The Society of Dirty Hearts

by Ben Cheetham

  Her voice was like fingernails on a blackboard, scratching at Julian’s nerves. All he could think about was shutting her up. His eyes landed on the knife in Jake’s hand. “You’d like to use that on me, wouldn’t you?” said Ginger, taunting, but with a quiver of nervousness in her voice. “Bet you’d like to fuck me while you’re using it n’all. That what you did to Mia, is it, hmm?”

  That was more than Julian could take. He jumped out the car, sucking for air to shout, “Sick! You’re sick!” It wasn’t clear if the words were directed at Ginger or himself.

  Jake got out too. He pointed the knife at Julian, suspicion rife in his eyes. “Why would she say that?”

  “She’s trying to turn you against me, distract us from what we’re here to do.”

  Jake looked hard at Julian for a moment. “I guess you’re right.” He didn’t sound entirely convinced, but he lowered the knife and ducked back into the car. “Come on, let’s get this fuckin’ over with.”

  Taking a steadying breath, Julian got back behind the wheel. “Fifteen,” he said, looking at Ginger in the rear-view mirror. “Mia and Joanne were only fifteen. How do you live with yourself?”

  Ginger pushed her face close to his again, nostrils flaring indignantly. “I was the same age when I started turning tricks.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “Fuck you. Don’t you sit there with your silver spoon up your arse judging me. You don’t know shit.”

  Jake grabbed Ginger’s shoulders and yanked her back. “Another word, bitch, and I’ll gag you. Just keep your mouth shut and point.”

  After glaring at Jake a few seconds, Ginger raised her bound hands and pointed. Julian resumed driving, heading through the wealthy southern suburbs, nearing the turn off for the street he lived on. He found himself wondering uneasily if Mr X was anyone his parents knew. Perhaps he was a family man with a wife and children to support. Perhaps they were all tucked up in bed, blissfully ignorant that the man they looked up to and depended on was about to be exposed as a deviant and maybe worse. A small kernel of relief opened in Julian’s chest as they passed the end of his street and left behind the outskirts of the town. The forest rose up on either side of the road like a dark green wall.

  “How much further?” asked Julian.

  “Not much further now.” Ginger pointed again, and Julian turned onto a road that led towards the heart of the forest. At first they passed a few houses tucked back into the trees. Then there were only trees and more trees.

  “You sure this is the right way?” asked Julian. He knew – or, at least, thought he knew – the forest well enough to know that there were no houses for the next ten or so miles.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “You better not be shitting us,” warned Jake.

  “I’m not, but you might wish I was before this is over.”

  Jake made a scoffing noise. “Why? Who is this Mr X? Some kind of big-time criminal or something?”

  “He’s your worst nightmare.”

  A shudder ran through Julian. Jake burst into a sneering laugh. “Yeah, well I’m looking forward to meeting him.” He ran his finger along his knife. “Me and him’s gonna have a nice little chat.”

  Ginger shook her head, sighing. “Turn in there.” She pointed to a gravel road so narrow and overgrown that you could easily drive by without noticing it. There was no sign to suggest it led anywhere in particular. Julian winced as branches scraped along the car.

  “You ever been to this part of the forest before?” Julian asked Jake.

  “No. You?”

  “I don’t think so.” Much of the forest looked the same, making it difficult to know exactly where you were a lot of the time. After about half-a-mile, the road forked. At Ginger’s direction, they took the left fork, which descended into a heavily wooded valley. As the trees crowded more thickly, Julian had a familiar sense that he was entering a hidden world – a world he was usually more comfortable in than anywhere else, but which at that moment seemed sinister and menacing.

  “Ah, this is bollo-” Jake started to say, but broke off as, after climbing a steep incline, they rounded a curve and came to a tall iron gate topped with spikes. A razor-wire fence stretched to either side of it. Beyond it, the road continued to curve to the right, out of sight behind trees that swayed darkly in the night breeze with a wailing murmur like a creature in pain.

  “Back up,” hissed Jake, pointing at a security camera on the gatepost. Julian reversed around the corner. Jake opened his door. “You stay here and watch her while I check this place out.”

  “Wait,” said Ginger. “Please, please don’t do this. This is crazy.” And the way she said it gave Julian a shrivelling feeling, as though he was teetering right on the edge of a cliff within himself.

  “She’s right,” said Julian. “This is crazy. We should call the police, let them deal with this guy.”

  “Jake, listen to him, he’s talking sense.”

  Scowling, Jake hawked and spat. “Fuck the police and fuck both of you.” He got out of the car and, hunkering into a low run, quickly melted into the darkness.

  Julian glanced at the clock. It was just after two am. He took out his mobile-phone. “You won’t get a signal out here,” said Ginger. She was right. Julian stared out the window, biting his thumbnail. A few minutes crept by. The wind dropped and silence pressed in on him from every side. He heaved a breath just to break it.

  “How do you know Mia?” asked Ginger. Julian made no reply. Telling her that would be as good as telling her his name, and he didn’t want her knowing who he was or, more importantly, who his parents were. “It may surprise you to know that I care about what happens to her.”

  Julian turned to look at Ginger, incredulous.

  “You’ve no right to look at me like that,” she said. “Not until you’ve lived my life. You think I like living this way? You think I chose this life? You think I chose to be conceived in the womb of an alcoholic mother from the seed of a one-night stand?” She shook her head. “Ah, what the fuck am I telling you this for? Unless you’ve been there, you can’t understand how it is.”

  “But I want to understand,” said Julian, thinking about Mia, thinking that maybe it would help him understand her.

  “Then you’re as crazy as that boy out there.”

  “I need to know where Mia’s been.”

  “Why?”

  “Because maybe then I can work out where she’s gone.”

  Giving Julian another long, appraising stare, as if she wasn’t sure what to make of him, Ginger said, “You into sexual role-play? You know, dressing up, acting out a part?”

  “No.”

  “Well the client me and Mia were brought here to…” Ginger searched for the right word, “service was into it. He had very specific needs. He wanted a fourteen or fifteen-year old girl, a blonde, girl-next-door type. And she had to be English, not some dyed-blonde, two-a-penny Eastern European slut. That’s where the real premium comes in. It didn’t matter so much about the woman, just so long as she was old enough to be the girl’s mother.”

  A queer, sick feeling rose in Julian. He put his fist to his mouth, swallowing.

  “You see where this is going, don’t you?” said Ginger. “Do you want me to go on?” Julian nodded. He didn’t want to hear it, but he had to. So she went on and told him how her and Mia played mother and daughter, and the client played father. And she told him how together they’d ‘serviced’ the client, the things they’d done and the things they’d said. And suddenly the sickness in him was replaced by rage-fuelled visions of punching, kicking and strangling the life out of Mr X, whoever the bastard was. “How could you?” The words grated between his teeth. “How could you do those things?”

  “It’s business, that’s all,” said Ginger, eyeing him warily. “You just do it and don’t think about it.”

  “Yeah, well it makes me want to hurt something thinking about that ugly fucker with his hands on Mia.”

&n
bsp; “What makes you think the client was ugly?”

  It suddenly occurred to Julian that there was an important question he hadn’t asked. “What does Mr X look like?”

  “Dunno, I’ve never seen him.”

  Julian screwed up his face in confusion. “But how’s that possible? You said-”

  “I know what I said,” interjected Ginger. She sighed. “Okay, look, here’s the truth…” She fell silent, biting her lip, as if she was having second thoughts about saying what’d been on the tip of her tongue.

  “Go on,” implored Julian. “If you really do care for Mia.”

  Ginger’s eyes flashed with resentment. “You think I’d be here if I didn’t care for her? Anything you or Jake could do to me is nothing, you hear me, nothing compared to what Mr X will do when finds out I brought you here.” A sheen of tears filmed her eyes. She blinked them away and managed a grim smile. “Fuck it. If you dance, you got to pay the piper, right? Truth is, Mr X wasn’t the client. He’s the guy who sets up the jobs.”

  “You mean like a middle-man?”

  “I suppose. When there’s a job going, he rings and tells me what the client wants. I sort out the girl, or girls, or whatever, then he sends his driver to pick us up and take us to the house. The driver and the client are the only people we ever see. After the job’s done, the driver pays us and takes us back to town.”

  “So you’ve only ever spoken to Mr X on the phone.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, could the driver be Mr X?”

  “Dunno, he never says anything. I doubt it, though. He’s a big guy, looks like he’d have a big, deep voice. Mr X’s voice is clicky, like…like some kind of insect.”

  “What about the client? What was he like?”

  “Middle-aged, average looking. You know the type, hair starting to go, bit of a beer-belly. He looked like somebody’s dad.”

  Julian cleared his throat in disdain. “Just you’re average guy with average fantasies about raping his daughter. Don’t suppose Mr Average told you his name?”

  Ginger looked at Julian as if to say, what do you reckon? He pushed his hand through his hair, digging his fingernails into his scalp, almost drawing blood. “How does something like this happen around here?”

  “Why shouldn’t it? What’s special about here? It’s just a place like any other.”

  No it’s not, thought Julian, this is my home, the place I grew up. Stuff like this happens other places, not here. He remembered what his Grandma Alice had said to him all those years ago. She’d said, someday, sweetheart, you’ll find out that there’s a great big world beyond this speck of a town, but not today. Well, he was seeing that world now, whether he wanted to or not. Only he didn’t have to look beyond the town, it was right there in front of him. The whole world contained in one place. The whole beautiful, ugly world.

  More time passed. Julian glanced at the clock again. It was nearly half-an-hour since Jake had left the car. “How much longer you gonna wait for him?” asked Ginger.

  “As long as it takes.”

  “He’s a crazy little shit, but I like him. You like him, too, don’t you?”

  Julian hadn’t really thought about it. But now that he did, he realised Ginger was both right and wrong. Jake was someone he found easy to like and dislike, the same as Mia. Besides, it wasn’t really a question of like or dislike. He was drawn to both Mia and Jake by something else. He couldn’t define what it was. It was simply there, haunting him like a shadow in the moonlit forest, seemingly too vague and deep to be expressed in words. “Yeah, I guess I do,” he said, not seeing any point trying to explain what he couldn’t explain.

  “Then drive to the edge of the forest, phone the coppers. Every minute you stay here puts him in more danger.”

  Julian stared out the window, biting his lip.

  “Listen to me.” Ginger’s voice grew loud with urgency. “You’re way out of your depth. That boy’s gonna end up hurt, maybe dead. And it’ll be on your conscience, ’cos he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

  Julian twisted around to look at her. “How do you know that?”

  “Well someone must’ve seen me in the car with Mia, and I’m guessing that someone was you.”

  Julian’s forehead scrunched into lines of uncertainty. “Maybe I should go look for Jake.”

  Ginger shook her head. “Do that and you’ll be fucked too. Besides, the second you leave me I’m out of this car and running for the main-road.”

  Julian resumed looking out the window, his hands clenching and unclenching on the steering-wheel. “Come on, Jake,” he muttered, “Where the fuck are-” He broke off with a start as a light came on, flooding the road ahead with its harsh white glow.

  “Shit!” cried Ginger. “Let’s get out of here!”

  His heart beating in his mouth, Julian’s hand shot to the ignition key. He hesitated to turn it. “What the fuck you waitin’ for?” yelled Ginger, almost choking on her own panic.

  “Shh,” hissed Julian. From around the curve in the road came a scraping, electronic whirr.

  “The gate’s opening. Oh God, oh God, he’s coming! You have to hurry. Please, please.”

  Still, Julian hesitated, held in place by that indefinable something else. There was the click of a door opening. Ginger lurched out of the car and fled, stumbling in her high-heels on the uneven, stony surface. Julian didn’t go after her. He goggled at the road ahead, his eyes illuminated externally by the security-light and internally by the fear coursing through him like fire. The internal light flared brighter as Jake staggered into view and collapsed against the car’s bonnet, his head hanging forward. Flinging the door open, Julian rushed to help him upright. When he caught sight of the blood oozing from Jake’s mouth and nostrils, he felt a sharp dropping sensation inside. “What happened?”

  “Get me the fuck away from here,” Jake replied, with a gurgle in his voice.

  One arm around Jake’s waist, Julian guided him onto the backseat. Jake didn’t seem to notice – or if he did, didn’t care – that Ginger was gone. “What happened?” Julian asked again.

  Jake made no reply. He lay with his eyes closed, breath grating in his throat. There was no room to turn the car. Julian was forced to back up along the lane. The car jolted around each curve. Half-watching where he was going and half-watching for signs of pursuit, he’d almost lost control of it several times already, when its read end skidded out. The car spun around clockwise until, with a sound of crunching glass, the front-headlight hit a tree. Jake groaned loudly. Julian’s head smacked into the driver’s door window. He sat dazed for a moment, before jerking the gear-stick into first. The tires spun, then caught. He flew along the lane as fast as he dared, his eyes constantly flicking to the rearview mirror. When he reached the main-road, he floored the accelerator-pedal. It only occurred to him after he’d put a good few miles between the car and the turn-off that he hadn’t passed Ginger. Figuring that she’d hidden amongst the trees, he said, “Ginger ran away. Do you reckon we should go back to look for her?”

  “Fuck her,” Jake grunted, barely moving his bloodied lips. “Where are we going?”

  “Hospital.”

  With an effort that caused his breath to hiss between his gritted teeth, Jake sat up. “Stop the car.”

  Julian glanced at him in surprise. “What for?”

  “Just fuckin’ do it.”

  Julian pulled over at the Five Springs carpark. Jake clambered out of the car and, arms hugged tightly across his chest as if trying to hold himself together, started to shuffle away. Still dizzy from banging his head, Julian went after him. “What you doing?”

  “Leave me alone.” Without looking at Julian, Jake continued walking with quickening, unsteady steps.

  “You need to see a doctor.” When Jake shook his head, Julian continued, “At least tell me what happened back there.”

  “Leave it.”

  “Please, Jake, I need to know.”

  Julian reached to
put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. The boy whirled to face him, fists balled, teeth bared. “Don’t fuckin’ touch me.”

  Sensing rather than seeing the fear skulking behind Jake’s anger, Julian raised his hands, palms forward. “Just tell me, did you find out something about Mia?”

  “Mia’s gone.”

  Julian’s eyes popped wide. “What do you mean gone? Do you mean she’s dead?”

  “I mean you can’t help her.” Jake exhaled raggedly, his shoulders sagging. Voice heavy with fatalistic resignation, he added, “Give it up, rich boy.” He turned and headed once more along the path.

  “I won’t give up,” Julian called after him. “No matter what, I won’t ever give up.”

  Julian watched Jake disappear into the darkness of the trees. Then, his mind whirring, he returned to the car. It was obvious some great fear had been put into Jake. What shape that fear took was less obvious. Even if you tried to strip away the bravado, Jake didn’t strike Julian as someone easily frightened by threats to himself. In which case his fear must relate to a threat to someone else. And that someone was surely Mia. Which meant she was alive – alive but with Mr X holding the power of life and death over her. What gave him that power? Perhaps, thought Julian, it’s a debt over drugs – heroin, most likely – and he’s keeping her as a sex-slave until it’s paid off. She’d claimed she didn’t use, but junkies weren’t exactly known for being truthful. Maybe those cuts on her arms hid needle marks. Yes, that was it. The pieces suddenly seemed to be falling into place in his mind. At first, Mia had used Mr X to get money for junk. But now he was using her, and he’d keep using her until she was all used up. And then what? Would he fling her into the river for real or – as perhaps he’d promised Jake – would he let her go? Whatever, Julian knew he had to do something. Jake might’ve been hardened by his upbringing to accept, even embrace the darker side of life, but the thought of Mia playing the daughter to one more sicko made Julian want to throw up and scream and cry all at once. The grim memorial under the bridge was clearly a cry for help, and he was going to do everything in his power to give her the help she needed.