Read Online The Game by Amanda Prowse - Free Book Online

jerked her cigarette towards the edge of the room.
    Gemma swallowed the naked fear that leapt in her throat.

Turn Off the Lamp
    Neil hated lying to his wife but knew that he was better off handling things alone; she was too fragile to deal with any more disappointment right now. He spent hours trawling the streets of Paddington, driving up and down the main thoroughfares and snaking along cut-throughs, circling housing estates and loitering on any quiet corner. And then one day, six weeks after being called in by Gavin and Melanie, he spotted her.
    He had pulled up at a crossing and was thinking that it might be time to end his covert search for the day, when she emerged from a crowd and stepped off the kerb, walking across in front of him. She didn’t say thank you as they had taught her, didn’t wave her hand in recognition, but instead almost trotted over the black and white stripes. It took all his strength not to jump out of the van, shove her in the back and haul her home against her will, but he knew that if he did that, she would only leave again. He needed her to want to come home, it was the only way it would work. He also figured, correctly, that if he called her again, she would ditch the phone and he would lose the only means he had of contacting her, although the temptation to call the number that was indelibly etched in his brain was torturous.
    He sat and stared as she walked down the opposite side of the road, his gaze following his daughter as she blended with the crowd. She looked taller and thinner than he remembered and was wearing clothes he had never seen before: high sandals and a short red leather jacket. He was only aware that he should be moving when the driver in the car behind beeped at him. Pulling away, he crawled as slowly as he was able, indicating left as if he was going to park and allowing the irate procession of vehicles behind him to overtake. He managed to stay a couple of feet behind Gemma’s field of vision, when she suddenly stopped at a narrow wooden door between a fried chicken shop and a launderette. He watched as she pulled out a key and entered the building. Neil made a note of the address and, fighting every instinct in his body, he drove away, leaving his little girl in the squalid building with a man about whom he knew two things: his name was Vassili and he was a nasty piece of work.
    ~
    Gemma threw the keys down on the kitchen table and fell into one of the chairs. Vassili closed the newspaper, pulled his cigarettes from his shirt, lit one and inhaled deeply.
    ‘Jemima, we need to sort what will happen now for you.’
    She shrugged. ‘What do you mean?’
    He leant forward and tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘You know what I mean. What we spoke of before: you earning money for us, like Alyssa and Stasia. It can’t be that you live here free, no one lives here free.’
    Gemma tucked her arms around her trunk. ‘But it’s different. You love me and you don’t love them.’
    Vassili laughed. ‘Yes, yes, that is true. But how can we run away together and live by the sea if we don’t have money?’
    She shrugged again. ‘I could get a different job!’
    He shook his head. ‘You can’t get a different job because we have to hide you from your parents and if you get a different job, I would never see you and that would make me so sad.’ He turned the corners of his mouth down and pushed out his bottom lip.
    ‘I don’t know if I can do it, Vas.’ She looked at the window, the brick wall covered in graffiti opposite made for a depressing view. Still, it wouldn’t be forever, not much longer until they left London and went to the coast.
    ‘You said you would do anything to make me happy, anything for us.’
    She nodded.
    ‘It would be so sad if we finished and you had to leave the house just because you would not commit to our love and to making me happy. There are bad people out there, Jemima, and I hate to think of you not being safe.’
    She considered this