Page 108 of Don't Believe A Word

‘We have another sister, Audra. She is older and was already married to her husband, Yuri, when Janina took the decision to leave Lithuania. She, Janina, was nineteen at the time, headstrong, beautiful, eager to explore the world … She had many qualities – and failings – but they only made her, in my opinion, even easier to love. We always believed she’d grow up to achieve great things, not only because of her beauty and lively spirit, but because she was intelligent and compassionate, interested in people, and oh boy was she daring. She was definitely the risk taker in our family, the one who showed us how to be brave in the face of our many adversities. We were very poor, you see, and our adopted country was still suffering from the after-effects of the Soviet occupation. So few opportunities for us, and so often very little food to eat.’

CRISTY: ‘Can you tell us a little about your parents?’

LUKAS: ‘We barely knew our father, he died soon after we moved to Vilnius, and our mother passed away the year before Janina left. Looking back, as I often do, I believe Janina was not seeing things clearly because of grief, and out of fear of what would happen to her now that she no longer had our mother to advise her. I told her I would always take care of her – we were very close, we always had been. I wouldn’t say I was a father figure to her, I was too young for that, but by the time we are talking about I was working very hard to keep us in our mother’s apartment and to make sure we could eat. Janina wanted to help, of course, but the path she chose was not one that either I or Audra approved of.

‘We didn’t know about it at first, only found out later that she’d been introduced to an overseas employment agency by a co-worker at the hotel where she helped in the kitchen … I am sure you know many stories like this, of young girls who are promised better lives in faraway lands by unscrupulous men … It is tragic how many fall for it and I’m afraid Janina was one of them.

‘It was through thesetraffickers, because that’s what they were, that she came to meet Gabe. They – the agency in Vilnius – were acting for clients, usually men, in search of “housekeepers”, “companions”, “secretaries”, “nannies for their children” … There were all sorts of opportunities, and there was, of course, no mention of sex work or dance clubs or worse, but even if there had been I think some girls were so keen to get to the West that they’d have gone anyway. Janina wasn’t one of them. She truly believed she was going to keep house for a man with aristocratic connections and a lot of money. She was even shown a photograph of him and, in spite of him being a clear twenty years older and having no name yet, she insisted she already trusted him. He had kind eyes and a lovely smile, she said.’

GABE: ‘I was also shown a photograph of her and I knew right away that I wanted to meet her.’

Cristy’s eyes moved between the two, picturing the scenario Lukas was painting and reflecting on how romantic they were making things sound. Love at first sight by photograph, organized by a criminal gang? An instant connection with a stranger who Janina must surely have feared was far more likely to be a tyrant than a saviour?

LUKAS: ‘Neither Audra nor I were aware of the arrangements to smuggle Janina out of our country until they were already made. As soon as I knew of them I tried to stop Nina, of course, but by then she had built up such a rosy picture of how her life was going to be, working for this aristocrat, living in a big house with plenty to eat and always warm, that she refused to listen. Audra was very angry and afraid, we both were, but then suddenly one day Nina had gone and there was no more we could do, other than wait for her to be in touch to say she was safe.’

GABE: ‘She was safe with me.’

LUKAS: ‘But we didn’t know that. She was still very young and she’d allowed herself to be transported out of her country by evil strangers in order to be delivered to someone who might not even exist.’

CRISTY: ‘When exactly was this?’

LUKAS: ‘The end of ’96 – before Lithuania was a part of the EU, so Janina would have been an illegal immigrant in the UK, if that was in fact where she’d been taken. As far as we knew she could have been anywhere. I tried to find out from the agency where she might be. I was desperate, but I had nothing to offer that they wanted in exchange for information, and each time I confronted them they had me beaten up.

‘It was a terrible time, full of fear for Nina and for ourselves. We knew what could happen to families if the trafficked person didn’t comply with demands. Audra had two children by then and I had already been hospitalized twice. Worse though, was not knowing what Janina was enduring and if we would ever hear from her again. Nomoney came, though she’d expected to be able to send some, and no letters or phone calls either.

‘A whole year went by, maybe longer, but then one day, out of the blue, a postcard turned up at the apartment telling me not to worry, that she was fine and would be in touch again as soon as she could. Of course I had no way of knowing if she’d sent it herself, or if it was true that she was all right, but at least it was something. A postcard showing a forlorn beach at a place called Minehead in Somerset, England. Audra and I decided that this small contact was Janina’s way of letting us know where she was and that we should try to rescue her.

‘It took all our savings to buy my passage into the UK, and it was several months before I could actually get one. But I did in the end – I won’t go into the details of my journey, they are not relevant here, but it took many weeks to finally get across the Channel and eventually to this small town in Somerset. Once there, I lived in doorways and bus shelters, ate from dustbins and washed in the local facilities, all the time searching the streets and coastline for Janina. People didn’t want to talk to me, I was dirty and smelly and, although I already spoke English well because we’d learned it at school, my accent was thick.

‘Then I met Natalie and she was kind to me in a way no one else had been. She snuck me into where she worked, at the local holiday camp, let me use her room to wash and sleep and brought me food. I’m not sure how she managed to fix me up with a job – I think they were desperate for staff at the time – so I then had somewhere to stay, two good meals a day and on my days off I continued to search for Janina. The internet wasn’t really a thing back then, not like it is today, so it was mostly showing people photographs and asking if they’d seen her. No one had. At one stage I contacted a private investigator, but even though I could very well explain the situation and my concerns, I couldn’t afford his fees so he was unwilling to help. I considered going to the police, but of course, if I did, I’d have been deported right away.

‘In the end it was like a miracle happened. I had been in Minehead for more than six months and I had started going to church to ask God to help me mainly because there was no one else. Then one day, maybe less than two hours after I had said my usual prayers, I was leaving a café on the high street and there she was, right in front of me. I couldn’t believe it, and nor could she. We stared at one another, needing to be sure, then we laughed and threw our arms around one another and jumped up and down with joy. It wasn’t so easy for her, she was quite heavily pregnant, but we clutched onto one another anyway and people passing by looked at us strangely, or laughed and shared in our happiness.

‘We went back into the café and she told me all about what had happened to her since she’d been brought to Somerset. She was living with Gabe – George as she called him – some way further along the coast and he was the father of her child.’

Cristy’s heart jolted, not only with surprise, and God knew it was that, but at the way Lukas had come out with it so simply, as if assuming they already knew. Her eyes moved to Gabe, as her thoughts went to Sadie and what this was going to mean to her.

LUKAS: ‘What Janina told me that day was very upsetting, but also a big relief. Gabe treated her very well, she said, and she loved him, and was happy to be having his child. But there was a darker side, as I knew there must be. Gabe – George – was being used, exploited is probably a better word, by the traffickers who would only allow him to keep Janina if he agreed to them using his farm as a kind of holding place for girls from all over the continent. When they came, having been made all sorts of promises, they soon found themselves being auctioned to the highest bidder. Anyone could “try them out” and if they were chosen they were taken away to act as sex workers in other parts of the country. Nina told me how George allowed the girls a lot of freedom when no one else was around, but very few ofthem ran away, they were too afraid of what would happen to their families if they did.

‘Janina assured me she was always left unmolested in return for the traffickers’ use of Gabe’s home, but she was warned that if she ever tried to contact her own family, or did anything at all to disrupt their business, she would never see George again. This is why she took such a long time to reach out to us. She knew, because she’d seen it, just how brutal these men could be. She’d even experienced the trauma of witnessing girls being beaten to death, and there were no consequences because no one cared about girls who didn’t officially exist.’

GABE: ‘We never knew what happened to the bodies. It would have been foolish and dangerous to ask.’

LUKAS: ‘All that mattered to Gabe, and Janina, was that she and their unborn baby were left unharmed. They talked all the time about finding somewhere to hide, a refuge far away from the evil all around them, but George’s family wouldn’t help him, and they were too afraid of what would happen if they were caught. Then Sasha was born and so began the most terrifying time of all. Janina was in fear that her daughter would be taken away and sold or simply disposed of and left to die. But it didn’t happen. Time went on, Sasha grew and was loved by her parents, and by the girls who came to stay. And as long as she was nowhere to be seen when the traffickers were around they carried on as if she wasn’t there.

‘Then a new man took over. His name was Matis Albescu. He was Romanian, from Budapest, and everyone was afraid of him, even his own men. He had no kindness, only hate in his soul. I should say here, that by the time his reign of terror began, I had come to know my niece well. Janina used to bring her to Minehead and I’d take her into the camp to play on the rides, and with other children. George would stay at the farm with the “guests” – this was how they referred to the girls. He was expected to be there in case the traffickers turned up unannounced.’

CRISTY: ‘Did you meet George while Janina was with him?’

LUKAS: ‘Yes, a few times, walking on Kylve beach. He would be with Nina and Sasha, and I’d wander past as if we were strangers stopping to talk about the weather. It never felt safe for me to visit the farm – but these brief encounters assured me of his feelings towards my sister and niece.

‘I need to tell you more about Albescu. Janina had felt him watching her for some time, and then she was told that the next time he came to the farm he was going to take her as a gift for his son who bore his name and was like his father in every way. This meant Nina would be taken away from George, and no one had any idea what would happen to Sasha once Nina had gone.

‘She didn’t discuss her plans with me or with Gabe. I’m not even sure how well formed they were when she carried them out … She was acting out of panic and love and a desperate need to keep Sasha safe from Albescu. Gabe didn’t even know when she returned to the farm one day without Sasha what she’d done with her. She would only say that it was best he didn’t know but Sasha was safe. She told him nothing at the time about the Winters sisters, but we learned later that she had read about them in the local paper and had decided they would take care of Sasha until she could come back for her. It was a big risk, of course. If the sisters went to the authorities Sasha would be taken into care and she, Janina, would be found and deported, but even that would be better than whatever fate Albescu and his son had planned for them.’

As Lukas’s voice died away Cristy was caught in the moment of learning that Sadie had not been stolen, that Lottie’s story was real. It had always been possible, of course, but she’d doubted it for so long … Her eyes moved to Evie as she began to refresh the drinks. For his part Gabe remained motionless, head averted, but then his mouth trembled slightly and as he put a hand to his head she saw that it was shaky too. She watched him get up and walk to the fence, his back turned as he stared out across the lake, andshe found herself imagining the times he might have gazed out over an altogether different body of water, the Severn Estuary, with Janina and their daughter, Sasha.

It felt oddly surreal, and displacing as she watched him now and wondered about the truth of what she’d heard so far. Moving and credible though the story sounded, something about it wasn’t adding up and she knew what it was. She could even see it in her mind’s eye – the photograph of George and Janina with Lottie, the three of them captured on film at a café table, engaged in what appeared to be a heated exchange. So the claim that Janina returned one day without Sasha, and neither George nor her brother knew where she’d left her, simply couldn’t be true.

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