by Carmen Reid
Workers had finished for the day and the streets were busy with people hurrying home or hurrying to go out for the night. There were pubs, clubs, bars and cafés on every street, on every corner. It was no use knowing that Lana was around here because he would never be able to find her: he had to sit still and wait.
Lana was ignoring his and Annie's phone calls, but she had already texted Andrei and if they were all patient, she would phone or text Andrei again. She'd wanted Andrei to come and get her, so surely she would let him know exactly where she was some time soon.
But what if something had happened? Ed's thoughts whirled round to this again. What if she'd lost her phone? Or the signal? What if something had happened to her? Ed chewed at the skin beside his fingernail and tried not to think like this. He looked at his watch again. It had been over fifty minutes since Lana had told Andrei to come and get her. In another fifteen minutes, Andrei would be on stage, debating; then, even if Lana did phone him, he wouldn't be able to pick up the call for an hour.
Ed let out a sigh of irritation and began to drum his fingers against the steering wheel. He just hoped that Lana was safe. He tried to keep telling himself that in two hours she would almost certainly arrive home in a taxi and wonder what all the fuss was about.
His phone began to ring and he answered it immediately. 'Yes?'
'I've had another text,' Andrei's voice informed him, 'Club Z Old Street.'
'Is she OK? Did she say anything else?' Ed asked urgently.
'No, and I think this one's taken a while to come through because it says it was sent just after the last one. I'm sorry. Maybe it's the reception here.'
'No worries, that's great. Good luck,' Ed remembered to add.
'Yeah, you too. Will you let me know she's OK?'
'Of course,' Ed said, then closed up the phone and hurried to get out of the car.
Walking quickly along the pavements, looking left and right all around him, he called Directory Enquiries, hoping to get a phone number, an address, anything that would help him find this place more quickly.
'No, I'm sorry,' the voice on the other end of the line was telling him, 'we don't have a listing under that name. You're sure it's E3?'
'Well, no, it's this area . . . could it be E something else?' Ed asked impatiently.
'No . . . no, I haven't got anything coming up for that name.'
Ed ended the call and began to look for people to ask. Young couples, people who looked as if they were dressed up for a night out . . . he asked four or five, to no avail.
Then he passed a kebab shop: 'Open late' read the neon letters in the window. Maybe someone there would know?
Within minutes, Ed had a street name and clear directions for Club Z.
'It's not open yet, mate!' the guy behind the counter called after him.
But if Elena had been there for a job interview . . .
He hurried out into the street, then began to run. Past the traffic lights, second left, along this road right to the very bottom . . . there on the corner was a shabby looking awning with the letters 'Club Z' spelled out in faded silver paint.
Ed went straight to the door, pulled at it and found that it was open. Immediately he was in strange, timeless nightclub land. The wide corridor, then stairs, lit with a dim halogen glow and carpeted in deep red. No-one was around. No-one challenged him as he walked up the steps, then through the double doors at the top towards the loud throb of music.
Now he was in a large, dark bar with a dance floor. At the tables on the far side, he could see people were drinking and talking.
The club wasn't busy yet, but it was obviously already open. Slowly he walked towards the table nearest to him. It was dim, but he could make out the faces and quickly realized that none of them was Lana's or Elena's.
Heads turned in his direction and although he couldn't understand the language, he got the feeling that these guys were either talking about him or talking at him. But then he wasn't exactly dressed to fit in here.
He carried on steadily past a second table, then a third. There weren't many people here and they all seemed to be taking a bit too much interest in him.
Then in the far corner, he saw a flash of blonde hair. Elena's? He began to walk quickly in that direction when suddenly he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders.
'Private club,' a deeply accented male voice behind him said firmly.
Ed turned and found himself face to face with a very broad man in a very broad black suit.
'My daughter is here and I've come to take her home,' Ed said, equally firmly.
'Daughter? No,' the man insisted. 'Private club,' he repeated.
'She's here,' Ed insisted. 'Let me find her, then I'll go. Immediately.'
He stood up as squarely to this man as he would stand up to any cheeky, meat-headed, rugby player from the sixth form. For a moment, neither seemed sure what would happen next. Both suspected it wasn't going to be very pleasant.
Then a door opened, just to Ed's left and Lana stumbled out.
'Lana!' Ed gasped with surprise and relief.
'Wha . . . ?' Lana began. She stood still, swaying slightly, before stepping forward and tumbling into his arms.
'You OK?' Ed asked, holding her tightly against his side. Her bare arms felt cool and clammy to his touch and he tried not to notice that her tight boob tube had slid down much lower than it should have and was revealing glaringly white cleavage and the top of a girlish white bra.
'I feel sick,' Lana told him and swayed again, unsteady on her tottery high heels.
She smelled of sick as well. And that would explain the damp look to her face and its unusual pallor against the darkly made up eyes and lips.
'What have you had?' Ed asked anxiously, ignoring the threatening looks the bouncer was giving them both.
'A cigarette,' Lana confessed, 'and a drink. They've made me sick . . . I think I'm going to be sick . . .'
She seemed to flop down in his arms but to his relief, she didn't throw up.
'Ed?'
He recognized Elena's voice and turned to see her striding towards them.
'Come on,' he ordered her sharply, 'get your things. Get Lana's bag, we're leaving.'
'No,' she insisted, 'I get job here.' She turned towards a table where two sullen men were sitting.
'If you don't come out of here with us right now, you'll have nowhere to live,' Ed informed her calmly. 'Now get your things.'
The bouncer called out something in a foreign language and the men at the table Elena was walking towards called back. Ed didn't like the sound of this. It sounded angry and threatening.
The two men got up from the table. Surely they weren't going to try to stop them from leaving? Ed tightened his grip on Lana and began to walk towards the dance floor. He wanted them to know he wasn't looking for trouble, he just wanted to leave.
Elena was talking back in the same language. Ukrainian? he wondered. Or maybe she spoke Russian as well? He could feel his heart thump in his chest. This was a little too threatening for his liking.
Glancing back, he saw Elena thump her fist on the table. He turned, knowing that somehow he was going to have to help her out.
But then the men sat down again and handed her two bags. Taking hold of them, she began to walk towards Ed.
He didn't turn to look at her again until they'd gone out through the double doors, down the stairs, along the corridor and out of the door back. Safely out on the street again, he wheeled round, despite Lana's groans at the abrupt movement.
'What on earth do you think you're doing?!' Ed asked, barely able to control his voice he was so furious.
Elena, clutching Lana's schoolbag against her because her flimsy dress didn't offer much protection against the cold, held her head up defiantly.
'I look for job,' she said.
'As what?' Ed asked.
'Dancer,' she said casually.
'You're studying to be an engineer,' Ed couldn't stop himself from reminding her. 'What's
Lana had to drink?' He would save the furious lecture he was bursting to give Elena, until he'd established that Lana was safe and hadn't been drugged.
'Vodka with lemonade.'
'Did you have one?' Ed asked.
'Two,' Elena admitted.
'Were they OK? Nothing else in them?'
Elena shook her head and had the decency to look concerned now that she understood Ed's meaning.
'I think the cigarette make her sick,' Elena offered.
'Yes,' Ed hissed.
He walked the girls to the Jeep without another word, clicked open the locks and helped Lana into the back seat. Elena buckled herself into the seat beside her.
Then Ed started up the engine. Only when the car was on the road, did he glance in the rear-view mirror and catch Elena's eye.
'Lana is sixteen,' he said angrily, 'she doesn't drink and she certainly doesn't smoke. What on earth made you think she should go to a nightclub with you and hang out with monkeys like that? Anything could have happened! To both of you.'
Elena shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyebrows. She'd been her own boss for several years now and she certainly didn't expect to be lectured on her behaviour.
'I told you on Wednesday not to take Lana out with you,' Ed reminded her. 'You'll have to leave our house. You'll need to speak to your mother and arrange somewhere else to stay. As soon as possible.'
'Take me there now,' Elena replied.
'Well, you'll need to speak to her . . . get your things together.'
'Take me there,' Elena repeated, 'she has huge house. I can stay there.'
This struck Ed as an excellent idea.
Lana's teenage years were, so far, going smoothly. Nothing really terrible or really out of the ordinary had happened . . . so far. Both he and Annie wanted to keep it like that. Plus, she had exams soon and they wanted her to do well. Not ruin all her hard work by hanging out with some glamorous, 22-year-old liability who was living in their house because Annie found it impossible to say no when she'd been asked to do someone a favour.
'Fine,' Ed said. 'What's the address?'
Elena was delighted to tell Ed. Although she'd now been living with her mother's friend for more than a week, somehow Svetlana had not even managed to find the time to have more than one little phone conversation with her daughter. Even that had been vague and noncommittal.
If Ed were to be honest with himself, he would know that he wasn't just angry about Elena taking Lana to a place like that. He was also angry with Svetlana.
The pampered princess was always allowed to get away with childish, bad behaviour just because she was rich, just because she was someone. Bad enough that she'd dumped her baby on relatives and never gone back to see her once in all these years. But now that Elena was here, Svetlana was trying to fob her off again. That just wasn't how you treated children, in Ed's book. If he were ever allowed to become a parent . . . He felt a fresh surge of anger now, made up of so many different ingredients . . . not least the frustration that maybe he would never persuade Annie to let him be a father.
Ed followed the City Road west and thought that, like it or not, this was going to have to be a good time for Svetlana to receive a visitor.
Chapter Thirty-two
Lady behind the counter:
Maroon and gold sari (her sister's)
Fluffy pink slippers (eBay)
Cashmere cardi (M&S)
Total est. cost: £85
'I'm not sure . . . I was watching Strictly Come Dancing.'
Annie ran through the rain. She ran without stopping all the way to the corner shop. There, she established that a boy had been in about half an hour ago and bought a packet of dog chews.
'Did he say anything, anything else at all . . . did he look upset?' she asked wildly.
But the lady behind the counter couldn't add anything to her recollection: 'I'm not sure . . . I was watching Strictly Come Dancing.'
Annie ran back out into the rain. She ran along both sides of all the obvious streets, looking up and down any side streets or narrow alleys. She called Owen's name out in the dark and asked every passer-by if they'd seen a boy with a dog. People couldn't remember. Or they could sort of remember. They might have . . . but they weren't sure where or when, or heading in which direction. Annie continued in her wild, crazed hunt of the wet, dark streets. She wondered what she had done to turn today into the worst day for a very long time. If she could just have Owen and Lana safely back at home, she'd do anything, give anything . . .
It was raining and Owen would want to keep Dave dry. This was the only idea in Annie's mind. Where would he go to keep a dog dry?
A café? Would he have had enough money to go to a café?
She was on the main road now, looking frantically left and right. A big double-decker bus was hurtling down the hill on the other side of the road. Annie glanced over at the bus stop. She stopped and stared, opening her eyes wide with the effort of looking clearly.
There was a boy in an anorak with the hood pulled tightly round his face. And a dog? Yes, she thought she could see a dog.
'OWEN!' she yelled across the street. But the bus whizzed down towards the stop and blocked the bus shelter, the boy and the dog from her view.
She ran out into the road, but had to wait halfway across to let two speeding cars past. To her horror, the bus pulled off and she uselessly shouted: 'Stop!' in its wake, frightened that Owen was on board. Running across the last part of the road, she reached the bus stop and through the rain-soaked glass she saw that Owen, his anorak and his dog, were still there.
'Owen!' she cried out, running towards him, 'Owen! I'm sorry!' She felt a rush of mixed feelings as she sped round the glass and threw her arms round his shoulders. 'I'm so sorry!' she repeated, feeling a wave of relief wash over her, 'Please, please tell me you weren't going to go anywhere? You weren't going to go away?'
'Nah!' he answered, almost cheerfully, 'they won't let Dave on the bus.'
'What are you doing here?' she asked, trying to keep any note of anger from her voice.
Owen shrugged. 'Staying dry.'
'I'm sorry,' she repeated and hugged him once again. 'You've got to come home now. I've been so worried.'
'Can Dave stay with me?' Owen asked, hoping that his cold, damp protest hadn't been in vain.
'What, so that every time you don't like what I tell you, you can disappear off down the road, have me running round the whole of Highgate like a lunatic, then give in when I've found you? NO,' she said firmly, 'Dave's coming to live with us 365 days a year. I'm putting up with that, even though I don't like it. So for two tiny little days, you'll have to let him out of your sight and put up with it, even though you don't like it.'
'Aw!' Owen began to make a half-hearted attempt at protest.
'If you're going to argue or pull another stunt like that, then it's straight back to the bloomin' dog home he goes,' she threatened.
When Owen remained silent, Annie told him: 'You know that I love you really.'