To Keep You Safe

by Kate Bradley

  He was on his front and too heavy for me to move, but I managed to cradle Gary’s head so the hard floor didn’t hurt him and although he was heavy, it meant he could look at me. He gave me this look I shall never forget: he really saw me.

  Me.

  Then he’d gone. Gary had been my friend: my only one. It was horrible seeing his dead eyes, his beautiful blue eyes no longer staring at me but at some place behind me, somewhere I couldn’t go to with him and the blood from his legs and stomach had slowed to a leak, like there was no real force behind it any more, because of course there wasn’t, he’d already left me. And the gun had been knocked within my reach as Miss fought with Aleksander.

  And I just did it. I wasn’t even thinking: I was just so angry. So I shot Aleksander.

  And that’s why I hate her. ‘It is all your fault. Aleksander and me were happy. If you hadn’t have taken me . . . my life would’ve have been so different. And I wouldn’t be alone now.’

  I get up, feeling the fire in my soft tissue, my bones, my blood. It will be so easy to finally put an end to it. She has accused me and it occurs to me that perhaps that’s what I needed to hear: the truth.

  I know I’ve never been able to get better because I can’t admit the truth to myself – let alone a therapist or a psychiatrist. That’s why I could never make a friend. I could never risk telling someone.

  I have to live with so much: stuff I’ve done; stuff I’ve chosen to do; stuff I was made to do. To live with so much already, how could I live with killing the person I loved most in the world?

  I could not be that person. It is too much.

  The cloud moves away from the sun and the light hits the water, sending diamonds scattering across the sea towards me.

  I thought of Charlotte, of the promise of a different life, where people want to come to my birthday party. How things could be different for me, perhaps.

  I feel it, but I push it away and get up. My legs feel shaky and I feel the wooze of standing so close to the edge of such a high cliff. I come here so much that normally I am used to it, but perhaps it’s the sudden standing that makes me feel the danger.

  I rest my hands on Jenni’s back and she knows what I am going to do. She’s a foot taller than me and several stone heavier. She could push me off, but she doesn’t. I realise then exactly how brave she is. How she will accept this. But of course she’s brave: she risked everything for me. It cost her everything. And even when she’d given everything she had, she kept my secret for me. She took the blame, risked a prison sentence and then let her own mental health crumble as a consequence. She is a hero. She was before, fighting for her country, and she is now, fighting for me.

  I tense my fingers and press my palms against her back.

  I will have to live with this too, I think, not just all that went on before. This – killing this woman – will simply be one more weight pulling me down under the water. I am only a fraction above the water as it is – perhaps this will be the thing that pulls me under. It won’t be absolution – it will only be more shit in my life. Or maybe it will be the final thing that drowns my life.

  I consider this, and know I am tough enough not to be broken. But then I think about my overburdened suitcase. What if she goes down screaming? Will I hear that noise too late at night while I stare sleepless at the ceiling?

  No. I have to stay firm. I have given so much to get to this point.

  In my mind, I have held firm that she killed Aleksander because even if she didn’t pull the trigger, she created a situation that pushed me to do it. She was the change: before her, we were happy and we were building something. Believing that, keeping a tight grip on that, meant that it’s been the truth in my head. Like a river that wears a deeper and deeper path in sand, the more I thought it, the easier it was to believe it.

  But now it isn’t. Now it feels confused. I did not expect to waver; I have always felt so decisive about this.

  I think of my mother. The way her nose wrinkled with disgust; her, a drug-dealing prostitute who let men go after her little girl, but not thinking of that as she looked at me with condemnation, and pointed her grimy finger as she said: there’s no dirtier work than yours.

  No dirtier.

  That means I am the dirtiest of all.

  And it’s true. Despite the filth of the accuser, she is still right.

  It occurs to me, as the wind ruffles my hair, that perhaps it wasn’t money I was after. I thought I wanted it because that was what Aleksander wanted – to him financial security meant safety. I thought we were the same, but perhaps we weren’t. Perhaps I needed something else. Perhaps all I needed was love.

  I’ve never thought of this over the last few years; I’ve not allowed myself to think of anything other than avenging the ruination of my life. But this feels true: now I’ve thought it, I instinctively recognise this is right. I needed love.

  I’ve had so little of it over the years and what I had been given had always been at a price. Under my thumbs I feel the material of Jenni’s coat; it’s padded, silky, but synthetic. It’s not the coat of someone who has money. It occurs to me that perhaps she is the only person who ever gave me something of themselves with no price attached. She gave it all up for me: she gave up her pay cheques; her anonymity; her profession. Why? Why when nobody did anything for me they didn’t have to, did she? I ask her this: ‘Why?’ I hear the truculent teenager in my own voice.

  She pauses before giving a little shake of her shoulders and head. She doesn’t know. Or if she does, she hasn’t got the words.

  ‘Do you regret it?’ I ask, unable to help myself.

  ‘No.’ This sounds clear and determined. ‘It was the right thing to do. Children’s safety should always come first.’

  ‘But I didn’t need any help!’

  ‘You were doing bad things, Destiny. You were a child, still. You had been groomed.’

  Groomed! That was for sexual exploitation. I start to think of Aleksander, always on me and not always in a kind way. No! I don’t want to think like this. I reach for the nearest accusation. ‘You make it sound like I didn’t know my own mind.’

  ‘You didn’t have any choice about what you did,’ Jenni says, so softly I nearly missed it.

  When I realise what she’s talking about, I feel a bolt of anger. ‘Not true! I had a—’ but my argument stumbles over the word. Choice. It turns over and over and over in my mind. Choice.

  I think of a time before, not long after we’d started the business. I was fourteen. Aleksander and the boys had taken care of the first couple of rabbits, but then Aleksander decided I should be in on it. ‘You’re not a proper business partner unless you can do it all.’

  ‘Doing it all’ meant following him upstairs. I don’t remember that particular party house, but I remember that the treads creaked a warning with each step I took.

  I remember my fingertips trailing against the banister, and me watching them fascinated and afraid, as if they weren’t really mine, as if I knew they were hands that were going to do new things. Bad things.

  Inside one of the bedrooms was a girl only a couple of years older than I was. I knew she was there – I’d helped drug her. But seeing her now, naked, thin, arms held behind her back, showing breasts so small and innocent, felt shocking. Just looking at her made me feel queasy. In my mind I’d imagined her in the room as I saw her the night before – still confident in boots I wanted for myself, still wearing an easy grin following an even easier swig on her booze. But there was no party now.

  ‘Hit her.’ Aleksander goaded. It was only me and him – and her.

  I didn’t want to and I told him that. She stared at me with frightened eyes, watching our exchange.

  ‘Do it,’ he said, always so easy with the imperatives.

  I stared at her, her jaw biting down on the gag, as if anticipating me changing my mind. ‘I don’t want to.’

  His voice came low, like a warning, ‘Destiny.’

  But I shook my hea
d, my eyes squeezed shut against the brewing storm.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ he said. ‘I never hit women or girls.’

  No, you find other ways to make them cry, I wanted to say. Instead I kept my eyes and mouth shut. I felt a twang of longing for some other time before, somewhere when the world didn’t hold choices that were not really choices. But in that moment, I couldn’t think of one single time.

  Not one.

  I heard him rush across the room; I felt the movement of air around him move on my face. I flinched.

  The door banged open. ‘Gary!’ he yelled.

  Gary? I felt a sliver of concern.

  Only seconds later, I heard Gary’s heavy footsteps on the stair. ‘Yes, boss?’ he said coming into the room. I kept my eyes closed.

  ‘Destiny.’ Aleksander’s voice was low and heavy with warning.

  I opened my eyes.

  Like a conjurer, Aleksander now held a metal bar. ‘I will make it easier for you, this one time. You don’t have to use your hands, you can use this.’

  I shook my head. I think I said no.

  Aleksander turned to Gary. ‘Lie down.’

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘Lie down.’

  Immediately, Gary lay down where he stood, still halfway in the doorway. Something about his decision to be half in and half out of the room, bothered me.

  In one easy movement, Aleksander raised the bar above his head and brought it down, hard, on Gary’s leg.

  Gary cried out in pain, but struggled back tears.

  Aleksander did it twice more. As Gary dragged the air into his lungs, Aleksander wordlessly held the bar out to me. I understood. Aleksander knew that Gary was my only friend. He knew I’d do anything to protect Gary.

  I turned towards the girl and for a moment the girl’s eyes met mine. I knew then that she understood it too. Maybe she even forgave me a bit.

  Maybe.

  Then I think about afterwards, how Aleksander held me close and kissed my eyelids. He told me he loved me and that I was his queen. Then I remember the time after that he didn’t need to hit Gary.

  *

  The wind picks up. I’m starting to get cold. I’ve never done it – never wanted to, but I imagine now where those girls are. Perhaps it might amaze someone – someone sane who’s not had my life – how I have not thought of them before, like all the time. But I don’t.

  But now, for the first time in my life, I actually choose to look in my suitcase. I choose to remember.

  I think of the girls I took; as the wind lifts my hair, I count them. One, two, three, four, five . . .

  There were thirteen.

  I don’t remember them all. What I do remember is the hovels we operated out of.

  We moved nine times and in four places we netted two rabbits each go. Thirteen. Unlucky for them.

  I let the suitcase fall open. I try to think of their faces. I try to put what I have together – places; names; faces; experiences. Anything I have. I go through them one at a time and say to their memory: I took you. I also took you. I took you too.

  One of them sticks in my throat like a fishbone: she was small like me, dark like me, wrists a wind could snap, the same as mine. I wonder where she is now. No. I don’t want to know. Yes I do want to know.

  For a moment – the briefest of moments – I imagine her, tethered by her foot to a brothel bed, a trail of full stops up her arm, punctuating her reality like caesura.

  I did that. I put her there. She followed me. She didn’t follow Gary or Aleksander or Jay or Ollie. She followed me because she looked into my big blue eyes and saw something that wasn’t there – that’s never been there.

  No. I decide, I don’t want to think about that – I can’t. Because I can’t change it now. Those girls are lost, like blown seeds into a sand storm.

  As much as I am unwilling to turn the reality over and examine it for what it is, I could still see it wasn’t Miss who was wrong – it was me. The most grown-up thing I have ever done is to accept that is true.

  I. Was. Wrong.

  The realisation of that, the implications of that, are huge. I teeter on a cliff edge and feel it in my mind as a different, worse, precipice. Who am I?

  At least before I had a future. What do I have now?

  For a moment, the wind lifts. My right foot is slightly over the edge. I am so close to falling. For a moment . . .

  Then a seagull lands next to us. It stands on the scrubby grass, before stepping towards me and turning its head to one side; it fixes its strange yellow eye upon me. I stare at it, expecting it to go. I think of Aleksander and his love of seagulls; I think of my birthday card; of Val telling me to fly free.

  And it turns and flies away.

  I stare at it as it flies into the blue; I think of a puppy called Lexi and I think of forgiveness. I would like forgiveness, I decide. I stare into the sky and hope that it can be mine.

  As the gull disappears towards the horizon, Jenni tells me again that she is sorry. I can hear the emotion in her voice and feel the shudder of her shoulders, so I know she is crying. A piece of rock breaks free and bounces down the cliff front and drops somewhere down, far out of sight. I know she means it.

  I think of my mother telling me that I am not even as good as her. I look at my clean, white nails. I think of her dirty, needle-tracked skin and I know it is true.

  I also know that I can’t kill off my past, it will always be with me. Because of me, I think of those who don’t have a future: Aleksander; Gary; the girls I took. I look down at Miss – poor Miss, perhaps even her. I rest my hand on her shoulder as I think of the nurse who said: Half of life is learning to forgive yourself.

  And I could, I realise, be like the seagull. I too could fly free. I still have a future, not one that has to be spent behind bars, but the opportunity of a purposeful one. A good one. I could just leave all I have done and all that has been done to me, and just . . .

  The wind blows on my face and I think of all the possibilities this holds . . .

  And eventually, finally, I decide.

  I put my other hand on Jenni’s shoulder, bracing them.

  I take a deep breath. ‘Jenni,’ I say, after what feels like an eternity, ‘It’s time.’

  She turns and looks at me from over her shoulder. Her eyes are searching, suggesting she’s not sure what’s happening. But I am.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ I tell her and she nods as I pull her chair away from the edge; together we both turn from it and in doing so, I hope, turn away from our pasts and perhaps, perhaps, I think as we journey back to safety, the wind behind us now, pushing us forwards, we have the chance of finding a future with something new.

  Something better.

  Acknowledgements

  There are many people I’d like to thank, but perhaps I should start with you, dear reader, for your investment in this story, because if you got this far, you stayed with Jenni and Destiny until the end.

  The queen of this book is undoubtedly Katherine Armstrong. I first met her through The WoMentoring Project, when she showed great generosity working on a previous project of mine. With this novel, she has shown both faith from the start and editing finesse and has my enduring gratitude. We all need a fairy godmother and she is mine. Thank you also to the rest of the team at Zaffre who have developed this novel with flair, skill and zest, with particular note to Jennie Rothwell. Thank you also to Micaela Alcaino for the stylish cover and Susanna Scutt for my author photo (and cinnamon buns).

  I feel blessed to be agented by the superb Jane Gregory whose wit, energy and expertise meant she was always my dream agent. So thank you to Jane and her editor, Stephanie Glencross also, who saw the earliest draft and help shape it.

  A large thank you is owed to Alan Kingshott, who served in the British Army for many years. He was recognised for his service by becoming the Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London, an eminent and highly trusted position which reflects his professional career. Any accuracies
of army life are his; inaccuracies remain mine, with my apologies. Additionally, I’d like to thank Jack Nunn at Stop The Traffik, an organisation that works tirelessly to stop human trafficking in all its forms. He helped me understand ‘the boyfriend model’ which presents a real risk of grooming, particularly to vulnerable young girls. Please take the time to read their material, because much can be done if people understand who might be at risk. Again, any liberties taken with the facts are my errors. I’ve spent two decades working with vulnerable people whose childhoods, sadly, inform this story. I have much to say on this subject, but perhaps through this novel, I’ve already said a little.

  A big acknowledgement must be for all those who work in education. I do myself, so I see daily the ways teachers and support staff rescue children in ways – thankfully – smaller than Jenni’s, but often no less significant. They don’t just educate, champion and encourage, they also do their best to keep our children safe against the myriad of modern and less modern dangers, and do so on a shoestring budget.

  I’ve referenced The WoMentoring Project, so would like to acknowledge the project’s creator, Kerry Hudson; although we have never met, she created an opportunity that fundamentally changed my life. Kerry, I hope to be able to buy you a drink one day.

  I’d like to thank my writing buddies; the world of publishing is a warm one, but I’d particularly like to mention those who’ve supported me for over a decade: Vashti Hardy, Hattie Gordon, Clare Nias and Tracy Hind. Your friendship and support is a powerful thing.

  There are other cultures who are more at ease with thanking God than our own, but since much can be learned from the wider world, I would like to, because if there is anyone who has had to listen to my woe at being an unpublished writer, then it is Him.

  I would love to individually acknowledge all of my friends who encourage me, but I am fortunate that the list of lovelies is too long, and I hope you know I appreciate it and each one of you. I will just note Dorrie Dowling, whose wisdom and optimism uplift me greatly and deserves a hooray all of her own, as does my sister, Juliet Hunter, who has always been first reader and only gives me just enough advice to make a draft better, without popping the balloon of belief – a judgement in itself. I’m fortunate to have a wonderful extended family who are all very dear to me, but for reasons of brevity, will only pause on my immediate family: my always engaging brother James, with particular reference to my parents, John and Jenny Elton, who are both unfailingly encouraging, loving and full of conviction. Thank you both of you – it really helps. I’m also championed by my wonderful sons, Cooper and Casper, bringers of sunshine. Finally, my incredibly patient husband deserves the last word. He has spent many years in my company, whilst I have been tap-tapping on my laptop, really somewhere else, but he has only ever encouraged me. Thank you Brad, I got published in the end, phew – but it certainly took a while, didn’t it?