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  She couldn’t stop herself from thinking about little Corina, too frightened of punishment even to take a single square of chocolate – or of the girl who had been found with the headless, handless body in the bedsit in Lower Shandon Street, too terrified to leave the room.

  It was raining almost insanely hard now, as if God were trying to wash all of the city’s sins away. Katie’s jubilation at John’s finding a job at ErinChem had subsided, and she felt flat. She almost wished she had given up on Cork and gone to San Francisco with him.

  At least in San Francisco it wouldn’t be raining as if it were never going to stop.

  Five

  Zakiyyah was woken up by the sound of somebody whistling and drumming a complicated rhythm on a tabletop.

  She lifted her head from the bed and looked around. Her eyes were unfocused and her ears were ringing, as if she had fallen over and hit the back of her head. She was lying in a large gloomy room with sloping dormer ceilings that were blotched with damp. The carpet was a dirty bright green and fraying at the edges. Through the grimy windows at either end of the room she could see wet slate rooftops, so she guessed they must be three or four storeys up.

  In the street below she could hear traffic and people’s feet pattering and clicking along the pavement, and somebody shouting ‘Echo! Echo!’ The man who was whistling and drumming was sitting at a table beside the door, bent over a newspaper, which he was reading with all the intensity of somebody studying an instruction manual. Every now and then he stopped whistling and drumming, sniffed, and turned a page. He was bald and bulky, a light-skinned African, wearing a yellow flowery shirt that was straining across his shoulders.

  Zakiyyah said nothing, but sat watching him. She had no idea where she was or how she had got here, but she felt completely detached, as if she wasn’t really there at all, but was just dreaming about it. The smell of damp carpet wasn’t a dream, though, and neither was her headache, nor the stiffness in her shoulders and elbows, as if she had been sleeping in the same position for a very long time.

  She thought she recognized the tune the man was whistling and drumming – ‘Sex Tape’ by Tamaya. They had been playing it in the Z-Club where she had been working on Victoria Island in Lagos. That all seemed so far away and long ago, and her home village near Shaki seemed to have shrunk even further into the distance. Her father had grinned at her with his three front teeth missing, but her mother had been weeping and she had repeatedly reached out to touch Zakiyyah’s face with her fingertips, as if she would never see her again as long as she lived. Her younger sister, Assibi, had been standing a little way away, staring at her in bewilderment. Why is Zakiyyah leaving us and going with those men? It had been a grey, humid day and she remembered the acrid smell of diesel fumes from the men’s Land Rover.

  Zakiyyah’s left arm felt sore and she slowly rubbed it. She was wearing nothing but a knee-length sleeveless slip of pale turquoise satin, spattered with a few dark stains. She reached up and felt her hair, which was braided in its usual cornrows, with coloured glass beads. She was still wearing the pink glass bracelet around her wrist that her mother had given her on the day she had left the village. She had said that it contained the spirit of her Orisha, her guardian spirit Ochumare.

  The man at the table turned to the last page of his newspaper, read it intently, then folded it neatly in half and looked across at her. ‘So! You are awake at last?’ he said.

  He had almost no neck, and his face appeared to be squashed so that his eyes had almost disappeared and his nostrils had spread wide and his lips bulged out. He reminded Zakiyyah of the wooden gods that her uncle used to carve.

  He stood up and waddled over to her. ‘Do you know how long you been sleeping?’ He had the strangest sing-song accent, like nothing that Zakiyyah had ever heard before. It was half Cork, half Nigerian.

  Zakiyyah shook her head.

  ‘Twenty-seven hours, near enough. Still, not really surprising considering the dose that Mister Dessie give you. You hungry? You thirsty? Bet you busting for a piss, right?’

  Zakiyyah looked up at him but didn’t answer him. She didn’t know what to say. She had no idea who he was or what she was doing here or why she should have slept for so long.

  The man lifted an iPhone out of his shirt pocket and tapped out a number, breathing heavily as he did so. As he waited for an answer, he gave Zakiyyah a wink and a thumbs-up sign and said, ‘You going to do good, girl. You real pretty, let me tell you that. And wow, them little diddies! You going to have them queuing round the corner.’

  Zakiyyah touched her lips and said, ‘Drink? I can have drink?’

  ‘Sure, sure you can, what would you like? I got Coke. Or water. Or there’s Murphy’s if you feel like something stronger.’

  ‘Water,’ said Zakiyyah. She didn’t understand what he meant by the other drinks.

  ‘Just a second,’ the man told her. ‘Mister Dessie? Yeah. Bula here. Yeah. How’s it hanging? Well, the girl’s woke up now. Grand, from what I can tell. No, fine. No, absolutely fine. Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you in five, then.’

  He switched off his phone and crossed over to the other side of the room, where he opened a door that led to a small kitchenette. Zakiyyah could see a sink with a Baby Belling oven on the draining board, and a window covered with a broken Venetian blind.

  The man filled a red china mug with water and brought it back to her. He stood over her while she gulped it down, and then said, ‘More?’

  She shook her head. She didn’t know what she wanted. She just wished that she didn’t feel so dizzy and unreal.

  ‘Look,’ said the man. ‘Mister Dessie’s going to be here in a minute. He’s a good man, Mister Dessie, so long as you do what he tells you. You understand me? He will always treat you right and give you all the stuff you want, so long as you work hard and don’t give him no trouble.’

  ‘I always work hard,’ said Zakiyyah. ‘I never give my boss no trouble.’

  ‘In that case, you and Mister Dessie will rub along fine.’

  Zakiyyah looked around the room. ‘Where is this place?’ she asked him. ‘They tell me I am coming to work in a club, dancing, like Z-Club.’

  ‘Well, that’s right. Kind of. I think you have one or two financial things to sort out first. Mister Dessie will tell you all about it.’

  ‘But this is Ireland?’

  ‘Yes, girl. This is Ireland.’

  Zakiyyah shook her head again, but it still wouldn’t clear. ‘I don’t remember coming here. I came on a plane?’

  ‘No, you came on a ship. But don’t you worry about it. You’re here now, girl. Your new life starts here’

  ‘I still can’t think.’

  ‘Like I said, don’t worry about it. Mister Dessie won’t be paying you to think.’

  ‘What about my clothes? Where is my suitcase?’

  ‘Mister Dessie will sort out something for you to wear.’

  ‘But in my suitcase was not only clothes. I have pictures of my family. I have other things. My make-up. Things that my friends in Lagos gave me.’

  The man went back to the table, picked up a red and white carton of Carrolls cigarettes and lit one. Smoke blew out of his wide-apart nostrils as if one of her uncle’s carved wooden gods had come to life.

  ‘All that kind of thing, you’ll have to ask Mister Dessie about all that. Me, I’m just here to keep an eye on you.’

  ‘But I want to get dressed.’

  The man looked amused. ‘I don’t think you’ll be worrying too much about that, darling. Not in your line of work.’

  Zakiyyah stood up. Her head was gradually beginning to feel clearer. She had been promised a nightclub job in Ireland, as a hostess and dancer, just like her job at the Z-Club. Her manager, Benjamin Bankole, had been talking to an Irishman who had visited the club. He had called her into his office and asked her if she wanted to make ten times as much money as she was making in Lagos.

  The Irishman had been standing next to her manager’s d
esk. He had been fat and balding and wearing a sweat-stained shirt with palm trees and monkeys on it. He had grinned at her and said, ‘Who knows, girl? You wait till my friend Michael Gerrety claps his eyes on you. You could even be famous.’

  She still wasn’t clear what had happened after that. She could remember packing her suitcase. But then the Irishman had come round to the house where was staying on Oluwole Street to pick her up and told her that she needed a rabies inoculation before the immigration authorities would allow her into Ireland. Luckily enough, he had some vaccine with him.

  She remembered sitting on the side of her creaky bed and baring her arm for him, but that was all.

  ‘I need toilet,’ she told the bald African man.

  ‘There – through there,’ he said, pointing to a door opposite the kitchenette.

  Zakiyyah went into the cramped windowless lavatory and closed the door, although there was no lock on it. The wooden seat was loose and the cistern was gurgling. This wasn’t how she had imagined Ireland at all. She had imagined a dark, plush club with twinkling lights and smartly dressed customers. She had imagined dancing between the tables and beaming men tucking banknotes into her garters, just like they had at the Z-Club.

  At first she could urinate only in fits and starts, but then it seemed as if she were never going to stop. She still hadn’t finished before the man opened the toilet door without knocking and said, ‘How long are you going to be, girl? Mister Dessie’s here!’

  There was toilet paper, but nowhere for Zakiyyah to wash her hands. She came out of the toilet and started to cross the room towards the kitchenette. She was only halfway there, though, when a loud, twangy voice said, ‘And where the feck d’you think you’re going? Come here, girl!’

  She stopped and turned. A podgy man in a grey double-breasted suit was standing in the middle of the room, with his hands deep in his jacket pockets and his legs spread apart. He had black wavy hair which was short on top but curled over his collar at the back in a mullet. His eyes were bulbous and his nose was an odd bifurcated blob and his lips were red and rubbery. He wore a wide red zigzag necktie but it did nothing to hide his belly, which hung pendulously over his belt.

  Zakiyyah hesitated, but the man in the grey suit flapped his hand to beckon her over, once, twice, and then again, much more irritably, so she slowly approached him. She was very conscious that she was wearing nothing but this thin turquoise slip and she crossed her arms protectively over her breasts so that he wouldn’t see her nipples.

  ‘This is Mister Dessie,’ said the bald African man, as if that weren’t obvious. ‘Say hallo to Mister Dessie, Zakiyyah.’

  ‘That’s your name, Zakiyyah?’ asked Mister Dessie. He stuck his thumb up his right nostril and tugged at it, as if he had some dried mucus up there that he was trying to dislodge. ‘What does that mean? Anything? I know what this meb’s name means, Bula-Bulan Yaro. Fat Boy.’

  ‘Zakiyyah means pure,’ said the bald man, blowing out smoke. ‘Like, never touched by nobody, never.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Mister Dessie. ‘I like that! Usually we change the girls’ names, but I really like that! That’s what-do-you-call-it? Ironic.’

  The bald man smiled and nodded, though it was obvious he didn’t have the faintest idea what ‘ironic’ meant.

  Mister Dessie went over to the bed and sat down and patted the blanket beside him to indicate that Zakiyyah should sit down, too. She did so, very cautiously, although she kept as far away from him as she could.

  ‘You have my suitcase?’ she asked him.

  He blinked at her with those bulbous eyes, like a toad. ‘Your suitcase? Why would I have your suitcase?’

  ‘It has all my clothes in it, and my shoes, and pictures of my family.’

  Mister Dessie slowly shook his head. ‘Don’t know what would have happened to that, girl. Not my department. But don’t you worry, I can fix you up with something to wear.’

  ‘But in my suitcase is everything.’

  ‘No, no, no, that’s where you have it wrong. Whatever you had in your suitcase, that used to be everything, but that was before you agreed to come here. The thing is, like, you’re in considerable debt to us, financially, and you’re going to have to find a way to pay us back.’

  Zakiyyah frowned at him, and crossed her arms even more tightly across her breasts. ‘I do not understand you,’ she said. ‘How am I in debt?’

  Mister Dessie slapped his sausage-tight trouser leg and turned to Bula-Bulan Yaro. ‘Did you hear that, Bula? “How am I in debt?” Would you credit the naivety?’

  ‘Pure amazing,’ said Bula, in his strange Nigerian-Irish accent, although it was obvious that he didn’t know what ‘naivety’ meant, either.

  Mister Dessie turned back to Zakiyyah and said, ‘How much do you think it cost us to get you here? Your boat ticket? All of our other expenses? And just remember that you agreed to come here voluntary, like. My friends assured me that nobody forced you. But you could hardly expect us to bring you here for free.’

  Zakiyyah was beginning to feel anxious now. ‘I do not know how much it cost,’ she said. ‘Those men told me that I would make a lot of money in Ireland, much more than in Lagos.’

  ‘Well, you will, darling, I can assure you of that,’ said Mister Dessie, patting her thigh. ‘For starters, though, you have to reimburse us. As much as we’d like to think of ourselves as a charitable institution, we’re a business, and we can’t afford to be shelling out boat tickets left, right and centre.’

  Bula grunted in amusement. He must have heard all of this so many times before.

  Zakiyyah was beginning to feel shivery, even though the room was so warm and stuffy. She touched her forehead and she was perspiring. She felt as if she could hardly breathe, especially since the air was so thick with Bula’s stale cigarette smoke.

  ‘How much do I owe you for the ticket?’ she asked Mister Dessie. ‘If I owe you, yes, I will pay you back.’

  ‘Two thousand seven hundred and fifty euros, all told,’ said Mister Dessie, without even blinking. ‘But for you, we’ll say two thousand five.’

  ‘How much is that in dollars?’ Zakiyyah asked him.

  Bula had been prodding at his iPhone. ‘Three thousand three hundred and sixty-four dollars, give or take,’ he called out.

  ‘I can pay you back every week, when the club pays me,’ said Zakiyyah.

  ‘What club?’ asked Mister Dessie.

  Zakiyyah felt even chillier now, and she was beginning to tremble. ‘The club I came to dance at.’

  ‘You won’t be dancing at any clubs, darling, not until you pay us back what you owe us.’

  ‘What do you mean? How can I pay you back if I cannot dance?’

  ‘Simple. You can work for us, that’s how. We have a club where men come along to be entertained by pretty young women like you. If you do that for two or three months, you should have cleared your debt, and then you can take yourself away and dance your rear end off wherever the fancy takes you. But not until then.’

  Zakiyyah was shaking. ‘I do not understand you. I do not know what you mean. Please. I need my suitcase. I need my clothes. I do not feel very good. I feel sick.’

  ‘It’s not difficult to understand, darling,’ said Mister Dessie. ‘A man feels the itch for some female company, like, so he comes along to our club and chooses a female to give him some company. That’s all there is to it. Depending on how much your man’s prepared to pay, she’ll give him a hand-job, or a blow-job, or intercourse, front or back or both, and everybody’s happy.’

  Zakiyyah couldn’t believe what he had just said to her. ‘You want me to be a bagar? A hooker?’

  ‘A hooker? We don’t call them that in Ireland. We call them hostesses, or sex workers. It’s a very respectable way of life altogether in Ireland, believe you me. It’s not quite like being a nun, I’ll grant you that, but it’s not so much sluttier than serving behind the cosmetics counter at Brown Thomas. And, like I say, you won’t have to do it for
more than two or three months.’

  ‘I think I need doctor,’ said Zakiyyah. Her stomach knotted up and she unexpectedly retched, although nothing came up except a mouthful of sour-tasting saliva.

  ‘Oh, you need something to eat, that’s all,’ said Mister Dessie. ‘Bula can send out for a pizza for you. We’ll have to add it on to your bill, mind. But that’s business. You’ll never get rich if you don’t watch the pennies.’

  ‘I am sick,’ said Zakiyyah. ‘I cannot work for you. I cannot be bagar. Please, I feel very sick.’

  ‘You don’t have a choice, I’m sorry to tell you,’ Mister Dessie replied. ‘If you don’t work for me, I’ll report you to the immigration authorities and you’ll be arrested as an illegal immigrant and locked up in the Dóchas Centre. That’s the prison for women who don’t behave themselves, and believe me, you won’t like it in there.’

  ‘I can go back to Lagos. Please.’

  ‘Go back to Lagos? How? How are you going to pay for it? And just for the moment I have your passport for safe keeping, in case you think of skipping the country without settling up what you owe us.’

  Zakiyyah retched again. She felt as if her whole stomach lining was being turned inside out, like the sleeve of a jacket.

  Mister Dessie stood up. ‘I know what you need, girl,’ he told her. ‘You’ve caught the rabies, that why you’re feeling so sick. It was Charlie’s fault. He didn’t give you enough of the vaccine. Here.’

  He reached into his inside pocket and took out a flat black leather case. He laid it on the table, unzipped it, and slid out a hypodermic syringe and a small glass bottle. Zakiyyah glanced over at him once or twice, but now she was shaking too much to care what he was doing. Bula stood by, with his arms folded, smiling placidly.

  Mister Dessie sat down beside her again and lifted up her left arm. She felt a sharp prick, like a mosquito sting, and then Mister Dessie said, ‘There. You’re grand. You’ll be feeling much better before you know it.’