by Anna Smith
‘The kids are always like that in these places, Adrian, so prepare yourself,’ Rosie said quietly.
He nodded but said nothing.
‘Come this way, please.’ The woman from the office beckoned to them as she walked towards the swing doors.
They stood in the entrance hall, a huge circular foyer with a polished floor and the almost overpowering smell of cleaning fluids. The shiny walls were pale green, adorned with some watercolour prints of cartoon characters. The place was eerily quiet, and Rosie glanced across to where there was an entrance to what looked like a corridor where she assumed the toddlers’ and babies’ rooms must be. A door opened off the hallway and a tall, heavy man appeared, smartly dressed in an open-neck, pale-blue shirt. His looked down at them with soft blue eyes.
‘Hello. I am Dorian Borsan. Mr Georgescu telephone to say you are coming. I am pleased to meet you.’
Adrian stepped forward. ‘I’m Ditmir, and this is my wife, Elizabeth. Pleased to meet you too. Thank you for seeing us so quickly.’
He waved his hand, dismissively. ‘No problem. Of course, is always good to meet people who are interested in our children. Anything we can do to help is all we want.’
A woman appeared at his side from the same office and he spoke to her. They all shook hands.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Maria can give you some information about the children as we go around, and if you have any questions, then please ask. She knows more about the children than anyone, and is like the only mother they have ever known.’ He paused. ‘But as you will see in a moment, is difficult to be a mother to so many . . .’ He stretched his arm out towards the corridor. ‘Please, come with us.’
Adrian and Rosie walked behind them, glancing briefly at each other as they went through the doors and down the long dim corridor.
‘How many children do you have in the orphanage?’ Rosie asked, knowing she would need to dig out a lot of information from this one visit.
‘We have eighty-five children in total. You will see, some very young, under one year old until two, and then some older children, three to five years old and older. The children stay with us until they are eleven, then they go to another place.’
‘Good,’ Rosie said, hoping she just sounded interested and not too probing. ‘And do you have a lot adopted every year?’
He sighed. ‘Sometimes. In the beginning, yes, there were more. But because of some bad things in the newspapers years later, not so many. But each year, because we are able to work very hard and talk to the right people, we can sometimes give twelve or thirteen children a good home. That is our aim. That is the most important thing for us.’
‘Of course,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s a difficult job you do.’ She made eye contact with him, and she wondered if he was driven by the money he was given to smooth things over, or if he was genuinely driven to help these children. He didn’t look or sound like a conman. She would have loved to have talked to him away from a place like this, but there was no chance of that as he was probably deep in with the men behind the babies for sale. Who knew? If he was, perhaps he was motivated by wanting to find homes for the children, legal or not.
As they got to the end of the corridor, the sound of babies howling filled the air and once the woman had opened the door there Rosie felt herself wince as the cries grew louder. Rosie glanced at Adrian as they both recognised the smell of stale urine in the thick, humid atmosphere. They stepped in. At first there was the shock at seeing the rows upon rows of iron cots and so many children. It was hard to take in. Rosie’s eyes darted around the room. Some of them were sleeping, others just sitting, staring, and some rocking backwards and forwards. There were stains on the cot mattresses. One or two children were standing up, wailing, and these were the worst because now that they had seen the visitors they were reaching out their arms, desperate to be picked up. Rosie and Adrian stopped short for a moment, taking in the scene.
‘I know this must be a little shocking for you, but I’m afraid this is how it is. We cannot be a mother and father to all of them, so we have to do what we can,’ Maria said.
Rosie nodded, a little choked, and she caught Adrian’s pale expression, his eyes hard as he looked around the room.
‘I understand,’ she murmured. ‘So many children, it is so difficult.’ She looked at Maria. ‘Do their parents visit? Or have they been abandoned completely?’
The woman let out a resigned sigh. ‘Some come back at first after they bring the children here, maybe as one- or two-year-olds, or even younger. They visit for a few months, always planning to take them back home some day. But then the visits get less and less, and then they stop. It is always the way.’
‘And all of these children . . . Have they not had visits from their mother or father in a long time?’
‘The younger ones, maybe every few months, but the bigger ones – you see them standing in the cot? They have not seen their parents for over a year now. Is very difficult to deal with them because in the beginning they are so . . . so . . . dis . . . I cannot remember the word.’
‘Distraught,’ Rosie said.
‘Yes. Distraught. But after a while, they become like they accept it. When we come into the room, they light up and we can do things with them, they smile and get used to it. In their little minds, they seem to know this is their life, in their own way. It is how things are.’
Rosie nodded. ‘It must be very difficult for you to work here and do what you do.’ She glanced from Maria to Dorian.
‘Yes.’ Maria nodded, holding Rosie’s gaze for a long moment. ‘It is very difficult, but like the children, we must get used to it. We are all they have now.’
Dorian nodded. ‘But now and again, some people like you come along, and a child’s life suddenly becomes great. That is what we hope for. I wish there were more people like you.’
Rosie and Adrian nodded, and he clasped her hand tight.
‘I will take you around each child and tell you what we know, and please ask if you have any questions.’
Rosie said nothing and they followed her as she stopped at each one, briefly explaining their background. The bleakness was almost overwhelming as she gazed around at the children’s pale faces, some fast asleep on the mattress, snot caked to their faces, some just staring blankly, picking at the blankets. But each child had a life, a history, a story of how they got there. Even though Rosie had seen this before, she could feel herself choking with emotion. Child after child, a similar story, the parents poor, the marriage split, a young mother and an unwanted child. All of them abandoned, left to survive here in this stench and the heavy, choking loneliness of being one of so many little souls who would grow up not knowing what love or touch or relationships were, other than what they had found here in this regimented, sterile environment that passed for life. Who would make them understand as they grew up – perhaps angry and dysfunctional – that their beginnings were so very different from those of the people they would encounter as they were released into the world? The lucky ones were sold to parents who weren’t even checked out and it didn’t bear thinking about what their future might be. No doubt, most of them would be happy or at least have a chance of being happy, but the fact that it was built around a system of money meant there were no guarantees. Inside, she felt like screaming about the injustice of it all, and she glanced at Adrian, whose face didn’t change, but whose eyes were dark and shocked. She’d seen this before when they’d found the children trapped in that hellhole in Morocco a couple of years ago. But there had only been a few of them. Here, there were at least twenty. Rosie listened while Maria described the children’s daily life, their diet, how the workers tried to play with them and take them out in the garden in good weather. It wasn’t an ugly, horrible life all the time, she stressed. But it was sad nonetheless, she said.
Then, to Rosie’s surprise, Dorian said to them, ‘We will go for a couple minutes and leave you together to look at the children. Maybe you will see a particular child you ar
e interested in. Sometimes parents just naturally fall for one child. Everyone is different.’
Rosie and Adrian nodded their thanks and watched as they left the room.
They stood for a moment in silence, looking around the place, then each other. Then Rosie whispered, ‘That’s a result, leaving us here like this. I’m just going to walk around here, Adrian, and hope the camera has been taking everything in. The images won’t be perfect, but hopefully we can use them.’
Adrian said nothing as he walked between the cots, looking at the children, not touching or reaching out as though he was afraid to go there. One child was standing up, smiling, reaching his arms out. A little boy, light hair and blue eyes, nappy soaked. Rosie walked along to where he stood. His name on the cot.
‘Hello, Jabir,’ she said, looking at him.
Adrian smiled at her. ‘How beautiful he is.’
The little boy banged on the cot and grabbed for Adrian’s arm. He didn’t touch him. Rosie knew from the look in his eyes that he longed to pick the boy up and hold him in his arms, but there was no point. They’d be out of here in the next few minutes and this child would be bawling after them. They couldn’t afford to touch or pick up or hold any of them. She was glad when the doors opened and Maria and Dorian came back in.
‘You see all the children. Did you pick any of them up?’
‘No, we didn’t want to unsettle them.’
He nodded his understanding.
‘Did you see any particular child you may be interested in?’
Rosie looked at Adrian, not quite sure what to say, but she knew they would have to respond.
‘The little boy . . .’ She pointed to the one still bouncing on his cot. ‘Jabir is very beautiful. How long has he been here?’
‘Since he was ten months old. He is now . . .’ He turned to the woman.
‘Two and a half,’ she said. ‘The mother was a teenager and abandoned him. She has never been back to see him. He is a good little boy. Bright and funny. And very mischievous.’
‘Jabir,’ Adrian said. ‘He is a very beautiful little boy.’ He did his best to smile as he glanced at Rosie. ‘He is a lovely boy, Elizabeth. Yes?’
‘Yes.’ She could read the pain in his eyes. ‘I don’t think we can make our mind up quickly, but if it was possible, how long do you think the paperwork would take for a boy like this?’
‘Not long. Two weeks. Maybe less. Depends. But you could ask the agency about that.’
Rosie instinctively knew she wanted a picture with this little boy in it so she could feature him, but didn’t want to raise any suspicions. She couldn’t have taken a picture of Adrian with him as he had to remain unidentified. But at least they had an image of the boy in his cot and it would have to do. She wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.
They took them to another room. It was all babies, around eight or nine of them, some only weeks old. The place was peaceful, with blinds drawn, all of them sound asleep, not knowing what was ahead of them, and perhaps just as well. She listened while the woman whispered their stories. They walked around, Rosie hoping the images would be good in the light.
‘And how much more difficult to adopt a little baby?’
‘Depends. Some of them still have visits from their mother, so they are not all abandoned. But usually they will be after a while. But is more difficult because it is only a few months since they came. But you must ask the agency.’
When they emerged from the room, they turned down the offer of a coffee as Rosie wanted to be out and away in case there were any problems or slip-ups. The longer you were in a situation like this, she thought, the more chance there was of saying the wrong thing, or being asked a question you couldn’t answer, or them becoming suspicious. They had what they had and it would be good enough. They shook hands with the staff, said they would be in touch with the agency and thanked them.
‘I hope your visit here was good, and that you are successful,’ Dorian said. ‘You look like you would make very good parents. Very good indeed, I think.’
Rosie and Adrian glanced at each other and half smiled.
‘Thank you. You have been very helpful.’
‘We do the best we can for the children here. Everything I do is for them. I can promise you that.’
Rosie sensed a little edge to his voice and wondered if he wanted to convey that perhaps she already suspected he was involved in the money chain, but was attempting to justify his role in it. And the thing was, she believed him.
They drove off and nobody spoke all the way back to the office. When they got out of the car, they shook hands and told the adoption agency lady they would be in touch. They walked around to their own car. It had been a major result, she would have pictures, hopefully, of the place, and a recording of the full conversations in the agency and the orphanage. She could go home tomorrow if necessary, with a splash and a couple of spreads in the bag. But Rosie’s heart was heavy from what they’d witnessed and she knew by the images of the cots and the children and the little boy desperate to be picked up would haunt her. And on top of that, she knew that not too far away was a woman whose newborn baby child had been torn from her. She should go now; Quit while you’re ahead, she could hear McGuire saying. But she couldn’t.
Chapter Seventeen
Helen asked the taxi to drop her outside the Caledonian Hotel in Princes Street, rather than go to the train station, as she didn’t know where she was headed. She handed the driver an extra fiver on top of the forty quid for the run through from Glasgow. She thought she saw a look in his eye as though he detected that she was in a lot of trouble.
‘Listen, sweetheart,’ the driver said as he put her suitcase beside her. ‘It’s none of my business, but I’ll be honest with you, it looks like you’re on the run or something. Are you all right? Is there anything I can do to help you?’
Helen gave him a long look, partly grateful but also part of her wondering if he was on the make – a lonely woman on her own, with plenty of money. He looked quite genuine, but she didn’t need any more people in her life right now, and she wasn’t daft enough to take a complete stranger into her confidence.
‘Thanks for your concern. But, I’m all right. I’ve just got some things I need to straighten out in my mind – that’s all.’
She took hold of her suitcase and pulled her bag over her shoulder.
‘Good luck to you then,’ he said, stepping back.
‘Thanks,’ she said. Luck had never featured much in her life so far, but she could sure use some now.
The driver turned towards his car and opened the door, and she could feel his eyes on her as she approached the revolving doors of the Caledonian Hotel, with absolutely no idea what her next move would be.
*
Helen had been sitting in the bar at a table in the corner, watching it fill up, empty, then fill up again with the various tourists, business people and general traffic you got on Princes Street at one of the city’s well-known and stylish haunts. She was still on her first glass of white wine, and had picked at a chicken salad as she sat watching. She felt desolate, empty and lonely. It was as though all the adrenalin of the last few days – from the moment Frankie had come into her flat, until she’d escaped from Ricky Thomson’s clutches – had all been a blur. She’d been kicking her way through everything that was in front of her, determined nothing would keep her down. She’d been like that all her life. That was the reason she was in the financial position she was in right now, with bank accounts chock-full of Alan Lewis’s money. With the amount of dosh she had stashed away – it was over £800,000 – she could go anywhere in the world, or that’s how she’d thought it would work out. Until Frankie had started blackmailing her, until she decided she had to eliminate him, and until Ricky Thomson had tracked her down for some Russian bastard who, unknown to her, seemed up to his eyes in some kind of shit with Alan Lewis. All she really knew about Alan’s business was what she saw on the accounts and the money they brought in. S
he knew about the wine-importing business and that he did the accounts for the charity. And she’d already figured out that he must be money-laundering for gangsters. But she didn’t know who the figures or personalities were, and she hadn’t even bothered to ask questions before as she’d enjoyed the champagne lifestyle. But now, there was nothing. Just a pile of money, and every fucker from Moscow to Glasgow was looking for her – including the bloody cops.
She scrolled down her phone contacts. There was one person she could contact, but she was loth to do it. One person, who knew what she was, who knew her every move, and who could tell her what she was thinking even before she thought it. Her mother. She looked at her name and her mobile number. She hadn’t spoken to her ma in five years. She’d left all that shit behind without so much as a backwards glance. They never spoke, she’d stopped answering her ma’s calls, they lost touch. Christ, she didn’t even know if she was still alive. But knowing the vicious bastard that her ma was, she’d be surviving somewhere, doing someone out of money, conning her way through life as she’d always done. She almost smiled at the thought. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And yet, she was all she had. Even with her drunkenness, the smell of her, the cut of her and the complete arseholes she had brought into their lives, Helen had loved her. She had cried her eyes out when her ma kicked her out for stealing from her.. And then months later when her mother had tried to contact her, leaving messages on her phone, Helen had refused to answer. It would be the same old story, the same old apology. Abuse and apologise. She’d had enough of it. She was making enough money on her own by then, in London, in the profession her mother had more or less set her up in. But she wouldn’t be some street hooker or some two-bob whore who brought men to their home. She would use her assets to move on to greater things. She never once even gave that a second thought, or the morality of it. She had one goal: to get out of the shit. And once she’d hooked Alan Lewis, she had completely airbrushed her mother out of her life. Now she needed help, a place to hide, somewhere she could take refuge. She looked at the number again. What would her mother do? Tell her to fuck off? Perhaps. But by this time she’d have read in the papers about Frankie’s murder and she would know that if her daughter had been married to a wealthy accountant, she’d have money. That would be all that mattered. Helen scrolled down to the number again, then hit the Call key, listening to the phone ringing. Two, three, four rings, then the unmistakable rasping voice of her mother, clearly still with her thirty-a-day habit.