To Fight For

by Phillip Hunter

  I couldn’t say any more, things had become too mixed up, the memory of her swamping and drowning every-thing else.

  I tried to push the memories away but they wouldn’t go. They were caught about the hatred; memory and loathing feeding off each other, each pushing the other further in.

  Browne was right; the hatred was killing me.

  And I didn’t care because without it, I had nothing. Browne was wrong about that; I wasn’t gutting myself. I was already gutted. I was that body on the slab, moving but dead, bloodless and grey.

  I realized then, at that moment, in front of these cunts, that I’d never told her what I felt for her.

  ‘Fuck,’ Bradley said. ‘Will you look at that? He’s human after all.’

  ‘Let him speak,’ Hayward said.

  I think, of all of them, he understood most – maybe because he had a woman.

  ‘It’s about someone I knew. Her name was Brenda.’

  ‘Yes,’ Compton said. ‘You told us about her.’

  ‘But I didn’t need to tell you about her, did I? You already knew.’

  There was silence for a moment. Then Hayward broke it.

  ‘John?’ he said.

  Nobody paid him any attention.

  ‘You were there that time,’ I said ‘at her flat, after she’d been killed. I know you were because there was a witness; a woman who lived near Brenda. I went to see her.’

  ‘Is that what this is about? Yes, I was there. I was investigating Operation Elena then. We knew Glazer was bent and we thought she might have evidence against him, so, when I heard she’d been killed, I went there and looked for it. Nothing to get wound up about.’

  It was a good story. I almost believed it.

  ‘What did you find?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing,’ Bradley said, flicking his ash onto the floor. ‘Waste of time.’

  ‘Did you find any photos?’

  ‘Photos?’ Bradley said.

  ‘Yeah. Things that come out of cameras.’

  Hayward wasn’t saying a word. I think this was the first time he’d heard any of this. He must’ve been wondering why that was.

  ‘No, we didn’t find any photos, Joe,’ Compton said. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘You were looking for drugs.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Brenda’s neighbour. She said you told her you were looking for drugs.’

  I could see dots of sweat on Compton’s brow. I knew way more than I should. What else did I know?

  ‘That’s what we told her,’ he said. ‘It seemed best. We wanted to keep a low profile. Drugs round there were a common problem.’

  ‘You’re lying, Compton.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean fuck you. You weren’t investigating Operation Elena back then. Glazer was still running it, which he wouldn’t have been if anyone was suspicious of it. The investigation into Glazer came after.’

  ‘Okay. Look, there’s stuff I can’t tell you, that’s all. You just have to trust me.’

  ‘Why should I trust you? You’ve lied to me from the start.’

  ‘Not from the start, Joe,’ Compton said, smiling.

  He looked at Bradley and Hayward. It was all funny. Bradley made an effort to smile, but his eyes gave him away. Hayward didn’t bother at all.

  ‘Joe,’ Compton said, all friendly now. ‘Joe, you’ve got things all wrong. We’re the ones who were out to get Glazer. Remember?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You wanted him alright. You wanted him dead.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Bradley said.

  ‘Who do you work for, Compton?’

  ‘You know who.’

  There was a surge of pain in my side that made my head swim for a second. Then the sweat came. I don’t think they saw it. I said, ‘I know who pays your bills. I know you wear a uniform. But I don’t know who pulls your strings. One thing I do know, you don’t care about any anti-corruption shit.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Joe, old son. You’ve gone paranoid.’

  ‘All them blows to the head, probably,’ Bradley said, waiting for a laugh from the others. He didn’t get one.

  ‘We’re investigating Glazer because he’s corrupt,’ Compton was saying. ‘That’s all. Simple. No conspiracy. You know he was bent, Joe. You know better than anyone; he grassed your woman up to Marriot, didn’t he? And Marriot got Paget to kill her. Right?’

  ‘That’s why you killed Marriot and Paget isn’t it?’ Bradley said.

  ‘I know about you, Bradley,’ I said. ‘You were Special Branch, weren’t you?’

  Hayward was looking from one to the other. Bradley stared at me, his mouth open.

  ‘I saw a copper called Rose,’ I said. ‘Remember him?’

  ‘No,’ Compton said.

  ‘He was a DS, ran a few informants. One of them was a woman called Margaret Sanford. She was Brenda’s neighbour. You took over running her from Rose. You used her to keep an eye on Brenda. This was before the film was even made, which means you had foreknowledge of the film, of Brenda’s part in it, of her plan to get a copy to send to Glazer.’

  Compton looked at me for a long time and I saw him as he really was, without pity or conscience, cold and deadly.

  Then, he half smiled and spread his hands. He didn’t care. People like him never do. People like him and me. I could’ve killed them then and there, and wouldn’t have felt anything about it. But I wanted to end this, get things straight, finally. For that, I had to wait a while.

  It was the photo in Tina’s album that did it, told me what was happening – the photo of Tina on the beach; the pale skin, black hair. I’d seen her years back, in the Fox and Globe, when I’d gone there with Brenda. Well, it was the photo and her knifing me. She’d done it out of fear; fear that I knew what she’d done.

  By itself, it wasn’t much. But when I added it to everything else I knew …

  Meanwhile, my blood was seeping out, my head was getting lighter, fuzzier. The room moved. I stumbled forward a half step. None of them saw it. They were all too worried, each in their own way.

  ‘John,’ Hayward was saying. ‘What does this mean? What’s he talking about?’

  There was panic in Hayward’s voice. I think he’d seen the same thing in Compton I had and that, I think, more than anything, frightened him. Everything he thought he knew was crumbling, and the cause he’d been devoted to – fighting corruption and murder – and Compton – the man who’d embodied that cause – all that was becoming dust in front of him.

  ‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,’ Compton said.

  ‘Beyond his understanding,’ Bradley said. I think he wanted to say something just to remind everyone he was there. ‘He knows fuck all.’

  But I did know. Finally.

  I said, ‘You’re MI5, aren’t you, Compton? You must be if Bradley was from the Branch. My guess is you had this bloke in the film under surveillance. You would’ve known he had a thing for kids. So, when he made contact with Marriot, it would’ve been easy to figure out what he wanted. There was your chance to get him, to blackmail him, control him. But you couldn’t trust Marriot, so you investigated people working for Marriot, and found a woman you could put the frighteners on. Her name was Tina.’

  ‘John,’ Hayward said. ‘Sir? What’s he on about?’

  ‘Shut up, Del,’ Bradley said.

  He was still smoking his cigarette. I had the feeling that when he stopped, people would die.

  ‘What the fuck is he on about?’

  I turned to Hayward.

  ‘They used you, Hayward. They needed a real copper to get onto Glazer’s vice unit. They fed you the same spiel they’ve been feeding me, that they were investigating Glazer’s connection to Marriot.’

  His face was grim. He was standing now with his feet a little apart and his arms by his side. He looked like he was getting ready for a fight, but hadn’t decided who it was going to be with.

  ‘Why was th
is so important?’ I said to Compton ‘Who is he? A terrorist? Arms dealer? Politician?’

  ‘Something like that. He’s foreign. He’s powerful. And if we get him under our thumb, we’d have that power. You were a soldier once, right? You fought for God, for Queen and country. You must understand loyalty.’

  ‘Fuck Queen and country. Fuck God, too. None of them ever did anything for me. And fuck you lot.’

  ‘Look, son, I know what this means to you. The man in that DVD is a vile human. He used people, abused them, your woman included. But he means a whole lot more to us. We’ll make him pay, don’t worry about that. Leave it to us.’

  I didn’t say anything to that. It was interesting, in a way, watching Compton work, watching the absolute certainty of his authority override his fears.

  ‘You want him?’ Compton said. ‘What are you gonna do? You’ll never find him. You’ll never get close. Look in a mirror, son. You haven’t got what it takes. We’re out of your league.’

  ‘That’s what Eddie Lane told me.’

  ‘He was right.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Joe, you may hate us, that’s fine, but we didn’t do anything to hurt anyone. We didn’t kill your woman.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Paget and Marriot did that. And now they’re dead.’

  ‘You should know,’ Bradley said.

  ‘You’re right, I killed them. I keep killing people. It’s a bad habit.’

  Bradley glared at me. I turned back to Compton.

  ‘Paget had a copy of the DVD. He probably had copies of all the films that Marriot made, and they’re probably sitting in some bank safety box. But I don’t think he knew who was on the DVD, otherwise he and Marriot would’ve used it before. Marriot would’ve used it to keep out of the nick.’

  ‘So?’ Compton said.

  ‘So then Marriot gets out of prison, and he and Paget try to take over Cole’s turf and use me as a scapegoat. It goes wrong and I kill Marriot. Now Paget is running for his life, me and Cole both after him. And he goes to Dunham for protection and offers a copy of the DVD as a fee.’

  ‘What’s the point of all this?’ Bradley said.

  I turned my gaze back to him. I watched his eyes as he began to understand what I was doing.

  ‘The point is: how did Paget suddenly know the DVD was valuable?’

  Compton didn’t say anything for a moment. I think it wasn’t a question he’d ever asked himself. He looked away, towards the bodies on the ground.

  ‘How?’ he said finally.

  I kept my eyes on Bradley’s. He knew what was coming. His jaw clenched.

  ‘There’s only one way it works out: one of you told Paget what the DVD was worth.’

  ‘What?’ Compton said.

  ‘Bollocks,’ Bradley said.

  ‘Why would one of them do that?’ Hayward said.

  ‘Because one of them is working for the British Security Service, and the other is working for the man in the DVD. That one tried to make a deal with Paget, maybe tried to buy the film back. Paget wasn’t interested, though. Instead, when he knew Cole was after him, he went to Dunham; the only one he thought could give him protection. And he told Dunham what the DVD was worth, and why.’

  Bradley tossed his smoke. I think he knew he was walking into death.

  They stood still, as if they were in a play, each in a role, each waiting for his cue. The air got staler, colder, deader.

  Compton was looking at the ground, his brow creased, his mouth shut tightly.

  Hayward watched him, then Bradley. He didn’t know what was happening.

  So we all stood there, waiting for something to happen.

  Then Bradley twitched. I went for my gun, but Hayward was quicker.

  ‘Careful,’ he said, holding the .32 semi at hip height. He had the gun pointed at me. I had to hand it to him; he’d unbuttoned his jacket and got the gun out without me noticing.

  I let it go, pulled my hand slowly from my jacket pocket, let it drop by my side. The wound was cold now. Blood had soaked through everything and saturated it.

  They were all watching me. Compton saw my blood dripping onto the floor. His face cleared a bit, like he knew I didn’t have enough strength left to do anything.

  Bradley had his head tilted a bit forward so that he was looking up at me with narrow eyes. He had his tongue in his cheek and moved it, as if he was weighing up whether to kill me. That’s probably what he was thinking. He’d always wanted to kill me. I knew that now.

  Compton’s gaze was more sure of itself. I was just a lump to him. I was muscle, but not much else – no brain, anyway.

  But then his eyes narrowed and he was thinking about what I’d said and maybe thinking I wasn’t so fucking dumb after all.

  Hayward’s look was hard, sure, but it was serious, professional. To him, I was a threat. I was the enemy, and dangerous too. He gave me credit, which was why he was first to his gun. But there was no hatred, no personal feelings at all. I might have been a rabid dog that had to be shot. That was fine.

  Bradley took his gun out slowly. There was murder in his face.

  Then Compton turned to him. He said, ‘He’s right. Someone told Paget, and it wasn’t me.’

  Bradley didn’t move for a moment. He smiled, shook his head. Then he swung round, his gun aimed at Compton. Hayward saw it, swung round too, bringing his gun up so that it was pointing at Bradley’s chest.

  ‘Don’t,’ Hayward said.

  Compton stared at Bradley.

  ‘Cunt,’ Compton said.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Hayward said.

  Everyone was his enemy.

  ‘Take it easy, Del,’ Bradley said to him.

  ‘Take it easy? Fuck off,’ Hayward said. ‘Ten minutes ago I had two colleagues, two friends. I had a job and a boss. I was a fucking copper. What the fuck have you done?’

  While Hayward was losing his bottle, Bradley was working out what to do, who to kill first. I could see it, and so could Compton. Hayward wiped sweat from his forehead.

  Everything stopped again, everyone waiting for every-one else.

  Then Bradley glanced at me. He’d made his decision and I knew he was going to kill me. Hayward locked his hammer back, Compton reached for his own piece. There would be blood, we all knew that. I steadied myself, tried to figure out what I could do. I couldn’t think of anything.

  Then the door burst open. We swung round as one. Eddie walked in, flanked by three men, all armed. The men fanned out, guns up, pointed at all of us.

  Eddie stood in the middle of them, his hands empty. He would be armed too – he was always armed – but for now he kept his gun in his shoulder holster. For now he was playing it cool, but I knew he was worried, maybe even scared. He would’ve clocked the bodies on the floor, but he made a point of ignoring them. That’s how worried he was.

  Bradley’s gun wavered, Hayward’s piece was pointed at Eddie who glanced at it, then at Compton, then at me.

  ‘Joe?’ Eddie said. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You took your time.’

  ‘That sounds like you were expecting me.’

  ‘I was.’

  That amused glint came into his eyes. He nodded. He smiled, but it was an effort. I liked that, and he could see that I did. He was so fucking clever, and I’d used his cleverness against him. He must’ve hated me then more than he’d ever hated anything.

  ‘Browne’s phone,’ he said. ‘You found out it was bugged. You knew if you called him, we’d hear.’

  I said, ‘Yeah. That was a neat thing with Buck.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  He wandered over to the bodies, glanced at them. Compton had moved back.

  ‘So you got him,’ Eddie said to me. ‘Buck. You got him. I kinda thought you might.’

  ‘Yeah. I got him.’

  I nodded towards Compton and Bradley and Hayward.

  ‘I think you know this lot,’ I said to Eddie.

  ‘What makes you say that?’


  ‘I’ll come to that,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, Joe,’ Eddie said, still looking like it was all fun for everyone, even if he was too fucking cool to join in with it.

  I turned to Compton.

  ‘See, Dunham wants the DVD too. He and Eddie here thought they’d get it from Glazer.’

  ‘Glazer?’ Eddie said.

  ‘Yeah, Eddie. He’s the copper your men kidnapped,’ I said. ‘Remember? The one you set Buck on. But you’ve all been chasing Glazer for nothing.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Compton said.

  ‘You thought the same as me, Compton. We thought that Brenda must’ve sent him a copy of the film as evidence, and that Glazer had then grassed her up to Marriot.’

  I turned to Eddie.

  ‘And you and Dunham thought the same thing, but only because I told you. So, we all went after Glazer. I wanted him because he’d got Brenda killed. The rest of you because you thought he had a copy of the DVD. But he didn’t have one. He never did.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Eddie said.

  ‘Because he told me.’

  ‘And you believed him?’

  ‘He told me he’d grassed Brenda up to Marriot. If he admitted that, why wouldn’t he admit to having the DVD? Besides, Buck had been working on him long enough, so, if he’d had the DVD, he would’ve said so.’

  ‘So what does that mean, Joe?’

  ‘It means, as far as you lot knew, there were three copies: Paget’s, Glazer’s and mine.’

  ‘Yours?’ Compton said.

  ‘Yeah. I had a copy that Brenda left to me. I only found it a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘I’m telling you now, Compton.’

  ‘He wants to deal,’ Bradley said.

  ‘No he doesn’t,’ Eddie said, looking at me.

  ‘He’s right,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to deal. I want to kill you all.’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ Compton said. ‘You give us that DVD, you can name your price – immunity, money, even.’

  He said some more, but I wasn’t listening. I was looking at Eddie, who was looking at me. I think he knew he’d fucked up. I think part of him was glad. He’d hated what Dunham was doing, and he’d hated that Dunham’s wife hated him for doing it.