Guns of Brixton (2010)

by Timlin, Mark

  * * *

  The girls had been in school uniform. Blazers, white blouses with striped ties, gym slips and black stockings. But Pam and Hazel had adapted their uniforms to the latest fashions. The shirts were tight over their young breasts and their gym slips were so short that there was the occasional glimpse of white flesh above their stocking tops. Dressed like something out of a blue film, they were a dirty old man’s dream. Or a dirty young one, for that matter. Pam’s dark hair was tied in two pigtails, but Hazel’s lush red mane cascaded down her back in Renaissance curls. The second Chas saw her, he was smitten, and when she smiled her crooked smile, he was hers for life.

  That day Chas’s mum gave the girls a bollocking for their appearance, obviously a regular thing, but they just giggled, and Hazel winked at Chas and he thought his luck was in. Hazel had appeared on the scene since Chas had done his time in borstal, and she was obviously fascinated that her mate’s brother was a ‘jailbird’, as she called it. Chas would never have taken that from anyone else, but he would’ve crawled over broken glass to listen to her say it.

  She was a regular visitor to the house and Chas somehow always managed to be around when she was there. Eventually he plucked up courage to ask her to go with him to the Bali Hai one evening for a drink. Of course, Pam had to come too, but Chas didn’t care. Just to be in Hazel’s company for an evening was like a dream come true.

  But of course, his dreams were dashed when he saw the way she and John Jenner looked at each other that first time. He knew he’d witnessed two people falling in love.

  It took Chas some time to stop resenting the pair of them and their obvious happiness. But, almost despite himself, he was happy for her. So to stay close and protect his one true love, he teamed up with Jenner, and soon found himself practically loving the man too. Not in that way, of course. But as a friend, and eventually as one of the family. And so he’d stayed. And now, another adopted member of Chas’s family needed help. And help he would get.

  Eventually Chas left the pub and drove home. For the first time since Jenner’s death, he had a small smile on his face.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Mark Farrow was making his plans. He sat in a room in a small hotel on the southern outskirts of London and called Gerry Goldstein on the phone. ‘I’m back,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not sure if that’s good news or bad.’

  ‘Who for?’

  ‘Pick a number.’

  ‘So what’s happening?’

  ‘Not on the phone.’

  ‘Fair enough. We need a reunion, Gerry.’

  ‘It seems to be a time for reunions.’

  ‘Doesn’t it just.’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘Fair enough. Where?’ asked Mark.

  ‘I’m doing a bit of selling down in Hastings tomorrow. How about there?’

  ‘Seems OK. I used to like going to Hastings. Where and when?’

  ‘I’ll be done by noon. There’s a pub in the old town. The Jenny Lind. We could meet there for a drink.’

  ‘Twelve thirty suit you?’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘I might even buy you lunch, Gerry. For old time’s sake.’

  ‘I don’t know if I’ll have much of an appetite.’

  ‘I will. The sea air always brings it out in me.’

  ‘Fine. Whatever you say. I’ll see you then.’

  ‘You will.’ And they both hung up.

  Mark made the drive down to the coast in just under two hours. He didn’t rush. He didn’t want anyone looking too closely at the paperwork on the Ford Explorer he was driving. Or at his personal paperwork, which was in the name of Steve Sawyer. He’d picked them up in Gibraltar, a month or so previously. The man who’d sold him the job lot had guaranteed their authenticity, but Mark had heard similar stories before and stuck to the speed limit all the way.

  He left the truck in a municipal car park and strolled through the warm spring air like a man without a trouble in the world. He found the pub just before twelve and ordered a small lager, sat at a table with a view of the street outside and lit a cigarette. The season was well under way, the town filling with holiday makers, and he didn’t expect any trouble. Not from the cops, anyway. Gerry Goldstein might be a different matter.

  At twelve thirty, on the dot, he saw the rotund jeweller puffing down the road towards the pub. Mark smiled. He wanted him off balance. Goldstein pushed through the door and stood inside, scoping the place.

  ‘It’s me, Gerry,’ said Mark, getting up from his chair.

  ‘Christ,’ said Goldstein. ‘What have you done to yourself?’

  ‘Funny how everyone asks me that. A strict regime.’

  ‘And your hair. A bit drastic, isn’t it?’

  ‘I thought shaved heads were all the rage. Want a drink?’

  ‘Does a baby love the tit?’

  ‘I’ll take that for a yes. What’ll you have?’

  ‘A large brandy.’

  ‘You driving, Gerry?’

  ‘I’ll worry about that, if you don’t mind. I need one.’

  Mark fetched him a drink and they sat together at the table.

  ‘Successful morning?’ asked Mark.

  ‘So far.’

  ‘Good. Let’s hope it carries on that way. Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers,’ said Goldstein, sucking down half his drink. ‘So what do you want this time?’

  ‘I want to be in on the job that you and Butler are setting up.’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘I don’t kid any more.’

  ‘With Hunter?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of who you are.’

  ‘He wouldn’t know me from a hole in the ground.’

  ‘He might guess.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Mark removing his sunglasses.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Goldstein. ‘What happened to your eyes?’

  ‘Just a couple of bits of plastic. Would you recognise me? You didn’t when you walked in. And nor did Chas.’

  ‘He knows you’re here?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And who else?’

  ‘That’s it. Chas won’t talk. He’s got the closest mouth in south London. It had to be that way, working for John.’

  ‘And he knows what you’re up to?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘And how do I get you in?’

  ‘Use your loaf, Gerry. You’re famed for it.’

  ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘Think of the alternative. I know all about you, Gerry. I know the people you’ve stitched up. You know I do. And some of them are still around. Want me to make a few calls?’

  ‘No,’ said Goldstein, sweat breaking out on his face. ‘That wouldn’t be a wise move.’

  ‘Not for you maybe, but for me.…’

  ‘OK, OK, I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘I think you’d better do more than that. I think you’d better row me in.’

  ‘Oh, Christ. If Butler finds out…’

  ‘Then don’t let him.’

  ‘And you know what Hunter did in New Addington?’

  ‘You sure that was him?’

  ‘It was him, all right. Butler used it as a test. An initiation, if you like. See if he still had the balls he used to have.’

  ‘And he did.’

  ‘He certainly bloody did. Lunatic. And it cost Butler nothing.’

  ‘Dirty deeds done cheap.’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘But what about the tom he nicked? I bet he tries to sell them on to you.’

  ‘Those fucking watches. I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole. Well, not for a year or so anyway.’

  ‘You’re priceless, Gerry.’

  Goldstein sat there fiddling with his glass as Mark smoked a cigarette.

  ‘Fancy lunch?’ Mark asked at length, stubbing the butt out in the ashtray. ‘There’s a little French restaurant over the road. Looks OK.’

  ‘I’m not hungry. I’d better get b
ack to town.’

  ‘Please yourself.’

  Goldstein drained his glass and got up to leave. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said.

  ‘The sooner the better, Gerry.’

  ‘As soon as I’ve got something to say.’

  ‘Fair enough. Now, you take it easy. I wouldn’t want to lose you. And you’ve still got the tape of Hunter round your place?’

  Goldstein nodded.

  ‘I’ll be round to see it soon. I want to know what he looks like these days.’

  Goldstein said nothing, just nodded and walked out into the sunshine.

  Mark sat in the pub for another few minutes, then finished his drink too and decided to try the restaurant anyway. He was used to eating alone.

  On the other hand, Jimmy Hunter wasn’t used to eating on his tod. He’d spent too many meal times in the company of anything from a dozen to a hundred other diners. But he was beginning to know what it was like. He was no chef and ate out two or three times a day. Not French cuisine very often, but Brixton and its environs now hosted scores of eateries. Everything from the McDonald’s on the site where his last attempt at armed robbery had gone so badly wrong, right up to restaurants where he didn’t really know which cutlery to use. In prison it had been easy. A plastic knife, fork and spoon had covered every culinary eventuality.

  So the waiting began. Butler had told him he’d be contacted when he was needed, but meanwhile, time hung heavy.

  He’d kept the piece of paper that Butler had given him with Linda and Sean’s address on it. And the same day that Mark Farrow and Gerry Goldstein met in Hastings, he plucked up courage to take a train down to Croydon. For, although Jimmy was a hard man and had worried little about slaughtering the Smiths in New Addington, just the thought of seeing his son and daughter, now grown up, and the chance of getting a glimpse of his grandchildren, turned his bowels to water.

  It was early afternoon when he stepped down from the train at East Croydon station. The weather was fine and Jimmy was wearing his replacement leather jacket and dark cotton trousers. He bought an early edition Standard from a vendor outside the station, and when he asked about the address, the man told him which bus to catch, and where to get off. Ironically, the bus’s final destination was New Addington itself, which Jimmy took as an omen, but whether good or bad, he wasn’t sure.

  The journey took only a few minutes and Jimmy was the only passenger to alight at the stop. He looked round and saw that the road he was searching for was just opposite where he stood. He lit a cigarette with trembling fingers, crossed the street and entered it. It was typical suburbia, tree lined and quiet in the afternoon sun. The houses were large and set back behind gated walls with paved or pebble-covered drives that cut through neat front gardens filled with spring flowers. The perfect place to bring up children safely, he supposed.

  Jimmy contrasted it with the tiny house he’d bought in Stockwell, and where he’d lived with Marje and the kids before his last arrest. He walked on slowly until he came to the house he was searching for, with a four wheel drive truck parked by the front door. He knew better than to stop. There were plenty of lace curtains and blinds at the windows of the houses. He knew from bitter past experience that, in areas such as this, prying eyes were always on the lookout for suspicious characters. So he walked on until he came to the entrance to a small park, empty at that hour in school time, where he sat on a bench, lit another cigarette and looked at his paper without taking in a word written on it.

  He knew he was mad to come. A waste of time. But he’d been drawn there as surely as if he’d been programmed. Which in a way he had been. He finished his cigarette, dogged it out with the toe of his boot and wearily stood up. Go home, he thought. Just go bloody home. So he retraced his footsteps, head down. He passed the house on the other side just as the front door opened and, Christ, it couldn’t be… A woman, the spitting image of his late wife Marjorie came out, carrying an infant in her arms. Jimmy just couldn’t believe his eyes and he stopped dead in his tracks, his heart beating like he was going for a coronary, and his legs – as cheap novelists always put it – turning to jelly. It was Marje, but it wasn’t. It had to be Linda, and the little girl she was buckling into the child seat in the back of the motor had to be Daisy. His granddaughter.

  Jimmy forced himself to cross the road slowly, his eyes devouring the sight. Once finished with Daisy, the woman climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. Jimmy kept going and she let him cross in front of her as she stopped the vehicle at the gates. She looked at him without recognition and he smiled and waved a thank you, and she smiled back, and Jimmy almost died with happiness.

  Linda’s truck moved into the street and stopped briefly at the end, before turning left and vanishing from Jimmy’s sight. She must be going to pick the boy up from school, he thought, and he walked back to the main road, looking for the stop for his bus back to East Croydon, as oblivious to the Ford Explorer that followed Linda’s car as the bearded driver of it was oblivious to him.

  When he’d finished his lunch, Mark Farrow had decided to return to Wandsworth via Croydon. It wasn’t much out of his way, and he had nothing else to do until Gerry Goldstein came back to him. He’d let his Ford drift through the town until it reached Linda’s road. It was stupid, he knew, but when he saw her car in the drive he stopped around the corner, in sight of the house, and smoked a cigarette. I’ll just wait a minute, he thought, as a middle-aged man in a leather jacket crossed the road in front of him. He could have ploughed him into the tarmac without scratching the paintwork, if only he’d known who it was.

  The man approached Linda’s house as she came out and Mark saw through eyes that teared up as he recognised her, that she was just as beautiful as he remembered, if slightly thinner. She put Daisy in the back of the vehicle and drove out, allowing the middle-aged man to walk slowly in front of her and acknowledge her with a wave before she drove off. Mark followed Linda, but knew it was pointless, and he peeled off before she got to Luke’s school, and headed home.

  Jimmy headed home too, his brain reeling. He couldn’t settle, his apartment feeling as confined as any of the cells he’d lived in. So he decided we was going to to call up the tart, Jane, and see if she was up for a night out. The next day, just before noon, he called the number on the card she’d given him. She took a while to answer, and sounded disorientated when she did. ‘Did I wake you?’ he asked.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Twelve.’

  ‘Noon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you did.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No problem. Who am I speaking to?’

  ‘Jimmy. From the Russell. Remember?’

  ‘Jimmy. I thought you’d lost my number.’

  ‘No. I’ve been busy.’

  ‘Too busy for me?’

  ‘Just trying to sort things out. You know how it is.’

  ‘I do. So what can I do for you?’

  ‘I wondered if you fancy going out?’ he said.

  ‘Not staying in?’ She was waking up now and being coquettish. Jimmy liked that.

  ‘Well, later on, you know…’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So are you up for it?’

  ‘Like a date?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘But not a freebie.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘You are eager. Let me look in my book.’

  She was gone for a moment. ‘Well,’ she said when she came back. ‘I could manage to fit you in.’ Then she laughed. ‘If you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know,’ he replied.

  ‘So what did you have in mind?’

  ‘Dinner. Then maybe some music and back home.’

  ‘Not my home.’

  ‘I’ve got a place now.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Brixton.’

  ‘I like Brixton.’

  ‘Do you?’

&
nbsp; ‘Yes. I used to live there myself.’

  ‘Where do you live now?’

  ‘Marble Arch.’

  ‘Posh.’

  ‘I’ve got a friend who helps out… But I shouldn’t be telling you things like that.’

  ‘Could you get to Brixton?’ asked Jimmy. ‘I’ll spring for a cab.’

  ‘I’ve got a car, Jimmy. Lots of girls drive these days.’

  He laughed. ‘You’re a cheeky cow.’

  ‘Aren’t I just. But you love it.’

  He had to admit he did. ‘What’s your favourite food?’

  ‘I don’t mind. As long as there’s a tablecloth and they serve champagne. Just like last time. Remember?’

  ‘How could I forget? Why do you think I called?’

  ‘So where should we meet?’

  ‘You know the Ritzy cinema?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Outside at eight. I’ll book a table somewhere. How much?’

  ‘For the night. The same as last time. Is that a problem?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So eight it is.’

  And eight it was, as Jimmy stood outside the cinema close to the centre of Brixton, kitty corner from the damn McDonald’s, and he watched as the punters shuffled in for the last shows of the evening. Then a shiny little dark-coloured car skidded round from the main road, he saw a blonde head inside and the driver tooted the horn. Jimmy smiled, feeling almost like a normal bloke meeting his bird for food and sex. Of course he had to pay, but at least he knew what he was getting at the end of the evening.

  Jimmy walked around to the passenger door and climbed into the tiny front seat. Inside, the car smelled strongly of perfume. Jane grinned as she greeted him. ‘Where to, Jimmy?’ she asked.

  ‘Acre Lane,’ he replied. ‘Tablecloths and champagne a speciality of the house.’

  She leaned over and kissed him briefly on the cheek, before chucking the motor into gear and taking off with a screech of rubber. ‘Got any drugs, Jimmy?’ she asked as she joined the main road again.

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘I thought everyone in Brixton was at it,’ she said. ‘Good job I have. I always come prepared. But it’s extra, I’m afraid.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘You must be doing well.’

  ‘Not too bad.’