Hidden Heart (Love Is The Law 1) (15 page)

"Mum…"

Emily smiled warmly at the thin
woman. She had Turner's eyes but dry skin, and a face that was red and round,
in contrast to her bony body. "Hello, Mrs Turner."

"Ahh, mum, this is Emily.
Emily, this is my mum."

"Call me Pearl."

"What a lovely name!"

"Thank you. It's a bit old
fashioned but at least people remember me." She turned to Turner. "Is
this the journalist you've been telling me about?"

Emily raised her eyebrow at Turner's
discomfort. "Uh, yeah. Sorry, did we wake you?"

"I can't sleep. I'm going to
sit downstairs for a bit and watch telly with the boys. Why don't you get off,
Turner? Take Emily somewhere nice, perhaps."

They stared at each other,
awkward rabbits caught in headlights. Emily nodded ever so slightly.
We may
as well take this conversation outside, because pretty soon it's going to get
messy.

Turner nodded back. "Okay,
if you're sure. I've got my mobile on me. Call if you need me."

"Go on, go on. Elaine will
be home soon."

"How bloody long does it
take to get her nails done?" he joked.

Mrs Turner blinked. "She had
about five people booked in to see."

"What?"

"At college. She's not
having her nails done, Turner. She's training to be a nail technician. The college
runs these weekend sessions as part of her course, where people can go and have
cheap beauty stuff done by the students. Students, like she is."

Emily was amused to see that
Turner looked embarrassed. "God, I didn't even realise."

He was still muttering as they
left the house and walked out into the drab street, leaving the cups of tea
undrunk on the countertop. "She was talking about getting a job," he
said, almost to himself. "Well, damn me."

"Good for her." Emily
walked briskly to a small grassy area, fenced off and plastered with signs
forbidding ball games, dog walking, golf and horse riding. There was a small
set of swings, and she tentatively sat on a twisted plastic seat, wrapping her
arms around the rusty chains. Turner stood by the supporting frame, watching
her.

She swung slowly back and forth,
letting the rhythm keep her calm. "So what about you, Turner? All that
shit about jobs and stuff? About going straight? The only reason I came over
was to see if you had the balls to tell me the truth."

"I lied."

His words hung in the air. They
were a challenge, not a confession. Emily pushed higher on the swing, feeling
the lurch of her stomach take her back to childhood moments in her memory.
"Why?" she asked, asking the unanswerable.

"My family needs me. You
know about my mum, now. You've seen the boys, and you've met their waste of
space father, Riggers. The boys start school soon and they need things that the
benefits Elaine gets won't cover. My mum's on benefits, too, and it's not
enough. I want her to have nice food, nice things, especially if she… doesn't
have long. Instead, they are scraping by from day to day."

She opened her mouth to say
something, but he interrupted her straight away. "Don't tell me I should
have got a job. Fuck knows, I have tried, and there are things happening.
Labouring work, anything. I am not proud. But Riggers caught me at a low time
and I found myself agreeing to do this one last thing.
One last thing.
That's why I walked away from your flat that night, because I knew then that I
had this final thing to do, and it wasn't right on you. But I couldn't stay
away from you. Anyway, it should bring in enough money to sort the lads out for
school and treat my mum. I want to give her and Elaine a holiday. And I want
Elaine to have some money so that she doesn't have to be at the beck and call
of that shithead."

"For a start, I know I've
never met Elaine but you need to understand she can make her own
decisions."

Turner flexed his hands. "
You
don't understand. She feels beholden to him. He's the father of her kids,
and she needs his maintenance money."

"That's between her and him.
You can't force her into anything and however much of a dick Riggers is, you
can't interfere."

"She's family. She's my
sister. Of course I can interfere if it's for her own good."

Emily stared at him,
open-mouthed, the swing coming to a slow stop. "I cannot believe you have
just said that. In this day and age! Christ, Turner, take a look at yourself.
Family loyalty is all well and good, but you sound like some kind of control
freak from Victorian times."

"Your brother would do the
same for you."

"I don't think so."

Turner drew his lips back in a
smile that lacked any humour. "Does
my solicitor
know that
his
sister
has been consorting with a
known and convicted criminal
?"

"Jeez." Emily looked
down at the grass, knowing that Turner was right. Matthew would be furious.
Furious, and disappointed, and that disappointment would be the hardest to
bear.

She also wouldn't put it past him
to send Turner right back to jail, somehow, to get him away from her.

Of course, jail was where Turner
was heading, if his plan went through. She pushed off with her legs again,
sending the swing soaring. "Turner, don't do it. Don't go, tomorrow. Leave
it, walk away."

He walked out in front of her,
and she gasped as she thought she was going to cannon straight into him, but he
reached out and grabbed the chains of the swing as she rose up towards him. The
swing lurched and she hung on to keep her balance as he held her suspended in the
air, her legs either side of his body.

"I can't."

"Why not? Does he have
something on you? Blackmail? What?"

"No, nothing. But I gave my
word, and that means something."

"It means
bullshit
because you told me you were going straight." Her voice rose in indignant
anger. "You think telling the truth to some toad like Riggers is more
honourable than telling the truth to…" but she began to crack, and she
coughed, fighting the tears. His nearness unsettled her. "Telling the
truth to
me
."

He started to look as unsettled
as she felt. "Oh, Emily. No, I suppose not."

"We need to get him locked
up. He's committed other crimes. Can't we just go to the police about
him?"

"What about Elaine, and
Kyle, and Liam?"

"Well it seems to me that
they'd be better off without him."

"Was your dad around when
you grew up?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Well, mine wasn't, and I
miss him and I hate him and I resent him and I probably still love him, every
minute of the day, and I don't want to do that to Kyle and Liam. I can't get
their dad sent down."

"Elaine is getting herself
training, and a job. They've got a good male role model - you. Or at least, you
could be…"

"I'm as bad as
Riggers."

"Only if you go through with
it tomorrow."

He shook his head, and she
thought he was going to let go of the swing. Instead, he grabbed her around the
waist and lifted her down, skipping to one side, still holding her, to avoid
the swing hitting them as it swung back and forth. She had to cling on for
safety, and the bulk of his body made her want to relax into his arms. She
fought her weakness, stiffening her back.

"Go to the police about
him," she urged.

"I can't. Nothing will
stick. But he's got enough on me to send me down."

"Lies?"

"No," he said sadly.
"Other stuff I did, that I've never paid the price for."

Emily cocked her head back,
pulling against the barrier of his arms around her shoulders. She looked him
deep in the eyes. "You know what you have to do, Turner."

* * * *

Emily walked home without looking
left or right. She kept her eyes fixed on a blurry middle distance, ignoring
everything around her. If she focused on anything, she felt she would crumble.

It wasn't until she let her flat
door lock behind her that she allowed herself to fall onto her bed, drag the
covers up around her, and the tears finally come.

Emily forced herself to look
Riggers in the face, and even managed a small, polite smile. He shifted the
four-pack of lager from one hand to the other, pressing forward into her flat
as if he was intending to greet her with a kiss. She stepped back, but Turner
had already inserted a thick arm in front of Riggers with a warning growl.

Turner pushed past Riggers,
staking his claim to Emily's living space, and Riggers had to follow. Emily led
them both into her living room, where she'd tidied away all her work papers and
documents. Even so, Riggers prowled the perimeter, his eyes taking everything
in.

"Sit the fuck down."

A chill went down Emily's spine
at the undercurrent of menace in Turner's voice. Riggers stopped by the window,
and turned to face them. Emily and Turner stood side by side. Turner was large
and looming, dressed in black from head to foot. Emily dithered at his side.
I
wish this wasn't happening. I wish I could stop this.

"Nice place you got
here," Riggers said lightly, glancing back out of the window. It was
already dark outside. Emily would have been curled up in front of the
television, perhaps in her pyjamas, were it not for the two would-be robbers in
her flat.

"Thanks." She flapped
her hands nervously. "Er, can I get anyone a drink?" She took a step
towards the kitchen, but Riggers held up the four-pack.

"Naw, babe, I'm easy,
ta."

She clenched her teeth at the
silly endearment. "Turner?"

"Black coffee please,
Emily.
"

She caught his eye and knew that
he had found "babe" as grating as she did. She fled to the kitchen,
grateful to be out of the way for a brief moment. She didn't want Riggers in
her flat, and the sooner they were both gone, the better.

But it was an interminable forty
minutes that followed. Riggers worked his way through two cans, and insisted on
taking photos as part of his nonsensical plan to have "insurance."
Emily didn't bother protesting, but Turner's face was set and angry. He
couldn't hide his displeasure.

"You're quiet, babe,"
Riggers said as he slurped up the last dregs from his second can of lager, and
crumpled the thin metal in his hand in a sad effort to look hard. "Thought
you'd be plaguing us with questions, you know, like a typical woman."

Emily studied his scrawny neck
and wondered how hard a typical woman would have to squeeze until he passed
out. "I didn't think it was worth asking anything. I don't want to
know."

"Fair do, fair do. It's not
like I'd tell you anything, anyway, innit." He laughed at his own cunning
wit. Emily glanced at her watch, and then back up at him.

He got the hint. "Don't
worry, babe, we'll be off soon. You feeling ready, Turner?"

"Yes. Let's get this over
with."

Riggers stood slowly, and made a
great show of stretching and limbering up. Finally, he moved towards the door.
Turner followed.

She stared at his broad back,
willing him to say something, but he didn't even turn around and look at her
before he left.

The door clicked closed, and she
let out the breath she had been holding. Her fingers were tingling and she sat
down carefully, gathering her thoughts, before pulling herself upright again
and going through to the kitchen to open a bottle of cheap, spicy Shiraz.

* * * *

Turner strode ahead of Riggers,
forcing the spindly man to scurry to keep up. He could feel the old, familiar
thrill begin to course through his body. It was tempered with something new; a
curious emotion he was struggling to identify.

Reluctance, perhaps? Certainly.
Or was it fear?

Turner pushed it aside. Now was
not the time for fear. He shoved his hand into his pocket to press the hired
BMW's key fob, and the orange lights winked as it unlocked.

"Get in." Turner slung
himself into the driver's seat. "And buckle up."

"For god's sake."

"We don't want extra
attention. Throw those cans on the back seat, and get yourself sorted. Let's
get this over with."

Riggers made a whiney show of
clipping the seatbelt firmly home, and felt around under the front seat.

"It's there," Turner
assured him as he fired up the smooth, almost silent engine. "Leave it out
of sight."

"Come on, man, where's your
sense of adventure? Jeez, I think you're going to burst, you're that far up
your own arse."

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Or I
will get that fucking gun and shoot you in the fucking head."

Riggers lapsed into a sullen silence
as the sleek car cruised through the dark streets, carefully at the speed
limit, no more and no less.

It was a few minutes to eleven
when they pulled up at the chosen site. The off-licence was in a busy area, but
things were tailing off. Mondays were quiet, except for hardened drinkers. Just
a few drunks were standing in the doorway, counting their change to scrape
together enough for a bottle of something cheap and vaguely cidery. Turner
parked a little way past the shop, with the driver's side against the pavement.

Riggers reached down and drew out
the package wrapped in a bin-bag. Turner watched out of the corner of his eye
as Riggers' initial look of glee was replaced by confusion as he weighed the
package in his hands, and ran his fingers over the shape.

"What the hell is
this?"

"Have a look."

Tentatively, he peeled back the
plastic. "It's a fucking baseball bat. What are you playing at?"

"Baseball."

"Ha ha. Seriously, man,
where's the gun?"

"We're not using a gun,
because if we're sent down, I don't want a fucking firearms charge adding to
the rap sheet. Do you know how many extra years we'd get for that kind of
shit?"