Keeping Bad Company

by Ann Granger

  She was genuinely distraught. I didn’t know what all this was about, but there was enough agony in her voice to make me hesitate.

  ‘You’ve got five minutes to convince me,’ I told her sceptically. ‘And then I’m getting out of here, with or without you. But talk fast. No playing for time until your two muscle-bounds chums come back!’

  ‘All right, all right!’ she promised breathlessly. ‘It’s like this . . .’

  Chapter Fifteen

  An expression of relief had crossed Lauren’s face as she spoke and it irritated me. She’d made the offer to explain grudgingly, as if it were something on which I’d been insisting, suggesting I’d won a point. But I realised too late that, on the contrary, it was what she wanted. I’d been in full flow bawling her out. She’d got me to shut up and listen while she put her spin on whatever was going on here.

  Ruefully I told myself that Vinnie’s pride and joy wasn’t the wide-eyed innocent he believed her to be. She was a quick-thinker and had certainly shown herself smarter than me. Now that rankled because, let’s be honest, I fancied myself as fairly streetwise and not one to fall for a sob story or a neat line in manipulation. Yet here I was, taking the bait, hook, line and sinker.

  Of course I knew I didn’t have to do as she wanted. Especially as a sentence she’d let slip about getting Merv and Baz to do her bidding had lodged in my brain. The clear implication was that I was being lumped together with those two. This I did not like one bit.

  My mulish expression must have warned her. ‘Look,’ she said persuasively, ‘why don’t we sit down? There’s no point standing here shouting at each other.’

  I’ve learned over the years to trust my instinct with people and it’s kept me safe till now. Instinct warned me not to trust Lauren Szabo. Instinct said, run like the clappers out of there.

  But there were so many questions I wanted answered that I actually wanted to hear what she had to say. To begin with, there had to be some really strong reason why she was sitting here watching telly behind an unlocked door when all she had to do was walk out. Albie had seen her snatched. She’d been genuinely upset moments before. By not listening I could miss something vital. For the first time in my life, I told instinct to shut up for a minute and I sat down.

  The chair she’d offered me was an old-fashioned wooden kitchen type. Lauren herself made a dive for a ropy armchair, which looked as if it’d come from a dump, but offered far more comfort. She sat well back in it with her hands resting on the scabby moquette arms. She looked as pleased with herself as a boxer who knows he’s won the first round and anticipates finishing off his opponent easily before too long.

  All the alarm bells were ringing frantically in my brain, telling me this supposed kidnap victim was actually a shrewd manipulator, one who always got her own way. But somehow, despite that, I still sat there, waiting for her to speak. Annoyed by my own unquenchable curiosity that kept me there, I was also struck by how very impolite it was of her to have grabbed the only comfortable chair like that.

  Irritation stops you thinking. I stopped being irritated and kick-started my brain. When I did, I realised it wasn’t her lack of manners that was bothering me.

  There was something about that chair and her smug expression now she was sitting in it that was highly suspicious. She’d not only got me physically where she wanted me, she was also physically where she wanted to be, which was in that rickety old armchair. I couldn’t understand its significance and my unease increased, if that were possible.

  I took a quick look around the rest of the room. The window was like the one I’d looked out of before, large and old-fashioned. Juggling the geography of the place in my head, I worked out that if the window from which I’d seen the yard with the privies had overlooked the back of the building, this one overlooked the front.

  The furnishings were spare. The portable telly on a wooden crate. A Put-u-up bed with a crumpled duvet and pillow thrown on it. The armchair and the chair I sat on. One of those tin trays on collapsible legs that come in handy if someone is bedridden, or to take on picnics. There were a paper plate and an emptied foil carton on the tray, both smeared with the remains of takeaway food, Chinese, by the look of the dried rice grains welded to the surface. A battered tin fork didn’t looks as if it’d been washed through several meals. This place was the pits and I couldn’t think what made her sit here, patiently waiting. For what?

  ‘Is it for the money?’ I asked the obvious first. ‘Doesn’t your father give you enough of that without you have to try to cheat him out of more?’

  Her face thinned with tension. She snapped, ‘He’s not my father. He’s my stepfather. There’s a world of difference.’

  ‘But you’ve taken his name.’

  ‘I got given it whether I wanted it or not. He adopted me after he married my mother. He didn’t do that because he wanted me or loved me. He did that because it gave him a hold over Mummy.’

  I said carefully, ‘I’ve met Vincent Szabo. It seems he knew my father when they were kids.’

  Surprise flashed into her eyes, which mirrored the mental gymnastics within as she adjusted to the new facts. She got them sorted out and filed away.

  ‘Nice,’ she said rudely, adding, ‘What did you think of him, my stepdaddy, when you met him?’

  I considered my reply. I recalled the little man in his too-big clothes, sitting in his outsize car, driven by a hulking chauffeur. It had been like watching a child trying on grown-up clothes in play, shuffling perilously in overlarge shoes while lugging a parent’s briefcase along with both hands. Yet it would be foolish to dismiss such a successful man as a mere player. Whatever else he might be, he wasn’t that. There was something about the little man that made on cautious. The truth was, I hadn’t known, and still didn’t, what to make of Szabo. All I could remember was his pain at the thought of the torments he had imagined his daughter was suffering at this very moment. That same daughter, however, would appear to be cruelly indifferent to his feelings.

  I said cautiously, ‘He’s really distressed about all this, Lauren. He’s imagining all sorts. He thinks you’re terrified, starved, locked in a cupboard or something. Even dead.’

  ‘Good,’ she said viciously. ‘Let him sweat.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked her simply.

  She took her hands from the moquette arms of the chair and rested them on her thighs. ‘What you’ve got to know about Vinnie Szabo,’ she said, ‘is that he’s just an old-fashioned wife beater. A plausible and clever one when it came to covering up the evidence. But a nasty, cruel, sadistic little monster all the same.’

  ‘The women’s refuge!’ It suddenly dawned on me. ‘That’s why you helped out there.’

  ‘Sure. Mummy and I even lived there for a couple of weeks when I was eight. She ran away and came down to London because she thought he wouldn’t find us. But you don’t shake off Vincent Szabo that easily. He tracked us down and persuaded Mummy to come home with him. He promised he was going to change. all that sort of crap. He didn’t. He was OK for about a month and then it started again. It’s a sex thing with him, you see. He can’t do it unless he beats the woman around first. It gives him a thrill, gets him going.’

  ‘Did he hit you too?’ I asked.

  She shook her head, long hair falling around her face. She raised her right hand to push it back and when she let the hand fall again, it rested between her thigh and the side of the chair.

  ‘He knew that would be the one thing Mummy wouldn’t put up with. He didn’t need to hit me, though. He could use me to frighten Mummy in quite a different way. He was paying for expensive schools, for ballet lessons, piano lessons. He bought me a pony. We had a nice big comfortable house. All he had to say to Mummy was that if she left and took me, I’d be the loser because I’d lose all that. My mother wanted the best for me and he’d persuaded her all those things added up to the best. That a house full of violence and fear went with them didn’t make them seem less desirable.’

 
Aggressively, Lauren added, ‘Don’t get my mother wrong! She didn’t want material advantages for herself, she wanted them for me. She’d been at a really low point when she met him. She’d lost everything and she was desperate. She’d even feared she might have to put me into care. He appeared like the answer to a prayer and he’d seemed all right. Not one to set the world on fire, but a nice man who’d offer a comfortable home and security to us both.

  ‘She couldn’t have been more wrong. He wasn’t a nice man. There was no security – not from fear. Only the comfortable home was real. She clung to it, salvaging it, if you like, from the wreck of her dreams.’

  Lauren’s gaze had grown absent, staring back into memory. ‘I tried to tell her that all I wanted was to see her free of him and happy. But she only told me I didn’t understand how important it was for me to be well educated, to move in good company, make nice friends, meet nice boys. She was trying to make the best of a bad job. If I got something out of the whole rotten deal, then at least she hadn’t failed completely.’

  She sniffed in derision. ‘Those nice boys and their nice parents would’ve run a mile if they’d known the truth. Mummy wasn’t a fool but she was a sick woman and she worried about the future. She knew she was going to die and leave me. If she left me with Vinnie at least I’d be comfortable. “I’m not going to make old bones, Lauren,” was how she put it.’

  I ventured to interrupt: ‘But she did run away at least once.’

  ‘Yes. At the bottom of her heart she knew she ought to get out. She was confused, I suppose. She got into a situation which was bad but she didn’t know how to change it. Vinnie had got the upper hand. She was sort of conditioned to accept whatever he dealt out. I can’t explain it. It happens. It happens all the time.’

  ‘I understand, believe it or not,’ I said. ‘But after your mother died, you could have left Szabo’s house.’

  She gave an odd tight little smile. ‘Sure I could. I could have walked out and let Vinnie get away with it. Get away with all those years of misery my mother suffered. Well, I’d long ago made up my mind he wasn’t going to do that! I’d make him pay somehow. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew I’d do it one day. So I stayed around and watched for an opportunity.’

  She shrugged. ‘The funny thing is, I think that after Mummy died, Vinnie began to be scared of me. I definitely have the edge over him in our relationship. Perhaps he’s got a guilty conscience over Mummy. I started doing voluntary work at the hostel, just to let him know I hadn’t forgotten. I didn’t need to say anything. All I had to do was keep going to that hostel, rubbing his nose in it. He hated it but he couldn’t stop me. He’s frightened to let me go and frightened of me when I stay. I think the roles have got reversed somehow. He can’t do without me, even though he’s on hot coals all the time I’m around.’ She gave an unexpected giggle.

  ‘What about Copperfield?’ I asked, puncturing her selfcongratulation.

  ‘What about him?’ She raised her eyebrows and stared straight at me. ‘He’s Vinnie’s stooge. I played along, but you don’t think for a minute I’ve ever seriously considered marrying Jeremy, do you?’

  ‘I had my doubts,’ I confessed. ‘All right, suppose you tell me about the kidnap.’

  ‘It wasn’t my idea,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s – it was – a real kidnap. Those two dumbclucks Merv and Baz thought it up. Baz works as a motorcycle messenger. Jeremy’s business uses him. Baz saw me at Jeremy’s office and I suppose he worked out, wrongly, that we were engaged. He nosed around and found out a bit more about me.’

  I couldn’t help interrupting at this point to remark that Baz seemed to like prowling around finding out about people. Lauren looked mildly puzzled so I explained that Baz had made a habit of hanging about outside my flat in the middle of the night. ‘He’s dangerous,’ I said. ‘He’s not just hired muscle like Merv. Something else makes him tick.’

  ‘He’s a weirdo,’ she said, as if that explained everything. ‘They lurk about,’ she continued, kindly explaining the nature of the animal to me. ‘They get a kick out of the daftest things.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘It’s all in here. Not that he’s shown any interest in me.’ She paused to survey me with a critical eye. ‘I wonder why he took a fancy to you.’

  I told her I appreciated the plain speaking and had no more idea than she did why Baz had taken an interest in me. She should think herself lucky he hadn’t taken an interest in her. ‘And please,’ I begged, ‘don’t say I must be his type.’

  Lauren wasn’t really interested in Baz’s sexual preferences. ‘Does it matter?’ She shrugged before briskly getting on with her story. ‘He decided there was easy money to be got. So he and Merv hatched their little plan. They grabbed me off the street by St Agatha’s church!’ She started getting worked up as the insult of the snatch was relived in her mind. ‘They doped me and brought me here, the bastards.’

  ‘Yes, they’re good at snatching people,’ I said. ‘I know. But at what point did the rules of the game change?’

  ‘When they started talking money, boasting what they’d do when they got the paltry thousand or two they hoped to make.’ Lauren’s eyes opened wide. ‘God, they hadn’t a clue. They had no idea how much real money they could make out of this. They thought if they got enough –’ here Lauren’s voice changed, mimicking the two men’s speech – “‘to buy a flash motor, some new gear, pull a few birds – ”’ she resumed her normal tones and finished – ‘and drink themselves senseless too, I suppose. Well, that was it. That was living it up! Talk about pathetic. I said, “Look, fellers, we can play it your way. You keep me here against my will, which I guarantee will be a lot of hard work and cut into your drinking time, and if you’re lucky you get a minuscule payoff at the end of it all. Or we all work together. You don’t have to guard me because I’ll stay put. We ask for a hell of a lot more, and we split it three ways.” I worked out just how much I thought we could sting Vinnie for. You should’ve seen their faces, Merv’s and the other one’s. They were awe-struck. They stood here in this room, staring at me as if I was a holy vision, dispensing salvation. After that, it was easy. They did everything I suggested. They’re simple souls.’

  ‘Just in case you’re under the impression,’ I said coldly, ‘I am not a simple soul.’

  She leaned forward. ‘I know that! Look, my share of the money will go to the women’s refuge. They need the cash and I’ll make it an anonymous donation, once Vinnie’s paid up. You see why you mustn’t rock the boat. Vinnie’s got the money. He’s got it piled up in offshore investment companies, numbered Swiss accounts, you name it.’

  I looked at her while I thought about it. If all she’d told me was true, and I guessed it was, then Szabo certainly ought to pay up. I oughtn’t to feel pity for him. But I still felt uneasy. I think it was Lauren herself, her intensity and the deep hatred she nursed for the man. It had been eating away at her for years, and somehow I didn’t think this one act of vengeance would appease it. I began to wonder if she wasn’t just a bit unhinged on this point. She certainly seemed focused on her immediate revenge to the exclusion of all else.

  I began, ‘Supposing it had worked, this scheme of yours – ’

  ‘It will work,’ she interrupted. ‘If you don’t screw it up!’

  ‘All right, let’s assume it all goes according to your plans. What then?’

  She goggled at me and then snapped, ‘What do you mean, what then?’

  I was right. She hadn’t thought any of it through. ‘What do you do next?’ I asked. ‘Do you just go home?’

  She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter what I do next.’

  ‘Of course it does!’ I argued. ‘Are you going to feel better about Szabo when this is over? Will you be ready to call it quits?’

  She stared at me, her face showing something of the hatred infesting her. ‘Call it quits? Are you out of your mind? Of course I’ll never forgive him!’

  ‘I didn’t say forgive,’ I pointed out. ‘I wouldn’t expect
that. But are you going to just go on trying to get even with him, for years and years, the rest of your life? Because if you do, you’re letting him win. You’re throwing your life away worrying about Vincent Szabo. That doesn’t seem very clever to me.’

  She explained pithily that my opinion was of no value where she was concerned. She wasn’t doing it for herself, she was doing it for her mother.

  ‘Your mother’s dead, Lauren. She went through all those years of hell for one reason – so that you could have what she saw as opportunity. You’re throwing away all her sacrifice, aren’t you?’

  ‘Shut up!’ she said in a low, cold voice.

  I tried another tack. I told her how my mother had walked out on us when I was seven. It still hurt if I thought about it. So I’d learned not to think about it. ‘You’ve got to put it behind you,’ I argue, ‘or you’ll go nowhere.’

  She told me to stop preaching. Right, I would. What did I care whether she messed up the rest of her life? Besides, who was I to tell people how to live? My life hadn’t been a spectacular success to date. But at least I wasn’t carrying the burden of old resentments around with me. I’d be kidding myself if I pretended I wasn’t carrying any left-over baggage from the past. We all do that to some extent or other. But I was doing my level best not to let it screw up my future.