Hidden Heart (Love Is The Law 1) (3 page)

Emily breathed out slowly. He was
right in his assumptions about her, and she didn't like it. Not that she was
going to admit it.

"I have met people who have
committed crimes. Of course I have. I just never really thought about it
before. I write about social issues, so I have met people on the edge of life,
the edge of their communities, doing whatever they needed to do to survive. But
you do seem… different," she was forced to admit.

He grinned, amused. "I know.
Because I don't fit the stereotype you were expecting, right? A meat-headed
thug who couldn't string a sentence together. I mean, I have had my moments…
but I spent a lot of time in the prison library."

She cocked her head to one side
and couldn't stop her eyes darting over his thick arms. He followed her gaze,
and said, "Yeah, and the gym."

"Is prison…" she
stopped and swallowed.

"Don't be polite. Ask
away."

"Sorry."

"Don't apologise. Go on,
ask."

"Okay. Sor - I mean, okay.
Is prison different if you're… ah, a thinking sort of person?"

His eyebrows raised in brief
surprise and he smiled, his eyes twinkling. "I thought you were going to
ask me about being raped in the showers. Heh, right.
Everyone
ends up a
thinking sort of person to some extent, when you're banged up all day and all
night."

"I thought they couldn't do
that."

"No, not really. You're
supposed to have a certain number of hours in work or education. Oh,
purposeful
activity
they call it. But it doesn't always work. I know what you're
asking, though. Prison changes a man but it can only bring out what was already
inside. Some guys do think a lot. I wasn't the only one. You'd be amazed, some
of the conversations you get with the other guys. The lifers, the long-termers,
they are the interesting ones."

"Murderers."

Turner barked out a laugh,
shocking Emily with his casual amusement. "You and I, we're closer to them
than to any other criminal."

She felt a sneer twist her face.
"I don't think so," she said, disgusted. "How?"

"You could kill, I could
kill. Under certain circumstances, you could easily find yourself done for
manslaughter."

She felt a little sick, and angry
at his insinuations, but his fiery eyes kept her seated and listening as he
explained, waving his hands about to act out his words.

"Imagine you're out and
someone's there beating a child and you have an iron bar in your hand and you
smack them on the back of the neck to make them stop… and they hit the deck,
and bam!
You're
the criminal now. We all have our triggers. We could all
kill. Those are the interesting men. The low-life habitual criminals, the ones
who rob old grannies and treat prison like a three-times-a-year holiday camp,
fuck
them. I have nothing in common with them, and nor do you. But the lifers
are the ones with the stories, and they have had a lot of time to think."

"Maybe I should be
interviewing them."

"You should." Turner
sat forward, passion on his face. "I've met guys who've ended up serving
ten, twenty years just for one random mistake as a young man. Their whole
life
is now fucked. They get to open prison, try to rehabilitate, but how can they?
The world has changed. When these fellas were sent down, there were no mobile
phones. No internet. Life was different. I've seen big hard men go off on a
town visit and come back shaking - everything seems too fast for them, too
loud, too scary. You have no idea.
I
have no idea. God, Emily, those are
the men to talk to."

"Except I can't. They're in
prison."

"And they get to a point
they don't want to leave."

Turner had shuffled to the edge
of his seat, but as his energy subsided he sat back, and Emily pursed her lips,
thinking hard.

"Okay," she said at
last. "Yes. Perhaps we could work on a story together. Maybe… I don't
know, I need to go away and think this through, but there's more than a
personal-profile interview here. We could collaborate on an expose about
sentencing, opportunities, about … everything."

"Collaborate?" A slow
smile spread over his face and he looked almost boyish. "So there's money
in it for me. Nice one. I like that. How much?"

Bugger.
He seemed to have
disregarded her caution and just assumed it was all set to go.

Perhaps there was something in
it. Emily found that her heart was racing as his passion for his topic had
infected her, and she was raring to get started - on something. Quite what her
focus was, she didn't know, but his energy was compelling. "Well, like I
said, I don't have an actual commission yet…"

"But you will. That's what
you do, isn't it?"

Trying to explain the precarious
freelance life was always hard. Her parents still hadn't got their heads around
it, and Turner looked to be no different. "I will, yes…"

"Are you sure?"

Nope. She should make it
really plain that it was a long shot.
 "Yes, of course. But I can't
promise any money until I have a definite yes from somewhere."

"Halves."

"Um…"

He shrugged. "Those are my
terms."

It didn't work like this. It
wasn't supposed to.
She needed the money and if she did get a commission,
she needed
all
the money.

But it looked like he needed the
cash, too.

"Okay."

"Sweet."

They stared at each other for a
moment in silence. The money issue had thrown Emily slightly, and she fiddled
with her bag again, before standing up and extending her hand. "Thank you
very much for your time, Turner. I think we'll work well together. I'm looking
forward to it."

He stood too, towering over her.
He was relaxed but it was still unnerving to remember he was recently out of
prison, and capable of anything. "So what's next?"

"I need to find a
commission. And I've got to do some research, so I can find a good angle, and
that's where you come in. If you know anyone else I can interview that would be
great. I'll need your inside contacts, and your insights. I'll dig around, and
if you can dig around, great. I'll get in touch as soon as I have something
more concrete."

"When will that be?"

She bit back her sigh and tried
not to let her frustration sound in her voice. "Please. I don't
know."

He, too, was holding some feeling
back - frustration? She couldn't tell. He thinned his lips briefly, and then
nodded curtly. "Okay. Okay, cool. Speak to you soon."

"Yeah. Okay."

Leave!
She made an effort
and tore herself away from him, turning away and stalking out of the room. She
was buzzing with the excitement of a potential story, and pushed aside the
nagging fears that always accompanied this stage. Embryonic ideas, so potent -
but so full of the chance to fail.

Again.

"Don't look like that. It's
a sink full of unwashed pots. Get over it."

Turner raised his hands in a placatory
gesture but he couldn't help wrinkling his nose at his sister's defensive words.
Elaine folded her arms and glared right back at him. The small kitchen was at
the back of the terraced house, and it was shabby.

"Do you want me to come and
redecorate?"

Elaine shrugged and her hoop
earrings clattered. She'd had more put in while he'd been away. He was
surprised her lobes weren't sagging. "No, not really," she told him
dismissively. "I'd have to tidy up first, and right now, I don't need the
hassle."

"I'd help."

"Nah, you're all right. With
two kids, what's the point of making a place look nice?" Elaine ran a
perfectly manicured hand through her blonde extensions. She had a curling
tattoo on her hand, which she'd also acquired during his prison stay. He
thought it looked as tacky as hell but he kept his mouth shut.

He dropped his voice, glancing to
the door that led to the long, crowded living room. They could hear the
television - some screaming harpy on a daytime talk show - but he still didn't
want to risk being overheard. "How is mum?"

"Not too bad. The treatments
still wipe her out but not as much, actually. She's doing better."

"Good. Look, I was
wondering, do you need me to move back in?"

Elaine snorted an inelegant laugh
and leaned back against the chipped counter-top. She was dressed in the
tightest faded denim shorts her slim body could fit into. Her fake orange tan
showed stark against the cheap white cropped vest. "Oh maaaan. You drove
us bonkers while you were here. Seriously. I know you mean well and all that,
but fuck. No. Thanks. I've got two boys to look after. I don't need three, you
know?"

"Charming. Thanks a
bunch."

"You're welcome."

They shared a grin for a moment,
but Turner wasn't quite satisfied. "Look, the boys are five, and … look.
About money. Are you getting anything from that turd of an ex?"

Elaine's smile died instantly and
her face looked much older when she frowned. "Do you want to start me
smoking again? Four days I've not had a ciggie now."

"That bad?"

"What?"

"Mentioning that
arsehole."

She pushed upright away from the
counter-top and half-turned away. "Whatever. No, I'm not getting anything.
He says he doesn't have any money. I'd go through the courts but I can't be…
can't be arsed, to be honest. He's a liar."

"So what the hell are you
living on?"

"Benefits. Mum helps."

Turner felt a wave of sick anger
in his stomach. There was a cancer inside his family; in his mother's lungs.
And a cancer eating from the outside - Riggers. Fucking odious septic little
Andy Rigby. He was responsible for far more than the fathering of Elaine's two
kids.

"The only thing stopping me
putting a bullet in that twat's head is the thought of your lads growing up
fatherless. Not that he is any kind of fucking father."

"Turner-"

"No, it's okay. Don't worry.
I'm not going to-"

He stopped as the door opened and
his frail mother peeked in. He cursed as he realised his voice had got louder.
Had she heard any of it? He shot a warning glance towards Elaine, who had
half-heartedly picked up a sponge and was moving dirt around the counters.

"Turner! What you doing
sneaking in the back door? You should have come on through. Elaine, you got
that kettle on yet? I'm dry as a camel's bum. Parched, I am. Look at you."
Mrs Black advanced on Turner and enfolded him in a warm hug. He could rest his
chin on her head but he would have still quailed to find himself on her wrong
side.

His hands noted how her ribs
jutted through her pink polyester cardigan and he closed his eyes for a moment.
If he could reach right into her lungs and rip out the tumour, he would have
done.
Bastard
cancer.

"Hey, mum. How are
you?"

"Apart from gasping for a
wet? Elaine!"

Elaine stuck her tongue out at
Turner, behind their mum's back, and started to fill the kettle with water.
Turner released his mum and took a step back. Elaine was right; she did look
pinker in the face, and she was smiling broadly. She opened her mouth to speak
but suddenly the kitchen filled with the shouts and screams of twin
five-year-old boys.

"Uncle Turner! Uncle Turner!
Look at this! I got a plane! Look!"

Turner started to laugh as the
boys wrestled with each other in their efforts to get to their favourite uncle
first, but Elaine stepped in. "No!" He started to protest but she
ushered them out of the kitchen, back into the living room, alternating between
threats of a spanking and promises of McDonald's.

Turner's mother smiled, but her
eyes were downcast as she dropped a teabag into a chipped mug. She didn't look
up at him. Instead, she kept her attention on the kettle as the steam began to
rise from the yellowed plastic.

"Mum?"

The more he looked at her, the
more he thought the pink in her cheeks wasn't healthy at all. Her face was red,
and the skin seemed stretched and shiny. Was her hand shaking? Was she really
plumper, or was that just the treatments she was having? Her body had changed
shape, and he'd heard that steroids could do that.

And what kind of selfish ignorant
son got himself sent down just when his family needed him the most? He
swallowed his bile as best he could, but he couldn't keep the sneer off his
face. A sneer at himself, and his low-life ways.

She looked up and he tried to
hastily smooth his expression, hoping she wouldn't misinterpret what she saw.
She didn't mention it. "Turner. So, was your house okay?"

He'd moved out of the family home
just before he'd been caught. He left his neat little terrace in the care of
Elaine and his mate Lee. It was only round the corner, one more unremarkable
red-brick street in the Manchester warrens, and everyone knew who he was and
where he was. The house had been left untouched during his sentence. He wasn't
a big local hard man, but he was
known.
"Yeah, Elaine did a good
job."

"Speaking of jobs…"

"Oh, mum. Really?"

The kettle clicked off, and he
was released from her accusing stare as she fussed about making her tea,
shooing him out of the way when he stepped forward to try and take over. He
tried to change the subject while she was occupied with the milk. "Anyway,
I was thinking, you need this place redecorating, don't you? I'll grab Lee.
Between us, we can get the kitchen done in a day. Maybe two. What colours do
you think?"

His mother turned around again,
and leaned on the countertop, almost exactly in the same pose that Elaine had
been in, a few minutes before. It was funny how such things passed down the
family. Was it genetic or was it learned and copied? He nearly opened his mouth
to remark on it, then reminded himself he wasn't in prison any more, and random
conversation wasn't needed. Inside, you'd talk about anything to fill the
hours. On the out, time was more precious.