Her hands were steady as she lifted the coffee mug to her lips. She was surprised by this, but reasoned that she would probably go into shock in an hour or so, when the adrenalin finally wore off. For now, she felt focused, purposeful yet slightly spaced out, as if she had just begun the long build up to a skull shattering migraine.
James, she could see, was already in shock. She'd been trained to deal with people brought into A amp;E like this; taught how to treat them while eliciting their story, gathering information to help with diagnosis.
"Start at the beginning," she said, more harshly than she'd intended. It seemed that when it came to her brother, her training didn't help
James sniffed, wiped his nose on his sleeve and took a sip of coffee. He looked up at her and she winced again at the marks on his face. His left eye was swollen shut, his jaw bulged and bruised, and his front left canine was a gaping, bloody hole. Say what you like about his personality, James had at least always been pretty. He'd always jokingly referred to himself as the lipstick half of any relationship. Certainly his boyfriends had always tended to be square-jawed gym bunnies. Kate suspected his pretty-boy days were over.
"I got into trouble about six months ago," he said, but then he ground to a halt, staring at the table top.
"James." He did not respond. "For god's sake James, snap out of it. I need to know what you've got me into and I need to know now. Just take it slowly and tell me the whole story from the start."
James reached across and placed his hand on hers, squeezing it tightly and taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. Then he looked up and smiled weakly.
"Okay. But if you tell Gran about this, I'll tell her what you did with Bobby Arnold on your fifteenth birthday."
"You bitch, you wouldn't dare!"
"Try me, toots."
They both laughed, but not for long. James opened the small packet of biscuits and offered one to her. She took one as he dunked his in his coffee.
"I dunno why you do that," she said, screwing up her face in distaste.
"What?"
"Dunking. All you end up with is soggy biscuit mush at the bottom of your coffee. It's gross."
He didn't respond and it soon became apparent that their reservoir of small talk was empty.
"I got in trouble, Sis. Big trouble. About six months ago. It was Phil. You remember Phil?"
Kate remembered Phil, all right. She'd known he was trouble the first time he turned up at the pub that Sunday night. Tall, muscled and totally in love with his own reflection, he was boorish, brash and bullying. James couldn't look at him without doing simpering puppy eyes. Kate thought that was the attraction — Phil had finally found the only person in the world who adored him almost as much as he adored himself. He didn't exactly treat James like shit, he didn't need to. It would have been redundant. James practically lay down on the ground and begged Phil to walk all over him.
Kate loved her brother, but Jesus, his taste in men was worse than hers. Nonetheless, she couldn't work out how Phil would have led her brother to Serbian strippers.
"What, he dragged you to lap dancing clubs?" she asked, incredulously.
"No, don't be daft. Phil's problem was gambling. Spider doesn't just run that strip joint. He's got a casino, super illegal, in one of the arches underneath Waterloo station. High stakes, no IOUs. You know Phil worked for that big accountancy firm, right? Well his boss took him there one night after work. He'd never have been able to get in there on his own, but once he'd been vouched for, he started going there on his own. A lot. One night he took me along. It was fun, you know? He hit a winning streak and we walked out three grand richer."
"Oh James, tell me you didn't go back on your own?"
"I figured, you know, if Phil could do it…"
"You fucking muppet." Kate shook her head in wonder. "Every time I think you can't get any stupider, you lower the bar."
James stared at the table top again. "Yeah, that's right Kit, let's have another round of 'my little brother, the big gay loser'. That's exactly what we need right now. So fucking helpful." He made to stand.
"Oh sit down," she said wearily. "Fucking drama queen."
He planted his arse on the seat again, sullen and pouting.
"How much do you owe?"
"A lot."
"How much, James?"
"Twenty-three grand."
"Holy fucking Christ."
"I know, all right. I know. About four months back they grabbed me as I was leaving and took me back to see the boss. I swear, Sis, I thought he was going to shoot me there and then. I… I kind of begged."
"And he offered you a chance to work off the debt, yeah?"
James nodded. "He's into some seriously bad shit."
"No, really?" said Kate, finally starting to feel her cool slipping away. "The guy who just beat us up and shot a girl in the head for no reason at all? You think?"
"He's got the casino and the strip club, but there's more. Lots more."
"Like what?"
"Brothels. Well, not really brothels. More like, dungeons, really."
"What, for S amp;M?"
"No. Literally prisons where he keeps these girls locked up. They're all underground; railway arches, old sub-basements, places like that. There are about six or seven of them that I've been to and I know there are more. The high rollers at the casino, and the guys at the strip club who want to spend a little more cash when the doors close, this is where they go."
Kate felt bile rising in her throat.
"You've been there?"
"That's my job. I have to look after some of the girls. Bring them food and stuff. Keep them alive."
"Lyudmila?"
James nodded. "She was new. Arrived last week. These girls, right, they think they're going to get jobs here. There's a whole chain designed to get them to the UK. Guys who go around the villages in the Ukraine and Latvia, Siberia and places like that looking for teenagers. And I mean thirteen up, right? They say they're recruiting for cleaning jobs and hotel waitresses, that kind of thing. The girls pay a fee, or their parents do, and they're shipped over here and then they just… disappear."
"These dungeons…"
"It's not just sex, Sis. And it's not exclusively teenagers. There are young kids, too. And murder rooms. And then…"
Kate had heard enough. "Okay, okay. Shut up. Let me think."
"There was this guy, Nate. He did all the doctoring for them. But he was a junkie and he wasn't reliable, so last week Spider threw him out. Sold him to another gang, like. When Lyudmila got roughed up, I didn't know what to do with Nate gone. I'm so sorry for getting you involved in this, Sis. Really."
"I said enough," Kate snapped. "I need to think. Figure out the angles."
"There aren't any, Kit. This guy, he's smart and ruthless and he's got a fucking army working for him. He even gets a whiff of betrayal and we're dead. Both of us. Just like that. No warning, no second chances. And that's if he's feeling generous. Coz if he's not, we'll end up in one of those dungeons, Sis. And no-one — no-one! — gets out of them alive."
"There's always an angle, James. Always," replied Kate. But she wasn't sure if she believed it, not in this case. The only thing she knew for certain was that her stupid, self-destructive, funny little brother, who she loved more than anything in the world in spite of his manifest flaws, was in trouble and, like she had done all his life, she was going to have to rescue him from himself.
"Get me another coffee, eh. And a chocolate muffin." Kate handed James a tenner and sat staring out of the window as he went to the bar. It took a minute or two for her to realise that she was being watched by the man sitting at the window bar in Pret directly opposite. When their eyes met he smiled and nodded slightly, then finished his coffee, left the shop and walked away.
"Oh James," she whispered. "What have you done?"