To Fight For

by Phillip Hunter

  ‘Christ. That man was a monster.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did he ask you any questions?’

  ‘He didn’t say a bloody thing, Joe. Alright?’

  He didn’t ask any questions. That was strange. Could it have been because I’d arrived in time? It was possible, but it didn’t seem likely. From what I’d seen of Browne and the room, there had been long enough to ask questions.

  I got Browne another drink and that calmed him down a bit. He managed to stand after that. I helped him downstairs and put him into his chair.

  ‘Christ,’ he said again. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Didn’t you recognize him?’

  ‘Recognize him? No I didn’t bloody recognize him. I was too busy with other things. Getting hurt, mostly.’

  ‘Name’s Roy Buck. He was a fighter. The Reaper. You probably patched him up before.’

  ‘Wouldn’t need a doctor for that. You’d need a stone mason.’

  When Browne was recovered, which took about half a bottle, we set about making the house secure – well, as secure as we could.

  Out back, I cut down some of the bushes he had growing. He complained about that.

  ‘They took me years to grow,’ he said.

  That was bollocks. The only thing he did to grow them was not kill them yet. I told him we needed to clear the ground, the bushes could be used as cover. He still complained.

  Next, I broke up the rockery and carried the rocks, one at a bloody time, and dumped them on the back patio, beneath the upper windows. Browne complained about that too. I told him it was to make it hard to use ladders.

  ‘Men with ladders?’ Browne said. ‘Don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid?’

  ‘Half an hour ago you were flying headfirst into your furniture.’

  ‘Good point.’

  Those rocks nearly killed me, what with my bad arm and my bad rib, and my bad everything else. Browne watched me, but didn’t help. I told him it’d be quicker if he did.

  ‘I almost died,’ he said, ‘in case you’ve forgotten. Plus, I’m an old man. Plus, I almost died.’

  Plus, he was pissed again.

  Browne’s house was detached, one of those middle-class Victorian places, so we had a lot of privacy out back, but there was still this old neighbour of his, an ex-army major type who watered his roses and pruned his moustache, that kind of thing. Every now and then, he’d peer out of his bedroom window and see what there was to be angry about. Browne spotted him and waved, and muttered about the old bastard being a card-carrying fascist.

  I boarded up the back windows on the ground floor, nailing a piece of plywood over the inside of each one, and then doing the outside. I made sure to drill a couple of holes in the boards first, just enough to see through. I did the same around the sides, but left the front. I put some two-by-four across the kitchen door. Upstairs, I attached locks on all the windows.

  After all that, I sat down at the table in the dark kitchen and tried to think what to do next, but my thinking didn’t get very far because Roy Buck kept coming into my mind and fouling it up. What had he wanted? I asked Browne about it again.

  ‘All I know is I was in the kitchen. I heard a knock at the front door. I didn’t answer it. You told me not to. Then I heard a knock at the back.’

  ‘You opened the back door for him.’

  ‘I was stupid. I thought it had to be you. I just saw a huge shape. It had to be you.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I got hit by a train. I ran upstairs and locked my bedroom door. That didn’t help.’

  Why would Buck show up and throw Browne around, only to leave when I came back?

  Browne made me a tea and sat down with a mug of coffee. I was pretty sure coffee wasn’t the only thing in it. We sat in silence, the only sounds coming from the traffic outside, the hum of the boiler, the wind brushing against the outside of the house, far off now that we sat behind a wall of wood.

  I knew something was on Browne’s mind from the way he wasn’t drinking his coffee. Instead, he turned the mug around in his hands and looked down at it as if it would tell him his future. Finally, he looked up at me and said, ‘Don’t you remember the letter, son?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The letter. From Barbara. The one she left you. Don’t you remember it? You read it a few days ago, man. Surely you can’t have forgotten it.’

  The letter. Yes, I remembered that. She’d left it for me in that box of creams and stuff I’d bought her. It was about the only thing of hers I had left, apart from my memories, which were breaking up before my eyes. I remembered the letter, of course I fucking did. I could quote the whole thing there and then. ‘I’m using you,’ the letter read, ‘and it tears me up inside. But I do love you.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I haven’t forgotten it.’

  ‘“Don’t destroy yourself for me” – she wrote that. Remember?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I remember that.’

  ‘Does it mean anything to you? Do you understand what she was saying?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I understand.’

  He was still turning the mug. I watched it move slowly. I thought that if it stopped moving, the world would stop spinning or I would stop breathing or the past would stop being. The wind rattled the door, the traffic whirred, the mug turned in circles.

  Don’t destroy yourself for me. What else could I do?

  ‘And?’ he said.

  I hadn’t given that part of the letter any thought. The other parts made such a screaming noise they drowned everything else out.

  ‘I suppose you’ll know by now that I used you,’ she’d written. ‘You asked me what I wanted, remember? You didn’t believe that I could just want to be with you. Well, you were right. To begin with. I was scared, because of what I was doing and who I was doing it to. I was scared and I needed someone strong. I needed you.’

  I needed you. Yes, I remembered. How could I ever forget? The words were scarred into my brain. Paget had carved them there after he’d carved her face.

  Browne was waiting for me to answer. I let him wait.

  ‘She wouldn’t want this,’ he said finally. ‘You know that.’

  ‘I know she was a good person,’ I said. ‘And I know she died because she was a good person.’

  He dropped his head, as if he’d been defeated. But I knew him. I knew he’d come back at me. That’s what he always did; every time it looked like he’d been beaten, he’d get up and go back for more beating. In his way, he was a tough bastard, tougher than any of the fighters he’d once stitched up – tougher than me.

  ‘So is that all you care about? That she’s dead?’

  I couldn’t answer that. I found myself watching that mug go round and round and round. Maybe, if he kept turning it, I wouldn’t ever have to think what might’ve been.

  He stopped turning the mug, stared at it for a moment, then lifted it to his mouth, drained the contents in three glugs and put it down on the tabletop.

  She’d had that picture, a print of The Fighting Temeraire by Turner. I’d told her about the ship the first time I went to her place, about how, at Trafalgar, she’d fought two French men-of-war to save the Victory.

  ‘Whenever I think of you,’ she’d written, ‘I think of that old ship, that warhorse … Remember you told me about it? About how, in that picture, it was being tugged in to be broken up? I don’t want to think of you like that. I don’t want you to go seeking revenge for what’s happened to me. Please don’t.’

  Don’t destroy yourself for me, Joe.

  Destroy myself? Of course I fucking would. I’d destroy myself and everything else for her. She was gone. I hadn’t saved her. But I could give her justice. I was her justice. My vengeance was justice. I’d destroy the world. What else could I do?

  I don’t know if I said anything out loud, but Browne looked at me with an odd expression and said, ‘You know what I think? I thi
nk you want to destroy yourself. I think you don’t know anything else but destruction, violence, rage. I used to think you’d destroy yourself in the process of destroying everything else, that when there was nothing left for you to wreak your vengeance upon, you’d turn it on yourself.’

  He might’ve been right. I’d thought about it myself. He was getting close to the mark, and I didn’t like it. But then he said, ‘Now, I think differently. Now I think you were the target from the word go and all these others out there, all the ones you think you need to kill are just an excuse, just a means for you to kill yourself. They’re your weapon, Joe. That’s all.’

  We sat in silence for a while, then I drank the rest of my tea and reached over and lifted his mug. I took them over to the sink, washed them up.

  ‘Brenda,’ I said.

  ‘What, son?’

  ‘Her name was Brenda.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Brenda.’

  There was a knock at the door. In that quiet it sounded like gunshots. Browne jumped out of his seat. Christ, he was jittery. I wasn’t much better. I felt coldness crawl over my skin. Browne’s fear was infecting me.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ I said. ‘They’re not likely to knock.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  That was a dumb question.

  ‘Go see.’

  ‘You go.’

  ‘It’s your house. It’d look strange if I went.’

  Neither of us moved. We waited for the silence to come back. It was easier in the silence. We didn’t have to do any-thing except listen to it as it sunk through us and hollowed us with our own thoughts.

  But the knocking came back. In a way, it was the fact that it was now louder that set us both at ease. Maybe silence would’ve been worse after all. Then we would’ve turned to the back door and waited for someone to start smashing down our defences.

  Browne stood unwillingly and doddered out of the room and up the hallway. He opened the front door. I moved out of sight and heard a posh bloke’s voice.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘William,’ Browne said, in a loud, friendly way. Too loud, I thought. Too friendly. ‘How nice of you to visit.’

  ‘I don’t like what’s happening here,’ the posh voice said. ‘It’s bloody funny.’

  ‘Funny?’ I could hear the slyness in Browne’s voice. The old bastard was enjoying himself, relieved, probably, that it was just some old wanker, relieved that he wasn’t going to get a round in the head.

  ‘Boarding up the windows, throwing rocks around. What the bloody hell are you doing?’

  ‘We,’ Browne said, ‘are preparing for an invasion.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Are you drunk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I might’ve known. And who is that ape living here? He looks like a criminal. Is he a criminal?’

  ‘Joe? Oh, yes, he is a criminal. He’s alright, though. He’s a one-man war, to be sure, but he’s alright.’

  I cursed his fucking tongue. I wanted to go and haul him off by his neck, but that would’ve made it all worse. Browne hated these posh tossers who wanted England to look like something from a Wodehouse novel, as if there’d once been a time without poverty and suffering and hate. I didn’t blame him for that, but I didn’t need any grief. And now, because Browne was drunk, he was baiting the bloke, telling him my name, my business. But I think he was doing it to bait me too, to get his little bit of revenge in. That’s why he was being so fucking loud. Christ.

  ‘I can see I’ll get no sense from you,’ the bloke said.

  ‘I sincerely hope not, William,’ Browne said.

  I heard the door close.

  ‘That was the old bugger from next door,’ Browne said when he came back. ‘Name’s William double-barrel. Major Pennington-Jones, or something. Ha. Fool. Thinks everyone who isn’t a white, middle-class Daily Mail reader must be a criminal or part of some communist conspiracy to deprive him of his bloody right to be a bigot.’

  ‘Don’t wind him up,’ I said. ‘We don’t need more trouble.’

  ‘Oh, hell. He’s not worth bothering about.’

  With that, he made himself a sandwich, humming as he did it. I think he’d completely forgotten what he’d said to me a few minutes before, about Brenda and death and my need for blood – mine or anyone’s. That was something, at least. Some peace.

  I left him to it while I went to have a shower. All that shifting stuff about had made me sweaty and dusty.

  I was just finishing up in the bathroom when the bloke came back. I heard him talking with Browne, but couldn’t make out what was said. It was a short conversation. Then the door slammed.

  When I went downstairs, Browne was back in the lounge, a glass of Scotch in his hand. He was watching some cooking programme on the TV and I swear his hair had gone whiter, if that was possible.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  He wouldn’t look at me.

  ‘Uh …’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s called the police.’

  I glared at him. He still wouldn’t look at me. Instead, he fixed his eyes on the TV. Someone was chopping onions. Suddenly that was fascinating to Browne. I took a deep breath.

  ‘Alright,’ I said. ‘He’s just some nosy old geezer. The law won’t bother with him.’

  Browne didn’t say anything to that, but he took a deep breath.

  ‘Will they?’ I said.

  ‘Uh … well …’

  ‘What?’

  Now he looked at me.

  ‘He runs the local neighbourhood watch.’

  ‘Christ. And you didn’t think of that when you told him I was a criminal?’

  ‘And … uh … he’s a Rotarian.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘The Rotary Club. He’s a member. So are lots of the senior policemen at the local stations. Or he might be a Mason or a Conservative. Or something. Anyway, he’s part of the conspiracy.’

  I reached for his Scotch and pulled it from his grip.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Stay sober. When they come, have a good excuse. Say you heard a bunch teenagers one night and got scared. Say I was someone you met down the pub, you paid me a score to make the place safe.’

  ‘They’ll think I’m an idiot.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  After that he sulked. I left him to it. I had things to do. I was sick of being useless.

  I decided I’d better try and do something to find Glazer. My arm was okay to use and my side didn’t hurt so much. I wasn’t going to heal any more than I had already.

  If the law was going to pay Browne a visit, now would be a good time to disappear, for a while anyway.

  SEVEN

  I called at the bakery in Stepney but the manager told me Green had finished for the day. I phoned Green’s number, but there was no answer so I asked the manager where Green lived. I got a cold look.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I need to talk to him.’

  ‘He know you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Customers were strolling in, picking up the bread, bagels, pastries. There were two girls behind the counter. One of the girls was short with thick-rimmed glasses, the other was tall, dark-haired, with large, oval eyes. They both flicked glances our way. I guessed they knew something of Green’s background.

  ‘But you don’t know where he lives?’ the manager was saying.

  I didn’t want any bother here. I didn’t want someone doing anything like phoning the law. I didn’t think I had it in me to keep getting away from them.

  ‘I came here a few weeks ago,’ I said. ‘One morning. He told me his wife was expecting so I thought I’d go see her, say hello.’

  The manager wasn’t buying it. He was one of those types.

  ‘That’s right,’ the short bird said. ‘She’s got another coming.’

  ‘Wonder who the father is,’ the taller one said.

  ‘Why can’t you phone him up?’ the manager said to me.

&nbs
p; ‘I did. He didn’t answer. I have to go away, so I thought I’d better do it now, in case she goes into hospital.’

  He was a stocky man with thick black hair and a moustache with flour on it. He wiped his hands on his apron. They had thick black hair on them too, and flour.

  ‘Well …’ he said, still wiping his hands. ‘I’ll call him, see if it’s alright.’

  ‘I told you, he’s not answering.’

  The manager called him anyway. He pocketed his phone.

  ‘No answer,’ he said. ‘Sorry, mate.’

  The short girl looked up again then.

  ‘I remember you,’ she said. ‘Yeah. Benny went out back and had a fag and when he come back he was … well, he looked a bit off, bit green around the gills.’

  ‘I had some bad news,’ I told the girl.

  ‘Well …’ the manager said again.

  A few more punters had come in by then, mostly women. They eyed me up and moved past me with as much space between us as possible. The girls were hard at it now. It was lunchtime and probably their busiest period. The manager noticed the trade building up.

  He went behind the counter and tore off a piece of the paper they were using to wrap stuff in. He scribbled an address and handed it to me. I don’t think he cared any more about Green’s privacy, he just wanted me out of his shop.

  Green’s place was a terraced house, just off Roman Road. It was a new-build place, one of those ones where the back garden is the size of the living room and the walls are made of cardboard. I knocked. I heard some kid shout, ‘Dad.’ There was some running about and then nothing. I knocked again and heard a woman cry out.

  ‘Benny. Answer the fucking door.’

  There were heavy footsteps and finally the door opened and Green was standing looking at my stomach. He tilted his head.

  ‘Joe,’ he said. ‘The fuck you doing here?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘Who is it?’ the woman called out.

  ‘Mate of mine.’

  ‘Well, get rid of him.’

  Green sighed.

  ‘She’s pregnant,’ he said. ‘I told you that, right? Hormones all over the place. Let’s get outta here.’ He pulled the door shut behind him. ‘She’s driving me fucking nuts. Hormones. Fuck. I think she uses that as an excuse.’