Deadly Obsession

by Nigel May

  Grant’s reasons for heading to Manchester were not entirely unselfish. He’d informed Amy that a casting director for a potential forthcoming American project was currently based in the city and Grant wanted to see him as soon as possible. As he explained to Amy on the train, ‘Me going to him as opposed to him tracking me down will give me considerable kudos when it comes to deciding on leading roles. A casting director will always love you more if they know you’re keen from the off.’ Amy couldn’t fault his logic.

  While Grant headed off to try and advance his acting career across international boundaries, Amy knew where she had to go. She needed to see Tommy Hearn again. Their last meeting had been a merciless one for Amy. She had learnt the truth about Riley and about how Tommy had callously masterminded her losing everything. It would have been his idea to instruct Riley into gaining her signature, handing everything over to Tommy and his hatchet-faced wife Jemima. Everything she cared about, everything she had dreamt of. Everything that was rightfully hers. Amy needed to fight back, needed to be strong. She would not let the likes of Tommy and Jemima destroy her. She had unfinished business with the Hearns and she needed to confront them again. To readjust the balance of power.

  Taking a deep breath, Amy took a pace into the road and headed towards the casino. As she did, a sleek black car screeched to a halt outside it. Instinctively Amy ducked down behind a vehicle on her side of the road. Something was telling her to be careful. An inner sixth sense.

  She was glad she had. She watched as a figure vacated the car, brutally slammed the door and marched into the building. It was Adam Rich and he had a face that was far from happy. In fact, he looked ready to kill.

  29

  Now, 2015

  * * *

  Jemima Hearn had always been a ‘plus one’. She had never really achieved her own identity, she was just the woman who had put up with Tommy’s thuggish, philandering ways, ever since she had caught him cheating on their honeymoon in Greece. Deep down she knew she deserved better, but a vulnerability at her core, something that had always been there since her formative years, made her turn a blind eye. Give up the fight.

  Women in the world she frequented often didn’t seem to have their own identity. They were happy for their ‘men’ to play Mr Big and bring home the bacon. For as long as she had been Mrs Tommy Hearn that was exactly what she was ... just the wife of Tommy Hearn. Not ‘Tommy’s charming wife, Jemima’ with her own interests and friends. People didn’t say of her ‘you’ll never guess what that wonderful Jemima is up to now,’ or ‘isn’t Jemima the most fantastic hostess?’ No, she was just plain old ‘Jemima ... is that her name? ... You know the one, Tommy Hearn’s missus’. The eternal ‘plus one’. If Tommy was invited somewhere then she would be too. But purely as a matter of course. Was she ever invited anywhere due to her own personal popularity? The answer was no. Did people clamour for her sparkling wit and repartee? Equally, no. Jemima was perceived as deeply dull, somewhat wearisome and with the excitement factor of a wet camping weekend.

  How had she let it all change? When she and Tommy had first married she was ecstatic. Her husband was her man, her rock, her better half. But now? To be honest, Jemima wasn’t even sure if she felt vaguely excited by her husband any more. Tommy had become little more than her ‘other half’. The man who had always been there, providing for her so that she could shop when necessary, holiday when necessary, pamper when necessary. Even all of that had become horribly routine. She was supposed to have provided Tommy with children. Wasn’t that what the dutiful wife ought to achieve at least at some point during a marriage? Shouldn’t that have been her end of the matrimonial bargain? But for the Hearns it hadn’t happened. Their sex life was plentiful to begin with. She had loved Tommy with a passion and that passion was ignited nightly between the sheets. But as the years progressed and no offspring appeared, Tommy appeared to lose interest in her. She’d always known he was sewing his oats elsewhere, ever since that first fateful night. Most of the people around him were so who was she to judge? It was part of the machismo world of skulduggery her husband belonged to and something that had always been present in their married life.

  At least Tommy had never kept anything about his professional life from her. She had always known about Riley’s line of business and his father’s before him. They were corrupt, as was Tommy. She had no worries about that, it provided her with the money she needed and meant she never had to work. Quite why Riley had deemed it necessary to keep the truth from Amy was beyond Jemima. She was happy enough to spend his money and reap the rewards, so sheltering her from the truth seemed ridiculous. She found the girl naive and beyond stupid. She was never cut out to be a gangster’s wife. Believing the cover of the plastics factory – how bloody idiotic was she? Still, she’d paid the price for her own stupidity. She’d lost her business, lost her home and lost her husband. The first two she deserved. She’d come from nothing, she could go back there as far as Jemima was concerned. But losing the man you loved, that was tough. Nothing prepared you for the heartache of that. That moment when the man you shared so much with is taken from you, so heartlessly and abruptly. No, nobody deserved hearing the sound of their own heart shatter into a million fragments of misery. Jemima knew that, because it had happened to her.

  People thought Jemima was a hard bitch. She could understand why. Her lack of confidence in her own self-worth had often translated into an icy silence that many took for rudeness. The deep, carved wrinkles on her aging face gave her an acidic, pinched look. Her grey hair, harshly scraped back off her face into a bun, aged her before her time. Tommy moaned at her all the time to dye it, or have it styled at one of Manchester’s top salons. Occasionally she did and Tommy would momentarily reward her with a ‘you look nice, dear’ but a few weeks later and the grey was back with gusto. She didn’t really blame Tommy if he was fucking around elsewhere. She didn’t particularly find herself sexy so why should he? Tommy didn’t make her feel sexy anymore. That part of her life was over, or at least she had thought it was. Which is why she’d been so surprised when someone had come along to fan the inner flames of her sexual desire once again.

  She hadn’t meant it to happen. Never thought it could. Things like that didn’t happen to women like her. But it had. From the moment Jemima had laid eyes on him something inside her had burst into spontaneous, glorious flames. Her heart seemed to beat stronger within the confines of her own rib cage. Her mind seemed to spiral with the delight of dark, lascivious thoughts and suddenly, more importantly, she felt as if she were more than just ‘somebody else’s wife’. Tommy was still good for the money, for the kudos, for the companionship, but any spark of love between them had certainly died for good the moment Jemima set eyes on Winston Curtis. And more to the point, the moment he had laid eyes on her. The attraction was mutual and the timing had been perfect. Jemima was looking the best she had in ages thanks to a salon visit and a pampering session that had been forced upon her by Caitlyn Rich. Caitlyn had been offered two complimentary passes for a new treatment spa that had popped up just outside Manchester and as she was one of the few people who actually had any time for Jemima, invited her along.

  When Jemima Hearn met Winston Curtis for the first time, her hair was slick, her skin was freshly buffed and her confidence was higher than it had ever been, even if that was just above zero. For the first time ever Jemima embarked on an affair.

  Their tryst had continued right up until that awful night he had died alongside Riley in The Kitty Kat. Jemima had been there to witness it – her beautiful lover’s body lifeless and bloodied in front of her eyes. Never again would she feel the fullness of his lips against hers or the hardness of his body during their love-making.

  She had watched Winston die. The man who had made her feel so much more than a ‘plus one’. Sometimes she wondered if Tommy had been behind Winston’s death. Maybe he had found out about their love. It was a frightening thought. The murky truth in life sometimes had a strange way of ris
ing to the surface without any definite reason. Jemima had told no-one, maybe Winston had ... she would never know. She could hardly ask Tommy. She would just carry on playing the dutiful wife, maybe until the end of her days. It was what she did. Her role in life.

  But it was so hard. It’s hard to pretend you love somebody when you don’t, but it is even harder to pretend that you don’t love someone when you really do. She had loved Winston Curtis, right up until the moment his life was snuffed out. She had no doubt that Amy Hart had loved Riley and that the agony of watching him die was just as horrific. She could respect her for that. But at least she was able to openly mourn him. Tell the world about what a supposedly great man he was. She had that luxury. Jemima had been forced to mourn in silence. She hadn’t even attended Winston's funeral because Tommy didn’t want to go. What was it he said? ‘He was nothing more than a bloody right-hand-Johnny for Riley and he’s no loss.’ To Jemima he was so much more, he was the man who had made her feel alive again. And now he was dead.

  Amy Hart could tell everyone on the planet how much she loved her man. Amy Hart didn’t know how lucky she was. And that was something that Jemima hated her for.

  30

  Now, 2015

  * * *

  Adam angrily pushed his way through the gaggle of gamblers playing the machines at the Dirty Cash and headed straight to Tommy’s office. The door was closed but Adam didn’t bother knocking and marched directly in.

  ‘We need to fucking talk. This could get out of hand if we don’t put a stop to it now.’ The veins on his temples were raised and pulsating with blood as he spoke. ‘I won’t let anything come back to bite me on the backside, especially not some two-bit wisp of a widow, you hear me ...?’

  Tommy Hearn stopped what he was doing, placed his pen on the desk in front of him and leant back in his leather chair to look at Adam. He was not smiling.

  ‘Do you have to come charging in here like some rabid dog from the streets of New Delhi? Christ, man, I could have been having an important meeting in here or something.’

  Adam moved close to the desk and forcefully banged one of his fists down on the wood surface. ‘So fucking what, Tommy? Nothing's more important than this. Lily tells me Amy Hart is sniffing around and to add insult to injury I now find out my own daughter was getting a good rogering from Riley. If the bastard wasn’t already dead, I’d be tempted to kill the randy little fucker myself!’

  ‘Oh that,’ Tommy was nonplussed. ‘None of us are exactly famed for keeping our dicks in our pants, are we? Jemima’s good for many things but sex isn’t one of them anymore.’

  Tommy continued. ‘Surely even a meathead like you knows that Riley Hart was a man pretty much governed by his cock. Your daughter’s no angel, so what ... she didn’t get up the duff did she, so what’s the problem?’

  ‘The problem is that little cunt could cause me all sorts of trouble from beyond the grave if he isn’t dead. And yes, I know that’s a contradiction in terms before you get smart with me. Some things need to stay hidden. She can’t find out anything. Even if he is actually dead but Amy gets wind of what went on I could be history around here. You and I may not see eye to eye on a lot of things, Hearn, but you have to agree with me on this. Our secret can’t get out. If I go down I swear I’ll take you with me.’

  ‘Care for a drink?’ Tommy calmly pulled open one of his desk drawers and reached inside for a bottle of brandy and two glasses. ‘It sounds like you could do with de-stressing a bit. You’ll be sending your blood pressure through the roof and at your age that’s never wise.’ He didn’t wait for an answer before starting to pour.

  ‘Don’t be smart with me, Hearn. This was your mess, you owe me ... you need to make sure this stays buried.’

  ‘It’ll stay ... er, buried. And that’s the operative word, is it not ...? Now, cheers.’

  31

  Then, 1980s

  * * *

  Tommy Hearn had adored Riley’s father, Cazwell Hart. Working for him was the ultimate dream. Growing up as a lad in one of Manchester’s roughest areas, a young Tommy had spent his youth constantly breaking the law. Mugging, shoplifting, nicking cars ... if there was a petty crime that he could attempt then he would. He thrived on the danger, he loved the feeling of power it gave him and he filled with joy at the thought of getting away with whatever he could. School was pointless, a place for wankers interested in test tubes and equations. Tommy wanted his education on the streets and that was indeed where he and his group of sorry-assed, raggy-clothed mates learnt about life.

  Kids at the time idolised the likes of Prince, George Michael and Sting, but Tommy had no interest in the hip-thrusting, girl-pleasing ways of the musical stars. His heroes were the darker, more sinister names he heard whispered on the street. The ones people feared, the ones linked to fights and urban rivalries across the city, the ones said to be responsible for people disappearing for good. One of those names was Cazwell Hart. He was spoken of like an enigma, someone whom people had heard of but nobody really knew. Talked of but never seen. Like the Santa Claus of the gangster world. But this ‘Santa’ was not about giving ... far from it ... Cazwell was said to be all about taking ... taking lives. If someone stepped out of line and needed sorting, then rumour had it that Cazwell was the man sealing the deal. If a gangster could be placed on a pedestal then Cazwell Hart was the man who seemed permanently rooted to it.

  Tommy would spend hours every day running the streets with his mates, avoiding the long arm of the law, lapping up tales of how Cazwell and his team of henchmen had successfully undertaken another job. Bodies were found in rivers, offices were mysteriously burnt to the ground, people beaten up to within an inch of their lives ... shit happened but it never stuck to Cazwell. If his name was linked to a crime, somehow he always managed to prevent that connection going any further. Links would be made verbally but hard evidence would be impossible to detect. Cazwell and those around him were obviously masters of their own universe. A universe where there were no laws, no authority and no comebacks. Tommy dreamt of being part of it.

  His chance came when he was the tender age of sixteen. Underage drinking in his local boozer, he’d been rolling a cigarette in the beer garden when a man approached him asking him if he knew anywhere he could lay his hands on ‘a decent weapon to do a touch of business’. Without batting an eyelid, Tommy had told the man to come back an hour later. Sixty minutes passed and Tommy handed over a gun, wrapped inside a rag cloth ‘so there’s none of my fingerprints on it’ and demanded a ‘good rate’ for supplying the stranger with a dangerous weapon. He’d asked no questions as to why the man wanted the gun and no mention was made of where it had come from. Tommy had stolen it when he’d broken into someone’s house a few months earlier. His sense of survival had told him that one day it would come in useful. The man, part of Cazwell’s gang, was impressed. Word had travelled that there was a young, eager to please upstart on the streets, and Cazwell Hart was keen to take him into his fold. Tommy was elated and by his seventeenth birthday he was working full-time for Cazwell, one of the gang, ready to learn the ropes and if instructed wrap them around somebody’s neck until the colour drained from their cheeks. The enigma had become a reality. Cazwell Hart was his boss and Tommy would be loyal to him forever.

  He was, until the day Cazwell died. By that time Tommy was his number two and proud to be the sidekick of his very own gangster god. He had cried for days when Cazwell died, for once allowing his softer side to flow freely. There was a part of him that had expected to take the reins of Cazwell’s empire, but of course, it was not to be. Cazwell’s only child, Riley, stepped up to the mark and Tommy stayed as number two. Tommy had made a great living through Cazwell and had been left a considerable chunk of money in his will. It was this money that had allowed Tommy to bail out Riley every time he made a wrong decision.

  Tommy had never been a Riley fan from the start and was happy to watch him make mistakes, even knowingly encouraging them on occasion. Why shou
ldn’t he? Riley wasn’t a patch on his father and in Tommy’s eyes he was never worthy to take on the mantle of Cazwell’s corrupt empire in the first place. Blood related he may have been but that was all that connected him with the late, great Cazwell. Not that those looking on agreed. Riley was seen as a worthy successor, a modern day equal to his father, which was something that galled Tommy terribly. But some strong-bonded sense of loyalty to Cazwell kicked in when Riley finally bit off more than he could chew, which is where Adam Rich came into the equation. And what a complete car-crash of a fuck-up that had turned out to be ...

  32

  Then, 2012

  * * *

  It was mid 2012 when Riley first mooted the idea of opening a nightclub to Tommy.

  ‘Imagine it, Tommy. A place where people could meet, deals could be arranged, jobs could be organised. It would look a lot more legit than people coming to “the factory” all the time. Dad was always saying we should have an incognito HQ for our business.’

  Despite Riley having a point, Tommy’s first reaction had been to scoff in his face. Riley may have been more than capable of finding his way around a firearm but when it came to monetary affairs he was beyond useless at times, and Tommy knew better than anyone that creating a club, especially one that could become a trusted base for the criminals of northern England to frequent, would cost major money. There was no way Riley could fund it.