To Fight For

by Phillip Hunter

  Glazer, M.

  But the entry had been crossed out.

  I called the number anyway. A child’s voice answered, said he’d get his mummy.

  ‘Hello,’ the woman said.

  ‘Is Mike there?’

  ‘Oh, no, sorry. You’ve got the wrong number.’

  So, that was that. Another dead end.

  I looked through it anyway, from the start. A, B, C, on and on.

  And then I got to S.

  Sutton, Mary

  I was about to turn to the next page when I remembered what Marriot’s wife had said. Glazer had a girlfriend, she said. Mary something.

  ‘What’s this?’ I said to young Marriot.

  I held the book out. He looked at it, shrugged.

  ‘Dunno.’

  I called the number. A woman answered. I said, ‘Is Mike Glazer there?’

  ‘He’s not here at the moment. Can I ask who’s calling?’

  It took me a moment to register what she’d said. After all this time, I’d found him. It didn’t seem real. I said, ‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’

  ‘No. Who’s calling?’

  I killed the phone.

  ‘Got him.’

  ‘What are you gonna do?’ the boy said, his face suddenly white.

  Even Browne raised an eyebrow. If the boy had only just realized I was going to kill Glazer, he was a fucking idiot. Maybe he’d just wanted to pretend that I was bluffing.

  ‘Bush Hill,’ I said, ‘where’s that?’

  ‘That’s only a couple of miles away,’ Browne said, shaking his head, staring, perhaps, at the stupidity of it all.

  A couple of miles away. Christ. I could’ve walked there in half an hour.

  ‘What are you gonna do?’ the boy said again.

  ‘Go home,’ I told him. ‘Go back to your mum.’

  ‘Find him, then,’ Browne said to me. ‘But if you kill him, you’ll betray her. You damned well remember that.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  I was going to have to be careful I wasn’t followed. No one must know I was going to Glazer. I decided I’d use public transport, hit the city, mix it up a bit. It’s hard to follow someone when they can jump on a bus, hail a cab and head off through London traffic.

  There was a young family at the bus stop. The woman had long blonde hair and huge blue eyes. She was rocking a pram. Inside were two small babies, both wrapped in rainbow coloured blankets, both staring up at her with blank open faces as she looked back down at them, smiling. The bloke next to her wore an Aston Villa shirt. He saw me come near and stepped closer to the woman.

  The woman turned, then, and watched me as I took a seat. The bloke relaxed a bit when I did that. I don’t know what he expected me to do. Kidnap the babies, probably. On the girl’s T-shirt were the words ‘Help … Twins’. She turned back to the children. Her husband looked up the road, waiting for the bus, his eyes flicking over to me every now and then.

  I found myself looking at the two babies. They both had wisps of blonde hair falling below woollen hats. On one hat was the word ‘Imogen’, on the other, ‘Jessica’. They moved lazily, one lifting its arm up out from below the blanket, reaching for something in the air, the other stretching its mouth. I sniffed, and that brought their attention to me. They stared, mouths open, eyes wide, as if they were looking at something new, something that didn’t fit.

  I saw that the woman was looking at me again, her large eyes soft. I thought, clocking me looking at her babies, she’d move away, pull her children nearer. Parents protected their young as a matter of instinct, and people always looked at me as a threat.

  She didn’t move away or pull the pram closer. Instead, she carried on rocking it. A bus came up the road and the bloke said something to her. They lifted the babies out of the pram, the woman and the bloke each holding one of them. Then the bloke collapsed the pram. The bus pulled up. The door opened. The bloke got on, but the woman paused and turned and looked back towards me. She didn’t seem scared or horrified or sickened. She seemed interested.

  Then she did something odd. She smiled. I didn’t know how to respond to that. I think I smiled back. The bloke was eyeing me up from the bus. Maybe he saw something in me that she didn’t. Maybe it was the other way round; she seeing something that he didn’t, or couldn’t.

  Then they were gone.

  I sat there for a while, watching the world wander past. I was supposed to be scoping the scene for tails, but my mind kept going blank, and out of the blankness I’d think about that woman smiling. Then I’d think about Brenda smiling and the two would become one and I’d see Brenda with a pram, rocking it gently, letting the babies see her face, her smile, her wide open eyes.

  When a bus came, I got on it, not bothering where it was going, not checking for tails.

  I wondered what that blonde girl had seen. What had been on my face as I’d gazed at her and her babies? Had I let it slip for a moment? Had I seen Brenda? Had I seen something I’d lost, forgetting that I’d lost it and seeing it as if it was real?

  I looked out the window. We were heading along the Mile End Road. I must’ve been sitting on that bus for half an hour, but it felt as if I’d only just got on. I had no idea now if I was being tailed.

  I got out at the tube station, and took the Central line to Liverpool Street. There’d been too many people on the platform for me to see if I’d been followed onto the train. I stood in the middle of the carriage, having to bow my head. I held the hand grip tightly and looked up and down the carriage, trying to see if anyone was deliberately avoiding my gaze. As far as I could make out, everyone was doing that. In fact, everyone was avoiding everyone’s gaze. Some were reading books or newspapers, some were texting, some sitting looking blankly into space while sounds went along the wires attached to their ears. It was like we were all part of a funeral cortege, only nobody knew the deceased or any of the other mourners.

  The train driver did his best to break my neck, but somehow I made it to Liverpool Street in one piece. When I got out, I took a few seconds to straighten up and breathe air that wasn’t full of heat and eye-stinging perfume and body odour and silence.

  I went up to the mainline concourse and then through that and up the elevator to the gallery bit, which, at least, was open to the outside. The cold air seeped in and made me feel clean again, even if it was filled with grit and fumes.

  I stood there a while, watching the grey shapes flow below me. It felt like I was in a different world; all these people moving around like parts in some great machine, each thinking they were their own person, each thinking they were important.

  I saw men in suits and long coats, and women in suits and short coats, an endless line of people who didn’t do anything for anyone except themselves and others like them – not unlike my kind, except those like me knew we weren’t kidding ourselves. We took what we could, how we could, and fuck you. This lot did the same, but less honestly and without guns.

  Except for a few teenage lads in black jeans and leather jackets, there were no kids, no old people either, no disabled or slow or poor people. I saw a few builders wander around, walking more lazily than the rest. I saw tourists and some single young people with backpacks and suitcases heading home, or back to college or wherever. Mostly, I saw a nameless, faceless grey-suited horde, swarming and buzzing, heading in a mass to one exit or another. I hated them all, the whole fucking lot, except maybe those kids in black or the single people with suitcases and backpacks. The rest I hated because they didn’t know what they were.

  And I wanted to be like them.

  I didn’t see anyone who stood out, though. I didn’t see anyone who looked at me for more than a second. I didn’t see anyone who didn’t seem to be going somewhere or doing something.

  There was a pub outside, next to the station. I went in there and stood at the bar and watched the entrance to see if anyone followed me in. Nobody did. I took a pint, went outside with the smokers and waited until everyone I saw hanging
around had gone or met up with someone else.

  After that, I hailed a cab and told the cabbie to take me to Piccadilly Circus. Anyone following me now would have a hard time.

  I wasn’t being paranoid, I told myself, I was just being careful. Dunham wanted Glazer as much as me, or, at least, he wanted what Glazer had. So did Compton, I thought. I’d have been stupid if I hadn’t taken precautions.

  When, finally, I was sure nobody had followed me, I told the cabbie to pull over. I paid him, then got another cab and told him to take me to Bush Hill. He twisted around and looked at me suspiciously.

  ‘That’s gonna be a big fare, mate,’ he said.

  I gave him a score up front. After that, he was okay.

  I kept a lookout through the rear window while the cabbie told me why United had fucked up this season and how the country was letting in too many immigrants and why his wife was a selfish cow.

  After a few years, we pulled up outside a detached house on a quiet suburban road. I paid the cabbie and got out. I waited until the taxi had turned a corner, then I waited some more. Nothing moved. There were no people around, no cars rolling by.

  The house was smart, without being posh. Still, in this area, it was probably the top end of a million. The place was about a hundred years old, one of those red-bricked things with large bay windows and high chimneys. In front of it was a large lawn with a cherry tree. I could see Browne living in a place like this, if he’d been reasonably successful as a GP. Either Glazer had done well out of corruption or his girlfriend was loaded – or both.

  I touched the Makarov in my jacket pocket and walked up the driveway, the gravel crunching beneath my feet, past a silver S-Class Merc, brand new. I felt alert. Something inside me stirred. I was about to end it, kill the last one who’d killed Brenda. I was going to close the circle, at last. Adrenaline started to flood me. I felt my muscles tighten, my heart race.

  I rang the bell, waited, rang it again. There was no sound from inside, no movement that I could see. I took a step back and kicked the door open. I had about twenty stone behind that foot. The lock smashed apart. The door flew back.

  I had my gun out now, held low. It felt good. It was cold and heavy and endless. It was death, and I liked it.

  I stayed where I was, in the doorway, and waited for sound, movement, something. Still nothing. I stepped inside. Ahead of me were stairs. To my right was a door, closed. To the left was a doorway leading to the lounge. I went that way, moving quietly, the carpet softening my steps, just in case nobody had heard the door smash off its hinges.

  I saw the woman as I went into the room. She was on the floor, blood dripping from the gash in her head, soaking into the blue carpet making a small black pool. Her hands were tied behind her back, her eyes closed.

  I took a step forward. And stopped.

  Her blood was still dripping. The bloodstain was small. Fuck.

  I turned.

  He was a yard behind me. He swung something dark and heavy and missed and grunted with the effort. If I hadn’t turned he’d have caved my head in.

  I saw then what he was holding. It was an assault rifle with a collapsible stock. He brought it up and tried to swing it in my face, but he’d forgotten that the stock was back. And he’d forgotten that I used to be a boxer. I stepped outside him and he swung and hit air and staggered forward, unbalanced. I threw my free fist into his kidney and his head snapped back with pain and shock. He dropped the rifle, fell to the ground and whimpered, squirming around. I kicked him in the head. Then I saw shadows and threw myself aside as the bullets tore the place apart.

  I rolled and turned and emptied the magazine from a kneeling position, both hands holding the Makarov. I hit space. They were gone.

  I heard a screech of tyres. I jumped up and ran to the front window. Two men dragged a struggling figure towards a white van, while another helped the bloke I’d floored. The back doors of the van opened and they threw the struggling man in.

  I recognized the figure. It was Glazer. The bastards had got him.

  I was out the front door as the van was pulling away. I got the last three letters of the number plate. I cursed myself for not driving. Tails. Fuck. They didn’t need to tail me. They knew where Glazer was.

  But I knew something too. I knew who they were. I recognized the man who’d tried to hit me with his gun; he worked for Vic Dunham.

  It crossed my mind that I’d been set up, that Marriot’s son had wanted vengeance on me and had arranged this. But no. He wouldn’t have sent me here. He’d have sent me to a corner of some wasteland. And, besides, Dunham’s men would’ve finished the job. As it was, it looked like I took them by surprise. Maybe it had been coincidence.

  I rushed back in. The woman’s eyes were open now, but they were empty, blank.

  ‘Car keys,’ I said.

  She mumbled something but I couldn’t understand her.

  I went through the ground floor until I found the kitchen. I threw open drawers, tore through the place and found nothing. Then, I stopped and thought about it. I went back into the hallway and saw a coat stand. I saw a man’s jacket and put my hand in the pockets and found them.

  I was on my way out the front door when the image of the woman on the floor came into my head. I don’t know why that was, and I don’t know why it made me stop, but it did.

  I went back, and cursed myself for doing it.

  Her eyes were closed. The blood had stopped flowing, which might’ve meant she was dead, or that the blood had congealed. I knelt down, checked her pulse. She was alive. I put her in the recovery position, got the phone from the sideboard, dialled 999 and asked for an ambulance.

  I left the line open, wiped the phone down and left it on the floor, near her.

  Browne would’ve been proud of me.

  The Merc span as I pulled out of the driveway, the wheels throwing gravel all over the place. Dust filled the rear-view. I fishtailed across the road and straightened it out. Thank Christ I was driving an auto.

  I gunned the motor down Bush Hill Road. It was mostly residential, and traffic was light, although the parking was a bastard and I had to weave my way through it, and all the time I was looking for a white van – in London. Fucking brilliant.

  I had to slam on the brakes when I got to the bottom of the road and some delivery van was backing out of a parking bay.

  Then I hit red lights at the junction with the A105. I pulled the car to a stop and thought. Which way now? Left? Right? Straight on?

  I had an idea where they were going. Or I thought I did. Surely they wouldn’t take him to one of Dunham’s homes. So, they’d probably head for the club, go in the back way. I had to head towards the West End, then. That was easy. And I had a fast car. And they were in a slow van and wouldn’t want the law stopping them for speeding or running lights, not with a kidnapped copper in the back.

  The A105 went to the North Circular, which was to the right. But I could get to the North Circular by the A10 too, which was straight ahead.

  The bloke in the car behind blew his horn. The lights were green. He blew his horn again. People were looking.

  Central London was south of us, and to the east. They could take the A10 to the City, or to the North Circular. Either way, they’d use the A10 for a bit.

  I had to take a chance on that. I slammed my foot on the gas and left the bloke behind sitting there as if someone had glued his car to the road.

  I weaved through the traffic, always looking as far ahead as I could, trying to make out anything white, anything big.

  I was going through suburban streets, large semi-detached houses on both sides. The road was wide, few parked cars. The Merc was a cinch to drive, smooth, powerful. All I had to do was move my foot, move my hands. I’d swing past one car, floor it, feel the motor scream, then bring the whole thing back down when I was about to pile head-on into something coming towards me.

  It was fine. Except for one thing: there was no white van – at all.

 
I hit the A10 junction. I didn’t bother stopping for the red light this time. The car slewed across the lanes, ahead of a jack-knifing truck, and onto the two-lane. I had to throw the wheel over to correct the back end, but I brought the motor round, just missing a white-faced woman in a Honda.

  Then I really opened the Merc up, foot to the floor; fifty, sixty, seventy. The traffic was heavier here, but my adrenaline was high, rising with the speed, the thrum of the engine feeding blood to my body, my heart pumping, my head clear. Eighty.

  The steering wheel was easy in my hands, and the car was smooth, like I was driving on ice, sliding between cars, vans, buses. It felt like I was slicing through the world, through all the bollocks, through my own impotence, pounding the engine, hearing it roar, gritting my teeth, squeezing the steering wheel as if it was Glazer’s neck, Paget’s, Dunham’s.

  I was going to catch the van, ram the Merc right into it, smash the cunts to pieces and fuck everything else. Fuck it all.

  Right then, with that adrenaline pumping, I felt good, my head clear, unclouded, and I wanted to kill. I ached to murder.

  Anyone.

  Everyone.

  I saw white vans, but they all had something wrong with them; too dirty, too small. I saw one up ahead, about two hundred yards. It was the right size, shape, everything. I closed on it in seconds, and saw the registration was wrong.

  I saw another van in the left lane and pulled in, but when I closed the gap enough I could see it had writing on the back door, some plumbing firm. I smashed the accelerator and flew past it.

  I was running out of space, closing in on the North Circular. If I didn’t get the van soon, I’d have to give it up. It could go right at the North Circular, or it could carry straight on. I supposed, at least, that I knew where it was heading. If I lost it, I could look to find it again nearer Dunham’s club.

  The traffic was getting thicker as we neared the North Circular. I knew the roundabout up ahead. It was a bastard.

  There were coaches in the way now, and everything was slowing down. I got the finger a few times, got flashed and hooted at. I saw a cop car pass on the other side of the reservation. He wasn’t going to be able to cross over for a while, but he might radio ahead. I was driving a stolen car belonging to a kidnapped copper. And I was armed with a pistol that could tie me into crime scenes all over London.