Innocent Girls

by Terence Mitford

  The woman in the window seat had similar blonde hair to Alison and had her head down as if reading a book just like Alison had been. As Natasha was passing the woman’s row the woman glanced up at her.

  Natasha’s eyes widened as she drew breath. ‘Alison!’

  Alison’s expression echoed Natasha’s. ‘Natasha, my god, I’m so pleased to see you.’ She grabbed her bag from the unoccupied seat next to her. ‘Please, sit down a minute.’

  Natasha accepted the invitation and they greeted each other with a hug.

  ‘I have been so worried about you the last few weeks,’ Alison said. ‘When I couldn’t find you at the airport my imagination ran wild. Then a few weeks later I heard on the news about an East European girl being rescued from a trafficking gang. I hoped it wasn’t you and that you were somewhere in London kickstarting your modelling career.’

  Natasha’s eyes watered. ‘Oh, Alison, I should have waited for you to clear customs. You were right when you told me not to trust anyone.’

  Alison drew breath. ‘Was it you they were talking about on the news?’

  Natasha nodded.

  ‘Oh, poor girl, are you okay?’

  Natasha nodded again. ‘I am now. I’m going home to see my family and I can’t wait to see my little sister, Katerina.’

  Alison reached over and squeezed Natasha’s hand. ‘Does your family know what happened?’

  ‘Yes, as soon as I was rescued by an ex-cop and his daughter I rang home to warn them they were in danger. The trafficker who abducted me, Stefan’—she shuddered as she spoke his name—‘threatened to kidnap my sister, Katerina, if I did not cooperate or if I escaped. So, after warning my parents, they took Katerina to stay with a cousin in a nearby town.’

  ‘Are you okay talking about it? I don’t want to upset you.’

  Natasha smiled. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  ‘It’s just that your eyes watered at couple of minutes ago.’

  ‘Seeing you reminded me of how stupid and reckless I was to get in the car with Stefan and another man at Heathrow airport. If I’d only waited for you, I’m sure you would have known something was wrong.’

  ‘The main thing is you’re here now. You survived. Many girls don’t.’

  ‘I know, and I have thought about them everyday since I was rescued. I want to help them and stop other girls following in my footsteps.’

  Alison drew breath. ‘Do you remember I’m a writer for the Women Of The World magazine?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you like to tell your story? Our magazine is circulated in many countries and online. It’s even sold at the airports. Your story could warn others.’

  ‘Would you do that?’

  ‘Of course I would.’

  ‘Then yes, I would like that. If it prevented just one girl going through what I went through it will be worth it.’

  Alison glanced around. ‘No one can hear us for the drone of the plane. Are you okay to carry on?’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Whatever you are comfortable telling me. You could start by explaining what happened at the airport.’

  ‘Okay, although Stefan spoke in English, judging by his accent, I’m pretty sure he was Romanian. When I told him I was waiting for you he told me I had an audition for a modelling job that had been arranged last minute after another girl had cancelled, and that we had to go there and then. But it was a lie. I should have known something was wrong but he had an answer for everything so, in the end, I went with him. They had a car outside the terminal, and they took me to a house in London where other girls were being held. It was where they trained girls.’

  ‘Trained?’

  ‘That’s what he called it, but there was no actual training, they just crushed our spirit and free will. To make us perform… you know… with clients.’

  ‘How did they do that?’

  Natasha hesitated a moment and searched for the words with the least vivid imagery attached. But she sighed because there weren’t any, she just had to tell it as it was.

  She glanced between the seats to see the man in the row behind them fast asleep, then she turned back to Alison. ‘I was taken into a room and four of them raped me. I’m sure they saw it as a perk of the job but it’s also a tactic, because after going through that, going with one punter at a time isn’t as bad.’ She paused a moment. ‘That sounds ridiculous now I hear myself saying it, but I mean, as horrible as it was being used by a stranger, being raped by Stefan and three of his men was worse.’

  ‘It’s not ridiculous. It makes perfect sense.’

  ‘But that wasn’t the worst of it. They made threats against our families. Stefan told me that if I didn’t comply and satisfy clients he would have my sister abducted and she would be made to go with the clients instead of me. He forced me to choose, me or my sister. But I didn’t really have a choice. I had to protect Katerina, so from that moment on I had to cooperate.’

  Alison shook her head and a sympathetic smile replaced the shock and disgust written all over her face. ‘That’s awful, Natasha.’

  ‘A few days later Stefan sold me and the other girls to a man named Malik. He ran the houses, you know… the brothels. I worked at another house for a couple of weeks before Malik sold me to a private members club.’

  ‘Was that The Scarlet Club?’

  ‘Yes, its members were rich men who bought girls.’

  ‘I heard about it on the news, but they didn’t say too much.’

  ‘I was being delivered to them in the back of a Mercedes when the ex-cop, Mason Cooper, and his daughter, Rosie, saw me. Well, it was Rosie who noticed me looking frightened and stressed in the back of the car as the driver, Artan, was filling up with fuel on a garage forecourt. They followed us and when Artan stopped and went up to a house, Mason came to our car. There was an altercation and Mason knocked the other guy out and rescued me.’

  ‘The news said they took the ex-cop’s daughter.’

  ‘They did. Mason took me to their home so I could ring my parents and warn them. Then he went back to the garage to tell the boy serving there not to disclose his address. The boy used to go to school with Rosie and had spoken to Mason when one of the traffickers was there. But he was too late, the traffickers had got there first, and while Mason was gone, they forced entry to the house looking for me. Rosie and her mum, Kathy, had hidden me upstairs, so the men took Rosie instead and stabbed Kathy during the struggle. I felt so guilty when I found out what had happened.’

  ‘But it wasn’t your fault, what could you have done?’

  ‘I still felt responsible. Because they helped me, Rosie was kidnapped and Kathy ended up in hospital. So I had to stay. Mason tracked the gang to a large house in Kent where The Scarlet Club members met to abuse the girls they had abducted. He was shot but managed to rescue Rosie.’

  ‘Is he okay now?’

  ‘Yes, he spent about three weeks in hospital and I stayed with Kathy and Rosie. But after he was discharged I thought it best for me to stay somewhere else. I didn’t want to complicate things between him and Kathy.’

  ‘But why would you complicate…’ Alison paused a moment and looked at Natasha. ‘Oh, I see. Yes, any wife would be nervous having a pretty girl like you around.’

  An announcement over the tannoy system told passengers to fold away their tables, place their chairs in the upright position, and fasten their seatbelts ready for landing.

  Natasha snapped on her seatbelt. ‘Have you got business in Chisinau?’

  ‘Yes, I’m working on a feature about girls from Moldova, Romania, and Albania coming to London for work. You may already know that over the past few years there has been a steady exodus of young people from Eastern Europe to Western Europe.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Last month I went to Bucharest to research for my article, and now I’m going to Moldova, and then I plan to go to Albania.’ Alison paused a moment, and said, ‘I could refer to your story in the feature I’m
working on now and do a follow-up in the next addition for greater exposure.’

  Natasha smiled. ‘That sounds good.’

  Alison reached out and took hold of Natasha’s hand. ‘Before you go on I want you to know that I will not publish anything you’re not happy with. If there’s anything you do not want included in the article you just have to say, okay?’

  Natasha nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘According to the news you were rescued three weeks ago, why are you just going home now?’

  ‘Because, as I said, I felt responsible, I had to help Mason get his daughter back.’

  ‘Even after everything you went through?’

  ‘It was because of me that Rosie was taken and sold to The Scarlet Club. I would never have forgiven myself if I’d left. Then, after we got Rosie back, we had some loose ends to tie up.’

  ‘Loose ends?’

  ‘We had to find the head of The Scarlet Club, the man they called Mr Scarlet. He turned out to be my ex-stepfather and he threatened to harm Katerina. Apparently he had been infatuated with me for the five years we lived with him in London. I didn’t realise it at the time and thought he was just friendly and caring, but my mum had her suspicions and it was one of the reasons she left him and took me and Katerina back to Moldova. Shortly after that my parents got back together.’

  ‘How did you find out your ex-stepfather was Mr Scarlet?’

  ‘Because I was going to stay with him after Mason got discharged. Mason took me over to his new house in Surrey but Stephen had one of his men there. They were going to kill Mason, and take me again.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘A fight broke out and Mason dealt with Stephen’s guy. Stephen took off in his car, but not before making threats against my younger sister, Katerina. It had all been a set up. Stephen had learned from my Facebook page that I was visiting my grandmother near Bucharest and that I was going to meet a friend in a bar there. I now know the conversation I had with the woman who offered me the modelling job wasn’t a random meeting. He had arranged it.’ Natasha hesitated. She decided not to tell Alison that she and Mason had tracked Stephen to an abandoned brickworks in Leicestershire and that, after a gun battle with him and some of his men, she had shot him dead with a double barrelled shotgun. She would have to get to know Alison a lot better before she made that kind of confession. So she just said, ‘There’s a lot more to the story but I can’t tell you it yet.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘But today, as soon as it was all over, Mason bought my flight ticket home and dropped me at the airport.’

  4

  MASON

  Back in London, Mason Cooper arrived home from the airport late afternoon with an empty feeling inside, like he’d just lost something. Something precious.

  He got out of his car and headed for his front door trying to clear his thoughts. His wife, Kathy, would be home soon so he had to get Natasha out of his mind. But that could be easier said than done. A girl like her would be hard to forget, especially after everything they had been through together over recent weeks.

  He sat at the kitchen table in his modest three bedroom, semi-detached house with a strong coffee, rubbed his temples, and reflected on events that ranked as the craziest, most dramatic time of his life.

  He glanced at a newspaper spread open on the table in front of him. It had that day’s date in the top right-hand corner. Kathy must have been home at lunchtime. It’s something she did occasionally as her office, where she worked as a legal secretary, was less than a mile away. But she rarely bought a newspaper. That was his job. He liked to catch up with the news over breakfast but it was usually yesterday’s news because when he was in the force he rarely had time to read a paper on the day he’d bought it. He still found it hard to believe he was no longer a detective sergeant in the metropolitan police. It would take some getting used to.

  Kathy must have had a reason to buy a paper, so he scanned each headline until he found it near the bottom of page six.

  EX-COP, WHO KILLED TEN AS HE TOOK DOWN A SICK GROUP OF WEALTHY MEN IN THE SCARLET CLUB CASE, WILL NOT FACE CHARGES.

  Having studied the evidence, the Crown Prosecution Service has declared that the ex-cop acted in defence of himself and his daughter when, single-handedly, he tracked down and destroyed an evil private members’ club that traded in teenage girls and young women.

  It began when the ex-metropolitan officer and his daughter rescued a young Eastern European woman who was being transported by human traffickers through the London suburbs in the back of a car. It is alleged that a short time later the same criminal gang forced entry to the man’s home and abducted his sixteen-year-old daughter as a replacement for the rescued girl. His daughter was then sold to The Scarlet Club.

  However, this was the gang’s fatal mistake because sources state that the father was no ordinary ex-cop.

  A Metropolitan Police spokesperson stated: ‘He did what he had to do and his actions have the full backing of his ex-colleagues.’

  Full details cannot be disclosed at this time due to the pending trial of one of the alleged leaders of The Scarlet Club.

  Mason shook his head as he read the words single-handedly. He was frustrated and a little saddened that he couldn’t let the world know just how important Natasha’s role had been, and that without her help he, and possibly his daughter, Rosie, may not have survived. But it was safer for Natasha this way because it’s virtually impossible to eliminate a whole trafficking organisation, especially those highly organised units that have far reaching tentacles throughout Europe. So, to identify her would amount to signing her death warrant.

  The doorbell rang. He sighed, then opened the door and sighed again, but this time with relief to see DS Jim Barker, an ex-colleague, standing there. They had been good friends for twenty years, ever since they had worked together as young detectives in one of London’s busiest divisions.

  Jim followed Mason back to the kitchen. ‘Good to see you’re still alive, buddy.’

  Mason made another coffee, sat down, and slid it across the table to Jim. ‘You on duty?’

  ‘Yeah, but they know I’m here. I think everyone back in the office is waiting for the full story. You know, what the TV news didn’t tell us.’

  ‘I can tell you, but it would put you in a difficult position if you knew all the facts.’

  ‘By that I assume you mean you’d be in trouble if I repeated it.’

  ‘That’s right. I’d be in trouble if you repeated it, and you’d be in trouble if you didn’t.’

  ‘Why have I got a feeling there’s a few additional dead bodies that we don’t know about in this story?’

  ‘Must be that razor sharp intuition you’ve developed over the last twenty years.’

  Jim grinned at Mason. ‘I’ve got to ask, why did you quit the force? You only had five years to go for a full pension.’

  Mason took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. ‘It was to save my marriage, Jim. Kathy hated the fact that I was hardly ever home and that I’d missed so much of Rosie’s childhood. Things were strained between us so I decided the only way to fix things was to leave. But it was worse than I thought.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Kathy had been having an affair with a guy from her office.’

  Jim’s eyebrows raised. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘When Kathy was in hospital after being stabbed by those bastards I overheard a guy asking for her at the reception. He told the staff he was her brother, which was a lie, she doesn’t have a brother. Kathy wasn’t available for visitors so when he left I followed him to the carpark. I confronted him with his lie and he eventually admitted he’d been seeing her for a few months.’

  Jim shook his head. ‘I hope it all works out in the end.’

  ‘So do I, but I’m not sure yet how I want it to work out.’

  Just then, with perfect timing, Kathy came through the front door. So after some polite conversation Jim said his goodby
es and left.

  Kathy slipped off her jacket and draped it over one of the chairs. ‘Where were you last night?’

  Mason pointed to the chair. ‘You’d better sit down, it’s a long story.’

  Kathy sat down and waited.

  Mason hesitated a moment trying to decide how much to tell her. She already knew he had taken Natasha over to her ex-stepfather’s house the day before but she didn’t know that, after tracking Stephen and some of his men to the disused brickworks, he and Natasha had stayed overnight in a local bed and breakfast pub so they could make their move just after dawn. And she didn’t know what had occurred between him and Natasha last night. And even though Kathy had had an affair with a colleague, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her just yet. But he would have to soon because if they were to reconcile after Kathy’s affair, he couldn’t keep secrets of his own.

  So he gave Kathy a brief explanation of the encounter at the brickworks and told her about Stephen being Mr Scarlet, and why they didn’t need to worry about him anymore.

  Kathy gave out a long sigh. ‘Thank god for that, I don’t think I could handle much more.’

  Mason used the silent pause to change the subject. ‘Where’s Rosie?’

  ‘She’s working part time at the new Italian restaurant down the road.’

  ‘Working?’

  ‘We called in there last night. They had a sign in the window asking for staff. Rosie thought it would be an ideal way to get her mind off everything that has happened and earn herself some spending money at the same time.’

  ‘So she applied yesterday and started today?’