by Holly Archer
He was a bit scruffy, really, so I was surprised when he opened his mouth to reveal a row of perfect, gleaming white teeth. He wasn’t smiling, though. It was more of a grimace. I just stood there, staring at him for a few seconds, as he slowly rolled along the street. His eyes were firmly on me; he wasn’t looking at the road. The street was built on a slight hill, so he didn’t have to do much to keep the car moving. He was still staring at me as he wound down the window and pulled on the handbrake.
‘Holly,’ he said. ‘Holly!’
My stomach twisted a little. I recognised the voice straight away, the thick accent with more than a hint of aggression. It was Mr Khan, my mystery caller.
I kept walking, picking up the pace a little, so he started moving again. ‘Holly,’ he said, again. ‘Holly, I know your mum.’
I almost stopped in my tracks. If Mr Khan knew my mum, and he’d got my number from Ali, there was a good chance he’d know all the rumours about me. Now I’d actually given Imran a blow job, it was much harder to deny everything. The abuse and catcalls were worse than ever. The word on the street was that Carly and I were dishing out blow jobs to pretty much everyone who asked us. I could just about deal with the vicious comments and gestures, but the idea of Mum finding out filled me with horror. She’d go absolutely spare.
I decided to pretend I hadn’t heard and I was relieved when Mr Khan drove off. But within seconds he was calling my phone. I cancelled it, but almost immediately he started calling again, and again, like he had my number on redial. I turned the corner to see him sitting in his little car at the side of the street, eyes boring into me.
‘Get in,’ he ordered me.
For a moment, I was frozen to the spot but, after a few seconds, I did as I was told. Some people might think this seems odd. Who in their right mind would willingly get into a strange man’s car, especially a strange man who has been hounding you with phone calls after apparently buying your number for a fiver? But unless you’ve been groomed as a child, you’ll probably never understand. Mr Khan hadn’t said much to me, but I already knew he was scary – really scary. He knew so much about me that he’d find me eventually, even if I said no this time. He’d be much angrier if I just walked away, so it was easier to do as I was told. Plus, he said he knew Mum, and I was terrified he’d tell her all the rumours about me if I didn’t do as he said.
I reached for the door on the passenger’s side, but he had already pushed the seat back.
‘No, no,’ he barked. ‘You go there. Lie down!’
I was a bit confused at first, but he pushed me onto the back seat and made me lie flat.
‘Now no one can see,’ he explained. He was so matter-of-fact it almost seemed normal, as he drove away and I lay flat on my stomach, staring at the grubby interior of his car and wondering what the hell was going on. It sounds crazy, but all I could think was, what if the police stop us and I haven’t got a seatbelt on? I’ll be in huge trouble and Mum will be so mad. As strange as it sounds, it didn’t occur to me that the police should probably have been more concerned that Mr Khan was driving around Telford with a fourteen-year-old girl hidden in the back of his car, still wearing her school uniform.
In the end, he drove for ten, maybe fifteen minutes. I didn’t dare look up, but I could feel the car slowing down, going over lumps and bumps, as if we weren’t driving on a proper road. Eventually, he slowed to a stop.
‘You can get out,’ he said, still in the same, aggressive tone. I sat up and I recognised my surroundings immediately. We were at the end of a dirt track in the woods near a place called Wellington, where Mum would often take us to gather nuts and conkers.
I was scared. It was still light outside but, if something happened, what would I do? I could try screaming for help but I couldn’t see anyone for miles around. The place looked completely deserted. I swallowed hard.
It’s fine, I told myself, just do as he says and it will all be fine. He’ll drop you back home and you can just forget this.
Mr Khan motioned to me to come and sit next to him in the passenger seat, now that we were away from the gaze of mums on the school run. I could feel two little beads of sweat forming on the back of my neck as I obliged, and he started to speak. His English was really poor, so I couldn’t really make out anything he was saying. I just nodded politely, hoping he’d soon stop talking and take me home.
‘Your mum,’ he said. ‘She is teacher?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah, well, kind of.’
‘My daughter . . . at her school,’ he said. Again, he added, ‘I know your mum.’
I was still confused. ‘But how do you know that’s my mum?’ I asked him.
He ignored me, and started speaking about something else. I had to strain my ears and listen to every word really carefully, but I still didn’t understand what he was trying to say.
‘How did you know where I was going to be?’ I went on. ‘Who told you what school I was at?’
He never did answer my question. We sat in silence for a few more minutes, before he told me to get into the back of the car again. I did as he said, lying flat just like before. He sped off and, after about ten minutes, he screeched to a halt. I sat up slowly and saw that we were on the road where he’d picked me up. He motioned to me to lie back down again and I did as he indicated.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he had pulled a wad of receipts out of his top pocket. He started leafing through them, and eventually he handed me a grubby-looking ten-pound note.
‘For you,’ he said.
Still hidden away on the back seat, I reached out and took it from him, feeling confused but pleased. I’d been scared when he’d picked me up, there was no doubt about that. He seemed like a really aggressive man and I’d spent most of the journey wondering if he would hurt me. But he’d now taken me back to where he’d found me without doing anything – and he’d given me a tenner, just like that. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
‘You need anything, you call me,’ he said, slowly. ‘OK?’
‘Need anything?’ I echoed, feeling a little bemused.
‘You know,’ he barked. ‘Food. Money. A lift. Money for phone.’
He motioned for me to sit up and get out of the car, so I did, as quickly as I could, without another word. As he drove off, I dialled Carly’s number on my phone and waited for her to answer.
‘Come and meet me by the phone box,’ I told her. ‘You know that guy who phones me all the time? He just gave me a tenner. For nothing.’
‘Really?’ Carly gasped. ‘That’s amazing!’
Within minutes she’d arrived, and we’d walked to a petrol station about half a mile away, where we stocked up on crisps, juice and sweets. Neither of us got much pocket money, so having a bit of cash was amazing – although we couldn’t really think of what to spend it on.
‘I can’t believe he gave you money for nothing,’ Carly said. ‘Why would he do that?’
I shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘What’s he like?’ she said.
‘Creepy,’ I replied. ‘Like, proper weird. But still, he gave me money, didn’t he?’
We both laughed.
‘Do you think he’ll try to pick you up again?’ she asked, taking a handful of crisps.
‘Not sure,’ I said. ‘He told me I could phone him whenever I wanted anything, though.’
Carly’s eyes widened. ‘Anything?’
‘Well, you know, like phone credit and stuff,’ I said.
I still felt uneasy about Mr Khan, but I can’t lie. Like most teenagers, I liked the idea of getting something for nothing, although I didn’t understand why a stranger would want to give me money or buy me things without expecting anything in return. Especially as Mr Khan didn’t seem kind or generous, but scary and threatening.
Still, when he stopped me on the way home from school the next night, I agreed to get into the car. For the next couple of weeks he’d drive me out to a secluded spot – sometimes the woods where we’d collect
ed conkers, sometimes the foot of the Wrekin – and we’d just sit in the car for about a quarter of an hour before he’d take me back to the road he’d found me on. He didn’t attempt to do anything to me, but sometimes he’d give me this look which would send shivers down my spine. I had a bad feeling about him, but I told myself I was being paranoid, as he was still buying me things and giving me money. Sometimes he’d give me a tenner, like he had on the first afternoon. Other times he’d stop at a takeaway and buy me loads of food. There would be so much of it that I’d have enough to share with Carly, when he dropped me off on the road near my school.
‘This guy is such a mug,’ Carly giggled. ‘He gives you so much stuff for free!’
‘I’m not complaining,’ I laughed, as we tucked into our curry and naan bread. We never had takeaway at home. Mum didn’t see the point. She had five kids to feed, after all, and if we asked if we could phone for a curry, she’d tell us it was a waste of money.
‘What’s the point in spending twenty quid on a curry?’ she’d say. ‘I can get one in Iceland for a fiver and it’ll do us all just fine.’
At that moment, my phone started buzzing. I answered it and the voice on the other end was that of another Asian man. He sounded a bit like Mr Khan, only slightly younger and his English was even worse.
‘Meet me,’ was all he’d say, in a strong Pakistani accent. ‘Meet me.’
I hung up, feeling a little embarrassed. When I explained the call to Carly, she was confused, too. It was one thing meeting one older man and him giving me money. It was quite another if I started to meet loads of them. I imagined what Mum would say if she found all the numbers in my phone. I can’t imagine she’d have been too impressed.
But ever since Imran had rejected me, my self-esteem had plummeted. I’d given him a blow job before we’d even kissed. Sure, I’d liked him, but didn’t that make me a slag? By that point, I had it in my head that maybe I deserved to have my phone number passed around lots of sleazy older men. Maybe I should just have been grateful none of them had laid a finger on me, that they actually wanted to give me gifts and money for simply sitting in a car for a bit before I went home to do my homework.
Plus, it was much better than just hanging around town with Carly. We still spent loads of time together, but we’d taken to avoiding our usual spot by the bench at the church because the younger boys were getting worse and worse. They called us names we didn’t even understand and, sometimes, they’d grab us as we walked along the road, demanding a blow job. Even Carly had started to get sick of it, though she still sometimes wanted to meet up with Ali and his mates. I was less keen, because I wanted to avoid Imran like the plague. I hadn’t really seen him since that night when he’d humiliated me, and I was scared of what he might say if we bumped into him.
One night, though, I was walking past the church on the way home from Carly’s, when a car whizzed past me. Its windows were completely blacked out, so I couldn’t see who was inside. The thud of the bass from the stereo reverberated across the pavement, as the car spun round the roundabout and drove back the way it had come. It was a few seconds before it slowed to a stop, right next to me.
The driver stuck his head out, and the first thing that struck me was how ugly he was. His face was dominated by two huge protruding front teeth. They had a massive gap between them and were a weird orange colour, like they hadn’t been brushed in months.
‘Holly,’ he said. His Pakistani accent sounded oddly familiar. Within a few seconds, I realised he was the man with the really bad English who had been phoning me, just like Mr Khan had.
His friend leaned over and popped his head out of the window. He looked Asian, too, but spoke with an English accent.
‘Get in,’ he told me.
He didn’t seem overly threatening, so I did as he said. It sounds mental, of course, and as an adult I’m aware that anything could have happened to me, just as it could have with Mr Khan on the dirt track. But back then, walking home alone meant running the gauntlet of the teenage boys and their comments and catcalls without even Carly and her increasingly big mouth to protect me. Without giving it much thought, I jumped in.
The men looked like they were in their late twenties or early thirties. The one in the passenger seat told me his friend had just come to England from Pakistan because he’d had an arranged marriage with a girl who worked in the big Tesco in Telford. Neither told me their names.
The English friend and I made a bit of small talk for a few minutes but we soon ran out of things to say. I could sense that the man with the bad English was driving towards the Wrekin, and I felt a bit panicky because it’s really spooky at night. There are no lights in the car park and it’s really, really dark. When we got there, his friend told me to get out.
What happened next was really weird.
I opened the door and the night air hit my face. I could feel my cheeks reddening in the biting cold, as I pulled my denim jacket around me.
A little sheepishly, the man with the bad English gestured to the other side of the car park and led me there. He took me behind some trees and I started to feel a little light-headed, wondering what I’d got myself into and praying he wouldn’t demand a blow job, because I really didn’t want to give him one.
We stood in silence, facing each other, for what seemed like an eternity. He gave me a weak half-grin, flashing his terrible teeth. In that moment, I really did feel quite sorry for him. The only thought in my head was: it’s a shame for him, really. He looks so much like a beaver.
Once I’d made the comparison, I could never think of him as anything but ‘Beaver’, as cruel as it sounded. He had no idea of my train of thought as he stood looking at me, as if he expected me to say or do something.
‘You all right there?’ I asked, breaking the long silence.
He nodded. ‘Look,’ he began. ‘At my dick.’
He dropped his trousers. The cool night air had made the thick dark hair on his legs stand on end. Next came his boxers, as I watched with a mix of horror and bemusement, half-expecting what was coming next and wondering if I’d have any choice in the matter.
But after a few seconds he lifted his boxers again. He looked bashful as he stepped back into his trousers, fastening the button at the top, then he simply motioned for me to go back to the car. After that, they dropped me at the end of my road and I walked back into the house like nothing had happened.
Mum didn’t really notice anything because Mr Khan and the other men never kept me out late or for very long. I always told her I was with Carly or one of my school friends, and she never questioned me. I became very secretive very quickly, though. My phone was glued to my hand and I’d never leave it lying around the house, because I was terrified Mr Khan or Beaver or someone else would ring and Mum would pick it up out of curiosity.
‘Can’t you go five minutes without looking at that thing?’ Mum would ask, occasionally, but I’d just grunt in typical teenage fashion. Most kids my age spent hours on their phones and she had no reason to suspect anything untoward.
I quickly became concerned about the money from Mr Khan, too. It was only a tenner here and there, but I worried what Mum would say if she found notes in my purse. I usually only had a couple of quid on me for my lunch. I couldn’t think of a decent excuse for having all this cash, so I hid it all under a floorboard in my room.
About three weeks after Mr Khan had first picked me up, I went to my friend Jenny’s house after school, which meant I hadn’t walked home my usual way. I could feel my phone vibrating in my pocket and Mr Khan’s number was flashing up on the screen. When I answered he started screaming and swearing at me, cursing me for not walking home via my normal route. I actually felt a little shaken – I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong, as we’d never made any formal plans to meet. He just always seemed to know where I was, and he’d always pick me up in the same spot. But then I started to feel guilty. He’d given me all these things and, so far, expected nothing in return. Maybe h
e was right to be angry that I wasn’t there.
I hung up quickly, though. None of my school friends knew about this secret arrangement we had, and I didn’t want to tell them because, deep down, I knew it was weird. I was already being called a slag by lots of boys in the street, but most of them went to Carly’s school, so my classmates had no idea of my reputation. And I was in no rush for them to find out.
‘Who was that?’ asked Jenny.
‘Oh, wrong number,’ I mumbled, and changed the subject. Thankfully, she didn’t ask any more questions.
For the next few hours, Mr Khan hounded me with phone calls. I ignored several, before answering one call as I walked home from Jenny’s. He screamed at me again, and I hung up, but seconds later he was calling me once more. This went on for ages, and he sounded angrier and angrier as the clock ticked on. I was torn between answering and listening to his tirade of abuse and ignoring him, which seemed to wind him up even more. As I went to bed that evening, I felt a knot of dread twist in my stomach, like something really bad was about to happen.
Of course, I made sure I walked home the usual way the next evening. I was a bit scared of Mr Khan, but at the same time I also couldn’t be bothered with the hassle if I didn’t go for a drive with him. Anyway, he’d only want to sit in the car with me for a bit then buy me some food from the takeaway, before taking me home. How bad could it be?
As always, he pulled up at the side of the road and bundled me into the back. But this time he was just a little more forceful than usual as he pushed me through the door, and I felt my heart beat a little faster. I glanced up and, as his eyes bored into me, I sensed something had changed.
As soon as he turned the key in the ignition, he started to shout at me. I couldn’t understand some of what he was saying, as his English was so bad, but I got the gist of it. He was calling me lots of names, some in his own language, and telling me I had to do what he said and I was never to go home a different way again.