Dark Ride (10 page)

C
HAPTER
23

 

Teeth and Skin

 

It felt like an ant colony inside. There were huge cranes and diggers everywhere and tons of men scurrying around and looking busy. There was a long row of buildings that looked half finished and then another section covered with cranes that led out towards the water.

I felt like an ant with no job. Slacker ant. What was worse, I was trespassing and could get into a whole lot of trouble for even being here. The air was filled with dust and the sound of those screeching saws that make your ears hurt.

I could see two men in yellow hard hats with clipboards walking towards me and talking in an animated way. There was nowhere to hide except a portakabin next to me, which had a door slightly ajar. Because I couldn’t think of anything else to do, I leapt up the step and went inside.

It was an office, judging by the desks and filing cabinets and had an air of someone having just popped out. There was even a cup of steaming coffee on the desk and a half-smoked cigarette in a cracked saucer. Just behind the desk was a small safe, which had been left open slightly. I looked around quickly and then peeked inside, expecting to see money or important papers.

Instead, it was stuffed with small booklets in bundles, with different coloured hard covers. I grabbed one and ripped the elastic band off, my hands shaking.

It looked like a passport, written in an alphabet I didn’t understand. The photo showed a man in his twenties with black hair and a thin, dark moustache. Flicking through the books, I found that they were all passports. Some of the people in the photos had dark complexions and some had high cheekbones and some looked Chinese. Lots of the photos were of young women and I gasped as I recognised the girl I’d seen in the factory. Her name was Lili Babic.

I heard voices right outside the portakabin then and I looked around in a panic. There was a pile of old dust sheets covered in streaks of paint in the corner on a chair and I threw myself across the room and underneath them just as the door opened and the cabin vibrated with heavy footsteps.

It was really stuffy and the sheets reeked of paint and made me dizzy but I tried to stay as still as I could, even though I was sure my heart was beating so loud that anyone could hear it. I tried to breathe quietly and slowly, listening hard. I could hear two men talking and I realised I’d heard one of the voices before. But where? Then it hit me. I’d heard it on the telly. It was Lex McAllistair.

‘I’m not really interested in the excuses. We just need more manpower,’ he said. ‘We’ve made up a lot of time but we’re still behind by a long way.’

‘I know,’ said the other man, ‘but we’ve had problems with customs contacts at Dover and Folkestone and it’s getting harder to get them in.’

There was a pause before McAllistair spoke again.

‘What about that whinger who had the accident? Did you deal with him?

There was a pause. ‘Well, that’s something, I guess,’ he said. ‘Hey! Did you leave this open? What were you thinking?’

There was an angry discussion about this and just when I thought I was going to suffocate, I heard the voices recede and the door of the portakabin was closed. I counted to fifty and then tentatively peeked out of the pile of sheets.

Thank God they’d gone. I carefully opened the door and came down the steps, looking around. I just needed to get to the exit.

‘Oi! What the hell were you doing in there?’ The man’s voice, suddenly right there, jolted through me like an electric shock.

‘I’m just, I...’ My mouth flapped open and closed like a fish as I started to back away. It was Lex McAllistair.

‘You’re not allowed in here,’ he barked. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

My brain was forming words like, ‘Really sorry, didn’t mean to, better be going,’ but I was so scared I couldn’t speak.

His mouth opened a little bit as something occurred to him. He grabbed my arm with a meaty hand.

‘Hey, were you mooching about in my office just now? What were you doing in there? What do you want?’

I just did the only thing I could think of, and sank my teeth into his hand like a dog. He gave a roar of pain and tried to grab me again, but I ran at full-pelt back towards the entrance where, thank God, the gates were still open. I hurled myself through them and sprinted for my life.

When I felt it was safe to stop and look behind me, I could see that no one was following. I bent and rested my hands on my knees, shaking violently all over and trying to catch my breath. My stomach ached and I felt like I might throw up but also had a crazy urge to laugh hysterically.

I knew I had to see Luka and tell him, even though I’d already been out for ages and was probably going to have Mum on my back about it later. I didn’t really understand what was going on in that marina, but I was now sure it had something to do with what happened to him and Eva.

As I got closer to the fairground, I walked faster, desperate to see him now.

It was easy to find him this time because he was sitting on the lowest bit of the rollercoaster, his legs dangling over the side. I looked up at him. I hadn’t seen him since the kiss and half of me felt shy, but half of me wanted to just grab him and do it again.

But I could tell something was wrong straight away. Luka’s face was blank and unwelcoming.

‘Don’t make me come up there,’ I said, shaking my fist and his sombre face twitched a bit but he didn’t smile. He jumped down so he was standing in front of me. He still didn’t speak and something anxious twisted inside me. ‘What’s wrong? Are you all right?’

He flicked a harsh look at me. ‘I’m blinding, Bel,’ he said in a stony voice. ‘I’ve never been better in my life. I’m dead and I spend my days alone in a fairground. Who wouldn’t love that?’

Stung, I just stared at him, not knowing what to say. But he hadn’t finished.

‘Did you have a lovely Christmas then?’ he said. ‘Lots of nice presents with Mumsie and Daddy? Did you enjoy your turkey with all the trimmings?’

So that’s what his problem was. ‘I did warn you that I couldn’t come for a couple of days, Luka. I wanted to, but I —’

‘Did you?’ he interrupted.

I stared at him, confused.

‘Did you really want to see me?’ he said. It was like he was spitting out sour pips every time he spoke.

‘Of course I did! What is it, Luka? Why are you being like this?’

He kicked at a loose stone with his toe and stared at the ground. There was a pause before he spoke again.

‘I dunno, Bel, I just think you’ve been sitting around pulling crackers and having fun and I’ve been sitting here, completely alone in this old dump, that’s all.’

I felt a flash of bright anger. ‘Just for your information,’ I said, ‘it was the worst Christmas of my life actually, Luka. My parents are splitting up and they had a massive row on Christmas Day.’ My breath was coming fast now and I couldn’t seem to stop. ‘So you’re not the only person with problems.’

He had a mean smile on his face when he spoke again. ‘Yeah, but I don’t really think there’s a comparison between you and me, is there? You’ve got everything in front of you still. You’ve got a future. What do I have? Nothing. I don’t even know how I got here.’

I knew if I could tell him what had happened earlier, it might help break this weird mood he was in.

‘Look, Luka I —’

But he wasn’t going to let me speak. ‘So I don’t really know why you even bothered to come back, to tell you the truth,’ he went on. ‘I’ll probably move on soon and you’ll forget all about me. You can get on with your nice little life and it’ll be like I was never here. You can hang around with boys who still have a heartbeat.’ He was breathing heavily now, like he’d been running. ‘What’s wrong with you anyway? Why would you want to be with a freak like me?’

Tears started to prickle my eyes. ‘Luka, don’t ...’ I whispered, but whatever had been going through his mind these last two days was working like poison.

He dusted down his jeans in a decisive way. ‘Look at it this way, Bel. I’m doing you a favour. No questions asked, no one hurt. I’m letting you go.’ There was a wobble in his voice now.

‘What if I don’t want to go?’ I said, squeezing my hands into fists by my sides.

‘I want you to go,’ he said quietly.

I felt like I’d been slapped across the face. I turned away, blinking back hot tears. I thought I heard him say, ‘Wait,’ quietly, but I didn’t turn around and I just walked away.

He’d made his feelings for me pretty clear.

C
HAPTER
24

 

Bluebird

 

I stumbled away, so upset that, when I walked past the marina, I didn’t notice the car following me at first.

It was only when I was almost home that I realised a black 4x4 with darkened windows and a number plate that read
MCA 2
was driving very slowly behind me. I stopped and the car stopped. I started walking and the car moved away again. It carried on all the way to my front door and, when I put my key in the lock with fumbling fingers, it sped away from the kerb leaving a cloud of exhaust. I knew in that split second that it was one of McAllistair’s men behind the wheel, especially with that number plate. They didn’t know who I was or why I’d been looking in that safe but they wanted to scare me. It must have been pretty obvious I’d been snooping in there. If those passports were somehow connected to what happened to Luka and Eva, they’d want to make sure I didn’t come back.

Following me home was a clear message to keep my nose out. I started to shiver so hard with fright, my teeth chattered as I burst through the front door.

I was a nervous wreck all evening and kept looking outside the window to see if the car came back. When a black van pulled up outside I almost peed myself, until I realised it was just a delivery for the people next door.

Mum kept asking me if I was all right and stealing glances at me, but I just told her I had a headache. I went to bed early and curled up on my duvet, trying not to remember the look on Luka’s face and his hard words. Part of me thought he hadn’t really wanted me to go. But he’d told me to leave, hadn’t he?

My thoughts went round and round my head until I finally fell into a feverish, whispery sleep filled with bad dreams. I dreamt that water was covering my head and I was banging on glass, trying to get free. Then I dreamt that I was following Luka and trying to catch him, but every time I got close, he would melt further away. I woke up feeling way more tired than when I’d gone to bed and lay there for ages with everything churning round inside.

It was the dripping tap that got me out of bed eventually. All I could hear was its slow drumming in the bathroom until I thought I’d go mad. So much for Will sorting it out. I knew and he knew and Mum knew that the whole DIY thing was just a ruse anyway.

That made me think about Dad and his new woman. I started imagining them getting married and maybe even having a baby together. Why not? He could have a whole new family in Newcastle. I wouldn’t be his special girl any more.

Then I started thinking about Luka again and how he’d told me to go and the cloud hanging over me got about a hundred times heavier.

I walked over to my desk and picked up his photo. Tracing the line of his jaw with my finger, I remembered how his dark lashes had looked when he’d closed his eyes to kiss me. My stomach swooped as I relived the moment our lips had touched.

Then I put the photo face down on my desk.

I was about to walk away when I noticed the papers we’d found in the booth were also still on my desk. I picked one of them up curiously. The world seemed to have changed so much in only a week and so much had happened. I flipped over the flyer.

Contact Bluebird?

Why had Eva written that? What did it mean?

Luka had told me to go away but I couldn’t let it go now. I was involved in this whether he liked it or not. I decided to at least try and do a bit of research online and then swore when I remembered we still didn’t have our broadband working.

I was thinking about whether Slumpton had such a thing as an internet café when I heard Mum’s key in the door. She was on a half day today. But she wasn’t alone. I could hear that Will was with her.

I quickly got dressed. When I went downstairs, Will and Mum were at the table drinking tea and Dylan was zooming around the floor playing with a huge toy Batmobile that was making a whole series of deeply annoying noises.

Will smiled at me, a bit warily. I didn’t smile back.

‘Mum, when are we going to get the computer connected? I want to get my iPod working and see if I’ve got any emails.’

I got a guilty pang when I thought about my recent text silence with Jasmine. It felt like there was too much to say now. How could I have a normal conversation when all this was going on around me? It felt like my brain just had too much stuffed into it to handle worrying about that right now. I didn’t need any more reasons to feel bad.

Mum sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Bel, I just haven’t time to get anyone out.’ She smiled at Will. ‘It’s just one of the hundred and four things that I’ve been meaning to do since we moved in.’

Will turned to me. ‘I can’t help with iTunes, but if you just want to look at your emails, you could go next door and use the PC I bought for Mum. I thought she might quite fancy being a silver surfer, but she hasn’t looked at the thing since I got her hooked up,’ he said in his plummy voice.

Mum laughed as though he’d said something hilariously funny.

‘Is she in?’ I asked suspiciously and I saw a knowing look pass across his face.

‘No, she’s out visiting her sister, so you’d have the house all to yourself.’

Result. I almost smiled at him. ‘All right, then. Thanks.’

Mum cocked an eyebrow at me as Will got up to let me in next door.

Mrs Longmeadow’s house was exactly like ours, except every possible surface was covered in flowered material, which made your eyes go a bit funny until you got used to it. It also smelled strongly of Mrs Longmeadow’s perfume.

There was lots of Dylan’s stuff all over the place in the spare room upstairs and a pair of small pyjama bottoms were lying on the floor. There was a bed in there, plus a small computer table, chair and PC. It was a much nicer computer than ours and I thought what a waste it was, sitting up here gathering dust. Imagine all the revolting illnesses Mrs L could investigate with it. Will crawled about on the floor plugging things in, his big body filling the small space. I realised I had no idea where Dylan’s mum was and decided to ask Mum about it later. Maybe he’d accidentally smothered her in one of his horrible rugby shirts.

‘There you go,’ he said after a moment. ‘All yours. Take as long as you like.’

Yeah, and that’ll give you plenty of time to chat up my mum,
I thought.

‘Thanks, but I won’t need long,’ I said instead.

‘Okay, just close it down when you’re done,’ he said.

‘Oh and, er, Will...’ It felt strange and wrong to use his name.

‘Yes, Bel?’

‘What do Folkestone, Dover and Harwich have in common?’

He gave me a curious look. ‘They’re all international ports ... Why?’

‘Just wondered,’ I said and turned to the computer.

Now I was here, and Will was gone, I wasn’t sure where to start. I tentatively checked my emails first and got a happy surge in my chest when I saw there were about four from Jasmine and a couple from other friends. Jas’s started off all chatty but the last one didn’t have a message but just said
Where R U?
in the message line. I fired off an apologetic response and tried to fill her in on my life without mentioning Luka or fairgrounds or any of that. You’d think there would be nothing else to say, but it just felt good to be communicating with someone who really knew me, like taking off a pair of tight shoes and putting on slippers.

Then I sat back and thought about the real reason I was at the computer.

I typed
TMS Knitwear
into Google but nothing came up. But when I typed in
Lex McAllistair,
a flashy website popped up for McAllistair Holdings. I scrolled through until I found a picture of a large team of people all smiling and waving at the camera. At the front was Lex, with his arms folded, looking smug. The very same man who now had a big imprint of my teeth on his hand. I shivered, thinking about the car following me home.

Most of the website covered the properties he owned throughout Kent, but when I clicked on
Other business interests
I found a list of various small factories, including one TMS Knitwear.

Finally I typed the word
Bluebird
into Google. There were tons of things with that name. Loads of restaurants. An RSPB page about the actual birds. A South American tampon. Halfway down the page, though, something caught my eye.

Project Bluebird. Working to free oppressed peoples from modern slavery.
I clicked on the link and the screen opened with a graphic of a bluebird trapped in barbed wire. It fluttered pathetically and then a pair of cupped hands swooped down to free it. The bird flew away to the edge of the screen and the homepage came up. I started reading.

 

Project Bluebird works to eliminate all forms of slavery around the world. Millions of men, women and children around the world are forced to lead lives as slaves. Although this exploitation is often not called slavery, the conditions are the same. People are sold like objects, forced to work against their will for little or no pay and are at the mercy of their ‘employers’, who often hold onto their passports and tell workers that they will be punished if they go to the authorities.

 

I thought about the passports in the safe and how the girl, Lili, seemed so scared of the bloke who worked with Lex. Was that what was going on in the marina and the knitwear factory?
Slavery?
Did Eva find out, and was that why they hounded her and Luka into the sea?

‘Don’t mind me, I’m just getting some clean trousers for Dylan. He’s had a bit of a wee accident.’

I yelped. I hadn’t even heard Will until he came into the room. I hastily closed down the screen. ‘It’s okay. I’m done,’ I said, heart hammering.

‘Are you sure? You can have as long as you like,’ said Will.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve seen enough.’

It felt like pieces of a puzzle were coming together. The factory and the marina were both owned by Lex McAllistair. Hadn’t they said on the news that the marina was massively over budget and late being built? Maybe this was how they were getting it done, by using slave labour just like he did in his factory. The places on that piece of paper must be the ports where the people were brought in.

I started trembling all over. I knew I should go to the police but I didn’t have a scrap of real evidence. Who was going to believe a fourteen-year-old girl when you were up against someone powerful like McAllistair? I thought about telling Mum everything and then imagined how hysterical she’d be when she heard about me being followed from the marina. Plus, I couldn’t really tell her about Luka.

And what would happen to me and Mum if we did try and expose what was going on? Would they try and get rid of us the way they got rid of Eva and Luka? I pictured Luka then, cold and alone in the fairground, and had to hug myself to stop the tremors zigzagging through me. I wanted to run straight to him, to hold him and tell him what I’d found out. But how would he react if I did? Hadn’t he told me quite plainly he didn’t want me?