by Susan Lewis
‘He was my father. I knew him and I know that’s what he did.’
‘Do you mean you knew him the way you knew me?’
‘I mean he was a decent, honourable man who would never have done what you accused him of. Why don’t you just admit that you lied? You have your freedom now, your life, your family, your business. What’s the point in holding on to the lie? It doesn’t serve you any more.’
‘You’re right, it doesn’t, so I’m OK with letting it go. I lied. Are you happy now?’
Happy? For God’s sake. ‘Aren’t you sorry for what you did?’
‘If I were, would it help you to like me a bit better?’
Startled by that, Andee said, ‘Only if it were genuine, and why is it important for me to like you?’
‘Believe me, it isn’t.’
Not quite sure where to go with that, Andee read the text that had arrived on her phone a few minutes ago. It was from her mother, letting her know that Alayna had been in touch.
Her eyes returned to Penny. To her surprise Penny had a hand to her head as though soothing an ache, or trying to shut out where she was. When she looked up her face was even paler than before, and strands of hair were sticking to her perspiring neck. Before Andee could speak Penny said, ‘So you worked out what I took from you when I left?’
Deciding to go with it, Andee said, ‘It was my copy of East of Eden?’
Penny smiled.
‘Why that?’
Penny appeared thoughtful, as though she’d never considered the reason. However, she surprised Andee when she said, ‘I guess initially, it was to annoy you … You kept going on about the book, how shocking and fantastic it was, how you felt so many different emotions when you were reading it … You and Dad talked about it for hours and hours … It got so much on my nerves that I thought I’d burn it, or tear it up, or just throw it away. Then I decided to take it with me when I left so I could think of you searching for it, getting angry because you couldn’t find it and eventually giving up and getting a new one. A bit like you’d be while looking for me. You’d give up eventually, and one of your hundreds of friends would become your new sister.’
Andee could have told her then that since her real sister had vanished she’d never had a best friend again, but Penny was still speaking.
‘I didn’t read it,’ she was saying, ‘not while I was at Glebe Place, but I was glad to have it during that fucking awful time … It was the only book I had, my only means of escape, I guess. It was like the characters became friends, family even. Of course I was always with other girls, we were never allowed any privacy, but most of them didn’t speak English and the book kind of spoke to me … It had your notes in the margins. I probably read them more often than I read the book. It brought you to life for me, made me feel close to you. It was as though you were helping me to escape from that hell, even if it was only in my mind. We were sharing the book. Your notes were my thoughts, because I wasn’t capable of forming many of my own; you’re not, when you’re in the state I was usually in. You’re looking surprised.’
Andee was more than surprised. This wasn’t what she’d expected to hear at all. ‘I thought I meant nothing to you,’ she said, and immediately wished she hadn’t. There were many other things she could have said that were less mocking or accusatory or cold.
‘My perspective,’ Penny went on, ‘along with just about everything else, changed during that time. Like the others I was desperate to get away. That was when I was sober enough to feel desperate, to feel anything at all. I used to fantasise about you climbing out of the book to come and get me, bringing Daddy with you. Even when he decided to give up on me, he must have kept a check on where I was, but he never came so I knew that I’d been right all along, he didn’t care.’
Though Andee had no way of challenging her father, she knew beyond any doubt that he’d lost track of Penny as soon as John Victor sold her to traffickers, for he’d never have left her to rot in the squalid conditions used for girls forced into prostitution. It was doubtful that Penny would accept this, even if Andee tried to speak up; she’d reached her conclusions a long time ago. They were undoubtedly a very big part of why she was so badly screwed up now, and she certainly was, Andee was seeing more and more of it as the days went by.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever taken drugs?’ Penny asked suddenly. ‘Of any kind? No, don’t bother to answer that, it hardly matters whether you have or haven’t. You’ll have dealt with plenty who have during your time with the police. You know what they do to people, how they’re used like chains to keep whores in check, make them do as they’re told, suffer the kind of abuse and humiliation you wouldn’t inflict on an animal. Which isn’t to say real chains aren’t used, because they are, locked around a wrist or an ankle, sometimes even around the neck. I’m still not telling you anything you don’t know? But you didn’t know about the book and how much it came to mean to me, how it unlocked the chains in my mind and took me to you.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ Andee said softly.
Penny smiled and got up to pour herself another drink.
Accepting a glass of water this time, Andee said, ‘Was it because of the twins that you began to identify with the character of Cathy Ames?’
Penny’s eyebrows rose. ‘I suppose you could have a point there, although I have to be honest, I didn’t think about them much during those terrible years. If I did, it was only to hope that John had honoured the deal and taken them to Sven. I sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted them with me. If you saw what happened to babies in those places … Well, I guess you have. Thank God I never got pregnant again, is all I can say.’
‘Did it ever occur to you,’ Andee said carefully, ‘that Sven might have been part of a plan to get rid of you once you’d given birth?’
‘Yes, it did, plenty of times, until he came to find me. He did everything he could to make me well again. He and Ana took me into their family, not to keep, I was free to go any time I wanted, but I didn’t want to leave them. For a long time I was afraid to, but eventually I got over that too. I loved being in Sweden, learning the language, getting to know the people, rising up through Sven’s business.’ Her eyes seemed to glaze for a moment, as her mind drifted to only she knew where. When they returned to Andee they were guarded, restless, as though she wasn’t entirely sure what had been said. ‘I used to read about you on the Internet,’ she stated. ‘When stories came up that you were involved in I’d find them and wonder what your life was like. So it’s not as if I wasn’t interested in you, but life had moved on, we had different families now and I didn’t want the complication of becoming Penny Lawrence, the missing child. It would only set me back, disrupt my life, and yours, and what was the point in that?’
To end the not knowing? To try and heal their mother’s broken heart and shattered conscience? What Andee said was, ‘So you chose to become Kate Trask?’
‘Kate Sylvander,’ she corrected, ‘but yes, Kate from East of Eden. I felt we were similar in some ways. Not all, but in those that had significance for me. She didn’t waste time on sentimentalities. Her children were never going to be a burden to her, she didn’t want any, and nor did I. I only entered into the agreement with Sven to get John Victor out of trouble. And you know how he repaid me.’
Andee didn’t hold back. ‘So you killed him?’
Penny’s eyes bored into hers. ‘Yes, I had him killed.’
More shaken than she should have been, Andee said, ‘What about Michelle Cross? Why did you use her name?’
Penny sighed, and as her eyes dropped to her phone Andee felt a loosening of the tension between them. ‘I told you before, it was a kind of tribute,’ she said bleakly. ‘She hadn’t been able to live her life, so it was a way of including her.’
‘Did you push her under the bus?’
Penny looked up, apparently amazed and even slightly amused. ‘Wow, you really do think the worst of me, don’t you? Actually, she tripped and fell. That’s how it happen
ed.’
‘And you went on to be cast as the Virgin Mary in the school nativity play? A role you’d already been cast in until one of the teachers took pity on Michelle.’
‘You remember that?’ Penny seemed impressed. ‘It was such a long time ago, but yes, I did get to play the part. She was a foster child, did you know that? She didn’t have any parents, or brothers and sisters, so I don’t suppose it was too hard on anyone when she went.’
Shocked, sickened, Andee didn’t bother to hide it. ‘Are you saying you thought it was all right to push that little girl under a bus because she didn’t have a family?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t push her under a bus. I told you, it was an accident.’
Wanting suddenly to get out of there, Andee put her drink down and picked up her phone.
‘You’re judging me again,’ Penny told her, ‘and now you’re running away. We can’t all be like you, Andee. Imagine how dull the world would be if we all had the same personalities, principles, beliefs.’
‘But yours are deplorable, disgusting …’
‘Says you, because you’ve told yourself I helped a little girl to go and join her parents in the next life. Well, if it makes you feel any better I really didn’t push her. She tripped and fell, but for all I know she did it on purpose. She hated the foster home she was in, the social workers, the teasing at school. She was miserable and to be truthful, I felt sorry for her. I knew what it was like to be in a family where you felt you didn’t belong.’
Andee was shaking her head incredulously. ‘You’re right about one thing,’ she said, ‘I really don’t know you and I don’t think I want to.’
Penny laughed, but it was a hollow nervous sound that had no humour. ‘Believe me, no one is going to force you,’ she promised. ‘You obviously know you’d never have heard from me again if it weren’t for Sven telling Jonathan about you …’
‘Which he did to protect him from you. His own mother.’
Penny nodded. ‘Yes, that’s true, but I wouldn’t harm him, after all he is my son. We don’t often agree on things, but in this instance he’s got to be made to see them my way. He knows what’s at stake, what will happen if he and Juliette don’t honour their agreement. I’m trying to save them from that.’
‘You mean from the fate that you yourself suffered at the hands of men who abused and tormented you for over four years?’
‘That’s right,’ Penny confirmed.
‘But how could you? I don’t understand when you’ve been there, you’ve …’
‘No, of course you don’t understand, because you don’t think like me. You hear the words, see a picture and you believe it without going into the meaning, the depth, the reality of what’s actually there.’
‘Then tell me what’s there.’
Instead of answering Penny fumbled with her phone, checking for texts or emails. In the end she said, ‘You know, I quite like the fact that you always think the worst of me. It’s reassuring, makes me realise that I was right to leave when I did and not come back.’
Andee said, ‘So now you’re blaming me for your disappearance?’
‘No, I’m not blaming you. I’m just trying to make you see how little what you think of me matters to me.’
‘So why are you bothering to talk to me?’
Penny said, ‘Because I’m hoping you’ll end up telling me where to find Jonathan and Juliette.’
‘Why on earth would I do that when you’ve done nothing but warn me against it.’
‘Ah, reverse psychology. Is that what you call it? I’m saying one thing when I actually mean the opposite. In other words, my subconscious is crying out for you to save those foolish young people from the wicked woman who means them only harm?’
‘Why don’t you give me an opportunity to see you in a different light?’ Andee suggested.
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because you’re not being truthful either to me, or to yourself. There’s a hard shell around you that’s almost impossible to penetrate, or it was until it started coming apart. I don’t know why, what’s making it happen, but I can see it, and I just know that buried deep inside you there is a human heart that’s as capable of compassion and love as mine.’
Penny’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Are you forgetting about Kate Trask?’ she challenged. ‘She was evil through and through.’
‘She wasn’t real.’
‘She was to me.’
Refusing to go any further with that, Andee sat watching her, waiting for her to speak again. When it became apparent she wasn’t going to, Andee said, ‘In France, when you stopped your car to ask me if I remembered you? Why did you do it that way?’
It seemed to take a moment for Penny to recollect the incident. When she did she smiled, almost mischievously. ‘I suppose it was because it appealed to me to tease you a little.’
Knowing she’d never understand the sort of mind that would see a return from the dead as a tease, Andee said, ‘How did you even know I was there?’
Frowning, Penny said, ‘I thought I’d explained that before. I was having you followed in case Jonathan got in touch with you. When you and your boyfriend flew to France, I felt convinced it was to see him. Apparently I was wrong. How long have you and … is it Graeme, been together?’
‘We’ve known one another for a few years, but together in the sense you mean it, just a few months.’
‘And you trust him?’
Annoyed, Andee said, ‘Don’t do that again. You tried it once before …’
‘’Her name’s Nadia. He’s redesigning, remodelling a house for her.’
‘And?’
‘I have photographs of them together. You can see for yourself how close they are.’
With a burning anger masking how shaken she felt, Andee said, ‘Why are you having him watched?’
‘I’m not. It just happened. When you disappeared airside at Heathrow, on your way to Stockholm, as it turned out, I thought you were returning to France. So I had someone fly over to find out.’ Her eyes seemed almost soft, even sad as she said, ‘I’m sorry he’s not who you think he is.’
Wanting nothing more than to get off the subject, Andee said, ‘You told me just now that Jonathan and Juliette know what’s at stake if they don’t honour the contract.’
‘That’s correct, they do.’
‘Well?’
Penny started as her phone finally rang, and almost dropped it as she checked who it was. She didn’t answer, just let it go to messages.
‘What’s going on?’ Andee asked. ‘Something’s really getting to you …’
‘It’s the couple waiting for this baby,’ Penny shouted. ‘Their lawyers are ringing, threatening me …’ She broke off abruptly. ‘You asked what’s at stake?’ she said more evenly. ‘And you think, probably because Jonathan told you, that any girl who defies me ends up in forced prostitution, the way I did thanks to John Victor.’
‘Is it true?’
Penny tossed her head irritably.
‘He says girls have disappeared because they defied you.’
‘It’s true, they have. In fact, I could tell you where to find them, if I were of a mind to, but I really won’t be until I have that baby out of here and on its way to Texas.’
Andee eyed her coldly. ‘It’s not up for negotiation. If the baby is born here it will be a British citizen registered into the British system, and there will be nothing you can do to get it out of here.’
‘If necessary the lawyers will take care of it, but we can save all that if you would just take a break from the moral high ground and think of the parents waiting for that baby. Use your naturally bleeding heart to feel compassion and kindness for them. The child doesn’t belong exclusively to Jonathan and Juliette. In fact, none of it belongs to them, because they’ve led these people on, taken their money, destroyed their dream …’
‘Now isn’t the time to get into the ethics of what you do,’ Andee interrupted shortly. ‘I just need you to un
derstand that even if I were able to see it your way, I still wouldn’t take you to them.’
‘Because you’re afraid of what’s going to happen to Juliette after we’ve handed the baby over?’
‘Amongst other things. She’ll obviously never work for you again, and as we know what that means …’
‘Do we? Do we know for a certainty that I sell these girls to the highest bidder? That’s what you’ve been told, isn’t it? It’s what I tell them, that’s for sure, but do we actually know that I do it?’
‘If the girls aren’t seen again …’
‘They’re not seen because they’re returned to their families. I know you don’t want to believe that, it won’t fit with your disgustingly low opinion of me …’
‘If you didn’t behave the way you do …’
‘Let me tell you this one more time,’ Penny raged, ‘I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of me. It’s not important. What is, is finding girls who are about to make the biggest mistake of their lives, before they make it. Girls who are desperate to help their families, or to escape abuse, or to better themselves in some way … Girls who are more vulnerable to traffickers than they’ll ever know. I make it my business to get to them first, to save them from themselves so that they’ll never end up in the kind of nightmare I was stuck in for almost five years. I offer them the chance to help someone else, to carry babies for those who aren’t able to do it for themselves. Jonathan will have told you that I do deals with traffickers, that I sell the girls back when they’re no longer of any use to me, but it isn’t true. There are no traffickers, or not that I deal with. He thinks there are because it’s what I want him and everyone else to think, that I’m evil, not a person to cross. If they weren’t afraid of me I’d have no power. They’d feel free to defy me, to break their contracts, to trash people’s dreams, and I can’t let that happen.’
Quietly stunned as she absorbed this bizarre, twisted version of charity, it was a while before Andee could find her words. ‘What about the young people acting as escorts?’ she asked.