Taken (31 page)

Vaughn looked concerned.

‘Are you sure, Lola? It’s risky putting your name forward if you’re talking about Jason Hedley. I’ve seen him about a few times and he’s a dangerous man.’

‘I’m a big girl, Vaughnie, I should’ve spoken up a long time ago. It’s about time the likes of Oscar and Jason were stopped in their tracks.’

Emmie sat on the corner of the thin stained mattress. The other women sat close by, staring into nowhere and saying nothing. The room they were in was vast, with high ceilings and large inaccessible windows at the top, and a bathroom and toilet at the far end. Oscar’s men had come in a couple of times to check on the new girls and had brought in food and water but it lay untouched.

Emmie lay down on her mattress trying to push the thoughts away. She couldn’t let herself think about what’d happened to her in the manor house; it was too shocking and it’d left her feeling numb. She could still hear the screams of Kaltrina and the sheer terror in her eyes as they dragged her away. Emmie let out a deep sigh; Kaltrina and what’d happened to her was something she was trying not to think about.

The only positive thing to come out of it all was Emmie’s resolve to stay alive. When Oscar had first locked her up, she’d wanted to curl up in a ball and half expected someone to come charging in to rescue her, but as the days went on Emmie realised it wasn’t going to happen. She decided that resigning herself to her circumstances certainly wasn’t going to get her out of there. Like a sleeping dragon had awoken inside her, Emmie was willing to do whatever it took to escape.

What she really wanted to do was group up with the others, but she wasn’t sure if she could trust any of them. She could see most of them were out of their faces on drugs and looked like walking zombies, especially the new girls. One of Oscar’s cronies had given her a fix after they’d come back from the manor house and all night she’d vomited and had cold sweats.

They hadn’t given her any more so far, but she was determined to escape before they did. If they started feeding it to her, she knew it’d be inevitable that she’d become addicted to it and then the only thing she’d be thinking of would be her next hit, rather than how to get the hell home.

The only girl Emmie didn’t think looked dead behind the eyes was Ariana. It was a risk talking to her but Emmie thought it might be her only hope.

Shuffling over to her, Emmie sat on the mattress with Ariana.

‘You okay?’

Ariana shrugged her shoulders and said nothing.

‘If you speak English, please talk to me.’

The woman stared into Emmie’s face and gave a half smile.

‘A bit. I speak bit and understand lot.’

‘I want to get out of here.’

Straight away Emmie saw the fear on her face. It was obvious to Emmie that Ariana had understood exactly what she was saying.

‘I don’t know how I’m going to do it yet but we could go together. Once we leave here I can call my dad …’

Emmie stopped and felt ashamed, remembering Oscar had told her it was her father who had locked these women up. Emmie resolved that when she escaped she wasn’t going to go home; she’d go to her Uncle Vaughn’s. As much as she loved her dad, she didn’t know if she ever wanted to see him again.

‘No, we’ll go to see my uncle; he’ll look after us, I know it.’

Emmie took Ariana’s hand but she gently pulled it away.

‘You nice girl but no understand. If I go here, then at my home in Albania, they kill my family and I have daughter.’

Ariana’s eyes filled with tears as she continued to talk to Emmie in broken English.

‘I no choice. I stay here; my family live. I go leave; my family dead.’

‘No, no. We can go to the police; they’ll make sure they’re alright. They’ll keep your family safe.’

Ariana looked at Emmie sadly and touched her face gently.

‘You good girl but young. All the time this happens in my country. Police, government, shut eyes. They no can help. Some family no money and sell, some stolen from families but no run out and back to home because Mafia. They kill family and bring back. I love daughter, so I stay here.’

‘But you can’t, Ariana. You can’t because something might happen to you.’

Emmie looked around and spoke in a whisper.

‘You could die here; we all could if we don’t do something.’

‘I no fear die; die makes me free. You try go but careful, yes? You go live for me.’

Emmie burst into tears and laid her head on Ariana’s chest. She stroked her head gently as she had to her own daughter back home in Albania.

It was dark, and Emmie didn’t know if this was because of the winter nights drawing in early or because it was actually late. After her chat with Ariana, Emmie had quickly scuttled back to her mattress and pretended to be asleep when she heard Oscar’s men come into the room. They’d started administering the heroin to all the women and eventually they’d gone to Ariana.

Emmie had watched, utterly terrified, scared to even let out her breath in case she made a noise. A short stocky unshaved man had grabbed Ariana roughly by her hair, pulling her towards him and rubbing his crotch in her face, laughing as she protested. Emmie had wanted to go and help but she was too afraid to even move and her whole body had started to tremble. Getting annoyed with Ariana’s struggling, the man had kneed her hard in the face, sending her backwards onto the dirty mattress. He’d yanked her arm out straight and the other man had plunged a needle into her veins.

When all was quiet and the men had gone, Emmie had tiptoed over to Ariana to see if she was alright, but hearing a noise she’d been frightened back to her mattress. Emmie fell into a restless sleep as she tried to detach herself from what she had witnessed.

Sitting up, she looked across to Ariana’s mattress to see if she was awake. The bathroom light was still on, and as Oscar had ordered his men to remove the door, the flickering bulb provided enough light for Emmie to see Ariana was still lying down. After a while, Emmie got up and went across to her mattress, speaking in a low voice.

‘Ariana. Wake up. Ariana? You okay?’

Ariana didn’t say anything so Emmie lightly touched her arm, shaking her gently. Ariana flopped over onto her back and Emmie reeled away in horror as the overwhelming smell suddenly hit her and she saw one side of Ariana’s face covered in her own bloody vomit. Her glassy eyes were wide open, staring up at the ceiling, her skin looking pale and clammy with deep stained red blotches on her face and neck. Emmie let out a distressing scream. ‘No!’

Emmie grabbed hold of Ariana, pulling her limp body up with great effort onto her lap. She slapped Ariana’s face, desperate to see a sign of life. When there was no movement, Emmie put her face onto Ariana’s, hoping she could feel her breathing, however shallow; she felt nothing apart from the mucus-streaked vomit from Ariana’s face, which now covered her own cheek. The panic rose inside her and this time Emmie shook Ariana violently. ‘Ariana, no, please, please wake up.’

There was still nothing and part of Emmie knew it was hopeless even attempting to try to save her: it was clear she’d overdosed; but she was desperate, terrified at the thought her new friend was dead, terrified for herself at being left alone. Emmie sobbed deeply as the mix of her tears and Ariana’s vomit ran down her face.

‘Please don’t leave me, Ariana, please. I need you please.’

Emmie could hear the roaring of her breath escaping from her chest and she turned to the other women and cried out to them.

‘Please help me, help me. I need help.’

Emmie pushed Ariana off her lap and jumped up and ran to the other women in the room. Each woman lay on her filthy mattress, not moving and too stoned to care as Emmie shook them furiously. Giving up trying to rouse them, Emmie ran to the locked door and started banging on it.

‘Hello! Please, I need your help please. Someone please help me!’

Vaughn watched the street vendor with the stained yellow fingers cooking the hotdog and fried onions.

‘Tempted?’ Casey grinned at him as she spoke, catching up behind him.

‘No, I value my life too much.’

They were on their way to Little Argyll Street to see if they could follow up the information. They’d jumped on the number 73 bus on the Euston Road outside the UCH
for half an hour before Vaughn had pressed the button to let them off.

It was drizzling and the walk through the supposedly quieter back streets was hampered with shoppers, tourists and workers making their way home in rush hour.

After ten minutes they got to the beginning of Little Argyll Street and right away saw the flashing lights of the slot machine arcade that Lola had told them about. As they crossed over the road, Vaughn slowed his pace and spoke to Casey warmly.

‘You know, you can always talk to me about Emmie. I know there is no “you and me” now, but you don’t have to carry it all on your own.’

Casey flinched. It stung to hear Vaughn say that. She’d really thought he’d been going to give her another chance, but maybe the things she’d said to him when she’d been drunk had cut too deeply. When Janine had questioned Vaughn’s relationship with Casey, insinuating she was only his whore, Casey had been touched and quietly optimistic when he’d said she meant something to him – but since then, Vaughn had kept her at arms’ length. It hurt and it was confusing but she didn’t want to fill her thoughts with it now: she needed to concentrate on Emmie. Casey spoke, knowing she sounded terse because she was hurting.

‘I’m fine, really.’

They looked at each other, neither one of them knowing what to say next, and walked in silence, mulling over their own thoughts, unable to work out what the other one was thinking.

All of a sudden Vaughn stopped walking and held back Casey by her shoulder.

‘Oh shit. That guy who’s just come out of the blue door, I’ve seen him before at Whispers; he came in a few times to see Alfie. I think he’s got something to do with the girls. Come on.’

Vaughn picked up his pace as he followed the man down the street.

‘What do you want to do? Shall I trail him and you go to see if our Albanian lady is in residence?’

‘I don’t know Cass, it’s a bit risky.’

‘I’ll be fine. I won’t do anything stupid, all I’ll do is follow him, and it’s better I do that surrounded by people in the street rather than going up on my own to the slot machine place; we don’t know who’ll be there.’

Vaughn nodded, he didn’t like it but it
did
make more sense than sending her to the arcade where she might be in danger.

‘Okay, but be careful and stay in contact.’

Casey acknowledged his words with a wave, quickening her pace to keep up with the man. She turned into Regent Street and had to rush across the road as the traffic lights turned green and the London traffic sped perilously towards her.

She still had the dark-haired man in sight as he pulled his hood tight around his face before he turned down Hanover Street.

The rain was coming down hard and the wind had caught up with it, whirling it around and hitting the faces of the people of London with an unrelenting harshness. The man was walking at such a pace, Casey was banging into people and not really taking much notice of anything else. She passed the Rolls-Royce dealers’ on the corner and saw him walk into
Hanover Square. Casey looked both ways before crossing the road, but was unaware of the man sitting watching her in the blacked-out car she’d just passed.

Fat Man Cardale felt like his face was about to fall off. The throbbing ache not only encompassed his jaw but the whole of his body. He could taste his own blood in his mouth and was surprised how salty it was. His lip had already swollen up and his front teeth were much looser than they’d been when he’d got up earlier in the day.

The vicious blows rained down by Vaughn Sadler had made him scream out in pain like a girl as he felt his teeth being pushed back by the force of the fist in his mouth. The pain in his eye as it came into contact with the sovereign on Vaughn’s finger pierced through him, as if a needle had been thrust straight through it.

Vaughn took a breather and hoped he wouldn’t have to do anything like this again. He’d been out of the loop for a while and as much as he missed the adrenaline of his old life, doing what he was doing now showed him how much he actually hated the violence of it all – which was ironic because Fat Man Cardale was lying at his feet, grunting like a wounded animal.

‘You have one more fucking chance, Cardale, to tell me the truth or to put it plainly, I’ll kill you.’

Terrified and desperate to save his life, Cardale spoke with blood and saliva trickling down the corners of his mouth.

‘There’s a guy I see from time to time, his name’s Zahir; he traffics women into this country, that’s all I know.’

‘Not good enough.’

Vaughn snarled as he gave Cardale another blow, causing him to hit his head on the sharp corner of the table in the overheated room.

Cardale lay on the dark blue carpet in blood-drenched agony. The pain in his stomach was excruciating and he could hardly breathe. Warm blood poured from the gash in his forehead and over his swollen eyes, stopping him seeing clearly the expression on Vaughn’s face, but he heard the menace in his words as he came to kneel down over him.

‘You know I don’t have time to play games. We can either do it the hard way or the easy way; it’s down to you Cardale, but one way or another, I’ll find out what I need to know.’

‘Okay, okay. Zahir’s doing some business with Oscar. He brought some new girls from Albania into the country the other day for Oscar, but I don’t know where they are. Everyone knows Alfie begged out on Oscar, but before it all hit the fan Alfie was tight with Zahir as well. Originally they were only going to use the girls for private punters but since Oscar’s taken over the running, there’s been rumours he’s dealing with Jason Hedley and touting them out to parties instead. There’s a lot more money in that, and I hear Jason’s hosting another one in a few days somewhere in Essex.’

It was like Lola said; Jason Hedley was in the middle of it. He’d actually come across him before. Like Vaughn himself, Jason was a card player, and he knew only too well what a nasty piece of work he was.