now, her voice full of conviction. Then, seeing the suspicious look on Saskia’s face, she felt the need to justify herself. ‘Do you know how often I have prayed for someone to help me and Roza? To get us away from Ramiz. To help me get back to my family? It’s been over a year now since I was taken. Néné and Båbå probably think I am dead. My brother Tariq… I don’t even know if he is alive… ’ Lena’s voice was full of raw emotion. ‘Back at the camp, in France, when Korab did what he did to me… I was on the bed. I did what I used to do with Ramiz. I tried to block out what was happening to me. I play a game in my head. A memory game of the things I can see around me. So that I don’t have to focus on what is actually happening to me.’
Lena sat back down on the chair now. Reaching out her hand to where Roza slept peacefully next to her, she ran her fingers through her auburn curls tenderly, before continuing.
‘He had me pinned down to the bed, and there was a slit in the canvas. At first I was counting the stones in the mud, then I noticed a small mound of mud. It looked like it had been disturbed. I could see a tiny bit of black fabric sticking out… ’
Taking a deep breath, Lena looked like she was back there, then. Reliving the painful memory of what she had endured. Tears blurred her eyes as she spoke.
Remembering.
‘Afterwards, after he’d finished what he did to me, he left me alone for a few minutes to tidy myself up. I kept thinking about the mound of earth. I had an urge to look. Find out what it was. So I dug
at the soil with my hands and pulled out a strap. A strap from a bag. A bag full of Korab’s money. He had been hiding it.’
Lena stared at Saskia now, hoping the girl would understand.
She wasn’t a thief. She wasn’t a terrible person.
She had been desperate. Desperate to get away from Ramiz and Korab. Desperate to save herself and Roza any way she could.
‘I felt like the money was for me. It was the help that I’d been praying for. My chance to finally get away. So I took it and hid it inside Roza’s bag. I figured that, by the time that Korab realised his money was gone, we would have been halfway across the English Channel. Only, the plan changed, and Korab was forced to sail with us, and by the time we reached England Roza was so sick. I took the first chance I could to run, and well, you know the rest… ’
‘But you didn’t take the bag when you ran?’
Lena shook her head, still angry that she’d forgotten something so important.
‘I was in such a hurry to get away before Vincent came back,’ Lena said honestly. ‘I had no intention of meeting you in the cemetery. I only agreed so that you would let me go. So that you wouldn’t raise the alarm. But then when I realised that I needed my bag—’
‘That’s why you went there?’ Saskia said sadly. ‘For your bag?’
She had been silly to think that Lena would trust her. Of course she wouldn’t. Why would she? Everyone this girl had come in contact with had hurt her, or used her. Why would Saskia be any different?
Only she was different. She genuinely wanted to help.
‘I waited for you, and when you didn’t turn up I didn’t know what else to do. If we’d stayed outside any longer, who knows what would have happened. Roza would have frozen… Colin, he said he’d help me. I think he meant it too. If I’d stayed in the bedroom, and not seen… ’
Lena shook her head now, as if trying to shake the haunting images of those poor children from her mind. She couldn’t even finish her sentence.
‘It sounds like we’re both going to be having fresh starts,’ Saskia said, gently now. Reassuring Lena that she was still on her side. ‘Look, I meant what I said about helping you. I want you to believe me. I’m not from this world either. Me and you, Lena, we’re two of the same. The club, Joshua Harper, Vincent. I don’t want to be any part of any of it.’
She looked sadly around the room at her family home.
‘All I wanted was to keep my home, but you know, without my dad here, it’s nothing. Just an empty shell. I’m done with it all. It wasn’t worth this.’
Saskia had tears in her eyes then.
Lena was listening intently, tears in her own eyes too.
She was obviously still frightened of something. Still holding back.
‘I’m sorry about everything that happened to you, Lena. I just wish there was something I could do to prove to you that I just want to help you.’
‘You have helped me already. Don’t you see?’ Lena looked her right in the eye now. Speaking only the truth.
Saskia had helped her.
She believed in her. She had listened. That alone had meant the world to Lena.
‘It has been a whole year since Ramiz kidnapped me. In that time, I have been beaten, berated, worn down to almost nothing. I have had to watch my every word, my every move. He almost broke me. I guess that I stopped believing that there are good people out there. People without motive, people like yourself with only good intentions. Kind people.’ Lena was openly crying now. ‘You have a good heart, Saskia. You had faith in me and for that I’m truly grateful.’
Saskia smiled then warmly.
Glad that somehow she’d made a difference.
‘There is one last thing you could help me with though… ’ Lena asked now.
‘Of course.’ Saskia nodded. ‘Anything. Anything at all.’
‘Can you watch Roza for me?’
‘Of course. I’d love to.’ Saskia beamed.
The fact that Lena was trusting her with her daughter spoke volumes.
Lena stood up then.
‘Before we leave, there is one more thing I need to do.’
54
Squeezing her way in through the bathroom window, Lena stepped down onto the toilet seat, then onto the ground. Her feet landing softly, she trod lightly across the tiled floor towards the door that led out to the bar.
Pushing the door open, she peered out through the gap, scanning the main bar.
Kush was fast asleep, lying in the booth under the bay window, his head thrown back as he snored loudly. She could see Ramiz’s jacket next to him, strewn over the back of one of the bar stools.
He was still here somewhere. Upstairs?
Lena knew what went on here. She’d heard Kush telling Ramiz and Korab all about the girls and the money that they made for him. Of course, that’s where her husband would be.
Lena made her way quietly through the bar, tiptoeing. The pub was silent.
It was almost seven a.m. now; the girls would probably be sleeping. Kush had said that they all worked until the early hours.
Reaching the top of the steps, Lena made her way along the corridor to the one door that was already ajar.
He was there, naked, spread out on the bed. The room was filled with the lingering stale stench of body odour – and something else. Brandy? Sex? Ramiz probably hasn’t even washed since he arrived, Lena thought to herself as she looked over to where her husband lay. Hygiene had never been high on her husband’s agenda.
The girl next to him was naked too. A pair of tiny black knickers lay next to her on the duvet. The girl started to stir now, as if suddenly aware of someone else’s presence in the room. Glancing up at Lena, bewildered, she did a double-take as she saw Lena standing there next to the bed.
Placing her finger on her lips, Lena indicated to the girl to stay quiet. One look at the girl’s battered face, her purple swollen eye – Ramiz’s trademark – and Lena knew that the girl would comply. Her husband had a penchant for violent sex.
The rougher the better, as Lena recalled.
She nodded at the girl to leave.
The stern look on Lena’s face, the coldness in her eyes, told the girl that she didn’t need to be asked twice. Grabbing her clothes from the floor the girl gladly scarpered from the room.
Lena was alone now. Standing at the end of the bed, looking down at her husband.
The monster who had stolen the end of her childhood from her.
The animal who had beaten, raped and humiliated her.
The man who had drugged and almost killed their only daughter.
Here he was, laid out in all his pathetic glory. Drunk and naked. His mouth gaping open; a pool of dribble forming under his chin.
Lena wanted him to see her, to know that she was here. That she wasn’t scared of him anymore. Jabbing her husband’s leg with her fist, she watched as Ramiz gradually opened his eyes.
Finally awake, his initial confusion was replaced by a cruel grin spreading across his face as he realised that his wife had come back to him. Remembering the girl lying next to him in the bed, he smirked.
‘Have you come to join our little party, Lena?’
When he realised that he was alone now, that the girl had gone, he looked back to Lena and sneered.
‘I knew you’d come back eventually. You can’t survive out there without me.’ Not bothering to cover himself he placed his hand over his genitals, touching himself as he spoke – knowing that Lena couldn’t stand the sight of him – enjoying how uncomfortable his lewd act would make his prudish wife feel. The disgust on Lena’s face would only gratify him more. He could feel himself getting hard.
Then he saw the gun.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Ramiz almost laughed now. Pushing himself back on the bed, he stared at Lena in wonderment.
‘You crazy woman!’ Glancing over to his dresser he saw his gun still there on the side.
‘Where did you get that gun?’ Ramiz asked now. Falterin
g. A look of uncertainty crossing his face.
Lena hadn’t just picked up his weapon in a moment of anger; she’d come here armed. Her intent was clear.
Lena didn’t answer him.
Instead she held her arm out straight and aimed Vincent’s gun at Ramiz’s chest.
‘Put it down, Lena. You’re being stupid.’
She saw it then. Just for a fleeting second. Ramiz had composed himself quickly, but the flash of fear in his eyes had definitely been there.
‘You are a coward, Ramiz. You should have accepted your fate. Then none of this would ever have happened. The ancient Kunan law teaches that spilt blood must be met with spilt blood. The Bodis wanted their retribution but you wouldn’t give it to them. Instead, a coward, you ran.’ Lena’s voice sounded alien even to her own ears. Yet, it was full of certainty now. Like she was seeing everything clearly for the very first time; seeing exactly what Ramiz was. In all his naked glory. ‘If being married to you has taught me one thing, it’s that I’m not prepared to spend my life running from my demons.’ Lena spoke now with conviction.
‘Demons?’ Ramiz laughed, shaking his head as he realised that Lena was referring to him. The woman was acting crazy. ‘I have given you everything, Lena. A marriage, a home, a child. It’s you who is the demon. Ungrateful. Insulting. Throwing everything back in my face. You are weak, Lena. Weak and pathetic. Go on, shoot me. I dare you. Shoot me!’
Ramiz was getting angry, aggressive.
He was goading her now. Just as he always did; testing how far he could push her.
This was the real Ramiz. The Ramiz that she knew and hated. He was making it easier for her and he didn’t even realise it. He hadn’t asked her how or where Roza was. She knew that he genuinely didn’t care. Their child was just another means to an end for him. Another pawn in his sick twisted game.
Pressing her finger lightly against the trigger, relishing the cool metal against her skin, her hands trembled, her eyes filled with tears.
Then, she froze; thinking of the image of Colin coming towards her, the bullet tearing through his chest.
The Taken Page 29
