Scott Andrews - School's Out Forever

Cooper smiled. Kate did not think it was particularly reassuring. “Spider doesn’t have the resources to keep you under surveillance. He relies on your fear to keep you in line. You were tailed when you went shopping yesterday, and they had someone in A&E two nights ago pretending to have food poisoning so they could see you at work, but they don’t watch you all the time. By now they’re becoming confident that you haven’t gone to the police. And if you haven’t gone yet, chances are you won’t.”

Kate sat there and suddenly felt ashamed and embarrassed. “I would have,” she said. “Eventually, I would have. I’ve thought about it.”

“But your brother.”

“He’s not the hardest of men. He’s weak and stupid and his own worst enemy. But he’s my best friend. I’ve had to look after him his whole life, get him out of trouble, keep him from being bullied. Jesus, the amount of times at school I had to fight his battles for him. I suppose I should have known that something like this was inevitable.”

“We can keep him safe.”

“Not your job, Mr Cooper. It’s mine.”

Cooper leaned forward in his chair, clasping his hands together and holding her gaze firmly. “If you help us, Kate, you have my word no harm will come to him.”

Although this figure of authority was asking for her help, Kate felt as helpless as she ever had. If she agreed to inform for the police, she’d be placing herself and her brother in terrible danger. But if she said no… she thought of that poor girl in the cellar. Where was she now? Dolled up and drugged up, washed and brushed up and delivered to some hotel room for the pleasure of a banker or drug dealer who’d use her and then hand her back to her captors, dead or alive.

She stared deep into Cooper’s eyes, seeking reassurance. He smiled at her, and she felt her resistance crumble.

“Okay, okay. What do I have to do?”

THEY DIDN’T CALL on her for another two weeks. But this time she did not allow herself to pretend that life was normal.

At Cooper’s urging, Kate signed up for self defence classes. Each day after work she would spend an hour in a draughty scout hut in Camden learning how to turn an opponent’s weight against them, learning simple blocks and combos designed to prevent her from coming to harm and allow her time to run.

They didn’t teach her how to collapse a windpipe with a single punch, or how to twist a neck and break it, or the places on the body where the lightest blow could cause the most damage. She was a doctor; that stuff she already knew. But knowing and doing are two different things and she knew she lacked the control to throw those kind of punches. Still, she trained and practised and worked out. The face of the girl from the cellar hovered in front of her as she pounded the treadmill and worked the punchbag.

She would look at herself in the mirror before bed and laugh humourlessly. Who did think she was, Rocky? She was a not very tall young woman, slight and delicate. All the training in the world wouldn’t enable her to inflict so much as a single bruise on the giant. But nonetheless, she trained and practised and focused.

If any of those bastards tried to make her the main attraction rather than the attending doctor, she’d let them know what a big mistake they’d made.

Then, one Sunday night as she sat vacantly watching some telly programme that passed through her eyeballs and out the back of her head without touching the sides, there was a knock at her yet-again rebuilt door.

Kate took a moment to slow her heartbeat and take a few deep breaths. She told herself she was in control as she rose and grabbed the bag she had left by the door especially for this occasion. One more deep breath and then she opened the door.

Her brother stood there with a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates.

“Hey, Kit,” he said, bashful at disturbing her.

“Oh James, not tonight, eh. I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.”

He shuffled his feet. “Sorry, Sis. I’ve got no choice.”

Suddenly Kate realised that, despite appearances, this was not a social call. “Right. I’ll get my coat.” She turned away but he put his hand on her arm.

“We don’t have to be there for an hour or so. That’s why…” He held up the bottle of wine.

Kate sighed, stepped back and ushered him inside. “You know where the glasses are,” she told him as she closed the door and put the bag back in its place.

He made small talk at first. “How’s the hospital… you met a new bloke yet… going to get another flat mate?” That kind of thing. Kate indulged him until he finally ran out of things to say. At this point he’d normally reach into his seemingly endless collection of anecdotes and start telling dodgy stories about this or that night on the town and the disreputable character he’d hooked up with. It was only when the silence fell that Kate realised she’d not seen James hold court like this for months.

“I’m not much of a sister, am I?” she said.

“What?”

“I should have noticed something was wrong. I should have asked about it.”

“Don’t be daft. You’ve been up to your ears with training.”

“Still.” The silence that fell then seemed like it would swallow them whole, and they stared into their wine glasses.

“James, how does this end for us?”

He looked up and his face said it all.

“Why haven’t you gone to the police?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Too scared. Why haven’t you?”

“Don’t tell him,” Cooper had told her two weeks earlier. “No matter what. I know he’s your brother and all, but from what I can gather he doesn’t seem the kind who could keep a secret.”

Kate gave James a look that said ‘why do you think?’ and he nodded. “Right,” he said.

“I have an idea, though,” she said. “Something we can do to help ourselves.”

“Hit me.”

“I’ve considered it.”

She got up, grabbed a notepad and pen from the kitchen counter, and sat down again. “I want you to tell me everything, and I mean absolutely everything that you know about their operation. Dates, times, locations, personnel. Everything.”

He looked wary. “For why?”

“Insurance.”

“Oh, Sis, that’s not…”

“Do you trust me?”

“With my life.”

“Then spill.”

So he did, until eventually he checked his watch and told her it was time to go.

IT WAS A cold, clear night, cloudless and silent.

The yard was lit by sodium lights mounted high on the posts that marked out the limits of the chain link fence. Huge containers were piled high in blocks, forming a kind of maze. The fleet of articulated lorries that ferried them across Europe and beyond were lined up near the entrance, seeming naked and unwieldy without their cargo. The pungent stink of rotting vegetables and the cry of hungry seagulls betrayed the presence of a tip nearby.

Two portacabins, one on top of the other, sat at the heart of the maze. Their lights were on and Kate could see movement inside as she and James walked towards them.

James didn’t knock, he pushed the door open and they stepped into a fug of warm, damp, gas-heater air that smelled of stale coffee and cigarettes.

The giant was sitting on a tatty old armchair which seemed comically small for him. His knees were up around his ears. A group of four crowded around him, sipping coffee from plastic cups and smoking. They were talking and joking in what Kate assumed was Serbian.

Kate was relieved that Spider wasn’t present, even though she’d known he wouldn’t be. Cooper had told her he normally ran things from Manchester.

The giant unfolded himself and rose as the siblings entered. The men fell silent, watching them with eyes that betrayed only the barest smidgin of interest. Each of them glanced briefly at James and then shifted his attention to Kate, sizing her up and finding her either adequate or wanting, depending upon their taste. One of them smiled at her, revealing crooked yellow teeth. She ignored him.