Stolen Souls (8 page)

Don’t call until you’ve found him, his mother had said.

“I found him,” Strazdas said to the empty room.

He had to call her. Tell her what happened. He thought about waiting until he had more information, but it would do no good. She would resent every second he held the knowledge from her and punish him for it. Every minute he spared himself the act of telling was a minute of fury earned from her.

He stood, walked to the suite’s lounge, retrieved his mobile phone from the floor. A crack or two in the casing from the impact against the wall. He opened the contacts list. Her number was stored under Laima. He would never call her that to her face, of course, but it felt foolish to have “Mother” in one’s collection of phone numbers.

Before he hit the dial button, he mopped up white powder from the glass desktop with his fingertip. He worked it across his gums, relishing the cool numbing sensation that followed.

Now, dial.

Strazdas listened to the tones as the mobile connected to the apartment in Brussels. His mind’s eye pictured the large, open living area, and the telephone on the elegant side table next to the plush couch he had bought for her. He saw her switch on lights in the darkened apartment, walk to the phone, reach for the handset, her eyes blurred by sleep and tears.

“Hello?” she said.

“It’s me.”

Silence for a moment, then, “Tell me.”

“Tomas is dead,” he said.

A distorted clatter as the phone fell to the apartment floor. A strangled cry, like an animal caught in a trap. He listened for a minute or more, choked sobs and keening wails, until it stopped like a needle lifted from the groove of an old vinyl record. She lifted the phone again.

“How?”

Strazdas told her all of it. About the whore, how Tomas wanted to break her in, how she cut his throat with a shard of glass, how Darius and that idiot he ran with tried to dump the body in the water, and how the whore got away from them.

When he was done, he listened to her steady breathing. Eventually, she said, “Kill her.”

“I will,” Strazdas said.

“Make sure the bitch suffers for what she did to my boy,” she said.

He was a child again, shamed because he’d wet his bed, red imprints of her hard hand against the skin of his legs. “I will,” he said.

“And anyone else who was responsible, anyone who gets in your way. Do you understand me?”

Or a young teenager, caught with his fingers in his trousers, her mouth slashed wide in disgust. “Yes,” he said.

“Kill them all.”

His bladder ached. “Yes.”

A hard click, and she was gone.

He ran to the bathroom.

15

A
WHITE
T
OYOTA VAN
approached, its headlights flooding the shadows beneath the bridge. Galya flattened her shivering body against the pillar, concrete icy cold on her cheek.

The van slowed, the driver’s window lowered, showing the occupant’s moon face.

Galya stepped away from the pillar, letting the light find her. The driver smiled. He reached for the passenger door, opened it, turned back to her.

“Come on,” he said.

* * *

H
E HAD COME
to her in the afternoon. She had given him a glance as he entered the room, ushered in by Rasa, and turned her gaze downward.

Rasa spoke to him in English, saying, “Enjoy her. She is new. Never been touched.”

She closed the door, leaving him alone with Galya.

He lingered at the other end of the bedroom, his eyes like points of black oil on his round face, his coarse dark hair swept back from his forehead, a thick beard surrounding the red slit of his mouth. A pink scar carved a line from the center of his forehead to the outer edge of his right eyebrow. Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, maybe forty. Galya examined him in the corner of her vision.

“Hello,” he said.

Galya tried to reply, but only managed a thick murmur in her throat.

“Can I sit down?” he asked.

Galya moved closer to the bed’s headboard. She felt his weight on the mattress. It rocked her like a boat on a sickly wave. She did not look at him, but she sensed his attention on her bare skin. Without thinking, she placed one forearm across her breasts, the other down between her thighs so her hand cupped her knee.

“My name’s Billy,” he said.

Galya did not respond.

“Am I really the first client?” he asked.

Galya swallowed, her lips tight together.

“So no one’s touched you yet?”

Galya studied the patterns on the faded wallpaper.

“Good,” he said. “Then it’s not too late.”

He kneeled on the floor, facing her, like a suitor asking for her hand in marriage.

“I can help you,” he said. His accent was soft and soupy, not hard and angular like the men who owned this flat. English, maybe, she couldn’t be sure.

Galya lifted her eyes to meet his. His gaze locked solid on hers, his expression firm and truthful.

“If you can get away from here,” he said, “I can help you.”

Galya went to speak, but closed her mouth when she realized she had no words for him.

“Please believe me,” he said. “I can help you. If you can get out of here, don’t tell anyone where you’re going, I can help you get back home. What’s your name?”

Galya shook her head.

“My name’s Billy Crawford,” he said. “I’m a pastor. A Baptist pastor, but I haven’t been placed with a church. Instead, I help girls like you, help you get away from this. Do you understand?”

He reached for Galya. She pulled away.

“It’s all right, I won’t hurt you,” he said, as if he were calming a trembling puppy. “Look.”

He held a fine silver chain before her eyes, a cross dangling from it.

“For you,” he said. “So Jesus will protect you.”

He went to place it over her head. She flinched.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his hands. The cross settled in his lap. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I know you’re scared. I know you don’t want to be here. You don’t, do you?”

Galya wanted to shake her head, tell him no, she didn’t want to be here. Instead she turned her eyes away.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m here to help you. I can help you get back home, away from these people.”

Away.

Such a big word. So big there were many ways to say it in Russian. Away, like she wanted to get away from Mama’s farm. Like she wanted to leave her village. To be free of the things that bound her there. To go to another place and have a life of her own.

Those notions seemed foolish now, but the word still weighed as heavy. She wanted to be away from here more than she had ever wanted anything before.

So when he reached again, she dipped her head, allowed him to place the chain around her neck. The cross lay cold on her skin. She touched it with her fingertip, felt the hard angles.

“Jesus will protect you,” he said. “He will protect you, and He will help you get away from these people. Do you understand me?”

Galya nodded once.

“Good.” A smile split his moon face. He took her hand and put a piece of paper in her palm, a string of numbers written on it in pencil, each digit impossibly neat. “When you get away from here, call me. Understand? Call me. I can save you.”

He stood and walked to the door, opened it, and left her alone in the room. Galya stared at the paper and the numbers printed on it. She lifted the cross from her breast, turned it in the light, brought it to her lips, kissed it.

Hard, quick footsteps approached from beyond the bedroom door. Galya bunched up the piece of paper and stuffed it beneath the pillow on the bed beside her. She lifted the chain over her head, ready to stash it with the phone number, but the door opened. Galya clenched her fist around the cross as Rasa entered and asked, “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Galya said.

“That’s right,” Rasa said as she approached the bed. “Nothing.”

“He just—”

Rasa’s open hand struck Galya’s cheek, the impact followed by heat, heat followed by pain. “Nothing. You didn’t do a thing for him.”

“He only wanted to talk,” Galya said as her throat tightened with tears. She held up the cross. “Look. He gave me this.”

Rasa’s hand lashed out again, leaving its stinging mark on Galya’s other cheek. “Men don’t want to talk,” she said. “Men want to fuck. You ungrateful little bitch, after everything I’ve done for you.”

Galya could hold the tears back no longer. “But he didn’t want—”

She cried out as Rasa grabbed a fistful of hair and hoisted her to her feet. “They only want to fuck. That’s all you’re here for.”

Rasa threw her against the chest of drawers, sending makeup and lotions spilling. The mirror teetered on its stand before tipping and crashing to the floor, shards scattering.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Rasa said, marching to the door. “Clean it up.”

Galya got to her knees as the door slammed shut. Pieces of broken mirror lay around her. She wept as she gathered them up and dropped them in the small bin that sat by the chest.

Maybe the kind man could save her. Maybe he couldn’t. It didn’t matter either way, not if she couldn’t get away from here, away from Rasa and the men she had sold Galya to. Soon another man would come, a man who wasn’t kind, and she would have to do things for him. Her stomach soured at the idea.

Galya reached for the largest piece of glass, long like a blade, and saw the cross and chain lying curled upon it.

* * *

“I’
LL TAKE YOU
to my house,” Billy Crawford said as he put the van in gear and moved off. “You’ll be safe there for now. Put your seatbelt on.”

Galya did as she was told. He noticed the deep red on her clothing and her hands.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

She stared straight ahead. “I killed a man.”

The seatbelt gripped her tight across her chest as he stood hard on the brake pedal. He unclasped his own belt and climbed out of the van. The headlights made his wide face glow white as he crossed in front of her and approached the passenger side. He yanked the door open.

“Get out,” he said.

Galya stared down at him.

“Out,” he said.

She undid the seatbelt and lowered herself to the ground.

“I can’t help you,” he said. “You have to go.”

“You said—”

“I can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

Galya’s breast tightened with alarm. “You said you would help me.”

He paced, his gaze shooting in every direction. “If the police are looking for you, they’ll …”

His words trailed away, and he bit his knuckle.

Galya felt something crumble inside herself. This strange, kind man had given her hope. Would he now take it away, abandon her out here in this cold city? Her chest hitched as she fought tears.

He stopped pacing, ran his hands over his face. “Tell me what happened.”

“We have to go away from here,” Galya said.

He gripped her arms in his coarse-skinned fingers. “Tell me what happened.”

“A man came, a Lithuanian. He says he will break me, show me how to do it right. He holds me down on the bed. He hurts me. I push him off.”

She mimed the actions with her hands, shaping the words into English as she spoke.

“I have a broken glass from the mirror. When I broke it, I wrapped it in cloth from the bed so to make a knife. I told him let me go. He was angry. He was shouting. He tries to take the glass from me. I didn’t want to kill him. I just want to go home.”

He released her arms and backed away. “It’s too much risk,” he said, more to himself than to Galya. “I can’t, not this time.”

Galya tugged at his shirt. “Please, sir, you say you would help me if I go away from them.”

He brushed her hand away. “Not like this. The police will come for you. I can’t—”

A siren in the distance stopped him talking. His shoulders rose and fell, his breath misting in plumes between them.

“Calm down,” he said.

Galya knew he was not addressing her.

He turned a circle, looking all around him, until his eyes settled on the number plates on his van. He looked back to Galya.

She reached beneath the neckline of her bloodied sweatshirt and withdrew the pendant that clung to the chain around her neck.

“You gave me this,” she said, showing him the cross. “You say Jesus will protect me. He did. He showed me how to go away from that place.”

He closed his eyes, engaged in a silent communion with himself. His eyes opened, his breathing slowed, his decision made.

“All right,” he said. “Come with me.”

16

S
USAN STEPPED BACK
to allow Lennon to enter her apartment. He held the envelopes he’d taken from the postman he’d intercepted downstairs.

“You look like shit,” she said.

“Thanks. Ellen up yet?”

“Half an hour ago,” Susan said, leading the way to her kitchenette. “She’s in Lucy’s room. I was just about to make breakfast for them. Coffee?”

“Please,” he said, taking a seat at the table.

He set the mail addressed to Susan to one side and opened his own. One bill, an overdue notice, and a card with an An Post stamp and a Finglas postmark.

Susan spooned instant granules into two mugs and poured boiling water over them. Without asking, she added two sugars to his, stirred, and set the mug in front of him.

“Take it easy for ten minutes,” she said. “Ellen’s happy playing anyway.”

Lennon smiled in thanks and took a sip.

The Christmas card was a cheap supermarket job, all gaudy colors and saccharine sentiment. He looked inside and felt his nerve endings jangle.

The only mark it bore was the letter T, two lines intersecting as if drawn by a child.

He stared at it, his mind racing through possibilities. A sick joke, maybe. Or perhaps he misunderstood, the shape etched on the card being nothing other than the pair of scrawled lines they appeared to be.

Susan hovered by his side, asked, “What’s wrong? You’re shaking.”

“Nothing,” he said. He closed the card, the image of the Traveller’s knowing grin burning in his mind.

Lennon had arrested him after a botched attempt at kidnapping Ellen at the Royal Victoria Hospital. He remembered the taunts, the cackling, the madness of him. The Traveller had escaped custody with, Lennon suspected, DCI Dan Hewitt’s help, and tried again. He succeeded, taking Ellen and Marie from a place Lennon thought was safe, and brought them to a house owned by a revenge-driven old man called Bull O’Kane.