Number Eleven was a block six floors high, with a small sign above the lobby door labelled International Luxury Serviced Apartments. Behind the wall of shiny glass, a woman sat at a high-gloss black desk, clicking on a mouse with red-tipped fingers.
He buzzed for entry and she let him in.
‘May I help you, sir?’ she asked, in a European but unidentifiable accent. He paused for as long as he dared, gathering what he could from her. She wore a form-fitting suit, a sleek bun and blood-red lipstick. The getup seemed excessive for manning a concierge desk alone on a Saturday afternoon, but university dress standards left him in no position to judge.
He placed his hands on the desk and allowed it to convey her emotions. She was bored and vaguely suspicious of men, but in no particular distress. He summoned the haughtiest tone he could manage and said, ‘Is there an apartment available for viewing?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘We have two apartments available at this time. How long will you require to stay in Edinburgh?’
‘It’ll depend on business,’ he replied. ‘I’d like to see the apartment, please.’
She took a bunch of keys from a drawer and stood. ‘Of course, sir. Please come with me.’ She led him to the lift. ‘All of our apartments are furnished to the very highest standards; with everything you need for your comfort. We provide all cleaning and laundry services for your convenience, and if there is anything else we may do for you, you must only ask. What is the nature of your business?’
‘Marine engineering.’
‘Ah, very interesting. You must travel extensively.’
‘I am rarely home,’ he said, glancing at himself in the mirrored interior of the lift. He had traded the alpaca jumper for a suit jacket and trousers, and gelled his hair into temporary tidiness. More gently, he added, ‘My wife has forgotten the look of me, I think.’
She glanced back at him in the mirror. ‘You must get lonely sometimes.’
‘My work keeps me busy. May I ask your name?’
‘I am Tamara.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Tamara.’ he said, ready to supply a pseudonym if she asked. She didn’t.
Her smile flickered, then disappeared. The lift doors chimed open. ‘Here we are. Number six is the Penthouse. Our finest property.’ She unlocked the apartment door and he followed her into a stylish and clinical open-plan flat with a view sweeping across the Forth and down over the harbour toward Leith. The furniture was shiny and mostly black: black marble, black glass, black lacquer, all free of dust and fingerprints. The only softness in the place was a pristine white sheepskin rug over the high-gloss floor. The vibrations hit him as soon as he stepped through the door: loneliness, shame and the dull, constant ache of a fear that never went away. His palms began to sweat.
‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘I’d like to have a look around.’
‘Be my guest,’ she said, sweeping her hand toward the room. ‘You will find everything to your liking, I am sure.’
He moved through the apartment, occasionally pausing to touch a surface or lift an object. Everything he touched gave off the same midnight blue shimmer of worry. It was particularly strong in the master bedroom. He peeled back the quilt from one corner of the king-sized bed and ran his hand over the starched white sheet. A smell of bleach rose up and somewhere in his mind, a woman moaned in pain and wept for her home. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and a wave of nausea coursed through him. He replaced the quilt and took a deep breath.
Tamara was still waiting by the front door. ‘It is elegant, is it not?’
‘It’s… got a certain style.’ Harrison cleared his throat and fought the desire to bolt. Free the slaves, Tomas had told him. The slaves were right here. It was like walking through a portal into an Edinburgh in a different, darker universe. He had to do this. ‘This may be an awkward question, but I was led to believe that there might be certain other services available to … gentlemen in my position.’
Her eyebrows lifted, but he detected no real surprise in her. ‘Ah, of course. Please, say no more. Yes, we can help in that regard. We are very discrete, of course, and our girls are all very beautiful.’
‘Not Scottish, then,’ he said, and gave her a wink.
She giggled and placed her lacquered fingertips over her mouth. ‘Of course, the Scottish women are beautiful too, but our girls are mostly of a Mediterranean complexion. Dark and … delicious.’
‘Just what I like,’ he said. Gordon Leigh-Davies would be happy here, at least. ‘Are any of the young ladies here today? I’d like to see what else I’m buying before I commit.’
He used the word deliberately, to gauge her reaction. Tamara hesitated for a moment but did not dispute the nature of the transaction. ‘That service has an extra cost, of course.’
‘I understand that, thank you.’
‘We have someone here. If you wait here, I will get her for you.’
‘You’re very kind.’
She left him and came back several minutes later with a girl following behind.
‘This is Valentina. You will have to forgive her lack of ... preparation. She appears to have slept late.’
Valentina wore only a negligible black dress and a pair of spiky heels on her bare feet. She tried to hide her bare face behind a veil of dark, wavy hair. She radiated shame like a pulsing crimson aura, but she was as striking as he had expected her to be.
‘She is more beautiful without makeup. I’m very pleased to meet you, Valentina. Would you give us a moment alone, Tamara?’ Harrison asked.
He could tell that Tamara wanted to refuse. ‘If you want a service now …’
‘Like I said, I want to see before I buy. A couple of minutes are all we need. You can wait outside the door.’
‘Very well.’ Tamara backed out the room and snicked the door shut gently.
Harrison smiled at Valentina and took a step toward her. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
‘You may do as you wish, sir. What would you like?’
‘I would like you to tell me how old you are.’
‘Twenty-four.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re what, sixteen? How long ago did you leave Syria?’
Her eyes opened wide in surprise. ‘I am from Spain, sir.’
He didn’t try to dispute her story. ‘Can you tell me anything about the men who brought you here?’
‘I am here by my own free will,’ she asserted, but she was staring him full in the face now, crying silently for his help.
‘Can I hold your hands, Valentina?’ Even as he said the name, he knew it wasn’t really hers.
She nodded.
Harrison took her hands and held them gently between his own. He closed his eyes and waited for the details to come. She trembled but didn’t try to remove her hands.
There were bombs and there was hunger. There were two boat journeys: one overcrowded, cold and wet, and the other hot and sickening. There were many dark hours on the move, in a windowless van or the back of a lorry. Terror every step of the way, regret, sometimes anger and sometimes acceptance of a fate worse than death.
He could see a festering ball of green-black energy inside her and he let himself go toward it, tap it, draw it away. She shuddered and dropped to her knees.
Harrison knelt in front of her and had to catch his breath before he could speak. It felt like he had been punched in the stomach. ‘Rima. Is that your name?’
‘How do you know that?’ she whispered. ‘What did you do to me?’
He swallowed hard. ‘I want you to stay here, Rima. Do not tell anyone about this. Don’t tell Tamara, don’t tell anyone. Help will come for you. I promise, help will come for you.’
‘There are other girls.’
‘I know.’ He stood and helped her up. ‘Don’t say anything to them until someone comes for you.’
‘Please, I don’t want to be deported,’ she said.
A deep, grinding ache was travelling through his bones. His ribcage felt like it mi
ght crush inwards. There was no way to make things right for her, but he had to get her away from here.
‘I know you don’t,’ he said. He couldn’t bring himself to make her a false promise.
On the landing, Tamara radiated a seething haze of suspicion and seduction. ‘Valentina is to your liking, yes?’
‘Valentina is very lovely.’ Saying the words made him feel sick.
She pressed the lift button. ‘If you would like to come downstairs, we can complete the reservation for you, Mr… I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.’
‘Davies. Gordon Davies.’ The name came to him in a moment of spite.
‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mr Davies.’
He wanted to run down the stairs, but forced himself to smile and wait calmly beside her. As the lift descended, he stared straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact. Back at the front desk, she presented him with a form. He made a show of glancing over it.
‘I’ll hold off just now, if you don’t mind. I have another apartment I’d like to look at before I commit.’
‘I see,’ she said, with some surprise. Immediately the colour of her mood darkened and questions began to tumble out of her. What had Valentina said to him? How did he know about the girls? ‘Was there something wrong with the apartment?’
‘On the contrary. Everything was ... just as I expected it to be. Tamara, thank you for your time. I’m certain I’ll be back.’
Leaving the apartments, he felt so bruised and battered he could barely move his legs. He managed to steer the car safely away from the Western Harbour, but the pre-Christmas Saturday evening traffic was bad and his eyes weren’t fully focusing in the dimming light. His head was beginning to pound.
He made it as far as Albion Road, where he pressed Amy’s buzzer and dragged himself up the stairs.
TWENTY-EIGHT
She wasn’t the only girl on the boat. Sometimes Lucy heard voices in the cabin next to hers, and occasionally they saw each other in passing, but their minders made sure they didn’t speak to each other. Every few days, one girl would disappear and another would arrive. They were in transit: being picked up and delivered to different places for some special purpose. It didn’t take much to work out what that purpose was.
Every so often, a girl would try to break away. There would be banging and screaming, and then silence. Lucy never knew who escaped, who submitted and who was forcefully subdued. Maybe they were killed.
She stopped taking the Valium they gave her, and as the fog in her mind began to clear, she understood the full horror of her circumstances. There was no bank account. Whatever contract she had signed had long since expired. She was being held captive. The warm, languid days with Kostas were long gone now. Her heart ached for him, for the shame he would feel if he knew what he’d signed her up for.
But of course, he did know. She had only been pretending to believe otherwise to protect her heart, but it was a dried black thing now and not worth protecting.
There was no way to fight them, so she forced herself to perform as she had been doing all along. Alone in her tiny cabin, she tried to work out a plan. The only time they didn’t watch her with hawkish attention was when she was with one of the men. Sometimes the men would leave her for a few minutes, while they washed themselves or went to empty their bowels. The cabin they used for these pleasures had its own private door onto the rear deck. She would have no time for hesitation. There was no way of knowing where she might be plucked out of the water, or if she might fall into the hands of men who treated her as badly, or worse. She would have no money, no identification and no sensible clothes. But surely somebody would help her.
Surely.
Her chance arrived late at night, when the old man who came for her was so drunk that he stumbled away to be sick after his climax. As soon as he had pulled the bathroom door closed, she slipped on her bra and panties, peered out onto the deck and saw nobody. That didn’t mean she wasn’t being watched from some unseen position, but just maybe there was time to make it over the railing. She took a deep breath and hesitated. Water ran in the bathroom. It was now or it was never.
Lucy threw the door open and launched herself for the railing. It was a longer-way down than she’d imagined, but by the time the shouts came behind her, she was in the air. She dived as far from the boat as she could and plunged deep into the black, cold water. It took a lot longer than she expected to kick for the surface. When she got there, she stole a single desperate breath and swam as hard as she could for the opposite side of the harbour.
It wasn’t that far; she should be able to swim this. But she’d done no exercise in weeks now. She’d barely walked the length of herself since she’d come onto the boat. She’d done nothing but eat, drink, take the damn pills and lie on her back. After only a few furious strokes, her legs began to cramp and the cold began to seep into her blood. She stopped for a moment, treaded water and tried to catch her breath. Somebody was shouting at her from the pier. A man was waving his arms and shouting in Greek for her to swim toward him. She didn’t recognise him as anyone from the boat, so she swam toward him. Maybe they would simply let her go and replace her with someone else. There had to be an endless supply of girls. Surely, she wasn’t worth a fight.
When she got near enough, the man on the pier threw in a life ring. She heaved herself onto it and kicked weakly while he dragged her in. By the time his hands closed around her wrists, she was shaking violently and almost too weak to climb out of the water. The man was wearing a uniform—police or coastguard, she wasn’t sure. Relief flooded into her and little lights swam in front of her eyes. He was speaking rapid-fire Greek, questioning and scolding and exclaiming over her state of undress. She shook her head and tried to tell him she couldn’t understand, doubled over with fatigue and cold.
‘Help me,’ she said, but her voice came out in a whisper. She tried again. ‘Help me. I have to get away.’ Clearly, he couldn’t understand her any better than she could him.
She tried to step around him and run, but he grabbed onto her arm. She screamed and wrenched herself away. The man clung onto her. In her desperation, she dragged him along the pier.
He only let go when two men from the boat caught up with them. One of them placed a thick dressing gown around Lucy’s shoulders and held her tightly, while the other offered some apologetic explanation to the man. All three of them laughed heartily. Lucy wanted to fight, but she was too weak and too tired. A tunnel closed in around her head and her legs drooped. She sagged in the man’s arms and felt him catch her. She was barely conscious of being lifted and carried back onto the yacht.
Sometime later, Victor sat on the edge of her bed, stroked her and spoke in soothing tones. When she opened her eyes, he switched to English.
‘That was a very silly thing to do, my beautiful flower. And very, very dangerous. There are so many wicked people these days. All of these refugees. They are desperate, my darling, and you are so very young and beautiful. What do you think would happen to you? Do we not treat you well here? Here you are celebrated and loved and admired. We don’t want to lose you, my dearest Lucy.’
She opened her mouth but her tongue felt coated with fur and was incapable of making the right sounds. They had given her more drugs. Victor watched her trying to speak, and then placed a meaty finger over her lips. ‘Don’t upset yourself, my darling.’
‘I want to go home.’ Hot tears leaked out from the corners of her eyes and ran into the pillow. ‘I just want to go home.’
‘When you are rested, we will discuss the terms of your contract. But not tonight. Tonight, you must rest.’
‘What happens to the other girls? Where are you taking them?’
‘There are no other girls. Only you.’
‘I’ve seen them.’
‘You are having bad dreams. You have been very sick. Look how skinny you have become. You must eat more.’
Lucy turned away, closed her eyes and pretended to go to sleep. She had clearly seen
the girls. She’d heard them shouting and crying in the night.
She could have been dreaming. This whole thing could be a bad dream that she couldn’t wake up from. She couldn’t tell what was real anymore.
Victor sat for a little while, stroking her hair and her back. Eventually, he got up and pulled the door closed behind him. Lucy listened to the familiar clunk of the lock on the outside and knew there was only one other route of escape left to her. She took a bottle of wine out of the little refrigerator under her dressing table, opened it and drank straight from it.
TWENTY-NINE
Amy buckled herself into the seat and looked out the plane window at the lights shining on the wet tarmac. She had been up for four hours already, and the only suggestion of daylight was a timid pink glow on the south-eastern horizon. Beside her, Harrison crossed his arms over his chest and looked claustrophobic. His knees were wedged tightly against the back of the seat in front of him.
Amy tried to joke. ‘You have clearly exceeded the optimal height for budget airline seats.’
‘No comment,’ he muttered through his teeth, leaning toward her as the inflated backside of a man protruded into his space. Amy bit her lip as she watched the hefty man trying to force his suitcase into an already packed overhead compartment. The plane smelled of dirty plastic and wet wool, and was nearly full. It was surprising how many people wanted to fly to Athens on an early December Sunday morning.
Siren Song (Harrison Jones and Amy Bell Mystery Book 1) Page 18