Lacey’s knowledge of foreign affairs was confined to what she caught on the late evening news or read in the weekend papers. ‘I thought things got better when the Taliban left. That there was a new constitution, that women had equal rights.’
Toc shrugged. ‘I think they have improved. But all things are relative. Most women there are still illiterate. Female life expectancy is still the lowest in the world. More women die in pregnancy and childbirth there than almost anywhere else, mainly because so many women marry as children.’
‘I hadn’t realized.’
‘People believe what they feel comfortable believing.’ Toc’s voice had got louder. It always did when she felt strongly about something. ‘I’m not saying the government there isn’t trying to do the right things, but you can’t change society overnight. Most women have no idea of their rights so don’t know how to complain, and in the unlikely event that they do, they’re rarely taken seriously. Half the women in Afghan prisons have been convicted of so-called moral crimes.’
‘And a moral crime is what, exactly? Adultery? Promiscuity?’
Toc gave an incredulous look. ‘I doubt many would dare. More likely running away from an abusive husband or being sexually molested. The women in rural areas suffer the most. They can’t travel outside the home without a male escort. Fewer than half go to school. They’re usually forced to marry very young, often to a man much older.’
Lacey shook her head, slightly in awe. ‘How do you know all this stuff?’
‘I read newspapers. Watch TV. Lot of time to kill in here.’
‘OK, I’m getting the picture,’ said Lacey. ‘So we can expect these women to jump at the chance of a better life?’
‘It can’t be that simple. These women have no money, no passports, half of them can’t read. They’re as innocent as children in the ways of the world. It simply isn’t possible for them to leave Afghanistan without help.’
‘But quite possible that if they were offered help – say passage to a country where they’d be safe, help finding a job and somewhere to live when they get there – then quite a number would be tempted?’
‘Yes,’ Toc agreed. ‘I imagine an awful lot would leap at that. Christ, talk about out of the frying pan.’
A toddler ran close, careering off their table and on down the room. His mother shot past and scooped him up. On her way back to her own table she paused to glare down at Toc, who returned the foul look with a beaming smile.
‘I want to try and find Nadia Safi,’ said Lacey. ‘She could really kickstart the investigation. Any thoughts on how I might do that?’
Toc was leaning back on her chair, looking smug. ‘I’d have thought you were the expert on tracking down young women in London.’ Her smile widened. ‘You spent eight months looking for me, remember? Very nearly found me as well.’
Lacey sat back in her chair and smiled back at Toc. ‘I did, didn’t I?’
54
Pari
THE FIRING WAS getting closer now, the heavy thud of large guns striking the walls around her home, the breaking of glass. She could see daylight beyond. A few more strikes and the wall would be down. She’d be free. Boom, tinkle, tinkle.
Pari woke just in time to hear the splash as something struck the water below her window. She lay still, dreading the nausea that crippled her when she was awake these days.
Had there been singing? That old folk song, just before the thudding had made her dream of gunfire?
There it was again. The soft thud that had seemed so much louder in her dream, followed by the sharp rattle of metal against glass. Then the splashing again. Curiosity getting the better of her, Pari got out of bed.
The room was dark. Only the faintest slivers of moonlight ever found their way inside. She couldn’t hear anything, but something told her that the world around her wasn’t entirely asleep. Somewhere, not very far away, people were awake. Something was happening.
When Pari put her face to the window, the buildings across the creek were almost entirely black. A missile – small, round – was flying up towards her. It hit the wall below and dropped down again.
Standing on a chair, she could see something in the water below. Impossible to see exactly what – just shapes and movement. The missile was flying up again, catching on the partially open window directly below hers. It was a set of keys attached to a ball. Pari watched a small hand reach out and close around the keys.
She stayed where she was until her back started to hurt, then climbed down and sat on the bed, listening and waiting.
Traffic from somewhere quite distant. A siren. Shouting, again very distant. The normal sounds of London. Then a door being softly closed.
No one moved around at night. It didn’t happen. The prison warder – Pari had long stopped thinking of her as anything else – valued her sleep. And that hadn’t been an internal door. Pari climbed up again, leaned out of the window once more and looked down.
Vague shapes. Pale colours against the black of the water. The gleam of skin, the graceful fall of long hair. Then a gentle, rhythmical splash. A boat was moving away from the building. Someone had left.
Pari returned to her bed, lowering her throbbing head carefully. For the first time in many weeks, she felt hope.
Someone had just got out.
Someone was helping them.
55
Lacey
WHAT ON EARTH am I doing? thought Lacey, as she stepped down from the bus. She wasn’t a detective any more, she’d only recently been signed off as fit for duties and there was no way she’d be allowed to take part in undercover work. Plus her credibility in the Met had probably hit rock bottom. Maybe that was it, the need to claw something back. She couldn’t don a wetsuit and dive the Thames, she couldn’t search a five-mile stretch of the south bank, but she might just be in with a shot at finding Nadia Safi.
She took a moment to get her bearings. The Old Kent Road in South London was notorious. There were over a dozen brothels and massage parlours on this section of the street alone, many tucked away below or above fast-food outlets. Catching a glimpse of her reflection in a shop window, she pulled the headscarf a little further around her face. Eyes down, submissive body language: she was a scared young woman in a foreign country.
Arriving back in London after visiting Toc, she’d gone straight to a tanning salon for an all-over bronze look. Before coming out, she’d darkened her hair, avoiding the garish blue-black that would give it away as artificial, settling instead on very dark brown. Her darker skin threw the whites of her eyes and the hazel-blue irises into sharp relief. She’d drawn a fine kohl rim around her eyes and darkened her lips. In the dark of the street and the artificial lights of the buildings, she knew she had a chance of passing for a Pashtun woman.
The first place she went into had a small reception area with whitewashed walls and plastic seats, a dusty plastic palm tree pushed into one corner. On the chipped coffee table were several used plastic cups. Lacey raised her eyes from the floor and met those of the fifty-something white woman behind the counter.
Speak slowly. Lots of pauses, as though searching for the words. She didn’t risk trying to fake an accent.
‘Can you help me, please? I am looking for my sister.’
The woman shook her head and breathed in through her cigarette. Lacey took the photograph of Nadia Safi out of her bag and put it on the counter. ‘Her name is Nadia.’ The woman wasn’t looking at the picture. She was staring at Lacey, her mouth twisted into an amused smile. Knowing that a woman would be more likely to spot hair dye and a fake tan, Lacey reached quickly into her bag again.
‘Please.’ She put the scrap of paper on to the counter and picked up the photograph of Nadia. ‘I have a phone. If you know anyone who might know Nadia, please?’
As Lacey turned to leave, in the glass of the front door she saw the woman screw up the scrap of paper and sweep it on to the floor. You win some, you lose a lot more. She’d done this before, spent months of her l
ife searching London for a young woman who didn’t want to be found. It was like fishing. Scatter enough worms on the water and sooner or later one of them would be taken.
The second place she tried – on the face of it a massage parlour – had an elderly bloke behind reception and two women in the waiting area. From the way they were dressed and made up, Lacey assumed they were workers.
‘Go home, love,’ one of them advised her when, with downcast eyes, she showed them the photograph. ‘This is no place to be out at night.’
Next, a kebab shop. A young Asian man behind the counter. ‘Never seen her,’ he said, in an accent that told Lacey he was British born and London raised. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Kunduz.’ Lacey named a province in the north of Afghanistan, close to the Tajikistan border. ‘She’s my sister,’ she repeated, indicating the photograph.
‘You got papers?’
Lacey flinched, dropped her eyes. ‘I don’t want trouble. I just want to know that she’s well.’
‘How’d you get here?’
She backed away, closer to the door. ‘We travelled together. We were separated at Calais.’
‘You got a place to stay?’ The look in his eyes was becoming acquisitive. Time to move on. Lacey took out the scrap of paper with her phone number, scurried to the counter and left it behind. The door chimed behind her as she stepped out on to the street again.
‘You speak very good English for an Afghan woman.’
‘I went to school.’ Lacey kept her eyes on the dust-strewn floor. ‘I was one of the lucky ones.’
The man leaning against a cheap plastic bar was West Indian, middle-aged and overweight. ‘Do you need a place to stay?’ he asked her. ‘Any money?’
It had been the same everywhere. Either they wanted to recruit her, or they did their best to ignore her.
‘I just want to find my sister.’ Lacey put the card with her phone number down in front of him. He reached out, tried to grab her hand. ‘We’re looking for nice girls here. Do you want a job? Steady work.’
Lacey stepped back, away from the counter. ‘If you think of anyone who might have seen her, please phone me.’
By three o’clock in the morning, she’d had enough. Last time she’d done this, she’d been ten years younger and she’d been looking for someone she cared about. Nadia was just a name, a photograph and a damp memory.
Her phone was ringing. Not her own phone, which was back on the boat. This was the cheap, throw-away mobile she’d bought earlier. Her heart was suddenly beating loud and fast, exhaustion forgotten.
‘Hello?’
‘I know where she is.’
The green illuminated sign advertised EXOTIC GIRLS, the red neon beneath it said PEEP SHOW. More signs, as if the purpose of the establishment weren’t sufficiently clear, advertised pole dancing and striptease. As Lacey approached, three men in business suits, two of them Japanese, the other their British guide, were admitted by the overweight doorman. The voice on the phone had told her to go round the back.
She looked quickly in her bag, to check that the text message she’d sent to her own phone back at the boat had gone through. She’d texted exactly where she was going and why. If anything happened to her, sooner or later her phone would be checked. As insurance policies went, it was hardly fully comprehensive, but it was better than nothing.
The alley she was expected to walk down was very dark. She could barely see the other end of it. She pulled out her phone again and dialled 999.
‘Emergency services.’
‘I just saw a girl being dragged into a strip club on Argyle Street,’ said Lacey. ‘Just off the Old Kent Road. There were three men with her. It looked like she was being forced. I think she needs help.’
Less than a minute later, she was walking down the alley. The average police response time in this part of London at this time of night was fifteen to twenty minutes. In a case of possible abduction, the constables responding would tread cautiously. They wouldn’t go charging into a strip club without back-up. They’d look around, talk to the doorman, wait for reinforcements. It was seventeen minutes past three. She had time.
At the end of the alley, a dark-skinned, dark-eyed man was waiting for her in an open doorway.
‘Where is Nadia?’ said Lacey from several feet away.
‘You need to come inside.’
Fifteen, twenty minutes. Still a big risk.
‘Is she here?’ She’d be expected to be frightened. Frightened would look convincing. A step closer. Glance into the yard behind the door. She was probably looking very convincing right now.
‘I don’t want to go in there.’
‘Up to you. Do you want your sister or not?’
Lacey stepped forward. When she was close enough to reach, the man grasped her shoulder and pushed her inside. The door closed behind them and a bolt was pulled. Shit!
The yard was surrounded by high walls on three sides and a narrow three-storey house on the other. It smelled of Indian food, of stale beer and even staler urine, of bins that hadn’t been emptied in a while. There were lights on in the house. The man pushed her towards the back door.
Filthy kitchen. At least a dozen milk bottles showing varying shades of yellow, curdling milk. A recycling box overflowing with beer cans. A stack of pamphlets in Urdu on the worktop. From somewhere inside the building she could hear the monotonous drone of cheap European pop music. Three more men in the kitchen, two of them white, one Asian.
‘Check her bag,’ snapped the man who’d met her in the alley.
Lacey’s bag was pulled from her shoulder, its contents tipped on to the worktop beside her, but she’d spent enough time with Joesbury to know that, when working undercover, you carried nothing that might identify you. In the bag were her phone, an umbrella, a few cheap items of make-up, a bus ticket and a few coins.
‘Who are you?’
Eyes down. An illegal immigrant would be terrified. The man talking to her, the older of the two white guys, stepped forward and thrust a hand under her chin. ‘I said, what’s your name?’
‘Laila.’
She tried to drop her eyes again. He held fast. Stay calm. Think back to when you did this before.
‘Laila what?’
‘Just Laila. Please, I only want my sister.’ She turned to the man who’d brought her in. ‘You said you knew where she was?’
The other Asian man spoke. ‘Muslim women don’t wander the streets on their own at this time of night. What are you, some sort of whore?’
‘She’s my sister. She doesn’t have anyone else.’
‘Where are you from?’
Lacey looked at the men in front of her. Two of them could easily be from South Asia. She couldn’t panic. There were any number of languages and dialects in that region. They couldn’t possibly know them all.
‘They told me not to say,’ she replied. ‘I don’t want to go back. I just want Nadia.’
‘What if we told you we do know Nadia, and she’s told us she doesn’t have a sister?’ This was the other white guy, the younger of the two, in a brown leather jacket and with a tight woollen cap over his dark hair.
‘If she told you that, she’s trying to protect me. Is she here?’
‘Hold on to her.’
The older white man turned and left the room. At least ten minutes before help would get to her. Eight minutes before she had to get out of here, or risk being taken into custody. Shit, this was not going well.
‘I want to see my sister or I want to leave,’ she told the man who’d brought her in, the one who was now leaning, bouncer style, against the back door. He straightened up, not about to let her through without an argument.
‘Bring her upstairs.’
The boss was back. Two of the others reached out for her.
‘No!’
Lacey was being backed up against the counter. She could brace herself against it, kick out with both legs. With only one bloke she’d have a chance. With four, none at
all.
‘You think I’m alone? I have a friend who will call the police if I’m not out of here in two minutes.’
She was grabbed and pushed forward, out of the kitchen, into a narrow corridor. Oh, what the hell had she done? She was alone, in a strip club that probably doubled as a brothel, the prisoner of four men, and the music was so loud that she wouldn’t hear the sirens and no investigating police officer would hear her.
The stairs they went up were filthy, the carpet old and worn. The light-bulb above them was broken. On the first floor another man was waiting. He opened a door at the far end of the corridor and pushed Lacey in.
The man behind the desk looked to be in his early sixties, with thick, greying hair and a large hooked nose. His eyes were dark brown, his skin suggested he might be mixed race, or very fond of foreign holidays.
The door slammed shut and the noise of the music faded just to the point where it no longer hurt. The arms holding her fell away and she was left in the midst of a circle of unfriendly eyes like a captive animal. She had to hold it together. The police would be here.
‘You have thirty seconds to convince me you’re from Bongo Bongo Land or I’m making plans for you,’ said the man with the hooked nose and the cruel eyes. He glanced at the man behind her in the brown jacket. ‘Know her, Beenie?’
Lacey was turned to face him.
‘No.’ Beenie kept his eyes on her as he shook his head. ‘That one I would remember.’ He let his eyes trail down to her feet and then up again.
‘Could she be one of your lot?’
Beenie screwed up one side of his mouth. ‘Can’t be. No female officer would be allowed round here at night without back-up. And if she had a team with her, they’d be in here by now.’
One of your lot? Beenie was a cop. What the hell had she walked into? One of the men walked to the window and looked outside. If he saw anything to alarm him, he didn’t mention it.
‘So if she isn’t the filth, who the fuck is she?’
‘If you want my best guess, I’d say a PI,’ Beenie replied. ‘Maybe that girl she claims to be looking for has a family after all.’ He turned to the doorman. ‘Have you searched her?’
A Dark and Twisted Tide Page 19
