Harry's grin faded, a thoughtful look taking its place.
'It's like a new start.' He took her hand in both of his, wanting to tell her what was in his heart. 'When they shot me and threw me back in the cellar I knew they were going to kill me eventually. That kind of cleared my brain, made me see what was important. I made a deal with Him.' Harry rolled his eyes heavenwards. 'I promised if He'd find a way of saving me I'd reform. A clean life, one where I did some good, not just making money. When you turned up I thought to myself that the message was "Sorry, no deals, but here's a last minute consolation." Then you vanished with Carl and I thought they'd killed you. I wanted to die then, Tara. I wasn't even scared any more, because I knew life without you wasn't worth anything.'
'Oh, Harry.' She reached forward and stroked his long hair away from his face. 'None of it matters now. We're safe. We can start all over again.'
'It was all fuzzy somehow, but I can still see you in that dark passageway, commanding them to get into the cellar.' He gave a tremulous smile. 'I wanted to help, but I couldn't. I thought they would grab you, but then you shot Carl. You were incredible!'
'Put it aside, Harry?' She pleaded with him, seeing his distress.
'No, you don't understand.' He held her hands tightly. 'I took it as a sign, Tara, the deal was struck. I told myself I would never go back to the club. Not ever.'
'You'll have to, until you can sell it.'
He shook his head. 'Tony and Needles can run it for now,' he said. 'I'll keep the building, offer someone the club on a lease for a few years. All that land on the river is going to be worth a fortune in a year or two. If I just hang on and wait our fortune will be made.'
'Our?'
'You haven't forgotten our promise, have you?' he said, reaching out and caressing her face. 'We must get married the moment I get out of here. Let's go and live on the farm?'
Tara heard his words and she knew it was what she wanted. But he'd been through a terrible trauma and maybe in a couple of weeks things would look different.
'We'll talk about that when you're well again. George and Queenie want to come in now, shall I get them?'
'Just as long as you don't use it as an excuse to slide off somewhere.' He grinned. 'One more kiss before you get them?'
Tara bounded along Pembridge Road, a huge bunch of flowers in one hand, a carrier bag of food in the other.
Tomorrow Needles was going to collect Harry and bring him home to her flat. Amy and Greg wanted him brought down to Somerset, Queenie and George wanted him with them. But they'd both had too much of people asking questions and fussing round them. They wanted to be alone.
George and Queenie had come back to London three days ago with the intention of selling the business and going into retirement. Tara had come back a day early just to give the flat a good clean and stock up the cupboards.
Once she knew Harry was getting better, being in Folkestone was like a holiday. She had taken walks down along the front, sunbathed on the beach between hospital visits and read magazines.
Frank had been transferred from Folkestone to a prison hospital, but in fact his wound was only superficial. For Carl it had been touch and go, and it would be some time before he was well enough to stand trial. But Micky was still free. Although the police knew there had been a fourth man at the house, so far they had been unable to find him. Josh hadn't been found either, but rumour had it he'd skipped the country.
Each day in Folkestone she expected to hear the police had discovered Joe Spikes was in fact Bill Mac-Donald. Time and again she was tempted to blurt it out to Harry or George, yet somehow she had managed to keep quiet. Yet at night it plagued her, she would lie awake imagining scenarios in which the police came to her with her father's fingerprints. What would she do? Make out she hadn't known? Cry and tell them what a brute her father had been?
Tara stopped short by her flat and frowned. The curtains were closed and she was sure she'd left them open that day she ran in and got changed before going down to Hythe.
'Maybe I pulled them over?' She frowned, trying hard to remember. 'You must have done.' She shrugged her shoulders and dug her key out of her bag. 'You didn't remember telling the police where you'd left the rucksack, either, but you had.'
A pile of letters was waiting for her on the hall table. She picked them up, opened her own front door and walked in, kicking the door shut behind her as she leafed through her mail.
She sensed someone was there a second before she actually saw him. A faint smell of sweat and cigarettes hung in the air.
'Who is it?' A cold chill ran down her spine and her heart began to race.
'It's only me!'
Wheeling round at Josh's voice she saw him curled up on the floor trying to conceal himself in the space between a large chest of drawers and the window. She felt hatred rather than fear.
'What are you doing here?' She sprang forward, dragging him out by the shoulders.
'Don't hit me!' He covered his head with his hands and in that second hate turned to mere revulsion.
His face was ghostly white, his hair stood on end and his expression was one of pure terror.
'I hadn't got anywhere else to go,' he said in a low voice. 'I needed time to think things out and you'd left a spare key at work.'
Tara looked at him and slowly shook her head. All these years she'd admired him, thought he was courageous, clever and so very special. But now he was just a frightened kid who knew he deserved punishment but hadn't got enough guts to step forward and take it.
'I'm amazed at your cheek,' she snapped. 'You plotted against Harry, you would gladly have seen me killed. You betrayed me in a thousand different ways, then you come here! I'm phoning the police now!'
'Don't, please don't,' he begged her. 'Later maybe, when we've talked, but not yet.'
'Give me one good reason why I should even share the same air as you?'
'I never wanted you hurt,' he said, and his big dark eyes turned to liquid. 'Please believe that, Tara. I just put up the initial stake for a plan that looked like it would make me a quarter of a million. I needed it to pull the business back together.'
'Don't lie to me on top of everything else,' Tara said scornfully. Josh was shaking from head to foot, his clothes were crumpled and he had thick stubble on his chin. 'You wanted to get Harry out the way, that was as important as the money: You watched me breaking my heart because he'd gone, you took me out for the day and tried to make love to me, all the time knowing he was going to be killed!'
His guilt showed clearly in his eyes. 'I'm so ashamed of myself.' He clutched his arms tighter round his knees. 'But I love you, Tara. I wanted to keep you beside me.'
'Don't you know anything, you stupid jerk?' she exploded. 'I always cared about you. There have been times when I thought you were the one for me. Even if I'd married Harry I expect I'd have carried on working for you.' She went over to her phone and picked it up.
'Please, Tara,' he whispered. 'Just let me explain to you first?'
She hesitated, looking back at him. She could see he wasn't dangerous, and perhaps she needed to hear his side of the story.
'OK, get on with it. I'll give you ten minutes.'
'You didn't know.' Josh wrung his hands together. 'I've been sliding into trouble for some time. The only way I could save my business was by investing in this gang so I could get enough cash to revamp the shops. I was desperate. It wasn't me who suggested taking over Harry's club, or kidnapping him, that was all dreamed up by Duke and Joe Spikes.'
Just the mention of that name made Tara uneasy. Did Josh know Joe's true identity?
'Look, Josh.' She put her shopping down on the table. 'I'll make us a cup of tea but don't take that as a sign of weakness. I'm not going to harbour a wanted man.'
'Fair enough.' His face relaxed a little.
'For God's sake, go and have a bath,' she said. "This room stinks, and most of it's coming from you.'
'I didn't dare run the water.' He looked boyishly
apologetic, but he picked up a small holdall and slunk into the bathroom.
Tara winced when she saw her small kitchen. Flies buzzed around dirty plates, all the mugs had been used and just left. The bin was overflowing with empty tins and the cooker top was filthy. She filled the sink with hot, soapy water, pushed the dirty dishes into it, then went to open the curtains and windows. She made a pot of tea, and was putting it on the table when Josh came back in, smelling of Camay soap and cleanshaven, tidy again in grey needlecord trousers and a pale blue shirt.
'That's better,' she said approvingly. 'I always find you can handle anything after a bath and a change.'
'So you say it wasn't your idea to kidnap Harry?'
'No. Well, partly. I mean they had it all worked out, but I told them bits and pieces to help. See I financed it, but I wasn't part of the gang.'
'Was it Wainwright who made the calls?'
He nodded.
'So you struck a deal with him right back when the other business happened?'
'Not exactly. I just kept a contact number in case. He didn't know what was going on. I just fed him the information about Harry and what to say. It was just an acting job and a chance for revenge as far as he was concerned.'
'How could you?' Tara shook her head in total bewilderment.
'Can I have a bit of time before you grass me up?' he asked, his eyes like a spaniel's.
'I'm not grassing you up.' She beckoned for him to sit on the settee opposite her. 'You can give yourself up, or continue to run, whichever you like. Just as long as you don't come near me.'
'I can't bear the thought of prison,' he said, sipping his tea.
'You might not get prison.'
'Pigs might fly,' he said gloomily.
'Don't be such a weed!' she snapped at him. 'Give yourself up! Talk to a lawyer and he'll get you bail. Then you can sort something out about the business. Has it occurred to you the girls at the shops are waiting to be told what's happening? You owe it to them to make an effort.'
'What for? I haven't got the money to pull things together, it won't be long before I go bust. So what's the point?'
'I don't believe things are that bad.' Tara wanted to slap his face he was being so pathetic. "There are assets out there, your house, cars and the leases on the shops, not to mention stock which could be sold off.'
He closed his eyes and lay back on the settee. 'I'm going to come clean with you,' he said in a small voice. 'I'm burnt out, Tara. What little talent I had I've used up. I've been doing drugs for so long my life revolves round them. These days it's as much as I can do to shave myself, let alone organise a business.'
Tara opened her mouth to protest, but all at once she saw it. The dead eyes, the pallor of his skin. It was obvious. She leaned forward and undid his cuff, rolling up the sleeve. Red and purple track marks from a hypodermic dotted his veins.
'Oh, Josh.' Tears welled up in her eyes. 'Why? You knew the dangers!'
'It was just speed at first,' he explained. 'I needed a boost, there just weren't enough hours in the day. Then it was cocaine and sometimes both. I only started the heroin this year. It seemed the answer at first, I was looking forward, planning and being creative again. But then the heroin took over, I couldn't think of anything but the next fix.'
'I wish you'd told me.' She took his hands in hers and squeezed them. 'I'd have made you stop somehow. It's such a wicked, wicked waste.'
'You're right, of course.' He grimaced. 'Sometimes I loathe myself so much I can't bear it.'
'Go to the police!' Tara knelt down in front of him. 'It's a huge step, I know, but once you've made it it will get easier. I'll do what I can to hold things together until we can find a long-term solution.'
He didn't answer her immediately, just looked into her eyes with his big, sad brown ones.
'I thought you'd reject me,' he said. 'But you've given me the courage I needed.' He leaned forward and held her face in both his hands, kissing her gently on the nose. 'I'll get out of your life now and let you find the kind of peace and happiness you deserve.'
She watched him walking down the road to flag down a taxi, tears pouring down her cheeks. The bold, arm-swinging march she remembered was gone. His hands were in his pockets, face hidden behind sunglasses, and he kept close to the wall, shoulders hunched.
'What a waste,' she sobbed. 'What a terrible waste!'
'Welcome home!' Tara shrieked as Harry climbed out of the car, running down the steps withher arms outstretched.
'Go easy on him, Tara,' Needles reproved her as she smothered his face with kisses. 'The man's an invalid!'
'Invalid my arse!' Harry grinned wickedly. 'My recovery will be complete once Tara gives me a dose of her special medicine.'
'I won't hang around, then.' Needles handed Tara a carrier bag. 'There's a change of clothing there. Just ring me if he needs anything else.'
'Come on in for a drink, or a coffee?' Tara said quickly, hoping she sounded sincere. 'I want to hear about the club and stuff.'
'You don't want me here.' Needles gave one of his big belly laughs. 'You two's got a lotta lost time to make up for.'
'Thanks, Needles.' Harry clapped his friend across the back. 'You've been a diamond. I'll be in touch in a day or two.'
Tara put her arm around Harry to help him up the stairs. He was still limping, but in every other way he looked like his old self.
He stood for a moment just inside the door, looking around the room. It was clear Tara had cleaned and polished for his homecoming; every surface, ornament and picture glass gleamed. There were flowers on the table and the bookcase, and he noted she'd put a little padded stool next to his favourite armchair for him to put his leg up.
'I feel different here,' he said, not really understanding his feelings. 'Like I've left Harry the wide-boy down the road somewhere.'
'That's good.' She had laughter in her voice, but understanding, too. She shut the door behind them. 'Are you hungry?'
'Starving.'
'What would you like, then?' She slid her arms round him and buried her face in his neck.
'I'd like around a hundred kisses. I'd like to peel your clothes off slowly while I nibble every last inch of skin, then see how I feel.' He tilted her face up to his.
His lips were hungry, they devoured hers, holding her so close she felt her ribs might cave in with the pressure.
'I was so afraid I would never do this again,' he gasped eventually, loosening his hold on her long enough to look down at her face in wonder. He moved her then, sweeping her over to the bed, his fingers reaching for her zip, lips on her neck, her shoulders and her breasts.
Harry had been a superb lover from the very first time but now there was extra tenderness in each caress. His lips seemed to savour the softness and perfume of her skin, his fingers were intent on giving her the ultimate pleasure. Slowly he peeled off her clothes and his own and lay back on the bed.
His skin had regained its customary golden sheen through sitting in the hospital garden in a wheelchair. Aside from the thick crepe bandage round his thigh there was no evidence of how close he had come to death. He reached out for Tara and pulled her on top of him.
'You'll have to do all the work,' he whispered, running his fingers through her hair. 'Kneeling is beyond me.'
It was heaven just to hold him, to tease him by first allowing him to slip inside her, then moving away. She bent to kiss his neck, his ears and chest, listening to his breathing growing hard and fierce. He rolled with her, playing with her, stroking her, but each time pulling her back on top of him.
'Let me in,' he pleaded with her, holding on to her hips and pulling her down hard on to him.
The expression on his face was one of adoration as his hands reached up to cup her breasts. Watching his pleasure heightened her own, and as she leaned forward to kiss him, passion flared up like sugar tossed on to fire.
'I love you so much.' Harry's voice was hoarse with emotion and Tara moved faster on him, her lips clinging to hi
s.
'I can't hold back any longer,' she heard him gasp, his fingers gripping her buttocks as if afraid she might move away. But even as he spoke she felt her own orgasm erupt within her, making her scream out his name and clutch his shoulders as a wild and thrilling sensation overtook her.
'Oh, Tara,' she heard him whisper against her neck. 'That was so beautiful.'
She leaned back a little to look at him and her heart swelled up with love. 'I can't believe that I can feel such love, so much tenderness. It's like being reborn, all clean and shiny.'
As they lay cuddled together voices drifted through the open windows to them from the street.
'I hope they didn't hear us,' Tara murmured. 'It's so decadent making love at midday, we should be ashamed of ourselves.'
'This is the best feeling ever.' Harry turned his face into her breasts and closed his eyes. 'I haven't got to go to work and neither have you. We've got the rest of our lives to be happy together.'
'We can't stay in here forever.' She laughed. 'Someone has to do mundane things like earn money to pay the rent, do the shopping and go to the launderette.'
'Don't be practical today,' he urged her, nuzzling again at her breasts. 'We can feast on each other, we don't have to wear clothes, we can even telephone for a carry-out.'
'That sounds pretty good,' she whispered. 'Oh, Harry, I love you.'
The doorbell woke them.
'Who on earth's that?' Tara asked, looking at her watch. It was almost five. They had eaten sandwiches and drunk some wine, made love again and then slept. She pulled on a T-shirt and crawled over to the window to peep out.
'Oh, shit, Harry, it's the police,' she whispered. 'What can they want with us now? Shall we pretend we're not here?'
Harry was propped up on the pillows, long hair tousled, his face soft with sleep.
'They'll only come back.' He smiled. 'Besides, we haven't got anything to hide.'
'Speak for yourself!' She hastily pulled her knickers on and jumped into her jeans. 'Are you going to just lie there?'
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