Page 54

It was getting late and already the hospital car park was starting to thin out.

Parking up her bike, Helen scanned the bleak vista in front of her, but was unsurprised to find no trace of the battered white van.

It was too early for that. She suspected it would only surface once the majority of ordinary folk had departed.

Certainly that was what the timings on the parking tickets suggested, meaning she had time to kill.

Crossing the car park, she made her way to the Londis on the other side of the road.

There was a fancy new M&S in the hospital foyer, but caution won out, as Helen couldn’t be sure there weren’t spotters in the vicinity, keeping an eye out for any suspicious activity or police presence before the arrival of the enslaved workers.

Helen was a striking figure, well known to many local criminals, and it wouldn’t do to advertise her presence here, so she moved away from the entrance, stepping inside the convenience store.

As she did so, her stomach growled angrily.

Helen realized that she hadn’t eaten a thing all day, distracted by her distressing confrontations with Christopher and her ongoing hunt for Selima.

Grabbing a packet of salt and vinegar crisps from the shelf, she moved on to the refrigerated section in search of a sandwich.

Over the years, she’d toyed with various eating regimens, in an attempt to be healthier or more principled, but was quite traditional when it came to her choice of sandwich, usually opting for a BLT, tuna mayo or a chicken tikka wrap.

Staring at the rows of colourfully packaged offerings, however, Helen suddenly realized that she couldn’t face any of those, the mere thought of them making her feel sick.

This unnerved her. Was this her mind playing tricks on her or was her pregnancy once more making its presence felt?

Pushing these thoughts away, she selected the blandest cheese and pickle she could find and marched to the till.

Heading back out onto the street, Helen made her way down the left-hand edge of the car park, keeping a wary eye out for any loitering figures.

Her helmet remained on, in a deliberate attempt to conceal her identity, but in truth this was overkill, as the entrance to the hospital seemed deserted.

Still, it wouldn’t do to linger, so she hurried on her way, ducking under a barrier to continue down the western boundary of the hospital building.

The van’s parking tickets were for violations at the rear, where staff and tradespeople accessed the hospital.

This made perfect sense as the workers presumably had a job to do and would be out of sight behind the main building, an arrangement that no doubt suited their handlers.

Keeping her pace high and purposeful, Helen walked fast down the towering open-air walkwaysbetween the main hospital buildings, before eventually emerging into a small courtyard to the rear.

Immediately, she found what she was looking for, the yellow hatched area close to the rear entrance in which the van had been photographed by the enforcement officer.

They were unlucky to have been ticketed so late at night, leading her to wonder if the authorities had been tipped off.

Was it standard practice for the van to park up in a loading bay, ignoring the no-parking signs, provoking the ire of hospital staff?

Was it a staff member who’d lost patience and called the traffic enforcement unit?

If so, Helen suspected it made little difference, the van only needing to be in position for a few minutes to drop off and pick up the workers.

Better to swallow the odd parking fine than loiter in plain sight on the street or by the front entrance, where CCTV cameras were plentiful.

Slowing, Helen cast an eye over the loading bay, then down the alleyway ahead which connected the rear of the hospital to Marshall Street.

This was presumably the access point for the van, so she would have to set up camp here, if she was to smoke them out.

Casting around her, her eye alighted on a scruffy portacabin twenty feet or so away, used by those engaged in onsite construction, the builder’s logo displayed next to a scattered selection of concrete mixers and breeze blocks.

Making her way over, Helen was not surprised to find the cabin locked, but was pleased nevertheless to see how easily the door rattled in her hand, how flimsy the lock actually was.

Applying her shoulder to the door, she leaned on it, testing its resistance, then taking a brief step back, launched her shoulder at it.

The door instantly flung open, the lock surrendering easily, and she stepped quickly inside, closing it behind her and securing it shut with the help of a fire extinguisher.

Moving to the window, she teased the blind open, wary lest a passing porter or nurse had spotted her trespass, but the yard remained deserted and quiet.

Pulling a battered plastic chair over to the window, Helen removed her helmet and took up her surveillance post as she had countless times before.

There would be no sign of the van for a while yet, so now all she could do was wait.

In times gone by, Helen would have had a colleague with her to discuss the case and distract her from her thoughts.

Tonight, however, she had no one to divert her, her mind constantly turning on her predicament.

Would Christopher give up his pursuit of her or was he committed to jumping ship?

Helen didn’t want any part of that, not merely because she would be happy now if she never saw Christopher again, but more because she didn’t want to become the third party in an acrimonious marital break-up.

She hadn’t signed up to be ‘the other woman’ – Helen didn’t even know she was Christopher’s lover – and couldn’t face his wife’s righteous anger, however justified it might be.

Rising, Helen stretched her legs, trying to shake off these thoughts, to force her mind onto happier topics.

But even as one hour passed, then another, she kept coming back to the bind she now found herself in.

She had no appetite to see her body grow, alter and stretch, the poor baby coming to life inside her, yet how easy would it really be to pick up the phone and make an appointment at the abortion clinic?

Even entertaining the thought made her feel cruel and heartless, yet what choice did she have?

Even if the baby did make it into the world unscathed, Helen knew she would be a terrible mother, hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with this ultimate responsibility.

She had such a cynical view of the world, was so jaundiced by past experience, how could she possibly avoid infecting a new baby with her own peculiar brand of darkness?

It wasn’t a kind thing to do, it wasn’t even fair.

Wasn’t history always destined to repeat itself, her own emotional and psychological damage running down through the years?

Would it really be wise to bring another ‘Helen’ into the world?

Sighing bitterly, Helen walked back to the creaky chair, throwing herself disconsolately down into it.

She put her feet up on the wall, expecting another long bout of anguished tedium, but as she did so, she heard something.

The low growl of an engine. Straightening up, she peered through the blind.

At first, she saw nothing, only then to pick out twin beams of light growing stronger as a vehicle approached.

Helen held her breath as the sound grew louder and now a battered white van pulled up in the parking bay, Helen’s eyes fastening on to the registration plate.

To her dismay, the registration plate was different to the one she’d clocked during her desperate pursuit, but now her eye was drawn to the brake lights, only one of which worked.

Running her eye over the shattered left brake light, the battered bodywork, Helen felt sure this was the same van.

The criminals who used it had taken basic precautions to disguise its provenance, but she was certain that this was them.

Exhilarated, Helen moved closer to the glass, determined not to miss a beat.

The driver’s door flew open and a muscular man jumped out, his face briefly illuminated by the street lighting.

Helen’s heart skipped a beat as she took in his ravaged features, her gaze fixing on the heavy scarring and unmoving eye.

Casting warily around him, the man moved to the rear of the vehicle, flinging the doors open.

Sliding along the window, Helen changed her angle, keen to see what was happening.

And now she saw them, a line of silent, downtrodden women in tatty tracksuits, plastic aprons and white face masks filing silently out of the back of the van.

Was the woman who bumped into her at the money exchange present?

It was hard to tell, but Helen earnestly hoped so, her desperation, her anguish still fresh in her mind.

So what now? Part of Helen was tempted to call the police, to have them swoop down on the thuggish guards and cowed workers, setting the latter free from their misery.

But another part of Helen, the wiser part, urged caution.

For her, there was no question that this unfortunate group of broken women were just a small part of a much bigger picture, one of the many posses of illegal workers sent out every night in Southampton.

If her instinct was right, they were part of a sophisticated and wide-ranging operation, a criminal enterprise that was worth hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of pounds each year.

So, desperate as she was to intervene, to save these women, Helen knew that she had to remain concealed for now.

She needed to find the source of these women’s misery, the gang bosses and paymasters who controlled them.

She needed to find out where they were being held.