by Susan Lewis
‘Who was she?’ Laurie said softly, certain she already knew the answer.
As Sherry’s eyes came up to hers, a tear trickled on to her cheek. ‘My mother,’ she said.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked for the third time. ‘You must have a name. Why don’t you tell me what it is?’
Neela’s large brown eyes peered at him through the slit she had made in her veil.
‘Do you understand English? Do you know what I’m saying?’
She stared at his round white face. His head, where there should have been hair, gleamed in the lamplight; his grey, bushy beard grew up to his ears. He was putting on his clothes, tucking his shirt into his trousers and pushing his feet into sandals. This was the second time she’d been brought here. She wasn’t a virgin now. It had hurt a lot and she’d bled, but it wasn’t enough to need a doctor. He hadn’t hurt her enough this time either.
He came to kneel in front of her and tried to take her hands. The veil fell, exposing her face. Quickly she grabbed it to her again. When he was doing those things to her, and her sari was on a chair with his clothes, she kept her eyes tightly shut and pretended he couldn’t see her. Like this it wasn’t possible to pretend.
‘How old are you?’ he asked.
His eyes were the colour of dead leaves. He smelled of sweat and soap.
‘Do you understand anything I’m saying?’
She only looked at him, still afraid even though it was over, and wanting to cry and cry and cry.
He put a hand to his chest. ‘I am Daddy. Dadeee.’
She lowered her eyes.
Suddenly his fist crashed into the side of her head. ‘Daddy! Do you hear me?’ he snarled.
Neela curled herself tightly into a ball.
‘Filthy whore!’ he hissed. ‘How many men have you fucked today?’ He grabbed her veil and pulled it tight round her throat. ‘Answer me!’ he growled. ‘Tell Daddy you’re a whore.’
Neela was choking, gasping for air. Her fingers clawed helplessly at his.
He punched her again and again, banging his fists into her face and body, kicking her and throwing her to the floor. She was tangled in her sari. She couldn’t get up. She clutched her arms round her head and brought her knees to her chest.
He stood over her. She could hear him breathing and doing something else, but she was too terrified to look.
‘Get up!’ he snarled. ‘Get up.’
She stayed where she was, shaking, whimpering, silently praying. Maybe he was going to hurt her enough now so she would need a doctor. She thought of Shaila to give herself strength, and held her breath.
‘Get up!’ he snarled again, and grabbing her hair he hauled her to her knees.
He used his belt to beat her, bringing the buckle down in a fast, cruel torrent of blows. ‘You’re a bad girl,’ he kept saying, over and over. ‘A bad, bad girl.’
Pain seared through her body. Her skin was torn open. She gulped and begged and tried to get free, but there was nowhere to go. She was locked in this room. He could do anything to her and no-one would stop him. Please God don’t let him kill her, or Shaila would be all alone.
Laurie was in the office, throwing herself into work with the kind of energy she hadn’t had for too long. It wasn’t that she was ignoring Sherry’s advice to absorb herself in the pain rather than avoid it, she was quite simply feeling much more positive about everything this morning. Elliot had left a message last night saying he wanted to talk when he got back to London today. Of course she might be fooling herself here, but there was no denying the affection in his tone, or the very strong feeling in her heart that they were going to get back together. This Andraya thing was just some kind of aberration, the kind anyone could fall prey to, at any time, even someone like him who was normally so in control of his emotions. Everyone said he was acting completely out of character, so it wasn’t just her, trying to make excuses, he really was in the grip of something that was stronger than him.
But it would burn itself out. That sort of obsession always did.
She was just overcoming the sinking nerves that followed her calculation of how long it was before Elliot returned, when the door suddenly flew open and Sherry stormed in, looking so angry that Laurie actually drew back.
‘I can’t believe,’ Sherry raged, her eyes flashing with fury, ‘that you would spend virtually an entire day with Nick and his daughter and not tell me.’
Laurie had no chance to respond before she raged on.
‘I was with you all evening, all night, talking about Elliot, doing everything I could to help you, and all the time you failed to mention a single word about the fact that you’d spent the entire afternoon with Nick. Why would you do that? What’s the matter with you?’
Laurie’s heart was thudding with guilt. She should have known Sherry would find out, indeed she was a fool to have kept it from her, because she’d obviously just made it ten times worse. ‘How did you find out?’ she asked, amazed that Rhona might have broken her confidence.
‘From Nick. How the hell do you think? He didn’t seem to consider it a guilty little secret that had to be kept from me, whereas you obviously did.’
Laurie was shaking her head. ‘No, it wasn’t like that,’ she protested.
‘Then why didn’t you tell me? For God’s sake, I spent all that time with you, I came over as soon as you needed me, and you didn’t even have the decency to tell me that after you left the pub that day you went flat-hunting with Nick and his daughter.’ Another surge of outrage swept through her. ‘You do realize, don’t you, that I –’ she slammed a hand into her chest, ‘have never met his daughter. I haven’t even been invited to his home …’
‘I didn’t go to his home,’ Laurie cut in. ‘We got the tube to Green Park where we met his daughter and her cousin …’
‘I know what you did,’ Sherry seethed. ‘He told me. Last night, when we were having dinner. “Oh, I think I might have found a flat,” he says. “That’s good,” I say. “Where?” “Regent’s Park,” he answers. “The one we saw when Laurie was with us.” He’d assumed, you see, that you’d told me. But you hadn’t, and I’d like to know why. What are you hiding? What’s going on in your head, that you’d keep something like that from me? Are you intending to use Nick to make Elliot jealous, is that what you’re thinking? Because if that’s what you’re up to …’
‘Sherry, stop!’ Laurie barked, getting to her feet. ‘Just stop. You’re blowing this out of all proportion and jumping to conclusions that are totally wrong. Now please, just calm down and let’s talk about this sensibly.’
As Sherry glared at her, Laurie could feel herself starting to shake. Her emotional reserves were too drained to deal with this well, but she had to try, for she certainly did owe Sherry an explanation, she just hadn’t expected to deal with it quite like this, or today.
At last some of the heat started to fade from Sherry’s temper. She pulled out Rose’s chair, sat down and folded her arms. ‘OK,’ she said tightly, ‘let’s begin with how you came to go with Nick that afternoon. Was it your idea?’
Laurie sat down too and took a breath. Whichever way she answered that question she knew Sherry wasn’t going to like it, so her only option was to stick with the truth. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It was his. He felt sorry for me. I was in a dreadful state, as you know, and I was terrified of going back to the flat on my own. I probably even said as much, which would be what prompted him to ask if I’d like to go and look at flats with him and Julia.’
Sherry winced at the use of Julia’s name. It seemed so cosy, which it was, now they’d met. More anger suddenly welled up in her, but somehow she managed to suppress it.
‘I really am sorry I never told you,’ Laurie said. ‘I know I should have, but I suppose the truth is, I was only thinking about myself that night. You were being so understanding and helpful about everything that I didn’t want to talk about anything else. I know how selfish that is, and it’s no excuse, or not an acceptable one, but
I was so fixated on Elliot and what I could do to get him back, or get over it …’ She looked at her friend helplessly. ‘Sherry, I don’t know what else to say,’ she told her softly, ‘except I’m truly, truly sorry.’
Though Sherry’s hostility was lessening, she wasn’t anywhere close to being able to forgive. ‘That still doesn’t explain why you went,’ she pointed out. ‘You knew very well how I’d feel about it, yet you went anyway.’
‘Because I didn’t want to be on my own,’ Laurie reminded her. ‘Not because I was trying to make Elliot jealous. That thought never even entered my head. Why would it, when he’d have no way of knowing?’
‘He would if you and Nick started seeing each other. These things get around very quickly, as well you know.’
Laurie’s eyes widened with shock. ‘Sherry, why are you doing this?’ she cried. ‘You know how I feel about Elliot, so how can you even think I’d be interested in another man right now? More to the point, how could you think I would do that to you?’
‘You said yourself how fixated you are on your own problems,’ Sherry pointed out. ‘You’d do anything to get Elliot back, and if you thought that would do it …’ She shrugged. ‘It makes perfect sense to me.’
‘Put like that, it might,’ Laurie responded, ‘but it’s so not the case that if I thought you really meant it I’d seriously take offence. Sherry, Nick is crazy about you. He’s not interested in me, or anyone else …’
‘Did he tell you that?’ Sherry interrupted, still bristling, but preparing now to be mollified.
‘Not in those words, but it’s obvious. Rhona says it too. We can all see it, so why can’t you?’
Sherry started to answer, then stopped. It was time to back off this now and she knew it, but she’d been so damned incensed since he’d told her, had managed to work herself to such a pitch that she’d have gone round to confront Laurie last night if he hadn’t been staying …
‘What did you say when he told you?’ Laurie asked tentatively. ‘Have you had a row about it? Please tell me this hasn’t come between you.’
Seeing the genuine anguish in her eyes, Sherry finally let the fight go. ‘No,’ she answered, with a sigh, ‘I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t, because I was afraid I’d sound very much like I probably sound now – insanely jealous and beyond all reasonable discussion.’
‘So he doesn’t even know you were angry?’
‘He might. I froze him out a bit after he told me. Well, what was I supposed to do, carry on as though it was all right, when it wasn’t? He knows he’s never invited me to meet his daughter, so he’s got to know it would hurt to find out that you had.’
‘You need to talk to him about this,’ Laurie said decisively. ‘If it’s bothering you that much, and it clearly is, you should ask why he hasn’t let you meet his daughter. If there’s some reason …’
‘It’s too soon,’ Sherry cut in. ‘That’ll be the reason. It’s making too much of a statement.’
‘Why don’t you let him tell you that?’
‘What’s the point, when I already know?’
Laurie looked at her, not quite sure whether she fully believed that or not.
‘I mean that would be the reason he’d invite you and not me,’ Sherry explained. ‘It’s OK for you to meet her, because you’re just a friend. With me, we’re getting into a whole other area, and if she’s as possessive of him as most girls her age … Did she seem possessive to you?’
‘A little,’ Laurie answered, knowing it was what she wanted to hear, even though it wasn’t strictly true. ‘She was certainly bossy,’ she added. ‘There’s no doubt she’s got him right round her little finger.’
‘What was she like with you?’
Laurie shrugged. ‘Polite. Not really very interested, but I don’t expect I was the best company that day. To be honest, I’m not even terribly sure which flat he’s talking about.’
Sherry was smiling as her eyes started to drift. ‘I can remember what a tyrant I was with my father at that age,’ she said, almost to herself, ‘and how malleable he was too. Anything I wanted … He just didn’t know how to say no. It was all about guilt, of course.’ Her eyes came back to Laurie’s. ‘He was away such a lot … In Nick’s case it’s the same, he’s always been away a lot, and now there’s the marriage break-up …’ She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘I guess I just have to accept that she comes first.’
‘For a while, anyway,’ Laurie responded. ‘Once you’ve met her and the two of you get along fine, it’ll all be different.’
‘I hope so. I just wish it was already happening, that we were established enough for me to suggest he come and live with me – or that we find somewhere together.’ She frowned suddenly. ‘Why would he want somewhere in Regent’s Park, do you think? It’s hardly convenient for where he needs to be.’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Laurie answered. ‘To be near his family, maybe?’
Sherry was on the point of saying, what about me, when she decided that she really did have to back off now, for even she could hear how obsessive she was becoming. And it wasn’t about obsession, it was simply about needing to know that she featured in there somewhere, even if it wasn’t in the number one position. ‘Maybe,’ she echoed, lightly, ‘and what does it really matter? He’s going to be in London, we’re seeing each other regularly, and I’m just a paranoid madwoman who doesn’t deserve any friends for going off at you the way I just did. I’m sorry.’
Laurie smiled. ‘Completely forgiven,’ she assured her, and deciding it would probably serve them best to drop the subject now and get on with some work, she said, ‘OK, if you’d like to help yourself to coffee, we can start going over where we’re up to with the story.’
As Sherry wandered into the kitchenette, Laurie turned back to her computer to begin sorting through the research she’d been systematically downloading for the past hour. There was a lot, and she wasn’t entirely sure whether it was information Sherry had already accessed – she’d found no trace of it in Sherry’s typed-up notes, but may be she just hadn’t had time to update the file yet. Or, more likely, considering Sherry’s lack of experience in putting a TV programme together, she hadn’t realized that this kind of background was needed. Laurie would work up to it though, wanting to be clear on where the investigation was before moving it forward.
‘Have you been in touch with Karima Ghosh again yet?’ she asked as Sherry came back.
‘I’m going over there later to place another “order”.’
Laurie was frowning. ‘How do you think that’s going to be useful?’ she asked.
Sherry prickled. ‘I’m getting the lie of the land again,’ she replied. ‘I want to see how she behaves towards me now she knows who I actually am.’
‘Has she mentioned it?’
‘No. At the moment the charade continues.’
Laurie glanced down at the file again. ‘What about Stan?’ she asked. ‘What’s the latest from him?’
‘He’s meeting me later to wait outside the workshop while I go in.’
‘And Barry and his friends?’
‘I’ve had a text from Danny asking me to call him at six tonight. Maybe we’ll get some news then. I’ve also got an address now for Eddie Cribbs’s girlfriend in Cinnabar Wharf.’
‘Have you spoken to her?’
‘No. Barry advises strongly against it, until he can get more information on who she is exactly, and how she’s likely to respond.’
‘Do the others know her? Danny and the stripper?’
‘Yes, but I thought they were more valuable just concentrating on where the women might have been moved to.’
‘Do you think they actually know?’ Laurie asked bluntly. ‘Or are they just conning us out of our money?’
Sherry’s voice was tight as she said, ‘Let’s see what Danny comes up with this evening, shall we?’
Laurie nodded, and began to read on. ‘OK. We need to start shooting some footage,’ she said decisively. ‘We
want exteriors of the workshop, the club, possibly the flat in Cinnabar Wharf. General views of the East End, particularly women in Indian garb. We also need some background on similar cases, which is what I’ve been doing this morning. There are two police operations of particular interest, Operation Twins and Operation Reflex. The first involved the cracking of a child pornography ring, and the second was an investigation into a people-smuggling network, most specifically from the Indian subcontinent.’
Sherry listened and sipped her coffee.
‘We need to start lining up some interviews with the officers involved in these cases,’ Laurie continued. ‘If we can get someone from the Serious Sex Offenders Unit that would be great. Rhona says they’re not always terribly forthcoming …’
‘Rhona?’
‘She spoke to the author she mentioned,’ Laurie explained. ‘I’ll call him myself, later, he could be worth interviewing too.’
‘What about finding out where the women are?’ Sherry said, clearly smarting that she hadn’t contacted the author herself yet. ‘I thought that was our priority?’
‘Of course it is, but we need to explain, with visuals, how they got where they are, and what’s been happening to them. Obviously we’re never going to get any footage of what the men are doing to them, and even if we did we couldn’t show it, so we have to have people talking about it.’
Sherry regarded Laurie expressionlessly and listened in silence as she went on to outline a rough programme sequence, indicating where Rose’s material from India would intercut with their own from the East End. ‘I don’t know if you’ve seen the email from Rose this morning,’ she was saying, ‘but it turns out that the local TV producer and human-trader are both on the level. She’s interviewed the trader already, and he’s given her a map of possible routes that are being used to get human cargo to this country. Have you contacted anyone from Interpol? They could be extremely useful on this, if they want to be.’