by Koko Brown
Lonán’s face filled with colour. “Yeah, sure. Just come over when you’re ready.”
She smiled. “Give me five minutes.”
Lonán nodded abruptly turning on his heel and partly dragging his daughter back to their home. He called the agency back and set himself upstairs where he wouldn’t be disturbed by either Saoirse or Rae. As she promised, Rae knocked and swept in, looking a lot fresher than she had a moment ago.
“Hello! So what are we doing for this hour?”
Saoirse took Rae’s hand. “We’re going to my room and we’re going to read and draw and colour.”
“Sounds perfect. Shall we make ourselves a snack first?”
Lonán could have kissed her for such thoughtfulness. “Yeah, please, there’s bread and meat and cheese in the fridge. Go for it.”
“Do you want something as well? What’s your tipple?”
“Anything that’s in my kitchen I’ll eat. I really need to start.”
She sent him a thumbs-up and gently eased Saoirse into the kitchen. Lonán took the stairs two at a time to gather his things and fit his headset, as it would allow him to transcribe at the same time as listen to the conference.
He dialled in and announced himself as “translator” only.
“Good morning,” a man announced. “I’m Alan Mcconnall, from Mcconnall & Partners. I’m in attendance with my client Wen Shu and his mother Lili. Also in attendance is my assistant Caroline Donaldson.”
Lonán translated his introduction and Wen said, “A lot of people want to talk to me.”
Alan laughed once Lonán translated. “Yes, a lot of people do want to talk to you. What we need to do now is plan what we do from here.”
“I want to go home,” Wen said, sounding tired.
“This is home now,” his mother whispered, but the volume was sufficient for Lonán to hear. He didn’t translate what she said, but made a clear note. “We have to stay here for the people who brought us to pay for what they did.”
Alan cleared his throat. “Exactly. Now what I can do is make an application for you to stay temporarily, on an asylum basis. There is evidence that you were trafficked into the country. A police officer brought you to the hospital and took you to the safe house.”
“He’s my friend,” Wen announced.
“He certainly thinks highly of you to ask me to help you.”
“I’m not sure you can.” Wen sighed. “It was a very bad man who hurt me.”
Lonán began to feel very uncomfortable with the nature of the conversation.
Alan persevered. “Can you tell me what happened?”
The boy described his travels from his home in China to Germany. He only knew it was Germany because his mother told him that’s where they had landed. Wen remembered that they landed in Hamburg. Then they piled into a truck. He told them how cold it was, how pained his body became cramped with the other people in there who smelled rotten and coughed. There was nowhere for them to go to the toilet. They had to hold it or go to the far corner to void themselves.
Lonán became more and more angry with the mother. Why drag your child across continents, just to hand him to a strange man to abuse him? He was safe at home, you stupid bitch, he wanted to scream.
Saoirse was at home. She wasn’t safe…
Bile filled his throat and he swallowed it down as soon as Alan called his attention. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Can you repeat it, Wen?”
“The lady with the big hair greeted us.”
“What do you mean by big hair?” There was silence on the line. “For the purposes of the conference call, Wen is making the shape of an afro…spirals…”
“Twists,” Lonán translated, his tone cold.
“Oh, yes, I see. Do you remember anything else about her?”
“She has a diamond underneath her lip.”
“And what colour was she?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” the boy said, his voice hesitant. “She had big hair. She was very tall. Almost as tall as the bad man.”
“You would remember her if you saw her again?” Alan pressed.
“Yes. She helped me,” Wen said in earnest. “The bad man wanted to take me with him and the lady with the big hair said I needed to stay in the group. They fought. He put his hand around her throat. Then he put me in the car. He drove me somewhere far. I don’t know how long the drive was, it was so long. I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was screaming at me.”
“What was he saying.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t understand. He was pointing here. And saying ‘girl’.”
“Girl?” Alan questioned.
“I don’t know, but he hit me. Here.”
“Again, for the tape, Wen is pointing to his chest. Now his ribs. And his thighs.”
Lonán rubbed his face.
“The bad man undid his belt and went to hit me with it. The lady with the big hair stopped him. They fought. He was so strong, I thought he killed her and he’d kill me, too. There was a bang. And the bad man stopped moving. The lady with the big hair started crying. She called someone. Then she sat by the bad man and did something. I think she cut something from him and she threw it away. She waited for her friend, but she didn’t talk to me, even though she did before.”
“She spoke to you?” Alan demanded. “In your language?”
“Yes. She didn’t this time. She just sat and didn’t say anything. Until the policeman came. He took me to hospital. Mama, I ache. I need my medicine now.”
“Okay, we’ll take a break. Reconvene in fifteen minutes.”
Lonán ripped off the headset and flew down the stairs. He found Rae in the kitchen standing behind Saoirse as they made sandwiches together, Saoirse standing on a stool to cut up pickles. He grabbed Rae by the bicep and snapped at his daughter. “Stay there.”
“The hell are you doing?” Rae’s voice rose to a squeak.
He dragged her into his study and slammed the door closed behind them. “Dada, what are you doing?” Saoirse cried.
“Quiet!” he bellowed. “You, what the fuck are you doing here?”
Her eyes widened and she struggled out of his grip. “What are you talking about? Why are you manhandling me, when I’m doing you a favour?”
“I know, I know there is something wrong with you. You turn up in the middle of the night, there’s all this stuff in the papers, you are living in the house of the copper who’s running the trafficking operation. And now, just now, I have a conference with a kid who described you to a T, before you changed your hair. But you can’t change…”
Looking at her closely, he realised that the stud in her lip was gone. Not even the scar of a permanent piercing.
“What can’t I change?” she asked, her eyes strangely vacant.
He hooked a finger in the scarf around her neck and pulled. Livid purple bruising marred her skin. Lady with the big hair.
“What are you involved with?” he whispered, backing away from her.
She straightened the scarf and said, “Bad boyfriend. I’m hiding out.”
“Nah, the coincidence… Coming here in the middle of the night. No police car, no female copper…”
She tilted her head. “You seem to know a lot about it. Why would you?
“Because I have a nine-year-old who was… We went through it, all right, we know how this works. I don’t want a trafficker around my child, I don’t give a fuck what you’ve done to make up for it, I don’t want to know.”
She didn’t stop to defend herself or question his motives or even suggest that he was wrong. She simply edged around him and opened the door.
“Rae-Rae, don’t go!”
“Sorry, Sorceress,” she murmured, stroking a hand over her hair and slipping out of the front door.
“What did you do, Dada?” Saoirse raged. “Why did you make my friend leave?”
“She’s not your friend, darling,” Lonán advised, his breathing harsh and uncontrolled. “She’s not anyone’s friend. Trust
me. It’s for your own good.”
Her face contorted, crumpling as if she was going to cry. The words formed and he heard them before he understood what she growled at him. I hate you. Words that cut him to the core of his being. Her bedroom door slammed, hard enough that the knife rattling on the cutting board in the kitchen clattered to the floor. His timer beeped, reminding him to rejoin the conference call. He quickly finished the unmade sandwich and left the plate outside Saoirse’s room.
Redialling into the conference, he heard the tail end of Alan’s complaint on his timekeeping. “Ah, there you are!”
“Sorry,” he excused himself.
“Wen is ready to continue, I believe?”
Wen agreed, his voice heavy with tiredness. Lonán mentally calculated just how many people he’d had to tell his story to, and winced for how many times he would have to repeat it. For the police to build the case against the traffickers; for immigration officials who would weigh the value and truth of his case; his therapist, if he was permitted one, his solicitor again to take statements, before a judge—all to see if in the end, he and his mother would be shipped back to China on the cheapest flight the UK taxpayers could find.
“So when the policeman came and took you to the hospital, did the lady with big hair come with you?”
“No,” Wen said, his disappointment raw. “I asked the policeman if she was okay and he said she was fine.”
Alan’s voice softened. “And the policeman, what was his name?”
“Xiu, that’s the same as my grandfather.” Admiration ran deep in the boy’s voice. “He wants to help me.”
“Xiu,” Alan repeated, using the same inflection as Wen. “And you would remember the lady with the big hair if you saw her again?”
“Yes. I’m hungry, Mama. Can we eat something?”
“Sorry,” Alan apologised. “Of course. I think that concludes our conference. I think for the sake of confidentiality, we should retain your translating services… We didn’t catch your name?”
“Lonán,” he admitted tightly, his throat raw with holding back the urge to scream and smash everything in his study just to get out of this. He couldn’t believe he’d let his daughter around someone as dangerous as…
Jesus Christ. The information he had, whilst confidential, was now pertinent to a murder. He was protecting his child. Himself. God knew he wanted to never see another police officer again.
But could he stay silent whilst a copper was protecting a woman who had, with all politeness, wormed her way into his daughter’s affections?
He didn’t need the attention. Neither of them did. Time was on his side.
NINE
Atarah paced between the door and the kitchen sink, chanting her mantra, “Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t fucking panic…”
What could she do? He didn’t know the details, just the bare bones of what would in any other situation be some pretty tight detective work. She couldn’t call Xiu, she’d put him in terrible trouble. Perverting the course of justice really stung coppers in the back of the bollocks where you couldn’t get the antiseptic cream.
Fuck, what was she going to do?
She snatched off the useless scarf and threw it into a chair before she braced her arms over the sink.
“What are you going to do?”
The first instinct was to call Xiu and beg him to bring her in. But that would cause him a world of problems that would start with why he was harbouring a criminal and why, moreover, did he have a sexual relationship with her? The trouble he would face if she pushed him would be immense. Better he would find a path without her interference.
What path, though…
“What are you doing?” she demanded again, her words directed to her reflection in the window above the kitchen sink.
A knock at the door jolted her. Hesitantly, she asked, “Who is it?”
“It’s Saoirse.”
Holy shit. She loped to the door and threw it open. Still with an apron around her waist that they had folded carefully up to make it fit her, Saoirse gazed up at her, with the sort of admiration that made Atarah feel sick with guilt.
Child, I am not the Messiah.
“Why did my dada grab you like that?” she demanded.
“And I bet he doesn’t know you’re here,” Atarah realised with a sigh. She held out a hand to the girl and she took it with such earnestness, it cut into Atarah’s heart. Pulling her inside, she left the door ajar, and bent to her level. “You need to go home.”
“Why did my dada hurt you? Men aren’t supposed to do that to girls, ever. He knows this. My therapist told him.”
Fucking hell. “I wasn’t telling the truth about something and he’s upset with me.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell the truth?”
Child’s logic. “Because I didn’t want to get anyone else into trouble. It’s my mistake, your father was right to tell me off.”
“He shouldn’t have…”
“I know,” she agreed softly. “But it’s done. I’m fine.”
Saoirse’s gaze followed to her bare neck. “Did he do that? My dada?”
“Oh God, no! He met me the same time you did!” Atarah grabbed the scarf and covered up her purple and browning green bruises. “Trust me, he hasn’t put a finger on me.”
“Today he did,” Saoirse observed. “What happened to you?”
Atarah swallowed. “I can’t tell you. It’s a bit much for someone your age.”
“You should talk to someone,” she said, her mouth pursing into a straight line. “Then you won’t have to lie to anyone.”
“It’s really not your father’s concern,” Atarah assured her. “And he will be so cross when you tell him you came here.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t tell him,” the girl offered.
“I don’t think you should,” Atarah suggested.
The girl’s eyes filled with tears.
“Dada is keeping me all to himself because I let bad things happen to me. And I don’t want to be by myself. I want friends. I want to go back to school.”
Atarah kneeled in front of her, so the girl had the height advantage. “Listen to me. Your dad wants to protect you. He probably feels guilty he wasn’t able to before. I’m sure if you talk to him, he’ll understand. But you have to talk to him. How will he know? You just said I should talk to someone. That wisdom goes both ways.”
“See?” she wailed. “You should be my friend if you think I have wisdom!”
Atarah opened her arms out to allow the girl to choose if she wanted the embrace or not. She didn’t hesitate to hug Atarah in return. “Don’t disappear.” Saoirse begged. “I need you as a friend.”
“Okay, well, I’m just across the road. But let your dad know where you are. And if he says yes…”
“He won’t until you tell him the truth.” Saoirse pulled back and wiped her eyes with the apron. “If you do, then it’ll be okay.”
Oh lord. Poor girl had no idea.
“Sure. Come on. I’ll walk you back.”
Saoirse caught Atarah’s hand as they took the short trip back to her cottage. The show of affection made Atarah’s heart swell. That she had such a connection with a girl she barely knew. Or maybe that the girl had a very good idea of what Atarah had experienced, enough to empathise to the deepest, most natural level, made her even sadder. She would have no compulsion in shooting the man who hurt Saoirse square in the forehead.
“Here we go,” Atarah said, releasing Saoirse’s hand and stuffing them into her pockets.
“You could come in and talk to Dada now,” she offered. “He’s probably calmed down now.”
Atarah resisted the urge to snort. “I doubt it. Nice try, though. I’ll see you later, sweet pea.”
“Bye-bye, Rae.”
She made her way back to the cottage after Saoirse squeezed through the door and closed it behind her.
No, there was no real hope for telling the truth. Unless she wanted to cause a whole world of trouble fo
r Xiu.
TEN
“Ma’am, can I talk to you?”
Chambers whipped around and raked him with an irritable gaze. “What did you do with DC Rupert?”
Xiu jerked a thumb behind him. “He’s at the safe house.”
“Without a translator? That’s the point of you being there. We save costs on translation.”
Xiu took a deep breath. “I’m somewhat compromised.”
“Somewhat?”
“My source…the one who’s been tipping us off about the people coming in.”
“Tipping you, yes,” Chambers emphasised. She never liked admitting she’d had help with anything, let alone a scummy slag had helped her. She really was anti-women.
“She’s in my safe house. My personal one.”
“What the fuckety-fucking hell?”
Xiu placed a finger over his lips. “She said there are moles in this station. Information keeps getting back to the others. She can’t trust anyone here.”
Chambers glared at him. “Except for you, right?”
“Except me, yes. She’s got direct access to Gael and Sybilla. She can nail them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She’s got the phone of your dead bloke.”
Chambers’ jaw dropped and Xiu lifted both hands in prayer, begging her to let him continue. “But she needs protection.”
“I need a number. Xiu, every bit of this is contrary to procedure—you have to give me something.” Most unusually, she laid a hand on his arm. “You have to trust me. Or you’ll put yourself and your source in so much trouble.”
Xiu hesitated. “I need to be sure. Let me get a statement from her and I’ll set out the case against Gael and Sybilla. Please, ma’am.”
Chambers sighed. “If I can’t convince you further, I really am torn between arresting you and letting you deal with this.”
Xiu pressed his fists into his eyes. “Look, I told you I have to deal with this. My source is the last link to bringing down these people. If I bring her in, she will die, no two ways about it.”
Chambers looked away. “Fuck’s sake. All right. But I want names of those moles. I want to plug those leaks. Understood.”
