Deadly Obsession (15 page)

A
s Amy stood
across the street from the club once more, that opening night seemed such a hazy memory. So much had happened since then to turn her world upside down. The club was no longer a club, which was clear as she stared at the sign for the Dirty Cash Casino that hung outside. But that was just the bricks and mortar. It was the memories the four walls contained, the happy times, the joy and the laughter that had changed. Riley gone, Laura gunned down, so many of the people she had trusted and enjoyed spending time with now lining up as suspects in a whodunit game she wasn't sure how she was supposed to play. Her memories shattered, warped out of all recognisable shape, the red roses of romance and love tarred black with destruction. Life at The Kitty Kat was over for good and Amy's own existence would never be the same again.

Amy had headed back to Manchester after the arrival of the second letter. If the letter was to be believed then Riley was closer than she realised. She'd been unable to stop herself from turning and constantly glancing over her shoulders on leaving her London home ever since she'd read it. Had Riley followed her to London? Was he still based in Manchester? Was he still based anywhere?

That had been the major change in her return journey to Manchester. Her paranoia had escalated through the roof. Before, she'd assumed that if Riley was alive then he would be in hiding, fearful for his life as stated in his first letter. But now things had changed. She found herself staring at people in cars speeding past, those in the queue behind her at the train station, the stranger lurking on the corner of the street where she walked. What if Riley had changed his appearance? His long thick black locks could now be cropped, blond, shaved. His über-sharp fashion sense could be camouflaged with baggy anoraks and heavy winter clothes.

The other change had been that she had not returned to Manchester alone. This time Grant had accompanied her. Now work had finished on
Ward 44
for the Christmas break, Grant had insisted that he tag along. The two of them had shared something at Amy's apartment. There had been a comfort in him being there. Just his mere presence made Amy feel stronger. She hadn't hesitated when he'd offered his company. It wasn't trust. She still trusted nobody, but just having someone experience the jagged life journey she was currently on alongside her seemed strangely beneficial. He listened, he offered advice, he was simply there. He may have abhorred her husband, but he could see that the mystery surrounding his death was eating Amy alive. He seemed willing to do whatever he could to make things easier and that was something Amy appreciated. Nothing was simple any more. She doubted whether it ever would be again.

Grant had left Amy once they had arrived in Manchester and booked into a hotel. Grant had paid for both rooms, a gesture Amy was unable to turn down. Her supply of money was dwindling fast and at least this hotel's sheets would be fresher than the last.

Grant's reasons for heading to Manchester were not entirely unselfish. He'd informed Amy that a casting director for a potential forthcoming American project was currently based in the city and Grant wanted to see him as soon as possible. As he explained to Amy on the train, ‘Me going to him as opposed to him tracking me down will give me considerable kudos when it comes to deciding on leading roles. A casting director will always love you more if they know you're keen from the off.' Amy couldn't fault his logic.

While Grant headed off to try and advance his acting career across international boundaries, Amy knew where she had to go. She needed to see Tommy Hearn again. Their last meeting had been a merciless one for Amy. She had learnt the truth about Riley and about how Tommy had callously masterminded her losing everything. It would have been his idea to instruct Riley into gaining her signature, handing everything over to Tommy and his hatchet-faced wife Jemima. Everything she cared about, everything she had dreamt of. Everything that was rightfully hers. Amy needed to fight back, needed to be strong. She would not let the likes of Tommy and Jemima destroy her. She had unfinished business with the Hearns and she needed to confront them again. To readjust the balance of power.

Taking a deep breath, Amy took a pace into the road and headed towards the casino. As she did, a sleek black car screeched to a halt outside it. Instinctively Amy ducked down behind a vehicle on her side of the road. Something was telling her to be careful. An inner sixth sense.

She was glad she had. She watched as a figure vacated the car, brutally slammed the door and marched into the building. It was Adam Rich and he had a face that was far from happy. In fact, he looked ready to kill.

J
emima Hearn had always been
a ‘plus one'. She had never really achieved her own identity, she was just the woman who had put up with Tommy's thuggish, philandering ways, ever since she had caught him cheating on their honeymoon in Greece. Deep down she knew she deserved better, but a vulnerability at her core, something that had always been there since her formative years, made her turn a blind eye. Give up the fight.

Women in the world she frequented often didn't seem to have their own identity. They were happy for their ‘men' to play Mr Big and bring home the bacon. For as long as she had been Mrs Tommy Hearn that was exactly what she was ... just the wife of Tommy Hearn. Not ‘Tommy's charming wife, Jemima' with her own interests and friends. People didn't say of her ‘you'll never guess what that wonderful Jemima is up to now,' or ‘isn't Jemima the most fantastic hostess?' No, she was just plain old ‘Jemima ... is that her name? ... You know the one, Tommy Hearn's missus'. The eternal ‘plus one'. If Tommy was invited somewhere then she would be too. But purely as a matter of course. Was she ever invited anywhere due to her own personal popularity? The answer was no. Did people clamour for her sparkling wit and repartee? Equally, no. Jemima was perceived as deeply dull, somewhat wearisome and with the excitement factor of a wet camping weekend.

How had she let it all change? When she and Tommy had first married she was ecstatic. Her husband was her man, her rock, her better half. But now? To be honest, Jemima wasn't even sure if she felt vaguely excited by her husband any more. Tommy had become little more than her ‘other half'. The man who had always been there, providing for her so that she could shop when necessary, holiday when necessary, pamper when necessary. Even all of that had become horribly routine. She was supposed to have provided Tommy with children. Wasn't that what the dutiful wife ought to achieve at least at some point during a marriage? Shouldn't that have been her end of the matrimonial bargain? But for the Hearns it hadn't happened. Their sex life was plentiful to begin with. She had loved Tommy with a passion and that passion was ignited nightly between the sheets. But as the years progressed and no offspring appeared, Tommy appeared to lose interest in her. She'd always known he was sewing his oats elsewhere, ever since that first fateful night. Most of the people around him were so who was she to judge? It was part of the machismo world of skulduggery her husband belonged to and something that had always been present in their married life.

At least Tommy had never kept anything about his professional life from her. She had always known about Riley's line of business and his father's before him. They were corrupt, as was Tommy. She had no worries about that, it provided her with the money she needed and meant she never had to work. Quite why Riley had deemed it necessary to keep the truth from Amy was beyond Jemima. She was happy enough to spend his money and reap the rewards, so sheltering her from the truth seemed ridiculous. She found the girl naive and beyond stupid. She was never cut out to be a gangster's wife. Believing the cover of the plastics factory – how bloody idiotic was she? Still, she'd paid the price for her own stupidity. She'd lost her business, lost her home and lost her husband. The first two she deserved. She'd come from nothing, she could go back there as far as Jemima was concerned. But losing the man you loved, that was tough. Nothing prepared you for the heartache of that. That moment when the man you shared so much with is taken from you, so heartlessly and abruptly. No, nobody deserved hearing the sound of their own heart shatter into a million fragments of misery. Jemima knew that, because it had happened to her.

People thought Jemima was a hard bitch. She could understand why. Her lack of confidence in her own self-worth had often translated into an icy silence that many took for rudeness. The deep, carved wrinkles on her aging face gave her an acidic, pinched look. Her grey hair, harshly scraped back off her face into a bun, aged her before her time. Tommy moaned at her all the time to dye it, or have it styled at one of Manchester's top salons. Occasionally she did and Tommy would momentarily reward her with a ‘you look nice, dear' but a few weeks later and the grey was back with gusto. She didn't really blame Tommy if he was fucking around elsewhere. She didn't particularly find herself sexy so why should he? Tommy didn't make her feel sexy anymore. That part of her life was over, or at least she had thought it was. Which is why she'd been so surprised when someone had come along to fan the inner flames of her sexual desire once again.

She hadn't meant it to happen. Never thought it could. Things like that didn't happen to women like her. But it had. From the moment Jemima had laid eyes on him something inside her had burst into spontaneous, glorious flames. Her heart seemed to beat stronger within the confines of her own rib cage. Her mind seemed to spiral with the delight of dark, lascivious thoughts and suddenly, more importantly, she felt as if she were more than just ‘somebody else's wife'. Tommy was still good for the money, for the kudos, for the companionship, but any spark of love between them had certainly died for good the moment Jemima set eyes on Winston Curtis. And more to the point, the moment he had laid eyes on her. The attraction was mutual and the timing had been perfect. Jemima was looking the best she had in ages thanks to a salon visit and a pampering session that had been forced upon her by Caitlyn Rich. Caitlyn had been offered two complimentary passes for a new treatment spa that had popped up just outside Manchester and as she was one of the few people who actually had any time for Jemima, invited her along.

When Jemima Hearn met Winston Curtis for the first time, her hair was slick, her skin was freshly buffed and her confidence was higher than it had ever been, even if that was just above zero. For the first time ever Jemima embarked on an affair.

Their tryst had continued right up until that awful night he had died alongside Riley in The Kitty Kat. Jemima had been there to witness it – her beautiful lover's body lifeless and bloodied in front of her eyes. Never again would she feel the fullness of his lips against hers or the hardness of his body during their love-making.

She had watched Winston die. The man who had made her feel so much more than a ‘plus one'. Sometimes she wondered if Tommy had been behind Winston's death. Maybe he had found out about their love. It was a frightening thought. The murky truth in life sometimes had a strange way of rising to the surface without any definite reason. Jemima had told no-one, maybe Winston had ... she would never know. She could hardly ask Tommy. She would just carry on playing the dutiful wife, maybe until the end of her days. It was what she did. Her role in life.

But it was so hard. It's hard to pretend you love somebody when you don't, but it is even harder to pretend that you don't love someone when you really do. She had loved Winston Curtis, right up until the moment his life was snuffed out. She had no doubt that Amy Hart had loved Riley and that the agony of watching him die was just as horrific. She could respect her for that. But at least she was able to openly mourn him. Tell the world about what a supposedly great man he was. She had that luxury. Jemima had been forced to mourn in silence. She hadn't even attended Winston's funeral because Tommy didn't want to go. What was it he said? ‘He was nothing more than a bloody right-hand-Johnny for Riley and he's no loss.' To Jemima he was so much more, he was the man who had made her feel alive again. And now he was dead.

Amy Hart could tell everyone on the planet how much she loved her man. Amy Hart didn't know how lucky she was. And that was something that Jemima hated her for.

A
dam angrily pushed
his way through the gaggle of gamblers playing the machines at the Dirty Cash and headed straight to Tommy's office. The door was closed but Adam didn't bother knocking and marched directly in.

‘We need to fucking talk. This could get out of hand if we don't put a stop to it now.' The veins on his temples were raised and pulsating with blood as he spoke. ‘I won't let anything come back to bite me on the backside, especially not some two-bit wisp of a widow, you hear me ...?'

Tommy Hearn stopped what he was doing, placed his pen on the desk in front of him and leant back in his leather chair to look at Adam. He was not smiling.

‘Do you have to come charging in here like some rabid dog from the streets of New Delhi? Christ, man, I could have been having an important meeting in here or something.'

Adam moved close to the desk and forcefully banged one of his fists down on the wood surface. ‘So fucking what, Tommy? Nothing's more important than this. Lily tells me Amy Hart is sniffing around and to add insult to injury I now find out my own daughter was getting a good rogering from Riley. If the bastard wasn't already dead, I'd be tempted to kill the randy little fucker myself!'

‘Oh that,' Tommy was nonplussed. ‘None of us are exactly famed for keeping our dicks in our pants, are we? Jemima's good for many things but sex isn't one of them anymore.'

Tommy continued. ‘Surely even a meathead like you knows that Riley Hart was a man pretty much governed by his cock. Your daughter's no angel, so what ... she didn't get up the duff did she, so what's the problem?'

‘The problem is that little cunt could cause me all sorts of trouble from beyond the grave if he isn't dead. And yes, I know that's a contradiction in terms before you get smart with me. Some things need to stay hidden. She can't find out anything. Even if he is actually dead but Amy gets wind of what went on I could be history around here. You and I may not see eye to eye on a lot of things, Hearn, but you have to agree with me on this. Our secret can't get out. If I go down I swear I'll take you with me.'

‘Care for a drink?' Tommy calmly pulled open one of his desk drawers and reached inside for a bottle of brandy and two glasses. ‘It sounds like you could do with de-stressing a bit. You'll be sending your blood pressure through the roof and at your age that's never wise.' He didn't wait for an answer before starting to pour.

‘Don't be smart with me, Hearn. This was your mess, you owe me ... you need to make sure this stays buried.'

‘It'll stay ... er,
buried
. And that's the operative word, is it not ...? Now, cheers.'