Authors: Robert Bryndza
T
hey froze for a moment
, Moss, Peterson and Erika. The wind rushed through the treetops above.
‘I’m not going to tell you my new name,’ said Barbora, shakily.
‘No,’ said Erika, holding up her hand. ‘Don’t say anything more.’
‘Shit, this should have been bloody obvious,’ said Moss. There was a faint beep from the open car window, and they heard Crane ask for their status and position.
‘We’ve got to call this in, boss . . . If someone in witness protection reveals themselves or is revealed, then we have to call it in,’ said Moss.
‘You’ll need a new identity,’ said Peterson, trying to hide his annoyance.
‘Wait. Please. There are things I have to say,’ said Barbora. ‘I met you because I have to talk to you about George Mitchell . . .’ She swallowed and shook even more. ‘I should tell you his real name.’
‘What’s his real name?’ asked Erika.
Barbora gulped, and it seemed like a physical effort to say it. ‘Igor Kucerov,’ she said, finally.
Peterson made for the car where the radio was.
‘Please! Let me tell you everything before you . . . Before you make it official.’
There was another pause. Crane’s tinny voice floated from far away, asking for their status and position.
‘Peterson. Tell him we’re still waiting. All is okay . . . And please, Peterson, nothing about this until we’ve heard her out,’ said Erika.
He nodded, and then sprinted off back to the car.
‘We don’t want to know your new name, or where you’re living around here,’ said Erika.
‘I live far away from here. I have more to lose than all of you put together, but I’ve made up my mind to finally speak,’ she said. ‘If we double back a bit, there’s a picnic spot up ahead.’
They followed, leaving Peterson to man the radio in the car. After a five-minute walk they came into a clearing with a picnic bench. The light had difficulty penetrating a canopy of branches high above. Again, Erika thought it must be beautiful on a summer’s day, but in the cold and gloom it was oppressive. She pushed this to the back of her mind and she and Moss sat down opposite Barbora, the table between them.
Erika offered Barbora a cigarette, and she took one gratefully from the pack. Her hands shook as she leaned in, cupping her hand for a light. Erika lit her own and Moss’s, and they inhaled in unison.
Barbora looked as if she was going to throw up. She ran her hand through her short blonde hair. It was bleached cheaply, with a yellow, straw-like appearance. She gulped and started to speak, her voice shaky.
‘I first met George Mitchell . . .
Igor Kucerov
. . . three years ago, when I was twenty. I lived in London, and I was working two jobs. One in a private members’ club in central London called Debussy’s.’ She took another drag on her cigarette, and went on, ‘I worked shifts there, and at the same time I worked in a café in New Cross called The Junction. It was a fun, vibrant place, where local artists, painters and poets met. It was also where I first met Igor. He was a regular customer, and every time he came in, we started to talk. Back then, I thought he was gorgeous and so funny. I was flattered he spent his time talking to me . . . One day, I was in work and very upset. My little iPod had broken, and it had songs and photos on it that I couldn’t replace. He was kind, but I didn’t think anything of it. When I came for my next shift a few days later, he was there, waiting with a gift bag, and inside was a new iPod . . . Not like the tiny little one I had, but the newest and most expensive, worth several hundred pounds.’
‘And that’s when you started a relationship with George / Igor?’ asked Moss.
Barbora nodded. It was growing darker, and a cloud was looming above.
‘At first, he was so wonderful. I thought I was in love and that I’d found the man I would spend the rest of my life with.’
‘What did your family think of him?’
‘It was just me and my mother. She came to England when she was in her twenties. She wanted to meet a man and live a nice middle-class life, but then she fell pregnant with me. Her boyfriend at the time didn’t want to know, so she had me on her own and struggled as a single mother. Then, when I was ten, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It was slow at first, but when I was sixteen she got really bad. I had to leave school and look after her. I took these jobs in the mornings at the café and nights at the club.’
‘So how long were you in a relationship with Igor?’ asked Moss, gently moving her story forward.
‘About a year. He did so much in that time. Helping us out. He paid for a special bathroom to be put in for my mother. He cleared my credit cards . . .’ Barbora smiled off in the distance, the memory still alive in her mind. She took a drag on her cigarette and her face clouded over.
‘Then, it was a few months into our relationship. One night we’d been to the cinema in Bromley . . . These boys had been making comments about me when we bought our tickets, stuff about my body. Igor had got angry, but I told him to leave it. We went inside and watched the film, and I thought he’d forgotten about it. When we came out it was late and there weren’t many people around. Igor saw one of the boys leave and he walked in front of us to the car park. When we were near our car, he just went for him, punching and kicking. He was like an animal. This boy went down on the ground and Igor just kept on kicking him, stamping on his head. I’d never seen him like this; it shocked me . . . I tried to pull him away but he punched me in the face too. Finally, when he had no more energy, he just walked away. He left the boy lying on the floor in the dark . . .’
Barbora began to cry. Moss pulled out a small packet of tissues. She held them across the table and Barbora took one. She took a deep breath and wiped her face.
‘And I followed him,’ she said. ‘We just left the boy on the ground between two cars . . . Igor made me drive, even though I wasn’t insured on his car, and I did. He grabbed my handbag and found my make-up remover wipes and cleaned the blood off his knuckles, and some that had sprayed on his face. And then he dropped me home. I didn’t see him for a few days, until he showed up with a gift, and my mum was so happy to see him. I just took it and carried on as if nothing had happened.’
‘What happened to the boy?’ asked Erika. Barbora shrugged. There was a far off rumble of thunder and a flicker of lightning.
‘So where does Andrea come into all this?’ asked Moss.
‘A few weeks after I started work in the club Debussy’s, behind the bar, Andrea came in for a drink. It was quiet and I served her a drink and we got chatting. She started coming in more regularly, and I slowly got to know her. She said how much she hated all the snobby trust fund girls she’d been to school with. When she heard I lived south of the river, she said she’d love to come and visit me. She said it like she was going off on a package holiday or something . . . but New Cross is only ten minutes on the train from Charing Cross.’ Barbora laughed bitterly.
‘So, did Andrea come to your house?’
Barbora shook her head. ‘No, she used to come to The Junction, the coffee place where I worked. She loved it. It was so bohemian, and there were always interesting people there; people who’d lived life free, not in a cage, that’s what she said . . . I said her cage was gilded, but she didn’t get that. I don’t think she knew what the word “gilded” meant.’
‘When did she tell you who her father was?’
‘Not at first, and she made this big thing about keeping it a secret. But then she spent more time at the café, and became quite competitive with some of the girls who’d hang around the artists and painters. She started to let it drop into conversation.’
‘And what did people say?’ asked Erika.
‘Most of them were quite blasé . . . but George – Igor – took interest. When he found out, it was like he suddenly noticed Andrea . . .’
‘Did he have an affair with Andrea?’
Barbora nodded. ‘It happened so fast, and I was so brainwashed by it all.’
‘At this stage, was he being violent with you, Barbora?’
‘No – well, sometimes. It was more the threat of the violence, the control . . . When I found out about Andrea, that’s when he first properly hit me.’
‘Where was this?’ asked Erika.
‘At home. It was a Sunday night and my mother was in the bath. I don’t know why it came up at that time, but it did and I confronted him.’
‘What happened?’
‘He punched me in the stomach. It was so hard I threw up, and then he locked me in the cupboard under the stairs.’
‘How long for?’
‘Not long; I was pleading because my mother was in the bath and getting cold. I had to help her out. He said he’d only let me out if I promised not to mention him and Andrea again.’
‘And did you?’
Barbora shook her head.
‘What happened next?’ asked Erika.
‘Things were normal for a while. It kind of calmed down. Then I was at home one day. Igor arrived at the kitchen door at the back of our house. He had this young girl with him. She could only have been eighteen. She could barely stand, and was dressed in skinny jeans and a tight t-shirt. Her face was a mess of blood; some of it was dry and some of it was new, and it was all down the front of her t-shirt. She was crying and – what was I supposed to do? I let them in, but Igor didn’t want to help her. He went to that cupboard under our stairs and he put her in there and he locked it. He was crazy, swearing he just wanted to know where his phone was. He said this girl had taken it . . .’
The storm was coming close now, and under the tree it was very gloomy.
‘What happened to the girl?’ asked Erika, softly.
‘Igor sent me upstairs. He told me to stay in my room or there would be trouble. I heard the girl screaming and crying. It went on for what seemed like hours . . . And then it went quiet. Igor opened the door and asked to go to my mother’s room. She smiled when she saw him. She’d slept through it all. He asked for my sports bag, the big one I used when I went away. I went to the wardrobe and I pulled it out and he took it . . . He was so calm. I went downstairs a few minutes later and he was leaving with the bag over his shoulder.’
‘What was in the bag?’ asked Moss, even though they knew the answer.
‘The girl,’ said Barbora. ‘She was in the bag, and he just left.’
‘What did you do?’ asked Erika.
‘I cleaned up the mess in the cupboard. There was blood and other stuff . . .’
‘And then?’
‘He came back later, and he told me I’d done a good job. He even gave me some money . . .’ Barbora’s voice was full of self-loathing. ‘And then we carried on again, as if nothing had happened. But he started to tell me about his work. How he’d meet girls from the buses at Victoria Coach Station; how they came to work for him.’
‘To work as what?’ asked Erika.
‘Prostitutes. The more I knew, the more Igor kept giving me money. He bought my mother a new electric wheelchair she could use herself. She didn’t have to be pushed anymore. It changed her life.’
‘And how is Andrea part of this?’
‘I was so stressed I couldn’t eat; my periods stopped. Igor just didn’t look at me that way anymore, so Andrea took over. She provided him with that service.’
‘Was all this going on when you went on the family holidays with Andrea?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you know that later on, Andrea got engaged?’
Barbora nodded, and accepted another cigarette.
‘And did Andrea know about Igor? Did she know what kind of work he did?’ asked Erika.
‘I don’t know. I never discussed it with her. We’d been close at first, and we still were weirdly close on the holidays with her family, but I withdrew into myself. I think Andrea had this romantic notion that Igor was some kind of roguish London gangster, like in those stupid Guy Ritchie films.’
‘So how did you come to be in the witness protection programme?’ asked Moss.
‘The body of the girl was discovered in my bag a few months later.’
‘Where?’
‘A landfill in East London. The bag had an old store card belonging to me in the inside pocket. It led the police to my door. They said they’d been watching me for a long time, and that I could strike a bargain for giving evidence.’
‘And you did?’
‘Yeah. My mother, she died just before this. Thank God. She never knew . . . Igor seemed to trust me by now. He wanted me to start coming to Victoria Coach Station to meet the girls. They thought they were coming to England to work as housekeepers. He figured if I was there they’d trust me, and get in the car . . .’
‘Igor was trafficking women to London, to work as prostitutes?’ asked Erika.
‘Yes.’
‘Was he working alone?’
‘No. I don’t know; it was all so complicated. There were other men involved, and their girlfriends.’
‘Where were the girls taken? How many girls were there?’ asked Moss.
‘I don’t know,’ Barbora started. She broke down, heaving and crying.
‘It’s okay,’ said Erika, reaching out across the dark table to take Barbora’s hand. She flinched and pulled it away.
‘So what happened?’ Erika continued. ‘Igor was arrested?’
‘Yes. It went to trial,’ said Barbora. Erika looked across at Moss. Even in the darkness, she could see the shock registered on her face.
‘Trial, what trial? We have no record . . . What happened?’
‘The prosecution’s case collapsed. There wasn’t enough solid evidence. The jury couldn’t rule either way . . . I think Igor got to some of the other witnesses. He . . . he knows too many people.’ Barbora now looked blank. ‘I realise how I must come across; the terrible things I’ve done. I know what a terrible person I am. All from loving a man,’ she said. Erika and Moss were silent. ‘When I saw those girls on the news, when you made your appeal, I remembered one of them – Tatiana. When she arrived in London. She was so excited, and . . . I had to speak to you. You have to get that bastard.’
‘Have you seen Andrea since?’ asked Moss.
Barbora shifted uncomfortably. ‘Yes.’
‘Was it the night of the eighth of January, in a pub called The Glue Pot?’ asked Erika.
‘Yes.’