by LJ Ross
“Naturally,” Ryan said.
“Ivan the Terrible, of Russia,” she continued. “He was known to be especially cruel and ruthless. He had one nobleman eaten alive by dogs, when he was only a teenager. He took over vast areas of Russia for his personal domain, and gave a mounted police force carte blanche to execute anybody who didn’t like it. Oh, and he killed his own son in a fit of rage, so the story goes.”
“He sounds like a peach,” Ryan commented, and was surprised to find he was enjoying himself. “Anybody else?”
“Well, Henry the Eighth was no boy scout,” Anna mused. “He engineered the deaths of two of his six wives, and quite enjoyed burning heretics at the stake. There’s a pattern of good and bad people throughout history because that’s just human nature. You’re always going to get some rotten eggs, and unfortunately some of them are born into, or manage to claw their way into, powerful positions.”
Ryan smiled slowly. “Did anybody ever tell you, you’re sexy when you’re talking about history?”
Anna laughed. “I think I can safely say, you’re the only one who’s ever told me that.”
“Just as well,” he said, and kissed her deeply.
CHAPTER 14
There was only a single toilet and shower in the dormitory the women shared but, since the former was perpetually occupied and the latter came with no towels or other means of drying themselves, they were forced to remain for long stretches in their beds until the heroin highs wore off. For some, the return to relative lucidity was unwelcome—the faraway world they occupied under the influence of the strong opiate being far preferable to the horrifying reality of their captivity—whilst, for others, it was a relief.
For her part, Achara was glad to find herself in possession of her own body and mind once again, even if it came with the crushing knowledge that her situation remained unchanged, and had not been some dreadful nightmare from which she would awaken. Reality was brutal, and cold, and she knew she must take measures to survive.
Her eye fell upon the small, wrapped package at the base of the bed, and she dragged herself up to reach for it. Though she’d have liked to throw the burger away, hunger was a more pressing concern, and she fell upon the cold bread and cheap meat with a ravenous appetite, only to feel nauseous soon after it was gone.
Had they drugged the food, or was it simply that food didn’t taste the same after heroin?
She didn’t know the answer to that question, but found herself running to the toilet, desperate to expel the meagre amount lining her stomach. Finding the cubicle occupied as usual, she banged hard on the door and muttered a stream of fast Thai, beseeching the other woman to come out, but there came no answer. Desperate, and since there was no lock on the cubicle door—Pos’man being firmly of the opinion that he should be able to access his merchandise at all times—Achara took the chance to yank it open.
Only to find a woman collapsed on the floor, surrounded by a puddle of her own vomit.
Overdose.
With a shaking hand, she leaned across to feel for a pulse at the woman’s throat, calling to the others for help. But there came no running feet, no rush of action, the other women being ill-equipped to deal with any other trauma besides their own.
“Chuay duay!” she shouted again.
In desperation, she did the only thing she could think of, which was the one thing she’d been warned never to do.
She screamed, and kept screaming until somebody came.
* * *
“What’s all that racket?”
Mick muted the sound on his television screen and looked over at Callum and Noddy, both of whom lay sprawled across the other sofas in the room.
“Cal, get over there and tell them to keep the bloody noise down,” he said. “I’m tryin’ to watch Line of Duty.”
“I’ll go,” Noddy said, immediately. “I said I’d take the night shift, anyway.”
Mick gave him a searching look.
“I said Cal would go,” he repeated, very clearly.
The other men said nothing, and soon after Callum hurried from the room to do his bidding. In the residual silence, Mick pointed a finger at Noddy and looked him hard in the eye.
“Now, look here, you little prick,” he snarled. “Don’t think I haven’t got the measure of you, cos I have. D’ you think I’m a mug? Is that what you think?”
Noddy began to sweat.
“N-no, course not, Mick—”
“D’ you think I’m blind, then? Or deaf? D’ you think I’m a bloody idiot who’s never been round the block?”
Mick rose to his feet, scattering crumbs onto the floor, and moved across the room until he stood nose-to-nose with the younger man.
“Well? Is that what you think o‘ me?”
Noddy shook his head vigorously.
“No, Mick, I don’t think that—”
Mick stared at him for endless seconds, watching the man’s eyes dilate in fear, and was satisfied.
“Good,” he said, and stepped away again. “Because if you think I haven’t seen you sniffin’ round that skinny one through there, the one with the green eyes, you’ve got another thing comin’. This isn’t a bloody free-for-all. I’m the one who says who gets to have a turn, and that’s none of us, till The Dragon has had his pick. You know the rules.”
Noddy ran a hand over his heated brow. “Aye—sorry, Mick.”
“First rule of business, lad,” the other man said, reaching for the television remote. “Always think of your bottom line. She’s fresh meat, but she’ll be worth nowt to him, and nowt to us, if you go helping yourself. That eats away at our margin, and I’d have to dock your pay. Understand?”
Noddy hadn’t thought of it like that.
“Now, one of the older birds,” Mick said, magnanimously. “If you’d had an eye for one o’ them, that might be different. Nobody cares about them, so much. They’d be servin’ a completely different clientele.”
On which note, he unmuted the television and continued to watch his favourite police drama without any irony whatsoever.
“Mugs,” he said, every so often, and took a swig of his beer.
* * *
In the confines of her stone prison, Lawana built a cocoon for herself inside the soil, for warmth, and wondered whether, in doing so, she had been responsible for her own burial. There must be few people who could boast of such a thing, and there was a strange comfort in the knowledge that she would die in her own company, swallowed whole by the earth, beneath a starry sky.
She could see one or two of them twinkling far above her head, in the scrap of sky that was just visible through the sink hole. She said silent prayers for her daughter, offering herself to whichever deity was listening.
Let her break free, where I failed.
Let her live a long and happy life.
Let her know the joy of children, and none of the pain of hardship.
Hunger ate away at the lining of her stomach, churning back and forth, while the pain in her back continued to rage.
She couldn’t move her legs.
It hadn’t come as so much of a surprise, after the fall she’d taken, but it severely curtailed any chance she might have had to escape, or find help. She could have tried dragging herself from the mound of earth and along the rocky floor using her arms, following the pathway the boy had taken earlier that day, but she could hear the crashing of the sea against the outer wall and into the mouth of the tunnel, trapping her inside.
And so, she waited, and hoped.
If she survived the night, she would leave at the first opportunity rather than wait any longer for Gaz or one of the other men to claim her.
She’d die, first.
Lawana thought of the boy, and wondered whether he had told them where she was.
Of course, he had.
He was one of them, and the only reason they hadn’t come for her was probably because they were waiting until the cover of darkness to steal her away—only to find themselves thwart
ed by the tides. But, come daybreak, they’d be back, she knew it.
Lawana lay there in the darkness and tried to conserve her strength, willing herself to survive for another night, so that she might see the sunlight one last time.
It was not too much to ask, was it?
Just one last sunrise.
CHAPTER 15
“Ollie! Get your arse downstairs an’ give me a hand!”
The boy heard his mother calling to him from the kitchen, and even through the layers of wall and plaster he detected the slur to her speech. Automatically, he checked the Spiderman clock he still kept on his wall, and saw that it was almost nine o’clock, which meant she would be almost a full bottle of gin into her nightly routine.
“Ollie!”
He left the quiet of his room to trail downstairs, unsure of what he would find. As he passed the living room, he dipped his head inside to find his younger sister watching cartoons, long after her bedtime. Her hair was unkempt, and she wore a stained pinafore dress he was sure she’d worn the day before.
“Stay there,” he told her. “I’ll come back in a minute.”
“I’m hungry,” she wailed. “Mammy said she was goin’ to get me beans on toast—"
“All right,” he said. “I’ll make you something.”
He closed the living room door, then made his way along the corridor towards the kitchen, which was brand new and filled with high-end appliances, just like the rest of the house. Business had been good for Gaz and his family, if nothing else.
“Mam?”
He found her slumped on the floor, leaning back against the dishwasher. For a second, he just looked at her, in much the same way he’d looked at the woman he’d found in the cave: with a mixture of curiosity and fear. His eyes swept over her dishevelled, platinum blonde hair, and over the smudged make-up on her lined face. Once, he could remember it being beautiful, just like her voice. He remembered how it had sounded while she sang softly to him, at night, when he was very young…but, not now. Now, it was hard and gravelled, its tone no longer that of a naïve girl, but of a grown woman whose dreams had been shattered. The low-cut t-shirt she wore was stained and smelled of booze, most likely from the bottle which lay empty beside the back door, where it had obviously rolled after she’d missed the bin.
“I fell,” she said, and let out a giggle he found annoying. “Give us—give us a hand, son.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“Who gives a—” she began, and tried to reach for the countertop. “He’ll be out with some woman or another, won’t he?”
There was no anger, anymore. Just acceptance.
“Just make su—sure, you’re nowt like him,” Keeley managed, before sliding onto the floor again.
“Here,” he said, tiredly.
She’d put on a bit of weight over the last few months, and it was a task to raise her up, but he managed it. Keeping her upright was another matter.
“Becki’s still awake,” he said, with reproach. “Mam, she’s only four—”
“It’s only fi—five o’clock,” his mother argued, and squinted at the clock on the wall. “Isn’t it?”
“No, Mam. It’s past nine.”
She looked at him, then back at the clock, before her face crumpled.
“I’m sorry,” she cried, and tears began to roll down her face. “I’m sorry—I promise, I promise this is the last time—”
Shut up, he thought. Just shut up.
“Come on,” he said, and half-dragged her towards the door. “Walk, Mam, I can’t carry you all the way.”
Her body refused to co-operate, and he was panting by the time he managed to take her upstairs to the master bedroom, where he laid her on the bed in the recovery position, which he’d learned at a First Aid class in school. If she threw up, at least she wouldn’t choke.
He dragged a blanket over her body and, when she made no further sound, he realised she must have blacked out.
With a sigh, he left the room and made his way back downstairs to see to his sister, who was probably starving. A brief recce in the fridge confirmed that pickings were slim, nobody having remembered to go to the supermarket, but he dredged up a can of tuna and some dry pasta, which he set to boil. There was no milk or juice, so water would have to do, but it was better than nothing. While the pasta bubbled, he found his mother’s purse, took out her debit card, and placed an online order for groceries to be delivered the next day. If he did that, maybe his father wouldn’t blame her for not looking after the house properly, and might even think she’d had the foresight to remember.
“Ollie?”
Becki came into the kitchen and yawned.
“Is there anything to eat?”
He nodded, sat her on one of the shiny bar stools before serving up a plate of pasta and tuna.
“I don’t like it,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“It’s all we’ve got,” he said, and nudged the plate towards her again. “Please, Becki. Just eat it, okay?”
He watched his sister munch her way through the swirls, then picked her up and carried her upstairs. It was too late to give her a bath, although she probably needed one, so he found a nightie and helped her into it, before tucking her into bed.
Ollie waited outside her door for a while and then stuck his head around to check she was asleep. When he was satisfied that Becki was out for the count, he checked his mother’s room, and heard her deep snores.
Then, he stood on the landing and considered his next move.
His father might come home at any moment, and wonder where he had gone. Gaz liked to know his whereabouts, even if he was largely absent himself, and had made it clear that, as a new recruit to the business, he was expected to be on call at all times, day or night. Any unexplained absences must be accounted for.
The thought was enough to hold him there, until another thought entered his mind.
The woman’s face, as she’d appealed to him for help.
Ollie clutched his hands to the sides of his head, trying to rid himself of the unwanted image, wishing he’d never found her, never seen her…
But he had, and her image could not be erased.
He’d spent much of the day thinking of the best course of action, considering numerous possibilities and rejecting each one, until he’d fallen back on a simple, old-fashioned solution to his problem.
Call the police.
It was extremely risky, and would require bravery, which was a commodity in short supply. There was no way he could make the call from home, or from his mobile phone; not even from any of the burner mobiles his father left lying around the house. There must be no way for the police to trace the call back to him, or he’d be punished as a rat, and his whole family ruined.
He thought of his sister lying asleep upstairs, and even of his mother.
If he left the house, he would be committing an act of treason against his family, and an act of mercy for a complete stranger.
It went against everything he had ever known, but he knew what he must do.
Jingling the loose change in his pocket, Ollie hurried downstairs and put on a dark jacket and cap. Then, he checked the peep hole and, finding the pathway clear outside, slipped out into the night.
* * *
“Emergency. Which service?”
Ollie watched the seconds drain away on the pay phone, and felt his mouth run dry.
“Caller, you’ve reached the Emergency Services. Which service do you require?”
“I—the police. Police.”
“I’ll just connect you now.”
He waited, eyes scanning the deserted street for any movement.
“Hello, you’ve reached the Police. What is your emergency?”
“It’s—I’ve found someone. A woman, and she’s injured—”
“I can transfer you to the Ambulance Service—”
“No! No, you need to go and find her,” he whispered, clutching the phone with both hands until his knuckles turned white. �
��She’s trapped.”
“Where are you calling from?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he almost shouted, and then caught a movement in his peripheral vision, which sent his heart racing, before he realised it was only a stray dog. “Just head for Spottee’s. She’s not far from there.”
He hung up the receiver before the operator could ask him any more prying questions, then used the back of his sleeve to scrub any fingerprints from the cracked plastic. The faces of half-naked women touting their wares stared back at him from the many adverts plastered to the inside of the phone box and he felt dirty, all of a sudden. Standing there in an old phone box which smelled of dog excrement, he found himself in possession of a new, hitherto unknown knowledge about the nature of his own existence.
Don’t be like him, his mother had said.
But, he realised he and his father had something in common, after all.
They were both brave, in their own ways.
CHAPTER 16
Later that evening, Jack Lowerson found Melanie sitting cross-legged on the floor of their living room, surrounded by papers and old photographs from her sister’s file.
“Hi,” he said, gently.
She looked up at him with bloodshot eyes.
“Hi,” she said in return. “Did you have a nice time?”
“Yeah,” he said, thinking of Frank’s roof-raising baritone and MacKenzie’s infectious laughter. “Wish you were there, though.”
“Sorry about that,” she said, looking away. “I just didn’t feel like socialising, after all.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s a difficult time of year for you.”
She frowned, then looked down at the paperwork in front of her.
“Yes,” she said, feeling guilty again. “Um, d’ you want a cup of tea?”
“Stay where you are and I’ll make it,” he offered, and she watched him bustle off to the kitchen, pausing to scratch the cat’s ears as it trotted over to curl lovingly around his legs.
A good man, she thought, and tears sprang to her eyes.
