To Fight For

by Phillip Hunter

  Then I got the chest of drawers that Browne kept his papers in. That went onto the sofa. It was made of oak, and weighed a fucking ton.

  The bloke’s gun was still under his hand. It was a sub-machine gun. I pulled it from his grip. I unscrewed the silencer. Fuck their games. Let’s have some violence.

  The gun was heavy, dead. Then I touched it and gave it life, and it kicked and bucked and struggled in my hands, fighting to break loose, spitting its fury. But I held it tight and let its fury speak for mine.

  The noise of the gun was one endless explosion. It bounced off the walls and hit me. It was thunderous, crashing into my ears. The rounds smashed through the wood of the door, through the wall, ripping into the plaster, throwing up dust, brick.

  When the magazine was empty, I ditched it and reloaded with one from the bloke’s black vest.

  In the pause, Browne scrambled over, felt the man’s neck.

  I heard shouts out in the hallway. But then Browne was at me, clawing my arm.

  ‘This man needs a hospital,’ he said. ‘Joe. For God’s sake. You’re going to kill a policeman.’

  ‘They’re not coppers,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t understand. Who are they?’

  ‘Dunham’s.’ I grabbed Browne by the shoulders. ‘We’ve got to go.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘They’re Dunham’s men dressed as the law.’

  I held the suppressor for him to see.

  ‘They’ve got silencers on their weapons. It’s a hit. He wants me and he’s disguising it as a police raid. And if you’re in the way, you’ll be dead.’

  They were bashing the door heavily now. They must’ve woken up to the idea that it was shut for a reason.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘We haven’t got time for this.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Christ. They want to kill me, but they want the DVD first. They came in here like the law so they could take me out and make like they’d nicked me. After that …’

  ‘My God.’

  ‘Dunham must’ve put the fix in, got the local law to play ball. That’s why your neighbour backed off; he must’ve been told to keep his mouth shut.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘You said it yourself; grabbing Glazer doesn’t do him any good, as long as I’ve got the DVD. But if Dunham kills me, finds the other DVD …’

  ‘What’re we going to do, Joe? What can we do?’

  It was a good question. They were bashing hard against the door now, getting some movement from the furniture I’d piled up. It wouldn’t take them long to get in. I looked around; walls, walls, walls. Window.

  I put my arm across Browne’s chest, pushed him back.

  ‘Cover your face.’

  I levelled the gun and let it go, firing the magazine off in one long burst, moving from one side of the window to the other, spraying that glass until it was powder. Splinters flew all over the place. I felt cuts on my hands and face, as if someone was sandblasting me. I hoped that would clear out whoever was on the other side.

  But it was no good. I saw figures out there, and I heard shouting, and the door continued to get bashed. I wasn’t going to be able to get them all. I’d had it. I was finished. The bastards had won.

  I turned to look at Browne. He was huddled in the far corner, his arms over his head. I wanted to apologize to him for getting him in this spot, for putting him in danger.

  I’d hidden the DVD. Browne didn’t know where it was, but Dunham would use him as leverage to get me to talk. I’d have to hand it over.

  As I was thinking that, I noticed the door was no longer slamming against the furniture I’d piled there. That meant they were going to try something else. I reckoned they’d come in through the window.

  I braced myself. The gun was out of ammo, but I held it still. That might make them hesitate, at least. And if not, it might make them shoot me. That was probably best.

  I waited, my body tense, sweat on my brow, my neck. I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t angry.

  I felt something else, and I didn’t know what it was – sadness, maybe.

  I’d failed her, Brenda. I’d failed Kid too. And now I’d failed myself. It didn’t sit well with me, failure. I didn’t like it. I wanted to grab it by the neck and squeeze it to death. But how can you kill something that’s already killed you?

  I waited to die.

  Browne was up, now, standing by me. I think he knew what was coming. I think he was trying to protect me.

  I thought about her again, or tried to. But she wouldn’t come to me. I couldn’t see her. I could only see the ghost of her. And that was how I was going to go out, seeing a ghost. I think that hurt more than anything.

  I still waited to die. Browne was waiting with me. I was beginning to get bored.

  ‘I can’t hear anything out there,’ Browne said.

  He was right. I couldn’t hear anything either. It was worse like that, not hearing anything, not knowing when they were going to come.

  Then we heard a banging on the door. Browne jumped a mile. It wasn’t the smashing, though, but just a knock, like someone wanted to come in. Then I heard a voice. But it couldn’t be. I was imagining things again.

  ‘Joe?’ the voice said. ‘You in there?’

  ‘Don’t open it,’ Browne said.

  He must’ve been thinking the same as me; it was a trap, it had to be.

  ‘Joe?’ the voice said again.

  It was Cole. But it couldn’t be. He was dead.

  ‘I’m here,’ I said to the voice.

  ‘Open up the fucking door. It’s safe.’

  It was Cole alright.

  ‘What happened?’ I called out.

  ‘We turned up, they scarpered.’

  I pulled the cabinet off, then the chair and dragged the bloke away. Cole opened the door, stepped in. There was a bunch of his men with him.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I said.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Cole looked around at the mess, at the bloke on the floor who still wasn’t doing much, except lying there. I said, ‘I thought you were dead.’

  He looked me up and down, shook his head.

  ‘Well, if I was, I’d still be better off than you.’

  ‘Your house got bombed.’

  ‘Really? I wondered why it looked so flat.’

  ‘I heard you were in it.’

  He nodded.

  ‘I got my wife to report me missing. I knew it would take a while for them to go through the house wreckage. The rumour mill took it from there. Bought me some time.’

  ‘You sound desperate.’

  ‘Dunham’s been pulling me apart at the seams, boy. But I ain’t finished yet.’

  Another man came in. I knew him. He was called Gibson. He was small and had a gammy leg and a flat fighter’s face. He waved smoke and dust away from his face.

  ‘Gone,’ he said. ‘Legged it. They were Dunham’s lot, though. I recognized one of them.’

  Browne looked at Cole, looked at Cole’s men, looked at me. Then he shook his head as if we were all just a part of some bad hangover.

  He got on his knees and checked the bloke on the floor, pulled off his helmet, opened his mouth to let him breath, turned him on his side, in the recovery position.

  ‘How did you know?’ I said to Cole. ‘About this?’

  ‘When I told you I was taking my men away, well, I didn’t. I kept a few men on you, one at a time, round the clock. If Dunham wanted you, I wanted to know why. I knew you weren’t telling me everything. I’m not a mug, son.’

  ‘Right.’

  I still kept expecting to get killed. It didn’t seem right that Dunham’s mob would just roll over and leave like that. I glanced at the men Cole had brought with him. They were standing around in the hallway, lighting up, relaxing. Dunham had more men than Cole, but they weren’t as good.

  ‘My man told me there was a build up of the law,’ Cole was saying, ‘armed polic
e, cordons, the works. I get hold of a copper I know, and he tells me he’ll look into it. Meanwhile, we’re on the move. Then he calls back, this copper, says there’s nothing in the offing. So, I think about things. And I charge in. If it’s the law, I’m in shit. Only, it ain’t. They see us and scarper. My feeling is nobody told them there’d be a lot of armed men to deal with. Dunham?’

  ‘Eddie, I reckon.’

  ‘Yeah. Lane’s a canny bastard alright. I might have to kill him one day.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘What was their idea? Dressing up as the law?’

  ‘They knew I’d be hard to kill, that I’d probably be ready. They needed to get me out, alive, I think. It doesn’t matter. This way nobody round here’s gonna call the law; why would they? As far as they knew, the law was already here.’

  I wondered if Eddie had wanted this for another reason. This caper had his mark all over it. I thought he might be playing his own game now. I knew about him and Dunham’s wife. I suppose he might’ve thought I could use it against him.

  It was like me and Eddie were fighting our own fight. Cole and Dunham were outside the ring, ready to mop up the blood, but me and Eddie were inside, and we didn’t care about anything else except killing the other one. And he was young, fast, smart.

  But I didn’t go down easy.

  Cole was looking at me, his eyes hard.

  ‘And why would they want you alive, boy? What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘The DVD,’ I said. ‘The one Brenda made, the one she sent to Glazer as evidence against Marriot and Paget.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There’s a man on it. He’s important. I’ve got a copy and Dunham knows that.’

  Cole sighed.

  ‘So, I was right. There was something you weren’t telling me.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He shook his head sadly.

  ‘Sometimes, Joe …’

  He left it there.

  I climbed the stairs and went to my bedroom. On the shelf on the wall were a bunch of books I’d bought since leaving my flat, and one I’d given Brenda about the battle of Trafalgar. I turned to page sixty-two and took out the DVD.

  It wasn’t much of a hiding place, but it seemed right.

  I went back downstairs. Cole’s men watched me with empty eyes.

  Back in the lounge, Browne was still kneeling next to Dunham’s bloke. He was checking his pulse, holding his wrist.

  I held the DVD up.

  ‘You know what this is worth?’ I said to Cole.

  ‘Your woman died for that, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then it’s worth a lot.’

  ‘It’s worth more than that.’

  I held it out to him. He made no move to take it.

  ‘You’re giving it to me?’

  ‘I can’t get him. I know that. And I don’t trust the law. So, yeah, I’m giving it to you, because you can use it to get at Dunham.’

  ‘What makes you think I won’t use it for myself?’

  ‘You’re a bastard, but you’re not a cunt. You’ve never used women or children. Anyway, if you used it for profit, I’d come after you.’

  ‘What if there are copies?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Just by having the DVD you’d ruin anyone’s plans to control the man on it. All you’d have to do is threaten to send it to the papers.’

  He looked at me, held my gaze, then took the disc and put it in his inside jacket pocket.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t care any more. But there’s one condition to this. You destroy him. The man, whoever he is. Destroy him.’

  He glanced at Gibson, who moved his head up a bit.

  ‘Okay,’ Cole said. ‘If I can, I’ll get this cunt. Meanwhile, it could buy me some more time as far as Dunham’s concerned.’

  ‘A bit of time,’ Gibson said. ‘That’s all we need.’

  Dunham’s bloke was moving now, but Browne was still fussing over him. Cole surveyed the room, pushed some plaster with his foot, wiped some dust off his coat.

  ‘I heard about that stuff with Roy Buck,’ he said. ‘And those other blokes. One of my boys recognized him. Why was he here? To threaten you through Browne?’

  I stopped breathing. Browne stood slowly, forgetting about his patient. He looked at me. I looked at Cole.

  ‘Other blokes?’ I said. ‘What other blokes?’

  ‘There was no one else here,’ Browne said.

  Then I understood. You had to admire Eddie, the way his mind worked. I looked around the lounge, pulled pictures off the wall, unscrewed the lightbulb, lifted the furniture.

  I found it on the inside of a Chinese vase that Browne had kept on a chest of drawers in the corner and was now smashed on the floor. I held it up for the others to see. It was broken.

  ‘Bugs,’ I said, closing my fist slowly around the thing.

  Cole smiled. He got it. But Browne looked as lost as ever.

  ‘It was a decoy,’ I told him. ‘Buck was a decoy. That’s why he came in when I wasn’t here. That’s why he didn’t ask any questions.’

  ‘A decoy for what?’

  ‘While he was upstairs beating you, Eddie had other men come in and plant bugs around the place. He knew I was after Glazer, and he wanted him too. If I got any intel, he’d get it. Then Marriot’s son came round and Dunham found out where Glazer was. That’s how he got to Glazer before I did.’

  ‘Maybe I won’t kill Lane,’ Cole said. ‘Maybe I’ll hire him.’

  Damn, Eddie was a smart bastard. He knew if anyone came into the house, I’d be suspicious. So, he thought out how to put someone in the house that I wouldn’t question. He sent Buck, because he knew I’d take it as a threat and wouldn’t think anything more about it. And he was right. I didn’t look any further than Buck.

  ‘We’ve gotta move,’ Cole said. ‘They might regroup and come back. You two coming?’

  ‘I’ll not leave,’ Browne said. ‘There’s an injured man here.’

  ‘A man who would’ve killed you,’ I said.

  ‘Nevertheless. This is my home, Joe. I told you I’d not leave it.’

  Cole put a hand on my arm.

  ‘They want you dead,’ he said. ‘Not him. Don’t worry, I’ll leave some men here.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What about you? You coming with us?’

  ‘I’ve got stuff to do.’

  ‘Well, if you’re still alive when this has finished, get in touch,’ Cole said.

  ‘Right. I need a car.’

  He glanced at Gibson who handed me some keys. Cole spoke to a couple of his men, told them to stay near Browne. Then he was gone.

  I hung around Browne’s for a while, but I was still a target and if I stayed, that would put Browne in danger.

  So I left.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Tina opened the door, looked up at me. Her eyes were huge.

  ‘I wondered if you’d come back.’

  She was pale, paler than ever, as if she was fading into the air. She took a step back, then swayed and fell forward. I caught her, lifted her up and carried her through to the lounge. She weighed nothing. I put her on the sofa, checked her pulse.

  I wondered if she’d taken pills. I slapped her, brought some colour back to her cheek. She rolled over, tried weakly to push my arm away.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she said.

  ‘Have you taken anything?’

  She shook her head, silver-yellow hair fell over her face. Gradually, she came back to life, and sat up. She lifted a hand and slowly brushed her hair aside.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  I gave her some room. She sat forward, at the edge of the seat, put her knees together, and held them, and bent her body so that she was looking down. She didn’t want to look at me. I could understand that.

  ‘Why have you come here?’ she asked her feet.

  ‘I need somewhere to stay for a while.’

  ‘They have hotels for th
at.’

  ‘There are people after me. They’d find me in a hotel.’

  ‘But why here?’

  ‘It’s the only place I could think of.’

  Now she looked up at me.

  ‘The only place?’

  ‘You’re the only person I could think of to come to.’

  ‘You know other people, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah. But other people know the other people I know.’

  She reached down the side of the sofa, pulled a pack of cigarettes out. On the floor, beside her foot, was an ashtray, mostly full, and a lighter. She put a cigarette in her mouth, taking a long time to do it.

  ‘They’d find you, these other other people?’

  ‘They’d find me, eventually.’

  ‘Are you scared of them?’

  ‘No,’ I said, knowing it was the truth. ‘I’m just tired.’

  She nodded. I had the feeling she understood exactly.

  She lit her cigarette, inhaled and blew the smoke out in a sigh, as if she was relieved at last to be breathing deadly air.

  It looked strange, her smoking. It looked like a child playing at being an adult.

  ‘Who are they, these people? Who’s after you?’

  ‘Everyone.’

  She rocked back and laughed. I suppose it was funny, when you thought about it. Funny in a fucked-up way.

  ‘You don’t mess about, do you?’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  She laughed some more. When she’d finished, she leaned back, looked up at me.

  ‘You know how to make coffee?’

  ‘I’ll work it out.’

  I made coffee for her, tea for me. We sat and drank our drinks and she smoked her smokes and I kept expecting her to scream and run from the house or call the law or something. But she didn’t.

  We talked a bit. She asked me where I came from, what I’d done, things like that. She told me a bit about herself.

  She’d hooked up with Paget out of desperation, she said.

  ‘He was flash, had money. I was young, stupid. I was doing tricks for twenty quid a shot. He told me I could do a hundred a time, few hundred quid a night. Course, he didn’t tell me how much I’d have to shell out to Marriot. I think I made more money by myself. I was safer, too. By the time I realized that, it was too late. Nobody left Marriot. Not if they wanted to keep their looks.’