Behind Closed Doors (32 page)

‘They watch the trucks, all the laybys all the way up the A2 for five or ten miles,’ he said. ‘I won’t stop till I get to Morden. So it’s going to be three, maybe four hours, what with the crossing and waiting to board.’

In the back of the cab were bunks, two of them, one above the other. The bottom bunk held a sleeping bag, and a duvet in a faded navy blue duvet cover. The top bunk was strapped up at a forty-five-degree angle. When he unclipped it, it flipped out to show a couple of holdalls, a laptop case and a Sainsbury’s bag containing a lunchbox and a flask. There was a reasonable space between the bunk and the back wall of the cab.

‘You can hide in there,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to fasten the bunk back up. You won’t have a lot of room, but it’s the only place you’d be all right. As long as you keep quiet.’

‘Will they stop the truck?’ Scarlett said.

‘They don’t often,’ he said. ‘Nice tidy truck, no problems with it, you usually get a green light. Sometimes they stop it just for a once-over, but once they get a whiff of the chicken shit they usually let me go through.’

Barry pulled the holdalls and the carrier bag down on to the lower bunk, moved the duvet up to the top so she had something reasonably comfortable to lie on. Then she climbed up and tucked herself into the space at the back. Barry lifted up the bunk and fastened the straps holding it in place. It was dark and, although there was a little light around the edges, it felt airless and stuffy almost immediately.

‘All right up there?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, swallowing the sudden wave of fear.

The truck started up again and moments later swung back on to the motorway. She stayed quiet, listening to the radio and Barry singing along to it.

Once they had driven on board the ferry, Barry locked up the cab without another word and left her alone. It was claustrophobic and Scarlett had to concentrate on breathing slowly and deeply to stop herself panicking. It smelled bad – not the fertiliser smell but like food that had gone off. Three or four hours, he’d said.

The vehicle deck of the ferry was a noisy place, and, once the ship had passed the protection of the harbour wall, the swell of the sea rocked the boat, and the lorries parked inside it, and Scarlett, pinned into the secret space behind the bunk. She could still taste him, even though she’d rinsed out her mouth in the sink in the Ladies at the services. She’d washed her hands with soap, too, but she could still smell him; or maybe it was the duvet.

He had given her the option to walk away. He hadn’t forced himself on her. It had been her decision, whether to do this and get across the Channel, or get out of the cab and take her chances on the other drivers at Jabbeke. She’d made the decision freely, but at the same moment she had decided something else: it would be the last time. The last time, ever.

When Barry had got back to the cab, Scarlett had been hot, desperately thirsty and starting to need the toilet. Waking up suddenly when the ferry jolted into the berth on the English coast, she had been counting the minutes in her head ever since, waves of panic coming and going, taking deep breaths of the rancid air and trying to keep still.

He didn’t speak to her until the vehicle began to move.

‘Keep quiet,’ he said a few minutes later, although she’d not spoken or moved. ‘We’re coming up to Customs.’

The lorry didn’t stop, just slowed down a little as it went over some speed bumps, and then it was speeding up, ratcheting through the gears jerkily until the engine sang into a whine.

‘You all right back there?’ he called.

‘Just about,’ she shouted back. ‘Please can we stop as soon as possible?’

He pulled into a layby a few minutes later and went to the back of the cab to unstrap her from the bunk. ‘Stay back here for now,’ he said, giving her a plastic litre bottle of water. ‘I’m running behind so I’m going to drive straight to Morden. Be about an hour or so.’

As the lorry pulled away again, Scarlett sat on the bottom bunk, drinking the lukewarm water and relishing the cool air from Barry’s open window, taking deep lungfuls of it.

‘What you going to do in Briarstone, then?’ he asked, after a while.

‘Look for a job,’ she said.

‘What sort of a job?’

‘No idea. Anything. I’ll find something.’

‘What about your family?’

‘I don’t know. They’re kind of a bit weird. I’d rather be on my own.’

‘Seems to me like you ain’t going home.’

‘No,’ she said.

Through the swinging curtain separating the bunk from the front of the cab, she watched as England sped past. It was cloudy and dull, but it was nevertheless England. The British numberplates on the cars, so many of them, looked odd… the enormous blue motorway signs pointing to English towns, names she recognised. It felt as if she had been gone for no time at all.

After a while Barry turned off the motorway and within minutes they were on narrow country roads, trees brushing against the roof of the cab. She came to sit in the front next to Barry. ‘Where are we going again?’

‘Morden. You know it?’

‘No.’

‘My mate’s got a farm. I help him out by getting him an extra bag of fertiliser whenever I do this run.’

The lorry pulled on to a narrow concrete track and followed it up to a wide farmyard, barns on one side, a farmhouse on the other. From the back of one of the barns a man emerged, raising a hand in greeting. The lorry’s engine cut out and Barry opened the cab door. ‘All right, Nige? How are you, mate?’

Scarlett opened the passenger side and climbed down.

‘Who’s this?’ the man asked. He was clean-shaven, with short greying hair, and bright blue eyes. His brown cord trousers looked as if they never got properly dirty.

‘Katie,’ Barry said. ‘I gave her a lift across the Channel.’

‘Can I use your loo?’ Scarlett asked. She’d drunk all the water, somehow.

‘If you must,’ Nigel said. ‘Just go in the house, that door there – the toilet is just on the left.’

She went in through a small room with a tiled floor, muddy boots and coats lining the walls. The door to the left was a toilet, not especially clean, the seat up. It looked as though it didn’t get flushed very often. Through the open window she could hear the two men in the yard, talking about her.

‘Bit of a risk, wasn’t it, picking up a hitchhiker?’

‘Yeah, but she’s all right. She hid in the bunk. Poor cow’s had a rough time, you know. Can tell just by looking at her. She says she got family in Briarstone but I don’t believe it. She’s looking for a job. You not got anything, have you?’

‘Not unless she knows how to look after horses.’

‘She’d probably give it a try. I don’t think she’s got anywhere to go, anyway. Dunno where to drop her off.’

There was a pause. Then Nigel said, ‘Hold on a minute.’

Scarlett flushed the toilet and rinsed her hands in the tiny sink. There was no soap and no towel. Coming back outside, wiping her hands on the back of her jeans, she saw Nigel coming back out of one of the barns with a second man behind him. He was well-built, looked as though he’d worked out once upon a time but not for a while. His black hoodie strained at the biceps and at the belly. Dark hair, cut very short, something elaborate shaved into the side of it.

‘All right, Barry?’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’

‘All right, mate. Not seen you in ages.’

‘Look,’ Scarlett said to Nigel, ‘I overheard what you said. I’ll look after horses, I don’t mind. I can do hard work. I don’t even want paying, just somewhere to kip, till I can find something else.’

‘I had a better idea,’ Nigel said, indicating the chunky lad who was laughing with Barry. ‘Katie, this is Reggie. He works with a friend of mine. He owns a place in town, needs someone to keep an eye on things – maybe clean, cook, that sort of stuff. You can live in.’

Scarlett looked at Nigel, then at Reggie. ‘In town? You mean Briarstone?’

Reggie nodded. ‘’Sright. What do you think?’

‘What sort of place? Like a B&B or something?’

‘Something. A couple of girls live there. You know what girls are like: can’t bloody tidy up after themselves, don’t bother eating unless someone provides it for them.’

Scarlett smiled. ‘I can do that. Whatever.’

Reggie gave her a happy smile in return. ‘I got to clear it with the boss. You can come with me to meet him. If he likes you, you’re in.’

Scarlett had been at her vantage point on the swings for long enough for it to start to get chilly. The evenings were getting lighter now, and while at first she had been concerned about attracting attention, and would sit here pretending to play with her phone, nobody had ever given her a second glance. Through the winter there had never been many people in the playground, just the odd dog-walker in the park.

The phone buzzed in her hand and she answered it quickly. ‘Yeah?’

‘You going to be much longer?’ Reggie asked. ‘’Cause if you are, I might as well go to the pub.’

‘I’ll be done soon, Reg. I’ll call you.’

Russet Avenue was on the other side of town from Carisbrooke Court, and Scarlett relied on Reggie giving her a lift here when she was out running errands for Lewis, or getting the shopping. Although this often felt like a pointless waste of time, watching the house from a distance, it took her away from the drudgery of her daily existence, back in the flat. Made her feel closer to Juliette, too.

When she had first come back to Briarstone, it hadn’t taken Scarlett longer than a few minutes in the flat in Carisbrooke Court with Reggie and his boss, a silver-haired charmer who owned the property, to work out what was going on. She’d gone from one brothel straight into another. By that time it was late, Scarlett was shattered and she had nowhere else to go.

But the girls’ occupation was where the similarities began and ended. For a start, it was clean and warm, and it had a washing machine and a dishwasher, a fridge with food in it. Scarlett had her own room – the smallest, but even so it was hers – and the other girls left her alone. There were three other girls sharing the flat with her, and, while they were not exactly friendly, they seemed to take to Scarlett.

Scarlett hadn’t seen the silver-haired man again, but Reggie was there most days. He had the hots for Liliana, was always hanging around her, chatting her up when she wasn’t working. And he had a girlfriend and kids, too, but Scarlett forgave him because he was a laugh, he was a bit of an idiot, and he was the first bloke she’d met that didn’t seem to want anything from her.

It had taken a couple of weeks for the shine to wear off. It began when Kat – the Russian girl – ended up having an argument with one of her customers.

‘You’re off your face, you stupid foreign bitch!’ the man had screamed from the bedroom. He was old and drunk, but he was muscular; had several missing teeth and a shaven head, tattoos on his face.

Scarlett had called Reggie in a panic. ‘Get here now,’ she’d pleaded. ‘It’s kicking off.’

Reggie had been there in less than five minutes. He might have been overweight and a bit stupid but it turned out he loved his job, which was sticking up for the girls. The drunk man was hauled out on to the pavement, kicked in the back of the legs and then booted in the side for good measure. Scarlett had to pull Reggie away.

Meanwhile in the bathroom, Kat had been shaking and yelling, incomprehensible words tumbling over each other. Reggie went in there with the gear for her, which apparently he was overdue bringing. Scarlett had suspected the girls were all on something, but that night she had seen it for herself.

They were no better off than the girls in Amsterdam, not really. They were all on the gear, all totally reliant on their supply. All of them in debt to Reggie or to the man who owned the flat. They were no more free to walk out than Scarlett had been. Where would they go? Who would help them? They’d get shipped back home, wherever that was, and, while their flat in Briarstone wasn’t exactly heaven, it seemed as though whatever they’d run away from was probably far worse.

The next day, when Kat was back to her normal arsey self, dropping her dirty clothes on the floor and leaving crumbs in the kitchen, Reggie had been tasked with taking Scarlett to the supermarket. Juliette had scarcely left her thoughts since that phone call she’d made from Amsterdam, but it was only when she was out in the car that first time, Reggie driving, that she’d seen the opportunity to try to get to Juliette. After they’d been round Asda together, she asked him to drop her off near Russet Avenue, pointing to the little park and saying she fancied some fresh air. Reggie didn’t seem to mind waiting for her, didn’t question it. He took himself off to the pub.

She had been there just ten minutes, sitting on the swings, hugging herself because it was bitterly cold, the sleeves of her coat pulled down over her hands, when the front door opened. The first person she saw was Clive, and it gave her a shock. He looked exactly the same – she had expected him to have aged, but he looked no different.

Funny how immune you got to fear when you’d lived with it for so long, and then how it could take you by surprise.

And then, standing in the open doorway, there was Juliette, wearing jeans and a red top. She looked so grown-up! That was the first thing that struck Scarlett, made her heart lurch. The second thing was the sheer normality of it. Juliette stood waiting for about two minutes while Clive got into his car and started the engine. Juliette said something to him, smiled briefly and waved as the car reversed out of the driveway and disappeared off down the street.

Instinctively Scarlett jumped off the swing, heading towards the house. But as she got to the park gates Juliette turned back into the house and across the still, cold air, Scarlett heard her say something and laugh as she closed the door. She wasn’t alone; Annie must be inside with her. The chance to make contact had gone.