Lily finished the letter then looked down at her daughter. Her mind was whirling, but she smiled. “Darling, why don’t you go and play by that tree over there for a minute.”
“But I don’t…”
“Please.”
“But…”
“Go, please… now!” she snapped. Amy’s little mouth opened in shock, but she dared not challenge her mother again. She did what she was told. “Stay where I can see you!” Lily called after her. Then turning back to the man, she said, “Is this some kind of joke?”
Filing for divorce eight times had shown Aiden how much Lily wanted him out of her life. Aiden had refused to entertain her attempts, but as her letters had informed him, she would continue to send him the relevant paperwork until the day she died. Now he had changed tack. This time, he wanted her to sign away her life to him once more in order to keep everything that was hers.
“I don’t know what this is about, Mrs F…” Lily shot Aiden’s messenger a look of pure murder, and he gulped and corrected himself. “Lily… I’m just the delivery man,” he pleaded.
“Well, you’ve done your job, so you can go now.” He stared at her awkwardly. “What?” she snapped.
“I have to wait for your agreement.”
“What?”
“I’ve been instructed by… well, I’m not to leave until you’ve agreed to…”
“I thought you didn’t know what this was about!” Lily spat. The man didn’t reply. Lily sighed, exasperated. “Well, you can tell my soon-to-be-ex-husband that I don’t agree, and you can also tell him that he can kiss my arse!” Lily turned to check on Amy. She was obliviously digging something up beneath the large tree she had sent her to.
“Lily, come on,” the man begged, changing suddenly from messenger to enforcer. “Aiden ain’t gonna let this go. He’s got twenty-three years left to fill. He’ll keep this up until he’s finally released, you know it.” He paused then added, “Look, I wanna be involved in this as little as you do…”
“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.
Kamal took a seat in front of the desk and in a calmer, quieter voice, he said, “Look, I’m sorry it has to come to this, Grant. I know Aiden means a lot to you…”
Grant continued to stare out of the window. It took him a long thoughtful moment to respond, and when he did, his manner was uncharacteristically disconsolate. “He was the boy I never had… and he was a good lad. He was just misguided
… like us all.” Kamal didn’t respond. Grant took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “I know what I have to do, but it’s gonna break my heart doing it.”
“Do you want me to deal with this? You won’t have to know a thing…”
“No.” Grant turned back to the desk and stubbed out his cigar in his crystal ashtray. “I at least owe him the respect of sorting this myself. And I want it done as quickly as possible. I don’t want him to suffer. There’s been enough suffering…”
************
All the way home the Mercedes transporting Bernard and his sidekick didn’t leave Lily’s rear view mirror. It stopped on the road as she pulled onto her driveway. The men remained in the car until Amy had run into the house. She was over her distress at the graveyard, oblivious to their presence, and more interested in watching television. Lily knew she would have to wait to enter her home until the men had caught up with her. As they came crunching over the drive, she went in, switched on the television and closed Amy into the living room.
She reluctantly ushered both men in and led them to the other door into the kitchen, closing herself and them in. Bernard spoke first, repeating his assertion out in the graveyard, “He won’t give up, Lily.”
“I’m well aware of that,” she replied sharply.
She went to the fridge and poured herself a large wine. She offered the bottle but both men shook their heads. Lily sat down at the breakfast bar, took a gulp of wine, set it down then looked up at Bernard. She didn’t want to speak to the other one. He was too military for her liking. “Right, how are we going to resolve this?”
“There’s only one option,” Bernard confirmed nervously.
Lily replied agitatedly, “And how about I shoot you both right here, right now?” The ‘other one’ reached for the back of his trousers, where he obviously had a concealed weapon. Lily burst into laughter. “He sent you fucking armed, knowing his daughter would be with me… how typically responsible of him!” She whipped up her glass and took another large gulp. “Do you know? I really don’t know why I’m fighting this. I mean, Aiden is clearly one of the most loyal and trustworthy husbands any woman could want! How can I refuse him?” She scoffed and downed the rest of her drink in one.
Human Conditioning Page 39