by Anni Taylor
I’d thought I’d be staying with Constance, but that plan had gone pear shaped. She’d been strange on the phone, like she couldn’t get rid of me quick enough.
What her problem was, I couldn’t guess. But I couldn’t waste head space thinking about it. Maybe I’d go faster without her.
The Australian police were sure to know I’d flown to London by now. If they put out a warrant for my arrest, then travel was going to get hard. I couldn’t stay anywhere under my own name. It was summer in Europe—I could sleep outdoors. Or find hostels for the homeless and nameless.
I bought a map at a newsagency and studied it, trying to figure how to get from London to Greece in the fastest time. With my thumb, I traced a route from London to Dover on the coast, then onto Calais, France.
I caught a series of trains to Dover. It wasn’t as far as I’d thought it would be. England wasn’t Australia—no huge distances to cover.
The weather stayed fine as I caught a P&O ferry from Dover to Calais. I’d had to use my passport for the ride. If the police were tracking me, I’d just made it too easy for them.
I stood out in the open, willing the boat to go faster.
An hour and a half later, the Calais docks were in sight.
“You’ve got the right idea,” said a man who’d stepped next to me, an elderly English guy with a deeply furrowed brow. “Enjoying the sunshine while it lasts.”
I went to answer, then stopped myself short. Better not to talk and cement my accent in anyone’s mind. Giving him a polite nod, I looked out to the channel.
Undeterred, he repeated himself to a nearby woman, who was clutching the hands of her two small daughters. “Nice weather, what? Good to be outside in this weather, enjoying it while you can.”
“We love the summer.” She smiled. She and her girls had dark hair, reminding me of Evie and my own girls.
He gestured towards the Calais docks. “They’ve got that problem back again. I’ve heard that after the French bulldozed their whole camp, they’ve come back to squat. The Jungle, they called it.”
Her smile faded. “The refugees don’t have a lot of options of where to stay.”
I walked to the railing and scanned the area around the docks. No police. The mention of refugee camps had given me a clue as to where I could sleep tonight. Breaking my silence, I asked the woman a few casual questions about the location of the camps. She told me about the Stalingrad district in the city.
As soon as the ferry docked, I found a bus headed to Paris then caught a cab into the areas where red, blue and green tents dotted the streetscapes. The tents had been pitched under railway bridges and near train stations. Some of the men were sleeping out in the open on sidewalks.
I had the driver stop at a camp beneath a high set of stairs. I spotted a group of French volunteers moving between the tents, giving out supplies.
Reminding myself not to talk, I stepped around the perimeter of the camp, watching. I was hungry and tired. But I had money for food, and I wasn’t going to take the baguettes and drinks being handed out. I spied a large cardboard box filled with red plastic objects. Tents.
I grabbed one and quickly took it to the back of the camp and set it up.
Stealing from refugees—I couldn’t get much lower. But I’d leave the tent here when I left. I was bone weary and could have slept straight away. I slipped my wallet and passport down my jeans and then tightened my belt. It wasn’t the best solution, but at least no one was getting my stuff without a fight. My hope was that in the camp, I’d be safe from thieves rather than trying to go it alone.
Resting my head on my bag, I collapsed into an exhausted sleep.
When I woke, it was dark.
There was the ceaseless noise of traffic and small crying children and people wandering between the tents, calling out to each other. It was hot tonight, the smell of urine coming off the pavement and into my tent. In winter, it would be intolerable. I imagined being here with Willow and Lilly. Lilly would be fussing and coughing all night long. Hell, with the illness that I now knew Lilly had, would she even survive a winter in a camp? Maybe she wouldn’t.
First thing tomorrow, I had to find an internet café and start researching the historical society that Constance had told me about. If there was something I was good at, it was zeroing in on an elusive thing and figuring out systems. It was what I’d done for a job.
Whoever these people were, I was going to become the burrowing worm in their apple.
46. CONSTANCE
WILSON CARLISLE AND HIS WIFE STROLLED from their hotel, she holding a young child’s hand. I hadn’t realised they had a child. The blonde-headed toddler must have been with a nanny when the Carlisles were at the charity dinner.
I drew back beside a pylon, pretending to be absorbed in my phone. I wore ordinary gym clothes, my hair back in a ponytail and a baseball cap on my head. One look I did well was the upmarket gym look. Because those were the clothes I usually lived in. Hopefully, I looked like any woman staying at a hotel here and out for a brisk walk—and not like a stalker. Because tonight I was stalking the rich orthodontist, Wilson Carlisle.
Bibby Carlisle appeared to be prouder of the child than of the man on the other side of her, looking down at the boy more than a few times with a smile on her red-painted lips. She looked like a child herself next to her husband.
I knew from my research that Wilson had three older children—much older children. All in their thirties and forties. He and his first wife had divorced after five years, just long enough for her to spit out the three children. He’d had two more wives after that, the marriages all ending in divorce. His last divorce apparently happened due to a messy affair with a sixteen-year-old dental assistant. Somehow, he hadn’t lost his licence to operate as an orthodontist. Following that train wreck was a fourth marriage to his current wife.
The stupid thought occurred to me that with him being an orthodontist, at least his former wives would have left the marriage with very good teeth. I almost giggled.
Looking up, I realised I’d lost the family around a corner. I quickened my steps.
Where had they gone?
They couldn’t have gone very far with a toddler in tow.
I noticed an upmarket children’s clothing and toy store. They must have taken the boy in there to buy him a treat.
Moving to the store window, I pretended to window shop. There were quite a few little Georges and Charlottes in there, all dressed like miniature adults of the 1950s. Wilson stood scratching his ear, watching Bibby place George on a giant rocking horse. He was probably wondering how he was going to ship that thing back to Sydney.
I couldn’t hear, but it appeared that Wilson received a phone call, as he suddenly reached into his pocket for his phone and studied it.
I stumbled back as he turned and walked swiftly in my direction, passing through the door and out onto the street. He then stepped to a quiet spot, checking around him.
I needed to hear that conversation.
Pretending to snap photographs of a nearby theatre poster with my phone, I edged closer to Wilson. I’m a woman who enjoys the theatre, I said in my mind as I took the photos, as though passersby would somehow catch my silent message and be convinced.
Wilson was on the other side of a decorative partition. I could only just hear his lowered tones above the London traffic and noise. He was making lots of ums and ahs, listening to the other person.
“The husband’s here,” he then said clearly. “Cops know he flew into London. Why the fuck did he come all this way? If he wanted to run away, why didn’t he take a slow boat to New Zealand or something? Someone needs to explain that to me. What the hell is going on?”
The husband? Could he mean Gray?
“Mistake to bury the knife,” Wilson said. “Stupid fucking Australian cops took too long to find it. They don’t deserve their fucking jobs.”
My fingers almost froze on my phone as I pretended to snap yet another picture.
; The knife.
This was about Gray.
“What about Constance?” he said. “She being a good girl and staying put here in London? I made sure Hurst told her she couldn’t leave.”
Blood drained from my face. He knew about me. And knew that I’d spoken with Detective Hurst. Therefore, he had to know about Rosemary. Questions whipped through my mind. Had he ordered her killed? What connection did he have to Detective Michael Hurst? Why would a detective take a directive from Wilson Carlisle?
The awful truth dawned on me. The detective was one of them.
I was just a thin partition away from Wilson. If he knew I was here, what would he do? I turned my head away, my chest tightening.
“Yeah. Get onto it pronto,” continued Wilson in a sharp tone. “I can’t do much from here. But I’ll be there for the closing ceremony. You know I will. I never miss it.”
What closing ceremony? Some charity event he was attending? I had to research that. If I got away from here alive.
Wilson sighed noisily. “Is Kara missing me? Tell her Daddy Wilson misses her. Little asshole broke my finger last time I saw her. Told me not to touch her again.” He chuckled. “She told me to disappear into the black hole in the middle of the Milky Way.”
My stomach folded in on itself.
Kara. What had he done to her? He knew exactly where she was. Kara had to be with the person he was speaking to, because he just asked them to tell her something. How on earth did I find out who was on the other end of that conversation?
I didn’t gain anything useful from the rest of Carlisle’s phone call.
I waited until he headed back into the store and then made steps in the opposite direction. I was too much of a mess right now to keep tailing him. A professional might be able to hold it together, but not me. Not now. My eyes brimmed with tears.
Kara, how did you get mixed up with Wilson Carlisle?
These were dangerous, bad people. Were they traffickers?
Who did I need to contact? Someone who was an expert in rescuing people caught up in sex trafficking? But I didn’t know who I could trust. I couldn’t trust the police.
And how was I going to find Gray now? I had no way of contacting him.
As I caught a cab back to my hotel, I realised I wasn’t safe there anymore. Wilson would be sure to know where I was staying. Detective Hurst knew where I was; therefore Wilson knew.
I made a decision: I was going to travel to Greece and find an expert who rescued trafficked persons. I’d seen documentaries about such people—they’d just been volunteers on their own, hacking paths through the tangled, dangerous jungles of the traffickers. That was what I needed. Someone who worked outside of the system. Someone who couldn’t be corrupted.
THE FIFTH CHALLENGE
47. EVIE
THE MONASTERY, IT WAS WARPING MY mind. A feeling of being reeled in and at the brink of being consumed. My dreams had been invaded by three-dimensional shapes that folded out into endless hexagons. Forming and reforming. Everything in perfect order. Phi. Binary code. Birds of prey. Myself, running through the dark halls. Trapped and re-trapped in geometric prisons. Everything in a balance that cared about nothing, not even the numbers upon which it was all based.
I woke struggling to breathe. Staring around me, I realised I was in the sick room where Kara had been. My hand reached automatically to a large, hard lump on the side of my head. It hurt. How did I get that? Confusion spun in my mind until I remembered. Ruth had pushed me into the path of a metal bird in challenge four. I didn’t know anything that happened after that.
Poppy’s fingers gently stroked my arm. “Evie, you’re awake . . .”
I half sat. “What happened? Do you know?”
“Just give yourself some time to—”
“Tell me!”
She set her lips together grimly. “You guys lost your challenge. Sorry.”
My heart fell. “Am I out of the program?”
“No. But Ruth and Harrington are.”
I sucked in a breath of relief. “God. Really? Can’t say I’ll miss them.”
“Me either.” She suppressed a giggle. “Harrington apparently copped a bird beak right to his shoulder. He’s too injured to continue.”
“Okay, well, that’s not good.”
“He was a jerk. Anyway, it’s breakfast time. Feel okay to walk out there with me?”
“I’ve been asleep all that time?”
“‘Fraid so. You must have needed it.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Rising, I let Poppy help me to my feet.
I spent the day of the fifth challenge out in the welcome sunshine and green of the garden. barely moving and barely speaking to anyone. People left me alone, apart from Brother Vito and Sister Dawn, who came to check on me a few times.
Yolanda stepped up to me just as the sun’s last rays were burning themselves out. She sat on the low bough of a tree beside my chair. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Is your head okay?”
“I’ll survive, I guess.” I managed a smile.
“Sucks we didn’t make it to the finish line.” The shade of the tree turned her skin to a deepest brown colour.
“Looks like I got the order of the puzzle pieces wrong.”
“What happened? I saw a bird coming your way and called out to you and then I was busy dodging birds myself. All of a sudden, you were on the floor and Harrington was bleeding.”
“Ruth pushed me out of the way. Just because she wanted Harrington’s puzzle piece first.”
She gasped. “That’s crazy. I’ve only been in one challenge with her before. But oh yeah, she doesn’t care what she has to do to win a challenge. She’s such a strange person.” She leaned her head back against the trunk. “Is this program helping any of us? I just feel on edge all the time.”
“Me too. At least there’s just today and tomorrow to get through.”
“Can’t wait. Scary though. I’ve built this whole fantasy thing up in my mind where I have a new shiny life. But I don’t know if I can do it.”
“What were you doing, before here?”
She half shrugged, twisting her long black hair around her fingers. “I don’t even know. One minute I was in college and everything was good. The next minute my boyfriend of four years dumped me. I felt like the world’s biggest loser, y’know? I came close to killing myself. Instead, I started going to every party and having every drug and sleeping with every guy. Just to kill the pain. I got kicked from my course. And that should have been enough to shock some sense into me. But by then it’d become normal just to wake up and have a pipe, y’know? Everyone I was hanging out with then was smoking ice. It didn’t seem like this crazy thing that was going to steal your life away. It just made me feel . . . good. When I saw my old boyfriend in the street, I didn’t even care anymore. Because I had something better.”
“I get you,” I told her. “That’s addiction. You don’t realise it’s so destructive because it makes you feel better about yourself.”
Nodding, she sighed. “You can guess the rest of my story. I had to make money somehow. I don’t want to go back to any of that. I want to press a reset button.”
“This—the program—is the reset button.” Even as I said it, I only half believed it.
“Man, I hope so. Hey, what’s your story? You’re from Australia, right?”
“Yeah. I was an ordinary mum in the suburbs with a husband and two small daughters. Willow and Lilly. I got hooked into gambling. Just trying to make our lives better. But it didn’t. I got into a terrifyingly huge amount of debt. Happened so quick. My next stop was trying to make some money as a kind of escort—a sugar baby. I’d go to dinner, chat with the guy, and hope he’d take me shopping afterwards to buy something expensive. Some did, some didn’t. One man—a chartered accountant—bought me a handbag with a two thousand dollar price tag. I sold it on EBay the next day.”
“Did you sleep with them—those guys?”
�
�It was heading there. But I didn’t quite get to that point before Brother Vito contacted me. It’s nothing I ever thought I’d do. But people have no idea of the things they’ll actually do when they hit rock bottom. When their backs are against the wall.”
“You get it.” A small sob cracked Yolanda’s voice. “That’s exactly how it was for me. Some of the girls I worked with were fine with it, but they were the ones who knew exactly what they were walking into. It’s the ones like us who are desperate who end up hating ourselves.”
The last of the light slipped behind the tall walls of the monastery.
Everyone headed inside.
Like every night, we sat in the refectory and amused ourselves in the hours before dinner—reading, playing cards and chatting. There was no room set aside with comfortable armchairs or sofas—it seemed that the monks must work from dusk to dawn and had no need of such things.
Everyone seemed to be shouting—their voices bouncing off the stone, hexagonal walls. Challenge four had left us all charged with adrenalin and fear of what was coming next—fear we were trying hard to cover up.
I was glad for the quiet of the dormitory after our meal of pot roast.
Quiet, calm. A space to regenerate.
But in my bed, with the lights out and the metronomes ticking, I couldn’t rest. I’d lost the last challenge. If the fifth challenge was even rougher and I lost it too, I’d be out of the program. My debts wouldn’t be paid. I’d get thirty thousand—for my three completed challenges. That would only pay for half of my debt. I’d still be in way over my head.
My life so far seemed like a stack of failures, one on top of the other.
My mother had kept me well informed of my failings when I was growing up. There was something wrong with everything I did. I’d been blissfully ignorant that Ben was her favourite until the age of twelve, on the day I first got my period. It was the same day Ben sprained his ankle playing soccer. My mother told me to quit fussing and had presented me with a packet of sanitary pads. But she’d nursed Ben and his ankle all afternoon.
