by Caro Fraser
‘Anthea, whatever she’s told you isn’t true, I assure you.’ Why in God’s name, he asked himself, hadn’t he had the sense to tell Anthea exactly what had happened that night? Because tiresome and silly as Lucy was, he had never believed she would be this malevolent.
‘Leo, do you think I’m stupid? If it was all lies, you wouldn’t have a clue what I was talking about! But obviously you know all too well! You slept with my sister while I was away! She stayed in your house, in your bed!’
‘Anthea, it wasn’t like that. If you’ll stop yelling and let me explain—’
‘Oh? What was it like, then? Do you deny she stayed there?’
‘No, but—’
‘And that you slept with her?’
‘No – I mean, yes! Yes, I deny it! She was at a nightclub, and I went to pick her up—’
‘And brought her home and fucked her! Admit it, why don’t you? She has!’
‘She’s lying. She’s lying because – because she wants to hurt you. Or me. I don’t know.’ The pause at the other end made Leo hope she was listening, and perhaps growing calmer. But Anthea was merely trying to muffle her sobs.
‘Leo, you took her to bed! I know you did!’ She clenched her teeth, tearful and enraged. ‘Don’t you dare try to deny it!’
‘I didn’t—’
‘Do you? Do you deny it? Do you deny she was in your bed?’
‘No, but that was the next morning, when she—’
Anthea let out a screech of anger. ‘My God, you’re such a weasel! Trying to talk around this like there are excuses to be made! You – picked – up – my – seventeen – year – old – sister—’ She beat her fist on the bed with each word. ‘—–and – slept – with – her – while – I – was – AWAY!’
‘If you would just stop screeching and let me explain—’
‘Don’t you tell me I’m screeching! I am not screeching!’
‘Yes, you are. Calm down, and let me—’
‘No, I don’t want to hear any more from you!’ She took a couple of deep breaths. ‘You’ve said enough. She was there, with you, in your bed – you’ve admitted all of it. You are a piece of slime, Leo, and I never want to see you again.’ She switched off the phone and flung it, then herself, on the bed and wept.
Leo listened to the buzz of the line, then hung up. Why was it, he wondered, that after half a lifetime spent honing his powers of rhetoric, he had handled that so spectacularly badly? Perhaps because Anthea had unwittingly followed the golden rule of cross-examination by asking only questions to which she knew the answers – or thought she knew the answers. But this was the heart of the problem – whatever spiteful lies Lucy had told, a good deal of the damning circumstantial evidence happened to be true. Hence his wretched performance in trying to set the matter straight. Perhaps he should have lied outright, and said the entire thing was a fabrication, instead of admitting to bits of it. That wouldn’t have helped, though, because, like a fool, he had indicated from the outset that he knew she was talking about Lucy.
Leo leant back in his chair and groaned. Then he picked up the phone and rang Anthea’s number again. She answered after a couple of rings and told him to go to hell. Not tearfully, not emotionally – but coldly and dispassionately. Not a good sign. So what was he to do? Even if he were to find a way of getting her to listen to him, the true story was never going to sound particularly convincing. It would be his word against Lucy’s, and since Anthea already believed whatever lurid version of events Lucy had chosen to give, he didn’t stand much of a chance.
Time for a little word with Lucy.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Leo waited outside Lucy’s school the following afternoon, feeling less like a predatory paedophile than he had expected. There were plenty of other lone adults sitting idly in their expensive cars near the school gates, leafing through magazines or talking on their mobiles, though most of them were mothers. It had, of course, occurred to Leo that his mission could well prove entirely fruitless; Lucy might have some after-school activity; she might have gone home at lunchtime; she might not even be in school that day. Still, it was the only way he knew of getting hold of her to speak to her. Her lies to Anthea had created a situation which would not be healed or resolved by the passage of time. Only Lucy could set this right, and Leo was determined to make this clear to her.
Four o’clock came and went. Streams of chattering pupils spilt out of the school gates. He scanned the faces of the older girls, but no Lucy. Then, just as he was about to give up, he saw her dawdling towards the school coach with another girl, whom he recognised as Georgia, her friend from the Soho nightclub.
Leo put the car in gear and slipped out of his parking space. The waiting cars had cleared somewhat, and he was able to pull up next to Lucy as she strolled along the pavement. She glanced towards the car just as he slid the electric window down, and stopped when she saw him.
The sight of Leo waiting outside her school gates provoked two responses in Lucy – one of childlike guilt and fear, and the other a weird sense of pleasure that she had created a situation where Leo had to come looking for her. She felt in control, like all the cards were in her hand.
Leo leant over, the engine still running. ‘Lucy?’
Her pretty face assumed a haughty, impertinent expression. ‘Yes?’
‘I’d like to talk to you.’ He leant across and opened the passenger door. Lucy hesitated for a moment on the pavement. She glanced at Georgia, then got into Leo’s car, mouthing ‘Catch you later’ at her friend. She chucked her school bag onto the rear seat and flicked back her dark hair, looking mildly apprehensive but generally pleased with herself.
There was silence for a moment. Leo sat letting the engine run, tapping the wheel with his fingers.
Lucy gave him a challenging look. She didn’t like his silence. ‘What?’
‘Come on,’ said Leo, suddenly putting the car into gear and moving away from the pavement. They drove slowly through the busy streets.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Lucy.
‘I’m taking you home,’ said Leo.
‘How d’you mean?’ She wondered, for a small, thrilling moment, whether he had changed his mind about the other night, and whether they were going to drive to his place in Chelsea and make wild, passionate love in the bed he had kicked her out of not so long ago.
‘How do I mean?’ replied Leo. ‘I mean home – your home. Where you live with your mother.’
‘Why? What’s going on?’
‘You know what’s going on. The lies you told your sister have caused a lot of unhappiness and trouble. You have from now till we get to Kensington to agree to tell her the truth and set matters straight, or—’
‘Or what? You don’t tell me what to do. Like I care about you and her.’
‘Or I speak to your mother, tell her exactly what’s been happening.’
Lucy gave a gasp of disbelief. ‘Seriously? You seriously think involving my mother is going to help you?’ She laughed. ‘My God, Leo, you are so screwed! All I have to do is tell her my version, only I’ll make it even worse, say that I didn’t want to but you made me, gave me loads to drink and stuff, and say that you’re telling lies because things have got mucked up with you and Anthea, and she’ll—’
Leo brought the car to a sudden halt at the side of the road. ‘Lucy!’ he snapped. ‘Shut up!’ Lucy’s expression as he looked at her was one of truculent defiance, but he could see apprehension in her eyes. ‘Your mother is a grown-up. I am a grown-up. When grown-ups talk intelligently to one another, things happen that children don’t understand. You are a child, and a very nasty, spoilt one. However much your mother loves you, I’m sure she’s under no illusions as to the kind of child you are. So she’ll believe me. I can assure you – she will believe me, and she won’t give an ounce of credit to any lies you tell. I happen to be very fond of your sister, and I refuse to allow a nasty kid like you to wreck things. And if you insist on carrying on with your lies, I
shall involve Georgia. She has nothing to gain by supporting you in this sordid little sham of yours, and a great deal to lose. Oh, and on the grown-up point, I may even speak to your school.’ He could see the fear and anger burning in her eyes. ‘It gets worse and worse, doesn’t it?’
‘You wouldn’t!’ She stared at him with a sullen, challenging gaze, then suddenly it softened to one of unhappy supplication. She reached out and touched his hand as it rested on the steering wheel, and moved closer to him. ‘Leo, I only did it because you hurt me. You didn’t want me. I felt really upset. And then Anthea had a go at me, and I just said it to spite both of you. But it’s not too late. If you still want me—’ Her soft, young mouth was very close to his, babbling her adolescent confusion, and he was sorely tempted to kiss the idiocy right out of her. Just in time he drew away, moving her hand from his thigh, where it had slipped.
‘OK. That’s enough. Stop. I’m not buying this little act either.’ He put the car in gear and pulled away from the kerb. ‘Come on, let’s go home and have a word with your mother.’
Lucy scowled at him. ‘I hate you. I really, really hate you, Leo.’
‘Yes, that sounds more like it. Honesty at last. Now, are you going to speak to Anthea and tell her what really happened? To spare your pride, you can keep in the bit about you getting drunk and incapable. I won’t tell her you tried to set me up.’
‘You really think I’m just going to do what you say? How do you know I won’t make it even worse? How do you know I won’t tell her you got me in your car and threatened me?’
They had reached the end of Lucy’s street. Leo stopped the car. He let a silence elapse, and when he spoke his tone was as reasonable as he could make it. ‘Because, Lucy, I don’t think you hate your sister that much. I think you love her. How do you think she feels, believing what you told her? How do you think it makes you look to her? She is so fond of you, and if you let this lie go on, she will never look at you in the same way again. Right now she doesn’t just believe I’ve deceived and hurt her – she believes you have, too. I don’t think you want to see her so unhappy, or to make this rotten mess of yours even worse than it is.’ Lucy’s young eyes suddenly brightened with miserable, genuine tears, and Leo knew he had his moment. ‘Look, I know it’s not going to be the easiest or the pleasantest thing to tell her the truth, but it’s the only way to put things right.’
He watched her face, watched the conflicting emotions that crossed it as she struggled to salvage her pride.
‘OK,’ she said at last. She sniffed, trying to blink back her tears, and Leo reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a tissue and handed it to her. She dabbed at smudges of mascara and muttered, ‘I’m not spoilt and nasty, you know. That stuff you said.’
‘Good. I didn’t think you were. Just go and sort it out.’
She turned round and hauled her bag from the back seat and onto her lap, and sat there for a miserable moment. She looked about twelve, lovely and troubled. Poor Oliver, thought Leo – he had no idea what was coming in a few years’ time.
Without another word she got out of the car and set off towards her house. He watched her walk up to the front door and take out her key. She let herself in, the front door closed, and Leo slid down in his seat with a shuddering sigh. He had to admit now that he had taken an extraordinary risk. She could have done exactly as she had threatened – she might have lied to her mother, even to her school, if it had gone that far, and got away with it. Children did these days. She was a precocious little minx with vicious capabilities and mixed-up emotions, and he had just gambled his professional career on her. Still, he hadn’t spent twenty-five years turning himself into an expert judge of character for nothing. The idly manipulative, self-centred brat was essentially a somewhat confused but innately decent teenager. And lethally sexy, more than even she knew. Definitely worth revisiting in ten years’ time, by which time, unfortunately, she wouldn’t look at him twice.
He sat there, reflecting for a moment. Then he pulled out his mobile phone and sent a text to Anthea. ‘I think your little sister has something to tell you.’ Poor Lucy. That was going to be a difficult confession to have to make. He thought about what she’d said – how she could make it even worse for him by telling Anthea that he’d picked her up from school and threatened her. No, she probably wouldn’t do that. On the whole, he thought she’d had enough of lying. He could see it in her eyes, the way he’d seen it in the eyes of dozens of witnesses. After a while, when lying got complex and exhausting, most of them just wanted to give up and tell the truth.
Still, he wouldn’t rest easy until he knew that Lucy had spoken to Anthea and set matters straight, and who knew how long that would take?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
As he sat talking and smoking with the other men, Marko watched Viktor, waiting to see if he was going to go to Irina’s room. Viktor had taken to visiting her every day now, something he had never done with any of the other girls. It wasn’t just that Marko was jealous – he hated the way he would find Irina weeping an hour, two hours after Viktor had been with her. He shouldn’t care. Viktor was the boss, he could do what he wanted with the girls. But Marko had a thing about Irina. He liked her. He liked the way she teased him when they played cards, made him feel like a boy. Like a kind of stupid boy. He didn’t want her thinking him stupid. For a few days now he’d been planning something he could do to make her look at him differently.
Viktor stood around bantering for a while, then announced he was going out and would be back later that evening.
‘Hey, Marko!’ he snapped. ‘Get out there! Someone should be watching the rooms.’
Marko went out to the corridor. He waited till Viktor had disappeared, then went to Irina’s door and rapped softly. She was on her own, lying on the bed, her face blank, staring at the ceiling. Her eyes moved towards Marko, then away.
‘I don’t feel like cards, Marko.’
Marko came and sat down in the chair near her bed. ‘I haven’t come to play cards. I’ve come to talk.’
She gave him a longer glance. ‘What about?’
Marko hesitated, rubbing his bristly chin with one hand, then said softly, ‘I want to do something for you.’
She studied his face. He was like a big, stupid dog. She’d known for a while now that Marko had a crush on her. You could always tell. It was a body language thing – the way he sat, the way he kept his eyes fixed on her face for too long when they were playing cards. ‘What kind of thing?’
He wasn’t good with words. It took him ten halting minutes to tell Irina how he felt about her, how he had this idea that, if she felt the same way, he could get her out of here and they could go somewhere together. Irina listened in silence. She felt absolutely nothing for Marko. She didn’t think she’d ever feel anything for any man again. She wasn’t grateful to him for playing cards with her, or being halfway decent to her, because to feel any of that would be to legitimise all of this shit. But she was prepared to use him. She would use him any way she could to get out of here.
‘I don’t know if you have feelings for me,’ he said, casting his eyes down. ‘I think you might.’
Irina sat up and put a hand on his. He so much wanted to believe her that it didn’t take a lot of words to convince him she felt the same. To make sure, she leant forward and kissed his flabby mouth. It was horrible, but the thought of what she stood to gain kindled such genuine excitement in her that she was able to kiss him as though she meant it.
‘It’s gonna be easy,’ said Marko. ‘I’m the one guarding you – I’m the one to get you out of here.’ Already he felt capable, in control, someone she could look up to. ‘It’s a big risk for me. After he finds out what’s happened he’s gonna want to kill me. You know that?’
Irina knew, and she couldn’t care less. If Marko finished up with his tiny brain blown out of the side of his big, fat head, it was his lookout. That, presumably, was one of the risks you took when you made the lifestyle choice o
f working for Viktor Kroitor. She felt neither pity nor gratefulness. She smiled her sweetest smile, and the hope in her heart allowed her eyes to fill with real tears. Let him think they were for him, stupid man. ‘Thank you, Marko. You are doing all this for me – I can’t believe it.’ She kissed him again.
They talked it through and decided it was just a question of taking the best available opportunity to leave the hotel. Marko reckoned any evening – tonight, or tomorrow night, or the one after that – when things were busier and men were coming and going from the girls’ rooms. After all, Marko and the other guys were the only thing that stood between the girls and the outside world. He was more worried about the immediate aftermath, and going somewhere Viktor wouldn’t find them.
‘How much money have you got?’ Irina asked him.
‘About two hundred pounds. Not enough.’
‘What about Viktor? How much cash does he carry?’
Marko shrugged. ‘A lot. I’ve seen him with wads of cash. He’s like that. But what d’you think I’m gonna do – rob him? I’m not that stupid, Irina.’
‘You don’t have to,’ she said. ‘I will. Next time he comes to see me. He always puts his jacket over the chair beforehand. All you do is call him away – make something up, I don’t know. Give me enough time to go through his pockets.’
Marko nodded slowly. ‘That’s good.’
‘But it means we have to go straight afterwards, before he finds out.’
Marko nodded again. ‘That’s a big risk.’
‘Exactly. And it’s my risk, not yours, if you think about it. So you’ve got to be really clever, and really careful. OK?’
‘For sure,’ replied Marko, gazing soulfully at her.
Viktor came back at six with a couple of friends, and after chatting a while with the other men, went to Irina’s room. Marko watched him go. How long had she said? Seven minutes. Long enough for him to get his jacket off, but not so long that he’d already started. Irina had told him that the things Viktor liked to do to her got worse each time. He tried not to think of this as he glanced at his watch. After this, Viktor would never have the chance to do anything to her ever again. Already Marko was beginning to feel like a protector, a hero, and he liked this new idea of himself. It was better than what he was now – a small-time gangster who got paid to hang around hotels keeping an eye on things, driving cars, hurting people when necessary.