They call me the Madam of the place, but personally, I can't stand that title. 

Madam? I mean what is that?

When you hear that title, how would you picture the person in question - physically I mean? I guess you might envision someone wide set, full in the chest, miserable in the mouth, excessive in the jowls and untrusting in the eyes? Perhaps in the second half of their years, with wisps of greying hair highlighted through a taut elaborate low bun?

Let’s talk skin - would you think pale, olive or dark? And what about voice - would you expect to hear a purr with silky undertones when discussing business, but an authoritative boom, commands bouncing off of high ceilings when addressing their girls?

And what about clothes? Do you think lacy and structured, hands lifting skirts away from polished heels as they sweep through corridors and up stairways?

If you agree with some of those descriptions, I hate to disappoint you, but that could never be me. I mean it isn’t me at all.

You see, I am actually more of a Miss, never to be a Mrs.

My shoulders are wide, but only because of the lean muscle I have built; I’m brawn instead of busty, my definition strains against my outfit of choice, usually simple button-down blouses and pleated knee-length skirts. I like to lift weights and work my body when the activity in the apartments is light. It’s a promise I once made to myself - that I will be tougher, both physically and emotionally, but I digress.

And yes, heels are a must, but only on Transaction Day. I have to give a good impression after all.

My bun, not very sleek thanks to my Z coils that spring away from my prone-to-oils forehead, is most certainly jet black in colour, naturally might I add.

A smile always follows a Scouser lilt - not sure why, but strangers seem to automatically trust a Northerner. But when I speak, I don’t try to hide the smirk on my face when I notice that my accent and my deep skin colour doesn’t seem to match.

So, you see, what I am trying to say is, I might be a Madam to them, but to the world I am… well I guess, just an ordinary person.

You wouldn’t be able to distinguish my Starbucks order of choice and you wouldn’t think twice sitting next to me during a daily commute. You’d let your children play with my chow chow at the local park and you’d probably shout good morning as I leave my recycling on the front porch on bin day.

I exist amongst you, but I ghost between you - I am there, but I am not really there.

If you examined my LinkedIn, you would see that I left the corporate concrete jungle years ago, but if you demanded to see my bank statements, you would notice that I am very handsomely compensated for the loss.

Apart from that, I am just like you.

I know, since you are reading this, that you might already have some sort of preconceived idea about me.

Maybe you haven’t heard about me before today, and if that is the case, I ask that you not judge me.

Ha, how ironic is that statement! I didn’t really think that one through. You are, of course, dear officers of the law, about to do exactly that - judge me, and attach heinous crimes to my name or refute all claims against me.

That is why I write this - all I ask is for a chance to tell my story. And then you can make your own mind up about the ‘Madam’ of Aphrodite Apartments.

DC Johnson’s vision was suddenly blinded by the beam from his partner’s torch. He stopped reading and looked up abruptly. Kona’s face was blotchy red and his eyes were hollow.

“What?” Johnson asked, standing up from where he crouched in the darkened office, the single sheet limp in his hands.

“We’ve found a body” DC Kona gulped as Johnson pushed past him and dashed across the landing, ears tuning into the sound of rising commotion, coming from inside Number 21.

The second bedroom of the property was swamped with figures in white overalls and solid boots, but Johnson saw the black body bag through the throng of legs before Kona even had a chance to direct him.

“What’ve we got?” he asked no one in particular and a woman in a headscarf tucked under her overall hood turned over her shoulder. Her badge said Rabiah.

“Who knew that these new-builds could have secret sliding bookcases” she mused, pulling off her disposables, “I’ve got to say, if it wasn’t for Rusty’s nose, we wouldn’t have found anything until the body juices started leaking through to Floor 4.”

A sloshing noise behind them told Johnson his partner’s red face was from more than just the intense electric heating and he groaned inwardly.

“We got a name?” he asked Rabiah.

“Nope,” she coughed, “the deceased is in a bad state, we’re gonna need dentals. They took one to the head, then was beaten to a pulp afterwards - there are multiple fractures all over the body. Looks like they died in another room and were dragged in here afterwards.”

Johnson’s nostrils flared as he caught a whiff of Kona’s breakfast, now a puddle across the bedroom entryway. 

“Alright” he sighed, running a hand through his hair, excusing himself, and almost treading in the pool of barf, “can someone clean this up?”

Kona was gone, so Johnson returned to the silent Number 20. 

Now that there was a body just across the hall, the place felt eerie, so Johnson flipped on the lights and took a seat in a high backed leather armchair that sat behind an impressive mahogany desk. He laid the sheet he had found on the table and then pulled out the others from their hiding place, taped to the underside of the desk.

And then he continued to read.

The girls usually come in the night, out cold, looking like death, with ashen faces, bruised lips and dark rimmed eyes.

No idea who they are and certainly no clue where they are.

They’re bustled from vans by members of The Fleet; usually jittery and clutching themselves, shrinking away from being touched, as they stare up with a mixture of awe and confusion at the high rise that they trip and stumble into.

Aphrodite Apartments, they mouth reading the sign as The Fleet lead them up to The Office to be signed in.

No matter how late, I am always there to greet them - they are new members of the Flock, my little family, so they deserve a proper welcome.

To explain, AA, as I affectionately call it, was funded and owned by an American business mogul, a holiday project and gift to his new fiancée, whilst he mooned about in the UK to finalise his divorce. But after they split a few years later, the apartments were taken over by multiple agencies for rent opportunities or sold.

So not my name choice, but quite fitting, would you agree?

I am the proud owner of Floor 5: 5 apartments, numbered 20 to 24. Number 20 is The Office, my HQ, but not my home. I refuse to mix work and pleasure and instead have a townhouse in the suburbs. But honestly, I spend most of my time here - this is where I feel purposeful.

The other floors are full of noise - mostly students who party hard and young professionals with babies, who are too enthralled in their own lives to care about the eeriness of the middle floor.

The other 4 apartments, all two double beds, house the girls, each holding 4 at a time at maximum capacity.

I try not to disturb the current Flock as their new housemates enter Induction and are supplied with vitamins and sanitary essentials and stripped of their IDs and personal effects.

My favourite part of Induction is taking each girl's picture with my old fashioned polaroid, and taping their image up on a wall. 

For room allocation, I like to mix the girls up disregarding their mother tongues or ethnic backgrounds. It helps them to come out of their shell and learn to interact with strangers. The hushed buzz of the accented conversations behind thin walls makes my heart swell. 

Some of the girls refuse to talk or eat in the first few days once the drugs have worn off. They sit limp, on the edges of their beds, staring out of the balcony windows, the sliding doors of which are of course, always locked. Security is of utmost importance here, we can’t afford to lose any assets.

Only the Sisters hold the keys to windows, front doors and balconies, so that they can care for the girls and maintain the properties between Transaction Days.

The activity in 20-24 is relatively quiet throughout the day. I do paperwork: shredding the details of Flock members who have since left us, receiving special delivery passports from external contacts, monitoring the income and expenditures and holding Viewings via video calls with Clients, who nod in silence at the wall of faces behind me.

Then there is The Debrief.

The girls all get a session with me every week - if they end up being with us that long. I do most of the talking as I explain (to those who ask with tears) why they can’t go back home, and then, as they dab their cheeks, faces downturned, I explain how Transaction Day works.

I hate that they are scared, but I do try to reassure them and hold their hands. All of them are strikingly beautiful, but sullen and shrunken, a fraction of the women they used to be.

You might not get this part, but these girls were chosen because of who they used to be. 

Yes, they were all ‘ordinary people’ like me, you know, in the same way they also wouldn't necessarily stand out from a crowd. But it was the extraordinary way in which they did the ordinary. Some of these women were housewives, nurses, teachers, scientists, photographers…and whilst I am not saying that women who are not like this are not extraordinary, I knew I wanted to offer these women another chance or opportunity.

I mean, they must have crossed my path for a reason. So yes, I did secretly study and follow them. They sketched on the tube home. Swerved around bin bags on pavements at 4am, late to another hospital shift. Collected caramel frappuccinos as a weekend treat, hands covered in paint. I knew it was only a matter of time, as I took their photos and sent them onto The Fleet, before I could help them rise.

If night time is Arrivals and day time is the Waiting Lounge, then dusk is Departures.

Transaction Day (or evening I guess) welcomes a Client to the 5th floor, and a car, like a carriage, waits out back for its owner and his new companion to return.

The new passport slips into the Client’s jacket, and the girl, her hair a different colour and style, with no belongings bar the clothes on her back, is led away. The goodbyes are difficult; as I said, these women are like family, even if for a short time. As the cars disappear, some heading to the countryside, others to airports, I can’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment and peace.

Though, I do keep a fretful eye on the news in the days that follow, wondering if, after years of work, my employees and I will finally be caught out. 

And that is how it went - week in, week out.

Until one day it didn’t.

Johnson jumps as Kona appears in front of him. He is wearing a new shirt, absent of vomit residue and is wringing his hands.

“You’re not gonna believe this” he stammers and the door behind him swings open, “but we’ve found a witness.”

Johnson peers over his shoulder at the young woman, serene and tanned, dressed in a fitted skirt and tucked blouse.

“Please” she says quietly, “please, you have to understand.”

He (and we will call him Jerry) turned up with The Fleet at a nightly drop off, a knife pressed to Ricky’s throat (not his real name, but I am sure you can understand). 

Apparently he hadn’t believed that his girlfriend had died of an accidental drug overdose, even after seeing her cold and greying body on the slab in the morgue. I am not sure how he didn’t believe it; the cocktail of drugs Mathilde took (willingly might I add) after Ricky had intercepted her daily jog and told her about our services, was a powerful one and she was out like a light quicker than expected. Our contact at the hospital (anon if you please) was able to prepare the morgue scene within hours and our malicious coward of a man, her boyfriend Jerry, was asked to identify the body.

Maybe we were a little rushed with this extraction.

Mathilde had been on my watch for two months; she wasn’t very good at concealing her bruises, even if she was a freelance painter. She liked to run on her lunch breaks, and had even run past my observation bench, our eyes connecting in a brief acknowledgement. The next time I had seen her run, she had had a slight falter in her stride and I knew Jerry had slammed his boot into her knees - again. 

So maybe I had advised Ricky to move in ahead of schedule, but she was worth the risk. But somehow Jerry had managed to track us down.

I am not sure how I did it to be honest. 

Though actually, now that I think about it, I guess I saw Him in Jerry as he sent everything on my desk hurling to the floor. I guess I remembered what it was like to flinch away from Him, in the same way Mathilde did as she and her floormates had appeared in the doorway, attracted to the clattering of heavy stationery tumbling to the ground. In that moment, every crash had felt like a familiar slap to the face, punch in the ribs and kick to the shins.

Jerry had already brought my lamp down over Ricky’s head and had been about to finish him off when he had caught sight of his girlfriend at the door.

The lamp base had left his hand as he'd started to charge towards her, knife up but blade down, ready to plunge. His big bully face was contorted with rage and he was yelling something, but then, suddenly, he wasn’t talking anymore and his body, in slow motion, had spun towards the ground.

There was silence after that, bar his desperate ragged chokes as blood pooled out of his nose and the scratching of the carpet as he attempted to drag his pathetic body towards the exit. And then he went limp and still and I knew he was dead.

The lamp base was still in my hands as the small room began to crowd with extra bodies.

And I had looked at my girls and they had looked at me.

Jesseka’s swollen lip had looked so much better, especially now the stitches were out.

Sinikiwe was clutching Dara’s hand, finally able to reach out and touch again.

Natalia was scratching her scars nervously, but her eyes were set hard.

Chen, usually cowering at the back, had inched forward and grabbed onto Mathilde, unafraid.

And Mathilde had taken a step forward, swung back her bare foot and sunk it as hard as she could into Jerry’s side.

After that, it was like clockwork really. The girls kicked and beat with discarded instruments, all their pent up anger, pain and hurt, unleashed for the first time, until they couldn’t anymore. 

And then, I’d dragged Jerry’s swollen carcass, my chest muscles roaring with adrenaline and power and slung him into an empty Number 21’s bookcase hidey-hole.

Two days later

Though the story seemed unbelievable, the DSU couldn’t ignore the handwritten letters from the murder case’s prime suspect, Alessandra Mako.

Miss Mako, now wanted in connect with the murder of Harvey Trelawny, had managed to evade capture for over 72 hours, and was still yet to be found.

A filing cabinet of counterfeit passports, for women of all shapes and shades had been seized at the address, as well as a desktop computer, which had contained an extensive database of industry professionals and wealthy donors who had been involved in the groundwork and financial operations of ‘Aurora’, meaning “new dawn”, an organisation established by Miss Mako to identify and rescue women in abusive relationships, who used AA as a halfway house, before sending them on their way with a new identity. 

The tearful witness, Loren Moreau aka Mathilde Dupont had admitted she and the girls had harmed Harvey. But, when questioned about the whereabouts of her AA flatmates, the new redhead had sat back in her chair, her arms folded.

“Do you know what Alessandra means?” she’d asked Johnson, her eyes turned towards the interview room window, the sun setting behind the city skyline. Johnson had shrugged.

“It means defender of mankind” Mathilde had breathed, a smile on her face.

Now alone in Archives, Johnson remembered what Mathilde had said as he sealed the Mako letters into an evidence bag, her closing lines aglow under the dull fluorescent lighting, and hoped that the elusive Alessandra would never be found.

I’d do it again. 

I’d do anything for my Flock, or indeed anyone who is a victim of abuse. No matter where I go, and I know I can never return here, I will always endeavour to provide a place of sanctuary for the Aphrodites of this world, the women who can and will rise up from foaming turbulent seas.