Death in a Far Country by Patricia Hall

Author:Patricia Hall [Hall, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2013-05-24T04:00:00+00:00

Laura drove back to Bradfield thoughtfully and alone. She had followed Itzak Ibramovic’s car slowly through the afternoon traffic, heading north out of Leeds, with Elena sitting at her side, her hands clenched anxiously on her lap. Before the main road along the river Wharfe reached Ilkley’s busy town centre, Ibramovic turned off into a quiet suburban avenue in the shadow of the steep hill leading up to the famous moor and pulled up on the drive of a stone semi-detached house, locked his car and unlocked the front door. Laura and Elena followed uncertainly, only to be met in the narrow hallway by a fair-haired middle-aged woman with a welcoming smile.

‘This is Elena,’ Laura said, drawing the girl forward. ‘It’s very good of you…’

‘Is not a problem,’ Ibramovic’s wife said warmly. ‘We will look after her. Has Itzak explained what’s happening to her? I don’t speak Albanian myself.’ She took Elena’s arm and drew her into the sitting room and sat her down in an armchair.

‘I am Lilijana,’ she said. ‘I am from Belgrade. And you are very welcome in my house.’

Laura had stayed long enough to be plied with tea and cakes and watch as Elena visibly relaxed in the warm glow of Lilijana’s care and Ibramovic’s translation. She left feeling reassured that the girl would be well looked after, although she knew with a sick certainty that the haven she had found her could only be temporary. The couple did not seem at all concerned about the legal implications of what they were doing, but Laura knew that Elena’s situation would have to be regularised, sooner rather than later, and that would involve more stress and trauma for the girl. The immediate future might look better, but long term it could probably only get much worse.

She sat at traffic lights waiting to take the turn off the main Leeds road towards Bradfield wondering what to do with the rest of her day off. She glanced across the valley towards her home town, dominated by the massive bulk of Earnshaw’s mill, now being redeveloped as luxury apartments, and wondered just where the ‘massage parlour’ that Elena said she had been forced to work in was situated amongst that grey expanse of narrow Victorian streets and more modern estates. You could hide a dozen illegal operations inside Earnshaw’s, she thought, or even in the still standing remnants of The Heights on the hills beyond. But it was much more likely to be concealed behind some relatively harmless shop-front close to the city centre.

And then there were the more up-market assignations Elena had described, when she and other girls had been dressed up by a woman who had supervised their toilet before putting them in a car with a couple of minders who had taken them to what the girl guessed was a hotel, with carpeted corridors and big rooms with huge TVs and beds larger and softer than she had even dreamt could possibly exist. The men there had

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