Hidden Sin: When the past comes back to haunt you. Julie Shaw

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       Prologue

      Bradford, June 1997

      Mo took a slow look around him and sniffed the air. Nothing had changed, he realised. The Sun Inn still delivered: its familiar cocktail of stale beer, cheap perfume and sweat. Did it feel good to be back? He wasn’t sure yet.

      On balance, though, yes. Because he knew he still had it. Knew from the ripples of reaction that seemed to flow out when he moved. The odd stare. The covert nudge. The inevitable whispered conversations. Conversations that he knew were taking place in his wake. So on balance, yes. Yes, the weather was shit, obviously, but for the most part it felt good to be home.

      He swayed – he couldn’t help it – to the rhythm of the music. A young band. Loud and fast. A little raw, but pretty good, currently banging out Blondie’s ‘Picture This’. He leaned in towards Irish Pete – well, as close as his nose allowed, anyway. ‘These are good, man,’ he shouted at his friend above the noise. ‘What they called?’

      ‘Parallel Lines,’ Pete said. ‘Blondie tribute band.’

      ‘I think I got that much.’

      ‘And that blonde tart’s a dead ringer for Debbie Harry, is she not? I know what I’d fucking like to do to her, too!’ Pete grabbed at his crotch and thrust his hips forward. ‘She wouldn’t have to picture this, eh? She’d get the whole ten fucking inches!’

      Mo eyed his old friend with distaste. One thing he’d forgotten during his long years on the oh-so-much more civilised (well, at least in that sense) Spanish Costas was that the Petes of this world never changed. Dirty-tongued, always. And dirty-mouthed, too. The recipient of some very expensive dental work recently, Mo was the proud owner of a gleaming new set of teeth, which only served to highlight what a sewer Pete’s own mouth had become since he’d gone away. It stank like one every time he opened it, however sweet the words that issued forth, the rank-smelling interior fenced in by uneven rows of yellowy-brown, misshapen teeth.

      ‘In your dreams, Pete,’ he said, turning sideways to avoid the stench. ‘Ten fucking inches, my arse.’ He nodded back to the stage. ‘Seriously, you know anything about them? I’m on the lookout for some talent for when me and Nico’s place gets sorted. Decent house band. Something with a bit of class.’

      And they did seem to have that. That sense of knowing their own worth. The blonde at the front, in particular – she had enough attitude to start a war. And the kid on the drums. There was definitely something special about him. Muscular. Mixed-race. Maybe twenty. Possibly younger. A whir of mesmerising movement beneath a cloud of chocolate curls, his hands moving in an expert blur across the whole drum kit.

      ‘Not sure about “class”,’ Pete was saying. ‘The bird’s Josie McKellan’s kid.’ He nudged Mo. ‘You know? Paula? Don’t you recognise her? Tidy wee fucker she’s turned out to be, eh?’

      Mo looked more closely at the girl belting out the Blondie track. Of course. He’d been fooled by the bleached hair. If you took the peroxide out of the equation it was immediately obvious. That same familiar Hudson look. She was very like her mother. Taller than Josie, yes – hardly difficult, to be fair – but the same cocky expression. And a stark reminder of how times had changed in this particular corner of Bradford – like The Sun, which had reinvented itself from spit-and-sawdust to what was now obviously the thing: coloured-glass Tiffany light shades, lots of polished wood, dark, patterned carpets – like a migraine on the floor. He made a mental note, filing the look away for his latest venture.

      The people had changed too. It no longer seemed such a man’s world. Not like Spain – well, his bit of it – which still clung to the old order. Where men were the bosses and women were mostly meek. He could hardly believe the amount of skirt that seemed to be out partying unaccompanied – and none of them seemed to look as if they cared less.

      A fresh rum and Coke appeared in front of him. ‘Here you go, mate,’ said his friend Nico. ‘Lot to take in, isn’t it? A bit different to how it was when we were banged up, eh, my friend?’

      Nico laughed – a big booming laugh that might grate if you didn’t know him. Ditto his usual moniker – the ridiculously unimaginative ‘Nic the Greek’. Still, it had served him well enough in prison, Mo decided, greasy Greek fucker that he was. And it was serving him well now. They’d do all right together in this new version of Bradford. Even if Nico couldn’t quite get his head around why Mo had wanted to return to it. After all, he’d been living the high life in Marbella since he’d come out of the nick, hadn’t he? But the pull had always been there. Even though sometimes Mo didn’t really understand why himself.

      And he’d come back at the right time, with cash in his pockets, half of which he’d already invested in a house on Oak Lane’s ‘millionaire’s row’. And now the club – into which they’d both now invested a ton of money; Nico’s from the stash he’d managed to hang onto from the armed robbery that he’d done nine years for, and Mo from what he’d saved from his various business ventures while in Spain: the lease on a huge nightclub in Bradford city centre.

      He sipped his drink, taking stock. All on track. Things looked good.

      Pete was tugging at his sleeve. ‘And you know who he is, don’t you?’ he said, following this announcement with a fetid burp.

      ‘Who is?’ Nico asked, irritably fanning the air in front of him. He had yet to see the benefits of Irish Pete, Mo conceded.

      ‘Yes, who is?’ Mo asked, annoyed that Pete was pissed already, and already so incongruous among the mostly youthful, attractive crowd.

      ‘Joey Parker,’ Pete persisted. ‘I knew I recognised him. Joey Parker.’

      ‘Yes, I got that bit,’ Mo said. ‘And I’m supposed to know him, am I?’

      And even as Pete’s mouth formed the shapes to say the next bit, the penny dropped, and Mo made the connection in his head.

      ‘Christine Parker’s lad, Mo.’ Pete nodded towards the stage. ‘As in –’ He faltered now. Nervous about saying it. ‘You know?’

      As in – could it be? Really? Mo looked again, much more carefully. Considered. Checked the dates СКАЧАТЬ