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  Decision made.

  She slowed her pace.

  ‘What are you doing?’ the man shouted. ‘Come on!’

  She shook her head. Unable to speak. Sank to her knees on those old, uneven cobbles, despite there being a busy road just in sight. In her own tongue, she shouted, ‘Enough!’ Gathered her yellow robe to her. She started to weep, still looking up at the man to see what he would do.

  Footsteps getting louder said the assailant with the gun was almost upon them, now. Irina didn’t see the point in looking round to face her executioner.

  The man breathed heavily through his nostrils. Glaring at her, he screamed, ‘Get up, for Christ’s sake!’ He yanked at her hand. ‘Please!’

  But her strength had evaporated. Ashamed, she looked at her belly. Sorry, baby. Sorry I wasn’t strong enough for us both.

  She expected the man to run away; to save his own skin. Why wasn’t he running?

  Almost entirely lost in her own fear, guilt and misery, she was dimly aware of her companion thumping the wall. Just about able to see through her veil of tears how his expression changed from dismay to one of apocalyptic thunder. Noticed how he ran in the opposite direction to the road. Back towards the gangster with the gun.

  Empty metallic clicks.

  ‘Aw, shit!’

  More clicking.

  ‘Not so brave now you’re out of ammo, are you, you big, lanky turd?’ she heard her companion shout.

  ‘Come on then, hard man,’ the gangster with the gun shouted.

  Her heart fluttered. The baby in her stomach kicked, and with it, her body was infused with a sudden lightness. Buoyed enough to allow her to look round.

  Their attacker was tall but skinny and sallow, like a plant that had grown too long and thin in the dark. The hollows in his face put her in mind of the old folk back home, whose teeth had long rotted and been yanked. Her companion, by comparison, was muscular. Looked healthy, like a prize bull.

  Covering her belly, she scrambled to her feet. Leaned against the wall as her companion grabbed his opponent’s hand that held the shotgun and nutted him squarely in the forehead.

  The thin gangster staggered back. Stunned. Shook his head, clearly dazed, as her companion tried to prise the gun free. But he wouldn’t let go.

  ‘Gimme the gun, Degsy. Give it me, or I’m gonna lay you out.’

  ‘Cock off, Bell!’

  A clumsy tussle between the men. Pulling at each other’s jackets. Trying to kick at each other’s legs. The gunman took a swing at her companion’s face. Caught him on the temple with the metal twin barrels. A gash in his skin started to pour with blood immediately. Her companion wasn’t fazed. He responded with a right hook, the likes of which she’d never seen before. Gunman fell against the wall with such force that the crack of his head against the brickwork made Irina wince. His eyes crossed, the junkie’s half-light in them already fading. He stood but started to totter backwards and forwards like a drunk.

  Irina took careful steps towards the road. Slowly. Deciding that perhaps today was not the day she and the baby would die. When her companion finally wrenched the shotgun from his opponent’s hand and started to beat his face repeatedly with the wooden butt, pushing him to the ground as he rained down blow after blow, she resolved not just to survive this ordeal but to escape. Somehow. She closed her eyes as the gunman’s face started to turn red and pulpy like tenderised meat.

  Don’t let the baby see this. Get away from here. Just run to a shop and ask for help. You can do it.

  Walking briskly backwards, she was just about to turn and sprint to freedom, when her companion grabbed her arm.

  ‘Where you going?’ he asked, frowning quizzically. His face was spattered with the gunman’s blood. His head-wound oozed onto his neck and shoulder.

  Irina yelled, ‘Let me free!’ in English. Annoyed by the hot tears that leaked onto her cheeks. Drowning, sinking, sucked deep into a quagmire of disappointment that she had blown her chance of escape. ‘Bastard! You let me free!’

  ‘Shut your trap and walk,’ he said, taking off his bloodstained jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders. Ushering her towards the road. ‘Don’t look at anyone. Just walk. Quickly.’

  ‘Where you are taking me?’ she shouted, stumbling ever on with stinging feet.

  ‘Shush, will you?’ he said, glaring at her. Looking over his shoulder. ‘Walk quicker. There’s more of them out here. They’ll be looking for us.’

  He marched her briskly along several backstreets, always moving uphill, until they reached a bustling main road. Buses queued along it. Taxis, flashy cars, beat-up old peoplecarriers, weaving in and out of the lanes to beat the traffic lights. The smell of diesel was heavy in the air. Burning charcoal and spice, coming from a nearby kebab shop. Nobody looked twice at her as they went about their business. Women in full burka, carrying shopping bags with tiny chattering children following in their wake; Hassidic Jews, behind the wheels of the people-carriers – the stolid women in their austere black clothing and wigs, hastening somewhere, pushing baby strollers; Africans in colourful dress; Asian women in glittering, brightly coloured fabric and old bearded men, wearing tunics and trousers with overcoats on top. They were choosing exotic vegetables, that looked nothing like the humdrum root crops and cabbage Irina was familiar with, from the display outside groceries, where the signs were written partly in a strange, scrolling script. Girls, roughly her own age, wearing school uniform, gossiping and shovelling chips into their mouths with wooden forks from white paper wraps. What was this place? Normally, she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere beyond the brothel except to the factory to give the fat white boss a blow-job. She certainly hadn’t been here before.

  ‘Where we?’ she asked. ‘Who you call, gangster?’

  Her companion was staring down at his phone. Scrolling, scrolling. Peering furtively around, but always dragging her forwards.

  ‘Cheetham Hill. Look, my name’s Lev. Call us Lev, right? And I’m not ringing no one. I’m looking for somewhere. Just walk, will you? You talk too much.’

  ‘Lev.’ She tried his name out for size. It was easy to pronounce, at least.

  He pulled her into a brightly lit clothes shop, where browsing women were bellowing strings of nasal words at one another in tobacco-hoarse voices; guffaws of dirty laughter; their sentences, punctuated with ‘fuck’ and ‘right’.

  Never letting go of her arm, Lev looked her up and down. Pulled a pair of black leggings, a baggy black top and a pair of cheap trainers from the various carousels, overloaded with polyester offerings. Took them to the till and paid a narrow-eyed manageress whose pursed, prune mouth denoted that she didn’t relish the look of semi-naked Irina. But she was more than happy to accept cash from the bloodstained Lev.

  ‘Put them on,’ he said, pointing to a solitary cubicle at the very back of the store.

  Wondering what lay in store for her, she did as she was told. Surprised that he turned his back on her when she disrobed. He wiped himself clean with spit on her discarded yellow robe.

  ‘That’ll do for now,’ he said, tossing the bloodstained robe onto the floor. ‘Come on.’

  Once she was dressed, he led her back out, along the uneven pavement, taking what seemed to be a shortcut past a school, surrounded by razor wire, and an MOT centre that reeked of car oil and fumes.

  ‘We go back to boss?’ she asked. ‘Please, I don’t—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t take me back to boss. I don’t like.’

  ‘I said, no.’

  He sounded impatient. Was he going to imprison her in his own home? Would she have to give him sex too? All she wanted to do was be left alone to look after the baby in her belly. Why couldn’t she be like one of those carefree schoolgirls? Why had her life disintegrated into fear and sex-slavery? Why did God hate her this much?

  She stopped dead. Wrapped the regret around her like a comfort blanket. It was all she had. Allowed the tears to come. ‘Please. I can’t do this any m
ore,’ she said in her own tongue.

  Lev lifted his hand to her. She flinched, expecting him to slap her hard like the others. But he didn’t. He put his arm around her shoulders. Ushered her onwards and pointed to a shopfront way up ahead. The sign painted onto the window in gold said something in that scrolling foreign script. Stuck with Blu-tack to the inside of the window was a giant poster of a jumbo jet with ‘PIA’ written in green on the side.

  ‘You buy ticket?’ she asked, hopeful. Then, disappointment as she remembered that the boss had taken her passport on her arrival in the UK.

  ‘No. Look up!’ he said, gesturing to a hoarding above the travel agency where the acronym ‘ARAS’ was painted in blue and white. She had no idea what that meant. ‘We’re going there.’

  Through a separate glazed door, they found a narrow, steep staircase that led up to a scruffy office, stuffed with too many dented brown filing cabinets. A black woman sat behind a desk. She wore glasses and a suit. Looked efficient. By the window was an old, threadbare sofa. Lev motioned that Irina should sit. He spoke quickly to the woman, jabbing his thumb towards Irina. Would Irina be deported? Was this woman friend or foe? Folding her arms tightly across her painfully swollen chest, she was, at least, relieved that it was a woman in front of her rather than another man.

  To the left of the desk was a door with mirrored glass, beyond which Irina could not see. The black woman made a call and within a few minutes a middle-aged Asian woman emerged. She was smartly dressed, with her black hair in a chignon. Advancing towards Irina briskly, she held out her hand.

  ‘I’m Anjum Khan,’ she said, speaking slowly and clearly. ‘I’m the director of Asylum-seeker and Refugee Advocacy Service. ARAS for short. Welcome.’

  Irina forced a smile and nodded. Didn’t really understand what was happening. Felt bilious and light-headed. A sudden prickling in her extremities and icy shiver in her core warned her that her consciousness was ebbing away …

  But Anjum Khan didn’t notice. She was looking askance at Lev. Frowning.

  ‘Don’t I know you?’ she asked him.

  ‘No,’ he said. He took his wallet out of his jeans pocket and pulled out five twenty-pound notes. Pushed them into Irina’s hand. ‘Just look after her, right?’

  He was edging towards the door. Irina sat back down, feeling light-headed and barely there.

  ‘Don’t you work for my Tariq?’

  ‘Good luck,’ Lev said to Irina.

  He was turning away; leaving. But wait! She didn’t want him to go. He was all she knew in this place.

  She stretched out towards him but felt herself slipping, slipping.

  ‘Hey! Come back here!’ Anjum Khan shouted after Lev. ‘I have seen you before! Oi!’

  But the door slammed shut and Lev was gone.

  Chapter 20

  Lev

  ‘Tommo and Kai are dead,’ Lev told Tariq. ‘All the girls are dead, from what I could see. It was a slaughter.’ Only now that he was sitting in the boss’ office did Lev realise what a prick he had been. His gallantry over Irina meant he had some explaining to do. He hoped Tariq couldn’t see the sweat breaking out above his top lip.

  Nodding slowly, Tariq sat in silence behind his stately desk. He was studying Lev’s face intently. Drumming his immaculately manicured fingers on the keys in his jeans pocket, the paisley of precise henna tattoos spiralling its way up his hands and the insides of his forearms into the crisp, fitted lumberjack shirt that he wore.

  ‘You’re alive,’ he said.

  Think fast. Come on. Lev tried to conjure a justifiable reason for running. His thoughts were sluggish. But then, he remembered the rucksack at his feet.

  ‘I had the money with me, didn’t I? I had to make a choice to stay and fight or leg it with the cash. I reckoned you’d want the cash and at least one of your men staying alive to tell the tale.’

  Closing his eyes, it seemed that Tariq was weighing up his excuse. He laced his fingers together and brought them to the short, immaculately-shaped beard that covered his chin. Exhaling through his nostrils. The Fish Man was standing outside, waiting for the verdict. Lev knew he could be filleted, dressed with cucumber slices and served up in a dumpster by the time the sun went down.

  ‘Clever boy,’ Tariq finally said, opening his eyes.

  He smiled, though the smile seemed measured. Clearly, some calculation was still going on behind it. Tariq was no fool, Lev knew. He hadn’t co-built a criminal empire in the UK’s second city by being a pushover, despite the quiet, laid-back façade. What was it Smolensky had told him? That Tariq had a law degree from some posh place like Oxford? Nothing like the chumps he had working on the factory floor, gabbling away in Punjabi all day long, packaging shit into shitty packaging for re-sale. Oh, Tariq loved to make out he was just another family guy, trying to make a living in his little tight-knit community, but Lev knew better.

  Just act cool, man. Be calm. You go looking for trouble, it’ll find you.

  Lev placed the bag on the polished surface of the immaculately tidy desk, praying that Tariq’s wife Anjum would forget that a familiar-looking mixed-race man with a distinctive pattern cut into his crop had come into her Asylum-seeker and Refugee Advocacy Service with a pregnant, teenaged, trafficked sex-worker on his arm. Jesus. Was there any end to this angst?

  ‘It’s all there. And on the bright side, I managed to put that skinny junkie Degsy down with my own bare hands. Left him for dead in the alley behind the house.’ He grinned at Tariq, willing his boss to approve. ‘Took a nasty knock off the butt of his sawn-off shotgun, though.’ He pointed to the crust that had formed on the side of his head. ‘I’ve got a clanging headache, man.’

  ‘Weren’t you packing?’ Tariq asked, raising an eyebrow archly.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit. ‘Didn’t think I’d need it, to be honest.’ Lev rearranged his blood-encrusted features into that of an unwitting, devoted underling. It felt like walking through customs at the airport with a big bag of Dutch E sewn into the lining of his case. ‘It’s not like I don’t know and trust the lads, is it? Honour among Boddlingtons and all that.’

  Breathing in sharply, Tariq arranged his collection of pens into a succession of parallel lines. Fat, black and shiny with a white flower on the end. Gold trim. They had cost more than the yearly rent on Lev’s poxy flat, no doubt.

  ‘Never leave home on Boddlington business without your piece,’ Tariq said. His voice was barely audible. ‘Unless you plan to be taken into custody by the police or you’re going to be searched. Aren’t those the rules? Aren’t those the rules we instigated for your protection, Leviticus?’

  His voice was so calm; the volume so low. But he was blinking repeatedly behind his glasses. His phone pinged on the desk; he ignored it, so intent was his focus on Lev.

  Lev looked down at his filthy hands and swallowed hard. There was no point trying to appear cool. This guy could see right through him.

  ‘Sorry, Tariq. I really am. I forgot. My son’s very poorly. Like, proper poorly. I wasn’t concentrating.’ Damage limitation. That’s what the apology was. Not a show of weakness, which would be unacceptable for a brother like him. Just tactics. Fall out with your boss in the normal world or piss off the twat that interviewed you at the Job Centre and all you got was a rap on the knuckles, at best; booted out, at worst. Piss off Tariq Khan and the consequences would be deadly. Please, God. Don’t let Anjum mention me to him.

  Pursing his lips, Tariq stared at the wound on Lev’s head until Lev touched the scab self-consciously.

  ‘Never, ever let me hear—’ he began, leaning forward; slamming his hand onto the luxury pens, sending them spinning across the desk top.

  But he was interrupted by Jonny barging into the office with such gusto that the door crashed against the wall. Smolensky followed in his wake – a long, black shadow.

  ‘Is it true what I hear?’ Jonny said, looking from Tariq to Lev and back to his business partner. Unbuttoning his coat and wiping his sweaty brow w
ith the handkerchief from his top pocket. ‘I take my Mia to a doctor’s appointment and while I’m gone, O’Brien’s taken out our men? The girls?’ His jowls wobbled with indignation. The inflection in his voice climbed steeply with disbelief.

  ‘Afraid so,’ Tariq said. ‘Lev here managed to get away with the cash. Tommo and Kai are apparently toast. I’ve sent the cleaners in. Best we don’t go near. Once our little friend Ellis James gets wind it’s an O’Brien/Boddlington scuffle, the place will be crawling with cops.’ Finally, Tariq lifted his smartphone from the desk and thumbed the screen into life. His thick black eyebrows bunching together in apparent consternation.

  ‘You had a call or a text off Paddy?’ Jonny turned from Tariq to Smolensky. ‘Have you heard anything from Conky McFadden? Maybe his men have gone rogue.’

  Smolensky shook his head. Fiddled with his white tassels. Shot an accusatory glance at Lev. ‘There’s something fishy going on and it’s not just me for once.’

  ‘This is what Paddy has to say for himself.’ Tariq held his phone up. Lev leaned forward to get a better view but was pinioned back in his seat by a hand on his shoulder. Fingers of steel digging painfully into the muscle. Smolensky, of course, putting him in his place.

  Jonny took the phone from Tariq. ‘You want war, you’ve got war. Deal’s off,’ he read aloud. Dropped the phone back onto the desk with a clatter. ‘Bastard.’ An anxious flicker of a glance at Smolensky.

  ‘Typical!’ Tariq said. ‘I should have known it wouldn’t last. He’s got a mill of our cash as well.’

  As the colour drained from Jonny Margulies’ flushed face, and Tariq thumped the desk in temper, Lev said a silent prayer, begging an indifferent God that nobody in the room would notice that he could barely suppress a satisfied smirk.

  Standing outside the warehouse in the dark, Lev was gripped by fear and nausea. He breathed heavily through his nostrils, realising he hadn’t eaten all day long. Flicked his tongue over the roof of his mouth. It felt like chinchilla. If he vomited now, it would be bile coming up. Luckily, the dark kept his secret from the others; he didn’t want them to know that he was feeling dizzy. Swaying slightly, he wondered if it was delayed shock kicking in or some sort of karmic punishment for not having gone to A&E to get his head-wound checked out.