The Society Of Dirty Hearts (27 page)

“How could you do such a thing?”

“It was just one time. I let
it
get the better of me one time. I’ve hated myself for it ever since.”

“Liar! If you hated yourself for it, why did you abandon your children?” As Robert jerked his gaze up in horrified astonishment, Julian continued, “That’s right, I know about Mia and Jake. I told you, I know everything.”

“Did
he
tell you about them?” Robert said the word ‘he’ with trembling hate in his voice. 

“No. I worked that one out all by myself. How could you do it to them? How could you let them grow up like that?”

“I did it for you and your mother.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Julian spoke through clenched teeth. “Don’t you dare try to use us as an excuse.”

“What else was I supposed to do? I would’ve lost everything over two children I couldn’t even be sure were mine.”

“You fucking weasel!” The force of Julian’s words took even him by surprise. “You knew. You fucking knew they were yours!”

“Please, Julian, try to understand. I worked so hard for what I had. I couldn’t just throw that away.” Robert gave a hopeless shake of his head. “But how can you understand? You’ve never known a day’s want in all your life.”

“So it was about money.”

“It was about protecting what I love. I love you, Julian.”

The words – words Julian had waited all his life to hear – sliced through the hard, blackened lump that was his heart. “Don’t,” he said, his voice thickening and hoarse. “You’ve got no right to say that to me. Not now.”

“If I’d acknowledged those children, who would it have benefited?” Robert pressed on, sensing his son’s weakness. “Nobody. My marriage would’ve been over. My business ruined. I wouldn’t have been able to give them or you any kind of life. So I made a choice. And every day since, I’ve lived with that choice.”

“Yes, you’ve lived with it. But Deborah Bradshaw couldn’t. She died because of your choice, indirectly or directly.”

“What are you suggesting?” A fresh wave of disbelief swept over Robert’s face. “Christ, are you suggesting I murdered her? Do you really think me capable of such a thing?”

“I don’t know what
it’s
capable of.”

At the mention of
it,
Robert lowered his eyes again as if to hide what was behind them. “I may be a fucking bastard, Julian, but I’m not a monster.”

“How can I believe you?”

“Because I’m your father and I’ve never lied to you.”

Julian shook his head, incredulous. “No, you’ve never lied to me, but you’ve never told me the truth either.”

“I know what I’ve done is unforgivable. So I’m not going to ask for your forgiveness, Julian. But I am asking you to spare your mum. She’s been through so much already. This would finish her off.”

“Maybe that’d be for the best.”

Robert shifted his gaze back to Julian, eyes glazed with shock. “How can you say such a thing?”

“You’ve made her life a lie, and I’m not sure I can bear the thought of her living that life any longer.”

“You don’t mean that, Julian. You’re upset. Not thinking straight.”

“I’m thinking perfectly straight, for perhaps the first time in my life. You’re the embodiment of everything she hates.” Julian winced with revulsion. “The thought of you touching her, kissing her, it makes me want to puke.”

Face twitching, Robert wrung his hands. For a second, Julian thought his dad was going to fall apart completely, collapse in a heap. But then he took a steadying breath. “Okay, let’s talk about this, see if we can come to some sort of agreement,” he said, putting on his business-face. “I can’t undo what I’ve done, but I can try to put things right as best I can. I’ll give Jake, and Mia if she turns up alive, the life they deserve. I’ll pay for their schooling, find them jobs, whatever it takes. They wouldn’t have to know where the money was coming from. I could go through a third party. It’d be difficult, but it can be arranged.”

“So why didn’t you arrange it years ago, before Mia was driven to prostitution, before Jake became a junkie thief?”

“I’m offering to do it now, aren’t I? Isn’t that enough?”

“Nowhere near.”

“Well, you tell me what you want from me?”

“This isn’t about what I want.”

Robert’s business-face started to slip. Worms of sweat beaded his forehead. “How about this: I’ll go away permanently. I’ll tell your mum I’ve met someone else. She’ll be devastated, but she’ll survive that. I’ll leave everything to you – my savings, the business, everything.”

“That’d just be another lie to add to the list.”

“Yes, but a lie to protect someone we both love.”

“And you get to walk away from all of this, start a new life. No, I don’t think so.”  

“A new life?” Robert let out a ragged, pitiful laugh at the idea. “You and Christine are the only life I’ll ever have. Without you I’m nothing.”

Julian was silent a moment, as if mulling over the offer. “It could work, except-”

“Except fucking what?” exploded Robert, his face changing with the suddenness of a mask falling away. A vein throbbed down the centre of his forehead. His lips twitched. His eyes bulged, the pupils huge and black, the blackness stretching back seemingly deeper than light could penetrate. 

Julian tensed, ready to defend himself if necessary. “Except you could do this again to somebody else.”

“It was just one time. One fucking time,” Robert ranted. “And she wasn’t forced into it. She was well paid.”

“And that excuses it?”

“Of course fucking not, but-” Robert broke off, catching his anger. The vein receded, his pupils shrank. His voice quiet with shame, he continued, “Of course not. Nothing excuses it. And I’d rather die than do it to somebody else.” His eyes filmed with tears. “Is that what you want? Do you want me to jump off the bridge too?”

Julian’s voice softened a fraction. “No, I don’t want that. But like I said, it’s not about what I want. It’s about what Mr X wants.”

“Mr X.” Robert spat the name out as if it tasted impossibly disgusting. “What more can he want from me than he’s already taken?”

“It’s not what he wants from you, it’s what he wants from me.”

Robert scrunched his forehead, perplexed. “You? Why should he want anything from you?”

Julian released a breath that seemed to have been bottled up inside him for years. “You know, I used to wonder why you kept your distance, why you never hugged or kissed me. Now I understand. You were afraid – afraid your touch would infect me with what’s inside you. Well you needn’t have worried.
It
was already in me. Mr X drew
it
out.”

Robert grimaced as if Julian’s words were pins that pierced deep under his skin. They looked at each other, their eyes like open windows. A shock of connection thrilled between them, instantly followed by a shock of realisation – the soul-rending realisation that the thing which had finally, truly brought them together had also torn them apart.

“What did you do?” The question grated from Robert’s lips.

His voice heavy with shame, Julian started to recount what’d happened with Nikki and at Mr X’s house. “Hang on,” cut in Robert. “So you don’t know for sure that you did anything.”

“No, but what about the blood?”

“The blood proves nothing. It might not even have been human.”

“It was.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because of what’s in here and here.” Julian slammed his fist against his chest and head with bruising force. “You see, Dad, I’m a lot like you, but not exactly the same. I have my own dreams and nightmares.”

“What dreams? What nightmares? What are they about?”

“The same thing they’ve always been about. Only now, instead of being attacked, I’m the one doing the attacking.”

Robert shook his head. “You could never do anything like that to anybody. I know you couldn’t.”

“Really. Then you must know me better than I know myself.” A vein of bitter insincerity ran through Julian’s voice.

His fingers whitening on the window-frame, Robert continued to shake his head with increasing vehemence. “He’s bluffing. The bastard’s bluffing.”

“Maybe. But what if he isn’t?”

Robert jutted his face forward, his eyes like knives trying to slice through the fog of Julian’s mind. “Think! Try to remember what happened.”

Julian tried again, vainly. “It’s no good. It’s as if part of my memory has been cut out.”

“Fuck! This can’t be happening. I won’t let it. I won’t let him do to you what he’s done to me.” Tremors of rage and hate shook Robert as he whirled suddenly to head for his car.

Julian stared after him a moment, uncertain whether he should try to stop him, then a surge of concern jolted him out of his seat. Taken aback by the strength of the emotion, he called, “Dad.” Robert looked at him, his forehead knotted, his eyes hard and haunted. Julian felt something like an electric shock shiver through his frame again. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to put an end to this once and for all.”

“You can’t stop him. You’ll just get hurt, and I don’t want that to happen. No matter what you’ve done, you’re still my dad.”

Robert’s eyes softened a shade. An edge of tenderness came into his voice. “He can’t hurt me anymore than he’s done already.” 

“What about…” Julian glanced at the house, finishing the question with his eyes.

Robert exhaled a weary, fatalistic breath. “That’s up to you. I’ve put everything I have on the table. There’s nothing left for me to say, except, well, except I’m sorry. Sorry for all of it. Goodbye, son.”

Chapter 23

Julian watched until his dad’s car was out of sight, before heading towards the house. His step faltered at the front door. His mind felt overloaded, ready to burst. The past, present and possible future paraded relentlessly through it, melting into one another like colours on a prism. He saw his dad on top of Deborah Bradshaw, Mia as she’d looked the last time he saw her, Jake dead with a hypodermic needle in his arm, Joanne Butcher’s bloated corpse, himself on top of Eleanor in the barn. Finally, he saw his mum in hospital hooked up to all sorts of IVs, tubes and machines. You’ve got to hold it together for her, he told himself sharply, she’s going to need you now more than ever.

Julian opened the door. “Where’s my mum?” he asked Wanda, who was dusting in the lounge.

“She’s sleeping. She was up late celebrating the good news.” As Julian started towards his mum’s bedroom, Wanda added, “You’re not going to wake her, are you?”

“I have to talk to her.”

“Can’t it wait?”

Julian shook his head. Without knowing it, his mum had already waited fifteen years to hear what he had to tell her. Every extra second was a second too long. Wasn’t it? Well, wasn’t it? Of course it fucking was! But even with this thought ringing in his mind, his feet dragged into the hallway like he was wading through deep mud.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Wanda said. “Mike Hill phoned.”

Julian turned quickly to her. “When?”

“Several times yesterday and again this morning.”

“Did he say why?”

“No. He just said he wants you to contact him as soon as possible. He mentioned something about Eleanor. I think-”

Before Wanda could finish, Julian had his phone out and was punching in Mike Hill’s number. Mike picked up on the first ring, as if he’d been waiting by the phone. “Is Eleanor okay?” asked Julian.

“That’s what I wanted to ask you. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since she left the house with you the other day.”

Mike’s words drove all thoughts other than thoughts of Eleanor from Julian’s mind. A vision flashed before his eyes of him on top of her, not in the barn, but on the bed at Mr X’s house. Her face was bruised and bloodied, her clothes and throat torn as if by some wild animal. The image staggered him like a punch to the gut. The sound of his breathing filled the line as he tried to work out whether it was the product of memory or imagination.

“I assume from your silence that she’s not with you,” continued Mike.

“No,” Julian answered, the word barely audible.

“I also assume you don’t know where she is?”

Julian shook his head. “He wouldn’t do that.” He wasn’t talking to Mike anymore. He was talking to the inner voice that told him Eleanor hadn’t returned home because Mr X had abducted her.

“Who wouldn’t do what?”

“She’s not some bad girl who might overdose or runaway. He wouldn’t dare go near her.”

“What the hell are you on about?” Mike demanded, his voice swaying between confusion, anger and anxiety. “What’s going on? Julian. Julian…”

Julian didn’t answer because he was running for his car. As he screeched away from the house, he kept repeating to himself in a low, quivering voice, “He wouldn’t dare. He wouldn’t dare.” He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other holding his phone to his ear as it called Eleanor’s mobile. It went through to the answering service. He tried again, and still she didn’t answer. His chant grew louder and faster. “He wouldn’t dare…”

At the end of the road, he didn’t turn for the forest. He turned for the town-centre. Jumping red lights, overtaking wildly, narrowly avoiding oncoming rush-hour traffic, he soon came to the antiques shop. He sprang out of the car, sprinted into the shop and grabbed the mantrap.

“Hey!” shouted the shopkeeper, catching hold of his arm.

Julian elbowed him away and returned to his car. He flung the mantrap onto the backseat and sped back the way he’d come. The driver-side mirror clipped another car and was sheared off. Horns blared. He barely noticed. “He wouldn’t dare…”

The suburbs were behind Julian now, trees passed in a blur. He took the turn for The Old Forest Road so fast that he almost skidded out of control. The speed of the car was nothing, though, compared to the speed with which the image of Eleanor bloodied and torn turned over in his mind. Over and over, looping to feed his doubt, his fear, his rage. “He wouldn’t dare…”

He hit the gravel road without slowing. Stones kicked up, cracking the windscreen. His body was bounced around by the bone-jarring impact of potholes. “He wouldn’t dare…” The car ground up the slope, barrelling around the final corner. The gate came into view. Still he hurtled onwards, arms braced as straight as ramrods, every muscle tensed. “He wouldn’t fucking dare!”