Human Conditioning (51 page)

“Oh, I doubt that very much!”

“Just stay married to him and
he’ll leave you alone and let you keep everything.”

Lily scoffed derisively.
“You’re joking, right? Staying married to him will guarantee he
never
leaves
me alone. Either way, I lose, don’t I?”

“He loves you.”

“Is this love... what is your
name again?”

“Bernard.”

“Is this love, Bernard?
Forcing someone to stay married to you when you know she hates you to the very
core? After all he’s done, how can
anyone
believe that man is capable of
love?
Possession...
that is all this is, Bernard.” She waved the letter
in front of his face. “Aiden doesn’t want to let me go because then he’d have
lost the last ounce of control he has over me!”

She could feel an erupting
anger smouldering in the pit of her stomach, making the rest of her body flush
despite the cold. Bernard didn’t say any more; he’d already said too much. He
wasn’t paid for his opinion. Talking Aiden Foster down was the worst mistake
anyone could ever make. In fact, the only person Aiden allowed to badmouth him
was this beautiful woman before him... and she was beautiful. He couldn’t help
thinking that
he’d
find it hard to let this one go too, if he was
married to her.

Lily tore up the letter and
threw it at Bernard. She knew she was being unfair – he
was
just the
messenger – but she was so angry she could punch the poor bloke. She turned on
her heels and stormed off, shouting over her shoulder, “Tell him to
fuck
himself.
He’ll probably enjoy it!” as she continued toward her daughter.

“Lily!” Bernard cried. “He’ll
kill me!”

Lily pretended not to hear
him. It was his own damned fault for being involved with the likes of her
husband, she thought as she grabbed Amy’s hand and marched over to her car.
When she got there, however, there was another man, this time dark-haired, tall
and sturdy. He looked like a doorman, suited and standing upright, his hands
clasped together in front of him. He was standing by the passenger door of her
car. 

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Lily
ordered her child to get into the car through the driver’s door. Amy once again
did not argue with her mother, not now she had lost all her patience. “This is
ridiculous!” Lily yelled once Amy was safely inside with the car door shut.
Lily locked the doors using her key. “So you’re just
not
going to let me
out of this graveyard until I agree, is that it?”

“Sorry, Mrs Foster...”

“
It’s fucking Lily
!”  

“We’re under strict
instructions,” he explained flatly.

Lily closed her eyes and took
a deep breath to calm herself. She said as politely and as calmly as she could,
“Look, I’ve got a child in tears in there because she’s wondering why her mummy
keeps getting hounded by strange men. So would you please let me get her home?
You can fucking tail me if you like, stand outside my house for all I care, but
she
needs to be in her home and feeling safe! Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I do,” the man replied,
his eyes looking directly above her head. “You will be followed, ma’am,” he confirmed.

He then left her and got into
his black Mercedes, which was parked just ten yards away from her car. She
watched him lower himself inside and watched Bernard hurry over and jump into
the passenger seat.

************

“How long are you going to keep protecting him, Grant?
He’s gone too fucking far this time! He set us up!”

Kamal paced the large bright
office belonging to Grant O’Donoghue. The office block, which Grant owned, was
ironically located near the Old Bailey on Ludgate Hill. His office spread
across the whole of the top floor, one window looking out onto St Paul’s, the
other onto Old Bailey itself. Grant liked to push his luck in life, but
considering he had half of the criminal court in one pocket and half of the
police force in the other, he considered himself to be quite safe from getting
a tug.

Grant watched Kamal from the
comfort of his bottle-green leather desk chair. He knew the man was right. He’d
protected Aiden as much as he could during his life, but he needed to be
stopped from causing any more harm. He was taking liberties that even he
couldn’t overlook this time.

“I mean, talking to the BBC!
Who does he think he is... Reggie fucking Kray?”

Kamal bit the inside of his
mouth in frustration and worry. That interview could land them all in the shit
and he wasn’t prepared to spend the next thirty years in the nick. He wouldn’t
hack it. Not like Aiden had. He respected him for that at least.

Grant inhaled deeply and let
out a long hopeless sigh. He thought Aiden being inside would have calmed
things down a bit. He thought he might have taken his foot off the accelerator
for the first time in his life, and re-evaluated his options. Grant realised
now that Aiden changing his spots had always been improbable, but he had been
willing to give the lad the benefit of the doubt. Of course, Aiden had once
again disappointed him. The lad just never knew when to stop!

Grant snorted at the thought
that once he had imagined that he could teach Aiden the art of becoming a real
underworld criminal, a true Face. But Aiden had lost that chance the moment
he’d stopped respecting him. Maybe he should have been honest with him about
what he was from the start. Maybe then he could have taken Aiden under his wing
and protected him from himself. He had thought that giving him a free rein
might have helped. Grant understood now that he had been overbearing when Aiden
was a child, but it had been the least he could have done for stemming the flow
of the much-needed money that Duggie had generated to keep his family. What he
had failed to see was that Aiden had a lot of Duggie in him. He was selfish,
callous and malicious, and he was determined to hate every one of them. So he
had given the boy some space, let him make his
own
mark, get it out of
his system, because he sure as hell wasn’t ever going to accept anything less.

Grant turned his chair and
looked out over St Paul’s. “Kamal, have I ever told you how I got to be top
dog?” he asked wistfully.

Kamal frowned. “Yeah, you took
over Pat Brady...”

Grant smiled fondly at the
memory of his friend. “Pat was murdered by a friend of Aiden’s father, Tommy
Cain, in 1970...” He slowly shook his head and heaved a sigh. “How time has
flown...”

“Did you get him back?”

Grant turned to Kamal. “Get
who back?”

“This Tommy fella...”

“Oh yes, I got him back
alright...” He turned back to the window with a wry smile on his face at the
memory of Tommy Cain’s suffering. He had doled out his punishment personally,
and had loved every second when the police kept finding pieces of his remains
along the River Thames right up until the latter end of 1972. There was a brief
silence inside the office, and Kamal wondered where his boss was going with all
this
walking down memory lane
gibberish.

Grant went on, “Pat only met
Aiden once... but he at least got to hold him. I’m glad about that.” Grant’s
voice suddenly pitched higher as he began to reminisce. “It was at a boxing
match. Aiden’s father had rigged it and I had to give him a kicking around the
back. Pat was there, watching it all happen. To all of our surprise, Aiden’s
mother turned up screaming, begging me to leave him alone. I remember she had
Aiden in her arms. He was screaming too, and even then I sensed that she would
have chosen the safety of her husband over Aiden... I should have known...”

“Known what?” Kamal asked.

Grant took a deep breath and
exhaled loudly. “I should have known that she would never put that kid first,
that his father would always be too much of a distraction. It became clear to
me after a while that she lost all desire to be a mother.”

Kamal shook his head. “Sorry,
Grant, but what’s this got to do with Pat Brady, and what’s it got to do with
Aiden?”

Grant turned 180 degrees so
that he was facing Kamal again. His pale blue eyes looked tired, his skin drawn
where he’d always been a large man but age had crept up on him and turned fat
to wrinkle. “Aiden was supposed to be my number two... just as I was Pat
Brady’s number two.” Kamal looked at the floor and he nodded in understanding.
“All this...” Kamal’s eyes went back to Grant as Grant gestured around the
room. “It was all supposed to be his. All of it.” Grant leant an elbow on the
desk and put his head in his hand. Rubbing his forehead, he added, “I’m
seventy-eight years old, Kamal. I’m too old to be in this game. It’s about time
I buy myself a modest cottage somewhere in the country and find some nice old
bird who will share the last years of my life with me... leave the firm behind
me. I know Pat wouldn’t have gone on this long. He loved the country, the Lake District...
I suppose I was waiting for Aiden to settle down a bit, grow up. You know, even
when he was sent down, I still had high hopes for him. I thought, ‘he’ll be out
in ten, fifteen years’. I would have eventually persuaded the right people to
win him an early release once the dust had well and truly settled. I thought by
then he would be focused, ready to take my place,” Grant scoffed. “I honestly
didn’t think he would be that devoted to his own cause to run things from the
inside...”

“Then blab to the BBC,” Kamal
chipped in derisively.

“The problem with Aiden is
that he’s never content, never satisfied. He’s forever trying to prove
himself.”

Kamal began to pace the room
once more. “Well, he’s proven his worth to each and every person in the country
now... the Filth are all over it. They’ll be checking out all his
acquaintances. They’ll be knocking on
your
door!”

“Calm down, Kamal. Don’t you
think the Old Bill have already investigated each and every person that was and
had been associated with Aiden the moment he was nicked? Nobody’s gonna have
our balls. I’ve got plenty of Filth on my payroll who’ll make certain of it.
I’ll sort it...”

“And Aiden?”

Grant sighed. “Let
me
deal
with Aiden...”

“I should’ve put a bullet in
his head along with that uncle of his...”

Grant glared at him. “Well,
seeing as I instructed you not to, I hope you don’t mean that, Kamal.”

Kamal pursed his lips. However
much he would like to hurt that fucker Aiden, and he really did, he wouldn’t
realistically do anything against Grant’s orders. He pressed, “So, how, exactly
are you going to deal with Aiden, because you know what you
have
to do
now, right...?”

“I said I’d fucking deal with
it, didn’t I? Now don’t forget who you’re talking to,” Grant replied,
exasperated.

Kamal stepped up to Grant’s
desk and leant his two hands on the shiny dark wood. Beseeching him with wide,
caramel eyes, he said with courtesy, “You know I respect you, you know I have
always been one hundred percent loyal to you, but whatever it is that makes you
want to protect that ponce, you’ve got to put it to one side now, because I
don’t think we’re going to get many more chances. You’ve got to stop
babysitting him... purchasing the flats, his cars, his fucking house, paying
however much it cost to keep everyone quiet about the escorting business...”

“I did that to save my own
skin, not Aiden’s... my money went into buying those flats...”

“Well, what about turning a
blind eye when he started working for Frankie fucking Adams? Not to mention all
the skulduggery he’s been up to whilst inside... and you knew full well he’d
done over Kieran Baker so he could get his treacherous mitts on his clientele,
and you got that covered up too!”

“Well, you’ve not exactly been
a saint, Kamal... who done over Reggie, eh?”

Kamal glared at Grant for a
moment. “I did that solely because he was sniffing around too much... he didn’t
just have Aiden on our case, you know. He found out about your involvement. I
was protecting
your
interests!” Grant shrugged and Kamal went on, “You
have to stop this now, Grant! Aiden Foster has been swaggering about like the
dog’s bollocks for too long, thinking he can’t be touched, even to the point
where he’s openly talking about
our
fucking business on national
television! And when all is said and done, he has
you
to thank for
nearly everything he’s achieved. How have you been able to endure that fact all
these years?”

“Call it unconditional love,”
Grant muttered.

Kamal hesitated. “He’s
finished, Grant. That interview and all those little fucking deals he’s been
making inside
have
to be the last straw! If you don’t sort it now,
someone else will, but it’s
you
who needs to be seen as taking control
of the situation. Every Face knows you’ve been covering his tracks. I don’t
think you realise how much some of these men wanted Aiden to go down over the
escort business when it had been put under surveillance the first time. It was
the perfect opportunity to get the arrogant little fucker off the streets. I
mean, don’t get me wrong, I was once quite fond of the man, but the others were
monumentally pissed off when you covered every line of investigation. They
wanted him out of it.”

“If anyone has a problem with
the way I run my business, they can come and see me...”

Kamal persisted, “If you don’t
put a stop to his disruptive behaviour now, then them out there are gonna think
you’ve lost your nerve... and then the vultures
will
descend, and you
know it...”

“ENOUGH!” Grant roared,
slamming his fist on his desk.

Kamal stepped back, watching
Grant warily. He was practically biting his tongue to prevent any more of his
buried thoughts to form into words – words he’d been longing to say for years.
Grant heaved a sigh. Pulling open one of his desk drawers, he took out a box of
cigars, tapped one out and lit it. Turning in his chair, he stared out of the
window again. It was early evening and the sun was showing just above the spire
of St Paul’s, transforming the cathedral into a magnificent silhouette against
the clear winter sky. He loved this view. It was peaceful. It helped him think.