Ben Cheetham - The Society of Dirty Hearts

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.”

“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.”