In Servitude: a psychological suspense novel full of twists

by Heleen Kist

  The earlier mild nausea built into a torrent of revulsion. ‘That’s disgusting. She would never do that.’

  ‘Disgusting.’ He lingered on the word, rolling each syllable over his tongue, dripping in scorn. ‘I’ll tell you what’s disgusting: the way you posh birds believe your shit smells better than mine. Well it doesn’t. Put you in a sticky situation and you’re as crooked as the rest of us.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ I responded to his increasing irritation with exaggerated calm, so as not to agitate him further.

  ‘As she wouldn’t plant her sainted lips on my cock, either, I told her she could do me a different favour. At this point she was out of options and desperate. She confessed her husband didn’t know she owed money, and she was too embarrassed to admit she’d failed. What the fuck was she thinking, anyway? I mean: vegan? In Glasgow?’

  Tears pricked my eyes as I imagined my poor sister in servitude to this man while her dream of a successful café was falling to pieces. Even though I had warned her, I experienced no pleasure from being proven right this time. All I could picture was her trapped in a cage, with these men clawing at her through the bars. Too ashamed to cry for help —or too afraid?

  ‘So in comes Mike,’ I prompted.

  ‘Yes, yes, Mike. I had a deal with Mike that went South. I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s just say we’ve never been on the best of terms. He operates several money laundering establishments, so I decided, why not one more? I had introduced her to Excelsior when she was looking for suppliers, so connecting them would be easy.’

  ‘And in exchange for the rent she owed you, she cleared your debt with Mike by cleaning his cash.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Everything explained, I felt oddly at peace. It all made sense now. Why she’d ended up mired in crime. He too acted at ease, as if this was a run-of-the-mill account of people interacting. I still considered him vermin, but at least he’d given me what I’d asked. I realised, however, I hadn’t yet established a way out.

  ‘What is the amount she owed? So I can take care of it.’

  ‘Oh, you can’t expect me to remember that. It was a lot. And knowing Mike, it won’t have shrunk.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Ever heard of Casheze?’ he said, referring to the payday lender famed for outrageous interest rates. ‘Well they are Santa Claus compared to Mike. Why do you think I wanted rid of my debt?’ He chuckled, seemingly proud of his ruse, and oblivious to my fury.

  ‘You bastard.’

  He shrugged. ‘Serves her right for rejecting me. She came crawling back though, once she figured out she’d been shafted. But by then it was too late. The deal suited me. She was livid and threatened to shop Mike to the police, but I warned she was playing with fire.’

  His callous entrapment of my sister made me jump up and lunge towards him, ready to tear off that greasy head. I hurled myself across the table for a punch, but his heavies pounced in an instant. They dragged me away by the elbows kicking, while I spat an encyclopaedia of filth at the sack of shit who sat, hooping with laughter, savouring the scene.

  ‘I’ll call you about the rent,’ he yelled after me.

  Only once the entrance to the pub was opened for my expulsion, did I hear the unmistakable sound of my Fiat howling for attention. I prised the men off me and slammed the metal door in Willie’s weary face; a final act of defiance in response to this humiliating exit.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I sprinted to the corner where I’d parked, to investigate the noise. The alarm grew louder with every step. Soon I discovered what ailed my car: a dark gaping hole stretched across the rear window, cuboid particles of glass scattered inside, over the trunk and onto the street. A thunderous roar escaped my lungs and startled the nearby pigeons, who flew off abandoning their bounty of salted crisp packets.

  Locals assembled from various alleys and venues to watch me repeatedly kick the rear bumper, spewing obscenities; the blasting distress signal unmoved despite this new assault.

  It all came out. All the pent-up bile poisoning my organs since the accident, since I’d been forced to deal with shit I wanted no part of and did not even understand. Tears of rage and frustration clouded my vision as I stomped against the black carcass.

  ‘Bloody Govan. Bloody bastards. What the hell did I ever do to you? Bastard criminal bloody scum. Why the fuck am I even here? Damn you, Glory.’

  As if being stared at by a bunch of amused low-lives wasn’t bad enough, one guy had the gall to stroll past and instruct me to ‘cheer up, sunshine.’ Tempted to transfer my anger onto him, I settled on striking my inanimate Panda instead, until it wailed no more.

  There.

  My heart pounded against my chest, my breath coming out in short, sharp bursts. I bent over, hands resting on my knees. I watched my poor defenceless vehicle standing naked and abused, fragments dropping from its frame like crystalline tears.

  Who did this?

  I had been too busy venting my resentment about my day, my week, my month, to find out why my car had been targeted. None of the onlookers would admit to seeing the perpetrator, of course, and a quick mental inventory confirmed that I had left nothing inside. The boxes of cash were secure at home; my phone wedged in my pocket.

  I wondered if it might have been Brian’s men teaching me a lesson. I was still reeling from my encounter with that scumbag. As I scanned the pub to check for self-satisfied observers, its obscured windows taunted me like a winking hemline.

  The crowd dispersed, leaving me to clear the debris so I could drive away. I wiped the glass off the rear, protecting my hands with my sleeves, then tried to rake it all into the curb with my feet. A large blue fragment stuck to my shoe, and I stooped to peel it off. The limp block of shattered screen held together the shredded remains of my ‘Yes’ sticker, showing support for Scottish independence. Its significance instantly apparent, I cursed my stupidity: I’d waved this red rag outside the watering hole for unionist bulls, asking for trouble. Part of me was relieved the damage was probably nothing more than a simple act of vandalism in the heart of ‘No’ country, but the other part couldn’t shake the feeling I was in more danger than I cared to admit.

  And that Glory had been, too.

  ‘Not staying here’, I muttered to my phone after Google declared that Strathclyde Windscreens would come to you for an instant replacement on site. Instead, I would go see Andy. He wasn’t far away and could fix anything.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I turned the steering wheel to turn right onto Paisley Road West and tried to remember who had introduced me to Andy. It must have been four years earlier when I’d needed that first repair to a less-than-reliable Fiesta. Despite the recommendation, I’d been a little apprehensive when turning into the drive. His garage was nothing more than a large metal shack tucked away behind the shared yard of two medium-sized retail units.

  Andy had explained that since setting up shop in the sixties he’d fought off more offers for his land than he had fingers on his hands; his biggest fight having been when Asda placed a superstore next door. ‘Call me a creature of habit,’ he’d said, in his defence, ‘I like where I am.’ And I liked him, remaining a loyal customer ever since.

  Cold wind was blowing in through the missing screen, hitting my neck. Hair flapped around my face like laundry on a line. I spat the curls from my mouth and smelt the exhaust fumes penetrating the car. I should have covered the hole up before driving. Had I cleared the glass enough not to get hit?

  I had rushed to escape the hooligans, but with Ibrox Stadium looming on my right—the home of Rangers football club—I sensed a menacing reminder that Glasgow was in fact a very small town.

  A siren wailed. A patrol car tailed me in my rear-view mirror.

  Shit.

  Was it illegal to drive without a rear window? It hadn’t even crossed my mind and here I was, parading my illicit vehicle less than one hundred yards from Police Scotland’s headquarte
rs. I slowed into the bus lane and came to a halt.

  A female officer stepped forward, inspecting the rear. My finger darted onto the button opening the driver side window, to expose my friendliest smile.

  ‘What happened here?’ She sounded matter-of-fact. Her lips moved more, but I struggled to make out the words through the deafening thumps of my heart. ‘Ma’m?’ This time more concerned.

  ‘Yes, sorry. The window got bashed in and I’m taking it in for repair.’ I said it as though having one’s car smashed in was a minor nuisance.

  ‘It’s illegal to drive a car in this condition. And dangerous. We can’t have you shedding glass everywhere.’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. I did my best to tidy it up. There shouldn’t be any loose bits. I’ve been really careful. And I’m going straight to the garage. I’ve not come far.’

  The officer eyes me up and down, stepped away from the car and talked into her radio. I couldn’t hear. When she came back, her face gave nothing away.

  ‘All right. We’re going to let you off because you’re on your way to get it fixed. But next time you really should have a windscreen service come to you.’ She nodded towards the yellow brick building with blue-framed windows ahead, featuring the force’s checked logo. ‘You’ll also need a police report for the insurance. Do you want to come in?’

  ‘No, that’s all right, thank you.’ I paused, my brain performing a frantic search for an acceptable excuse. ‘I doubt my third-party insurance would take care of it.’

  As I maintained this conversation in the most neutral tone possible given the pounding my arteries carried across my body, another voice rose inside me screaming, ‘Go! Tell her! Tell her everything. Let the police take care of it. Then it will all go away.’

  But that voice had to be suppressed, muffled and shoved deep back down like a body being disposed of in the river. I wanted nothing more than for this nasty business to be over, but I couldn’t let others find out what Glory had done. For her heedless crime to shape her legacy. What she’d be remembered for.

  And how ludicrous would it be I tried to convince the cops to go after the bad guys? Honest, Guv, my sister was an innocent bystander. Never mind all that cash. And yes, everything is in my name—but I knew nothing about it.

  Yeah, right.

  And what if it would get back to the landlord? His men? What if it was true the cops were in the gangsters’ pockets?

  I couldn’t risk it. I had to find another way out.

  The officer rested her hand on my roof and leaned in for a girl-to-girl talk. ‘Ma’m, this looks like intentional damage. You’ve got dents in the bumper, too. Are you sure you’re okay? If someone is harassing you, you should talk to us. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what happened.’

  I dismissed her with a casual wave of the hand. ‘Honestly, I don’t know who did this. It’s just one of those things. I had a ‘Yes’ sticker on the rear and I think that pissed someone off. I was in Govan.’

  The officer grimaced and shook her head. I couldn’t tell if it was to convey remorse over the current division among Scots, her dismay with the frequency of random acts of vandalism in the city, or that she thought I’d been a complete idiot to display my political colours in such hostile territory. Either way, she seemed to accept she wouldn’t get much more out of me. ‘How far have you got to go?’

  ‘Not far at all. I promise. The garage is right around the corner on Helen Street.’

  ‘Going to Andy’s?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Andy’s a good man.’ Why had I felt the need to add that statement? As if associating with an honourable mechanic would somehow make me less suspicious.

  ‘That he is. Tell him Samantha Murray said hi.’ And with that, she smiled, closed the notebook and returned to her partner who’d stayed seated while observing the exchange.

  Shoulders straight, I brought the window up, grinned my best grin and waved as the police car drove past. I crossed into the right lane, merged onto the roundabout and entered Helen Street, turning into the second alley, where I stopped, collapsed over the steering wheel and dared to exhale.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Oh my God Gi, I’ve just lied to the police!

  I hadn’t defied authority like this since that one time in school when I was thirteen. Mr Kendall, the headmaster, had summoned us both to his office for what we later termed ‘frog-gate’. I could still hear his voice in my head.

  ‘Girls, it won’t come as a surprise why you’re here. Miss Stuart is very upset one of you has let her frogs escape the terrarium. We’re still missing one.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose and sat on the side of his desk. ‘Please can the guilty party confess so you can get back to class?’

  We both stayed silent; me completely in the dark.

  ‘Come on ... speak,’ he pressed.

  ‘Why do you think it was us? It could have been anyone.’

  ‘As Miss Stuart has already told you, Glory, she saw someone with a mop of red hair leaving the lab immediately before discovering the amphibians running loose. So as luck would have it, there are only two people in this school that fit that description: you two.’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ she said.

  ‘It wasn’t me either.’ And that was true.

  ‘Did Glory do this, Grace?’

  ‘No.’ That may or may not have been true.

  ‘Right. It’s going to be like that is it? Well, here’s what I’ll do. I’m going to split you up and give you a chance to confess or point at the other, in which case you will be free to go. If you don’t identify the culprit, you’ll each be punished more than if you’d put your hand up to begin with.’

  The prisoners’ dilemma-style situation he’d tried to create failed. He’d not counted on the discrete, twinkly-eyed shushing gesture Glory made before we parted, which instructed me to trust her and stay quiet. After two hours of checking in on us in separate rooms and finding us mute, Mr Kendall called it quits. He threatened to call our mother, but Glory pointed out that the herself red-headed Mrs McBride might not be best pleased her daughters were singled out because of their appearance. What with equal treatment and all that. He’d groaned at the reference to the recent assembly on racism and let us go, probably determining a single frog wasn’t worth the trouble.

  My sister and I left the teachers’ wing arm in arm, chuckling.

  ‘How did you know he’d give up?’ I kept my tone light-hearted, not willing to admit to having felt quite distressed during our isolation.

  ‘I’d overheard Miss Bose and him discussing his need to leave early today, for his wife’s birthday. So it was a waiting game. Plus he had no real evidence: Miss Stuart is half blind! He’d just hoped one of us would give in. He couldn’t possibly punish us both. Mum wouldn’t have stood for it.’

  ‘I genuinely didn’t know if it was you. Why did you do it?’ And why did you put me through this?

  ‘I saw she’d given you a C, and I thought that wasn’t fair.’

  ‘Aw, that’s so sweet.’ I bumped her shoulder with mine. ‘And a bit weird. Why the frogs?’

  ‘To be honest, Zach dared me after hearing me complain about her. You should’ve seen his face when I walked straight to the lab. Never expected I would do it.’

  ‘Thank goodness they didn’t catch you in the act.’

  ‘Yes. On that note, Gi ... thanks for saving my bacon once again.’

  ‘What are sisters for?’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Andy was sitting outside on a pile of tyres reading the paper, catching some rare afternoon sunshine when I rolled up. Despite the lack of signage to direct customers to the garage, there seemed to be plenty of work for him judging by the vehicles parked around the entrance in various stages of automotive undress.

  ‘Hello my dear,’ he said when he saw me step out. ‘You’ve caught me red-handed. I was having a little break.’

  He looked older than last time, tired and unshaven; his white hair now so fine it
lacked the weight to force the curve on his comb-over and instead stood upright on one side like an array of micro-thin antennae. He didn’t need special sensors, however to see what was wrong with my car.

  ‘A scorned lover?’ he joked, as he always did to take the sting out of the eventual price tag.

  ‘Not this time, Andy. I’ve been good. How have you been?’

  ‘No scorned lovers for me either, dear, unfortunately.’ He winked. I’d learnt little about his personal life, having only needed his services a handful of times, but he had the air of a widower and I’d never dared to ask.

  A quick inspection followed and after darting inside to consult his papers, he returned.

  ‘The good news is I can fix this in an hour. The bad news is that hour will be Monday because I don’t have the window in stock.’

  He stuck a scribbled note into my hand, like a grandparent giving a secret fiver. I waited politely until he had walked away to look. He didn’t like the money side, and this was reflected in his pricing, which had been stuck somewhere at mid-1990s level.

  ‘That’s fine, thanks Andy,’ I reassured him, stuffing the quote into my pocket.

  ‘Good thing it wasn’t your sister’s vintage Bug. I would struggle to find a spare for that again.’

  A great sob escaped me and caught us both by surprise. He stood frozen, eyes darting from side to side as if looking for intruction on what to do. The sight of this kindly old man wondering what he’d done wrong amplified my sadness and tears rolled out onto my cheeks.