A Twist of Fate Read online

  Thea felt a sinking sense of dread as she remembered her father’s letter, clearly puppet-written by him for Storm. Thea should never have got on the plane.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Brett said. ‘You still upset about that little scene earlier? You know, what that woman said. About her kid. It wasn’t rape.’ He waved his hand, as if it were all a big fuss. ‘OK, so I did fuck her, and I guess she didn’t like it much.’ He laughed as if it were a big joke. ‘But that’s the power of being a Maddox, I guess. You can make everything nasty go away,’ Brett said, clicking his fingers, taking the final steps so that he was right in front of Thea. ‘Just like that. Gone.’

  ‘You’re not a Maddox.’ The words were out before Thea could stop herself. But they were true.

  ‘That’s not a very nice thing to say,’ Brett said. He picked at his tooth, and then suddenly he put his arm around her, pinning her arms to her sides.

  She screwed her eyes tight shut as Brett pushed his face into her hair. He kissed her throat tenderly, making her shiver with revulsion and fear. Thea heard a whimper escape her lips.

  ‘Don’t,’ she managed to say.

  ‘But I want to.’

  His breath smelt of whisky. He pushed his body up against her, so that the worktop dug hard into her spine. He gripped her jaw to stop her crying out. Then he stuffed his hand inside her robe, lifting up her Snoopy nightshirt. ‘Oh, won’t you look at that,’ he leered, forcing her legs apart and his hand between them. ‘You’re all wet for me. Fat girls are always so much more grateful.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Thea gulped, her eyes bulging with tears. ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘Or what? You’ll tell on me? You think they’ll believe you? The hysterical hormonal schoolgirl?’ he whispered. Then put his wet tongue in her ear.

  She closed her eyes, willing this not to be happening. She felt him slide his fingers inside her. She flinched, nausea rising in her throat as he pressed against her and she felt his erection rubbing through the thin material of his trousers up against her trembling thigh.

  ‘Nobody will believe you, Thea. I’m your father’s protégé. Didn’t you know that? Which means that everything with a Maddox name on it will be mine for the taking. Even . . . ’ he said, ‘. . . you.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  October 1986

  The plane’s wheels screeched as they hit the tarmac, the brakes making a furious roar, the engines, which had been so constant for so long, beginning their deafening fight to make the plane stop. Inside the wooden crate deep in the bowels of the cargo hold Romy stiffened, her limbs mimicking the plane’s wheels, bracing against the thin wood.

  She licked her dry lips and rearranged her aching body, pressing her eye against the peephole, but it was still too dark to see anything. She’d got used to the noise of the engines, but now the sound of the plane taxiing along the runway just a few feet below her made all her nerves jangle.

  She tried to imagine all the passengers on board the plane sitting above her. The holidaymakers and business people who’d boarded the short flight from West Berlin to Heathrow, never thinking that there was a stowaway just below their feet.

  Romy felt her heart pounding. If she could just survive this next part, then she’d be free.

  Free.

  Her throat constricted at the thought of what it would all mean. To be in London. The city of her dreams. She couldn’t wait to get out there and see the buses and the taxis, the theatres, shops and bars.

  Now that she’d come this far, failure wasn’t an option. Do that and she’d have failed Ursula, and she’d promised her friend that she’d make it.

  Poor Ursula. It was probably worse for her, being left behind, Romy thought, remembering their tearful goodbye. But it had to be this way. Once Ursula was in on Romy’s secret, the clock had been ticking. Lemcke’s net had been closing in around her. She’d been able to feel it.

  It had taken serious explaining to make Ursula understand that she’d had to lie to protect them both, but after Ursula had eventually forgiven her for her deception, they’d both agreed that Romy had to get out of East Berlin. Fast. The only problem had been, how.

  They’d both known it would have been too dangerous to cross the border at any of the normal crossings. Half the border police were Stasi, and they had new body-scanning equipment and trained sniffer dogs. There’d been constant reports about people getting caught. Or killed.

  For months they’d deliberated, until, just after Christmas, Ursula had told Franz about Lemcke’s money. Once Franz had been in on the secret, he’d organized for Romy to escape in a crate of black-market clothing from the factory.

  The plan they’d formulated had been risky, but Franz’s brother had a contact at the Bulgarian crossing, who’d known how to bribe one shift of the border guards. All it would take was money, Franz had told Romy. Most of Lemcke’s money, and precision timing. As well as one hell of a lot of luck.

  The first time, in the spring, the plan had failed and they’d had to abandon all hope of Romy getting out until after the summer. But now, this time, miraculously, the plan had worked. Once in Bulgaria, the lorry had travelled on a twelve-hour straight route into West Germany, terminating at a freight depot, where Romy’s crate had been put with the air cargo bound for London. More palms had been greased with cash, and the crate bearing Romy had been waved through the customs check and onto the plane early this morning.

  And now here she was, half-starved, parched and aching, feeling as crumpled and twisted as the rags she’d made her nest in, all that time ago in the cabin in the woods.

  The plane slowed to a stop. The engines died. The moment of silence was so acute that it felt to Romy as if her ears had been boxed.

  Then the cargo-hold door swung open. A thin shaft of grey light came through the peephole, illuminating the cramped living quarters in which Romy had been folded up for the last three days. She was surrounded by the detritus of biscuit rations and water bottles, the last of which she’d finished yesterday, and a large bottle full of urine, which she’d spent half of last night resisting the temptation to drink.

  She’d trained herself to ignore the claustrophobia that had threatened to overwhelm her in the past few days by considering the alternative. But now that she was so close to escaping from the rancid, confined space, spending even a second more in it seemed unbearable.

  Footsteps came towards her. Two knocks on the top of the crate. A pause. Another. Finally, she knocked back. Her arm felt like lead as she lifted it.

  A grunt. Then the splintering of wood as the crate was crow-barred open.

  ‘Hello?’ she heard someone whisper.

  Romy stood up, gasping in pain as her spine straightened for the first time in days. She blinked into the weak light. The silhouette of a man came into focus. There behind him – a block of thin daylight, the open cargo hatch of the plane. Beyond that a silver patch of tarmac.

  Freedom.

  The man’s clothing came into focus next. An insignia on his overall sleeve. A uniform.

  Romy felt her heart skip a beat. Where she came from, uniforms meant imprisonment, or punishment, or death. Her hands balled automatically into fists.

  Please, she silently begged. Please don’t send me back.

  Paulo Santini stared at the girl. They were all the same, these stowaways. Scared, hungry. Ready to fight.

  He never ceased to be amazed by the force of the human instinct to survive. Now his nose crinkled at the sour smell of the girl, and he wondered how long she’d been holed up in there. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was that she’d risked everything to make it to Britain. As so many of them did, fleeing persecution and injustice. Who could blame them?

  The girl seemed to slump. He put his arm out to steady her, helping her from the crate. Her arms were thin, but her skin was soft. So soft. And those legs. Boy, oh boy. They kept on coming from the crate.

  Paulo glanced behind him. Time was tight, but he knew the drill. He had to get her in
to the baggage trolley fast. Then out to the loading dock, where he’d hide her under the tarpaulin in the maintenance truck. He’d drive her into town later this afternoon when his shift finished.

  If she didn’t have any contacts in London, as most of them didn’t, he’d take her to his second cousin, Carlos. He’d get her cleaned up at his apartment, then put her to work. Oh yeah. This one looked like she’d do well for Carlos. And Paulo would get another kickback for that.

  He rubbed his thumb across his fingertips – the international sign for money. The girl quickly delved into the pocket of her denim skirt and handed over the notes he was expecting. He checked the money, then stuffed the notes into his overalls, before helping her get into a grey baggage trolley. He quickly loaded up bags around her. On top of her. Burying her from sight again.

  Pushing the trolley down the ramp and onto the baggage truck, he began to whistle. ‘How Will I Know?’ That Whitney Houston song had been in his head all morning.

  Oh yes, she was a pretty one, this one, Paulo thought. After he’d taken her to Carlos, he’d ask his cousin for a favour. Perhaps he could be the first man in the queue to help break her in.

  Romy immersed herself in the hot water, feeling her hair seeping out into the bubbly water of the deep bath. Then she pushed herself up again, wiping the water from her face.

  No, it wasn’t a dream. She was still here. Boy, this had to be the craziest day ever. In a matter of hours her life had changed beyond even her wildest imaginings. Was everyone in London this rich? she wondered, looking at the pink tiles around the bath and the fancy gold taps and mirror. What would she have to do to be this rich herself?

  Her mind was whirring with possibilities. From what she could understand from Paulo’s heavily accented English, which was so much more difficult to understand than the language tapes she’d listened to hundreds of times back in the clothing factory, Carlos, his cousin, was something to do with fashion. Maybe he had some kind of factory, Romy thought. Paulo had said he had good opportunities for girls who were prepared to work.

  Well, one thing was for sure: Romy was a good worker. She had relevant experience too. What if Carlos did give her a job? Wouldn’t that be something? Perhaps she could stay here in this apartment.

  Yes, she thought – picking up the bar of pink soap with the word LUX on it, and lathering it between her hands, before spreading the bubbles over her skin to wash away her horrible journey – she could get used to this.

  Conscious that she mustn’t spend too long in the bathroom, Romy got out of the bath and dried herself on the fluffy pink towel, pressing her face into the soft fragrance of it, amazed that something so simple as a towel could be so lovely. Then she looked inside the plastic bag that Carlos had given her, pulling out the clothes that she was going to change into.

  But these clothes . . . she’d never even seen anything like them. But perhaps this was the English fashion, she thought, wriggling her thin hips into the short leatherette miniskirt and pulling the mesh top over her bra. Did it matter that the bra didn’t fit? she wondered, looking in the mirror and feeling painfully self-conscious. She towel-dried her hair and tried to style it in the mirror. Then she slipped on the high white heels, unlocked the bathroom door and tottered into the kitchen.

  Carlos stood by a steamed-up window, leaning on the cooker and smoking a cigarette. The radio was playing pop music. She smiled nervously.

  ‘Feel better?’ he asked and she nodded.

  He was wearing black leather jeans and a leather jacket. A thick gold chain nestled in the hair poking over the V of his jumper. He had olive skin, like Paulo, and from the look of his stomach, he liked his food and drink. But he seemed friendly enough.

  ‘Eat,’ Carlos said, nodding down at the table. ‘You must be hungry.’

  Romy smiled and pulled the bowl towards her. She didn’t know what it was. Some kind of pasta. Long and thin, in a rich red, meaty sauce. But it smelt good. So good.

  She started to shovel it into her mouth, but it kept slipping and sliding from her fork and spoon. She twisted in her chair so that Carlos could not see. She was ashamed of her manners, embarrassed in front of him, a sophisticated man from the West.

  The door buzzer went. Carlos looked at his chunky gold watch – worth enough by itself, she thought, to have paid for Ursula to have crossed the border too – and stubbed his half-smoked cigarette into the metal ashtray on the table in front of Romy. He glanced at her as he exhaled. Then he went into the hall to open the door.

  Romy looked at the cigarette, then sat on her hands. Every instinct told her to steal the cigarette and put it in her pocket. That was far too much tobacco to waste. But what if Carlos wanted to relight it? Then she’d be caught out and, if she made him cross, he might ask her to leave.

  A moment later Carlos came back, jangling a set of car keys in his hands. Three other girls were in the corridor behind him. One of them had a black eye, which she’d tried to cover up with make-up. They all stared at Romy in silence. She froze, the pasta dangling from her mouth.

  ‘Time to go,’ Carlos said, swinging the car keys around his finger and catching them in his hand.

  Realizing that he meant right now, Romy reluctantly left the pasta, wiping her mouth on a towel on the cooker rail, and followed the girls along the corridor and down the front steps to a big car with blacked-out windows. Carlos held open the door for her, looking nervously up and down the street.

  Romy got in the back with the girls, who were all chattering in an Eastern European language she could only make out the odd word of. Where were they going? Who had given that girl a black eye? Why didn’t she seem to care? And why did another one not mind her dimpled thighs showing?

  But they all ignored her and instead Romy looked out of the window, her eyes feasting on all the London sights she’d been longing to see – the red buses, the phone boxes, the tall plane trees. There was even a royal horse . . . Oh, and that must be Buckingham Palace, she thought, twisting in her seat as Carlos drove down a wide avenue. If only Ursula could see this.

  Everything was so shiny here, Romy thought, staring out at the colourful hoardings advertising gorgeous Max Factor lipsticks. If only she were rich enough to buy one of them. Or to shop in the stores, she thought, her hand going to the glass window as they passed a huge music store, the windows filled with pictures of Whitney Houston and Prince.

  Soon they crossed a river and, just as she was expecting more sights, the city seemed to change. The tall buildings gave way to streets of shabby-looking crammed-together houses and grim-looking tower blocks. Litter was piled up in the gutter and soon there was a row of boarded-up shops covered in graffiti. Two African-looking black children were fighting on the street.

  By the time they’d stopped, ten minutes later, Romy’s nails were digging into the car seat. They pulled up on the kerb outside a house with a bump. A grey mesh grille covered every window. The door was steel and heavily bolted.

  ‘Your first time?’ one of the girls asked her, in English as heavily accented as Paulo’s and Carlos’s. Romy stepped, shivering, onto the pavement and nodded, wrapping her arms around her mesh top.

  ‘Don’t talk to her,’ Carlos said from the front.

  Inside was a large open-plan sitting room with chunky black-leather seats filled with men. Romy coughed. She was used to smoke, but nothing like this. The air smelt acrid. She looked across at a black man in a hat sitting by a table. He had a yellow plastic frisbee in front of him piled high with what looked like green weed. He nodded, as if he knew her, and Romy quickly turned away, watching as the girls arrived, their high heels clicking against the steel-capped stairs.

  Carlos smiled at Romy, but his eyes were no longer friendly, giving her no choice but to move ahead and follow them. At the top of the first flight of stairs he grabbed her arm. ‘You. In here. Room two.’

  There was a door reinforced with plywood. A green light shone above it.

  He pushed her inside. He closed the doo
r and Romy felt as if prison bars had clanked shut.

  Panicking, she backed up against the wall.

  How could she have been such a fool? She should never have got in that car with Carlos. What other kind of work did she think was available to penniless illegal immigrants? So what if Carlos been kind to her? He’d just assumed her to be a prostitute all along. From the second Paulo had dropped her off at Carlos’s flat.

  She clawed at her hair, a growl of frustration escaping her.

  After everything . . . everything she’d been through, she’d walked into this? She’d killed Fox to defend herself and Claudia, she’d lied to Ursula, escaped to Britain, putting her life at risk, enduring a horrendous journey, and now she’d walked in here?

  Desperately she looked around. There was a bed with a stained purple cover, a cracked basin next to it and a red scarf over the lamp. A joss-stick burnt on the bedside table, filling the air with the sickly smell of patchouli. There were thick bars over the window and the frame was bolted. She flung open the door next to her and saw a small windowless bathroom with a toilet and little shower cubicle. No way out there, either.

  Suddenly the door opened and a man came in. He was tall, with a tattoo of a bird on his neck.

  ‘Carlos says you’re new. The German chick, right?’ he said, baring crooked brown teeth. ‘I’m Jimmy.’ He pulled a note out of his pocket, put it on the bedside table and tapped it with his finger. ‘So come on. Let’s see what you’re made of.’

  He grinned at Romy and cast his eyes down at the bed and then back at her.

  She glanced at the door, then back at Jimmy. Then she looked at the bin. Could she swing it at his head? But Jimmy was too big. And he was moving towards her.

  Later, sore and sickened, Romy stumbled through the dark streets. All the girls had left the house barely two hours after they’d arrived. No one had said anything to her, or acted as if anything important had happened at all.

  She’d taken her chance, telling Carlos she was going to be sick so that he’d unlock the car doors. As soon as he had, she’d made a break for it, jumping out of the car by a big set of traffic lights near the river. The other girls had screamed as Romy had leapt from the car, dodging through lanes of traffic to the central reservation, where she’d tripped over the kerb, skinning her knees. She hadn’t cared if she’d been run over – only that she got away.