The People Traders (7 page)

She shifted uneasily; Assam knew he'd hit a nerve.

"How could I go to a bar in my school uniform? They'd throw me out. Anyway, the flat gave us some privacy, we could talk and things."

Assam smiled, he had her now. "Could it be he took you to his flat for sex? After all, the modern generation consider sex as part of a relationship."

She fell silent, not wanting to reply.

"Come on, Karen, it's a simple enough question."

Karen knew it was, but didn't want to answer, so she decided to play it down. "You're trying to say he only wanted me for what he could get. Grant loved me, I loved him and we wanted to be together. We'd go to his flat, yes, but only to play CDs or have a coffee before I'd have to go home."

Assam took another long drag of his cigarette. "But he was a man, Karen, and men take their girlfriends to bed. You're not suggesting he was content just to drink coffee and play records? That will not wash, believe me."

She remained silent, not wanting to go down that path.

"Answer, Karen, I want answers immediately, or it's the strap. Did this man take you to bed or didn't he?" Assam shouted.

"Yes! Yes, for God's sake. We made love, was it so wrong? I wanted to as well, you know. It wasn't Grant; it was my idea, my idea alone. Grant never pushed me; in fact all he wanted was for us to be together. Are you satisfied now?" Karen retorted.

Assam fell back on his seat, stuffing the tip of the cigarette into the ashtray, immediately lighting another.

"Shit, Karen, you didn't want to go to bed with Grant, did you? It was Grant that sowed the seed. Was he going to dump you if you said no? Made out that if you wanted to be treated like an adult you'd got to play adult games? It's a ploy as old as the hills and you kids fall for it every time."

His words stunned her. How did he know Grant wanted to finish? How did he know she'd begged him not to finish with her and said she'd do anything for him?

Assam sighed; he knew he'd hit the right chord now. "I'm waiting for an answer, Karen."

She didn't really want to admit it, so just nodded her head in agreement. The room fell silent; Assam continued to draw on the cigarette, all the time watching her for any reaction.

"What did he like to do then?" Assam finally asked.

Her eyes avoided his. "Grant loved me, what went on between us is private," she replied.

Assam leaned forward, grasping her shoulders, forcing her to look directly at him. "No, Karen, try to understand, from now on nothing that's ever happened in your life's private anymore. I want to know everything that man did to you. I want to know your innermost secrets, your thoughts," he stopped, allowing it to sink in.

"But why, why do you want to know?" she demanded.

He stood and walked around the desk to stand behind her. Karen never moved, terrified he was going to use the belt on her again. However, Assam intended to show her the relationship was just the sordid love affair which he knew it was.

He leaned down; his head close to her ear. "I want to know, Karen," he whispered. "I don't need to give you any reason, but soon you'll understand."

Then he took her hand, urging her to stand and face him. Now inches from her face he grinned. "So was it on the couch, with that short skirt pushed up and the knickers at your feet?" Then he turned her to face the desk, standing behind her, his mouth close to her ear. "Or was it when you were making all that coffee you drank? He'd come up behind you like this and push you face down on the table and take you from behind? Perhaps even make you wear kinky leather gear or handcuff you to the bed?"

Karen's head was spinning not only with the drink, but his words so close to the truth. She raised her hands to her head, blocking her ears. "Stop! Stop, it wasn't like that, I told you he loved me. Grant was gentle, caring. We'd little time; I needed to be home to make the tea in the week."

She stopped, tears were running down her face but Assam urged her on.

"I was doing my exams and had to study at home so I could only get out at weekends and like I said before, he worked. All the time I was torn between Grant and home. I'd have lost him if I'd not agreed. So he'd pick me up in his car and the thirty minutes it normally took to walk home or if I got an afternoon off for study, we'd spend together."

Assam sighed and returned to his seat, telling her to do the same.

"At last, Karen, we're getting the truth. So let's cut the crap and get to the point. What did he have you do on these quick, half hour or so, visits?"

Karen went silent; she'd decided this man was some sort of pervert. Perhaps he liked to talk dirty, got his kicks that way? Should she play his game or leave it at that? She wasn't sure, except if she refused to talk there was always the risk of him using the belt on her again.

"Well, I'm waiting."

She shrugged. "It depended on what time we had and I did tell the truth; often we only had time for coffee. Other times he'd want to take me to bed and we'd make love."

Assam smiled. "That wasn't too difficult, was it, Karen? I think we'll leave your explanation of what you got up to for a few minutes and talk about the other side of Grant Martin."

Karen looked confused. "My Grant isn't Martin, its Johnson."

Assam never replied but pulled open a drawer in the desk and lifted out a large bulky envelope. Karen recognised it as the envelope Frank had given him. She decided it was best not to mention it, so she just watched as he drew out a sheet of paper with a photograph which he placed in front of her on the desk. "Grant Martin, or, as you knew him, Grant Johnson. Is that your Grant in the photo?"

Karen nodded, still bemused with the two names.

Assam continued. "Aged twenty-nine, married with two children, lives in Harlow, Essex, part time barman and other times acts as an escort to people who pay for the privilege."

Karen stared at him, her mouth partly open, unable to reply.

Assam read on. "Hired by a Frank Whittle, he was instructed to attend a wedding in September last year. Am I still on track, Karen?"

"Yes," she whispered.

Assam smiled and looked back at the paper. "Frank Whittle had given explicit instructions for him to meet a girl named Karen Marshall, aged seventeen. He was to spill wine on her then, full of remorse, offer to pay for the cleaning. He was then to deliver it cleaned, to her house, between the hours of four and five thirty, so as not to meet the parents. Are we still with it, Karen?"

She nodded, stunned at his words. It was as if he'd been there.

"I presume that's how the relationship began, is it? He asked you out and you accepted."

Karen was looking down at her hands, unable to answer. This man was talking about someone she loved, a chance meeting, not as he made out, that it had all been a set-up.

"It's all a lie," she blurted out. "Grant's not married, he can't be. I agree he did spill wine over me and he did come round to my house to collect the stained clothes, besides bring them back a couple of days later. That's when he asked me out. But anyone in my class could have told you that. They all thought it romantic. As for twenty-nine and married; my Grant's twenty-one and single."

He smiled softly. "Shall I go on then?"

Karen nodded slowly, frightened by what he may still reveal.

"The instructions were to bed the girl as soon as possible. Push her to the limit and be dominant if she said no. In other words he was to teach you all about sex and I'm not on about the sex between married couples. He was also to make sure you were seen with him, dressed in your school uniform. There's also a date when he was to take you to the park with him."

Karen wanted to scream, tell him it all wasn't true, but everything he'd described was as it happened.

Assam looked up at her again. "So now we've established this Grant is not what he seems, Karen, perhaps you can tell me just what went on between you two?"

By now she was becoming disillusioned. Every second he was shattering her dreams. However, she wasn't going to fall into any more traps and she remained steadfastly silent. He pulled out another photo from the envelope and handed it her. She looked at it, stunned. Photographed in what looked like a zoo, two children were leaning over, throwing bread to ducks. Her Grant was stood alongside a woman in her twenties, he was holding her hand. They were all obviously together.

"I don't understand, Grant loved me, we were to be married. Maybe he was divorced from this woman and hadn't told me," she whispered, trying to clutch at straws, tears running down her cheeks.

Assam threw another photo down in front of her. "I presume the girl kissing Grant is you?"

She stared at it for some time. She'd been photographed by someone in the park next to the school. Even at her five foot eight, Grant, over six foot, meant she was on tiptoes kissing him. Karen was wearing her school uniform and she could see the reason he'd asked for the shortened skirt. In the photo Grant's hand was grasping her skirt, exposing the knickers that he'd always insisted she wore, leaving little to the imagination.

"Good photo, Karen, but not exactly school approved underclothes, where did they come from?"

She turned her head away, not wanting to look at him directly, and her voice was low. "Grant bought them for me; he said the school ones must have been designed by some deranged spinster. We both laughed so I always changed in the toilets before we met, but when I shortened my skirt I didn't realise it was that bad."

Assam leaned back and smiled, the girl was slowly falling apart. Gone now was the self-confidence, the arrogance. All her dreams of Grant wanting to marry her were gone, but Assam was close to shattering her illusions completely.

"You know it's like pulling teeth with you, Karen. We've now got a so-called boyfriend who buys you silk knickers, has you shorten the skirt and yet is content to play happy families in his flat. Oh, let's not forget he's really married and is being paid to seduce you."

Then he laid, on the desk, a number of photos. They were professionally taken and Karen looked stunning in them.

"These are nice, but expensive I would think, who took these?" Assam asked.

She picked the photos up and looked at them for a moment; then she smiled, relived he'd gone off the subject of Grant. "I won a competition, well not really a competition, more a raffle sort of thing. It was at the shopping centre and a man was handing cards out with numbers on to all the girls. You just had to check in their shop later to see if your number was in the window. The prize was a professional photo. Anyway, when we checked later one of the numbers was mine, but the photographer was so taken with me, as a photo model that is, he took more than the one."

Assam was looking at a receipt attached to the negatives. "Yes, Karen, it would seem he was, except perhaps the two hundred and fifty pounds paid to the studio might have had a little to do with you winning, besides the extra photos, don't you think?"

She frowned. "Why would anyone do that? After all, it couldn't have been Grant, he never got one?"

"Maybe it wasn't a competition? Or if it was only you in it, rather than Grant pay, it was your friend, Frank Whittle, who paid? Could it have been for him to obtain photos of you to send to potential buyers, Karen? Mind you, I'd have been surprised if the studio took these as well," he replied, at the same time pushing a number of other photos in front of her.

Her mouth dropped open. The photos were of her naked, sprawled on a bed. It left nothing to the imagination.

"I think perhaps an explanation for those photos is also required?" Assam said quietly, throwing at least twenty similar photos showing her posing naked in different positions, all but one, in the same flat.

Karen felt decidedly embarrassed and close to tears; Grant had promised they'd be destroyed and yet this man had every one, some she'd not even known about. She picked the drink up and sipped it again, the alcohol no longer had an effect and she felt completely sober.

"Talk," Assam pushed, "or feel the strap."

Never looking directly at him, she began the explanation. "Grant wanted a photo for the side of his bed. Said he missed me when I wasn't there and with a photo he could look at me any time. I was flattered and brought a snapshot from the family album the next day. It'd been taken on holiday. I was wearing a bikini, so I thought it would be nice for him, but Grant didn't want it, he wanted a more intimate photo. After badgering me for a few days and saying he'd use a digital camera so there'd be no film to go to the chemist to be developed, I finally agreed. One Saturday, when I was supposed to be going to town for some new clothes, I went to his flat. He started making love before I'd even got through the door, and then afterwards produced his camera. I really tried to look sexy for him, but I was frightened and couldn't relax. He stormed out of the flat and I followed. We were driving round. I found myself apologising, telling him I'd no idea how to pose and he could try again if he wanted. In some ways I was embarrassed, but all the time he kept saying how much he loved me and how we should get married, so I just wanted to please him."

Assam had listened without interruption. He now had her doubting the boyfriend's sincerity; soon she'd be in the position to accept his own plans for her. "So when was that taken?" he asked, pointing at a photo of her naked, but outdoors.