Say You Never Met Me

by Martin Yallop

  Most of Deborah’s contacts had been with foreign girls and they were all very reluctant to discuss where they came from and how they came to be working in Soho. They were naturally suspicious of anyone asking questions, however circumspect the questioner. Nevertheless, with the help of shared experiences and places Deborah had begun to build up a relationship with one girl from her native Bulgaria. From Lola she learned that, predictably, almost all the girls came from southern or Eastern Europe but an unexpectedly large proportion of them had stopped off or worked in Cyprus before graduating to London, Hamburg, Amsterdam and other Western European centres. Lola herself had spent three months working perfectly legally, she claimed, in a club in Larnaca. Apparently the Cyprus government issued thousands of work permits every year to nightclub artistes. George mentally saw the flashing green light over the emergency exit that would take him away from his ever more closely besetting problems.

  “I’ll go!” he almost shouted. “I mean, if Deborah has to stay and get close to Jill and Laura and the other girls and Helen can’t go can she, and I’ve not got enough to do so, well… I’ll go. Shall I?”

  “I suppose so,” said Deborah. “And it’s Lola, L-O-L-A, Lola, not Laura. At least that’s the name she uses. I doubt it’s her real name. I’m the only one stupid enough not to think of using a false name. And I suppose I’d better meet Natasha and the others when they arrive, had I?”

  George was imagining himself meeting the girls when he suddenly became aware that the departure lounge was now almost empty and hearing the last and final call for his flight, he scurried off towards the departure gate, humming, ‘I want to get away. I want to fly away’.

  Chapter 30

  She had seen Jill a couple of times since she had discovered the connection with Susanna but until now Deborah had not been able to find an opportunity to start a conversation. They were sitting over their empty cups outside a West End coffee shop. Jill had decided it was not worth going home so had changed in the club and planned to go straight to work. Deborah looked at her enviously. Nobody should be allowed to look that fresh after a night’s work.

  “How long have you been working the clubs, Jill?”

  “Couple of years. You’re pretty new, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Just getting into the swing of things, I suppose.”

  “Take a tip from me. Never, never let yourself get used to it. Never allow yourself to think it’s okay. It’s not. It’s easier for me, only working part time and having a normal day job but you don’t do anything else do you? What did you do before you started this game?”

  Deborah thought it best to smudge the truth a little. “I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar in Greece. Before that I was studying in Bulgaria and the States. Don’t worry. I know this is a dirty business. I’m just doing it for one reason. Then I’ll get out.”

  “That’s what they all say. Once I’ve saved enough to pay for my little son’s or daughter’s education, or for my mother’s medical bills, or for a deposit on a house, or pay off the credit cards, or something else. Everybody says it’s just for six months or two years or whatever. That’s how it is for the volunteers like you and me. Of course, most of the people you meet are trapped somehow, tricked into the work then held there with threats and because they have handed over their passports. Most of them are illegal anyway. You be careful, Debs. You’ll get used to the money then find you can’t afford to go back to a proper job or your career is too messed up to start again.” Deborah took a deep breath. ‘May as well get straight to the point’, she thought.

  “Jill, Did you know we had some mutual friends?”

  “No. Who?”

  “I think you knew Susanna, didn’t you? And probably, George, too?”

  “Yes! I know Susanna and George! Is George here now? I saw Susanna a three or four weeks ago. We had lunch and she was hoping George would come over. How is she? She was supposed to ring me but she never did.”

  Deborah took another deep breath and told Jill about Susanna’s death. Jill was aghast and tears appeared in her eyes before her irrepressible nature regained control. She spoke uncharacteristically quietly.

  “And you think that it had something to do with the people smugglers? I wouldn’t be surprised, I really wouldn’t. I’ve met some people who would think nothing of doing it. Nothing at all. Ah! I get it! That’s why you’re doing this, for Susanna. But how did you know her?”

  “I didn’t. But I know George.”

  “Aha! Well, that explains it. He’s quite a guy, isn’t he? Susanna wasn’t the only girl at the bank who fancied him, I can tell you! How’s he managing Susanna’s being killed? Oh! I suppose you’re the wrong person to ask. Don’t get me wrong but Susanna was a good mate but I think you’re being very brave. I bet George doesn’t know how lucky he is, does her? Oh dear! I’m talking too much and asking to many questions. I’m sorry. Shut up, Jill!”

  Deborah smiled. This was definitely the right Jill, exactly as described by George. She was weighing Jill up and wondering whether or not she could enlist her as an ally. She had not forgotten Jill’s reputation for letting her tongue run ahead her of her brain.

  “Mmm. Well, Jill. Would you like to help? You know lots of people in this business but that also means you know what you could be getting into. At the very least you would have to give up your part time job if they think you are a spy, and it could be much worse.” Jill was silent for several seconds.

  “More important, I would have to learn to keep my mouth shut, eh? That might be harder for me than giving up this evening job but yes, I’d like to help if you think I can. Susanna was good to me and I really liked her. We shouldn’t just lie down and let this happen to us, should we? And anyway, I’m getting fed up being gawped at and pawed by sad men who should be at home with their wives and girlfriends. Count me in, Debs.”

  Deborah told Jill about the imminent arrival of the four girls – hopefully four – who had been the unwitting cause of Susanna’s being taken hostage. “They are supposed to be working in George’s old bank but, now, if we could get them jobs in the clubs… well, we’d get enough information to really blow this whole racket wide open. The first thing you could do would be to somehow get me to meet Nicholas, you known George’s successor. He’d have to turn a blind eye to the absence of Natasha and the others. What is he like, anyway?”

  “Nicholas? Not a patch on George, but he’s okay. Bit of a gent and we think he’s gay but he’s all right. Actually, if he bats for the other side, he might be a bit more… you know, sympathetic to the cause of striking a blow against female exploitation, do you think?” Jill grinned conspiratorially.

  Jill’s good humour was infectious and Deborah could not stop herself grinning in return but, remembering Jill’s natural talkativeness, she decided for the time being not to bring Helen Knight into the conversation.

  Jill was fired with the fervour of a new convert and decided to see Nicholas that very morning. “Sorry to barge in, Nicholas. Have you got ten minutes? It’s important.”

  “Yes, I suppose so… Jill, isn’t it? Have as seat. What can I do for you?”

  “Well… I think you are expecting four girls from Albania to arrive soon, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes we are. Actually one of them is Macedonian, but how did you know about that? I mean it’s not exactly secret but I don’t think your department is providing any training is it, so what’s your interest?”

  “Well, I’m a friend of Susanna Parson. I suppose you know about her?”

  “Yes, we heard. Tragic, absolutely tragic. I’m in touch with her mother. What has she got to do with the four er… trainees?”

  “I’m sure you know that those four girls were being trafficked into the sex industry in London. It’s okay, Nick. I’m in the know about these girls. It sounds a bit melodramatic but it’s quite likely that Susanna was killed deliberately because she accidentally got mixed up with them. I’ve spoken to someone
who is working with George on trying to expose all this. I just wanted to introduce myself as being on the same side and see if I can help some way.”

  “’Nicholas’ please, Jill. What do you mean ‘on the same side’? I wasn’t aware I was on anybody’s side. Where does George come into all this? And I’m sorry but I don’t see why you are involved except as a friend of Susanna. What do you know about the sex industry anyway, if you’ll forgive my directness?”

  “George is now in Cyprus trying to track down the links at the other end. I want to help expose the trade at this end but I need the help of those four girls.”

  “I’m sorry, Jill but I don’t get it. What do you know about the sex trade, as you call it?”

  “More than you think, Nick…sorry, Nicholas. I may as well confess that I’ve been taking my clothes off in Soho on two or three nights a week for the last two years. And yes, I know all about the rules about second jobs so you can sack me if you want and I know a lot about it as a matter of fact and some of the stories would make your hair curl. There’s one girl I know who calls herself Angie who comes from northern Albania. She never went to school. Her father was an alcoholic and her mother made a living by selling her own blood. One day a man in a smart car called at her house and seemed very taken with Angie – that’s not her real name, by the way. She won’t tell anybody her real name because she’s too ashamed. Her father said he knew the man and he was a good man who would find her work in the city so she went with him. That was two years ago. Now she’s just seventeen and has sex with anything up to sixty men a week; yes, sixty. But she never sees any money and some old Albanian woman takes the cash and gives it to the man who bought her from her father saying her cost has to be repaid. If she complains she’s beaten up – I’ve seen the bruises. She has one scar all the way from her ankle to… well, all the way up her leg where the man cut her with a knife because she wouldn’t work. And don’t tell me she should go to the police. She was smuggled into England in the back of a lorry. She has no papers, no passport, nothing. Even without the threats, she knows that if she goes to the police they will hand her over to immigration and she’ll be deported, sent back and to where? To her father? The father who sold her? And then what? Who would have her in her own country? Another man? Another lorry? Or how about Lottie? And that is her real name. She was married but in a tiny Russian village she and her husband couldn’t make their shop pay so they borrowed money – not from a bank like this one but from a local money lender and when they couldn’t pay the interest, Lottie was offered a job as a waitress in Portugal to pay off the debt but you know what? That’s right. She’s working in a flat in London now, having sex with men every night. Every night, whether she is up to it or not. She dare not run away because they have said they will tell her husband and hurt her children – oh yes, she has two small children – back in her village, if she doesn’t just keep doing as she’s told. She’s illegal too so the best, the very best she could hope for would be to be deported. The debt would still exist and how could she go back to her husband? You have to ask yourself, too, don’t you, Nicholas, just who are the fifty or sixty men who have sex with each of these girls every week? What sort of men want to have sex with a clearly unwilling, probably tearful and obviously distressed and destitute girl who barely speaks any English at all? But let’s leave out the demand side of this business – oh, yes! I’ve done my business studies stuff – the men who terrify these girls have to be stopped and George and Deborah and I think we may be able to make a dent and that’s why I need these four girls to… sort of… help. Sorry. Got a bit carried away there.”

  Nicholas was silent for several seconds then said, “I won’t ask who Deborah is. Something to do with George, I expect, but listen. You’ll have heard that we sometimes allow employees to take time off work to do something for the community. That’s more often something to do with disabled children or the homeless or something but never mind. Suppose I gave these four girls two months unpaid special leave to do community work? In Soho. Would that help?”

  Jill leaned across the desk and, to his complete surprise, kissed him full on the lips. “That’s brilliant, Nicholas! In the very best tradition of the bank’s HR stuff. Thank you very, very much. George would be proud of you!”

  Chapter 31

  George was sitting outside the Aliens and Immigration office in Larnaca. It was a single storey building with faded blue louvre shutters and a wide veranda. The road beyond the bushes and palm trees was almost quiet enough to cross without looking either way and beyond that the Mediterranean lapped at the seaweed and shingle beach or against the concrete foundations of beachside restaurants. He tried to ignore the seagulls wheeling overhead or bobbing close inshore on the lapping sea. Even so early it was hot and George was glad of the shade of the trees while he watched his fellow visitors. Next to him a young woman who might have been from the Philippines or somewhere in Malaysia or Indonesia clutched a brown envelope he presumed to contain her documents. The thumb of the hand holding the envelope held down a little square of paper not much larger than a postage stamp. The number ten was printed on the piece of paper and there was some sort of stamp that, looking without appearing to look, George could not read. The woman noticed his glance and whispered to him.

  “What is your number?”

  “What? Oh, I don’t have a number.” He found himself speaking in a whisper too. Clearly this was not a time to give away any more information beyond that strictly necessary for the issue or renewal of the permits.

  “You must take a number from the man in the office on the side, down there. If you have no number the people in the office will not see you. Get your number.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t need to see the people today. I’m waiting to meet someone.”

  The woman turned away with a slow nod that George interpreted as satisfaction that his absence from the number queue would speed up her own entry through the narrow doors leading to the immigration office. At that moment a middle aged woman emerged through the doors and called in Greek, then English, “four; number four.” Her tone was already bored as if she hated her job but did not aspire to any other. And it was only Tuesday and not yet nine o’clock and it was only the turn of number four. An elderly Cypriot woman dressed in black mumbled something to the young woman beside her and they rose and shuffled through the doors. Continuing his observations, George guessed the younger woman was from Southern India or Sri Lanka. He had not realised that so many Cypriot families needed or could afford domestic servants. A sign of the bourgeoisation of the country in the run up towards EU membership, he supposed.

  Most of his attention was on a young woman and a middle-aged man standing a little away from the others. The man had the dark moustache common to the region and was a little over-dressed for the weather in an obviously expensive, light grey suit that did not quite fit him. His hair was receding but grown long at the back into a sort of dark mane. The woman was taller than the man, even without her spiky heels, and wore the fixed, detached expression often seen on women who know that they are very attractive but who want to discourage contact with the men whose eyes they feel on them. Her blond hair was drawn back from her face in a severe ponytail and she too was more formally dressed that convenient for the weather. She had the look of a Scandinavian or Northern European and stood out from the scattered crowd in both stature and bearing. As George watched, the man answered a call on his mobile telephone and drifted away with his back turned so as to speak more privately. The woman shuffled her feet nervously and, looking about her, caught George’s eye. He gave her what he thought was an encouraging and sympathetic half-smile but she looked quickly away without changing her wooden expression. She was amazingly good looking. While George was trying to screw up courage to stroll over and ask her for her number in the queue the man finished his call and returned to stand at her side.

  The office door in the middle of the veranda opened again and two men came out. George
decided to have a peek in. Opening the door a few inches he looked around. The room was small, square and poorly lit with a desk against each wall. It needed redecorating and George wondered if the browning cream, institutional paint had been applied during the British occupation. Filing cabinets, topped with piles of files separated the desks. At one the old Cypriot woman and her maid sat facing the woman who had called them in. At another a younger light haired woman looked up from her breakfast coffee and toast.

  “Please wait for your number to be called,” she said in English without making it sound like a request. George mumbled an apology and withdrew. His seat outside had been taken by a new arrival so he set off to walk back to the town centre and his hotel. He would come again tomorrow. He fancied a swim.