The smell of lavender clung to the village that August. It wafted over the wall of the garden, scenting the air as Artemis and David whiled away the hours reading in the shade, dipping in and out of the swimming pool, while Clive looked at houses. In the late afternoons, once the day had slightly cooled, the three of them would stroll to the boulangerie for supplies, the smell of pastries reminding Artemis of her childhood.
Maria would be turning seven that summer. The thought struck Artemis one afternoon, with a tug of sadness. She bought a card from a boutique in town with a kitten on the front and signed it from her and David, with the message We hope you have a wonderful day. Can’t wait to see you again written inside, holding her breath as she wrote it. Would she ever see Maria again? She and Athena hadn’t spoken since their fight. Artemis had considered calling, but what would be the point? Besides, Athena was the one who should be eaten up with remorse. She needed to make the call, not that she would. Athena had no concept of being in the wrong, ever.
Artemis was lazing by the pool, lost in thought, when Clive returned later that afternoon with a triumphant look on his face. ‘I’ve found it,’ he said, leaning down and kissing her hard on the forehead.
‘Really?’
‘Just you wait. It’s an old chateau, in need of plenty of work, hence the price …’ He walked over to the pool where David was practising his diving. David’s face stretched into a smile when he looked up and saw his father pulling off his clothes and jumping in in his boxer shorts.
‘Tomorrow we’ll drive to Nice,’ Clive said, catching his breath after a few laps. His arms crossed over the edge of the pool, he looked playful, childlike, his skin glistening in the afternoon sun, reminding Artemis of those early days in Greece. ‘David, I’ll take you to the casino. Make a man of you. What do you think?’
Something about the sound of her son squealing with excitement as she walked away unnerved her. She hated these flickers of jealousy she felt watching David bask in the sporadic attention of his father. But she felt powerless to stop them.
For so many years – as she watched him suckle milk, his tiny fingers desperately searching for and then clinging to hers, holding his hand while he shuffled along one of the fallen logs on the Heath, listening to him painstakingly sound out letters from an illustrated phonics chart – it had felt like she was the only person David would ever need. Suddenly, she had the feeling he didn’t need her at all.
They took the Côte d’Azur coastal road towards Nice the following day, rolling back the roof of their rented Audi TT, sea stretching out on one side, the sky a hazy blue above their heads.
When she looked at him in profile, it was still there, an impression of the young man she had seen that day on the boat, the ambitious would-be entrepreneur intent on changing the world, but so faintly now that when she blinked it was gone.
Turning, Artemis caught a flash of herself in the wing mirror; her face was less defined than it had been. She was still beautiful, though not in the way that made fools of men. That was partly why Clive’s infatuation, in those early days, had been so peculiar, so meaningful; he had seen something in her that others couldn’t. Had he loved her, then?
It occurred to her that she wasn’t sure she had ever really loved him, or anyone, before David.
She felt a sudden intense ache at the nape of her neck, the sea air chilling the back of her head.
‘So what do you think of the house, from the brochure?’ Clive asked, interrupting her thoughts.
‘I think it’s beautiful,’ she replied, touching her hand to her neck, watching him for a moment longer before tilting her head to look out of the window.
They checked in for the night at the Negresco, Clive pulling out his wallet and handing a card to the receptionist. She rarely thought about the mechanics of the inordinate growth of Clive’s company, how it had gone so quickly from wary start-up to something lucrative enough to enable the purchase of plush second homes. If she had she might have reasoned it was the result of canny self-belief combined with the financial freedom of having inherited a house, and no small sum of cash, shortly before they met.
‘Bit bloody gaudy, but all part of the experience,’ Clive said, indicating around the hotel reception before slipping his card back into his wallet. ‘I suggest we put our bags in the room and then go for lunch.’
‘I’m not hungry, I want to go to the casino like you said,’ David replied sulkily.
Clive gave him a reproving look and Artemis felt a pang of hurt on David’s behalf. ‘I can take him, I’m not that hungry yet either,’ she said quickly.
‘We have a lunch date, we can go to the casino after that,’ Clive repeated firmly.
‘With who?’ Artemis asked, confused. He hadn’t mentioned they would be meeting anyone.
‘Jeff and May. They happened to be staying down the road and Jeff and I have a few things to discuss.’
Artemis felt a scream rise inside her. How dare he? After everything …
‘Sound good, David? Your godparents are looking forward to having you.’
Intentionally, he avoided Artemis’ gaze, holding out his hand to his son, who took it gratefully. ‘Come on then … Let’s not keep them waiting.’
Clive gave the perfect performance of someone having an ordinary lunch with friends. He and Jeff sat at one end of the table, the women at the other. Artemis, whose whole body trembled with obsolete rage beneath linen trousers, a white V-neck T-shirt and espadrilles, beside May in a lurid green summer dress and spiked heels. David sat between them, distracted by the sticker album May had presented him with.
May, either oblivious or indifferent to the air of tension that rang between Clive and Artemis as they approached the dining hall, drilled on as usual, giving an equally impressive show of nothing being off. And it wasn’t, was it? Nothing had changed. As May rattled on about the spa facilities at their hotel (‘honestly, so naff’) Artemis’ attention turned to the restaurant tables, raucous groups and coiffed couples of a certain age sitting in cool silence. She thought of Yannis’ bar on the island, of the rows of dusty old bottles, the impassioned conversation and gentle bickering that rang between the tables.
Her mind slipping back into the room, Artemis’ attention was caught by Clive’s more clipped tones. ‘Francisco’s still going on about it. I’ve told him I’m not interested – and I thought you had done the same.’
‘Well, I—’ Jeff began.
‘You need to rein this in—’ Clive cut him off.
‘I need the toilet,’ David’s voice blotted out his father’s words. Artemis pushed back her chair.
‘Let’s go,’ she said, holding out her hand to him, but he slipped past without looking back. ‘I can go on my own, I don’t need you.’
Madeleine
London, present day
‘Vedad was the son of my mother’s best friend, Ariana. We grew up together. He was a few years older than me, the same age as my sister, Sabina, but we all spent lots of time together when we were small. Their house was the one along from ours. Where I come from, in the mountains, it is not like London, you understand. It was a good place to live, the families in the village looked after one another.’ Eva’s posture softens as she retreats into the memory.
‘Every Saturday night when Sabina and I were small, my mother would take us to the square in the village to listen to the music that filled the streets. Together, my mother and Sabina would dance the kolo. They always asked me to join them, but I was too shy so I would sit on the wall opposite and watch them, swinging my legs to the beat. I thought these were happy days but later I started to feel the cloud that loomed over everything. I wasn’t even born when war broke out, but what it left behind was everywhere.’
Madeleine knows their time is limited but she cannot risk urging Eva along in her story. Besides, it’s impossible to know what details will prove fruitful, at the time. If she has learnt one thing in this job, it’s that you have to pay attention to all of it.
‘My father’s brother, Uncle Arizote, was killed, attacked in our village along with several other men. At first, Ariana told me later, my father kept himself busy trying to get the case investigated by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo who had arrived at the end of the war; she said he nearly drove himself mad trying to convince them that Albanian gangs were to blame. When it became clear that those who attacked Arizote and the other men did so with the support of the foreign Kosovo Forces who were brought in to help keep the peace after the war had officially ended, my father … he gave up.’
Eva pauses. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t so bad when my mother was there. She would tell us stories and shield us from my father’s tempers, but when she left to find work in Belgrade … There was no work and no money. My mother said she would come back. She sent money for me and Sabina every month, but my father kept it. It wasn’t very much. She never came back.’
Her voice dips and Isobel leans forward, proffering a white plastic cup.
‘Would you like a drink of water?’
Eva nods, taking a sip before returning the cup to the table between them. She closes her eyes and composes herself. ‘After my mother left, Ariana started to look after us, Sabina and me. I had a crush on Vedad, I suppose, but as we got older he wasn’t interested in playing with me, only Sabina. I found them once together in the barn when they were fifteen. You know …’
Eva blushes with shame, looking away before focusing on her hands. ‘And then a few months later, just after Sabina’s sixteenth birthday, Ariana told me that Vedad was taking Sabina to England, that he had found her work.’
Madeleine rearranged her legs beneath the table, sitting forward slightly in her chair.
‘My father was so angry, I was never allowed to say Sabina’s name again after she left. My father could do that; if he wanted to put something out of his mind, he could simply cut it out and he would never mention it again. It’s what he did with my mother, too. I don’t know if Sabina tried to get in touch but I never heard from her, for years. And then one day Ariana came to the house, when my father was out, and told me that Vedad had found work for me too. She said Usuf would help drive me to the port in the middle of the night when my father was asleep.’
‘Who is Usuf?’ Madeleine asks gently.
‘He is Ariana’s husband. He was a good man, I think.’
‘Do you think you could tell us about that night?’ Madeleine asks, glancing up at the clock.
‘Usuf was waiting in his truck for me. When I got in the back, I saw there was another man in the front passenger seat. But he didn’t say anything. I was scared even though I was excited because I was going to another country, and I couldn’t even say goodbye to my father. But Ariana had some cake for me and she hugged me and told me it would be OK, that Vedad and Sabina would be waiting for me in London.’
Eva wipes her nose on her sleeve. ‘It was so cold as the car took off, and eventually I fell asleep, wrapped in a small rug I had stolen from the foot of my father’s chair while he slept. I kept thinking he would wake up and tell me I couldn’t go, but the truth was he had been so comatose from drink that he wouldn’t have noticed if the house had been on fire. I don’t remember the journey too clearly. I remember the weight of the rucksack pressed against my knees, the truck making a roaring noise as it bumped along in the darkness, the smell of salt rising to meet the gasoline from the boats as we reached the port. Usuf slowed the truck and pulled into a queue of tankers and cars, and then for the first time, he turned and spoke to me. He said the man next to him would look after me and that I should do as he said.’
‘Five minutes,’ the guard at the front of the room announces and Madeleine feels Isobel bristle beside her.
Understanding time was running out, now that she has finally caught her stride, Eva speaks more quickly. ‘Once Usuf had driven away, I followed the man over to a café set back a little from the dock. There was another man at a table outside the café. He was wearing a denim jacket and had long hair pulled back into a ponytail. They spoke for a few minutes a little away from me so that I couldn’t hear, and then the man with the ponytail told me to go with him, in English. He took me into the back of a truck sealed with panels of wood. There was another girl in there, who looked younger than me. I think she was happy to see me, she was shivering it was so cold. She said she was from Braşov, a town in Romania, and she was going to Greece to work in a café as a waitress. She said she was going to stay in Thessaloniki, which was where the boat was headed, and I was confused because I was going to London, but I thought maybe this was just how people travelled.’
Eva laughs at the absurdity of her own suggestion and then carries on.
‘Just before the truck boarded the boat, the man with the ponytail stepped inside and gave us both a glass and told us to drink. After that I fell asleep and when I woke up there were men shouting and heaving things about outside and daylight was coming in through cracks in the panel of the truck, and the other girl had gone.’
The guard at the front of the room starts to walk towards them, signalling that they must leave.
‘It’s OK,’ Madeleine leans towards Eva reassuringly. ‘I’m a police officer, I can arrange to come in the next couple of days and interview you formally and you can tell me everything.’
Eva nods, her jaw clenched. ‘I loved Vedad,’ she says, matter-of-fact. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him. I was confused and he said he would make me go back. I couldn’t go back – you don’t understand what it was like. Every day they would make me have sex with men and they would film me. And Goran, he would …’
Madeleine turns to the guard, showing him her identification, knowing that even without official authorisation this will be enough to stall him at least for a few moments.
‘Who is Goran?’ Madeleine asks, remembering one of the names pinned to Isobel’s wall.
‘He ran the studio, as he called it. It was this building near Tottenham Court Road where they made us work, and they sold drugs from there, too,’ Eva says.
‘Goran Petrović,’ Isobel interjects.
‘How did you know?’ Eva looks shocked but continues, understanding that the guard will be back in a moment and then she will have to wait until Madeleine returns. ‘Goran liked me. Sometimes he would let me sit out for hours at a time just to talk to him while the other girls worked. I think it pained him to see other men having sex with me. He never said anything to Vedad, of course, and when the bosses were due to visit he would make me go back in – and he always made me do enough that it wouldn’t be obvious when the films were watched back that I wasn’t pulling my wei—’
‘What other men?’ Isobel cut in.
‘I don’t know all their names,’ Eva says, flustered. ‘But there was one. A Greek, he was the one who brought me over. The one with the ponytail. His name was Jorgos.’ Eva looks away as she says his name. ‘He used to watch, and sometimes he would join in. I don’t know his surname.’
‘Eva,’ Isobel says. ‘Have you spoken to the police about this?’
Eva snorts. ‘What, the police who put me in here for trying to protect my baby? The ones who did nothing to help me when I was being raped every day for three years?’
The guard returns. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve spoken to my senior and—’
‘It’s fine,’ Madeleine says, looking at Eva. ‘I will come back. We’ll fix this. OK?’
Artemis
London, the Nineties
Artemis was curled up on the sofa in the living room, a copy of the Camden News spread over her knees, a fire crackling in the grate. It had been more about the distraction of lighting it, a comforting process that helped kill the hours, rather than needing the warmth of the fire itself. It was the Easter holidays and spring had brought with it a lift in temperature, though London to her was only ever a spectrum of varying degrees of cold, to which she could never acclimatise.
She heard the front door open before Clive walked in. ‘What are you doing?’
S
he paused for a second, not so much meaning to ambush him with her plan as to tell him in a rare moment when she had his attention. ‘I’m thinking of getting a job.’
Clive laughed as if she had made a joke, taking off his suit jacket and laying it over an armchair. ‘God, this place is feeling tired. We should have some work done. Where’s David?’
She paused before glancing up at him. ‘He’s at Irfan’s, I’m collecting him in an hour.’
He looked cross, as if some plan of his had been changed without his permission, though it was hours before he usually got home from the office.
‘I’m serious about the job,’ Artemis said, closing the classified pages, which had, if she was honest, been completely useless.
‘What sort of job?’ Clive asked, incredulity in his voice.
‘I don’t know.’ She wracked her brain for an answer more purposeful than the one she wanted to give, anything to get me out of this fucking house. ‘There are lots of things I could do. I was thinking of asking at the library or one of the coffee shops on the high-street, perhaps—’
His expression silenced her.
‘What?’
‘A coffee shop?’ He looked genuinely perplexed. ‘Do you have any idea—’ He broke off as though to finish his sentence would validate a suggestion too ludicrous to even consider.
The insolence in his voice was what she needed, something to rub up against.
‘Why not?’ she said, rearranging her feet.
‘Why not? For a start, our son needs you at home.’ He couldn’t bring himself to name the real reason: his own pride; the horror of Clive Witherall’s wife serving the mothers of the other boys at David’s school, the suggestion that she needed or even wanted to work, as if what he gave her wasn’t sufficient.
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