Stolen Lives

by Jassy Mackenzie

  She also had oral gonorrhoea. One of the doctors had explained to Edmonds that they took a throat swab from every sex worker admitted to check for infection, as unprotected oral sex was the norm at brothels. The victims at Number Six had been lucky that the punters were obliged to wear condoms for all penetrative sex. Many trafficked women and girls ended up at establishments where the men could pay an extra tenner for unprotected sex.

  The police had discovered that Amanita was reasonably fluent in English, and that only her severe facial injuries had prevented her from speaking to them on the evening of the raid. She was now sufficiently recovered to do the interview, and straight afterwards she would be flying back to Dakar with her grandfather.

  Edmonds hoped her nervousness would not show. This girl represented their last and only chance. All the other victims had flatly refused to cooperate with the police or testify in court. They had been offered a thirty-day reflection period to think about it and to change their minds if they wanted to, but every one had turned the opportunity down and had asked to go back to South Africa. With them would go any chances of a successful prosecution.

  Toting her bag of interview equipment, Edmonds walked into the four-bed ward.

  An elderly black man in crumpled-looking clothing struggled to his feet from Amanita’s bedside. The anguish in his eyes was almost palpable.

  Edmonds could only imagine how he must have felt after hearing about the physical and emotional abuse that his granddaughter had suffered. In her limited experience she had discovered that the parents and guardians were usually more traumatised, and harder to deal with, than the victims themselves.

  Perhaps it was because the victims had been through the worst of their ordeal by the time she interviewed them, whereas for their parents, the hell was only just beginning.

  Up close, she revised her initial impressions of the white-haired man. His clothes might be crumpled-looking after the hours spent sitting by his granddaughter’s bedside, but they did not look cheap. She took his hand, aware that her own was cold and slightly clammy, but to her relief, Bernard Soumare’s didn’t feel any different.

  She greeted him with professional warmth, and offered a “Good afternoon” to Amanita.

  “If it’s all right with you, sir, I’d like you to step outside while I have a chat with Amanita.”

  He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  “Please, be gentle with her,” he said in accented English. He bent down again, exchanged a few whispered words with the injured girl in a language that Edmonds supposed was their native Wolof, squeezed her hand, then grasped his walking stick and slowly left the ward.

  A hospital ward was not the ideal place to conduct an interview like this. In Scotland Yard there was a special room set aside for such activities, because the team’s number-one priority was to put the victims at ease. The more relaxed and comfortable they felt, the easier it was for them to talk. The Yard’s interview room was decorated warmly, with comfortable couches and unchallenging watercolours of flowers and riverside scenes on the walls. The room was unobtrusively wired, and the big wall mirror opposite the carefully positioned couches concealed a one-way observation station.

  Since she had joined the Human Trafficking unit, Edmonds had spent many hours with her feet tucked up on one of the couches, wearing jeans and a comfortable top, talking to victims sat on the other. She found it took a long time to persuade the women to relax, open up and start talking, and if a certain topic was too difficult to speak about on a specific day, then Edmonds would simply change the subject and start chatting about music, food, hair care, or their life back home.

  “Pink and fluffy,” Richards had told her when she joined the department. “That’s how we need to come across. We have to convince the victims that the police can be liked and trusted, which is not an experience many of them have had in their home countries.”

  Judging from some the questions she’d been asked, Edmonds was convinced that many of them didn’t believe she was a police officer at all.

  She drew the curtains around the hospital bed before adjusting Amanita’s pillows so that she could sit up comfortably.

  One of the black girl’s eyes was covered by a surgical dressing that extended down the left side of her face. The other returned her gaze, steady and unblinking.

  Edmonds sat down on the chair next to the bed and arranged her recording equipment on the little table, moving a vase of flowers aside to accommodate the sleek black machine. In a hospital, this was another potential problem, because the sight of the recorder might make Amanita nervous about talking freely. It was far better for such equipment to be unobtrusive or, better still, completely out of sight.

  She pressed the record button and the red light on the machine began to flash.

  “Amanita, I’m Eleanor Edmonds from the Human Trafficking unit at Scotland Yard. I don’t know if you remember me from the night you were rescued. How are you feeling now?”

  Amanita gave a small nod and began to talk.

  “I remember you. I still have pain, but they look after me well here.”

  “We’re going to be preparing a case against Mr Salimovic, the owner of the place where you were forced to work,” Edmonds continued, her voice gentle. When we find him, she thought. “And Mr Rodic, who helped to run Number Six. We’re going to need to build a strong case against these two men, not just because they were running an illegal brothel, but because they were abusing their workers. This way we can push for the maximum sentence, and send them to prison for a long time. Fifteen years, hopefully.”

  Edmonds took a deep breath. “We’re going to ask you to try and identify both men, using pictures, of course.” The old identity line-up had long since been replaced by a photo-based system.

  “We will also need you to testify in court. If you agree to do this, we’ll help and support you the whole way through the process and afterwards. We’ll fly you back here when the time comes, and you’ll stay in a safe house, under a witness protection plan.” Edmonds was deliberately emphasising the safety precautions that would be put into place. She had seen the fear in the eyes of the other girls when they’d refused to assist the police any further. Frustrating as it was, she could only feel sympathy for them, because they must have been intimidated to such an extent that they were simply afraid to say anything.

  Amanita cleared her throat and spoke softly, through lips still swollen and smeared with salve.

  “Are any of the others helping you?”

  Edmonds paused, thrown by this unexpected question. What to say? Was the Senegalese girl asking this because she didn’t want to be the only one testifying? She hoped not, because all she could do was tell her the truth.

  “No. All five have asked to go back to South Africa as soon as possible.”

  She stared at Amanita, and the girl’s dark eye met hers again. Edmonds saw the strength in her gaze, and her next words confirmed it.

  “I will help you,” she said softly.

  Leaning forward on the plastic chair, her elbow propped rather awkwardly against the bed’s side rail, Edmonds felt a huge surge of relief. Prematurely, she knew, because the victim might still change her mind. But at least, for now, they had a witness.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Now, Amanita, please tell me how you were brought to England to work at Number Six.”

  “I was travelling in South Africa with my friend Fariah,” the woman said. “On a long holiday, before I started my studies.” She looked at Edmonds with concern in her eyes. “Have you found Fariah yet?”

  Fariah was the missing victim; the one who had been beaten up and sold on.

  “We’re searching as hard as we can for her,” Edmonds said reassuringly.

  “We were looking for work, some way to earn extra money,” Amanita continued. “We were short, because Fariah’s bag got stolen with a lot of cash inside. We did not want to ask Fariah’s mother for more, because she had just lost her job, and I did not want to bother my
family back in Senegal. Then Fariah saw an advertisement for extravaganza dancers in a newspaper.”

  “Can you remember which one?” Edmonds asked.

  Amanita thought for a moment. “I do not know,” she said.

  Edmonds nodded. That was understandable.

  “We were told to come to the dance venue the next morning,” Amanita continued. “It was in Johannesburg somewhere, but I cannot remember where. There, a woman interviewed us and took our photos.” She paused and swallowed.

  “Here.” Edmonds picked up the glass of water on the little table and held it carefully to Amanita’s lips. “What did the woman look like?” she asked.

  “She was young. Not very tall, with blonde hair in a ponytail, and blue eyes. She smiled a lot. She told us her name was Mary.”

  Mary? Edmonds jotted the name down, disappointed. She’d hoped that Amanita might give a description of Mathilde Dupont.

  “Go on,” she encouraged.

  “Mary told us there were no jobs for us here, as they were full, but that she was looking for workers for a club in England. She asked Fariah if we had passports. I did, but Fariah’s passport had been inside the stolen bag. Mary said it did not matter, that she would help her get a new one in time. She told us to meet her at the airport in a week.”

  Edmonds held the water glass to the victim’s lips again.

  “When we got to Heathrow, a man met us who said his name was Sam. He had black hair and a cruel face.”

  Edmonds nodded. She already recognised the description— Salimovic.

  “Sam asked for all our passports. He said he needed them to get us a working visa. I did not want to give him my passport, but I was frightened that if I said no, I would not get the job. We left the airport and drove for a long time until we came to a big house, on the corner of Camargue Road and another street. It had a white wall and a high wooden gate.”

  Edmonds was encouraged to hear that the house matched the description of Salimovic’s rented home in South Woodford perfectly. As the police had suspected from the trace evidence discovered inside the large detached mansion, the victims had indeed been taken there first.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Fariah and I were put in a room together. The rooms were smart, and I thought it was a nice place. But then I saw that I did not have my suitcase with me, or my handbag. And when I tried to open the bedroom door, it was locked.”

  Now Amanita looked down while she spoke, fixing her gaze on the shiny linoleum floor.

  “I banged on the door and asked for someone to open it. Then Sam came. He unlocked the door, looking angry.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He started shouting at us, saying that we owed him money for the flight and the passport, and that we must work for him for one year to pay it back. That we were using illegal passports, and if we tried to escape the police would find us and they would put us straight into prison.

  “I said that was not true because my passport was my own, but he did not listen. He hit me hard on my face.” Amanita raised a hand to her bandaged cheekbone and Edmonds nodded in sympathy. She’d suspected that the most recent injuries the girl had suffered had not been her first.

  “Then he unzipped his trousers. He started to smile, talking to us in his own language, and although I could not understand what he was saying, I knew already the kind of work he was going to ask us to do. I knew he and Mary had lied to us.”

  She blinked rapidly. “I was wishing I could do something to get away, but I did not. I was too scared he would hurt me again.

  Fariah was on the floor crying, and I think the man knew she would not fight him.

  “So he raped her first,” she said, in a small, husky voice.

  Over the next half-hour, Amanita related more of her story. Edmonds listened intently, checking the recorder from time to time, struggling to maintain a level of professional distance and a sympathetic manner, to conceal the shock she felt.

  Fariah had been taken to another room soon after that, and Amanita had been entirely alone. Her “breaking-in” had been brutal and methodical. If she complied, she was left alone; given food, even offered alcohol and over-the-counter drugs like painkillers or tranquillisers if she wanted them. If she resisted, she was beaten.

  Either way, she was raped repeatedly by the cruel-faced Salimovic and her other tutor, who, from the description Amanita gave, Edmonds recognised as Rodic.

  “Smile,” Salimovic had told her. “For every client, you will smile.”

  When Amanita refused, he had grabbed the corners of her mouth with his thumbs and index fingers, and pulled them painfully upwards, then leered at her and pointed to his own expression.

  “Smile,” he had said again.

  They moved her at night, she said, in the back of a car. She was not restrained, but she was blindfolded, and Sam sat next to her in the back seat as Rodic drove. Not a long ride, ten minutes perhaps; but she had no idea where they were taking her. No one in the car said anything during the journey. Still blindfolded, she was taken into a house, led up a flight of stairs and put in the tiny bedroom that, for the next few months, would be her home.

  After the first client had raped her, Amanita cried. She told Edmonds she was punished for her tears with yet another beating. After that, she learned not to cry, but just to smile. To smile as man after man entered her little room and forced himself on her. Usually ten men a day; sometimes as many as twenty.

  Food was brought to her room twice a day, but she felt constantly sick and had no interest in eating. When he saw the plates of congealing food on the rickety table next to the bed, Rodic had sat down beside her and put his pudgy arm around her. He told her in his broken English that if she did not eat, she would receive more beatings, and although he did not want that to happen, he would not be able to stop it. And, pointing to the toilet, he indicated that if she flushed the food away and pretended she had eaten, that would also not be wise. He poked her in her ribs, pinched her hipbones. Thin is not good. The clients will think you have Aids.

  The universal terror.

  So Amanita had choked down the meals, forced herself to swallow the overcooked meat and anaemic mixed veg, the hard bread rolls and the dry scrambled eggs. Every night, when “work” was finally over, the ancient, unsmiling receptionist—Rodic’s mother, who was also under arrest and also refusing to cooperate—would bring her an alcoholic drink in a plastic cup.

  Those, Amanita always flushed down the toilet. She was convinced that the drinks were spiked with drugs or sleeping pills.

  “I drank only water,” she said.

  Edmonds took a deep breath. It was time to move on with the questioning now, to try and find the answer to a question that had been perplexing the team.

  “Amanita,” Edmonds said gently, “I have another question for you now.”

  “Yes?”

  “We received the phone records for Number Six yesterday.”

  The landline records had proved to be disappointing. Apart from a few calls to Salimovic’s home numbers in South Woodford and Sarajevo, most of the other numbers were for local fast-food outlets and pizza parlours.

  Except for one.

  “We saw that somebody phoned your grandfather’s mobile number in Senegal a few days before the police raid. Do you know anything about that call?”

  In the silence that followed, Edmonds realised how quiet the ward was. The only sound was the muted hum of the air conditioning doing its best to keep the room at the requisite comfortable temperature, despite the grim weather outside which heralded the fact that summer was well and truly over.

  Then, in a whisper, the girl replied.

  “I called that number. I phoned him.”

  Her eyes locked with Edmonds’, and once again the police officer was surprised by the strength she saw there.

  “How did you manage to get to a phone?”

  “The man I was with, he was very drunk. He fell asleep. They did not lock our doors when the customers were there, so
I went out. I saw there was nobody in the office, so I quickly made the call.”

  “What did he say when you spoke to him?” This was the question that had been puzzling Edmonds the most. If the girl had managed to get a message through to him that she was in trouble, why hadn’t he called the police immediately? The raid had been pure coincidence; as a result of an anonymous but well-informed tip-off.

  “I did not speak to him.”

  “You didn’t speak to him? But the call went through.” And it lasted for five minutes, Edmonds thought. Long enough, surely, for Amanita to have described her predicament.

  Amanita turned her head to the right, looking away from Edmonds. Her fingers touched the white dressing on her cheek.

  “He was at a jazz club in Dakar with his friends. I could not speak loudly because I was scared somebody would hear, and he could not hear properly because it was a noisy place. Because of that he did not know it was me at first. Then he said he would go outside and find somewhere quieter to talk. He did not know that it was urgent. I heard him telling his friends to wait and then walking through the club. Lots of voices and loud music. Then he was outside, I think, because the noise stopped. He said, “How’s my girl?” Then Sam came back into the office and I dropped the phone.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “He hit me many times. Then he pushed me down onto the floor and kicked me. I was screaming, but he would not stop. I thought I was going to die.” She raised her hand to her cheek again and Edmonds saw that she was trembling.

  “Did your grandfather phone back?”

  “He tried to. But Sam saw a number from another country on the display, so he just carried on hitting me. Then he said that they were going to sell me and Fariah to another place, a place where the men do not use the condoms and all the girls soon die. A man came to look at me the next morning, but he said I was too hurt. He did not want to take me until my face was better. He told Sam that he would come back in a week. But you came first.”