Risk VII
ZAGREB – JANUARY 2018
She was trembling, the phone shaking in her hand. She had let her fortune come and go. She had missed her chance and she knew it.
Ola was speaking slower than normal, treating her like a child.
‘Please, my love, stop crying,’ he was saying. ‘Listen to me: we will get you to England. I won’t let you down.’
‘But, Ola, you keep saying this and you say that you love me but I am still here, so far away from you …’
‘Medina, Medina, hush now, I have been thinking about this, all day and night, my mind turning over and over and—’
‘I am losing hope, Ola.’
‘No! Never say that. Please. I am making enquiries: my cousin, Akin, he knows people in his town, High Desford. He knows serious people, people who can help, if we pay them.’
‘But you keep saying that we have to be patient. How long must I wait?’
‘It will be soon, I promise. I am getting the money together for these people, my love. I think this will work.’
‘How will I get to England?’
‘They have not told Akin all the details yet. There are lorries, there are ways. He swears it can be done, he knows other people who have used this … team. They can do it: paperwork, transport, the whole lot.’
‘I’ve been lied to before, Ola. By men promising me a journey to England in their lorry, men I paid. I have been lied to by many men, people I thought I could trust. Why should I trust you? Men lie.’
‘I have never lied to you, Medina. My cousin is not lying. They will get you to England – the person who can help is no lying man, heh? She told Akin to call her Nadia. She will do it, if we pay her right.’
A silence of a long moment.
‘I am afraid, Ola.’
A beat more silence.
‘Do you remember, Medina, the first time I flew back out to Zagreb just to meet you again. Do you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I told you I would do anything to keep you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, this is my anything.’
‘OK, Ola,’ she said at last. ‘Please, just get me to you.’
Chapter Sixteen
TUESDAY, 14 AUGUST – P.M.
The policeman by the door clears his throat, a fist up against his dark beard. The blond man rises and moves away so his colleague can approach the desk. This other man, PC Howard, who she had assumed to be a junior officer, sits down in the vacated seat, taking his time about taking up space, telling her – with his amused stare, and the entitled set of his arms and chest, stretching back, now leaning close – he is in charge.
‘How?’ he asks.
‘How what?’ she says.
‘How the hell have you got here?’
She looks up. The losses, and the risks, and the lies; the terrible fun, and the wrong men, and the surprising choices, and the victories; the boundaries breached and the many rivers of cash crossed; the unknowable connections, pathways and turns, a constellation spreading backwards to infinity; all that has brought her to this point.
‘Just lucky, I guess.’
She cast him a wan smile. The urine glare of the overhead lighting would be doing regrettable things to her face, not that it mattered.
‘Etta, you have been arrested and charged under Section 4 of the Road Traffic Act. You have been informed of your rights and declined to see a solicitor, to inform a third party of your presence here or to consult the Police Codes and Practice.’
‘That’s right. I believe so, yes.’
‘OK then. Etta, is this your first offence?’
‘It’s the first time I’ve been arrested, yes.’
She tried a smile.
PC Howard allowed own his teeth some controlled exposure.
‘One more time for the record: have you been drinking today, Etta?’
Now Etta did smile, which surprised her. ‘You know I have.’
‘According to your breath samples, you had well over 100 milligrams of alcohol in your blood. You’re looking at a serious penalty here, Etta.’
She wished he would not say her name. As if he liked her. As if he owned her. As if he hated her and everything she had done and everything she was, which is why she was here. Hate was currently beyond her, what with the walls closing down and the piss-yellow light accentuating her flaws, but she could not get past his power to destroy her life.
‘I know I’ll get points. Will I—’
‘You could be looking at prison.’
‘Oh.’ Her shoulders dropped and she eyed scuffs on the table. Teeth marks, maybe; police brutality?
‘Why did you drink this morning, Etta?’
Howard judged her to be a booze-battered loser, but she would make him see. She softened her features into a more likeable expression once again.
‘I was upset.’
‘Why?’
‘Because my partner has moved out and he’s living with this other woman. This woman he met years ago. Probably been with her, too, ever since. And I’d just miscarried his baby. I thought I deserved some vodka.’
‘But why did you drive?’
For a second, she saw Nadia, glaring from that monstrous black car.
‘It was stupid. I thought I would go to confront him again, tell him about the miscarriage, and I sat in the car for a while, then just … drove. I should never have started the car, I’m sorry.’
‘You could’ve killed someone. You really have been lucky.’
‘Doesn’t feel like it just now.’
She looked at him, straight and clear-eyed, trying again to connect.
‘Your first offence,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
She gave another smile that was working hard to shine; too hard, it was a grimace of desperation.
Howard puffed out his cheeks and sat back in his chair.
‘We need to talk about other possible offences.’ He leaned forward again. ‘What happened to the money in FrameTech’s Funshine Club accounts, Etta? You took it, didn’t you? That what’s really been getting to you, right?’
She, the detainee, started to feel the walls push back an inch. He also wanted to be liked.
‘I want to tell you everything,’ she said. The words dislodged the mound in her throat that threatened to choke her. ‘But you have to promise … I’m afraid.’
Howard leaned back. He looked scoured and firm-fleshed, but softness hid there, too. The man seemed generous.
‘Etta, you really should call your solicitor.’
‘I’m not sure we, I, have one.’
‘You’re in a serious situation. Use the duty solicitor; I really would.’
A clenched fist now started opening and closing low down in her abdomen.
‘I can explain—’
‘You need legal advice.’
Etta had to get out. It was madness to draw things out like this, police stations were no place for people like her. But agreeing to a solicitor … it was the point at which the girl started running in the fright movie.
Howard shifted in his seat, flexed his fingers, stilled his features.
Etta stared at the table.
Seconds ticked on.
When the realisation kicked in, Etta nodded, as if one of them had spoken again. She nodded and nodded, not sure she could stop; she looked at the man who was waiting for her, so wide and tall and patient.
‘PC Howard,’ she said. ‘I need to tell you something.’
Etta straightened her shoulders, took a sip of water.
‘Gambling.’
The word rang in the air.
‘How often?’
‘A lot. Every day. All the time. Usually drunk.’
‘Why didn’t you let your husband know that you were struggling?’
‘Partner, ex.’ She took a breath. ‘I wasn’t, at first. It wasn’t the drink. Not in itself. I was just trying to … you know.’
‘What, Etta? What exactly were you tryin
g to do?’
Etta groped to unlock the door in her mind that had trapped her for weeks, months. Could she set herself free, here in this policed room? Her chin drooped to her chest. This left her no more breath so very quietly she said:
‘I wanted to win.’
She could see PC Howard flipping over a fresh page in his own mind.
‘Win what?’
‘Win everything. Everything. Or at least a few good things. Or one massive thing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Marriage. I wanted money to get married. What a joke!’
‘So, you gambled to save for your wedding.’
‘I think,’ she said, warming up, ‘I was trying to buy a proposal from a man who was not worth it. That’s all.’
‘That would be … Doctor Abayomi?’
‘Yes, Ola.’
Howard was still leaning in.
‘So, how did you try to win, precisely? On the horses, scratchcards, what?’
‘Online.’
The officer shifted in his seat.
‘If you could only understand,’ she said. ‘It started out well. It was amazing, really. I won, at first. But then I lost and I won, then I lost more and I could not escape from it and it was everywhere …’
‘What?’
‘Slots, online slots. I just played the bingo at first, for a short while, then I went onto the slots. Then I couldn’t stop.’ She looked back down at the table. ‘I can’t.’
PC Howard seemed to be processing her words and tilted his head further forward; a groove between his eyebrows.
In that moment, she could feel and hear everything in the room: the scrape of fingernail against hair and skin as PC Howard scratched at the back of his hand; the scrape of the chair leg as the other policeman shifted an inch; the exact quality of the light, which struck her as not just tainted grey-yellow but, like her smiles, too weak and uncanny; the squeeze of her gums as her molars pressed hard into each other and released; the slow drift of a rogue strand of the other policeman’s hair, as if teased by her breath; everything.
The police waited. She suspected they were aware of her new hyper-awareness – maybe every detainee experienced this advanced state.
The second policeman coughed.
The heft and generosity were now overlaid with something else. Purpose.
‘So, Etta. You have a gambling problem.’
‘You could say that.’
A moment’s silence. His eyebrows worked themselves higher.
‘How exactly have you funded all this gambling? Where did you get the money?’
‘Loans. Payday loans, mostly … I’m sorry. Would it be at all possible, please, to call my partner now?’
‘You changed your mind,’ said Howard.
‘Yes. I’d like to speak to him.’
Howard rose. ‘I’ll go and talk to the Custody Sergeant, then I’m off duty.’
‘You’re going?’ A plaintive note hung in her question, close to a whine.
Howard said, ‘Let’s get that phone call sorted out for you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Wait here.’
Etta was left sitting at the table. She looked up to the CCTV camera. She was not going anywhere.
After some minutes Howard and another officer returned carrying a phone.
‘You can call your partner.’
‘Thank you.’
It rang just once.
‘Ola, I need—’
‘What the fucking hell have you done? Your work called me. Jean? You stole from work too? They said they were going to contact the police, Etta! Etta?’
She hung up. Her mind was stunned stupid, drained of thoughts.
‘All OK?’ Howard asked. He was giving her a look that pinned her to her chair.
‘Not really.’
‘Well, what happened?’
She shook her head.
Howard held out his hand for the phone.
‘I’ll take this back, then. I’ve got to go now. PC Jameson will finish up here. Goodbye, Etta.’
‘Wait!’
PC Howard turned.
She could tell him everything, now. Better than being finished off by Nadia’s gang of thugs. She could tell about the vast sums of money wasted, about plundering of bank accounts, tell them about the credit card fraud and, yes, every last thing about taking the money from the Funshine Club before Jean got there first. Spit out all the poison in one fast confession. Cough up every dirty sin and hope for clemency. She could do it. Or … She could keep her counsel, hope for some piece of luck to change the seemingly inevitable path. Twist or stick?
We are all, at heart, gamblers.
‘Nothing,’ she said.
Outside, it was a dry afternoon. The sunlight was still a glittering, eye-hurting, white; too much, the planet was running a fever, the climate was hotting up. The rays kissed her face as she walked away from the police station. Long-dead emissions from the sun’s photosphere, dangerous and yet welcome on her cheeks. This stark bright shining. She had thought a lot about the nature of light and dark, what each meant, in recent weeks.
No rain today or coming storm.
Out on bail. Her stomach was still twisting from the fear that she would never leave the station. But freedom brought more fear. Could she go back to the home where the gang had found her? Was she hurrying to her death?
She turned away from the police station, back towards the eerie calm of that moment. The afternoon had set in, the sun no longer at its highest point; illumination was everything. She wanted to move her feet, but the thoughts billowed and swirled; she could not move.
All that waiting and hoping to marry him. The whole £30,000 target – all of it, one huge lie, an easy excuse. The coward had been buying time to gather more money then leave.
He would have gone sooner had he not been worrying about losing his post; he had clearly planned to lean on her little salary until he had secured his job. Medina’s demeanour did not speak of hard times. Etta’s wages had pretty much paid for that ring. That symbol of together-forever that she had been a fool to want from that man. The worst though was even worse than that: she had lied and stolen and cheated and gambled and drunk a whole lake and swerved living and sweated and lost everything for absolutely nothing.
Home. There was nowhere else.
She shifted from foot to damaged foot on the pavement, bruised, uncertain, waiting for a sign. Ola was furious with her, that was completely out. Maybe it was not too late to reach out to Joyce; maybe Joyce had forgiven her or could be persuaded to. Maybe—
Her phone buzzed with a text.
The name ‘Chris Wise’ flashed up; Nadia.
One word:
Laters
Her final option closed down. The gang would be at her house, waiting. Death was waiting.
She edged to the roadside and stood, waiting to cross, not sure she would be able to move her feet when the way was clear. This was what it meant: to be petrified. But she did cross the road, one foot following the other; she reached the next road and waited again. A middle-aged couple with a small dark boy passed before her on the opposite pavement. The boy, aged around four or five, broke free, making a run for it. A flock of pavement-pecking birds flew high up out of his path. Etta feared he himself would fly into the road, but he stopped to stare at a fluffy dog.
‘Hassan!’ his grandmother cried out. ‘That boy. Always he be running.’
Etta felt a jolt. Why not? Why not run into this road, like a free woman, like a child … Her eyes locked with Hassan’s for a moment. His brown stare was so pure, so undoubting.
run
Etta walked on, then picked up the pace and started to almost jog, pain pounding in her right foot. When she reached a road, she ran into the traffic, looking straight ahead. A white van was racing towards her. Etta kept running. The van braked hard, invective streaming out of the half-open driver’s side window. Etta reached the far pavement unscathed. She turned left, raced pas
t a parade of shops. She pushed on faster, into a hobbling sprint, pain to bludgeon the fear at each step, doing damage now to save herself. Nadia’s lot were coming after her, she knew it.
When they caught her, they would kill her.
She had nowhere to go, nowhere to run but home. They knew where she lived and they were on their way.
She ran. But with every step she knew she was out of time.
Out of luck.
At the end of Sycamore Road, she stopped dead.
This was it.
She looked as far up the street as she could. Parked cars up both sides. No black 4x4 that she could see. It meant nothing: they could be in any car; anyone could jump out from anywhere.
All she could do was get inside the house, get safe. She delved into her bag, scrabbled until she held her front door key between thumb and forefinger. She needed a plan, but her mind felt as battered as her right foot.
run
She pounded raggedly up the street, her feet on fire, her mind too alert not to feel; this was blistering agony now.
Legs, lungs and heart were throbbing, sore as her head by the time she reached her front door. No sign of forced entry.
Her hand shook as she jabbed the key at the lock.
She hurried inside and ran upstairs to the landing. Already short of breath, it winded her, being back. Gasping, she looked into the bedroom where she and Ola had lain and lied together for so long. She struggled for air in the bathroom where she had lost whatever promise they had in blood. She limped into the spare room where she had made a world out of chance; tried to build a life on ever-spinning foundations; where she had risked everything.
How could the ceiling hold it up, all this?
One last roll of the die.
She had to hurry.
She powered up her laptop. Straight to it: not a gambling site, but to the copy she had long ago made of the file Motsdepasse. In seconds she had the details for the account she had spotted on his list, MO Money. She had wondered, at the time, whether it might be secret savings for a honeymoon. A super-luxe, someday honeymoon. That had been the only reason she had not touched it, this shining £11,542, this undeclared amount that could have seen them over his lie of a £30,000 finishing line. MO, Medina-Ola Money; it made sense now. It could well be meant for a honeymoon, just not her own.
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