Brutal, page 18
31
Irena looked drained and miserable when she unlocked Frank’s door the following morning. The air in the room was still stifling, but he was dressed and sitting in the chair by the boarded-up window when she entered. Watching as she placed the cup she was carrying on the bedside table, he said, casually, ‘Sleep well?’
Irena hesitated, and Frank saw wariness in her eyes when she glanced over at him and nodded. Guessing that she was wondering why he was being civil to her after their last bitter exchange, he gave a half smile, and said, ‘That’s good. And are you and Karel getting on OK?’
Frowning now, Irena said, ‘Why are you ask this?’
‘I thought I heard you crying last night,’ he said. ‘So I thought you might have fallen out?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘We are happy.’
‘Sure about that?’ Frank raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at her cheek. ‘Nasty bruise you’ve got there.’
‘I fall.’ She self-consciously covered the spot where Karel’s backhanded slap had landed a couple of days earlier. ‘Is nothing.’
Unable to keep up the pretence, Frank gave her a pitying look.
‘Oh, come on, Irena, that’s exactly what you said when I found you that night, battered to within an inch of your life. Only I’m assuming it was Nick’s handiwork that time, seeing as Karel was in prison at the time. Am I right?’
Irena turned to the door without answering, and Frank said, ‘I know you’ll probably tell me it was part of the plan’ – he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers – ‘but why did Karel let Nick do that to you if he cares about you as much as you claim he does?’
Again, Irena hesitated, and her expression had hardened when she looked back at him.
‘I know you are say these things to make trouble, but it will not work,’ she said. ‘Karel is good man, and he love me.’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ Frank argued. ‘Or he wouldn’t have gone in there while you were sleeping last night, and—’
He caught himself before the rest of the words came out and released a weary sigh. He had intended to tell her about Karel and the girl, but his instincts told him that would cause more trouble for him than for Karel. Irena was bound to tell the man what he’d said, and Frank had already witnessed his violent streak first hand, so it wasn’t worth it.
‘What were you going to say?’ Irena pressed, suspicion in her eyes.
‘Nothing,’ said Frank. ‘You were right: I was trying to stir things up. Forget it.’
Irena continued to stare at him for several moments. Then, quietly, she said, ‘I know you think I have cold heart, Frankie, but I honestly never meant for you to be hurt.’
Frank didn’t reply, but his eyes betrayed the emotion her words had stirred in him. Hearing her call him by that name brought back memories of the time they had spent together before this nightmare began. It might all have been a lie on her part, but he’d felt genuine affection for her, and, despite his determination not to, he still felt an urge to protect her.
Irena glanced at the clock on the bedside table, and said, ‘I need make breakfast. Drink tea while is still hot. I will bring food for you when I have finish.’
Reminded of something that had come into his mind during the long, hot, restless night, Frank said, ‘Subject of food, I don’t suppose you could nip over to Yvonne’s and see to the animals, could you? Only it’s been a few days now, and I’m worried they’ll starve if they don’t get something soon.’
‘I will try,’ she agreed.
‘One more thing . . .’ Frank said before she moved. ‘Is there any chance I can go to the bathroom to empty that?’ Embarrassed, he nodded toward the stinking vase of piss.
‘I will ask one of men to take you,’ she said, backing out onto the landing.
As she turned the key in the lock, raised voices drifted up from the hallway. Curious, Frank got up and went over to the door. He’d heard the girls being brought back earlier than usual last night, and a lot of shouting and door slamming had followed. Whatever had happened, it clearly hadn’t been resolved yet if the foul-mouthed insults he could hear Nick firing off right now were anything to go by. He didn’t recognize the other man’s voice, but he was disappointed that it wasn’t Karel, because if those two went head to head, the gang would implode and his ordeal would be over.
The voices faded away, and Frank, none the wiser, picked up the tea Irena had made for him and carried it to his chair.
Frankie . . .
Recalling the way she had spoken his name, Frank shook his head as he sank down on the seat. For a moment there, he had allowed himself to believe she might still have feelings for him. But who was he kidding? She loved Karel, and she would stay loyal to him to the bitter end – no matter how badly the bastard treated her.
Downstairs, Irena prepared breakfast as the men came in from the caravan and took seats at the table. Nick and Gaz were still bickering, but she was relieved they were no longer shouting, because there was always a risk it might turn physical when things got that heated – and a very real chance, when Nick was involved, that someone could end up getting stabbed or shot.
Like Frank, she, too, had sensed that something bad must have happened last night. But she couldn’t ask Karel about it, because he still wasn’t speaking to her. He blamed her for Frank’s attempted escape, despite the fact that his men had also been here and security was their job – a job they were extremely well paid for, while she received nothing for all the cooking, cleaning, and washing she did. Theirs was a male-dominated world, and the women they allowed into it were viewed as little more than maids and on-tap pussies. But Karel had told her she was different. He’d said he loved her, and that he wanted to marry her and have children with her.
If he cared about you, he wouldn’t have gone in there while you were sleeping last night . . .
She studied Karel’s face out of the corner of her eye as she plated the food. Frank’s bedroom sat between theirs and the one in which the girls were being held, so they were the only rooms he could have heard Karel going into. He’d insisted he had only said it to cause trouble, but instinct and past experience told Irena otherwise. Viktorya wasn’t the first girl to catch Karel’s eye, but Irena knew better than to confront him about it. If she forced his hand and he made the wrong choice, it could only end one way: Viktorya would take Irena’s place, and Karel would make Irena take hers. And she would rather die than go back to that life, so she would keep her mouth shut – and pray that Karel’s interest in Viktorya died as quickly as it had with the others.
32
You’re too pretty to waste, so I’m going to keep you for myself . . . And if you’re good, I’ll make you my number one girl. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?
The whispered words were at the forefront of Viktorya’s mind as she broke through the fog, but they evaporated when her eyes flickered open, and she recoiled in disgust when she saw a filthy foot lying on the pillow in front of her mouth. The other girls had still been out the last time she’d been conscious, but they were back now, and she had to squeeze herself out from between their naked bodies.
The room was stiflingly hot, and the combined odour of sweat and stale cigarette smoke made her feel nauseous. Sitting up, she dropped her feet to the floor and gazed around. The lamp on the bedside table was switched on, and she frowned when she saw that the window had been boarded over. When had that happened? And how had she not heard the nails being hammered into the wood?
Struggling to remember, she stared at the bruises on her thighs. The colours had intensified since the last time she’d looked at them, but – thankfully – the pain had lessened.
Apart from the ache between her legs, which felt new and raw.
A vision of the boss man’s face flashed before her eyes, and she remembered the words she’d heard as she was waking. But had she dreamed them, or had the man actually spoken them? she wondered.
Twisting her head at the sound of a groan, Viktorya peered at the faces of the sleeping girls. They had all looked so young and pretty when she’d met them in the back of that van, but dark shadows now encircled their eyes, and their cheeks were sunken. The girl closest to her rolled over, and she frowned when she noticed several puncture marks in the crook of her elbow, and crusted sores on the back of her hand which looked like cigarette burns.
Curious to know if the other girls were similarly scarred, Viktorya raised the edge of the quilt and scanned their naked bodies. They all bore the same puncture marks and bruising, and she squeezed her eyes shut when an aural memory of them crying and pleading for mercy came back to her. The painkillers had clouded her mind and made her think she had dreamed those pitiful cries, but she now knew that it had been real. And she also knew that it wouldn’t be long before she, too, suffered the same fate.
I’m going to keep you for myself . . .
Viktorya’s dark eyebrows crept together when the words replayed in her mind. This time, they were accompanied by a sharper vision, and she knew that the boss man had been here. He’d climbed into bed with her, and had told her that he would treat her well if she pleased him – although she wasn’t sure why he’d made it sound as if she had a choice, when they both knew she’d have been powerless to stop him from taking whatever he wanted from her. But if agreeing to go along with his proposal saved her from suffering like the other girls, she would be a fool to refuse.
Decided, she lay down with her back to the others. As sorry as she felt for them, they were strangers, and she doubted they’d give her a second thought if they were offered the same opportunity, so why should she worry about them?
33
Following the argument of that morning, things had quietened down in the house, and Frank counted off day after boring day of captivity as the intruders went about their daily lives as if they owned the place.
It was ten days since they had muscled their way in, and Frank pretty much knew their routine by heart. Irena, despite her insistence that Karel loved her, seemed to be little more than a housekeeper for him and his gang. Every morning she made them a full cooked breakfast, and would then clean up and wash their clothes and bedding while they went about their business. She would cater for them again at lunchtime, and then dinner. Once they’d eaten, Nick and the other man would take the girls to work, and Irena would invariably go to bed – alone – while Karel stayed downstairs, drinking, smoking, and playing cards with the rest of the men into the early hours.
Tonight, the enforced inactivity and boredom was wearing Frank out, but he was finding it difficult to sleep in the airless, stale-smelling room, even though he had stripped down to his underwear and was lying on top of the bed. It was gone midnight when he heard the familiar creak of bedsprings and the low murmur of voices through the wall. Unwilling to listen to any more of the disgusting grunting he’d been subjected to all week, he rolled over and plucked a cotton wool ball out of the bag Maureen had kept in her bedside cabinet. As he was about to plug his ears, a shrill whistle rose up from the front of the house, followed, a few seconds later, by the thunder of footsteps running up the stairs.
Sliding off the bed at the sound of someone rapping sharply on Irena’s bedroom door, Frank rushed over to the door – praying that she would wake up and catch Karel red-handed as he came out of the girl’s room. Disappointed when Karel emerged onto the landing before she did, he pressed his ear against the wood in time to hear Karel hiss, ‘What the fuck’s all the noise about?’
‘Someone’s coming,’ a man replied quietly. ‘I was out front and saw headlights coming this way. And it’s definitely not Nick, ’cos they were too low down for a van.’
Irena’s door suddenly opened, and Frank could hear the sleep in her voice when she asked what was going on.
‘Someone’s coming,’ Karel told her. ‘Go down and get rid of them.’
A vehicle turned onto the drive and came to a stop, and Frank heard its door slam shut and someone walk heavily across the gravel. The doorbell rang, and Irena answered it. Her voice was too low for Frank to hear what she was saying, but he had no such problem with the caller’s voice, and his heart lurched when he realized it was his daughter-in-law. Marie never visited of her own accord, so he wondered if Evan had sent her to pick up the bits and pieces he’d left behind. Or maybe something had happened, and she’d come to deliver the bad news?
Dreading it being the latter, Frank jerked away from the door when the key turned in the lock. It was Karel, and he had the shotgun in his hands.
‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he hissed. ‘Get dressed.’
‘It’s my son’s wife,’ Frank said, quickly pulling his pyjama bottoms and dressing gown on. ‘Evan’s probably sent her to pick his stuff up.’
‘Get rid of her, or I’ll kill her,’ Karel warned, shoving him out onto the landing with the barrel of the gun digging into his spine.
Marie was demanding to speak to Evan when Frank reached the hallway. Forcing himself to act naturally, he walked up alongside Irena and gave his daughter-in-law a questioning smile.
‘Hello, love. What are you doing here at this time of night?’
Switching her angry gaze from Irena to him, Marie said, ‘I want to see Evan. She reckons she hasn’t seen him, but I know he’s here, so tell him to stop hiding and come out and face me.’
‘He’s not here, love,’ Frank replied truthfully. ‘Did he tell you he was coming over tonight?’
A flicker of uncertainty flashed into Marie’s eyes, but she quickly blinked it away and raised her chin.
‘You know damn well he hasn’t been home since he came to help you with your cars last week, so stop covering for him. He hasn’t been in work since, and none of his mates have seen him, so he’s got to be here.’
‘I promise you he’s not,’ said Frank. ‘He did call round last week, but we had words and I told him to leave. I haven’t heard from him since.’
‘So where is he?’ Marie’s voice had risen in pitch, and tears were glistening in her eyes.
Frank had never been overly keen on the woman, but she looked so distraught, he had to stuff his hands into his dressing gown pockets to keep himself from reaching out to her.
‘I honestly have no idea, love. Knowing him, he’s probably been on a bender, and now he’s hiding out somewhere, trying to pluck up the courage to face you. I’m sure he’ll turn up soon, so why don’t you go home and get some sleep, eh? You look exhausted.’
‘Of course I’m exhausted,’ Marie replied spikily. ‘I’ve been ill all week, and I’ve barely had the energy to get out of bed, so I didn’t need to be worrying about Evan on top of it all.’
‘Have you tried ringing him?’ Frank asked.
‘Numerous times,’ said Marie. ‘And I’ve left loads of messages, but he hasn’t answered any of them. And you haven’t answered when I’ve tried to ring you,’ she added accusingly. ‘That’s why I know you’re covering for him.’
‘My phone’s got a fault,’ Frank lied. ‘I haven’t heard it ringing.’
‘Mobile broke as well, is it?’ Marie gave him a disbelieving look.
Frank gave a guilty little shrug, and said, ‘I’m sorry, love, but I don’t know what else to tell you.’
‘I know you’re lying,’ Marie sniffed, taking a tissue out of her pocket and swiping at her nose. ‘I’ve given it a week, but enough’s enough. If he’s not man enough to face me, you can tell him not to bother coming back this time. I’ve bent over backwards to put things right since he came home after stopping here the last time he walked out, and everything’s been great, so I don’t understand why he’s doing this.’
‘I am sure Even is not try to hurt you,’ Irena interjected.
The sound of her voice ignited a fire in Marie’s eyes.
‘His name is Ev-An,’ she corrected her angrily. ‘And don’t you dare talk about him like you and him are friends. He’s told me all about you, waltzing in here and taking advantage of a lonely old man, and he’s as disgusted by you as I am!’
‘That’s enough,’ Frank said, desperate to get her out of there when he heard a creak on the stairs behind him. ‘Just go home, Marie.’
Rounding on him, Marie yelled, ‘Don’t tell me what to do, ’cos you’re as bad as her! You call yourself a father, putting that tart before your own children when their mum isn’t even cold in her grave yet? And to think I forced Evan to ring you on Christmas Day, because I knew he was missing you. It’s no wonder him and Jo don’t want anything to do with you. You’re a disgrace!’
‘Do not talk to Frankie like this,’ Irena jumped to Frank’s defence. ‘He is good man, and is not his fault his son is liar.’
‘Irena, don’t,’ Frank said quietly.
‘No, is not fair,’ Irena persisted. ‘She is disrespect you, and she need to know truth.’
‘What truth?’ Marie demanded, staring at Frank. ‘What’s she on about?’
‘It’s nothing,’ Frank said, furious that Irena had been about to repeat the accusation she’d made against Evan when he now knew it to be a lie. ‘It’s late, and we all need some sleep, so go home.’
‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what she meant.’ Marie stood her ground.
‘I’ve already told you I haven’t seen Evan, and I don’t know where he is,’ Frank said with finality. ‘Now go home, Marie.’
Narrowing her eyes when he made to close the door, Marie said, ‘I know you lot have never liked me, and I bet you’re made up now he’s left me, aren’t you? Well, you know what, you can go to hell, ’cos I’m getting a divorce and cutting the whole rotten lot of you out of my life!’
She turned on her heel at that, and marched back to her car, and Frank’s heart went out to her when he saw her swiping tears off her face as she drove away.
‘I am sorry if I speak out of turn,’ Irena murmured, touching his arm. ‘But she would not leave, so I was try to—’
