The Eyewitness (29 page)

“I didn't think you would give up so easily. I thought you were serious about wanting to find this girl.”

Solomon frowned, wondering why Sasha was suddenly so interested in Nicole.

“Jack, are you there?” asked Sasha.

“I'm serious, Sasha. I'm in bed with my leg in a cast and two nearly healed bullet wounds. I think that shows how serious I am.”

“So, what do you want to do?”

Solomon wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. He wanted to sit down and talk with Nicole. He wanted her to tell him who had murdered her family. He wanted her to go with him to the War Crimes Tribunal and tell investigators everything she knew.

“I want to find her,” he said.

“I've a friend in Sarajevo. I'll call him and get him to make some enquiries.”

“And then?”

“If he can find out where she's gone, I'll go back.”

There was a long pause.

“If you do go, you'll need help,” said Sasha.

“I know my way around Bosnia,” said Solomon defensively.

“You can't even take care of yourself in London,” said Sasha, harshly.

“But you do what you have to do.” He cut the connection.

Solomon put the phone back on the bedside table and lay down. At least now he knew where Nicole had gone. And who had tried to kill him.

The man stank of engine oil and beer, and he grunted with every thrust. Nicole turned her head to the side. She felt ill, but she knew that if she vomited the man would beat her again. He was a lorry driver, her fourteenth customer of the day.

The man pushed himself up and told her to roll over on to her front. She did as she was told. The chain that ran from her left wrist to the metal bedstead rattled as she moved. She had been manacled to the bed since she'd arrived at the brothel in Arizona, like all the other girls on the top floor. The chain was just long enough for her to reach a small wash-basin in the corner of the room: she could drink from the tap and wash herself with a grubby cloth. There was a pot underneath the bed in which she could relieve herself.

The man began to pound into her, faster and faster. He grabbed her hips and pulled her up on to her knees. Nicole made no sound. She had blanked her mind as she always did when customers had sex with her. It had been different in London: there they had behaved as if she was a girlfriend. They had talked and laughed, maybe had a drink, and then she'd led them to the bedroom and undressed them, and had sex on a bed with clean sheets and towels in the bathroom. It hadn't been like making love, she was still only doing it for the money, but at least there had been a pretence of affection. Some of her regular clients even brought her little presents chocolates or perfume. But the men who visited the brothel in Arizona were different: they didn't want affection or tenderness, they only wanted to relieve themselves, to use her as a receptacle.

Nicole had no idea how much they paid to have sex with her, but she knew it entitled them to do whatever they wanted with her. She wasn't allowed to refuse anything; that much had been made clear to her when she'd first been chained to the bed. On the floor below there were rooms where the dancers took their customers. Nicole could hear them sometimes. The girls would laugh and the men would laugh, and then the bedsprings would creak and the women would moan with pleasure. Nicole knew they uttered the same counterfeit sighs and groans as she'd used with her clients in London it was part of the act: the better the act the bigger the tip, and the more likely it was that the man would return. That was how the girls made money. But on the floor where Nicole was held, the rules were different: the men paid for half an hour with her, and during that time no one would disturb them. No matter how much she cried, no matter how much she screamed, the door stayed closed until the half-hour was up. Not that Nicole screamed any more. The first time she'd screamed two pimps had come upstairs and beaten her black and blue while her customer stood at the end of the bed and grinned. Then, after the pimps had gone, the man had beaten her to the edge of unconsciousness and raped her.

Some of the men beat her before sex, some hit her while they were raping her, others waited until afterwards. Nicole had learned not to try to fight back, physically or verbally. The more submissive she was, the quicker it was over. Until the next man came into the room.

Sasha finished his coffee and took a last drag on his cigar. He looked at his watch. It was just before midday and he'd only been up for half an hour. He'd spent the evening in a bar in Chelsea with Katrina, the Moldavian girl he'd bought in Belgrade, and two Slovakian girls who'd worked with him for the past three months.

All three were stunningly pretty and among his top earners. Katrina alone was bringing in more than nine thousand pounds a week. She had a particular talent for oral and, according to the maid at her flat, she had a dozen regulars who returned at least once a week.

He still had a hangover from the six bottles of Dom Perignon they'd drunk at the bar. He'd brought the three girls back to his mansion and spent the best part of two hours putting them through their paces with the help of a 100-milligram Viagra tablet and half a dozen lines of high-grade cocaine. He'd kicked the Slovakian girls out of bed in the early hours but had allowed Katrina to sleep with him.

He went through to the hall and shouted at her to hurry up. When there was no reply he went up the staircase and along to the master bedroom. She was sitting at the dressing-table, applying mascara. She was wearing the black dress he'd bought for her, cut low at the top to show off her impressive cleavage, and so short she had to keep her thighs clamped together when she sat down. He'd bought similar dresses for the Slovakians, and had taken great delight in the number of heads that had turned when he walked into the bar with them.

“You'll be late,” said Sasha. She stood up, hurried across the room and flung her arms around him. Her tongue moved between his lips, urging, and her hand slid down the front of his trousers. Sasha felt himself grow hard, but he pushed her away.

“You don't have time,” he said.

“You're the boss, they'll wait.” She was trying to undo his zip.

“You're already late for work,” he told her.

“You were supposed to be in the flat at noon.”

Katrina pouted.

“Do I have to go?” she whined.

Sasha grabbed her wrist.

“You're here to work,” he said coldly.

“Never forget that. I might screw you for fun every now and then, but that doesn't mean you miss your shift. Understand?”

“I'm sorry.”

Sasha kept a tight grip on her wrist, but with his right hand he reached up to stroke her hair. He slipped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her towards him. He kissed her lips, then twisted her hair savagely. She wailed, but his mouth smothered her cries. He kissed her harder, then pulled her head away from his face. Her lower lip was trembling but there were no tears in her eyes.

Sasha smiled.

“Downstairs,” he said.

“Now.”

Katrina grabbed her bag, slipped on her shoes and tottered out of the bedroom.

Sasha followed her, watching as she stumbled downstairs, grabbing at the banister for balance. Rikki came out of the sitting room and opened the front door. Katrina hurried out and went over to the waiting Mercedes. Karic already had the rear door open and she climbed in.

Rikki closed the front door and got into the Mercedes next to the driver. Sasha slid into the back next to Katrina, Karic got in next to him and slammed the door.

“Soho,” Sasha said to the driver, and settled back. Katrina slipped her hand on to his leg and massaged his thigh.

The driver pressed the remote control to open the security gates and slipped the gear selector into drive. Katrina's hand became more insistent. Sasha pushed it away and flashed her an angry look. The girl had yet to learn that business was business and pleasure was pleasure, and that the two were only mixed when Sasha wanted it that way. Katrina sat with her hands in her lap and stared out of the window as the Mercedes drove through the gates and on to the road.

Sasha took out his mobile phone, flicked to his address book, then called the number of one of his Soho flats. The maid answered, and he told her he was running late, that she should have the money ready for him at one o'clock. The maid told him that the girl had earned a little under two thousand pounds during her night shift.

“Why so much?” asked Sasha.

“We had three football supporters in and they wanted to be with her at the same time,” said the maid.

“I agreed a higher price and told Julia to get on with it.” Julia had been with Sasha for almost six months. She was from Latvia, and while she wasn't one of his prettiest girls she made up for it with her enthusiasm and her willingness to do anything for money.

“Did you hear that, Katrina?” said Sasha, as he cut the connection.

“Two thousand pounds in one shift.”

The Mercedes braked suddenly, and Sasha put his hand on the seat in front to steady himself. A white van had stopped unexpectedly and Sasha's driver pounded on the horn.

“I've done more than that,” said Katrina, sulkily.

“I don't think so,” said Sasha, and gripped her chin between finger and thumb.

“I think the best you've done is one thousand six hundred.”

“I can do two thousand, no problem,” she said.

“We'll see,” he said.

Her face exploded in a shower of blood and bone, and cubes of broken glass ripped through the Mercedes. Sasha's ears were ringing from the deafening bangs of high-powered guns fired at close range. What was left of Katrina's head slumped forward on to his shoulder and her blood streamed down his shirt. Sasha screamed at the driver to get out of there but they were too close to the white van to drive round it. Bullets hammered into the side of the car and the driver's window burst inwards. The back of the driver's head blew apart. There were two louder bangs and the right side of the car lurched down. They'd shot out the tyres, Sasha realised.

Karic pushed Sasha down so that his face was pressed against the bloody seat and pulled a gun from under it. He fired off three quick shots through the smashed window and screamed at Rikki to get the car moving.

Rikki was hunched forward, grabbing for a gun in the glove compartment. He found it, released the safety and fired twice through the driver's window. There were more ear-splitting cracks and bullets thwacked into the seat rests, sending leather and foam-rubber fragments fluttering around the car interior. Sasha tried to lift his head but Karic held it down and fired again, two shots in rapid succession.

“Move us!” he screamed at Rikki.

“Come on, or we're all dead.” He threw himself forward, covering Sasha with his body as he fired another two shots. Sasha's eyes were stinging from the cordite and his ears were ringing.

Rikki pushed aside the driver and thrust his leg into the foot well then slammed the gear selector into reverse and stamped on the accelerator. The Mercedes leaped backwards. The wheel rims on the driver's side shrieked and sparked along the Tarmac. There were more rapid bangs and the windscreen shattered into a thousand glass cubes. Karic carried on firing out of the side window until his clip was empty, then dropped down over Sasha again.

Rikki had his left hand on the steering-wheel, trying to keep the car heading straight back while he continued to fire through the driver's window, but with the driver's-side tyres blown away the rear end swung wildly to the right, into the middle of the road, then the car spun round. A motorcyclist smashed into the rear wing, hurtled through the air and slammed into a lamp-post.

Karic lifted his head, leaned across and slammed the gear selector into drive. The Mercedes roared and accelerated away, the steering-wheel juddering in Rikki's hand.

More bullets thwacked into the back, and the rear window disintegrated. Sasha shook glass cubes from his hair. He could hear a far-off siren. The driver's shattered head was hanging out of the window and banging against the door with each juddering movement of the car.

Karic was shouting at Rikki to keep his foot down on the accelerator. They were on the wrong side of the road now and cars were pulling frantically into the side to avoid colliding with the Mercedes. Showers of sparks sprayed out from the tortured wheel rims.

Sasha tried to look out of the rear window but Karic screamed at him to get down, and pushed him on to Katrina's body.

The siren was getting louder. A police car.

Ahead a van driver banged on his horn and tried to swing his vehicle out of the way but the Mercedes was moving too quickly and slammed into it. The airbags erupted but Sasha's driver hadn't been wearing his seat-belt and the body flew over the airbag and across the bonnet, smearing blood and brain matter over the crumpled metal before it rolled into the side of the van.

Rikki pushed aside his airbag and looked back down the street. There was no sign of the four gunmen. The white van that had forced the Mercedes to stop was disappearing into the distance, black smoke belching from its exhaust.

Sasha sat up. Katrina's blood was dripping down his face and he wiped it away with his sleeve.

“They've gone,” said Rikki.

Sasha pulled Karic's gun from his hand and thrust it at Rikki.

“Go,” he said.

“If the cops find us with those, we're dead.”

Rikki grabbed the weapon, opened the passenger door, pushed away the airbag.

“And, Rikki.. .”

Rikki turned.

“Well done,” Sasha said.

Rikki nodded, then leaped out of the car and ran down the street. Sasha slumped in the seat.

“That fucking Russian. I should have killed him when I had the chance.” He clapped Karic on the shoulder.

"That's twice you've saved my life, he said.

But Karic was deathly pale and there was a look of shocked surprise on his face. Sasha punched the air.

“The bastards, huh? We'll show them.” Karic didn't say anything. He was panting. Sasha frowned.

“Are you okay?” he asked. Karic coughed and a dribble of blood ran down his chin. Sasha opened the man's coat. There was a small black hole in the middle of his chest. Blood was pumping from it in regular spurts.