Chapter 43: Chapter 43

“How many?”

“Thirty-eight, sir. Twelve adult males, twenty-three adult females and the remainder are minors, but some of the ones we can speak to, that is, those who speak English, are reporting that there should be others….”

“Others?”

“Family connections mainly. Several report being separated from spouses and children. None of the children here appear to be children of any of these adults.”

Stanton rubs a palm across the back of his neck. “One of the oldest tactics in the book. Divide and conquer. Separate from friends and family. Isolate and weaken. And anyone who thinks of rebelling knows they have loved ones in a hostage situation.”

He looks down the long aisle to a small girl, perhaps seven or eight years old, her skin black as polished onyx and with huge liquid brown eyes. Now with a warm blanket wrapped around her shoulders, she is shaky and crying and has an open sore running around an ankle from where a steel manacle was recently removed. She’s crying but tries to talk in god-knows-what language to the female cop who is offering her soup.

Next to her, a woman, almond-eyed and golden-skinned, jabbers at the op cutting through her ankle cuffs. Desperation in her voice, tears in her eyes, she is frantically trying to communicate something….

Husband? Child?

Cardelli follows his gaze. “We’re trying to figure out what language she’s speaking, sir. So far as we can tell, we have people from at least a dozen different countries and that’s before we’ve identified place of origin of a lot of them.”

*****

Bech Sitting at his desk, he reads the reports coming in, fury eating at him….

Fuck….

Another day and they’d have been shipped out….

Better be moving the others along before they get any more search teams down there….

A tap on his shoulder. “C’mon. It’s all leave cancelled. Every spare hand’s being called in to trawl those old tunnels. And don’t expect to be going home early for the next week”

“I was going to finish the report on the Vanderhoof robbery. I’ve still got a couple of hours before I’m done.”

“That’ll wait. Get your jacket.”

Fuck….

*****

The pressure doesn’t ease.

“When do you plan to retrieve them, Bech? The two women?”

“Unless you feel strongly otherwise sir, I was intending to give it some days. The police, the search teams…. They’ve even called in the military to help. They’re going through the underground of the City with a fine tooth comb.”

Klempner snarls. “So, what do you….?”

Bech keeps his voice level. “Everything and everybody is on high alert right now, including the women.

If we wait a few days, let them think they’re safe, let the police turn their focus away, they’ll grow careless.”

“True enough.” Klempner pauses, pressing fingers to his forehead. “It’s a fucking mess, Bech. Still….

At least we haven’t lost any of the other shipments.”

He pauses as his captain stiffens. Slit-eyed, “Bech, do you have more bad news for me?”

“Sir….”

“Yes…?” he drawls.

“Sir, the search teams located one of the shipments while I was in the process of having them moved from the old underground station. The Haswell woman must have told them enough to….”

“Fuck! How many?”

“Thirty-eight sir.”

*****

Five Years Ago There is a knock at the door and Jenny turns from stirring the soup she is making. But without waiting for a reply, the door bursts open and Mrs Bennett strides into the kitchen, her face red.

“Why is my son sleeping on the couch?” she demands.

Jenny colours up.

“And how long has this being going on?” continues the furious woman. “It’s been months since the wedding. I was worried about you. There I was wondering if perhaps we should have the doctor look at you, and I come in early to find Chad sleeping downstairs.”

“I….” Jenny’s eyes are swimming.

But Mrs Bennett keeps talking. “And when I took a look around….” She slams open a side drawer which contains underclothes, a washbag and a towel. “…. All his things are down here. He is quite clearly not sleeping upstairs. What is it with you, Jennifer?” The woman stalks forward. “Still got all those ideas about university and books? Can’t you bring yourself to be a proper wife to my son? I’m not having it!”

She raises her hand, advancing. “You hear me? You are not….”

A silhouette appears at the door, Mrs Collier. “What’s going on here? I heard the shouting from right across the yard.”

Mrs Bennett stabs a finger at Jenny. “This young woman that you brought into your house and who married my son, is making him sleep on the couch.”

Mrs Collier speaks briskly. “Now come on. All couples have the occasional spat and it often ends up with one of them on the settee for a night or two. It really isn’t….”

“It isn’t a night or two. It’s all the time,” spits Mrs Bennett. “Ask her if you don’t believe me.” She tosses her head at where Jenny, shaking and tearful stands, still with her wooden spoon in hand.

“I’m sure it’s not true,” says Mrs Collier soothingly. “Is it Jenny?”

Jenny hangs her head.

“Jenny? Is it true?”

Jenny doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know where to begin.

Mrs Collier walks across, lifts her chin with firm fingers. “Jenny, is this true? Chad sleeps downstairs?

You and he don’t…. share a bed?”

Tears streaming, Jenny jerks her head away then nods.

Mrs Collier steps back, sighing. “Oh, Jenny.”

“Oh, Jenny?” snaps Mrs Bennett, tossing her head. “We’ll see about that. I’m not having my son made a fool of by some little girl with ideas above herself.” And she storms out, banging the door behind her.

“Do you want to talk about it Jenny?” asks Mrs Collier, her voice soft.

“No.” Jenny’s voice is broken, hopeless.

“I could get an appointment with the doctor for you. He could see if there’s anything wrong?”

“It wouldn’t make any difference.”

Mrs Collier pinches the top of her nose. “I don’t know what I can do to help you, Jenny, if you won’t help yourself.”

*****

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry Jenny. I never meant….”

“You keep saying you’re sorry, Chad. But you put me in this position. Why did you do it? Why?”

He sits beside his weeping wife, takes her hand. “I couldn’t face telling my parents. I thought I could make it work….”

“I could have done other things with my life,” she sobs. “But I didn’t because I was trying to do the right thing. And now everyone thinks it’s me.”

“Not everyone Jenny. My mother won’t blurt it around. She’d be too embarrassed.”

“I bet she’s told your father. And I bet he tells everyone. Then no-one thinks it’s his precious son’s fault that I’m not pregnant.”

Chad swallows. “Yeah, you might be right there….”

*****

Richard Charlotte is euphoric over Michael’s discovery of her and her parents’ identity. It’s clearly gone a long way to easing the tension that’s between the two of them ever since she returned after Elizabeth’s rescue.

And perhaps there was something else….

James has a gleam in his eye….

…. None of my business….

Whatever the cause, the result is a good one and I see the Three settle back into that easy camaraderie that makes them soothing and pleasant company.

But after a couple of days, the elation wears off. Kneeling on a chair in the hotel lounge, chin slumped onto her hands, she gazes endlessly out of the window. The view’s good, but not that good.

Michael drops a hand on her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

She sounds blue. “I should have been going back to University in a few days. Here we are, camping in a hotel…. I can’t go back to college. We can’t go home. You can’t even go back to work on either the house or your fitness centre…. and….” Her voice cracks.

He sits beside her, snaking an arm around her waist and resting his face against hers. “It’ll all work out.

You’ll see. And the house, the University and the Centre aren’t going anywhere…”

That’s my cue….

“Don’t fret about your studies, Charlotte,” I say. “I’ve dealt with that on your behalf.”

Elizabeth made sure I did….

She shifts, swinging to sit and face me. “You have?”

“Elizabeth told me about the conversation you had a few weeks ago. Your academic work has to be interspersed anyway, with industrial and commercial training for your qualifications. We’re shifting the order around so that you do a lot of the non-academic work now, and over the next few months.”

Michael is paying close attention.

“And how do I get industrial training locked in a hotel room?”

“You don’t, but you also have to cover basic accountancy, company and commercial law and similar.

You can do those from here.”

I could laugh but fight back the urge to do so as her shoulders sag one way and her eyes roll the other.

“Aaahhhh....”

“You have a problem with that?” asks Michael.

Glumly, “Mmmm…. Hadn’t thought that things like accountancy were included.”

You want it girl, you have to work for it….

…. But I’ll help….

“It depends what you want to do,” I say. “If you end up working with a large corporation, such as mine, then you need to grasp at least the basics so that you understand the implications of your own decisions. And if you run your own company, then you certainly need to understand the bottom line;

how to read a set of accounts, a balance sheet, how to interpret a profit and loss account.”

She nods slowly, with a face like a wet cat. Michael is also suppressing a grin, not very successfully.

I continue. “You will find it is very common for successful businesses to be jointly headed by the ‘money man’ and the ‘technical man’. My own background is in finance. Which is why I took on James as my co-director. His expertise is on the technical and engineering side of things. But if you learn at least the fundamentals of the accounting and finance side of things, you will be stronger, and less dependent, for it in the future.”

With the air of one learning that the last doughnut has been taken, she sighs. “Fair enough. Where do I start?”

*****