Shattered Dreams (15 page)

“
Let’s go,” he growled, and none too gently shoved Taylor
through the door ahead of him. The warden made a last ditch attempt
to be defiant, and crossed her arms as if to emphasise that she was
determined not to do anything to aid her own downfall, but was
ignored by Harry, who shoved her in front of him in spite of her
bulk.

“
I can take you to her,” a young boy suddenly offered from the
doorway beside them.

Harry
turned to him and nodded his thanks.

“
My name is Zack,” the young lad said, even though nobody had
asked. He threw Taylor a dirty look and cheekily stuck his tongue
out. “She is a harridan, that one. Everyone hates her.”

“
I can see why,” Harry sighed, but didn’t bother to look at
the woman again. “Take me to Tilly, if you would?”

He read
the somewhat hesitant look on the young lad’s face, and a faint
shiver of unease swept through him.

“
What?” He knew the news about her was not good.

“
They haven’t fed her, sir. She has asked to be taken to the
governor again, and
she
didn’t like it,” he declared flatly, and threw
Taylor a hateful glare.

“
So that means she has to starve, does it?” Marcus
growled.

“
It’s not much, sir. The food around here, that is. But you
need it if you are to do the work they tell you to do,” Zack
replied knowledgeably, and nodded to Taylor when he said
‘they’.

Harry
swore. “Harsh is it?”

“
Kills some people,” Zack replied sadly. He stared off into
the distance as though reliving personal experience. The look on
his face warned all of the men from the Star Elite that there was
more to his personal story they had yet to hear, but that would
have to come later. Right now, they had work to do.

“
Take me to her,” Harry urged Zack, and followed the boy
through another hallway.

“
She is with Suzanna. Suzanna hasn’t done anything wrong, but
is on dish duty at the minute, so is in the room next to the
hall.”

They
walked through the corridors, and became increasingly aware of the
curious gazes of several of the residents. They all stepped back as
Taylor passed, as though they were afraid the former warden was
going to lash out at them. However, as soon as the group had moved
several feet away, conversation broke out in their wake.

To
Harry, the noise of that chatter, along with the look of disgust on
Taylor’s face, was incredibly satisfying.

The
deeper into the building they walked, the colder the air became,
until their breaths began to fog out before them, and their fingers
and toes grew numb from cold.

“
Please tell me that people don’t sleep down here,” Harry
growled as he followed Zack down yet another endless corridor, into
what felt like the bowels of Hell.

“
No. The food hall is down here. It is supposed to be a
community hall, but it is only ever used to eat in. Nobody
socialises here, you see. If you are not at work, you eat, and then
have to sit in your room until it is time to come out for
breakfast.”

Harry
shook his head, and wondered how anybody managed to survive a day
in such circumstances, let alone a year, or a lifetime.

“
Where are we?” He growled as they entered yet another
corridor, which seemed to run to a dead end.

“
The sink room,” Mrs Taylor spat. She was clearly most
displeased at being forced to follow them around, but nobody paid
her all that much attention.

Harry
bit back a curse when an elderly woman scurried out into the
hallway before them, saw Mrs Taylor, and froze in horror. The fear
that flooded the woman’s haggard features as soon as she saw the
warden made Harry wonder just what the hell was going on that they
had yet to hear about. By the time he had blinked, the old woman
had disappeared back into the room and closed the door so swiftly,
so silently, that she could have been a ghost.

If he
hadn’t seen what had just happened with his own eyes, Harry would
have believed that he had just imagined it.

He
shared a look with Barnaby, who shook his head in
disbelief.

Suddenly, two young girls, no more than ten, almost bowed as
Mrs Taylor stalked past, and looked about to burst into tears
because they had been caught out in the corridor and not hard at
work. Unable to ignore the opportunity to add to their torment, Mrs
Taylor glared at them.

“
What are you doing out here?” Taylor snarled. “Get back to
work, the pair of you. There is nothing to see here. How dare you
leave your work until you are told? No food for you
tonight.”

Harry
studied the horror on the young girls’ pale faces. They were
already skin and bones, and didn’t look as though they could
withstand another hour without food. He lifted a hand to warn
Taylor to shut up when she opened her mouth to speak.

“
Shut up,” Barnaby growled at her, and moved around so that he
stood in between Taylor and the young girls.

Harry
beckoned the girls closer. “What were you supposed to be
doing?”

The
girls looked at each other. “Scrubbing the floors, sir,” they
chimed.

“
Is it done?”

“
Once sir,” they replied.

“
Quiet!” he bellowed when Taylor opened her mouth
again.

He
turned back to the girls with a dark scowl. “What do you mean,
once?”

He
glanced down at the pristine floor beneath his feet. It looked
perfectly fine to him; freshly scrubbed and spotless.

“
We have to do it three times, sir,” one of the girls
reluctantly admitted. She stared down at her feet morosely, as
though she had done something wrong and knew she was going to get
punished for it.

Harry’s
gaze dropped to their dry, chapped hands and, for a moment, he had
to close his eyes in order to keep his temper under control. When
he did slowly turn around and face Taylor, his gaze was filled with
ruthless menace that made even the defiant warden step back. His
cold eyes met and held Taylor’s while he spoke to the girls in a
voice that was almost too calm; and in stark contrast to the
sinister threat in his eyes.

“
You will eat your dinner tonight girls, and enjoy it. As far
as I can see, the floor is fine and doesn’t need to be done again.
Three times is nothing but slave labour, and completely
unnecessary.”

“
Ignore her,” Marcus added with a nod at Taylor. “Taylor no
longer works here. She is a mite displeased about the fact that she
is no longer in a position to issue anyone with orders, but cannot
do you any harm now. Go and make sure your names are on one of the
lists upstairs, please. Then go and have a chat with your
friends.”

The
girls looked at him in hesitantly for a moment; as though they
couldn’t believe it was true, before they hurried off without a
backward look. The presence of Zack seemed to reassure them that
this wasn’t a hoax, and they were more than happy to comply with
the new set of orders from total strangers; especially if it meant
that Taylor was no longer able to punish them for it.

Harry
pointed one long finger at Taylor. “I am going to ensure that I get
exact details of just what these people have been made to do with
their days. As I see it, there is a very fine line between a poor
house and a slavery encampment. You are in serious trouble for
tormenting these unfortunate souls. I promise you, here and now,
that you will go to jail for it.”

He was
physically trembling with rage by the time he grabbed Mrs Taylor’s
elbow in a fierce grip, and marched her down the rest of the
hallway.

“
Harry,” Barnaby whispered.

Harry
turned around and watched his colleague nod toward a side
room.

“
Stay there,” he growled to Mrs Taylor, and walked back down
the corridor to look at what had captured Barnaby’s
gaze.

It
wasn’t Tilly but, unless he was mistaken, it was another young
woman who looked an awful lot like her. The woman inside the small
side room stood in front of a sink. Beside her sat tower after
tower of plates and bowls, which were stacked as high as she could
reach. She was so engrossed in the laborious task in front of her
that she didn’t appear to have noticed she wasn’t alone
anymore.

Harry
pinned Taylor with a hard stare, and knocked quietly on the door.
He watched as the woman looked horrified for a moment, and froze
mid-scrub before she turned slowly around to face them. There was
such a look of dread on her face that Harry struggled not to go
back out into the corridor, and lambast the hideous warden to
within an inch of her worthless life.

“
Come here,” Harry ordered gently. The woman’s gaze flew from
him, to Barnaby, and then back to him. “It’s alright. Neither of us
will hurt you. I want to ask you a couple of questions.”

“
I -”

“
Shut up,” Barnaby snapped at Taylor, who had moved back down
the hallway so she could see what was happening.

“
What’s your name?” Harry asked the young woman.

“
Suzanna Hastings, sir.” She sidled carefully past them, out
of the room, and almost slumped with relief when she saw Zack in
the corridor.

“
This is Suzanna,” Zack added proudly.

“
Do you hail from Temperley?” Barnaby asked with a
frown.

The look
that flooded the young woman’s face assured them that she did, even
before she spoke. Zack moved forward and gave his friend a hug, and
they stood wrapped in each other’s arms when Suzanna started to
cry.

Barnaby
sighed and shook his head in disbelief. He could only vaguely
remember the case the Star Elite had been forced to shelve, where a
young girl very similar to Tilly, had vanished after taking a post
chaise journey to a new life.

He threw
Harry a look that warned him that they had things to talk about
later, before he turned his attention back to the young
girl.

“
Do you hail from Yorkshire?” Harry demanded.

It was
all a little bizarre to think that the mystery the Star Elite had
been unable to solve had now appeared literally on their doorstep.
What the hell was she doing in Tooting Mallow? How had she got
there? Who had brought her here?

Harry
shared a look with Marcus when Suzanna nodded jerkily, and
hiccupped around a sob.

“
Your father and uncle are waiting for you at home,” Barnaby
declared gently, and watched sympathetically as the woman began to
sob helplessly.

“
I thought I was stuck here forever,” she gasped in a voice
that was thick with tears. “I tried to get out, but cannot afford
to go home. Whenever I asked to be let out, they locked me in rooms
and starved me until I stopped asking. I asked to write to my
father, but they wouldn’t let me do that either.”

Harry
had heard that story before. It seemed to be the way that the
wardens kept control of the residents; apart from issuing threats,
and making sure that they worked until they almost
collapsed.

They
gave Suzanna a few minutes to collect herself before Harry’s
impatience to get to Tilly grew too much to ignore.

“
Right, Suzanna, Zack, you both need to come with us,” Harry
declared firmly. He threw Taylor a dismissive look before he turned
to Suzanna. “Where is Tilly?”

“
Down there,” Suzanna nodded toward a solitary door at the end
of the corridor. “She is scrubbing the floor in the
hall.”

“
Three times over, I suspect,” Harry growled, and cursed when
Suzanna replied honestly.

“
Oh, no sir. Only twice because the hall is so
big.”

“
She exaggerates,” Mrs Taylor snapped in disgust.

“
No, I do not,” Suzanna replied snippily; her tears
momentarily forgotten.

“
We will explain who we are, and what we are doing, later,”
Barnaby assured her. “Right now, you need to come with
us.”

Harry
didn’t bother to wait to make sure that everyone followed him. He
hurried toward the door marked ‘Hall’, with the desperate need to
see Tilly so strong that nothing, and nobody, was going to stand in
his way.

CHAPTER
NINE

Tilly
felt the room swirl again, and swallowed the bile that rose in her
throat. Her stomach roiled alarmingly, but she knew she couldn’t be
sick again because she had eaten nothing at all since lunchtime
yesterday.

It was
confusing because she was ravenous, but then felt that she didn’t
want to eat.

Her hand
trembled as she dipped the wooden scrubbing brush into the frigid
water in the pail beside her. Her hands were raw, red, and had
ached fiercely from the first day she had spent in what she now
knew was the closest thing to living Hell.

Although
she knew she would incur the wrath of Mrs Taylor if she was caught,
she had to take a break for a moment. Her back ached fiercely, and
her shoulders screamed with pain from having to spend hour, upon
hour, hunched over the pail while she scrubbed the already clean
floor.