“Why would he do that?”
Ganz smiled, showing a missing front tooth. “No troublesome visas to worry about.”
“What’s his business?” Gareth Lambert had told Banks that Max worked in the travel business, organizing tours and cruises, but somehow or other Banks didn’t think Ganz would be here if that were the case.
“Broda’s a trader,” said Ganz. “Do you know what that is?”
“A trader in what?”
“Have you ever heard of the Arizona Market?”
“No.”
“I know it sounds American, but it’s actually in Bosnia, between Sarajevo and Zagreb. It’s like those old markets you see in movies, you know, the casbah, so romantic with its stalls of colorful goods and its narrow winding streets. During the day many people go there to buy pirated CDs and DVDs and knockoff Rolexes and Chanel perfume. But at night it becomes a market of a different kind. At night you can buy stolen cars, guns, drugs. And young women. They are sold there like sheep and cattle are sold at your country shows. Sometimes they are auctioned off, made to parade naked holding numbers while the traders touch them and caress them before they make their bids, look in their mouths like you would if you were buying a horse. When they’ve been bought, many of them end up working in clubs and brothels in Bosnia, servicing the international peace-keeping forces, but many are also smuggled into other countries to work in peep shows and massage parlors.”
“I suppose that’s where Lambert comes in?” Banks said. “The Balkan route.”
“That’s one way,” Ganz agreed. “Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Kosovo. But there are others, and they are always changing. They cross wherever the border is unguarded. Many women from Russia, Ukraine and Romania are smuggled through the eastern route, through Poland to Germany, or through Hungary. From Serbia to Italy, many smugglers prefer to use Albanian seaports and ship the women over on rubber dinghies. Not all of them make it. But however they get here, once they are inside the EU, they can be moved around more freely.”
“So Lambert and Broda are in business together?”
“Yes.” Ganz’s eyes hardened. “Broda buys the women and Lambert arranges to get them into the country. He doesn’t do it himself, of course. That would be too risky. But he knows the weak spots and who can be bribed. We think they have been in business for some time. Lambert was based in Spain before, but things got a bit too hot for him there, so now he’s over here, and the travel business is a perfect cover for the trips he has to make.”
“So Gareth Lambert and Max Broda have been conspiring to smuggle young girls into England for the purpose of prostitution for some years now?”
“Yes. But not just England. That’s why it is difficult to pin them down. We are trying to build up dossiers on similar operations in Paris, Berlin and Rome. It’s a widespread problem.” He paused. “I have seen these women, Mr. Banks, talked to them. To call them ‘women’ is not strictly accurate in the first place. They are no more than girls, some as young as fourteen or fifteen. They are lured from their homes by promises of jobs overseas as nannies and models, maids and waitresses. Sometimes they are smuggled out and sold straightaway, sometimes they are taken to breaking houses in Belgrade. There they are forced to live in filthy conditions. They are humiliated, beaten, starved, denied even the most basic human decencies, raped repeatedly, drugged, made to be compliant. When their spirits are broken, they are taken to the markets and sold to the highest bidder. After that, even if they are smuggled to Rome, Tel Aviv, Paris or London, they are forced to live in terrible conditions and service ten, twenty, even thirty men a night. If they don’t play the game and pretend they are enjoying what is done to them, they are beaten and threatened. They are told that if they try to escape they will be hunted down and killed along with their families back home.”
“I’ve heard something of this,” said Banks, shaken by the images Ganz was offering up, “but not… the extent.” He shook his head.
“Most people do not know,” Ganz said. “Many prefer not to know. People like to think that girls who end up as prostitutes deserve no less, that they chose what they do, but many didn’t. You can buy a young girl for as little as a thousand pounds and make over a hundred thousand pounds a year from her. Once she is worn out, you buy a new one. It makes good business sense, does it not?”
“I can’t believe my brother was involved in this.”
“He wasn’t, as far as I know,” said Ganz. “From what Superintendent Burgess has told me, it is my guess that your brother and his girlfriend found out what was going on.”
“Through the Berger-Lennox Centre?”
“And through Dr. Lukas, yes.”
“What’s her part in all this?”
“She is trying to help the girls who get pregnant. That is all. She asks no questions. They are lucky they have someone like her, otherwise…”
“But what’s her connection?”
“That we do not know for sure. This investigation here is very new. Most of the work we have been doing has been in Bosnia, Romania and Serbia.”
“Was Carmen one of the girls she was trying to help? Carmen Petri?”
Ganz frowned. “I’m sorry, I do not know the name.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. Petri, you say?”
“Something like that.”
“It sounds Romanian.”
“But you haven’t heard of her?”
“No.”
“Okay,” said Banks. “Go on.”
“Anyway,” Ganz continued. “No matter what Dr. Lukas does or does not know, there’s a pimp involved somewhere, and Lambert and Broda supply him with girls smuggled from eastern Europe. He probably keeps them in more than one house, depending on how many girls he owns. Perhaps there is even more than one pimp. I do not know. We have been waiting for Broda or Lambert to lead us there.”
“But they haven’t?”
“Not yet. We were worried they might be on to us. Lambert’s moving between the flat and the travel office, and he spends most weekends playing the local squire in his country manor.”
“Where’s that?” Banks asked.
“A village called Quainton, near Buckingham. That’s where he leads his exemplary life. Anyway, where there are pimps and smugglers you will usually find organized crime, too, and that is always dangerous.”
“The Russian Mafia?”
“Most likely.”
Banks told him what he had heard from Annie about the two men suspected of killing Jennifer and, perhaps, Roy.
Ganz nodded slowly. “Sounds like their style.”
“So what next?”
“We think these recent murders might bring things to a boil. Someone might make a mistake.”
“Are you here to warn me off?”
Ganz laughed. “Warn you off? Superintendent Burgess told me you would probably say something like that.”
“Oh? What else did he tell you?”
“That it would do no good. Some people we can warn off easily, but not you. He said you’re nobody’s man.”
“He’s right.”
Ganz waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “No, I don’t want to warn you off. I want to use you in a way I can’t use the police who are investigating the case. I want you to keep on doing right what you’re doing. I just want you to know that you’re involved in stirring up a wasps’ nest.”
“Go on.”
“I’m not saying that you’re not in danger – they may have killed you if you had been at the address your brother gave his girlfriend – but I think with all the trouble caused by the two murders they have already committed, they would think twice right now about killing a policeman. When you came down here they no doubt kept an eye on you, just for form’s sake, but they had other things to occupy them, and they knew your brother hadn’t had time to tell you anything, or you wouldn’t have been floundering around in the dark the way you were. They also tortured him before they killed him and he told them you knew nothing. He also told them where you lived, and they rang the men in the car. Fortunately, your brother gave them the wrong address. They sent the digital image on the mobile, too. Perhaps they didn’t know you had it, but they knew your brother didn’t. That’s just their style, a sick joke. Max Broda himself, most likely. If you hadn’t got it, whoever had the phone at the time would have. Even the police. It didn’t matter to them. It couldn’t be traced. It was stolen and they threw it away as soon as they had used it. After that, they let you know that they know where your parents live. That is also very much their style. And don’t worry, your parents are safe. It wasn’t something we could leave for the locals to deal with alone.”