Keeping Bad Company

by Ann Granger

  I couldn’t judge time well. In my situation minutes had to feel like hours. I certainly seemed to be thrown around in my prison for some time, but in London traffic, that didn’t necessarily mean we’d travelled a vast distance. As far as I could tell, we’d not spent more than a third of the journey time stuck in one spot. I was sure we were still in London and probably not more than a couple of miles or so from where we’d started. Merv and his mate had tribal instincts. They wouldn’t move far off their own patch where they knew every alley and bolt hole. (And where a phone call to an obliging pal would fix up an alibi if need be, as they’d demonstrated on the night Albie died.)

  At last we stopped altogether. Doors slammed again. Footsteps approached. Though I still couldn’t see anything, the darkness had lifted. The van doors had been opened. Hands grabbed me and I was unceremoniously but highly efficiently carried, as before, into a building.

  They were careless now, manhandling me with less regard than would’ve been shown by a couple of piano-shifters for a pub’s beat-up set of ivories. They were talking to each other and in normal voices, arguing about where to put me. A voice I identified as Merv’s suggested taking me upstairs. The other man was against this as getting me around the corners would be difficult. It wasn’t as if the lifts were working, he grumbled. What’s more, for such a skinny little cow I was beginning to weigh effing heavy. He refused point-blank to carry me any further. They put me down, upright this time, while they argued it out. The second man, I’d been able to gather, went by the name of Baz.

  To me all this meant they felt themselves secure wherever they were. There was no one to see or hear them and they had complete freedom of the place, choosing where to put me and able to bawl at one another to their hearts’ delight. In the end, they decided I could walk up a flight of stairs if guided.

  I was shoved along and then ordered to start climbing. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried going upstairs with your arms pinned to your sides and a cloth over your head. Try it as a party game, if you want to get rid of your friends. I stumbled repeatedly and fell headlong twice, bruising my shins badly and cracking my forehead on the stairs above. Even Merv and Baz seemed relieved when we reached the next landing and there was no talk, even from Merv, of moving up another flight.

  All this told me we were in some large, or at least tall, building. Their voices had an echoing quality suggesting emptiness, and together with their attitude indicated a deserted block of condemned flats, or possibly of office units that had failed to attract tenants. There were such places, and small industrial units sporting sun-faded ‘To rent’ signs, all over London.

  We moved forward again on the level. A door was opened.

  ‘In here,’ said Merv, as if I could see.

  I moved forward. A chair scraped and hit the back of my legs.

  ‘Siddown!’ he invited.

  I sat down. There was movement and the door creaked. One of them went out. The other hesitated by my chair before stooping to whisper in my ear.

  ‘I’ll be back, darlin’.’

  I had no doubt of it. But for the moment, blessedly, he left too. They muttered together some distance away, I guessed outside the room in a hall or corridor.

  I strained my ears but they kept their voices low and the cloth muffled their words. For a brief moment Baz raised his voice: ‘The little cow cost me my bike!’

  Merv swore at him.

  ‘. . . got it coming to her.’ That was Baz again. He sounded like a man looking forward to having fun. Not very pleasant fun for someone. Me.

  More mumblings from Merv and Baz subsided like a grumbling volcano. It wasn’t a nice thought that I depended on someone like Merv to protect me from Baz and whatever perverted ideas he might dream up by way of vengeance.

  There was a rattle and scraping noise and my heart leaped in panic. Were they coming back? No, the door was slammed and a key turned. Faintly I caught the sound of retreating footsteps, then there was silence.

  My relief at their departure was soon eclipsed by the grim knowledge that I had very little time to get out of here, wherever here was. Wrapped up as I was like Pharaoh’s mummy, I couldn’t do a thing, so my first task was to get out of my bindings. Apart from being unable to see, breathe properly or move my arms, the material smelled evil. God knew where it’d been.

  I managed to wriggle one arm to the front and by dint of breathing in and ignoring the pressure on my ribs, I dragged the arm up and free. That enabled me to grab the cloth from inside and heave it. I pulled it off my head with a sigh of relief, taking a deep breath. The air was marginally fresher but still whiffy.

  The room I was in was gloomy but I was able to see that I’d been enveloped in an old curtain, blue and dirty, very dirty, cream. It had been held in place by a leather belt. I was soon able to deal with that and release my other arm. I stepped out of the whole lot, kicked it away across the floor, and looked around me.

  Though I hadn’t time to feel smug about it, I’d guessed remarkably accurately to what type of building I’d been taken: a disused office block. The walls were bare and pitted with holes where shelving had been dismantled. The only furniture consisted of my seat, which proved to be an ancient typist’s chair with foam stuffing coming out of the padded back, and a metal filing cabinet with a massive dent caving in one side. The floor was covered with worn and filthy carpeting and scrap paper. The stale air was imprinted with traces of a lost way of life, of cigarette smoke, dispenser coffee, 3-In-One oil, and more recently, mouse droppings.

  There were no external windows. Light filtered in through a glass transom above the door from the corridor outside. I went over to the light switch and flicked it but nothing happened. I rattled the door handle, despite having heard the key turned in the lock as they left. I didn’t know for how long Merv and Baz would be gone, but I guessed not for long. They’d dumped me here while they worked out what to do with me, or went for orders from someone else. I wondered if the unknown controller was Copperfield.

  Finding out could come later. In the meantime, I had to get out of here. I looked up at the dusty glass transom. It was hinged.

  Standing on the chair didn’t raise me high enough. My eye fell on the filing cabinet. It wasn’t easy to move, too awkward and heavy to slide across the carpet. On the other hand, the carpet muffled the sound it made as I manhandled it clumsily toward the door. Sweating and puffing, I finally managed to get it into place and scrambled on top of it.

  Now I could reach the transom catch which was on the inside and although it was stiff from disuse, I was able to twist it up. I pushed at the frame and it moved protestingly. I fixed it with its metal arm. The resultant space was narrow, but it was the only way out and fortunately, I was slim or, as Baz had opined, skinny.

  I had to disconnect the arm and let the transom fall back again, because in the fixed position the arm barred my exit. Gripping the frame with both hands, I hauled myself up and swivelled over it on my stomach, pushing the glass open with my body and trying to anchor myself with my right leg while my left leg hung down on the other side of the door.

  So far, so good. Painful and insecure, but progress. The next bit was worse. While teetering dangerously, I had to get my right leg over the frame and at the same time try to turn my body so that I could drop down straight into the corridor without being decapitated by the loose transom frame, which would fall back as soon as I released pressure on it.

  almost did it neatly. But at the last moment my sweaty hands slipped on the metal frame. I couldn’t hold on and support my own weight and I plummeted to the corridor floor below. I hit my chin and nose on the frame edge as I went down and landed crunchingly on the unyielding floor tiles. Had I not been taught on the drama course to take a stage fall, I should almost certainly have broken something. As it was the breath was knocked out of my body and my jaw felt as though a mule had kicked it, taking in the bridge of my nose at the same time. The cut on my chin, which I’d received when fleeing from Baz the
biker, had reopened and was bleeding. I discovered my nose was trickling blood, too. I hoped I hadn’t broken it.

  The transom had fallen back into place with a metallic clang that echoed down the corridor. I had no time to hang about here, although other office doors along either side stood ajar and revealed only empty rooms.

  I rubbed the stream of gore away with my sleeve and scurried along the corridor to the staircase at the far end. At some stage this place had been adapted from warehouse to office premises, I guessed in the late fifties or early sixties. Most of the internal walls were gimcrack, forming endless tiny airless rooms out of what had been an open floor. Hence the lack of windows. The outer shell appeared more solid and even older.

  The surrounding air smelled foul, of damp, dust, crumbling plaster and vermin, a fetid miasma redolent of failure. The building was clearly redundant because it’d been built when the welfare of employees hadn’t been considered important and even the later attempt at modernisation had fallen lamentably short of its goal. It was antiquated in every way, including the cobwebby exposed iron heating pipes that had been fixed along the base of the walls, probably at the time of the conversion to offices, and which were big enough to serve a power plant.

  But here at least was a large window, one of the originals, through which light beamed down the passageway and illuminated the graffiti-decorated stairwell. Peering through the grimy glass, I saw that it overlooked a deserted yard and a chained and padlocked pair of high gates. There was a row of brick outhouses, which had lost their roofs and looked remarkably like old-fashioned privies. Visits to those had probably been rationed in the good old days.

  I tried the window catch but it’d been painted over and stuck fast. Even if I’d been able to open it, I wouldn’t have fancied another dead drop, this time from the upper floor where I was. Apart from its other many disadvantages, this place was a fire trap and certainly wouldn’t conform to any modern regulations. No wonder it was abandoned.

  I wondered how many floors were above me. There was at least one other, because the staircase ran upwards as well as down. I hesitated. Self-preservation indicated immediate descent to the ground floor and discovery of an exit. But I’d had an idea.

  If this place was used by Merv and Baz as a sort of safe house to which they could bring me with no fear that I’d be discovered, then might they not have brought Lauren here, too? I’d never get another chance to find out. For an unspecified length of time I had the place to myself unless there was another prisoner.

  I crept up the staircase and emerged on the floor above and as I did so, it seemed to me that the silence was broken by the muffled sound of voices. Was I not alone? I paused and half turned to run. Then the voices were interrupted by a burst of music and a squeal of car tyres. Somewhere in this apparently deserted pile was a television set.

  I realised that if I investigated, I might simply walk in on Merv and Baz, taking a tea-break. But that was a risk I had to take. The initial floorplan up here was on the same pattern as below. The office doors to either side gaped open to reveal dismal abandoned interiors. But one opened on to a washroom and on the shelf above the basins stood a jumble of toiletry items, soap, handcream, toothpaste.

  At the far end of the corridor and facing me was a door with a narrow panel of reinforced glass set in it. It was shut but there was no doubt that from behind that came the sound of the television.

  I crept down the corridor towards it. Luckily whoever watched the telly was a fan of the noisier kind of car-chase movie. The squealing of tyres and the frantic music had both increased and now were interspersed with shots. The viewer or viewers wouldn’t hear me.

  I’d reached the door and there I stopped to work out my next move. I couldn’t just open it, not knowing what lay beyond. I might not even be able to open it. There was no key in the lock.

  I put my eye to the glass strip. The crisscross wire reinforcing and the grime obscured my view. I ventured to breath on it and rub. A clearer patch emerged.

  The first thing I saw was the TV screen. It flickered wildly and the music was deafening. The film was coming to an end in a final pile-up of vehicles and lots of running bodies. The credits began to roll up the screen.

  There was a scrape as of a chair and a shape moved across my spyhole. My view of the TV screen was blocked by a body as someone, jeans-clad, stooped to switch it off. The figure was neither Merv or Baz, of that I was sure. It was too small and slightly built.

  The noise of the set silenced, the person in the room straightened up and turned towards the door. I ducked down in the nick of time before she saw my silhouette on the glass.

  Because ‘it’ was definitely ‘she’. I’d only had a brief glimpse but it was enough. I’d seen Lauren Szabo.

  I stepped away from the door and wondered what to do. Escape from the building and contact Parry would make sense. But if Merv or Baz came back and found me gone, they’d move Lauren at once. I had to take her with me.

  I could hear her moving about the room. I put my eye back against the clear patch. I couldn’t see her now, but neither could I see anyone else. I was pretty sure she was on her own in there.

  I raised my hand, tapped on the glass panel and called as loudly as I dared, ‘Lauren?’

  From inside the room came a quick intake of breath and a muttered exclamation. She came back into view, darting towards the door, long hair flying, and with an expression on her face that told me everything. Dismay, surprise, anger were there, but not relief, not hope or delight at being found, at the arrival of a friend.

  I hadn’t time to tell myself how stupid I’d been, but I knew it at once. The door was jerked open from inside. Yes, Fran, I thought miserably, it wasn’t locked. You are a class-one idiot. You might at least have tried the handle before you starting calling out her name.

  She stood in the doorway, red-faced and staring at me in fury. I stared back, no less angry.

  She spoke first. ‘How the hell did you get out?’ she asked.

  I wasn’t here to answer her questions. I had questions of my own. I launched myself at her, catching her in the midriff and knocking her backwards. She sprawled on the floor, but rolled over and grabbed my ankle. I kicked out and she released me, swearing in a way no nice girl should.

  Behind, the door had clicked shut and as I turned towards it, I saw the key was in the lock on the inside. I twisted it and snatched it out of the key hole. She dived for it, but I shoved it down my shirt where, in time-honoured fashion, it lodged in my bra.

  ‘Right, Lauren,’ I panted. ‘I think we’d both better stay here so you can tell me exactly what’s been going on!’

  ‘You stupid cow!’ she yelled. ‘Give me the key! You don’t know what you’re doing!’

  ‘I thought,’ I said, ‘that I was rescuing you. But I’m not, am I? Because you’re not a prisoner?’

  She hesitated before saying sulkily, ‘Merv told me they’d picked up the girl who was hanging around, poking her nose in. He said you were tied up safe, downstairs.’

  ‘That’ll teach you,’ I retorted, ‘to believe everything you’re told by someone like Merv. What’s going on here?’

  She blinked at me, reddening. ‘You shouldn’t have meddled and you can damn well stop doing it now. This is none of your business. You’re not involved.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I’ve been grabbed, trussed up, chucked in a van and driven over here like a sack of spuds, slung in a filthy disused office and left there, locked in. I feel very involved.’

  ‘It’s your own fault!’ she shouted, before she realised this wouldn’t get her anywhere and it might be better to be reasonable with me. ‘Your own fault,’ she repeated more calmly. ‘We had to do it, to keep you quiet for a bit. We weren’t going to hurt you. We’d have let you go once – once everything was settled. Right now, you must stay here. You’re going to spoil it all, don’t you see?’

  Her voice rose passionately. ‘Look, I’ve gone through a hell of a lot here! Y
ou don’t think it’s been easy for me, do you? I mean, since they grabbed me off the street? You don’t know what happened! You don’t know the trouble I’ve had managing those two nutters, Merv and Baz! Getting them to do what I wanted. Even now, I still can’t trust them! Apart from anything else, they’re so bloody incompetent! Everything is – is just balanced on a knife edge! If it goes wrong, we’re both in real trouble, you and me!’

  This was all very well and interesting, but missing the point. ‘If you’re on the level at all, you’ll walk out of here with me now,’ I argued.

  ‘But I can’t!’ she wailed, throwing out her hands despairingly. ‘I’ll explain it if you want, if it’ll satisfy you. Once you see how it is, you’ll understand why you mustn’t interfere!’