‘That’s what I thought,’ he replied. ‘But then I remembered how my wife’s face tripped her up last year when I took her to the pub, so instead, I bought us tickets to a musical in London’s West End, followed by a slap-up dinner at a posh restaurant and a room in a Covent Garden hotel.’
Heidi knew it was never going to happen but she played along regardless. ‘Are you serious? Can we afford it? We’ve got James’s school ski trip coming up …’
‘Yes, we can afford it,’ Sam replied, and she recognised a hint of irritation in his voice for questioning him. ‘I’ve been putting some money aside for a while to pay for it.’
Heidi opened her mouth to say something else, then changed her mind. Instead, she held her newly painted white fingernails to the camera. ‘What do you think?’ she asked, but before Sam could reply, the picture went blank. ‘Sam? Have we been cut off?’
Meanwhile, inside her husband’s car several miles behind, Sam slapped the dashboard to encourage the screen to function again. He was paying the price for ignoring the car’s automatic reminders for its six-month MOT, software update and app to diagnose the problem. He hadn’t booked Heidi’s in yet either but she didn’t need to know that. There was a lot she didn’t need to know.
‘I can still hear you,’ he replied.
‘What happened there?’
‘We must have fallen into a Wi-Fi black hole.’
‘Then why is my GPS reprogramming itself with a different route?’
Sam placed his now-empty bowl of porridge on the seat next to him. ‘It does that sometimes, doesn’t it? You know, if there’s been an accident or problems ahead.’ Sam glanced at his own screen. ‘Hold on, mine is doing the same. What … where the hell it is taking …’
He didn’t get the opportunity to finish his sentence. The next voice to come from their speakers did not belong to either of them.
Chapter 5
SHABANA KHARTRI
‘I can do it, I can do it, I can do it …’
Shabana repeated the mantra under her breath over and over again as the car drove, leaving behind the only home she’d known for twenty years.This is really it, she thought. The unimaginable was becoming a reality.
Just thirty-minutes had passed since her son Reyansh had appeared at the front door of the family home, begging for her to listen to him. Although overjoyed to see him, her first concern had been for his safety.
‘What are you doing here?’ she’d replied, cupping his cheeks, her eyes flitting between her first born and the neighbours’ houses to check if anyone had clocked hisreturn. He’d been breathless. ‘You know you cannot come here,’ Shabana had continued. ‘It’s not safe for you.’
‘It doesn’t matter anymore,’ he’d replied. ‘Please Mum, you have to listen to me. This is the chance you’ve been waiting for – to get out of here.’
‘What are you talking about, son? What has happened?’
‘It’s Dad. He’s been arrested.’
Shabana had taken a step back into the porch and shaken her head as if she had misunderstood him. ‘What do you mean he has been arrested? What for?’
‘I don’t know all the details; all I know is that his lawyer called asking you to post bail for dad. Because you don’t speak English, he phoned me. All his solicitor would say was that his arrest involved people trafficking.’
Shabana had heard the phrase before but hadn’t thought to ask its meaning.
‘It’s where people are illegally smuggled out of one country and into another,’ Reyansh had continued. ‘The men are often sold on for slave labour and the women forced into prostitution.’
She’d covered her mouth with her hands. ‘And they are saying your father has been doing this?’
‘It’s what they’re accusing him of, yes. Rohit and Sanjay were also arrested in the restaurant last night along with a bunch of other men at different addresses. The police say they’re part of a gang shipping children and beggars over from the Assan slums before selling them.’
Shabana recognised the other men’s names but couldn’t put faces to them. Whenever her husband Vihaan had brought friends back to the house, she had been ordered upstairs and out of sight until they left. Often, they had remained in the dining room getting drunk on Sekmai until the early hours of the morning. It was also not uncommon for him to stay out for days at a time, which is why she hadn’t missed him last night.
‘Mum, this is your chance to leave him,’ Reyansh had continued. ‘You are never going to get an opportunity like this again.’
Shabana had known that if what her son was saying was accurate, everything she had once dreamed of might be about to come true. But still she had hesitated. ‘I’m not ready,’ she’d whispered, her heart racing. ‘I would need to pack clothes, get the girls ready … What would I tell them? I have no money saved, how will we afford to eat? How will we live? Where will we go?’
‘I have two taxis waiting,’ Reyansh had told her, and turned to point to them behind him. ‘One to take you to a solicitor and the other to drive the girls to a shelter. Dad told his brief there’s money hidden in the shed, thousands of pounds that’ll pay for his bail. There’s nothing to stop you from taking it.’
