Naked Lies

by Karen Botha

  Hopefully that will be enough. If they need to come looking for me, I pray he’ll remember I was meeting Jack. They’re already at the lifts when I pass through the lobby. Jack turns and sees me approaching. His face flickers recognition before turning his back on me. The level counter is ticking down way too quickly for my liking. It’s almost at ground level and I’m not there yet. The antique doors slide open with a clank. Jack steps inside. I have two seconds max, ‘speed up, Lucy.’ I skid across the marble floor, trapping my arm between the antique metal wedges. They jam, slamming my hand, but I don’t notice the instant bruising. The doors reopen.

  ‘Sorry, I’m in a rush,’ I say, stepping within their space. Filling my lungs is akin to pushing a lead weight up from my chest. I’m not sure if it’s fear or lack of fitness that is constricting them, but I’m panting like a dog. I sense the irritation from the occupants of the lift breathing down my neck as I turn to face the now sealed doors.

  The stocky chap looks at me. ‘What floor?’ He doesn’t smile.

  Shit, think. My eyes zip up to the display board, ‘Oh, same as you, seventeenth.’ I hope that Mo and Steve pick that up from the radio. Do radios even work in lifts?

  ‘Are you sure? That’s suites, we’re the only ones up there?’

  ‘Oh, OK, yes, erm.’ I pad my pockets as though looking for a key, buying time. ‘Sorry, did I say seventeenth? I meant seventh.’

  The man nods and presses the relevant button, but I’ve taken too long, and we’ve already sailed past level seven. I end up at the seventeenth floor with them. ‘I’ll float back down again now you’re out on seventeen.’

  I smile and wave as Jack passes me to exit. Hopefully, as the doors are open, Steve and Mo will get the message for sure now. Jack rotates, his step falters. I nod. ‘I’ve got you,’ I say silently, willing him to understand.

  ‘Come on, Lucy, we’re splitting up.’ Steve is waiting outside the observation van when I get back.

  ‘Did you hear? Jack is in a suite on the seventeenth floor?’

  ‘Yeah, we got it, you did well. Now come on, we’re off. Paula has been found.’

  ‘Where?’ I ask as a weight instantly floats away from my shoulders and brain.

  ‘I’ll tell you in the cab, come on!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Steve, shouldn’t you stay here and take care of Jack? Paula is safe now.’ What I mean is I don’t think that Paula should meet you when she’s feeling so vulnerable. It may push her backwards by about a million years. ‘Let Mo come.’

  ‘I’m not leaving her again,’ Steve says.

  I’d have admired his tenacity if he’d employed it a few years ago. Now, it’s just irritating, and I want to scream at him to stop putting himself first for once and do what is right for my best friend.

  I don’t say any of this though. ‘This is your operation, you must follow it through with Jack. He needs you now. Paula needs you to get to the bottom of this, and we all need you to make sure she didn’t go through whatever she’s been through in vain. Come on Steve, don’t let everyone down.’

  He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Then, he says, ‘OK.’

  He swaps places with Mo. Together, we hail a cab and we’re off, heading towards the coast, to find a random, but oh-so-important, countryside petrol station.

  Paula

  I cry when I see Lucy. Actually, I sob. I sob the kind of tears which come from the desolation of being drained of all hope. I don’t know why I hadn’t expected to see her, but the shock releases emotions I’ve been stifling since entering that semi-detached house a lifetime ago. I let loose. All strength leaves my legs and as she wraps her arms around me, I collapse into her.

  Lucy is also crying, but her tears are soft to my howling.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ is all she says, her face burning with shame.

  I don’t reply. I can’t. My chest is suffocating under the rainstorm of tears, drowning in relief. Someone strokes the hair on the back of my head. Their gentle touch soothes me from my self-indulgent weeping.

  ‘We need to do a debrief, sweetheart,’ Mo says.

  He’s right. I wipe my face with the cab driver’s jacket sleeve and release Lucy. I hold her wrist, tight.

  Already cordoned off, we walk - well, I limp with much support from my two friends - towards the empty cafe at the petrol station. My ankle throbs more with each step. Now that the adrenalin has worn thin, it’s pumping in a desperate attempt to heal. This is when I first see myself. A dirty window reflects my sorry image. My bedraggled hair is wild, my right eye closed and bruised purple and blue. Dried blood congeals at the end of my nose and smudges down my lips, cheeks, and mouth. My one remaining eye glints in the shadow light of the aperture, alert, wary even.

  I run my tongue over my teeth hidden by my swollen lips. They’re still all in place, no gaps.

  ‘Don’t you need an ambulance?’ Lucy asks, holding my hand across the Formica table once we're settled. She points with her free hand towards my bloated face.

  ‘I said no when uniform asked. I’ve got too much to do. There were screams inside the barn, Lucy. I wasn’t sure at first, but the more I replay what happened, the more I’m convinced. I think there were people, girls, locked in another part. I burnt the place down around them.’

  Mo pops down three cups of steaming, highly sugared tea. I repeat what I just told Lucy, ignoring the sharpness in my ribs. I press my hand over them to dull the poker of pain ramming into my side.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Lucy asks.

  Mo lifts his head, pen in mouth.

  ‘Sure, just a bit of discomfort from where they beat me.’

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ she says.

  ‘It’s OK Lucy, leave it.’

  She stands and before I’ve registered, she’s tugging my clothing. ‘What’s this, Paula?’ She’s staring at my bubbled flesh, yellow and already hanging off in places.

  ‘Erm, it’s nothing that won’t heal,’ I say.

  Mo looks, but doesn’t comment on the severity of my burns. In my situation, he’d do the same.

  Lucy sits down again. ‘You need a hospital and now!’ Her tone is quiet, she knows I’m not going anywhere soon.

  Mo nods at me. I continue where I left off.

  ‘And what about the girls at the house, do you think they’re the same ones screaming when you escaped the barn?’

  ‘I have no idea, but I am certain they were screams. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become. You need to stop every van, truck, and 4x4 in the area. That’s how they transport the refugees. In coffin-like encasements hidden in the floors.’

  Mo makes a few calls on his radio. ‘Dealt with.’

  A young uniformed cop in body armour strides in, disturbing the oddly easy atmosphere. He has some footage on his iPad for me to look over. Right enough, I identify Ginger and Wife Beater hopping out of the van. They joke as they bounce, full of drug induced energy, across the forecourt to buy booze. Whilst they were laughing in the queue to pay for fuel with which to burn me alive, I was scrabbling around the back of the beat up white vehicle sitting innocuously in the corner of the shot. I was desperately searching for a way, anyway, to save my life. And yet, it looks so calm on the replay. My veins run ice cold. Lucy squeezes my hand, shaking her head. Her eyes brim with more tears.

  ‘That’s them,’ I whisper for the sake of clarity.

  Before the cop is out of the room, their images have been distributed around all UK forces.

  ‘I feel special, I’m clearly a priority,’ I laugh. It’s fake and we all know it, but it doesn’t matter.

  ‘There’s a place and a time for black humour Mrs, and I’m not in the mood.’ Lucy says as she brushes a finger to one eye.

  ‘Did you hear anything that will help us find these two, anything at all?’ Mo’s getting snappy.

  ‘OK. These guys are the bottom of the rung. They’re involved in the day-to-day, but I’ll bet when you pick them up they'll have no clue of who's behind this.
They have my phone, and they called me a pig so they know I’m police, or connected at least. They are druggies I’m sure. I assumed they’re dealers, but they’re not in control of anything. They’ll be in this for the money - and the cheap thrill, the sick bastards.’

  ‘Did they mention any names?’ Mo asks.

  ‘No, they did refer to a she though, said she’ll not be pleased.’

  Graham

  I lean against the glass panelling installed to prevent me jumping from the balcony to my death seventeen stories down. In reality, if I felt the need, I would be able to navigate a way to the top. In hindsight, I guess the barrier is a nod to accident prevention rather than for those hell bent on creating harm for themselves and the commuters beneath them.

  I savour my champagne, contemplating the city view below me. Lights twinkle in the dark, each one a representation of people living their lives, unaware of being observed from up high.

  Hana slinks over. She’s not wearing knickers under that lamb’s wool navy skirt, she went to the toilet earlier and on her return, handed me her lacy lingerie. It’s now nestled in my top pocket, I keep trying to catch a waft of its lingering smell as the winter air breezes past.

  She’s nodding, laughing, and guiding her consort in my direction with an outstretched hand.

  ‘Graham, please say hello. I don’t believe you’ve met.’

  I take an instant dislike to Hana’s companion. His trimmed dark blonde hair is cut to perfection around his chiselled face. His neck is too thick for his body. I am in no doubt he is a man who has obsessed about weight training at some point in his life. And yet, his languid gait is way too relaxed for my liking. I taste my champagne, rolling it over my taste buds, they explode. I adopt a steely gaze, taking his hand, shake it with a strength unbefitting of my accounting background. Pushing my shoulders back, I gain another inch of height, but I’m still at least half a foot beneath him.

  ‘Pleased to meet you Graham,’ he drawls. Is he mocking me? His smile is overly bright for my liking.

  ‘The pleasure is all mine,’ I reply. I concentrate on preventing any warmth from reaching my eyes.

  ‘Do you approve of the new venue?’ He asks.

  I nod. ‘Of course.’ I can’t elaborate, I don’t know enough about this stranger to let my guard down.

  They laugh, the pair of them laugh!

  A frosty air hits me as I leave the relative safety of the outdoor heater and follow the couple inside in preparation for the commencement of the evening. He has his hand in the small of her back as she walks into the penthouse hotel suite ahead of him. A fire burns in the wall and once we're in the suite, the temperature of the air is balmy. I stand at one end, moving away from the direct heat and trying not to listen to their flirtatiousness. The sudden heat is not to my liking.

  The glass wall is already playing the start of a real life-movie. Unaware he’s being watched, a bulky middle-aged man enters with Patrick. He pops his hands in his pockets and broadens his chest, scanning his room.

  My pants tighten as my cock expands, anticipating the spectacle about to take place on the other side of the wall. Hana is talking, but I’m not listening. I leave her to her new conquest. My feet sink into the luxurious carpeted floor, necessary as sound proofing. Facing me through the glass, the guy inspects the mirror.

  ‘Nice touch, you get to see what you’re doing from every angle,’ Patrick explains before his john has chance to comment on it.

  The guy nods, but he doesn’t smile. ‘So, where are the girls?’

  ‘They’ll be here. Take a seat and we’ll bring them through.’ Patrick gestures to sit on the chaise longue.

  ‘I want a choice,’ he says.

  ‘Of course.’

  We have three interconnected suites. Patrick heads out of the middle one. He’ll be re-entering with the girls through an adjoining door on the far side. The john waits on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t undress, but instead walks over to the window and stares at the same view I was admiring only a few moments earlier. His breathing appears fast, his chest is moving high then low with more speed than I expect is normal for him. This is going to be a good session. He’s excited.

  I adore the fresh girls. So, when I got the text from an unidentified number citing a code name for this location, I dropped what I was doing to get here. Considering it’s short notice, this is a full house. There must be twelve people in this room, all stinking rich, all willing to rearrange their busy schedules in favour of voyeurism in the extreme.

  Patrick troops in seven minors. I think they’re all pretty much the same, all with the litheness youth provides with long black hair hanging down their rich skin. They quiver as they step in. Some check behind, others allowing silent tears to roll down their cheeks. They’re my favourites, those and the ones with dark pools of fear in place of their eyes. They line up, all trying to cover their naked breasts with their thin arms. Their firm buttocks face me through the glass, each covered in different degrees of silk or string.

  The client moves over to the bed and sits facing the line of untouched girls.

  ‘What are your names?’ He asks.

  They peek up at him, none wanting to be the first to reply. Then, one speaks up. ‘Aafa, it means forgiving.’

  Nice touch. She’s spiky. The little minx has a backbone, she’s different to the rest of this mousy line-up. You’d have thought more would have the courage to stand up considering they travelled thousands of miles illegally to engender a better life for themselves. But this is still much improved. They’d have been married off to some old family friend and used like a slave in their home country, but this way at least they make a living. One day when they’re too old, they’ll be free to live here as they choose and have some cash behind them. Granted, we don’t pay a fortune, but they have no expenses and do receive a small wage. That will add up to a nice sum over time.

  And we have the benefit of enjoying their innocence in the meantime whilst creaming all these voyeurs for their privileges, as well as the men paying - albeit without realising - to be watched. I don’t see a downside. Everyone wins.

  ‘What the…?’

  It’s bedlam.

  The door in the suite we’re watching hangs off its hinges. The place is flooded with armed police. They’re all geared up in helmets and vests. Patrick must have disappeared through the adjoining door, as he’s nowhere to be seen. Ants advance across every section of the room.

  I turn on my heel, no-one speaks. Like slow motion I catch Hana put her pink gin down on a marble surface. One, by calm one, we exit in silence.

  The private lift takes up to twenty bodies. It’s waiting on this level, ready should we need it. We stream in and one of the guests, a High Court judge presses the button. The door slides closed as the entrance to the suite we'd been using bursts open. There’s no way down to our secret car park without the lift and the only way in and out of the parking area is with a randomly generated code. Not a word is spoken. The energy inside is tense, hot, but not in the way we’d anticipated tonight.

  Being on the penthouse is a dream until you have to pass all seventeen floors before you can get to the basement and escape. There are no cameras, so no way of us being spotted until we hit the street. Hana and I scurry to Adam’s car, both keeping our heads low, just in case. If they found the room, who knows what else they know about?

  ‘I warned you!’ I erupt as soon as we're in the relative safety of the car.

  ‘You did nothing of the sort, Graham.’

  ‘I did, I said he was onto us.’

  ‘How does what happened up there relate to Adam finding out that some figures were amiss?’

  ‘You should know by now not to underestimate him, Hana.’

  ‘I think you are the one I underestimated.’ That’s like a sucker punch to the ribs. I’m winded. I imagine grabbing her neck, feeling the tough cartilage of her wind pipe compress under my strength as I strangle the life out of her, seeing her bug eyes still again
st the driver’s side door window, feeling her lifeless neck, limp in my grasp. Instead, I remain quiet, staring blank out of the windscreen as she weaves through the city traffic, light with the hour. Hana takes my hand and places it on the bare skin on her thigh. My fingers creep north, nestling under her woollen skirt, my fingers grazing her naked flesh. She sighs.

  Paula

  I’m heading out of the hospital when I get the call. Despite our wretched past, my heart twinkles when Steve’s number lights up my phone. I glance at Andy, check whether he’s noticed. He hasn’t, being busy searching for where he left the car, eyes focused above my head from where I’m seated in a stupid wheelchair. Apparently they broke my leg, and fractured it, and then broke it some more.

  It’s inconsequential. ‘They got them, Lucy. Your ruse with Jack worked.’

  She claps her hand over her mouth. ‘You’re kidding? I can’t believe it. What, everyone involved?’

  Steve continues to converse down the line. I nod, place my hand over the mouthpiece, ‘they sent the big guns in, SCO19 were dispatched,’ I whisper.

  When I hang up, Lucy asks, ‘go on then?’

  ‘Steve says they rescued some girls and caught the guy who was doing the distribution. There’s someone higher up the chain, but they’ve got this Patrick at the station for questioning along with the girls.’ I don’t tell her that it looks like there was another ring who got away; we can cover that off later. ‘They want me to go in and make identifications, check if they’re the same children from the house.’ I say this more to Andy, he’ll have to drop us into the city. I cringe. He will not approve!

  ‘Paula, you just escaped near death, you’re battered, bruised and burned, and yet, you still ask to return to that damned station to identify some girls. Can’t they send you pictures?’