A Place Of Safety Read online

  ‘Something is wrong?’ said Milo.

  Lilly almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it.

  ‘Anna Duraku is dead,’ she said.

  No one spoke. No one seemed to breathe. Lilly looked from Anna to Milo and back again.

  ‘The girl who came to this country to seek asylum died three years ago.’

  Tears welled in Anna’s eyes and ran down her cheeks as if in slow motion.

  ‘Which begs the question,’ said Lilly, ‘who the fuck are you?’

  ‘This is a matter of the utmost seriousness,’ said Judge Roberts.

  No shit, Sherlock.

  ‘It affects every aspect of the case,’ he continued. ‘Do you have instructions, Miss Valentine?’

  Lilly looked back at her client, huddled in the dock, weeping. She hadn’t uttered a word since Lilly had told her what she knew, and ten years’ experience had taught Lilly that there was no point pressing.

  The judge turned to Jez. ‘What do the prosecution say?’

  Lilly expected Jez to wring every drop out of the situation, but instead he rose slowly to his feet and coughed as if embarrassed.

  ‘My friend will need time to address this,’ he said. ‘As you say, Your Honour, it affects every aspect of this case.’

  The judge nodded and sighed. ‘I will give you a week, Miss Valentine, during which time I expect you to thrash out with your client what on earth is going on.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Lilly.

  ‘And in the meantime we must address the issue of bail,’ said the judge.

  Lilly’s stomach lurched.

  ‘The current position is now untenable,’ he continued. ‘Your client must be remanded into custody.’

  Lilly jumped to her feet. ‘Your Honour, can we not let things stand?’

  The judge removed his glasses and peered at Lilly. ‘Miss Valentine, neither you, nor I, nor indeed anyone in this courtroom, have the slightest idea as to your client’s identity. Do you seriously propose that I allow her just to leave the building?’

  ‘But she’s with me all the time,’ Lilly blurted.

  The judge shook his head.

  ‘I wouldn’t let her out of my sight,’ Lilly shouted.

  The judge put up his hand. ‘You are not a character in a Jodi Picoult novel, Miss Valentine.’

  ‘She won’t run away, I promise.’

  ‘Not another word.’

  He signalled for the guards to take Anna down.

  Alexia sidled onto the bench, next to a man with the worst case of adult acne she had ever seen.

  ‘Tell me all about yourself, Mick,’ she purred.

  ‘It’s Mark,’ he said.

  She let out a tiny tinkle of a laugh and smoothed a hand over a skirt that grazed her thighs. ‘Of course it is.’

  A scarlet stain flushed down from the man’s prematurely balding temples to his pitted and infected chin.

  Thank God for fishnets, she thought. Whoever had invented them should be canonised.

  ‘So tell me, Mark,’ she said, trying not to focus on a particularly large boil on his upper lip, ‘is your job very interesting?’

  ‘Not really,’ he said, the angry lump moving up and down as he spoke.

  Alexia sighed. After her argument with Steve she’d jumped onto the next train to London and raced to the Old Bailey determined to find a lead. She needed to find out what was going on and fast. One of the ushers had appeared with a face like a relief map of Africa and she’d dragged him off to El Vinos on Fleet Street.

  ‘I bet you get to hear lots of juicy cases,’ she said.

  Mark rubbed his boil with the edge of a beer mat. ‘Not many.’

  ‘No murders?’ she asked.

  Mark shook his head.

  ‘That’s a shame.’ Alexia licked her liberally glossed lips. ‘I find all that stuff exciting.’ She leaned close enough to smell his antiseptic cream. ‘Very exciting.’

  He looked Alexia up and down, taking in every inch of her. She stretched out a slender wrist and picked up her glass. Gotcha.

  ‘You from the papers then?’

  Alexia spluttered on her drink. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘’Cos if you ain’t, I’ll be off.’ He stood to make his point.

  ‘Sit,’ she hissed.

  He appraised her again, and this time Alexia could see the predatory look in his eye.

  ‘You want to know about the asylum seeker?’

  Alexia nodded.

  ‘Five grand,’ he said.

  ‘Five thousand quid!’ Alexia shouted. ‘I’m from the Three Counties Observer not the News of the World.’

  ‘Take it or leave it.’ Mark sniffed. ‘The Sun will give me double that.’

  She thought quickly. Steve would never give her the money but then again, if the story was good enough, maybe she wouldn’t give it to Steve. Maybe she could freelance it.

  ‘Well?’ asked Mark.

  ‘Done,’ she said. ‘But this is an exclusive.’

  He put his hand on her thigh. It felt clammy through her fishnets. ‘Maybe this could be the start of something regular.’

  She put her hand over his. ‘Tell me what you’ve got.’

  He looked around as if checking no one was listening.

  ‘She ain’t who she says she is.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’ve checked the DNA and everything. She’s been using a false ID.’

  Alexia was bowled over. She hadn’t seen this coming. ‘So who is she?’

  Mark shrugged. ‘She ain’t telling.’

  Lilly’s mind was a blur. She couldn’t get it straight. Anna wasn’t from Kosovo. Anna wasn’t an asylum seeker. Anna wasn’t Anna.

  ‘Let’s walk,’ said Milo, and led her outside.

  The streets, restaurants and shops were teeming with life and noise, but Lilly felt as though she were viewing it all from the wrong end of a telescope. St Paul’s was a mere speck on the horizon.

  ‘Where did they take her?’ Milo asked.

  Suddenly the world changed perspective and the cathedral loomed in front of them, obliterating the sky.

  ‘Prison,’ Lilly muttered.

  Her last client to be sent down had been a fourteen-year-old girl. With her mother dead, she was alone in the world and Lilly had fought like a cat for her. Until moments ago she’d felt the same about Anna.

  ‘How could she do it?’ asked Lilly.

  ‘We don’t know how desperate she was,’ said Milo.

  They walked without thinking past the cathedral and into the gardens where a group of nuns were eating sandwiches and taking photos in the crisp November day.

  ‘I didn’t suspect for a moment,’ said Lilly. ‘I just took her at her word.’

  Milo stepped around one of the sisters who was taking a photograph but Lilly stood directly in the shot. ‘We all just accepted everything she told us,’ said Lilly.

  Milo pulled Lilly to one side and looked at her. Something in his eyes brought Lilly up short.

  ‘You knew?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘But you suspected?’

  He shrugged again and turned.

  Lilly caught his arm. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

  The nuns looked up from their wholemeal rolls and frowned.

  ‘She’s made a fucking idiot out of me,’ Lilly hissed. ‘And you let her.’

  ‘This is a place of God,’ said the nun, waving her Olympus 9000. ‘Please don’t use profanities.’

  Milo waved an apology. ‘Maybe Anna didn’t run away from the Serbs, but she was running away from something.’

  ‘A parking ticket, probably,’ said Lilly.

  Milo shook his head. ‘She left everything and everybody behind. This is more serious than a parking ticket.’

  Lilly squeezed her eyes closed. Milo was right. Of course he was. People didn’t just up sticks and take on false identities unless something was very wrong.

  Her phone beeped. It
was a text from Rupes.

  How did things go in court?

  Lilly sighed. Her boss was going to hit the roof.

  Alexia felt uneasy about what she had set in motion.

  After she’d left Mark with promises of money and sex, she knew she was on to something. The story was a good one, but Alexia had not lived so many long years with her father without knowing that you could never be complacent. When the going was smooth you didn’t lie back and pour a margarita, you worked harder, pushed harder.

  The story was a good one, but she would make it a great one.

  Sitting here now, in the thick of Blood River’s hatred, she wondered if she had made the right choice. Alexia knew she was playing with fire and was anxious that it wasn’t her who would get burned.

  She had told him the news. The girl was a fake.

  He had reacted calmly and asked her to meet him in the Turk’s Head.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll agree that the time for words is over,’ he said.

  ‘What do you have in mind?’ Alexia asked. ‘A demonstration?’

  Blood River gave a cold smile and pulled out his phone.

  ‘Some of our brothers have it in hand.’

  He dialled and laid his mobile on the table. It was an iPhone. Whoever was at the other end was filming a street in Harpenden.

  ‘Oh, Rupes, I’m so sorry,’ said Lilly. ‘I begged you to let me keep Anna’s case, and look where it’s got us.’

  She watched her boss calmly packing away her things. Lilly sometimes swept the day’s detritus into her desk drawer but, more often than not, left everything exactly where it was. If she was out of the office for a few days, the half-eaten apples, sandwich crusts and cold cups of tea would begin to decompose and she would return to a scene out of Great Expectations.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ said Rupinder, ‘is how she thought she could get away with it?’ She poured the remainder of her Evian into the small vase of white roses that her husband sent every week. ‘She must have known someone would find out eventually.’

  Milo’s words came back to Lilly ‘Maybe she was desperate.’

  Rupinder pushed in her chair and put on her coat. ‘How long have you got to sort this out?’ she asked.

  ‘The judge gave me a week.’

  ‘Better get on with it then.’

  They locked up and went out into the street, where it was already dark. The November rain was lashing down in harsh, stinging strips. Naturally, Rupes had an umbrella. Naturally, Lilly did not.

  ‘I’ll walk you to your car,’ said Rupinder.

  The streets were fairly empty, the few pedestrians marching purposefully with their heads down. Maybe that was why Lilly heard the men.

  From the small screen on the phone Alexia could see two women huddled together. About twenty feet behind them were two men, one small, one huge. Alexia recognised the unmistakable bulk of Bigsy.

  ‘What are they doing?’ asked Alexia.

  ‘Watch,’ said Blood River.

  ‘They’re not going to hurt them, are they?’ Alexia’s voice was shrill.

  Blood River responded with low menace. ‘I told you to watch.’

  Lilly unlocked her car and pecked Rupes on the cheek.

  ‘Why can’t you take on some nice conveyancing, Lilly?’

  Lilly smiled but she didn’t reply. She was watching three men over her boss’s shoulder. Two of them stood together, seemingly oblivious to the downpour. The third was holding something in front of him. A phone?

  ‘Let me give you a lift home,’ said Lilly.

  ‘I’m tempted, but this is the only exercise I get.’ Rupes patted her bottom.

  Lilly nodded her head at the men. ‘I don’t like the look of that lot.’

  ‘Oh, Lilly,’ Rupinder laughed, ‘you spend too much time in Luton.’

  ‘So what’s the one at the back doing?’

  ‘I don’t know. Trying to get a signal?’ She pushed Lilly into her car. ‘This is Harpenden. Nothing exciting ever happens here.’

  Lilly started the engine. Rupinder was right. The events of today had unsettled her, making her see trouble where there was none.

  She pulled out and waved at her boss as she passed.

  When she got to the junction she checked her rear-view mirror. There was Rupes walking along. There were the men behind her. Were they getting closer?

  Lilly adjusted the mirror. It was dark and wet, difficult to make out. They were definitely getting closer.

  In seconds they were right behind Rupes. On her heels. She turned towards them.

  Alexia couldn’t breathe. She was horrified. Terrified.

  ‘I would never have told you if I’d thought…’

  Blood River held her chin, his eyes glittering. ‘Just do your job.’ He turned her face to the screen.

  The image was grainy but she could see perfectly well as Bigsy raised his fist and punched the Indian woman in the face.

  Lilly was out of her car before the second blow. She left the engine on, the door open, and raced towards Rupinder.

  She could hear screaming. Her own? Rupes’s?

  Rupinder fell to the floor among the puddles, her sari splattered in mud and dirty water. The smaller man pulled back his foot and kicked her. Lilly heard the sound as it connected with Rupinder’s head. A wet thump. A guttural groan.

  ‘Shit-eating Paki,’ he shouted, and pulled back for another kick.

  Lilly closed the gap and leapt at the man.

  ‘What the fuck?’ He spun around, Lilly attached to his back. She clawed his face, feeling her nails tear his skin.

  ‘Get her off me,’ he screamed.

  The bigger man grabbed at Lilly’s leg but she punched away his hand. He roared at her, took hold of a handful of her hair and pulled. She was propelled backwards, clattering to the ground.

  With his hand still entangled in her hair, he banged her head back hard against the concrete. The shockwave raced through her body. Her vision filled with points of light.

  He lifted her head for a second time and Lilly braced herself for the slam.

  ‘I’ve called the police,’ she shouted. ‘They’ll be here any second.’

  The man stopped in his tracks and looked at his companions. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  She was bleeding.

  Even in the half-world of the iPhone, Alexia could see blood pooling under the Asian woman’s head.

  She was perfectly still, her neck at a strange angle.

  The other woman was by her side, screaming directly into the camera, her face contorted. It was Valentine.

  ‘You fucking scum.’ Spit flew from her lips. ‘You fucking animals.’

  The screen went blank.

  There seemed to be a vacuum of silence as if the very air had been sucked away. Alexia felt the weight of it on all sides, pressing down on her. Blood River had misjudged the situation. This time he had gone too far. Maybe he had no idea that his men would do such a horrible thing.

  He turned to her slowly and whispered in her ear.

  ‘You got exactly what you wanted. Now write the fucking story’

  Chapter Nineteen

  The back of the van stinks of sweat and stale tobacco. Luke doesn’t care. He squeezes into the far corner—happy to have been picked for another day’s work.

  The Ukrainian nods his head in acknowledgement and Luke smiles back. The journey is hot and cramped. At least fifteen of them are crammed in, squatting on the floor. Luke imagines how horrified his mother would be. She doesn’t even let him sit in the front seat because she read some article about air bags setting on fire.

  The men chat quietly. Though Luke can’t understand what they say he can tell by their glances in his direction that he is the main topic of conversation.

  ‘They want to know why you’re doing this,’ says the Ukrainian.

  Luke shrugs. ‘I need the money.’

  The Ukrainian translates to an eruption of laughter.

  ‘They mean thi
s type of work.’ The Ukrainian smiles. ‘Why not do with papers?’

  Luke closes his eyes. He can’t explain that he’s wanted for rape. That he’ll be arrested on the spot if he does anything official.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ he says.

  The Ukrainian nods. ‘Life is always complicated.’

  Luke keeps his eyes tight shut. Sometimes his situation makes his head feel like it might explode. Sometimes he’s wondered if he’ll just go mad. He’s seen plenty of people on the street who’ve totally lost their grip on reality. They lurch about, deep in conversation with unseen demons. A year ago Luke might have laughed at them; now he wonders if he’ll end up the same way.

  ‘You haven’t time for a meltdown, soft lad,’ says Caz. ‘Not now you’re a wage slave.’

  ‘You won’t take the piss when I get us somewhere to live,’ says Luke.

  Caz cocks her head to one side like a tiny bird. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.’

  And it’s true. Exams, footie matches, arguments with his mum, they all seem trivial now.

  ‘I’m going to take care of you,’ he says.

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ she replies. ‘I’ve been doing it since I could walk.’

  Luke kisses her gently on the cheek. ‘Now it’s my turn.’

  The van comes to an abrupt stop and Luke is propelled into the Ukrainian’s lap. The doors are thrown wide and Luke tries to untangle himself.

  The Ukrainian clambers outside and groans.

  ‘What’s up?’ asks Luke.

  The Ukrainian points to the grey building belching smog from a handful of chimneys.

  ‘Fish factory.’

  Luke breathes in the stench of dead prawns and smiles. He’s on a mission.

  ‘You’ve got a bleeding nerve.’

  Lilly exhaled loudly. She’d been at Luton General most of the night, pacing the corridors while her boss had emergency surgery. Rupinder’s husband, Raj, had finally convinced her to go home at four, but she’d come straight back after Sam had left for school. She was exhausted. Her scalp screamed where her hair had been wrenched. She just didn’t have the energy to deal with Sheila.