by A. A. Dhand
‘Christ, like that, is it?’
Percy waved Harry’s comment away. ‘Tough trading all over.’
‘Especially tough here?’
Percy grunted. ‘Your words, friend. Not mine.’ He poured a measure of Jack Daniels into a glass. ‘Ice?’
‘Please.’ Harry took a seat on a barstool. ‘Can’t be many traditional boozers left in this city.’
‘You really want to know?’
Harry nodded and accepted the drink, scanning the room for a woman he was supposed to recognize.
‘Over the past twenty years, a hundred and seventy have closed.’
Harry whistled ruefully.
Percy nodded. ‘You local?’
‘Born and bred.’
‘Different city nowadays.’
‘But you’re still here,’ said Harry. ‘When others have closed?’
‘Students.’ Percy nodded towards the couple in the corner, then pointed at the bar, where there were dozens of European ales. ‘We try to keep them interested. Keeps us ticking over.’
Harry took another sip of his drink.
‘You want to hear something funny?’ asked Percy.
‘Always.’
‘These days, you want to open a betting shop, you need planning permission; all sorts of bureaucrats get involved. When a pub closes? Folk turn it into a restaurant or a mosque and nobody bats an eye. That sound fair to you?’
Harry shook his head.
‘Anyways, friend, meeting someone or just fancied a change?’
‘Meeting someone.’
Percy nodded. ‘Sorta work you in?’
‘The sort that tries to clean up this city.’
‘Must be busy,’ Percy said, raising his eyebrows.
Harry nodded, then smiled. ‘I bet you remember when this place used to be something.’
Percy held up his hands, scarred, wrinkled and hardened. ‘Used to be a foreman in Lister Mill. Long time ago, like.’
‘I always thought a good barman should be steeped in local history.’
Percy clinked glasses with him. ‘Kind of you to say.’
They both sipped their drinks.
Harry’s phone beeped with a text message from an unknown number.
Downstairs.
‘You got a downstairs?’ he asked Percy.
‘Aye. Function room.’
‘Can I?’ said Harry.
Percy nodded and pointed to the stairs at the side of the bar. ‘There’s a girl working down there. Wanted some quiet.’
‘My date,’ said Harry, smiling.
A narrow stone staircase descended into a darkness which was absolute. He made his way down, taking in the faint smell of damp.
The cellar was nothing like Harry could have imagined: neatly organized and inviting, despite the cold. There were disco lights hanging from a ceiling that looked like it had no right being so high when the entrance to the room was so low.
Harry heard a chair scrape against the floor.
He walked towards the noise and saw the silhouette of a girl sitting at a table in the far corner.
When he finally laid eyes on her, his grip on the bourbon wavered. Harry stared at the girl in disbelief.
TWENTY-ONE
ALI KAMRAN PULLED up outside ZeeZee’s Kebab House.
As usual, there were no customers inside, just one lone worker idly playing with his mobile phone.
Six cars parked outside. Probably more round the back.
There was more on the menu here than just food.
Ali glanced upstairs where curtains were drawn, only the faint glow from a lamp hinting it was business as usual.
The cars were all regulars; Ali recognized the makes and models. Their owners were takeaway delivery men and Asian taxi drivers who would both assist and abuse passengers in equal measure. This was how they dealt with their frustration at being confined to undesirable arranged marriages which fulfilled cultural demands but not carnal desires. They didn’t want diseased street whores and couldn’t afford high-class escorts, so instead they came here.
Ali hated them, these men who had been able to pick and choose from a cohort of potential wives.
But soon they would see.
Let them mock him after tomorrow.
Let them whisper.
Why did you curse my house?
Anger brought his mother’s words to the surface.
‘I cursed your home,’ he whispered, thinking of her last few moments, her horrified expression as Ali had pushed a pillow over her face; legs thrashing weakly amidst muffled cries for a saviour who never arrived, ‘because you cursed me.’
Ali entered the kebab house, pulled out the takeaway menu Billy had given him earlier with the number ‘six’ scrawled on the top and handed it to the guy behind the counter. Reluctantly he put his phone away and headed out back. Hidden, as usual, under his hoodie, Ali waited. The assistant returned with a small takeaway bag containing a closed plastic food-tray and handed it to Ali.
Ali headed upstairs. In the kitchen, a squalid room littered with empty vodka bottles and oily takeaway cartons, he took a seat at the table. Ali could relax here, listening to the familiar quiet whimpers of the girls as beds creaked. Three of the four rooms had their doors closed. Through the open door of the end room, Ali could hear a zip being fastened. Seconds later, a burly Asian man with sweat trickling down his face opened the door and stepped on to the landing.
He reached for the jacket that was hanging on the bannister, but stopped when he saw Ali. A grin split his face and he whispered in Urdu: ‘Ali, brother, try her – she knows how to please.’ Then he disappeared down the stairs, slamming the door at the bottom on the way out.
Ali didn’t move. He sat there, listening to the headboard banging against the wall from the room next door, Urdu curses getting louder and louder.
Ali had never experienced what the men were doing. Forcing himself on young girls wasn’t his idea of a good time – he wanted the real thing.
A girl of his own, not like Gori, who was as damaged as Ali. There’d been a time when that had bonded them tighter than he could ever have imagined. But then he’d seen Olivia and realized that she was the one he had been waiting his entire life to meet.
A wife, a life he could cherish.
Ali could hear the girl in the far room starting to cry. Leaving his seat, he inched closer, stopping at the threshold, where the door had been left wide open. He peered inside.
She was lying on the bed with her back to him, blonde hair a chaotic mess, knees huddled into her chest.
Blood on the bedsheet. A used condom hanging from the bin.
He wanted to pity her.
He opened the bag he had been given downstairs and pulled out the plastic takeaway container. Two loaded syringes. One for Lexi Goodwin, one for Olivia.
Only one day to go.
Ali closed his eyes and thought of his cellar.
After tomorrow, Olivia Goodwin would be his. His alone.
And there was nothing Billy or Riz could do to stop him.
TWENTY-TWO
‘IS THIS SUPPOSED to be a sick joke?’ asked Harry, pointing at the girl.
‘Nothing funny about it,’ she replied, staring at Harry with intense silvery eyes.
She was a stranger to Harry, petite with peroxide blonde curls to her shoulders, fair skin and eyes that shimmered like bullets. While she was unfamiliar, the dark purple Ralph Lauren dress she was wearing awkwardly over her clothes wasn’t.
Tara’s sixteenth-birthday gift from Harry.
‘Take it off,’ said Harry, pointing at it. ‘Before I make you.’ He put his drink on the table, hard enough that bourbon sloshed from the glass.
Small and unthreatening, she pulled the dress over her head. Harry seized it, bunching it in his fists.
‘Sit,’ he said, noting she was now left wearing what appeared to be a burka, its hood lowered. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘Sarah,’ she replied, sitting down.
‘Sarah what?’
‘Brewster.’
Harry examined the dress in his hands. It smelled unmistakably of Tara’s perfume. He sat down opposite her.
The silence became awkward.
Sarah’s eyes were unlike anything Harry had ever seen. He assumed they were contact lenses, shimmering silvery in the dimness of the room.
‘Are you going to just sit there all night? I thought you might tell me what I’m doing here?’ Harry said eventually. He held the dress up. ‘This is all either very smart or very stupid.’
Sarah lifted a bottle of beer from the table and took a sip, her eyes never leaving Harry.
More silence. More staring. Harry’s patience was starting to crack.
‘If I wanted to stare into a strange girl’s eyes all night, Sarah, I’d go back across the road and pay one of the hookers.’
‘I’ve heard so much about you,’ she said. ‘You’ll forgive me if I want to take a minute.’
‘Are you trying to tell me I should be flattered?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not. I’m more interested in what the fuck you’re doing with this dress and why you’re acting more like somebody I should nick than somebody I should be working with. Where are you getting this information from? What aren’t you telling me?’
Sarah replaced her beer on the table and pulled an iPhone from a bag on the floor. She swiped the screen and entered the passcode, tapping through to an app before sliding the phone to Harry.
‘I want you to trust me,’ she said.
Harry lifted the device, one hand still clutching Tara’s dress.
There were over four hundred photos of the two of them.
‘We were close,’ said Sarah.
‘Yeah,’ Harry replied. The oldest photo was a selfie dated eighteen months ago; they were in City Park by the water fountain. Tara was sticking her tongue out, trying to conceal a smile that Harry longed to see again.
‘This yours or Tara’s?’ he asked, handing back the phone.
‘Mine.’
‘So?’ he said. ‘Why all this secrecy?’
‘Do you believe we were close?’ she asked.
‘I believe there are a lot of photos of you and her on your phone.’
‘Where heads of state met in secret?’ she replied, smiling for the first time. ‘I liked that story.’
He looked away, exhaling deeply.
Play detective not uncle, Harry.
‘I’d only know that story if we’d been close,’ she said.
‘Agreed.’ He stared into the dark corners of the room, taking his time.
‘That dress was her favourite. Said she badgered you for months about it.’
‘OK, OK, OK,’ Harry snapped, finally looking at her. ‘I don’t need a 101 of my history with my own niece.’
Sarah picked her phone off the table and put it away. ‘You won’t like what I’m going to say, Harry, which is why you need to know I’m credible.’
‘What the fuck did you get her involved with?’ he asked.
Sarah leaned back in her chair, slouched her shoulders resignedly and sighed. ‘I know, if it weren’t for me—’
‘Did you get her killed?’ Harry expelled his words bitterly.
She nodded and blinked away tears.
‘Tell me,’ he said, leaning forward until his body pressed against the table.
‘She moved out of her parents’ place. Did you know that?’ asked Sarah.
‘Yes.’
‘Cultural crap, as she put it. Grandparents hassling her about marrying some Sikh guy they found for her in the community.’ Sarah smiled ruefully. ‘She said it was your phrase – “cultural crap”?’
‘Yeah, something like that.’
Harry had coined the phrase when they’d all been living together, a throwaway comment when he’d had to endure bullshit that held no importance for him.
‘Anyway, her parents hit the roof when she said she wasn’t going to university after they’d spent all that money on a private education. All she wanted to do was be a journalist. She didn’t need to spend three years at some fancy institution. So she moved out, got herself an internship at the Telegraph and Argus, but it just turned out to be making coffee and shredding paper.’
Sarah paused. ‘So I gave her a story of her own, one she couldn’t ignore.’
‘What story?’
She sat there, studying him intently, offering no reply.
‘What?’
‘Are you here as part of your job? Or as “Uncle Harry”?’
‘Both.’
‘And if you had to choose?’
‘I don’t.’
‘But if you—’
‘I don’t.’
Sarah took a deep breath. ‘Fine. Promise me something before I start?’
‘Go on.’
‘You won’t interrupt until I’ve finished.’
Sarah told Harry about a sophisticated child-trafficking gang operating in Bradford. They targeted young, vulnerable single mothers with younger, even more vulnerable daughters. Their front man was Billy Musa, a taxi driver who would strike up a relationship with the mother and, over the course of a year, ensure that she became addicted to heroin. The addiction would isolate her. The more dependent she became on Billy, the more dependent her daughter became. Billy would treat the daughter like a princess, and then one day he’d ask the mother to marry him, promising her a fresh start and a new life for them all in London.
Once they left Bradford, they were never seen or heard from again.
When she had finished, Sarah looked at Harry expectantly.
‘And you know all this how?’ asked Harry.
She sighed.
‘I can’t help if you withhold,’ said Harry.
‘As well as these targets, Billy and his mates also have a harem of young girls they like to … you know.’
‘No. I don’t.’
A scowl spread across Sarah’s face. ‘Have a “good time” with.’
He waited for the next part.
‘For a while, I was one of those girls,’ she said quietly.
Harry leaned back in his chair and nodded for Sarah to continue. It was clear she didn’t want to go on.
‘This is hard for me,’ she said, glancing into the dark corners of the room. ‘Would you mind … if I turned my chair around, so I don’t have to look at you when I tell it?’
‘Whatever makes you comfortable,’ said Harry. He’d never been a fan of that tactic, but he needed Sarah onside at this point.
She turned her chair to face away and closed her eyes. She spoke for almost a quarter of an hour. There had been a few girls in the group. Billy would buy them takeaways and drive them around in his taxi. Before long, he wanted something in return.
‘Stupid,’ she hissed, ‘not to have seen it coming.’
Harry wanted to tell her it was far from stupid. Her innocence had made her unaware how malicious the streets of Bradford could be. But he remained quiet.
‘To start with, it was just a kiss,’ said Sarah. ‘I thought Billy was only fooling around. But as he gave me more and more alcohol and the days turned into weeks then months, eventually he did whatever he wanted to me and … and … I never realized just how badly I had let him abuse me.’
Sarah raised her head from her chest, dead eyes looking into the middle distance. ‘I became dependent on him,’ she whispered, then fell silent.
Harry got to his feet, placed Tara’s dress on the table and made his way around to her, grabbing a chair and placing it in front of her.
‘You’re talking about eleven years ago? Correct?’
Sarah nodded, looking ashamedly at Harry.
‘When did it stop?’
‘In 2011. When I was sixteen. I was too … old.’
‘You didn’t go to the police?’
She sniggered, it was a cruel sound. ‘You think it was just Billy who had a good time with us? There were so many – and he told us they w
ere powerful people. Policemen, judges, prison officers …’
‘Tell me how Tara fits into all this.’
‘There’s more. The names in Tara’s diary – you looked into them?’
Harry nodded.
‘Their junkie mothers all turned up dead a few years after they left Bradford. Did you realize that?’
Another nod from Harry.
‘Nobody even wondered about the daughters though. Why would they? Do people give a shit about some random junkie’s daughter?’
‘What are you trying to say, Sarah? Give me the small print, not the headlines.’
Sarah told him she had known Melissa and Anna, the first two girls on the list. At the time, she’d been envious of how Billy cared for them. They were treated differently, like precious jewels. Sarah told Harry how one day Melissa had disappeared – moved to London, was what Billy had told her. A year later, Anna also moved away.
‘I was twelve or thirteen. I didn’t think anything of it. Billy got bored with me and I got out. Later, I tried to get the others to talk, but we were all too ashamed and too frightened. I spent almost a year trying to track down Melissa and Anna. Neither of them are on social media – no Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram. Do you know how rare it is for young girls to have no Internet presence?’
Harry nodded, he was starting to see the size of the shitstorm.
‘I couldn’t find anything on them anywhere. Tara searched the archives of the newspaper library and found out about their mothers. As individual cases they aren’t remarkable; dead addicts turn up in gutters every day. But when you put it all together, you start to see a really frightening picture.’
‘You think the girls are dead?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I think they’ve been sold.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘If they were dead, one of them would have surfaced. And …’ Sarah hesitated, then grabbed the neck of her burka and pulled it down to reveal livid scars on her neck. ‘Three years ago, I confronted Billy with what I knew. I … I … was angry and stupid – I thought he’d be shocked or scared and maybe stop.’
Harry leaned closer and stared at her neck. In the dim light he could see where deep lacerations had formed angry-looking scars. They looked like knife-wounds.
‘Billy did that?’