“Fuck it,” Jaff finally said, thumping the steering wheel. “We’re not going to make it. At this rate we won’t even be south of Wakefield by the time the van’s reported stolen. We’ve got to get rid of this piece of shit before they find us. They’re bound to know we took it pretty soon, if they don’t know already. Maybe those people were fast walkers, or they didn’t do the whole route for some reason. The cops could be on to us at any moment.”
“But where can we go?” Tracy said. “They’ll have the railway and bus stations covered.”
“I need time to think and make some calls,” said Jaff. “But first we’ve got to dump this van.” He drove on in silence for a few more minutes, then indicated a turn at the next junction.
“What are you doing?” Tracy asked.
“I’ve got an idea. We’ll go to Leeds.”
“Leeds? Are you insane?”
Jaff shot her a hard glance. “Think about it. Leeds is one of the last places they’ll be looking for us. They’d never expect us to go back there in a million years.”
But Tracy knew they would. The police didn’t always think in quite so linear a fashion as Jaff seemed to imagine when he thought he was being clever. Especially her father. “Fine,” she said, a glimmer of hope now flickering inside her. Leeds. She knew Leeds. It was home turf. “Your place or mine?”
“Neither. I’m not so stupid as to think they won’t be guarding our places, or that the neighbors won’t be vigilant and report any sounds. Vic’s is out of the question, too. They’re bound to have traced the other car to him by now.”
“What if he talks?”
“Vic? He won’t talk. He’s an old mate. We’ve been through a lot together.”
“Like what? Cross-country running with your backs to the wall, or showers with games teacher after rugger?”
“You don’t know fuck all about it, so just shut the fuck up. Besides, Vic doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know where we are.”
“I’ll bet he knows where we’re going, though, and who we’re going to see.”
Jaff just glared at her, which told her she was right and he was worried. The coke paranoia was kicking in. There was a short stretch of road through a desolate industrial estate in Stourton between the M1 and the M621 into Leeds, and Jaff concentrated on making the correct turns at the roundabouts, then he pulled into the entrance of a deserted warehouse yard.
“What are you doing?” Tracy asked. “Why are you stopping?”
“No need to piss yourself. We’re getting out of these filthy clothes and putting some clean ones on. You go first.”
Tracy crawled into the back of the van and opened her bag. It was a relief to change out of her old clothes and put on some of the clean, fresh ones Jaff had bought her at the Swainsdale Centre just the other day. Hard to believe only such a short while ago things had been so good between them. Now he was like another person: Jekyll and Hyde. She changed her underwear, too, and only wished she could have a bath first. The best she could do was get back in the front and use the mirror to put on a little makeup while Jaff changed quickly after her and then climbed into the driver’s seat.
“That’s better,” he said, laying out another two lines of coke on a mirror and snorting them through a rolled-up twenty-pound note. “Sure you don’t want any?”
“No, thanks,” said Tracy. “Where are we going now?”
“First off, we’ll dump this piece of shit in Beeston. It won’t last five minutes there. Then we’ll find a nice hotel in the city center, and I’ll make some phone calls. There’s no on else I trust up here, but I’ll work out a plan, don’t you worry.”
“How are we going to get to London?” Tracy asked.
“So many questions. I think I know where I can get us a clean car first thing in the morning. Bloke I know owns a garage in Harehills. MOT, road tax. No questions asked. Then we’ll be down to London in no time.”
Tracy was thinking furiously. Leeds might be her best chance yet if Jaff got a bit too cocky about their safety there. She had been hoping for her break on the moors, but it hadn’t come. Now she couldn’t see an easy way out at all, no matter where they went or what they did. They would either get to London, in which case she would be at the mercy of Jaff and his friends, who would certainly want to leave no witnesses behind, or they would run into a police roadblock and Jaff would try to shoot his way out, or put the gun to her head and use her as a hostage. Whichever way she looked at it, things were bad, and her only possible hope was her father, if they had got in touch with him. It was Thursday, and as far as she could remember he was due back in the country today. He was planning on staying the weekend in London, but surely someone must have got news of Annie’s shooting to him by now?
“They’ll be looking for two of us, you know,” Tracy said. “An Asian male and a white female. We’re making it easy for them.”
“So what do you suggest? I bleach my skin white? You tan yours brown?”
“I suggest we split up. They’ll never find you alone in Leeds. You could probably even take a train down south and they wouldn’t find you. Not on your own.”
“You don’t think they’ve got my picture out everywhere? And you a copper’s daughter.”
“Maybe they have,” Tracy argued. “But they’re still looking for the two of us. Police get blinkered like everyone else. Some of them are pretty thick, too, as a matter of fact.”
“But not your dad. And it’s my bet he’ll be the numero uno leading the search for you.”
“They won’t let him do that. It’s too personal. They have strict rules against that.”
“Think they’ll be able to stop him?” Jaff paused. “Anyway, let’s say you’re right. You’re still my insurance policy, and I’d be a fool to leave my insurance behind.”
“If he is leading the search, the way you say, it’s because of me. Without me you stand a much better chance.”
Jaff shook his head. “Maybe it’s partly because of you. But it’s also because of that bitch I shot back at his house. Think he’s going to give up on her? He was probably shagging her. They stick together.”
“It’s not like that. You can drop me off right here, or in the city center. I can make my own way home.”
“I’m sure you can. Right into your father’s police station. I’ll bet you’ve got plenty of friends there, and you’d be more than happy to answer all their questions.”
“You’ll have a much better chance of getting to London and out of the country without me.”
“Who said I wasn’t already planning on getting out of the country without you?”
His words didn’t surprise Tracy, but she still felt shocked all the same. “What?”
“Surely you don’t think I’m planning on taking you with me now, after everything that’s happened? It’s not as if you’ve exactly proved to be an asset, is it?”
“What are you going to do with me?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I’ll think of something.” He gave her a crooked sideways smile. “Justin might have some ideas. Who knows? You might even be worth something. There’s still a market for young white female flesh in some places, and Justin’s specialty is getting people over borders with the minimum of fuss and maximum of profit. Or maybe I’ll just shoot you. Easier that way. No loose ends. Anyway, one thing at a time.”
Tracy folded her arms and shrank into her seat. White slavery. It sounded silly when she put it that way, such an old-fashioned term, but it still sent a shiver of fear through her. It wasn’t quite as farfetched as it sounded. She had heard and read things in the papers recently about white girls sold into sexual bondage overseas, and her father had worked on a people-trafficking case not so long ago involving girls being smuggled from Eastern Europe. He didn’t discuss his cases in any detail with her, but he had let slip one or two disturbing facts about the way these things were done.
“And just in case you get any clever ideas about trying to escape when we’re among people again, you can forget it. If I’m close to being caught because of you, and I think it’s all over, anyway, I’ll shoot you without a second thought. If I think I can get away, I might not shoot you in public, but I will catch up with you, or my friends will. We have long memories. Every car that passes you on your way to work in the morning, every suspicious- looking person you see lurking on the street…Get the idea? You’ll never know. You’ll never see it coming. Then one day, the hardly felt needle prick, and when you wake up you’re in a stinking metal container on the way to some shit-hole country you’ve never heard of where rich men will pay unimaginable sums of money to do things so filthy to you you’ll wish you were dead. So don’t even think of trying to escape.”
