The Society Of Dirty Hearts (A crime thriller novel)

by Ben Cheetham

  They edged their way along an almost pitch-black hallway and up some stairs to a flat. A finger of sunlight pointed through a partially boarded window, glinting off the scraps of scorched foil strewn over the filthy carpet. In the centre of the floor was a dark, roughly circular stain that might’ve been blood. Somewhere flies buzzed. Julian pulled his t-shirt up over his nose. “It smells like something died in here.”

  “Something probably did,” said Jake, approaching the window.

  Julian squatted next to him and breathed deeply of the air draughting through the cracked glass. From the window they had a clear view of The H-Bomb’s entrance. A long-haired, bearded, tattooed biker, wearing a leather jacket with the words ‘OUTLAWS’ stitched across its back, rolled up on a Harley and knocked at the bar’s door. The door opened, but they couldn’t see who let him in. Jake took out some cigarettes. “Smoke?”

  Julian accepted one, eager to drive the stink of the room from his consciousness. “You think Cookie’s right about Mia?”

  Jake puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette, then shrugged. “When we were like ten or eleven, we got sent to live with this foster family. Nice people. I mean, they really tried to make us feel part of the family. And for a while things were good for us. Y’know, three proper meals a day, presents on our birthdays and at Christmas. We even went on holiday. It was only a week in a crappy caravan in Wales, but it was nice. We had ice-cream on the beach, swam in the sea, all that kind of thing. It was like we were a real family.” Jake’s eyes drifted briefly. “When I think about it now, it’s like I dreamed it or something.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Mia fucked everything up, that’s what.” Jake’s expression grew sour at the memory. “One day our foster parents took us for a picnic by The High Bridge. Mia started acting all weird, doing that staring off into space thing she does. Our foster parents thought she was ill, so we went home. And when we got there she just went nuts. Started smashing everything up. She smashed the TV and a load of ornaments. Then she locked herself in the bathroom, and when there was nothing but herself left to wreck in there, she slashed herself up with broken glass. She was out cold from loss of blood by the time the coppers got there and broke in the door. She was in hospital for ages and when she got better she refused to go back to live with our foster parents. I tried to tell her it wasn’t their fault, they hadn’t been told about what happened to our mum, but she wouldn’t listen. So we ended up back in the children’s home ’cos they wouldn’t split us up. And just look how that worked out for us.” Jake fell silent, shaking his head.

  “What about Mia’s latest foster family. Did you live with them too?”

  “Yeah, for about a month, until I got caught joyriding.”

  “What did you think of her foster dad?”

  “Mr Aldridge, he’s alright, bit of a toucher.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Y’know, he likes to get in your space, put his hands on you.”

  “What, like in a sexual way?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he’s just friendly.”

  “He didn’t seem very friendly to me,” muttered Julian, lapsing into a frowning silence. As he watched several more bikers roll up to The H-Bomb, shuddering at the thought of it, he said, “You don’t think Mr Aldridge ever did anything to Mia, do you?”

  Jake snorted. “If you knew Mia like I do, you wouldn’t need to ask that. When you grow up in children’s homes, you have to learn how to look after yourself. If that fucker tried anything on with her, she’d have torn his dick off.”

  They watched in silence for a while. Jake took out a penknife with a six-inch blade and dug at the rotten window-frame with it. “What’s that for?” Julian asked uneasily.

  “Protection. I told you junkies use this place.”

  A thought occurred to Julian. “What if this Ginger is the woman I saw, what then?”

  “We get her to tell us where she went with Mia.”

  “And what if she won’t?”

  Jake pushed the blade deeper into the wood. “She will, I’ll make fuckin’ sure of that.”

  Not liking the sound of that, Julian frowned. “Don’t you think it’d be a better idea to call the police, let them deal with her?”

  Jake looked at Julian, that animal light in his eyes again. “Thought you said you cared about Mia.”

  “I do, that’s why-”

  “No fuckin’ coppers,” cut in Jake. “We do this ourselves, right?”

  Julian returned his stare a moment, then blinked and said, “Okay.” In his mind, he saw Jake holding the knife to the woman’s throat. It gave him a queer sliding feeling in his stomach, a feeling of fear mixed with excitement. He took a deep breath, like someone about to dive into deep water.

  The day wore on into the afternoon and beyond. They smoked the last of the cigarettes. They didn’t talk much. They had little or nothing in common except Mia, and they’d said all they needed to say about her for the moment. The squalor of the room made Julian feel oppressed, claustrophobic. He could feel the stink in his nostrils, on his skin. A sense of panic, a need to get out of there grew in him as darkness closed on the street. He stood suddenly, heaving a breath. “How much longer are we going to have to wait in his shit-hole?”

  “I was here four days before that bitch showed up,” said Jake.

  “Fuck, how did you stand it?”

  Jake shrugged. “It’s just a place. Places can’t hurt you, if there’s no the people in them.”

  Feeling somewhat spineless, and a little ashamed, Julian squatted down again. Heavy rock music was thumping out of The H-Bomb now. Groups of bikers were gathered in front it, smoking and drinking. “Those are some serious looking dudes,” said Julian.

  Jake gave a contemptuous grunt. Julian started to say something else, but Jake shushed him and pointed. “There she is.”

  A woman in biker’s leathers stepped out the door framed by the light within. Julian craned his neck, squinting. The woman in the car had worn her hair up, but Ginger’s hair was down and spread over her shoulders, so that it was difficult to make out her face. “Is it her?” Jake asked.

  “I-” Julian broke off with an intake of breath as Ginger moved forward into the glow of a street-light. “Yes, it’s her.” His tone was one of slight disbelief. Somehow he’d never expected it to really be her. But it was, and now the sliding feeling was back, stronger than before.

  Jake sprang up. “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where do you think? We’re gonna follow the bitch.”

  Chapter 17

  Julian stumbled after Jake through the reeking darkness to the car. Relieved to find it still there and in one piece, he started the engine and pulled around to the street in time to see Ginger climb onto the back of a motorbike. The guy in front of her had the bloated body of a weightlifter gone to seed. He looked, to Julian, like he could’ve effortlessly picked up him and Jake, one in each of his hands, and cracked their heads together. They followed the motorbike to a street in which hardly any of the houses had all their doors and windows intact. Ginger and the man went into one of the houses. A light came on in the downstairs window.

  “What now?” asked Julian.

  “We wait,” said Jake, rocking in his seat, too ramped up to stay still, his eyes wide and glinting.

  Ten minutes passed, twenty. The biker reappeared, mounted up and roared away. Jake got out of the car. Somewhat reluctantly, Julian followed. With each step, he had the sense that he was drawing closer to some invisible edge. You should stop this now, he thought. But he didn’t stop it. As they neared the front door, Jake pointed around the side of the house, whispering, “Stay out of sight while I talk to her.”

  Jake knocked at the door. Peeping around the corner, Julian could see his hand fidgeting at something – no doubt, the knife – inside his jacket. He passed his tongue over his suddenly dry lips. “Who is it?” a female voice asked through the door – this wasn’t the kind
of neighbourhood where you opened your door after dark without knowing who was knocking.

  “Jake Bradshaw.”

  “What do you want?”

  “It’s about my sister?”

  There was a pause, then the click of a lock and the squeak of a door opening. “What about her?”

  “I just wondered if you’d seen her in the past few weeks.”

  “No I haven’t.” The reply was spoken without hesitation, as if Ginger had been ready with it before the question was even asked.

  “You sure you haven’t seen her?”

  “I just said so, didn’t I? Is that all?”

  “Yeah, unless you wanna suck my cock.”

  “What? Is that some kind of joke?”

  “Nah, seriously, I’ve got twenty quid here. That’s the going rate, isn’t it?”

  “Piss off, you filthy little shit,” retorted Ginger, starting to close the door.

  Jake shoved his foot between the door and the frame. He grinned as Ginger tried unsuccessfully to kick it out of the way. “That’s it, baby, I like it when you get rough.”

  “I’m fuckin’ warning you,” yelled Ginger.

  In response, Jake drew his hand out of his jacket. He wasn’t holding the knife, as Julian had feared. Instead, he gripped a crowbar. “Don’t, Jake,” cried Julian, springing forward. But he was too late. Jake brought the crowbar down with bone-breaking force on Ginger’s hand that held the door. She reeled backward onto the floorboards, crying out.

  Jake loomed over her, brandishing the crowbar. “Where’s my fuckin’ sister?”

  “Jesus, Jake, there was no need for that,” said Julian, his heart pounding in his voice.

  “This bitch lied to me. Now she’s gonna open up and tell the truth, or I’m gonna open her fuckin’ head.”

  Ginger’s eyes flicked between Jake and Julian, wide with pain and anger. “You’re crazy,” she groaned. “When Bull finds out about this, he’ll kill you.”

  Jake’s lips curled into a sneer. “Ooh, I’m shaking.”

  “You will be when he gets hold of you.”

  Jake snorted. “That fat fuck couldn’t shift his arse fast enough to catch a snail, never mind me.”

  “Maybe, but you won’t be able to outrun all The Outlaws.”

  “Fuck The Outlaws. Bunch of bearded old cunts tossing each other off in their clubhouse.” Jake jabbed at Ginger with the crowbar. “Besides, if you don’t tell me what you were doin’ in a car with Mia and some guy the night she went missing, you won’t be in no state to tell nobody nothin’, you get me?”

  Ginger blinked at the mention of the car, the anger in her face shading to a kind of hesitating fear. She looked at Julian. “You’d better tell your friend to back off, before he goes too far.”

  Julian spread his hands helplessly, as if to say, sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. He returned Ginger’s gaze in a mute appeal for her to tell Jake what he wanted to know. “Right, you’ve got five seconds,” said Jake. “Then I start breaking bones. One…two-”

  “Don’t make me laugh. Run away, little boy, while you still can,” said Ginger, grinning up at him. But it was bravado, and they all knew it.

  “Three…four-”

  Ginger raised her uninjured hand. “Okay, okay.” She heaved a quivering breath. “Yeah, I was with Mia that night. But how could you know that unless you’ve spoken to her since then?”

  “That don’t matter. You just tell me why.”

  “We were on the job.”

  “Do you mean like prostitutes?” said Julian.

  “No, I mean like Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Ginger retorted sarcastically.

  Julian wasn’t surprised, of course. He’d guessed it all along. But even so, without him being aware of it, some tiny part of him had clung to the hope that he was wrong. Sadness clouded his eyes – sadness and something else, something which frightened him like a face leering out from a nightmare. “Where did you take Mia?” His voice was tight and trembling.

  “I didn’t take her anywhere. The client’s driver picked us up and took us to his house. We did the job and left.”

  “So Mia was fine when you left her.”

  “Yeah.” There was something not quite convincing about Ginger’s tone. Julian heard it, and Jake did too. Jake made a threatening movement with the crowbar, prompting Ginger to go on, “Well, she was a bit quiet. You know, kind of faraway. But then she was always like that after we did a job.”

  “You mean this wasn’t the first time.”

  “No. I’d done a few jobs with her and Jo before.”

  “Joanne Butcher?”

  Ginger nodded. “I hadn’t seen Mia for months. Then, after Jo died, she came to see me, said she needed money. So I set the job up.”

  “Did she say what for?”

  “No. Probably for junk.”

  “My sister wasn’t no junkie,” snapped Jake, his face contracting into a scowl.

  “Okay fine, she wasn’t a junkie, but she needed money for something.”

  “Yeah, probably to get the fuck out of this town.”

  “Well whatever. We did the job, she went her way and I went mine, and that’s all there is to tell.”

  “Who was the client?” asked Julian.

  Ginger made no reply, her lips compressing.

  “Who was the fuckin’ client?” said Jake.

  “Just some guy,” said Ginger. “What does it matter?”

  Anger flashed up inside Julian like oil in a frying-pan flaring to flame. He snatched the crowbar off Jake and shoved it into Ginger’s stomach hard enough to force her breath out in a hiss. She tried to push him away, but he caught hold of her hand. “There’s a girl missing. Maybe dead. Maybe runaway. Maybe imprisoned somewhere. So you’re gonna tell us who this fucker is, understand?”

  “I dunno his name,” gasped Ginger. “He calls himself Mr X.”

  “Mr X?” Julian repeated incredulously. “You’re lying again.”

  “It’s the truth. Look, this guy comes to me, says he wants me to keep an eye out for girls like…well, girls like Jo and Mia. What makes you think a guy like that would want me to know his name?”

  “You know where he lives, though.”

  “Yeah, but like I said, Mr X didn’t do nothing to Mia.”

  Julian stared into Ginger’s eyes, darkly. “Yes he did. And you’re gonna take us to his house.”

  “Trust me, you really don’t want to go there.”

  “Trust you,” said Jake, with something between a laugh and a snarl. “That’s a good one.”

  Ginger’s gaze transferred to Jake, and Julian was surprised to glimpse beneath the hard-bitten mask of her face a glimmer of what might’ve been concern. “Leave now and I promise I won’t tell anyone about this.”

  “We’re leaving alright, but you’re coming with us.” Jake took a length of rough brown rope from inside his jacket. He tied Ginger’s hands, taking no care to be gentle with her injured hand. Then he took back the crowbar and said to Julian, “Fetch the car.”

  Julian sprinted to the car. His hands were shaking so badly he fumbled the keys twice before managing to slide them into the ignition. He parked in the driveway, keeping the motor running. Jake emerged from the house, leading Ginger by the arm. He’d put away the crowbar and the knife glinted in his hand, the point of its blade touching Ginger’s side. They got into the backseat. “Which way?” asked Jake. Ginger said nothing. He pushed the blade a little harder against her and, with an intake of breath, she pointed wordlessly.

  Julian followed her finger across town, heading south. Ginger leant forward and spoke in his ear. “You can still stop this before it’s too late,” she said, echoing his thoughts.

  “No one’s stopping anything,” hissed Jake.

  “This guy, Mr X, he’s not someone you want to mess with.”

  “Neither am I.”

  Ginger shot Jake a mocking glance. “Oh I know all about you, Jake Bradshaw. Thug, petty thief, loser.”

 
; “At least I’m not a whore.”

  “Unlike your sister.”

  With a lurking light of violence in his wet, black wolf’s eyes, Jake yanked Ginger backward. “Do you fuckin’ want me to stick this blade in you, or what?”

  “Go on then, do it.” There was a sneering undertone of laughter in Ginger’s voice.

  “I will if you don’t shut your fuckin’ gob.”

  “You haven’t got the balls. I know your type. I’ve known you all my life. You’re a nothing. A lost little boy trying to cover up how shit-scared he is with a lot of big talk.”

  Jake’s lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl. “Fuck you! Fucking whore-bitch! Fucking slut!”

  As Jake spat the stream of obscenities at Ginger, an image rose into Julian’s mind of his Grandma Alice’s possessed face – the bulging, hate-filled eyes, the flaring nostrils, the sneering grin. Chest constricting as if in a vice, he pulled over and jerked around to glare at Ginger and Jake. “Fucking enough! Both of you,” he managed to squeeze out.

  Ginger gave Julian a weighing-up look. “Now you, you’re no born loser. You come from money, don’t you? I can tell. I should be able to. I’ve fucked enough of your kind in my time. What I can’t work out is who you are and what you’re doing here.”

  “I’m a friend of Mia’s.”

  “So how come I’ve never seen you with her?”

  “I’ve only known her a few weeks.”

  “Then you’re not her friend. Kids like her don’t make friends easy. Especially not with people like you.” She narrowed her eyes. “No, you’re something else. You look like a nice boy, but there’s something about you – your voice, or your eyes, or something…”

  Julian’s fingers dug into the headrest, his eyes jumping around in a quick, jittery way. “There it is again,” said Ginger. “It’s in the eyes. Can’t you see it, Jake?”

  “I dunno what you’re on about,” muttered Jake. He frowned at Julian. “Do you know what she’s on about?”

  Julian shook his head. He couldn’t speak. The car seemed airless. “Course he knows,” said Ginger. “That fucker’s got shifty eyes. Like he’s got something to hide.”