Purgatory Is a Place Too Read online

  I heard Jo throwing herself down on the settee by Zanna. “For some reason that horse absolutely adores Eve and it seems to make Mum mad. She even slapped her. Mum just doesn’t do that sort of thing!”

  “She’s jealous,” Zanna said.

  “Do you think?” Jo sounded surprised.

  “For certain,” Zanna said. “Women are jealous cats. They can’t seem to help it.”

  I turned the shower on and let the hot water beat down on me. Nothing I could do now. I’d set this whole thing in motion and there was nothing I could do until it came to an end.

  Jo and I took the Beast off down to Mildenhall. When we got back late on Sunday night we just left it in the yard and drove home. I rang Quinn.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Yeah, fine, she’s a scream isn’t she?” He said cheerfully.

  Well, they were obviously a match made in heaven with their stream of consciousness personalities.

  “You ought to know though,” he added. “Cody told me today that Jessica’s house has just burned down. Arson attack.”

  I went hot and cold. I went and fetched Jessica’s phone. Once I’d known she’d got away somewhere safe, and I’d decided that I wasn’t going to follow through any of the text invites, I’d just switched it off and tossed it in a corner. Now I switched it back on. It buzzed and buzzed with text after text. I hardly dared look at them. At some point word had obviously got round that she’d moved away. The texts made threats such as don’t think U can ever get away, where ever UR we’ll find U. Warnings that they had contacts all over the country and nowhere was safe. Finally, yesterday evening. Hope UR sleeping comfortably. U won’t B 4 much longer. My skin crawled. I blogged it. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. Ash’s face kept floating before me. Not when he was deliberately threatening me. The time when he was absolutely still when I examined him, looked him up and down, and turned his hand over. When absolute waves of rage were rippling silently out of him. I could sense it now. What he was planning to do to me when he got the chance.

  On Monday Jo and I went up after work to unload the Beast. Pete came into the barn.

  He laughed at me. “Fuck Eve, you know how to get under everyone’s skin don’t you? Mum’s still absolutely wild. I heard her shouting at Dad, ‘and just when did this family end up revolving completely around Eve’?”

  I glanced out of the corner of my eye at him.

  “And I thought,” he said, with a smile directly into my eyes, “from the first moment she turned up, that’s when…”

  I went out to pick my bike up to go back to the flat. Horse was turned out in the paddock. She started running up and down the length of the fence, whinnying and give deep staccato snickers. She shook her head up and down. I stared at her.

  Paul came out of the house and walked swiftly over. “Keep Eve away from Baby!” He warned Pete.

  “She’s been nowhere near Baby,” Pete dismissed impatiently. “All she’s done is walk across the yard. She can’t help it if Baby shouts across to her!”

  Paul glanced across at Horse with a frown.

  “It’s like Baby talks to her like she’s another horse,” Pete commented to his father.

  Paul turned back to us with a complex unreadable look on his face. “Go home, Eve,” he said.

  Pete looked like he was going to protest. Paul glanced at him. “Just for tonight,” he said.

  I went home.

  What with waiting for her to be on a convenient shift, and the fact I’d asked her to watch the uploads and blogs that I’d made first, it was Wednesday before I got to see Chetsi. By then I couldn’t remember what I’d wanted to say. I mustn’t ever leave it so long again. We sat on the sofa with a cup of tea.

  “What did you think?” I asked her.

  “Lots more worrying leads to follow up,” she said. “That children’s home and the taxis that only turn up when a certain shift leader is on, for a start! A thirteen year old being asked to sleep with an older man’s friends…”

  “Plenty of material for your training package,” I said. “It seems to me, based on what I’ve seen so far, that they draw the younger ones in by treating them special and pretending to be their boyfriend, and then start asking them to do some straightforward sexual favours for friends and reward them afterwards for doing it, and then once they’re older and they’ve got them thoroughly inducted they stop pretending to be nice to them, and just use them as straightforward prostitutes, and provide the older ones for the weird stuff.”

  Chetsi nodded. “It sounds plausible.”

  “What did you think of what he was doing with me? Twice now he’s held me on his lap and stroked me and talked to me quite normally, while making me watch some really nasty sex act…”

  She frowned. “It seems to me that he’s trying to normalise it. Remember you’re only fourteen and never had sex, and you’re from a care background so probably haven’t had a normal family life either, and so he makes you feel safe, and then acts in a way that makes you think that it must be normal to watch people having sex in front of you. And the sex acts you’re watching aren’t normal at all, but he’s acting like they are, so you’ll assume that this is just what adults do. And so he starts out touching you in safe places, arms, feet and so on and then by degrees sexualises it. And whether or not it’s as consciously worked out as this, he’s trying to get you sexually aroused in the presence of these sex acts you’re watching so you’ll start associating sexual feelings with extreme acts. And when you query what is going on, he messes with your head telling you that girls enjoy it really, that girls enjoy pain. And have you heard of the Good Cop, Bad Cop routine?”

  I nodded slightly.

  “The two interviewers take on separate roles, and eventually the interviewee starts to respond to the Good Cop in reaction against the Bad Cop? Well there’s another version of that, which is sometimes referred to as ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ where a kidnapper is holding a victim hostage, and he plays both Good Cop and Bad Cop himself, alternating between oppressing the victim, and then being nice to the victim in a ‘Rescuer’ role until the victim is so brainwashed they become completely attached to the kidnapper.”

  I frowned.

  “In the Jay report, they found that even after all the trials, some of those severely abused girls still couldn’t see that they’d been abused and claimed to be in love with the men. It’s a kind of brainwashing. Ash sets himself up as ‘rescuing’ you from all the other nasty men, and then alternates between being nice to you and threatening you.”

  I digested this. “I said ‘no’ really strongly,” I told her, “to find out what would happen if one of the girls stood up against them. I mean, I imagine most of them don’t realise they can say ‘no’.”

  “And what did you sense happened?” Chetsi asked carefully.

  “He’s planning his revenge. He’s going to punish me later on when he’s got more of a hold on me.” I shook myself restlessly as I remembered his expression.

  Chetsi pulled a face. “And now we have this extra worry that we’ve found out he’s actually Mohammed himself, and the hint that girl gave that it never ends well for those he hits on, so we’re going to have to think carefully about whether it’s wise for you to ever go back in…”

  “But we’re getting so much good material!” I protested.

  “I know,” she agreed regretfully.

  “Did you recognise any of the faces of the men?” I asked curiously.

  She shook her head.

  “Shame,” I said. “It’s just that he kept telling me not to stare, and then he seemed to be taking me swiftly away so I wouldn’t get a good look at who was there. It just felt to me that there was someone significant there that he couldn’t risk me recognising.”

  She frowned. “Maybe I’ll watch it again then. I wasn’t watching out for anything like that first time through…”

  On my way home I reflected that I hadn’t told her that I felt really queazy about enjoying that foot mass
age. It had felt genuinely amazing, and I was definitely going to introduce that to any boyfriend I got next. But I was worried that it would somehow be tainted forever by where I’d had my first experience of it.

  “Zanna?” I queried as I walked back into the flat.

  “Uh huh?” She half glanced up from the research paper she was reading.

  “Do you ever do foot massages?”

  “Not really,” she said, lowering the sheaf of papers. “That’s more like reflexologists, or sometimes chiropodists or podiatrists. I don’t much deal with feet. Why?”

  “I just wondered if you’d be willing to have a go at doing a massage on my feet – I don’t want to explain why right now…”

  She raised her eyebrows at me, then laughed and shrugged. “Don’t see why not! There’s always a first time…”

  As she got me to lie down on the rug she remembered, “Ages ago, when I was training, we were given a task to all take turns at teaching a skill to each other. One woman had come onto the course after having trained as a masseur, and she taught us how to do a foot massage… Let’s see if I can remember what she told us…”

  She knelt down and thought about it, then started really systematically. “Toes to ankle,” she said. “Always knead in the direction of the body so you’re not pooling blood in the toes… How does that feel?” She asked.

  “Wonderful,” I said gratefully. “I’ll do yours after if you like.”

  Jo wandered in. “What’s this?”

  I had a go after on Zanna. She gave me feedback about what felt good and what didn’t. Firm pressure meant it wasn’t ticklish. Then Jo got a bit jealous watching, so me and Zanna did a foot of hers each.

  “We’ll have to do this more often,” Jo said, groaning in pleasure.

  I glanced at Zanna and found she was smiling. At last something physical that Zanna could do for Jo that she really liked.

  Stoke for points. Sheffield for a World of Shale Qualifier. I bust a gut at every World of Shale Qualifier because I was determined to keep this title. I considered it mine. Horrocks came in first in this one, due to various hiccoughs I encountered. I liked Horrocks, he was just like Tony at work. And I liked Tony at work because he was just like Horrocks. As I was chatting to him, and teasing him about the determined challenge he was putting up for the Silver, his little boy ran up to him.

  “Hello Harry,” I said, smiling. Harry was about five years old, a little tank, with straight red hair and little round spectacles, just like his Dad. Horrocks picked him up. Harry had Downs Syndrome and Horrocks had taken a couple of years out of his Silver ambitions while Harry had had a series of heart operations, but now everything was back on track. Harry had no inhibitions whatsoever. Chatter, chatter, chatter… Horrocks and I looked at each other and laughed.

  “We ought to introduce him to Cody,” I suggested. “They’d get on just fine!”

  As I walked away I felt a terrible sense of guilt. Firstly that I’d had the thought I wish Ethan had Downs Syndrome. And secondly that I’d thought I ought to help Dad out more with Ethan and then known that I just couldn’t. I found the child so repellent I could barely look at him. And that was a terrible thing to think.

  Sahmir rang me up.

  “Are you recording this?” I asked.

  “No,” he said abruptly.

  “Do you want me to?” I offered.

  “No.”

  “Ok then… What’s happened?”

  “Hussein’s given me a message for Tariq.”

  “What is it?”

  “It doesn’t matter what it is right now,” he said a bit sharply. “It wouldn’t make any sense to you. But- ” he paused, then continued in a tight tone. “I’m just shitting myself that my brother’s going to turn out to be involved in all this.”

  “Yes, I understand,” I agreed.

  “Do you?” He said a bit shirtily. “Do you really though?” His tone got snappier. “I got into this thinking I was going to be finding out about a few Pakistani men who had gone rogue, who I reasoned weren’t really Muslims, just some bad apples. And now I’m finding out that it’s my neighbour, my brother’s friend. Men I see down the mosque saying their prayers with the rest of us. It’s humiliating! And all this stuff’s going to be given to the Police, and might go out on national TV, and will definitely get into the newspapers and I’m going to have to testify against my own community! That’s me finished in this town, I can tell you!”

  Shit, I thought. Poor Sahmir. He was right. He’d be seen as a complete Judas. He might end up having to have police protection.

  “What message did he give you for Tariq?” I asked.

  There was a short silence. “It was a verse from the Qur’an,” he said in prickly tones.

  “Ok,” I said carefully.

  “No it’s not ok!” He snapped crossly.

  “Is it a significant one?” I asked.

  “Depends what interpretation you put on it.”

  “You ought to tell Chetsi and Taib all this,” I advised him. “And let them help you decide whether to go and see Tariq or not.”

  “I have to go,” Sahmir said roughly. “Or drop out of this altogether right now. There’s no alternative.” And he rang off.

  I sat and stared into space for so long worrying about Sahmir that Steve Bolton waved a hand in front of my vacant face and grinned at me.

  “No engine can be that fascinating,” he teased me, “even to you!”

  I quickly shook myself out of it, and got back to work.

  I rang Chetsi to tell her about Sahmir’s upsetting phonecall.

  “He’ll have his own moral dilemmas, Eve, you can’t take responsibility for him. If he decides not to record material that potentially incriminates his brother, then that’s up to him…”

  I was silent.

  “Leave Sahmir to us,” Chetsi said kindly. “You’ve got enough on your plate.”

  I couldn’t decide if Ellie should go on any more outings. More and more I found I was dreading it. I rang Nick.

  “How’d’you think it’s going?” I asked.

  “Extremely promising,” he said encouragingly. “We’re getting a bit held up by having to get translators in to get transcripts of Ishaq’s material though.”

  “What do you mean?” I frowned.

  “A couple of different languages are being spoken as well as English,” he explained. “Mainly Mirpur-Punjabi and Urdu.”

  That hadn’t occurred to me. I’d heard Nasim speaking to her mother in Sindhi (she’d had to explain politely to me that there was no such language as ‘Pakistani’ when I’d called it that), but with most of the men involved being second or perhaps even third generation in this country, it hadn’t crossed my mind that they might use other languages when on their own.

  “Ishaq’s collected some useful information on their drugs and criminal connections, and you’ve got some eye-opening footage of the sex trade side of things, but what we could really do with, is more proof of their institutional reach.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” I said.

  “Ishaq has found out that they do deals in the town planning department. But what other departments do they have influence in? How far does it go? In Rotherham they’re investigating and prosecuting police officers for corruption now. And there was a huge furore about taxi licences not being withdrawn when a driver was accused of abuse, and the council still employing them to transport vulnerable ‘at risk’ kids. So if you could find a few more girls claiming to have performed sexual services for other high ranking individuals in the council or even better, the police, then we’re really on the money…”

  It looked like Ellie might have to get her red shoes on again.

  I rang Sahmir again. “Have you been to see Tariq yet?”

  “No, it’s not as easy as that. Nothing happens fast in the prison system. You have to wait for an official visiting day, and you have to apply for a visitor’s pass, and only Tariq can give permission for whether I c
an have one or not, so it’s going to take some time.”

  “Ok, well at least that gives you some more leeway to decide what to do,” I comforted.

  “I s’pose,” he said, sounding unconvinced.

  “Nick’s asking for us to concentrate on the connections between the men and the authorities. You know, police, council and so on,” I reported.

  “That’s just as well, because that’s all I’m getting. I’ve not come across anything to do with girls yet,” Sahmir reported. “I’m beginning to wonder if Hussein isn’t interested in that side of it.”

  I thought about it. “Well we know that Mohammed is friends with Hussein, but not with Kaz, so maybe Mohammed runs the girls for Hussein to send his connections to, and Hussein doesn’t get involved himself.” Stacy had the three marks, but she hadn’t seemed to know much about Hussein himself. “I don’t watch your uploads,” I suddenly added. “I just want you to know that. I know you might have to act laddish or talk about stuff you wouldn’t normally to get in with them, and I don’t want you to be thinking I’m watching you afterwards.”

  “Ok,” he sounded relieved.

  “Do you watch mine?” I asked.

  There was a short silence. “No,” he said at last. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m being a coward because I don’t want to see someone I know in it. But mainly it’s because I know you might be getting touched and it wouldn’t be right for me to see that.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that.” Then a thought occurred to me.

  “There’s one bit I’d like you to look at though,” I told him. “Get Chetsi to run you through the part of the recording where I went to a party. I walked round and filmed all the men’s faces. See if you recognise anyone. Chetsi and I didn’t, but Mohammed seemed keen for me to stop looking at them, so I thought someone significant might be present.”

  “Ok, will do,” he agreed. But although his words were positive, his tone wasn’t.

  Pete walked into the barn. “High five!” He said cheerfully, raising a palm.