Brutal, page 16
Viktorya stared at the spot on the wall where the voice appeared to be coming from and covered her mouth with her hand when hot tears trickled from the corners of her swollen eyes and burned a path down her bruised cheeks. She so wanted to believe that he could help her, but if he was telling the truth about being locked in, he was clearly no match for these people.
On the other side of the wall, Frank held his breath and waited for the girl to respond. When she didn’t, he sighed heavily and went back over to his bed. He had heard the fear in her voice when she’d cried out, and he’d hoped it might bring her some comfort if she heard that she wasn’t alone. It obviously hadn’t worked, and his heart ached when he thought about the terror she must be feeling. Her and her friends, who he’d seen Nick and one of the other men herd into the van shortly after Evan had left this evening. God only knew where they’d been taken, but Frank couldn’t imagine they would be treated any better there than they were being treated here, and it sickened him to think that these animals were getting away with this. But he’d meant what he told that girl: one way or another, even if it meant sacrificing his own safety to achieve it, he was determined to save them.
25
Evan drove straight to Yorkshire after leaving work the following afternoon; his mountain bike, and a rucksack containing a flask of coffee, a sandwich, and a pair of binoculars in the boot. When Marie had questioned why he was taking the bike, he’d told her he was planning on persuading his dad to go for a ride, like they’d used to do in the old days: father and son, pedalling into the village to have a couple of pints and a game of darts at the pub. He’d also told her not to wait up in case it turned into a late one, but he knew she’d be plastered by the time she got home from the karaoke bar, so he doubted she’d even notice what time he got home.
The rush-hour traffic was heavy when Evan hit the motorway, and the drive took twice as long as usual. It was already pitch-dark by the time he got there, and he couldn’t see a thing when he left the lights of the village behind and headed onto Marsh House Lane. Fortunately, he knew every pothole and bump like the back of his hand – and also knew the exact spot at which a vehicle became visible from his dad’s place. When he reached that point tonight, he turned his headlights off and drove blindly on until he came to the tractor path at the perimeter of a disused field a mile back from Yvonne’s cottage. Parking out of sight behind a hedgerow, he looped the rucksack over his shoulders before completing the journey on his bike.
Yvonne’s pigs kicked up a fuss when he rode into the back garden and, guessing that they hadn’t been fed again, he hopped off the bike and filled their troughs before climbing in through the window he’d jemmied open the previous day. Holding his nose when the stench hit him, he cursed under his breath when the cats swarmed in and snaked around his ankles. Batting one off when it started clawing its way up his leg, he used the light from his phone’s torch to find and share out a couple of tins of food.
Leaving the moggies to fight over it, he took the binoculars out of the rucksack and looped them around his neck, then rooted through the drawers in search of the spare key his dad had left there after changing the broken lock. When he’d found it, he let himself out and hopped over the back fence, then waded through the field until he reached the low fence at the back of the farm.
As soon as he stopped walking, the back door opened, and Evan dropped to his haunches when a man stepped outside and lit a cigarette, activating the security light. Finding a gap in the fence, he trained the binoculars on the man’s face, and frowned when he realized he hadn’t seen this one before. Added to the three men he had seen, and the three girls, that totalled seven extra people in the house along with his dad and Irena. But there were only four bedrooms, so where the hell were they all sleeping?
The man suddenly moved away from the door, and Evan’s question was answered when a second security light flared, highlighting a static caravan standing by the barn. The man walked round the back of it and, slotting the fag between his teeth, took a piss in the grass before climbing inside the caravan and switching a light on.
No longer able to see him, Evan turned his attention to the house. The kitchen blind was open, so he stood up and zoomed the binoculars through the window. Irena’s brother, the blond man, and the dark-haired one were sitting at the table, along with two men he hadn’t seen before. They were all counting piles of banknotes, and Evan muttered, ‘You’ve got to be fucking joking,’ when he noticed a white block wrapped in plastic in the centre of the table. Suspecting that it was cocaine, his hunch was confirmed when he scanned the tabletop and saw faint white lines and rolled-up banknotes among the cups, glasses, and overflowing ashtrays.
Shocked, he lowered the binoculars and tried to make sense of what he’d seen. His dad was so anti-drugs he’d threatened to report Evan to the police when he’d caught him having a sneaky spliff one time. And if he could do that to his own son over a bit of weed, why the hell would he allow these strangers to bring coke into his house? And he had to know about it, because the men certainly weren’t trying to hide it.
Unless he’d had no choice in the matter?
A crevice formed in the centre of Evan’s brow when he recalled the conversation he’d had with his dad the previous day. Frank had been uncharacteristically cold, and the look he’d given Evan when he’d sent him on his way had been odd, to say the least. That, added to the blond man’s unwarranted aggression, and the smooth way Irena’s brother had walked him back to his car, had made him think that something dodgy was going on. And after witnessing that scene through the kitchen window, he was even more convinced.
But was it possible that these people had forced their way into his dad’s house and were holding him prisoner?
Evan shook his head slowly, unable to imagine his father being that vulnerable, that helpless. But the man who had brought him up would never willingly allow drugs to be brought into his house, so something must have happened to make him change his mind.
Irena.
His lip twisted into a sneer when her name entered his head. She’d caused nothing but trouble since turning up here that night, and he was sure she must have had a hand in whatever was going on in there. She’d claimed she had escaped her abusive husband and was in fear of her life, but what if . . .
Tutting when the hazy thought refused to solidify into something tangible, Evan raised the binoculars again and saw that the men at the kitchen table had finished counting the money, and the gobby Manc and Irena’s brother were both sniffing thick lines of coke while one of the others bagged the neat wads of banknotes.
His mobile phone suddenly started ringing, the raucous strains of Born To Be Wild shattering the silence. Cursing himself for not thinking to put it on silent, Evan ducked his head and scuttled away from the fence when the man who’d gone into the caravan a few minutes earlier appeared at the door and peered in his direction.
His heart was pounding when he let himself into the cottage, and his pulse was thundering in his ears as he fumbled with the lock and the bolt. He stared out through the window when he’d managed it, searching the shadows for signs that he’d been followed.
When nobody appeared, he released the breath he’d been holding and slid his phone out of his pocket to see who had tried to call him. It was Jo, and he contemplated calling her back to tell her what he’d seen, but immediately dismissed the idea. His sister was headstrong, and if he told her what was going on she would get straight on the phone to their dad, and those men would know that he was spying on them. And, given what he’d just seen, if they came after him, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
In need of a cigarette to calm his nerves, Evan picked his rucksack up off the table and carried it and one of Yvonne’s kitchen chairs into her musty-smelling bedroom. Determined to find out what was going on, he lit up and settled at the window to keep an eye out for the Transit van. He didn’t know if those girls he’d seen were staying at the farm along with the men, or if last night’s excursion had been a one-off, but if the van went past tonight, he would give it a head start and then cycle back to his car and make his own way to the brothel. What he would do then, he wasn’t quite sure. He would have to cross that bridge when he came to it.
As the minutes ticked past, his thoughts drifted back to Irena, and he wondered if she’d known her brother was involved in drugs and prostitution before she’d persuaded Frank to let him and his mates move in. If so, it didn’t fit with the image he’d had of her at all. Jo had pegged her for a gold-digging scam-artist who’d homed in on a grieving widower with the intention of relieving him of his money, but after meeting her Evan had thought his sister dead wrong. Irena had seemed like a gentle, unassuming soul, and he’d been sucked in by her beauty. He still wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol that had spurred him on to – almost – have sex with her that night, or if he’d done it purely to defy his dad. Either way, now he knew what she was really like, he was determined to get her and her scummy brother and friends out of there.
26
Karel had sent Nick and the other men out to check the field at the back of the house after Jacko told them about the blast of music he’d heard. They had also checked the lane at the front of the property, but had seen and heard nothing.
‘Fucker’s imagining things,’ Nick jeered, elbowing Jacko in the ribs when they came back inside having found nothing. ‘He’ll be telling us he’s seeing aliens next.’
‘I’m sure I heard it,’ Jacko insisted. Then, shrugging, he conceded, ‘I suppose it could have been the wind. It’s weird out here; does my fucking nut in.’
‘You know where the door is if you want out,’ Nick said over his shoulder as he opened a wrap of smack to prepare the girls’ pre-work hits. ‘But good luck getting a job that pays as well as this one for doing fuck all.’
‘I never said nothing about quitting,’ Jacko muttered, reaching into the fridge for a can of beer.
‘Put that back,’ Karel ordered before he had the chance to pull the tab. ‘And you can all knock the gear on the head tonight,’ he added, his gaze sweeping over the other men. ‘There was probably no one out there, but I’m not taking chances while the gear’s still in the house, so you can pair up and do half-hour walkabouts.’
The men nodded their agreement, and Nick gave a smug smile.
‘Sure you can cope with that, Jacko? There’s all sorts of shit roaming round out there at night, and we all know what a wuss you are. Here . . . maybe it was a fox you heard? I’ve heard they scream like a bitch getting shagged up the arse.’
‘Maybe.’ Jacko shrugged, no longer sure what he’d heard.
‘Don’t give ’em as much tonight,’ Karel cautioned, watching as Nick started drawing the now-liquid heroin into one of the disposable syringes he’d laid out on the ledge. ‘Big Shirl reckons she had complaints about them gouching out last night, and I haven’t fetched them over to get nothing back.’
Nodding, Nick squirted some of the liquid back into the spoon before reaching for the second syringe.
The girls were fast asleep when Nick unlocked their bedroom door a few minutes later, and his dick sprang to life as he gazed at their naked young bodies sprawled on top of the duvet they were sharing. The clothes they’d arrived with had been stashed in the cellar, and their work underwear had been taken off them for washing when he’d brought them back to the farm in the early hours of that morning. But he reckoned they’d have stripped off even if they’d had clothes, because Karel’d had the heating on full-blast since he got here, and the room was as stuffy as hell.
Walking over to the bed, he admired the exposed tits and pussies before letting his gaze drift to Viktorya on the far side of the mattress. Karel had been dosing her up on Ketamine since Nick had battered her, and she’d been dead to the world every time he’d been in here. She was the prettiest of the girls, by far, and she’d shown she had spunk when she’d tried to fight him off – which was always a turn on. It was lucky for her that Karel had walked in when he had, or he’d have given her a damn sight more than a beating. But her time would come – he’d make sure of that.
Conscious that time was drawing on and he needed to get the other girls ready for work, Nick turned his attention back to them and slapped the arse of the one closest to him.
‘Wakey wakey,’ he said in a sing-song voice when her eyes shot open. ‘Time for your medicine.’
Roused by their friend’s cry of fear, the other girls woke up. Amused when they sat up and huddled together, covering their breasts with their hands, Nick grinned as he pulled his belt out of the loops of his jeans.
‘Who wants to go first?’ he asked, picking up one of the syringes.
‘No, sir, please . . .’ one of them whimpered. ‘We want go home.’
‘You are home,’ he purred, choosing her to take the first fix. ‘Now be a good girl, and hold your arm out. Unless you want me to hit the wrong vein and make you bleed to death?’
Sobbing now, the girls held on to each other, and the terror in their eyes made Nick’s dick throb even harder. If he’d had the time, he would have indulged in a nice little three-way blow job. But the search for Jacko’s imaginary friend had put them behind schedule, so it would have to wait.
27
Evan had been sitting at Yvonne’s bedroom window for over an hour, and he’d just lit his umpteenth cigarette and was contemplating going home when he heard the rumble of a diesel engine, followed by the glow of headlights strobing through the gaps in the hedgerow. The Transit van came into view a few seconds later, and he ducked his head and peered at it over the edge of the windowsill. It was too dark to see who was driving, and he couldn’t see through its back windows when it trundled past, but it was only half an hour later than he’d seen it going out the previous night, so he figured it was probably heading to the same place – with the same cargo.
When the tail-lights had receded into the distance, Evan stood up and pulled his jacket on. Then, stuffing his flask and binoculars back into the rucksack, he let himself out of the cottage and cycled back to his car.
The Transit was a couple of miles ahead when Evan had joined the motorway ten minutes later, but there weren’t many vehicles between them, so he eased his foot off the accelerator to avoid being spotted. Relieved to find that it had long gone by the time he reached the exit for Manchester, he took an alternative route to the brothel so he wouldn’t cross paths with them.
Approaching the road where the house was situated from the opposite end to that which the van had arrived and left by the previous night, he parked a few hundred yards back and climbed out. He could see the van’s back bumper sticking out of the gate-less driveway when he crossed over to the pavement on the other side, and he glanced at it out of the corner of his eye as he strolled past. There didn’t seem to be anybody in it, so he switched his gaze to the house. At first glance it appeared to be the same as its neighbours, but then he noticed the steel gate covering its front door, and the metal bars across the upper windows.
A door at the side of the house suddenly opened, spilling light onto the path, and Evan quickened his step when the blond man and his friend appeared. Too far from either end of the block to duck into an alleyway, he crouched down behind a car when he heard the van doors slam shut and its engine fire to life. The beam of its headlights arced across the car’s windows when the van reversed off the driveway, and Evan raised himself up an inch to watch as it drove past.
‘Oi!’ a rough voice barked. ‘What you doin’, ya little cunt?’
Evan jumped to his feet and held out his hands when a huge man in a stained vest ran out from the house behind him, setting off the security light.
‘I said what you doin’?’ the man repeated, marching over and seizing Evan by the collar of his jacket before slamming him up against the car. ‘Tryin’ to nick my fuckin’ motor?’
‘I’m looking for my cat,’ Evan lied, blurting out the first thing that came into his mind. ‘It’s gone missing, and someone told me they saw one get hit by a car round the corner about an hour ago. You haven’t seen it, have you? Big ginger thing.’
‘No, I ain’t,’ the man said, releasing him, but still eyeing him with suspicion. ‘But if it comes in my yard, my Staffies’ll have it, so you’d best hope it don’t come nowhere near.’
Muttering, ‘Cheers,’ Evan went on his way, making a show of looking around and calling out for the fictitious cat as he walked.
As he passed the brothel, an elderly man emerged from the shadows and looked both ways along the road before scuttling away. Guessing that it was a punter who lived locally and was scared of being seen by someone who knew him, Evan shook his head as he walked on. Old geezers like that ought to be at home with their wives, not sneaking around getting their kicks with girls who were young enough to be their granddaughters. But, then, who was to say the bloke’s wife hadn’t died, and this was the only way the poor bastard could get any?
Wondering if that was why his dad had allowed Irena to turn his head so quickly, Evan climbed into his car and lit a cigarette. He hadn’t seen the girls tonight, but he figured they must have been in the van, because he couldn’t see those men driving over here for nothing – and they wouldn’t have had time to stop off on the way to pick them up.
Unsure what to do with that knowledge, Evan glanced round when a shadow crossed the passenger-side window. A man was walking past with the same furtive air about him as the old geezer, and Evan watched as he continued up the road before turning onto the driveway of the brothel. Yanking his keys back out of the ignition when an idea came to him, he hopped out of the car and took a last drag on the cigarette before flicking it away.
