by Angela Dyson
I found it hard to imagine what life was like for them. To have no place of shelter, retreat or of comfort. And Maggie was much older than the other two. How was it for her? Did it become easier the more you got used to it or harder as each year went by and the sense of your own vulnerability increasing steadily with age was like a shadow looming closer and closer until it blotted out all hope that things could ever get better?
I shivered. It was chilly in here and I had a sudden longing to be home, away from this dismal place with its associations of broken lives and encroaching despair and away from this bloody awful smell.
I was just turning back towards the door when from somewhere behind me I heard a sound that didn’t quite belong. The scrape of something metal on concrete. I stiffened, conscious suddenly that I had no business being here. And with that thought I felt an immediate sense of how exposed I was. How very alone.
I held my breath and listened. Was that footsteps? Yes. I heard them quite distinctly now coming from the office. Dan and the others? I was about to call out but something made me hesitate. What if it wasn’t them? Who was out there in the semi-darkness of the office? I swallowed, forcing myself to calm down. There was no need to panic I told myself. It’s just my nerves, jarred by last night’s experience. My imagination was working overtime that was all. I was getting myself in a panic over what was probably someone with a totally justifiable reason for being here… only right now I couldn’t think of one.
It was then that I heard voices, men’s voices and they were coming nearer. Two men talking, one of them in a hard, grating tone and the other’s low and with an accent. I could hear their conversation quite plainly now.
“What the fuck? These weren’t here before.”
It was Gary. “There are teabags and milk and stuff in ‘em.”
I heard again the ring of metal on concrete, but I didn’t stop to listen any more. My brain raced through the possibilities. If I ran for the passage was there an exit other than the boarded-up front door? Did the loo have a window? I didn’t know. I just hadn’t noticed. I glanced across at the giant metal shutter. How did it open? Surely there had to be some mechanical device or some mechanism that operated it.
As quietly as I could, every step a conscious effort at control, I stole across the greasy concrete and in the dim light from the glazed panel above I peered along the entire length of the shutter’s base. I couldn’t see anything remotely resembling a handle or a lever. Breathlessly I scanned both sides of the wall and at last spotted a switch on the left-hand side at shoulder level. It took me just a second to decide. It would make an appalling noise but what choice did I have? I flicked up the switch. Nothing. I flicked it the other way. Still nothing happened. What was wrong with it? Why didn’t the fucking thing open? I flicked it on, off, on again before realising that this kind of automatic locking system operated not mechanically, but electronically. And there was no power.
I cursed myself for not remembering that. I circled the space looking for a hiding place. An upturned palette was propped up in the corner of the right-hand wall. Perhaps they wouldn’t see me if I crouched behind it? I approached. The smell was far stronger here, but this was not the time to be squeamish about a dead rat. I was about to pull the pallet away from the wall when my shoe stuck something. I looked down and bit back a scream. There was a foot. A foot in a black ankle boot.
Fighting down nausea, I eased the pallet towards me to see the body of a woman doubled up on the floor. Her face was not visible because she had been folded in two, so that her hands grazed her ankles, but I recognised her hair. Even in the dim light, the magenta streaks in her dark hair glowed faintly. It was Paula. I flinched violently back as waves of heat swept over my body. And then instantly I felt ice cold. Cold and very sick.
The men’s voices were louder now and again that squeak of metal on concrete. Desperately I looked about me. The shelves. If I could only haul myself up I might, in the poor light, go unnoticed. Within seconds I was across the room and facing the recess furthest away from the shutter, which would be partly screened from view behind the doors if they were opened fully. I made a scrambling jump for it, swinging my arms high and then gripping down hard with my hands onto the gritty surface of the ledge. For a terrible moment I swung there uselessly, not sure if I would have enough strength to draw myself up. My shoulders heaved with the effort needed to support my weight. Breathing heavily with one mighty push, I propelled myself aloft kicking up with my legs until at last I managed to get a purchase on the shelf with one foot. Thrusting myself forward, my body fishtailing, I slithered into the dark cavity an inch at a time, my neck muscles in spasm with the burrowing movement. But I had to keep on. Dust filled my nose and throat and I fought desperately to control a sneeze. My eyes blinked trying to accustom themselves to the darkness, which was so thick I felt I could taste it. Another inch and then another. I was nearly there. In a few more seconds I would be safely hidden away. But abruptly my progress was checked. Something at my waist was impeding my crawl.
Clutching with one hand, I fumbled and fought to free whatever it was. It was my handbag. I’d looped it over my shoulder and across my chest where it now had me jammed like a rat in a drainpipe. My other hand flailed impotently across the dirt and I felt a nail tear cruelly against something that stuck up razor-like and sharp. I bit my lip to stop the tears that were now forming. Over the thudding of my heart, I could hear that the men were almost at the door.
There was no time to think. I yanked hard on the shoulder strap of my bag, it gave, and I pressed forwards. The space was too narrow to accommodate my length and too low to allow me to sit upright and so I twisted painfully onto my side facing outwards. The men entered the room and I closed my eyes tight, working on some desperate hope, like a child afraid of bogeymen in the dark, that if I couldn’t see them they wouldn’t be able to see me.
“Nah, there’s no one here,” said Gary. “Right let’s move it over there and get her out of here. Fuck she stinks.”
I opened my eyes. They had their backs to me. The second man was pushing something before him, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I watched as he pulled back the pallet and grabbed Paula by the ankles. Her body which had collapsed down on itself, shifted with the movement and for a terrible moment as Gary stooped and lifted her by the arms I caught sight of her face. It was discoloured and bloated and I knew that I would never forget the sight of it. As the two men swung her up and into whatever it was they were pushing, I was reminded of those flickering black and white images on film, of the guards at Auschwitz heaping bodies in grotesque piles as if they were dolls or the carcasses of animals, not human beings at all.
I could see now that she had been dumped into a wheelbarrow and watched as they manhandled and forced her limbs to fit within its narrow confines. Gary then tucked a tarpaulin over her and they trundled the wheelbarrow away and out through the door, with its contents suggesting merely an innocent load of bricks or tools. But there was nothing innocent about its load. The wheelbarrow carried away the lifeless body of Paula and her unborn child.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I heard them leave. First there was the metallic ring on concrete as they pushed the barrow through the corridor and across the open-plan room and then, more faintly, the sounds of banging from beyond the office door. Then silence.
I don’t know how long I lay there wedged within the shelf until the stiffness in my back and in my neck brought me down from my hiding space at last. As I dropped clumsily to the floor, a shot of pain shrieked up each calf and this shocked me back into focus. I groped in my bag for my phone. No signal. I stumbled out into the main room. No signal. I walked unsteadily across to the door and pulled on the handle. It opened an inch or two, but no more, its passage impeded by a heavy chain and padlock. I was effectively locked in.
I righted the chair with the casters and sat down hugging Sheena’s long striped jersey about
me. I was filthy. Blood dripped from the nail quick on the index finger of my right hand where I’d ripped it. I sucked it away tasting salt and dirt. How long ago was it since I’d last had a tetanus shot I wondered? I’d get septicaemia and have to have my finger amputated. And it wouldn’t stop there. Blood poisoning would turn to gangrene and my entire hand would have to come off.
I wasn’t sure what the symptoms of shock were but I thought I might be experiencing them. I felt sweaty and slightly sick. But I wasn’t disorientated. I knew the name of the prime minster and I knew exactly where I was. That was something. It was the small matter of getting out of where I was that appeared to be the problem.
I tried my phone again. Nothing. Then I got up and went and inspected the corridor. The loo was useless, no window. The only exit was the boarded up front door. This was a different matter from the internal office style door at The Box. This was a heavy door but, like its counterpart at the rear of the building, it was glazed on its upper half. I raised my right leg, which felt leaden and aimed a kick at the glass. It shook but didn’t break. I tried again and then again and this time it cracked. I needed something to bash it with.
There was nothing in the corridor. I thought of the pallet in the yard but was loath to touch it and had an idea that it might be needed by the police. I went back into the office space. The gas heater was too cumbersome as was the chair with the casters. I picked up the tin kettle. It was light, but it was something. I went back for Sheena’s jumper and wound it around my face and wrapped one of its sleeves about my hand. Then I hit the glass with the kettle as hard as I could. It splintered, small shards flying everywhere. I put down the kettle and with both arms now protected by the jumper, I painstakingly knocked out and removed as much of the broken glass as I could. This took time, but whilst I worked I never once allowed my thoughts to return to Paula’s face. Every time I felt the ghost of it threatening my line of inner vision I thrust it away. I couldn’t think of her. Not now and maybe not ever.
The glass panel was cleared almost completely. Now all I had to do was get through the boarding. You can’t help me with this one. I addressed the kettle aloud. But thank you kettle I said and then I laughed. I laughed again, a little hysterically now, as I realised how in less than one week, two domestic household items had come to my rescue. The mop that had helped me to fend off Simon when he had attacked me in my home, and this kettle which was helping me to get out of here. And get out of here I would. I stopped laughing and kicked with all my might against the boarding.
It was the Somalian woman in the headscarf that heard me. Her gentle face looked at me in alarm as breathlessly I called out, “Please call the police… Please will you do that?”
She came closer, bringing a scent of soap powder with her and a hint of lavender wafting up from the two bulging bags of clean washing she carried. How strange I thought, I feel like I’ve been in this place for ever, but in fact I’ve been here less than the time it takes for a cotton wash and a spin cycle. I started to laugh again as the woman dialled 999.
Over the days that followed, I slept a lot. And I cried a lot. Even when I tried not to think about Paula and her baby, the tears came. And I let them, sensing that the release they allowed could only help me process what had happened. Flan was, as to be expected, wonderful. She listened with calm, warm sympathy only ever gently reproving me as I shared with her the sense of responsibility I felt about Paula’s death.
From Inspector Lawson, I had learnt that Paula had died somewhere in the early hours of Wednesday morning, perhaps just moments after leaving the voice message for me.
“We think,” said Inspector Lawson. “Gary Marshall and the second man, Michael Myrto, were instructed to move her body only after Zakiat was arrested. And you should have told us about the property in Surbiton,” she complained after I had explained how I’d kept the existence of the pools parts place from her in the belief that it allowed Dan, Sheena, and Maggie to keep their home. “They may be valuable witnesses.”
“Do you think that’s why they disappeared, because they saw something? I don’t think they would have left any of their stuff if they hadn’t had to get out in a hurry.”
She sighed, “We will probably never know. With over five thousand people sleeping rough in the UK, it is unlikely that we’ll ever trace them.”
Privately I was glad of that, but I didn’t say as much to the inspector.
She also told me something of the case that she and her fellow officers were building against Stavros Zakiat.
“The image on the dice indicated what particular product…”
She uttered the word with distaste. “Was to be auctioned off. The upward curve of a horseshoe to represent young women, a stirrup for young men… the suggestion there is clear enough… and… a picture of a bridle to indicate children.”
I gasped. For some minutes neither of us spoke and then she continued.
“And, as has happened in other cases, an advertisement in the press proved to be the conduit between buyer and seller.”
“What about Chris Lianthos?” I asked eventually “Did you find his car at The Box?”
“No,” she replied. “And he is denying that he had any knowledge of his father-in-law’s activities, but we are still working on that and of course we are questioning him and the Karmanski twins about Paula Fisher’s murder.”
“This could all take months I suppose?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “And you will be called when the cases… or case… because it may prove to be a combined one, go to trial.”
What had happened to Uri, Aischa, and their friend Rima in the interval between being washed up on the island of Samos to being taken to the club Knights and from there to auction, I never did discover, but I learnt enough from Inspector Lawson about the extent and venality of Zakiat’s organization to guess at the horrors they had endured. I didn’t meet them again but was told that their case was being considered by the Home Office. Britain having been shamefully slow in offering asylum had a lot to make up for. I hoped that one day all three girls would be able to reclaim their lives and find whatever peace those who have been traded, exploited, and abused can ever hope to find. My heart was with them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I’d heard of a theory that time spent online at the office watching fluffy kittens playing with a ball of string, or a cute puppy having his first bath, actually increases productivity rather than reduces it. It’s all down to the alleviation of stress apparently. Now I can’t vouch for the kittens, but the puppy worked for me.
Not-so-Tiny Tim was just what I needed. His big bouncing undemanding presence lent the finishing touch for my re-entry into life. And so, when just four days after I had discovered Paula’s body, Steph phoned asking me to cover tonight’s shift for her, I felt ready to face the world again.
“I didn’t get Bridget Jones The Musical,” her voice down the phone was resigned. “They said I can’t do posh. But I can. Listen.” In strained and fluty notes, she uttered something about being charmed and thank you and you’re so kind.
“You sound a bit like the Queen, Steph. Maybe it wasn’t what they were after?”
“Never mind,” she said. “I’ve got another audition tonight at six thirty. That’s why I’m phoning. I need you to cover for me. Can you do it?”
“Sure, no problem.”
Dave had shared my last few shifts about but I had to get back to work sometime.
“What’s the part?”
“It’s an ad. Excitable young woman dancing around the sofa when she wins twenty pounds, on a home bingo site. I wouldn’t have thought I’d have to be posh for that, would you?”
“Anything but, I’d say.”
“Great to see you back Clarry,” said Dave hugging me as at six o’clock that evening I entered the restaurant.
“Thanks. How’s tonight looking?”
&n
bsp; “Two parties of eight, a table for six, a table of… oh, and someone called for you.”
“Did they leave a name?” I asked.
“No, but he said he’d call back later.”
I made my way to the kitchen.
“I’m on the 5:2.” Tara had confided this fascinating piece of information on the last occasion we’d worked together and so now, at just after ten o’clock when there were only a few tables still talking over their coffees, I couldn’t summon up the energy to congratulate her again on the half a stone she’d lost.
“Yes, you said.”
“Did I? Oh sorry,” she coloured slightly “I’m sorry to bore on about it but calorie counting seems to be taking over my life and I know that’s not healthy. Not long term anyway.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” I said feeling a little guilty at my dismissive tone. “It must be really hard.”
“It is. I keep trying to come up with strategies to take my mind off food. And it’s not easy working in a restaurant where we’re surrounded by the stuff. So now when I see other people eating I just tell myself that what’s working its way down their digestive tract could just as well be working its way down mine. I simply imagine it’s me swallowing the slice of cheesecake or the portion of fries and that it’s my intestines it’s travelling down to and…”
I hope she doesn’t imagine it coming out at the other end I thought. That would be taking visualisation a little too far.
“… And it’s like living the experience vicariously do you see?”
I shrugged and then unbidden, the thought of Paula holding an unlit cigarette to her lips for the health of her unborn baby flashed across my mind. Hastily I shook it away. “And does it help?” I asked doubtfully.