A Dark and Twisted Tide

by Sharon Bolton

  ‘Where are you?’ Lacey was spinning in the water, the rope cutting like a blade into her neck, trying to locate the source of Nadia’s voice and knowing she was planting cruel and hopeless ideas of rescue in the other woman’s head.

  Sounds of hands slapping hard against water. Then Nadia cried out again, reverting to her own language in her terror. She wasn’t anywhere close. Lacey took hold of the rope again and pulled hard. It held as firm as ever.

  Nadia was screaming now. And that was the sound of someone choking. Wherever Nadia was, she’d been tied up closer to the sewer floor than Lacey and the water had reached her already.

  The screaming and the struggles and the choking went on. Lacey closed her eyes tight and would have given anything to close her ears, too, so that she wouldn’t be able to listen to the sound of another woman drowning. After a few more seconds she realized she didn’t need to. The sound of her own sobbing was masking just about everything else.

  It takes a long time, she learned, for a strong young woman to drown.

  90

  Pari

  PARI STARED OUT across the water. The voice had come from the direction of the furthest bank. ‘Who’s there?’ she called. ‘Who is it?’

  The sound came hissing back towards her, soft and urgent, sibilant. ‘Shhh!’

  Pari rubbed her eyes. Something was making its way towards her. A small craft, without lights. As it grew closer, Pari could see the pale, carved wood of the hull and then the driver, an old woman wearing a black hood and cloak and with only her large, pale face visible. She was struggling with the current. It was almost taking her past, sweeping her away downstream, but she managed to toss the rope and Pari caught it.

  The woman stared up at her. ‘You need to get in,’ she said in Pashto. ‘Quick, there isn’t much time.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Pari was suddenly reluctant to leave the relative security of the barge and climb down into that frail-looking boat. ‘Are you taking me back there?’

  ‘I’m taking you somewhere safe. Where no one can hurt you again, but you have to hurry.’

  ‘Are you the one who sings to us?’ Pari was trying to match the voice she was listening to with the one she remembered coming from below her window. ‘The one who helps us get away?’

  ‘Ai, ai!’ The old lady pointed up-stream. ‘Will you look? They’re coming. Don’t you understand? They’ll throw you in. Me too, if they catch me.’

  Pari followed the woman’s stare. Sure enough, there was a pinprick of light on the water, heading towards them.

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked.

  ‘If you’re not coming, I’m going without you. I daren’t let them catch me.’

  It was the woman’s terror that convinced her. And the light was getting bigger, heading directly towards them. Pari swung both legs over the rail and lowered herself into the boat. At a nod from the old lady, she loosened the rope and pushed hard against the barge.

  The distance between the boat and the pontoon grew quickly and Pari realized the old lady was steering them out to the middle of the channel. ‘Where are we going?’ she demanded. ‘Get to the bank.’

  The woman was looking up-stream. ‘I can’t. That’s the way they’re coming.’

  She was right. The oncoming boat was close to the north bank. They had no choice but to cross the river. Pari turned round, trying to judge how far it was.

  ‘The tide’s taking us,’ her companion said. ‘Can you row?’

  Pari had no idea, but the lights from the approaching boat were getting bigger. She picked up the oars and pulled as hard as she could. Ignoring the pain in her head she did it again. And again.

  She kept pulling. The old lady clung to the tiller, as though sheer force of will could make the engine work harder, but as they moved closer to the centre of the river Pari wasn’t sure how much more she had to give. Each stroke was getting harder. But every time she looked up, the lights on the pursuing boat were closer to the rubbish barge, closer to discovering she’d gone.

  The waves were bouncing over the side of the boat, soaking them both, and too much water was gathering in the bottom, but every stroke took them closer to the opposite bank. Pari carried on rowing, her eyes fixed firmly on the planking of the boat, dreading to see the lights of the pursuing boat almost on top of them.

  ‘The current’s easing off now,’ said the old lady at last. ‘You can probably stop rowing.’

  Pari looked up and round. They were drawing close to the bank. She pulled the oars out of the water and tried to get her breath.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said the old lady. ‘I’m Thessa, by the way. You must be Pari. I’ve seen your name in the books.’

  Pari managed to nod. With a stab of alarm she saw the pursuing boat at the pontoon. It was big, with lots of lights. It wasn’t a boat that seemed to be aiming for stealth. And there seemed to be another, drawing up behind. She watched people climb out and start making their way around the skips. Looking for her.

  As the engine slowed and the face of her driver screwed up in concentration, Pari spun round on her seat. A black gap in the river wall had appeared before them. The river water was pouring into it.

  ‘We can’t go in there.’

  ‘It takes us to a ladder.’ Thessa swung the boat wide and aimed it directly at the outlet. ‘You can climb out.’

  Oblivious to Pari’s whimpered protests, the boat travelled in beneath the arched roof of the sewer and the night became even darker. Pari blinked furiously. A few yards of brickwork on either side was all she could see.

  ‘Your night vision will kick in properly soon,’ said Thessa. ‘Close your eyes for a second or two.’

  Pari closed her eyes for a second. She didn’t make it to two. It’s hard to keep your eyes closed when someone very close is screaming.

  91

  Lacey and Dana

  THE RATS HAD been growing in number. As the water had risen, creeping up the sides of the tunnel, so the eyes had appeared all around Lacey. Eyes that jumped, darted, stabbed at her in the darkness.

  She was on her feet, the water at chest height, struggling to keep her balance, the wound around her neck raw from her attempts to pull free. She had another twenty minutes, she reckoned, before the water covered her completely. The rats knew it too. They knew their time was running out.

  They’d gathered on the ledge, just above her head. Nostrils twitching, tails flying, ears twisting to every new sound, scrambling over each other in a never-ending quest to be close to her, a writhing mass of plump bodies and thick tails. The eyes were the worst though, eyes that never seemed to leave hers.

  One of them sprang, its needle-like claws stabbing her face before it clambered into her hair. More of them coming at her.

  Screaming, thrashing, she dropped into the water to get them off. Water in her throat. Her head banging against the wall. Bites in her scalp. Her hair being pulled. She couldn’t breathe. Something was striking at her head. Someone yelling, threatening.

  Not her voice.

  Lacey struggled to her feet and spat out water. She shook her head like a terrier with a rat in its mouth but no small, cruel creatures clung to her. A short, thin girl with long black hair was standing in the bow of a boat, slamming an oar down hard against the ledge, the wall, even occasionally Lacey’s head, and yelling in a language Lacey didn’t understand. She would have been a terrifying sight, except the rats had gone. She’d scared away the rats.

  ‘She says she hates rats,’ said a voice behind her. ‘It was always her job at home, to scare the rats from out of the back yard. This is Pari, by the way. I’m helping her escape.’

  As though exhausted by the effort, Pari collapsed into the bow of the boat. Thessa’s boat. Thessa herself was at the stern, a black cloak drawn around her head and shoulders. She looked at Lacey in astonishment.

  ‘My darling girl,’ she said. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  Dana sat opposite Christakos and uttered the formalities that woul
d continue the interview. She was conscious of Mark, standing immediately behind her, his hands gripping the back of her chair. She should tell him to sit down, if she fancied wasting her breath.

  ‘There was no sign of Pari on the river,’ she told Christakos. ‘Our officers have just got back.’

  Christakos’s skin had turned several shades paler in the few hours he’d been in custody. ‘She has to be there. We’ve used it before when we’ve had to hide girls for a short time. They’re perfectly safe.’ He sounded as though he were trying to convince himself. ‘Did you look properly?’

  ‘I searched every inch of that bloody barge myself,’ said Mark, before Dana could open her mouth. ‘I found parcel tape in one of the skips that could have been used as a restraint. Other than that, nothing.’

  Christakos dropped his head into his hands.

  ‘Who is it?’ said Dana. ‘Who has taken her?’

  He seemed to shrink in front of her eyes. ‘My sister,’ he said. ‘My sister got to her first.’

  92

  Lacey and Dana

  THESSA WAS GIVING the two women in her charge medical attention. She had insisted on doing so, in spite of the surroundings. She’d given them both fresh water and wrapped a scarf around Lacey’s neck wound. She was helping Pari to escape, she explained. They had to go further into the sewer, to find a ladder that would take them safely to the street. She and Pari had been on their way when they’d heard Lacey screaming.

  According to Thessa, who was well and truly in charge at the moment, there wasn’t room for three of them in the boat, so Lacey would have to swim holding on to the side, and to do that she’d need to be feeling a whole lot fitter than she was. Thessa had produced a flask of something that tasted a little like brandy, only thicker and sweeter, and made them both drink some of it.

  Lacey drank and tried to get her head back together again. The water and the brandy helped. She wasn’t going to drown, not just yet. Her head hurt and her throat felt as though it had been ripped open, but she was going to be OK. The rats had gone. The water was rising, but they were safely out of it – she crouched on the ledge, the other two still in Thessa’s pretty, silly boat.

  A boat that somehow seemed to cast a pale, silvery light around itself. Or maybe that was just the light from the strange, old-fashioned lantern that Thessa had switched on.

  The boat rocked and Lacey’s eyes went to the young woman in the bow. Since her very vocal attack on the rats, Pari hadn’t spoken. She was curled up on the narrow seat and looked as if she was in pain, as well as exhausted. In the dim light, Lacey took a proper look at her. Young, slim, long dark hair, pale eyes.

  Lacey gave one more look around to make sure there were no rats. Then, ‘Thessa,’ she said, ‘was Pari in that building on East Street? What happens in there?’

  ‘We need to go.’ Thessa was reaching for the mooring line, untying it. ‘The water will get too high soon to take the boat any further. Lacey, can you get back into the water, do you think?’

  ‘You said you were helping her escape. How did you know she needed to?’

  ‘She sings to us,’ interrupted Pari. ‘She sings songs from home, so that we know we can trust her, and then she helps us get out. I’ve seen her.’

  Someone else had talked about a woman singing. Nadia. Good God, how could she have forgotten Nadia?

  ‘Lacey, are you OK? Look at me. Focus.’

  Lacey forced herself to look Thessa in the eyes. Nadia was dead. She’d heard her drown. First the cries of terror, then the screaming, the choking and finally the silence.

  ‘Lacey!’

  She couldn’t help Nadia. It might not even be possible to retrieve her body until the tide went out again. In the meantime, Thessa was right. The water was getting very high.

  ‘What’s happening to these women?’ she asked.

  Suddenly Thessa looked terribly tired. Tired and sad. ‘Lacey, I don’t know. All Alex will tell me is that the girls are trying to escape from a terrible life. He helps them.’

  Alex? This was about Alex?

  ‘I hear them crying as I go past in my boat. I hear how sad they are, how frightened. I hear them in pain, like this little one here.’ She turned and smiled at Pari.

  ‘Some of them aren’t just in pain,’ said Lacey. ‘Some of them are dying.’

  Thessa nodded. A big, fat tear wobbled at the corner of her eye and began to roll down her cheek.

  ‘Thessa, who’s doing it?’

  And finally, Thessa’s face collapsed into grief. ‘My brother. I’m so sorry, Lacey, but Alex is killing them.’

  ‘It was about a year ago when the first woman vanished from the clinic,’ said Christakos, as Anderson pulled out on to Lewisham High Street and stepped hard on the accelerator. As they picked up speed, he switched on the blue light. Dana was in the passenger seat. In the back, Mark was cuffed to Christakos.

  Minutes earlier, they’d discovered that Christakos’s sister was no longer at her house in Deptford. Upon hearing the news, Christakos had been able to think of only one place she might be. They were heading for the river. She owned an old Victorian pumping station, he’d explained, which she’d tried to keep secret from him. Whilst impossible for her to access from land, he believed she might be able to use her boat to navigate the sewer system.

  ‘Jamilla Kakar was her name,’ Christakos went on. ‘We were baffled. We said goodnight to her, locked the door of her room, as is customary, and then the next morning she just wasn’t in it. There was no trace of her at all. The bars on the window made climbing out impossible. Her room was still locked. It was like – magic.’

  Dana twisted round in the seat. ‘Did you report her disappearance?’

  Christakos might have taken a blow but he wasn’t all out of arrogance.

  ‘Of course I didn’t, Detective Inspector. Let’s not waste time with point-scoring. My first thought was that it was someone on the staff, but they denied any knowledge and it seemed unlikely somehow. They’ve been with me for many years. We put it down to carelessness. Someone had accidentally left keys around, Jamilla had taken advantage and left. I don’t know whether you will believe this or not, but I hoped that she was all right.’

  Anderson overtook a stationary car, putting them directly in line with an oncoming bus.

  ‘But that wasn’t the end of it?’ Mark wasn’t wearing his seat belt. Neither was Christakos. None of them were. Had she been reckless, agreeing to this high-speed dash to an abandoned building on the riverbank?

  ‘Sadly, it was just the beginning.’ Christakos was speaking directly to Mark now. ‘Not long afterwards, another woman vanished in exactly the same manner, even though we’d changed the locks. I couldn’t put it down to carelessness a second time. Someone had let her out. All the staff pleaded ignorance. I could hardly threaten them with the authorities. Besides, something told me they were telling the truth. I know my sister very well.’

  Traffic, for the most part, was letting them through. They were in Deptford already, not far from the river.

  ‘Excuse me pointing out the obvious,’ said Mark, ‘but from what I understand, your sister is in a wheelchair. How did she manage to make her way round that three-storey house, helping young women escape and smuggling them safely away?’

  ‘You’d be surprised by what Thessa can achieve.’ Christakos looked oddly proud. ‘She never let her disability stand in her way. She was always the strong one. I realized she’d been accessing confidential documents on the computer. I’ve never managed to devise a password that she hasn’t guessed. But she left a trail, of course. I could see that documents had been accessed when I’d been out of the office. Only she could have done that. And she started going out in that boat of hers at all hours. She smuggles keys to them somehow and then takes them away by water.’

  ‘Did you challenge her?’

  Christakos shook his head. ‘She wasn’t comfortable with the clinic, I knew that. If it made her happy to help one or two women leave s
ooner than they might otherwise have done, I was willing to live with that. I wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to keep going anyway.’

  ‘You were willing to let her take these women and drown them?’

  Christakos twisted round to face Mark directly. ‘I had no idea they were coming to harm. It was only just over a week ago, when you found Anya in the Thames, that I realized what was happening.’

  ‘You realized she wasn’t helping them escape at all?’ said Dana gently.

  Christakos shook his head. ‘No. She was killing them.’

  93

  Lacey and Dana

  ‘ALEX IS IN custody.’ Thessa steered the boat through the channel of the sewer. She and Pari were still on board, Lacey was clinging to the stern. They couldn’t risk the engine, with Lacey being so close to the propeller, so Thessa and Pari were using the oars as paddles. Lacey was pushing against the wall to keep them moving, hating every moment of being in the water.

  ‘He was arrested this morning,’ Thessa went on. ‘The staff of the clinic are all at Lewisham police station too, but there are other men involved. The ones who bring the girls here in the first place. He’ll have given them instructions to go back for Pari once it was dark. Alex doesn’t know I own the pumping station, but they could easily decide to look in the sewer.’

  They were back at the fork in the tunnel, but other than a faint gleam in the darkness, Lacey could see nothing of the opening on to the Thames. Thessa turned the boat to follow the right-hand fork. ‘Not much further. On the right-hand side. Nearly there, girls.’

  Lacey looked up at her. In the darkness of the tunnel, Thessa’s eyes looked huge. ‘How long have you known? About Alex?’

  Thessa didn’t break the slow, steady rhythm of paddling. ‘I’ve known about the clinic for a long time. I wasn’t comfortable but I’ve always trusted Alex. He was always the strong one.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything to him?’