This Broken Land

by H M Sealey

  “Instead of branded and enslaved here?”

  “I can assure you that was nothing to do with me.”

  “Only your son.”

  “Zeb?” Sylvester chuckled. “Zeb’s a simple, greedy man. But he has his uses.” He raised a hand and wiped the tears from Missy’s eyes. His voice softened and he stood facing her, their bodies close together in uncomfortable intimacy. “Now, I’ll ask you again, what do the numbers mean? It’s obviously a code.”

  Missy seized her opportunity, it would be unlikely to come again. She brought her knee up into Sylvester’s groin with all the force she could find. She hit her target with a thud and crunch of bone against bone; the old man gave a great gulp of agony and doubled up, groaning in pain.

  Missy fled, she pulled open the door and raced across the slippery, marble floor. The main doors were locked as she supposed they would be, so, with a look of grim resolution in her eyes, she turned towards the lavish staircase and began to climb.

  “Excuse me?” Madame Carla met her on the stairs. Missy pushed her aside and continued to ascend. It was a large staircase, leading to an oyster-pink landing that looked out over the lower floor. After that there was another flight of stairs and Missy followed them up, panting, towards the top of the house.

  There was a window here and this opened out onto the sloped tiles that sat above the bigger windows below. Hitching her skirt up and kicking off her shoes, Missy slid out of the window, gripping the central ridge and inching her way along until there was nothing but the gable beneath her and a sharp drop to the dark ground. It might be enough to kill her, she hoped so. She really couldn’t see another option. She slid the thin belt from around her waist and slipped it around her neck.

  “Don’t be stupid.” Sylvester was there, half in, half out of the window, stretching out his hand towards her.

  “I’m not being stupid.” She tightened the belt around her throat and fastened the buckle. Then she hunted for somewhere to secure it to the roof. She’d never tried to hang herself before; she wasn’t certain she knew how to.

  “You don’t want to die.”

  “I don’t want to live either. What have I got to live for? You’ve shown me my future.”

  “What about Elsie?”

  “What about her? What can I do to help her?” She swallowed and spotted a nail protruding from the gable. It might take her weight.

  “You mustn’t do this.”

  To Missy’s surprise, Sylvester eased his body out of the window and stood, balancing precariously on the ridge as she had done. He wobbled and tried not to look down.

  “One more step and I’m going.” She promised, hoping the belt would be strong enough to break her neck quickly. Either that or the impact with the ground would finish her off.

  Sylvester slipped and landed heavily on his stomach, his feet caught in the guttering.

  “Listen to me Misaki. Please!” His voice changed. “I’m not the bad guy here, I’m not. I’m not about to turn you in and I swear I won’t let anyone sell you.” He spoke quickly, struggling to keep his foothold, part of the guttering was broken. “I’m using Zeb! I’m using him and I use this brothel among others to traffic girls out of slavery. That’s my job. Only I have to keep it quiet. I’m sorry I had to threaten you. I had to know how loyal you were. I had to know whether you could keep secrets even under torture. I pushed you hard because saving these girls is a hard job.”

  Missy clung to the roof and stared at him.

  “You expect me to believe you?”

  “I knew what Barbra Kessler was doing for over ten years. Why didn’t I give her away? It’s because I had my own mission and I can’t take any risks any more than you can. The fewer people who know about me the better.”

  His eyes looked sincere, he kicked at the guttering again, trying to pull his body up onto the ridge.

  “If I let you die like this I’d never forgive myself.”

  “Yes, imagine all that money you’d lose out on if you couldn’t sell me to twenty rapists every day.”

  “You think I like what goes on here? Or what Zeb does?”

  “You certainly seemed to like it.”

  “I hate it Misaki! I hate this whole rotten world and what it’s become. I’m doing my damnedest to help as many people as possible, but that means I have to pretend to be someone I’m not!” There were tears in his eyes, but Missy had no idea whether or not they were genuine. A good liar could probably convince her of anything.

  For a while they stared at each other, an owl hooted and the white light of the moon made them both look pale and ethereal. Finally, Missy slipped the belt from around her neck and edged her way back along the ridge towards the open window.

  Once a little safer, she reached for Sylvester’s hands and helped to heave him back, up towards the windowsill. There were several people gathering at the window by now, Madame Carla, two girls in silk dressing gowns and a man wearing nothing but his underpants.

  The man helped Missy back through the window, gave her a quick grin, then returned to help haul Sylvester back into the house.

  “Well,” The man said cheerfully. “That’s a different sort of excitement to the usual kind.”

  Sylvester took several moments to catch his breath, he leaned against the cream wallpaper looking old and fragile.

  “Goodness, that can’t be good for my heart.” Then he smiled at Missy. “Shall we go dear?”

  Missy nodded and took his arm to help him down the stairs, feeling a little stronger and grateful to leave a house which hid such ugliness behind its beautifully decorated doors.

  They didn’t speak again until they were in the car and when they did, Sylvester pointed to the driver and shook his head. Then he cleared his throat and spoke in a casual tone.

  “I think I’d like a little supper.” He declared.

  They walked through the park in the near darkness, each holding a hot paper bag containing chips. The trees loomed above them and nothing moved, not even the branches. Above the moon continued to shine, displaying the big succulents and the neat, gravel paths in a pale sorrowful sort of light.

  “I sometimes come here to think.” Sylvester admitted, blowing on a chip in such a normal, casual way Missy could barely believe this was the same man who had threatened her only an hour before. She still did not trust him, but she was willing to listen.

  “It’s a lovely park. There are quite a few in the Border, though there are fewer than there used to be. If the land can be built on, then it gets built on. Money, you see. It’s all about money here.”

  Missy walked beside him, she was grateful for the food but still confused.

  “You’re really helping girls escape?”

  “I am. Under my son’s nose.” He shook his head. “It’s a sad world Misaki. I’m only one man, I can’t do a great deal to help, but I try.”

  “But you never told Bibi what you did?”

  “She never told me what she did either. No, my wife and I prefer that nobody knows. It’s safer that way. NuTru knows perfectly well how many people are being sold into slavery but they keep the public’s minds on other things. It’s ridiculous. We have hoards of feminists with billboards protesting the most ridiculous imagined slights, and yet over here there are girls being branded and sold and they don’t give a fig.”

  He took another chip and swallowed it. “When I was a boy it was the same. There were Muslim communities within Britain and the women weren’t allowed out of their own front doors without a man. They were prisoners and yet the whole country seemed more outraged when a transsexual was accidentally addressed as sir. We didn’t realise just how deep that poison would eventually run. Zeb has no idea how strongly I feel about his business, but as long as I thinks I approve I can find a way to get as many girls away from him as I can.”

  “Where do you take them afterwards?”

  “Now that’s where I have the problem. I started by taking them back to Old Britain. I thought, in my naivety, if the g
overnment realised that their own citizens were being abused then they’d kick up a stink.”

  “Did they?”

  “They daren’t. Old Britain relies on goods imported from the Border. That’s where the money is.”

  “So what happened?”

  “The first girls I brought over were sent to a Rainbow Centre.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “They said to help them acclimatise to life here. I never saw any of them again. The next few girls were seen by psychiatrists and diagnosed with no end of mental disorders. One way or another, their voices were gagged. They were ridiculed, insulted. When one of them finally got to tell her story it was countered with that hateful #whitekarma movement. Poor girl was accused of cultural appropriation because only the descendants of African slaves are allowed to speak about slavery.”

  Sylvester’s voice sounded weary and bitter.

  “I can’t tell you how much I hate Old Britain. I considered myself a patriot, until being a patriot was somehow considered xenophobic. Now I don’t know what I am.”

  They walked in silence for a while, feet crunching on gravel.

  “What happens now?” Missy asked, scrunching up the paper from her chips into a ball.

  “Well,” Sylvester sank down onto a wooden bench and rested his head in his hands. “I could do with knowing what those coded messages are, in that bible. It is yours?”

  Missy nodded and joined him on the bench. “It was my mother’s first. She and dad were shot trying to get a Christian family over the border. Mum always said if anything should happen to her, I needed to hide it. When they were killed I panicked, I took the bible round to Elsie’s and hid it in the big vase my parents gave to Bibi. I knew they’d come and search our house.”

  “And did they?”

  “Yes. But there was nothing to find. Dai was old enough to look after me and the authorities were careful with us, in case we accused them of racism.”

  “Ah. So what are all those numbers?”

  Missy looked into his face. “I don’t see why you need to know.”

  “I need to know because a very tenacious colleague of mine, Christopher Summerday, is determined to destroy Family Matters.”

  “A colleague of yours?”

  “I’m a police Officer Misaki, with the overall responsibility for finding and breaking Family Matters. For ten years I’ve given my department just enough information to make it seem as if we’re making progress, whilst trying very hard to protect the people and the network. And I can tell you it isn’t easy.”

  “But you’re on our side?” Sylvester was an excellent liar and a skilled actor. How did she know which of his faces was real?

  “I’m on the side of what’s right. I wish the authorities were on the side of what’s right too, I believe they were once, when I was a young recruit.” He clutched the bible in his fingers so tightly his knuckles stood out, white and bony on his hand. “If these codes are the names and addresses of people who are involved with Family Matters in any capacity then I need to warn them before Summerday can track them down. He’s getting closer.”

  Missy considered this carefully. Her parents had charged her to keep the information in that bible safe. She took the little book from Sylvester’s hands and opened it.

  “Why did my mother write your name in it?” She asked. The handwriting was familiar to her.

  “Because she knew you could trust me. I met her a few times, she was a remarkable woman. I don’t doubt she realised we were on the same side.”

  Missy ran her fingers along the first list of numbers.

  “If I tell you, I’d feel like I was betraying them both.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right.” He took the bible back and closed it. “I shouldn’t ask you something that you’ve done so well to protect. We just have to hope Summerday isn’t as close as he thinks he is. Family Matters has done some wonderful work keeping families together. The family seems to be an endangered thing in Old Britain.”

  Sylvester slipped the bible back into his jacket. And took her hand.

  “I’ll have to take you back to Zeb for now, but you have my word I will do everything I can for you and Elsie. It’s the least I can do. At least, if Summerday does find out the names of the people involved, you’re safe. He can’t touch you here. And quite frankly, a few years in a Brothel would probably be preferable to time in a Rainbow Centre.

  They began to walk back to the car. The conversation rattled around in Missy’s head. How close was Summerday to exposing Family Matters? Howie was already a prisoner. Had he talked?

  “The code.” She whispered.

  “What?”

  “The code. They’re chapters in the bible. Then verses.”

  Sylvester took the bible from his pocket and opened it. “Explain. What’s this one here. 2. - 5.1. 5.8. 5.3. 5.9”

  “Two stands for the chapter. The five is verse five. Then you just count the letters in the verse. One, eight, three and nine. In that order.”

  Sylvester stared at the bible. “Ingenious. But which book? How would I know which book to look in, if only the chapters are marked? There are sixty-six books in the Bible.”

  Missy nodded slowly. “The banned chapters.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “The chapters we use are the banned chapters, in chronological order, starting with Leviticus 18.”

  “So Leviticus 18 would be one in the code?”

  Missy nodded. “It requires an unregistered bible. And to know which chapters have been cut.”

  Sylvester snapped the book shut. “Thank you Misaki. You may have just helped to save a great many lives. You should be very proud of yourself.”

  Missy wondered what the point was of saving anybody’s life any more. What was the point in continuing to live in a world that was so badly broken?

  ~

  ~ Sixteen ~

  Asim

  The pick-up truck rattled along dark streets, the headlights cutting a channel through the night and illuminating the occasional building or the eyes of an animal as it darted past. Asim kept his eyes shut for most of the journey, in case Mahmud should glance in the mirror and see him, but he stole the occasional glance and wondered what had been so urgent it had required the captain of the Mutaween to abandon his men half-way through an investigation.

  Finally the truck stopped with a judder of old gears and the engine died away. Asim opened one eye. There were lights to their left but no sound, just the occasional, mournful hoot of an owl. For a few moments there was nothing to hear at all, then, from the east, came the oscillating voice of the Adhan, the call to prayer, echoing out as it did five times a day. Asim calculated the time in his head, it must be the Isha’a, the final prayer, that meant it was close to midnight.

  To Asim’s surprise, Mahmud did not pray and nor did he direct Asim to do so, he simply sat there, lifting his face towards heaven, listening to the rise and fall of the ancient words he had known all his life.

  “You’re late.”

  Asim almost jumped but managed to remain still. An unfamiliar English voice whispered out of the night. A moment later the passenger door was thrown open and Asim heard the thud and thump of someone joining Mahmud in the front and slamming the door shut.

  “I came as soon as I could.”

  There was a pause. “Who’s in the back? I said to come alone.”

  Through half-closed eyes Asim saw Mahmud jerk his thumb in his direction. “Kid’s flat out. I didn’t have time to dump him before I came.”

  The man was dark, but his skin was pale and he had no beard. He wore a suit with a tie and looked nothing like the men of the BSI nor was he making any attempt to do so.

  “So what is it?”

  “I need your help.”

  “Go on.”

  “There’s a girl I need.”

  Mahmud laughed. “You need my help for that? You must be losing your touch Kit.”

  The pale man glowered. “Not like that. She has info
rmation I want, but she’s been sold to one of the traders and he’s being purposefully awkward.”

  “What can I do about that? I don’t have any authority in your hellish border.”

  “She’s being brought to an auction tomorrow.”

  Mahmud noticeably tensed. “We don’t have auctions. Slavery’s illegal.”

  The man’s face collapsed into a sneer.

  “Don’t play innocent with me Mahmud, we’ve known each-other too long. I need to know where this auction will be tomorrow.”

  Mahmud leaned back in his seat. “Nothing doing Kit. Sorry.”

  “You’ll be bloody sorry when you’re standing before one of your Shariah courts or whatever you call them on charges of helping apostates get over the border.”

  “Once!” Mahmud hissed the word. “I helped one man escape. He was my friend. I couldn’t have seen him hang.”

  “Once is enough. I hear repentance from apostasy is possible, but helping them leave the country, siding with apostates over your dear brothers in the faith?” The contempt in his voice was thick. “They’ll never believe you only did it the once. They’ll say you’re part of Family Matters and they’ll torture you for information.”

  Mahmud lowered his head until it was touching the steering wheel. “You’re a bastard Kit, you know that?”

  “Just tell me where that auction is taking place. I know you know. Everyone in authority knows. You all thumb your noses at the reformists and just carry on like the savages you are.”

  There was a long silence, Asim could hear the two men breathing, Mahmud’s breaths were deeper, more like grunts.

  “All right. I’ll find your damn auction. Anything else.”

  “Money.”

  Mahmud cursed in Arabic. “How much?”

  “Enough to buy the girl.”

  “She pretty?”

  “Reasonably so. She’s a redhead. Nice little figure.”

  “Could go for anything up to about two hundred thousand then.”

  “Sterling or Riyal?

  “Riyal.”

  Kit calculated the cost in his head. “A hundred and twenty thousand. You’d better give me more, just in case. I assume there’ll be no interest.” Kit smiled a thin, snaky smile. “I don’t know how your banks stay in business.”