Thank you as always Hollie for your reviews, I absolutely love reading them! Enjoy!
Michelle and Robert had returned to Cornwall a week and a bit after they had arrived. They were finalising all the arrangements with selling their house, sorting out furniture removal companies and everything that had to be done. They would be moving into their new house within two months, but would be stopping in to stay with Andy for a bit on their way down. Jess couldn't wait.
Having her parents near her made her feel a lot more content. Another piece of good news for the couple was that, following dinner the previous night with Claire, she had announced that Brad would be coming over from America to stay with her for a few weeks. He would be bringing Lindsay with him; they were going to make another go of it now that Claire was feeling like her old self. Jess and Callum had been so pleased for her, and it was a chance for Callum to meet a brother in law and niece he never knew he had.
Jess and Callum had just begun their shifts on a Saturday night. Jess had been paired with Sally for the night which was a relief; the past few nights she'd been paired with Nate, whose driving had the potential to start off early labour he was that reckless sometimes. Nate found it funny, Jess not so much when he had to pull over to let her get out before she was sick. Sally jogged into the canteen, looking for Jess.
"Jess, we got a shout, suspicious activity happening at one of the local supermarkets." Sally called over to her. Jess dumped the remains of her tea into the bin, hurrying after Sally. They buckled themselves into the car, Jess pulling out of the station.
"Any more info about the call?" Jess asked.
"All that came through was two women have been apprehended by the security guards in a supermarket for trying to steal something. They didn't say anything else." Sally informed her.
"I bet they're trying to steal alcohol, it is a Saturday night after all." Jess said with a smile.
"Nah, I reckon make up." Sally grinned.
"Place your bets now!" Jess said with a laugh, pulling into a space in front of the supermarket. They picked their hats off of the back seats, placing them on their heads before making their way into the supermarket. As soon as they stepped in they were approached by two men.
"Did you ring in about the attempted theft?" Sally asked the older man, who was balding and dumpy.
"Yes, we had been following the girls with the cameras. You see, even though it's night, it's still hot, and they came in wearing big parka jackets with a lot of pockets. One of the girls seemed very jumpy, always looking around. So we tracked them with the cameras, and saw them stuffing packs of condoms in their pockets. My security guards caught them in the act and apprehended them." the man said.
"Ok, can you tell me your name please?" Jess asked, getting out her pad and pen.
"Tommy Patterson, store manager." he introduced himself.
"Thank you Mr Patterson. Could you take us to the women please?" Jess asked politely.
"Of course, they're in my office. Through here, mind the step." Tommy said, leading the two officers through a door behind the customer services desk and down a step. They walked down a long corridor, finally turning in where a door was. Tommy keyed in the pin to open the door, and stood aside to let Jess and Sally in first. Sat in two seats in front of Tommy's desk were two youngish women. As Jess walked round, she recognised one of the women and groaned. She returned to Sally.
"That woman there is Lana Ramirez, the tom who got ran over by who we thought was her pimp." Jess whispered. Sally nodded.
"Do you want to talk to them then? And do you know who the other woman is?" Sally whispered back.
"Well, you can do, but she wasn't very helpful last time, doesn't like cops obviously. And ni, no idea who the other women is." Jess said with a shrug. She walked back in front of the two women with Sally next to her.
"Ms Ramirez, how nice to see you again." Jess said with a small smile.
Lana grimaced, "Are you stalking me or summink?" she asked in a hostile tone.
"No I'm not. Now, Mr Patterson here says that you two were caught in the act of stealing condoms. Is that true?" Jess asked.
"Of course it's true, we've got them on CCTV!" Tommy interrupted.
"Sir, why don't you get me the CCTV discs while we talk to the women." Sally suggested, wanting to get him out of the room. He looked flustered as he nodded and left.
"So? You were stealing condoms?" Jess prompted.
"Yeah and, what of it?" Lana snapped.
"It's a crime to steal Ms Ramirez. The store manager informed us that it's their policy to prosecute all thieves." Sally said, crossing her arms.
"I didn't have no choice alright? Otherwise I wouldn't have done it." Lana said in a slightly resigned voice.
"Of course you had a choice. You could have not stolen them." Jess said.
"No, you wouldn't understand. Can you just arrest us and get it over with?" Lana asked.
"Try me. There must have been a reason you stole them, and that reason was...?" Jess enquired.
"Fine. I'm guessing from our last encounter you looked me up on your records and found out that I'm a tom? Well, Ricky won't give us any money for any kind of contraception, we have to get it ourselves. I'm all out of money for this month, I can't afford to buy them. I won't have sex with clients without it, and if I don't have sex with clients I don't bring any money in, and I get beaten. So, that's why I stole them." Lana said, a hard look on her face.
"Ricky? Is that your pimp? What's his full name?" Sally asked quickly.
"I ain't stupid. I'm not telling you. It's more than I'm worth." Lana said with a disgusted look on her face.
"Ok Lana, who's your friend? She looks a bit frightened." Jess asked, looking at the girl sitting next to Lana who was of Chinese descent.
"She didn't wanna come, but Ricky was at the house and she's scared of him." Lana explained, placing a reassuring hand on the other woman's knee.
"What's her name?" Sally asked.
"Meili Giang, she's from China. She don't speak a lot of English." Lana said, looking sideways at Meili.
"Is she a tom as well?" Sally asked. Lana nodded briefly. "How did she get over here?"
"I'm not saying anymore than I already have." Lana said, pressing her lips together.
"Ok fine, we're going to arrest you both now and you can talk to us at the station if you want. The store manager isn't willing to drop the charges." Jess said, angered that the only reason they were shoplifting was because their pimp wouldn't give them money to protect themselves against STI's and STD's. Plus the fact they had to sell sex to make a living. It was crazy that still in this day and age the second trade was as big as it was.
"Meili, she doesn't understand what's going on. You can't arrest her, just arrest me! It was me that took them and put them in her pockets, she just happened to be here!" Lana said, and for the first time since she had met her, Jess saw a different, more compassionate side to Lana.
"I'm sorry Lana, that's not how it works. Stand up and put your hands behind your back please." Sally asked, reading Lana her rights. Jess did the same with Meili.
"Listen, we'll get a translator for Meili back at the station." Jess said in a kind tone, placing Lana in the back of the car while Sally called for another one for Meili.
Once they had booked the two prostitutes in, Sally got on trying to arrange for a Chinese translator to come in so they could interview Meili. Jess, however, had a thought when she'd been talking to Lana. Meili's English was near to none, she seemed very frightened of anyone who came near her, particularly men, and Lana wouldn't tell her how Meili came to England. Jess poked her head in the room Sally was in ringing the translators.
"Sal, I'm just going up to CID. Meet me up there?" Jess asked. Sally nodded, and Jess hurried down the corridors, up the stairs and through to CID. She looked around quickly for the blonde detective, spying her behind a stack of paperwork. "Stevie?"
"Yes Jess, what can I do for you?" Stevie asked, glaring at her paperwork then smiling at Jess.
"Lana Ramirez. You've encountered her before?" Jess asked, sitting down in a chair pulled up by Stevie's desk.
"Yeah, we did her for possession of drugs. The place she was staying in was being used as a crack den. We thought at the time she was a tom, and that was confirmed when she moved into a building we knew was being used as a brothel." Stevie explained.
"Any idea who her pimp is? Or who owns the building?" Jess asked.
"All we know about the pimp is he is of either Japanese or Chinese descent and his name is Ricky. We cannot find anything else on him, he's covered himself very well, so we assume Ricky is not his real name. And that's it, although we know the owner of the house is listed as a Grant Trafford. He's been done for minor things, but we know he's a big player in prostitution, we just haven't been able to pin anything on him. What's all this about anyway?" Stevie wondered.
"We've just bought Lana and another tom called Meili in. They've been arrested for theft from a supermarket, they were stealing condoms. Lana said she'd spent all her months money that she was given, she didn't have any left for condoms, Ricky wouldn't pay for them, so they had to steal them. And for some reason, I believe her." Jess said thoughtfully.
"I believed her stories as well, but that ended badly. Be careful Jess. Was there anything else?" Stevie questioned.
"Yeah, Meili. I have a hunch that she's been sex trafficked from China. She doesn't speak any English bar a few things, she's very scared of people, especially men, and Lana wouldn't tell me how she got here. I think Ricky is buying women and using them as prostitutes." Jess said, explaining her theory.
"You're sure? Ay proof?" Stevie asked.
"No I'm not sure, it's a theory in progress. But you said the owner of the house, Grant Trafford, is involved in prostitution?" Jess put forward.
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean he's involved in sex trafficking as well. If you can get more information on this to give some support to your theory, I'll help you look into it. Deal?" Stevie said with an easy smile. Jess nodded and smiled. This was why she was fond of Stevie.
Jess and Sally had already interviewed Lana, who was giving nothing more away about Meili and just seemed to accept the charges of theft. Once she had been processed and bailed, the duo moved onto Meili. They had finally got hold of a translator who was now sat next to the shaking Meili in the interview room. They were partway through the interview when Jess and Sally finally decided they should start asking her about the situation she was currently in.
"Could you ask her how long she's been in the UK please?" Sally asked the translator, who gave a curt nod and spoke to Meili in their native tongue. The translator nodded and turned back to the police officers.
"She says she's been here for just under a year, living in the big house with Lana and a few other girls." the man said.
"How did she come here?" Jess asked.
"She says that she's not sure if she's allowed to tell you that. Ricky scares her, and he's told all the women that if he ever catches them saying stuff about him and his business to the police, they will be beaten and left out in the cold." the man said with a sad expression on his face. Jess and Sally exchanged looks before continuing.
"Tell Meili that we'll keep her safe. Whatever she tells us is in the strictest of confidence, that Ricky won't be able to hurt her." Jess said with a smile at Meili.
"And tell her that whatever she tells us will help us help all the other girls in the big house." Sally nodded.
"She says thank you." the man hesitated at this point, carrying on only when Meili nodded at him, "She says that she isn't allowed to be here."
"She's illegal?" Jess questioned.
The man nodded, "Yes. Her parents sold her for their equivalent of £10,000 in order to give her a better life in England. Meili believes, however, that her parents knew what would happen to her. You know about the one child rule in China I presume? Many parents kill or sell any baby girls they have so that they can then have a boy to carry on the family name. They wanted to get rid of Meili so that they could have a son."
"How old is Meili?" Sally asked, shocked.
"She's fifteen years old." the man said bluntly. The police officers couldn't speak for a few minutes. Meili looked so much older than her fifteen years; maybe that was because of all the trauma she had been through this past year.
"Ok, so her parents sold her. Who to?" Jess asked.
"She doesn't know his name, only that he was an Asian man in a nice suit. She was transported with a load of other girls like her and they were placed in a boat. They were kept in darkness until they arrived here in London. She says they were taken to what seemed to be a warehouse, and it was like an auction. She says she had never been so fearful of her life before." the man said, placing a comforting hand on Meili's petite one.
"So she was sold to the highest bidder? And that was Ricky, yes?" Sally queired.
"Yes, that was the first time she saw Ricky. She said that he touched her and looked at her in a nasty way, making sure she was right. He paid a lot of money for her and then took her back to the big house. Then he left her in the care of Lana. She says that Lana is the only friend she has; Lana looks out for her." the man said with a small smile at Meili.
"Can she remember how much money Ricky gave to "buy" her? Or who he gave the money to?" Jess asked.
"No, she apologises but at the time she was so scared she didn't know what was happening. She blocked it all out. She just wants to feel safe again." the man said, channelling all of Meili's hopes and fears to the two blonde police officers.
"Ok, we'll leave it there for now. Tell her we're going to put her back in a cell while we talk to one of our detectives to try and sort some help out for her. Tell her thank you, she's been very brave." Jess said with a genuine smile at Meili. Sally turned off the tape recorder and held the door open while Meili and the translator exited the room. Once they were gone, Sally and Jess exchanged a look.
"Looks like you were right. We've got a sex trafficking operation happening in Canley." Sally said sadly, following Jess up to CID.
"Yep. I wonder how many more women and children this has happened to." Jess wondered aloud. "We need to catch them, Sal. We can't let any more children go through that."
"Well done you two. With her testimony, we can begin an investigation into the sex trafficking happening in Canley. We need to find out who exactly this Ricky person is, and I think we should start looking at Grant Trafford closely again, see who he's been associating with recently, check his financial records, that sort of thing. I'll have a word with the DI and the Inspector, and we can get this investigation really going." Stevie said with a smile, getting to her feet.
"Sarge? What do we do with Meili? She's an illegal immigrant, but she's helping us with this case. So could we put her in a safe house while we're building the investigation? Help her apply for a visa and stay here safely away from Ricky and Trafford?" Jess asked.
"This case has really got to you hasn't it." Stevie stated.
Jess considered her response, not wanting to get pulled off of it for being too close, "Yes Sarge, but only because I don't want any more women to suffer like Meili has. It wasn't her choice to end up here, her parents sold her to sex traffickers knowing full well what her fate would be when she got here. I just want to help her get some sort of life back. At the end of the day, she's just a child. She deserves our help."
Stevie's eyes locked with Jess', and she nodded in recognition of Jess' words. "Ok, yeah, get started on finding somewhere for her to live safely with an appropriate guardian , and we'll make sure there's always a police officer with her and a translator. Good work you two." Stevie said as she walked into the DI's office.
Jess was laying on the sofa the following morning when they had returned home from work. Dawn had just broken across the city, golden shades filtering through the wooden blinds into the living room. Jess couldn't sleep. She had gone up to bed with Callum when they first came home, but crept downstairs again as soon as Callum's heavy breathing filled the room. Now Jess was lazily drawing circles over her bump with her fingers, knowing that she could never do to her children what Meili's parents had done to her. She heard a noise upstairs and froze, wondering if Callum was still asleep. The answer to her unspoken question was no, he wasn't still asleep.
He had woken abruptly to find Jess' side of the bed empty. He got out of bed and headed downstairs, looking through the slightly ajar living room door and seeing the light of dawn filtered onto Jess' prone form on the sofa. He watched her for a minute, gently rubbing her bump, an absent look on her face. He pushed the door open, watching Jess jump as the door creaked. A lazy smile crossed her face as she saw him. She began to sit up to make room for him but he held his hand out to stop her. She lay back down again, and he took up a seated position on the wooden floor next to her.
One of her hands lifted up, cupping his slightly unshaven cheek, staring into his eyes which were bright from the morning light. She stroked his cheek lightly, watching him lean into her embrace, his eyes slowly shutting. One of his hands landed gently on the mount of her stomach, the size of his hand swamping her stomach. She loved that about him though; he was big enough to protect her, to make her feel safe in the confine of his arms, like nothing would ever harm her again.
She watched as Callum opened his eyes again, gently taking Jess' hand from his face and just holding it. He knelt up, taking his hand off her stomach and gently pressing his lips to her belly. His lips worked their way up and over the hill of her stomach, gently caressing her skin up to her breasts. They lingered there for a while before moving upwards again, this time to her neck. She turned her head to the side, exposing more skin. He kissed her gently, his lips leaving a trail of goose bumps in their wake. He finally reached her face, reached her flushed cheeks, her sparkling eyes, her parted lips. As they kissed, the light from dawn enshrouded them, making them glow with light and love.