‘He was,’ Jenna said. ‘My father said he and another Nigerian turned up at the club one day asking to see him. OK had been playing for some obscure country team in Nigeria and no one had ever heard of him, apparently. Dad gave him a trial and took him on. Then an agent turned up, of course, and demanded more cash, but by then OK had started scoring goals and the fans loved him, so Dad had to pay up and look as if he was enjoying it. But it cost him. It’s still costing us. But like Dad I reckon it’s worth it, at least in the short term. We’ll get our investment back when he moves on, which eventually he will, of course.’
‘What does Paolo Minelli think about all this? How much say does the manager have?’ Laura asked.
‘What did you think of Minelli when you met him,’ Jenna asked. Laura smiled.
‘I thought he was a slimy creep but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a good manager. I’ve no way of judging that.’
‘He’s OK as a manager, I suppose,’ Jenna said. ‘But I find his attitude to OK a bit surprising. You’d think he’d be only too delighted to have a player like that in the team, but all he seems to do at the moment is find fault most of the time.’
‘Do you think he’s a racist?’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t think officials with that sort of prejudice can last long in football these days. It’s an international game and they have to get on with people on that basis. Players are coming in from all over the world.’
‘Maybe it’s just personal then?’ Laura suggested.
‘Or maybe Minelli lost out because my father recruited Okigbo, and there was no cut in it back then for the manager,’ Jenna said. ‘I think that’s the most likely explanation and the reason he wants rid of him now. He wants OK in the short term to win a few games for him and then fancies a cut of the second transfer fee because he lost out on the first.’
‘Is this game completely corrupt?’ Laura asked, thinking that Tony Holloway had hinted as much.
‘Maybe not completely,’ Jenna said. ‘But I’m beginning to learn just how polluted it can be.’ She glanced at the fridge for a second. ‘I won’t give in, you know. I won’t be bullied by these bastards. My father and I weren’t close after I went to London, but he was a man I respected. I’ll stick with United for his sake. I won’t let his successors carve it up for their own profit. No way.’
Laura was feeling weary by the time she pulled up outside her grandmother’s house, and nothing Joyce told her made her feel much better. Elena was asleep in Joyce’s bed, where, her grandmother told her, she had spent much of the day.
‘She’s still not eating properly,’ Joyce said. ‘Whenever she wakes up she keeps peering out of the window looking for someone, but she won’t even try to tell me who.’
‘We need to get her away from here,’ Laura said. ‘I called this rescue service they’ve got in London again today, but even if we could get her there they say all their beds are full. As far as I can see they always are. And it’s the only charity in the country that has beds and is approved by the police and all the other authorities. Everywhere else it’s left pretty much to the police to treat the problem as they like. Some are sympathetic to the victims, some less so. It’s a bit of a lottery.’
‘Have you talked to your man about it?’ Joyce asked.
‘Not yet,’ Laura said. ‘But I’m going to have to. We can’t go on like this. It’s probably illegal, what we’re doing, and it’s not actually doing Elena any good. She needs help, medical help, legal help, whatever.’
‘She’ll run again,’ Joyce said grimly. ‘You haven’t seen the look in her eyes when she sees someone across the road, or coming towards the house. She’s petrified. Last time someone knocked on the front door she tried to run out the back. Fortunately I’d turned the key in the lock. It was only one of my neighbours bringing me a letter that had gone to the wrong house.’
‘Someone will see her here sooner or later and wonder who she is,’ Laura said. ‘She can’t stay here, but I’ve no idea where she can go. Let’s see what we learn tomorrow with this interpreter and think about it then. We may get some answers.’
‘And we may not,’ Joyce said.
CHAPTER TEN
Itzak Ibramovic was a huge grizzled man who seemed to fill his small office with barely restrained energy when Laura arrived at the university the next morning with Elena clinging defensively to her arm. The girl seemed to flinch as she took in the lecturer’s bulk and she moved sharply away from him as he bustled about organising two chairs for his visitors in a space barely large enough for his own desk and chair and the piles of books and papers that tottered on every flat surface. When they were settled he reached up to a shelf behind him and pulled down a brimming coffee pot, which he waved in the women’s direction.
‘Thank you,’ Laura said for them both, thinking, as he took his time fussing with mugs and offering sugar and milk before loading his own cup with four heaped teaspoonfuls, that any chance for Elena to draw breath and maybe relax would be a good thing. But as Laura took an experimental sip of the intensely strong brew, Elena merely gazed at the mug she had accepted, and avoided the big man’s eyes.
Ibramovic looked at his visitors with undisguised curiosity.
‘It’s a bit unusual, this,’ he said. ‘Is your young friend here legally?’
‘I doubt it,’ Laura said. ‘But that’s the problem. Her English is so limited that we can’t find out who she is, or where she comes from or what to do to help her. My grandmother found her half frozen in her back garden and, I guess, saved her life by taking her in.’
‘But you think she’s Albanian?’
‘She says so,’ Laura said, glancing at Elena doubtfully. The girl was shivering, her fragile hands wrapped around the coffee mug for comfort.
Ibramovic turned his brown eyes to the girl and spoke to her surprisingly gently in a language Laura could get not the slightest aural grip on and, in spite of her nervousness, it was obvious that Elena understood some of what he was saying. For the first time since she had met her, Laura saw a spark of light in her eyes.
Ibramovic went on for some time, with the girl occasionally giving the slightest of nods and murmurs in response to what were obviously questions, and the lecturer making an occasional note on a pad in front of him. As the conversation went on his face darkened although his voice never wavered from the low patient tone he had adopted from the first. Eventually, as tears began to roll down Elena’s cheeks, he stopped and placed his hands flat on the desk with a heavy sigh.
‘It’s as you suspected,’ he said. Laura glanced at Elena and put an encouraging arm round her shoulders.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘She comes from a remote village in the mountains near Korce close to the border with Greece. Unusually she comes from a Christian, not a Muslim family, though she won’t tell me her family name. She says she can’t go back because of the shame she will bring. And it’s true. It is not just the Muslims who guard their daughter’s honour in that region.’
‘And she was kidnapped?’ Laura said, her mouth dry.
‘On the way to school. After that she never knew where she was, except that she travelled long distances, usually in the back of a lorry with other girls.’ Ibramovic hesitated, his expression darkening. ‘They were cold and hungry and terrified, she said. Men who spoke Albanian kept her for what seemed like a very long time as they travelled. They raped her, of course. Many times, she says. They raped all the girls.’ For the first time, Ibramovic’s voice faltered and he took a shuddering breath before he felt able to continue.
‘Until they learnt to do as they were told. And if they didn’t rape them they beat them into submission. They were made to work in a bar for a time, as prostitutes. She thinks that was in Serbia. Then she thinks the girls were sold on because more men took over. Different men, different languages, but still they had no idea where they were taken. And eventually she realised she was in England because she knew enough English to recognise a few words
she had learnt at school. But she still kept being moved on, until eventually she managed to escape. And she hid in some flats and then at your grandmother’s house.’
Elena was listening to Ibramovic with rapt attention and she suddenly grabbed Laura’s arm.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you, thank you.’
Ibramovic stood up suddenly and turned to the window where he stood for a long moment looking at the misty city below. Eventually he shrugged and turned back to Laura.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his face strained. ‘I have a daughter her age.’ He shrugged helplessly and sat down again and lit a cigarette.
‘Ask her if she knows where she was being held,’ Laura said quietly. ‘She must have been in Bradfield somewhere. It seems unbelievable but where else could she have been kept if she ran away on foot? And ask her if she can remember anything about the men. Names, descriptions, anything. Someone’s got to find these bastards and lock them up for a very long time.’
But even Laura could tell from Elena’s stumbling answer that she had little idea where she had been held, or who her captors were. Ibramovic shrugged again and ground out his cigarette angrily in an ashtray full of half-smoked stub-ends.
‘She says it was an old house. They were locked in and the windows were boarded over so they couldn’t see out. They stayed there most of the time, three or four to a room, until they were called for. Some girls were taken to another place where men came all day and all night.’
‘Many many men,’ Elena whispered, obviously half following what Ibramovic was saying. She carried on urgently in Albanian and Laura waited impatiently for the translation.
‘Sometimes some of the girls, the younger prettier ones, she says, were given special treatment. They were cleaned up and given pretty clothes and taken to meet men somewhere else, a smarter place, and they stayed with them longer, were given food and drink and sometimes presents – though the men took those away later – but always they had to sleep with the men they visited. It was just a bit, what would you call it, a bit more up-market?’
‘A sort of call-girl system?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Could she identify any of the men involved? Could she describe them?’ Laura whispered, but when Elena heard the question she flashed a glance at Laura that was more desperate than ever and then shook her head before launching into a another long response.
‘There were different men all the time at the house,’ Ibramovic said. ‘Big men who didn’t hesitate to use their fists or worse if the girls stepped out of line. But she only saw the boss once. When she went out for the last time he went with her and some other girls in a car driven by one of the guards. She doesn’t think she could recognise him again. She’s not sure, but she knows he was the boss because of the way he gave orders, and she thinks that she had heard his voice once or twice at the house and at the brothel they were taken to. She might recognise his voice, she says.’
‘So how did she get away?’
Elena obviously understood the question because she glanced at Laura fiercely.
‘I run,’ she said. ‘My man sleep in bed and I go down. Out door. And I run and run. And hide. High up, I hide. Man come, I jump, I think.’ She lapsed into rapid Albanian then and Ibramovic translated slowly, his face sombre.
‘She was dressed up that night and taken to meet a man she had slept with before. She recognised him. But she stayed awake when he went to sleep and made her escape down the back stairs of wherever it was they were staying. She only had flimsy clothes and no coat but she found herself in a town centre, bright lights, busy roads so she tried to get away to somewhere where she would be less noticeable. She spent the rest of the night hiding in some undergrowth and then the next day found her way to the flats that are being pulled down and stayed there a couple of nights. But she was very cold and hungry and eventually got frightened by some young men and found her way to your grandmother’s house. She found her there and took her in? Is that right?’
‘That’s right,’ Laura said. ‘I think she probably saved her life.’
‘The police?’ Ibramovic asked quietly. But the word made Elena grab Laura’s arm in a frantic grip.
‘No police,’ she said.
‘She’s afraid of being sent home,’ Laura said. ‘She thinks her family will kill her. Is that possible in this day and age?’
Ibramovic’s face darkened.
‘It’s possible,’ he said. ‘I got out of Yugoslavia because I had the wrong sort of politics at the time. I’ve never been tempted to go back because there are different sorts of fanaticism at work there now. And Albania is even worse, especially in the country districts where Elena comes from. In a remote district she was lucky to be going to school at all. Many girls are kept at home; Muslim, Christian, it makes no difference. Family honour is everything. A woman who is raped is blamed for it. They might not kill her but they certainly wouldn’t want her back. She’ll be unmarriageable now.’
Laura drew a sharp breath and put her arm round Elena.
‘We’ll keep you safe,’ she said, although she had absolutely no idea how she was going to achieve that objective. Just then her mobile rang and she was surprised to hear Joyce’s voice at the other end, a voice which, even with a poor connection, was filled with distress.
‘What is it, Nan?’ Laura asked quietly.
‘There’s men searching the estate,’ Joyce said. ‘I watched them from the window. They went all round what’s left of the flats, and then started banging on doors where people are still living. They got to me eventually and said they were from immigration. I asked them for some identification. You know they’re always on about people not letting anyone in without identification?’
‘Did you let them in?’ Laura asked, filled with anxiety.
‘No, I didn’t,’ Joyce snapped. ‘I may be a bit decrepit but I’m not a complete fool, you know. Anyway, they flashed some sort of card at me, so quick I couldn’t read it, and then they showed me this picture and it was her, our lass. They said she was an illegal asylum seeker and if I saw her anywhere I was to ring a number. They gave me a number.’
‘An office number?’ Laura asked.
‘No, a mobile, which made me even more suspicious. She’s not been telling us a pack of lies, though, has she? I’d not like to believe that.’
‘No, she’s not been telling us lies,’ Laura said quietly, glancing at Ibramovic as if for confirmation, although he could only hear half the conversation. ‘Write down what these men looked like, Nan, in case we need to describe them.’
‘It’s not safe to bring her back here,’ Joyce said, her voice sounding desperate now. ‘You only have to say the words “asylum seeker” and half the folk round here start spitting blood. I don’t know what happened to the brotherhood of man, I really don’t. If anyone sees her they’ll fall over themselves to tell – what is it they say these days? – grass her up?’
‘I’ll sort it out, Nan,’ Laura said, although she felt a lead weight settling on her shoulders as she wondered how she could fulfil that promise. ‘I’ll call you later.’ She broke the connection and turned back to Ibramovic.
‘Trouble?’ the lecturer asked.
‘Someone’s looking for her and it’s not the police,’ Laura said. ‘When you think how much she knows it’s not surprising, is it? I don’t think it’s safe to take her back to my grandmother’s house.’ Elena herself was looking at the two of them in increasing agitation, obviously half understanding what was going on.
‘And you can’t keep her with you?’
‘No, my partner’s…’ she hesitated, not wanting to scare Elena any more than she had to. ‘Let’s say he’s in law enforcement,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘I can’t involve him.’
Ibramovic nodded slowly.
‘She can come home with me,’ he said. ‘We live in Ilkley, well out of the way of your Bradfield thugs. My wife, myself and my daughter. We can look after her for a little wh
ile to give you time to find something more permanent. I thought there were charities that deal with this sort of problem?’
‘There are, but they seem to be mostly in London, and they’ve no beds free anyway. I’ve tried.’
‘So it’s settled then,’ Ibramovic said. He glanced at his watch. ‘I have one class to give now. Beginners Russian. I never thought when I had to study Russian as a schoolboy and resented it so much that it would enable me to make a living in another country. Nobody wants to learn Serbo-Croat, as you can imagine. Can you wait here and I’ll talk to my wife and take you home.’
‘You’re sure she won’t mind?’
‘We were both refugees in this country in more generous times,’ he said. ‘Why would we mind?’
Laura drove back to Bradfield thoughtfully and alone. She had followed Itzak Ibramovic’s car slowly through the afternoon traffic, heading north out of Leeds, with Elena sitting at her side, her hands clenched anxiously on her lap. Before the main road along the river Wharfe reached Ilkley’s busy town centre, Ibramovic turned off into a quiet suburban avenue in the shadow of the steep hill leading up to the famous moor and pulled up on the drive of a stone semi-detached house, locked his car and unlocked the front door. Laura and Elena followed uncertainly, only to be met in the narrow hallway by a fair-haired middle-aged woman with a welcoming smile.
‘This is Elena,’ Laura said, drawing the girl forward. ‘It’s very good of you…’
‘Is not a problem,’ Ibramovic’s wife said warmly. ‘We will look after her. Has Itzak explained what’s happening to her? I don’t speak Albanian myself.’ She took Elena’s arm and drew her into the sitting room and sat her down in an armchair.
‘I am Lilijana,’ she said. ‘I am from Belgrade. And you are very welcome in my house.’
Laura had stayed long enough to be plied with tea and cakes and watch as Elena visibly relaxed in the warm glow of Lilijana’s care and Ibramovic’s translation. She left feeling reassured that the girl would be well looked after, although she knew with a sick certainty that the haven she had found her could only be temporary. The couple did not seem at all concerned about the legal implications of what they were doing, but Laura knew that Elena’s situation would have to be regularised, sooner rather than later, and that would involve more stress and trauma for the girl. The immediate future might look better, but long term it could probably only get much worse.
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