The Driver (3 page)

They had all gone now and the car park was deserted, leaving Katya with nothing more to watch. Not that she had seen all that much anyway, because it was difficult to see detail through the metal grilles that Eddie had fitted to the insides of the windows. She didn’t know if he’d done this to keep anyone from seeing in or to stop the girls from flinging themselves out, but either way it really heightened the sensation of being in a prison. That, and the front door, which was so secure that it would be impossible for anyone to save them if there was a fire and Eddie wasn’t on hand to let them out.

Katya jumped when she heard a bang out in the corridor and rushed to put the chair back under the table, scared that it might be Eddie on his way in. If he realised what she’d been doing he’d be bound to think she had been signalling to somebody and then he would cover the windows completely, leaving them in absolute darkness.

She was nervous now, and when she was nervous she got clumsy. Banging into the corner of the table, she bit her lip to keep the cry of pain inside and lifted her skirt to examine her already bruised thigh. Eddie had kicked her so hard this morning he’d left the imprint of his trainer behind and the pattern of its tread stood out in white welts against the purpling background. It looked bad and felt worse, but at least he’d only kicked her. Poor Hanna had been kicked
and
punched for daring to come back with just forty pounds.

The other girls were in their beds in the next room. They had fallen asleep as easily as they always did, exhausted by the events of the night they had just survived – and in need of regeneration for the new one they would be facing in a few short hours. Katya envied them their ability to switch off so completely but her own eyes had refused to stay shut when she’d closed them. And while she would usually have lain there until sleep came, her mind was too unsettled today.

Giving up after a while, she’d got up to wander around the flat, her head full of thoughts that she didn’t want to think: fading memories of a better life in a better place that hurt almost as much as the reality she found herself in. Katya had tried to distract herself by watching people go about their business on the outside but that had made it worse, because they were free and she was not. She was a slave to the horrible man who had brought them here and put them to work on the streets, on the understanding that they could leave as soon as they had paid him back what they owed.

But how could they ever pay him back when half of whatever they earned went towards paying off the interest he’d heaped on, and the other half was classed as rent for this place?

Rent!

As if staying here was a voluntary arrangement; as if they were tenants, not prisoners, and Eddie was a landlord, not a vicious pimp.

This was not the life that she and the others had imagined they would be living when they came here, and she totally understood why Hanna was falling apart. And even, to a degree, why Tasha had allowed it to embitter her so. But Katya refused to allow her own spirit to be crushed. Her parents would be worried sick by now, wondering why she hadn’t been in touch. And if the price of eventually being free to see them again was to do things that made her feel dirty and ashamed, then she would just have to be strong and get on with it.

4

The flat was smaller than Joe had initially thought so it felt cramped once all his stuff was in, even though he’d tried to keep things to a bare minimum. There was also a smell of damp that wouldn’t shift no matter how much bleach and air-freshener he used; and the single-glazed windows let all the heat out and all the noise in, so he couldn’t escape the thunder of traffic on the flyover.

Or the voices of anyone walking by down below . . . or the arguments that frequently kicked off in the surrounding flats . . . or the music that seemed to be blasting out from all sides day and night.

Joe didn’t actually mind the noise because at least it broke up the feeling of solitude that came with being the new kid on the block. It was taking far longer to meet anybody here than in any of the other places he’d lived. He’d hear the other residents chatting in the corridors and knocking at each other’s doors, but whenever he rushed out to introduce himself they had usually vanished. And those that he
did
manage to bump into were invariably rushing to or from somewhere, so he didn’t get a chance to say anything more than hello as they whizzed past.

It seemed like Phillip Kettler was the only one who wanted to get to know him, and in the two weeks since Joe had moved in there hadn’t been a single day that he hadn’t come knocking with one excuse or another. But after the first couple of times Joe had stopped answering because the man made his skin crawl. And it wasn’t just the fact that he was a racist, which was bad enough, but his habit of staring you in the eye long after you’d stopped talking, when any normal person would have felt awkward and said their goodbyes. That was just plain weird and Joe couldn’t be doing with it.

Now that he’d explored all the local shops and checked out a couple of pubs, only to find that it was crap without someone to share a pint and a laugh with, the boredom was crashing in on Joe. So when Cheryl called round out of the blue one morning, panicking about a leak in her kitchen, he couldn’t get out of his door fast enough.

‘I’m sorry to bother you with this,’ she apologised, rushing down the stairs ahead of him because the lift had broken down. ‘But the council won’t touch it if it isn’t pipework, and there’s no way I can afford a plumber. I’d usually ask Fred next door but he’s at his daughter’s this week. And my friend Mel’s boyfriend got arrested last night, so he couldn’t do it. You’ve seen her, haven’t you?’ Pausing, Cheryl slotted the key into the lock and looked back at him over her shoulder. ‘Lives opposite you, long black hair? It was her who suggested I ask you, actually. Hope you don’t mind?’

‘Course not,’ Joe said, wondering how women managed to talk so fast without fainting. He was exhausted just listening to her.

‘You might not say that when you’ve seen it,’ Cheryl warned, leading him through the flat.

Smiling at Frankie, who was sitting in a playpen in front of the TV, pushing toy cars in and out of a shoebox garage, Joe raised his eyebrows when she pushed the kitchen door open to reveal the soaked towels spread out all over the sudsy floor.

‘Christ, you weren’t kidding, were you?’

‘It’s that stupid old thing,’ Cheryl grumbled, nodding towards the ancient washing machine that was sticking out at an angle from beneath a ledge. ‘I tried to pull it out to get at the pipes but I think I made it worse. Do you think you can do anything with it?’

Joe scratched his head. He didn’t have a clue about electrical things and had hoped that it would be something really simple, like a loose pipe that just needed tightening. But he couldn’t bring himself to admit that to Cheryl while she was standing there looking so helpless. So, rolling up his sleeves, he said, ‘Okay, let’s see what we can do.’

Cheryl bit her lip as he knelt down with the washing-up bowl to catch the water that spewed out of the machine when he opened the door. She hoped he could get it going again, even if only for long enough to finish this load. Frankie was going to a party this afternoon, and she’d been washing the City tracksuit that Shay had bought him for his birthday. She could see the sky-blue pants through the glass door now, sitting perilously close to her red bra, and she just knew that the tracksuit was going to come out pink. Which would definitely cause a row, because Shay would swear she’d done it on purpose.

After a good fifteen minutes of poking about, during which time he got absolutely soaked, Joe yanked a sodden balled-up pair of baby socks out of the drainage pipe.

‘I think that might have done the trick,’ he said, feigning nonchalance even though he was actually quite proud of himself. ‘Turn it back on; see what happens.’

There was an instant gurgling sound when Cheryl switched the machine back on and the water began to drain out properly. ‘Oh, that’s brilliant!’ she beamed. ‘Thank you so much! You’re a lifesaver.’

‘No problem,’ Joe said, wiping his hands on his jeans.

‘Here, use this.’ Cheryl handed him a tea towel. ‘And let me make you a brew for your trouble. Tea or coffee?’

‘Coffee. But only if you’re having one. I don’t want to put you out.’

‘Don’t be daft, it’s the least I can do. Sugar?’

‘Two, please.’ Putting the tea towel back on its hook, Joe looked around. ‘Is it just me, or is this place bigger than mine?’

‘Yours is a one-bed, this is a two,’ Cheryl told him, waving for him to sit at a tiny table tucked away in the corner beneath the window. ‘That’s why you’re supposed to have a look at it before you sign up for it – in case you don’t like it.’

‘Ah, well, it’s my own fault,’ Joe said, pulling out a stool from under the table.

‘For winding your girlfriend up and getting kicked out,’ Cheryl finished for him. ‘See, I do listen sometimes.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ Joe grinned. ‘I know I’m boring but it usually takes more than one meeting for people to realise it.’

Sincerely doubting that anyone would ever find him boring – any
woman
, at least – Cheryl carried the coffees to the table. After popping her head around the living-room door to check on Frankie she sat down.

‘So, what have you been up to?’ she asked. ‘Haven’t seen much of you since you moved in. Have you been working?’

Joe shook his head. ‘Nah. Seems there’s not much call for crap painters and decorators round here.’

Cheryl tried to envision him in paint-splattered overalls and decided that she’d much rather see him in gym gear, all pumped up and sweaty.

‘My last place went bust a couple of years back,’ Joe went on. ‘So I’ve been signing on ever since.’

‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Cheryl said kindly, sensing that he was a bit embarrassed about it. ‘No one works round here. Well, apart from that lot in the yellow block, but they seem to think that makes them better than the rest of us – snobby tossers.’

‘They sound like my ex,’ Joe said with a hint of bitterness. ‘It was all work work work, money money money with her. Makes me wonder how we lasted so long when I think about it, but you just get in the habit of someone being around, don’t you?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Cheryl replied, with a soft snort. ‘Even when I lived with Frankie’s dad he stayed out more than he stayed in. But at least I got to keep this place when we split, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I take it you were living at her place?’

‘Yep. Her place, her mates – so she got to keep the lot.’

‘God, don’t you just hate all that taking-sides crap? That happened to me once, with this lad I was seeing a few years back. I got sick of him pushing me around and putting me down all the time, so I finished with him. Then he went and told all our mates
he
’d finished with
me
’cos I’d been sleeping around behind his back, and they believed him and fell out with me.’

Guessing from her indignant expression that it still annoyed her, Joe said, ‘I know what you mean. Angie told ours all kinds of crap about me, but I moved straight back here so they didn’t get the chance to fall out with me.’

‘Moved back?’ Cheryl gave him a curious look. ‘Were you living abroad, or something?’

‘Nah, Angie’s from Birmingham. And she already had the flat when we met, so it made sense for me to move in with her down there.’

Cheryl’s expression told Joe exactly what she thought of
that
. ‘So you left your friends and family for her, then she just kicks you out when she’s had enough? Sounds like a right bitch.’

Amused that she’d already taken sides, despite professing to hate that, Joe smiled. ‘It wasn’t all her fault. Trust me, I’m no saint. But I suppose it helps having a couple of hundred miles between us ’cos I don’t think I could be as civil as you if I had to put up with seeing her and her new fella around all the time.’

Cheryl narrowed her eyes, wondering how he knew about her and Shay, because she definitely hadn’t told him anything about it. Then she remembered that Joe had seen Shay and Jayleen on the morning he was moving in – and the biggest gossip on the block had been right there to fill him in on all the gory details.

‘Molly,’ she said flatly.

Sensing that it might not have been something that she’d wanted him to know, Joe said, ‘I didn’t ask – honest. And she didn’t tell me much ’cos she got picked up practically as soon as you went.’

‘It’s okay,’ Cheryl assured him wearily. ‘It’s not exactly a big secret round here so you’d have heard about it sooner or later.’ Standing up, she reached for a pack of cigarettes off the shelf above their heads. ‘Truth is, I caught him cheating and kicked him out, so he moved in with her. But I’m dealing with it. Want one?’

Joe shook his head when she offered the pack to him. ‘No, you’re all right.’

‘Oh, sorry, I just assumed you’d be a smoker,’ Cheryl said, sounding surprised. ‘I’ll go outside if it bothers you.’

‘It’s your flat,’ Joe reminded her. ‘Anyway, it’s not that I don’t smoke,’ he went on cagily. ‘Just not like that.’

Cheryl was confused – but only for a second. ‘Ah, I get you.’ She gave him a knowing smile. ‘Me, too – but only when Frankie’s out of the way.’

‘Christ, am I glad to hear that,’ Joe exclaimed. ‘The way Angie went on when she caught me you’d have thought I was a raving junkie. Makes you a bit wary of mentioning it.’

‘This ex of yours sounds like a right stuck-up cow, if you ask me,’ Cheryl said bluntly.

‘Just a bit,’ Joe chuckled, liking that she didn’t censor herself before she spoke. ‘Do you mind me asking where you get yours from?’ he asked then. ‘Only I haven’t had any in ages. Most of my old mates moved on after I left and you can’t just walk up to someone on the street and ask for the local dealer, can you?’

‘Not unless you want your head caving in,’ Cheryl agreed. ‘They’re a bit suspicious of strangers around here – in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘Oh, I’ve noticed all right,’ Joe told her. ‘I’ve had some proper bad looks.’