School's Out Forever

by Scott K. Andrews

  As much as she had been forced to confront brutal reality on the night she met Spider, it was during that long hour in that awful place that Kate changed forever. Parts of her psyche scabbed over and hardened, unexpected resolve made itself known, and the well of her compassion was exposed as deeper than she had ever imagined.

  When the giant opened the door and handed her the drugs, it was a different woman who took them from him. Harder, colder, angrier and less afraid.

  Kate administered the drugs and told the giant that she had done all she could. The sleep mask was replaced, and she was led away from a girl she was sure would be dead by nightfall.

  A tiny part of Kate remained behind in that cellar. The tiny piece of Jane that had been born there left in its stead.

  She was driven back to her flat, back to the world she knew. But it felt different. Distant. Changed forever. She walked up to her front door and reached into her pocket for her keys.

  “Oh fuck it,” she cursed, remembering that she had not had time to grab them. She stood and stared at the door and then stepped back and took a running kick at it. She felt the wood give and heard the sharp crack as it splintered. She kicked it again, and again, then shoulder charged it, yelling as she did so, smashing into the door time after time, hating it, wanting to annihilate it utterly, as if it was mocking her. The facia caved and split before, after one almighty crash, it flew off its top hinge and collapsed inwards.

  Kate stood there, breathing hard, teeth clenched, eyes wide, her heart pounding, ignoring the pain in her shoulders and legs. She heard a slight cough to her left and turned to see the old biddy from flat four peering anxiously out of her door.

  “What?” snapped Kate. The woman’s head disappeared inside and the door was firmly closed.

  “Didn’t you just pay a lot of money to have that door fixed, Miss Booker?” said a soft voice to her right. She spun, suddenly alarmed. But whereas a week ago she might have given a tiny yelp of surprise and felt a jolt of nerves, now she didn’t make a sound and stood ready to fight.

  The man from the coffee shop stood there in the corridor. Short for a man, about the same height as Kate, he wore a black leather jacket, white shirt and blue jeans above waxed black Docs. He looked about forty, blond hair slightly receding but not too much, with laugh lines around his mouth, and deep crow’s feet framing his blue eyes. Kate’s first thought was ‘he fancies himself.’

  “And who the fuck are you?” she snarled.

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small leather wallet which he flipped open and held up for her to inspect.

  “DI John Cooper. Metropolitan Police. Can we go inside and talk? That is, if we can get the door to close behind us.”

  HE HELPED HER prop the door back up in its frame and shoved a dining chair up against it to keep it in place, then sat on the sofa as she made him a cuppa.

  Her mind was racing as she fumbled with mugs and teabags. She’d been considering going to the police, obviously, but Spider had been clear that James would die very slowly indeed if she did so. He had sources within the police, he said, and he’d know the instant she broke ranks. She had looked at her brother’s pitiful, tear-stained face as he crouched on that stage, handcuffed to the stripper’s pole, and she’d known that she had no choice. This organisation was big and complicated; there was every chance that Spider was telling the truth, that he did have some bent copper on the take. No, she’d decided that if there was a way out of her situation, she’d have to find it herself.

  Nonetheless, she slowed her step ever so slightly every time she passed a police station, and felt a jolt of butterflies at the thought of stepping across the threshold and spilling her guts, of sharing the problem, making it someone else’s.

  The man on her sofa made her almost as nervous as Spider had. Her first thought was that she had made some stupid rookie mistake, given the game away without meaning to, drawn needless attention somehow. Her second thought was that he could be Spider’s enforcer, sent here to warn her to keep her mouth shut.

  She wasn’t sure which outcome would scare her the most.

  She took the two mugs through to the living room, handed one to Cooper and sat in the armchair opposite him, sipping her own. She couldn’t think of anything to say, so she sat there as he studied her, waiting for him to make the first move.

  “Is that brick dust in your hair? Been on a building site?” he asked, not unkindly. His accent was hard to place. He didn’t have the Southern glottal stop or the rounded vowels of the North. He spoke precisely, his words chosen with care and delivered in RP, as if maybe he’d attended a posh school as a boy but had then had the edges knocked off his cut glass vowels by years living below his station.

  Kate didn’t reply, but she gripped her mug with tight, white knuckles.

  “And you’ve got mould or something very like it smeared down the arm of your sweater.” He cocked his head to one side and bit his lip thoughtfully. “Underground then. Maybe a railway arch or a cellar. Somewhere old, wet and crumbly, that’s for sure. You smell a bit dampy, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  Still Kate did not say a thing, unsure where he was going with this.

  “Could you lead me there, or did they blindfold you?” he asked.

  The question was so bluntly put that Kate answered it almost in spite of herself. It seemed he already knew everything anyway.

  “Blindfold,” she said, her mouth dry. She took another sip of tea.

  He nodded. This was the answer he’d been expecting. He considered her carefully for a moment and seemed to come to a decision.

  “You are in very deep shit, Miss Booker. These are bad, bad men your brother’s got himself, and now you, involved with. I take it you know the basics of their operation?”

  Kate nodded once. She thought her face must be as white as a ghost’s.

  “Then you know that they eat people like you up for breakfast. You’ll work for them as long as you are useful, but the first time you make a mistake, or they get suspicious of you in any way, or they just decide that they want someone fresh for their evening’s entertainment, you will disappear as completely as if you had never existed.”

  “Why...” Her mouth was dry again. She took another sip of tea. “Why don’t you just arrest them then? Isn’t that your job?”

  “It’s not that simple. This gang doesn’t exist in isolation. There’s a chain stretching right across Europe. This is a huge operation, involving the police of twelve countries, many of which have police forces that see bribes as a normal part of their pay packet. Plus...” He hesitated.

  “Plus?”

  “Plus, there’s someone in our own force looking out for them. I think. Perhaps. I can’t prove it.” He looked up at her, momentarily suspicious, as if asking himself why he was telling her all this.

  “That’s why I’ve approached you like this, at home. Anyway,” he continued. “Recently we had a bit of setback. Our... channel of information dried up.”

  “Nate, yeah? The doctor?”

  Cooper looked shocked, as if he’d been caught out. Then he nodded, a little surprised she’d put a name to their mole so easily. “Loathsome little junkie, but easy to manipulate.”

  “Oh. I see. You want me to take his place.”

  Cooper sat back in his chair. “Where did they take you just now? What did you see?”

  “Nothing useful. An old underground cellar. Damp, as you say. I could hear tube trains and, I think, a river nearby. But that could be anywhere in London, couldn’t it?”

  Cooper nodded thoughtfully. “And what did you do there?”

  “Listen, my brother...”

  “We know all about your brother.”

  “They told me they’d kill him, if I came to the police.”

  “Most likely. You too.”

  “Then what the fuck is with turning up at my front door? If anyone sees you... I mean, what kind of fucking amateur are you?”

  Cooper smiled. Kate did not think
it was particularly reassuring. “Spider doesn’t have the resources to keep you under surveillance. He relies on your fear to keep you in line. You were tailed when you went shopping yesterday, and they had someone in A&E two nights ago pretending to have food poisoning so they could see you at work, but they don’t watch you all the time. By now they’re becoming confident that you haven’t gone to the police. And if you haven’t gone yet, chances are you won’t.”

  Kate sat there and suddenly felt ashamed and embarrassed. “I would have,” she said. “Eventually, I would have. I’ve thought about it.”

  “But your brother.”

  “He’s not the hardest of men. He’s weak and stupid and his own worst enemy. But he’s my best friend. I’ve had to look after him his whole life, get him out of trouble, keep him from being bullied. Jesus, the amount of times at school I had to fight his battles for him. I suppose I should have known that something like this was inevitable.”

  “We can keep him safe.”

  “Not your job, Mr Cooper. It’s mine.”

  Cooper leaned forward in his chair, clasping his hands together and holding her gaze firmly. “If you help us, Kate, you have my word no harm will come to him.”

  Although this figure of authority was asking for her help, Kate felt as helpless as she ever had. If she agreed to inform for the police, she’d be placing herself and her brother in terrible danger. But if she said no... she thought of that poor girl in the cellar. Where was she now? Dolled up and drugged up, washed and brushed up and delivered to some hotel room for the pleasure of a banker or drug dealer who’d use her and then hand her back to her captors, dead or alive.

  She stared deep into Cooper’s eyes, seeking reassurance. He smiled at her, and she felt her resistance crumble.

  “Okay, okay. What do I have to do?”

  THEY DIDN’T CALL on her for another two weeks. But this time she did not allow herself to pretend that life was normal.

  At Cooper’s urging, Kate signed up for self defence classes. Each day after work she would spend an hour in a draughty scout hut in Camden learning how to turn an opponent’s weight against them, learning simple blocks and combos designed to prevent her from coming to harm and allow her time to run.

  They didn’t teach her how to collapse a windpipe with a single punch, or how to twist a neck and break it, or the places on the body where the lightest blow could cause the most damage. She was a doctor; that stuff she already knew. But knowing and doing are two different things and she knew she lacked the control to throw those kind of punches. Still, she trained and practised and worked out. The face of the girl from the cellar hovered in front of her as she pounded the treadmill and worked the punchbag.

  She would look at herself in the mirror before bed and laugh humourlessly. Who did think she was, Rocky? She was a not very tall young woman, slight and delicate. All the training in the world wouldn’t enable her to inflict so much as a single bruise on the giant. But nonetheless, she trained and practised and focused.

  If any of those bastards tried to make her the main attraction rather than the attending doctor, she’d let them know what a big mistake they’d made.

  Then, one Sunday night as she sat vacantly watching some telly programme that passed through her eyeballs and out the back of her head without touching the sides, there was a knock at her yet-again rebuilt door.

  Kate took a moment to slow her heartbeat and take a few deep breaths. She told herself she was in control as she rose and grabbed the bag she had left by the door especially for this occasion. One more deep breath and then she opened the door.

  Her brother stood there with a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates.

  “Hey, Kit,” he said, bashful at disturbing her.

  “Oh James, not tonight, eh. I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.”

  He shuffled his feet. “Sorry, Sis. I’ve got no choice.”

  Suddenly Kate realised that, despite appearances, this was not a social call. “Right. I’ll get my coat.” She turned away but he put his hand on her arm.

  “We don’t have to be there for an hour or so. That’s why...” He held up the bottle of wine.

  Kate sighed, stepped back and ushered him inside. “You know where the glasses are,” she told him as she closed the door and put the bag back in its place.

  He made small talk at first. “How’s the hospital... you met a new bloke yet... going to get another flat mate?” That kind of thing. Kate indulged him until he finally ran out of things to say. At this point he’d normally reach into his seemingly endless collection of anecdotes and start telling dodgy stories about this or that night on the town and the disreputable character he’d hooked up with. It was only when the silence fell that Kate realised she’d not seen James hold court like this for months.

  “I’m not much of a sister, am I?” she said.

  “What?”

  “I should have noticed something was wrong. I should have asked about it.”

  “Don’t be daft. You’ve been up to your ears with training.”

  “Still.” The silence that fell then seemed like it would swallow them whole, and they stared into their wine glasses.

  “James, how does this end for us?”

  He looked up and his face said it all.

  “Why haven’t you gone to the police?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Too scared. Why haven’t you?”

  “Don’t tell him,” Cooper had told her two weeks earlier. “No matter what. I know he’s your brother and all, but from what I can gather he doesn’t seem the kind who could keep a secret.”

  Kate gave James a look that said ‘why do you think?’ and he nodded. “Right,” he said.

  “I have an idea, though,” she said. “Something we can do to help ourselves.”

  “Hit me.”

  “I’ve considered it.”

  She got up, grabbed a notepad and pen from the kitchen counter, and sat down again. “I want you to tell me everything, and I mean absolutely everything that you know about their operation. Dates, times, locations, personnel. Everything.”

  He looked wary. “For why?”

  “Insurance.”

  “Oh, Sis, that’s not...”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “With my life.”

  “Then spill.”

  So he did, until eventually he checked his watch and told her it was time to go.

  IT WAS A cold, clear night, cloudless and silent.

  The yard was lit by sodium lights mounted high on the posts that marked out the limits of the chain link fence. Huge containers were piled high in blocks, forming a kind of maze. The fleet of articulated lorries that ferried them across Europe and beyond were lined up near the entrance, seeming naked and unwieldy without their cargo. The pungent stink of rotting vegetables and the cry of hungry seagulls betrayed the presence of a tip nearby.

  Two portacabins, one on top of the other, sat at the heart of the maze. Their lights were on and Kate could see movement inside as she and James walked towards them.

  James didn’t knock, he pushed the door open and they stepped into a fug of warm, damp, gas-heater air that smelled of stale coffee and cigarettes.

  The giant was sitting on a tatty old armchair which seemed comically small for him. His knees were up around his ears. A group of four crowded around him, sipping coffee from plastic cups and smoking. They were talking and joking in what Kate assumed was Serbian.

  Kate was relieved that Spider wasn’t present, even though she’d known he wouldn’t be. Cooper had told her he normally ran things from Manchester.

  The giant unfolded himself and rose as the siblings entered. The men fell silent, watching them with eyes that betrayed only the barest smidgin of interest. Each of them glanced briefly at James and then shifted his attention to Kate, sizing her up and finding her either adequate or wanting, depending upon their taste. One of them smiled at her, revealing crooked yellow teeth. She ignored him.

  “You h
ave the medicine?” asked the giant.

  Kate held up her bag. He seemed content. He handed James a clipboard and a large manila envelope. Her brother took it without question.

  “Come on,” he said to Kate, and led her back outside to a set of stairs that led up to the portacabin above. A young man stood outside the door, on guard. He unlocked the door as they ascended and ushered them inside. Kate heard the door lock again once they were in.

  The small room held eight women and girls. All were sitting on the floor, crowded around a gas heater, warming their hands. They wore simple, functional clothes and had obviously not washed in days. There was a pungent smell of BO.

  “Hello ladies,” said James, smiling. Kate was disturbed at how easily he slipped into this role. She wondered how many times he had done this before. “If I can please have your passports and travel documents.”

  One of the women, the oldest of the bunch, maybe twenty or so, Kate thought, translated James’ request to the others, and they each reached into their pockets and produced their passports. Kate thought the meekness with which they did this spoke volumes. These girls were scared. They hadn’t admitted it to themselves yet, but they knew, deep down, that something had gone wrong, that they had been fooled, that something awful was about to happen to them.

  James collected the passports and visas cheerfully, placing them in the manila envelope. He turned to Kate as he did so. “Best get on with it, Kit,” he said.

  Kate crouched down and opened her bag. Inside were the syringe needles and ampoules that she had stolen from the hospital. Vitamin shots, wide spectrum antibiotics and, as ordered, mild sedatives. She told the girls to roll up their sleeves. Again the oldest one translated.