Hold Still – Tim Adler #3: A Psychological Thriller

by Tim Adler

  The spare tyre and the nut jack lay beneath the grey felt in the boot. Kate wrestled the jack out, feeling the weight of it. Not quite believing what she was about to do, Kate walked up to the manageress's car and swung the jack against the driver's window. It bounced off. Next time she hit the window harder, smashing the glass instantly. When she opened her eyes, diamonds were strewn across the driver's seat and the window had spidered. A moment later the car alarm went off. Kate ran back and crouched down, breathing heavily. The shrieking car alarm covered the sound of the nut jack clanging to the pavement. Her breath steamed as she watched the nail parlour lights go on. Sure enough, mother and son came out to investigate. The mother shouted in Vietnamese and the son shouted back. Leaving the two of them arguing, Kate crept along the pavement and pushed the front door further open. The wind chimes made her nerves jangle. The beaded curtain that led upstairs lay straight ahead. All she was conscious of was the terrible danger she was in. The beads draped over her hair as she pushed her way upstairs.

  Kate emerged onto a landing, wondering where to go next. Everything was dirty on this floor, like a squat, and she noticed a strong, acrid smell. Not acetone, something much sharper. She stood there, tensed, surveying her surroundings, when a man emerged from a bedroom, a dim red light behind him. He seemed just as surprised to see her. Kate smiled inanely before continuing upstairs. Just look as if you know where you're going, she thought.

  She noticed there was damp on the walls as she took the steps two at a time. A floorboard creaked. If anything, the smell was even stronger here. "Hello," she called out. There was just one bedroom up in the eves and she made straight for it, unsure what to expect.

  It was a child's bedroom, with faded rose wallpaper and a filthy, brown-stained mattress on the floor. It had been a nursery once. Except pornographic pictures had been Sellotaped to the wall: anonymous torsos violating women, yanking their heads back, making them bark. Phuong must be downstairs. And that's when she spotted a small wooden door beside the chimney breast. Vietnamese voices were coming upstairs, and Kate realised that her escape route was blocked off. Panicking, she knew her only choice was to go through the tiny door. The mother and son were getting nearer, talking as they came upstairs. Feeling like Alice about to go through the rabbit hole, Kate got down on her hands and knees; the space was just big enough for her to crawl through.

  Kate emerged into a jungle.

  Thick, lush plants filled the attic, stretching far into the distance. The owners had knocked through into next door's attic as well, so the place was one enormous forest. Kitchen foil covered the walls while newspapers blacked out the dormer windows. There was a timer on one wall controlling the twenty-four hour lighting, watering and heat, and infrared lamps glowed like false suns from rafters down onto a Christmas-tree-sized mother plant. She trailed her hand along the spiky fronds and only now did she recognise the sharp smell. This was a cannabis farm.

  It was also as hot as a sauna. Sweat beaded her forehead as she spotted the beautician up ahead. Phuong was dressed in shorts and a vest, scissoring a bush. "Hey," Kate called out. Phuong stopped what she was doing. Kate called out again, and the Vietnamese teenager moved deeper into the plants. Kate pushed on through, fronds slapping her in the face. "I want to help you," Kate said. It was like a dream where you never quite reach the person you're after, she thought. Suddenly Kate caught her foot on a flex on the ground, pulling an old-fashioned bar heater with her.

  Phuong was cowering against the back wall. Christ, it was hot. Kate had landed badly and twisted her ankle. She limped towards Phuong. "I'm your friend," Kate said. Something in Phuong's eyes made her look back: smoke was rising from where she'd knocked over the heater. Firefly sparks drifted up and Kate realised that a fire was catching. "There must be another way out," she said, touching Phuong's shoulder. She shook her head, looking scared.

  That was when they heard Vietnamese voices getting nearer. Kate glimpsed the brothel keeper and her son, if it was her son, moving through the plants. She pulled the petrified teenager down and they crouched beside the foliage. The smoke was stinging Kate's eyes. Don't give us away, she begged silently. Suddenly flames sheeted up as the fire really took hold. Thick black smoke roiled up to the ceiling. The madam shouted as fire ripped along the burning plants. The place was getting thicker with smoke. Kate didn't care if anybody spotted them, she had to get air into her lungs. She simply could not breathe. The attic was so full of smoke now that it was also difficult to see.

  Flames leapt up, cutting them off from the only way out. The girl was becoming hysterical, shouting and crying. Kate spotted an old chair against the wall and ran over to it. She picked it up and jabbed its legs against the newspapered window above her head. It just wouldn't reach. Setting the chair down, Kate gestured for Phuong to help her. They were hemmed in by a wall of burning plants. Coughing from the smoke, Kate stood on the chair and reached for the window bar. Her fingers strained, but still she couldn't quite manage it. Nearly all of the plants were on fire now. She gestured with her interlocked fingers that she wanted to give Phuong a leg-up. At least one of them would get out of here.

  They stood wobbling on the chair with Kate cupping her hands. Her muscles ached as she lifted the girl up and Phuong squeezed through the narrow gap in the Velux window. Now it was Kate's turn, but there was no way she could reach the opening. The entire room was ablaze, and she looked around for another way out. Please, God, let me get out. Suddenly a man's arm reached down through the ajar window. She grabbed it, and whoever it was lifted her up, grunting with the effort. Kate hauled herself up with everything she had, her muscles screaming. Strong arms also helped her out. She was dimly away of Phuong sitting off to one side of the roof as she lay on the slates, coughing and retching.

  When she turned over, it was John Priest who smiled down at her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The cordoned-off street was full of fire engines and police cars, and the shop windows strobed with flashing blue light. People stood watching behind police tape, wondering how they were going to get home. Hoses snaked along the road and there was water everywhere, lots of it. Despite the hum of generators, there was a sense that whatever drama there had been was all over now, and that everything was coming to rest. Two green-suited paramedics were helping Phuong into an ambulance.

  Kate shivered with cold. A no-nonsense blonde took hold of her arm, and she looked back to where Priest stood huddled with police. He was telling them something. Then he spotted her, excused himself and almost ambled over.

  "Just give me a second," she said to the paramedic.

  "We need to take you to hospital."

  "I need to speak to this man. It's important," Kate said, wresting her arm free.

  Priest grinned and stood with his hands in his bomber jacket. He looked insufferably pleased with himself. "I can't leave you alone for five minutes, can I?"

  "Who the hell are you really?"

  "I told you. My name's John Priest."

  "You were the one watching us from the square. All that stuff you made up about your wife being murdered. It was all lies."

  "I was trying to protect you."

  "You were the one who sent my husband that text. Murderer."

  He raised his hands. "We had no idea what he was going to do. You must believe me."

  "Why would you do such a thing?"

  "There's things you don't know."

  "Such as?"

  "That he was being blackmailed."

  "Blackmailed? Who on earth would blackmail him?"

  "I'll tell you on the way to hospital."

  "Why should I believe you? Everything you've told me has been a pack of lies. I can't believe anything you say."

  "You have to trust me."

  Uncertain, the paramedic took her arm again. "Please. We need to take you to A&E." This time Kate allowed herself to be led away. The two of them climbed into the back of the ambulance, where Phuong was lying on a trolley. She really was b
arely more than a child. Priest got in after her and the paramedic pulled the doors closed. The ambulance juddered as the diesel engine started up. What did Priest mean when he said that Paul was being blackmailed? How could she trust anything he said? If he could lie about his wife being murdered, he could lie about anything. All men ever told her were lies.

  "Who was blackmailing Paul?" she began.

  Priest cut her off with a gesture of his hand. He leaned in to Phuong and asked her how long she had been in the country.

  "Six day."

  "How did you come to England? Were you in a lorry? Who brought you?"

  "Boat. Man say to parents I get new job in England. They give money."

  "But that's not what happened, was it?"

  Phuong shook her head and turned to face the wall. She began to shake. Really, it was too heartbreaking, and Kate wanted Priest to stop.

  "Who brought you here? I'm a policeman. I am not going to hurt you."

  "They take me to apartment. There was another girl. They hurt me. They tell me I belong to him now."

  "Belong to who?"

  Phuong turned back and extended her arm, showing Priest the tattoo Kate had noticed before. Z. The same tattoo that Paul had on his arm. Priest sat back in his fold-down seat and threaded his fingers together, looking as if he'd just received bad news. The saline drip and equipment jangled as they lurched over a pothole.

  "Did Zogaj bring you here? Is Zogaj in this country?"

  Phuong traced a line from her eye to her cheek. "Crying man. He bring me."

  "Who is Zogaj?" Kate interrupted.

  Priest looked up. "He's the gang boss. They offer these girls jobs in Europe, and even get the parents to pay their fare. Then they beat them and rape them and use them as slave labour. That was the cannabis farm you saw. When these girls aren't being raped for money, and that's what it is, they look after these dope farms. The whole of England is being flooded with the stuff. And we're not talking about a few spliffs, the kind you had at uni. This stuff is laced with all sorts of shit."

  Her mind flashed back to sitting on her boyfriend's single bed at art school, watching him crumble what looked like cake into a cigarette paper. She had lost her virginity that night. He'd draped a scarf over a bedside lamp, going for a louche, Keith Richards effect, and she'd sat back and exhaled as the room turned hazy and indistinct.

  "What's this got to do with my husband?"

  "Your husband was the British end of the operation. Or one of them anyway."

  "Are you saying that my husband was a drug dealer?" It was so absurd that Kate wanted to laugh.

  "I'm not saying that. He was the money side. I think they'd threatened his family back in Albania as well."

  Priest was about to say more when the ambulance came to a halt. It was clear they'd arrived. The blonde paramedic got up and opened the doors onto a loading bay. Kate and Priest got out and stood watching as the paramedics lowered Phuong onto the ground, kicking down the wheels of her trolley. She looked in a bad way, and Kate thought about what these people had done to her. They crashed through heavy plastic flaps straight into A&E, where a doctor and a competent-looking nurse took over. Kate caught a last glimpse of Phuong as they wheeled her into a cubicle and whisked the curtain shut.

  A man was groaning "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod" behind another cubicle. The A&E was operating a triage system, so the doctors could see Kate only when they'd got other, more urgent cases out of the way. She prepared for a long wait. A male nurse showed Kate and Priest into a waiting room. "I could murder a cup of tea," Kate sighed. Priest offered to get her one from the machine. A group of girls were sitting in the other plastic seats looking like a bunch of bedraggled fairies, with smeared mascara, wonky halos and crushed angel wings. Blood seeped through the head bandage of one of them who was sitting in a wheelchair. A hen night gone wrong. Priest walked back in gingerly carrying two Styrofoam cups. Kate took one and gratefully sipped the hot sweet tea – he'd put sugar in it, and it tasted silky and delicious. It was too hot to drink right now, and Kate placed hers on the ground.

  "So you're a policeman."

  "I work for an organisation called Europol. It's the European version of Interpol."

  That made her smile. "You can't work for Interpol. You're from Wolverhampton."

  Priest didn't rise to the joke. "We've been watching this Albanian gang for months. They smuggle these girls into Britain, promising them work. Then they turn them into slaves. They're completely controlled. Even when we do free them, they go back voluntarily. It's as if they can't see the bars of the cage. And it's not just drugs and prostitution, but increasingly cybercrime as well. Stealing people's credit card details and cash from their bank accounts. There are about thirty of these gangs operating in Eastern Europe who have tech as good as any government's. We're just a small office in Holland. These people aren't constrained by budget cuts. Every time they need more money, they just go and steal it."

  The hen party were playing some sort of game. They were behaving as if it was perfectly normal for a night out to end up in A&E.

  "So you think Paul was being blackmailed."

  "I don't think so, I know. He was the one they used to pay off British officials. They were using his company to pay them off through the internet. Have you heard of the Dark Web? It's the part of the internet you can't see with a browser. Criminals love it." Priest lowered his voice. "We don't know who they were paying off. Bitcoin payments are untraceable."

  "You're saying that my husband was paying off the police?"

  Priest sat upright. "Look, I'm not making this up. I can show you evidence if you like – photos, phone calls. That money you were telling me about, the five hundred grand that turned up in your account, came from beyond the grave."

  "Why did you send him that picture?"

  "Tran An Na was our informer. We were trying to help her. Your husband was doing the same thing. Both of them were trapped and wanted to get out."

  "Instead he killed himself."

  "Believe me, there isn't a day goes by that I don't regret what I did. She was our only way in. I wanted your husband to know that we knew who he was, that we could help him find a way out. I never thought he'd do what he did."

  She felt a surge of anger and she slapped Priest across the face. Hard.

  The girls stopped what they were doing, and Priest rubbed his cheek with his large pink palm.

  "I deserved that."

  "Why were you watching me?"

  "Because we didn't know how much you knew. My boss was convinced you were in on it. Paul must have told you what was going on. He had a valuable piece of information."

  "What was that?"

  Priest glanced at the girls before lowering his voice again. "The names of every British official on the take."

  "You think I knew about that?"

  Priest shrugged. "That's why you were under surveillance. Hey," he said sitting up straight, "if it wasn't for me you'd be dead."

  "That's it, then, isn't it? Case closed. Paul's dead and now you know I had nothing to do with it. I can go home now."

  Priest shook his head. "We need to get you and Phuong to safety. The Albanians don't know Paul kept you in the dark. They'll think that Paul told you everything and that you'll blow the whistle. They want you out of the way. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. I'll telephone my boss."

  "What are you talking about?"

  The hen party leaned in together, noisily posing for a selfie. Priest turned around and snapped, "Jesus, could you shut up?"

  "I don't understand. Why can't I just go home?"

  "We need to get you away. You'll have to start again. Change your name."

  Inside, a corner of her mind was laughing uncontrollably. Kate said coldly, "Don't be ridiculous. I have a life here, a business. I can't just start again in the ass end of nowhere. What if I say no?"

  "You really don't get it, do you?" Priest lowered his voice to a whisper. "Anybody could be working for them. Any doctor, a
ny nurse, any policeman. Trust no one. Believe me, you have no other choice."

  Kate looked down at the grey-blue floor and noticed the sparkly mica in it. Albanian gangsters, politicians on the take, Bitcoin payments – really. The whole thing was absurd. "How long do you need me to disappear for?"

  "A month, six months ... I dunno. Your husband was going to be our way into the gang. The Albanian police want to get these people off the streets as much as we do."

  "I suppose I'll need to get clothes from home," Kate said reluctantly.

  "I'll get them for you. They'll probably be watching your place. First I need to phone my boss and get the safe house ready."

  Priest stood up and got his mobile out of his pocket. To Kate's surprise, he spoke in French, and he nodded at her before stepping outside and pacing up and down the corridor. Somewhere a mournful alarm sounded. Safe houses, new identities – it was all like something out of a bad spy novel. Did he really expect her to give up her life and start again in some remote Australian town? It was all so silly. Five days ago Kate had been in a happy marriage with a husband she loved, and now–

  Priest put his head round the door. "We're good. Come on, let's go."

  "What about Phuong?"

  "We're taking her with us."

  They kept their heads down as they walked purposefully back along the A&E corridor. Kate felt as if she was doing something wrong, leaving before a doctor had seen her. Phuong's cubicle still had its curtain drawn and Priest sharply whisked it back.

  The bed was empty.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Priest and Kate just stood there, not knowing what to do. Priest stopped a passing male nurse and asked what had happened to the girl in the cubicle. Two porters had taken the girl in a wheelchair, he said, presumably down to X-Ray to photograph her lungs. "Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups," Priest muttered.