‘They were watching you when you were washing and changing your clothes.’
Preeti said, ‘There was no-one watching us. The door was closed.’ She looked at the window to satisfy herself the blind was still drawn. It was.
The woman pointed to the corner of the room where the ceiling met the wall. A camera was suspended there. ‘The men were watching you a long way away and bidding for you.’
Preeti and Basanti exchanged worried glances and hugged each other.
Basanti said, ‘Where were these men?’
‘In other countries …’
They’d heard of girls going to somewhere called Dubai. Was it another country?
‘Are we going to Dubai to see these men?’ Preeti asked.
The woman shrugged. ‘Yes, Dubai …’ But because of the casual way she said it neither girl believed her.
‘What is happening to us, Basanti?’ Preeti asked. Basanti was crying again.
After they had dressed, the man in the white suit opened the door and waited by it. The woman hugged them saying ‘there, my pretty Bedia girls’ and led them along the corridor to the door with the grille and down the stair to the car where the driver was waiting.
They drove to an airfield outside Mumbai.
Half a dozen other girls were there, not Bedia, but girls like Basanti and Preeti, who would never marry because their virginity was being sold, whose destiny was to earn money for their families in the dhanda. They were led to a plane with a white fuselage and twin propellers. Preeti and Basanti shared a seat at the back and when it took off, engines screaming, Preeti willed herself not to cry. Didn’t she have to be strong for Basanti?
It landed after an hour, perhaps two. Preeti had lost track of time. Now every second had enough worry for a minute; every minute enough fear for an hour.
Preeti and Basanti were the last off. They climbed into the back of a black van parked beside the aircraft’s wing and saw the frightened faces of the other girls who were already inside. Preeti said a prayer, aloud. Two of the girls began whimpering. Another retched at the smell of aviation fuel. Then the doors slammed shut, imprisoning them in pitch darkness. The whimpering became anguished cries. The retching girl vomited, filling the van with its stink. Preeti said another prayer, silently, and held Basanti tight to her.
Soon the van stopped and the doors opened. Preeti saw they were on a quay in a dockyard. A large ship was beside them and a man in dark glasses and blue overalls was shouting at them to get out. Preeti and Basanti were first up the gangway. Two men took them down metal stairs, along a narrow passageway to a rusted door which opened on to a small cabin with no window or porthole. It had one bed, a toilet and a shower.
They never saw the other girls again.
Their food was brought to them once a day by a man who wore a hood. He was their only visitor, from the first day of their journey to the last.
How many days were they on the ship? Long before they were taken off, Basanti thought it had been about two months. Preeti wasn’t sure. It could have been more, or less, who could tell? After that, Basanti scratched the wall every time the man brought their food. One evening he told them not to sleep, to pack up their few belongings and be ready to go ashore. Basanti counted the scratches on the wall. There were 27.
They were blindfolded before they left their room. No light seeped through to their eyes when they were out on deck. ‘Is it night?’ Basanti asked Preeti.
‘I think so.’
The cold was what struck them. Where were they? What country had they been brought to? They were taken to the side of the ship where Basanti was guided to a ladder. She cried out, letting Preeti know what was happening to her. All Preeti heard was Basanti’s terror. Then there was a shout from below – a man’s voice – and a crewman nudged Preeti to follow Basanti. He lifted her on to the ladder and held her until she’d found a foothold. Her hands gripped the metal sides as she began to descend. She trembled so much she feared she would fall, but after a dozen steps rough hands grabbed at her from below.
Her wrists and ankles were secured with rope. One person tied her, another held her. A cloth was forced in her mouth. When they’d finished with her, Preeti was put to sit with Basanti and the two girls pressed against each other for warmth and reassurance. Preeti choked on the dry gag in her small mouth. She swallowed until her throat was raw. Then an engine roared, the boat’s sideways rocking stopped and the breeze dried the nauseous slick from Preeti’s face.
Twenty minutes later the boat bumped gently against a pier.
Basanti was taken ashore first, then Preeti. Preeti could tell a woman carried her because she was held across her torso, against her slack breasts. The woman said nothing. The only sound was the lapping of the sea and the crunch of feet on gravel. They climbed what seemed to be steps and suddenly Preeti was taken indoors. Now the only sound was the woman’s feet echoing off the floor. Where was Basanti? When the woman untied her and took off her blindfold and gag Preeti saw she was in a bedroom without any windows. The woman, who was wearing waterproofs and a balaclava with slits for her eyes, opened a door to show Preeti the bathroom. She said, ‘You’ll like it here, pet. I know you will.’ Then she left.
Preeti cried for Basanti, sweet, frightened Basanti, and for herself.
Later the first man came to her. He was short, fat, pallid and wore a mouse mask. His voice was kindly and he took Preeti to the bathroom and washed her all over with special soap before carrying her to the bed and turning out the light. She heard him take off his clothes and then she felt the bed sinking under his weight and his face pressing against hers as he kissed her. He had taken off his mask.
She lay still, as her father had told her, forcing herself not to flinch when it hurt.
After he’d finished, he fell asleep, snoring, and she went to the bathroom to wash the bitter smell of his sweat from her and the trail of blood from the inside of her thighs. That was the first occasion she had filled her head with the swirls and sounds of the party she would have when she returned to her village. How many more times had it filled her head? A hundred, two hundred: she lost count.
Sometimes the men stayed a night. Sometimes the same man returned night after night. Some men stayed for an hour or two and never came back. Sometimes nobody came for days. It was after one of these times that the woman entered her room, wearing her balaclava as usual, but shouting at Preeti which was not. She stuffed her few clothes into a bag and tied and blindfolded Preeti, hurting her in her hurry.
Something’s wrong Preeti thought.
Then she smelled the sea, heard the crunch of the woman’s feet on the gravel and dared to believe she was going home. What more proof did she need than this boat? Wasn’t it the boat which had brought her ashore?
Once it was in deep water, the woman moved in the stern. She was coming towards Preeti. Her boots thudded on the planks and the boat rocked from side to side. She untied the rope at Preeti’s legs, then the one binding her arms and pulled the cloth from her mouth. Preeti gulped the salt air. It tasted of freedom, sweet freedom.
When the woman took off the blindfold Preeti stared around her. It was dark. The only light was the white fluorescence on the waves rippling past the boat. Where was the ship? Where was freedom?
The woman put her arms under Preeti’s legs and around her back. She was lifting her. ‘Goodbye, pet,’ she said. Then Preeti was falling and splashing into the sea. The shock of submersion and the cold of the water made her gasp, silencing her cry of fear. When she came back to the surface, choking and retching, the noise of the boat’s engine was already fading. Preeti screamed but her voice was lost in the vastness of the ocean and in the sharp wind. She cried for her mother, her father and Basanti. She begged to see her sisters again. One of them would be sold for the dhanda if Preeti did not return. Please, no.
She began to sink, gulping water into her lungs. Her throat and windpipe burned. Her chest felt as if it would burst. She lunged again for the surface, ta
king one more frantic breath before dipping back under the waves.
Now she was playing Kabaddi. She was running and running, sprinting for the line where her team-mates were calling for her, cheering her on, urging her to go faster. The opposing team was chasing close behind but she was fast. She had twenty paces remaining. Could she cross the line without taking another breath? One more step. One more step. One more step. Was she there? She had to breathe.
She gasped for air but cold sea water rushed in swamping her tired lungs.
Chapter 2
Rule number 1: know your escape route.
Did he? Did he hell.
When the sensor detected him and the floodlights blazed, Cal McGill ran on impulse towards the now brightly illuminated boundary wall. On top of it was a paling fence, erected to protect the new Environment Minister’s garden from the prying eyes of neighbours or curious passers-by. Each plank had been cut to a point, giving the fence a saw-tooth appearance. Cal leapt at the wall but the sudden klaxon wailing of an intruder alarm made him hurry. His foot slipped on a wet stone and he fell, arms flailing, on to the fence, one of the posts stabbing his rib cage. He cried out, threw himself sideways and tumbled into the dark of the back lane. The hard impact of the grass verge knocked the breath from him. He grunted. A pain seared at the side of his ribs.
The base of the wall was lower in the lane than in the minister’s garden. From here, the alarm sounded muffled and distant. Cal lay dazed, wiping grit from his hands, and groaning until an approaching police siren raised him unsteadily to his feet. He attempted to run, but every step tore at his wound and he resigned himself to hobbling along the cinder lane, aware of a sequence of events unfolding behind him.
The police siren gave a final strangulated whoop as the patrol car arrived at the minister’s house.
The klaxon intruder alarm went silent.
A dog howled: an eager lupine baying, the kind of noise Cal imagined a trained hound emitted when it first nosed the scent of its fleeing quarry.
He swore, lurching away. At the end of the lane was a gateway and he passed through it into what seemed to be a field. The ground underfoot was even but his injury made him unsteady and the darkness disorientated him. After stumbling twice, he twisted his right ankle. On a different occasion he might have broken his fall with his hands. But, as he toppled sideways, another stab of pain came from his ribs and he held his arms tight to him for protection. His right shoulder crashed against a stone and the side of his face pushed into mud. He grunted again.
Now he was alert, listening, barely breathing.
The police dog would soon be upon him: running softly, sure-footedly in the dark. He imagined the rhythmic plop of its pads on the damp earth; its relentless intensity of purpose, its jaws hanging with sloppy webs of saliva. He drew in his legs, covered his face with his arms and waited for the shock of its teeth. Seconds passed, a minute. Now the only sound was the wailing of another approaching police car and he dared to think the baying had been a village dog disturbed by the commotion of alarms and sirens. He pushed himself to his knees, still half-expecting a canine missile to lunge at him from the dark. He listened for a moment longer, then stood and staggered away, leading with his left leg and dragging the right after him.
He crossed one field and climbed a fence into another where the land started to fall away steeply. He followed its slope and soon the lights of a village appeared ahead of him, half a dozen at first, then more stretching to his left and right. Cal felt in his anorak pocket for his mobile phone and turned it on, shielding it to conceal the green glow from its screen. The time was 11.48pm. It would be dawn in about five hours. Then he’d have to trust to his only piece of pre-planning. He’d searched the local bus company’s website and found the late night service. It departed the Environment Minister’s village at 11.40pm, eight minutes ago. Just in case, he’d also checked the early morning services. A bus visited all the villages in this area between 7.30 and 8.15, picking up schoolchildren. This was his contingency. Another time, he’d work it out better. Why was it always another time?
The village lights were no more than 200 metres from him now, a field away on the other side of a hawthorn hedge which was silhouetted against the sky. Cal crawled under its branches and rested his back against a stump. His left hand instinctively reached for his side. His fingers found the tear in his anorak and felt the stickiness of congealing blood on his tee shirt. He decided not to try to clean it. His hands were grazed and dirty from falling and anyway it was too dark for him to see what he was doing. He pressed the fabric softly against the wound, staunching whatever bleeding there was, before finding his iPod in his anorak pocket and shutting off the outside world.
It was unusual for him to sleep badly outside. At any season of the year he’d go to the islands and bed down on the sand if the weather was fine or under canvas if it wasn’t. But this night he fretted about missing the pre-dawn. He wanted to be on the move before daylight for his approach to the village, in case the police were out hunting for him. He woke three or four times, checking the time, searching for the sky lightening behind the village, cursing when it was as dark as the last time. Then he fell into a deep sleep, lying on his left-hand side, muffling his phone alarm, and was woken by two pigeons fluttering noisily in the hedge beside him. His eyes flicked wide. Light washed the surrounding fields and hedges with the bright greens of May. Cal swore and opened his phone. It was 7.20, only ten minutes before the bus made the first stop on its morning schedule.
He twisted around to where remnant wisps of mist were lifting above the village, a neat collection of two dozen houses around a church and what looked like a hotel. The field between him and it was a football pitch, bordered on the short side by a stone wall which extended close to Cal’s resting place. He crawled to it and climbed over, jarring himself when he landed on the other side. With stiff fingers he probed at his wound. The blood was dry to touch. Then, crouching, he made his stumbling advance towards the village. Half way there he peered over the wall. A terrace of cottages stretched to his right. The bus stop was outside the hotel which had Craw’s Nest in black gothic script above its door. Cal ducked down and continued to the road-side fence. As he reached it he heard the sound of an approaching engine. It was a car, a red Volkswagen, not the bus arriving early or a police patrol. But standing by the bus stop were a child in school uniform and a man with a tweed cap; father and son, he assumed. They had their backs to him. He put his right foot on top of the fence and jumped into the road. The jolt of the tarmac forced from him a stifled cry of pain. He looked up anxiously but neither man nor boy had noticed him.
Cal pulled his anorak straight, brushed the tops of his jeans and crossed to the pavement. He was only 20 metres from the bus stop when father and son saw him. The man shot Cal an unguarded look of suspicion. His hand went protectively to the boy’s shoulder.
‘Good morning, fine day,’ the man said, his country manners overcoming his wariness. His voice croaked and he coughed to clear it. Cal noticed his hands. They were big and his fingers were swollen red. His trousers were tucked into labourer’s boots.
‘It is, it is,’ Cal mumbled and put his head down to discourage further conversation. He stepped back on the pavement to keep his distance.
Four more children, three girls and a boy, were coming towards the bus stop. When they saw Cal they squinted slyly at him. The tallest girl whispered something and all four put their hands over their mouths and giggled. Cal turned away. He didn’t want them giving the police a description apart from what was obvious and unhelpful: male, 5’10, wearing black North Face anorak, black hood, dirty jeans and walking boots. He pushed the zip on his hood to tighten it and pulled it forward so the rim extended over his eyes and beyond the sides of his face.
When he turned back the man was looking down the road but his son was staring, eyes wide, at Cal’s right thigh. There was a stain of dried blood, the size of a fist, on his jeans. Cal swivelled his hip to hide it ju
st as the bus appeared round the corner. It slowed with an exhalation of brakes. When the door opened, the children raced up the steps to the back seats.
The father waved to his son and took a few uncertain steps along the pavement before stopping and glancing back at Cal. He seemed torn about leaving his boy on a bus with this stranger. But he turned and strode off, as if he’d decided that nothing bad could happen at 7.45 on a beautiful May morning in a village which last bothered the crime statistics seven years before when a joy-rider ran a stolen car into the side of the Craw’s Nest.
The bus driver, a red-faced bald man, who had greeted the children cheerily by their first names, noticed Cal when he was on the bottom step. ‘Lovely morning,’ he called out.
Cal, his head down, asked if the bus was going to West Linton.
‘Aye, that’s where we go in the mornings.’
‘Where do I get the connection to Edinburgh?’
‘That’ll be the stop by the school.’
Cal found a two pound coin in his pocket, collected his change and sat behind the driver. As the bus climbed uphill and veered left at a fork in the road, Cal noticed the signpost, swore and slid in his seat. The bus was returning him to the Environment Minister’s village, to the scene of his crime.
The first houses were soon visible through flowering chestnut trees. The minister’s house, a former Church of Scotland manse, was at the far end of the single street. Cal pulled his hood further over his head. A police car was parked at the gates of the property, a three storey Georgian building surrounded by flower beds with neat lawns and gravel paths lined with box hedges. The height of the bus allowed Cal a view over the wall to the saw-toothed fence. He saw where he’d skewered himself – one of the palings had snapped. Then he noticed the floodlights above the porch door and on the gable.
What puzzled him was why it had taken so long for the sensor to detect him and the lights to flash on. The delay had caught him off guard. He’d been in the garden for almost three minutes before he’d triggered the lights or the alarm.
The Sea Detective Page 2