The Society Of Dirty Hearts (7 page)

Mia stared at him a couple seconds, then burst out laughing again and shaking her head. “You don’t want to know about me. You’re a nice little rich kid. You don’t want to know where I’ve been, where I’m going.”

Julian sucked in his irritation, determined not to play her game by getting angry. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”

Mia gave him another look, no laughter in her eyes now. “Seriously, you don’t want my life in your head.”

“So why have you brought me here, if you don’t want to talk?”

“’Cos I like you, Julian.” Mia reached out and brushed her hand down his face. “Hey, wow, the acid’s really kicking in.” She jumped up and swirled around the fire. “You should’ve tried it. The visuals are totally sick.” She skipped off along the riverbank path, which was narrow enough that a slight stumble would send her tumbling into the water. If that happened, Julian knew, the fast-flowing current would suck her under in an instant. He hurried after her. Caution slowed his feet, as darkness closed around him like a thick blanket. He couldn’t see Mia, but the echo of her laughter drifted back to him.

“Mia, wait. Mia, Mia-”

Her scream cut Julian short. Forgetting his caution, he rushed forward and almost tripped over her prone form. He felt for her in the dark. She was stiff, yet trembling as if in shock. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I saw her.” Mia’s voice was tiny and high-pitched, stripped of pretension by fear.

“Saw who?”

“I saw her,” she repeated. “In the water. I saw her, saw her, saw…” She mumbled off into incoherence.

Julian helped Mia to her feet and, one arm around her waist, guided her back to the fire. Her clothes and face were splotched with mud. He wrapped a blanket around her. She sat hunched, hands trembling in her lap, eyes goggling at the flames. Julian started to move away from her.

“Where you going?” she asked anxiously.

“To fetch your friends.”

“Don’t leave me alone.”

“But we need to get you home.”

“Home,” Mia scoffed, her voice regaining some of its strength. “That’s a laugh.” She pleaded with Julian with her eyes. Sighing, he sat down next to her. “I feel all cold inside,” she said. Hesitantly, Julian put his arm around her. She squirmed closer, pressing her head against his shoulder. At first deep tremors passed through her body into him every few seconds. But after a while he felt her relax and her breathing became slow and regular.

He held her like that the rest of the night. In the dirty grey light of dawn, she smiled at him. It was the first honest smile he’d seen on her face. It made her look different, softer, less angry. “Thanks, Julian.”

Julian rose slowly to his feet, muscles stiffed by cold. He considered asking Mia who she’d seen in the water, but decided not to – not while the shadow of her experience was still in her eyes. He’d let her tell him only if she wanted to. He crouched by the fire’s embers, while she went in search of her companions. She returned after a few minutes, with them trailing. “Was it fucking good!” the man was saying, “Fuck, man, it was like, boom!” As they climbed the bank, grinning leeringly, he leant in close to Julian. “So does she suck a good cock?” he whispered. “I’ll bet she can suck it dry, can’t she? Just like her little whore of a dead pal. Now she was a good suck job. First time she did me I was like, oh baby, that was some fucking good suck. Did your daddy teach you that?”

The man chuckled as if he’d told a joke. Julian clenched his teeth, fighting down an urge to drive his elbow into his larynx. They drove into town to the fast-food joint they’d picked Julian up outside. “We’re gonna get breakfast,” Mia said to him. “You want to eat breakfast with me?”

Julian glanced at the man, who, along with the woman, was making his way into the restaurant. “You shouldn’t hang around with him.”

“Who, Weasel? He’s okay.”

“No he’s not. He said some stuff about you and Joanne Butcher.”

Mia frowned. “Like what?”

“I don’t want to repeat it, but it wasn’t nice.”

Mia’s frown spread into her eyes, hardening them to knife slits. She shook her head. “And here I was starting to think you were different, but you’re not. You’re just like the rest of them. Fuck, who do you think you are, telling me who I should and shouldn’t hang with?”

“I’m only trying to look out for you.”

“Yeah, well don’t. I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it all my life.”

Before Julian could respond, Mia turned and entered the restaurant. He stared after her a few seconds, heaved a sigh and headed off along the street.

Chapter 7

When Julian reached Kyle’s house, he briefly considered knocking and apologising to him. He was too dog-tired to be bothered, though. He got into his car and drove home. His parents were waiting for him. From the look his dad gave him, he might’ve been waiting up all night.

“Where the hell have you been?” Robert demanded to know.

“Can we do this later?” Julian asked, stifling a yawn.

“No we can’t. You’re supposed to be studying, not staying out night after night, partying or getting drunk or whatever. If this is how you’re going to behave, you might as well go back to London.”

“Fuck that,” Julian muttered under his breath.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. Sorry, I’m too tired for this right now.” Julian headed for his bedroom. He collapsed onto his bed and put in his I-pod earphones, turning the music up loud enough that it’d wake him if he happened to drift off. He thought about what Weasel had said. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. There was that feeling again. In his stomach. Spreading to his other internal organs, insidious as cancer. It made him queasy and angry. He took off his earphones, dug his mobile-phone and a business-card out of his pockets. He punched in the number on the card and Tom Benson answered in a crisp, professional tone.

“There’s this guy you might want to talk to,” Julian told him. “His nickname’s Weasel.”

“I think I know who you mean. Crucifix tattoo on his left hand.”

“That’s him.” Then, cringing, Julian repeated what Weasel had said.

“Well, well, I’ll have to have a chat with Weasel. Thanks for that. But how do you know him?”

Julian told the policeman about Mia Bradshaw. Not everything. Just the bits he needed to hear. When he was finished, the policeman said, “Now I’ve got something to tell you. I just got off the phone with the coroner. Joanne Butcher died from a heroin overdose.”

The words,
all those fuckers can tut and nod and shake their little heads
, rang in Julian’s brain. “So she wasn’t murdered?”

“Doesn’t look like it. So there’s no need for you to hang around.” A cautionary note entered the policeman’s voice. “Oh, and if I were you I’d have nothing else to do with Mia Bradshaw. You’re likely to get into trouble hanging around with
that
kind.”

Irritation prickled through Julian.
What do you mean by that kind
?
So she comes from a bad background. That doesn’t mean she’s bad, just unlucky
. He felt like saying this, but didn’t. He simply said, “Thanks,” and hung-up.

Julian hurried from his bedroom. He had to see Mia, tell her about Joanne Butcher, tell her he was sorry, make her realise he
was
different from all the tut-tut-tutters and head-shakers – and he knew there was only one way to do that. He had to show her who he really was. Show her his sickness was greater than anything she carried. Then, maybe, she’d show him who she really was. He’d already caught a glimpse of her real self, her vulnerability. It made him fear for her, fear that she might destroy herself if her hatred of life grew any deeper. He didn’t know why he should care what happened to her, but he did.

“Where are you going now?” asked Robert. When he got no reply, voice rising, he continued, “I asked you a question. Don’t you walk away-”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Robert, leave him be,” interrupted Christine.

“No I won’t leave him be. While he’s under my roof-” Julian heard his dad say. Then he was out the front door and running for his car.

Mia wasn’t in the fast-food restaurant. After cruising around for a while, vainly scanning the streets for her, Julian remembered that he knew which school she went to. It was the same school his dad had attended. Not the best school in town, but as his dad had once said, a decent school, with decent people. At lunchtime, kids streamed out the gate – kids with middle-class written all over them. Mia was amongst them, but somehow aloof from them. As Julian approached her, he noticed other kids giving her looks, some hating, some mocking, some perhaps envying or even admiring. She didn’t appear to notice or care.

“I need to talk to you,” he said. Mia walked past him without looking at him. “Please,” he continued, “this is really important.”

She stopped and turned to run her eyes over his drawn, unshaven face. “Come on,” she said, almost expressionless, and continued walking.

Julian followed. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere we can talk.”

They walked along quiet suburban streets to a house – a well-kept semi with a garden and a privet hedge. “Is this your parents’ place?” Julian asked, surprised. He’d pictured her living in a flat on some run-down estate.

“Foster-parents’.”

At the front door, they met a girl about Mia’s age coming the other way. “Who’s he?” she asked, looking at Julian.

“None of your business.”

“You’re not supposed to have boys in the house when my parents are out,” the girl called after them as they made their way upstairs, putting special emphasis on the word ‘my’.

Ignoring her, Mia led Julian into a bedroom. It contained all the essentials – bed, desk, drawers, wardrobe – but there were no posters, books, cds, or any of the other things you might expect to see in a teenage girl’s room. There was a suitcase on the floor, open but unpacked, screwed up clothes leaking out of it, makeup, bits of cheap jewellery and photos jumbled in amongst them. Stretching out onto the bed, Mia looked at Julian expectantly.

Julian took a breath and told her how her best-friend died. He saw, perhaps, the faintest quiver in her eyes. But other than that, nothing. “Is that it?” she said. “Is that all you have to tell me?”

Before the previous night, Julian might’ve been tempted to call Mia a total fucking cold-hearted bitch. But now he knew – or at least, thought he knew – that her impassivity was a mask she’d learned to wear to protect herself. He shook his head, gesturing to the bed. “Can I sit?”

Mia shrugged. “Sure.”

He flopped down next to her, rubbing his eyes and murmuring, “Man, I’m so tired. I haven’t slept properly in a week.”

“Why?”

“I have these dreams.” Julian swallowed as he spoke, forming the words with a reluctant mumble.

“What kind of dreams?”

“Bad ones. It’s like there’s something in the bedroom with me, attacking me, trying to get inside me.”

Mia sat up, crossing her legs, curiosity replacing her impassivity. “You mean like a ghost or something?”

“No, not a ghost.”

“What then?”

“I don’t know.”

“So what happens?”

Julian told Mia what happened in the dream – the original dream, not the new version. She listened intently, fascinated. “That’s seriously creepy shit,” she said. “So how long have you been dreaming that stuff?”

“Since I was ten.”

“Fuck.” Mia looked at Julian with something close to sympathy. “I’d go totally out of my skull if I was you.”

“I almost did. You wouldn’t believe how many therapists I’ve been through.”

“Did they help?”

“Some of them did. The last guy I saw told me I needed to learn to accept the dream, not fight it. He said I had to let it come, in order to let it go. So I did, and it did go for a while.”

“But now it’s back.”

Julian nodded. “Ever since I heard about Joanne Butcher.”

Mia frowned, her eyes searching Julian’s. “Why would that make it come back?”

“Maybe because her disappearance reminded me of Susan Carter.”

“Who’s Susan Carter?”

“A girl from around here who went missing ten years ago. My grandma tried to help her parents find her.”

“Was she a copper?”

Julian smiled thinly at the idea. “No, she was a psychic medium.”

Mia’s eyebrows lifted. “You mean she could, like, speak to the dead.”

“Supposedly, although if you ask me it was a load of bollocks, one big act.”

“I dunno, I kind of believe in that stuff.” For the space of a breath Mia’s eyes went away again, lost in whatever she saw on the horizon of her mind. She blinked back to the real world. “So go on, what happened with your nan?”

Julian told Mia about the day his mum took him to visit his grandma, about creeping downstairs to the séance, about his grandma’s changed, distorted face. She shook her head, wide-eyed. “This just gets weirder and weirder. So how did you find out who Susan was?”

“I went to this therapist a few years later, and he reckoned that unravelling the mysteries of the dream would take away its power. So Mum took me to the library and showed me newspaper clippings about a girl called Susan Carter who went over to a friend’s house one evening, but never got there. A big search went on for her, but they didn’t find anything. It was as if she’d vanished right off the face of the planet. Anyway, about a year later the police arrested this truck-driver who tried to snatch a girl off the street in Glasgow. His name was Michael Ridgway. This guy was a loner, a real oddball. When they searched his house they found a box with bits of jewellery and girl’s clothes and underwear in it. Turned out, they belonged to other girls he’d snatched.”

“I’ve heard about that kind of thing – about how serial killers keep trophies from their victims. I remember seeing on TV about this guy who killed people by biting their throats, and drinking their blood, like some kind of vampire. He kept their heads as trophies.”

“Yeah, well this sicko had been trucking up and down the country for years, abducting and killing girls. That’s why they called him The A1 Murderer. When the police found out he’d been on a job in this area the day Susan Carter disappeared, they showed his trophies, or whatever they were, to her parents. There was a necklace the same as one she’d been wearing when she disappeared. It was obvious he’d taken her. Problem was he wouldn’t admit it. And since no one had seen anything, and they couldn’t find Susan’s body, and you could buy the same necklace on any high-street, they decided not to charge him with her murder. But they did charge him with six other murders and locked him up for life.”