can’t go away from this place until we pay him back this money. So we have to work. Then we … in the place …”
She did not know how much time passed as she stared at the tabletop, trying to grab at the strands of her thoughts.
“Are you tired?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Of course you are.”
He smiled again, and Galya smelled sour milk.
“You’ve been through so much,” he said. “Do you want to sleep?”
Galya nodded.
“There’s a room upstairs,” he said. “It’s not much, but you can sleep there for a while if you want. I have some calls to make, anyway. We’ve a lot to figure out if we’re going to get you home.”
“Who will you call?” Galya asked.
“People,” he said. “Agencies. They deal with girls like you all the time, girls who’ve been smuggled into the country. They arrange everything, get you a new passport, organize flights, all that. Why don’t you go to sleep? By the time you wake up, it’ll all be sorted, and I can take you to them.”
“Okay,” Galya said.
She might have felt hope or fear in her heart, she couldn’t be sure, but her focus was on keeping her head upright and her eyes open. She swallowed. Something powdery and bitter cloyed the back of her mouth. Two thick arms slipped around her as the world fell away.
19
THE MAN WHO called himself Billy Crawford removed only the mobile phone and her shoes, a pair of worn trainers that were far too big for her. He winced when he saw the state of her feet, blistered and torn. He left the rest of her clothing in place, even though she was covered in a dead man’s blood. It might be less comfortable for her, but he wished to protect her modesty.
Later, once she had been saved, he could look.
And touch.
And taste.
But not until then. For now, he pulled the blanket up under her chin. He would dispose of the phone later.
He had almost left her at the roadside when she told him what she’d done. The police would surely be searching for her. But she’d seen his face, his van, his number plates. So he could not leave her there, no matter how dangerous she was.
And she was so pretty, like a pale doll.
Now she was safe. Quiet and still, like a good girl.
He brushed the yellow hair away from her face. His finger slipped between her dry lips, pulled them back.
Good teeth.
He smiled and backed toward the door. She’d be under for four or five hours, maybe. He had many things to do between now and then.
The first being to feed the creature upstairs.
He pulled the door closed and turned the key in the lock.
20
LENNON PICKED CONNOLLY up at his house near Ulsterville Avenue. Rented, he told Lennon. The housing crash had lowered prices in the Lisburn Road area of the city, but not so low that a uniformed officer could afford one, even if he could get a mortgage. Having a pair of six-month-old babies didn’t help his finances, he complained, as Lennon drove to the apartment building on the outskirts of Bangor. Traffic moved at a deliberate and steady pace as the snow deepened on the ground.
Connolly did his best to hide his yawns. He had changed out of his uniform and into a casual jacket and jeans. He held an overcoat on his lap.
“I haven’t had much kip either,” Lennon said.
“I got an hour at most,” Connolly said. “The wife wanted me to help her with stuff today, look after the twins, that sort of thing. She’s having everyone for Christmas this year. First time she’s ever done it, so it didn’t go down too well when I said I had to work.”
“I can imagine,” Lennon said. “But you’ll be at home tonight. She can’t complain about that.”
“She might,” Connolly said.
Lennon pulled off the Belfast Road and drove to the quiet cul-de-sac where the three-story apartment building stood.
It was a modest place. Clean, anonymous, dull. The perfect location from which to run prostitutes. Good access from the city, just fifteen minutes by car for a lonely man, and neighbors who probably didn’t pay much attention to the comings and goings. Lennon scanned the other cars parked here as he pulled up. At least half of them were old BMWs or Audis, left-hand drive with continental license places: Poland, Latvia, Lithuania. Migrant workers lived here, many of them probably on short leases.
Yes, a needful businessman could come here without fear of being recognized by a neighbor. Lennon wished he didn’t understand that quite so clearly.
It had been more than six months since he’d last visited such a place himself. And then two months before that. Less than half a dozen times since Ellen had been in his care. Before, he had been able to wash himself clean of the shame after leaving some hollow-eyed young woman with a hundred pounds on a bedside locker. But ever since Ellen had taken her place in his home, he’d been unable to scrub the crawling feeling from his skin. It wasn’t that the girls were unclean, that he feared he had contracted some vulgar infection, but that he imagined the disgrace seeped from inside him, out through his pores, sticking to anything he touched.
So he had made the decision to stop. Of course, he knew if it had been as simple as making a moral and logical choice, he never would have started in the first place. He had gone six weeks after Ellen first moved in without feeling the slightest temptation. But then one night he let her have a sleepover with Lucy and Susan, and he found himself lifting his car keys from the table, taking the lift downstairs, getting into his car, and driving to a place he knew in Glengormley. He didn’t allow his conscience a voice until he came home two hours later and his better mind began to pick over the deed. The next morning, Ellen wanted to hold his hand when he went to collect her from Susan’s apartment upstairs. He wouldn’t allow it, fearing the sin would spread from his fingers to hers, and she punished him with silence for a full day.
Still he didn’t learn the lesson, and only two weeks later he made another late-night journey to a dark corner of the city. And again a few weeks later. Each time, he promised himself, and the part of his heart that belonged to Ellen, that he would not do it again. Each time, he knew he would break that promise.
Jack Lennon knew a human soul could bear an almost infinite amount of shame as long as it remained there, inside, and stayed hidden from others. Many bad people survived that way. In the quietest minutes of the night, he wondered if he was one of them.
THE LANDLORD’S AGENT and a uniformed sergeant from C District waited outside the apartment building. Lennon and Connolly got out of the car and presented their identification. The landlord’s agent looked worried. The sergeant looked bored.
The agent introduced himself as Ken Lauler. He let them into the building, and they followed him up to the top floor.
“It wasn’t us who let this place out originally,” Lauler said. “There was a different agent before us. We just took over the contract for the landlord, the maintenance, all that.”
“What about the rent?” Lennon asked.
“It’s paid by standing order every month, straight from a bank account.”
