A Place of Safety

Lilly stopped in her tracks. What the hell was she doing? Why was she in a tailspin because an attractive man had turned up at her house? She reminded herself that she had Jack. A good, kind and decent man. A man her son adored. A man who thought oral sex was part of the deal and not just for anniversaries and birthdays. A man who had stood between her and a bullet.

Deliberately, she put her jeans back in the wardrobe and pulled on the lumpy jogging bottoms that lived on a wicker chair in the corner of her room. She zipped a beige fleece over a thermal vest and pulled on slipper socks.

The message was clear.

She found Milo in the kitchen, tinkering with the buttons on her dishwasher.

‘It’s broken,’ she said.

He laughed in the direction of the sink, where a mountain of crockery tottered. ‘I can see that. Do you have a screwdriver?’

Lilly opened a kitchen drawer and rummaged. She pulled out a knife, a hammer and a can of Mace.

‘My safety kit,’ she said, in answer to Milo’s puzzled look. She handed him a screwdriver. ‘I had some trouble on one of my cases.’

He simply nodded and went to work.

‘You’ve come to ask me to take on Anna’s case,’ she said.

‘Of course.’

No flannel, no spin. Lilly smiled. ‘I really can’t, you know.’

Milo twisted a screw. ‘There.’

‘It’s fixed?’

He shrugged a shy confirmation.

Lilly couldn’t hide her delight. ‘I could kiss you.’ She had spoken without thinking and needed to backtrack. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’

‘I’m not worried.’

They looked at each other, their connection a fraction too long.

Lilly was the first to break away ‘I’ll make you some dinner.’

Milo sank back in his chair. ‘So much food.’

Lilly cleared the plates. ‘There’s lemon tart if you want some. I made it at the weekend but it should still be good.’

Milo shook his head and rubbed his stomach. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’

‘Oh, you know—lawyer, cook, murderer.’

‘A person of many talents.’

Lilly stroked her dishwasher and felt its soft rumble. ‘As are you.’

‘My father taught me many things.’

The sadness was unmistakable.

‘Where is he now?’ Lilly asked.

‘Gone,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’

‘You English people are so funny Everything is private business, you don’t care about anybody else.’

‘That’s not true,’ she said. ‘We just don’t like talking about painful things.’

He fixed her with the jewelled glint of his eyes. ‘If you don’t talk, how are you going learn?’

Lilly closed her eyes, willing herself to pull away.

‘I can’t take on Anna’s case.’

Milo stood to leave with a half-smile. ‘You are a very strange woman, Lilly Valentine.’

When he had left, Lilly noticed a package on the work surface. She opened it up and began to read Anna’s statement from her application to remain in the UK.

TIRANA DURAKU

My name is Tirana Duraku and I was born in Glogovac, some 25 kilometres from Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.

I lived with my parents, and my three sisters and one brother. We stayed in a small apartment in the Albanian section of Glogovac.

When I was a young child I was happy I went to school and was commended for my studies. I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up.

I recall that there would be trouble sometimes from the police. They would round up the menfolk and take them away. When they came back they would have black eyes or bloody mouths.

My mother told me she paid them, which was why they didn’t come for my father or brothers.

In January 1999 our neighbours were arrested. This time it was not the police who took them but the paramilitaries. There were about six of them, each with an automatic rifle. When our neighbours came back they packed up their apartment and left. I never saw them again.

My mother said they didn’t have enough money to pay the police.

A few weeks later they came to us. They wore green uniforms with red bandanas. I was very frightened. My mother tried to pay them the usual amount but they laughed in her face. In the end they took all the money we had in the apartment.

The next day they forced my mother to take off her rings. She couldn’t get one of them off and had to put soap round her knuckle and force it.

That night my oldest brother, Brahim, and my father decided to stand up to the soldiers. My mother cried and begged them not to make a stand but my father said Allah would provide.

The next morning they came at six. We were all still in bed but no one was sleeping. My father told them calmly that he would pay them nothing more. The captain nodded and I thought he was agreeing to leave us alone, but he snatched my little sister and put his gun to her head.

‘Give me the keys to your car,’ he said.