Shunt

When Danny Keogh decides to live as a traveller for a while he understands well enough the problems he might face while driving through one land to the next. What he doesn’t expect is that he will be so immersed in other peoples’ lives. And neither does he think of himself as anything other than a normal bloke. Against Sergeant Vesco’s advice, when he hears that a woman is in desperate trouble - and he is the only person who can help when he goes into rescue mode he is as surprised as the policeman. Dangerously underestimating the malevolent cruelty of Bobby Galleaza and the very real danger that the people traffickers pose, robbed, attacked, and seriously injured, he is chased from City to City by the traffickers. As he helps Arlena to recover from her ordeal, one victim becomes two, and the murders begin. Then he meets Phuong, the woman he has looked for all his life. By the time he and the girls reach Barcelona, Vesco believes they are finally safe...

SHUNT By Den Gaynor

Copyright © Den Gaynor 2008 The moral right of the author has been asserted

Full Document Statistics Word Count 159336 Page count 703

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 License. If you enjoy reading this extract please consider purchasing the full SHUNT novel at: http://www.shuntthenovel.weebly.com Or contact me at: [email protected]

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BODIES FROM IMMIGRANT BOAT Tue Feb 8, 5:16 PM. Associated Press ROME - Thirty people were found alive when the coast guard rescued a wooden boat Thursday. Many of the survivors, mainly from Somalia, told investigators that ‘over eighty’ passengers had embarked on the trip but were thrown overboard and many had died of hunger and thirst. As authorities tried to verify their accounts, Italian rescue services searched for the missing bodies northwest of Sardinia. Italian rescuers scanned the waters north Sardinia for bodies from a boat. The illegal immigrants ran out of supplies while trying to get to Europe, leaving at least 13 people dead. The Porto Torres port commander said he had been told the boat had set out with 85 people aboard. Search boats were called back to shore after two days, after failing to find any more bodies. Air patrols would continue to search, said the port commander.

Gaynor/SHUNT Survivors told of the boat breaking down and running out of supplies after they left Libya more than two weeks ago. They paid the smugglers the equivalent of 3000€ each for the voyage. Fishermen noticed the 40-foot boat Sunday night 50 miles northwest of Sardinia. They alerted the coast guard which towed the boat to Porto Torres. They found 12 bodies — as well as three people with injuries consistent with beatings. One was in a critical condition and hospitalized. Thousands of immigrants, from Africa, Turkey and South Asia try to reach Italy each year, many paying smugglers to take them by boat to Sicily and other southern Italian shores. With the sea calm, the flow of clandestine immigrants continued Tuesday. Late last year, Italian and Tunisian officials intercepted three small boats carrying a total of 28 immigrants around 12 miles west of Pantelleria, a tiny Sicilian island. The Tunisian Coast Guard took them to Tunisia, port officials in Palermo said. A visiting European Union (news - web sites) official to Malta criticized the conditions in detention centres for illegal immigrants.

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LOOKING BACK He stared through the mist into the slow dawn and thought about the year. What it had done to him, and what it had given him. He pictured the woman he loved, worshipped, as she looked recently, bloodied and damaged over so many years by her husband. Then he quickly overlaid that image with one of her as she had been before, sensual and vibrant, with a lust for life that seemed to spring from her through almost visible tangible rays of vitality. After all the punishment she had taken and survived, soon she would be straining at the leash, wishing to be back fully experiencing life as only she recognised it could be; fast and furious, and thoroughly enjoyable. Just as he was longing to be with her again, he desperately needed her to be waiting for him. At least he knew she was safe, for now, protected by the Englishman and his friends while he finished this one last job.

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Now, surrounded by thick soaking clumps of swaying wild grasses and gorse, dripping wet gorse that was waist high and had a tendency to tear at his expensive silk trousers as he moved through it, the tall muscular man peered into the miasma of early morning mist. From his position on top of the cliff, Vangelis Kanellopoulous, his gaunt square face, set and thoughtful as an ancient Byzantine statue, scanned through the blanketing moisture to the hidden surface of the sea below. Tiny beads of water formed on his short silver hair and eyebrows as he narrowed the lids of his brown eyes against the cold. Unseasonably cold at this time of the morning at the beginning of August, he caught himself thinking, and that caused him to ponder upon global warming. Normally quick and decisive, he shrugged the thought off as he caught his attention drifting. He was not one who listened to old wives tales and media talking points. With the mist seemingly almost solid in its appearance, he had the impression of minute granules of glass eddying around him, gently brushing his face yet able to cut his skin if the wind, the updraft approaching him over the jagged crest of the cliff, grew more forceful. It was impossible for him to make anything out the island that he knew was below and to his right. Nor could he see the lights he was searching for; the lights of a boat or the shape of a boat - any boat - that would demonstrate when the time came, that he was capable of recognizing the right one when it arrived.

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Standing atop the cliff on the south west coast of Italy, one hundred and fifty kilometres south of Naples, he looked out in the direction of the Tyrrhenian Sea from the shore of Calabria, halfway between the villages of Praia a Mare and Scalea. The damp cold seeped into his body as the bottoms of his silk trousers slapped cold and wet against his ankles. He could feel the leather of his expensive Italian shoes sodden, as water seeped in around his toes. If the air was not so cold and wet, he might be able to see his breath. If his eyes would stop watering in sympathy, he should be able to see the Isle di Dino below and to his right. When the sun came up it would be clearly visible, but if the sun came up, he should not be here. His kind operated only at night along these shores. When the refugees disembarked opposite the tiny island, in the small insignificant cove he had checked out earlier, his men would guide and chivvy them to the top of the cliff, and to the tractor unit. From that moment on, from the time they entered the trailer, they were ‘cargo’. He preferred thinking of them that way; it was easier on his conscience. Earlier, before his solitary wet reconnaissance, he had walked to this position from the local unmade road, where he had left the truck, the logo of a well-known Italian biscuit manufacturer on its sides and rear doors. The three men he brought along sat smoking and probably mocking him while complaining to each other in the cooling cab of the large articulated tractor unit behind him. He had

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warned them not to start the engine, and to keep the heater off. He knew they were complaining. Why would they not, when they were sitting near to a perfectly good heater in the cab, one that they could not use? Relieved though they might be, that he was checking out the scene on his own, that they were not out there trudging around in the wet with him, they probably thought him weak of character. He did not care what they thought. Over the years, he had adequately demonstrated that he was anything but weak. This was far too important for him to get wrong this time. With all that would follow when he got back to Barcelona, he could not risk a run in with Customs or Police officials. It was not properly light yet. He checked his bearings as best he could, but thick rolling banks of mist surrounded him. Positioned as he was, with the highest inland hill, directly behind him, he was unable to see Mount Pollino through the blanketing mist. It did not matter. He had been here before. He knew he was in the right place. He was ready. At first sight of the arriving vessel, he would direct the disembarkation of the next – make that the last, he told himself – group of refugees with whom he would be involved. With most of his adult life tainted with violence, a life during which he has taken an active part in the subjugation of others less fortunate than himself, he was glad he was finishing. Vangelis did not think he was inherently bad. Rather - the hackneyed thought - the job made him how he was.

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Now there were vastly increased security patrols in the Mediterranean, making the smugglers and traffickers job harder by the day, he knew he was getting out at the right time. Three gangs had collapsed because of recent intense air, water and land patrols. Greece and Italy were the worst. It was practically impossible to drive a hundred kilometres these days, without bumping into one uniformed patrol or another. With Al Qaeda, and their many friends, taking an active and monetary interest, he was glad he would be out of it. Never having taken too much interest in world politics, like others nowadays, he would have been ignorant, dim-witted, not to know of their recent involvement in the trade. With the two swarthy individuals who arrived the previous week... He wanted to see Bobby Galeazza try to push them around. A picture of Bobby, going up against them, and losing out to them, made him lose a little of his self-control, chuckle quietly in his throat. Not likely to happen. Galeazza was stupid, but not suicidal, unless he lost his temper. Did that not make him homicidal? Well he was. Vicious and murderous as well. Vangelis was sick of the violence. He would not be around much longer. Not too long ago this year, Bobby showed him a newspaper, with a headline describing Al Qaeda bankrolling criminal firms involved with people trafficking. Bobby looked at him quizzically, asked him what he thought – as usual without giving him time to reply. The

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report, he read, purportedly made by the public face of the Italian secret police, CESIS, the co-ordinator of Italy’s secret service groups work, said there was a natural overlap between Al Qaeda’s skills and those of the rackets, people like him and Bobby. Both groups were experts in drawing up false documents and developing complex logistics, transport and communication links that crossed international borders. It spoke of official fears that illegal immigration was fuelling international terrorism. While highlighting concerns over Britain’s porous borders, it told of militant groups forming Islamic terrorist cells, using the same routes the gangs used for illegal immigration. Comparing the gangs and the fundamentalists, it listed their similarities. Out of the need for fake passports, visas and other papers, the smugglers were masters of forgery; so was Al Qaeda. The smuggling gangs had places all over Europe, warehouses where they hid their cargo of human suffering when they needed to; the radical Muslim organisation was setting up cells over the same network. The report said terrorist groups linked to Al Qaeda were using the cash from people smuggling and trafficking to set up terrorist cells across Europe and Britain. With the new profits from its involvement with people smuggling, as they made their way west across Europe its members used the same cells. The gangs’ excellent transport and communications networks reached across borders and the terror organisation would be willing

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to pay many thousands of dollars for the use of those networks, or to build their own networks along the same lines. Bobby had smiled like a proud parent as he indicated the column where it said their trade was worth billions of pounds a year. Then he screwed his face up in annoyance, as he jabbed irritably at the paper with his finger, causing it to billow in Vangelis’ hands. Tapping at the paper with a finger, he pointed to the paragraph about England and its porous borders. With his customary childish display of irritation, he described, again, how he was the only one, out of all the other smuggling and trafficking gangs, who understood the ease with which he could gain access to the United Kingdom’s soil. Vangelis wondered about the large Muslim majority that formed a large part of Bobby’s gang. It didn’t used to be like that. With the arrival of the fundamentalists it was getting harder. How many more had been recruited into the organisation? Only recently he had broken up an argument between one of his men and an Arab. He had expected something like it to happen. The Muslims were rabid fundamentalists. They translated and used the words of the Koran with a savage fervour that the rest of the Muslim world left behind decades ago. They tried anything and everything to recruit one more member, their methods devious and disruptively dangerous. The Arab was from Marseilles, the other man was an Italian, and Catholic. The quarrel was about the morality of Al Qaeda and the notorious attacks of 9/11 – the destruction of the twin towers of The

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World Trade Centre in New York City, in September of 2001. The Muslim brought it all up and threw it in the Catholic’s face. The man from Marseilles was braying; the Americans deserved what they got, for the damage they caused to other countries when they used and abused them. The Italian, with relations in the US, and his Catholic beliefs running rampant, reacted angrily. The Marseilles man was slow - the Italian already had his knife out. Vangelis got there just in time. He wondered how Bobby made out last night. Galeazza had to contend with his own little war on terror. Ambushes and incursions; a time for taking back lost territory from the Muslims. His opinion was the same as most people in Europe. War on Terror? For Iraq, read Israel. A massive Israel. With all the horror of terror attacks, the suicide bombings, completely defenceless townships assaulted by every modern weapon imaginable. Large neighbourhoods in al Fallujah crushed and destroyed, hundreds of innocent Iraqis tortured – with sexual abuse as one of the prime methods; pictures of naked men forced to simulate homosexual acts, their women compelled to expose themselves for a US soldier’s camera. There were secret prisons, where possibly even worse abuses took place. Murders in captivity meant retaliatory kidnappings, and horrific videoed decapitations. Thousands killed in the name of a ‘War on Terror’, thousands more injured, their homes destroyed, their bereft families, robbed of their men, forced to eke

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out a painful and drab, hungry existence with few men left to work and support a family with only children left to replace grown men’s jobs. Now colonialism was back, as the US tried to force so called negotiations for no-bid contracts with specific U.S. and European oil companies. Afghanistan was no better off. Was Iraq the beneficiary of a benign Democracy? Are its people beneficiaries? War on Terror? Whose Terror? And Bobby Galeazza was up to his neck in it. So, one last job, seeing this bunch in, translating them into cargo, loading them on the trucks and getting them away on their journey across the rest of Europe. After this job there would be no more hard stuff in his life. No more threats followed by beatings for those who did not cooperate. No more mind games with the boss, no more silence when he should have spoken out against the mindless violence, and no more Bobby Galeazza. In spite of his present good fortune, he was finding it hard to convince himself that an unknown life, with clean unwritten pages, awaited him after today. From now on he could shape his new life any way he wanted, with the woman he had waited years for. He had saved plenty over the years, spending only on property in his home town of Litochoro, a small village of gleaming white houses nestled in the foothills of Mount Olympus in Thessaly, Greece. During the last three years, he had overseen the building and fitting

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out of a sprawling three-storey mansion just outside the town limits, on Army land that he prided himself on buying well below market value. He surprised his family and neighbours when he finished to top floor, something the majority of his neighbours had chosen not to do, because of the extra expense involved. Most of them had positioned the pre-moulded, pre-stressed concrete shells atop their foundations, forming the ground floor of their home, then they had left the roof bare. With the ends of rusty twisted iron rods poking towards the heavens, leaving them like that made their properties look like works in progress, as if they were unfinished, waiting for the next floor section to turn up. All across Greece, thousand of homeowners pretended they were still in the construction stage of building their houses. One day, the lazy corrupt government would catch on. The tax haul would be stupendous. Flexing his arms, causing his biceps, triceps and the complicated forearm muscles to bulge, he knew that under the thick sleeves of his jacket blood vessels were standing proud on the surface of his skin. He smiled with satisfaction. He had looked after himself over the years. As the firm’s fixer, and Bobby’s manager, he needed to be fit. All he wanted was this night over with, and the people off the boat put to bed in the trucks. Then, in a day or so, he would return to his own bed, their bed, with his treasured Ginny. He knew he was taking a gamble with her, was well aware of how difficult she could be, but she had matured over the years. Slowed down, grown up, become

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more willing to shuck off her old wild ways. They would finish with Bobby, and with the firm, for good. Soon. A vague thought - would Keogh and the girls survive? The distant, answering thought – he had no idea. They were not that important to him. His future, his and Ginny’s future together, would be settled after the boat made it to shore tonight or not.

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PART ONE

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JANUARY

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1 The Ionian Sea, fifty miles south of the Gulf of Taranto, Italy. January 27. “Lord! Allah Akbah. I beseech thee, Lord. Take me. Take me, Lord, but save my family.” The young Muslim prayed loudly and urgently. Dry-eyed from lack of body moisture and the scouring wind of previous days, he held his two children close to him as he gazed intently at his wife. Squatting on the rotten deck of the sinking ketch at his feet, she struggled to give birth. He swayed in the freezing early morning wind, shielding his daughter in his arms, held his son as close to him as he could. He continued chanting, praying to the one entity that might help them now. In the wild dark waters off the southern tip of Italy, Commander Ferrerao, from the bridge of his rescue craft of the Italian Coastguard, surveyed the hulk against the jumbled background of

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heaving waters and starlit windswept sky. Its gunwales dipping dangerously close to the surface of the water, he realised just how low her stern was as his vessel drew alongside her. The stern dipped alarmingly in the swelling foam-lashed sea, and the ancient fortymeter ketch had a distinct lean to starboard. Without masts on which to hang a small cloth, let alone a sail, she wallowed helplessly in the squalling winds. With the winds gusting to Force 6 on the Beaufort scale, the last report the Captain of the rescue craft had from the meteorology service was that they would continue to rise. He surveyed the plunging struggling boat in the glare of his lights as they etched it against myriad glints and reflections of freezing spray. He considered the milling crowd on the overburdened deck of the boat. Without his help, there was little time left to rescue their already diminishing lives. In the early hours of a cold grey January morning, ten days after the beginning of the new year, as the first faint strands of light appeared to the East of the rotting hulk, he watched anxiously as they struggled to keep their footing, to help each other, to stay alive. Barely floating, yet lethargically sinking, on the freezing broken sea, the boat tossed them about as they fought to create a space for themselves on the packed deck. In the stern, because of the pronounced angle of pitch, he could see the exhausted fugitives fighting to keep each other standing while trying to avoid crushing one another. Frequently, several of them were unsuccessful, as their

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cold stiff hands lost their grip on the inadequate ice-laden attachments they had managed to find. People forward were hanging on to whatever they could, to stop them from sliding and tumbling into each other, toward the crowded stern of the rotting whale-backed boat. Without enough handholds or attachments available from which they might cling, although they were exhausted, even those who had found a space to sit, or lay down, still moved about. It added to their fatigue. The women hung on to their men, children hung on to their parents; everyone tried to hang on to someone, or something. Many were failing in their efforts. What little rain had fallen, they had collected in grubby unhygienic containers. It kept them alive longer, but eventually many of them succumbed to violent sickness, passed around via the filthy pots with which they measured their meagre rations of water. As well as the women and children, some of the men were weeping, with the frustration at being unable to help their families. While the confused shapes of the dying lay sick and exhausted nearby, crushed underfoot as the frantic jumble of bodies at odds with each other continued above them, those who cried did so quietly, their bodies almost dry after the last few awful waterless days. Other individuals lay in silence, their fixed vacant eyes staring into space, or into an empty future on the deck of the sick boat that two foolish ignorant men had stripped of all unnecessary clutter. The rising wind failed to diminish the smell of faeces and stale urine that pervaded the ketch.

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Many of the children, and a few adults, had urinated and defecated inboard, the firm idea fixed in their minds that they would die on the wreck, so what did it matter. Deposited in one place, restless feet soon picked up foul human waste and moved it to a position from where others continued to spread it more efficiently, hands to mouths. The mistakes the men made when they ineptly fitted out the ketch were many. That the clutter they discarded included the two extremely precious and useful masts was the greatest error of all. After all, they had discussed, when they were preparing her for the precarious journey, what good was a mast with no sails to attach to it? They had the outboard motors. At the time, buoyed by the alcohol in their bodies, they never considered anything going wrong. They joyfully assumed, in their rosy drunken haze, that it would be similar to a boyhood adventure. Marabout Mohammed Dawed, the young man who prayed so fervently for the lives of his wife and children, had left a small village near Ksour Essaf to join this disastrous trip. Forced out of the Medina of Sfax a few years previously, because of the rising property prices driven by growing tourism in the town, his family now lived well below the poverty line. Although it was a trip his friends had told him was foolish and hazardous on a healthy boat, he had handed over all the money he and his wife’s family and friends could scrape together.

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As he watched the sea threaten to engulf them, Marabout, his feet and legs aching and sore from the constant heaving and pulsing of the boat and the crowd over the last few hours, finally had to agree with them. The hopeless angry crowd, containing other family units from around his area, pummelled and pushed at him. Fatma, his swollen pregnant wife, had succumbed hours previously to the battering to her body and limbs from the plunging wallowing boat. She sank to the deck in painful despair. Marabout’s right arm muscles cramped painfully, constricted by the weight of his small seven-year-old daughter who slept, limp from exhaustion, as her tiny body threatened incessantly to sway and slide out of his grip. With his other hand, to stop her twin brother from disappearing, spasmodically, he held him upright, against his leg, as he struggled to fend off the frightened frantic crowd that jostled around them. His wife, squatting painfully at his feet in the delivery stage of labour with her baby’s head crowning, hunched over in the agony of another contraction. Their third child was threatening to erupt from her parched and distended body. As he ordered his First Officer to steer the rescue craft to port of the crippled boat, Ferrerao studied the dirty cracked white painted hull, wide vertical orange rust stains etched below each metal fitting. If it became necessary he would take people off, but he hoped he would not need to take anyone. No matter what, he had to be

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ready. He had already radioed for an airdrop of lifeboats, food and water. The loud creaks and groans emanating from the wallowing ketch were ominous in his ears. They did not sound like a healthy boat, when wooden joints and surfaces moved together in unison as ropes sawed and stretched against moving wood, full billowing sails snapping and straining against their belays and fastenings. Those sounds were the music of a healthy vessel. Rather, he heard deep raw groans and sheering sounds, interspersed with loud cracks and tics. Off key sounds. Sounds that told him the ancient boat would sail no more. If it managed to reach its last destination as a floating unit, it would probably fall apart shortly afterwards. He reckoned he was looking at seventy to eighty soaked and bedraggled people, as they struggled together on the worn deck. God alone knew if there were any below, in amongst the probable shorings, which were visually failing, judging by the uneven surface of the deck. In the powerful and increasingly gusting winds, the faint sound of a cultured voice caught his awareness. He glanced across to see a tall heavily pregnant Somali woman looking at him. Limply exhausted, she remained upright. Listless yet urgent, she was waving a filthy white shawl to attract his attention. While struggling to retain her balance, she was holding a small child in her arms. As he moved towards her, other refugees with children began holding

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them out, over the grey-green surface of the water. Desperate, they were trying to force the Coastguard crew to take them out of their hands and onto the rescue craft. The pregnant woman, however, was gently cradling her child against her with one arm, the weary urgency more in her demeanour than her actions. Ferrerao hesitated at the idea of taking a single person off. He had seen the panic it caused at a previous, similar, rescue attempt at which he and his crew had tried to help. They had lost the boat – and most of those on board it - as the majority of the frightened passengers, seeing the beginning of a rescue, ran to the side en masse. It had taken less than a minute for that one to turn turtle. Out of an estimated four hundred refugees, between two Coastguard boats and a passing fishing boat, they had managed to rescue a pitiful thirty-seven people. Six of them had been children, and two of those died on his boat, as he raced at full throttle to get them to hospital. *** Two months ago, in a tea shop in Sfax, Tunisia’s second largest city, the smuggling organisation’s agent found two tough, drunken, no hopers. The town, on the eastern coast of Tunisia, on the northern shore of the Gulf of Gabes, is a major transportation hub for the minerals produced in the Qafah region. Its ugly environs sprawling twenty-four kilometres along the coast, Sfax is Tunisia's

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main market outlet for the country's phosphates. It is also one of the main suppliers of sponge and tuna, both of which its fish canneries process. Under a sweltering foul-smelling veil of factory smoke, in the bar beside the enormous anthill mounds of phosphates that were part of Tunisia’s exports, the agent told them what he wanted, while promising them far more than he was going to give them. He supplied them with enough funds to buy and fit out an old boat for the journey. They spent much of the money on themselves, first on drink, not a large amount, but it gave them the false courage to spend more again, on new and useless, but expensive, shiny plastic and electrical items that took their drunken fancy. What little was left afterwards they spent on their families, on food and clothes and repairs to their homes. Finally, with the ludicrously small amount left, they bought the ancient fatigued ketch with its sagging hump-backed deck from an aging Arab, whose home it had been for years. She had been on shore all that time, on the jetty. Her timbers and planks long dried out and rotten, if a man looked through the gaps between the planks on one side he would see daylight - through the gaps in the other side of the hull. As semi-experienced but lazy fishermen, whose irregular selfemployment had dried up when the large local canning company expanded and brought in its own boats and crews, they were well aware that the structure of the boat was dangerously unsound. They

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jerry rigged her. They both knew that the deck showed obvious signs of sagging, but in their greed, and in their need to get away from their country by any means, neither of them mentioned it to the other. Before they launched her, they used old worn boards and lengths of split tree trunks to shore up the weakened deck. They found used sheets of wrinkled tin and plywood, and cheap silicone to cover holes and caulk the dried out planks of the hull. After their earlier excessive expenditure, they had little money left for decent materials for the rest of the fitting out of the doomed ketch. Without enough money left to purchase sails for the two masts, they underlined their criminal folly when they sawed the masts off, using those, too, as shoring between hull and deck. When they contacted him to say they were ready, the agent gave them their sailing directions. He told them to sail in a north-easterly direction once they reached the horn of Tunisia, and pass the eastern end of Sicily. They should then head east, through a region of the Tyrrhenian Sea lightly used by shipping, until they reached the wide coast of Calabria, Italy, south of Salerno. From there, he told them, once they identified Mount Pollino and placed it to port of their bow, they would head for landfall. However, he instructed them, they were not to touch the shore. Instead, they were to wait until nightfall, and early morning, when a signal would guide them in.

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Did they understand their instructions? The agent looked into the eyes of the two listless men. Did he care if they were good enough for the job? He had been paid, whatever happened. Of course they understood they hurriedly told him, looking quickly at each other, although the vague look of puzzlement in their eyes belied their outward blustering confidence. Together with members of their own families, after hurriedly ferrying the refugees from a deserted beach near Marabout’s home town of Ksour Essaf, they set off. Ignoring the agent’s directions, fully understanding at last, the real peril they had placed themselves in, they headed the already leaking boat north, between the huge mounds of phosphates of Sfax to port and the white sands of the Kerkenneh Islands to starboard. Two men fishing off the shore of one of the islands, lucky enough to have found work at the tourist hotels on the islands in the summer, watched them recede. They waved, and sent their prayers with them. With a cheap compass for navigation, and by crossing the Mediterranean at its narrowest area, the two men hoped to make landfall somewhere in southern Sicily, before they ran into trouble with the leaking hulk. The different sized outboards they had fitted to the stern were no match for the unexpected winds. Those winds blew them directly east, past the distant glimmering lights of Malta that shone to starboard on the second night. The wholly inadequate smaller

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outboard – its shaft far too short and its propeller blades thrashing viciously at empty air – stopped. After spending most of its time out of the water, starved of the vital lubrication that it required from the seawater when immersed, it spun to a sudden jerking halt. It stopped as the winds blew them further north, into the Ionian Sea. By the time they drifted into the Gulf of Taranto, they had been at sea for six days. The outboard fuel had run out three days before. The food and water that the passengers individually carried ran out one day after that. Fights broke out among them. Desperate parents hunted for morsels and precious drops of water they suspected their fellow passengers were hiding. The deck was so crowded, there was just enough room to sit close together. With everyone worn out, and people already sick, the two men – whose secret cache of booze had long since vanished – were no longer of any use. The stronger men among the passengers curtailed their violent, bullying ways when they stopped them from throwing a sick man overboard. The first time they tried to control the crowd, one of the men had argued against their ineffective navigation, then he and his large family had fought them while others had taken the compass off them on the second day. By then, after taking what little control of the lunging floundering hulk that it had allowed them, no one amongst them knew where they were. The ousted leaders certainly had no idea. Because of their ignorance and initial trust in the two drunks’ capabilities, none of them had taken any

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interest in their position when they first set off. The more educated among them mostly agreed they were somewhere between Corsica and Italy. *** Ferrerao received news of the ketch from a private plane. His first sight of it was as strong winds from the hills off the western coast of the Gulf, combining with the tidal stream, forced them east, back towards the Ionian Sea again. Without his help, they would drift helplessly before the force of the winds, towards Corfu, before the new, stronger tidal streams from the Adriatic took over. Before they reached Corfu, he knew that the winds from the north would come together with the changing stream to carry them south again, back deep into the Ionian Sea from which they had previously escaped. They might stay afloat, but they would have no chance of survival if they returned to that area. By now, in an effort to prevent the plunging groaning boat from leaning any further, two of Ferrerao’s crew passed over inflatable float chambers that were already filling, directing the weary immigrants where to tie them. The worried commander told one of his men to climb over and look for the cause, or causes, of the increasing dip of the stern. Unless he soon found something he could physically fix, there was nothing more Ferrerao could do about the sinking vessel. In addition, he knew that if the man found

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anything, it was unlikely to be simple. If it was something the crew could patch up, he thought, anxiously waiting for him to reappear, it would probably still be too late to save the hulk from sinking. Ferrerao caught a movement from the corner of his eye as a gangling lanky Zulu leapt suddenly, bravely, across the gap between the two boats. The young sailor who ran towards him shouted angrily at him. He had a contemptuous grin on his face, as he spoke to the frightened man struggling as he clung to the rails of the launch. “Can you swim?” That close, leaning directly over the man, the tanned dark-haired young sailor had to shout, above the wind, the crowd, the movement of the boats, and the loud slapping of the water forced between and against the hulls of the two boats. He stood, waiting, watching the man’s movements, making no effort to help, as he hung, barely, by his fingers. The Zulu’s muscles alternatively bunched and relaxed, and the sinews in his neck tightened and bulged as he pulled himself up then fell back again through lack of strength, unable to climb onto the deck without help. The sea dragged at his dangling feet, slapping his bruised and battered body against the hull, stretching it as its added extra weight surged to one side then the other. It battered his legs mercilessly, jostling him forward, then viciously reversed to thrust him aft, playing with him as if tough string ran threaded through his body and was the single thing holding him together.

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The wide-eyed Zulu, mouth open and neck corded as he tried once more to reach the safety of the deck, stared fearfully at the cynically smiling man above him, as he bent over and began prising the fingers of one hand off the rail. “Baros!” Ferrerao ran forward and grasped the Zulu’s other weakened hand, as it slipped off the rail. His continual problems with the sullen young man, who had senior family members in the upper echelons of the Police force, often drove him to distraction. He knew he had to be careful. His few friends had warned Ferrerao when Baros joined the crew. As soon as he was aboard, he boasted to anyone who would listen that he had an uncle who was not only close to the Mafia, but was also a high flyer in the Italian business world. He had another relation in the police force, with whom he was so close, he had changed his name to his, when his own parents threw him out, disgusted with his behaviour. As he bragged continually about the uncle involved with the mob, it did not take much investigation on Ferrerao’s part to find out at least that story was true. As for the businessman, he seemed shady. All anyone knew about him was that he was crooked and hard, but no one could put a name to him. The obviously pampered boy seemed to be playing at being a sailor. Seeing the young rating deliberately toying with the Zulu’s life greatly disturbed the veteran Captain. If the other members of his crew saw Baros’ lack of respect affecting him, it could be a problem

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for Ferrerao. It could be bad for the morale of his crew. Ferrerao considered himself a man of the world, and his crew considered him a hard but fair man, but the sullen good-looking boy, with his flashing blue eyes and tight curled hair was popular. That made it harder for Ferrerao. He had a short enough temper and struggled to keep a lid on it while dealing with Baros. No doubt, the Captain hoped fervently, fed up playing the rescue game, soon – he was no use at it – he would go and threaten someone else’s career. “Help me!” he ordered the young crewmember, as he struggled to pull the Zulu on to the deck, “...then help him.” Caught out in his covert cruelty towards the helpless man, seen by another, the flustered youth's eyes looked wild. Suddenly overtly solicitous, he grabbed the Zulu’s other arm and did as he was told, helped his Commander lift the exhausted man the rest of the way over the rail to the deck. What Ferrerao expected would happen, happened. As they saw the black man helped aboard, a loud dissenting cry rose from the people on the stricken boat across from them. Ferrerao stared witheringly at Baros. If he did anything at all with the unruly boy now, he would probably end up hitting him. “Get him some water,” he ordered him. He turned to look for the woman again. “Captain!”

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She had moved along the rail, closer to him. “My daughter is very sick. I have no more medicine left for her.” Distracted, he turned away from her. Mentally logging his actions, censuring himself over of his indecision, he started back to look for Baros, to see if he was carrying out his last order. He watched as the rating came back from the galley with a plastic bottle in his hand. When he reached the Zulu, Baros crouched down on his haunches beside him, unscrewed the cap and put it in the man’s hand. He stayed there, after glancing at Ferrerao, and stared at the Zulu as he drank the chilled water from the bottle. “Don’t let him drink too much,” Ferrerao shouted. “He’ll wrench his guts up if he spews,” he added, as he strode away to the rail to look down on the woman on the other boat. Decisively, he held his hands out for the little girl. As the boats plunged together, he grabbed her quickly from the woman’s weak outstretched arms. “Please care for her, Captain,” the young woman told him, as the limp child left her hands. “I am all right, but she must live.” He struggled with his conscience as he recognized that she was telling him she would gratefully die, as long as her child was safe. Clutching the little girl’s body to his chest, knowing how incensed the rest of the immigrants were at the sight of her rescue, he held his hand out for the woman to grasp it. As he took her weight and she began to climb the hull to his deck, the growling din from the crowd on the other deck grew louder. Seeing him helping the woman,

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vague but frantic thoughts of him leaving them behind caused the majority of the crowd to surge angrily towards him. “No! Move to the centre of the boat,” he shouted at them, as he hauled on the woman’s arm. “More help is on the way. We’ll get you all off when we’re ready.” The woman baulked, began protesting. “I will stay,” she told him. “We’ll need you to look after her,” he said, and she smiled her thanks as he continued to lift her weight, prior to swinging her onto his boat. By now, with the concentrated weight on one side of the ketch, the gunwales were dipping below the surface of the sea, allowing bitterly cold water to surge onto the packed and crowded boards. As fast as the pandemonium arose, Ferrerao’s men were shouting, holding their hands palms out, shouting while miming pushing motions, attempting to make the frantic crowd understand that there were too many people on one side of the already listing vessel. It was far too late for the disintegrating wreck. Their collective weight was too much for the already rotten deck mountings. Below deck, with a dull thump, a sharp end of one of the sections of tree trunk – the two drunks had neglected to put too much packing between the ends of them and the hull – plunged forcefully through the hull wall. The concentration of the crowd on deck was such that its downward force pushed the wooden prop through the hole it had punched, down towards the seabed. It stopped before it exited

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completely, hovered for a short time with half its length extended, wavering languorously among the motions of the surrounding water. Then, against the mass of moving people in the rising water below deck, it began slowly floating back into the hull of the already filling boat. Simultaneously, Marabout watched with despair, as the head of their second daughter emerged between his wife’s legs, the features of her tiny red face squashed, as that part of the deck under her straining body finally gave way and disintegrated. Unable to support the mass of people any longer, splitting apart some of the cracked wooden elbows that had kept it attached to the hull for some sixtyfive years, its downward motion forced other fittings to rip out of their mountings. On that side of the boat, the rest of the deck gave way. As he fell, Marabout was aware that his son was under his falling body. Instinctively he threw his daughter away from him, over the starboard rail and into the waters on the opposite side from the rescue craft. Pleading one last time for Allah to intervene, as his body plunged down, he glimpsed the child suddenly wake and start struggling for her life. His only hope for her was her swimming ability of which he had been so proud. He continued to chant for all his family’s lives, as they plunged into the mass of people inside the hull, crushing to death some, and injuring many more.

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Claiming the lives of most the people below deck as it crashed down on them, the sea flowed swiftly into the crowded space. Over thirty people struggled down there; to reach the two hatches the two drunks had not nailed shut when they prepared the boat. They had thoughtfully left only those open, one in the bow and the other in the stern, for ventilation, they proudly explained to those who complained during the journey about the lack of access. When the boat quickly turned turtle, twenty-six men, women and children died inside the hull, agonisingly slowly. They drowned as they lost their bearings when the boat turned and filled rapidly with water. Those who could swim, who knew where they were, died when they were thwarted by the dark, and the swirling bodies that pummelled and pushed and grasped at them in their excruciating, terrifying last minutes, as they all swam desperately for the blocked hatches. Among the dead were whole families from Bir Tebeng, El Hencha and Jebiniana, communities close to Marabout’s village. Above the surface of the churning water, as the plunging boats trapped the Somali woman’s slender body between them, Ferrerao lost his hold on her hand. In spite of her frantic efforts to grasp the rail with her wet hands, as the hull of the old ketch turned, it crushed her body against the rescue craft. With her chest locked tight to the hull’s surface, her body pulverized between the two boats, she scraped, screaming in agony, down the side of the rescue craft, her

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ruined body released only as contact was lost between the two boats. Holding her child tight in his arms, Ferrerao watched in horror as she disappeared below the rail, dropping swiftly from his view. “Cast off,” he shouted. “Now!” Torn violently by the various tugging of the separate lines he had put out to the ketch, his boat yawed and swayed. Looking frantically for somewhere safe to put the child, he dashed to where the Zulu lay, the empty bottle hanging loose in his hand as he heaved up the precious water he had drunk too fast. Ferrerao practically dropped the unconscious child on him, as his boat, tossed and rocked by the movement of the sea, and the crowded sinking shell alongside his own vessel, bucked and heaved under his feet. Axes appeared in some of his men’s hands, as they fought to cut the lines to the ketch before their boat sank, too, dragged below the surface of the boiling sea. Two of his crew rushed to the rails to look for one of their comrades who had fallen off the boat as the ketch’s hull, fully breached, sank completely as the sea swamped her. He pulled one away and shouted at Baros, the other one, to get to their positions. They would return to the search when the rescue craft was safe, he told them. Most of the people remaining on the ketch were trying to jump or swim off while they were waist high in the rushing water that continued to surge around them. It forced them backwards, into the

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sucking, pulling motion of the sinking boat. Abruptly, with enough of its volume under the surface, as the deep keel swung up and then disappeared, another powerful pull sucked them under the surface of the roiling waves. Again people died, as the swirl and suction formed a vortex that for long moments held under those who might otherwise have escaped. Some people made it to the side of the rescue craft. Less of them made it to its deck. A few of them, picked up quickly enough by the harried crew after the water washed them off the deck of the turning ketch, made it to shore and a new life. Most of the crowd of desperate refugees, including the two drunks and their families, died as the boat sank in the churning white-crested water, before anyone could reach them to save them. They died, as the crew of the inadequately sized rescue vessel tried to save as many of them as they could, from a greatly overloaded hulk that should never have put to sea. Sellema Mohammed Dawed, Marabout’s small daughter, was the only survivor of his family. Baros, the troublesome crewmember, surprised Ferrerao and the whole crew and gained an award for courage when he dived in and rescued the little girl. Ferrerao halfwatched, intent on rescuing others, as Baros swam across aerated water. Thrashing his arms and legs to keep afloat, he reached the small child, and supported her for the further few minutes it took until the craft manoeuvred to reach him.

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Over the next few months, he and Sellema would form a friendly and trusting relationship. In the orphanage where the Italian social services eventually placed her, she settled in well. Everyone there knew her as a cheerful little girl, who dealt with her sad change of circumstances with courage. Baros, the moody and rebellious crewmember, was hugely instrumental in her transformation, and he seemed to change with her. He visited her often, and she was always happiest when she was with him. In early March, she disappeared from the orphanage. Baros was heartbroken. The police investigation came up with nothing useful, but they suspected abduction. As the search went on for little Sellema, Baros reverted, becoming moody and angry again. Within a month of her disappearance, he left Ferrerao’s crew and resigned from the service.

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2 Alcover, Catalonia, 23 January. Her first sight of this room, of the ceiling of this room, was while they were raping her, the fat man and the boy. As she struggled into consciousness, surfaced, with enormous difficulty, from a horrible long nightmare involving travelling, running, fear and terror and nearly getting caught— she was choking on something. Bile rose in her throat as she protested – tried to protest... She was on her back, her legs forced wide, with the muscles in the backs of them screaming for relief from an enormous weight that was pushing them back against her shoulders, and a boy – a man – a boy/man, standing beside her, was holding her chin down, prising her mouth open. He was trying to get his small, flaccid penis into her resisting mouth. He was holding of one of her ankles, pulling it

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outwards, her foot hooked hard against his chin, beside his head, giving full access to her for the other man who was on top of her. A huge, fat, naked slob of a man, he was laying with all his bodyweight over her, his stomach forcing her thighs apart. Sweat ran off his face as, grunting like a pig, he forced her knees below the level of her shoulders. Squashing her, he gripped the frame of the bed, hard. Pumping, grunting, and dripping sweat from his misshapen face onto her face, into her eyes. He was pounding himself into her, forcing all her breath out with each stroke, causing her to grunt too, a low rhythmic involuntarily squeal, with each breath she fought for. She was dry, and the pain was enormous as he continued to power himself into her, ignoring her grunts and whimpers, overlaying them with his own bestial noises. She ended the boy’s attempts to get her mouth open when she finally gasped for air, gagged, retched, and threw up the meagre acidic contents of her stomach all over his belly. He hit out at her, cursing and swearing, as he staggered back. Missing, losing his footing, as bits of stinking food slid down his legs and into his jeans that lay loosely round his ankles he landed on his back on the earth floor. Feet in the air, he screamed shrilly as slivers of puke splashed onto his face. Scrabbling round, using his elbows, trying not to touch the filthy slimy mess with his hands, trying to keep his bare behind off the floor, he struggled to his feet.

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The fat man, at the sight of his indignity, thinking it hilarious, laughed uproariously. With a deep gurgling chuckle, he grabbed the girl’s throat in his huge fist and forced her head deep into the stinking solid mattress, cutting off what little air she could manage to suck into her oxygen-starved lungs. There is no such thing as a pillow in this new world into which she has been shocked. As he compressed her breathless sweat-soaked body under his enormous belly and chest, her full naked breasts squeezed out to either side. She groaned in pain as the boy grabbed a nipple and viciously, vengefully, twisted and pulled it. The fat man pumped furiously one last time. Out of control, pucefaced, he roared as he finally collapsed over her, jerking uncontrollably, his foul smelly mouth agape next to hers, dribbling onto her neck. During his mindless spasms, he clutched at her throat, cutting off her life’s air. Struggling ineffectually, she survived an eternity of red and black pain, until he relaxed his grasp, allowing her to live again. Then it got worse. If she thought that was an end to the torture, she was wrong. Now, it was the boy/man’s turn. Eagerly, after wiping himself off, and under the inexpert tutelage of the enormous older man, he mounted her, rocking his scrawny hips against her slippery buttocks, while the watching man began to coax himself back to life.

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Standing beside them as he rubbed his drooping cock, the fat man’s fingers, mercifully slippery with his semen and her blood, plunged deep into her anus. His stinking member, covered with a mixture of slimy vile tasting fluids, squashed against her unwilling mouth, as the boy poked and jerked rapidly to climax, finishing outside her in his haste and lack of control. Grunting with renewed excitement, throwing the limp boy off her, the fat man began working his penis in and out of her mouth until it had reached its previous bloated size. He withdrew his attention from her anus and began to force his hand into her, forcing her wide open, stretching her further, until she screamed, high-pitched and uncontrollably, pleading with him to stop. With all her strength, and both her hands around his enormous wrist, it was not enough to satisfy him, or to halt his malicious progress. With his other hand, he kneaded and squashed each breast in turn, as a baker kneads bread dough, intermittently pinching each nipple, pulling it and the breast, away from her body, as far as it could stretch. He plunged his thumb into her anus, began to clench and release his fingers inside her. Humming tunelessly, chuckling and gurgling, he focused his attention on her mouth. With his free hand, he grabbed her head by a fistful of hair, forced her head into his crotch. He held her head hard against his crotch, filling her aching throat. Guffawing, he held her head tight while he worked his fingers and thumb inside her.

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She was trying to struggle, trying to scream, trying to breathe, as he grunted with the effort of holding her head still. Thick mucus splashed out of her nostrils but she sucked it back in again as soon she tried to breathe through her nose, blocking off the only airway she had left. The pain inside her was horrendous as he mashed the soft flesh, tearing delicate membranes, as he squeezed, squeezed. She was in agony. Suddenly he was pumping and throbbing in her mouth, ramming her head backwards and forwards against his crotch, while in his uncontrollable throes he clenched his fist, ever harder. It seemed almost as if they had changed positions; melded into a mythical creature they had spawned between them, as it struggled violently to live, to stay alive. He spasmed and slid almost out of her mouth, filling it with semen, before ramming it back again. Inside her body, he was squeezing again. This time he kept going, as he squeezed tighter and tighter, his thick stubby fingers and thumb encompassing her perineum, mashing the flesh of her until it was paper thin, tissue thin. Mercifully, from far off, she could hear him grunting, roaring and guffawing, as she retched, gagged, gurgled, and struggled for air. Gagging, choking, silently screaming, she lost consciousness, as the rending agony of her being became, at last, too much to bear.

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3 Northern Portugal/Spain border. 28 January. Motoring out of Portugal, heading back home, to the UK, Daniel Aloysius Keogh was planning his next trip. He was pleased with the performance of the seventeen-year-old van. The next trip was the big one, to East Asia, by road. For years, he had been planning to leave England. Originally, he had learnt to sail, bought a yacht and lived on it. Based in Cowes, moored in the Medina River, he sailed first round the Isle of Wight; then to Chichester harbour, and to Shoreham; then Brighton. After that, he sailed in the opposite direction, to Poole, and further along the coast, eventually returning to Cowes after he had reached Bristol. Next, he crossed the English Channel, to Cherbourg. The second trip was to Le Havre, and the third to the Channel Islands. Always single-handing, each trip gave him more confidence, more knowledge, and more enthusiasm for the day he when he would

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leave England for good. The whole learning experience took him two and a half years. He was in no hurry. He had all his life ahead of him. Then his knees gave way. That was okay. Still sailing, keeping his hand in, he waited the eighteen months for the two separate operations, to have the torn cartilage removed from each knee, and was finally ready again. He developed the most excruciating migraines, almost the same time as his back decided to give up the ghost. He already had a pension from the Army for his back and knees. After years on the drink, now, as a sober alcoholic, he had learnt to live his life one day at a time. These constantly developing problems, though, were getting to be beyond a joke. After a further three years, unable to get any permanent relief from the National Health Service, or the various Osteopaths he turned to, he met a Chiropractor who not only treated his back problems, she also repositioned a bone at the base of his skull. The migraines miraculously stopped. Over the next eight months, she repositioned his left ribs to their normal position, tilted his pelvis back to where it had come from, allowing his right leg to be almost the same length as his left one. By the ninth month, she told him to look after himself and enjoy the rest of his life. The boat had been gone for two years and the house that he bought had eaten up all his money. Some life. By the time he hit on

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the idea of going to Asia by road, he had been on the Island for seven years. Up until the time he bought the van and left England, Danny Keogh felt he had enjoyed a long and fruitless life. Thirty-nine years old, going on forty, his only satisfaction was that he had seen out fifteen years in the Army. Long before that, he began his travels on the long slope downwards in his life. It had started from the moment he made his first acquaintance with alcohol. In his case, when he was twelve. From then on, lack of school, loss of work, wrecked and lost relationships, and continual drinking wrought havoc on his life. If that was not enough, his childhood, damaged by a fractured family life, included an alcoholic father seriously, violently, abusing him and his sister. His mother, god bless her soul, then managed to do everything wrong after his father left to return to his bigamous first family in Ireland. She had no choice really. Life, and in her case, a serious lack of experience in it, had left her extremely unprepared for any of what she had gone through, or what was to come. A countrywoman, from the backwoods of deep Surrey, in Southern England, she had little idea how to bring up two children and, once the husband was gone, left the two kids to themselves, while she went to work to earn enough money to keep all three of them. Poor by nature, none of them grew out of that poverty pattern, the ingrained habit that

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makes you watch every penny, but leads one to use expensive tobacco and alcohol as legal sedatives to cushion the effects of a dull and futureless life. Danny was intelligent enough – both kids were. In his sister’s case, she went on to grammar school then set the pattern for Danny to follow. Instead of using the education available to her, Julie rebelled against the treatment she felt life was meting out to her. In school, she met a kindred spirit in Sarah, and they were off to the clubs and pubs as fast as they could go. Later, taking an underage Danny along with them, they formed a threesome. That lasted until his sister married a mad Irishman who beat her up at every opportunity he got – exactly for what her drunken violent father had rehearsed her. He remembered their conversation, a few years back, before she stopped speaking to him again. The stories she told him, about their father being an adulterer, with one family in England, and the products - another wife and two more children from an earlier marriage in Northern Ireland. Then there was the abuse, about which the English family never talked. His father’s accidental walks into the bathroom and toilet when his sister was in them. Oh, he knew about the beatings, but it took a long difficult conversation with his mother before he learnt that his sister had been telling the truth.

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“She’s bleeding, John! She can get the police in. It’s evidence.” That was what Julie had told him she heard, when she listened to their mother and father talking after he had lost control once more. Julie was ten at the time, which made him four years old. No wonder he knew nothing about it. The one good thing that came out of it many years later was when his mother tearfully, finally, confided in him. After many years of guilt and anger, they became a little closer. Nevertheless, it damaged his sister for life. Between his sister and Sarah, the two girls imprinted an early pattern of hedonism on the, by then, fourteen year old. He fostered this pattern away from their presence during schooldays, by hiding out first in the coffee bars, then, as the need for the calming effects of alcohol began, he aimed for the local pubs. The good-looking serious eighteen to twenty year old – who was in reality fifteen or sixteen by that time – made good headway with his older friends, never seemed to have to pay much of his way because of his cheek and quiet amiability. The girlfriends helped too. Nearly six feet tall and dark blonde with a slim athletic build, his green eyes and morose demeanour seemed to attract the best-looking girls, in spite of the efforts of his few, carefully chosen friends. The youngest he went out with at that time was nineteen. He also led a sparkling eyed twenty-seven year old Irish girl a merry dance until he dropped her one night, while

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they were with friends in a bar where Punk music blasted all conversation to pieces. At seventeen, he joined the Army to get away from his drunken father, his family, and his own drunk-under-age charges. Then he stupidly got married. The Army taught him how to drink while his wife, who was older than Danny, allowed him to use her as a mother figure. By the time their third child was born, Danny had had enough of himself. With continual medical absences and skiving over a number of years, the grey hairs on his wife’s head, and the look of fear in hers and the kids’ eyes, were enough for him. If he could have stopped drinking for a while to sort himself out, his life might have been completely different; he might have been a decent father and husband. But he could not stop. When he eventually did try to stop, he found himself physically and mentally incapable of doing so. He could not understand. Fully prepared to give in to the demon drink, now the time had come, he found he was unable to, no matter how often he tried. He knew he was intelligent. He had willpower and a deep need to stop drinking, yet he found it impossible. As well, he questioned his thinking and existence, and continually struggled with the puzzle of why he was different. It angered and frightened him, the fact that he had no idea why he was like he was. He quickly allowed this painful confusion to push him back to the only substance that gave him any relief. He just found it to be an

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impossible task. Worse, his drinking got further out of hand. The more he worried and fretted about his inability to stop using drink, the more he used it to stop worrying, stop thinking. Eventually, he gave himself wholeheartedly to it again. While he continued to drink, he told himself he did so because he enjoyed it. He rationalized it, in spite of his deep disgust at his own actions, as normal. During the last part of his drinking, for years, he had experienced the horrors of withdrawals on a daily basis. Sometimes during the day, when the alcohol level in his body dropped below the critical level, he invented ridiculous excuses and ‘reasons’ why he had to be somewhere else. He went to extraordinary lengths to give himself time to get a quick drink inside him, so he could continue to function as a sober person does. Only in his case, he was slowly going mad. On one occasion, while the Regiment was on exercise, he road tested a Chieftain tank, as far as the nearest German village pub. Then he found his time was up. Near to his fifteen-year option, he knew he had no chance of signing on for a further period. There was no record of his drinking problem in his medical documents but, knowing ‘they’ would find him out early in the medical, he knew his career was finished in the Army. With the responsibility of a young family and a certainty that no sensible person would employ him in Civvy Street (if he were employed he would never be able to hold a job down in his soused

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condition), Danny quietly, finally, went mad. A drunken phone call to the Samaritans one night, in an effort to get himself into a civilian hospital and secretly sober up, out of the Army’s sight, led to the discovery of his condition by his boss; when the hospital got in touch with the Army. They sent Danny to the Forces psychiatric unit. They were going to dry him out and sober him up. Twenty some years of hard drinking were untouchable in his case. The persona he had built up over those years of see no fault, hear no fault, show no fault, and never show weakness or the real you to others, finally put paid to his Army career. Finally, medically discharged as an alcoholic, they awarded him the pension for his back and knee injuries, incurred during his Army career. His wife held the kids together as he copied the age-old pattern of the drunken father deserting the family. He sank like a stone in Civvy Street, in spite of the help of the women who took him under their wings while he sold the contents of all their bottom drawers for booze. It would be seven years – some of those nightmarish - before he would see any kind of daylight in his life again. That would include the two to three years he had to go through without a drink before he felt anywhere near Sober enough – with the big S as Alcoholics Anonymous spell it - to start living again. ***

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Now, having crossed the northern border of Portugal into Spain, between Vilar and Fuentes de Oñoro, tired after ten hours solid driving, he was looking for a place to sleep. HALT! Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. He learnt that from Alcoholics Anonymous as well. If you were in any of these four states when the sneaky thought of a drink hit you, you could have a hard time fighting old Joe Barleycorn. He was the little shit that whispered in your ear, almost every minute of every day of your life when you gave up the drink. He could turn up at any time, setting off the nerve-shredding need for another drink, undermining all his efforts. He could turn up today, but Danny’s life was too good these days for him to slip again. Although it had been a couple of years ago since he had been to an AA meeting, it did not mean he wanted to drink again. Neither did he want the opposite; drink, drink, drink rammed into his head any more. After all the other methods he tried, AA had been the last one. Probably everything he learnt, and applied, helped him stop, but he never had another drink after finding AA, so the AA way must be the right way to do it. There were limits though. He figured, as an almost Buddhist, there was no need to go to a temple to pray. He could do that part on his own. After nearly three solid years of AA meetings, Danny finally decided he could take the program with him. He was tired and hungry at present, so time for another stop.

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He tried sleeping at one stop. The noise of the traffic, as it thundered past the small lay-by he had pulled into, buffeting his vehicle as passed, stopped him from dropping off into deeper sleep. Uneasy, he was always aware of the nearness of the traffic. When he eventually woke and stepped outside the van, to empty his bladder, there was a police car parked in front of him, so that idea was out. Two traffic cops, one of them leaning back against their car’s bonnet, were smoking and talking. Their presence made his mind up. Without bothering about the piss, he nodded cordially to them, pulled down the roof of the van under which his bed was situated, strapped it in place and drove off. *** The next time he stopped, the time was getting on for 3 o’clock in the morning. He knew he was somewhere near Salamanca, but he had no wish to negotiate the empty streets of any City when he was as tired as he felt. This time, he made sure the place where he parked was big enough, so he could get well away from the road and the raucously noisy heavy tractor units that thundered past, all of them doing exactly a hundred kilometres an hour. It was a disused petrol station that had evidently once catered to the same tractor-trailer units he was avoiding. The hard standing, minus the fuel pumps that had once stood there, was the size of half

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a football field affording him ample space to park away from the rumbling highway. He hunted round for the best spot to park, finally deciding to pull in by a large and long empty building that had probably served as the shop, workshop and what might have been a showroom. The building, while facing the highway, was set back at the rear of the lot, at least thirty metres away from it. Behind it, a massive metal structure rose out of sight into the night, the base of which stretched past the length of the building on either side. He could just make out the thick metal uprights and crossbeams of a massive looming assembly, akin to an oil-drilling tower piercing the dark night. A sliver of moon cast shadows throughout the steel uprights and crossbeams, lending an uncertain teetering toppling quality to the whole edifice. He was aware that he had passed a small group of vehicles as he entered the lot, while a huge articulated truck had already taken up some of the space beside the building. They were the big, those trucks and the sometimes double-trailered tractor units that pounded the European highways. As he wandered round looking for a safe place to park, he glanced back towards the entrance. A van like his own, and what looked like a box van, had parked near one of them he noticed, stationary near the entrance to the lot, close to the other end of the empty building. He could make out the exhausts of the two smaller vehicles. Maybe they had arrived before him or

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were preparing to leave. Not that it mattered much. He would not be parking at that end of the lot. Eventually he decided to park up off the main apron of the disused fuel station, beside the building. He would stay in front but slightly to one side, giving ample space to allow the unit behind him to move out when he was ready. By parking there, he would be furthest away from the entrance. It was a bonus. The spot he picked was not visible from the road, so he felt he was in the safest place. If anything came off the highway at speed, he reasoned, it would hit the redundant deserted area and he would not be in its sights. At least, he would be unseen until they drove right across the lot. No one could reach him where he was, unless he was drunk, stupid or blind. As he climbed back behind the wheel of his van, the parked tractor unit he intended to make way for revved up and, lights blazing, drove straight out of the lot past him. Perfect. Still satisfied with his intended position, he manoeuvred into place, unlocked the roof of the van and pushed it up on its hinges. After pulling the boards of thick plywood back from their stowage area over the cab, he unrolled his sleeping bag and pillow and made ready for a long well deserved sleep.

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4 Arlena Mirijevo, who sits watching ants, comes from Serbia. She was going to be one of the rare fortunate ones who got away. She remembers the Randan Hills to the North of her home. They trapped the clouds, bringing much needed rain of the green valley where she grew up as a child. She remembers the backbreaking work with nothing but a rudimentary hoe-come-digging blade, the mind numbing days in the small field her family worked, and nights of nothing but boredom, and physical tiredness and mental pain. She remembers the longing to leave, to get away, just to live. She only ever wanted to be like the people she watched on the ancient black and white television, when the aerial points in just the right direction, with the fuzziness adjusted out as best as her father could get it. Sitting in the small, stinking, boxlike room, with no window and the only door bolted from the other side she sweats, and

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concentrates on the ants. She is so dirty she does not know she is the source of the salty acrid body smell that permeates the tiny windowless room. The rusty old metal bedstead with the filthy semen-stained mattress overlaid with faded and new bloodstains, the small freestanding cupboard and the upturned tea chest are the only items of furniture in the room. The room is small; nothing else would fit in it. The earth floor, covered with dirt has old screwed up plastic wrappers, leaves blown in from outside at some time, and cigarette butts are all over it. No one has swept it since she got here. She is not important enough for anyone to care about her. Her desperate depression stops her from doing anything for herself. The tea chest has only the coffee cup the ants dance on, coffee makings, and three-day-old empty fast food foil container. There is no chair for her visitors to sit on; not that one is necessary for their visits. The still, stale-tobacco air is humid and thick, and hard to get into her lungs, even without the usual cigarette smoke present. She desperately wants to wash, to bathe in cool clean water, but she desperately wants them to leave her alone, too. As Arlena watches, the two ants perform intricate dance steps with each other. While they dance on the rim of the chipped and cracked coffee mug, she uses them to keep her attention away from her own unsettling, fear-provoking thoughts. She watches them and concentrates on their actions. One of them jigs backwards. So far,

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that it falls off the top of the mug. Irrational, she loses patience with them. After two abortive attempts, she flicks the remaining ant across the room. Then, squashing the other ant on the table, she resumes her customary place on the bed – facing the door with her back against the wall, her knees drawn into her chest with her arms wrapped tightly round her legs. Like a tight little knot. Waiting. She hears the old hag through the locked door, shouting at something or someone; an animal, or a small child – pity the child that lives in this hell. Maybe she just shouts, Arlena thinks, as she hears her hawking and spitting in the room outside, because she never hears an answer. When it has been quiet, when the tiny building is empty, she has called through the door. There are cracks in the door that she can look through, but the outside door is shut when they leave, making it too dark for her to see anything out there. Once or twice, after an outburst of shouting from the old hag, or what sounded like a slap, she thought she heard a child whimper, but it could have been a cat, or dog, or her imagination. If it is a child, she considers, it will be used to the rough treatment handed out to it, growing up is such an environment as this. Normally, she is a very caring girl, but is not as if she can walk outside the room to find out, and her own immediate problems are far more urgent to her, and far outweigh the needs of others.

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The woman hawks again. The dirty wet sound of it reminds her of the itching she feels. She rubs her crotch absentmindedly through the threadbare dress – she has had no panties to wear since she left the last filthy pair off in disgust. There were bloodstains on them, too, mixed in with other stains. Idly, Arlena wonders if there is a mound of phlegm outside the door, which the woman was steadily building up. Did she spit anywhere and everywhere, as it suited her, or only in the one spot? She had heard her coughing and hawking so many times in the last couple of days. She imagines the people who hold her are walking about out there, lifting their feet with strings of old stale phlegm stretching from their feet back to the floor, as they traverse the room. She only imagines this, and she does not see anything funny in the thought. She has never seen outside the room; she has no idea what country she is in. They took her sometime ago. After moving her around for a few days, she woke up here. She has been here, she supposes, for nearly four weeks. It is difficult to keep count when she rarely sees daylight. Her attention wanders. She wonders what would have happened to her if she had met up with the other women they said they were bringing to where they held her. She stares, sightlessly, pointlessly, at the empty foil metal and cardboard containers the

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smelly old woman had brought in nights before. The memories and the reality flood back in, and the fear hits her again. *** Scores of small villages and smallholdings dot the countryside of the Republic of Serbia and Montenegro, part of the former Yugoslavia. With few means of access to traverse the tracks and unmade roads that lead to them, across rugged unkempt countryside – except for a tractor or horse and cart – these tiny spots of humanity have been left behind by progress. Slišane is one of them, picturesque at first glance, with old wooden buildings displaying scalloped and pointed eaves, and shuttered windows set in fenced off areas. Occasional shrines dotted the side of the tracks around the village and fields. Then the observer becomes aware of the layer of orange-brown dust over every surface. There is an air of slow decay everywhere. In reality, the buildings that at first glance look so quaint are badly deteriorating hovels. The soft rounded edges of the wood fronting the often-deserted cottages have deep cracks and splits caused by aging. In the rickety fenced land surrounding the inhabited buildings and sheds, rusting hulks of large and small farm machinery lay long disused under the overgrowth of long grass and weeds. The only tool the villagers can now afford is usually the bulky chisel-like piece of metal mounted on the end of a wooden shaft that they use as a crude spade, pitchfork and hoe.

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Slišane is also one of the few villages that are located at the end of a road. To get there you travel down a road until you cannot go any further – you have reached Slišane. To leave Slišane you go back the way you came, you travel up the same road until you rejoin civilisation. The few families left in the village are used to living there. They may not like it, but it is all they know and all they have. They may rail against the injustice of being there when they are young and have dreams. Time, and working to survive on the land, eventually extinguishes those rebellious thoughts in most of their minds. Their parents need them, the land needs them, and the community needs them. What else can they do but stay? Located within a triangle between Prokuplje to the North, Leskovak to the East, and Pristina to the South-west, all of these towns are at least twenty kilometres distant from Slišane. To reach them overland from the village involves a journey where one needs to travel a distance of at least fifteen kilometres simply to reach the main road, over hills, down valleys, often going in the opposite direction on dirt tracks. On one road, to Prokuplje, there is a bridge to cross. It is on the longest route. Long distances and time are involved. The people of the village, except on a Saturday, on Market day in Leskovak, do not bother. There is no reason. It costs time and it costs money. They do not have enough of either. By the time they finish tending the crops, for

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twelve or more hours a day, they have no energy to go anywhere, or do anything. They travel to Leskovak to sell their produce, to pay for their food, and to buy what they need to survive another season of back breaking, mind-numbing work in the green but dusty valley of their home. To their old-fashioned, almost medieval peasant, mentality, the towns are too huge. They are too sophisticated. You could get lost in the crowds, which was dangerous and frightening enough. Someone could rob you of your money, all the wealth you have in the world. If you were a woman, not necessarily an attractive young girl, a crowd of men would rape you, or kidnap you and sell you in another country. It was true. They may not know of it happening to any family in their area, but they had heard stories from other villages. *** “I promise you, he will meet us at the bus station, Lena.” The bridge that Vera and Arlena were sitting on, just outside their village, was crumbling, as were most of the surrounding buildings. A thin trickle of dirty brown water moved sluggishly under it. All the other smallholders, further to the north, who needed water for their land, had robbed the stream that made its thin halting way past the small insignificant properties of Slišane. If there were no rain soon, the girls’ families would be in trouble. They would need to trek for

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water to the nearest well, four and a half kilometres away; or lose their crops. Vera Popovic and Arlena Mirijevo had been friends since Vera had moved to Slišane with her family eighteen months previously, taking over a smallholding her mother’s dead father had left, when he died under his tractor. Her disabled mother was unable to run the place on her own. Vera’s parents thought it a healthy way to live, and it would keep their wayward daughter out of trouble. After the first season, they deeply regretted the move from Belgrade. Now, the little money they got for their flat in the city was sucked up in the dusty unproductive earth of Slišane, in a small holding too tiny to be productive, the trapped family had nowhere else to go. Ever since they became friends, since there was a shortage of men in the area, the girls argued over the few available boys and men. Although there is a large army camp thirty kilometres away as the crow flies, occupied at present by the Podgorica Corps, both having heard the stories, the girls stayed clear of the soldiers. The ‘He’ they spoke of, was twenty-two-year-old Mica, Vera’s boyfriend of a few weeks. He came from Pristina, and he had a Yugo – transport of any kind was a plus for an eligible man – and some very questionable friends. Late last year, a few weeks ago, October, three of them had been in the car when it stopped in Slišane, ostensibly lost. Since then, the two girls, much to the consternation of their parents, had been collected a few times, and were wined and

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dined by the men when they drove them to the surrounding towns. The topic of conversation during those times often turned to the meagre future prospects of a farmer in Slišane and its neighbouring areas. A few nights later, Mica – who had brought yet another male friend along for the careful Arlena to look over – returned to the same subject, discussing the girls’ opportunities in Italy or Greece. Both the girls desperately wanted to leave Slišane. By simple observation, they knew that if they stayed, the heavy work demanded from the earth would wreck their lithe young bodies. Vera, the one with the hard knowledgeable eyes, said she was keen to work on the ferries that plied their way between the Islands of the Aegean. The younger naïve Arlena, although desperately wanting to leave, was extremely wary of the men from Pristina to whom Vera had introduced her. Slišane was all the eighteen-year-old knew of life. To Arlena, Vera’s open behaviour may have shown her as naïve too, but that was untrue. She was far more mature and streetwise than Arlena. Even if, as a developing beauty, Arlena was by far the prettier of the two of them, Vera was pushier, and she was in absolute control of her timorous friend. Over the next weeks, Mica and his friends slowly sold them the idea of a better, more exciting life in the southeast of Europe. With verbal examples, photographs, and stories of their own experiences, of holidaying in the different countries, they painted a picture of themselves as experienced travellers. They were, they told the girls,

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members of a rich, new, free Europe that was open to all who risked breaking out of the mould of subjection to State, and poverty. Although unconvinced by their stories, for Arlena, the image of serving holidaymakers meals on the ferries in the Aegean far outweighed the image of backbreaking toil in the fields from morning to night. Slowly, relentlessly, the men wore the girls down, until Arlena eventually, with many misgivings, agreed to join Vera and Mica on a three-day trip across the former Yugoslavian state of Macedonia to Greece and back. During their time away, he would show them that it really was all true. Even after the decision, the two friends discussed, argued, about the change of plan that had occurred suddenly that weekend. Mica had a job to do for his boss, the day they were supposed to leave. Instead of coming himself on the day, he had bought bus tickets for them and had delivered them the previous day. He would be in Skopje, when they reached there, he told them firmly, to pick them up and take them the rest of the way. Steady, careful Arlena was ready to pull out from Vera’s dream trip; Vera was having none of it. Using all her guile, she repeated every single reason why they should still go on the trip. So what if Mica was not going on the day? They were going to go anyway, before, were they not? She pounded her friend’s brain with incessant information and questions, while continuing to supply Arlena with the answers that sounded right. The final persuasion,

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when Vera saw she was getting nowhere, was the cash carrot that Mica had told her to leave to the last; 50 Euros spending money – a fortune for anyone like Arlena. The argument now was whether Mica would really be at the bus station, or whether he was going to let them down at the last minute. “You’ll find out when you get there, won’t you?” Vera had said it waspishly. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. If he isn’t there and you are not happy, we can always turn round and come back.” It was the one way she knew how to get her own way with Lena; make her feel bad; make her think you were annoyed; make her think you were no longer her friend. It was wearing for Arlena. She disliked, and was unused to Vera’s stressful and demanding tactics. So eventually, hating the dislike in her best friend’s voice, she finally gave in. Still unwilling, yet with a resigned shrug, the Montenegrin equivalent of, ‘Oh... Okay, then,’ Arlena finally, reluctantly, yielded to her friend’s arguments. After Vera had her way, they sat on the crumbling bridge, Lena listened to her best friend, as she told her, all over again, how wonderful their lives were going to be.

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5 Robliza de Cojoz, Spain. 3 a.m. 29 January. The enormous double tractor unit with Spanish plates draws off the main highway onto a deserted filling station site at Robliza de Cojoz, fifteen kilometres from Salamanca. As the driver wheels it across the hard standing, its headlights sweep across the wide expanse of an empty lot, picking out the long thick concrete steps on which fuel pumps were once mounted. The beams cast long moving fingers of light across the defunct cash office, an empty almost windowless showroom, and metal shutters behind which is perhaps a workshop. As the huge vehicle moves forward, while the headlights sweep further, the driver can make out parts of large swathes of graffiti on the walls of the concrete building. As if he were watching separate frames pass before him, enormous blocky shapes, and shoulder-high initials sprayed in red, black and yellow glare out briefly. As the headlights pass, his brain

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tries but fails to retain a whole picture. Where the tractor eventually stops, before the driver extinguishes the lights, the glow from the edges of their beams illuminates a huge metal derrick-like construction, at the rear of the empty lot. It looms, squatting like a vast black metallic insect over the empty office building, accentuating the neglect of the building. With its massive girders and crossbeams, visible against the dark night sky, it sprawls, thick and black against January’s bleak shimmering stars. The driver climbs tiredly from his cab and sets off towards the middle unit of his rig. The sounds of heavy truck doors opening, squealing on un-oiled hinges at the side of the front box unit, banging noisily, echo boomingly against the trailer wall as they bounce off it. They vibrate, thrumming out of unison, on the side of the huge body, before finally, gradually, shimmying to a silent standstill. The driver waits a while, uncertain, before heading purposefully toward the empty building. Like any truck driver, he has to piss sometime. After he has finished, he wanders along the front of the building, examining up close the content of the graffiti. While he continues to study the ultra punk art that meanders across concrete walls and broken and cracked windows, minutes later, a white Toyota van, its body down on its springs, sways slowly into the lot from the opposite direction of the tractor unit. From the West, from Portugal. As it draws level with the open side doors of the truck and stops, the rear doors open. Seventeen people - men

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and women with children - disgorge and begin to climb silently into the tractor unit under the hasty combined guidance of the two drivers. As the last of them climb into the trailer, a black Mercedes saloon pulls quietly into the lot, followed by a smoking, breathy, Iveco box van. It, too, is overloaded, and another twenty-five to thirty shadows climb out and head quietly, docilely, toward the open side of the tractor unit. People smuggling is a lucrative thriving and growing business in Europe. At any one time, all over Europe, thousands of people are moving, or hiding, waiting patiently for the rough crew to take them to the next stage of their long journey towards freedom. Shades of black, brown, yellow and white. Migrants from the former states of the Soviet Union and Iraq, Iran, Africa, and Albania are among this group, as well as Kurds, and one Tibetan. All these people have paid at least 3000 Euros to be herded across Europe to their eventual destinations in affluent Countries like France, Germany and the United Kingdom. For some, like the Tibetan, and the Africans, it counted as further payment, after getting this far. Classed as an extra risk, because of their different colour and appearance, some were making the trip for the second or third time, after previous captures and free return to their original point of departure. Persistently, they tried to reach the ‘Promised Land’ of wealthy Europe, the majority of them heading towards the UK, after

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various European customs forces had returned them to their own countries. For weeks at a time, at least half of this group had sweated and slept while they were on the road or, while they stayed in filthy squalid conditions, waiting for the next passage. Until the smugglers judged there were enough in the group for the risk of profit, and the time was right and the risk was low enough for further movement to the next waypoint. All the while, the people smugglers, including those who moved the group into the tractor unit, and who had total control over their pitiful lives, received messages. Messages that flitted backwards and forwards, from further down the route. Coded messages that told the drivers where to go next, when to move and when to stop, and when to hide their filthy miserable and desperate cargo. Until someone in the gang felt it was safe to move them on again, another few scant kilometres further down the road. Using his own company vehicles, and a network of road, rail and sea routes that he and his colleagues had developed, the man in the Mercedes was one of the most successful smugglers of all the gangs involved. Fast boats moved people furtively from Albania, Africa, Morocco and Tunisia to Italy then, stuffed eight or nine at a time into any car that the gang bought cheap or stole, they were driven haphazardly to Belgium, Germany and France.

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Inhumanly treated, all they desired was a job and a decent life in England, or anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Since the UK was the one country in the EU with no identity system, they felt safer heading there. All the other countries demanded an ID; not England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. As there was no ID system in the UK, the racketeers assured them, they had a better chance of staying there. Quiet murmurs and sharp, hushed, shushing from exhausted parents to sleepy complaining youngsters. The driver of the Mercedes gets out of the car and walks lightly, purposefully toward the tractor unit. The three drivers watch as the small, lithe figure approaches them. One of them, the van driver, a fat man wearing a stained green tee shirt under his leather jacket, his belly hanging over the belt of his worn greasy trousers, sidles toward the corner of the tractor unit. “José!” A quiet but harshly accented voice. “Sigñor?” The van driver stays close to the tractor unit. His shoulders hunch up defensively as his head goes down. His body language shows him preparing to jump, if only he knew in which direction to jump. The small man steps close to him. He is light on his feet, maybe in his mid thirties. On this freezing morning, his hands are deep in the pockets of his fashionable knee-length driving coat. The driver can

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see his face, reflected faintly in the sparse starlight that diffuses from the side of the white van. A handsome face, it is square and angular with a pointed chin. The thin-lipped mouth is small and the eyes well spaced. The nose has been bent or broken sometime in the past, but is slim and Romanesque, with a slight deviation and dent to the long bridge. The handsome face, bronzed in daylight, has high cheekbones, and the man wears his thick waved brown hair, shot through with blonde streaks, so that it touches the collar of his shirt. In daylight, the deep brown eyes look cold, out of place in such a face. Now, they look like bright shiny nail heads. They have behind them, further down if one is close enough to see, hard and dangerous depths. “You were seen, my friend,” the man tells the visibly cringing fat driver. “I know about the Serb girl. Where is she?” The way the driver is standing it is difficult to see where his fleshy shoulders meet his trunk-like neck. He stares at the smaller man. If there is any expression in his eyes, it is that of a rabbit, caught in the headlight glare of the hunter’s vehicle. He shuffles his feet uncomfortably, his back tight against the corner of the tractor unit. Bobby Galeazza moves closer. He lays his arm softly, almost companionably, over the thick shoulders. “Look at me,” he tells the shaking man, who is trembling with fear so much a large part of his body is wobbling in sympathy.

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Reluctantly, the driver raises his head and gazes down dolefully at the other man. Bobby’s presence, in spite of his smaller height, seems to engulf him. In the available light, his eyes appear as tiny black marbles. The fat man sees rage there, but the darkness in them holds no life. Just rage, and a promise of violence. The driver does not see Bobby’s hand emerge from his coat pocket with the Stanley knife in it. He registers the click, as the short triangular blade slides forward out of the squat handle, but he is unable to connect it with anything. He is waiting for what happens next, for a question he can answer, an accusation he can deny. He knows if he opens his mouth to speak, he will give himself away. As Bobby turns his body towards him, he is aware of something pressing against the side of his hip but, again, there is no connection to anything else. He has no idea of the knife in Bobby’s hand, and the point of its blade, as it begins to saw silently through his leather jacket. Over the years, the retractable blade of the Stanley knife has been the single refinement to Bobby’s favourite weapon of choice, and that was the manufacturer’s convenient modification. The simple, easy to use, British carpet-cutting and trimming knife appealed to his twisted thinking, almost as soon as he had removed it from its previous English owner, at a football match in Milan. Naturally he had tried it out, on its previous owner, and he has not looked at any other weapon since. He left the fool a memento, of course. He felt

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quite proud when he heard he was the owner of a ‘Box Knife’, the weapon the 9/11 hijackers were reported to have used when they took over the planes that plunged into twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. The pressure of the blade point against the driver’s clothes breaks through. The stainless steel tip slides through the ample flesh of his hip. José’s shocked whimper turns to a sharp shriek, as the especially hardened blade plunges first through flesh, then thick millimetres into his hipbone. The dense honeycomb structure of the bone stops its piercing momentum. It is stuck firmly, until its owner decides to pull it back out. The fingers of Bobby’s other hand squeeze through the pulp of the shocked and whimpering driver’s neck, finding the place that paralyses. He uses his own body to wedge the shaking man between himself and the back of the unit. He is small, yes, but strong, and he is very powerful when he is angry. Terrified eyes stare out at the small dark tableau from the open doors of the trailer unit. This is Bobby Galeazza at work, making sure people know what he wants from them, and showing them the consequences if they fail in any way. He enjoys his work immensely. “You are such a fool,” he rasps in the driver’s ear. “Don’t I pay you enough you have to steal my product from me?” The driver gasps and whimpers at the sharp, eye-watering, searing pain that emanates from his hip and shoots down his leg into his

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toes, via the nerves of his foot. He hopes there is a possibility of safety in silence. He can feel the blood begin to soak through his jeans. The warmth of it is sluggishly beginning to pool, soaking his leg, becoming colder the further it travels. He wants, desperately, to wiggle, to lift his leg and to ease the pain. Most of all, he wants to run, but he is too scared, and too fat. He tries to tell Bobby he is sorry, it will never happen again, but it all comes out as a burbling, “Disculpe, hablo muy ... Yo ...” “Esto no ostá bien!” Bobby grates at him. “You’ve made a big mistake, you fat pig. You have made me very fucking angry and you should know better after all these years. If you want to stay alive you’ll bring her back, or show me the body—” Headlights flare over them, and Bobby tries to push the fat man in front of him, across the corner of the trailer, out of sight. He fails. The hold he has on the artery in the man’s neck is very effective, and it has turned him into a huge lump of soft immovable clay that Bobby’s hands sink into as he tries to push him. The lights continue to sweep and illuminate most of the empty filling area, as a travel-stained white Mitsubishi van drives slowly past them. It heads towards the far side of the lot, near the exit, where it stops. As they watch, a man, who seems to be the only one on board, emerges from the right hand door and begins walking around, stiff-legged, apparently easing his tight joints after sitting for

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an age. He wanders out of sight, around the corner of the empty building, as he explores the unfamiliar parking facilities. Bobby has no time for José now. With a twist of his wrist, viciously, he snaps the knife blade, leaving the tip in the driver’s hip. The fat driver yelps, his hand automatically reaching to soothe the pain of the, now, much larger tear in his flesh, where Bobby had bent the knife as he broke the blade. In pain and fearful of what other injuries might be visited upon his huge body, frightened for his life, he remains still, motionless except for tiny tremors that run through his flesh. Hurt and scared though he is, he knows that Sigñor G has not finished with him yet. Sigñor G has not. Not until he gets his property back. Nevertheless, Sigñor G is angry. Raging angry. He has had death on his mind during the two weeks he has waited to catch up with the fat slob. Yes, the girl is good looking – but she will not be a virgin by this time. Yes, her loss has caused him to lose money, but he has plenty of girls in his strings, all over Europe. The sight of the fearful, stupid, wobbling driver incenses Bobby as he watches him shake before him. His dumb animal eyes are pleading, welling with salt tears, while his lower lip vibrates as it leaks spittle down the side of his jaw. Fearful, he waits for his master’s next command. Bobby looks through the murky shadows, across the large expanse of the old filling station to the Mitsubishi van that has interrupted him.

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The driver reappears from behind the building. He looks over in their direction, holds his gaze for a few seconds, before continuing to scout out his potential parking space. English. Bobby grins, as he realizes the van’s steering wheel is on the wrong side of the vehicle. No one but a stupid Englishman would drive while sitting on the wrong side of the cab and not be able to see to overtake, he thinks, derisively. He curses savagely. This night’s work is worth over a hundred thousand Euros, just from this cargo that he is moving; he does not think of them as human beings. Once he has split the useable women and kids off, and sold them down the line, he will clear close to a quarter of a million. He cannot afford idiots like this fat pig. He cannot afford a chance of suspicion from a stupid English driver. While he watches, a loaded tractor unit pulls out from behind the end of the building. He swears. He had not seen that either. It rolls to the exit and pulls onto the road. He watches its red lights dwindle, before turning his attention back to the van. The man has returned to his vehicle. He takes one more look in their direction. Is he looking at us? Can he see us clearly? It is a long way across the lot, and it is not light yet. The van moves once more; to the other side of the old showroom attached to

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the cash office, round the corner, reverses in, to where the tractor unit emerged, almost out of sight. Bobby’s mind works quickly. Maybe he could kill two birds with one stone. On reflection, he has no problem with the tractor that has just left; if he couldn’t see it, the driver wouldn’t have seen him either. The Englishman, though, he drove past them as he arrived. He thinks the Englishman in the van may not have seen the two other vans, or his car. They were at the far side of the tractor and trailer unit. But, he can see them from where he is now. He quickly decides he cannot take the chance. He sends the Iveco off and moves his car and the Toyota further out of sight, beside the showroom. Not finished with that fat slug yet. He visualises what he will do to him. He has no idea yet what he really wants to do, but he needs him now. He hunts round the back of the building and finds a door he easily opens with a minimum of noise. He tells the tractor driver to pull up and park in front of the showroom. Under cover of the bulk of the vehicle, just in case the man is looking, with the help of the drivers he off-loads his cargo. Between them, they guide the cold, hungry and exhausted group of immigrants to the room he found at the back of the building. It is tight, but they all fit in there. He tells them, while gesticulating

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wildly at a noisy brat, that Policia are in the area. They are staying here until it is safe. He does not care if they believe him. While the tractor was moving, while he watched for further movement from the Englishman, he had seen the roof rise on the van. A collection of thoughts flitted through Bobby’s mind. Is he on his own? Is he a tourist? Would anyone miss him? No matter. We are going to have a tragic accident. He studies the roof of the van from his position, far away, on the other side of the lot. Not good, he knows, but he is not going any nearer. He has enough complications. As far as he can make out, levers at either side hold up the van roof. A surrounding canvas skirt forms a box shape, enclosing the extra space under the roof, forming a wedge-shaped tent on top of the van. He has seen them before but never needed to study them. He supposes there is some sort of upper surface that the man sleeps on. Soon it will be a launching pad. Bobby allows a small grin to appear on his lips. Fifteen minutes later, the man is inside and an internal light is on. Bobby will wait a while, but not too long. He needs to hurry; because of this stupid interruption, they have been there far longer than usual. He has pondered these last few minutes. He knows what he is going to do about the Englishman. What to do about José? Thinking

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about him makes him angry all over again. So angry that he cannot think clearly. He considers the missing girl that the fat slug stole from him, and suspects she is now ruined; like out of date food, or water damaged stock. Rage makes him shudder at the thought. He decides. He has plenty of girls and there will always be plenty of girls. He will just have to make up the loss. This thought, and his firm decision makes his mind a little easier. Calm enough to plan. He tells the fat driver what he wants him to do; then he tells him what will happen if anything goes wrong. He takes the tractor driver off to one side and gives him his instructions. He can trust this one. Although the fat one has been with him a long time, this one has been much more useful. He neither drinks nor uses, and Bobby has used him before, when he needed someone damaged, or dead. They wait. By four o’clock, the light in the Mitsubishi has been off for more than ten minutes. Bobby is impatient. He is cold, and there is an icy wet mist forming over every surface. He has been into the room at the rear of the building twice, to tell them all to shut up and shut the fucking kids up. The second time, he lifted one of the brats up and held the Stanley to its neck. It has been satisfyingly quiet since then. Unwilling to wait any longer, he nods to the fat driver. José thinks he is going to drive his Toyota as a kind of battering ram, into the side of the English van. He is unhappy about it, but on Sigñor G’s orders, he has used some of the blankets from the people

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in the room to wrap round his front and rear bumpers. No paint scratches means no chance of traces, for when the Policia investigate, Sigñor G told him. He finishes wrapping the blankets round the rear bumper, vaguely wonders why, if he is pushing with the front bumper... It is his vehicle. It is his pride and joy, and is in very good condition. The tractor driver’s orders are different from those given to the fat man. He and Bobby stand at the front of José’s van as he finishes preparations with the blankets. Describing what he wants done, as the driver turns to climb into his cab, Bobby says to him, “Make sure you push the other van a long way. That way, the nosey Englishman will be squashed like a bug underfoot.” As the fat man quietly starts his engine and begins moving in low gear toward the side of the parked camper van, the tractor driver also starts his engine. In low gear, he quickly begins to catch up to the rear of the fat man’s van. Simultaneously, as the Toyota reaches the camper van, he touches the huge front bumper to the rear of the Toyota and floors the accelerator. By the time the fat man knows what is happening, it is too late for him to do anything, except make a hurried, panicky, fumbled grab for his door handle. Already frightened by the stabbing, and now terrified, his sweating hands finally manage to open it. He has half his bulk out of the door when the front of his van makes contact with the side of the camper van. As the door opens, the initial impact against the camper, from the

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huge force behind, feeds directly to the weakest part of the cab; the frame of the open doorway from which he is frantically trying to get out. The unsupported doorframe buckles like an empty beer can, pincering him in its giant vicelike grip. It grips him, squashing a furrow through him, in a line from one shoulder, down through his waist to the opposite hip - the hipbone with the piece of steel embedded in it. As his chest crushes, violently compressing his heart, air bursts violently out of his mangled lungs. His initial screams cut off abruptly, in a short wet gurgle, as either side of the frame meet at their closest points. As the rear edge of the doorframe crushes him against the front of the cab, inside the ample flesh that surrounds his hip, the hipbone splits, and breaks from the force of the pressure upon it. Bobby watches, his mouth a thin smile, as the fat man’s chest squeezes out of the crushed cab and his upper body swings out and downwards. The continual buckling of the doorframe pinches him again, this time through his unprotected belly. His lungs and liver already damaged beyond repair, the moving doorframe mangles his stomach and intestines, as his spine separates. The tractor’s speed drops off significantly as the front bumper of the van hits the side of the camper. As the tractor continues to push, the engine tone drops. With enormous horsepower applied to its side, the camper could go one of two ways; continue juddering

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sideways as it does now, or tip over. Bobby has planned for the latter. The body of the camper van begins to lift on one side, while the flexing road springs allow its wheels to remain firmly on the ground. In low gear, the tractor driver keeps the revs up. Within seconds, as the side of the camper in front of it acts first as a brake, then turns into a ramp, the front of the fat man’s van begins to climb the side of the tilting vehicle. The camper stops juddering sideways, away from the tractor’s forward force, and the higher José’s van rises up its side, the greater the tilt applied, until the camper eventually has nowhere else to go. Accompanied by dull thuds and bangs, and multiple sounds of objects falling, and the breaking and smashing sounds that emanate from inside, the wheels at last leave the ground and it crashes over on its side. Fleetingly, the tractor driver continues to apply the full force of his engine, grinding and sliding the Mitsubishi along the ground a further metre or so before letting off the revs. As he backs off, the front of the fat man’s van (the wheels and the chassis have gouged deep grooves into the metal sills) rest momentarily on the overturned camper. While he watches, the van rolls backwards and the front crashes heavily back to the ground, bouncing and creaking from the excess movement imparted through the suspension system.

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Bobby half hopes to see José’s body tear itself apart. It is unlikely that the man feels anything. His once spotless van jounces to a standstill, shaking his torso, banging and scraping the shoulders and head of his lifeless body repeatedly on the ground. Afterwards, while thinking about the extra bonus he will receive from Sigñor G for this night’s work, the tractor driver removes the blankets from the van. Following Bobby’s instructions, and with his assistance, they tidy the scene, making it appear that the two vans collided in some way, causing the deaths of both driver and occupant. Bobby checks the damage in the dim light. He is tired but happy. The effects of adrenaline, manufactured as he gleefully watched the havoc he had planned, have left him with feelings of mild weariness. If he had more time, he tells himself, he would go back across the lot and get his torch from the car. He can see the fat man is dead – he checked for a pulse anyway. He should look for the Englishman, slice through the canvas surround with his Stanley knife, at the end of the overturned van. Exhaustion is encroaching; he has been awake for too long. They need to get out of here. He is positive the Englishman is dead. After he returns to the far end of the lot, looking back toward the upturned vehicle from the other side of the defunct fuel station, he grins as he sees it is almost flat against the ground. No one could survive the crushing, grinding pressure that the tractor applied to it.

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With the fat driver out of the way, and a possible witness dead, Bobby can finally begin to get his cargo reloaded and underway. His concerns remain about the girl, the Serb girl that the fat man stole from him. Sixteen or Seventeen, a virgin – or she was the last he knew of it – very good looking with thick black hair and a good, very generous figure. She is worth a lot of money. Wherever she is, he will find her and sort her out himself. If not, if she gets away, she doesn’t know anything about him anyway, and the little she does know, she will more than likely be too scared to tell anyone. He has the manpower, and he is a tidy man. Time is pressing. Time is short. The birds are waking. Bobby sees the first streak of daylight over to the east. He turns and orders the tractor driver to load his cargo again. Nudged by a memory, prompted when he started thinking about the girl again, Bobby’s tired mind divulges the bare facts. José had a son who worked with him, who he sometimes brought along with him. He will find him first.

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6 Danny became aware of the sound and feel of shearing buckling metal. At first it startled him awake, out of the sleep of exhaustion. Then he flailed confusedly around for another few seconds before he mentally acknowledged the motion. Finally he jolted wide-awake, while the violent grumbling, juddering, hop-skipping forces tossed him over sideways, jouncing him around in the limited space under the roof of the camper. Alarmed as he tumbled into the canvas sides, like a fish in a net, he was scared that the ancient material would give way against his weight and he would plummet through it. The canvas, as his weight thrust heavily against it, could not stand up to the task of containing him in the top of the van. The material, as he kept slamming against it with the motion of the van, seventeen years old to his knowledge and already badly worn, gave way almost immediately.

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As his right foot and leg tore through it, he felt the camper tip over in short but rapid movements, in the same direction in which his foot was pointing. He knew if he did not pull his leg out of the way fast, the top of the van would crush it as it toppled over. It could trap him between it and the ground. He was too late! With his torso trapped inside the roof, his leg slid out, dropping down the side of the moving camper. Searching for something to hang on to, desperate, he reached, fumbling in the dark for the only protrusions on the inside of the roof; the handles attached to the inside of the roof that allowed him to pull it back down. Again – too late! As the camper van toppled over, it continued to judder sideways. It seemed to fall slowly, almost as if something was forcing it further on its way. As it toppled over, the side smashed heavily onto the surface of the parking lot, and he was aware of someone screaming in agony and fear, somewhere close by, screaming in his ears. Deeply embarrassed by his seemingly weak actions at such a time, he realised he was the one doing the screaming. Incongruously, he worried momentarily, about the Yacht Boy radio that he had previously balanced precariously beside his head before he dropped off to sleep. Already he could feel his leg, bent around the upright, cracking at the knee joint, as the motion of the capsized van forced it around the rigid metal strut, pulling his leg with it.

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Accompanied by the reverberation of a massive engine, its driver revving the guts out of it, the van slid inexorably forward over the broken ground, dragging his trapped foot and leg. The agony caused him to scream again, uncontrollably, as sharp loose gravel tore into his flesh. Insane with pain, trying anything he could, he reached forward to grasp his thigh with both hands. His fevered terrified mind reminded him of people who had amputated their own limbs, to affect an escape from a hopeless situation. Utterly out of control now, he felt that was the way to save his life. But no matter how he tried, he was unable to get it to work. His sweaty hands found no purchase on the bare skin of his leg. Instead, his right hand became caught, between his thigh and the unyielding upright. His arm broke as he lost consciousness, trapped against his right leg as the van dragged and squashed him against the surface of the ground across which it pushed him. His face rattled across the coarse gravel, tearing his cheek, chin and nose. Fortunately, by that stage, he knew nothing of any of the additional injuries inflicted on his already tortured body. The real pain, when it came – the pain that finally forced him to scream unremittingly – was nothing like he had expected from the little he had heard about crush injuries. Far worse than he imagined, he was unable to cope with it. As he had always managed to sleep in spite of the constant pain from the nerve damage in his back – so he slept now. He felt himself pulled further through the canvas side and

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fall further – without touching bottom. Then, after an interminable period of unendurable, sheer torture to his leg and his back, as he hung in space, he escaped into a deep sleep.

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7 Robliza de Cojoz, Spain. Ten a.m. 31 January. “I can’t work this out,” one of the Spanish traffic officers heard the accident investigation officer say, while he was discussing the accident with two other men from his division. It was mid-morning on the day of the accident. They were at the side of the lot of the disused fuel station, at Robliza de Cojoz, keeping watch and keeping many curious onlookers away from the scene. There were many more cars and people around the area today than usual. The traffic officer’s gloves were off, held under his armpit, while he rubbed some life back into his fingers. He opened his mouth wide, huffed slowly into his cupped hands, then rubbed them again for good measure before putting the warm gloves back on again. For the last quarter of an hour, the investigator had been wandering around the site of the accident mumbling inaudibly to

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himself. The cold that pinched his face and reddened his nose and eyes did not seem to affect his brain. It was unusual that he had not attempted to take any preliminary notes yet. Neither had he drawn a sketch. Although these things were not something that was part of other inspectors’ routines, this officer was thorough, his peers in the apartment knew this, appreciated it, and often joked about his almost robotic intent and predicted logic when he became involved in any investigation. As an instance, apart from the official chart of the scene, usually he made a quick, first impressions sketch, as soon as he got to a scene, first impressions for which the official form had no space. Over the years, he had found it invaluable when he needed a comparison with his final report, or as a memory prompt at a court hearing or an inquest. It helped him to think the scene through. When he referred back to the original notes, weeks or months afterwards, if he had to appear as a witness in court, it was always those first impressions that he remembered clearly, and from there he could build his recollection of the complete scene. This morning, however, he had started sketching as usual, and then stopped, a puzzled look on his face. Since he arrived on the scene, over an hour ago, he had wandered from one end of the lot to the other, peering at the ground, picking up pieces of gravel and stone, comparing, mumbling to himself distractedly. Twice, he had walked the full length of the area, pausing at the far end, by the entrance, to make notes.

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“What’s the problem?” Happy to be involved with something to think about, the bored traffic officer, cold from standing around, approached him, mindful of where he put his feet. With the temperature below freezing, he could expect to be at the site for at least another three or four hours. If he got involved, maybe it would make the time go faster. “This van,” the investigator pointed to the Toyota with the crushed front. Rips and deep cuts showed in the passenger door and frame, the violent signs of the hydraulically driven jaws of death, the recovery crew used to extract the body of the dead driver. The front of the Toyota almost touched the bottom of the overturned camper, which still lay where it had tipped over, on its side. There was no more than a metre distance between them. “For this van to be so close to this other one, it tells me that someone might have pushed it into this position. The handbrake isn’t on. When it bounced back from the impact, from falling off this Mitsubishi, it should have continued to roll backwards. It should not be anywhere near this camping van. If anything, it’s in such good mechanical condition, I wouldn’t surprise me if it had been half way across this level area before it stopped on its own.” The traffic officer, standing unconcerned beside a dried pool of vomit, shot through with fresh congealing blood, studied the scene for a while.

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“Is that Toyota heavy enough to cause all that movement? I would have thought, from where these scratch marks begin, it wouldn’t have been able to reach the other one at any speed, not without spinning the Mitsubishi.” He moved around the scene, always careful where he put his feet, a veteran traffic cop with excellent knowledge of road accident scenes. “Would it be heavy enough to knock that one over?” he asked the investigator. “Well done, Inspector Poirot,” the investigator grinned, “you’ll be doing my job soon. But no, you’re right,” he agreed, “the whole setup seems wrong to me. For the Toyota to hit that camper and turn it over without spinning it – which did not happen – it would have had to hit it square on. To do that, because the corner of the building is in the way, it would have hit it at slow speed. If that were so, it would not have been able to build up enough force to knock the van over. And if it had hit it square on at speed, it would have forced it sideways, not tipped it over. Look at this,” he continued, indicating the top side of the overturned vehicle. “See these two gouges?” He was pointing where the Toyota’s chassis had cut into the base of the Mitsubishi side door. “Something very wrong here...” he continued, as a patrol car pulled into the lot and stopped close to them. Puzzling over the inconsistencies, they ignored the large overweight man with Sergeant’s insignia, who heaved himself out of the driver’s seat and approached them.

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“How much longer, Valdez?” the Sergeant asked the investigator as he came up to him. As the investigator began to repeat his misgivings about the crash scene, the Sergeant stopped him with a raised hand. “Don’t tell me,” he told him in a gruff voice, with a definite hint of grumble in it. “I’m not on this anymore.” The other two men eyed each other, humorously. The disgruntled Sergeant was a well-known old woman back at the station. He sounded it now, as he waved a hand vaguely, taking in the scene with the two vans in it. “Vesco’s taking over the case.” “How come?” the investigator asked, mildly surprised but intrigued. It fitted with the inconsistencies he kept finding at the scene. The police officer he had been talking to looked surprised as well. “Don’t ask. All I know is that I’m out and Vesco is in. It’s not the first time they’ve put him on a case like this. Particularly when it’s someone else’s case. I reckon he has something on them,” he said, mysteriously, one finger on the side of his nose. “Don’t you even want to know—?” “No. I don’t,” the sergeant cut in. “When you’ve finished your report, send it to Vesco,” he told him. He turned, and stomped back to his car. “It’s his case now,” he said, continuing to grumble to himself as he rummaged through his overcoat pockets. Finding the cigarettes he was looking for, he opened the door and got behind the

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wheel. In a tone of voice that sounded more sulky than pure grumble, he told the scene of crime officer, “Let him sort it out.” The last word was almost lost as he finished winding the window up and keyed the ignition at the same time. The traffic cop tapped on the window. “Why the uniform?” he asked the disgruntled Sergeant. “Funeral,” he said, shortly, and wound the window back up without further explanation. He lit his cigarette, and continued to sit and fill the car with smoke for a minute or two before driving off. The uniformed man and the investigator eyed each other again. The traffic cop looked almost as disappointed as the accident investigator. Both of them had been keen to talk about what they found. They began discussing the new head of the investigation. Known as an unorthodox detective, Sergeant Vesco was a wild card. Rarely seen at the Police Station when he was operating on an investigation, he was usually involved in the more intricate cases. His detection and clear up rates were superb, leading to repeated offers of promotion. He always refused, his reason being that he felt he was more valuable on the streets of Salamanca than behind a desk. His superiors, agreeing with his estimation whole-heartedly, rarely argued with him. They would have a hard time filling his position with anyone half as productive as Vesco was. While the traffic cop turned to watch the sergeant drive off, the accident investigator turned back to his examination, moved to

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crouch over the congealing pool of vomit. “I reckon whoever pushed this van to this position was lining this door up, with this,” he remarked to the newly attentive traffic cop. “This is from the dead man’s stomach, and this is where he was positioned when he died. I'll check it back at the lab, but I’m clear in my own head about it. Whoever was involved tried to rebuild the scene. Have you noticed how bent and buckled the rear bumper of the Toyota is?” He continued leading the other man round the van, took him on a tour of the lot. He showed him where small pieces of concrete had moved, lifted from one place and dropped at the scene of the accident. Left on his own, he continued to move around the lot for the next hour, stopping sometimes to peer at different areas of the ground, then moving on to the next point of interest. At one point, he walked the whole length of the plot, back to the entrance, and spent some time there. His mind flitting from one incongruity to another, he paced impatiently around what he now considered was a crime scene.

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FEBRUARY

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POLICE SMASH LARGE SEX RING February 3. Two days after breaking up a gang that smuggled Eastern European women into Greece to work as sex slaves, police said yesterday they had arrested 14 members of a similar ring, which was bigger and more highly organized. Attica police said they had arrested 11 Greek and three suspected foreign gang members, believed to have lured at least 28 young women from impoverished Eastern European countries to Greece over the past five months – ostensibly to work in bona fide positions. Once in the country, the victims were locked up in Athens flats, raped beaten and forced to work as prostitutes, while the gang took all their earnings. Two of the women were underage. Warrants have been issued against another eight suspects. During a raid on a Nea Smyrni office used by the gang, police seized a computer containing a list of 15,000 clients, with their names, phone numbers and sexual tastes. Officers also seized six handguns, a shotgun, a rifle, handcuffs and a police badge. Apparently, gang members posed as policemen, to further intimidate their victims.

(Associated Press)

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8 Weeks of terror and pain, and gut wrenching shame and humiliation. Weeks of dying, again and again. Each time, as the enormous fist round her throat choked off her breath, she died. *** Ever since they brought her here, a horrible, constant, gnawing pain ate at Arlena’s vitals. All the time, since they first started hurting her. After they had left her, that first time, when she eventually fought back to consciousness, she was ill. Sick and ill. She retched and puked air and thin bile on the sparse diet they fed her. Her body felt as if it was vibrating, from the inside out, and she twitched unpredictably every now and then, as white noise flashed through her head. While in mental agony, inside, every part of her body ached and was sore. She ached in another way as well. A flu-like feeling, that made the surface of her skin sore and her joints aching.

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Her legs felt weak, and unable to support her. She flushed often, and her temperature felt high. A deep feeling of need grew within her. In some vague way she desperately needed something. Something that she knew in her soul would make her feel, if not good, at least a little better. Better than she felt at the moment. She shrieked in terror when she saw the needle in the fat man’s hand. She had backed up on the bed, her back hard into the corner of the room, attempting to make herself as small as possible. She only stopped screaming when he backhanded her with his ham fist. Then she moaned softly, despairingly into her bruised mouth, as he held her arm rock steady, found the vein, and forced the poison through the needle and into her body. As she settled back comfortably into the rush of well-being, in spite of herself, vaguely happy, yet still terrified in what she distantly perceived as her far worsened situation; that was when she stopped hoping, and caring.

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