Human Conditioning (5 page)

Grant was, as ever, smartly
dressed in a white shirt, brown trousers and brogue shoes. He had discarded his
tie and jacket in his Jaguar parked outside Carlton House – Grant always had
the latest Jaguar, though his favourite model, his E-Type, sat in his double
garage at his home.

Grant O’Donoghue was an
affluent man and had been financing the Fosters ever since the incident between
him and Duggie in 1969, the same year little Aiden had been born. It was
simple: Grant had taken away Duggie’s ability to earn when Vivien had needed
money the most, so he had made it right by supplying her with a regular income
to support her family. He had bought the flat at Carlton House outright and
extra money had always been available for the kids.

Typically, Duggie had taken
full advantage of his contributions, seeing it as his right not to bother
working and providing for his family himself. According to Duggie, Grant had destroyed
his career and so should pay for that for the rest of his days. It was a
despicable liberty, but Vivien had no chance of forcing Duggie to get off his
arse and she wouldn’t let Grant touch him, so there was nothing to be done.
Grant had been supporting them all for so long now, it was just the norm. They
all just stopped questioning it.

For Grant, it had never been about
the money. He loved Vivien and he loved the kids. He’d do anything for them,
especially Aiden. In reality, he had been a better father to those kids than Duggie
had ever been. He had spent a lot of time at Carlton House when Aiden had been a
child and when Kate had arrived two and a half years later.

“Grant, I want you to have a
word with Aiden about these stolen cars,” Vivien announced out of the quiet.

Grant looked over his newspaper. “And say what?” he
asked, his eyebrows furrowing with angst. Vivien had a habit of asking him to
talk to Aiden about ‘delicate’ matters. Ever since Aiden had learned how to
argue back, she had quickly got into the habit of not confronting him herself. It
was all about self-preservation. Confronting Aiden had never been an easy task,
and nowadays the boy didn’t seem to give a toss what any of them said to him.

Vivien glanced nervously at
Grant. In a small way, she knew she was taking liberties, but then again, Aiden
had looked up to Grant all his life. He didn’t ever listen to her or his father.
Grant was the safest bet. “Look, I know you two aren’t seeing eye to eye at the
moment, but he’s more likely to listen to you than he is me,” she pressed.

Grant sighed and shook his
head. “I wish that were true, Viv, but I think I’ve blown it this time. He’s
not interested in anything I have to say. He’s got his own agenda...” Vivien
turned to Grant and smiled with sympathy. This man had been Aiden’s rock his
entire life and it seemed a shame that, now Aiden was on some kind of war path,
determined not to listen to any of them about how he lived his life, their
relationship should suffer. “I tried to advise him. I offered him a job, for
Christ’s sake. Nothing came of it apart from me getting an earful. He’s
unapproachable at the moment, Viv. Thinks he can make it on his own,” Grant implored.
Then he spat a laugh, “He probably can...”

“Can what?”

“Make it on his own,” he
replied wistfully.

Vivien saw the regret in
Grant’s expression. He’d wanted Aiden to be his little protégé and he was
resisting him at every turn. She sighed. He was right. Aiden was being
impossible at the moment. She wouldn’t press the matter further now, but she
wouldn’t let Grant get away without talking Aiden out of thieving, since he had
been the one to influence her boy into taking matters into his own hands. He
would have to sort it out one way or another because Aiden was sure as hell not
going to listen to her.

She changed the subject. “I’ve
been dreaming about Beatrice again...”

Grant cleared his throat and
placed his newspaper on the kitchen table. “Oh yeah?” he said.

Vivien hadn’t mentioned Beatrice
Cain in a while, and he’d secretly hoped she had finally accepted that it was
unlikely she would ever see her old friend again.

“I just wish she had contacted
me before she vanished... just to let me know where she was going...” Grant refrained
from rolling his eyes. He had heard the same reflections over and over for
years. Vivien turned back to him. “Are you sure you don’t know where she is?”
she asked, her eyes narrowing a touch, though it was more in deliberation than
accusation.

Grant’s round face flushed,
and his thick brown eyebrows furrowed in exasperation. “No, Viv, I’ve told you
this a thousand times. I know as much as everyone else.”

Vivien gulped. “But with your
connections...” she pressed, her cat-like eyes beseeching him.

He sighed. Beatrice Cain had
been a close friend of Vivien’s. She and her husband, Tommy Cain, had owned The
Bell public house in Shoreditch, which had been located just a few doors down
from Duggie and Vivien’s first home, before he had bought Carlton House for
them.

Tommy Cain had been a petty
criminal and a ruthless, violent thug, allowing access to the back room of the
pub to criminals and lower-ranking Faces of the criminal underworld of
organised crime to discuss illicit business and, at times, to wreak violent
retribution on those who were deemed to deserve it.

In 1970, Tommy was murdered in
revenge for taking the despicable liberty of murdering
the
main Face of
that time, Mr Patrick Brady. Mr Brady had been a major player in organised
crime all over London and the surrounding cities. He had been well respected
across the country and had even been in talks with a leading firm in Edinburgh
before he met his untimely end.

It was discovered in the early
part of that year that Beatrice had been courting Mr Brady behind her husband’s
back and when Tommy had found out, he’d gone ballistic, unbelievably (even to
this day), managing to abduct Mr Brady and, after torturing him to death, had
proceeded to beat Beatrice to a pulp and hold her captive in their bedroom for
three weeks before finally meeting his own end.

After that, Beatrice sold up
and disappeared without a word to any of her acquaintances, including Vivien.
Her vanishing like that had hit Vivien hard, and Grant wished he had more
information regarding her whereabouts, but Beatrice had vanished for the simple
reason that she didn’t want to be associated with the ‘Life’ anymore. Tommy’s
death had been her ticket to freedom and it wasn’t then, and had never been
since, Grant’s place to go searching for her, even if he did have the resources
to do so.

Vivien turned back to the
window. “Sixteen bloody years I’ve sat here wondering where my friend went, if
she’s still alive.” She shot Grant a sour glare. “What if whoever murdered
Tommy murdered her too? Have you ever thought that maybe she was forced to sell
up then wiped off the face of the earth, like Tommy, like Patrick...?” She
trailed off as Grant’s lips pressed into a hard line and his brown eyes scowled
at her.

The mention of Patrick Brady always
provoked such a reaction. In effect, Grant and Patrick had been long-standing
friends and, at the time when Tommy’s head had been found washed up on the bank
of the Thames near Greenwich, Grant had been a prime suspect on account of his
time-honoured friendship with Mr Brady.

Yes, Grant knew some well-known Faces who could have
carried out such a mortal deed, but no subsequent evidence had been found to
consider Grant a realistic suspect in organising Tommy Cain’s death. Grant was
a successful businessman, albeit in illicit transactions, but he was cleared
from any suspicion of murder.

“Sorry,” Vivien muttered. She
understood Grant’s dismay over the death of his friend. Grant’s fierce
expression melted at her apology and the conversation ended there. Vivien went
back to her sink and Grant was left with his thoughts. Silence ensued until
they both heard the front door slam and, a moment later, Duggie limped into the
kitchen.

Glancing at Grant sitting at
his table, he snarled, “What are you doing here?” That Grant O’Donoghue, his
former boss, had been a constant companion of his wife and children had been a continuous
irritation to Duggie. He had never forgiven Grant for what he had done to him.

Vivien glared at her husband
for a long moment then turned her attention back to the washing up. “Been down
the boozer again?” Grant asked. His voice was steady, yet it was laced with
contempt.

“What’s it to you?” Duggie
barked in response, taking himself to the fridge to find himself a can of
cider.

Grant tapped out a cigar from a packet on the kitchen
table. Striking a match, he lit the end and puffed on it. Watching Duggie with
a steady gaze, he replied, “Depends if it’s my money paying for you to get
pissed whilst your boy goes out earning...”

Duggie blew out a derisive
bubble of laughter between closed lips. “Aiden? Earning? Don’t make me laugh!”
he muttered and limped back towards the door.

Grant glared at him as he
passed, and sucked on his cigar as if it was the only thing stopping him from
grabbing a kitchen knife and cutting the bastard’s throat. Vivien was watching
him, beseeching him to turn a blind eye to her husband’s cruelty, something he
had to do often.

Lifting his newspaper, he muttered,
“You know, it’s only my love for you that stops me from damaging his other
fucking leg...” and as his eyes skimmed the news article before him, he
couldn’t concentrate on anything but his fully-fledged resentment for the man
who caused Vivien and the kids such grief.

The cynical and hateful manner
in which Duggie addressed his son, and the times the brute had disappointed
him, was sickening to a man who adored Aiden like he was his own. A familiar
image plagued his mind, of a ten-year-old Aiden begging his father to take him
boxing. If Duggie was to be interested in at least
one thing
that his son
did, Grant thought it might be his interest in the sport that he had once loved
so much. Instead, Duggie had bitterly informed the child that he didn’t have
the bottle or the strength to fight in the ring. For months, Aiden had believed
his father’s words and only with Grant’s support had been persuaded to give it
a go, with Grant’s funding.

Grant watched Vivien carefully
now as he recalled her involvement in the matter. She had sided with Duggie. At
the time, he had been utterly shocked by Vivien’s nonchalance over a matter
that had been so dear to her son, but in actual fact, it had dawned on Grant
way back when Aiden had been a baby that Vivien was never going to side with
her son over her husband. It was no secret that Vivien had never warmed to
Aiden. She tolerated him at best.

Another sad memory would be etched
in his mind until the day he died. Even back when Aiden’s spirit had almost
been broken over the talk of boxing, when young Aiden had finally begun to
learn that he would never have the love and respect that he deserved from his
parents – a lesson that consequently conjured in him an innate desire to
succeed by his own admission and on his own terms – from his sheer size, his
fierce determination and strength, laced with his fascination for all things
illicit, Grant had inkling that Aiden would grow up to be a force to be
reckoned with.

<> 

Six years earlier

Grant and Aiden stepped out from the warehouse where a
large red and white sign displayed the name, ‘HACKNEY BOXING ACADEMY’. Aiden
had just knocked out a boy two years his senior – not a bad feat for a kid of
ten years, with just six months’ experience in the ring.

“I’m so fucking proud of you!”

Grant swung a large arm around
young Aiden’s forever-expanding shoulders and beamed down at him as they made
their way down the street. Aiden had a cut in his lip and his right eye was
bruised, his unruly, black hair wet and dishevelled.

“I knew you had it in you, son!”
Grant enthused, pulling him into a side embrace.

Aiden shrugged out of his
burly grip and swaggered beside the man he had always admired, grateful once
more that it was because of him that he’d been able to go into the ring in the
first place. He held his head high with arrogant triumph and boasted, “It was
easy.”

Grant grinned. “Don’t get too
cocky. That’s just one man. In the real world, you could be up against four,
five, six, at a time. You need to learn to deal with that and still come out on
top.”

“I’d just get a gun and shoot ’em...”
Aiden replied childishly.

Grant frowned and stopped in
his tracks. Turning to the good-looking kid he adored as much as he would his
own child, he took his shoulders and said, “No guns, son,” his eyes burning
into Aiden’s with earnest. “Guns aren’t for men; they’re for cowards. We fight
with our fists and,” he shrugged, “if need be, a weapon of some kind... but not
a gun,” he quickly added.

“What kind of weapon?” Aiden
asked with his usual intrigue for anything illicit.

Grant released him and
continued walking, a wry smile forming on his round face. “It could be
anything... pen-knife, hammer, crowbar, knuckle-dusters...”

“Knuckle-dusters?” Aiden gazed
up at the big man beside him with a keen curiosity twinkling in his deep blue
eyes.

“Yes, knuckle-dusters,” Grant
laughed, then holding up a fist, he traced the index finger of his other hand
over his knuckles. “They fit to your knuckles and have big old spikes on them.
They can do a lot of damage, so you have to take care.”

“Do you have any? Can I see
them?” Aiden begged, too eagerly for one so young – but this was their world. Violence,
conflict... it was all part and parcel of their lives.

Grant didn’t want Aiden to be
ignorant of his environment. Knowledge was power. An old friend had taught him
that long ago. “No, I don’t...” he replied with a twitch of a smile.