People Trafficker (7 page)

She shook her head. “I won’t, I won’t say a word. I’ll just tell them someone came looking for him and I couldn’t tell the person as I didn’t know where he was.”

Her breathing was coming fast and short, close to falling completely apart. “My children come first, Grant’s made his bed. Please, Sir, don’t let them be left alone, they’re only five and six.” Then the emotion and fear of perhaps never seeing her children again was too much, Lucy broke down and began sobbing uncontrollably.

The next moment Janssen was down at her side. The knife inches from her face. She stopped crying, her eyes as big as saucers, staring up at him.

“I’ll let you live, for your children’s sake. Say one word to the police, telephone his sister or anyone else and I’ll find out. But it won’t be you I’ll come back for, it’ll be your kids. Then after stringing them up naked I’ll gut them in front of you so you can watch them die slowly. Believe me lady you’ll remember their screams of terror, with their guts hanging out, the life blood running from their tiny bodies for the rest of your life. Do you understand?”

“Yes I understand...” she stuttered. “I’ll say nothing; I’ll not risk my children’s lives for anything or anyone.”

He stood and took one last look at her lying there then turned and left the house. Lucy closed her eyes thanking God. Her body was shaking, both with cold and fear. Dragging herself along the floor once again she pulled the telephone off the side table and began to dial the emergency services, but she didn’t complete it as moments later she blacked out. However, her friend came, as arranged, to go to the gym, found the door wide open and came in calling her name.

When Lucy woke she was in hospital. She lay there for a moment trying to remember what had happened and why she was here. Alongside her a machine was bleeping constantly, a bag with some red stuff inside hanging at her other side. Then she remembered, all at once everything came back. Grant, the stranger, her children... Her children, what had happened to them, where were they? Were they safe? She began screaming and shouting, a nurse followed by a doctor then a policewoman ran in.

“My children, where are my children?” she kept shouting.

The policewoman moved closer to her while the doctor, with the help of the nurse gave Lucy an injection.

“Don’t worry about your children, Lucy,” the policewoman said quietly. “We have already collected them from school and your mother is looking after them. They are perfectly safe, believe me. Now you need to calm down and tell me what happened.”

Lucy stared open-mouthed at the policewoman, shaking her head. “I can’t. I can’t help you; he’ll come back and kill my children. Please don’t ask me any more questions.”

She was shaking uncontrollably in obvious terror, but at the same time slowly calming as the sedative they gave her took control. Within minutes she just lay there staring up at the ceiling. The policewoman knew they’d get nothing out of her at this time. Whoever had done this to her had instilled absolute terror in her mind for the continued safety of her children, this mother would tell them nothing.

Janssen hadn’t gone directly to London to find Grant. He’d climbed into his hired car and drove round to Susan’s home. The street was deserted, the children had gone to school, people were at work, leaving the odd housewife or pensioner at home. However, Janssen knew that Susan’s father was at home. He knew this because the old car he drove was still in the drive. He was made redundant an while ago and not due to go down to the post office until later to cash his giro and collect his unemployment money, then he’d go directly to the pub. Janssen didn’t go to the front door, he walked round the side, elbowed the window of the back door in and put his hand inside, turning the lock.

Once inside he stopped and listened. The house was quiet. Making his way upstairs he pushed open the main bedroom door. A man was still sleeping; the room stank of stale beer. Taking out a gun from his pocket he carefully screwed on the silencer. He walked over to the man, placed a pillow over his head and fired twice. The body shook and contorted for a minute or so then fell still. Carefully unscrewing the silencer, it was then when he heard a noise. Someone else was in the house. Janssen moved swiftly to the door and looked down the short landing. A woman was shuffling along carrying a night potty to the bathroom, at the end of the landing. Janssen knew from the document Saeed had given him that this was the grandma, completely gone in her mind, with very few lucid moments. He took the silencer out once more, screwed it back on and walked towards the bathroom. As he pushed open the door she was bent over the toilet emptying the night potty. Janssen raised the gun and fired twice. The old woman just fell forward onto the toilet. She’d not uttered a word. He walked over and shot her once more in the head then left the bathroom.

Leaving the house, he climbed into his car, took one last look round the deserted road, started the engine and headed off towards London.

Karen laughed. “You might be right there. Mind you, Fay, if you see him you wouldn’t want to.”

“Well at least you can get off the island, whether you leave or they chuck you out. Mum never sent your passport back, when they told us you’d died in Wales, so she’s got it with her,” Fay said.

“Yes well, don’t volunteer that information to them, otherwise they’ll pinch it and leave me stranded here.”

The conversation went onto what had been happening at home and they left Karen around midnight. After waving them goodbye, until the following night, Karen made her way slowly back to the single room in the women’s barracks they’d put her in. She didn’t like going there; it was stark, uninviting and above all lonely. She’d been alone enough and just wanted to go home, sleep in her own bed, and cuddle her teddy which she’d had ever since she could remember.

Karen entered her room and shut the door. She sat on the side of the bed looking down at the floor. After all that had happened to her, never did she feel as low and scared as she did now. Since boarding the submarine Karen had been trying to put everything behind her, block it from her mind. It had begun to work, the constant strain she’d been under on the run had gone. Even the people she’d met were at last becoming a blur, in reality as if it never happened.

However, James and his constant questions, making her go over and over everything again and again, forcing her to relive her experiences had awakened the terror of her ordeal once again. Last night she woke a number of times, her body was shaking, and she was absolutely soaked in perspiration. However, she didn’t mention it to anyone, afraid they’d put her through more tests.

Tonight she was terrified of even lying down and closing her eyes as she clasped her hands together trying to stop them shaking. Karen knew what was happening to her. But it was as if she was in some slow-motion film watching herself as she began to fall apart, not knowing how to stop it.

“Pull yourself together,”
she demanded of herself.
“Saeed’s dead, they’re all dead. You’ve won.”

She sat there considering the statement.

“I have, I’ve won, haven’t I? I can go home and forget it. Yes that’s what I’ll do, I’ll tell them I’m going home,”
she decided.

Satisfied with this decision and desperately tired, Karen closed her eyes, her head was spinning. Again the screams, people shouting, and guns firing returned. Then the visions, the faces, though when she opened her eyes, everything was quiet. Karen fell back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. But she just couldn’t keep her eyes open. Soon her nightmares began again, she was in Saeed’s big room, and her gun was firing, people screaming. But when she tried to stop the nightmare by opening her eyes once more the screaming inside her head, mixed up with gunfire, persisted. She put her hands to her ears, trying to block the sounds out, everything was so real. She wanted to scream out loud herself. Tell everyone how she desperately needed help. But her pride, her determination to show the world she was Karen, bullet-proof, calm and composed, made her discount the urge.

How long she lay there, she’d no idea. The room was cold; she was cold, her body soaking the same as the night before. Looking out of the window it was still dark outside. Why can’t the night finish?

Eventually Karen stood and left the room. Outside she felt better, the sounds inside her head now gone leaving her only with a splitting headache. She could see the beginning of dawn appearing on the far horizon, the sun just beginning to peep over the edge as it bathed a reddish light across the parade ground, highlighting the flagpole in silhouette. Lights were coming on in different buildings; even in her own block she could now hear the sounds of stirring. Karen felt relieved, the night was over, and somehow she’d managed to sleep, but not much, although she couldn’t remember doing it.

“Are you just coming in?” a voice came from behind her.

Karen turned to see who was talking. A girl was stood in pyjamas, lighting a cigarette.

“Excuse me?”

“I was just asking if you’d just got back.”

“No I’ve just got up, what time is it?”

“Five forty-five. Would you like a cigarette?”

Karen shook her head. “No thank you.”

“Do you always go to bed in your clothes then?” the girl asked.

“No never, I just couldn’t sleep, so I got dressed.”

“Oh…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The girl sighed. “Listen it’s no odds to me if you’ve sneaked out for the night. We all do it you know, but you should go in before someone sees you.”

“I told you I’ve just got up. What’s this going out for the night thing all the time?” Karen snapped back at her.

The girl held her hands up. “Okay, you’ve just got up, so don’t get heavy on me. Anyway I’m going in. You need to as well and clean yourself up, you look shit.”

Karen never replied.
“Look it,”
she thought, she also felt it.

Back in the bedroom Karen stared at herself in the mirror. Now she understood. Her face was streaked in make-up and mascara, her eyes red, her hair looked dirty and unkempt. It was no wonder the girl didn’t believe her, she wouldn’t have either now.

Throwing her clothes off, and pulling a large bath towel round her body, she wandered down to the shower room spending a good twenty minutes tidying herself up, trying to look more her usual self. By the time Karen dried her hair, put a little light make-up on and a set of clean clothes her mother had brought, she looked and felt tons better.

After breakfast she was back with James. He went on and on, she still had a splitting headache, so she just sat there completely ignoring him, her mind drifting. Thinking about anything and nothing so long as it wasn’t what he was going on about.

James, as usual, was pursuing his absolute belief that she was telling a complete pack of lies and subjected her to intense interviews and questioning. After lunch they returned to the interview room and James began again.

“You know, Karen we’re getting nowhere. You sit and tell me that all around you people were dying and yet you talk as if it’s some comic book adventure, and you’re just the token dizzy girl among all this carnage. This is not what’s coming out from the Lebanon. They are demanding your return, claiming you killed a number of civilians. Of course this is just talk, as they know full well you couldn’t be extradited because there are no arrangements for this between our countries. The Lebanese are talking that way because they want strength in negotiating the release of two SAS officers still held captive. They also have another officer who’s in hospital and paralysed. His name’s Garry Stafford, who you say in your statement, is one of the officers that collected you from Sirec’s house?” He fell silent for a minute deciding to try to frighten her. “We want to be convinced you have not committed murder, because if you have the government may decide to hold you for an indefinite time, for your own safety, under the mental health act.”