Bitter Sweet (17 page)

‘I heard the rumble of a large diesel engine and the crunch of tyres. The back doors were thrown open. We were ordered out and told to climb into the back of the lorry parked beside the van.

‘The drivers followed us up. One of them manoeuvred a pallet truck under the nearest pallet and moved it to one side, revealing a narrow walkway. We were ordered into the walkway, one driver preceding us. The walkway, towards the front of the lorry, opened into a small square. On three sides of the square, wooden boxes were stacked and secured on top of each other. One of the drivers opened the sides of the boxes at floor level. He ordered the first girl in the line into the box. I was next.

‘There was just enough room, lying flat, to turn from side to side. I tapped at the walls of the box – there was a dull thud. The boxes must have had some sort of double skin which meant that screaming and shouting would have no effect. The traffickers had thought of everything.

‘Eight hours later other men opened the boxes, unpacking their cargo. Again, the men had the same appearance as Yuri – we were flesh to be tasted.

‘Another van, this time a short ride to a big old terrace house. 

‘Maria,’ Mike interrupted. ‘Do you by any chance know the address of the house?’

‘Yes,’ Maria said, ‘Hawthorne Road.’

‘A house number?’

‘No, it’s an end terrace.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The front garden is concreted. That’s all I know. The van reversed up to the front door. When I got out I caught a glimpse of the next house in the street light, it had a small garden.

‘We were taken upstairs to a room with mattresses on the floor and told to sleep.

‘At first I couldn’t sleep. I had been wearing the same clothes for ten days, my hair was greasy, nor had it seen a comb in all that time. I didn’t know where my possessions where, nor did I know which country I was in. I guessed it was England, because the lorry had been on a ferry.

‘I did sleep, only to be woken by the sound of a key turning in the lock. It was midday.

‘Two of our captors entered; again
they had the same appearance as Yuri. They stood on either side of the doorway, allowing a smaller, wiry looking man with a shaven head to enter.

‘I knew instinctively that he was the boss. His cold grey eyes surveyed us, one at a time. He was inspecting the product, sizing up our potential. That was the first of many times I was to see Erjon. I learned later that he had been orphaned as a child, and had grown up, literally, fighting his way out of deprivation. In one of his many fights he had received a head injury which had never properly healed.

‘There were no pleasantries. Erjon informed us as to why we were here – to work as prostitutes.

‘One girl, the physically strongest of us, started to protest. Erjon nod
ded once to the men standing at the door and they lunged for the girl.

‘She sprinted towards the window and yanked the curtain back, revealing metal bars. Metal bars or not, it was too late anyway. The two thugs grabbed her by the arms and started to drag her back towards the door. She twisted and turned, kicking and fighting. One of the
m made a grab for her hair, but she was faster; she bit at his hand. Involuntarily, he let go of her wrist. Her arm, freed of the restriction swung upwards, striking Erjon on the side of the head.

‘Erjon was fast, amazingly fast. He danced backwards and in a blur of speed struck her in the face. The force of the blow threw her head to one side with a crack. For a moment I thought her neck had been broken. Her head lolled on her shoulders, but the two thugs continued to hold her upright.

‘Erjon turned and went outside, returning with a roll of tape. In no time at all, the girl was bound at the ankles and her wrists were wrapped in tape behind her back. Then she was dumped on to the floor.

‘At Erjon’s command one of the thugs left the room. He then placed a hand on his head where the girl had struck him and at the same time pulled out a bottle of pills and popped a couple into his mouth.

‘The thug returned with two wooden chairs, a bucket of water and a thin stick. They taped the girl, in a sitting position, to the chair and then propped her legs on the seat of the other chair, taping her legs so that her feet hung over the edge. They removed her shoes and socks and then threw water in her face. She came around. As soon as she tried to move, she looked at her legs and her eyes bulged in fear.

‘Erjon looked at us. “This is a lesson. Never disobey.”

‘He nodded to one of the thugs who took hold of the stick. He lined it up on the souls of her feet and drew it back. With the first strike the girl screamed.

  ‘Erjon’s hand went to his h
ead. He muttered to the thug; “Tape her mouth.”

‘The beating continued. Finished, the girl lolled in her seat. We were forced to look at her
bloody feet. And Erjon said; “You don’t need to stand to be a whore. And you can’t run away on feet like that.”

‘That’s when I knew that escape was fraught with danger and if I were to try then I’d
have to be very sure of success.

‘Erjon left and we
were ordered to shower and to change into the fresh clothes provided. We helped the girl to wash and tended her feet as best we could.

‘That evening Erjon returned. I and another girl were taken to a massage parlour, run by Erjon. That’s where I met Yana; we’ve been together since then.

‘What happened to the other girls I don’t know. There are rumours that Erjon keeps certain girls and sells the rest. Sometimes girls disappear. Again, there are rumours of concrete graves in road developments, under apartment blocks or under shopping centres. I don’t know.

‘My life continued; it was a life devoid of feeling and emotion, a life of slavery to the sex trade. Any idea of free will is removed. There is no hope. The threat of beatings or being raped as a punishment is always in the back of your mind, like a shadow. It’s do what they want or suffer.

‘I was kept prisoner in the massage parlour, locked in an upstairs room when not on show for the customers. We could see and hear the hustle and bustle of normal life outside. It was like a prison, only the bars were those of beatings and rape. The days and nights lose all meaning. There were no days off, no Sundays, nothing to look forward to.

‘The men, I mean the customers, they do not see us. I was a doll made of living flesh with the men on top, below, behind, inside. I learned to close my eyes and to allow the numbness to take over. But the numbness took up more and more of my life.

‘Drugs were available, but that leads to a downward spiral with no hope of escape, only addiction. And with the addiction to the drugs you become dependent on those who provide them.

‘The men came, some days more, some days less. Sometimes dirty, smelly and drunk. Sometimes violent – that’s how Yana got a broken rib. But all that happens is that they are thrown out. The minders don’t care so long as we can continue to work.

‘One man came; he just wanted company, female contact, someone to talk to. He came again, asked for me and gave me some perfume. The next time he came he brought flowers – they triggered an emotion, made me cry. The little gifts were gestures of decency, non-verbal, revealing the true spirit of a person. I think that’s what made me cry, what reached through my numbness and the callousness which surrounded me. But the minders caught on to the gifts; they chased him away, told him never to come back.

‘Yesterday we were moved to the apartment. It was the first time I had been out of the massage parlour. They even allowed us to walk in through the front door. I suppose they sort of trusted us, Yana and I have never created an
y trouble. But they had picked up Olga, my cousin, on the way to the apartment. That’s when I knew I’d have to try and escape. And, their guard was down; they’d left only one minder to watch over us. I looked and looked for some sort of weapon. When I used the toilet, the cistern lid moved – it was a real one, not made of plastic. I smashed it over the minder’s head and ran for help.

Maria looked at me and Ivonne. ‘I ran right into you. Thank you for helping me.’ She glanced at Olga and Yana. ‘For helping us.’

Maria turned back to the camera. ‘Will I ever be truly free? They’ll continue to try and track us down and exact revenge or to enslave us again. Is there any going home? Erjon knows the villages where we came from.’

I sat stunned, moved and horrified. Maria still held the cushion clutched to her chest. After a while, I looked at my watch – the horrors of a living hell had been distilled into two hours of digital recording on a mini-cam.

There was no way I was going to sleep well. I was bound to be haunted by the horrors of what I had heard. And, Olga and Yana had yet to tell their stories. And their stories were equally harrowing.

Mike went home and we went to bed.

Part III

17

I didn’t get to sleep until two o’clock in the morning and at seven I was awake with my head buzzing as to how to get the girls to safety.

They had been given the use of the bedroom, whilst Ivonne and I had camped out in the sitting room. I padded into the kitchen and switched on the kettle, wondering if the Blue Blindfold would be open at this time of the morning. Their number had been given to me by the UK Human Trafficking Centre and I hoped they could help me with a refuge.

The whistling of the kettle as it boiled roused Ivonne.

‘You’re up early,’ she said, rubbing her eyes.

‘Student lifestyle.’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘We need to get the girls somewhere safe and the sooner the better.’

‘You still got the number of that place?’

‘Yes, and now that you’re awake I’ll give them a call.’

I poured boiling water into two mugs to let the tea draw, before fetching my phone. After the third ring, the call was answered. This time I didn’t bother to explain the background and, instead, asked directly for the name and the address of a refuge for human trafficking victims in the city. This I was given. I thanked the woman and hung up.

‘Okay,’ I said to Ivonne. ‘There is a place on Talbot Street – doesn’t have a name, just an address. I was lucky to get it – confidentiality.’

‘Well done, but where is Talbot Street?’

‘On the other side of the city,’ I said, placing a hand on my hip. ‘And I don’t fancy using public transport, again.’

‘Yeah, last night was enough.’

‘Best would be you wait here and I’ll go and fetch my car.’

‘Is it wise going over to the Merchant Building?’

‘The car is in the cheap multi-storey, you know the one.’

‘Yeah, I know it, it’s two streets away, should be safe enough.’ Ivonne glanced towards the bedroom. ‘But still, keep your eyes open. We had a lucky escape yesterday.’

‘From Erjon, yes, but I’m not sure that DS Driscoll has given up.’

‘We can worry about that piece of shit, later,’ Ivonne said. ‘Go get your car. I’ll stay here and make sure everyone stays inside.’

An hour later I parked in front of the door to the apartment block on George Street and phoned Ivonne, telling her I’d arrived.

‘Wow,’ Ivonne said, opening the passenger door once the girls were in the back, ‘didn’t know you had such a flash car.’

‘Uh, huh,’ I muttered. By now I had got used to the comments. Students, well at least those who did not come from a wealthy background, generally did not drive BMWs. And to avoid speculation I had never let the car be seen on campus. Anyone who had seen the car had been told it had belonged to my dead father.

Ivonne got in. ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘leather seats. Heated?’

‘Yes,’ I said, adjusting my sunglasses.

‘I didn’t know you were into cars.’

‘Not really, the last one I had was a real girly-car, got fed up with people cutting in front of me all the time. Anyway, my last boyfriend was a BMW freak, he chose it, no doubt with his own interest top of the list and for me it’s a sort of treat for working in the escort business.’ I put my hands on the steering wheel. ‘Didn’t cost a lot, it’s ten years old with over one hundred on the clock.’ I grinned at Ivonne. ‘Three litre common-rail diesel, re-mapped, 250 bhp, with a nought-to-sixty of just under seven seconds. That’s the fun part. The insurance isn’t.’

‘Then let’s see what it can do,’ Ivonne said, putting on her seatbelt.

‘Not in this traffic, the rush hour is in full swing.’

A white van drove past. I put the car into gear, switched on the indicator and pulled out. At the bottom of the street the van turned left
. I indicated to turn right on to Lloyd Street – a four-lane thoroughfare with bus lanes and shops on either side.

A lorry slowed. Ivonne leaned forward and blew the driver a kiss. The lorry stopped. I looked left, put the foot down, shot across the front of the lorry and accelerated into the gap on the far side of the road. Another blip on the throttle, and I matched the speed of the traffic flowing along the street.

Automatically I checked the rearview mirrors; the lorry still had its brake lights on. I heard the blast of a car’s horn from behind and glanced into the mirrors again. The car’s horn was loud and insistent. Whatever was causing the commotion was blocked from my view by the lorry and the traffic behind me. The car’s horn became an uninterrupted blast.

I kept up with the flow of traffic, constantly eyeing the mirrors as the distance to the lorry increased.

The car’s horn ceased, and I
just
caught a glimpse of a black car darting across the road, in our direction. I then used every last centimetre of the mirrors in an attempt to spot and identify the black car – to no avail.

I reckoned every tenth car on the road was black. But, that did not ease the bloom of concern which had arisen as a result of the rumpus at the junction of George and Lloyd streets. Had I seen a
black BMW
cross the street behind us, then, my surge of fear would be justifiable.

I closed the gap to the car in front, and at the same time quelled the urge to constantly look into the
rearview mirror as that would rapidly draw Ivonne’s attention. There was no way I was going to get her and the girls concerned and all het up by having to explain my misgivings and concerns which were merely based on hearing a car’s horn and seeing a black car.

There was just no way that Erjon or any of his goons could have spotted me
fetching the car. I had ordered a taxi to take me to my car. Only when it had drawn up outside the George Street apartment block, had I left the building with my head down and had sprinted across the couple of metres to the taxi.

At the multi-storey car park, I had asked the taxi driver to drop me at the exit ramp. Before leaving the taxi, I had scanned the whole area – nothing, and certainly no black BMWs.

Exiting the multi-storey, I had checked for anyone paying attention to me or the car, again, nothing.

Okay, I had not checked the whole of George Street for parked BMWs with occupants. Anyway, I had come in from the Lloyd Street end, turned in a side street so that I was facing the right way
, before parking in front of the apartment block.

If we were being followed, then one option was that Mike had been seen entering my apartment and someone had tailed him over to George Street. The other option was that the location of Markus’s apartment was known or someone had discovered it. I
f Erjon knew of Markus’s apartment; the clever option was to wait until we showed our heads.

Ivonne placed a hand on my knee. I looked at her and she raised an eyebrow.

‘Don’t know,’ I said, not wanting to voice my concerns in front of the girls. I reached over and pointed at the button which controlled the angle of the passenger-side wing mirror.

Ivonne nodded her understanding and adjusted the mirror, enabling her to have a good view of the traffic behind.

A red light brought the cavalcade of vehicles to a stop. I switched on the radio, as much to cover the silence in the car, but also to catch the news when it came up. Would last night’s bomb threat still be an item?

I checked the mirrors; the black car must still be back there, but I couldn’t make it out. Behind us, in the bus lane, were two buses
making their way along and in front, stopped at the light was a third bus.

If we were being followed, then
the pursuit car would have to use the bus lane to shorten the gap.

The light changed to green and we started forward. No black car appeared in the bus lane. That did not assuage my doubts. In fact, I wanted to know, one way or the other, if we were being followed.

Shit, I really was a fool. Last night I had given Mike the tracking phone before he went to my apartment. He’d forgotten to give it back and I’d forgotten to ask for it and since then it had gone out of my mind. Right now it would be pretty damned useful.

I reached into my jacket
and pulled out my phone – I’d bought a cheap black windcheater on my way back from fetching the car in a store which had been open early. I nudged Ivonne and gave her the phone.

‘Phone Mike,’ I said. ‘Just hit the redial. He’s got the tracking phone.’ I checked on the girls; they were sort of watching us, ‘See if he can tell us where you-know-who, is’

Ivonne got hold of Mike on his way to work. Mike had the phone with him – he’d forgotten all about it. Ivonne without mentioning names, asked Mike to locate Erjon. The answer came back that he was in Bedford Street.

‘Tell him,’ I said, ‘where we are, what w
e are doing, where we’re headed and that I’ll phone him as soon as we arrive.’

Whilst Ivonne told Mike our plan, I began, closely, to observe the traffic in an attempt to anticipate when the bus which had been in front of us would make its next stop. It had been making frequent stops with the result that sometimes it had been behind us, only then to whiz up the bus lane overtaking us.

Ivonne finished talking to Mike. The bus, some two hundred metres ahead of us, began to indicate.

‘Ivonne,’ I said, ‘I need to know if I’m right or not. Hold on.’

‘Okay.’

Just after passing the now stationary bus, I dipped into the bus lane, and floored it.

The
gearbox kicked-down into second and with a growl, the car shot forwards. There was a long-clear gap, all the way to the next traffic light, which was green. I kept my foot on the accelerator pedal, the revs hit four thousand, the gearbox slipped into third and the low-down torque shoved the car forwards, the speed racing towards the seventy-miles-per-hour mark.

The girls in the back looked at each, concern on their faces.

The light was still green. I kept my foot down, determined to catch the light. The cars on our right flashed past; the speed now up to eighty.

Two hundred metres to the light – still green. I took my
right foot off the accelerator and simultaneously dumped both feet on to the brake pedal. The ABS juddered through my feet, and the speed dropped, dramatically.

‘What’s happening?’ Maria asked.

‘Not now,’ I said.

We shot through the light, still doing fifty.

That’s when space began to run out. The bus lane had priority, but, we were heading rapidly towards a roundabout with a bus stopped just short of it. The cars in the outer lane were backed up, waiting for the bus to move.

Where was the gap?

I braked, again, and hard. The speed was now down to thirty. The bus indicated. I scanned the traffic behind the bus. Who was daydreaming? The bus moved forward. Got it. A silver Toyota hadn’t reacted fast enough. I did. I shot into the gap in front of the Toyota.

Which way on the roundabout? I decided to
keep heading for the ring road. That meant straight ahead on to Corporation Road.

Only now as we entered the roundabout, did I check my mirrors. There it was stuck at the traffic light, behind us in the bus lane, the unmistakable grill of a black BMW. A look at the tyres – jeez, they were wide. Mentally, I compared the image in the mirror and my memory of the BMWs from last night with a sinking feeling. Either the BMW had been kitted out to look like an M3, or it was the real thing. If it was an M3, then, even my remapped three litre diesel wouldn’t hold it. An M3 had upwards of 400 bhp on tap, that, and racetrack suspension and brakes.

I came out of the roundabout, three cars behind the bus. It was in the inner lane and I was in the outer lane. I willed the cars in front of me to move. I could see the bus lane opening up ahead of us, and I wanted to get in front of the bus and into the bus lane. I hovered inches from the back bumper of a Citroen, frustrated that the driver didn’t get a move on.

I hooted the horn and the Citroen jerked forward, drawing away from the bus. I accelerated past the bus and slotted into the bus lane. Just as I floored it, I heard a concert of horns coming from the roundabout.

Oh shit, that was quick. I checked the mirrors, but my view was blocked. This time I overrode the auto-box, holding second gear manually. A right-hand bend came up rapidly. I had no clear view of what lay beyond the bend, but we were already doing sixty.

Just before entering the bend, I took my foot off the accelerator, allowing the engine braking to slow the car down to fifty. In the curve I acce
lerated. The revs zipped towards the redline. As I turned the steering wheel, I could feel the ASR correcting the back tyres.

The bend opened up. Oh shit – traff
ic light, and red. Instantly, I slammed my left foot on to the brake pedal and planted my right foot on top of my left. With both legs locked straight, and my whole body weight pushing against the brake pedal, the ABS went wild, sending a relentless judder through my feet.

Stopped – wow – on the white line.

I sensed the guy in the Ford Mondeo, next to us, looking at me. I didn’t bother to turn my head. My attention was fixed on my mirrors as I looked back towards the bend, waiting for the M3 to come roaring towards us.