Chapter 78: Hail & Farewell

"I feel a bit of a fraud," I said looking out at the crowd of people that had turned up. "After all I'm not really leaving. Well not to go far."

"No, I know," said Freddie, "but it's good to have an excuse to get everyone together and let them have some fun. Look, it's your leaving party, enjoy it."

We'd borrowed Brad's castle for the event. Brad was back in Kushtia full time now and Freddie had arranged to look after the property for him in his absence. We'd brought stock down from the Prep Centre to help out and most of the team were there. Even Elly turned up, which I took as a great compliment. She just never came to events like this.

Brian's family and some of the other stock had been put down into the cells for the amusement of any that wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. As usual it seemed like it was the accountants and the HR people that were queuing up for a turn. Fair enough, I guess, they don't get many perks on their side of the business. Rick had put a few of the guards down there to keep an eye on things but that was more about protecting the girls than preventing any trouble...

I saw two faces that I recognised - Rebecca & Amanda had been acquired from Constanza (I suspected mainly with the aim of giving Freddie some insights in Constanza's operations and possibly getting some intelligence about the business with Tricia) and had been pressed into waitressing duties. At least some of their flight attendant skills were still being put to use. Close up I wasn't too impressed with the surgery that Constanza had put them through. Sure the surgeon had got the slanted eyes all right and the breast reduction had meant they could wear the cheong sam with a measure of authenticity but the overall effect was a bit weird. They just looked like an uncomfortable mixture of Asiatic and western features to me. I wasn't sure how Constanza could complain about the barbarity of some owners and then do something like that. Still, they'd been her property then, I suppose and they seemed happy enough as they wound their way through the crowd carrying trays of drinks and snacks. Tricia could have helped out too if she'd still been there, I guess.

I caught myself thinking about the Rebecca, Amanda and Tricia. They were all women that I'd shared a bed with at some time, now hopelessly enslaved, physically abused, or mentally scarred. I supposed that I ought to have felt some guilt about their situation, although Amanda was the only one that I had been actually involved in kidnapping. Somehow it just seemed part of the day to day job now. I counted up the number of women I'd been involved in abducting. I made it 47. It sounded like a lot but then I thought it had been almost a year. I stopped again. It was a lot. However long it had been, it was a lot.

Sarah, on the other hand, was there. Harry brought her into the room, leading her on a leash that linked to her collar. She was smiling cheerfully as she stepped along behind him in impossibly high heels and a skirt so tight that she seemed only to be able to move her legs below the knees. Harry turned to talk to her. As he did so, I realised that there must have been some reconciliation between the two of them that I had missed out on while I was away in Barbados and Kushtia. She had obviously finished her sexualisation and pleasure programme and it looked like Harry was interested in the result.

Rachel and Sukie were standing together at the side of the room. It looked to me as though they were having fun too. I went across to talk to them. I'd told them that things would be OK; that I'd carry on looking out for them in the new job. Rachel was looking forward to helping. Sukie had just seemed grateful she wasn't going to be turned away or sold again. Now the two of them looked happy. Sukie was sitting holding Rachel's hand. "It's been a strange year," I said.

Rachel turned to me, "It's not a bad story. Maybe you should write it down. I could help you."

I thought she was probably right.

The only one that wasn't there was Tricia. At least, she wasn't there in person. Laying on a chair at the side of the room was a copy of the Daily Mirror. Its front page was filled with a grainy photograph taken with a telephoto lens. A solitary figure could be made out against a background of trees in some sort of garden or park. In spite of the way that her head was hunched down, it looked like Tricia to me. The caption said "Container Girl : No Hope Of Identification Says Hospital". I read the story below the photograph. The paper's reporters had tracked down the mental hospital where the girl found in the Russian aircraft was being cared for. Sources on the medical team said that there had been no progress in either getting the girl to identify herself or discovering anything about her. Security services were still allegedly interested in talking to members of the Russian foreign intelligence service. A police source felt the girl was probably Russian, their favoured explanation was that she was a dissident, asylum seeker that had slipped into the UK somehow and was now being repatriated in a rather extreme way. The Russians had declined to comment. I thought it was only a while before the police put out a full face shot and someone recognised her. Freddie had said that wouldn't be a problem, like all of Harry's team she didn't have a link to her past as far as the organisation was concerned. I wondered how they'd break the links for me if they ever needed to.