Pamela assuredly telling her that Terence had escaped his pursuers the first time round by going underground.
Naude, swivelling round on his motorbike, to fire the shot that left a double hole in Jade’s black jacket.
Salimovic, grasping a smouldering coal in the fire tongs, sneering as he called her bluff. Why had he done that straight after she had told him that Pamela and Naude had been arrested?
Suddenly, Jade understood.
“Salimovic had three passports,” she said aloud. “Three, not two. And an open-plan house with big windows and a rickety French door. And there are no beds in the spare bedrooms, no locks on any of the inside doors. There’s no way the victims were broken in here.”
The Colt.45 that Xavier had used had fallen onto the grass. Jade picked it up. She’d have to wipe her prints off it later, but for now, this was the gun she needed. She also needed a torch. She remembered seeing one in the hallway, and ran to get it.
The tracks leading away from the parking area were difficult to spot. In daylight she might not have noticed them at all, but under the low beam of the torch, the grass on either side of the short, flattened blades cast a sharp shadow.
Jade followed the narrow, winding route down the rocky slope. As soon as she heard human activity, she switched off her torch and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She carefully picked her way closer to the source.
Peering around a large granite boulder, Jade saw light pouring out of a square-ish opening in the hillside. The solid steel door that guarded it was standing wide open.
When Pamela had said Terence had gone underground, she’d meant it quite literally. He’d built the house on the top of the hill, and then, lower down, he’d built a bunker, a place to hide out in total safety.
Jade realised now that her intuition had been correct. She just hadn’t followed the process through to its logical end.
The victims had been hired by Tamsin. They had been transported in the white-painted people carrier. And they had been brought to the secure bunker on Terence’s country estate.
And, finally, they had been broken in. But by whom?
In the dim light, the bright red motorbike parked nearby was a dull maroon.
Jade caught a whiff of something familiar, and it took her only a moment to identify it.
Jeyes Fluid. Well known among criminals for its ability to eradicate trace evidence.
A shape emerged from the door and Jade shrank back.
She needn’t have worried. Naude was too busy to notice her. He was dragging a mattress behind him, pulling it out of the bunker, and doing so with some difficulty because he could only use one arm effectively.
He squinted into the night as he emerged from the well-lit underground rooms.
Once out, he hefted the mattress awkwardly onto his head and carried it over to where three others and a heap of bedding were already piled up next to two petrol cans.
He flung the mattress onto the pile with a grunt, then turned around and walked back to the door.
Jade wished she had made the connection sooner. After all, Naude himself had told her that he’d been Pamela’s lover, long ago, and run a business with her.
And David had said that, in partnership with a boyfriend, Pamela had gone into business organising sex parties for men.
It was so obvious now.
When the parties had become too wild, Pamela had got out of the business for good, but Naude must have come back to it later, and made his living that way again. At first, she guessed he’d hired willing girls—including those referred to him by Tamsin.
Then, when Tamsin met Salimovic, there had been groups of victims to break in. A simple move, surely, to change the programme from sex to rape. Invite a hard-core group for a weekend away, in the most private of locations, to share in the fun of training a new batch of victims.
Naude’s behaviour now, as he piled the mattresses ready for burning, after scrubbing down the interior of the bunker, was more eloquent than any confession could have been.
Pamela had paid Naude good money to murder her husband.
Jade was certain that Salimovic had paid him to leave Terence alive. And, for good measure, sweetened the deal with a passport.
Another rectangular shape blocked off the light in the doorway.
Another mattress, contaminated with sweat and skin cells, semen and hair, being dragged out to be destroyed.
From inside the thick walls of the underground building, she thought the earlier gunshots must have been inaudible, because Naude didn’t glance in her direction; didn’t appear worried at all. He was going about his shameful business with what appeared to be a complete lack of remorse.
“I’m sorry, David,” Jade whispered. “But some people are better off dead.”
The Colt.45 felt heavy and unfamiliar in her hands, but at this distance, she couldn’t miss.
There was only one question left.
Quick or slow?
Xavier had shot Salimovic in the gut, sentencing him to a prolonged and hideously painful death.
What would Elise Delacourt have done?
Raising the gun, Jade felt her mother’s tainted blood coursing through her veins. Her mother the killer.
You could give up your job, but you could never turn your back on who you were.
Head or gut?
Suddenly Jade knew for certain which it should be. The tall, moustached man dumped the fifth mattress on top of the pile, and, breathing heavily, turned to go back to the bunker. “Naude!” Jade shouted. As he spun round, she pulled the trigger.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements Firstly, thank you to my beloved parents Ann and Mac Mackenzie, for teaching me to read when I was very young and helping me develop a lasting love of books.
Thank you to Detective Sergeant Roddy Llewellyn and Detective Constable Leia Shearing from the Maxim Human Trafficking team at Scotland Yard, as well as Detective Sergeant Brian Faulkner from the Proceeds of Crime Implementation Unit, for all the help they gave me on police procedure in human trafficking cases. (Any discrepancies and inaccuracies in my writing have been deliberately included in order to safeguard their top-secret methods.) And Roddy, the beef stroganoff at the canteen was excellent!
A big thank you to my sister Sophie Mackenzie for letting me stay in her lovely London flat while I was doing my research, and to Dr Ruth-Anna Macqueen for the information on medical problems commonly experienced by sex workers.
Thanks also to the Internet Writing Workshop, whose members gave me hundreds of constructive comments when they critted the first few chapters of this book, and to Mark Stanton for reading and commenting on the entire manuscript.
A huge thanks to my editor Frances Marks, who has saved me from myself more times than I care to remember, to Frederik de Jager, Fourie Botha and Fahiema Hallam at Umuzi for all their support and enthusiasm, and to Michiel Botha for the book’s stunning cover design.
Thank you to Camilla Ferrier, Geraldine Cooke and Hannah Ferguson from the Marsh Agency in London as well as Debbie Gill from Maia Publishing Services for the amazing work they have done on my behalf.
I am thankful to the late, great Laura Hruska of Soho Press, as well as to Soho’s Bronwen Hruska, Justin Hargett, Katie Herman, Ailen Lujo and Mark Doten — a fantastic team of people that I look forward to meeting soon.
My thanks, and all my love, goes to my wonderful partner Dion, who is the first person to read every word I write. Dion, you are my support and my inspiration and I feel happy every time I think of you.
While doing research on bodyguarding, I found one book particularly informative and interesting. This was The Bodyguard’s Bible by James Brown.
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Stolen Lives Page 33
