Duality (4 page)

“Can’t I have any fun anymore? Please don’t tell me sex is out when you’re pregnant too?”

Mikey swallowed hard as all sorts of images involving himself and Jules together ran through his head. “No,” he said in a tight voice.

“Thank God for that.” Her eyes locked with his and they stared at each other in silence, both realising they were completely alone, the dead bodies around them not dousing their mutual ardour in the least.

Mikey was the first to look away, his wedding ring feeling like a weight. “Just don’t do anything rash, that’s all I’m saying. Take some time to think it over and as of now, you’re on light duties only.”

“Light duties? You mean making the coffee and photocopying? Are you seriously relegating me to that?”

“Yes and no argument. I can’t risk a repeat of today.”

“Fine,” she huffed.

The sound of an engine drew their attention to the windows and they saw a large transit van pulling up with Declan in the driver’s seat.

“The clean-up crew’s here,” said Mikey. “Get yourself home and have a bloody good think. Let me know what you want to do.”

“I will.”

“And if you need to talk…”

Her lips twitched with amusement. “You turning into an agony aunt?”

“No but I’m your cousin and your friend.”

She leaned towards him, a sultry smile on her lips. “I think you’re a whole lot more than that,” she whispered in his ear.

The feel of her warm breath on his skin excited him. He smiled back, leaning so close their lips almost touched. “Yes I am and one day I’ll prove it.”

“Promises promises,” she said, straightening up seconds before Declan and three of their men walked in.

Declan stopped, looked around and sighed. “Another bloody mess.”

“Better get to it then,” grinned Mikey. He looked to Jules. “Get yourself home, you need a break.”

“No I don’t.”

He held up his hand. “No arguing. Go home and rest.”

“Fine. See you around Bossman,” she winked.

“Bye Jules,” he said, watching her go, wondering how hard the shit was going to hit the fan over this baby.

Rachel slept in the next morning, not that Ryan could blame her after what she’d gone through the night before. When he came back from dropping the kids off at school and nursery he found her curled up on the couch in her dressing gown cradling a mug of tea.

“How are you feeling?” he said, sitting beside her.

“Okay, just exhausted. Last night really took it out of me. I’m getting too old for all this crap.”

“I don’t believe that for a moment,” he smiled.

She smiled back and took a sip of tea. “Did the kids go into school okay?”

“Fine. Aaron cried a bit when I dropped him off at nursery but he soon cheered up when the teacher told him they were going to be making cupcakes. Sometimes I worry about that boy. So, what do you want to do today?”

“Nothing to be honest, just lounge about here. Ashley’s coming round in an hour to go over last night again.” Detective Inspector Boyle had been a part of the investigation to track down Ryan when he’d been abducted by two serial killers and was a family friend.

“I thought you already did that at the station last night.”

“He’s hoping I’ve remembered more.”

“Have you?”

“No, I don’t think so but I’ve got to go through it all again anyway.” She glanced at the clock. “I’d better get dressed.”

He watched her head upstairs, a worried look on his face. Everything was just settling down after the recent debacle that ended up in Jared Slattery sending a couple of assassins to Devon to kill them in his efforts to take over Manchester, afraid they’d be after revenge if he killed Mikey and Jez. Although they’d easily disposed of the inept assassins it had still been a shock and they’d just been starting to feel safe again. Then a bunch of cowardly, immature little wanks had come along and spoilt it. He dearly hoped he discovered who they were because he would take great pleasure in teaching them a very harsh life lesson.

CHAPTER 4

The first thing Jules did after being dismissed by Mikey was go straight to her doctor’s surgery. After refusing to leave until she’d seen a doctor the harassed receptionist managed to squeeze her onto the end of the morning’s surgery and she was sitting before her doctor, demanding to know why she was pregnant.

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” he said, a balding man in his forties who had been as overwhelmed by the force of Jules’s personality as his receptionist had been. “I’ve never seen your hospital records.”

“Get them then.”

“I’m afraid I can’t, you’re…” He paused to glance at the computer screen. “Thirty seven now. As you were a child when you were admitted those records would have been destroyed on your twenty fifth birthday.”

“Why?” she exclaimed.

“It’s procedure.”

“It’s a bloody stupid procedure.” Realising she was shouting she paused to take a deep breath. “Sorry, this has come as such a shock.”

“I can imagine. Neither do we have any records from a former GP that I could take a look at.”

“There was no former GP. My so-called parents never registered me with one.”

He looked appalled. “What?”

“They weren’t the best parents,” she muttered. “So there’s no way to know how the hospital treated me?”

“Can you remember what your surgeon told you?”

“He never spoke to me directly. All I can remember is waking up in hospital in agony and my mum telling me they’d stitched my insides back together and I’d never be able to have kids.”

“My God, did she say it as coldly as that?”

“Yes. She was a bitch of the first order.”

“Well, either your surgeon was wrong or your mother was. From what you’ve told me of her perhaps she was lying?”

Jules sat bolt upright in her seat. “Of course. She couldn’t have kids. I’m adopted,” she added when he frowned in confusion.

“Oh I see.”

“So she told me that just to make me feel even worse than I already did because, when I was unhappy, she was happy.” She got to her feet. “I’m going to have a word with her.”

“Wait,” he called when she marched to the door. “The baby?”

“Oh yes,” she said, retaking her seat. “So what’s the deal? Am I too old?”

“No. Things are different these days. Women have babies well into their forties and in some cases even older but the risks are higher with women having their first baby in their late thirties.”

“What risks? I want you to tell me straight doc, I need all the information I can get before I make a decision.”

“A decision, about whether or not to continue with the pregnancy?”

She nodded.

“Very well. The risks of miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal mortality are higher, especially if you smoke.”

“I’ve already quit.”

“Wonderful news. When?”

“Today.”

“Oh. There’s also maternal health issues such as raised blood pressure, delivery complications, congenital abnormalities. I take it this wasn’t a planned pregnancy?”

“No it was not.”

“As this is the first time you’ve been to see me I take it you’re in good health?”

“I am, I come from hardy stock,” she glowered at the floor.

“Well that’s a good sign and obviously conception wasn’t an issue for you, which is another. I’m going to assign you a midwife and I want to arrange a scan as soon as possible.”

Her head snapped up. “You think there might be something wrong?”

“There’s nothing to suggest that, other than your age but it’s best to err on the side of caution.” He began to type on his computer then hesitated. “Are you continuing with the pregnancy?”

She sighed, picking at her nails. “Yeah, I think so.”

“In that case I’d like to see you regularly so we can keep a close eye on your overall health.”

She smiled, which came as a surprise to him. “Thank you, you’ve been very kind.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, thinking she should smile more often.

Jules left the surgery and went straight to the nursing home that was caring for her so-called mother. Alice Parker had been put in the home over twenty years ago after Jules had set the family mansion on fire with her in it. Unfortunately the fire brigade had reacted quicker than she’d anticipated so Alice had survived, although she had no semblance of a life anymore. She’d suffered eighty percent burns, her good looks and prized long blond hair destroyed. Now she was just a shrivelled, ugly shell of a woman who merely existed, her hands so badly disfigured she struggled to do even the simplest tasks for herself. Not that she deserved any sympathy, she was an evil paedophile who, along with her husband Leighton, had systematically abused not only Jules but countless other girls. Leighton himself had managed to escape the fire and Jules and her knives too, only for her to recapture him and keep him hostage in his own cage in the cellar of the family home for two years. He was dead now at Mikey’s hands but Alice didn’t know that. She thought he was in hiding because the police suspected him of starting the fire and the only thing that kept her going was the prospect of him one day coming back for her.

Alice was sitting in the huge conservatory at the rear of the care home, slumped to one side in the wheelchair, gazing out at the gardens and koi pond. The home was the best money could buy, luxurious with an excellent treatment programme. Alice and Leighton Parker had been extremely wealthy, not just because they’d sold children to perverts but because they’d also sold drugs to high class clients. Jules now had control of that sizeable fortune plus all their properties. Not that Alice had any choice in the matter, Jules had threatened to tell the police all about her nasty little activities if she hadn’t given her full control. But Jules wasn’t stupid, all that money was still intact, sitting in different bank accounts quietly gaining interest.

Jules turned Alice’s wheelchair to face her then sat in a large, comfortable armchair. She stared into Alice’s discoloured, crinkled face, all traces of the beauty she’d once possessed burnt away by the fire, a few wisps of blond hair still clinging to the bald scalp. Her eyes were still a vibrant blue and they widened when they saw who her visitor was.

“I’ve got some news for you Mother,” began Jules, spitting out the last word sarcastically. Jules wasn’t squeamish, Alice’s appearance had never bothered her before but it did now, she surmised because of the morning sickness.

“Good news?” Alice said hopefully. As well as breaking her body Jules had broken her spirit too.

“I’m not sure yet. I’d call it more surprising news at the moment.”

“Leighton? You’ve found Leighton?”

The memory of Mikey smothering Leighton, a kindness after she’d tried to kill him by poisoning and fucked it up, leaving him in agony, jumped into her mind. “No.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed.

Jules was content to let her continue in her delusion as it stopped her from completely losing her mind and blurting out who had really started that fire. “I’m pregnant.”

Alice’s blue eyes widened, creasing the burn scars, making Jules feel even sicker. “You can’t be.”

“Well obviously I can. I wasn’t even trying, it happened by accident. What I want to know is why you told me I couldn’t have children when I was lying in hospital after Leighton’s bastard friend nearly ripped my insides out.”

“The surgeon said you couldn’t.”

“You fucking liar,” she hissed.

Alice’s blue eyes slid to the floor, unable to look her in the face.

“I knew it,” added Jules.

“I was jealous.”

“Jealous?” Jules leaned forward in her seat, grey eyes narrowing. “I’d just been raped so badly I almost died. What could you possibly be jealous about?”

“It was Leighton, he was overcome with worry about you.”

Jules released a snort. “It was thanks to him I was put in that hospital, he was the one who sold my virginity.”

“You were always special to him Jules, he didn’t know his friend would go that far.”

“He stood there and watched and got a kick out of it.” Every time Jules thought of that moment tears threatened. Up until the age of thirteen, when he’d destroyed her youth, Leighton had been the centre of her universe, she’d loved him like a dad and he’d been nothing but kind to her, he’d spoilt her rotten. But when she became a teenager she’d stopped being a doting daughter and become a commodity instead. The heartbreak she’d felt when she’d been handcuffed to a bed and attacked by the highest bidder for her virginity on her birthday, wracked with pain and fear and screaming for her daddy to help, had never left her.

“He regretted allowing it to go so far,” said Alice. “He started questioning everything we were doing, he was going to bring the whole thing down.”

“Are you seriously expecting me to believe that Leighton felt remorse?”

“He did, when he saw you in your hospital bed recovering from surgery. In that moment he truly loved you, something he’d never really felt for me and I hated you for it. You loved children, you were so good with the others so I knew it would hurt you.”

The ‘others’ referred to the younger children they’d brought in to be raised like commodities as Jules had been. Knowing what their fates were going to be she’d been kind to them, tried to protect them but it had all been in vain.

“It was just another way to hurt me?”

Alice nodded, a tear sliding down her cheek. She could only cry from one eye, the tear ducts of the other eye had been too damaged in the fire. Alice never used to cry, she’d been too cold and cruel but now that she was forced to rely on everyone else for her very survival - and on Jules’s mercy for her stay in this comfortable care home - she cried a lot. “Forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” Jules shook her head and laughed. “You should be asking for forgiveness for a lot more than that. Truth be told, even if you hadn’t told me that lie I still wouldn’t have had kids, not after you and Leighton fucked me up so badly. But now it’s been forced on me.”

“A child is a blessing, not a curse.”

Jules’s countenance turned dark. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Alice looked away, unable to look at Jules when she was seriously angry. She scared her.

“Anyway, I’ve decided to keep it.”

Alice’s smile was more a rictus grimace. “I’m going to be a grandmother?”

“You’re nothing to this child. I won’t even tell them you exist.”

Her smile fell. “Please don’t take this away from me Jules, it’s all I have left.”

“And whose fault’s that? Do you actually think that after everything you did to countless children I’d let you anywhere near mine?”

“I’m not like that now Jules. Look at me, I can’t even move.”

“So you’re saying that if you were physically capable you would go back to your evil old ways?”

“No, I’m not saying that at all.”

“Yes you are. Evil bastards like you don’t change. You will have nothing to do with this child.”

“So you’re going to let Estelle be a grandmother then?” she scoffed.

“No way. Anyway, she’s far away from here now.”

“You mean…”

“No, she’s still alive, just not in the country. Neither of you poisonous bitches will have anything to do with
my
child,” she said, the force of the protectiveness she felt for this baby taking her by surprise. “They won’t have any grandparents because they’re all massively fucked up.”

“The father’s too?”

“His mum’s just as bad as you and Estelle.”

“Who is the father?”

“You really don’t want to know.”

“Then it’s not Jackson Driscoll?”

“No. Life would be much easier if it was.”

“Such a shame. I’ve watched his fights on the telly. He’s beautiful.”

“Yes he is, inside and out, which makes him far too good for me. The father of this baby is just as messed up as me, not that he’s ever going to find out. We’re better off without the lot of you.”

“Please Jules, just give me a chance. I will love this child like they’re my own.”

“You were supposed to do that for me and you never did,” said Jules, tears filling her eyes. Angrily she wiped them away. “Bloody hormones.”

“This is my redemption, my chance to prove I’ve changed. Please,” she pressed, reaching out for her hand.

Jules grimaced when her leathery skin touched her own. “Get off me,” she said, slapping her hand away. “You don’t ever touch me again. I thought we’d got that rule straight years ago.”

“Sorry, I’m just so happy for you. Please let me be a part of your life. I can help.”

“I don’t want your help. I don’t want your toxic paedo presence anywhere near me or my baby.”

“Then why tell me?” she exclaimed, tears flowing freely from her good eye.

“I just wanted to find out the truth about what you told me when I was in hospital,” she said, getting to her feet. “It only confirms what a demon you are.”

“Don’t go, please,” she wailed.