Big City Jacks

Five

Phil Whitlock’s journey had taken him across the breadth of Europe and back again. As far as Greece, then returning through Italy, France and finally up into Belgium to the port of Zeebrugge prior to the trip across the water and back home via Hull. All in all it had been a smooth passage with the usual and expected red tape and bureaucracy which Whitlock was accustomed to. He accepted it with equanimity, an inconvenient facet to his job as a long-distance lorry driver.

The company which employed him, based in the north-west of England, were respected international hauliers with a sound, profitable business. No part of Whitlock’s journey had been undertaken without a container load of goods. From the UK he had delivered his first container — washing-machine parts — to a warehouse on the outskirts of Paris. At another depot he picked up a load of bonded cigarettes (millions of the fuckers, he thought — the cancer express) and delivered them to Milan. From there, with a load of hardware-type goods, he had driven down to Athens, dumped them, then virtually retraced his journey. He had dropped off a final consignment of medical sundries in Brussels and, very unusually, had nothing further to pick up. He contacted his firm who instructed him to return home empty, but could he be ready for a further trip in three days?

Yesiree. He loved the job. He was proud to be a knight of the road. He enjoyed meeting people, passing through different cultures. It was wonderful. He had been doing it for twenty years. It’s what kept his marriage together, he often joked.

The weather on the Belgian coast was horrific, gales and high seas preventing sailings across to England. All crossings were cancelled and rescheduled and Whitlock was informed by the port authorities that the soonest he could expect to get across would be eleven a.m. next day.

It was six p.m. He had a night and a morning to kill.

Best take full advantage of it, he thought.

Whitlock had spent a lot of time in Zeebrugge over the years. He knew it well, where to eat and drink, where to find a clean prostitute, where to be entertained and where to get his head down, other than in his cab. Although he would rather have been on the ferry, he was content to while away the time in bars and finally a club where he knew he could get laid.

He’d had too much to drink, the excellent Belgian lager slipping down nicely, followed by an Italian meal, then more beer. He was slumped in a club by eleven p.m., wondering whether he was capable of sexual intercourse at all. The beer was making him belch.

The dark figure at the bar beside him was only a hazy spectre really. Whitlock was in his own world, one with few cares. The man was sitting on a bar stool, his back to the bar, elbows propping him up as he watched a lurid floorshow.

He turned back to the bar, shaking his head, smiling, catching Whitlock’s very watery, bloodshot ones.

‘I would not have thought that possible,’ he said to Whitlock whilst sipping what looked suspiciously like a glass of water.

‘Wha-?’ Whitlock slobbered.

‘Her — that girl.’ The man indicated the raised stage on which a naked female was dancing.

‘Yeah, whatever.’ Whitlock turned to watch the show for a few moments.

‘You’re a driver, aren’t you?’

‘Yep,’ Whitlock said. It never crossed his mind to ask how the man knew this.

‘Bad weather, eh?’

‘Shockin’. . can’t get over.’

The man looked him square on. ‘How would you like to make some extra money? A nice, fat bonus?’

Part of Whitlock’s bonus included a three-in-a-bed romp with two of the most attractive prostitutes he had ever seen. They were experienced girls (though later, when he reflected, he would describe them as ‘slappers’) and gave him the full works, which, had he not been so inebriated, he would have appreciated more.

They left him after an hour’s work.

He fell straight to sleep, snoring loudly in the tiny room above the club.

The man he had met at the bar, the one who had offered him a bonus, walked into the room and surveyed the naked driver. He shook his head, then lifted the camera and finished off the roll of film. The flash did not have any effect on Whitlock at all and he did not stir.

‘I don’t think I want to do this,’ Whitlock said. His head seemed to be a raging furnace and every time he moved, even slightly, pain creased the back of his eyeballs. It was a bad hangover, maybe the worst he’d ever experienced. Now regret was setting in, big style. He was back at the truck stop where his lorry had been parked overnight, having been driven there by the man who had approached him in the bar. Whitlock and the man were standing next to the lorry’s tractor unit and Whitlock was beginning to feel fear.

The man, who said his name was Ramon, sneered and shook his dark-skinned head. ‘You have no choice, my friend. The deal is done and you will be travelling across with five hundred pounds in your pocket, a few extra guests for company, and something else to deliver.’

‘No — I don’t think so,’ Whitlock said in an attempt to assert himself.

Without warning, Ramon spun and punched Whitlock hard in the stomach. Years of HGV driving had given Whitlock a substantial paunch, but not one big enough to withstand such a well-delivered blow from a man well used to handing out physical punishment. Whitlock’s breath steamed out of him and with a gasp like a geyser he doubled over, clutching his guts in agony. Ramon grabbed the driver’s collar, heaved him upright and ran him back against the lorry. He whispered in Whitlock’s ear. ‘There is no going back. A deal is a deal. If you say no, two things will happen. Firstly, your body will be found floating in the shitty harbour waters, and secondly, your wife will receive photographs of last night’s love-in.’ Ramon slammed him against the lorry again, then released him.

Whitlock tried to catch his breath, hands on his knees, his head spinning. ‘OK, OK,’ he spat, saliva dribbling from the corners of his mouth. ‘What do I have to do?’

Ramon consulted his watch. It was eight a.m. ‘Get into your truck and follow me.’

‘I don’t want to miss the crossing,’ Whitlock whined.

‘You won’t.’

He followed Ramon’s car to the perimeter of Zeebrugge, to an industrialized section of the port full of low-rise factory units and grime, into a huge yard containing what looked like a million scrap cars piled high and dangerous, as though on supermarket shelves, and a vast number of container units for as far as the eye could see. Thousands of them.

There was plenty of room for Whitlock to manoeuvre his lorry.

Ramon stopped and jumped out of the battered Citroen he was driving and signalled for Whitlock to do the same.

Almost immediately the yard came to life. Several men appeared from the inside of a static caravan. One jumped into Whitlock’s lorry, whilst others made their way towards a huge crane, the jib of which hung over a container. Two of the men attached thick chains around the container on the back of Whitlock’s lorry. The crane came to life and swung over the container. The men attached the chain to the hook and the crane rose, lifting the container off the back of the lorry and depositing it amongst the other containers. Another container was then attached to the crane, this was then dropped expertly on the back of Whitlock’s trailer and secured quickly in place.

Whitlock watched the change with growing trepidation, his guts churning from the recent blow to them, and worry, because he knew why the change was being made. The replacement container was fitted with a unit which looked like one for chilling the air inside it, but was actually one which fed fresh air into it and sucked out stale air — air which would keep his new cargo alive. He wanted to be sick. The only thing he had ever smuggled back into the UK was some jewellery for his wife. The only thing! Once! Of course he knew all about the problems with illegal immigration and so far he had managed to steer clear of the problem, but now his own stupidity had caught up with him, his own weakness.

He was going to smuggle people.

Ramon approached him with a big smile on his face. ‘See — simple. Now all we do is collect the goods.’

‘Fuck you,’ blurted the lorry driver.

‘You do not need to worry, my friend. You will not be caught, if that is what is bothering you.’

Whitlock was not assured by the words. All he wanted to do — still — was vomit. He nodded numbly, watching as the new container was finally fixed and the jib of the crane was raised away.

A car drove into the yard, but it was nothing like Ramon’s beaten-up old banger. This was a smooth-looking black Mercedes, two men on board. It stopped near to the static caravan and both men climbed out. They were expensively dressed and a little incongruous against the background of scrap-heap cars and containers.

Ramon hurried across to them, like a puppy.

Whitlock thought, ‘Boss men.’ He climbed quickly into the cab of his lorry, feeling safer in the confines of his comfort zone, but kept watching the men, unable to stop his face contorting with an expression of contempt, and a feeling of looming disaster in the pit of his stomach. He swore continuously under his breath, hoping the repetition of that single, obscene word would somehow ease his burden.

It was interesting to watch Ramon’s body language towards the new arrivals, as though he was a serf and they were lords of the manor.

No doubt they were.

The three men had an intense conversation. Ramon turned and pointed to Whitlock’s lorry, obviously explaining something. Instinctively Whitlock shuddered and ducked as the two new arrivals looked across at him. He averted his eyes, still swearing.

When he looked again, they were back in huddled conference. One of the men walked round to the back of the Mercedes and opened the boot. He heaved out three heavily packed holdalls and dropped them on to the floor. They were big bags, obviously weighty. Ramon and the other man gathered around them and Ramon listened as they spoke to him, nodding.

The men then got back into their luxury car and set off with a scrunch of tyres, leaving a cloud of rising dust as they accelerated out of the gates and disappeared in the direction of Zeebrugge.

Ramon watched them go. The tension which had been visible in his body was replaced by relaxation and the resumption of his role as boss. He barked a couple of things at the men who had fitted the container. They picked up the holdalls and put them into Ramon’s car, whilst he strode across to Whitlock, who lowered his window.

‘Follow me.’

It was only a short journey. Two or three minutes at most, and once again Ramon led Whitlock into another industrial park, driving to a detached factory unit in its own grounds, surrounded by a high, chain-link fence. Ramon drove around the perimeter of the building, Whitlock following in his artic, coming right back around the front where they started from.

Immediately shutter doors began to rise, revealing the inside of the building, nothing more than a concrete-floored warehouse.

Whitlock caught his breath.

The whole place seemed to be packed with people, levered in there like sardines in a tin. At least a hundred of them, possibly more. All blinking as the daylight hit them, all tired, all beaten. It was, literally, a transit camp, although it reminded Whitlock of the old photographs he had seen of people bedding down in the London Underground during the Blitz. People were laid out on military-style camp beds, others were standing huddled around free-standing gas heaters, warming themselves. Some were sat at trestle tables scattered throughout the floorspace. Their faces looked pale and uncertain, hopeless yet hopeful at the same time.

Whitlock was staggered by the sight.

Ramon got out of his car and entered the building, emerging moments later with two more heavies who opened the container door on the back of Whitlock’s trailer.

Some of the people inside the warehouse moved forward expectantly. Ramon barked a warning. A gun appeared in his hand. They hesitated and retreated. In his other hand he had a list from which he began to call names.

From the cab, using the wing mirror, Whitlock counted the number of people being herded into the container. Twenty poor souls climbed in, all men, he noticed. His heart pounded and he thought it was going to explode, that he was going to have a heart attack.

As the last person scrambled inside, the door was secured. The cargo was on board and ready for transportation.

Ramon swung up to the driver’s door window. ‘OK?’

‘Great.’

‘Just pretend they’re chunks of meat,’ Ramon said with a sneer. ‘And don’t worry about them. The ventilation system will work for about forty-eight hours, there’s a chemical toilet in there and plenty of food and drink. All you have to do is follow the instructions on this piece of paper.’ He pushed the said paper into Whitlock’s hands. ‘Simple.’

The passenger-side door of the cab opened. Whitlock watched as the three tightly packed holdalls which Ramon had been given by the two boss men at the container depot were dropped into the footwell.

‘What the fuck’s this?’ the driver demanded.

‘Just something extra. . don’t worry about it, and don’t worry about getting caught. The law of averages is on your side. Here. .’ He dropped an envelope on to Whitlock’s lap. ‘Pounds sterling,’ he said with a wink.

Whitlock sneered, engaged first gear and Ramon jumped down off the lorry as it began to move. Once again, the obscene word under Whitlock’s breath was repeated continually. But it did not make him feel any better, because whatever, he had just become a human trafficker.