Purgatory Is a Place Too Read online

  “Which places?” He asked.

  I frowned. “Sort of outlining. Round the nostrils, round the eyes, round the lips, in the creases of the hands.” I touched his face and then picked up his hands to turn them over and look at the palms. “We’re not allowed to look normally are we?”

  He kept very still, as though he didn’t really like it, but was allowing it. His extremely dark eyes flickered.

  Suddenly the door opened. And a middle aged bloke came in towing a girl by the wrist. She didn’t look that happy about it. She was one of the older ones. Though still less than sixteen I guessed. I glanced at Ash. His arms tightened me against him and it was clear we were going to be watching again.

  It was even queasier this time. Yuckier stuff, and she wasn’t giggling. But nor was she protesting so it would be hard to assert it was rape even though I was certain it was. Any older man having sex with an underage girl must be a crime though. Why were the police not doing anything?

  Ash held me there, facing me towards the activities on the bed, and stroked me again. His hand this time was under my skirt and touching me through my knickers. My heart was thumping hard and I knew he must be able to feel it. I tried to wriggle away from his exploring fingers, but he took no notice. And then I tried to struggle away. And then I grabbed his hand and pulled it off. “No!” I said, really clearly. “I don’t want you to do that!” I said it for the recording. Now what would he do? I’d clearly said no. Now it would definitely be abuse in a court of law.

  “Well why are you here then?” He hissed in my ear.

  Behind me on the bed, the girl yelled out in obvious pain. I looked round quickly, then I looked back at Ash.

  “When they yell like that, it means they’re enjoying it,” Ash said. “You girls like it rough, you just pretend you don’t.”

  He very deliberately put his hand back under my crotch. I stared him out, aggressively. And then I reached down and violently pulled his hand away. He grabbed my wrists and held them together in just one of his hands. I tried to tug my hands away, but despite the fact I’m extremely strong for a girl of my size, I just couldn’t. He smiled and put his face close to mine. “I could break you in two,” he said threateningly. “I could just snap you in half.” I knew I shouldn’t look defiant, but I knew that a dangerous look would have leapt into my eyes. He held my eyes for a few long seconds. “You remember that!” He warned and threw my wrists down.

  I got off his lap quickly and he just allowed me to. He stood up. I walked towards the door. He followed. My heart was beating very fast. And it wouldn’t be safe out there either, like in a normal party, because none of those men were going to stop anything that was happening. But once out there, Ash just ignored me, walked across to another girl and took her into a different room. So sexually aroused that he had to immediately fuck something huh?

  I felt extremely shaken, but now Ash was safely out the way for a bit, maybe I shouldn’t immediately leave. I could film a bit more. I wandered over to the table, picked up a bottle of Blue WKD and wandered around the room, pointing my earrings at every face in the room while pretending to be drinking it.

  The little girl I’d spoken to at the beginning reappeared from a bedroom. She was yanking her skirt down and looking repulsed.

  “Have you been raped?” I asked outright.

  She stared at me.

  “Did you want to do that in that bedroom with that guy?” I clarified.

  “Course not!” She snapped.

  “Why did you do it then?”

  She hesitated.

  “Have they threatened you?”

  “Not exactly,” she said.

  “So why did you do it?” I persisted.

  “Because Raza likes me to go with his friends sometimes. He asks me to do it. It pleases him if I do it.”

  I frowned. “Who’s Raza?”

  She pointed at a man across the room. He was young and good looking, but at least in his early twenties. I pointed the camera at him.

  “He’s my boyfriend,” she explained. He glanced across and smiled at her, and she smiled shyly back.

  “Does he love you?” I asked.

  “Course he does,” she said. “He buys me presents and takes me out.”

  “Do you love him?” I asked abruptly.

  “Yes of course,” she said shyly. “Don’t you think he’s handsome?”

  Yes he was. Handsome, well groomed, well dressed, just like Ash.

  “So why do you ask not to get in the taxi?” I asked. “If you want to get to Raza?”

  She pulled a face. “Cos those taxi drivers think they can get a freebie off you on the way. Raza sends them to pick me up, and then they won’t take me there till I’ve ‘paid’ them for the ride. I’ve never told Raza.”

  He bloody well knows, I thought.

  “I’d rather order my own taxi,” she said. “But they don’t allow you to do that at the home. They insist on using their ‘approved’ firms.”

  “And are those creepy taxi drivers driving for the ‘approved’ firms?” I asked surprised.

  Her brow wrinkled up. “I don’t know. They only come the nights the Paki bastard is on…”

  Hmmm.

  Ash reappeared from the bedroom. The girl he’d gone in with didn’t come back out. He looked across at me and I looked back at him. The girl beside me whispered in my ear, “Don’t get involved with Mohammed there. I’ve seen what he does to the girls he’s finished with. He doesn’t pass you about to the others while he’s got you. But he doesn’t want anyone else to have you afterwards…”

  I frowned. “Do you mean the guy that’s just come out of that room?” I established. “I thought he was called ‘Ash’?”

  She shook her head. “That’s what he calls himself when he first meets you until he’s really sure of you,” she whispered.

  “Anything else you can tell me about him?” I murmured.

  She leant into my ear again. “He gets on with Hussein,” she told me. “But he hates Kaz. He’ll do anything to get at Kaz…”

  Oh shit, I thought. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  No-one made any attempt to stop me leaving. It looked like Mohammed was playing a game of ‘punishing’ me by ignoring me.

  Outside, I rang for a taxi. I waited tensely and then I was never so relieved to see a white taxi driver drawing up. And then I felt terrible that I’d even thought such a racist thing. I got into the back.

  “Where to, Flower?” Flower, Petal, Blossom. It’s what you called girls round here. Everyone did it, women on tills at shops, jolly men behind counters. But I froze. I gave a street that was one away from where I really lived.

  He drove us off and after a few minutes he glanced in his mirror and said, “Isn’t it a bit late for you to be out on your own, you should watch yourself.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “You hear things in my line of work,” he said obliquely. “You need to keep yourself safe.”

  “What sort of things have you heard?” I pushed.

  “Well let’s put it this way, Blossom, I’ve got daughters of my own and I only let them travel in the taxi cabs of people I know personally.”

  He drew up in the street I’d named. I paid him and got out. I bent over at the driver’s window which he had wound down. “If you’ve heard something definite you ought to go to the Police,” I said. “Because they sure as hell aren’t listening to the girls, but if the taxi drivers themselves put in a complaint, then they might have to start doing something.”

  He stared at me. Then he frowned. “How old are you?” He asked.

  “Twenty,” I said.

  “Right,” he said, looking as though he felt a bit stupid now. “You look a lot younger.”

  “Promise me you’ll report anything you hear,” I held his eyes with an intense gaze.

  “It’s certainly a thought,” he said, and drove off.

  I uploaded everything and made an accompanying blog to fill in the details you
couldn’t work out from the filming. I knew I ought to go round to Chetsi, but I just didn’t have the time. I had to work on my shale car, and meet up with Quinn up at the barn. Jo and I had discussed it carefully and realised that we just couldn’t cope with Codie for the next two weekends ourselves. We couldn’t take her with us to Mildenhall this weekend, nor Stoke and Sheffield next weekend, but it was her school holidays now and we needed to fulfil our contract to her.

  Jo grinned. “She’ll think she’s died and gone to heaven when she knows she’s going to get two outings with Quinn.”

  Quinn had agreed to it remarkably easily. We’d be paying him, it was quite local, Barford this week, Buxton the next, and both days were a Sunday afternoon that didn’t interfere whatsoever with his gigging commitments. He seemed completely laid back about the whole thing.

  He came up in his car and we checked the trailer would attach. I showed him round the engine.

  “We’ve swopped over to Zetec for the hire cars,” I explained. “We felt a bit guilty, like we were using our clients to trial them for us, but they’re so much cheaper, and with beginners treating the engine roughly and getting into crashes, it just seemed sensible to keep the costs down. The rumour is that they don’t get to their full potential until the fifty thousand mark which’ll take some time on quarter mile ovals, but the way Cody is, she’s away with the fairies most of the time, so we don’t need a faster engine for her, we just need a rocket up her backside!”

  Pete came in half way through this, and looked askance at Quinn’s presence. It must have been galling for him to hear the remark I’d made to Rob about Quinn being the only person I could truly trust. But on the other hand, I’d shown Pete that I was still available if he wanted, and he hadn’t laid a finger on me for weeks, so it was up to him. If he wanted me, he ought to do a bit more about it.

  We loaded the car onto the trailer. Quinn was going to keep it at his house for a couple of nights to save him having to come back up here.

  “And make sure you pick her up from her Dad, and take her back to her Dad in the evening, right to the door. Don’t let her persuade you to drop her anywhere else, like in town, or let her get into someone else’s car. Keep her safe, but give her a fun day out. And keep that little McDiarmid turd away from her,” I added.

  “He’s not that bad!” Pete intervened.

  “Yes, his is, he’s an arrogant little sod,” I snapped. He was last year’s Novice of the Year winner and he swung around the place like a right cocky little tyke. You could tell he was planning on ruling the roost.

  I got into the passenger seat of Quinn’s car and we drove off, leaving Pete looking in a disgruntled way after us. We stopped at the George. The lurid purple and orange car on the trailer with the white roof and aerofoil didn’t cause that much comment. With the Satterthwaites just up the road, the locals were used to seeing them passing all the time.

  It was warm and sunny enough to sit out in the beer garden. Quinn plonked a whisky in front of me. Under the influence of the older men at work he had finally moved on to the more adult taste for craft bitters instead of lagers and sweet stuff, so he had a dark amber looking pint. I sniffed it. Hoppy, barley and chocolate notes. He gave me a slightly weird look but said nothing.

  “So how’s the campaign going?” He asked leaning back in the chair and basking in the evening sun. “I always keep that phone charged up and on me at all times like you asked…”

  “Seriously, I’m truly grateful,” I said. I thought I’d better reward him for his devotion by showing some appreciation.

  “Exposed any baddies yet?” He asked flippantly.

  “Do you absolutely promise not to tell anyone at all, not even Rob?” I leant forward urgently.

  He hates promising not to tell anyone, but on the other hand he’s so nosy, he just can’t bear to be out of the loop, and he’ll do anything to be in on the latest. He sniffed. Pulled a face, moaned, “Oh Ginty this is just typical of you,” and then gave in and promised.

  So I told him the bones of it. I kept away from the personal but when he heard about Sahmir infiltrating Hussein Malik’s group, and how Mohammed was targeting me maybe to get at Kaz and about the rapes and the taxi drivers and the threats on Jessica’s phone, and the involvement of the leader of the Council, he just looked horrified.

  “Seriously Ginty, did you ought to be doing this?” His green gaze was worried. “It sounds really dangerous!” He reached out a hand to touch mine, then let it drop before making contact as though he was uncertain whether he should touch me.

  I found myself wiping tears away from my eyes. It was a mistake not to go to Chetsi straight away for a debriefing. Now I realised I’d just clamped it all firmly down and when I had to tell Quinn, even just the basics of it, I felt all disturbed and churned up and restless and a bit like a volcano about to blow.

  “I’m not going to push it so far that I’m in serious danger,” I promised him. “But we still need some more proof.”

  “It sounds like you’re in serious danger every time you set foot anywhere near any of those guys,” Quinn protested.

  “I can’t stop now,” I said between clenched teeth. “We need enough to get them all put away!”

  “I don’t want the thing that gets them put away being the rape or mutilation or death of you though!” Quinn sounded a mixture of desperate and angry.

  “It won’t be much longer,” I pleaded. “Please just keep that phone for a bit longer.”

  “Let’s hope you never need to use it,” Quinn said crossly.

  At my request he dropped my back up at the Satterthwaites’ where I’d left my bike. The sky had suddenly gone black and it felt dusky even though it wasn’t sunset yet. No-one was about. I wandered restlessly down to the stables. I heard a snickering from the far end box. Horse, I recognised. I went down to her. She put her head over and huffed down her nostrils. I smiled and huffed back. Without thinking much about it, I opened the bottom half of the stable door and stood in the entrance and patted her neck. She pushed at me with her head. On the spur of the moment, I took hold of a bunch of her neck hair and said, “Come on Horse, let’s go for a spin,”

  She followed me out, along the corridor past the other four loose boxes, across the yard and into the training paddock. I shut the gate, then took hold of the base of her neck again and walked her over to the wooden fence. I climbed up the fence and she waited patiently while I manoeuvred onto her back. No reins. No saddle. Could I still get it to work? I sat up, squeezed my knees and tapped her sides with my heels. “Walk on.”

  She did. She was perfect. Starting from standing still in the centre she did the whole routine, just like we had in the ring. Part way through, the rain started. Heavy cool drops, that speeded up to a downpour. Horse’s body seemed hot and safe and comforting under me. Clean and pure and kind. “Good Horse,” I said, patting her.

  Suddenly someone started yelling at us, and at the same time, Jo’s car turned into the yard, headlights on and windscreen wipers at full pelt. As Sue burst into the paddock like an avenging fury, Jo drew up, switched the engine off and got out.

  Sue dragged me forcibly down off Horse. “How dare you!” She screamed at me.

  Jo came running over. “What’s going on?” She panted.

  Sue slapped my face.

  “Mum, what the hell..?” Jo sounded utterly shocked.

  “How dare you take Baby out without permission!” Sue shouted at me.

  “Sorry,” I said helplessly. “Sorry.”

  “Now you just take her back in and get her dried down and get her settled back in! She’s wet and cold and upset!”

  “You know Eve doesn’t know how to rub down a horse, Mum,” Jo said in reasonable tones. “Come on Eve, I’ll come with you and show you how to do it.”

  I turned to Horse and put a hand on her neck. “Back to the stables now, Horse,” I said, rubbing my cheek momentarily against her own. She dropped her head to mine and started to meekly follow me.


  Suddenly Sue seemed to change her mind. “No Eve! Right that’s it! Leave Baby right there!” She put a hand on Baby’s neck and glared at me. Baby started making deep rumbling noises and stamped her foot and swished her tail and started throwing her head around. “You’ve seriously upset Baby now!” Sue launched furiously.

  Jo put a hand on my arm and pulled me away. “No Mum,” Jo said coldly. “It’s you that’s upsetting Baby. Come away, Eve.” Jo quickly guided me away, out of the paddock and shoved me into her car. She backed us up and drove us straight home.

  “Phew! What was all that about?” She exclaimed, looking sideways at me as she drove. “I haven’t seen Mum so mad for goodness knows how long! And she hasn’t hit any of us since we were really little!”

  I’d been slapped so many times in my life, that I’d barely noticed that bit.

  “Why did you take Baby out?”

  I shook my head. “I dunno. I just felt a bit upset and Horse was calling to me so I went and said hallo, and it just sort of happened. It felt good. It made me feel calm.”

  “Well it certainly didn’t make Mum feel calm!” Jo laughed. “Honestly, Eve. You don’t touch the horses without permission. They’re really valuable, highly trained works of art! And they’re dangerous too. Horses can bolt in a millisecond if they get the wind up them, and kick out. You could get a really bad injury, and so could the horse if it runs into something or gets on the road. You didn’t even have a halter on her!”

  “Sorry,” I said, and curled up in the passenger seat away from her.

  Back in the flat, Zanna took one look at our faces and said immediately, “What’s the matter?”

  “Go and get a shower, Eve, you’re soaked to the skin,” Jo ordered.

  I went into the bathroom.

  Outside the door I could hear them talking.

  “She took out Mum’s favourite horse for a ride without permission and Mum went absolutely mental.”

  “Oh dear,” Zanna said with a laugh.