“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&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?”
THE NEXT FEW days passed in a blur of A&E shifts and deep, dreamless sleep. Spider had said he would call when he needed her, but her phone didn’t ring.
Jill moved out of the flat without warning two days after the invasion. Kate came home from a long shift and found the flat half empty. No note, nothing. Bitch hadn’t even left the rent. So Kate dug out the most recent itemised phone bill and called every number she didn’t recognise until she reached Jill’s Dad, who was not amused to hear of his daughter’s midnight flit. He promised Kate that his little girl would be at her door in an hour with the rent in full. She was too, sullen and angry and refusing to speak. She held out an envelope full of cash and the second Kate took it she turned on her heels and stalked away.
“Don’t be a stranger,” Kate yelled at her retreating back, laughing.
She didn’t seen the man who had been watching her, but she was constantly on the lookout for him. She was convinced she’d be seeing him again.
After a week she almost convinced herself it had never happened; that it was business as usual, that she hadn’t been beyond the looking glass and seen a girl murdered. But then on Friday, as she sat in her track pants and t-shirt eating Pot Noodle on the sofa, watching Loose Women on her day off, there was a sharp knock at the door. She considered not answering, but whoever it was would be able to hear her telly.
The giant stood in the hallway, waiting patiently.
“Boss says you got to come.”
“Okay, give me a minute to…”