Intimate Strangers Read online

  Hearing a familiar voice coming from her answerphone she quickly snatched up the receiver. ‘Rhona!’ she cried. ‘Are you back? Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in the flat next door,’ Rhona replied, managing to sound droll, distracted and bored all at the same time. ‘Have you got your invitation?’

  ‘Yes. Did you?’

  ‘Have,’ Rhona corrected. ‘We say, have, not did.’

  ‘Who’s the we?’ Sherry laughed. ‘I’m the Brit here, remember. You’re the Greek.’

  ‘Half. And I came here at the age of three, which was about the time you deserted, I believe. No, your blood might be British, my sweet, and you might live here now, but in your soul, your heart and your lamentable, though occasionally entertaining, vernacular, you are as American as a class action lawsuit. Now hang up, I’m coming over.’

  As Sherry put down the phone, her spirits were already lifting. There were few people in the world she enjoyed more than Rhona, whose life was as bizarre as a Fellini movie, and whose tongue was as wicked as her soul was gentle and true. Everyone loved Rhona, and Rhona, in her uniquely disdainful way, loved them all back.

  ‘Have you spoken to Laurie today?’ Rhona demanded, sweeping in through the front door and heading straight for the kitchen. ‘Vodka tonic? Or are you back on the wagon?’

  ‘What do you mean back? I was never on it. And no, I haven’t spoken to Laurie today. Why?’

  ‘I think we should start measuring her pre-wedding stress on the Richter scale,’ Rhona quipped. ‘Another flaming row with Elliot this morning, which has already been made up, I’m told, but now she’s gone whizzing off to follow up on some lead she’s just been given on a story and he’s royally pissed off, apparently, at being left to carry on moving into their new place alone.’

  ‘God, my life feels so dull,’ Sherry groaned. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a good row, a new place or even a whizz off.’

  Rhona grinned. ‘Here’s a vodka instead,’ she said, passing her a glass. ‘So apart from no rows, new pads or whizzes off, what’s been happening with you these past two days?’

  Sherry sighed. ‘I could make something up, I suppose, it would certainly be more interesting and in some way salve my ego.’

  ‘Have you been anywhere? Seen anyone?’

  ‘Too busy. Too many deadlines. But I spoke to Anita just now. My friend, the psychologist …’

  ‘Of course. How is she?’

  ‘As unbreakably cheerful as ever, but I did my best.’

  Rhona spluttered with laughter. ‘Is she still seeing the young boy you told me about?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Sherry shook her head in dismay. ‘You know, sometimes it really seems to get to me, the way she lets him treat her so badly. Not only him, everyone she meets.’

  Rhona’s dark eyes were long and lazy, her full mouth curved in a teasing smile. Like Sherry she was neither tall nor slim, nor was she breathtakingly beautiful, but her sumptuous olive-toned flesh and shameless sexuality had caused many an intelligent man to lose contact with all but one part of his brain. ‘Anita’s on her own journey through life,’ she said gently. ‘You shouldn’t let it affect yours.’

  Sherry crooked an eyebrow. ‘Isn’t that the truth?’ she commented wryly.

  Rhona took another sip. ‘But it’s not really about Anita, is it?’ she challenged.

  Sherry had been about to wander back into the sitting room, but stopped in surprise. ‘Isn’t it?’ she countered.

  Rhona merely looked at her.

  Sherry took a breath, then, laughing and shaking her head, she continued around the bar to go and stand in front of the rain-speckled French windows. The plants on the balcony outside looked bedraggled and sad, the wrought-iron table and chairs glistened wetly in the late afternoon sun. She started to speak, but instead took a generous mouthful of her drink, while gazing down at the flat grey surface of the river.

  ‘What is it?’ Rhona prompted. ‘Something’s been bothering you for weeks, it seems to me, so it’s time you got it out.’

  Sherry’s eye was caught by a police launch as it sped round a bend in the river and headed down towards the pier. Emergency sirens wailed in from the distance, an invisible lasso of sound, snagging her attention and drawing it to an imagined crime or catastrophe. Inwardly she shuddered. ‘I’m fine,’ she responded, turning round. ‘Apart from the time of the month.’ Her eyes showed a quick flash of impatience. ‘All right, if we’re getting to the truth here I suppose it’s about jealousy, because at least Anita manages to get a boyfriend, which is a damned sight more than we can say about me. I mean, when did you ever see me with anything even approaching a man? It’s been seven years, Rhona. Can you imagine that? Seven years and nothing to itch. No relationship, no affair, no passing flirtation, not even a one-night stand. Yet here I am, Dear Molly herself, giving all this dazzlingly insightful advice to the emotionally screwed-up and downtrodden, which for some weirdly perverse reason seems to work, when I can’t even get started. I mean, tell me, when does my door ever get knocked down by a panting Lothario who can’t get enough of my irresistible bedroom technique? Can you recall the last time I got swept across the Continent in a frenzy of unbridled passion? Do you see any fresh flowers in this apartment not bought by me? Any Tiffany jewels nestling between my breasts? A globe waiting to be spun for me to stop with my finger to decide my next vacation?’

  ‘All right, that’s enough about me, let’s get back to you,’ Rhona quipped, coming round from the kitchen to perch on the edge of the desk.

  Sherry laughed. ‘But it’s all true,’ she cried, going to slump down in an armchair. ‘There’s never a man in my life and anyway, the only ones worth having are already taken, meaning what’s left is like rummaging through an end-of-season sale and finding all the goods are damaged. Or, more accurately, like looking through God’s overcrowded attic of embarrassing mistakes.’

  Rhona choked on a laugh. ‘You’re too harsh,’ she accused.

  ‘So speaks the woman with the fantastically rich lover who picks up her every bill, satisfies her every whim, rips off her lace panties and gives her a thousand orgasms, before jetting back to his exotic Middle Eastern palace, where he has to make do with phoning you three times a day and sending you so many flowers you can’t breathe at night. Has he been invited to the wedding, by the way?’

  Rhona nodded.

  ‘Is he coming?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘So I’m the only one who doesn’t get to take a partner?’

  Rhona frowned. ‘Have you got someone in mind?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There are sure to be plenty of single men there. Elliot’s got a lot of friends. They’ll be turning up from all over the world.’

  ‘I’d rather have Elliot.’

  Rhona laughed and got to her feet. ‘The way he’s been behaving lately Laurie might just be happy to hand him over. Which reminds me, she’s changed the time for this evening. She wants us there at seven thirty now, instead of seven. Apparently Chris and Rachel are in town, so they’re coming too. You’ve met them before, haven’t you?’

  Sherry nodded. ‘Yes. A couple of times.’

  ‘Of course. OK. I’d better go and call my mother back. I’ll give you a knock around seven and we’ll go upriver to the new Laurie and Elliot pad together.’

  After Rhona had gone, Sherry stood for a moment, unsettled by the emotions the last few minutes had stirred. There were times, like now, when all the empty spaces in her life seemed to join together in a circle around her as though to isolate her from the rest of the world. Not so far that she couldn’t see it, but far enough for her to feel cut off from it. No parents, no partner, no children. Why did these things happen so easily for other people, and not for her? She didn’t understand it. Every day millions of women around the world fell in love, got married, had babies. Why was it so difficult for her? What made her different? Why was she always alone?

  The only answers were those she didn’t w
ant to face, they hurt too much, so returning to her desk she attempted to lift her mood by concentrating on one of her more frivolous columns. And the thought of spending an evening at Laurie and Elliot’s was quite pleasing too, so why waste time on worrying about aspects of her life that could never be changed?

  Chapter Two

  LAURIE FORBES’S DARK blue eyes were gazing intently into the exquisite face of a young Indian girl. As the girl spoke, her words came in breathy, broken sentences, conveying at least some of the terror that was making her hands clasp tightly together, and her eyes constantly dart to the door. She spoke in her own language, while the doctor, seated the other side of the desk, translated in his gentle, sonorous tone.

  They were in his first-floor surgery, over a newsagent’s in London’s East End, where a few minutes ago he’d let Laurie in through the back door so she could meet and speak to this tragic young girl. After the girl’s first visit here, the doctor had contacted Barry Davidson at the No Sweat action group, fearing, if he went direct to the police, that even more harm would come to the girl – and others. In turn, Barry had got in touch with Laurie, knowing this would be an issue she’d feel very strongly about, and would almost certainly want to get involved in. He couldn’t have been more right, since Laurie and her producing partner, Rose, were already investigating a human-trafficking chain running from the Asian subcontinent into the UK, and this case was showing all the signs of being at least one small part of it.

  Though there was no visible evidence of what the girl had suffered, Laurie knew that beneath the soiled and ragged sari she was wearing she had been so hideously abused that it was agony for her just to move.

  ‘Ask her,’ Laurie said, ‘if she has any idea who the man was who did this to her.’

  Dr Patel shook his head. ‘She told me on her first visit,’ he said, ‘she doesn’t know who he was. She was taken by car to the place where it happened. I believe there was more than one man.’

  Laurie looked at him, then returned her eyes to the girl. ‘Who drove the car?’ she said.

  ‘A man she simply calls the driver.’

  Laurie leaned forward and lifted the girl’s hands into her own. ‘Daya,’ she said softly, knowing that the only word she’d understand would be her name, but it was the tone of her voice that mattered – she wanted the girl to know she could trust her. ‘We need you to tell us where you live. Where they are keeping you.’

  The beautiful face turned to the doctor as he translated. She answered quietly and briefly.

  ‘She doesn’t know,’ Dr Patel said.

  Laurie looked at her helplessly.

  ‘She has no point of reference,’ the doctor explained. ‘She’s probably blindfolded whenever she’s taken outside, not allowed to see where she’s going.’ He spoke to Daya, putting the suggestion to her, then nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what happens,’ he told Laurie.

  ‘The woman who brought her to you,’ Laurie began.

  ‘She’ll be back any moment,’ the doctor warned. ‘She mustn’t know you’re here.’

  ‘I understand, but you must ask her how Daya got these injuries.’

  ‘I have already done that. She says the girl fell onto a sewing machine.’

  Laurie winced at the lie. Then, seeing the girl was watching her, she softened her expression again. ‘Are there others?’ she asked. ‘Is it just you they’re keeping locked up?’

  Daya’s large brown eyes watched the doctor’s lips as he spoke. When she turned back to Laurie her own were full of fear, but they didn’t waver as she answered the question.

  ‘There are others,’ the doctor translated. ‘Thirteen women and … there are children too. She has a sister, she says, who came with her from India.’

  ‘How did they get here?’ Laurie said.

  The doctor asked. ‘By boat and then by lorry,’ he answered.

  The girl carried on speaking. Laurie watched her lovely face, held her delicate hands and felt an almost overwhelming urge to pull her into her arms and take her home.

  ‘Some of them got left behind in India,’ the doctor was saying, ‘and some others were taken off the boat in another place. She doesn’t know where. When they started out there were many of them, she says. Men and women, but mostly women. She doesn’t know what happened to everyone else. She only knows about those who are with her now.’

  ‘If only she knew where that was,’ Laurie muttered. She looked at the doctor. ‘Is she going to be all right? Does she need to go to hospital?’

  ‘She should, but Mrs Ghosh, the woman who brought her here, has forbidden it. I could overrule her, of course, but I’m afraid of putting Daya, or those with her, into any more danger.’

  ‘She will recover though, won’t she?’ Laurie said, squeezing Daya’s hands. ‘Her injuries will heal?’

  The doctor nodded.

  ‘Tell me more about this Mrs Ghosh,’ Laurie prompted, thinking how dearly she’d like to get her hands on the woman who, a few minutes ago, had gone down to the street for a better mobile phone connection. Barry was at the other end of the call, so time was precious, the woman would be back any second. ‘Had you ever met her before she brought Daya here the first time?’

  ‘No,’ the doctor answered. ‘She called my receptionist …’ He stopped as Daya began to speak. After listening he turned his solemn eyes back to Laurie.

  ‘She has a daughter,’ he told her grimly. ‘She is afraid for her …’

  ‘You mean here?’ Laurie cut in, her heart starting to thud. ‘In England?’

  The doctor began to put the question but was cut off by a sharp knock on his door. It was the signal, from his receptionist, that Mrs Ghosh was on her way back. ‘You’ll have to go,’ he told Laurie. ‘Use the back stairs, and please don’t do anything without speaking to me first.’

  Swallowing her frustration, Laurie grabbed her bag and quickly took out a card. ‘Here,’ she said, pushing it into Daya’s hand. ‘If you can, call me. Tell her to call me,’ she said to the doctor. ‘I want to help you. Please don’t be afraid.’

  ‘Quickly,’ the doctor said, opening the door.

  On impulse Laurie hugged the girl, then slipped out through the door into the passage beyond. The stairwell was an obstacle course of old mail and newspapers, but she barely noticed as she ran swiftly to the bottom and burst out into the sunlight behind the old Victorian building on Whitechapel’s New Road.

  Barry Davidson was waiting, his mobile phone still in his hand. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I think she started to get suspicious. I had to let her go.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Laurie assured him, as they began winding through the back alleys. ‘The girl’s terrified, that much is clear. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to her now, I’ll call the doctor later.’

  ‘Did you find out where they’re keeping her?’ he asked, sticking a cap on his nearly bald head to protect it from the sun.

  ‘She doesn’t know. Apparently, there’s a group of them, women and children.’

  ‘Children,’ he repeated. ‘Shit, we’ve got to go to the police.’

  ‘I don’t think the doctor wants us to yet. He probably already told you, he’s afraid if this Mrs Ghosh and her bosses get wind of a police investigation, they’ll just dispose of the women and we don’t even want to think about how they’d do that. Ditto press investigation, which is why we’ll have to tread very carefully now.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Listen, I’m sorry, but I have to go,’ she said, hailing a passing cab, ‘we’ve got friends coming round tonight.’

  ‘You only moved in two days ago,’ he laughed in surprise.

  ‘Tell me about it.’ After giving him a quick hug, she jumped into the taxi, gave the driver her address, then took out her mobile to call her partner, Rose.

  By the time she got to Butler’s Wharf, on the south side of the Thames at Tower Bridge, she’d fully updated Rose on her meeting with Daya, had taken a call from her closest friend, Rhona, which hadn’t turned out to be quite as welcome as
Rhona’s calls normally were, and she was now, as she summoned the lift to take her up to the fourth floor, talking to her mother about what kind of flowers they should have at the church.

  ‘If you don’t like my choice, then you choose,’ she snapped as she pushed the button to go up.

  ‘I’m not saying I don’t like your choice,’ her mother replied, ‘I’m just saying we could do with more colour.’

  ‘Then get more colour.’

  ‘I will. I just need you to tell me what you’d prefer.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not an expert on flowers.’