Dirty Work

by Julia Bell

  Gold Jewellery Man glares at me, but doesn’t say anything, even though he has a big gold watch on his wrist.

  I know it must be daytime, because thin slivers of light shine round the edges of the plasterboard.

  ‘Time for work!’ Fat Burger Man laughs, clapping his hands together.

  Oksana groans and flops back on her bed. Fat Burger Man stares at her but she ignores him, gets back under the covers and closes her eyes.

  ‘Get up!’ He lumbers over to her bed and yanks her by the ankle. ‘I say GET UP!’

  He pulls her on to the floor and kicks her in the stomach so she yells and curls up like a grub. A few seconds later she coughs and throws up her breakfast on to the carpet.

  This seems to make him even more angry. ‘Clean up!’ he says. He bends down and grabs her hair, pulling her upright. ‘Clean up, pig!’

  Lulu and Ekaterina get changed into their nightdresses. I don’t know what to do. Mad Staring Boy has come closer, watching from the doorway and frowning. He catches my eye and puts a finger to his lips and shakes his head. I don’t know what he means, but I quickly look down at the bed and pick at a thread that’s escaping from the mattress.

  Oksana’s crying now. Even though she’s not making a sound. Her cheeks are wet as she bends over to clean the carpet with a cheap scrap of pink toilet paper. My whole body fizzes with nervous energy. I wish I could just bounce about the room like in a computer game, knocking the men out with power punches so Oksana and I can escape. But Fat Burger Man seems to grow bigger every time I look at him.

  I can’t believe the police haven’t found me yet. But if I think about it too much it just makes me depressed. We were in the boot of the car so no one would have seen us, and now we’re in this place that feels like it’s on the other side of the world. I wish I’d left some clues: footprints, a trail of breadcrumbs. Even if they figure out that it was Zergei who took us, he’s dead now, and I can’t imagine what they did to his body. And if they do find him, how are they going to work out where I am from that anyway? I try not to think about this because it makes me feel dizzy and ill, like I’m looking over the edge of a long dark drop.

  The boy comes closer, grabs Fat Burger Man by the elbow and asks him something, his eyebrows knitted together. Fat Burger Man laughs at him and grabs at his crotch and shakes his head. The boy looks embarrassed and shrugs his shoulders.

  ‘Come on! Come on, people!’ Fat Burger Man says thickly, turning round and clapping his hands together like he learned his English from a dance-mix CD.

  I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if he means me too, and I’m not getting changed again just so they can sleaze. He comes over to me like he’s read my thoughts, his smile showing yellow, uneven teeth.

  ‘You are making us much trouble,’ he says, grabbing my chin between his finger and thumb. ‘I deal with you later.’

  I glance at Oksana. She’s putting on make-up, half-heartedly rubbing foundation on her cheeks, all the time watching us out of the corner of her eye.

  ‘OK,’ I say, my heart thumping so fast I think I might faint.

  Then they all traipse out, Fat Burger Man closing and locking the door behind him. I want to tell them all to get lost, but I daren’t. I’m such a stupid coward. I should have jumped off that roof when I had the chance. Mum was right. I am hopeless. If I was clever and brave I wouldn’t be here at all.

  That thought makes me cry all over again, wet little sobs that make me feel even more small and stupid and like I can never sort anything on my own. I lie back on the bed and stare at where the window should be. I can still feel the bruises on my wrists from where Oksana pulled me up off the roof. I know I would have fallen if she hadn’t grabbed me.

  As I think this, the sun must have come out, as wide, bright shafts of sunlight escape round the edges of the plasterboard on to the floor, showing the dirt and dust in forensic detail. They can’t keep it out, I think. And for some reason I find that thought comforting: that even in the dark places, where they try to shut it out, light still shines between the cracks.

  There has to be another way out of here. I lie back on the bed and try to think straight. I need a plan for both of us.

  The tapping is timid, but it still makes me sit up, clutching the thin blanket round my neck. The light has faded to a dull grey and there is the patter of heavy rain on the window outside. Then there’s another tap, louder this time.

  I can’t think who’s bothering to knock. Most of the time they just fling open the door.

  ‘Hello?’

  The door opens and Mad Staring Boy peeps his head through the gap.

  I pull the blanket closer round my neck. I wonder what he wants with me. I push myself away from him, into the wall, knees up to my chest. If he tries to touch me I’ll kick him.

  He shuts the door and creeps towards me, pressing a finger to his lips. ‘Shhhh. They’re downstairs.’ His accent is English, which is unexpected, and suddenly comforting. ‘You’re Hope, right?’

  ‘Ye-es. Who are you?’

  ‘Babalan and Latif, those men downstairs, they’re my cousins.’ He stands at the end of the bed, fiddling with the zipper on his jacket.

  ‘And?’

  ‘My name is Fazil.’ He sticks out his hand awkwardly, like he wants me to shake it. I ignore him so instead he pulls a scrap of newspaper out of his pocket. ‘Is this you?’

  I look at it, my heart sinking. It’s a picture of me from when I was like thirteen, by the pool, smiling and waving at the camera, my hair blowing in strands behind me in the breeze.

  ‘Why did Mum choose that photo?!’ I say out loud, outraged; all that skin showing makes me cringe.

  Concerns Mount for Wealthy Businessman’s Missing Daughter

  Police are increasingly concerned about the whereabouts of Hope Tasker, daughter of former New Businessman of the Year Mr Donald Tasker (54). Hope (14) left a note for her parents to say she was heading to London for the day but never returned. Her parents say this behaviour is out of character for the normally ‘quiet and lovely’ girl, who was supposed to be starting school again at the exclusive Norwich High School for Girls, next week.

  Police are keen to talk to anyone who might have encountered Hope on their journey to London on Tuesday, and are concentrating their enquiries on the Norwich to London train service, on which they believe Miss Tasker may have been a passenger.

  ‘We are currently reviewing the CCTV footage from the station,’ PC Keith Evans, spokesman for the Norfolk Constabulary, said in a press conference this morning. ‘But at this stage we are keeping a very open mind and are keen to speak to anyone who might have seen her. We are appealing to members of the public across the country, but especially in Norfolk and London, who might have seen something suspicious, or someone they know acting suspiciously, to get in touch as a matter of urgency.’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’ I swallow the lump in my throat and hand the paper back to him. I feel relieved and then scared and then weirdly guilty for causing so much fuss. ‘But that picture doesn’t even look like me any more.’

  He shakes his head. ‘My cousin . . . he’s into all sorts of shit but I never thought . . .’ He looks scared. ‘They bought you by mistake. They got conned into thinking you were one of them.’ He nods at the empty beds. ‘They’ve been trying to figure out what to do with you. And now this story is in the papers . . . They’ve got guns, you know. And like these big Samurai swords and stuff. They’re crazy.’

  I get out of bed and stand up. I’m the same height as him. I reckon I could push him over if I had to. Blood thumps through my veins.

  ‘Then let me go.’

  There’s a noise downstairs, someone shouting. He jumps like he’s been burned.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he says.

  But this could be my chance, I realize.

  ‘Call the police!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You don’t have to say who you are!’ I follow him as he backs away towards the door.


  ‘I – I can’t. I mean, he might be mad, but he’s family. And what if—’

  I touch him on the shoulder. ‘Please.’

  ‘Leave me alone!’ he growls suddenly, brushing me off. ‘Go away!’ And he slams the door.

  I get really scared again after he’s gone and start to hyperventilate till I think I might pass out. My body won’t stop trembling so I hold my breath and try to count to five before I let it out again. Why did he tell me all that stuff if he didn’t want to help me? Now all I can think is that I’m going to get my head cut off with a big Samurai sword, or be slashed to pieces like in a horror movie.

  I lose track of time a bit after that, and the next thing I know Fat Burger Man is standing in the doorway, taking up space and grumbling to someone standing behind him.

  ‘You,’ he says, waving at me, ‘come with me. Now.’

  I don’t move a muscle.

  ‘Come now.’ He walks closer to the bed, grabs my arm above the elbow and pulls me up.

  Fazil is in the corridor. He looks away as I let myself be pulled up.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ I try to level the panic that rises in my voice.

  ‘Not far, not far,’ Fat Burger Man says. Fazil said he was called Babalan or something, but I don’t care what his name is. He still looks like a fat burger in his tan leather jacket and greasy white T-shirt.

  He pushes me in front of him down the corridor and the flight of stairs to the next floor. Here the light is much brighter, the carpets a thick sea of pink and the walls a badly painted yellowish colour. From the landing I can see down another narrow flight of steps to another door: a blue metal door with lots of locks on it, and in front of that an iron gate that looks as if it’s locked shut with a padlock. Like a prison entrance or something.

  ‘Quick, quick.’ Fat Burger Man prods me in the back. I don’t want to think about what they’re going to do to me now.

  There are pictures in cheap clip frames, cheesy shots of Jordan and Pamela Anderson in underwear or swimsuits. Fat Burger Man nearly knocks them off the walls he is so wide.

  ‘In here.’ He shoves me into the door and squashes against me as he leans over to turn the handle.

  Inside is Gold Jewellery Man – Latif – and a video camera. He’s pinned a white sheet to the wall and put a chair in front of it.

  ‘Sit down,’ he says.

  In the lens of the camera I can see my reflection, magnified, turned upside down. Instinctively, I fold my arms across my body. I hope they don’t want me to do any sexy dancing.

  Fat Burger Man mumbles something in Turkish and leaves the room, slamming the door behind him. Fazil leans against it, his hands behind his back.

  ‘OK, smile!’

  I grimace.

  ‘No,’ Latif says, ‘like you are happy.’

  ‘I would be happy if you let me go home,’ I say.

  He waves his hands at me like I’m stupid. ‘Soon, soon.’ He presses a button on the top of the camera. ‘Now I want you to tell me that you are OK and have food and sleep.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You must talk to your parents.’ He points at the camera. ‘They will give us some money for taking care of you and then you go home. Simple.’

  ‘You’re asking my mum and dad for money?’

  He nods. ‘Of course. We have to pay for you, English girl, so how else are we getting our money back? They pay, you go home. Simple.’

  A small flutter of relief and hope dances around in my chest. Mum and Dad can afford to pay to get me back. ‘How much?’

  ‘Two million pounds.’

  ‘But they don’t have that much!’

  Two million? I know Dad has made a lot of money recently, but it’s not that much.

  He shrugs. ‘Your father is a businessman. Businessmen can always get money. Businessmen make best customers.’

  It takes a moment for the insinuation to sink in. ‘My father would never come somewhere – somewhere like here!’

  Latif laughs. ‘How do you know? Now, you smile and talk to the camera.’

  The way that he laughs like he’s aware of everything in the world makes me really angry. My eyes itch and my bottom lip wobbles.

  ‘If you want me not to kill you, you will not cry!’ He stares at me. ‘I am not joking.’

  Fazil says something then, fast and urgent, and Latif pauses, then grunts. ‘I am going to get breakfast and when I come back you will be smiling.’

  The minute he leaves the room I start to cry, properly now, I just want to be at home.

  Fazil puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s OK,’ he says.

  I shrug him off. But he grabs my hand, presses something into my palm.

  ‘No. No. Look.’

  Two bronze Yale keys. One for our room and one for the gate, he says. He took them from the office downstairs. ‘Do it later tonight when they’re finished. Babalan and Latif are going out so they’ll probably shut up early. Someone will be watching down here and there’s a CCTV camera outside the front door so make sure you sneak away when no one is looking at it. Wait until they go to sleep about five in the morning. Be quick, and don’t get caught.’ He folds my fingers round the key. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘That’s all I can do.’

  ‘OK, thank you,’ I snuffle.

  ‘And stop crying. Just do what he tells you. Don’t make it worse.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘Natasha; the other girls.’

  He looks at his shoes. ‘You’re different from them,’ he says. ‘But if you want to tell them that’s your business.’

  ‘Don’t you care?! It’s not like they want to be here either!’

  He looks uncomfortable and lights a cigarette and starts whining about how things aren’t working out for him the way he wanted. His father took him out of school before he could sit his GCSEs, to make him work for Babalan. ‘I just want to go to college and learn about computers.’

  Paranoid, he checks the camera to make sure it isn’t recording. ‘Babalan knows I’m not really up for all this. He’s like watching me the whole time. One day soon, he’s going to expect me to beat someone up and I won’t be able to do it. Then he’ll say all this stuff about me, come after me and my family too. He did that to my other cousin. He started a whole feud for no reason except that he felt like it. My uncle in Turkey is hiding now because he is so afraid of him.’

  Then the sound of a door slamming downstairs startles him and he goes back to the door and stands to attention.

  ‘If you get caught, don’t tell them it was me that helped you. Please,’ he hisses just before Latif comes back in eating a kebab out of a wrap of white paper. He’s got grease all round his lips as he squints into the camera to get the shot right. The keys burn in my pocket. Tonight we will get out of here. The thought is like taking lungfuls of fresh air.

  ‘Come on now,’ Latif says. ‘Smile for Daddy.’

  18

  Oksana

  I wonder now why we never asked what it was the man in Germany wanted Adik to do for him. It was like all the stuff – the car, the clothes, the money – dazzled us like the bright sun. Now I know what it is that happens, how scared and mean and cold and hungry the whole world is, I am frightened for him. But when I first got that postcard, tattered and worn by the long journey through the post, I threw it under the bed.

  We rarely got any post, unless it was bills or the occasional letter from Tetya Svetlana in which she told us how good life was in Moscow and how Yaris had just been promoted and how I should keep studying hard at my English so I could marry well and be like her – escape the dreary countryside and get a good job, husband and a nice apartment with working heating and a microwave. Sometimes she slipped a few roubles in between the thin sheets of writing paper, which meant that I checked for the post every day, even though most of the time there was nothing.

  When I opened the battered green postbox at the bottom of our apartment the day Ad
ik’s postcard came, I thought at first maybe it was a joke. The pictures of the men in red coats with tall furry hats, and important-looking buildings and statues, seemed strange and out of place in our heap-of-shit block. England? I thought he was going to Germany. His handwriting was big and scrawly, like he was trying hard to hold the pen steady. And no explanation, just the words Write me and two kisses.

  Write him? I didn’t know where to start. I could have written him a whole book about how much I wanted to leave too, and how unfair it was that he went first, and how annoyed I was he didn’t even send any money, not one rouble. If he wanted me to write to him, he should have sent me the money for a stamp.

  So the postcard stayed under the bed with the dust and the mice, and life carried on as normal all through the winter, with me and Viktor stuck in the flat most of the time because it was too cold to go outside – the ground was thick with snow and ice and we didn’t have enough warm clothes.

  Our apartment was falling into disrepair around us. A big crack had appeared on the wall of the kitchen and the roof had started leaking, a brown seeping in the corner, which made the paper fall off the walls, showing the mouldy concrete underneath.

  Mother would have made a fuss about that, got Father to bring back some concrete from work so we could fix it, or she would have found some scraps of material to hide it, maybe a woollen rug or a sheet.

  Every day was the same: get up at five with Father, feed Viktor, go back to sleep, wake up again freezing cold because the radiators didn’t work properly, amuse Viktor, stare out of the filthy windows at the suffocating snow and wonder whether Father would have to sleep at the factory again; then, later, when Viktor has whined that he wants to go outside, and scribbled on the wall with my eye-pencil, try to make supper out of one mouldy carrot and a potato. Go to sleep again, hungry and cold and not tired. Lie in the dark listening to Viktor breathing, to the distant sounds of shouting and banging and popsa on a tinny radio, and wonder for how long my life would be like this.

  Tommy came back in the spring. When the snow had melted and the frozen ground had turned into puddles of mud and slippery grass, and I had rescued Adik’s postcard from under the bed and started writing letters to him in my head. This time he had a 4x4. A silver Land Rover, brand new, although it was already covered with dirt from the road.