Over the Edge (10 page)

Upstairs he unlocked number eight and reached inside for another switch and she blinked at the brightness of the lights as they came on. A double bed was centrepiece of the room, with just enough room to walk around it. There was a cabinet of three drawers with a tray and kettle on it, and another door. It was standing open and beyond it she could see a toilet and a bath.

‘I stay here?’ she asked, wide-eyed. At home five of them had existed in a room smaller than this, with no water or electricity and a communal toilet fifty metres away.

‘Yes, for the time being.’

‘When I see the doctor and his children?’

‘The doctor? Oh, er, tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the doctor. You’ll see his children then. Meanwhile, you are to stay here. Understand?’

She nodded. He took a banknote from his wallet, with a 20 in the corner, and handed it to her. ‘Buy another sandwich, if you need one,’ he said, ‘but don’t talk to anyone. Understand?’

She nodded again. He handed her the keys and left. His parting words were: ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, and lock the door.’

She did as she was told and locked the door. She used the toilet, washed her hands and face and felt the water turn warm as she let it run. She’d never lived in a house with running warm water. Later, she thought, she would have a bath, but first of all it was a sandwich and a sleep on that inviting bed.

She slept all night and woke early the next morning. The room didn’t have a window, so she could not tell what the weather was like. Someone was playing music in one of the other rooms, and she heard the occasional burst of laughter. She made herself a coffee, had the other sandwich, and unlocked the door.

A woman with hair even blonder than her own was coming up the stair. Ludmilla waited for her to pass and gave her a nervous smile.

‘Hello, luv,’ the woman said, happily, and went into the room on the other side of the landing.

‘Good morning,’ Ludmilla replied, trying to avoid staring at the woman’s enormous breasts that bulged out of a mass of silk frills like the backs of two albino whales swimming through the surf, and started down the stairs.

In the Spar shop she studied the price of the sandwiches and calculated that if she bought one she’d have
£
17.51 in change. Instead she bought a
small piece of Wensleydale cheese and a bread cake, for only a few pence more. Then she saw the cream buns and could not resist buying one of those, too. If the man was angry that she’d spent too much she would just have to pay him back next week, when she’d earned her first wage.

The driver had not said what time he would come back, so she didn’t like leaving her room for too long. She had a bath, ate the cheese and bread and made herself a coffee. Later, she went for a quick walk around the square of streets that contained the house where she lived. There was no number on the door, but the house two doors along was number 45, her father’s age, and the street was called Juniper Avenue. It was a bright, cool day, and as she strolled along the pavement admiring the goods on display the shopkeepers all spoke to her and gestured towards their wares, inviting her to buy from them. There was a fruit stall, a bakery and several selling furniture and carpets. Two Asian women in silk saris were arguing loudly with a man selling vegetables, and the Beatles were being played at a stall filled with CDs. She did a little dance step to the music and the man smiled at her.

To her surprise, she didn’t feel self-conscious. Her clothes were shabby, but so were most of the others. Theirs often had designer names splashed across them – she recognised Cuba and FCUK – but they were not that much different from her own. Two
black boys on skateboards startled her as they swept by, their wheels clack-clacking on the gaps between the flagstones. Their clothing was several sizes too large and emblazoned with numbers and letters that she didn’t understand. Most of the girls of her own age had small children with them, but she assumed they were younger sisters and brothers. The girls walked around in scanty tops with their midriffs exposed, and she was slightly shocked. Back home they would have been taken off the streets by the police, except that they wouldn’t have dressed like that in the first place. She smiled at herself and decided that she must stop thinking that way. This was her home now, and she would do everything in her power for it to remain so. Back in her room she looked up Juniper and Avenue in her dog-eared pocket dictionary and puzzled over the entries. They both mentioned trees, but there wasn’t a tree in sight.

The man knocked at the door and said: ‘It’s me.’

Ludmilla turned the key in the lock and opened it wide, invitingly. He limped past her and she closed it behind him.

‘Your money is there,’ she said, pointing to the pile on the drawers. ‘I spend too much. I sorry. I pay back.’

He was carrying a long package, wrapped in a plastic bag, and wearing the same black clothes as the day before: long coat, trousers and leather
gloves. He put the package on the bed and started to remove his coat.

‘We go see doctor, now?’ Ludmilla asked.

He’d been standing slightly sideways on to her. ‘Not just yet,’ he replied. His gloved hand came round without her even seeing it and smashed into the side of her face. She stumbled and nearly lost her balance, her mind a turmoil of pain and surprise. The hand came again and hit her at the other side, jolting her head back and rattling her teeth together. She fell against the wall, wondering what she’d done, if this was all a mistake, but as the hand came again she started to fight back.

He grabbed her wrists, slammed her against the wall and hit her again with the back of his hand. She fell over backwards, bumping her head against the cabinet. He stood over her, his face red with exertion or excitement, and reached for the package he’d been carrying.

When he unrolled the covering she saw he was holding what looked like an aluminium tube with a red pistol grip. He did something with the handle then pointed the tube at her. She shrank away, not knowing what to expect, holding her hands defensively in front of her face.

He made a stabbing motion towards her and as the end of the tube touched her bare skin 10,000 volts shot up her arm. It felt as if she’d been hit with an iron bar, dislocating her elbow. Ludmilla
screamed in pain and tried to hide in the corner, pulling her sleeves over her fists. He came at her again and caught her on the neck and then the ankle. She’d heard of this torture. The Communists did it to her brothers and other members of the KLA. Her world exploded into a violent maelstrom of her own screams and the hammer-like blows of the cattle prod as he came at her again and again.

When she thought she could take no more, when the pains were melting into each other, the blackness was all-enveloping and she was willing herself to die, he stopped. She was cowering on the floor, curled up in the smallest ball she could make, with tears and mucus streaming down her face and the taste of blood in her mouth. She heard his footsteps as he stepped back from her and she dared to peep out from between her arms that were folded over her face. He came out of the bathroom carrying a towel.

‘Here,’ he said, throwing it down at her. She wiped her face on it and tried to stem her sobbing. ‘Now stand up.’

She looked up at him, not understanding. He picked up the prod, switched it on and jabbed it against her ankle. ‘No! No!’ she screamed as the electricity convulsed her body. ‘Please stop! Please stop!’

He did stop, and ordered her to stand up again, this time with a gesture. She reached up for a
handful of bedclothes and pulled herself on to he knees, never taking her eyes of the prod. He held it across his chest, like she had seen the soldiers of both sides posing with their guns.

‘Faster!’ he demanded, but she couldn’t move any faster. Every joint in her body felt pulled apart, and a searing pain pulsed behind her eyes. She leant on the bed and pushed upwards with her legs, but the effort was almost too much for her. As she rose to her feet she lost her balance and started to sway. He caught the front of her blouse in his fist and swung her back on to the bed.

‘Roll over,’ he said, pushing her towards the middle. She lay on her back, looking at him.

‘This is my friend,’ he told her, holding the prod aloft and switching it off. ‘I’m leaving him there, where I can reach him.’ He leant the device against the wall.

Ludmilla lay on the soft bed where she had earlier spent one of the happiest nights of her life and watched him. He peeled his gloves off and then his jacket. She could hear his breathing, heavy and hoarse, as he clambered on to the bed and leant over her. He unfastened her jeans, pulled the zip down and began to work them over her hips.

It was almost dark when he left her, locking the door behind him and taking the key. Ludmilla lay on the bed sobbing, wondering what would happen next. Her body ached and she was sore
where he’d done things to her. Tomorrow, she told herself, she would be taken to the doctor’s house and would meet his children. She had been unlucky. Her driver was a monster. They existed in every country and it had been her misfortune to meet one in England straight away. She ought to tell the police, when she was free to do so, but then she would be sent home. What would she say to her parents and brothers? Perhaps the doctor would help her. She decided to sleep on it, wait until tomorrow.

He came back in the afternoon, with a bag of food for her and some clothing. There were two dresses and underwear like she’d seen in magazines. He ran the bath and gestured for her to take one. When she was in it he came in and watched her. She dried herself and he told her to put some of the underwear on, after unwrapping the cattle prod and drawing the tip of it across her breasts, with the switch in the
off
position. Ludmilla trembled with fear and did as she was told. He raped her again and left. As soon as his uneven footsteps faded she took another bath and put her own clothes back on.

That night two of them came. She was dozing when she heard the key in the door, and cowering with fear as they came into the room. For a brief second she’d thought they might be the police, to rescue her, but when she saw them her hopes crumbled. They had shaven heads and tattoos on
their shoulders, and were carrying cartons of beer.

‘Who…who you are?’ Ludmilla asked, under the feeble pretext that this was her room and they were intruders.

‘Who we are?’ the bigger of the two mimicked. ‘Who do you fink we are?’ He tore a can of Carlsberg from the carton and tossed the other eleven on to the bed. ‘Let’s just say we’re friends, luv, and we’ve come for the party.’

They came back the following night, with three of their male friends and a video camera. When it was over Ludmilla cried herself to sleep, wishing she were dead. She wished they’d been captured and shot when they hid in the woods from Milosovic’s soldiers. She wished she’d fallen into a ravine when they fled over the mountains into Albania. She wished she’d fought at her brother’s side with the KLA and caught the bullet he caught. She wished the plane had crashed and killed everybody on board. She wished…she wished…she wished in vain.

For the plane hadn’t crashed. She escaped the soldiers and the bullets and survived the dangerous trek over the Prokletije Mountains. She was special. Millions hadn’t survived, and she owed it to them to keep their stories alive. Next morning she set to work. She systematically left her finger and palm prints on every surface in the two rooms. She pressed her hands on every inch of every wall. She
left prints on top of the door, down the jamb and under the drawers. When she’d finished there wasn’t a square foot of surface that was without her secret signature. There was no doctor, of that she was now sure, and they would probably murder her, but no matter how well they cleaned that room, proof of her imprisonment would always remain. She was bleeding slightly, so she left traces of her blood on the wall, behind the bed head. A light bulb had failed in the bathroom, so she left her mark on that, too.

The man with the limp came back later that day, but he didn’t lay a finger on her. ‘From now on,’ he said, ‘you work for me and do as you’re told. Remember, we have friends over there, and what would your parents think if they knew how you were earning your living? Clean yourself up and look nice for tomorrow night. I have a client for you. Just one, to start with. He’s not a proper doctor but he’s interested in anatomy.’ He laughed but she did not understand.

‘Duggie will come for you,’ he went on, and she flinched at the sound of the name. Duggie was the bigger of the two men who brought the beer.

‘Ah, you don’t like Duggie, eh?’ he said.

‘No.’

‘That’s alright. He won’t hurt you. If he ever touches you again, let me know and I’ll deal with him. Understand?’

‘Yes. I think.’

‘Good girl. From now on, I protect you.
Comprendez
?’

‘Yes. I understand.’ She did, and it was almost a relief.

The press office collected all the obituary announcements and I found them on my desk when I returned from Gilbert’s morning meeting. Also with them was a report from John Rose about Selina Wallenberg, saying she had a conviction for running a house of ill repute in Kensington, back in the Eighties. I marked it for filing and turned back to the new case and the obituaries.
Anthony Turnbull Krabbe, OBE
they were headed. I read each one carefully, then spread them out and read them again. The one from
The Times
was the most fulsome, probably because he’d reported directly to them from some of his trips. His record of first climbs was impressive and his bag of peaks over 8,000 metres put him in the top echelons of the sport. He was the complete climber, we were told. Be it on rock, ice, Alpine dash or big expedition, he was always up there with the best. His latest book, Kingdoms of the Gods, (
£
28, Times Books) was a
masterpiece, and for the last few years he’d concentrated his efforts on fundraising for various charities.

I pinned them together with a compliments slip and directed them towards the incident room. They could go on the wall for the others to read. I wasn’t sure how much of what they said was typical hyperbole, dredged up when any celebrity died, or whether he was really up there with the greats.