A Place Of Safety (24 page)

‘Take it or leave it.’ Mark sniffed. ‘The
Sun
will give me double that.’

She thought quickly. Steve would never give her the money but then again, if the story was good enough, maybe she wouldn’t give it to Steve. Maybe she could freelance it.

‘Well?’ asked Mark.

‘Done,’ she said. ‘But this is an exclusive.’

He put his hand on her thigh. It felt clammy through her fishnets. ‘Maybe this could be the start of something regular.’

She put her hand over his. ‘Tell me what you’ve got.’

He looked around as if checking no one was listening.

‘She ain’t who she says she is.’

‘What?’

‘They’ve checked the DNA and everything. She’s been using a false ID.’

Alexia was bowled over. She hadn’t seen this coming. ‘So who is she?’

Mark shrugged. ‘She ain’t telling.’

Lilly’s mind was a blur. She couldn’t get it straight. Anna wasn’t from Kosovo. Anna wasn’t an asylum seeker. Anna wasn’t Anna.

‘Let’s walk,’ said Milo, and led her outside.

The streets, restaurants and shops were teeming with life and noise, but Lilly felt as though she were viewing it all from the wrong end of a telescope. St Paul’s was a mere speck on the horizon.

‘Where did they take her?’ Milo asked.

Suddenly the world changed perspective and the cathedral loomed in front of them, obliterating the sky.

‘Prison,’ Lilly muttered.

Her last client to be sent down had been a fourteen-year-old girl. With her mother dead, she was alone in the world and Lilly had fought like a cat for her. Until moments ago she’d felt the same about Anna.

‘How could she do it?’ asked Lilly.

‘We don’t know how desperate she was,’ said Milo.

They walked without thinking past the cathedral and into the gardens where a group of nuns were eating sandwiches and taking photos in the crisp November day.

‘I didn’t suspect for a moment,’ said Lilly. ‘I just took her at her word.’

Milo stepped around one of the sisters who was taking a photograph but Lilly stood directly in the shot. ‘We all just accepted everything she told us,’ said Lilly.

Milo pulled Lilly to one side and looked at her. Something in his eyes brought Lilly up short.

‘You knew?’

He shrugged. ‘Not exactly.’

‘But you suspected?’

He shrugged again and turned.

Lilly caught his arm. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

The nuns looked up from their wholemeal rolls and frowned.

‘She’s made a fucking idiot out of me,’ Lilly hissed. ‘And you let her.’

‘This is a place of God,’ said the nun, waving her Olympus 9000. ‘Please don’t use profanities.’

Milo waved an apology. ‘Maybe Anna didn’t run away from the Serbs, but she was running away from something.’

‘A parking ticket, probably,’ said Lilly.

Milo shook his head. ‘She left everything and everybody behind. This is more serious than a parking ticket.’

Lilly squeezed her eyes closed. Milo was right. Of course he was. People didn’t just up sticks and take on false identities unless something was very wrong.

Her phone beeped. It was a text from Rupes.

How did things go in court?

Lilly sighed. Her boss was going to hit the roof.

Alexia felt uneasy about what she had set in motion.

After she’d left Mark with promises of money and sex, she knew she was on to something. The story was a good one, but Alexia had not lived so many long years with her father without knowing that you could never be complacent. When the going was smooth you didn’t lie back and pour a margarita, you worked harder, pushed harder.

The story was a good one, but she would make it a great one.

Sitting here now, in the thick of Blood River’s hatred, she wondered if she had made the right choice. Alexia knew she was playing with fire and was anxious that it wasn’t her who would get burned.

She had told him the news. The girl was a fake.

He had reacted calmly and asked her to meet him in the Turk’s Head.

‘I’m sure you’ll agree that the time for words is over,’ he said.

‘What do you have in mind?’ Alexia asked. ‘A demonstration?’

Blood River gave a cold smile and pulled out his phone.

‘Some of our brothers have it in hand.’

He dialled and laid his mobile on the table. It was an iPhone. Whoever was at the other end was filming a street in Harpenden.

‘Oh, Rupes, I’m so sorry,’ said Lilly. ‘I begged you to let me keep Anna’s case, and look where it’s got us.’

She watched her boss calmly packing away her things. Lilly sometimes swept the day’s detritus into her desk drawer but, more often than not, left everything exactly where it was. If she was out of the office for a few days, the half-eaten apples, sandwich crusts and cold cups of tea would begin to decompose and she would return to a scene out of
Great Expectations.

‘What I don’t understand,’ said Rupinder, ‘is how she thought she could get away with it?’ She poured the remainder of her Evian into the small vase of white roses that her husband sent every week. ‘She must have known someone would find out eventually.’

Milo’s words came back to Lilly ‘Maybe she was desperate.’

Rupinder pushed in her chair and put on her coat. ‘How long have you got to sort this out?’ she asked.

‘The judge gave me a week.’

‘Better get on with it then.’

They locked up and went out into the street, where it was already dark. The November rain was lashing down in harsh, stinging strips. Naturally, Rupes had an umbrella. Naturally, Lilly did not.

‘I’ll walk you to your car,’ said Rupinder.

The streets were fairly empty, the few pedestrians marching purposefully with their heads down. Maybe that was why Lilly heard the men.

From the small screen on the phone Alexia could see two women huddled together. About twenty feet behind them were two men, one small, one huge. Alexia recognised the unmistakable bulk of Bigsy.

‘What are they doing?’ asked Alexia.

‘Watch,’ said Blood River.

‘They’re not going to hurt them, are they?’ Alexia’s voice was shrill.

Blood River responded with low menace. ‘I told you to watch.’

Lilly unlocked her car and pecked Rupes on the cheek.

‘Why can’t you take on some nice conveyancing, Lilly?’

Lilly smiled but she didn’t reply. She was watching three men over her boss’s shoulder. Two of them stood together, seemingly oblivious to the downpour. The third was holding something in front of him. A phone?

‘Let me give you a lift home,’ said Lilly.

‘I’m tempted, but this is the only exercise I get.’ Rupes patted her bottom.

Lilly nodded her head at the men. ‘I don’t like the look of that lot.’

‘Oh, Lilly,’ Rupinder laughed, ‘you spend too much time in Luton.’

‘So what’s the one at the back doing?’

‘I don’t know. Trying to get a signal?’ She pushed Lilly into her car. ‘This is Harpenden. Nothing exciting ever happens here.’

Lilly started the engine. Rupinder was right. The events of today had unsettled her, making her see trouble where there was none.

She pulled out and waved at her boss as she passed.

When she got to the junction she checked her rear-view mirror. There was Rupes walking along. There were the men behind her. Were they getting closer?

Lilly adjusted the mirror. It was dark and wet, difficult to make out. They were definitely getting closer.

In seconds they were right behind Rupes. On her heels. She turned towards them.

Alexia couldn’t breathe. She was horrified. Terrified.

‘I would never have told you if I’d thought…’

Blood River held her chin, his eyes glittering. ‘Just do your job.’ He turned her face to the screen.

The image was grainy but she could see perfectly well as Bigsy raised his fist and punched the Indian woman in the face.

Lilly was out of her car before the second blow. She left the engine on, the door open, and raced towards Rupinder.

She could hear screaming. Her own? Rupes’s?

Rupinder fell to the floor among the puddles, her sari splattered in mud and dirty water. The smaller man pulled back his foot and kicked her. Lilly heard the sound as it connected with Rupinder’s head. A wet thump. A guttural groan.

‘Shit-eating Paki,’ he shouted, and pulled back for another kick.

Lilly closed the gap and leapt at the man.

‘What the fuck?’ He spun around, Lilly attached to his back. She clawed his face, feeling her nails tear his skin.

‘Get her off me,’ he screamed.

The bigger man grabbed at Lilly’s leg but she punched away his hand. He roared at her, took hold of a handful of her hair and pulled. She was propelled backwards, clattering to the ground.

With his hand still entangled in her hair, he banged her head back hard against the concrete. The shockwave raced through her body. Her vision filled with points of light.

He lifted her head for a second time and Lilly braced herself for the slam.

‘I’ve called the police,’ she shouted. ‘They’ll be here any second.’

The man stopped in his tracks and looked at his companions. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

She was bleeding.

Even in the half-world of the iPhone, Alexia could see blood pooling under the Asian woman’s head.

She was perfectly still, her neck at a strange angle.

The other woman was by her side, screaming directly into the camera, her face contorted. It was Valentine.

‘You fucking scum.’ Spit flew from her lips. ‘You fucking animals.’

The screen went blank.

There seemed to be a vacuum of silence as if the very air had been sucked away. Alexia felt the weight of it on all sides, pressing down on her. Blood River had misjudged the situation. This time he had gone too far. Maybe he had no idea that his men would do such a horrible thing.

He turned to her slowly and whispered in her ear.

‘You got exactly what you wanted. Now write the fucking story’

Chapter Nineteen

The back of the van stinks of sweat and stale tobacco. Luke doesn’t care. He squeezes into the far corner—happy to have been picked for another day’s work.

The Ukrainian nods his head in acknowledgement and Luke smiles back. The journey is hot and cramped. At least fifteen of them are crammed in, squatting on the floor. Luke imagines how horrified his mother would be. She doesn’t even let him sit in the front seat because she read some article about air bags setting on fire.

The men chat quietly. Though Luke can’t understand what they say he can tell by their glances in his direction that he is the main topic of conversation.

‘They want to know why you’re doing this,’ says the Ukrainian.

Luke shrugs. ‘I need the money.’

The Ukrainian translates to an eruption of laughter.

‘They mean this type of work.’ The Ukrainian smiles. ‘Why not do with papers?’

Luke closes his eyes. He can’t explain that he’s wanted for rape. That he’ll be arrested on the spot if he does anything official.

‘It’s complicated,’ he says.

The Ukrainian nods. ‘Life is always complicated.’

Luke keeps his eyes tight shut. Sometimes his situation makes his head feel like it might explode. Sometimes he’s wondered if he’ll just go mad. He’s seen plenty of people on the street who’ve totally lost their grip on reality. They lurch about, deep in conversation with unseen demons. A year ago Luke might have laughed at them; now he wonders if he’ll end up the same way.

‘You haven’t time for a meltdown, soft lad,’ says Caz. ‘Not now you’re a wage slave.’

‘You won’t take the piss when I get us somewhere to live,’ says Luke.

Caz cocks her head to one side like a tiny bird. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.’

And it’s true. Exams, footie matches, arguments with his mum, they all seem trivial now.

‘I’m going to take care of you,’ he says.

‘I can take care of myself,’ she replies. ‘I’ve been doing it since I could walk.’

Luke kisses her gently on the cheek. ‘Now it’s my turn.’

The van comes to an abrupt stop and Luke is propelled into the Ukrainian’s lap. The doors are thrown wide and Luke tries to untangle himself.

The Ukrainian clambers outside and groans.

‘What’s up?’ asks Luke.

The Ukrainian points to the grey building belching smog from a handful of chimneys.

‘Fish factory.’

Luke breathes in the stench of dead prawns and smiles. He’s on a mission.

‘You’ve got a bleeding nerve.’

Lilly exhaled loudly. She’d been at Luton General most of the night, pacing the corridors while her boss had emergency surgery. Rupinder’s husband, Raj, had finally convinced her to go home at four, but she’d come straight back after Sam had left for school. She was exhausted. Her scalp screamed where her hair had been wrenched. She just didn’t have the energy to deal with Sheila.

Ignore her. Ignore her.

‘I said you’ve got a bleeding nerve.’

Lilly walked slowly around the irate secretary and made for the ward sister’s desk.

‘Can I have an update on Rupinder Singh?’ she asked the nurse.

‘Are you a relative?’

‘No, she ain’t,’ Sheila shouted.

Lilly sighed. ‘I came in with her yesterday evening.’

‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ said the nurse, and disappeared into the office behind.

Sheila pressed in against Lilly, wobbling on unsteady heels. ‘I hope you’re pleased with yourself.’

‘One of my closest friends is critically ill and I had the shit kicked out of me,’ said Lilly. ‘Out of interest, why do you think I’d be pleased?’

‘This is your doing, this is.’ Sheila spread an arm around the ward as if Lilly had personally caused the accident of every patient in there. ‘This is all your fault.’

Ignore her. Ignore her.

‘I warned you this would happen,’ Sheila snorted. ‘I told you that we shouldn’t take on that bleeding case.’

‘We don’t know that this has got anything to do with Anna.’

Sheila threw back her head and laughed. The sound was hollow.

‘That’s what you said about the letter. Then you said it again about the graffiti.’

It was true. Despite niggling doubts, Lilly had denied a link. She hadn’t wanted to believe there was one.

‘I didn’t think we were in any danger.’

Sheila shook her head. ‘You didn’t bleedin’ care.’

Lilly opened her mouth to object, but the nurse returned.

‘Mrs Singh is still in theatre,’ said the nurse. ‘Perhaps you could come back in an hour.’

Lilly nodded and shuffled to a row of chairs. Sheila hovered over her, every muscle in her body rippling with anger.

‘And what are these nutters going to do next?’

Lilly put her head in her hands. She felt crystalline, as if she might shatter at the slightest touch.

‘What are they going to do when they find out the little cow has been lying all along?’ Sheila persisted.

‘It’s confidential,’ said Lilly.

‘No, it bleeding ain’t,’ roared Sheila, and threw a copy of the
Daily Mail
onto Lilly’s lap.

The woman couldn’t resist being the bearer, or more accurately hurler, of bad news.

Lilly read the headline.