one in, I reckon …’
Not going back. I’m not going back.
‘Somebody help, please?’ she screeched into the sky. ‘Call police! Police! Help!’
Bending down, she grabbed a large stone frog from the path, turning her head aside to avoid the shrapnel, and lobbed it through the glass pane in the back door. It shattered instantly, and lights were suddenly blazing in the kitchen. A man’s hand, then his leg, appeared over the wooden fence.
The door opened. ‘Get in here!’ a man hissed, grabbing her by the arm and yanking her into the kitchen, shutting the door behind her just as heavy boots thumped down into the dirt.
‘Please, you must call police,’ Elenuta said. ‘They will take me.’
‘Don’t you worry yerself,’ the man said. ‘I know all about it. Finlay, is this what you were looking for?’
Finlay Wilson appeared in the kitchen doorway. Five foot four, skin and bones, with tiny wide-set eyes that made him appear more reptilian than human.
‘Aye, that’s ma skank,’ he grinned. More teeth were missing than not, and those that remained were a shade of yellow usually reserved only for dog vomit. ‘Good man, Gene. We’ll be out of your way now.’
Elenuta looked from Finlay to the man she’d assumed was about to save her, to the huge figure – presumably the man called Chunky – who was outside the back door ensuring she couldn’t escape into the garden. There was going to be no escape, no police rescue, no return to her home and family. Served her right for falling for such an old trick. The promise of a better job, flattery, more money. Just a job interview to go through. Then there was the back of a truck, a gag over her mouth, ropes around her wrists and feet. Days of travelling like that, lumped in with a few other women, in a wooden box in the centre of a cattle transport. It didn’t matter how much noise they tried to make. They never had a hope of being heard. From there, they’d been transferred into a lined cargo container and lifted onto a ship. Insufficient water had left them all dehydrated. At some point she’d lost hope that they would survive. When they’d reached land, she’d begun to wish they hadn’t. She’d given it her best shot. There wouldn’t be another chance to escape. That left only one option.
Throwing herself forward, she grabbed a knife from the block next to the sink, diving into the opposite corner of the room and holding it to her own throat.
‘I rather die,’ she said, her hand shaking fiercely enough that the blade was already leaving a ragged trail over her skin.
‘Would you now?’ Finlay asked, stepping forward, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. ‘That’s as may be. But what’ll your wee friend back at the flat do without you? There’s a special event on soon, see, and I’ve had my eye on you for it. Problem is, if you act like a little bitch right now and mess up my plans, there’ll be a vacancy.’ He got up close into Elenuta’s face. ‘What’s that kid’s name? Anika, that’s it. I was touched by how you looked after her on her birthday last week. Sweet sixteen. That’s a bit younger than the girls I normally race, but if you fuck with me, I’ll make an exception.’
Elenuta lowered the knife. She didn’t need any time to think about it. Finlay had proved multiple times in the last month that he never joked about anything. Whatever race he was talking about, Anika wouldn’t survive it. It was a miracle she’d survived the trip across Europe to start with and she’d grown more withdrawn with every man they sent into her bedroom.
Not your problem, a wormy voice whispered in her ear. End it now. Better like this. Only that wasn’t her. Anika reminded her of her little sister. It could as easily have been her trapped like a tiny bird in the disgusting cage on the fourth floor of flats, all of which seemed to be controlled by Finlay and his men.
‘Sensible girl,’ Finlay whispered, taking the knife from her compliant hand and getting a grip on her upper arm, ready to march her out.
‘Fin … man … do I no’ get a free suck-off at least, seeing as I told you she was in my garden? After she broke my window too,’ Gene whined.
‘You’ve got your right hand. That’ll have to do. This girl and I have business to sort out.’
Finlay dragged her towards the front door.
‘Am I supposed to pay for the broken window? You fuckin’ wanker. Is that all the thanks I get? I should call the bloody polis on you, see how you like that. Treating everyone round here like shite, thinkin’ yer the big man.’
Elenuta caught the single nod Finlay issued to the man who’d been guarding the back door and who was now standing with his hand through the glass she’d so recently smashed.
‘Well, I’m no’ scared of you. You’ve got some paying back to do. Did you really think we’d all stay quiet about what you’ve got going on up the road?’ Gene continued, oblivious.
There was a single gunshot, more whoosh than bang. The louder noise was the splatter of blood and bone fragments hitting the wall.
Staring at the mess, Elenuta came to terms with what she’d already known, even if her stubborn brain had kept on trying to see a light at the end of the tunnel. She’d left one shoe inside the container on that ship. One of her best shoes, that she’d thought she was wearing to the job interview that would change her life and her family’s fortunes. With it, she’d left behind both hope and her faith in human nature. In every way that mattered, she was already dead. Finlay dragged her across the broken glass and through the back door into the garden. She didn’t even feel the shard that pierced her heel.
Malcolm Reilly would have been staring at the ceiling of the mortuary if his eyes were still in their sockets. Detective Inspector Luc Callanach found it harder to stare at the young man’s face than the bodies he’d seen before. There was something so macabre, so alien, about a face without its eyes. And that wasn’t all that was missing.
‘Eyes, heart, liver, lungs, pancreas …’ the French pathologist listed, ‘gall bladder, kidneys and testicles.’
‘But the penis is still there?’ Jean-Paul asked. As the Interpol agent heading up the investigation in conjunction with French police, Jean-Paul was in charge.
That was fine with Callanach. He was only in France as Scottish liaison officer to Interpol temporarily, or so he’d been told on arrival three months earlier. After nearly two years in Scotland, he was still more accustomed to hearing English than French, and his head was performing a bizarre unnecessary translation between the two. He’d spent the previous twelve weeks trying to trace human traffickers who were allegedly moving women from Eastern Europe to the west, and from Spain and Portugal up as far as Denmark and Scotland. Now the body of a Scottish national had been found in the housing projects at Flandres, north-east of Paris’ city centre, and it had made sense for Callanach to attend. Local police had reported a corpse. The truth was that only a shell remained.
‘See for yourself,’ the pathologist told them, peeling down the sheet. The body was one long open wound, cut from sternum to groin, with a cross cut below the ribcage.
‘You didn’t make any of these cuts?’ Callanach clarified.
‘I didn’t need
