For Richer, For Poorer

by Kerry Wilkinson

  She stared across the wasteland. Bricks, scraps of wood, crisp packets and chocolate wrappers fluttering in the breeze – and the outline of a figure. She squinted: it was a man, a big man, perhaps a hundred metres away, watching, almost entirely swallowed by the shadows but the moonlight caught the lens of the binoculars he was using and, for a fraction of a second, Jessica could see the outline of his squat head. She took a step towards him: two, three, four.

  And then he noticed her.

  Through the impossible light, Jessica knew he was staring straight at her.

  With a skid across the tarmac, Jessica started running. She hurdled the waste of a fence in one and sprinted for all she was worth. Behind she could hear someone shouting her name but if they couldn’t figure out why she was running then they should probably get a different job.

  The rough wasteland dipped up and down across mounds of sand, dust, dirt and rubble. Jessica felt her legs buckle, her knees bend, but she kept going. Pavel had turned and was rushing towards a similar fence on the far side but his size made him slow and Jessica had got off to such a flying start that she had already wiped thirty metres from the gap between them.

  He lumbered over a ridge and slid down the other side but Jessica dug in, ignoring her stomach, ignoring the shouting, and running like she couldn’t remember running before.

  Owners.

  Her foot clipped a loose brick, making her stumble, but Jessica reached down and used her palm to propel herself onwards. Ahead, Pavel was at the fence but didn’t have the physique to hurdle it and was climbing over one leg at a time.

  The gap was fifty metres at most now. Jessica could see his breath trailing into the air; his heavy coat, thick boots, enormous hands. In the short period she’d seen him in Ana’s flat, he’d appeared huge; from a distance he seemed even bigger.

  Clear of the rocky ground he picked up pace just as Jessica was losing it, the burn in her chest, ache in her legs and the crumbling, sorry nature of the ground taking its toll.

  By the time she reached the fence, Jessica didn’t have the strength to hurdle it, stepping over one leg at a time and jogging towards the main road, trying to catch her breath. She leant against the corner of a house, breathing heavily, peering from side to side for any hint of movement, knowing that she’d let Pavel go for a second time.

  33

  Katerina’s battered Fiat reminded Jessica of her old car, except that the other woman was a far more reckless driver than Jessica had ever been. Jessica ran her finger along the clasp of the seatbelt, hoping it would hold as Katerina accelerated along a street with parked cars packing either side. She swerved around a blind bend, jumping over the speed humps, and then skidded to a halt close to a row of shops. As the car came to a stop, a towel leapt off the back seat, landing on the back of Jessica’s head with a sweaty-feeling splat. She peeled it away from the back of her neck, glancing at it quickly, before throwing it onto the seat behind on top of a pair of trainers and some hand weights.

  Ugh.

  Katerina’s accent sounded more pronounced than when Jessica had last spoken to her. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Aah, don’t worry – they say I drive like a Hungarian.’

  ‘What does a Hungarian drive like?’

  Katerina turned to face Jessica, a twinkle in her eye: ‘Like there are only twenty-three hours in a day. Us Montenegrins aren’t much better.’

  The two women got out of the car and Katerina waved Jessica around to the driver’s side, offering her a cigarette. Jessica batted it away but Katerina lit one herself. ‘You know about Cheetham Hill, yes?’

  ‘Only what I read up on for the pub raid last night. It’s not somewhere I usually end up.’

  ‘There’s a wide immigrant community here – Ukrainians, Kosovans, Poles and all sorts of others. I know you’re on the right side but that’s not how some of them will see it. Some will have had bad experiences with the law at home; some will have seen some of your, how you say, “boys in blue” side with the English if there’s ever a problem here.’

  ‘It’s not—’

  ‘I know. You don’t have to defend yourself. I’m just telling you how some will think. They won’t hear your name and understand your position, or even look you in the eye. They’ll see that ID and think you’re here to cause trouble for them. Don’t let them see that you’re angry.’

  ‘I’m not angry—’

  ‘It’s fine – so am I. It’s hard to look these girls in the face, see the marks on their arms, and know they’ve been brought here as slaves. Don’t let these people see that, though. They won’t understand why you’re angry or who you’re angry at. The men who would do this aren’t a welcome part of this community either but many think one foreigner is bad, so they all are. That’s the stigma these people live with, so hide that anger.’

  Jessica knew that if Katerina had read her so easily then other people would be able to as well. The truth was that she was raging inside. She’d been up into the early hours, helping to process the girls they’d found, and now, before midday, she was barely half a mile from the pub needing to be calmed down. She wanted to be angry for them but if Katerina said that would be counter-productive then Jessica had to believe her.

  ‘Did you speak to the other girls?’ Katerina asked.

  ‘We found a stack of passports in the gloveboxes of the vans, which was one thing. We know who the women are and where they come from, plus it shouldn’t be too difficult to help them return.’

  ‘They are scared for their families.’

  ‘I know. We’re doing what we can to talk to the police where they come from but it’s not easy and we don’t have enough people like you who can speak the language.’

  ‘Where are the women now?’

  ‘We have a few secure houses around the city. We’ve got all the men in custody but not Pavel and we don’t know who else could be involved. Hopefully the women will be returning home in the next couple of days but we need to interview everyone first and that’s not easy. Like you say, none of them trust us – for all they know, they’ll tell us everything and we’ll turn them straight back over to those blokes. Some are talking.’

  Katerina took another long drag of her cigarette, holding the smoke in her lungs and then exhaling slowly. ‘Did you ever smoke?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’

  ‘Cancer?’

  Katerina laughed. ‘That’s the problem with you Brits – always worrying about what’s going to happen in twenty years and not seeing what’s going on in front of you. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow and I’ll bet you wish you had a cigarette then.’

  ‘I’d probably be more worried about my punctured lung and broken limbs.’

  Katerina laughed again. ‘Esther said you were different.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Something like that. Tell me – who are the men you arrested?’

  ‘We don’t really know – none of them are British and none are talking. We found the pub because of the text message that Pavel’s phone received. The phone that sent it belonged to one of the two drivers, so we’ve got that. Our tech boys are trying to see what else they can find. The theory is that they brought vulnerable girls in from places all over Europe, then Pavel organised selling them on, taking a cut of the sale prices.’

  ‘The first girl told me she thought she was here to work in a supermarket. She was excited, thinking she was coming over to stack shelves or work on tills. She’d been told she would get free English lessons.’

  ‘We’ve been taking statements all morning – they’re all similar stories. They thought they were coming over to be nannies or to work in a shop. None of them came through the border legally but it’s hard to believe someone brought all of them over together. There have to be other people involved who helped to smuggle them across. They’ll probably go to ground now we’ve arrested their mates.’

  Katerina dropped her
cigarette butt and trod on it. ‘These are the lucky ones and they probably don’t even realise it. They’ll be wondering why you’ve stopped them being nannies.’ She started walking towards the row of shops. ‘Come on.’

  The first store had the words ‘Polski Deli’ over the top. Katerina pushed open the door, releasing a wonderful array of meat-related smells.

  The shop was small, barely enough room for a small circular table, a counter and the door. Jessica squeezed inside, peering across at the woman eyeing her suspiciously. Katerina said something in what Jessica assumed was Polish and then switched to English: ‘Jessica, this is Halina – she makes the best kielbasa in the city.’

  Helpfully, Katerina pointed towards the sausages hanging behind the counter to illustrate her point, simultaneously meaning that Jessica didn’t have to ask what a kielbasa was.

  Halina was young, dark-haired, with matching dark eyes. She wore a white apron and blue latex gloves along with, apparently, a permanent scowl.

  ‘Jessica is all right,’ Katerina added. ‘She’s with me – you can trust her.’

  Halina didn’t seem convinced.

  Katerina nodded towards Jessica, who reached into her pocket and took out one of the few photos they had of Pavel – the mugshot taken when he’d been arrested for driving without a licence. If only someone had checked his credentials then, he could have been long since sent packing.

  She passed it across the counter but Halina only offered the briefest of glances before shaking her head.

  ‘Can you look again?’ Katerina asked.

  Halina scowled at her and then made a point of glaring at the photo before shaking her head once more.

  ‘It’s important,’ Jessica said, thinking she was helping. Instead, Halina spun to face her, jabbing an accusing finger.

  Her English was perfect: ‘Where were you when they smashed our windows?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You should be sorry. Gangs of your kids, hanging around chanting “Polish scum”. We called you but there was some other incident you were attending.’ She pointed at the window. ‘They threw a brick but where were you? Your vans came an hour later – we had to rely on our own men to protect us. And now you need our help . . .’

  ‘I can only apologise – I don’t know the specifics but—’

  ‘Go.’

  Halina turned back to Katerina. ‘Even if I knew who that was, I wouldn’t tell. You shouldn’t have brought her here.’

  With that, Halina picked up a cleaver and took her frustration out on a cut of meat by slamming it down with a squishy thwack.

  Jessica exited quickly, Katerina just behind. ‘Don’t blame her for that,’ Katerina said, tucking her blonde hair behind her ears.

  ‘I don’t – but finding Pavel helps everyone, not just us.’

  ‘That reaction is the reason I didn’t want to take you around this area before. I know you could’ve come by yourself but you wouldn’t have even got as warm a welcome as that. That’s why the people you sent out before got nowhere. There are a few pockets of immigrant communities around the city but this is probably your best bet. We can keep going but you’re going to get that reaction a lot. I can do the talking if you want.’

  ‘Would it be better if you were on your own?’

  Katerina shook her head. ‘If I do that, it makes me look like police. It’s one thing to do some consulting and help out but I can still fit in around here. The day I start doing this type of thing on my own is the day I stop being any use to you.’

  ‘In other words, you need me for them to get angry at.’

  ‘That too.’

  The next shop was a launderette with the word ‘scum’ spray-painted across the top.

  Katerina led Jessica in anyway, greeting the owner in another language and then switching to English. ‘Sorina, this is Jessica, she has something to ask you.’

  Jessica took out the photograph again but Sorina barely looked at it. ‘Do you even know where I’m from?’ Jessica couldn’t stop her eyes from flicking to Katerina. ‘Of course you don’t – everyone calls us Poles, wherever we’re from. They call us gippos and scum, shout at our children on the way to school. Where are you then? Some of my children speak better English than yours.’

  The venom and clarity to her words made Jessica take a step backwards.

  ‘I’m sorry but we really need to find this man, his name’s Pavel—’

  Sorina didn’t even look down a second time: ‘I’ve never seen him.’

  ‘He’s suspected of—’

  ‘I don’t care. Unless you have washing, then leave.’

  The rest of Jessica’s morning was spent in much the same way, Katerina trying her best to point out that Jessica wasn’t a threat but with the pair of them struggling to get anything approaching a civil answer. In the shops and businesses that were willing to engage, no one seemed to know who Pavel was; everywhere else there were questions about why the police hadn’t acted over a multitude of things that Jessica didn’t know the answer to. The odd person would appear to recognise Pavel but then shrink away, refusing to elaborate.

  Jessica didn’t blame any of them. Katerina didn’t even officially work for the police and yet she was one of the few people who could go into the shops, know the owners by name and talk to them in whatever dialect they spoke. Jessica barely knew the name of the bloke in the paper shop two streets over from her.

  After the fourteenth store and the fourteenth person who didn’t know anything about Pavel, Jessica told Katerina she wanted to go back to the station. If she was going to spend an afternoon taking abuse from people, she would much rather it was from her colleagues.

  34

  After a late night the previous evening, Jessica was steeling herself for another. In collaboration with the Serious Crime Division, they had decided on seventeen flats or possible brothels around the city where they suspected trafficked girls were being used.

  Everyone including the superintendent and DCI Topper was expecting at least one of the raids to turn into an embarrassing situation as they burst in upon a woman selling herself perfectly legally to a punter but it was felt not too many prostitutes would be running off to the media any time soon to complain about a police raid. As ever, the underlying social concerns of why a woman might be doing that job were completely secondary to how the force might look in the media if things went wrong.

  Jessica put up with the digs about not kneeing anyone in the head, balls or various other parts of the anatomy and then set off in one of the marked police cars. The two uniformed officers she was with chatted about football while she fiddled on her phone, making herself look busy. With seventeen separate raids happening at the same time, officers had been brought in on overtime from all over, with a member of CID ‘overseeing’ procedures at each site as if uniform weren’t capable of barging into a house and arresting a few people.

  The superintendent was in a car on the other side of the city with an ITN news crew following the biggest, toughest-looking uniformed officers they could find at the one flat they were utterly certain was being used for trafficking. If something was going to go wrong, then it definitely wouldn’t be there.

  Jessica read through the ‘intelligence’ they had on the flat she was heading towards. There was one noise-related complaint from a neighbour, a statement from a landlord saying he was owed rent from ‘some foreign type’ and three reviews from various websites.

  Liam1985: ‘Paid £40 for half hour – what a rip-off! With a name like Fiona, I expected a Brit but she was actually called Flora. Dunno where she’s from but they sure don’t know how to **** a **** over there!!!! LOL. Well, I would be LOLing if she hadn’t taken £40. Avoid!’

  Dumboandnoddy: ‘Thought I’d splash out with £70 for the hole hr – what a ripoff. Fiona/Flora was so skinny that I cud stick my fingers in between her ribs. Def not a size 8. If you like ******* 12yo boys then ull love her. No tits and wudnt let me anywhere nr her ****. Cant even speak English. Bitch
.’

  Dave4321: ‘Can’t speak for the other reviewers but I had a gr8 time with Flora. She was a little out ov it but didn’t seem to mind me doing anything, so all the better really. Best £40 I’ve ever spent. 9/10.’

  Quite why a site with such explicit content bothered to blank out the ruder words, Jessica wasn’t quite sure – but she hoped someone at the SCD was in the process of trying to trace the IP addresses of the comments left.

  The door to Flora’s flat was along an alley at the back of a row of shops and up a set of metal stairs. All seventeen properties had been scouted earlier in the day with tactical entry squads sent to the places where they might be needed.

  The officer parked the car in the shadows around the corner as they waited for everyone else to check in from the other sites. Predictably, the superintendent, his news crew and personal manicurist – or whatever else he had on the go – were the last to arrive at their raid. If he was going to haul himself off the golf course to plan a raid and spend the evening working rather than drinking champagne at a council function, then he was going to look good doing it.

  On his word to get into position, Jessica and the two officers climbed out of the car, locked it – a crucial and much overlooked precaution considering the number of laptops they’d had nicked in the past few years – and then headed into the alley at the back of the shops.

  The reason Flora’s flat hadn’t been afforded the luxury of a tactical entry team was mainly because her front door consisted of such thin wood that even Jessica fancied putting her shoulder through it. They double-checked they had the right number – if anyone was going to cock up tonight then it wouldn’t be her – and then pressed themselves against the bricks waiting for the final order.