Chapter Thirty Five
The King’s clubhouse was quiet. Hardly a sign of anybody there. The lights were off downstairs, nothing parked outside, only a sole van and a big black stain up the wall. It looked fresh, and it smelt like stale smoke. I walked closer. It had been a fire. A big one. Rubber had melted into the dolomite, shards of glass and blackened ground where fuel had burned.
“You want me to wait a minute?” the driver of the taxi asked. “Doesn’t look like there’s anyone here?”
“Yeah please. Just give me a few minutes.”
I pushed on the door at the front of the building, nothing giving way. The doors locked shut. Not budging. I knocked, then stood waiting, then staring up at the windows for any sign of life. But the pub was as quiet as I’d ever seen it. Not a light, not a breath. I signalled to the taxi driver and then wandered around the side, to where the big fire stain was on the side, licking all the way up to the roof. Carefully, I tiptoed over the debris. Over wire and glass and scarred ground.
There was a door at the back, and a van parked beside it. But that was locked, too. Above me, there were lights in the windows and shadows of someone moving inside. There was someone home. I knocked hard; the sound ringing out into the air around me, but still no one came. So, I knocked again, and again.
Eventually I heard footsteps. Heavy, pissed off footsteps. The door was yanked open, the wood almost tearing in the frame from where it was dragged inwards. The grey-haired man was angry at first, his grey brows pulled together, the muscles in his arms, covered entirely by colourful tattoos, tense. But then he softened to almost resignation.
“Heidi?” He greeted me. “What are you doing here?”
“Is Fury here? I’m looking for Fury.”
“He’s not here Heidi. He’ll be at his mams.”
“Oh,” I replied, trying not to get disheartened. “Can you give me an address?”
Indie looked at me for a moment, as if his eyes scanned for my intentions and he was satisfied with what he’d seen.
“Yeah, course.”
The taxi was still waiting for me at the front of the building, the middle-aged man looking at me in sympathy as I climbed back into the seat behind him.
“I’m sorry,” I started. “Can you take me to this address here?” I asked, passing him the piece of paper Indie had scribbled Mamma Dot’s address on for me.
The street was the best in the neighbourhood, but the neighbourhood was a dive. Rows of terraced houses, two ups and two downs, morphing into lines upon lines of Victorian Terraces. The house we were looking for was almost at the bottom of the street. This time, when he pulled the car to a stop at the curb, I handed him the money.
“You need me to wait a moment?” He asked again.
“No. Thank you. Think I’ll be alright now.”
At least I wasn’t in the middle of nowhere this time, a main road only a short walk up the bank. I paused outside the door, teetering for a moment at the very top of the steps, not sure whether I should really do this. It had been months since I’d last seen him. Months since I’d just upped and left. I’d never attempted to get in contact with him, burying my thoughts into work.
I swallowed slowly, moving my hand towards the door, to where the doorbell sat attached to the side. Despite that, I didn’t press it, just waiting a little longer until I could either get on with it or go home. I pushed against the black button, the doorbell ringing loudly from inside.
It took a little while before the door opened and the face of the woman that was so very much like him, just smaller and squatter and female, opened the door. She stared a moment, and at first, I didn’t think she recognised me.
“Heidi?” she asked.
“Hi. Is Fury here? I’m looking for Fury.”
The woman frowned and then she sighed, tilting her head and pushing the door wide enough for me to step into the hallway. Then she tipped her head and beckoned for me to follow. No more words exchanged. I followed quietly, my heart thumping low and deep in my chest. Not quite fear, but worry. Worry he’d tell me to fuck off. Worry he’d moved on.
I could smell the home-cooked food before I even set foot in the kitchen. The thick, rich scent filling the air, making my mouth water and my stomach growl. The kitchen was crammed with bodies. Magnet and Demon, the twins, a man I recognised but didn’t know, and the dark hair of Fury which fell down his back, the muscles in his arms bulging out the black t-shirt. He turned, his eyes sharpening as he recognised me, but he said nothing. Just stared.
The room hushed to a silence. Every fork stalled, every mouth slowing, all eyes on me, sweat prickling uncomfortably on the palms of my hands. The heart that had been thumping heavily in my chest seem to stop entirely. And Fury’s face did nothing but stare. I couldn’t read the emotions, other than the initial surprise, and then his eyes darkened, his lips pulling straight, no hint of a smile, no hint of a frown. Absolutely nothing.
“Fury,” I started, shifting from one high heel to the other uncomfortably.
My eyes flicked around the table again. To the audience of bikers watching me, then Fury and back to me. And beside him sat a woman with long raven hair and those big dark eyes. I recognised her from the clubhouse, could still see how he wrapped those big arms around her and pulled her off her feet and I felt the same stab of jealousy I’d felt then, only this time it was amplified a hundred times. He’d moved on.
“Heidi,” he said, breaking the silence which seemed to have lasted hours. “What are you doing here? Is everything ok?”
“Yeah. I…err…. I just came to talk to you.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Indie. I went to the Dog on the Tyne first,” I continued.
“So, why are you here?”
He didn’t want to know. I shouldn’t have come. I should have just forgotten about it all. About the feelings that raced through me every time I woke up. About the enormous hole in my chest. About the feeling of loss, much bigger than losing my father.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.”
I turned, retreating through the hallway as quickly as possible. My cheeks burned with heat; my eyes burned the same. Footsteps thundered behind me, heavy boots picking up speed. I knew it was him. I knew he was coming after me. But I couldn’t turn just yet. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the tears to back the fuck off. I didn’t cry. Not in front of the man who didn’t want me anymore. The man I’d left behind and then swooped back in, hoping to pick up where I’d left off. I was an idiot, stubborn, hot-headed. But I recognised when I’d made a mistake. Only now, that was too late.
Fingers wrapped round my arm.
“Heidi,” his voice was brusque.
I stopped. But I didn’t turn around. Not of my own accord. Those fingers squeezed a little tighter, a tug on my arm and then a pull, till I stood in the hallway, one end blocked by the door and the other by Fury’s vast frame.
“I’m sorry,” I started, staring up into those dark eyes, over that beautiful face, my heart leaping in my chest.
He smelled good. A hint of leather, soap, mint and that light aftershave he always wore, the tiniest of spices mixed with something flowery, much too gentle for him.
“Heidi,” he said again, his voice softer now. “What are you doing here?”
“I dunno. I just thought….”
“That you’d just turn up after running away.”
“I didn’t…”
“You did, Heidi. You upped and left. Vanished. I looked for you. Went to your hotel, in case you’d gone back there and changed your mind. I waited for you. Hoped for you.”
“I’m sorry. I was scared, Fury. And now Gordon’s charged, and the investigation is complete, I have nothing to be scared about.”
“He’s on bail, Heidi. He can still come after you.”
“Why would he? The Police were the ones to find the evidence, not me. They found the Wills, family members are testifying. I’m nothing to do with it anymore.”
“If you’d asked Heidi, I would have run with you. I would have come. But you didn’t ask. You just ran. And now you’re back like you can just pick up from where you left it. Doesn’t work like that, doll.”
I bit my lip, focussing on the pain rather than his words. I knew all this. I knew there was a risk coming back here, that maybe he had moved on, changed his mind.
“That woman in there,” I watched him, watched his eyebrows pull together in the middle. “That’s who you are with now?”
Fury scoffed, not quite a laugh.
“That woman in there is my sister, Heidi. Jasmin. There is no other woman. There was only you. And you left.”
“So, what now?” I asked.
“What now? You expect to waltz in here and expect everything to go back to how it was? I mean, if you want a fuck, then I don’t mind getting my end away. But that’s all it was, anyway, wasn’t it?”
I bit my lip, the burn back behind my eyes, and this time my throat was swelling with it.
“I’m sorry I came.” I shrugged my arm from his grasp.
Then I left again. Striding towards the front door, not looking back, wrenching it open and out onto the street. The steps from the door onto street level slowed me as I negotiated each steep stone ledge, and then I was on the path. The taxi was long gone, the street deserted apart from a few battered parked cars, Fury’s truck and a scatter of Harley’s nestled against it. I kept walking, never looking back, tears falling down my cheeks. Big, treacherous, salty tears streaking my face and clouding my vision. But not my hearing. An engine revved behind me, wheels squealing to a stop, hands grabbing me. I looked around, my head wheeling from side to side, my eyes not focussing properly, wet from tears and blind from fear. Masked faces, grabbing me, moving me, lifting me. I might have screamed. I wasn’t sure. But something heavy hit the back of my head. Confusion. Pain. Black.