Trailing my eyes down, I gazed at the arm flung across my stomach. Against my pallid skin it looked tanned, the muscles huge, the bicep almost as thick as my waist. It was heavy, pinning me down. At first glance it might have seemed the embrace of a lover, but it wasn’t. Alexander lay on his front, his face turned away from me. His arm around me was nothing more than a possessive gesture: I was not allowed to move until he said so.
I was his. Not his wife, or his girlfriend. I was something he owned, like the building, or the sleek silver Jaguar he drove, or the collection of expensive watches laid out on a shelf in the dressing room, cleverly concealed behind the bed. In fact, I was less than that, because he cared a great deal more for his fancy toys than he did for me. But he had total and utter control over every aspect of my life. He dictated where I went, what I did, who I spoke to. I did nothing without permission, and I knew with total certainty that it would be up to him to decide when it was time for me to die.
Because if it wasn’t for him, I would be dead already.
When the global economy collapsed, the world as we knew it changed overnight. China and the USA were at each other’s throats, with Europe caught in the crossfire. Germany and France were pushing hard for laws and policies that would reel Britain in, make her a slave. So we left the EU. We’d been persuaded, in desperation, into taking the Euro, but we soon came out of it again, and tried to go it alone. It didn’t work very well. After just five years the country was bankrupt, the people starving. The government in London made the decision to dissolve the United Kingdom, to make it every Englishman for himself. They cut off Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales – built great cement and steel structures that put the Berlin Wall to shame. And they cast out the Celts – sent us back to our hills and our heather and our empty pockets. The law was simple: any Celt caught in England without a visa was tattooed – a Celtic knot, on the left cheek where it was impossible to hide – and then sent back home. Any Celt caught in England without a visa and with a tattoo, was shot. No trial, no mercy.
I was caught by the GE, the Government Enforcers, for the first time when I was sixteen. I wasn’t homeless, but I was sleeping on the street, just for that night. I had a job, working in a little café, but I’d run out of cash and I couldn’t pay the rent on the cupboard-sized bedsit I was living in, so I was out. But only for one night – one single night. I’d get my wages the next day, pay what I owed, and have a roof back over my head, even if it was a leaky one. All I had to do was survive a few hours of darkness. I found myself a semi-dry doorway, spread my jacket out over my knees, and prepared to try to sleep, the rucksack containing all my important possessions hugged tight to my chest.
I didn’t even have time to get uncomfortable.
“What’s this then? You can’t sleep here, love. Come on, up you get.”
A strong hand hooked under my arm and pulled me up onto my feet. A middle-aged man with a bushy grey moustache and a GE uniform looked at me, not unkindly, as I dusted myself off. His partner, however, was scowling at me, like I was a rat that had crawled out of a drain.
“Where’s your ID card?” he snapped.
I didn’t have one.
“I haven’t got all day. Where’s your ID card?”
I just stared at him, eyes begging for mercy. The one with the moustache sighed sadly. His partner crowed with unconcealed delight.
“Well, well, well. I think we’ve got ourselves a Celt!”
He slapped cuffs on me, hustled me out of the alleyway and forced me into the back of a waiting GE van. From there I was taken to a police station, where an officer swabbed the inside of my cheek and ran me through the database. No hits. Not English.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Glasgow,” I muttered. There was no point lying, not now.
“So why didn’t you leave?”
We’d all been told to get out, given ninety days to make our way back to our ‘homelands’. You could apply for a visa, if you’d lived in England long enough, but I hadn’t, and I wouldn’t have had the money or the skills to pass the Home Office’s twenty checks anyway. There were no appeals, there was no asylum.
I shrugged.
“You know, the people in this country can’t afford to pay for everyone,” she went on.
I stared at her. She was one of them: the people who thought the government had got it right. The people who were quite happy to cut off millions and see them living in poverty and squalor like some Third World country.
She frowned, annoyed that I wouldn’t respond, wouldn’t apologise for my existence.
“How old are you?”
I glowered at her, then answered the question she was really asking.
“Old enough.”
Twelve. That was the age limit they’d set, the age at which you were deemed old enough to be responsible for the fact you were standing in a country that no longer wanted you. The age at which you could be scarred for life. Just twelve.
She grunted in response.
“Come with me. You’re lucky, you’ll not have to wait long today.”
I didn’t have to wait at all. Tattoo Room 3 was empty. I was escorted in, handcuffed to the chair, and a thick leather strap was tied across my forehead to keep my head still. A pointless exercise: who was going to weave their head about when a man was coming at their face with a needle?
It was the most painful thing I had experienced, up until that point at least. The design was intricate, beautiful really. A Celtic knot. It was something I wouldn’t have minded having on my hip or my shoulder, something to remind me of home. If I’d had a choice. I would not have chosen to have it burned into my face.
They left me to cry myself to sleep in a police cell overnight, then in the morning I was put on a bus with about thirty others and we were driven back up north. Soldiers at the border conducted us through a tunnel, then simply let us go. Like animals released into the wild, we were expected just to survive. Never mind that there was little in the way of government in Scotland any more, and absolutely no welfare state. There were no jobs, no money, no food. No chances.
As soon as I could, I got myself back down to England, buying my way with my looks, my smile and my body, catching a lift with a rich businessman with no morals and a big boot. Once we got to London he went his way and I went mine, and I survived. I slept rough, I tried to get a job, but it was harder this time. I’d been marked. Nobody wanted the GE raiding their business, so they wouldn’t take the risk. Without money, there were few places indoors to hide. It was only a matter of time before they caught me; and this time, when they did, I was dead.
It was raining on the night that should have been my last. Raining hard, the drops bounced off the concrete, driven faster by the strong wind. I was walking; not going anywhere, just walking. It was too wet to bunk down, and by keeping moving I could at least stay warm. Trouble was, seventeen-year-old girls on the street, at night, on their own, attracted things. Like men: driving past in cars, spilling out of pubs. They’d erupt from the gutter to catcall and paw, grabbing a handful if they thought they could get away with it. The seedier the area, the worse it got. You could head for the safety of the Central Zone, for the GE, but it was a balancing act. Too far out from the city centre and you were walking into trouble, too close and you were walking into worse.
I was definitely flirting with danger, weaving my way through the bollards that marked out the Zone, but I’d had a bad night. A man had actually stopped, got out of his car and tried to drag me inside. I’d screamed for help, but no one wanted so much as to look out of their windows, so I’d had to defend myself. I’d kicked him, hard, and then I’d run. I was fine, but I was shaken, and I was in no hurry to repeat the experience. So I moved towards the lights and the CCTV of the Central Zone.
They probably saw me on one of the cameras positioned at every corner. I had my hood up, to keep off the rain, but more importantly to hide my face. It must have looked suspicious, because the next street I
turned into, the GE patrol car was waiting for me. Two doors opened, two officers stepped out. One spoke into the radio pinned to his chest.
“We’ve got her. Yeah, I can see it from here. Going to be a Code Six. Send round a van.”
I could guess easily enough what that meant. It was time to do some more running.
All GE officers carry guns. They claim it’s for protection, but in reality it’s so that they can dish out the swift, final judgement and sentence on any Celts they catch, so there’s no time for pleas or trials or true justice. I knew as soon as I tried to run they were allowed to gun me down in the street, they didn’t have to take me to the station and put me down in the sanitary, humane way. I was dead either way, but if I bolted, there was the smallest chance I could outrun a bullet.
“Don’t!” one of them warned, seeing the thought on my face as if it were written on my forehead. He stepped forward, right hand reaching to his side, fingers fumbling with the catch of his holster. I glimpsed a flash of dark grey, the shining length of a barrel, and then I was gone.
I sprinted back the way I’d come, weaving and dancing, keeping myself close to expensive cars or large windows, knowing they wouldn’t want to shoot, miss, and risk causing major damage to something belonging to somebody important. It was that sort of neighbourhood. But even uptown has its alleyways, its narrow back lanes where rats scuttle and dodgy deals are done, and that’s where I was heading. Somewhere dark; somewhere someone small could disappear.
I kicked down just such an alleyway as one of the GEs decided he had a clear shot. The bullet whipped past me, slamming into the brick wall. Dust flew up in a cloud to my right, sending my already pounding heart into overdrive. I panicked, willing my legs to move faster, willing my lungs to keep working. I was barely looking where I was going, just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, as quickly as possible. So when I hit the man standing in the darkest depths of the passage, I took him down.
We sprawled on the ground, limbs entwining, his back scraping along the concrete floor for several feet. The impact knocked my breath from my lungs and snapped my neck, sending a jolt down my back like I’d broken my spine. Two arms, his, grabbed me, held me there, while both of us tried to work out what had just happened.
That wasn’t Alexander. Alexander was standing in the shadow of a doorway, right where I’d fallen, halfway through concluding a drug deal with the stranger I’d inadvertently attacked. His sharp eyes quickly took in the tattoo, clearly visible on my cheek now that my hood had fallen down, and the two GE officers chasing me. Without hesitating, he stepped out into their path, lifted his hand, and shot both men in the chest. There was no explosion, no crack of gunfire, just two hollow pops as the bullets burst out of his silencer. I watched them drop, astounded.
Then I turned to him just as he turned to me.
If I thought I’d met my saviour, I was sadly mistaken. Alexander had been protecting himself, the wad of money for the bag of cocaine he’d just handed over was burning a hole in his pocket. If the GE had caught him, he’d have been tattooed, jailed, maybe even executed. No, he wasn’t rescuing me; he was looking out for his own interests. And making sure I never opened my mouth about this was definitely in his interest. He considered me for the length of a heartbeat, then lifted the gun again.
“No!” I managed to find my voice. “No, please. Please.”
I was staring into death.
“Christ, shoot her, Alex. I think she’s broken my wrist.”
So he fired. He pulled the trigger, sent a bullet flying through the air at a thousand miles an hour.
But he didn’t shoot me.
The low-ranking dealer should have known better than to shorten his boss’s name.
Alexander picked me up, dragged me down the lane away from the three corpses lying in puddles of rainwater and their own blood, and stuck me in the passenger seat of his car. Then he drove off, taking me out of danger. Into hell.
From that minute on, he owned me.
I sighed and closed my eyes, wondering if there was any chance of more sleep, but the clock inlaid into the wall said 7.57 a.m., and Alexander always woke up at eight, without an alarm and without fail. I had to get up then, too. By nine, we’d be joined by Zane and any other business associates Alexander was trying to smarm by inviting them to his private office. A buxom blonde in his bed might send off the right signals; but me, I was just untidy.
“Elizabeth.”
I opened my eyes, and he was staring at me. He didn’t smile; Alexander rarely smiled, unless he was about to punish someone. He just stared – green eyes seeing right through me – as if he could see my soul. He was a very hard man to lie to, that was one of the reasons he was so successful. He knew when people weren’t telling the truth, or when they were feeling guilty. If someone was on the take, or trying to play both sides, trying to get one over on him, Alexander would be onto them like lightning. And they’d be dead.
“I need you to make a few deliveries today,” he said.
Deliveries. That was how I’d started out my career working for Alexander. Dropping off and picking up. I’d been good at it, too. I asked no questions and I did what I was told. I didn’t do drugs, so I was never tempted to open up the mysterious brown packages handed to me and help myself to a sample, and I wasn’t the average drug runner. The police weren’t looking for a girl who looked like she should still be in school. I was able to slip in unnoticed where big, mean men would set alarm bells ringing. More importantly, I knew I had to do well, or he’d decide I wasn’t useful any more.
“Okay,” I replied. I hesitated. “Are they daylight deliveries?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t wince, but my heart sank. I hated going out in the daylight. The tattoo was impossible to hide; that was, after all, the whole point of it.
I bit my lip and decided that, since it was the morning and he seemed to be in a reasonable mood, I would push my luck.
“Can I take someone with me?”
He shook his head before I’d even got half my question out.
“No, I want you to keep a low profile.”
I nodded, accepting that. I had learned from experience not to argue.
“See Zane. He’ll tell you what I need you to do.”
Alexander rolled off the bed, leaving me to make a face to myself in the ceiling. Zane would be deliberately difficult. He worshipped Alexander, and although he wasn’t a homosexual, sometimes I was sure he wished he could take my place in his master’s bed. I would have happily swapped. He didn’t like to speak to me, and he made no secret of that fact that he couldn’t understand why Alexander kept me around – though he said nothing to his face of course.
I was right. An hour later, Zane took me downstairs, way downstairs, into the basement. He stomped around, his expression making it crystal clear that he thought dealing with me was beneath him.
“Mr Alexander has a very specific job for you,” he glowered at me out of the corner of his eye. “He needs you to make a drop off, then you’re on cash collection.”
“Cash collection?” I echoed, dubious.
“Yes. Cash collection,” Zane snapped.
I was surprised. Usually Alexander sent muscle to pick up payments. But more than that, he very rarely sent me out alone any more, and never with any money in my pocket. He didn’t want me to get any ideas in my head about disappearing. Perhaps, at last, he’d started to trust me. Or, more likely, this was another of his little tests, upping the ante until he found the one I’d fail.
“Where?”
“The drop off is St Paul’s.” My breath sucked in: the Central Zone. Zane ignored me. “And the collection is out at Kensington. There’s a proper address in the bag, and a change of clothes. Don’t use it till you’ve done the drop off.”
Zane dumped a small rucksack on the table in front of me. It was pink and blue, more girlie than anything else I owned. It looked like something a schoolgirl would wear. I sighed, guessing t
hat was the role I was playing. My eyes flitted to the left, where Zane was unlocking a steel cabinet with a large, jangling collection of keys. Inside was my package.
“This,” he said, turning round and holding up a small brown parcel about the size of a brick, “has been weighed accurate to a milligram.”
So don’t steal any.
Not that I would.
“Who’s picking it up?”
He gave an evil grin, and I felt unease bubbling in my stomach.
“It’s a man called Riley.”
“How will I know him? ID?”
“You’ll know.” He was smirking like the cat that got the cream. Warning sirens were firing in my brain.
“Zane—”
“He’s GE.” He dropped the bombshell, then watched my face, waiting to see it fall. I refused to give him the satisfaction, but inside I was quaking. I knew that Alexander had several high-ranking officers from the police and the GE in his pocket; it was how he kept them away from his premises, how most of his deals went unnoticed, unpunished. I’d never met any of them before, or at least, I didn’t know if I had. They terrified me. They could shoot me on the spot, my inky cheek the only warrant they would need.
“Fine,” I said, forcing my voice not to tremble. “Is there a list for the collections?”
Zane gave me a long look, disappointed in my lack of reaction, then thumped a large book down on the table. He shuffled through until he found the right page, and spun it round to face me. It was a list, about twenty names running down the left-hand column, and then a series of dates along the top of the double page. Various amounts had been crossed out: debt paid. Alexander’s books. He didn’t trust computers. Computers could be hacked. Every amount was stored in two key places: his head and Zane’s. The basement held the third copy, the paper copy. The back up.
I gave the list one more glance. This was my job for today. I reached out and lifted the book, but Zane slammed his hand down, knocking it back to the tabletop. He shook his head. The list didn’t leave the basement, apart from in my head.
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