Trafficked: The Terrifying True Story of a British Girl Forced into the Sex Trade (19 page)

The woman in the other bed glanced towards us and Kas patted my arm and kissed my cheek as he mouthed at me again, ‘Don't fuck with me.' Then he left, and as I lay back on the bed and cried, the thought went round and round in my head:
If he finds out, I'm dead
.

Suddenly, it was as though all the tension had drained out of me and I felt almost calm. I was, quite literally,
tired
of being afraid and, in any case, the reality was that whatever happened now was out of my control. I couldn't fight back against Kas – I was too weak and too exhausted. But, before I gave up, I desperately wanted to hear my mother's voice again. So I dialled her number, although all I managed to say before I burst into tears was ‘Oh, Mum!'

I could tell that my mother was crying too as she told me, ‘It's all right, Sophie. We're coming. We're on our way. We've already booked a ferry. We tried to get a flight, but we were too late to get anything today or tomorrow morning, so we're driving. We're leaving now. But listen to me, darling. This is very,
very
important. Do
not
tell him we're coming.'

‘But Mum, he's taking me out of the hospital tomorrow,' I sobbed.

‘
No!
You mustn't leave,' my mother shrieked. ‘We'll be there tomorrow. Sophie, you
have
to wait for us.'

‘But what if he gets here first?' I could feel the panic building up inside me so that I couldn't breathe. ‘Oh Mum, don't let him take me. Please Mum,
please
. Get here before he does.'

For the rest of that day and the night that followed, my mind was numb. All I could think about was my fear and every time I fell asleep, I had the same dream, in which my mother and stepfather were running down the corridors of the hospital calling my name while I sat beside Kas in
his car as he drove out of the car park and into the traffic.

During the afternoon of the next day, Kas sent me a text message saying he'd had to take his car to the garage but that he'd be at the hospital within the next couple of hours. I was already on the verge of hysteria and I was shaking and stammering when I phoned my mother to tell her.

‘Just try to hold on, Sophie,' she said. ‘We've spoken to someone at the embassy and they've contacted the hospital, so they know we're coming. They already suspected something was wrong and they've said they'll try to keep you there until we arrive.'

‘Hurry, Mum,' I sobbed. ‘Please hurry. I'm
so
frightened.'

Two hours later, I had a phone call from Kas to tell me he was almost at the hospital and then another shortly afterwards from Mum saying, ‘We're five minutes away.'

‘When you see him, don't say anything,' I pleaded with my mother. ‘You don't know him, Mum. You have no idea who he is. If you upset him or cause any trouble, you can't imagine what the consequences might be. So, please, just act as though everything's normal.'

It felt as though I was holding a bomb in my hands, waiting for it to explode. Kas had told me many times what he'd do to my little brothers if I disobeyed him in any way, and I'd seen some of what he was capable of when he attacked the man who'd overstepped the line with me, so I was in no doubt that he meant what he said.

He hadn't ever met my mum, but in the early days, before I stopped talking about anything, I'd talked about her a lot and he used to say to me, nastily, ‘Oh your
mum!
You always do what your
mum
tells you to do. She's controlling your mind.' Which was nonsense, and ironic considering that that was precisely what he was doing.

‘It'll be all right, I promise,' Mum said. ‘But you
must not
leave the hospital. Do you understand, Sophie? Do
not
leave.' And then she gave one, heart-rending sob as she added, ‘You've
got
to stay where you are, Sophie, or I might never see you again.'

For the next few minutes, I sat in the chair beside my bed, watching the door and praying,
Please let it be Mum. Please, please
, please
God, don't let Kas walk through the door first.
And then there he was, pushing open the door and walking towards my bed.

I could see from his expression that he knew immediately something was wrong and as I stood up, trying to suppress my instinct to back away from him, I blurted out, ‘My mum's here.'

Two nurses had come to the ward a little while earlier and taken the other woman away, so Kas no longer had to fake a smile or whisper when he said, ‘You fucking
what
?'

‘My mum,' I told him again, swallowing hard and clenching my fists to try to stop my body shaking. ‘I didn't have any insurance and I couldn't pay for the hospital, so I thought that if I rang my mum, she could ask my sister to
phone an insurance company in England and pretend to be me and then she could get some insurance in my name. Then Mum and Steve were worried about me …' I was speaking quickly, the words tumbling out of my mouth in an almost incoherent torrent, partly because I was incapable of stopping them and partly because I was trying to buy myself some time. ‘They came because they need to get me home and I can't fly,' I continued, not giving Kas a chance to interject. ‘The doctors won't let me fly because of my stomach and that's why Mum and my stepdad have come to drive me home.'

To my amazement, Kas seemed to accept what I was telling him – or perhaps he realised that if my mother and Steve
were
about to arrive at the hospital, he'd have to play a clever game to make sure that they left again without me. And just as he was shrugging and saying ‘Okay', the door of the ward burst open and my mother almost flew through it, followed by Steve, who was striding more slowly but very purposefully in her wake, his jaw set and his face impassive, except for a frown that gave him an air of absolute determination.

Kas turned towards them as they came through the door and although he smiled his most charming smile and greeted them politely, neither of them spoke to him. In fact, I could tell immediately that my mother couldn't even bring herself to look at him, and when she almost ran across the room and wrapped her arms around me, I broke down and began to sob.

I was shaking uncontrollably, but suddenly I felt overwhelmed by exhaustion and by an almost palpable sense of relief at the realisation that I was no longer totally alone. Often during the last few months, when I'd listened, my head bowed in dejected acceptance, as Kas shouted at me for one failing or another, or I'd stood, shivering with cold and abject misery at the side of the road, waiting for the next stranger to stop his car beside me, I'd dreamed about looking up and seeing my mum. And now, as the warmth of her body seemed to radiate into mine, I was a little girl again, waking up from a nightmare and knowing that as long as my mother's arms were around me, nothing could hurt me.

Then I remembered that even though Mum and Steve were there, I was still a long way from being safe. I knew Kas would go to almost any lengths to keep me under his control, and I was frightened at the thought of what he might do if he became suspicious about their real intentions. Although Steve appeared to be calm and unemotional, I knew he would be assessing and processing everything and everyone around him so that he could make an informed decision about what to do. And I could feel the tension in my mother's body as she fought to control the desire to tear Kas apart with her bare hands, even though she didn't have any idea of what he'd really done to me. So I was afraid they might say or do something that would make Kas angry – because if that happened, I knew I would never escape.

But, although I wasn't aware of it at the time, Mum and Steve already understood that Kas was more than just a man who bullied and threatened his girlfriends. After talking to someone at the British Embassy, they'd decided that, whatever happened, they were going to keep their cool and outwit him, because the only thing that mattered to them was getting me away from him.

I was still wrapped in my mother's arms when the door from the corridor was pushed open again and a nurse came bustling in. Smiling at us briskly, she said, in broken English, ‘We clean this room now. You must be outside.' Then she pointed towards my mother and me and added, ‘Not you.' Kas spoke rapidly to her in Italian, but she shrugged and ushered him and Steve out into the corridor just as a small, grey-haired woman in an overall came in and began to mop the floor.

As soon as the door closed behind Kas and Steve, my mother said to me, ‘Just follow my lead and do whatever Steve and I say.' I could see the shocked distress in her eyes as she looked at me, and for the first time I tried to imagine what my emaciated body, dark-rimmed eyes and gaunt face must look like to someone who hadn't seen me for six months.

There was little time for her to say much more before the door opened again and the nurse told us, ‘The doctor wants to talk with you.'

When we went out into the corridor, Kas and Steve were standing silently a few feet apart from each other, both
with similarly stern, uncompromising expressions on their faces. But as soon as he saw us, Kas became instantly charming and full of concern. ‘I will come with you to see the doctor,' he told my mother. ‘I speak Italian – I can translate for you.' He moved towards her, but instantly Steve stepped between them and, speaking slowly in an impassive monotone, said, ‘Now listen, lad. This is a family matter and you are not a member of this family, so I will ask you kindly, if you don't mind, to wait over there.' He pointed towards a row of chairs that were neatly aligned along one wall of the corridor. ‘Please allow us to sort this out. She's our daughter and we don't need anyone to translate for us, thank you very much.'

I saw the flash of anger in Kas's eyes and I was suddenly very afraid for all of us. Steve had no idea who he was dealing with, but I'd forgotten that his own quiet stoicism hid a determination every bit as steely as Kas's own. And as Kas stepped aside to let us pass, Steve turned his back on him and walked between my mother and me down the corridor and into the office where the doctor was waiting for us.

‘We need copies of your drivers' licences,' the doctor told my parents. ‘Then just take her home. When you've got her there safely, send us a copy of her passport, but don't worry about that now.'

My mother had no idea what had happened to me during the last six months, but she said later that when she shook the doctor's hand and looked into his eyes, she realised that, whatever it was,
he
knew.

‘But Kas has got my passport,' I said. ‘I can't …'

‘Yes you can, love.' Steve put his hand on my shoulder. ‘You've come this far. You can do this one last thing. And this time, we'll be there right beside you.'

Other than my passport, I had very few possessions at the hotel, and even fewer that I wanted to take home with me, and I dreaded the thought of having to go back there. I still didn't really believe I was going to escape from Kas, and I was afraid that the longer we were with him, the more time he'd have to think of some plan to snatch me away from Mum and Steve again, and then any chance I might have had of escaping would be lost.

‘You come with me,' Kas told me, putting his hand on my arm and smiling a charming smile that didn't reach his eyes.

‘
No!
' My mother almost shouted the word at him. Then she paused, took a deep breath and said, in a more even tone, ‘She should come with us. It's been such a long time since we last saw her.'

‘Ah, but if you're going to take her away from me for a while, it would be nice for me if she could come in my car, so that I can be with her one last time before she goes,' Kas said.

Again my mother said ‘No'. But, looking directly into her eyes, I told her, ‘It's okay, I'll go with Kas.'

Mum had told Kas that the doctor recommended taking me back to England to give me a chance to recover fully from my illness, but I couldn't understand why he
seemed to be accepting what was happening. Perhaps it was simply because he knew he could get me back whenever he wanted to. Although what I wanted more than anything in the world was to escape from him, I was fixated on the idea that we mustn't give him any reason to suspect I wasn't planning on coming back. I was terrified, too, that the longer we were there, the more chance there was of one of us saying or doing something to arouse his suspicions and make him change his mind. So it just seemed best to do what he wanted and not waste precious time arguing with him, particularly as I knew that once he'd decided on something, his determination was unshakeable.

In the car, Kas told me that he would book a flight for my return to Italy. ‘Four weeks should be plenty of time for you to get better,' he said. ‘And if you give me your credit card and PIN number, I'll have a little deposit in case you get any ideas about not coming back.' Then his voice became cold and threatening as he added, ‘And don't even think about giving me the wrong PIN number. Just wait and see what I'll do to you if you try to trick me. Don't ever think that I'm not with you or that I won't be able to find you, wherever you go.' And I had no doubt that what he said was true.

Steve and Mum followed us to the hotel and as Kas turned into the driveway, Steve quickly reversed his car in too, directly behind Kas's so that he was blocking the exit. Then, almost before he'd turned off the engine, he jumped
out and opened the boot, standing slightly to one side so that Kas couldn't avoid seeing what he was doing as he moved the heavy metal snow chains to one side. He looked at Kas steadily for a moment before turning to me and saying cheerfully, ‘Right, love. You've got 10 minutes and then we're leaving. Your mum and I will wait here.'