Purgatory Is a Place Too Page 16

  “It must be happening at other schools too..?” I suggested. I’d admitted to her that I was wired up in an attempt to entrap perpetrators and she had appeared eager to help me. However, yet again there was that world weary cynicism about the authorities.

  “You could ring round every head teacher and they’ll all deny it’s happening at their own precious school! We’ve all got high numbers of ethnic minority pupils. We’d get lynched if we brought it up at a Parents’ Evening,” she said bitterly. “And the Governers and the PTA – they’re full of them too…”

  “My old school has security guards and electronic passes for students now,” I mused. “I see yours doesn’t?”

  “I expect your old school has become an Academy and had lots of money thrown at it,” she dismissed sarcastically. She pushed back her dark hair from her face. “Security gates wouldn’t help a thing,” she said abruptly. “Not when they’re giving twelve year olds gifts and making them believe they’re in love with them. The girls come out of their own free will and get in the cars. They think they’re special. They’re showing their status off to their friends…” She glanced at her watch. It was nearly one and she clearly had to go back to her teaching duties.

  “Can I have your phone number, just in case?” I asked.

  It was the first time I’d ever respected a teacher. God, she was great! She really cared…

  After work, as soon as I got in, I uploaded the footage and blogged my observations. More confirmations that the Mohammed and Kaz operations existed – even a glancing reference to a gang bang. But nothing had taken place that the police could use as evidence. We had to get more concrete evidence. But the worrying thing was that the only really concrete evidence would be footage of someone actually getting raped. And I didn’t want that someone to be me, and nor did I want to have to witness it happening to someone else. And worse, even Mohammed’s boys were calling Kaz an evil bastard! Maybe I should add a second burn, just to get myself out of his control group..?

  Then I had to get up again and go out to this gig of Jamie’s.

  The pub was heaving. Full Frontal were obviously popular. Jamie waved cheerfully at me. Whoa! First time he hadn’t glowered at the sight of me for about two years! He must be seriously made-up about this tour thing. Quinn was leaning casually against the stage area, chatting to a couple of girls who were looking adoringly up at him. He may appear unaware of the impression he was making on them, but he knew all too well what he was doing, I thought. I saw him catch sight of me out of the corner of his eye and straighten up. He disengaged from them and came over, his green eyes wary.

  “Haven’t seen you at a gig for nearly two years,” he commented.

  I was a bit gobsmacked that it had been that long. But he was right, if I thought about it, probably the last time I came was to check out the new band with Tyler.

  “Bout time then isn’t it?” I said, without explaining anything.

  He gave me a long, cool, suspicious look, and then turned away because Jamie was tapping his watch at him.

  Sahmir didn’t arrive until two songs in. I waited till he’d found a place to lean against a wall, and then I squeezed in alongside him. He looked startled.

  “Drink?” I yelled in his ear.

  He continued to look askance at me. He shook his head. Oh yes, he didn’t drink did he? This was going to be useless. Too noisy. And at the break all his mates from the band would come over.

  “I need to talk to you!” I shouted.

  He blinked rapidly a couple of times.

  “Outside!” I added insistently.

  Reluctantly, he followed me out.

  “That’s better,” I said in relief. The June evening was warm and the cobbles gave back waves of heat from the day. I looked him up and down. “When did you grow so big?” I asked with a laugh. Gone was the slender, nay, weedy little fifteen year old that I remembered with the monkey features and the sticky out ears. Now he was tall, broad shouldered and remarkably good looking. Bit like Tariq I suppose. But with Nasim’s big soft long lashed brown eyes instead of Tariq’s narrow mean ones.

  He stared at me for a moment, then a slow smile appeared. “Yeah, I’d like to see you try to tie me up and threaten me with thumb screws now!”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” I reciprocated cheerfully. “But needs must and all that!”

  He folded his arms across his now broad chest and looked sardonically at me. “So what do you want to talk to me about?”

  Oo, so he was confident and masterful now was he? All the better. “I need your help,” I told him bluntly.

  He raised his eyebrows. “So you kidnap me, tie me up, threaten me, get my brother put away for eight years for supplying skunk and then you expect me to help you?”

  “Had to be done,” I dismissed. “Rajesh said we had to sort Tariq out.”

  Sahmir stared at me. “You’re saying Raj was responsible?”

  I shrugged. “I won’t deny that originally it was my idea to kidnap you. But it was Rajesh who insisted I report the cannabis farm to the police. He said he couldn’t do it because Nasim wouldn’t ever forgive him, but he figured Tariq was the honour killing type, and he said that before he married your sister he’d rather Tariq was put safely out of reach. I was all for just extricating you and Jamie and leaving your brother to it…”

  Sahmir looked as though he had mixed feelings about these revelations. His nostrils flared slightly, but he said nothing.

  I wasn’t sure how to start. My lips parted but no words would come out. “Do you mind if we walk as we talk?” I suggested. Maybe it would help if I didn’t have to look at him.

  We parted forty-five minutes later, somewhere in the Edwardian Gardens near the Botanical Glasshouses. The only bit of culture our town possessed outside of the Brewery Arts Centre. We’d walked and walked. After he left I sat down on a bench in the evening sun, trying to ignore the cigarette butts, dog turds and broken glass that marred the scene, and rang Simon.

  “I’ve recruited a young Muslim man to infiltrate them,” I told him. “Could you come over with some of the same stuff you supplied for me so he can record all the evidence?”

  “Are you sure he’s trustworthy?” Simon ascertained.

  “Pretty sure,” I said, suddenly getting a twinge of anxiety. He’d been initially shocked, in denial, and resistant, but then finally admitted that he’d heard rumours from a couple of other young men that he’d dismissed as exaggerations. He’d assumed that his friends just knew a lad who knew a couple of easy girls. Then finally I’d seen a glint of adventure in his eyes. He worked in IT. He was young and wanted some excitement. The 007 element to it was undeniable. I’d promised to email him an access link to the Dropbox so he could see with his own eyes the evidence so far. Now I hoped I’d done the right thing.

  I got back into the flat about eleven and threw myself on the bed. Now that it was late June it had only just got dark. I’d texted Jo earlier to say I couldn’t face Cowdenbeath. I felt so exhausted I had suggested we have a day off rather than trailing up to Edinburgh. I was ahead in the points at the moment, though Devlin and Horrocks had both started turning up to Skeggie on a Thursday evening – the sure sign of a Silver chaser. She’d texted back a simple ‘ok’ rather than a nag, so I figured she was relieved as well.

  When someone threw themselves down on the bed beside me I opened my eyes expecting to see Jo, though I realised immediately that the person smelt wrong. It was Zanna.

  “Where’s Jo?” I asked puzzled.

  Zanna looked miserable. “She’s staying over at her parents.”

  I turned over onto my stomach and propped myself up, looking sideways at her. “She probably wants a lie-in. I cancelled the race tomorrow so she’s got the day free…”

  Zanna clenched her fists. Uh oh, I thought. “Why didn’t she tell me that?” She said furiously.

  I said nothing.

  “Doesn’t she love me at all?” She burst out despairingly. When I still sai
d nothing, her eyes gripped onto my face with a fierce intensity. “Go on Eve – you know her best – tell me – does she love me even one little bit?”

  “Zanna,” I said tentatively, “has she ever talked to you about the fact that she identifies as asexual?”

  She frowned. Then she said impatiently. “She’s obviously gay – anyone can see that!”

  I fiddled awkwardly with a thread that was pulled loose on the duvet cover, avoiding her eyes. Jo had told me that Zanna hadn’t accepted that Jo could go either way. She considered Jo’s first two relationships with men as Jo proving to herself that she wasn’t straight, and the last relationship with a woman to be the true one. I decided not to tackle that one.

  “Well?” Zanna demanded.

  “Thing is – asexuality isn’t about orientation, it’s about not being interested in sex. Jo’s just not turned on by anything, male or female. She’s really loyal and really loving, but she’s just not interested in sex…”

  “I don’t accept that!” She exclaimed passionately. “If she’d only relax I’m sure she’d find out how wonderful it can be!”

  I rubbed awkwardly at my neck. “Thing is, Zanna, I don’t understand either how it works, but maybe that bit of her brain is missing, or maybe she’s not got the right nerve endings in place – I’ve no idea if anyone’s ever studied it in depth – but she’s tried really hard and she has had to come to terms with the fact that it’s just not the same for her. It’s a closed book…”

  Zanna threw herself violently over onto her back and yelled angrily at the ceiling.

  “And I know it’s really frustrating for you,” I sympathised, “but it really stresses her out when she is under pressure to perform…”

  “Does she tell you all this?” She snapped resentfully.

  I shook my head. “The walls of this flat are very thin…”

  She looked sharply at me.

  I shrugged. “I can’t help but hear. I try not to…”

  “But sex and love go together!” Zanna burst out at last.

  I thought about it. I couldn’t imagine being in love with someone and not wanting to have sex with them. But I could imagine having sex with someone who you just fancied but didn’t love. And you could have platonic love without wanting sex…

  “Not always,” I disagreed eventually. “But I discussed with Jo ages ago that it was going to be difficult if she fell in love with a woman rather than a man. Because with a man she could just lie back and think of England and he would barely notice that she was just doing it for his sake, but with a woman she’d have to do so much more…”

  Zanna stared at me. “You’re really serious about this aren’t you? You really think she gets no pleasure from sex at all?”

  I nodded.

  “So does she love me at all?” She demanded. “Cause she seems to absolutely adore you!” Her tone was jealous.

  I sighed. “Not in an in love way she doesn’t,” I reassured her. “I told you, she’s very loyal and loving. But she’s not romantically in love with me. We’re just friends. If you want her to absolutely adore you too, then you need to let her have time to herself. You need to let her have a room of her own, and you need to get your sexual needs met elsewhere. And if you can’t cope with that then you need to find someone else who can be everything you want, including passionate sexually.”

  She stared at me again. Her eyes quartering my face. “When did you last have sex?” She suddenly asked.

  I was taken aback. I gave a slight defensive laugh. “Eighteen months or so I suppose. Not since my fiancée died…”

  “How do you cope? You’re really passionate. I can see that. It comes off you in waves. How can you manage to go that long?”

  I shrugged. “I just loved him, that’s all. Every time a man makes a pass at me, it just seems meaningless compared to him.”

  “Your body must crave to be touched though,” she said. Her eyes were very clear blue, and they were piercing on my face like she could see right into me.

  It made me feel a bit helpless and weepy. “It does,” I admitted. “It really does. But I can’t seem to let anyone close enough.”

  She looked at me a moment longer. Long enough for me to just get faintly anxious that she was going to make a pass at me herself. Then she got up abruptly. “Shame you’re not gay as well cause we’d make a great threesome. Me and you could do the passionate sex thing, and the pair of us could both be passionate friends with Jo and then everyone would be happy. Very bohemian. Very Bloomsbury Set.”

  A bit like how it was when me, Quinn and Daisy shared a flat, I thought. Quinn and Daisy doing the sex thing. Quinn and I doing the friendship thing. Just that Daisy wanted Quinn to herself.

  I sat up. “I can cancel Sunday as well if you like,” I offered. “You give Jo some space overnight first, then you go and pick her up at lunchtime tomorrow and take her away for the night. Have a proper talk with her about it, without getting angry with her and without asking for any sex, and see what you can sort out between you. It’s better got out in the open or it’ll tear you apart.”

  She looked for another long moment at me. “There’s more to you than there seems at first glance, isn’t there?”

  “That all depends on what you believe you perceive at first glance,” I flipped back.

  She gave a slight smile. “That sort of remark is exactly what I mean,” she said.

  In the morning I texted Jo to cancel Sunday as well, and then I got on my bike and went to Jessica’s. Her Mum opened the door. She looked like she’d been crying again.

  “I heard that Jessica tried to kill herself,” I said bluntly. “I’m sorry. How is she?”

  Her father came up behind the mother. “She’s a complete mess,” he said bitterly. “And so are we.”

  “Can I come in?” I asked.

  Jessica was still in hospital on a section. Her father was now on bail pending a prosecution for assault.

  “The bastards were still ringing her phone day and night. We left it out on the living room table so we could monitor the phone numbers and pass them on to the police. But the police said they weren’t interested in a bunch of boyfriends’ phone numbers,” he told me. “And then a text came in saying to come out or else and I looked out and there the bastards were, sitting right outside our house in their bloody Porsche and I just went out and smashed their windscreen in and when they got out I just went for them with what I happened to have to hand which was a big metal garden spade that I’d left in the border.”

  “Brilliant!” I congratulated him. “And I hope you took some secateurs and chopped off their balls at the same time!”

  “I wish…” He muttered. “But guess what? Now I’m up on a charge of assault and criminal damage and racially motivated hate crime, and they’re just sniggering up their sleeves, completely scot free!”

  “Have you still got the phone?” I asked.

  They did. They let me have it. This was better than I could ever have hoped. Now I’d have access to all their phone numbers and proof of any threatening messages left. I promised that I was still working on gathering a body of evidence that couldn’t be ignored, but I didn’t trust them not to blab to all and sundry, so I gave no more clues than that.

  “But it’s not going to be in time to help Jessica,” I told them. “Realistically, I’ve come to realise that this could take a seriously long time to get anywhere at all and I honestly think that the only thing you can do to help Jessica is to pick her up from the hospital, take away every single digital device, and move her to the other end of the country.”

  Her parents glanced at each other.

  “Believe me, we’ve considered it,” her Dad said.

  “Do it!” I said coolly. “It’s the only chance she’s got to get out of this. What’s your line of work?” I directed at him.

  “I’m a baker,” he said.

  I stared at him. “Seriously?”

  He gave a slight laugh. “You seem surprised.”
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  “It’s just I’ve never met a baker before,” I explained, no doubt sounding a bit idiotic. To me a baker was as exotic as a unicorn.

  “What line of work are you in then?” He asked with a smile.

  “I’m a mechanic,” I said.

  They glanced swiftly at each other. “I know who you are now! I knew I’d seen your face somewhere,” his wife exclaimed. “You’re that racing driver off the telly aren’t you?” She was fixing her eyes with painful intensity on my face. “So they’ll have to listen to you won’t they?”

  I was taken aback. When they did that documentary I was just turned eighteen. I wasn’t a celebrity. I wasn’t someone anyone listened to. No-one much even remembered it. Just impressionable kids like Cody.

  “So you know a bit about what it’s like eh?” The Dad put to me.

  I bit my lip. He could only be referring to the late night episode where they dealt with the rape, and they claimed my rapist was a known paedophile. Although there was also Kes’ suicide attempt, Siân’s out of control behaviour, and the rescue we’d made of the prostitutes in the basement flat under us. And all the references to my sentence for GBH and the attacks on us as young teenagers by older men that had led to it. So yes, I suppose, come to think of it, I had some minor inklings. But I just bet he was thinking about the rape.

  I removed my eyes swiftly from his and looked at his wife. “Are you working right now?”

  She shook her head. “I had to stop. All this is just so awful I’ve ended up on anti-depressants, sedatives, the lot!”

  “Ok. Then you have to go to the hospital the second they let her off her section, pick her up and take her somewhere completely different – I dunno – Cornwall or somewhere so far away and different it’ll all seem like a dream. And then rent a flat there and give her a complete rest. And meanwhile, you,” I looked at her father, “need to put this house on the market and sell up while you’re looking for another job. Surely a baker can go anywhere? I mean – they make loads of pasties in Cornwall!”