Hidden Heart (Love Is The Law 1) (9 page)

Riggers must have been either
temporarily clean, or possibly on a slight amount of amphetamine, as he was
alert enough to have noticed Turner's defensive posture and he said, "Hey,
we're mates, eh? Any chance of a brew? Parched, I am."

Speed, then, was Rigger's choice
of drug for the day. Turner spoke flatly. "No. I'm out of coffee."

Riggers spun around, his dilated
pupils taking everything in. He spotted the half-full jar by the sink, and whirled
back round to face Turner, his smile gone. "Okay, whatever. Looking for a
job, are you?"

Turner glanced sideways at the
papers scattered on the table. His intentions were clearly marked with inked
circles and torn-out adverts. "Yes."

"Chatty, aren't you?"

"No."

"Why did you let me in
then?"

"Curiosity."

"So?"

"So?"

They waited, Turner still leaning
against the table, and Riggers darting his head around, little flecks of
spittle at the corners of his mouth. "Come on, Turner. You're kidding
yourself. Getting a job? Who the fuck's going to take you on?"

"I don't know. Labouring,
anything."

"Pay's shit."

"Doesn't matter. It's about
self-respect. Oh wait, that's something you don't have."

"Yeah? I don't get why
you're so down on me all the time. We're family, Turner."

Turner couldn't help the sneer on
his face, and Riggers saw it. "Don't you look like that, like I'm dog shit
on your shoe. We're family, whether you like it or not, and you have no cause
to be looking down on me. We're the same, innit. In fact, I'm better than you
and I am better than you think of me, right."

"How's that?" Even as
he spoke, Turner knew he was stupid for even being drawn into the conversation.
It was like a car crash or a horror film, and he couldn't look away.

"I'm around. I'm trying to
be a dad to my sons - your nephews. Unlike you, I didn't get myself banged up,
yeah. Who's been around while you've been lying about in prison, watching dvds
and getting three meals a day? Me. Who took your mum to hospital to get her test
results? That'd be me, all right?"

Turner looked at Riggers' little
rodent face, all indignant self-righteousness, and nearly gagged on the bile in
his throat. "Who put me in prison in the first place, you prick?"

"Your own stupidity, innit mate.
Notice how I managed to
not
get sent down?"

It was true. Turner's innocence
and inexperience in the world of crime had contributed to his downfall. It was
a mistake he wouldn't make twice.

He opened his mouth to tell
Riggers to leave, but his mobile phone began to ring, and he saw instantly that
it was Emily; her name flashed large across the smartphone's screen, and
Riggers' heightened alertness saw it too. Turner dismissed the call with a rub
of his thumb, and shoved the phone into his pocket, but Riggers was already
looking triumphant.

"Now I know why you're
looking so shagged, mate. Because you are! Emily. Lovely name. Sounds posh. Is
she? Well done. Nice one."

"Fuck off. Fuck off out of
my house."

"It's nice to be with
someone, innit? Like my Elaine, for instance."

"She's not
your
Elaine."

"I think we might give it
another go. I've grown up."

"Don't even try. I will kill
you."

"Kill me? Your sister's
fella? Your nephews' dad? I don't think so. I can take care of them, I know I
can. I just gotta get some cash together, yeah. And that's where you come in,
innit."

"Fuck off." Turner
stood straight, pushing away from the table and unfolding his arms. He towered
over Riggers but the drugged-up rat wasn't easily intimidated. He laughed in
Turner's face, a laugh with no humour in it. Just malice.

"Well, best of luck with
job-hunting, mate. You know where I am. I'll be in Elaine's bed. Speak
soon."

He sauntered backwards, taunting
Turner with his grin, sidling back out of the door and away down the alley.
Turner balled his fists but there was nothing to punch, and no way of letting
the tension out.

God, he could kill Riggers. But
then what? More jail time.

Perhaps he could just assault
him. A little light Actual Bodily Harm. But knowing Riggers, he'd manage to
twist it to send Turner right back into prison once more.

He couldn't leave Manchester, and
abandon his mum and his sister to that man. He couldn't kill him and he
couldn't hurt him.

It looked like his only option
left was to work with him. At least that way, he kept some control.

And you never knew. Turner was
wiser now. Perhaps he could get enough dirt on him to turn the tables.

In his pocket, his phone vibrated
with an incoming message. He knew who it would be, and he knew it was over
between them before it even started.

* * * *

"It's happening again,
Kayleigh." Emily curled on her sofa, cradling the phone with one hand and
hugging a cushion to her chest with the other. "And I just tried to call
him but he cut me off."

"Wait, what, start again.
Hang on." There was some clattering from the other end of the line, then
Kayleigh spoke again. "Okay, that's better, I can talk now. What's
happening, and who is
he
?"

Emily took a deep breath.
"He is Turner."

"Turner?"

"The man I went to interview
about crime, for a shitty article that is never going to happen because
it's….shitty. We kind of saw each other last night, and he, um, stayed over but
he disappeared in the middle of the night, and when I tried to ring, he didn't
answer."

"And you're
how
old?" Kayleigh sounded tired.

"I know, I know. And that's
what's so pathetic. It was just a one night stand, and you know, I think I can
cope with that, actually. What is really pissing me off is what it means. I
mean, about me. The fact that I keep making the same stupid mistakes over and
over again."

"Falling for the people you
interview? Getting jiggy with the subjects of your articles?"

"Yeah."

Kayleigh sighed, long and low.
"What are you doing with your life, petal?"

"I was kinda hoping you'd
tell me."

"Yeah, like how? What do you
want out of life?"

"I dunno. That's the
problem, isn't it?"

"Nope. Try and see yourself
in ten years' time - build a picture of your ideal future - now work out how to
get to it. It's that simple. I don't get all your navel-gazing."

Emily tried it, and saw a house
and a family, and winced at the tedious stereotype. Shouldn't she want
something more? "I still don't know," she lied.

"You want a man, and that's
why you keep falling for the wrong ones." Kayleigh spoke with flat
authority.

Damn. She knew her too well. But
then, that's why Emily had called her, wasn't it? "I suppose," she
allowed grudgingly.

"Look, you are allowed to
admit that you want to settle down, you know. The whole edifice of feminism
isn't going to crumble just because you're honest about your needs. And while
we're being honest, let's talk about this journalism bullshit."

"Err…"

"You need to take a step
back and really look at what you want to be doing, not what you think you
should be doing. Remember. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

"Well…"

"Have a clean break. Come
and visit me! Do nothing for a few days. Drop everything - home, work,
him
.
Make a new future because this one is going nowhere, my dear."

"Um."

Silence. Kayleigh let her words
settle into Emily's brain. Emily said, at last, "well, thank you for your
honesty. And, er, tact."

"You're welcome. You think
you're being sarcastic but believe me, that
was
me being tactful."

"Jeez."

"Yup."

"Right."

"Anything else I can help
you with?"

"No, thanks. Not right now. I
think I'd better go. I want to put in a call to the UN, suggest they send you
down to the Middle East to bang some heads together there, too, and bring about
world peace."

"Ahaha." Kayleigh
laughed but it seemed without humour. Her voice was hard as she said,
"Look, Emily. We've had this conversation too many times and you're just
going round in circles and you know what…"

"What?"

"You are doing my fucking
nut in."

Emily squeezed her eyes shut. A
simple sentence like that hurt like hell when it came from her friend.
"Kayleigh…"

"No, listen. You ring me up
and you ask for advice and I give it to you, like I always do. And you just
ignore it, and it all goes wrong, and then you ring me up again for more
advice. You know, one of the things that helped me decide to leave England and
start up here was that I was beginning to feel like I was being dragged down by
you."

"You - what? I was doing
what?
"

"You complain about being
stuck but you haven't made any effort to start afresh, not really. How many
different ways can I tell you to
get a grip?
"

"It's not… Kayleigh, are you
okay? Is something going on with you that I don't know about?"

"Thanks for asking. Finally.
As it happens, no, I'm perfectly fine, but it struck me recently that you
wouldn't know if there was, because you never ask. You ring when it's about
you. You want to make a change but you don't seem to believe that you
can."

"I can…"

"Do it then. Look. There's
nothing more I can say."

"I… well, thank you."

Kayleigh sighed again. When she
spoke, her voice was a little softer. "Sorry, petal. There was stuff I
needed to get off my chest. I'm going to go now. Think about it. Stay in touch,
yeah…?"

"Yeah. Okay. See you."

The flat felt hollow and empty
and Emily's throat was raw. Kayleigh's words had hit deep and she pushed them
out of her mind.

She curled on the sofa, and
hugged the cushion for another ten minutes, thinking about her future and what
shape it held.

The shape was temptingly
broad-shouldered.

* * * *

The waiting area for the cancer
outpatients was muted yet full of people. Unlike Accident and Emergency, which
could be a place of rush and noise, this area was one of reflection and
suppressed fear. Turner hated it, but he sat with as much casual nonchalance as
he could muster. His mum was beside him, a trashy mag open but unread on her
knees.

"How long does this go on
for?"

"Depends on whether they're
running late."

"No, I mean… the treatment
overall."

She sighed. "I wish I knew,
Turner. It just depends on my results, week to week. Not much longer, I hope.
Sometimes I think the side effects are worse… but no, I know they're not. But
it's hard to keep it all lined up, sensible-like, in your head, you know?"

He didn't know, and he didn't
want to know. "Yeah."

She laughed. "No, you don't.
It's okay." She turned her attention to the magazine. "Look at this!
My
husband's having an affair with a ghost.
Who writes this crap? Hey, is this
the sort of thing that journalist does?"

"What?"

"That article you were
talking about. Someone who wanted to interview you."

Turner looked at the lurid
headlines and model-posed photographs, with little passport-photo insets of the
actual interviewees. "No, she doesn't write that kind of stuff. She does
social justice things."
Does she?
He hadn't ever seen any evidence
of that.

Can the conman be conned?
It was a new thought.

"Looks like money for old
rope, this. Find a nutter, get them to talk rubbish, write it up and sell it to
fools that believe it."

"Like you?"

"I don't believe it."

"Does anyone?"

"They must. So what happened
to her?"

"The article didn't work
out."

"Shame. Was she nice?"

"She was posh."

"Ahh." His mum left the
topic at that.
Posh.
Not his sort. Too good for him.

A small girl with a shaven head,
painfully pretty with huge dark eyes, toddled past. Her arm was purple with the
marks of blood tests and a small plastic tube peeped out from the neckband of
her princess-pink dress, the end taped down to her alabaster skin. Turner had
to look away. How could anyone bear to have kids when they were so easily snatched
away?

If not taken by illness, then
by their own stupidity and prison.
A sense of himself as a son flashed into
his mind and he pushed it aside, locking it in the box of guilty memories.
"Mum, do you want anything to drink?"

"No, dear."

A short, plump nurse with dark
bobbed hair materialised in front of them, clutching a clipboard, smiling a
tired but genuine smile. "Mrs Black. How are you today?"

His mum's face lit up. "I'm
very well, thank you! How are you?"

The nurse nodded at Turner.
"Busy as usual. Is this another son?"

Turner sat up straight, horror
clutching his throat. "I'm her only son…"

His mum patted his leg as if he
were still nine years old. "It's okay. Everyone thought Andrew was my son
when he brought me to my other appointments."

Andy bloody Rigby. Turner gritted
his teeth. He felt he had to explain himself to the nurse. "I've been
away." That was code for anyone who cared to understand it.

The nurse seemed unconcerned.
"That's nice, dear. But I bet your mum is glad to have you back! We're
ready for you now, so if you'd like to come this way…"

Turner stood up alongside his
mum, but the nurse put out a warning hand. "No, you can wait here."

Turner slumped back down onto the
chair, watching with simmering resentment as the nurse took his frail mum
beyond the curtains into the bowels of the hospital. Did Riggers have to wait
out here? How long would she be? How many times had he come with her?