16. Mel
Next time the door opened it was the bearded guy with the shaved head and piercings.
The one who’d attacked her that night in Jubilee Park. The one Glenn had called Wayne.
She still had the bruises on her neck and across the bridge of her nose, the aches in the ribs. The nightmares.
He pushed the door open and stood there, his expression giving nothing away.
Then he smiled, which was worse than anything.
Don’t want to spoil the goods, know what I mean?
Was this what Glenn had been referring to? Was he handing her over to this mountainous bastard of a man, to finish whatever it was he’d started that night?
Maybe there was a perverse logic to it, in Glenn’s mind. He’d set this guy on her once, only to be interrupted by Jimmy. Was letting this guy finish off some kind of payback on Jimmy? Something to use to hurt his kid brother?
She took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing thoughts.
Told herself this was madness. That whatever ‘spoiling the goods’ had referred to, it couldn’t possibly be this. That thought didn’t really help, though.
“Allow me to show you to your room.” Wayne’s voice twisted the knife in her guts, reminded her of his face up close to hers, his gently phrased threats – all the more chilling for how calmly reasoned they were, for the way he patiently made sure she had known he understood exactly how scared she must be.
As she squeezed past him into a hallway, she considered making a dash for the front door. He was big, bulky – how fast could he be?
The door must surely be locked, though. He would catch her easily.
He gestured at a staircase that ran up one side of the hallway, and Mel did as she was expected to do. Looked away, went to the stairs, climbed, with her guard following too closely behind.
She’d almost thrown up, when she’d brushed against him. He deliberately hadn’t stepped back, had forced her to squeeze through a gap too small.
She’d never been so scared. Had never even had any concept of fear like this.
Not even that night in Jubilee Park, although that came closest.
“Left.”
She turned left, and walked until they reached the end of a corridor. Three doors: one either side of the corridor and one at the end.
She waited, gritting her teeth.
Felt a meaty hand on the curve of her hip. Did nothing, just stood there, as her guard reached around her, twisted the doorknob, pushed it open.
“Your room, ma’am.”
She stepped inside, and felt a powerful surge of relief when the bastard didn’t follow.
She turned and looked at him, his bulky frame filling the open doorway.
Now he smiled, and said, “I would, in case you’re wondering. Believe me, I would.”
She didn’t dare ask him to explain. Didn’t dare anything.
“All that’s stopping me is orders. Do you understand that? One thing... just one thing you do that makes Mr Lazenby or his friends unhappy, and you’re mine. So be good, do you hear?”
He waited until she nodded before closing the door, and Mel waited until the door was closed before rushing to the basin in the en suite that opened off the small boxroom and throwing up the contents of her stomach.
§
Glenn was dressed for his father’s funeral when he came to see her the next morning.
Mel had spent most of the night curled up on the room’s narrow bed, still in the little black dress she’d bought the day before. At any moment she’d expected the door to open, for something awful to happen and her mind had raced with scenarios, strategies.
She’d dozed intermittently, lain awake for long periods. A couple of times she’d got up and paced the small room, used the bathroom and sat there for so long her legs went to sleep.
The room had a small window. No need to smash the glass, because she could open it, but there were no handholds and the drop too great. Even if she somehow lowered herself to hang from the frame first, she’d break an ankle if she tried to jump from this high up.
The window gave a view from the back of the house over a yard where several cars were parked. There were horses in the stables, and the barns were closed. Was this a working farm, then? Or just somebody’s country home trying to look the part?
Where was she?
She washed, sometime in the morning, but still she felt unclean.
And then she heard the sound of voices outside her room, the clunk of the lock, and the door swung open.
Glenn came in, straightening his dark suit.
“I hope Wayne’s been taking care of you,” he said.
She didn’t answer, and Glenn didn’t seem to care.
Instead, she said, “Do you even have Harriet, or was that just a ruse to get me here?”
Glenn laughed at that. “Nice,” he said. “That one’s a lot more cooperative than you, believe me.”
Again, Mel felt sick. She hated to think what he might mean by that.
“You’d better not lay a finger on her,” she said in a low voice.
“You look out for yourself,” he said. “Don’t worry about Harriet. She’s a smart one. She’s older and wiser than she looks.”
“Yes, but that’s not what it is you like, is it? Not that she’s older than she looks. It’s that she looks younger than she is. Is that what you really like?”
She didn’t know what she’d hoped to achieve. To get under his skin, perhaps.
It didn’t work.
He just shrugged, smiled, spread his hands, and said, “Doesn’t really matter, does it? She’s legal.”
She swung, taking even herself by surprise, but not Glenn: he caught her wrist easily, his grip painfully tight.
He held on as she tried to pull free, still smiling. “Sleep well?” he said, then barked a short laugh and let go.
Mel stumbled away, caught her legs on the edge of the bed and almost sprawled back onto it, steadying herself just in time.
“What’s happened to you, Glenn?” she said. “Why all this?”
She’d always thought he wanted to be an old-school villain like his father. That had been why she’d despaired over Jimmy, ten years ago. She’d seen him drawn to the dark glamour of it all, the naïve belief that you could somehow do all the things the Lazenby family did and still hang onto values of some kind.
Glenn paused, as if considering his answer.
“Why?” he asked softly. “Because I can, I suppose. At last, I can.”
A glance down at the dark suit. The funeral. The whole dead dad thing. The meaning was clear.
“Now I’m free,” he went on. “The old man was stuck in his ways. But me? I’m open to new adventures. Isn’t that exciting?” The softness of his voice gave an added chill to the words.
He was trying to wind her up, trying to unsettle her. And succeeding, of course, but she tried not to show it. This side of Glenn, now that the mask had slipped, was truly disturbing.
“Harriet?” he said, finally coming back to her original question. “She was so easy. You should have seen it! The whole thing could have been choreographed, know what I mean? After that night when I ‘bumped into’ you–” he made the quotation marks in the air with his fingers “–I gave her my card, we got to chatting online. Exchanging text messages and all that. Very touching. Poor kid was desperate to prove how grown up she was. Didn’t even realize she was chatting to Suze half the time and not me. Suze is so much better at that kind of thing than me. I get bored too easily.”
Mel looked away. Reminded herself how Glenn would always embellish things for his audience, always trying to press their buttons.
“It was the anniversary of her old man’s death coming up. I gave her a sob story about all this...” He tugged at his dark suit again. “My old man, how heartbroken I was, alone in the world. She told me she’d made that journey of loss – those were her words, I think, the self-important bitch. Told me she could help me.” He was laughing now, enjoying this far too much. “We arranged to meet, she climbed into my car, and the rest is history, as they say.”
“And now?”
“She’s here. She’s a valuable one, with looks like that. Remember I told you I had contacts? That I knew all the people to ask about your missing friend? Well I do. For good reason. They’re the ones who make the highest bids.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s here, for now. These things take time to set up. But I tell you one thing: a funeral is a hell of a good way to get people together. They come from all over and it looks legit, and now they’re here they get a chance to eye up the goods – in the flesh, so to speak.”
“What kind of monster are you?”
He laughed, not even bothering to answer, and her mind filled in the gaps, just as he must surely know it would.
The kind of monster who had the keys.
The kind that held all the cards.
The kind that had been outsmarting her – and everyone else – every step of the way.
The kind in control.
“Let me see Harriet.”
“So many demands,” Glenn said. “And so very little to offer.”
He was enjoying this. That scared her more than anything.
“What now?” Was he really going to sell Harriet off to the highest bidder? And what of Mel? What would he do with her after he’d offloaded Harriet? She knew too much now, and he didn’t seem to be making any effort to limit how much he told her.
“Now?” said Glenn. He walked in a small semicircle around her, looking her up and down as she stood there in last night’s disheveled dress.
“You should never have said ‘no’ to Thom Sullivan,” he said.
Last night at the party. Sullivan’s ‘offer’ that she should join him in Monaco.
“Mr Sullivan’s the kind of man who’s used to getting whatever he wants,” Glenn went on. “People never say ‘no’ to him. Not in the end, at least. And sometimes, for a man like Mr Sullivan, the only excitement left is whatever’s forbidden to him. The ones that are too young. The ones who say ‘no’. Do you realize just how much you turned him on with that one little word?”
The party... the people there. Were they the people Glenn had referred to? The ones here ostensibly for the funeral, but in reality to ‘eye up the goods’? And Thom Sullivan... was that what he’d been doing with Mel?
She remembered him letting slip that Glenn had told him about her, and now she understood why.
She’d stepped right into this, just as Harriet had.
Maybe she’d messed up his plans a little, at least, walking out of that party early, before any of the other ‘guests’ had been given the opportunity to eye her up. But maybe that had simply added to her appeal – the girl who says ‘no’, the girl who thinks she can walk out on them all.
Glenn had rounded her up easily enough later on, after all.
“Why are you doing this? Why Harriet? Why me?”
That smile. She felt the muscles tensing in her arm, her fingers flexing, talon-like. In her head she saw herself dragging long scratches down the side of his face, marking him. But she remembered how fast he was, how easily he had caught her by the wrist before.
“Oh, so many reasons,” he said. “So many, many reasons.”
“Such as?”
“Because I can.”
As he spoke, he counted the reasons off on his fingers.
“Because I’ve waited ten years to wipe that smug smile off your face.”
He was just how he’d described Sullivan, she realized. The thing he wanted most, was what he could never have. Her. And if he couldn’t have her, then he would have his revenge, at least.
“Because Jimmy,” he went on. “Oh yes! Because Jimmy, and all that entails! Let’s see... there’s more. Oh yes, there’s more. Here’s another reason: because these people matter to me – yes, it’s good business to keep my powerful friends happy. It’s what I do, what the old man did before me. We facilitate. We supply whatever they want.”
She made to speak but he held a hand up, silencing her.
“Because you’re you. Did I mention that? Yes? Not just that it’s you, though: but also because you’re Dougie Conner’s daughter. That’s a sweet one. Right up there among the very best of the reasons. Dougie Conner’s daughter. He’s always had it in for me. But now I’ve got him running.”
There was so much hatred in his torrent of words. So much bile.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” he said. “That really adds to your value. Forbidden fruit. The girl who says ‘no’. And the daughter of a top secret agent.”
She shook her head. “He’s nothing of the sort. He’s a civil servant. A pen pusher. That’s all he is.”
Glenn laughed again. “You don’t even believe that,” he said. “Trust me: your father has some serious enemies. They’re lining up for you. Just how much do you think they’d be willing to pay to have Dougie Conner’s daughter? To really have her? Thom Sullivan. Ronnie Bosvelt. David Viera. They can’t wait to get their hands on you. You’re going to make me rich, Mel. How cool is that? And I get to put one over on your old man. He thinks he’s so clever. Thinks he’s been running rings around me for years, but I’ve just been biding my time. Waiting for this. Let him feel what it’s like to see his daughters fall into the hands of his most bitter enemies.”
He was a monster. And she was totally at his mercy.
His comment about ‘spoiling the goods’ made perfect sense now. All of it did.
And then...
“Daughters? What do you mean, ‘daughters’?”
The sucker punch. The baited trap. He’d been standing there, just waiting for her to pick up on what he’d said.
“Daughters,” he repeated. “Hadn’t you worked that bit out? Why your old man gave even the slightest shit about Harriet Rayner?”
Daughters.
All the times her father had innocently asked about the time she spent with Harriet. The excuses he’d made, how he was just looking out for an old friend’s family. All the bullshit.
Daughters.
That smile on Glenn’s face. Her fist bunched again. He might not be fast enough to stop her now. Or strong enough.
“Just think,” he said. “A job lot, the two of you. Sisters. The one who says ‘no’ and the one who looks like a child and is only too desperate to say ‘yes’. Both of them, daughters of the hated Douglas Conner. You’re going to make me a lot of money. Both of you.”
He was still fast enough, and strong enough.
He caught her by the wrist again as she swung, gripping her so tightly she thought the bones might be crushed.
And instead of wiping that smile off his face, she only made it broaden.
Rather than letting go, he twisted his grip, forcing her elbow to turn inwards, awkward and painful.
“You still have fight,” he said. “That’s good. My friends like fight, and resistance. They like having something to break.”
He released her, stepped back, brushing down his suit.
Smiled again, just to rub it all in.
“Must dash, darling,” he said. “Got to make an appearance at a funeral. Wouldn’t do to miss it, now, would it? It’s one of those important things. A rite of passage, if you would. I think of it not so much as a funeral, as a coronation.”
And then he turned and left the room, and as Mel stared at the door she heard the clunk of the lock.