range Mercedes-Benz E-Class, still an impressive ride. Janko drove and broke into raucous song. Goran turned round, laughing. Tallis joined in, more as a cover than amusement. He was watching where they were taking him. They were headed for Hammersmith. Tallis thought they’d go over the flyover and join the Great West Road. Instead, they dropped down underneath it.
Traffic seemed heavy for a Sunday. The sky was losing some of its light, the day its energy. The brandy was starting to kick in just behind Tallis’s eyes. He closed them for what seemed a fraction of time. When he opened them they were outside a chip shop. Great, he thought. It would soak up some of the alcohol. The boys had other ideas.
Exchanging greetings with two men behind the counter, Janko and Goran led the way. Tallis followed them through a scullery and into a small, enclosed, paved yard. Encased in glass, fruitless vines hung from the roof, it smelt like a greenhouse. Instead of tomatoes growing, big hessian sacks of potatoes lined the walls. The yard formed a bridge between the chip shop and another building in which there was a closed door with an entry phone next to it. Goran pressed a button and spoke his name. There was a click and the door sprang open, leading into a narrow hall with a flight of stairs leading steeply up to a short landing. Carpeted in worn deep purple, the stairs had seen some action. They went up another flight, and through another door which opened out onto a dimly lit bar with barstools in faded leather. Tallis took it in at a glance—furnishings dark and indecipherable, three sofas, one of which looked badly sprung, door off to the right, one man, nervous looking. And no surprise, Tallis thought as a fat woman emerged from behind the counter. Well, not fat exactly. Not even overweight—more a human hulk with a pockmarked jaw and teeth like an Orc.
“This is Duka,” Goran said, grinning like a demented hyena.
Tallis looked at Goran, looked at the woman, stunned, thinking, Please, God, no.
“Duka looks after the girls,” Janko explained, with a laugh.
“Oh, right,” Tallis said, grinning now, sharing the joke.
“You want girl?” Duka probed a tooth with a dirty nail.
“Give him the new one,” Goran said. “On the house,” he added, a sly expression in his eyes. Tallis wondered what was expected in return for the favour.
Duka waddled along the length of the bar and out of sight, flesh sliding over flesh. Tallis heard a grunt, a curse then a jangling sound of metal. When Duka returned, she was sweating like an elephant on heat. “Eleven,” Duka said, belligerently handing him a key.
“Through the door,” Janko explained. As Tallis pushed it open, he heard Goran order more brandy.
He stepped into a dingy corridor, doors off, not unlike a cheap hotel. He could hear nothing other than his own feet creaking on the thinly carpeted floor. Either business was lax or, as he suspected, the rooms were soundproofed. Number eleven was at the very end. He waited outside, collecting his thoughts, then slipped the key in the lock, turned it, tapped on the wood with his free hand as he entered, the sound hollow in the surrounding silence.
Inside smelt of cheap perfume and damp. A double bed dressed in black satin sheets, more funeral pyre than love nest, rested in the middle of a room that took seediness to another level. There was a cracked sink in the corner with a bottle of baby oil resting on the ledge. The window, from which hung faded brown polyester curtains, had bars. To the right of the window was a single wooden school chair on which a girl was seated. Dark-haired, pallid, she gazed straight ahead with big eyes, seeing but not seeing. Tallis recognised the expression. He’d witnessed it before in the eyes of war-hardened civilians who had lost everyone and everything. The girl, no more than Felka’s age, wore a black bra and panties. Her feet, resting square on the floor, were bare, nails polished but chipped. She possessed a full figure, the skin close knit and youthful. Her right arm was crossed over her left breast as if to protect herself, the fingers of her hand resting on the shoulder strap. She had a large, recent bruise on her thigh. She was breathing fast.
He approached her softly. She turned to him with large eyes and pushed the strap off her shoulder, allowing him a tantalising glimpse of her nakedness.
“No,” he said, looking around him for something to cover her with. Seeing nothing, he took off his jacket, put it round her shoulders. For the first time, she lifted her eyes and looked at him, whispering something he couldn’t make out.
“It’s all right,” he said, sitting down on the bed. “I only want to talk.”
She swallowed hard, nodded.
“What’s your name?”
She didn’t answer, wouldn’t answer. He wondered how long it had been since she’d felt like a person instead of a thing. “Where are you from?”
She shook her head, sudden fear in her eyes. She glanced at the door. “Nobody will hear us,” Tallis assured her.
Still the big-eyed stare.
“Do you understand me?”
The flicker of light in her eyes told him she did. “Were you brought here?”
She opened her mouth very slightly, closed it.
“Against your will?”
Her dark eyes filled with tears.
“I can get you out of here,” Tallis said urgently, “but first I need your help.”
Her face sagged. She looked down at the floor. He’d blown it, he thought. “My name is …” He wanted her trust but knew that telling the truth could get both of them into a lot of trouble. He started again. “The guys out there know me as Marco,” he told her, “but my real name is Max.”
“Max,” she said softly, as if committing his name and her lifeline to memory.
“Yeah.” Tallis smiled warmly. “I have a wife and kids and I live in a lovely big house in a village called Belbroughton, not far from Birmingham.” Then, meshing fact with fiction, he told her about where he’d grown up, that he hadn’t always been so successful, that he, perhaps like her, had come from humble beginnings.
She gazed at him in awe. “Thing is,” Tallis said, wondering how long he’d got before the others became suspicious. “I need to find this man.” He pulled out the most recent photograph of Demarku, showed it to her. “You recognise him?”
The girl drew back, shook her head sadly, disappointed that she couldn’t help.
“His name is Agron Demarku. He’s an Albanian with a history of violence towards prostitutes.”
Again, the closed-down expression.
“Do you talk much with the other girls?” Tallis said.
She gave a mournful shrug.
“All right,” he said, gently slipping the jacket off her shoulders. “See what you can find out. I’ll return tomorrow night.” Without looking back, he left the room.
There was no sign of Janko or Goran. “They left,” Duka said tonelessly.
“They say anything?” Tallis said.
“Nothing.” Duka glowered.
Retracing
