Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes #3)(47)

‘Yes, Lenny,’ she says quietly. ‘The hotel belonged to him. He was on his way up to the suite he keeps for himself on the top floor.’

I frown, but I don’t share my thoughts about Lenny. ‘So Lenny took you to the police?’

She shakes her head. ‘No, he took me to his suite and when I woke up I didn’t want to go to the police. I was in a state of shock.’ She makes a small noise. ‘To be honest I think I was a little mad. And I was so sick from the drugs they had given me.’

‘Didn’t he take you to the hospital?’

‘No, he brought a doctor to the suite. The doctor cleaned me up and prescribed some pills.’ She stops and says, ‘I think I need one now. Could you please get it for me?’

I go out to the living room and look in her purse. The pills are in a transparent plastic tub with a white screw top. There is no label on the tub. I unscrew it, take one pill out, and slip it into my trouser pocket. Then I fill a glass with water and take it and the container of pills to her. I shake one out and hold it out to her.

‘It doesn’t have the label. What is it?’

She puts the pill on her tongue and swallows it down with water. ‘I don’t know what it is, but it helps me.’

I take the glass and put it on the bedside table.

‘So,’ I say. ‘You never went to the police.’

‘No. Lenny said it would have been too late anyway. They would all have left the country by then. Plus, I can’t remember their faces clearly. They blur in my mind. Once, I hated them and I wanted them to be punished. I used to pray that something horrible would happen to them, but I don’t think about them anymore.’

I look at her swollen face. ‘They never used a condom. Have you had yourself tested for any diseases?’

She shakes her head. ‘Lenny always uses a condom and that is why I am very careful with you too.’

I don’t feel the kind of burning anger that I would have expected to feel. Inside, I am cold as ice. I want Snow, and I want revenge. And I will have both.

‘Do you understand now why I am indebted to Lenny? I was so broken and he fixed me. I couldn’t go home. I was too ashamed. And I couldn’t hold down a job. He gave me money and protection. And all he asked for in return, when I was a little better, was … a bit of comfort.’

‘Fuck it. You don’t owe him anything, Snow. He abused you.’

She shakes her head. ‘No, no, you don’t understand. There is an Old English word, bereafian. It means to deprive of, take away, seize, rob. That is what happened to me. I was seized and robbed. But not of my purse or money. I suffered shocking loss. Indescribable. It was so horrific that when I dragged myself out of that room I was like a dead person. I fell unconscious at his feet. He picked me up and took care of me, but I can’t even remember that time properly anymore. It is a blur.’

She frowns trying to remember.

‘It’s as if there is opaque heavy glass between me and those images of me scrabbling around the floor like a spider, hissing, furious, … helpless. I stopped eating. All I really remember is outside it rained and rained and my rage was like a dully burning metal inside me. The agony was so total, time stopped rushing forward. There was no future. For months I never went outside. If not for my pills and Lenny, I would not have survived. Can you believe I bathed only when Lenny marched me to the shower and turned on the tap?’


She looks at me beseechingly.

‘He was patient with me for months. I was like a mad woman. I slept all day with the curtains drawn. Everything terrified me. I couldn’t even walk down to the corner shop. He saw me through it all without ever giving up on me. The first time I felt human again was in spring when I was walking on the pavement and I saw an earthworm writhing on the concrete.’

She smiles mistily.

‘I crouched down and Citra’s face came into my mind. “When you see a worm on a pavement, remember that it is having a bad day. Pick it up and put it on some grass or soil.” So I carefully picked it up and carried it in my cupped hands all the way to the park. I left it on the grass, and the simple act of how it had burrowed into the cool earth still made sense when the rest of the world did not. I felt then that there was order in the world. I was having a bad day, but I would find grass and earth again. One day.’

‘He should have taken you to a proper doctor and had you examined and treated. Instead he caged you, manipulated you and used you.’

‘It’s not like that, Shane. It was not his decision. I didn’t want to see anyone. Not even a doctor. I was too ashamed. I didn’t want another person seeing or touching me. He brought me medicine.’

‘I am almost certain that what he gave you is not proper medicine. The bottle doesn’t even have a pharmacy label on it. Knowing him it’s bound to be something that helped to make you even more dependant on him. And then he locked you away in an apartment and did not allow any other man to touch you, while he availed himself to any number of whores he wanted. How did you ever think he was helping you?’





Twenty-six


LENNY

Come on. The lift doors opened, and this exotic, raven-haired, green-eyed beauty literarily crawled up to my feet and gave herself to me. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t arrange for her to be kidnapped and raped and thrown to grovel at my feet.