Authors: R. D. Ronald
Mangle remained silent but flipped open his ID. Decker, standing behind him, did likewise and rattled his toolbox.
‘You come in and look at supply, then you go.’ It wasn’t phrased as a question, but Mangle confirmed this was their intention.
‘Alright,’ the man said and took a step backwards, allowing barely enough room to pass.
Voices were raised behind him, again not in English; Mangle thought he heard two different languages, but couldn’t be sure
what. Barely taking his eyes from them, the scarred man barked a few words over his shoulder and the voices fell silent.
Taking this as their cue, Decker began to walk inside.
‘I’ll be right there,’ Mangle said and took out his phone. Decker looked at him quizzically, but continued walking. ‘Hello Clive,’ Mangle said into the silent handset after first going through the pretence of dialling a number. ‘Yes, we’re at the job now. Yes … yeah … just a few minutes and we’ll be on our way back. OK, see you soon.’
Mangle put the phone away. The scarred man was standing just inside the warehouse, watching him intently. Breathing in, he squeezed past and walked along a narrow corridor. The warehouse had been segmented into rooms of various sizes. Each room had a door, and what looked like a small window obscured by a curtain. The light in the corridor was minimal and came from three bulbs suspended on chains from the ceiling high above. A large stack of wooden crates was piled near the rear wall.
Mangle saw Decker just ahead, crouching to take his torch and other tools from the box. He knew what was coming next, so again quickly scanned the interior to orient himself before the impending darkness fell. There was no sign of the two Asian men. Mangle kept his eyes on the scarred man, who appeared to be in charge, as Decker began his lines about the meter having been tampered with.
Mangle instinctively knew this was a bad idea, but like a runaway truck, it was too late to stop the inevitable. He backed up against a wall as the realisation came over the scarred man of what was about to happen. Decker had already turned on his torch and now he stood with the cable cutters in hand and flipped the switch. Immediately, complete blackness engulfed them.
The scarred man ran forward and grabbed Mangle by a fistful of his shirt. Decker’s torch beam swung wildly backwards and forwards as he spun around, illuminating glimpses of the warehouse. Frightened screams sounded from numerous women somewhere within the building. Mangle tried to calm the man who
had grabbed him, explaining that the matter could be sorted out in no time.
The two Asian men and another white male came out from separate rooms, shouting things Mangle couldn’t understand. Decker’s beam of torchlight bounced from one to the other. The doorway behind one of the Asian men stood open, briefly revealing the frightened faces of a number of women sitting huddled together on the floor inside. One looked to have sustained a heavy beating, her face swollen and bruised. Mangle looked away. If they were to get out of this, he knew he had to think fast.
He spoke to the scarred man, who still held him almost off the ground. ‘Let’s go outside and I’ll explain how we can solve this for you right away,’ he said, patting the man gingerly on the shoulder, hoping what little light flitted around the room would show his face to be calm, although he doubted he was that good an actor.
The scarred man again shouted orders and the other three held their ground. Decker had dropped the disconnected meter and looked ready for a fight, but it was one Mangle was certain they couldn’t win. Still holding a handful of Mangle’s shirt, the scarred man pulled him towards the warehouse door. ‘You stay,’ he turned and shouted at Decker.
‘You try to trick me. You say just look,’ he said to Mangle after opening the door a few inches to let in some light. His breath was thick and smelled like rotting meat.
‘No, I didn’t trick you. Your supply had been tampered with, but I can still fix this for you. I need to return to the office and have the meter inspected. This will tell them the actual consumption, and I’ll have a new bill brought out by courier right away.’
‘You go nowhere,’ the man laughed, ‘you will fix now.’
‘I’m sorry, we can’t do that,’ Mangle said, hoping the man wouldn’t call his bluff. ‘Taking the meter away and giving you a new bill to pay is all I can do to prevent the police being involved.’
The man stared at him a moment longer, his focus switching from eye to eye.
‘Manipulation of a meter is a criminal offence,’ Mangle said, almost apologetically. ‘Sometimes they can become damaged accidentally and can look like intentional tampering. I’m sure that’s all this is. Once the bill is paid your power will be switched back on and there’s no involvement from the police.’
The man maintained his grip on Mangle and bellowed over his shoulder, ‘Can you move them yet?’
‘No, it’s too early,’ another voice answered back. ‘The clinic isn’t ready.’
The man relaxed his grip and his appearance softened like tide-eroded stone. ‘I apologise for any mistreatment. I am a little stressed right now. You say you can have this taken care of and this will all be forgotten about. So how much?’
Mangle explained again about needing to first return to the office, but the man looked less than convinced. ‘Bring money,’ he shouted to the others. Moments later another white man, almost ghostly pale in complexion, approached carrying a fat brown envelope. The scarred man opened it, took out a thick sheaf of notes and flicked through them. ‘This will pay for our electricity to be mended. You will take it, go away and make it right. No more intrusion.’
Mangle nodded dumbly as the stack of money was replaced into the envelope and handed to him.
‘What’s going on?’ Decker called out to him.
‘Fix it back up,’ Mangle replied. ‘We’re done here.’
9
Even though they waited until dark, the men still seemed agitated as the girls were hurriedly shoved back into the van outside. Whatever had happened back at the warehouse when the lights went out, Tatiana was pretty sure it had been beyond their control. Thoughts of freedom flirted momentarily, before Tatiana shook them away. She was no longer even sure what freedom was, but immediately mistrusted her surfacing feelings of hope.
Some of the girls seemed scared, one or two slept, and the others looked as if they shared Tatiana’s own numbed acceptance of their fate. The van was again driven by the pale man, and two of the Asians rode up front alongside him.
It took just over an hour to arrive at their destination. They travelled through a bewildering cityscape, with buildings bigger than any Tatiana had previously seen; but other than the lights shining brighter and the buildings rising taller, the looks on the faces of the night people they passed were the same as those from the city streets she knew back home.
The oriental man stood beside the van as the girls disembarked. From his thin, steel-rimmed spectacles, white lab coat and authoritative stance, Tatiana guessed he must be a doctor, and the place
they’d arrived at, the clinic. It was a large stone building at the end of a winding gravel drive, shrouded to the front by a thick belt of pine trees. A few cars were parked in an otherwise vacant lot, but there was no sign of any other people. The man introduced himself as Dr Chu, and then led the girls into the building, along a disinfectant-scented corridor and onto Accommodation Wing A. In there, they were instructed to remove their clothes and put on the regulation blue cotton jumpsuits.
During the next week, the women were subjected to various medical examinations and blood tests. Twice a day they were given injections, thankfully Tatiana thought, no more from the bizarre looking contraption that was used upon their arrival. Once each day they underwent a treatment session in one of the outbuildings known as the Audiology Suite. The women were filed out and led into the darkened room. Inside there was a huge screen and a number of plush chairs, like a small yet expensive-looking movie-theatre. Each chair had an unobstructed view of the screen and its own set of headphones. The girls were seated, straps were fastened around their wrists and foreheads, preventing them getting up or looking away from the screen, and the headphones were placed over their ears.
Afterwards, Tatiana always remembered this part, but only snatches from the succession of images that began flashing onto the screen, and, no matter how hard she tried, she could not recall anything else of the sessions. Although twice since, she had woken in a panicked state during the night, feeling as if she was again back in the chair.
An older woman called Laura was assigned to stay with them much of the time. She slept in the same wing as the girls, wore the same uniform, albeit in a different colour, hung out with them socially, and exercised with them outside, although she wasn’t made to wear one of the outdoor collars. Laura intrigued Tatiana as she detected none of the underlying menace that appeared to lurk within the other staff, yet she also didn’t appear to be imprisoned there. She referred to Tatiana as Tatty; her mother had
called her that, and Tatiana liked it. It felt like a connection to her past. Laura underwent the same Audiology sessions, and was given the same injections twice a day as the other girls.
For the first two days, they had been rounded up and injected, told that their immune systems would be unable to cope with the influx of foreign bacteria, and that further injections were optional but should be immediately sought if any of the girls felt unwell. Tremors had been the first indication that there may be something in what had been said, followed shortly after by knotting stomach cramps. Tatiana was determined to resist the clinic’s influence. She watched Laura and her fellow captives as they lined up one by one, and were injected by a satisfied-looking nurse. On the fourth day Tatiana vowed that no matter how hard it got, she would not seek out the medication, but found that the attention she then garnered from the gathering cluster of perplexed medical officials might ultimately prove more hazardous to her health than allowing the continued subjugation of her blood stream.
The next day, Dr Chu gathered the women together and told them that their progress had been good, that some of them were ready to begin the next phase of their re-education.
It had been just over a week since their final job. Tazeem had tied up any loose ends, so no threads of evidence could be traced back to them. In his opinion, they’d got in, made a tidy sum, and then got out before anyone was caught, so he considered the project a big success.
Tazeem got to the restaurant half an hour before Mangle and Decker were due to arrive, allowing him time to talk with Latif alone. He’d told Latif a few days ago that his two friends would be working exclusively for Latif now, and although no specifics were mentioned, Tazeem was pretty sure Latif had got the message: whatever arrangements or illegal dealings they’d been involved with were coming to an end. Latif saw this as a reason to celebrate and had invited them all to attend the reopening of his restaurant, Mailsi.
Tazeem was impressed with the contemporary remodelling. The tables, chairs and bar were dark rosewood, with pristine white tablecloths. The walls were smooth and painted pale green, with columns and curved support beams finished in burnt orange. Soft light was supplied by wall lamps throughout the restaurant, providing an endearing and intimate atmosphere.
‘Very nice,’ Tazeem said approaching Latif at the bar. ‘But there’s no way you designed all of this. I’ve seen what trouble you get into even selecting your own clothes.’
Latif laughed and ordered a bottle of Becks for Tazeem and another Pepsi for himself from the barman. ‘Very funny, my friend, but nevertheless perceptive,’ Latif said, and signalled a waiter to prepare the corner table for them.
‘It is surprising that Sadiq hasn’t tried to get a slice of this place to add to his growing empire,’ Tazeem said, sipping his beer.
‘Oh, he has tried. He wanted to fund the whole refit but I said no. It has stretched me to breaking point but I’d rather that than trust that man. And his erratic behaviour convinces me even more that I did the right thing.’
‘What has he done now?’
Latif took a moment as he searched for the right words before leaning forward and speaking softly. ‘It has been said for a while now that he has become a little too accustomed to the cocaine he has some of his henchmen selling.’
Tazeem nodded; he had heard similar whispers as well.
‘His habit appears to have got the better of him now; he often mutters to himself and his twitches have got a lot worse. The men who follow him are fickle. They were attracted by his money and power, but this sign of weakness could be enough for an ambitious member of his entourage to try and step up into Sadiq’s place. They are like jackals, after all.’
Tazeem sat back and smiled, took another drink from his beer and waited for Latif to admit to some exaggeration, but his friend remained stony-faced and serious.
‘He said he would call in tonight for the reopening. If you’re still here you may see for yourself,’ Latif added, with a dismissive wave of his hand, evidently happy for Tazeem to witness the level of Sadiq’s decline on his own.
Mangle and Decker arrived shortly afterwards and they all ordered their meals. The restaurant filled steadily as they ate and Latif quipped that he was pleased with the turn-out, although not nearly as pleased as his bank manager would be. The friends dutifully laughed, then ordered dessert and a further round of drinks.
Sadiq made his grandiose appearance before the end of the night. He arrived with a clutch of henchmen and walked from table to table, engaging guests in small talk, slapping backs and asking if everyone was enjoying their meals. Latif excused himself, somewhat irritably, and went to the bar to see that they were served on the house. Tazeem tried to pay little heed, but the way Sadiq entered a room attracted the focus of everyone’s attention. His expensively tailored suit, designer haircut and, of course, the customary array of diamonds that decorated his fingers and wrists, drew the eye; and the effortless way he worked the room, held it. Had Latif ’s earlier words not prompted closer scrutiny, Tazeem might have missed the tremor in Sadiq’s hands and the frequency with which he touched and rubbed at his nose.