Cold Courage (12 page)

‘So I’ll start with the clubs,’ Lia said.

She would have to invent a cover story, Mari reminded her. Eastern mafia types frequented these places, so marching in and starting to ask questions about dead women wasn’t a good idea. Lia’s appearance clearly showed that she was not a police officer, but she had to have a reason for her questions.

‘What if I were looking for a friend from Latvia?’

‘Too vague. The explanation has to be more specific to be
believable
. They’ll be able to hear from your voice that you aren’t a Brit, so say you’re a Finn. Say maybe that you have a sister or stepsister
who was born in Latvia and is missing, and you’ve heard that she came to London. Do Latvian women come to the club often; does anyone know who you could ask?’

‘What do I say if they ask why my sister hasn’t contacted me?’

‘Because she’s sick. That’s why you’re worried: maybe your sister is so sick that she can’t contact you. But think the story through thoroughly beforehand. You have to believe it too. The sister has to have a name and an age, habits and flaws, and of course you have to know what she looks like. She has to have a fully fledged life in case someone asks something unrelated.’

The enormity of the undertaking began to dawn on Lia.

One thing did feel like a stroke of luck amidst it all though: Lia’s work leave was starting. She had arranged to begin her three-week holiday at the end of September, and hadn’t had time to think much about what she would do. Visiting Finland held little appeal. Now she could concentrate on her search for the Latvian woman.

‘Don’t use your whole vac now,’ Mari suggested.

‘Why not? Right now is when I need the time.’

She should perhaps take one week off now for this, Mari explained. The rest of her holiday allowance she would do best to store up.

‘If you start getting somewhere with your investigation, time will be the thing you need the most.’

At first this idea was difficult for Lia to get her head around, but after considering it for a moment, she saw the upside.

Maybe I should start demanding more at
Level
instead of just waiting for what they’re going to say.

‘Do you want Paddy or someone else as a minder at the clubs?’ Mari asked. ‘I know good people in that line of work.’

‘Thanks, but I have no intention of getting myself into a situation in which I would need a bodyguard.’

Later that evening in Hampstead, Lia was finding it hard to fall asleep. She had spent a good hour out jogging, but that had done nothing to calm her down.

Deciding to go back out for a walk, she stepped into the
churchyard
. Security cameras kept watch over the area, Lia knew, but she
had always assumed she could walk there freely whenever she wished. A young woman strolling calmly through the church grounds has never set off any alarms.

Kidderpore Avenue, her home street, was like that. Most of the buildings in the area were either large houses or old, beautiful edifices housing schools and businesses. The residents were
predominantly
families who had lived there for years, students and cultural types. A small oasis of peace and quiet amid the hubbub of London.

Lia gazed at the familiar statues. St Luke and Poundy the Dog, which she could see from her own window, and, further off, the composer Edward Elgar and his wife, the author Caroline Alice Elgar. Lia sat down on Florence Nightingale’s plinth, which was only just wide enough.

What am I doing? Visiting the police and prying into a murder investigation. Staying up at night reading news articles to catch a smug politician up to no good. Cooking up a cover story about a sister in Latvia I don’t have.

I’m not the person I used to be.

The Studio felt familiar to her now, no longer like an
extraordinary
or special place. Coming and going freely, she knew the details of every room, like the paintings on Mari’s walls and the way the sunlight moved across the spaces.

She knew the care with which Berg built his projects in the Den and how deliberately he tidied up. Once he had arranged the chips that flew off while he was planing wood into small, artistic
ornamental
piles. Just the sounds of machines echoing from the Den made Lia think of Berg grinning in his overalls.

My peculiar home away from home.

Rising, Lia gingerly touched the cold surface of the statue. She liked how the marble was always hard and soft all at once.

Mari sits in her office at the Studio reading the news on her computer screen. After reviewing all the headlines, she goes back and rereads the information Maggie has unearthed about the Baltic shops and nightclubs in London that Lia intends to visit.

She thinks of the Eastern European population of London, its customs and sense of humour, the unemployment and jobs and the unspoken dreams that brought these people here.

Lia will fit in well with the Russians and Poles and Balts at the clubs – in that crowd in this city, a Finn wouldn’t stand out much at all.

And Lia will manage.

Mari likes the change visiting the Studio has brought about in Lia and done for their friendship. Lia still is not committed to the Studio emotionally, but she doesn’t need to be. That will come in time.

Mari knows how it will happen. That was why she planned
carefully
how and when Lia would meet each person there.

Maggie and Berg, charming and safe. Lia got to know them first. Thinking of them, Mari feels a surge of joy. Her cornerstones.

And Rico and Paddy, whom she allowed Lia to meet gradually – weapons she couldn’t parade around until a person was used to their presence. Just a little more time and Lia would stop thinking of them and their skills as anything remarkable.

They all have their reasons for being here. Over the years, Mari has done a favour for each of them: Rico, Maggie, Berg, Paddy and now Lia. Each of them has been the subject of one of her operations in his or her own time. She helped them, asking nothing in return, giving each space to receive the gift. She allowed each of them to see the effect of the assistance they received and decide for themselves what they thought. Perhaps they are repaying her by giving
something
back.

Instead of being beholden, they are simply more satisfied with their lives.

Changing as a person and finding a community you want to work in creates a bond stronger than most.

Mari has chosen them well. With each of them, it began slowly. When she heard about Lia, she knew it was more than a
coincidence
. Out of all the Finnish women living in London, Lia was the one whose background had placed her in Mari’s path.

Mari has learned to trust her instincts. That was how she chose Rico out of a room of hackers and Maggie from a small London stage where she was brilliantly screaming a Greek tragedy.

Once at the Studio, Maggie mentioned her acquaintance Berg and his staging skills, and Mari knew that she wanted to meet him. Paddy she encountered in a bar. On the surface she could see his gambling debts and prison background, as well as the warmth that would gradually develop between them.

There are things that Mari doesn’t tell any of them. Rico knows the most – he was the one Mari sought out first and his are the skills she calls on most frequently. But even Rico doesn’t know everything.

And Lia knows least of all. But the trust between them will grow to become something different from that with the others.

Lia sees herself as introverted, even a bit lost. In reality she is strong and capable. She has achieved a promising position in the London journalism scene, no small accomplishment for a young foreign female. But she keeps her world small, living alone in her tiny apartment and falling into a rut doing the same things every day. Because her Finnish background is what it is.

Lia is becoming strong. She just needs time, time to do things and time to learn. That Lia is worth it, Mari knows.

Flash Forward was not a place Lia would normally have chosen to spend an evening. Everything was harsh: the sounds, the lights, the colours, the people’s eyes.

A brazen pickup joint. There was something ironic about it: Lia had been prowling the London nightlife circuit for men for years, but here she felt like a kitten by comparison.

She was looking for information, not company, and she worried it was too obvious. She was also dressed entirely too conservatively.

By ten o’clock, at least two hundred people had filled the club, more than half of them male and all of them wearing suits. Unlike the British men in the clubs that Lia went to, these men could wear bright white, red or even green suits with complete nonchalance.

The women were something else again. Not since the parties of the 1980s had Lia seen such a parade of iridescent fabrics and gaudy jewellery. The make-up was garish and hours had gone into each coiffure. Lia had guessed that glitz might come with the territory and had donned a blue top with demurely sparkling stripes, but in this company her sequins were like dying embers surrounded by raging wildfire.

Flash Forward was the playground of London’s Eastern European community. Standard music ranging from Madonna to U2 set the tempo for the game in the early evening, but Lia knew that as the night progressed the music would switch to hard dance beats. Maggie had said as much as she described this and all the other Eastern European haunts.

What Maggie had unfortunately failed to factor in was how Lia could afford to drink for the whole night. She ordered a coke for almost £5. Bottles of champagne and flamboyant mixed drink concoctions flowed across the bar. The patrons were doing well for themselves, or at least they were prepared to pay to have a good time.

Lia looked around and tried to determine whether any prostitutes were present. She guessed that a couple of the women must be, based on how they approached a group of men, but whether there were more was impossible to say.

She had spent the last few days reading up on Eastern European human trafficking. Estimates indicated that prostitutes from these areas were particularly prevalent in Britain and Germany, and hundreds of women were thought to leave Latvia alone for other parts of the world to work in the sex trade every year. But no precise figures were available for obvious reasons.

Media coverage had perhaps exaggerated the scale of the problem. Exposés of human trafficking in Britain claimed that thousands of women and young girls had fallen victim to forced prostitution. However, academic and government research showed far fewer cases coming to the attention of police investigators. Dozens, perhaps hundreds. Only a few human trafficking cases had actually ended up in the courts. How much prostitution and human trafficking remained undetected was impossible to know, but no one could deny that it was a serious problem.

Lia had found two reports that focused on Latvian prostitutes. For a small country, prostitution there seemed surprisingly
prevalent
. Selling sex was not illegal in Latvia, and some researchers claimed that the shame associated with it was less than in many other nations. Some even referred to Riga as the Bangkok of the Baltic. This was a crude comparison but not completely inaccurate. Due to the weakness of the Latvian economy, some women
considered
prostitution their best way to achieve a more comfortable life.

Perhaps we Finnish women live in a bubble of equality. We can afford to be horrified by prostitution. Our standard of living protects us. And the illusion that we possess a morality they
supposedly
lack.

As she did the rounds of Flash Forward, Lia realised that if there were prostitutes present, considering notions of morality or the lack of them was the wrong way to approach the situation.

This is about money. And desire, the fulfilment of desire.

After a while, just waiting around started to get on her nerves. Approaching the bar, Lia made eye contact with the barman.

‘I need something fun,’ Lia said.

In his bow tie, the man smiled.

A moment later, he returned with an enormous drink containing three bright, plastic female figures with flashing lights inside.

‘The Lovelight, eighteen pounds.’

Lia gave the barman her credit card and tasted the drink. With a considerable alcohol content, its effects were rapid. The Robbie Williams echoing from the loudspeakers started sounding more fun, and Lia began noticing the men whose glances brushed over her.

A few minutes later, one appeared at her side.

‘You look like a woman who knows how to have a good time.’

Aljoša was from Russia and had a strong accent.

‘You can call me Al,’ he said.

Lia laughed. ‘Like the Paul Simon song.’

‘Huh? Who?’

‘No one. Where are you from in Russia? I’m from right next door in Finland.’

By half past eleven, Lia had collected four business cards, accepted three drinks and laughed a lot.

Aljoša had turned out to be a salesman with a loud, brash streak who wanted to show off his dance moves. With his help, Lia had met two parties of Russians and one of Estonians, but no one seemed to know any Latvians or where to ask about women from Latvia. Her cover story had worked brilliantly – a search for a sister seemed to be sufficiently personal and serious that no one asked any questions.

Lia decided to try the same barman again.

‘I’m looking for a Latvian woman who lived around here. Do Latvians come to the club often?’

The barman’s eyebrow went up.

‘Latvia? I don’t think so.’

Lia motioned to the barman to lean in closer.

Offering the man a folded twenty-pound note, she asked, ‘And Latvian prostitutes? Are there any here tonight?’

The barman laughed and took the banknote.

‘Everyone here!’ he said, spreading his arms at the crowd.

Lia cast him a sharp glance.

‘Don’t fool around. I have an important reason for asking.’

The barman slipped the note into his pocket and then looked around until he found the person he was looking for.

‘She knows,’ the barman said, motioning towards a tall woman with red hair.

Lia thanked him and moved aside.

The red-haired woman was dressed conservatively given the surroundings: black leather boots, black skirt and a red frilly blouse. Her party consisted of two other women and one man.

Lia noticed that the man was not participating in their
conversation
. With dark hair and dressed in a black suit, he appeared to be there for reasons other than carousing.

If they are prostitutes, he’s their protector. Or pimp. Neither is good.

Lia couldn’t think of a natural way to approach them. Aljoša was waving to her to rejoin him on the dance floor, but Lia only blew him kisses.

About ten minutes later, the women set off towards the toilet in a group. The man stayed put.

Lia hurried after them. There was a long queue outside the women’s loos, and as Lia arrived, the red-headed woman and her friends were just turning back.

Now. Come right out with it.

‘Hi, my name is Lia. May I ask you a question?’

The redhead smiled, surprised but friendly.

‘Of course. What do you need?’

‘This is my first time here. I’m looking for my sister. She used to live in Latvia, but now she’s here in London. Do you happen to know any Latvian girls here?’

‘I don’t think so,’ the woman replied suspiciously. ‘My family is from Latvia, but I’m British now.’

‘Could we talk for moment? I could offer you a drink.’

‘I don’t think so,’ the woman repeated. ‘A lot of Latvian women live in London. I don’t know if they come here.’

The woman said something to her girlfriends in Russian, which Lia guessed probably meant something along the lines of: ‘Crazy bitch. Let’s go.’

The trio began to leave, but the redhead still said, ‘I’m sorry. I hope you find your sister.’

‘As a matter of fact, I think she’s in trouble, and I need some advice.’

This piqued the woman’s interest.

‘What trouble? What kind of advice?’

‘I don’t quite know,’ Lia said. ‘I think she’s been working in a business where a woman can get into trouble… with clients or the boss.’

The red-headed woman’s gaze hardened.

‘Please. This will only take a minute,’ Lia continued hastily. ‘Sisters have to stick together.’

‘Of course…’

Lia looked at the woman pleadingly.

‘There are a lot of Latvian women in London. In that business where you can get into trouble,’ the woman said. ‘But they always have a boss who handles their problems. I don’t know any Latvian girls who work alone. I doubt there are any. So if your sister is here, her boss will help her. Goodbye.’

Turning, the woman walked away, followed by her friends.

Needing a moment to gather herself, Lia stayed in the toilet queue. She knew that nothing the woman had said gave her any new leads.

It was only midnight. She still had time. She just had to work out how to proceed.

Lia peered back out towards the dance floor and bar. The
red-headed
woman and her girlfriends were huddled together, talking intimately and glancing in Lia’s direction. Their male companion was gone.

Then Lia noticed him barging his way through the dancing crowd directly towards her, accompanied by another, younger man. Bald and muscled, the second man stared her straight in the eyes.

Fear swept over Lia. She retreated back to the queue.

The men would reach her any moment. She had to get away, anywhere.

Jumping the queue, Lia stepped towards the toilet holding her stomach and repeating, ‘Excuse me, excuse me! Emergency!’

Irritated exclamations followed her, but Lia was already inside. The room was so full that there was barely space to move.

She looked around. No way out but back through the club. On a side wall were two small windows, but metal grilles were visible
behind the frosted glass. Going that way without attracting
attention
was impossible.

Outside it was cold, and Lia’s coat was hanging in the
cloakroom
.

She could ring Mari. But whatever Mari came up with would take time. Lia just wanted out. The crush in the toilet was stifling.

She had to appeal to female solidarity. She glanced at the women standing by the mirrors.

That sporty blonde looks like she doesn’t take any nonsense from men.

Lia sidled up to the woman.

‘Excuse me. I’m so sorry, but I have a problem,’ Lia said in a low voice. ‘There’s a man out there who’s been bothering me. I’m afraid to go back out. I think he’s going to try to force me to go with him or something.’

‘That’s outrageous,’ the woman exclaimed.

She looked at Lia appraisingly.

‘Can I help? Shall I call the police or the bouncers?’

‘I don’t want anything like that unless he gets aggressive. But could you leave with me? I just want to get out. Just walk me to the door. Then he won’t dare try anything.’

After hesitating for a moment, the woman made her decision.

‘Of course.’

Taking Lia by the arm, she squeezed reassuringly. Lia smiled quickly, and they began moving towards the toilets’ door, arm in arm.

Lia caught her breath as the door opened: the dark-haired man and his bald partner were right there waiting.

‘That one, in the dark suit,’ Lia whispered.

‘Right,’ the woman said, holding her tightly by the arm and glaring at the man. Pressed against each other, they set off through the nightclub.

In order to reach the exit, they had to force their way through the mass of dancing people. Lia tried to keep her eyes down and move as quickly as she could. The woman understood from her grip that now they just had to move.

At that moment, Lia was yanked back, her left arm feeling as though it might be torn from its socket.

Lia cried out in agony and tried to break free from the man in the dark suit who was dragging her aside. The blonde woman Lia had been walking with stared on in shock.

Lia screamed.

‘Help! Rape!’ she shrieked, her voice cutting through the din of the club. The people around them came to an abrupt stop, as if they had been struck.

‘Help! Someone help!’ the blonde woman shouted.

With that, the man in the dark suit released Lia’s arm and left, quickly melting into the crowd. The bald man was nowhere to be seen.

Lia held her arm, which was numb and possibly dislocated. Her whole body tingled with shock and pain.

‘Out. I have to get out,’ Lia said to the blonde woman.

Lia could see the fear in the blonde woman’s face, but she still came to Lia’s aid and made a path for them by waving the dancers away. The crowd parted instinctively. In a moment, Lia was at the cloakroom with her escort.

She realised she was gasping, as if the jerk backwards had knocked all the wind out of her lungs. Lia handed the woman her handbag.

‘My coat,’ Lia managed to say, and the woman dug Lia’s ticket out of her bag.

Noticing that something unusual was afoot, the attendant eyed them.

‘Is anything the matter?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Lia said quickly. ‘No, there isn’t.’

With some effort she managed to get her coat over her shoulders. Her left arm was too sore to put the coat on properly.

‘Thanks,’ Lia said to the blonde woman. ‘What a dreadful night.’

‘That was just awful,’ the woman agreed. ‘You will notify the police, won’t you? There were a lot of people there who saw that man and what he did to you.’

‘Yes, thanks. Of course I will.’

As she stepped out into the air, she felt her legs wobbling.

On the street, Lia had to stop and brace herself against a wall. She had to catch her breath. Despite her idiotic attempt to the contrary, she was still alive and in one piece.

Perkele!
What a stupid Finnish girl! Now there’s another perfect Finnish word.