We arrived in an area where the street lights were still on. Suddenly everything seemed more civilised. The boat turned up a street where the water was merely dark and lapping, not wild and raging. We got to the limits of the deep water and the boat was touching the bottom, bumping around. Two men leapt out and held the boat by the ropes. The water was only half way up their boots. I wriggled over the side of the RIB and sploshed towards the tarmac ahead. One man nudged me and pointed as I passed him. A police car was parked discreetly across the end of the road. I walked quickly ahead to it and the officer got out.
“You have some girls held against their will?” He said to me.
“We think they’ve been trafficked and kept locked up,” I said quickly. “Please come down with me to get them though, because I think they will run away else…”
Both officers came down to greet the boat team, and one reached in and swung the Vietnamese girl out of the boat. She looked completely terrified. The Latvian girl looked in two minds whether to run, but Quinn got out of the boat and reached a hand out to her to help her clamber over the side, and then he kept hold of her hand.
We all went back to the police car and Quinn and I said we’d sit on the outside of the girls to keep them in, and we all squeezed in the back seat.
“You will look after them won’t you?” I asked concerned. I was worried that it might not have been better just to let them go to a reception centre to disappear into the town somewhere. Was this a complete betrayal to them?
“Don’t worry – we’ll get them specialist help and translators and see if we can sort out what’s been going on, and what they want to do now. They’ll probably get sent back to their families in their country of origin. Or if they want to claim asylum, they can try that, but it’s unlikely their claims will hold up.”
Back at the station, they were led away by a woman police officer.
“You’ll get them warm and dry, won’t you?” I said worriedly to her. “And you can get the cuffs off her?”
She looked back and smiled. Her eyes seemed kind. “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure they’re clothed and fed,” she said. “And cuff keys are standard so we’ll be able to find some that can open them.” The girls didn’t look back at me. I felt terrible. They felt betrayed by us, I could tell.
“Don’t I know you?” One of the male officers said to Quinn, frowning.
When Quinn gave his name, the officer laughed. “I’ve never seen you looking normal! That explains it!”
They interviewed us about what had happened and we tried to give as much information as we knew about men we’d seen hanging about there but we hadn’t taken much notice. Between us though we could remember the make and number plates of at least four cars that regularly parked outside. The policeman looked impressed until he heard we were both mechanics and Quinn was RAC and then he just laughed.
“What now?” I asked Quinn as we stood in the foyer of the station, looking reluctantly at the horrible windy wet outside. I’d only just got sort of dry again. “Where are we anyway?”
The police suggested we head up to the reception centre at the church hall community centre a couple of streets away, but Quinn worked out we were only half an hour’s walk from our parents. So we figured it was best to head home.
We set our faces into the cold and dark and he put an arm round my shoulders as we walked along.
“Did we do the right thing do you reckon?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he said. “But the police wouldn’t have a chance of prosecuting the gang, whoever they are if we hadn’t taken the evidence to them. And I guess the girls will at least end up getting to go home.”
“I s’pose,” I said. We walked along in silence for a bit, shoulders hunched against the driving rain.
It was after three am by the time we reached our houses. All was in darkness. “I never thought about what we would do when we got here,” Quinn said uncertainly. “I don’t really want to bash on the door at this hour and give Mum a fright.”
“Come to mine for now,” I said. “Let’s see if Jamie will wake up for us.”
We crept round under my brother’s window and took turns to throw gravel up at the glass. Finally a grumpy face appeared. “What do you two want?” He hissed.
“Let us in, Jamie! We’re cold and wet and our place is flooded out!”
He came down and pulled back the bolts on the front door and let us into the living room. He was yawning and still half asleep. “Save it for the morning!” He grumbled and stomped back off upstairs.
“Love you too, Bro,” I said.
Quinn and I retired to the kitchen and I made us hot chocolate.
“This takes me back,” he said.
I desperately wished we could retreat back up to my old bedroom, but it was now occupied by my baby half brother.
Quinn and I stripped off our wet outer clothes, our trousers and socks. The only dryish items left were undies and tee shirt, and they were a bit damp. But I had no possessions left in the house now. Nor could I see anything to use as a blanket. So all we could do was curl up on the sofa together for warmth and cover ourselves with a couple of coats hanging on the pegs by the back door. We put some cushions under our head, Quinn lay lengthwise with his back against the sofa back, and I lay squeezed in beside him on the outer side with his arm round me holding me on. And then we were so knackered we fell straight asleep.
“Oo, look what the fairies have brought us, Ethan!”
I blearily opened my eyes to see my stepmother standing in front of us in her frilly pink night dress and dressing gown, with one huge breast exposed and a big fat baby firmly attached to it. I glanced quickly at Quinn who was also opening his eyes to be greeted by this disconcerting sight. He seemed remarkably unfazed though. I supposed being the eldest of five, he must have seen a lot of breast feeding in his time.
“Sorry, Pauline,” I said. “We’ve been flooded out. And we didn’t want to upset Kathleen at three in the morning.”
She beamed at Quinn. “We’ve always got space for the gorgeous Adam in this house, haven’t we Ethan?” She cooed.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Six,” she said cheerfully.
I groaned.
We must have fallen back asleep, because the next thing I was aware of, it was seven and Dad was standing there with his hands on his hips. Over the years he’d been trained into never being surprised at anything Quinn and I got up to, so he wasn’t looking surprised.
“Flooded out,” I explained succinctly.
Quinn opened one bleary eye. “Please don’t make me go next door while they’re all getting ready for school, it’s hell!”
Dad laughed. “Anyone for a brew?”
I nudged Quinn. “What shift are you on?”
“Late,” he muttered.
“Jammy bastard,” I threw, and wriggled my way out of his embrace, leaving him to fall straight back to sleep again.
I sighed. I’d have to go into work. I couldn’t keep letting Entwistle down. But at eight am my mobile rang. It was Entwistle.
“We’re not opening today Eve, we’re a foot underwater.”
“Thank God for that!” I exclaimed. “Without going into the whole story Entwistle, I’ve been up most of the night with the flooding and I’m no use to anyone. Will you need me in later today to help clear up?”
“No, don’t worry Eve,” he said in forbearing tones. “I’ll ring you tonight to update you on what the score is for tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Thrills and Spills rang. Damian again. “Did you get any footage? Can you upload it to a computer and email it to me please? We’ve been using a clip of your phone interview on the ITV news, have you seen?”
“No, not switched on,” I yawned. “I’ll see what I can do about the phone footage.”
“ASAP,” he demanded.
I got Pauline to put ITV on, and the morning chat show obviously based in London kept doing dramatic updates on
the floods up North, talking in breathless tones about us like we were the primitive barbarian hordes undergoing a judgement of God. I was a bit gobsmacked by the helicopter footage of water as far as the eye could see. Bridges swept away in Cumbria, cows perched on tiny hummocky islands surrounded by acres of water, streets under swirling water with rivers running down the street nearly up to the top of the front doors.
“That’s like we were,” I told Pauline. (Now decently dressed and sitting in the armchair with the podgy thing asleep in her arms).
Then quite suddenly, over some film of rescue workers piggy backing people out of houses and boats floating down streets, there was my own voice telling the most dramatic bit of the rescue of the girls, about Quinn breaking in with a pickaxe and diving down into the water with the bolt cutters with me holding the tube for the girl to breathe through and us having to swim out. ‘I’m horrified,’ I finished. ‘The men just left them there to die.’
Pauline was well impressed. She loves a good story to tell to all her friends. I glanced over at Quinn wondering whether to wake him up, but he looked so peaceful it seemed mean. Instead I went upstairs, got on the house computer which now lived permanently in Jamie’s room, but still had my log-in, and sent the phone footage to Damian. Then I switched off my phone, got into Jamie’s bed and went to sleep.
When I got up again at midday, Pauline reported that Quinn had gone back next door. I went to get some cereal but as I poured it into a bowl I suddenly felt rather queasy and pushed it away. Twenty minutes later I was projectile vomiting over the bathroom. Half an hour later I was on the toilet with unstoppable squits like water squirting uncontrollably out. I didn’t dare leave the bathroom for two hours. Then I lay in Jamie’s room limp as a dishcloth feeling unbearably nauseous, but with nothing left in my body to eject from either end.
I reached for my phone.
“Yep, I’m sick as a dog,” Quinn reported. “I’m trying to keep away from Mum and Mariah. She’s let me have my old room back and I’ve had to ring to work to say I can’t get there which I feel terrible about as they’ll be full on right now. I don’t know what was in that water, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the sewers had been pumping out into it.”
“Urgh! You mean we’ve been swallowing shit?” I exclaimed appalled.
“Bound to be,” Quinn said cheerfully. “Sewers just overflow in a flood.”
“Yuk. What did they say about the van?”
“’Can’t be helped…’” He reported. “They’ve lost a few actually.”
“I hope those girls aren’t feeling like we are,” I said. “Imagine having to projectile vomit in custody or a hostel and keep begging to be taken to the toilet.”
“Gross,” Quinn agreed. “I bet the little one is, her head was right under by the end.”
“Ug sorry – have to go!”
“Yep, me too,” he said in urgent tones.
Jo rang. “I don’t know how you do it Eve! You and Quinn are all over every ITV news report. Entwistle says not to come in tomorrow either. We’re cut off up here at the moment anyway.”
“Were you flooded at all?”
“We were mostly fine, but ground water just started bubbling up into the stables and we had to evacuate all the horses to the barn with the cars, so fingers crossed they’re not kicking them or anything like that. At least it’s finally stopped raining. There’s a lovely double rainbow right now across the moors into the sunset.”
“All very biblical,” I commented. “What do you mind betting there’ll be some ‘heart warming’ news story in the local rag next week about some baby born in the flood that gets called ‘Noah’?”
“You’re a cynical little toad, aren’t you?” She laughed. “But I’m not going to take out any bets against you, cos you’re usually right!”
When Jamie came home from college he turfed me out of his room and I had to resort to the sofa again. I didn’t dare have any food, but Pauline brought me some Lucozade, handing it to me at arm’s length because she was scared I was going to infect Ethan. I remained installed on the sofa until the next morning, when I felt almost normal again and kept down some breakfast. Later on I went to call on the Quinns to see how Kathleen was doing. I found her lying on her own sofa, looking thin and pale. Mariah was sat on the carpet close to her, burbling to herself and playing with some bricks.
“How are you?” I asked, sitting down in one of the armchairs.
“Oh – you know…” She said vaguely.
“Are you really upset about having no breasts anymore?” I asked.
She glanced at me. “No one else has dared asked me that,” she commented.
I was mortified. “Oh, sorry!” Me and my big mouth again.
“No it’s ok, I’d rather people were straight with me.” She was watching Mariah, maybe to avoid my eyes. “Don’t know yet. It’s too soon. I guess if I live to see Mariah get married I will just be grateful that it’s saved my life.”
We both stared fixedly at Mariah and silence fell.
“If I die…” She started.
I looked at her. “Yes?”
She looked across, seemingly assessing something. “That’s another thing that no-one else will let me say...If I start a sentence ‘if I die’ everyone starts arguing with me and telling me cheerfully that of course I’m not going to die…”
“So, if you do die,” I established. “What were you going to ask me to do?”
“Keep an eye on Mariah,” she said. “You know, when she gets a bit older. Be a bit of an Aunty to her?”
I stared at her. In a thousand years I would never have expected to hear those words passing her lips.
“Will you?” She asked again.
I frowned. “Well, yes of course, I don’t mind docking in with her every now and again to see how things are going, but the problem is, will Siân let me? I can’t see Siân letting me anywhere near her…”
She was silent.
“How can I get right with Siân do you think?” I said at last.
She glanced at me. “You’ve never done anything particularly bad to her as far as I can see. Even when you were quite small you always seemed to put up with her provocative behaviour with a lot of patience.”
“But I was thinking, Kathleen. She was only four when I locked Adam in that fridge wasn’t she? And she was there when Dad pulled him out all blue and did mouth to mouth on him and the ambulance took him away. And you were screaming and she was holding onto your legs and crying. And it will have affected her won’t it? And at the time you’ll have been so angry you will have kept saying that I nearly killed him… That’s why she hates me. I apologised to Adam a long time ago, and you more recently, but I’ve never apologised to her, and she will have been affected too…”
Kathleen frowned. “I’ve never thought about that. I never watched my tongue in front of her. I suppose I thought she was too young to understand. Now you point it out, I see that you might be right, she might have been traumatised by it too?”
I nodded.
“Well it never hurts to give it a go, does it?” She agreed.
I got up. “Where’s Quinn?”
She looked blankly at me.
“Adam, I mean,” I clarified. “Has he gone into work?”
“No he’s in quarantine in his room,” she said.
I went up to see him. He was curled up asleep in his bed. I felt so knackered and so in need of being in a private bedroom instead of on a sofa, that I took my trainers off and climbed in beside him. He sleepily put an arm round me and I dropped off straight away.
When we woke up next morning he yawned and said, “Ginty, how come you’re here?”
“No idea,” I murmured. “Where are we anyway?”
He started to laugh. “I thought it was you, but I didn’t take any notice, and it was only when I woke up and found that I was at home that I realised it was odd.”
“Am I at home?” I turned over and opened my eyes. “No I’m not Quinn. I’m not at
home. What are you talking about?”
“I’m at home, you’re not!” He established good naturedly.
“What time is it?” I asked, stretching.
He looked at his phone. “Half six.”
“I’ll have to go back to work today,” I sighed. “I’d better slip out and go home before your Mum realises I’ve stayed over and gets the wrong idea.”
“She probably already knows. Someone stuck their head in last night and then went, ‘nope, they’re both fast asleep.’ But yeah, you’d better go.”
Dad gave me a lift to work on the way to his own. “Should be plenty of work for us builders,” he observed cheerfully. He’s always one to spot the silver lining.
I was early, but Entwistle was already there, surveying the damage. “We got off lightly,” he told me. “It never got more than a foot deep, unlike those poor sods…” He indicated down the road where there was a gentle, quite slight seeming downwards slope. Outside all the houses in the dip there were piles of settees, ripped up carpets, unusable electrical goods. You could see a distinct tide mark of sticks, stones and other matted debris across the road just a metre or two down the road from us. “We just need to start sweeping all this mucky sludge off and sluice down and then we can assess the damage.”
“Make sure everyone is wearing disposable gloves,” I advised him. “It’s half sewage and I’ve been chucking my guts up for twenty four hours.”
“Oh yes,” he said. “I heard all about your derring-do! You’re just one big trouble-magnet aren’t you? Life used to be quite normal around here until you arrived on the scene!” He handed me a stiff yard brush. “Off you go then.”
We worked our socks off to get the place cleared out and cleaned up. We hadn’t lost much, only a few things we kept on the floor. None of the cars that had been parked in our yard were any the worse for wear. So Entwistle was extremely relieved. I got up quickly from where I’d been crouching doing some last sweeping up with a dustpan and brush and I heard Jo say urgently, “Quick Tony, catch her!”
The Way Barred Page 6