“I’m sorry, Jenny, I really am.” Her father was looking terrible. There were red rings around his eyes and he hadn’t shaved. With his bald head, his round chin and his slightly protruding cheeks, he reminded her of one of those stocking stuffers she had once been given, the one where you use a magnet to drag iron filings onto a cartoon face. “You know things have been getting more and more difficult recently. This credit crunch. The business . . . all the problems we’ve been having.”
“Your dad’s done everything he could,” her mother interjected. She had been crying. There was a tissue clamped in her right hand. Tears had turned it into a soggy mess.
“We’ve come to the end of the line,” her father went on. “The banks won’t cut me any more slack and, in a word, we’re bankrupt. The house is going to have to go. And the car. I’m afraid the dog’s going to have to be put down. And we can’t keep you either. You’re going to have to be sold.”
And that was it.
At first, Jennifer Bailey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She thought that she must still be asleep and that she would wake up in a minute in her pink bed in her pink room and it would all have been a horrible dream. Of course she was aware that her parents were struggling. Her father had been working later and later every night, sometimes spending whole weekends at the office. There had been arguments and Jennifer had plugged herself into her iPod with the volume turned up high to block them out.
Businesses had been going bust all over the country. She’d seen it on the news. But she had never believed it could be as bad as this. Jeremy Bailey ran a garden ornament business, selling fountains, furniture, bird tables, gnomes and exotic plants to customers all over the south of England. He had invented some of the products himself. There was a birdbath, for example, that actually had a small bird shower attached. He had a radio-controlled gnome that sang highlights from Disney’s Snow White and waved its arms in time to the music. And his range of garden furniture, manufactured from recycled wheelbarrows, couldn’t have been more in tune with the times. What could possibly have gone wrong?
For twelve years, Jennifer had enjoyed an almost perfect life. She loved being an only child—it meant twice as much attention on birthdays and at Christmas—and she was never lonely. She adored her mother and she had a pet poodle—Boodle—who was allowed to sleep on her bed. She had a beautiful room in the family’s three-story home in Watford and she had even been allowed to decorate it herself, painting and draping everything in her favorite color: pink. She went to an all-girls school just five minutes from the house, where she was popular and successful, adored by her teachers and admired by her friends. In a recent vote to choose the new student body president, she had come in first by almost a hundred votes.
And now this!
“Can’t you borrow more money?” she asked with the wobble in her voice that usually meant she was about to burst into tears. But Jennifer forced herself not to cry. That would come later, when she was on her own.
Her father shook his head. “We’re already up to our ears in debt. Credit cards, mortgage, bank loans . . . the lot.” He sighed. “This is my fault—”
“Don’t say that, Jeremy!” Jennifer’s mother was a small, blond-haired woman (although the color now came out of a bottle). She was rather plump and always worried about her weight without ever actually doing anything about it. She also worked for the family business, doing the books. They had been married for seventeen years. “It wasn’t your fault,” she continued. “It’s the market. They aren’t interested in gardens anymore.”
“They’re cutting back,” Jeremy agreed. He shook his head. “I should never have bought those Tibetan Prayer Bells.”
“The bells were lovely!”
“But nobody bought them. And we ordered ten thousand of them.”
“It’s too late for regrets.” Jane Bailey turned to Jennifer. “There’s nothing we can do,” she said. She dabbed at her eyes with the useless tissue. Her mascara was halfway down her cheeks. “You’re going to have to be strong, darling. We all are. But we can’t look after you anymore. Being sold is the best thing for you.”
“But how are you going to sell me?” Jennifer asked, and this time there was a crack in her voice and she felt the tears pressing against her eyes.
“We’ve already put you on sheBay,” Jeremy replied.
Of course, it was obvious really. Once there had only been eBay—for objects of every description. But recently two more sites had been added to the World Wide Web: heBay for boys. And sheBay for girls. Jennifer knew well that these were difficult times. The newspapers never stopped going on about it and anyway she’d seen it for herself. A dozen girls had been forced to leave school when their parents were no longer able to pay the tuition. And at least half of them had been sold on sheBay in a last attempt to make ends meet.
She just hadn’t expected it to happen to her.
“I think I’m going to go upstairs, if you don’t mind, Mummy,” she sniffed.
“Of course, precious,” Jane said, struggling to keep her emotions under control.
“I’m sorry, Jenny,” her father muttered. There was nothing else he could say. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. What difference did it make? She was still going to be sold.
She climbed up to the first floor and went into her room, closing the door behind her. Curiously, she still didn’t cry, even when she noticed Boodle sitting on the bed waiting for her. The poodle was wearing a pink ribbon and as usual it was half asleep, but it wagged the short stump of its tail when it saw her. The dog had no idea that in a few days’ time it would be taken away for a lethal injection and Jennifer didn’t bother patting it. Right now she had other things to worry about.
She sat down in front of the computer at her desk, tapped a few keys and went into sheBay, navigating her way to the page for members’ accounts. Over the past year, they’d sold plenty of items over the Internet, and although neither of her parents had said anything at the time, it was obvious now that they needed any money they could get. Jennifer knew their user name on eBay. It was their surname backward: YELIAB. Had they used the same word for sheBay? She typed in the six letters. The next page opened.
And there it was. Under ITEMS OFFERED her parents had pasted several photographs of Jennifer, taken at her last birthday party, at school and walking on Hampstead Heath. She remembered her father taking that last shot. He had been very careful about it, framing her between two trees with the sunlight pouring over her shoulders. Had he really been thinking of using it for this purpose at the time? Jennifer felt anger rising. He’d pretended that it was to go on his bedside table. How could he have been so mean?
Her name was written under the photograph. A description followed.
JENNIFER JUDITH BAILEY
Age: 12 years 1 month
Height: 5’1”
Weight: 101 pounds
Health: excellent
Jennifer is a delightful, intelligent girl with a friendly and pleasant personality. She has done consistently well at school—first in French and geography, second in math, physics and biology. Her report cards (available for inspection) are outstanding. In addition, she is a good cook and has kept a high level of fitness by playing tennis and lacrosse.
She would make an excellent servant or companion. Although a little shy, she has a reasonable grasp of world events and is a good conversationalist. She is quick to learn and would soon adapt to new work. She is our only daughter and we are selling her with great reluctance. Offers starting at $1,000. Further inquiries to
[email protected] The auction was to take place over the next forty-eight hours. So far there were three bidders. SBEANSW3 had opened the bidding at the $1,000 demanded. Someone calling himself drMACNEILceh had raised it to $1,100. Twenty minutes later, 666grimsby had gone to $1,300. The bidding was now back with SBEANSW3, who had jumped to $2,000, perhaps trying to scare the others off. As far as finding out who these people might be, there wasn’t a great deal t
o go on, but Jennifer was a bright girl and knew her way around the Internet. In the next few hours she set to work, using a search engine—and common sense—to find out what she wanted.
SBEANSW3 was the first name she cracked. She guessed, correctly, that SW3 might be a London postcode, and by entering Bean and London into Google, she eventually came across a restaurant in Chelsea. Why would they be interested in buying a young girl? Their website provided the answer—and unfortunately it wasn’t for the washing up.
Welcome to Sawney Bean restaurant in Cloak Lane, just off London’s famous King’s Road, it read, beneath a photograph of an old-fashioned building made of white painted bricks. Are you looking for the ultimate dining experience? Have you a special occasion that demands something very special indeed?
We are London’s only restaurant serving human flesh. Once a great delicacy in many parts of the world, “long pig” (as it was known) was only recently reintroduced to European haute cuisine. High in vitamins and low in saturated fats, the delicately poached thigh of a young boy or girl will provide you with . . .
Jennifer couldn’t read any more. Her heart was in her throat and she wanted to scream or cry—or both! At the moment, SBEANSW3 was ahead in the bidding. If the restaurant bought her, she would be killed and butchered and then poached! She would end up as the ultimate dining experience! How could her parents do this to her? Surely they wouldn’t let it happen. But, as wretched as it was, Jennifer knew that two thousand dollars was a lot of money and they needed every penny they could get.
She turned her attention to drMACNEILceh. In her mind she imagined an elderly family doctor who had been unable to have any children of her own. Dr. MacNeil would surely be a woman. Gray-haired and kindly. She was using her life savings to acquire a daughter.
But it turned out the truth was otherwise.
The initials ceh eventually led Jennifer to the Cambridge Experimental Hospital. Checking out their website, she found that Dr. Roderick MacNeil headed up its dissection unit. She had to look in a dictionary to find out what dissection meant.
The action of cutting up an organism. The practice of performing surgical experiments upon animals such as frogs, rats or small girls.
The hospital’s website told her everything she needed to know—and more. The Cambridge Experimental Hospital was at the forefront of medical science, not only finding new cures for old diseases but new diseases with no cures at all. The policy of the hospital was not to experiment on animals. This was considered cruel and, at the end of the day, unhelpful. Instead, the hospital regularly advertised for children and, indeed, there was a link to a page where you could offer sons, daughters, nephews and nieces for sale. Preferably they should be sixteen years or under and in excellent health.
Jennifer blinked. Even as she had been sitting at the screen, the bidding on sheBay had changed—drMAC-NEILceh had just raised the sum being offered to $2,250, putting him clearly in the lead. Jennifer’s head was spinning. Was being used for medical experiments any better than being eaten for dinner? Either way she ended up dead. What was going on? She was a pretty, clever, adorable girl. Her mother had often told her so. She baked delicious sponge cakes and she could play one or two pieces by Chopin on the piano. Surely there must be someone out there who wanted her for herself.
She was unable to track down 666grimsby. She knew that Grimsby was a town in the north and the three sixes did ring a faint and unpleasant bell in her head—but it was only the following morning, a Saturday, that she had a stroke of luck. By then, SBEANSW3 was back in the lead at an astonishing $3,000. Acting on impulse, Jennifer accessed her father’s personal mailbox—and that was where she saw it. An email from 666.
> Can you let us have your daughter’s zodiac sign?
Fortunately, Jeremy Bailey hadn’t seen it yet.
Jennifer typed back:
> Why do you want to know?
The answer came back almost at once.
> Blood sacrifice takes place on All Hallow’s Eve (October 31st). It helps to incorporate the child’s star sign into the ritual. Sincerely, Ethan Kyte.
Jennifer thought she was going to be sick. First a restaurant for cannibals, then a hospital that wanted to cut her open for experiments, and now a coven of witches! For that was what 666grimsby undoubtedly was. The slightly unusual name—Ethan Kyte—led her to a website that only gave her more horrible details about what she already knew. Yorkshire had a long history of witchcraft and it seemed that the descendants of certain fifteenth-century witches had regrouped and were using blood sacrifice and black magic spells to raise powerful demons. 666 was, of course, the number of the devil. Their next “sabbat”—or secret meeting—was going to be in October. On his blog, Ethan Kyte wrote that he was actively looking for a young girl or boy to provide the necessary blood sacrifice.
But there was absolutely nothing she could do. The sale was due to end on Sunday night and there were only the three bidders interested in her. That was when Jennifer did finally cry. Tears, hot and heavy, flowed down her cheeks and dripped off her chin. On the bed, Boodle began to whine.
“Oh, shut up!” she exclaimed. What did the dog know? It had an easy option compared to her.
Outside, the weather had turned gloomy, as if reflecting her mood. The clouds had rolled in over Dandelion Close and the color had drained out of the neat, square garden that her mother lovingly maintained. A single gnome stood near the gate, jerking its arms and humming “Heigh ho, heigh ho.” She had always thought it was adorable, but now she hated it. Why had her father ever dreamed up the stupid thing? Why couldn’t he have started a business that actually worked?
During the course of the day, the bids climbed rapidly. By teatime, Jennifer was worth $4,500—which is what Ethan Kyte and his witches were prepared to pay to summon up the devil. Nobody else was interested. Jennifer was thinking of packing her bags and running away. She had nowhere to go and the police would probably find her and bring her back, but she had to do something! Maybe she could make it to the south coast. She could stow away on a ferry bound for France . . .
And then, just after six o’clock, a fourth bidder appeared.
The bid was $4,600 and the customer profile read talltreesEastcott. With a sense of excitement, Jennifer returned to Google. This one wasn’t hard to track down. Eastcott was a village in Wiltshire and Tall Trees had its own website.
Her heart leapt. An image had appeared on the screen of a beautiful country house on its own grounds. There were two people standing in front of it. They could have been anybody’s grandparents, white-haired and smiling. Underneath them a caption had been written on a yellow ribbon in flowing letters: An orphanage in the English countryside.
There was just one paragraph of text, but it told Jennifer everything she wanted to know.
After traveling around the world, Gerald and Samantha Pettigrew founded the Tall Trees Orphanage in 2001 with funds raised from private charities. Their aim is to provide a healthy, natural environment for orphans who might otherwise be exploited or even killed, taking in babies and young adults and caring for them on their extensive estate. Gerald and Samantha were both awarded the OBE in 2003 and have written extensively on matters relating to their work.
Jennifer felt a flood of relief. She wasn’t an orphan—at least, not in the strictest sense of the word—but she was certainly being exploited and killed. Quickly, she pulled up some pictures of Eastcott. Although it wasn’t the prettiest of villages, it was situated in glorious countryside, right on the edge of Salisbury Plain. It had a village green and a handful of shops. Jennifer could already imagine herself growing up here. There would be other orphans. She would make new friends. And in time she would forget all about Watford and her parents.
But would the Pettigrews bid enough to save her? The auction was due to end on Sunday night at ten o’clock. It was now almost seven o’clock on Saturday and they were only one hundred dollars ahead of the competition. The bidding didn’t change again, and at nine
o’clock Jennifer was sent to bed. Her mother, still clutching a tissue, read her a bedtime story, but her eyes never left the book and when she kissed her daughter, she avoided her eyes. Jane Bailey was ashamed of herself. And, Jennifer thought, she had every right to be.
Jennifer hardly slept at all that night. Once, at one in the morning, she got up and rebooted the computer, but it only confirmed her worst fears. Dr. MacNeil, the man who wanted to cut her up for medical experiments, was back in the lead with $5,000. The Pettigrews hadn’t returned to the auction and Jennifer was certain they had forgotten her.
The next morning, at first light, she returned to the screen, but nothing had changed. It was a Sunday and as usual her parents went to church, but Jennifer stayed behind, pretending she had the flu. All day, she sat at her computer and watched as Dr. MacNeil, Ethan Kyte and Sawney Bean fought over her. By the evening, it looked as if her future lay in haute cuisine . . . the London restaurant had raised the bidding to $7,500. At least the coven of witches had dropped out. After their $4,500 bid had been beaten, they hadn’t bothered to come back. Presumably they would just have to find someone cheaper for their blood sacrifice.
At eight o’clock she was on the operating table.
At nine o’clock, with a price tag of $9,000, she was the main course.
Still nothing from the orphanage.
The restaurant had one last try at half past nine. With thirty minutes until the end of bidding, it went to $9,500.
Dr. MacNeil didn’t respond.
Five minutes to ten. Jennifer had cried so much she thought she was empty, but even so, the tears came from somewhere. She could imagine herself tied up in an oven. Maybe they would put an apple in her mouth. She just hoped she would give whoever ate her food poisoning.
And then, with one minute to spare, the miracle happened. The Pettigrews returned with an offer of $10,000. Jennifer could imagine her father gloating at that sum of money. She had reached five figures! But she didn’t care. Surely this had to be the last word. The orphanage was taking her. Somehow they had found the necessary funds and she was going to be saved.