‘About a year. He did so much in that time. Helping us out. He paid for a special bathroom to be put in for my mother. He cleared my credit cards . . .’ Barbora smiled off in the distance, the memory still alive in her mind. She took a drag on her cigarette and her face clouded over.
‘Then, it was a few months into our relationship. One night we’d been to the cinema in Bromley . . . These boys had been making comments about me when we bought our tickets, stuff about my body. Igor had got angry, but I told him to leave it. We went inside and watched the film, and I thought he’d forgotten about it. When we came out it was late and there weren’t many people around. Igor saw one of the boys leave and he walked in front of us to the car park. When we were near our car, he just went for him, punching and kicking. He was like an animal. This boy went down on the ground and Igor just kept on kicking him, stamping on his head. I’d never seen him like this; it shocked me . . . I tried to pull him away but he punched me in the face too. Finally, when he had no more energy, he just walked away. He left the boy lying on the floor in the dark . . .’
Barbora began to cry. Moss pulled out a small packet of tissues. She held them across the table and Barbora took one. She took a deep breath and wiped her face.
‘And I followed him,’ she said. ‘We just left the boy on the ground between two cars . . . Igor made me drive, even though I wasn’t insured on his car, and I did. He grabbed my handbag and found my make-up remover wipes and cleaned the blood off his knuckles, and some that had sprayed on his face. And then he dropped me home. I didn’t see him for a few days, until he showed up with a gift, and my mum was so happy to see him. I just took it and carried on as if nothing had happened.’
‘What happened to the boy?’ asked Erika. Barbora shrugged. There was a far off rumble of thunder and a flicker of lightning.
‘So where does Andrea come into all this?’ asked Moss.
‘A few weeks after I started work in the club Debussy’s, behind the bar, Andrea came in for a drink. It was quiet and I served her a drink and we got chatting. She started coming in more regularly, and I slowly got to know her. She said how much she hated all the snobby trust fund girls she’d been to school with. When she heard I lived south of the river, she said she’d love to come and visit me. She said it like she was going off on a package holiday or something . . . but New Cross is only ten minutes on the train from Charing Cross.’ Barbora laughed bitterly.
‘So, did Andrea come to your house?’
Barbora shook her head. ‘No, she used to come to The Junction, the coffee place where I worked. She loved it. It was so bohemian, and there were always interesting people there; people who’d lived life free, not in a cage, that’s what she said . . . I said her cage was gilded, but she didn’t get that. I don’t think she knew what the word “gilded” meant.’
‘When did she tell you who her father was?’
‘Not at first, and she made this big thing about keeping it a secret. But then she spent more time at the café, and became quite competitive with some of the girls who’d hang around the artists and painters. She started to let it drop into conversation.’
‘And what did people say?’ asked Erika.
‘Most of them were quite blasé . . . but George – Igor – took interest. When he found out, it was like he suddenly noticed Andrea . . .’
‘Did he have an affair with Andrea?’
Barbora nodded. ‘It happened so fast, and I was so brainwashed by it all.’
‘At this stage, was he being violent with you, Barbora?’
‘No – well, sometimes. It was more the threat of the violence, the control . . . When I found out about Andrea, that’s when he first properly hit me.’
‘Where was this?’ asked Erika.
‘At home. It was a Sunday night and my mother was in the bath. I don’t know why it came up at that time, but it did and I confronted him.’
‘What happened?’
‘He punched me in the stomach. It was so hard I threw up, and then he locked me in the cupboard under the stairs.’
‘How long for?’
‘Not long; I was pleading because my mother was in the bath and getting cold. I had to help her out. He said he’d only let me out if I promised not to mention him and Andrea again.’
‘And did you?’
Barbora shook her head.
‘What happened next?’ asked Erika.
‘Things were normal for a while. It kind of calmed down. Then I was at home one day. Igor arrived at the kitchen door at the back of our house. He had this young girl with him. She could only have been eighteen. She could barely stand, and was dressed in skinny jeans and a tight t-shirt. Her face was a mess of blood; some of it was dry and some of it was new, and it was all down the front of her t-shirt. She was crying and – what was I supposed to do? I let them in, but Igor didn’t want to help her. He went to that cupboard under our stairs and he put her in there and he locked it. He was crazy, swearing he just wanted to know where his phone was. He said this girl had taken it . . .’
The storm was coming close now, and under the tree it was very gloomy.
‘What happened to the girl?’ asked Erika, softly.
‘Igor sent me upstairs. He told me to stay in my room or there would be trouble. I heard the girl screaming and crying. It went on for what seemed like hours . . . And then it went quiet. Igor opened the door and asked to go to my mother’s room. She smiled when she saw him. She’d slept through it all. He asked for my sports bag, the big one I used when I went away. I went to the wardrobe and I pulled it out and he took it . . . He was so calm. I went downstairs a few minutes later and he was leaving with the bag over his shoulder.’
‘What was in the bag?’ asked Moss, even though they knew the answer.
‘The girl,’ said Barbora. ‘She was in the bag, and he just left.’
‘What did you do?’ asked Erika.
‘I cleaned up the mess in the cupboard. There was blood and other stuff . . .’
‘And then?’
‘He came back later, and he told me I’d done a good job. He even gave me some money . . .’ Barbora’s voice was full of self-loathing. ‘And then we carried on again, as if nothing had happened. But he started to tell me about his work. How he’d meet girls from the buses at Victoria Coach Station; how they came to work for him.’
‘To work as what?’ asked Erika.
‘Prostitutes. The more I knew, the more Igor kept giving me money. He bought my mother a new electric wheelchair she could use herself. She didn’t have to be pushed anymore. It changed her life.’
‘And how is Andrea part of this?’
‘I was so stressed I couldn’t eat; my periods stopped. Igor just didn’t look at me that way anymore, so Andrea took over. She provided him with that service.’
‘Was all this going on when you went on the family holidays with Andrea?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you know that later on, Andrea got engaged?’
Barbora nodded, and accepted another cigarette.
‘And did Andrea know about Igor? Did she know what kind of work he did?’ asked Erika.
‘I don’t know. I never discussed it with her. We’d been close at first, and we still were weirdly close on the holidays with her family, but I withdrew into myself. I think Andrea had this romantic notion that Igor was some kind of roguish London gangster, like in those stupid Guy Ritchie films.’
‘So how did you come to be in the witness protection programme?’ asked Moss.
‘The body of the girl was discovered in my bag a few months later.’
‘Where?’
‘A landfill in East London. The bag had an old store card belonging to me in the inside pocket. It led the police to my door. They said they’d been watching me for a long time, and that I could strike a bargain for giving evidence.’