Part 1 (1/2)

THE JUNGLE.

by Mark Dawson.

PROLOGUE.

NADIA BLINKED. It took a moment to realise that her eyes were open. It was completely dark. She was lying down on something hard. She felt her hands folded across her chest, but she couldn't see them. She blinked her eyes again. She unclasped her fingers and brought her right hand right up to her face. All she could see was the suggestion of a shape pa.s.sing through the thicker black.

She squeezed her eyes shut and listened. She heard her breathing, quick and shallow, and then, beyond that, the low rumble of an engine.

The muscles in her back were sore. Her legs twitched with cramp. She reached up. Her hands could only have been a few inches above her chest when her knuckles grazed something hard. She turned her hands over and probed with her fingers. She felt something solid and rough, an abrasiveness that snagged against her fingernails.

She felt the first icy stabs of fear in her stomach.

Her memory was foggy, clouded with uncertainty, and she tried to make sense of what had happened to her. It came back to her in fragments. She remembered the trip across the desert; she remembered the boat, so loaded with pa.s.sengers that she had been certain that it would capsize and tip them all into the ocean; she remembered the way that her brother had clasped her hand and told her everything would be all right; she remembered the way that she had felt at the first sight of land, of Europe, at the promise of a new life that it represented. She had knelt down and kissed the concrete of the dock.

And five minutes later she had been picked up and tossed into the back of the van.

She remembered: the men with guns who took her from Samir; the long drive north in the back of the van with two other women, Amena and Rasha; the tented city that teemed with refugees, men and women like her; the tent, and the big man with the shaven head who had looked at her and nodded; her arms being held behind her back, the p.r.i.c.k of the needle in her neck, the plunge into darkness.

Nadia opened her eyes again and pressed up once more, tracing the fingers of both hands to the left and right. She felt another panel, perpendicular to the one that was above her. She found the join between them. Her finger caught in the otherwise flat panel and she realised that she had found a knot in the wood.

She realised where she was.

She was in a wooden box.

”Help!”

Her voice was both loud and deadened, all at once.

She became frantic. ”Help! Please, help me!”

She banged her fists on the sides of the box and slapped her palms against the lid until her skin burned. Her heart raced and she started to sweat. She kept banging and screaming until she was gasping for breath.

No-one came.

She heard the rumble of the engine again and then the sensation of renewed motion. She banged the lid and kicked out with her legs, her feet thumping against the end of the box, but it was all in vain. No-one came.

She lay back, panting, her eyes stinging with hot tears.

She had been taken. She had been stolen from her brother, their hopes of a better life ruined. She didn't know where she was. She didn't know what was going to happen to her.

She stopped struggling.

There was no point. No-one was coming to help her.

Nadia was alone.

And she was scared.

Part One.

Calais and Dover.

Chapter One.

JOHN MILTON'S SAt.u.r.dAY MEETING was held in the sports hall of a school in Chelsea. It was one of his favourites: it was early, at eight o'clock, which meant that he had gotten the meeting out of the way before most people were up and about, and had given himself the best possible start to the day that he could; and, just as important, it was a lively, friendly meeting that was full of positive energy. Milton occasionally felt closer to taking a drink at the weekend, and he had found that the meeting was an effective bolster to help him get through to Monday.

He helped himself to a cup of coffee and a biscuit and took a seat in the middle of the room. He recognised many of the other regulars and exchanged smiles and nods of greeting with a few of them.

Milton closed his eyes and relaxed, feeling the usual serenity that he had only ever found in the meetings.

”Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.”

Milton opened his eyes. The secretary of the meeting was Tommy McCall, a burly Glaswegian with a shaven head and tattoos on both forearms. He was an imposing character, but Milton had quickly warmed to him as soon as he heard him speak for the first time. He had a thick accent, occasionally impenetrably so, but his almost const.i.tutional dourness was leavened with a quicksilver sense of humour that belied his aggressive appearance. He was ruthlessly funny, lambasting the other attendees and, more often than not, himself.

”A word or two about my appearance,” McCall said, holding up his right arm. It was encased in plaster from the wrist all the way up to just below his shoulder. ”Despite what you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds might think, I haven't fallen off the wagon. I was playing football with my son. I tripped, put my arm down to break my fall and...” He left the arm up, nodding to it with a rueful smile. ”I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm bulls.h.i.+tting you, but I swear to G.o.d I'm not. And believe me, the irony that I'd do twenty years of hard Scottish drinking and emerge with not even a scratch on me and then I'd trip over a seven-year-old and do my arm in two places like this, well, I can a.s.sure you, that's not lost on me at all.”

Tommy put his arm down, resting it on the table with a deliberate clunk that drew more good-natured laughter. He started the meeting properly, welcoming newcomers and then beginning the prayers, a familiar routine that Milton had come to find particularly rea.s.suring. He had been to meetings all over the world, and, barring a few minor differences, the structure and content was almost always the same. There was a rea.s.surance in that routine.

Milton closed his eyes and intoned the prayers with the others.

THE SPEAKER at the meeting was a young mother who laid out, during the course of her share, an unfortunate life that had seen her fight to bring up her two children after her husband had died of lung cancer. Six months after he had died, she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She reported, to warm applause, that the cancer was in remission, but that an old predisposition toward alcoholic thinking had been awakened by her struggles.

Milton listened intently throughout, thinking that her experiences cast his own in stark relief. His drinking had been to drown out the clamour of his guilt. But the source of his guilt were the decisions that he had made and the career that he had chosen for himself. Comparing his life to hers seemed selfish and inappropriate, and he started to feel uncomfortable until Tommy reminded everyone that they should focus on the similarities and not the differences. She had relied on drink to solve a problem. Milton had done the same. They had both lost control of their drinking, and both had ended up in the rooms as a last resort. That was what they shared, and, in that knowledge, Milton found his usual measure of peace.

The meeting came to an end and the men and women started to disperse. Some went for breakfast at a greasy spoon on the King's Road. Milton had his running gear in his bag. He had planned to change into it and then go for a long run along the towpath of the Thames, following it into central London and then looping back in a route that he could stretch out to fifteen miles if he was in the mood. It was a beautiful day, clear and crisp, and the prospect of the exercise was very appealing.

He would get changed in the bathroom. He returned his empty cup to the table, thanked the old woman who had taken on the responsibility for the refreshments, and, as he turned, Tommy was behind him.

”h.e.l.lo, John.”

”All right?”

”Not so bad,” he said, holding up his arm, ”all things considered.”

Milton nodded at the cast. ”Is that really what happened?” he said with a grin. ”You tripped?”

”I'm serious. I caught my foot and went over. b.l.o.o.d.y agony. Cried like a baby. Had to turn down the morphine, too. Last thing I want to do is to end up on that again.”