“Good car,” I congratulated. “You’ve won your first Championship!”
“It’s not like Herbie,” Pete observed ironically. “Your car had some help!”
“Yes of course,” I said politely as an afterthought. “Thank you, Paul!”
Pete gave me a playful punishing slap.
“Not the back,” I groaned, tottering away. “Anything but the back!”
On Thursday, I felt more up to being seen again. Except now I was peeling. I wore some loose trousers instead of the skirt to reveal less of the unpleasant flesh.
“Fillet burger,” Stacey announced, “You’re right – much nicer than bones.” She put her tray down on the table in front of me.
I looked up, startled. I’d expected her to keep away from me.
“I felt sorry for you,” she said by way of explanation. “You’re always hanging around in here on your own.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“What happened to you?” She said indicating the peeling nose. Then she laughed. “You’re too blonde to tan. I’d give up if I were you.”
“I heard what happened at number fourteen,” she said. “Bastards. Were you there?”
I shook my head, then remembered I shouldn’t move around too much because of the camera. “No,” I said. “I was meant to be, but I ran away.”
She pulled a face. “You’ll pay for that.”
“He seemed to think that I ought to know I was meant to be there but I didn’t.”
“You’re new to this aren’t you?” She surmised. “You have to watch your phone all the time for the message.”
“So what did you hear happened at number fourteen?” I asked.
“Girl refused to let a guy take her up the arse so they bottled her up her ass instead. Sounds like they ruptured something though cos she wouldn’t stop screaming and they ended up dumping her outside A and E.” She glanced at my horrified expression. “Don’t cry. Crying won’t get you anywhere, nor will cutting up,” she added.
“Jessica does that,” I told her.
“Yeah, there’s a few of them do that, but once you’ve ruined your looks you’re not as valuable to them anymore and they don’t treat you so well. You get all the disgusting customers and they don’t care about marking you anymore.”
She looked severely at me. “Don’t mess ‘em about. Bet you don’t realise what they’re capable of yet. Cos you’re so blonde they’ll be looking after you at the moment, saving you up for the most important clients.”
“Who’s the most important person you’ve ever been asked to do something sexual for?” I asked. It wasn’t a normal way to ask the question but I had to keep one eye on the proof for the police and so there had to be no doubt as to what practices were being demanded of her.
“Leader of the council,” she said with a triumphant smile.
“Blimey! How d’you know that?”
“Didn’t at the time,” she admitted. “But a week later I saw his photo in the paper.” She glanced down at her phone, “sorry gotta go!” Then she paused and laughed. “Those are truly dreadful earrings!”
I pulled a face. “I know,” I agreed in hollow tones, “but I’ve been told to wear them.”
“Kinky client?” She sympathised.
“Just a man,” I dismissed. “They have no taste.”
I went straight home, not having the stomach for any more tonight. I made sure all the footage was put on the cloud straight away. And then I blogged. “I’m shocked,” I said quietly to my laptop so Jo and Zanna wouldn’t hear. I wanted to say that I was shitting myself now but I had to keep my language clean so they could use it in a broadcast.
I rang my journalism contacts. “Have you been keeping an eye on my uploads?” I asked.
“No, is it worth us taking a look now?”
“I’d be grateful if you would,” I said.
After work on Friday I went straight round to Chetsi’s. Taib opened the door.
“Can I come in?”
He opened the door wider for me to pass.
Chetsi was in the sleek open plan kitchen area. Nice smells were issuing.
“You work up at the General don’t you?” I directed at Taib.
He nodded. “I’m on night duty there tonight in fact.”
“I just wondered if you could find out something for me?”
He raised his eyebrows and waited.
“Can you find out if a young teenage girl was brought into A and E a couple of weeks ago with severe anal injuries?”
“What’s this about?” Chetsi said sharply from the other side of the worktop.
“It’s a bit of a long story,” I said apologetically.
Chetsi and Taib exchanged glances.
“Do you want to stay for tea and tell us then?” She suggested.
At first I tried not to tell them it all but gradually they winkled it all out of me. Chetsi was looking shell shocked. “I don’t want to believe this is true!” She exclaimed.
Taib glanced across the table at her. “It’s sounding more convincing by the minute,” he said.
When I got to the report of the girl being bottled, Chetsi pushed her plate away.
“I know,” I said. “I cried.”
They remained silent for some time after I’d finished speaking.
“I’m worried about you,” Chetsi said.
“I’ve got a GPS locator in a shoe,” I said, “with someone monitoring it.”
“Even so,” Taib said. “A lot could have happened by the time they get there.”
They didn’t need to remind me of that.
Nick rang me late that night.
“What do you think?”
“Looks like you might be onto something,” he agreed. “If you could substantiate the claim about the leader of the Council, that would be dynamite.”
“Any ideas how I can investigate him?” I asked uncertainly. This was well out of the range of my experience.
“Maybe you can’t yourself,” he said. “You need to be realistic about what you can achieve. If you collect as much eye witness evidence as you can, then we can put someone in with the necessary skill set to access the political and financial information. But a useful question to have in the back of your mind is how is he connected to these men? Family connections? Business dealings? Financial entanglements? It’s bound to be one of those three. Good luck.”
I felt a measure of relief. I didn’t have to do it all myself. They’d send someone to pull it all together. I just had to do my best.
Taib rang me late Sunday night when I was back from a weekend of piling up more useful points in a World Qualifier on shale at Mildenhall followed by a trip over to Buxton.
“We need to talk to you,” he said. “Which night are you able to come round?”
I was so desperate to hear what they had to say that I immediately agreed to go round on Monday.
They seemed reluctant to bring up the subject that they must surely have asked me round to discuss, but finally, at the end of the meal, Chetsi pushed back her plate and looked across at Taib.
He looked seriously back across the table at me. “I made some enquiries, Eve, looked up the records, and there was a girl brought in on the date you suggested with the injuries that you asked me to look out for.”
I stared at him. I hadn’t wanted it to be true. “How old was she?”
He bit his lip. “Thirteen,” he said reluctantly.
“That’s sick!” I exploded. Then I corrected myself. “I mean it would be seriously sick whatever age she was, but just thirteen is seriously, appallingly awful!”
Chetsi’s hands were curled tight around a fork that lay on the table, her knuckles white.
“Her name?” I demanded.
He shook his head. “Patient confidentiality,” he warned.
“I hope you’re not recording this,” Chetsi said sharply.
I shook my head.
“Promise me?” She looked hard at me.
“I pr
omise.” I’d been tempted to, but I’d figured that they wouldn’t speak openly to me if I was recording them.
“A girl called Rebecca killed herself a few weeks ago,” she said quietly. “From the self-harming support group, and I wondered if it could be the ‘Becki’ that girl Stacey referred to? And yesterday, Jessica made another suicide attempt.”
I stared at her, dismayed. “Oh no,” I faltered.
“We’ve had to Section her for her own safety.”
We all fell silent.
“If what Jessica is claiming is true,” Chetsi said heavily, “then it’s going to rip this town apart, do you understand that, Eve?”
I met her gaze uneasily.
“Do you understand?” She repeated sharply.
I said nothing.
“So we need to be absolutely sure that it’s true before we go public...” She continued, her eyes gripping mine warningly. “Up at the hospital, we’ve got into the way of thinking that it’s all been propaganda put about by the BNP, which Jessica’s picked up from her father...”
“He says he only started voting BNP after all this happened to Jessica,” I defended him. A few weeks ago I wouldn’t even have known what the BNP were, but by now I’d googled them.
“I have some sympathy with the guy if it does turn out to be true,” Taib commented, “if they’re the only ones who’ve been listening and trying to do something for his daughter...”
Chetsi looked momentarily shocked at his words. Then she looked intensely at me. “In Rotherham they’ve ended up with riots, protests, mass sacking of whole departments of the council, Government Enquiries, race hate crimes with Muslims, Hindus, and Seiks all being indiscriminately attacked, and women in hijabs being too scared to leave the house...”
“I’m sorry but I’m not stopping looking into this just because it might upset some people,” I said stubbornly. “And that social worker of Jessica deserves to be sacked! I’ve found evidence of what’s going on within a few weeks of starting so she can’t have even tried to find out. Jessica’s life has been hell for so long now, no wonder she can’t stand it any longer!” I drew a breath. “I don’t want to be accused of being a racist, but it’s not my fault if the rapists turn out to be from a particular community. If you and Taib were willing to be involved then at least it wouldn’t be just white against brown...”
Chetsi glanced at Taib. “Thing is, Eve, you’ve already experienced personally how much tension there still is between the Indian and Pakistani communities in some quarters, so we’re as likely as yourself to be accused of racism. What you could really do with is some Muslims speaking out...”
“And some Imams standing up to be counted,” Taib added.
I sat back in my seat feeling limp with the enormity of what they were saying. Chetsi stared into space and Taib frowned down at the table.
I went home and blogged everything we’d said and then lay awake for hours trying to decide what to do next, while trying to ignore an argument that was breaking out about sex in the next door room, because Jo couldn’t seem to satisfy Zanna yet again.
Bet I’d know how to give Zanna an orgasm, I found myself thinking. Then I felt a bit shocked at myself. But no, it was true, Pete had educated me so well in my own body, I felt confident I could find my way around someone else’s. Just thinking about Pete’s hands touching me made me tingle in a way I felt I shouldn’t when I knew I didn’t want him back. I went to touch myself but it didn’t feel right to be doing that while thinking about a man who was someone else’s boyfriend who I needed to keep up a professional relationship with, and besides, what was happening to those poor little thirteen year old girls was making me feel a bit queasy and tainted. My hand dropped away, and I fell asleep.
Next day, I rang my brother Jamie. “Are you still friends with Sahmir?” I asked. I didn’t want to contact Sahmir via his sister Nasim because she’d be bound to ask questions. Jamie was so supremely uninterested in everything I did that he wouldn’t even query it.
“Course I am!”
“Do you know where I could get hold of him?”
“He’ll be at our Full Frontal gig on Friday night,” he told me.
I got the address of the pub they were at and said casually that I might just come along.
“We may have an offer of a tour with the Bronx Brothers, as their support act next summer,” Jamie suddenly added. “Which is great because Kes will be free by then. We really need Kes. He adds complexity…”
I’d vaguely heard of the Bronx Brothers. And if even I’d heard of them then they must be well known.
“Wow!” I said dutifully. “UK tour?”
“All over Europe,” Jamie reported breathlessly.
I could hear the excitement in his voice.
“And if they like us, they say they’ll consider us for their Autumn tour back in the States…”
“Whoa!” I contributed in tones that I hoped sounded suitably impressed. “You always said you were going to be a rock star!” I hoped he didn’t remember that me and Dad had ripped the shit out of him for it. Maybe it might actually happen.
In the meanwhile, I decided to try out a different tack. Three lunchtimes in a row I got on my bike, stopped at a Costa that had a disabled toilet that was big enough to change in, then teetered out and up the road to sit outside the big comprehensive school that was currently in special measures in the most deprived area of town. I dressed slightly more conservatively for the day time. I still had to wear the wretched high heels, earrings and watch, but put it together with a slightly longer skirt and a scarlet cotton vest top that left my arms on show. I wandered up and down, sat on low walls, fiddled with unlit cigarettes, sat cross legged inappropriately showing my knickers, lounged nonchalantly looking down at my phone. All the time I watched out for who else was hanging about. Several times I tensed as a car with Asian men in it went past and slowed down, looking at me. I felt terrible at my reaction. I felt yet again like a racist. None of the cars stopped. I watched out for other girls. Were any getting approached by older men?
By day three I was spotting a pattern. Two cars had come past every day with the same men in them. Both cars had slowed as they went by as though trawling. I noticed at least two other girls regularly hanging about and glancing up as the cars went by. At half past twelve on day three one of the cars pulled up by a young girl in school uniform and she got in. She was laughing. She seemed to get in willingly. But she was only about twelve and they were in their mid-twenties. Was I being paranoid? I made sure I directed the cameras on me at the number plate and memorised it as well. I wandered casually over to the spot where that girl had stood. Just a few minutes later, the second regular car slowed up by me. The Asian guy in the passenger seat was handsome. He whirred the window down and leaned out, smiling at me. “Hello Beautiful!” He greeted me. “You waiting for me? You look like you’re all dressed up for a good time!”
I gave him what I hoped would come across as a shy smile and made my stance awkward. Then a guy on the back seat who also had the window half open, said, “Nah, bruv, look she’s already taken…”
The front passenger flashed a hand out and took hold of my wrist. “Kaz huh? He’s an evil bastard isn’t he, darling? Maybe you’d like to swop? Easy enough to add a second spot. Only take a moment…”
“Nah bruv, he’d find out!” The guy in the back warned.
But the guy in the front was obviously taken with me. “Don’t pull away, sweetheart,” he said with a smile and bright eyes flickering across my face. “We’d treat you right, wouldn’t we Adnan?” He glanced across at the guy in the driver’s seat to corroborate his assertions, who gave a reflex bored-seeming slight nod.
“What about Mohammed?” I ventured in a timid uncertain tone. “What’s he like?”
The guy raised his eyebrows. “He’d leave you to me if I asked him. So it would be just you and me, beautiful, and no-one else. You wouldn’t get passed around. I’d make sure of that,” he promised.
“No filthy gang bangs like Kaz is so fond of,” the guy dismissed. “I’d treat you like a princess…”
I pretended to consider it. But just as the guy in the back opened the door invitingly and moved over to make room for me to get in, a woman exploded out of the school gates and ran at us yelling like a lunatic. “You get the hell out of here! I’ve told you I’ll call the police if you hang around here. Keep your filthy hands off my students!”
“Racist bitch!” The guy in the back seat hurled at her, his previously smiling face distorting into a contemptuous sneer. His tone became sinister. “You better watch out on dark nights missus! Because we ain’t fussy and we can find out where you live…” And then he flicked his lit cigarette into her face, obviously aimed to hit, slammed the door shut and the driver revved up and wheeled them away, music suddenly blasting loud.
The teacher turned to me, she was clearly shaken, but I admired her bravery at daring to take them on. “You mustn’t get taken in by them,” she said to me. “They don’t love you, you know. They’re just trying to trick you into having sex with them.” Then she stopped short and frowned. “Who are you?” She said bluntly. “You’re not one of our pupils are you?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I’d really like to talk to you about what’s just happened…”
She walked up the road a short way with me, until we were just out of sight of the school gates. The story I heard from her was what I was beginning to expect. She was struggling to get anyone to listen.
“I’ve reported it to the police, but they say that if the girls get in willingly, it’s none of their business. I’ve spoken to the acting Headmaster but he’s only been parachuted in for a few months after the last one was removed and until the next one has been appointed and doesn’t seem interested in tackling anything but the exam stats…”
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