School's Out Forever (afterblight chronicles)

by Scott K. Andrews

  James reached across and placed his hand on hers, squeezing it tightly and taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. Then he looked up and smiled weakly.

  “Okay. But if you tell Gran about this, I’ll tell her what you did with Bobby Arnold on your fifteenth birthday.”

  “You bitch, you wouldn’t dare!”

  “Try me, toots.”

  They both laughed, but not for long. James opened the small packet of biscuits and offered one to her. She took one as he dunked his in his coffee.

  “I dunno why you do that,” she said, screwing up her face in distaste.

  “What?”

  “Dunking. All you end up with is soggy biscuit mush at the bottom of your coffee. It’s gross.”

  He didn’t respond and it soon became apparent that their reservoir of small talk was empty.

  “I got in trouble, Sis. Big trouble. About six months ago. It was Phil. You remember Phil?”

  Kate remembered Phil, all right. She’d known he was trouble the first time he turned up at the pub that Sunday night. Tall, muscled and totally in love with his own reflection, he was boorish, brash and bullying. James couldn’t look at him without doing simpering puppy eyes. Kate thought that was the attraction — Phil had finally found the only person in the world who adored him almost as much as he adored himself. He didn’t exactly treat James like shit, he didn’t need to. It would have been redundant. James practically lay down on the ground and begged Phil to walk all over him.

  Kate loved her brother, but Jesus, his taste in men was worse than hers. Nonetheless, she couldn’t work out how Phil would have led her brother to Serbian strippers.

  “What, he dragged you to lap dancing clubs?” she asked, incredulously.

  “No, don’t be daft. Phil’s problem was gambling. Spider doesn’t just run that strip joint. He’s got a casino, super illegal, in one of the arches underneath Waterloo station. High stakes, no IOUs. You know Phil worked for that big accountancy firm, right? Well, his boss took him there one night after work. He’d never have been able to get in there on his own, but once he’d been vouched for, he started going there on his own. A lot. One night he took me along. It was fun, you know? He hit a winning streak and we walked out three grand richer.”

  “Oh James, tell me you didn’t go back on your own?”

  “I figured, you know, if Phil could do it…”

  “You fucking muppet.” Kate shook her head in wonder. “Every time I think you can’t get any stupider, you lower the bar.”

  James stared at the table top again. “Yeah, that’s right Kit, let’s have another round of ‘my little brother, the big gay loser.’ That’s exactly what we need right now. So fucking helpful.” He made to stand.

  “Oh, sit down,” she said wearily. “Fucking drama queen.”

  He planted his arse on the seat again, sullen and pouting.

  “How much do you owe?”

  “A lot.”

  “How much, James?”

  “Twenty-three grand.”

  “Holy fucking Christ.”

  “I know, all right. I know. About four months back they grabbed me as I was leaving and took me back to see the boss. I swear, Sis, I thought he was going to shoot me there and then. I… I kind of begged.”

  “And he offered you a chance to work off the debt, yeah?”

  James nodded. “He’s into some seriously bad shit.”

  “No, really?” said Kate, finally starting to feel her cool slipping away. “The guy who just beat us up and shot a girl in the head for no reason at all? You think?”

  “He’s got the casino and the strip club, but there’s more. Lots more.”

  “Like what?”

  “Brothels. Well, not really brothels. More like, dungeons, really.”

  “What, for S&M?”

  “No. Literally prisons where he keeps these girls locked up. They’re all underground; railway arches, old sub-basements, places like that. There are about six or seven of them that I’ve been to and I know there are more. The high-rollers at the casino, and the guys at the strip club who want to spend a little more cash when the doors close, this is where they go.”

  Kate felt bile rising in her throat.

  “You’ve been there?”

  “That’s my job. I have to look after some of the girls. Bring them food and stuff. Keep them alive.”

  “Lyudmila?”

  James nodded. “She was new. Arrived last week. These girls, right, they think they’re going to get jobs here. There’s a whole chain designed to get them to the UK. Guys who go around the villages in the Ukraine and Latvia, Siberia and places like that looking for teenagers. And I mean thirteen up, right? They say they’re recruiting for cleaning jobs and hotel waitresses, that kind of thing. The girls pay a fee, or their parents do, and they’re shipped over here and then they just… disappear.”

  “These dungeons…”

  “It’s not just sex, Sis. And it’s not exclusively teenagers. There are young kids, too. And murder rooms. And then…”

  Kate had heard enough. “Okay, okay. Shut up. Let me think.”

  “There was this guy, Nate. He did all the doctoring for them. But he was a junkie and he wasn’t reliable, so last week Spider threw him out. Sold him to another gang, like. When Lyudmila got roughed up, I didn’t know what to do with Nate gone. I’m so sorry for getting you involved in this, Sis. Really.”

  “I said enough,” Kate snapped. “I need to think. Figure out the angles.”

  “There aren’t any, Kit. This guy, he’s smart and ruthless and he’s got a fucking army working for him. He even gets a whiff of betrayal and we’re dead. Both of us. Just like that. No warning, no second chances. And that’s if he’s feeling generous. Coz if he’s not, we’ll end up in one of those dungeons, Sis. And no-one — no-one! — gets out of them alive.”

  “There’s always an angle, James. Always,” replied Kate. But she wasn’t sure if she believed it, not in this case. The only thing she knew for certain was that her stupid, self-destructive, funny little brother, who she loved more than anything in the world in spite of his manifest flaws, was in trouble and, like she had done all his life, she was going to have to rescue him from himself.

  “Get me another coffee, eh. And a chocolate muffin.” Kate handed James a tenner and sat staring out of the window as he went to the bar. It took a minute or two for her to realise that she was being watched by the man sitting at the window bar in Pret directly opposite. When their eyes met he smiled and nodded slightly, then finished his coffee, left the shop and walked away.

  “Oh, James,” she whispered. “What have you done?”

  THE NEXT FEW days passed in a blur of A&E shifts and deep, dreamless sleep. Spider had said he would call when he needed her, but her phone didn’t ring.

  Jill moved out of the flat without warning two days after the invasion. Kate came home from a long shift and found the flat half empty. No note, nothing. Bitch hadn’t even left the rent. So Kate dug out the most recent itemised phone bill and called every number she didn’t recognise until she reached Jill’s Dad, who was not amused to hear of his daughter’s midnight flit. He promised Kate that his little girl would be at her door in an hour with the rent in full. She was too, sullen and angry and refusing to speak. She held out an envelope full of cash and the second Kate took it she turned on her heels and stalked away.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” Kate yelled at her retreating back, laughing.

  She didn’t seen the man who had been watching her, but she was constantly on the lookout for him. She was convinced she’d be seeing him again.

  After a week she almost convinced herself it had never happened; that it was business as usual, that she hadn’t been beyond the looking glass and seen a girl murdered. But then on Friday, as she sat in her track pants and t-shirt eating Pot Noodle on the sofa, watching Loose Women on her day off, there was a sharp knock at the door. She considered not answering, but whoever it was would be able to hear her te
lly.

  The giant stood in the hallway, waiting patiently.

  “Boss says you got to come.”

  “Okay, give me a minute to…”

  He reached in and grabbed her wrist.

  “Now.”

  “Okay, Jesus, can I at least get my coat?”

  But he was pulling her across the threshold. She tried to grab her keys from the hook on the coat rack before the door closed behind her, but he pulled her too firmly and the door swung shut.

  “Fuck, how am I supposed to get back in without my keys, dispshit?” she yelled as he dragged her towards the lift. He stopped dead, turned and looked down at her. He didn’t say a word, just stared until she said: “Okay, lead on.” He turned again and started walking. Outside the air was chilled and Kate felt goosebumps rising on her bare arms as she was bundled into the back seat of a waiting car with tinted windows.

  “Look at the floor,” said the giant as they pulled away. Kate did so without question.

  They drove for about forty-five minutes. When they pulled up the giant reached across and snapped a sleep mask across her face so she couldn’t see a thing. Then she was shoved outside and led across what felt like a cobbled street and into a cold, damp space that she was willing to bet was a railway arch. She was led down steps into a narrow space with dead acoustics and dust in the air. Down a corridor, then left and right and left again, and more steps.

  “Mind head,” said the giant a moment after she scraped the top of her head on what felt like soft brick. She stooped as she was led down a narrow stone staircase. By now, she knew she was deep underground. Another corridor, still stooping. She felt, then heard a gentle rumble somewhere off to her left. It took a moment to realise it must be a tube train.

  Kate heard a key turn in a lock followed by the squeal of old hinges, then she was shoved through a doorway and her sleep mask was ripped off.

  She was in a brick-lined cellar, barrel vaulted. Narrow but long, it stretched away, its vanishing point lost in darkness. There was a pervasive smell of damp and a distant sound of running water. An oil heater blazed away by the door, so at least it wasn’t cold, but in every other respect it was probably the least healthy place in London. Trying not to think about the horrors of Weil’s disease or the agony of hypersensitivity pneumonitis, Kate noted the bed, table and wind up lamp, the bucket in the corner with a tea towel draped over it and, finally, the girl sitting on the chair, dead eyed and listless, sallow cheeked and pale.

  Kate turned to the giant, who was bent almost double in the corridor outside.

  “People pay to come down here?” she asked, incredulous.

  “No,” he replied. “She come up for work. Stay here rest of time.”

  “Okay, well that’s got to change. You need to get her out of here now.”

  “You stop her coughing.”

  “I can’t. Not if she stays down here.”

  “You stop.”

  “I told you, I can’t. Even if I can alleviate her symptoms, they’ll come back if she stays down here.”

  The giant considered this. “Stop cough. Only need to stop coughing for afternoon. After that…” He shrugged.

  Kate sighed. “Okay, I’ll need prednisone.” The giant looked confused. “Give me a pen, I’ll write it down.”

  He handed her a biro and a receipt. She briefly considered ramming the pen into his throat and trying to make an escape, but dismissed the idea as ludicrous. She scribbled the name of the drug and handed him the piece of paper.

  “I come back in hour.” He slammed the door closed. Kate was imprisoned.

  She stood there for a moment, then the girl on the chair burst into a fit of awful, hoarse coughing that went on for over five minutes. Kate held her shoulders as the spasms wracked her. There were flecks of blood on the girl’s lips when she finally finished. Her breathing was ragged and rasping.

  “What’s your name?” asked Kate.

  The girl stared at her, uncomprehending.

  “Do you speak English?”

  No response. Kate pointed at her chest and said “Kate” then pointed to the girl, who just stared back at her as if she were mad.

  “I feel like I’m in a bad Western,” muttered Kate. Another ten minutes of trying failed to illicit any response. The girl was in deep shock, nearly comatose. There was no reaching her. Kate explored the depths of the tunnel, but found only rubble and rats. In the end there was nothing to do but wait for the giant to return. The girl had moved to the bed when Kate walked back from the far end of the tunnel. Kate sat next to her and put her arms around her bony shoulders. They sat there like that for a few minutes, then the girl rested her head on Kate’s shoulder until she fell asleep and slumped into her lap. Kate sat there, with the head of this sick, lost, broken, doomed girl nestled in her lap. She stroked her lank, greasy hair and cried.

  As much as she had been forced to confront brutal reality on the night she met Spider, it was during that long hour in that awful place that Kate changed forever. Parts of her psyche scabbed over and hardened, unexpected resolve made itself known, and the well of her compassion was exposed as deeper than she had ever imagined.

  When the giant opened the door and handed her the drugs, it was a different woman who took them from him. Harder, colder, angrier and less afraid.

  Kate administered the drugs and told the giant that she had done all she could. The sleep mask was replaced, and she was led away from a girl she was sure would be dead by nightfall.

  A tiny part of Kate remained behind in that cellar. The tiny piece of Jane that had been born there left in its stead.

  She was driven back to her flat, back to the world she knew. But it felt different. Distant. Changed forever. She walked up to her front door and reached into her pocket for her keys.

  “Oh fuck it,” she cursed, remembering that she had not had time to grab them. She stood and stared at the door and then stepped back and took a running kick at it. She felt the wood give and heard the sharp crack as it splintered. She kicked it again, and again, then shoulder charged it, yelling as she did so, smashing into the door time after time, hating it, wanting to annihilate it utterly, as if it was mocking her. The facia caved and split before, after one almighty crash, it flew off its top hinge and collapsed inwards.

  Kate stood there, breathing hard, teeth clenched, eyes wide, her heart pounding, ignoring the pain in her shoulders and legs. She heard a slight cough to her left and turned to see the old biddy from flat four peering anxiously out of her door.

  “What?” snapped Kate. The woman’s head disappeared inside and the door was firmly closed.

  “Didn’t you just pay a lot of money to have that door fixed, Miss Booker?” said a soft voice to her right. She spun, suddenly alarmed. But whereas a week ago she might have given a tiny yelp of surprise and felt a jolt of nerves, now she didn’t make a sound and stood ready to fight.

  The man from the coffee shop stood there in the corridor. Short for a man, about the same height as Kate, he wore a black leather jacket, white shirt and blue jeans above waxed black Docs. He looked about forty, blond hair slightly receding but not too much, with laugh lines around his mouth, and deep crow’s feet framing his blue eyes. Kate’s first thought was ‘he fancies himself.’

  “And who the fuck are you?” she snarled.

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small leather wallet which he flipped open and held up for her to inspect.

  “DI John Cooper. Metropolitan Police. Can we go inside and talk? That is, if we can get the door to close behind us.”

  HE HELPED HER prop the door back up in its frame and shoved a dining chair up against it to keep it in place, then sat on the sofa as she made him a cuppa.

  Her mind was racing as she fumbled with mugs and teabags. She’d been considering going to the police, obviously, but Spider had been clear that James would die very slowly indeed if she did so. He had sources within the police, he said, and he’d know the instant she broke ranks. She had
looked at her brother’s pitiful, tear-stained face as he crouched on that stage, handcuffed to the stripper’s pole, and she’d known that she had no choice. This organisation was big and complicated; there was every chance that Spider was telling the truth, that he did have some bent copper on the take. No, she’d decided that if there was a way out of her situation, she’d have to find it herself.

  Nonetheless, she slowed her step ever so slightly every time she passed a police station, and felt a jolt of butterflies at the thought of stepping across the threshold and spilling her guts, of sharing the problem, making it someone else’s.

  The man on her sofa made her almost as nervous as Spider had. Her first thought was that she had made some stupid rookie mistake, given the game away without meaning to, drawn needless attention somehow. Her second thought was that he could be Spider’s enforcer, sent here to warn her to keep her mouth shut.

  She wasn’t sure which outcome would scare her the most.

  She took the two mugs through to the living room, handed one to Cooper and sat in the armchair opposite him, sipping her own. She couldn’t think of anything to say, so she sat there as he studied her, waiting for him to make the first move.

  “Is that brick dust in your hair? Been on a building site?” he asked, not unkindly. His accent was hard to place. He didn’t have the Southern glottal stop or the rounded vowels of the North. He spoke precisely, his words chosen with care and delivered in RP, as if maybe he’d attended a posh school as a boy but had then had the edges knocked off his cut glass vowels by years living below his station.

  Kate didn’t reply, but she gripped her mug with tight, white knuckles.

  “And you’ve got mould or something very like it smeared down the arm of your sweater.” He cocked his head to one side and bit his lip thoughtfully. “Underground then. Maybe a railway arch or a cellar. Somewhere old, wet and crumbly, that’s for sure. You smell a bit dampy, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  Still Kate did not say a thing, unsure where he was going with this.

  “Could you lead me there, or did they blindfold you?” he asked.

  The question was so bluntly put that Kate answered it almost in spite of herself. It seemed he already knew everything anyway.