Chapter 32

We didn’t hit the road until well after 6pm, so with a break for food we were looking at getting home around 11pm, not too bad really.

Belle chatted away excitedly about memories brought up from the photo album, holidays, birthday parties, a couple of friends from school she would like to catch up with.

“It’s funny, I had maybe 10 friends I hung around with at school, and I think there’s only two of them that I found I missed talking to, Jodie and Elisha, the rest, they were just people I kept seeing out of habit I think. Is that normal?”

“It is, I probably only keep in touch with a couple of people from university and no-one from school. As we grow older, people drift apart, have different interests, different life experiences, especially in your case.”

“Do you think I should try to get in touch with my old friends?”

“Of course, if you think they’ll understand why you had to run away, I think it would be nice to let them know you’re alive and well. See if Poppy and Katie can find them for you on Facebook or Instagram and drop them a quick message, then if they reply in a positive way you can start to chat with them.”

“Yes, I think I’ll do that. I didn’t fancy either of them or anything, they were just good friends. They were the ones who were nice to me after mum and dad died, the other friends didn’t seem to understand why I was so upset. When I started to take the tablets the doctor gave me Elisha was really kind. I don’t know if she’d been on them, or someone in her family, but she understood exactly what I was feeling and helped me out with school work, made me eat lunch when I lost interest in food and stuff.

“Hahaha, as if I was almost anorexic for a while because of the tablets, I bet you’d have trouble believing that.”

“Indeed, but I’d much rather you eat too much than not enough. Elisha sounds like a very good friend, you definitely need to try to reconnect with her, she deserves to know you’re ok.”

We cruised down the M1, a steady 15 mph above the limit, making great time, reaching Donington Park services a little before 7:30, I pulled in to grab something to eat.

Jenny said she’d phone at 8pm to update us all on the day’s events, and I didn’t want to take that call in Burger King, so we ate our burgers quickly, washed our hands then took our coffees back to the Bentley.

My phone rang a little after 8, I pulled over to the nearside lane, set the cruise control to 70, and took the call, Jenny’s voice was incredibly clear over the many speakers in the car.

“Hey Jenny, got you on handsfree, so it’s safe and legal.”

“Thank you, I’d hate to have to arrest you when you get home.”

“Hi Mum, we’ve had a great time, I’m really looking forward to being home though, I’ve missed you all.”

“We’ve missed you, Belle,” Poppy and Katie replied.

“Ok everyone, I was hoping to tell you this all together in person, but Belle had stuff to do in York, and we’re off to the police fun day tomorrow, so I thought this was the best solution, it’s just a shame that I’m still in work and I can’t see any of you.

“I was kind of hoping you’d forgotten that today was the day we raided the gentleman’s club...”

“Oh shit, I had forgotten,” Poppy cried, “I would have wished you good luck.”

“I deliberately didn’t remind you all, so you wouldn’t be worried. Anyway, it was mostly successful. All of your friends were whisked out the back by Jeremy.”

“Thanks, I’m glad of that, what about the other girls?”

“Not such good news there, I’m afraid, we had to make a deal with the Immigration Service, who provided most of the manpower for the raid, and that deal involved them taking the illegal immigrants into custody. Both myself and my bosses have received assurances that they will try to trace family and rescue anyone held by the gangs.”

“I understand why you had to do that, I hope they can find the little girls,” Belle said.

“I’m going to keep up the pressure, honey,” Jenny replied, “make sure they do their best, and help any way I can.”

“Thank you, that’s all we ask,” Poppy added, “did you get any of the pervs?”

“We got 20 men from the room, we searched the place top to bottom, so unless some escaped it was a low turnout today. We’ve also taken in ten staff and seized playback equipment. I’m desperately hoping it won’t be my job to watch through the films.”

“Oh no, you can’t do that, we’ve seen some of them and they’re horrible.”

“Can I ask you both one last time, and please be honest, I’m not going to judge you, are either of you in the films?”

“Definitely not!” Belle replied.

“Absolutely not, well, most likely not, some people have filmed me, but nothing would be good enough quality to show at the porno cinema.”

“Oh shit Poppy, people filmed you, why did you never tell us,” Belle asked.

“I never really thought much of it, just me and some guy in a dirty hotel room or back alley filmed on a phone. I’m betting there’ll be nothing recognisable on the videos.”

“But still, there’s films out there, what if someone at school finds them?” Katie asked.

“I’m willing to bet everyone who filmed me has lost or smashed their phone at least once since then, and some of them are probably amongst the trail of dead.”

“You’re not worried at all?” Katie asked.

“Look, they’ll be grainy videos of dirty bodies, and even if some do appear and by some miracle I’m recognised, then I’m coming clean about everything in my past in the book anyway, and you can’t shame or blackmail someone who’s willing to tell all anyway.”

“Ok,” Jenny sighed, “so if we do find one of your videos, what would be the chances of you identifying anyone else in the film?”

“Probably slim, but there’s no harm in me checking for you.”

“You’re such a brave girl Poppy,” Jenny said, “I’d hate to think how awful that will be for you.”

“Nowhere near as awful as some of the shit I’ve been through.”

“True, so I’ll ask whoever is in charge of watching the films to highlight any low quality phone videos, then I’ll check them, if any of them look like you, I’ll ask if I can bring you in to double check them.”

“I can do that, but I really don’t think I’ll be there.”

“Poppy, there’s about 5,000 films on the server...”

“Fuck, really? How can there be so much child porn, that’s horrible. Oh god, all those poor girls. Fuck, fuck fuck,” Poppy cried, “this is too much, when are you coming home mum, I really need a cuddle.”

“Probably not until very late, we have so much work to do here. I can ask Helen to come over, because your dad won’t be back for a while.”

“Please, or ask if we can go round. I don’t mind the thought of videos of me, but you saying there’s thousands of videos, so many lives damaged, it makes me want to cry.”

“Put the phone down Poppy and call Helen now, I need a quick word with dad then I’ll call her myself as well.”

“Ok mum, I’ll ring her now,” Poppy replied as she cut the call.

“You still there?” Jenny asked.

“I’m here,” I replied.

“How long will it take you to get home?”

“The sat nav is saying two hours, if we don’t hit traffic I can probably do it in 90 minutes.”

“Can you pick me up?”

“Of course, I’ll be as quick as I can.”

As soon as Jenny cut the call I floored the accelerator and pulled out into the outside lane, keeping the speed just below 100 mph, Belle keeping a lookout for cameras.

We hit the M25 in an hour, then cruised round at 70 until we reached the exit for home. At that time traffic was fairly light and I got Belle to phone Jenny as we approached the police station, she was waiting outside as I pulled up. Belle climbed over the seat and into the back as Jenny opened the door.

“Nice car, such a shame I’m not experiencing it in nicer circumstances,” she said as I pulled away, “and yes, I completely regret raising that subject, it’s done now, hopefully Helen can help Poppy.”

“I can help her,” Belle said, “we were together when we saw some of the films, we’ll have a good cry, it will do her good. We always tried to pretend the films weren’t real, and we’d have some vodka or wine afterwards to make us sleepy.”

Jenny used her app to open the gate, I just managed to squeeze the Bentley far enough in to let the gate close.

Inside we heard no sounds from downstairs, so we went upstairs and found Poppy and Katie with Helen, Poppy was asleep with Katie and Helen both holding her.

Belle dropped her bag on the floor and, after shrugging out of her coat and kicking off her shoes, she climbed on the bed, replacing Helen who moved away carefully.

“If you want to talk to mum, Katie, I’ll be ok if Poppy wakes up.”

We left Belle holding Poppy and moved down to the kitchen.

“Thank you so much for coming over Helen,” Jenny said as she poured them both a glass of wine, Katie was drinking milk as I helped myself to a hefty measure of Dalmore.

“No problem Jenny, I’d been wondering myself if there might be films of Poppy out there.”

“How was she when you arrived?”

“Very quiet,” Helen looked at Katie, “they were sitting in the lounge with the light’s off, just cuddling, no tears.”

“I think she’s run out of tears,” Katie said quietly, “there’s a very wet towel in the laundry room.”

“We had a little chat,” Helen said, “she spoke about the films, and the girls she’d seen on screen, and some young boys, she seemed numb with shock about the number of films, the realisation that if they had 5,000 films, that would be a mere fraction of what’s out there, just how many damaged kids there must be.”

“We took her upstairs,” Katie continued, “she curled up in bed in her clothes, she was shivering, we cuddled her, she fell asleep after about an hour.”

“I shouldn’t have pressed her on the films, I should have just talked about the basics of the raid, avoided specifics, but I had to press her on whether she might be in any, and that led me to telling her how many films we found.”

“Might she be in any of the films?” Helen asked.

“There’s a very remote possibility, she admitted some people filmed her on their phones.”

“Oh shit,” Helen replied before turning to me, “have they seen the box yet?”

“What box,” Jenny asked.

“Be back in a minute,” I said by way of reply.

A moment later I returned and gave Helen the box.

“Before I open this Katie, you have to swear you won’t mention anything you see to Poppy. I’ll show her everything tomorrow night, so if you think you can’t keep a secret for 24 hours I’m ok if you go up to bed and I’ll show you all together.”

Katie thought for a moment, “is this upsetting?” she asked eventually.

Helen thought before she answered, “mmm, at the moment some of the stuff in here is upsetting, I want to remove some pages from some of the books before I show them to Poppy. Some of the pages may have to stay, but I’ll try to remove the most upsetting images.”

“Is she in there?” Katie asked, not an unreasonable question in the circumstances.

“Poppy? Oh goodness no, but there’s some books from the 1970’s before some countries had banned child exploitation, so some of the photos are of young girls.”

“Ok, so when you get rid of those, what’s left?” Katie asked.

“Pictures of me, and of my mum.”

“We’ve seen pictures of you before, so why are they secret?”

“Not like these, and there’s a few films, and that’s what I want to show Poppy, because some of the films were made without my consent.”

I stiffened at that, “that’s not what you said before.”

“I know, I was hoping to remove those films, but the situation has changed, so I want Poppy to know she’s not alone. Do you remember my old boyfriend Aaron, the one I cried about and you beat up for me?”

Jenny raised her eyebrows at that, “sorry, I just can’t imagine you beating anyone up.”

“He’s always been a good brother,” Helen replied, “so while Alex was giving Aaron a kicking I stole his camera memory card. It’s in this box.”

“Ahh, and was anything about the evening consensual,” Jenny asked.

“Not really.”

“So you have a video of you being raped.”

“Pretty much, more than one actually. So I kind of want Poppy to know about it, and that it’s becoming increasingly common, with boys filming their conquests and putting the results online. We don’t need to watch the film, in fact, I definitely don’t want to watch it, I just want Poppy to know I was once in a similar position when I was 15.”

Jenny took the box from Helen, “so, shall we set about removing anything you don’t want Poppy and Belle to see?”

“Belle’s seen some of it, she found the box,” Helen said.

“And she’s not told anyone, impressive,” Jenny replied.

“It was when we were clearing out the spare room, we looked inside to see what it was. She asked me to hide it so she wouldn’t be tempted to take it straight to Poppy.”

Katie opened the box and pulled out the first magazine, she flipped through the first few pages and stopped when she saw Helen, legs spread, her pussy stretched by a big dildo.

“Oh my,” Jenny gasped, “I thought you just did glamour stuff.”

“Well, mostly glamour, this kind of work bookended my modelling career, these shots are late on, when they were allowing harder stuff in newsagents. These photos were my one and only set for an American magazine, I was due to do a hardcore set for them but I left the industry before it happened, thankfully.”

“Do you have your early stuff?” Katie asked.

“I don’t sweetheart, and I’m glad. They were nothing really bad, similar to these, dildo masturbation and stuff, but they were such low quality, I’d be embarrassed to see them now.”

“What’s in these other magazines?” Katie asked as she picked up the first of the hard core mags.

I put my hand on top of Katie’s, “careful with these, you might see something you don’t want to.”

“Ahh, ok, what’s inside?”

“A set featuring a girl your age, Belle’s saw one photo of the girl fully clothed and slammed the magazine shut, if you like I’ll find a page you’ll be mostly OK with.”

I remembered the page number of my mum’s set and flipped through, opening the magazine for Katie and Jenny to see.

“Oh, is this your mum?” Jenny asked, “she looks so much like you, Helen.”

“I got my mum’s looks, Alex got Dad’s brains and patience, I think we both did well.”

“Can I turn the page?” Katie asked.

“You can turn the page,” I said.

“Oh, she’s with a woman,” Katie said brightly “is this a lesbian scene?”

“She’s not a woman,” Helen said quietly, “look more closely.”

“She’s got boobs, and really nice hair, and ... oh my god she’s got a dick!” Katie cried, slamming the magazine shut.

She sat there for a moment before she opened it again and leafed through to the right page, “err, sorry about that, it was a bit of a shock is all. So this isn’t a lesbian scene then. Do they get it on?”

“Turn the page and find out,” Helen said softly.

“Oh wow, they do. She’s got quite a big dick, and it seems to work ok. Have you ever done it with a trans lady, Helen?”

“No, I haven’t. Not that I’d have a problem with it, just the opportunity hasn’t arisen yet.”

Katie closed the magazine, “so, how do we remove the bits we don’t want to ever see, without seeing them?”

“That will be my job,” Helen replied, “I’ll remove the pages and burn them. There’s not that much, I just don’t want anything in the box that will trigger Poppy.”