12. Mel
Jimmy. The bastard. He was just as bad as the rest of them.
She should never have let him in, let her guard down. Never have succumbed to a nostalgia fuck.
Jimmy Fucking Lazenby.
The bastard.
§
It had been fine. Really.
She’d almost believed him. Believed in him.
He seemed genuine. There was a new raw honesty about this Jimmy. None of the Lazenby bullshit. The front and bravado. None of the denial that the Lazenbies were what they were. None of the need to fit in with the family and prove his worth.
Or rather, maybe that was it. He still labored under the same need to prove his own value, when he should have known he never had to do that for her. Ten years ago, she’d seen who he really was, beneath the Lazenby layers. Seen who he could be. The only problem was she could see what he was becoming, too.
But whereas back then the need to prove himself had led him partway down a slippery slope, the same need appeared to have driven this new Jimmy along a different route.
He’d become one of the good guys.
In many ways, this Jimmy scared her more than the old version. He seemed to have shed so much baggage, stripped himself down. How could he do that? Was he really so cold inside?
But then last night... this morning... she’d managed to get beneath his skin, see that perhaps he had not so much shed those layers of the Jimmy she’d once loved, but submerged them.
And she’d started to fall again.
That glimmer of the old Jimmy she had loved. The new Jimmy she was discovering.
The Jimmy who could look her in the eye and say something like I have nowhere left to fall. I fell ten years ago and I never climbed out.
The bastard.
Making her feel that way. Letting her fall.
And then he’d let slip the minor detail that he hadn’t come here for any noble reasons, hadn’t come here because he was the good guy, come to save the day.
He’d come here because her father had sent him.
It was a job.
And not only a job, but one her father had dished out, no doubt pulling shady strings in that shady role in London he was always so cloak and dagger about.
She’d had no idea Jimmy and her father had any kind of connection these days, let alone one that had, presumably, survived the ten years since she and Jimmy had parted.
Had her father swept in when they’d split up? Seen that he could make use of Jimmy in some way?
Or had Jimmy turned to him, found some kind of Lazenby angle – because the Lazenbies always found an angle – to lean on him, and secure some kind of role?
Either way, she didn’t like it.
It felt as if the two men who had figured the largest in her life had conspired against her.
She knew she should be grateful.
She should thank her father for actually responding to her plea for help, and sending someone in to look for Harriet.
She shouldn’t feel misled.
Shouldn’t feel that she could trust no-one. Neither her father nor the man she had, briefly, fallen for, all over again.
And so she’d tried. She’d meekly sat in that shabby little breakfast café, nodding wide-eyed as the brave good knight assured her he’d take care of everything and she should just go home and wait for him to get in touch.
“I’ll call,” Jimmy had told her, as they paused awkwardly outside in the street. She could tell from the look on his face he knew he’d won. Placated her. Fobbed her off.
“You’d fucking better,” she told him.
She’d intended to leave it at that. To turn and walk away, knowing his eyes were on her and she was absolutely not going to look back. Keep it simple.
She’d had no intention of tipping her head up, meeting his look.
Of putting a hand flat on his chest, so she could feel the thump of his heart through her palm.
Of pushing up on the balls of her feet so her mouth could find his.
Treating herself to a moment where the complications fell away and there was just this kiss. A moment where she fell again, albeit briefly.
And then, at last, stepping back, turning, walking away without even a glance back to see him watching her.
§
She did it though. Went home. It was the sensible thing. She’d seen how ill-equipped she was to deal with this kind of shit when it got serious.
She had hand-shaped bruises on her throat, for goodness’ sake! Not to mention an ache in her ribs that reminded her every time she breathed of how close she’d come. And a swollen, sore nose.
She wasn’t vain at all, but right now she was very aware of how she must look. She’d done her best with foundation and a pale concealer from Superdrug to cover the marks, but she was acutely aware of what people must be thinking every time they glanced in her direction.
She hated to think how far that guy might have gone if Jimmy hadn’t stuck a gun between his shoulder blades.
Not to mention hating that these memories reminded her minute by minute of how right Jimmy was, of how she’d totally misjudged the consequences of throwing herself into something like this.
She was out of her depth.
And so, today, her body both sore from the night before and strangely invigorated by events of the morning – such a peculiar mix of sensations! – she sat on the train heading back into London and hoped desperately that one day Harriet might forgive her for walking away. Forgive her that, when it came down to it, all she could really do for her friend was hope.
She would go to her father, she decided, as the suburbs stacked up on either side. Swallow her foolish pride and thank him, and use whatever daughterly influence she could muster to persuade him to prioritize this. If he’d been able to pull strings enough to send Jimmy in, then surely he could throw more resources at the investigation now?
She stared out of the window at graffitied walls, at ramshackle industrial units, at rows of terraced houses that looked as if a giant had pushed them together from either end to try to squeeze in just one more. At shopping streets and parks, playing fields and cemeteries.
So many hundreds of people – thousands – just going about their normal lives, unaware of quite how close they might be to tragedy. To losing someone, or worse, to not knowing if that someone is lost, or damaged, or might simply walk back in one day as if nothing had happened.
Harriet always tried so hard to be nothing like her mother, but she was just as volatile and strong-headed, with a lot of the same erratic traits. And if Glenn could be believed, she had been using drugs and hiding it from people like Mel. It was odd that this, above anything, should be cause for hope: that she might be more like her mother than anyone had suspected, that this whole episode could just be an epic crash and burn, just as her mother had done so many times before.
That was what Mel found herself hoping. Crash, burn, and then the bitter taste of regret, an opportunity to learn from the experience and choose a path that would not lead to a bitter, lonely existence where even your memories are no longer your own and all you have is a tattered photograph to remind you of what you had enjoyed and lost.
The woman opposite was looking at her. Mel couldn’t tell if she’d seen through the concealer to the bruises beneath, or if it was simply the tears sliding down her cheeks that drew the attention.
She dabbed at her face with a tissue, so as not to smudge her camouflage, gave a small smile, and returned her gaze to the passing buildings.
§
She didn’t seek out her father. Didn’t meekly thank him for his intervention and then wheedle for more.
He didn’t need that. He’d made a judgment call and was doing what he could. Further interference from Mel would simply complicate things.
She’d only get in the way.
That’s what everyone told her, wasn’t it?
She tidied her room, not that it was a mess to start with.
She stared at the pages of a book, alternating that with staring up through the skylight at blue sky.
She walked in the park and was reminded again of all the people, all around, living their normal lives, untouched by tragedy. Was reminded of the last time she’d walked here, when she’d needed this normality all around to ground her when she called her father to ask for help.
And later, she stepped onto another train.
She couldn’t do this.
Just as everyone seemed to be telling her, she might be crap at solving a mess like this, but she was so much worse at not even trying to.
§
He took her for dinner, finally extracting his price for help. Or at least part of the price – she knew he saw dinner as no more than a down payment.
Glenn Lazenby. The man who, last time they’d met, had snarled a threat at her about the importance of not pissing off the people who might just have her back. His mask had slipped then, no more Mr Nice Guy, no more Mr Smooth.
She’d called him from the train, but only got through to Suze. Perhaps she actually was his PA, at least when she wasn’t dancing. Or maybe she and Glenn were a thing, and it was normal for her to answer his phone when he was unavailable. Apparently he was in a meeting, but Suze said she’d made a note for him to call back when he was free.
There was nothing subtle about the brush-off. Her last encounter with Glenn had been hostile – he’d practically kicked her out of Ryders after he’d caught her in the dressing room, showing the girls Harriet’s photograph.
And then later he’d sent that bastard to scare her out of her skin. She knew this was stupid, coming back out here and trying to shake something out of him, after all that. But... Harriet.
It hadn’t worked, though. He’d got his assistant to fob her off. End of.
She should have called him before getting onto the train. If he wasn’t even going to grant her an audience, her big-eyed ditzy blonde thing didn’t stand a chance.
Her phone buzzed ten minutes later, and a glance at the screen told her it was him. For a moment she considered playing hard to get, too. After all, he’d called back, so he still thought he could get something out of this – she knew that’s how his mind worked, and didn’t kid herself he was interested in her intellect or jokes.
She answered. Save the mind games for when it really mattered.
“Hey, darling,” he said, as if nothing had happened between them. “How you doing? What can I do for you?”
She hesitated, for effect, then said, “I... Thanks for calling back, Glenn. I couldn’t leave things like that. I was stressed. I still am. I just thought... well, you said something about dinner?”
She felt sick.
Sick that he might say no, might laugh at her for even suggesting it, or just see straight through her flimsy pretext.
Sick that he might say yes. That he might see through her flimsy pretext but still want to extract the price for his pretense of help.
Sick that she didn’t know where her own boundaries lay. What she might be willing to do to get her friend back.
He laughed, although there didn’t appear to be anything cruel in the laughter. “You chicks,” he said. “I’m fighting you all off, I tell you!” He was joking, trying to wind her up in that way he had that could sometimes be funny but often was used as a way to intimidate, and this time she wasn’t sure where that balance lay. He did this to Jimmy all the time, wrapped him around his little finger with digs and barbs, each carefully selected to not only get under his kid brother’s skin but to embed and twist.
“It’s not that,” she said perhaps too hurriedly. “I just... well, I thought we could talk.”
“I know, I know,” he said. “You still want help. No, don’t deny it, it’s fine. I get it, darling. You’re desperate, and even though sometimes you love me and sometimes you hate me you know I’m the kind of dude who can make things happen, right? It’s fine. I get it. Listen, how about this evening? There’s a do I have to be at, but you could be my plus one?”
“Thank you. That sounds perfect.”
“But hey, just one thing, right? All this me being nice, and us being up front that you just want me for my smarts, right? All that, well, it doesn’t mean I’m not going to try to get into your pants, okay?”
He laughed, cutting off any reply, and Mel tensed her jaw, clamping her mouth shut. Playing his game.
“Seven?” he said. “Flag and Flowers. We’ll go from there. And scrub up, darling, okay? This is a classy do.”
§
Scrub up. From anyone else she’d have been offended, but from Glenn she’d have expected nothing less.
She hadn’t brought anything fancy with her, just a shoulder bag with a change of clothes and the essentials. She had time before seven, though, and after dumping her few things at Mr Singh’s, where she’d taken a room again, she spent a couple of hours touring the town’s many charity shops. She ended up with a smart little black cocktail dress, slingbacks with heels she could just about manage, and a matching purse, all on a budget that was only a little too much for a postgrad student trying to get by at London rates.
To use Glenn’s terms, she scrubbed up well. The dress, the heels – which she took a while to get accustomed to, given that her normal footwear decisions revolved around which color Converse to go with today’s jeans.
The bruising seemed to be fading too, and the swelling on her nose had gone down. She did a better job with the concealer, this time – paler than her usual shade to cover the dark marks, blending it carefully for a more natural effect.
She felt guilty, to feel so glam while her friend was still missing, but it was for a reason. All this was for Harriet.
She walked to the Flag and Flowers, avoiding the route across Jubilee Park, not because she thought it likely she’d be attacked again but simply for the memories the park stirred, the gut-level fears. The bruises might fade, but it’d be a lot longer before the psychological harm had receded.
When she walked into the pub, long-time barmaid Sandra and the others turned to stare. Mel wondered how she looked to them, if they could see through the mask. Then Glenn stepped out from the office behind the bar, straightened with a slight backward roll of the shoulders, and said, “Wow, Mels. Just wow.”
He seemed genuine, and for a moment she reflected on his reactions to her, the jokey flirting which had always, perhaps, been used to deflect attention from his true feelings.
She smiled, dismissing the thought. ‘Genuine’ was not a word that could ever be applied to Glenn Lazenby, unless you were making the point that he faked genuine well.
She let him kiss her on the cheek. It was always disturbing to be reminded of the very physical similarities he shared with his brother – the way he rested hands on her arms when he leaned in to kiss, the ways he moved and held himself, the subtle natural scent that underlay the cologne.
“So are you going to tell me what all this is?” she asked.
“An associate of mine,” he said, straightening and adjusting the hang of his jacket. “Thom Sullivan. He’s in the country for a few days.”
He said it as if she should recognize the name, but she just smiled and raised her eyebrows questioningly.
“Thom Sullivan of TSI,” he said. “They’re behind some of the biggest software developments in social media of the past few years.”
Mel did her best oh gosh look. Guys with money clearly didn’t impress her as much as they did Glenn.
“You and Thom, you’re close?” she asked, trying to play his game.
“We go back some,” said Glenn. “Sometimes a guy like Thom needs a wheeler and dealer, you know? He knows I’m a safe pair of hands.”
They were driven there, even though the event was only a couple of streets away from the Flag and Flowers. The venue was unprepossessing from the outside, just a blank wooden door to a redbrick building that looked like an old industrial unit of some kind. Bizarrely Mel was reminded of the entrance to Ryders, and she wondered if this was something similar, a bit of sleazy chic so the big guy could think he was roughing it. The two suited security guys on the door only reinforced the idea they were entering one of the Lazenby family’s clubs and dives.
Inside was not what she’d anticipated. They entered via a lobby area, with glass doors onto a restaurant naturally lit by windows and wide skylights. A five-piece jazz band played softly in one corner, something smooth and slow. You could tell from the wide spaces between the tables alone that this place was seriously up-market, and quite unlike anything Mel had either experienced or anticipated in her home town.
People had gathered around the bar, the men in suits and the women in a selection of stylish dresses. Mel could not have felt more self-conscious if she’d tried. Not just the injuries she’d struggled to conceal, but her outfit, her hair. The clothes she’d bought this afternoon almost certainly cost less than a single drink in this place.
She reminded herself of Glenn’s reaction to her when she’d arrived at the Flag and Flowers. The wow.
“What?” he asked now, turning to look at her.
She’d taken his arm when they’d stepped inside, faithfully playing her ‘plus one’ role, and she realized now she’d unconsciously squeezed just a little, leaned in a little closer.
“All this,” she said, filling the silence, hoping to distract from that moment of weakness when she’d only wanted reassurance. “He’s taken over the whole restaurant, hasn’t he?”
It was clearly all a single gathering, no casual diners. She’d been registering just how expensive a place this was, and Thom Sullivan had taken the entire place over for the evening. That must take serious money.
Glenn nodded. “Oh yeah,” he said. “People like Thom, they can’t be too careful. Everyone’s after a piece, you know what I mean? This is his world: he regularly takes over places if he wants to use them. Goes with the territory, doesn’t it? He’s a man who gets what he wants.”
That was the real measure of success for Glenn, she realized. He’d mentioned before men who got what they wanted, used that reference point as if it was something that would impress, as if it was what everyone must aspire to.
“Stop it,” she said now, digging him playfully in the side. “You sound like you’ve got a man crush.”
She’d turned it on him, had a little poke that she could see had momentarily wound him up, doing exactly what he liked to do to everyone else. He saw it too, and laughed.
He put a hand on hers, holding it in place in the crook of his arm. A protective gesture, and perhaps a possessive one, too.
She was reminded now of his comment that he wouldn’t stop trying to get into her pants.
“It’s not going to work,” she said, and she saw in his eyes that he understood.
“A man can dream,” he said, that same mischievous smile that Jimmy had breaking out over his face.
She looked away.
She hated that about him. The way he could transform any moment, undermining tension with a smile, animosity with a wink. Just as she hated all the little things – that hand on hers in the crook of his elbow, the solicitous way he checked on her, made sure she was okay, the way he stepped back to let her through, held doors, was always on hand.
All these things, the bits she liked about Glenn, were the ones that reminded her of Jimmy. And now she realized that all the bits she didn’t like about him were the ones that reminded her he was not his brother. How screwed up was that?
And just how far had she fallen this morning?
It unsettled her, that now she measured other people – measured the world, for goodness’ sake – in terms of Jimmy Lazenby.
“You scared me,” she said. “Sending that man after me.” She tilted her head, knowing his eyes would be drawn to her neck, the barely concealed bruises.
For a moment she thought he was going to lie to her, but then he paused, his eyes fixed on hers. Maybe he read something there, knew he could be straight with her right now.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You picked a bad time to be asking questions. My business... it’s sensitive. I can’t have anyone rattling the bars. Wayne went too far, and I made sure he knows that.”
There was something chilling in the way he said that. Everyday words had different meaning for people like Glenn Lazenby, different depths. I made sure he knows that meant more than simply sending a memo.
She broke the moment, looked away, down. Let her hand tighten on Glenn’s arm again, as if to support herself.
Looking back up at him from a tilted face, she said in a small voice, “I really was scared.”
She didn’t have to try hard to achieve the frightened little girl thing. She was telling the truth, after all.
“I don’t know what’s worse,” she said. “You treating me like that, or the fact that Jimmy got to step in and save the day.”
Glenn laughed. “He being a pain, is he? He always did expect a bit of quid pro quo, if you know what I mean.”
She smiled, hating herself for doing so, for not pointing out the hypocrisy of Glenn accusing his brother of being the one who always expected to extract a price.
“He doesn’t even seem to be finding anything out,” she said. “He walks the walk, but... Harriet’s still out there somewhere. I...”
Glenn’s hand covered hers again. They’d moved across to the bar now, and paused as Glenn ordered two eighteen-year-old Highland Parks. He still didn’t ask her what she wanted, but at least this time he’d remembered she had good taste.
“And you?” he asked. “Are you getting anywhere? I’ve been asking around still, but I haven’t found anything more. Just silence.”
She shook her head. “Nothing. But silence is good, right? Isn’t that what you said?”
He nodded. “She’ll just waltz back in some time soon, you mark my words.”
“I just make a mess of it,” she said. “Blunder in. Get myself in trouble.” She fell silent, reminding herself not to lay it on too thick. He already thought she was out of her depth after all.
“Listen, Mels, I really am sorry.”
Every time he said that – Mels – her breath caught and her heart pounded.
“Like I say, bad time and all that. You know what I mean? Juggling too many balls and then you walk in and start asking questions and, well, I know your connections. I know your old man, and maybe I put two and two together and thought he’d sent you to sniff around.”
He was smiling. Everything about his body language said relaxed. But his eyes were fixed on her like those of a predator.
Was he serious?
Did he really think she might be here on behalf of her father for some reason?
Her mind raced.
She’d thought she was a bumbling amateur, making a mess and getting nowhere, and here was Glenn Lazenby actually digging to see if her father had sent her here.
And by implication, he was telling her he knew something about her father’s work – a hell of a lot more than she did!
More than anything, though, it made her angry. She’d been straight throughout this. Honest. All she wanted was to find her friend.
She wasn’t part of any conspiracy against Glenn, wasn’t part of her father’s maneuverings, and she hated anything that might complicate why she was here.
And she didn’t know how to answer, to protest innocence or tell him to mind his own business, or even to pretend that she actually was some kind of undercover agent and he had every reason to fear her. How had she ever got herself into this position?
She laughed. A sudden, snort of laughter, then a fist pressing against her mouth, trying to stifle it.
It broke the moment.
He hesitated, then laughed, too. Then his hands were on her arms and, briefly, he hugged her before stepping back, still holding her arms.
“I know, right?” he said. “I’m not usually so paranoid. I just...”
“Juggling too many balls,” she finished for him. “All I want is to find Harriet. Will you keep asking around?”
“Of course I will,” he said. “I’m not going to stop. That kid...” He shook his head, was momentarily lost to his thoughts.
She’d seen that look a lot recently, people taking in the meaning of her questions: not just someone missing, but a teenaged girl, a kid.
§
They mingled. Glenn introduced her to a property developer and the coach of a Premiership football team. She accepted another Highland Park, and picked at a few canapés as they came round so she’d at least have something other than whisky in her stomach.
At one point she found herself standing off to one side on her own while Glenn spoke with a white-haired guy in a perfectly tailored suit. She could see the way Glenn puffed himself up, the way his mannerisms and gestures became just a fraction more exaggerated as he tried to fit in and impress. She wondered if the older guy was the man himself, this Thom Sullivan who Glenn had been so in awe of.
She looked around the gathering, wondering what she was still doing here. She’d renewed contact with Glenn, continued to gently dig to see if he knew anything more. Unanswered questions remained, hints that he was hiding something from her, but she knew Glenn was the kind of person who would always have secrets and this might all be a big distraction.
Again, she was struck by how slow this was, and couldn’t work out whether that was because she was incredibly clumsy in her investigations or if this was the reality of how these things worked, that in the real world progress was always so painfully slow, with lots of dead ends and backtracking.
She should slip away. Glenn had said he’d keep looking, and she believed him, and she wasn’t achieving anything more here. She could hardly circulate with Penny’s photograph of her daughter, asking these people if they happened to know anything, could she?
She became aware of a presence at her shoulder, a guy standing there with a champagne flute.
“These things,” he said, and she sensed how awkward he felt, too.
She turned, smiled, detecting something of a kindred spirit, or at least another outsider.
He was tall and thin, perhaps around fifty, although his athletic frame, sandy hair and smooth skin made it hard to put an age on him.
“I know, right?” she said, as if she attended this kind of gathering all the time. “All these people. I was just looking around.”
“Hard to resist a spot of the old people-watching, isn’t it?” he laughed.
Mel nodded. “It feels like we’re on a movie set, doesn’t it? People playing roles. Stage managed, you know?” That’s exactly what it was: as if Thom Sullivan’s people had stocked this event up so the man would feel he was mixing with real people, but in reality it was a carefully designed glamorous party scene. She knew she was emotionally stepping back from it all, reinforcing her feeling that she didn’t belong.
“I read something once,” she said. “One of the Russian tsars, I think. Everywhere he went his people had the edifices of buildings set up so it looked to him as if he was traveling through normal towns and villages, but in reality it was little more than a stage set, an airbrushed reality. That’s what this feels like, isn’t it?”
He was smiling at her, studying her closely.
“That,” he said, “is perhaps the harshest review I’ve had.”
It was him. Thom Sullivan.
Shit.
“True, though?” she said. It was interesting how he didn’t appear to like to put himself center stage. She recalled his comment about people-watching, and sensed he was more comfortable giving other people the space they desired.
He laughed. “Perhaps, in a way, although we don’t need to stage manage these events to the extent you suggest. People would line up to get into something like this. That doesn’t mean they’re any less fake, though.”
Her first reaction had been to warm to him, to sense a connection there, but now she wondered. It almost felt as if he was mirroring her, repeating her somewhat disparaging observations back to her with only minor twists. A social chameleon.
He was smiling still, but she wasn’t convinced it reached his eyes.
She looked away.
The strain of the last few days was getting to her. Coming here this evening had been a mistake. Coming back to her home town again. All of it.
She wasn’t cut out for this, and now she hated the way the strain was coloring her view of the world.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I...”
She was apologizing for her brief rush of confusion, but he took it as an apology for her harsh judgment of his party. “It’s fine,” he said. “Really. I don’t do these things for fun, believe me. It’s business. Fun’s something very different.” He leaned in then, touched her elbow briefly.
She didn’t like him. That touch. The sense that he owned not only this event but everyone here.
Again, she knew this was partly her viewing the world harshly right now, but...
She still felt that touch on her elbow, even when he took his hand away.
“You,” he said. “Tell me. Who you are. What you do. What you do for fun.”
She didn’t need this. She cursed Glenn for bringing her here, for abandoning her to this while he schmoozed his way around the gathering.
She didn’t need to be hit on right now.
She smiled, doing her best. “I’m nothing,” she said. “Nobody. I’m just here with a friend.”
That brief touch on her elbow again, that smile. “Oh, please. I’d believe many things, but not that. You’re most definitely somebody.”
She was a plaything. A toy. A minor distraction for him right now.
She didn’t like this. This wasn’t her world.
She smiled again. Glanced across at Glenn, who was at the far end of the bar, center of attention in a small group. He met her look, briefly, and smiled, and that gave her pause. Jimmy’s brother was many things – ruthless bastard, charming rogue, occasionally even surprisingly sensitive, and now she realized, some strange kind of friend – but whatever he was, she owed him; at the very least she owed not messing this evening up for him.
“My name is Mel. I’m a postgrad at UCL. I’m an old friend of Glenn Lazenby. I bought this entire outfit this afternoon for little more than loose change. That’s about it, really.” It felt as if she was being interviewed, being subjected to some kind of test.
At the mention of her clothes, his eyes roamed – her fault, she knew. She’d drawn attention to the dress, if not specifically to the way it hung, the way it clung, but once the eyes moved down... well, she knew how well the clothes fit. Again, she felt as if she was being assessed.
“So not only beauty, but brains and financial acumen,” Sullivan said, taking his time to meet her look again, finally. “And if you’re a friend of Glenn’s, you have the street smarts, too. I should hire you on the spot.”
This was crazy. Someone like Thom Sullivan hitting on her, or at least toying with her.
She shook her head. “I’m not available, sorry,” she told him.
“Oh, I doubt that. You think it was easy for a place like this to cancel long-standing reservations at a moment’s notice?”
His subtext was clear: Everything’s available. Everyone’s available. She hated that flash of arrogance, and it reinforced the fact she didn’t really like Thom Sullivan at all.
She stayed quiet, biting back on any number of sarcastic responses bubbling just below the surface. Where Glenn might be impressed by all this, it pressed the wrong buttons for her: privilege, and all the assumptions that went with it.
“Forgive me,” said Sullivan now. “I was indulging myself. Enjoying myself. It’s good to get away from... from all this.” A gesture of the hand, indicating the restaurant, the people.
She waited for him to explain.
“I know who you are,” he went on. “Glenn told me about you. He said you were...” A shrug. “He didn’t do you justice, even though he tried. Let’s leave it at that.”
Earlier she’d thought Glenn was exaggerating his relationship with Sullivan to impress her, but clearly the two were close. Close enough to talk about her.
Should she feel flattered that they’d discussed her? Or just creeped out?
And what did that tell her about Glenn? That he was talking about her with people like Sullivan? She didn’t like to think she was on his mind enough for that.
“I need to go, I think,” she said, glancing across at Glenn again.
“We won’t meet again,” Sullivan said.
His peculiar choice of words made her pause, and only later did she wonder how many times he’d used a line like that.
“We mix in different circles,” he went on. “And yours are so much more real.” A reference to her comment about that Russian tsar earlier. “I’ll always wonder how it might have been.”
He really was hitting on her.
His eyes were the palest blue, fixed on her intently.
“I don’t know,” he said, doing that thing again, leaving an enigmatic statement dangling so she had to wait for it to unravel. Finally, he continued: “I don’t know if under other circumstances we would ever have chosen to meet again, but... living this life...” That gesture of the hand again, indicating the rest of the gathering, his world... “I rarely get the opportunity to even reach the point where I might get to know.”
She thought she understood. That stage managed thing. A life scheduled and constrained. His whole existence pretty much stripped of the kind of casual encounters where you meet someone, meet them again, get to know them. Briefly, she felt sympathy for him, then she reminded herself of her earlier judgment, that he was a man who said whatever suited his audience, a chameleon.
“This may seem presumptuous,” he said, “but let me make you an offer. No strings. Let me buy a week of your time. I’ll have you flown to my place in Monaco. It would be a chance to get acquainted. Nothing more than that. Consider it a job, an internship, whatever. What do you say?”
He really did live on a different planet. You can’t just buy spontaneity. You can’t buy casual acquaintance.
Well... you could, but they didn’t usually call it internship.
“No,” she said. “Just no. I’m not for hire. Or for... whatever.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” he said, smiling. Everyone’s available. “Think about it. Talk to your friend Glenn. He can arrange everything.”
She backed away, still shaking her head. Turned, momentarily disoriented, trying to see where Glenn was now and simultaneously cursing him for bringing her here and abandoning her.
She didn’t need this. Any of it. Didn’t need to be hit on. Didn’t need spoilt wealthy megalomaniacs trying to sweep her away.
What was that? A game? A whim?
She didn’t even know what she’d just turned down. He’d said no strings, but she was smart enough to know there were never no strings, particularly with a man like Thom Sullivan.
So what did he think she was? Or was it simply that this was how his world worked? One transaction after another, an investment in possibility – perhaps that’s how he would term it.
“Look, I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know you. I shouldn’t have come here. I just...” She looked at him more closely. He was a man of influence. A man of money.
“I’m not myself right now,” she said. “If Glenn talked about me, well, he’d have told you why I’m back in my old home town, why I’ve been bugging the hell out of him for the past few days.”
“Your friend.”
He knew. Glenn had said he’d been asking around among his contacts, but this was the first confirmation he was telling the truth.
“I’m scared for her. I just want to find her safe and sound.”
Sullivan was nodding. “Understandable.”
She reached into her purse for the photo, which he studied closely. “So young,” he said. “I wish I could help.”
She didn’t know what she was asking, just that he was clearly a man of both means and influence. He might know who to lean on, a contact in police or government who might have the pull to get the search stepped up. Money for a reward, for publicity... Anything.
Those pale blue eyes met hers again. “And my offer?” he said.
The moment was snatched from her, the sense that he might actually want to help. He couldn’t have been more crude in his leap to the price he might extract for any help – so like Glenn, but without any of the roguish charm.
Earlier, she’d asked herself the question of just how far she would go to get Harriet back, what price she might be willing to pay. And now she knew the answer: not far enough for a man like Thom Sullivan.
“I have to go,” she said. Then: “Right now, I’m only focused on one thing, finding Harriet. Nothing else.”
He shrugged, didn’t seem too bothered at the rebuff. He’d thrown his dice.
She wondered what was really behind those eyes. If he had any grasp on what was at stake here, or if it was all just a game, a series of moves, of dice being thrown.
This really was a different world.
§
She found Glenn, stood by him as he talked, waiting for him to acknowledge her. This whole thing had been a mistake. How many times had she thought that since getting here?
And now she just stood in Glenn’s shadow, all so she could find a lull in his monologue to tell him she was leaving.
“I’m going,” she said, at last, when he turned and raised eyebrows in her direction. “Thank you... for this. But I guess I’m just not in a fancy do kind of place.”
He shrugged, spread his hands, smiled. “No skin,” he said. “You want me to get one of the boys to drive you back to Singh’s?”
He couldn’t resist letting slip he knew where she was staying. She knew well enough that he didn’t mean anything sinister by it, he simply kept tabs on things. That was why she’d come to him, after all. But particularly after Sullivan’s comment that Glenn talked about her, it all took on a darker undertone.
“No, no,” she said. “I’m fine. Fresh air would be good.”
She backed away, turned, made her way to the glass doors through to the lobby area and then outside.
The sun was still bright, and she walked, savoring the freshness of the air. Tried to resist the urge to check over her shoulder every few seconds. Even though she was on her own, she was in the center of town, people and traffic all around. She should feel safe here, not vulnerable, on edge.
A couple of streets away from the anonymous venue of Thom Sullivan’s gathering she spotted a familiar building, the Flag and Flowers.
She was tempted to go inside, drawn to the familiarity, to a place that had changed little in the past ten years or more.
She kept walking. Even though Glenn wasn’t there right now, it was still Lazenby territory. She needed to break free of all that.
The next pub she came to was the King’s Head, another place familiar from her late teens in this town. She used to come here with Rachel and Lila; never with Jimmy, because if they wanted to go to a pub they would always go to one of the family places.
The King’s Head had the right mix of comfortable nostalgia and separation from all the crap. It helped that – as she saw when she stepped inside – the pub had been through several refits since she’d last been here, so even the familiar had an air of something new, another step away from the past.
She sat on a tall stool at one end of the bar and ordered a Jack and Coke. She considered moving to one of the tables, then opted to stay where she was, a good vantage point. A place to soak up the atmosphere of normality that surrounded her. It was a bit like sitting on the train and looking out at all the houses, that awareness of all the normal lives going on around her.
It was reassuring. Grounding.
She checked her phone but there were no messages, no missed calls. So much for Jimmy’s assurances he’d keep her in the loop.
She’d seen the look in his eye. That great big Don’t call us, we’ll call you in his expression. He couldn’t wait to be rid of her, to run away again from the implications of what had happened between them.
Frustrated as she was, though, she felt bad for encouraging Glenn to diss his kid brother, for using it to gain Glenn’s confidence again. Through all this, Jimmy was the one person who had stood by her. He’d chosen not to take advantage of her at her most vulnerable. He’d saved her from goodness knows what. He’d had her back.
She’d started to fall, and now she admitted to herself that at least one reason she had just checked her phone was because she’d hoped for at least some kind of contact. To hear his voice, even if it was on voicemail. Even a damned text message. Wanted to know that for at least the time it had taken him to make contact she had been in his thoughts.
She hated to feel so vulnerable, so dependent on the whim of another.
And she hated quite how much she needed to know he understood she was falling, had fallen again.
She remembered lying tangled with him, afterward, only this morning. It felt such a long time ago!
She spotted Suze the moment she entered the pub. Hell, everyone did. She was the kind of woman who got noticed. She wore another short skirt, a skimpy bustier top that couldn’t help but draw the eye to the way it pushed her breasts up and together. The first couple of times Mel had encountered the dancer, she’d thought this was how she dressed for work, but now she realized it was probably just normal attire for her. She imagined her doing her weekly supermarket shop dressed like this. Hell, if Mel had a figure like that, she would dress that way all the time, too.
Mel turned in her seat and waited. This wasn’t a Lazenby pub so she assumed Suze was here for a reason.
Just then, by cruel quirk of timing, Mel’s phone vibrated where she’d left it on the bar. The screen told her it was Jimmy, but she fought the urge to answer. She’d call back in a minute. He could stew for now.
But what if he had news? She fought down the impulse to grab the phone.
Turned, and Suze stood there, statuesque. “Hi,” she said, with a little, uncertain, smile. “Do you have a moment?”
Mel nodded. She indicated a vacant bar stool, but the dancer remained standing.
“Mr Lazenby sent me,” said Suze. “He’s been talking to people. He’s made some progress.”
Mel felt her heart leap, her throat tighten. Immediately she felt bad for judging Glenn harshly earlier, for feeling so selfishly bad about how he’d abandoned her at Thom Sullivan’s do so he could schmooze the room.
“What?” she said. “What progress?”
“Glenn really is a decent guy, you know? A decent guy in a tough world. He really cares. He’s been busting a gut for you. You should know that.”
“I do.” Although she hadn’t known that, not really believed it. Not until now. “What is it? Tell me.”
She felt sick. Was it bad news? Was that why suddenly Suze was hesitating, stumbling over the words?
Then: “He’s found something out,” she said. “He knows where your friend is. She’s okay. He thinks he can pull strings.”
Such a dizzying rush of emotions! Relief, above all. The need to know more, to know everything. Euphoria and excitement. Utter, utter release, of all that had been bottled up.
She clung to the bar, as if she might fall. Felt Suze’s hands on her, holding her arm, helping her to stand, to move.
“You have to come,” said Suze. “I have a car outside. I can take you there right now.”