Simon Kernick - Severed

Her tone's firm and final. I already knew this girl had backbone, now I realize it may well be made of steel. But I've got to be careful about what I say. So I give her a basic story, tweaked just a little so that I don't incriminate myself, and leaving out the details she doesn't need to know, particularly those involving Leah. Mentioning her will only complicate matters. I tell Alannah that I'm an ex-soldier who was paid to deliver a briefcase to Marco but that he ripped me off and tried to have me killed. A friend of mine put a tracker on the case, and that's how I found the location of the brothel, but when I arrived there, I found that my friend had been murdered, and the tracker left with his body.

'Do you know anything about that?' I ask her.

She looks genuinely shocked. 'No, of course not. You're saying that someone murdered your friend out on the street?'

'They cut his throat while he was sitting in his car, no more than fifty yards from the front door of your brothel, and no more than fifteen minutes before I went inside. So, whoever did it must have been hanging around.'

Again she denies any knowledge of the killing.

'I had a gun on me,' I continue, 'just for protection, and I went inside the brothel to track down Marco. I got your man Pero to take me upstairs, we surprised Marco, and then Pero started struggling with me. The gun went off, and the rest you know.'

'What's in the briefcase?'

I think about the finger from Ferrie's apartment. 'I don't know.'

'You're just a delivery boy, right? You don't know what you're delivering and you don't care, so long as the money's right. Is that a good description?'

Her tone's surprisingly accusatory. Here I am sitting next to someone I thought was a female gangster, yet she's not acting like one. I experience a sudden, very powerful urge to tell her the truth. That I'm actually a normal hardworking guy who's got caught up in something that has nothing to do with him. But it's an urge I resist.

'Yeah,' I agree with a sigh, 'it's as good a description as any.'

'And have you got a name, Delivery Man?'

'It's Tyler.'

'Well, Mr Tyler, I might be able to help you. And you might be able to help me.'

'Really? How does that work, then?'

We've turned off the main road and are heading into an estate of cheap 1970s terraced housing built by a developer who clearly had a surplus of breeze blocks and a dearth of taste. Alannah parks outside one of them and cuts the engine.

'Come inside,' she says, 'and I'll tell you.'

I have no idea what she's going to say, nor am I much inclined to take a guess. It's been a bad day. Trusting anyone's a risk. But when you're tired and thirsty, and a beautiful blonde asks you into her house, you're really going to have to fight hard to say no. And I'm just not in the mood.

I get out of the car and follow her to the front door.

I follow her through the hallway and into a poky kitchen which looks out on to a postage stamp-sized back garden with a railway viaduct at the end.

'Do you want a drink?' Alannah asks, pulling an unopened bottle of white wine from the fridge.

I can think of nothing I'd like more at the moment. 'Sure,' I say, noticing that, apart from the booze, the fridge is empty.

She takes a couple of wine glasses out of a cupboard and rummages around in one of the drawers for a corkscrew. As she pours the wine and hands me a glass, a train rumbles past along the viaduct, its vibrations rattling the windows.

'Come on,' she says, and we retire to a small sitting room where the noise of the train isn't as loud.

She sits down on the sofa, and I kick off my shoes and plant myself opposite her in the room's only chair. The springs have gone on it, and I end up sinking down so low that my arse is no more than six inches above the psychedelic carpeting. I find a cushion and stick it underneath me while Alannah lights a cigarette and takes a sip of her wine. I take a big gulp of mine. It's not particularly good stuff, but at the moment it tastes like nectar.

'Well,' I say, 'the most important thing I need to know right now is who Marco and the people he left to torture me work for?'

'The boss's name is Eddie Cosick,' she answers. 'He's what I think you call a people trafficker. He brings girls into England from the Balkan countries. He promises them a new life, with a job and money, but when they get here he puts them to work as prostitutes in clubs like the one today, and treats them as his slaves. If any of them try to escape, they're beaten so savagely that none of them attempts it a second time.'

I'm reminded of what Lucas was telling me earlier about the murders of Maxwell and Spann. The Russian businessman they'd been guarding in a Paris hotel room had apparently been heavily involved in people trafficking and had fallen out with his associates: Bosnians from the former Yugoslavia. Ferrie was very interested in those murders. Ferrie had the briefcase. Marco and his people wanted it. There's a pattern developing here.

'This guy Eddie Cosick. Is he Bosnian?'

Alannah nods, confirming the pattern. 'A Bosnian Serb. They all are.'

But this still doesn't solve the mystery of why they killed Leah, and why they're targeting me.

'You sound like you don't approve of Mr Cosick's methods,' I say, 'which makes me wonder what you were doing at the brothel today.'

She takes a deep breath and eyes me closely. 'I don't approve of his methods,' she says, 'but I think he has my sister.'

There's a pause.

'Maybe you'd better start at the beginning,' I tell her.

She takes a long, elegant draw on her cigarette. 'My sister went missing eight months ago in Belgrade. Her name is Petra and she's eighteen years old. I believe that she's been brought to London against her will and that Eddie Cosick knows where she is. That's why I've come here. To find her, and to take her home.'

'And where did you learn how to fight like that?'

'I'm a police officer.'

I raise my eyebrows. She doesn't look like any police officer I've ever had dealings with. Because of the way she's talking and the fact that she hasn't slapped on the handcuffs, I'm guessing she's not here on official business, and I'm quickly proved right.

'I'm based in Belgrade, which is how I know what happened to Petra. She became involved with the wrong people. You have to remember, Mr Tyler-'

'It's just Tyler.'

'You have to remember that our country is very poor. My sister and I come from a village where the only industry is farming. Seven years ago, when I was also eighteen, I moved to the city. I could have become involved with the wrong people too. Belgrade has many of them. But instead I worked as a waitress to raise enough money to go to college, and after that I got a job in the police force. As soon as Petra reached sixteen she wanted to come and join me. She hated village life, but I told her she had to wait until she was eighteen to make the decision. As a police officer, I've seen what can happen to girls when they reach the city. The brothels are full of them.'

She sighs wearily, and stubs out her cigarette.

'But Petra's always been an impatient girl and she decided to come anyway. One day, she turned up at my apartment, begging to stay. I couldn't let her. It would have been unfair on our parents, so I drove her home, even though she cried the whole way. Our parents are decent people and I knew they wouldn't punish her too severely. But a few months later, she did it a second time. My parents phoned me, terrified, telling me what had happened. By that time, she'd only been gone a day, so I waited at the apartment expecting her to turn up…' The sentence trails off, and Alannah looks thoughtful.

'Except she didn't. Not that day, nor the next. I reported her missing with my colleagues. Because I was a police officer, I had more influence than an ordinary civilian so there was more of an effort to find her by the authorities, but it made no difference. We were unsuccessful. Belgrade is a big city, and as the days passed and we heard nothing from her, I became more and more worried. I spent every waking hour searching. So did my father, who came to the city from our village for the very first time. We visited the bars, the cafes, the restaurants, even the brothels, anywhere that she could possibly have ended up, but as my colleagues lost interest, so our task became harder. I knew that Petra had been forced into prostitution. She would have been in touch otherwise. Prostitution is big business in the countries of Eastern Europe, and Serbia is no exception. But the people who run this business are very powerful, and I couldn't make them talk to me. Soon, my father had to return to the village to support the rest of the family. But I kept looking. If I pulled someone in for a crime, any crime, I would show them a picture of Petra and ask if they'd seen her. I'd make out that they would be treated more leniently if they had information. But no-one did. Or at least no-one admitted it, anyway. It was difficult to tell for sure because no-one wants to cross the people running the sex trade.