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“Are you okay, Miss Wolfe?” Guinevere looks at her boss with concern.

“I’m fine but, we have an injured girl in the car and another who has fallen asleep, we need to get them in the house and into the living room.”

“Goodness, of course.”

They round the car and I hear Annika bargaining with Mabel for her to allow Guinevere to carry her young companion. Dooley joins me next to the car, his face pale and worried.

“I-I should help get them in safe.”

“No, man. I appreciate you want to help but the less people interacting with them, the better.”

His chin wobbles and I squeeze his shoulder, dipping my head to look him in the eye. He shakes his head. “I hit her. I hit the poor girl.”

“It was dark, they were running, and they weren’t acting rationally. There’s nothing more you could have done.” I give him another squeeze to punctuate my point and I’m not pandering. I believe my words but I’m not sure Dooley does, even when he nods and bats away a tear from his cheek with shaking fingers. “Go home, have a drink, get some rest. We’re all good here.”

He nods again and steps away to compose himself. Annika stands up from where she was bent double, negotiating with the older girl, with Mabel’s arm now over her shoulders as she hobbles. Annika is stooped low to help the girl walk with one arm around her waist. Guinevere stands, cradling the younger girl in her arms, huge worry and upset on her face. I give Dooley one last nod before following the women into the house. If Annika wants me to leave, she’ll have another thing coming.

In the expansive living room, Annika lowers the Mabel onto one of the white sofas and pulls the glass coffee table over placing her ankle on top. Guinevere lays the smaller girl on the adjacent white sofa gently stroking back her hair back and looking down at her with a sad look.

Mabel winces, shifting to look at the cushion she is sitting on. “We’re going to get your furniture messy,” she mumbles.

“Don’t worry about that,” Annika says, her voice a sharp command more than a gentle reassurance. She’s out of her element and unsure how to act. I want to help but the knife is still firmly in Mabel’s grip, and I know she doesn’t want me any closer than necessary. “Guinevere, ask Lee to call the doctor.” When the other woman heads for the door, Annika stops her. “Actually, ask him to find a female doctor who can come out urgently. Whatever payment they need, pay it.”

“Yes, Miss Wolfe.” She scurries off.

I lean back against the wall opposite where Mabel sits, I keep my hands in my pockets and try to relax my muscles to seem as unimposing as possible. She keeps her eyes on me and looks terrified, I give a slight smile, an attempt at reassurance but she doesn’t relax at all. Noticing her staring, Annika gets in her eye line. “He won’t hurt you; I promise. You can trust Harvey.”

The young girl swallows, her lips trembling. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

I feel rage, smack a motherfucker kind of rage but I try my best to push it down. Someone hurt these girls, thesechildrenand I want to make that person hurt a hundred times over. But that will have to wait. For the time being, I need to concentrate on not scaring these two.

On closer inspection, Mabel is probably a teenager. She’s too thin, for sure, and her clothes and skin are dirty; beyond grubby, caked in filth. She has light brown skin and black hair that falls beyond her shoulders in thick, course curls. Her cheeks are high and hollow and her pretty brown eyes are gaunt. I can’t see her younger companion as she’s been laid with her back to the room, but her clothes are the same and her hair is the same black.

Annika sits on the coffee table next to where Mabel’s leg rests. She places her clasped hands on her lap and rolls her shoulders. “Now,” she says. “You’re here now and it’s the middle of the night, so you’re not going anywhere. So, I think you should tell us what’s going on. Don’t you?” She tilts her head to one side, and I can imagine the neutral stare she’s given the poor girl. I will her to gentle her features and speak softly.

Mabel shakes her head as tears well in her eyes. “You’ll send us back there,” she whispers, her chin dropping to her chest.

“Back where?”

“Mabel,” I say gently, staying leant against the wall. Her head snaps up and she eyes me warily with her fingers wrappedtightly around the handle of the blade. “They hurt you? The people you’re running away from?” The tears spill from her eyes, and she nods as her body starts to shake. “I promise you, you will not be sent anywhere where people will hurt you. Was it your parents? Have you run away from home?”

She shakes her head again and looks back to Annika to speak. “They sent us away, my mum and our stepdad. Th-they sent us to that place…the place where…where…” She breaks, sobs racking her whole body. I push off the wall, wanting to get closer to her to give her reassuring words but she clocks the movement straight away and holds the blade up toward me with shaking hands. I hold my palms up in surrender and stop moving.

“Where did your parents send you?” Annika asks, her voice finally sounding soft and calming, she puts her fingers on the girl’s wrist, pushing the knife down so it’s no longer pointed at me.

“I-I don’t know where it was. But it was a house.”

“Who looked after you at the house?” I ask.

“No one. They didn’t look after us…they…” She wraps her arms around her stomach, and I feel sick. Nausea roiling through my stomach and a cold sweat collecting at the back of my neck. I know what’s coming, I know it’s going to break something inside of me. Mabel wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “There were a lot of us, eleven girls and two boys. They kept us down in the basement in…in cages,” she cries.

Shit.

Annika’s face doesn’t show the disgust I feel, she simply regards Mabel with blank curiosity. “Who’s they? Who was it keeping you there?”

She shakes her head again. “There were four men who came round, I don’t know any of their names. Sometimes they would take girls away and they wouldn’t come back again, then new girls would come and take their place.”

“These men hurt you?” Annika asks.