Blood Money (29 page)

‘We’re not discussing this?’

‘Like I said to Gareth, we haven’t had the chance. When are you ever here to discuss anything? Besides, we’ve been “discussing” moving out of the city for almost a year now and we’re no further forward. If I don’t take this chance soon it’ll be lost.’ Her words rushed out. She was hiding something.

‘I’ve put in for a transfer but nothing has come up.’ Mariner defended himself. ‘These things take time.’

‘Not this much time. You’ve been dragging your heels on this from the beginning because it’s not really what you want, is it? I think it’s time for a fresh start.’

‘I thought that was what this is all about.’

‘No. I mean a real fresh start.’ Her eyes locked on to his.

It took a couple of seconds for the underlying message to hit its target. ‘Without me,’ Mariner said, when finally it did.

‘It’s not the sort of life you really want, is it? You were miserable down there, like a fish out of water.’

‘Because I play dominoes?’

‘You know what I mean. You hardly spoke to anyone that week.’

‘What did you expect? I was knackered after the abduction case and had the trial coming up. I had a lot on my mind.’

‘You always have a lot on your mind.’

‘And Doctor Gareth doesn’t?’

‘Don’t keep calling him that. His name is Gareth. And of course he has a lot on his mind, he’s a GP. It’s just that he knows where to draw the line between work and play. He’s good fun.’

‘Life isn’t always about fun.’ Mariner could feel his defences rising into place.

‘Life is never about fun with you any more.’

Mariner had a sudden recollection of the odd way that she’d had greeted him when he got to the pub in Becky and Mark’s village, and her reluctance to engage in any intimacy with him. Realisation rendered him temporarily speechless. Finally he had to ask: ‘Are you sleeping with him?’ From her avoidance of eye contact he knew immediately that he was right. He waited her out.

‘Once,’ she said, eventually. ‘It was just before you came down for the christening. I hadn’t intended to, it just sort of happened. I’m really sorry, Tom.’ She reached out and touched his arm. ‘It hasn’t happened again, but I want it to. It feels right. I think I’m in love with him.’

‘Bloody hell. This is all pretty sudden isn’t it?’

‘Not really. I’ve always liked Gareth, you know that.’

‘This is about more than liking him. When did it get to be more?’

‘I guess it started to develop back in April if you must know.’

‘After you lost the baby,
our
baby?’ Christ, it was Mariner’s idea that she should go and spend some time with Becky. How stupid was that?

‘Gareth was so sweet. He understood. He had the time to talk to me.’

‘I would have talked to you, but you didn’t want to.’

‘I know. I think it helped that Gareth wasn’t emotionally involved.’

‘It certainly helped him.’

Her eyes flashed. ‘At least this isn’t some sordid little one-night stand.’

Wow. He wasn’t expecting that. ‘Millie? That was years ago, and it was completely different.’ But as he said it he had to question whether it really was.

She gave a weary sigh and took both his hands in hers. ‘Things haven’t been right between us for a long time, have they? Even since before the bombing. I get the idea that you’re only going along with this move to please me, and it should be because it’s what you want too. I think this is better for both of us. In a way I don’t regret that we lost the baby. The time wasn’t right for us and I don’t think it ever will be. I’m sorry. I can’t help the way I feel.’

‘Obviously,’ said Mariner. ‘When are you going?’

‘At the weekend probably. I’ll stay with Becky and Mark until I can find a place. I’ve got to get ready to leave here anyway. The agents will be exchanging contracts in the next couple of weeks, and then I’ve got to move out.’

‘I’ll go and stay at my house tonight.’

She didn’t make any attempt to stop him.

 

On his way over Mariner stopped at the off licence and picked up some bottles of the strongest beer he could find. He felt numb, unable to fully grasp that after all he and Anna had been through during the last year, it wasn’t enough to keep them together. Sitting in an armchair in the lounge, the room around him began to get blurred around the edges. Rubbing a hand over his eyes he found that his face was wet.

Mariner woke up the following morning, still in the armchair surrounded by a collection of empty brown bottles. He had a slight headache and his mouth was dry, but the biggest pain filled up his chest, which felt as if someone had been stamping all over it all night. And as his mind flashed back over the previous evening his eyes began watering again. An hour later he was showered and dressed in time for Charlie Glover to pick him up, but he could tell from Glover’s face that he still looked like shite and he was grateful that Glover didn’t know him well enough to ask what was wrong.

They stopped off at the Daffodil to collect Katarina, with Lorelei as a chaperone, and after initial greetings and light conversation everyone seemed content to sit back and watch the scenery go by, such as it was on the southbound M6. At the Catthorpe interchange Glover took the A14 towards Huntingdon to the immigration compound at Oakington, a fenced-in collection of boxy, temporary-looking buildings that could equally have been a prison complex or a university campus.

After passing through heavy security, Mariner and Glover were taken to a small windowless room to wait, while Lorelei and Katarina went to speak to the other girls. The two men sat for what seemed like an age, watching the wall clock tick slowly round. Glover couldn’t keep still. Half an hour later Katarina reappeared and for a moment Mariner thought they’d had a wasted a journey, until he spied the small, slight figure almost hidden from view behind her. ‘This is Valenka,’ Katarina told them stepping aside. She spoke to the girl in a language that wasn’t English and the girl tentatively reached out to Mariner and passed him a small snapshot. It wasn’t the picture they’d given Katarina, but a real photograph, probably taken on an instant camera, of a young girl cradling a newborn.

‘This is her friend Nadia soon after her baby came,’ Katarina told them, as Mariner and Glover stared down at a snapshot of the girl they’d all come to know as Madeleine. Her hair seemed a little darker than in the reconstruction, but other than that there was no doubt.

‘Jesus, it’s her,’ breathed Glover, his voice cracking.

‘It’s a baby boy?’ Mariner asked.

The girl nodded assent. ‘She called him Nikolai.’

From his pocket Glover retrieved the polythene packet containing a silver crucifix that they had retrieved from Madeleine’s body.

‘Do you recognise this?’ he asked. Valenka nodded miserably in reply.

‘What can she tell us about Nadia?’ Mariner asked, inviting the girls to sit.

Valenka spoke and Katarina translated for her, a strange halting conversation.

‘Nadia was already living in the house when I came here. She was kind to me and we became friends. Nadia was already pregnant then but she hadn’t told anyone. She was afraid because she wanted to keep her baby but she knows that if they find out they will make her get rid of it.’

‘Who’s “they”?’

‘The men who brought her to the house.’

Mariner took out a picture of Alecsander Lucca. ‘Is this one of them?’

It was a moot question. He only had to see the sheer terror on her face. She gabbled something to Katarina, who repeated to Mariner. ‘He’s coming back?’

‘It’s all right,’ said Glover. ‘He’s dead. But so is her friend Nadia.’

At the translation the girl’s eyes widened and she shook her head. Katarina hadn’t told her. ‘No. She went home.’

‘We found her body ten months ago. We recently found the body of her baby.’

The girl took the news with blank resignation, a single tear trailing down her cheek. Suddenly the room felt hot and Mariner’s own eyes filled. ‘What happened when Lucca found out about the baby?’ he asked, getting himself back on track.

‘He says she can keep it if she works until one month before it will be born.’

‘Dear God, she’s eight months pregnant and she’s turning tricks,’ said Glover in disgust.

‘Some men like it,’ said Katarina. It was a simple observation.

‘Where did Nadia have the baby?’

Valenka picked up the story. ‘They take her to another house. I thought they had gone to the hospital, but when she came back she says it was another house. There was - a baby nurse—’ Katarina, translating, groped for the right word.

‘Midwife?’ Glover volunteered. ‘A nurse who delivers babies?’

‘Yes the midwife come. She stay there for a few days and then they take the baby from Nadia. They tell her they will take it back to Albania to be cared for by her family.’

‘Did she see the midwife? Can she tell us what she looked like?’

Valenka shook her head.

‘And afterwards Nadia came back to the house on Foundry Road, the house where we found you?’

‘Yes, but only for two, maybe three days and then she is gone again. I ask where she is and they tell me she goes home to be with her baby. I am surprised because I know that Nadia owes them money for bringing her here, and we are never allowed to go out of the house. And she leave the picture behind.’ Valenka leaned forward and picked up the snapshot. Tears were streaming down her face by now and she brushed them away, murmuring something unintelligible to Glover and Mariner.

‘Did Lucca take Nadia’s baby?’ Mariner asked.

‘No. Lucca bring her to this country. The big man take the baby.’

‘The big man? Does she have a name?’

‘Zjelic, she thinks Zjelic.’

Mariner and Glover exchanged a look. ‘Could it be Zjalic?’ Mariner asked. They had interviewed a Serbian, Goran Zjalic, as part of the murder enquiry at the address where Lucca lived. At the time Zjalic had claimed that he and Lucca just happened to live in the same house and they had no reason to disbelieve him. He was over six feet tall. He was big.

Katarina translated and Valenka nodded miserably. ‘It is maybe him,’ said Katarina.

‘What else does she know about Nadia?’ Glover asked. ‘Another name, her birth date or where she is from? We want to find her family to tell them what has happened.’

Valenka was able to provide them with Nadia’s family name, her age and the name of the town she came from. They hoped it would be enough.

‘Will Valenka make a statement?’

Valenka agreed and Mariner arranged for one of the immigration officers to expedite it.

‘Have you heard of this happening before, a girl being allowed to have her baby?’ Mariner asked Lorelei, as they waited for the two girls to return.

‘Only in isolated cases, and usually it’s by accident. Some of these girls are so young and inexperienced they don’t even know they’re pregnant until they go into labour. They don’t know about contraception and the punters prefer sex without, so their pimps don’t enlighten them and pregnancy is the inevitable result. They’re undernourished anyway so they wouldn’t put on much weight. If they do realise what’s happening, some of the girls get rid of the babies themselves using the crudest of methods, or more commonly their pimps get it done for them.’

‘It’s barbaric. What about antenatal care? Medical care before the baby is born.’

‘There isn’t any. They just see a midwife at the time when the child is born. Often we pick up girls who have been thrown out of the brothel they’re working in and left to fend for themselves on the streets.’

‘And if a baby does go to term, and survives, it is murdered in cold blood like Madeleine’s baby.’

Lorelei was pragmatic. ‘What’s the alternative? The men who run the operations know that most families would reject a child born in these circumstances. It would be much less trouble to just get rid of the child.’

‘But why then kill Nadia too? She could still be useful to them.’

‘Perhaps motherhood gave Nadia a different perspective on her way of life and she didn’t want to give up her baby. The maternal bond is immensely powerful. Maybe she got too difficult to handle, so Zjalic dealt with her and her baby instead. It would be the simplest thing. There are plenty more girls to take her place, they are disposable commodities. ’

‘Or more accurately he had Lucca do some of the dirty work for him,’ Glover reminded him. ‘It was Lucca’s prints all over the tape. We only have Zjalic’s word that the two men didn’t know each other. And the witness who saw someone dumping something in the small hours last November identified a tall man. Zjalic is certainly that.’

‘We need to find Goran Zjalic.’

The drive back to Birmingham was largely a silent one, punctuated by occasional murmured exchanges between Katarina and Lorelei. Mariner and Glover were lost in their own thoughts, the euphoria of identifying Madeleine replaced by the shocking realisation of what her life had been like. They took the two women back to the project hostel. ‘When is Ocean Blue likely to come to trial?’ Lorelei asked Mariner.

‘It could be months, why?’

‘We’re running out of bed space. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep Katarina here. Our beds are in constant demand and she is no longer in immediate danger. It’s getting hard for me to justify her presence.’

‘And if you can’t keep her?’

‘We may have to consider letting her go back to Albania.’

‘What will happen to her if she does?’

‘It’s hard to tell but, to be truthful, the prospects aren’t great. I doubt she’ll be going home to Mum and Dad. My experience is that most of the girls we send back either get caught up in the sex trade in their own country, will get bought again by traffickers or, worse-case scenario, will end up killing themselves. They’ve been through so much that they’re not in a fit mental state to be reintegrated into their families.’