Lauren goes out:
Yellow boob tube (New Look)
Black miniskirt (New Look)
Long black boots (Greta’s)
Lashings of mascara (Rimmel)
Total est. cost: £45
‘I feel sick.’
Ed glanced anxiously at his watch. It was already 6.25 p.m., dark outside and now the rain had started. He was parked on a busy road watching the Friday evening hustle around him.
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 Lauren was around here because he would never be able to find her: he had to sit still and wait.
Lauren 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? What if she’d lost her phone? Or the signal? Or something had happened to her? Ed tried not to think like this. He looked at his watch again. It had been over fifty minutes since Lauren had told Andrei to come and get her. In another fifteen minutes, Andrei would be on stage, debating; then, even if Lauren did phone him, he wouldn’t be able to pick up the call for an hour.
Ed drummed his fingers against the steering wheel and tried to remain calm. He just hoped that Lauren was safe. He kept telling himself that in a few 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, not far from Brick Lane.’
‘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. And good luck,’ Ed remembered to add.
‘Yeah, you too. Will you let me know she’s OK?’
‘Of course.’
Ed 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 searched Club Z on his phone, hoping to get a phone number, an address, anything that would help him find it more quickly.
But nothing came up, so he 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. 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, had dark, painted walls lit with a dim halogen glow and carpeted in red. No one was around and 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. He walked towards the table nearest to him. The lighting was dim, but he could make out the faces and quickly realised that none of them was Lauren’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 at school. 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 Lauren stumbled out.
‘Lauren!’ Ed gasped with surprise and relief.
‘Wha—?’ Lauren began. She stood still, swaying slightly, before stepping forward and tumbling into his arms.
‘Are you OK?’ Ed asked, holding her tightly against his side. Her bare arms felt cool and clammy to his touch. And what was this outfit of boob tube and tiny skirt?
‘I feel sick,’ Lauren told him and swayed again, unsteady on her tottery high heels.
She also smelled of sick. 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,’ Lauren confessed, ‘and a drink. They’ve made me sick… I think I’m going to be sick again…’
She seemed to flop down in his arms but to his relief, didn’t throw up.
‘Ed?’
He recognised Elena’s voice and turned to see her striding towards them.
‘Come on,’ he ordered her sharply, ‘get your things. Get Lauren’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 Lauren and began to walk towards the dance floor. He wanted them to know he wasn’t looking for any kind of 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 Lauren’s groans at the abrupt movement.
‘Do you think you could explain to me what on earth is going on?’ Ed asked, trying to keep the anger out of his voice.
Elena, clutching Lauren’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 Lauren had to drink?’ He would save the lecture he was bursting to give Elena, until he’d established that Lauren 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.
Ed walked the girls to the Jeep without another word, clicked open the locks and helped Lauren 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.
‘Lauren 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? 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 Lauren 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… and get your things together.’
‘Take me there,’ Elena repeated, ‘she has huge house. She must have room for me.’
This struck Ed as an excellent idea.
Lauren’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, twenty-two-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?’
Ed wasn’t just angry about Elena taking Lauren 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. In the entire week Elena had been staying with them, Svetlana had not tried to contact her once. That just wasn’t how you treated children, in Ed’s book.
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.