Heartless (23 page)

“No, course I ain’t. What the hell would I want with a fella? I had my bloody fill of them yesterday,” Dolly said, cursing herself for not removing Sophia’s wine glass.

“Is he still here?” Jonathan remembered Dolly coming downstairs when they had got back; she had looked flustered. “You’d better not have been up there fucking some scroat while you were supposed to be looking after my daughter.”

Jonathan made his way to the stairs to investigate. The mood he was in, if he did find some half-clad Casanova up there hiding in a wardrobe then he was going to get great pleasure in kicking the cunt all around the house.

“Honestly, Jono, I ain’t had anyone here I swear. I poured a glass of wine out, and completely forgot I already had one sitting there. And as for the food... well, like I said, I’m starving,” Dolly shouted up the stairs.

Jonathan knew she was lying. Taking the stairs two at a time, he searched Trevor’s room first, checking under the bed and inside the walk-in wardrobe. If the fucker was hiding in here, he may have walked in but he wouldn’t be walking back out. The room was empty.

“Jono, calm the fuck down.” Running into the room, Trevor tried to restrain Jonathan as he smashed the en-suite door off the wall, before he ripped the shower curtain back. There was no one there either.

The only other place the man could be was in Dolly’s room, and if he was then that would mean he was in there with his daughter. If so, Jono would string up the fucker by his balls.

Pushing Trevor away he slowly opened the door, and peered into Dolly’s room. The bedside lamp was on, and to his horror the bed was empty.

“Where the fuck is my daughter?” he bellowed at the top of his voice when he realised that not only was the bed empty but the window was open.

Rosie had gone. Jonathan kicked the chest of drawers and wardrobe that stood side by side: Dolly was in a whole world of shit for this.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Running down the street, Sophia kept stopping to look around in case any of the headlights of the passing traffic belonged to Jonathan. Ducking into yet another front garden, Sophia crouched down behind the hedge as she watched a car pass.

“My daddy isn’t going to be very happy with you,” Rosie said, as she huddled close to Sophia to keep warm. Sophia put her arm around her and pulled her against her body. She hoped that Rosie wasn’t frightened, although the child had every reason to be. As soon as Sophia had heard Jonathan shouting at Dolly downstairs, she guessed that he was on to her. She had no time to think about where she was going to go, she just knew that she had to get out of there quickly. She had opened the bedroom window and on seeing the sturdy-looking conservatory roof just below had told Rosie that they were going to go on a little adventure.

Rosie had once again shaken her head defiantly until Sophia had said the words the girl had been waiting to hear. “If you come with me, I’ll take you to your gran’s house.” She had then lowered Rosie onto the roof, whispering to her to hold on tightly. Hearing feet running up the stairs, Sophia had climbed out backwards and held on to the ledge before dropping down next to Rosie. Then jumping to the ground, she had put her arms out and tried to coax Rosie into jumping down.

“Rosie: jump. I’ll catch you.”

Rosie had shaken her head, looking scared. Seeing lights go on above them, Sophia knew that if they didn’t move soon Jonathan would catch them.

“Rosie, if you want to see Granny you’re going to have to be a very brave girl and do as I say. I promise I’ll catch you. Now jump.”

She watched Rosie hesitate before jumping down safely into her arms. And then, shoeless and sockless, they had run.

“Okay, come on.” Sophia checked that the road was clear and indicated to Rosie to get onto her back. She ran as fast as she could, Rosie’s hands clamped around her neck, with no idea where she was going. Jonathan would make Dolly tell her that it was her who had been there tonight, and in a car he would reach her place before she could if she tried to go there. The only other option was her nan’s house: the next place he would check. She had no-one to help her. What had she been thinking?

“Are we nearly at my granny’s, Sophia? I’m cold.” Rosie’s teeth chattered as she spoke. Sophia hadn’t even had time to get the girl a jumper; she must be freezing. What could she do to look after her? And then she realised. Going to the Jenkins’ house wasn’t such a bad idea; it would certainly be the very last place that Jonathan would look for her. They would have to help her, as she had Rosie with her. And now that she knew that Jonathan had killed her father, they would have to listen.

“Hold on, Munchkin, we’re almost there,” she said to her daughter.

***

Jonathan slammed Dolly against the wall. “Where the fuck is she?” he bellowed, lifting her up.

Shaking her head, Dolly felt sick: Jonathan was terrifying her.

“Jono, you’re going to fucking kill her.” Trevor grabbed at Jono’s arms, trying to get him to release his grip, as Dolly struggled to breathe.

“That’s the fucking idea,” Jonathan shouted as he pushed Trevor off him once more. “Where is my fucking daughter, Dolly? Tell me right now or I’m going to throw you out of that window head first onto the fucking concrete below.” He meant every word. He wanted his daughter: she was his; she belonged to him.

“I didn’t know who she was, Jonathan, I swear; I met her in prison,” Dolly whimpered.

“What? Who did you meet?” Jonathan demanded.

“Sophia O’Hagan. We shared a cell.”

Letting Dolly drop to the floor, Jonathan stared at her.

“Rosie’s mum?” Trevor asked. Jonathan had hardly ever talked to him about Sophia, but on the few occasions that he had Trevor had seen the hate that the girl stirred in him. “I thought she was doing time?”

“She was.” Jonathan glared at Dolly, who was shaking. “Oh, I get it. You met up on your stint inside and Sophia filled your head with stories, did she? Brainwashed you? The pair of you thought that you’d fucking stitch me up, did you?” Reaching into his pocket, he felt for his knife.

“No. I swear on Rosie’s life, Jono. It wasn’t like that... Sophia didn’t know that we knew each other. She came here tonight just to see me, we’re friends. I didn’t even know that she’d gone upstairs and when I found her she was in my room with Rosie, crying and saying that she was her daughter. That’s when you came home.” Dolly could tell by the look on Jono’s face that even though he might believe her story, the fact remained Sophia had taken his child and Dolly hadn’t stopped her.

“You stupid fucking bitch.” Jonathan lunged at Dolly, striking out with the knife.

Trevor put his body between them. “That’s enough, Jono.”

“Get out of my way, Trevor, before you end up getting hurt.”

At first, Trevor thought he must have heard wrong. Had Jono threatened him? He stared at him, as if seeing him for the very first time.

“I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking to, Jono. You don’t tell me what to do. I run things around here: not you. When I took you on, you were nothing but my lackey.” Trevor glared at Jonathan.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Trevor. I’ve been running things. I’ve been creaming off some of your girls since I started. We’ve a little arrangement. I get a cut of their money before they show you what they’ve got left. If you weren’t so fucking flash, the big ‘I am’, you’d have realised that. I don’t need you anymore.”

Jonathan rammed his knife into Trevor’s torso. Dolly screamed.

“But you love me,” Trevor said, as he felt the blade’s sharp steel pierce his skin.

Jonathan’s steely eyes bore into him as he spoke in a cool tone. “Love? You were a means to an end.”

Taking his weapon out, Jonathan grinned as Trevor slumped to the floor. Blood all over his hands, Jonathan waved the knife in Dolly’s direction.

“You’re coming with me,” he said, as he grabbed her by her hair and frogmarched her out of the house towards his car.

Chapter Forty

“So? Have I done well?” Stanley asked, as his wife filled the kettle to make another round of coffees. It was the first time in a week that he had seen her smiling. He hoped that it heralded a new beginning. They had been ignoring important issues for far too long, and it was time to start dealing with them.

“You’ve done more than good, Stanley. I still can’t believe he’s here. How did you manage it?” Earlier, when her husband had said that he had a surprise lined up for her, she had thought it would be something like a meal at their local pub. He had insisted that she get out of her robe and get a shower, and boy was she glad she had.

When the doorbell chimed, Bernie thought that it was a taxi coming to pick them up. Never in a million years had she expected to open the door and be greeted by Tommy.

Looking now at the big bouquet of flowers he had brought her, Bernie felt like crying.

“It was time. Tommy’s been gone for too long. I know how you feel about Jonathan, and I accept it, Bernie; God knows, after all these years I’m used to playing second fiddle to that boy. But Tommy is equally your son, and we owe him. We let him down once, and I won’t be doing that again.”

“I just didn’t want Jonathan to feel like I let him down. I just wanted to do everything I could so that I wouldn’t feel like such a failure.”

Hugging his wife, Stanley whispered: “You didn’t fail, Bernie. No-one could have loved that boy more than you. But it’s time you admitted to yourself that Jonathan has problems. You know as well as I do that Sophia was telling the truth. Jonathan has lied, cheated and ripped this family apart. We either stop it all right here or...”

“I know, Stan, I know.” Bernie hung her head in shame. Finally Bernie was admitting what she had secretly known all along.

“We need to start being honest; we owe it to Tommy.”

***

Reaching the Jenkins’ front door, Sophia repeatedly rang on the bell. Rosie stood at her side, a big smile on her face now that she was home, despite the fact that she was still shivering.

“Hold your horses,” Stanley shouted, as he made his way down the hallway. It was almost half ten, so whoever it was had better have a good reason for interrupting them.

“Sophia?” Stanley was shocked to see the distressed look on the face of the girl standing before him. Then seeing Rosie at her side, he frowned. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Is everything okay, Stanley?” Bernie called.

“Granny,” Rosie shouted, as she ran into the house and flung her arms around her amazed grandmother.

Bernie felt the child’s cold skin. “You’re freezing, Rosie.” She turned to Sophia. “What are you doing dragging the poor child around at this time of night without so much as shoes and a coat?”

“I’m so sorry,” Sophia said, “but I had to get away quickly and I had nowhere else to go. He killed him... he killed my dad.”

Tommy recognised the voice of the girl on the doorstep. He stood up slowly. Walking down the hallway, he saw his mum holding a little girl and his dad hugging Sophia.

Even after all this time, when Tommy looked at her, he still felt it.

“Tommy,” Sophia gasped. He was taller now, and even more handsome.

“What’s happened?” he asked, seeing the child was wearing just her nightie and that she and Sophia had bare feet.

“It’s Jonathan; I’ve just found out that he killed my dad. I took Rosie. He’s going to kill me.” Sobbing, Sophia fell into Tommy’s arms.

Tommy’s stiff body relaxed as he hugged her. As he buried his face into her hair and breathed in her smell, the eight years that stood between them melted away.

***

“Think Dolly, she must have mentioned somewhere else. Where’s she gone?” Jonathan kicked the side of his car in a rage. That bitch thought that she could steal his daughter from under his nose and get away with it. He was going to kill her when he caught up with her.

Standing outside Sophia’s flat, Dolly shivered as she tried to think of where else Jono could look.

“I don’t know, Jono, honestly. This place and her nan’s are the only ones she has ever spoken of.” Dolly’s body was shaking in fear.

“You don’t know?” he growled. “You lying bitch. You both fucking planned this, didn’t you? You better start thinking, Dolly because if you don’t come up with something quickly I’m going to start smashing your pretty little face repeatedly on that brick fucking wall.” Pacing up and down the path next to the car, Jono was building himself up into a frenzy. Two things he hated more than anything was being mugged off and being mugged off by a woman. Sophia must have a death wish.

“There’s nowhere else I can think of, I promise; she hasn’t mentioned anywhere else, just here or her nan’s. The only other place she said she’s been since she got out was your parents’ house.” Dolly didn’t want to mention the hospital, because Jono would have no qualms in going there and causing merry hell for poor old Nessa. “And Rosie did keep mentioning her granny tonight, saying she missed her.”

The more that Dolly thought about it, the more she believed that if she could get Jono onto familiar territory, she might have a chance of distracting him so she could get away. Failing that, if they turned up at his home, she might be able to get his parents to talk him down.

Jonathan frowned. “That would be the last place she’d go. She’s not welcome there.”

“Yes, and she knows that you’ll think it’s the least likely place, too. Tell you what, you can say a lot about her but Sophia is sharper than a razor,” Dolly said, feeling clever; she could see the clogs moving in Jonathan’s head as he took her bait. “And that’s the only other place she has ever mentioned. But maybe you’re right, she wouldn’t go there.”

“Get in.”

Starting the engine, Jonathan thought it wouldn’t hurt to take a look. His mum had been warned about letting in Sophia: she wouldn’t get over the front step. He wasn’t so sure about his dad, the disloyal bastard. He’d take the word of the postman’s over the word of his own son.

***

Crouching on the ground, Jonathan crept around the back of the house with his hand against Dolly’s mouth. He didn’t want the silly bitch to start screaming. The lights in the kitchen were on and he could see movement. He dragged Dolly behind him as he got closer for a better view.

Sitting around the table were his parents, deep in conversation with a young couple. His father was pacing the kitchen. The younger man stretched his arm out and rested it on Stanley’s shoulder as he passed him. The younger man was Tommy. He had come home. And Sophia was sitting next to him.

Feeling like he had been punched in the gut, Jonathan struggled to catch his breath. He stood there, taking it all in, gripping Dolly tighter as he felt his anger bubble. Tommy was back, and all was forgiven with Sophia by the looks of it. Yet again Jonathan was on the outside, staring in through the window of a stranger’s home; they were so familiar to him but he didn’t share any of their warmth. In fact, he despised them all. He particularly despised his dad for being a weak, pathetic excuse of a man. He couldn’t stand his mother because of her constant neediness; the way she clung to her kids and granddaughter for dear life because she didn’t have a life of her own irritated the hell out of him. He despised Tommy for being everything that he would never be: he had got all the good genes. Tommy was the nice one, the caring one, while all he got all the leftover crap.

Scanning the room for his daughter, Jonathan couldn’t see her. He guessed that she would be upstairs, out of the way. It was late and she would be tired.

Dragging Dolly to his dad’s shed Jonathan yanked the lock off and opened the door, forcing her inside. Then, he wound a thick roll of masking tape repeatedly around her mouth. Then pushing her down onto his dad’s chair by the window he bound her hands and legs.

Dolly winced as he tugged at her skin, pinching her as he ensured that the tape was tight enough. She could see that he was capable of murder. He was an empty shell, void of any feeling such as empathy.

“I’ll be back to sort you out properly soon,” he whispered in Dolly’s ear before shutting her inside the pitch-black shed.

Climbing onto the roof under the bathroom, Jonathan pulled himself across and onto a ledge, crouching under the bedroom window; he made sure that the coast was clear before hoisting himself up and slipping inside. Tiptoeing through his parents’ room, he could see the hallway light glowing through the doorway and he could hear faint voices. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he knew they were talking about him.

Creeping into the hallway, he made his way to Rosie’s room and pushed open the door. Rosie was lying in bed, a Disney movie playing quietly in the background. Plaits framed her sleeping face, her closed eyes emphasising her long and perfect eyelashes. Rosie was the only thing in his life that he had done right, and he wasn’t going to let anyone take her away from him. Bending down, he gently kissed the top of her head, before sneaking out of the room and down the stairs. Here, the voices were louder.

“We need to call the police,” his father said.

“You’re right,” his mother said, “we have to, for Rosie’s sake.”

Rosie was the most important person in Bernie’s life, and she wasn’t going to allow Jonathan to mess her up. When Rosie had flung her arms around Bernie’s neck, she had felt every bit the child’s mother. Picking up the receiver, she dialled. Not only had Jonathan let Sophia rot away in prison for something she didn’t do, her son had murdered in cold blood. Bernie was sickened to her core that she could have birthed someone as heartless.

Opening the kitchen door, Jonathan stood in the doorway. He smiled as he watched the four shocked-looking faces turn to him.

“Put the phone down,” he commanded his mother and Bernie, seeing the look in his eyes, did as she was told.

“Well, this all looks very cosy. You’re home then, Tommy: lovely.” Jonathan nodded at his brother. “And I see you two little lovebirds have made up now.”

“Why did you do it Jonathan? Why did you murder my dad?” Sophia asked.

“Oh, Sophia, please. Your father was a waste of space. If I hadn’t killed him, it would have only been a matter of time before you did... or the alcohol would have finished him off. Either way it was inevitable: I did you a favour. Are you going to say thank you?”

Tommy clenched his fists. He knew that Jonathan had hated Sophia, but this wasn’t normal antipathy. Jonathan was deranged: a psychopath.

“You raped her?” Tommy asked, knowing he wasn’t going to like Jonathan’s answer.

“Rape is a strong word, Tommy. Especially considering that the stupid bitch was gagging for it. One shag with the lovely Sophia turned me off women for life.” Jonathan laughed. He was enjoying tormenting everyone.

Tommy couldn’t listen to any more. He had spent his childhood standing up for Jonathan. And for what? Jonathan had always treated him like he was nothing. He stood up. “You led me to believe that Sophia had cheated on me... I left, Jonathan. Why? What has happened to you?”

“Oh spare me the dramatics, Tommy,” Jonathan mocked. “I’m the same person I’ve always been. Come on then, what do you want to do? Bear hug me? Give me a couple of bitch slaps? You ain’t changed one bit, Tommy; you still couldn’t punch your way out of a paper bag. Not as innocent as he’d have you all believe though are you Tommy? Have you told them all that you were there with me the night that Old man O’Hagan met his fate?”

Jonathan grinned now, it was obvious by the look on Sophia’s face that she had no idea her precious Tommy had been involved that night.

“I swear Sophia, I didn’t know that Jonathan killed your dad. On my life, you have to believe me. We did break in, but only because we wanted to make sure you were okay, and when your dad heard us, he chased us. That was it I promise.” Tommy pleaded.

Sophia felt a tear slip down her cheek. How many more lies were there?

“You have to be pretty thick to not add it up Tommy. Didn’t you ever suspect that it was me?” Jonathan sneered.

Tommy shook his head. It had briefly crossed his mind but he had known Sophia hated her father, and she had even told him once that she wanted to kill him for what he put her mum through. His mind had been swamped at the time with the evidence that was presented at Sophia’s trial, and then when he heard about Rosie, he hadn’t known what to believe anymore.

Jonathan laughed, watching his brother as the realisation finally sunk in. All these years and Tommy was only just learning the truth. They all were.

Seeing that Tommy was about to launch himself at him and his father would no doubt help, Jonathan knew he was outnumbered. Deciding to get himself some collateral damage, he grabbed Sophia and hoisted her up off her chair. His pressed his flick knife against her throat just in case anyone had any illusions about how serious he was. Bernie gasped, as she saw the blood smeared along the blade from earlier. Sophia looked like she was scared to breathe.

“One move, Tommy, and I swear to God I will cut her fucking throat.”

Reluctantly, Tommy put his hands up, signifying a truce.

“All I’ve come here for is Rosie,” Jonathan said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, I just want my daughter. So Mother, be a dear and go and get her will you?”

“Jonathan, please don’t; it’s not fair. The girl’s been through enough,” Bernie begged.

“I ain’t asking, Mother, I’m telling, so fucking move!” Jonathan wasn’t going to stick around to be handed over to the police, and have his little girl taken away from him.

Bernie ran from the room. Stanley glared at Jonathan, hate radiating out of him in waves. Jonathan saw his look.

“Disappointing, ain’t I, Dad? Should have been a do-gooding arse-licker like my brother, shouldn’t I?” Jonathan sneered. “Could never match up to Tommy, though, could I? Well, at least you’ve got good reason to hate me now.”

From the looks being exchanged between his dad and Tommy, Jonathan guessed that any minute they were going to try something stupid like making an attempt to ambush him.

Stanley was thinking something different, though. He could see the phone that Bernie had dropped on the table was connected to the caller and hoping that the operator would have contacted the police, he decided to play for time.