Human Conditioning (43 page)

Lily watched him, musingly. It
was possible that Aiden had rebelled against Grant out of resentment and spite;
that he had become what he was in order to show this man, and his family,
exactly what he was able to achieve without them. Her argument with Aiden
outside the pub at New Year came back to haunt her:
‘Has your dad ever spent
money that was meant to buy food for that week, so instead you starve?’
and
her retort:
‘So you turn to a life of crime just to show how disappointed
you are with the world?’

It was an unnerving thought,
but she wondered now whether she had hit the nail on the head that night. The
rebellion against his guardians did suit the bitter, malevolent side of Aiden
that she was so mindful of these days. When Lily met Grant’s gaze, he was
watching her, his eyes narrowed inquisitively. “Most of what I’m telling you is
all news to you, isn’t it?”

She gulped and nervously ran
her fingers over the side of her glass. “Yes,” she whispered.

Grant smiled fondly at what
she thought was another batch of memories. “The Fosters are big fans of
discretion, particularly when it comes to family matters.”

“Did Vivien know about Aiden’s
illegal dealings back then?”

“She knew about the cars and
the drugs...”

Lily jumped on this
immediately. “What did she
not
know about?”

Grant surveyed her for a long
moment. She could tell that he was once again calculating an adequate answer,
and soon, there it was, his guardedness. It was as clear as if a physical metal
shutter was closing between them.

He sighed. “What’s this all about?”

Lily dropped her eyes once
more and shook her head. “Nothing...”

“Lily, what is it?” Grant
pressed.

She plastered on a smile.
“Nothing... really... I just came to say thanks. I’d best be off. Aiden will be
home soon,” she lied.

Scraping her stool over the
stone floor, she gathered up her bag and, manoeuvring Amy’s pushchair, she
headed for the door. She was mortified. The next part of the story was a no-go
zone, a vital piece of the jigsaw that he was reluctant to lay on the table.
Before she could open the kitchen doors, Grant was there doing it for her. She
smiled weakly up at him and pushed Amy’s pushchair hastily into the hallway,
heading for the front door. Grant rushed to her side. Opening the door, he
watched her leave with apprehension.

Grant never liked to pry into
people’s business, unless it was to do with
his
business, but he knew
what
business
Aiden was in, and he got the feeling that Lily may have
inkling too. Even so, he couldn’t get involved. He’d already learned not to
interfere in Aiden’s life. She was at the end of the garden path when he
called, “Is there anything I can do?” even though he knew his offer was
fruitless.

Lily froze and turned to face
him. “No,” she replied, tears pricking her eyes. “Thank you.” She ventured a
watery smile then headed for the car. Grant watched her for a moment as she
prepared her child for the journey, then he slipped back inside the house.

Lily drove with tears streaming down her cheeks. Grant
had given her a lot of information tonight, but it shed no more light on how
Aiden had got into what he was doing now, and she wanted to know every tiny
detail about why her husband was this way. Maybe, if she understood, she could
learn to live with it. She shook her head in disgust at herself.

When she arrived home, it was
before 9pm. It was a Thursday. Aiden would be home early, but she had enough
time to settle Amy down into her cot and get herself into bed before he
arrived. Then she would pretend that she was asleep and, hopefully, he would
not bother her.

Lily got out of her Chevrolet Corvette
Coupé
and
stared up at the large sign over the building that read, ‘Harper’s Sports and
Fitness Centre’. She opened the boot of the car and pulled out the only sports
bag she could find in the house. It was Aiden’s. She walked around to the
passenger side and got Amy out of her car seat. “Come on, you,” she chuckled as
Amy’s tiny mouth opened into a long yawn and her ocean-blue eyes widened and
blinked. “Are you tired, my beautiful girl?”

After she had completed the
necessary forms and given over Aiden’s bank details for her new gym membership,
she took Amy into the changing rooms and they dressed for the swimming baths.
She had bought her a little multi-coloured swimming costume with frills around
the belly and a
My Little Pony
inflatable swim ring to go around her
little waist. She looked so cute in them both.

Dipping her feet into the warm
water of the pool, Lily carried Amy tight to her chest until she was waist
deep. Then, carefully, she held Amy out in front of her and dipped her podgy
legs into the water. Amy began to kick instantly. “Aren’t you clever?” Lily
beamed at her little girl, and Amy beamed back, chuckling as Lily began to move
her about the water.

“Is this her first time?”

Lily turned to see that a man
had descended into the pool behind her. He was grinning from ear to ear, his
long blond hair falling scruffily over his face. “Uh, yes,” she replied,
feeling somewhat exposed in her swimming costume. A passing thought of Aiden’s
face if he saw her now – half dressed and talking to another man – entered
unwillingly into her mind, and she had to force it away.

Oblivious to her discomfort,
the man added kindly, “She seems to have already got the hang of it. Is she
yours?”

Lily hesitated then replied,
“Yes.”

“What’s her name?”

“Amy.”

His chocolate brown eyes were
twinkling with the fondness of one who adores children, “Well, Amy, you
are
a very clever girl,” he said.

Lily watched him intently as
he addressed her child. He was good-looking in a hippy kind of way, with light
stubble over his chin and above his upper lip, and she wouldn’t put him past
twenty-five years old. He was slim and his shoulders and chest were of regular
size, but he was toned, as though he was a frequent user of the gym, which she
expected he probably was.

When he looked back up at her,
one of his hands appeared from below the water. “Robert Wesley,” he announced.

Lily gulped, peering down at
his large wet hand. “Lily,” she croaked. She could not give a handshake because
she was holding Amy above water.
Hiding your wedding ring
, she thought
fleetingly.

Robert rolled his eyes. “Of
course,” he scolded himself playfully, and realising his mistake, he said, “It
was nice to meet you, Lily,” before dipping himself fully into the water and
swimming away somewhat hastily. Lily frowned after him.
Had she embarrassed
him?
She hadn’t meant to.

Lily and Amy were dressed and
sitting in the café an hour later. Lily had retrieved Amy’s pushchair from the
car, and Amy was now fast asleep in it. Lily was nibbling on a niçoise salad,
idly thinking how famished she was and, on a completely different matter, what
she could do to avoid Aiden that afternoon. It was a Sunday, so he was due home
early.

“Hello again.”

Lily looked up into the brown
eyes of Robert. Placing her knife and fork down, she gently wiped her mouth
with a serviette. “Oh, hello...” she smiled timidly.

“May I join you?” Robert
peered down at her food. “I have to confess, I wasn’t planning on being as
healthy as you are being... I was going to have a bowl of chips... but now I
think I’d feel too guilty!” he laughed.

“Please, don’t change your
mind on my account. In fact, we were just about to leave.”

Robert glanced at her plate
again and the fact that she was barely half way through her meal was not lost
on him. His lip twitched into a grin. “I think you aren’t being very honest
with me there.”

Lily shifted awkwardly in her
chair, and holding up her left hand she announced, “I’m married.”

Robert’s hands went to his
mouth and he gasped theatrically, “Oh no!” He dropped his hands and raised an
eyebrow, like Aiden would do, and Lily’s breath hitched. “I didn’t realise you
couldn’t speak to the opposite sex when they are married...” he added,
pleasantly sardonic.

“You don’t know my husband,”
Lily muttered, and his eyes narrowed, but he didn’t ask her to elaborate. It wasn’t
exactly his business.

“I would really like to join
you,” he said, gazing down at her, his grin not having left his face since his
arrival.

Lily yielded on a
good-humoured sigh. “OK.”

“Great... back in a sec!”

He turned on his heels and
Lily watched him with interest as he ordered his food at the counter. When he
returned to the table, he had a milkshake in his hand. She raised her eyebrows
at him as if to say ‘that’s a strange choice of drink for a fully grown man’
and he replied, “You can’t beat the shakes here... and if I can’t have
chips...”

Lily laughed. “I’m not
stopping you having chips. That is your own insecurity...” She smiled and began
tucking into her salad as Robert sucked on his straw. Lily swallowed a mouthful
then pressed, “What did you order, then?”

“The niçoise salad seems to be
very popular around here,” he replied on a grin.

Lily chuckled. “Really? Well,
I’m afraid to say it is less than average.”

Robert walked Lily and Amy out into the car park. When
they approached the car, he whistled in appreciation. “Nice motor!”

“Oh, thanks...”

Lily was suddenly embarrassed,
and as if he were reading her mind, he said, “Hey, don’t be coy... if I had a
wife as lovely as you, I would want her to have the best too.”

“And who says
Aiden
bought me the car?”

“Aiden... is that your
husband?”

“Yes.”

Robert nodded. “Well, Aiden is
giving you the very best and that will help me sleep tonight.”

Lily frowned.
What an odd
thing to say to a stranger
. “Well, I’d best get Amy strapped in.”

“Do you want some help?”

“No, thank you, I’m quite
capable.”

“I’m certain you are...”
Robert tailed off as his chocolate brown eyes met Lily’s sparkling blue gaze
and took in just how beautiful she was. He didn’t want their meeting to end,
and inside he was bursting to ask her if he could lunch with her again, but he
didn’t. She was married. So he would leave their next encounter in the lap of
the gods.

“Goodbye, then,” he said.

“Goodbye, Robert.”

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

Aiden let himself into a safe house located above a kebab
shop in Shadwell, and climbed the stairs cluttered with old paintings in golden
frames and other household odds and sods left to rot against the damp,
wallpapered walls. 

Tonight, a whopping ten kilos
of cocaine and forty-five kilos of ecstasy was to be dispatched from that safe
house and flood the streets of London. It was a big night for Turnmills
too,
as several boxes of pills were to be distributed to the dealers that were
assigned to the club.

Aiden had been invited to
Turnmills by Frankie once he had finished up at the safe house, but he had refused.
Clubbing was not his thing, and Frankie was starting to creep him out a bit. He
wasn’t sure what it was about him exactly, but he got the impression that he
was Frankie’s favourite employee, and although he would usually relish the fact
that, once again, he had excelled in another of his ventures, there was
something about Frankie that didn’t sit quite right with him, and so to be his
favourite was not a pleasant experience.

Aiden wasn’t surprised that
business was running smoothly with him in charge. The job was a piece of piss
to him, and the only real downside was that he was getting home even later than
he had before. Where he used to get home around 1am, he was lucky to have even
got to a safe house by then, in most cases. Tonight, however, he had arrived
relatively early, though he would have to remain there until at least 2am when,
he hoped, the final distributions would be made and the house would be cleared
of any illegal activity once more.

“What time is Marcellus
getting here?” he asked his men as he entered the desolate living room and
immediately located a small dining table where he could rack up a few lines.

“He’ll be here in ten
minutes,” one man replied. That man was Carl Chovanek, a Czechoslovakian who
had immigrated to the UK four years ago, looking for work. He had been
introduced to Aiden at another of Frankie’s safe houses in Edgware a few months
ago.

“Oh, Carl, Ricky’ll sort out
an MR2 for you. Alex can get it turned around in a week, if you still want it?”

“Oh yes, thank you, Mr
Foster.”

Aiden nodded and pulled out a
bag of white powder from the inside of his suit jacket. He had been able to
dress smartly today. All the gear inside the safe house had been delivered the
previous day, so he was able to go straight to the house without being at the
factory first. It was Frankie’s policy that no merchandise be held in a safe
house for more than twenty-four hours, so it was usual practice for Aiden to
see the produce leave the factory then follow the delivery trucks back to
London. Due to the amount of merchandise being offloaded this time, however, it
had been agreed to split the job over two separate days, with the merchandise
stashed under the floor along with £300,000 cash in vacuum-sealed packages from
sales the previous day.

Aiden racked up eight lines on
a placemat that he found on the table. He snorted four in succession then
offered a line each to Carl and the other three Czechoslovakians he had with
him. Just as the men set back to work, Marcellus swaggered into the room sporting
his usual faded Levis and leather bomber jacket. He was thirty-eight years old,
of Italian descent, and the size of a brick shit-house, even bigger than Aiden,
with a shiny bald head, thick unruly eyebrows and gleaming white teeth that he
had whitened regularly at a private dental practice in Kensington.