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‘I know someone who works with the survivors of sexual slavery. We could ask her.’
The address is in an older part of Nottingham, a once grand old house converted into offices, most leased to law firms and accountants. A disembodied voice answers the intercom. We give our names and hold up ID to the camera. The door unlocks automatically, and we enter a brightly lit foyer with a high ceiling. A woman is sitting behind a desk with a Perspex screen.
‘Mrs Hartley will be with you soon,’ she says, nodding towards a small waiting room that had once been a cloakroom. There are brochures on a table and posters on the wall. One of them shows a haunted-looking young woman in a short skirt and high heels, standing on a street corner. Modern slavery is closer than you think, reads the headline. A second poster features the image of a man huddled in a blanket on a camp stretcher. Two other men are sleeping nearby. It is captioned, They promised me a good job. They lied. Now I’m trapped.
A woman reverses into the room, saying goodbye to someone. She’s dressed in faded jeans and a short T-shirt that slides up when she hugs Florence, revealing the bulge of her pregnancy.
‘Florence, darling, my token black friend,’ she says, grinning broadly.
‘I can’t get my arms around you,’ says Florence.
‘Rub it in, why don’t you? I feel like a brood mare.’ She notices me and releases Florence, before shamelessly looking me up and down. ‘And who do we have here?’
‘This is Cyrus Haven,’ says Florence.
‘You’re very good-looking. Are you gay?’
‘No.’
She winks at Florence and offers me a fist bump. ‘Call me Natalie.’
We adjourn to her cluttered office, where files are moved to find enough chairs.
‘Sorry about the mess. I’ve had meetings all morning,’ says Natalie.
‘With clients?’ asks Florence.
‘No. Donors. Most of this job is fund-raising. If it weren’t for Simon Buchan, that darling man, we’d have closed down years ago. Give him a hug from me.’
‘We’re not really on hugging terms,’ says Florence.
‘Do it anyway.’
Natalie has a notepad beside her elbow that is almost identical to the one that Florence carries but has a different cover design: Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
‘Snap,’ says Florence, holding up her notebook.
‘Simon again,’ says Natalie. ‘Our office furniture, stationery, computers, printers, even our loo paper – all down to him. I thank him every time I have a wee, which is far too often these days.’ She cradles her pregnancy.
The two women swap small talk about due dates and motherhood and someone called Benjamin, whom Natalie refers to as ‘my sperm donor husband’.
‘He’s treating me like the Virgin Mary about to give birth to the baby Jesus or a future England football captain.’
‘Which would he prefer?’ asks Florence.
‘Oh, the latter, of course. What man wouldn’t?’ Natalie winks at me. ‘So why are you here?’
‘We believe two young migrant women crossing from Calais to England in a small boat were picked up by a fishing trawler. Now they’re missing,’ I say.
‘How young?’
‘Late teens. Early twenties.’
‘Nationalities?’
‘Albanian and Syrian.’
‘Photographs?’
