Guns Of Brixton

by Mark Timlin

  'I don't get it.'

  'Then you're more stupid than you look, Jimmy.'

  'But the job…'

  'Fuck the job. I only took the job to get next to you. I fixed your mate Toby Lee so they'd hire me.'

  'And you did all this to get me?'

  'That's right. And Butler, too. He was the architect on that bank job when you killed my dad. I owed you both.'

  'But how did you find me?'

  'It wasn't hard. I've got good at it over the years.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I found Sean, didn't I? And Linda, too.'

  'What are you on about?'

  'Your daughter. Linda. Remember her? I know you do, because I saw you once outside her house. Yeah. I didn't know who you were then. Christ but I wish I had. I'd've run you down like a dog.'

  'Have you hurt her? Linda?'

  'Yeah. But not how you mean. We fell in love and I dumped her.'

  Jimmy couldn't believe his ears. 'You did what?'

  'I fell for her. We were going to be married, but something happened.'

  'What?'

  'My mum killed herself. After you killed Billy she took to the booze and got mixed up with a right bastard. He fucked her up good and proper and one night she slashed her wrists and I found her lying in a bath full of blood. Then I killed the fucker who was responsible. At least one of them. You're the other. I've been waiting for you to get out ever since. You brought out the killer in me, Jimmy. You and him. And that's what I've been doing ever since. Killing people. And now it's your turn.' And he reached inside his boot for the.38 concealed there and raised it and aimed it at Jimmy Hunter's heart.

  'No,' said Sean, pointing his pistol at Mark. 'No. I'm arresting you both.'

  'We had a deal,' said Mark.

  'I had a deal with Steve. You're not him. So I'm arresting the two of you for armed robbery. Other charges may follow.' He began to read them their rights.

  'You've got some balls, I'll give you that,' said Mark.

  'No,' said Jimmy, pointing his shotgun in Sean's direction. 'I'm not going back inside. Not for you or anyone else. Son or no son.'

  So there they stood, as the gunfight diminished inside the building behind them. Mark pointing his gun at Jimmy, Jimmy pointing his gun at Mark, and Sean moving the barrel of his gun between them both, not sure who was the most dangerous. 'Put your guns down, both of you,' he said.

  'Fuck off,' said Mark. 'Take your best shot, Sean.'

  But the tableau was disturbed as two armed coppers ran through the door behind them. 'Armed police,' they shouted in unison. 'Put down your weapons.'

  'I'm job,' shouted Sean, 'Don't shoot.'

  'Put down your weapons,' screamed one of the men his arm bleeding from a bullet. 'Now.'

  Jimmy fired once at the cops who returned fire, their bullet! thudding into his chest and knocking him off his feet. 'That's my father,' screamed Sean, and without thinking fired too, his bullet going through the right-hand lens of the wounded marksman's goggles and blowing the back of his skull into his helmet. As he fell, dead before he hit the ground, the second copper fired at Sean, blowing holes in his leather. The bullets meant for his chest were absorbed by the flak jacket and he was knocked back against the body of the Mondeo, sending his radio flying from his hand and out of sight.

  Mark pulled the trigger of his revolver, aiming at the legs of the second copper. The bullets blew meat from his thighs and he folded up like a concertina. As he fell his finger pulled the trigger one last time and the bullet his Sean in the groin beneath the Kevlar protection and he screamed in pain. Mark turned and looked at Sean, as he leant against the boot of the car, blood pulsing from his wounds and darkening the denim of his jeans. Calmly he walked over to Jimmy Hunter, prone on the ground, his eyes staring at the sky. Mark felt for a pulse but found none. 'Dead,' he said without emotion. 'Good bloody riddance. I'm just sorry it wasn't me who did it,' and he leant over Jimmy's body and closed his eyes with the palms of his hands.

  'Ambulance,' wheezed Sean. 'I need an ambulance.'

  'I'll take you,' said Mark, and pushed him into the back of his car. But before he could get behind the wheel, the copper he'd shot in the legs came back into the game, pulled his semi-automatic pistol from its holster and fired. The bullet hit Mark low in the back and he cried out, 'Bastard!' as he fell into the driver's seat.

  The keys were in the ignition and he switched on the engine, chucked the car into gear and took off in a cloud of dirt, dust and stones as the policeman fired again and the side window of the Mondeo imploded, the bullet ending up somewhere in the roof lining. Mark slammed his foot on to the accelerator and the car went temporarily out of control, fishtailed and almost spun until he dragged it back on to the straight. He bounced it across the wasteland and on to the main road, wrenched it hard around, geared up, put his foot down and headed in the direction of the City Airport. Sean was moaning behind him, and suddenly a police car appeared in his rear view mirror, lights flashing and two-tone siren screaming. 'Shit,' said Mark, and accelerated harder, only for another to come from the opposite direction and turn to block the road ahead. Mark

  twitched the wheel and the Mondeo mounted the pavement, demolished a road sign and scraped along a brick wall in a cloud of sparks.

  'You'll never get away,' said Sean through gritted teeth from the back.

  'Don't you fucking believe it,' said Mark, and the Mondeo clipped the bumper of the approaching police car and it tipped over on to its side and smacked into the one behind. 'It's just like snooker,' he said. 'You've got to get your angles right.'

  'You're hit,' said Sean.

  'Too fucking right. There goes my plans for tonight.'

  'Which were?'

  'Running off with your sister and her kids. Going to find somewhere warm and live there, happily ever after.'

  'You were what?'

  'Save your breath, Sean. It's fucked now. Me and Linda were always fucked up.'

  'Are you going to the hospital?' wheezed Sean.

  'No,' said Mark. 'I reckon you and me should have a talk.'

  'Bollocks to talking, I need help,' said Sean, taking out his mobile. His hands were sticky with blood and felt weak and clumsy, and the phone slipped from him grasp. Mark slowed the car, picked it up from the floor and tossed it out of the window on his side, under the path of a white van.

  'Sorry,' he said. 'Battery's flat.'

  At the airport roundabout, Mark headed away from London towards Beckton and the North Circular until he saw a piece of derelict land next to a small park. He skidded across two lanes of traffic, bounced hard over the kerb and swung through a gap in the fence that fronted the site. The car sped across the ground, leaving a trail of dust until it slewed to a halt in the shadow of an electricity pylon whose wires hissed in the heat of the early afternoon. The dust slowly settled on the car's paintwork like a dry drizzle as Mark switched off the motor.

  As the engine noise died, Sean poked his pistol through the gap between the two front seats towards Mark. His body was a mass of pain below his waist and, although he know his wounds were possibly fatal, his

  mind was still clear. He'd shot another police officer, found and lost his father, been shot, and had been played by the man who betrayed his sister, all in a few minutes. And now this.

  'We need to get to a hospital,' he said, through lips white with strain.

  Mark knew they were both in deep trouble. The blood from the bullet wound in his back had pooled on the driver's seat and the scent of it was sharp in his nostrils. 'No hospital for us, mate,' he said. 'No point. I don't think that either of us is going to get out of this alive.'

  'Take us,' said Sean, cocking his pistol, 'now.'

  Mark laughed out loud but the sound was too much like a death rattle for him to really appreciate the joke. 'What you going to do, mate?' he asked. 'Shoot me, then drag yourself round and drive? Look at the state of you, you can't even move.' He looked into the rear of the car at Sean's blood-s
oaked clothes. Using the back of his seat as a rest, he pointed his gun at him, grimacing with pain at the effort of the movement.

  Sean said nothing.

  'Can you?' pressed Mark. 'You're buggered, mate, and so am I. But that's nothing new is it, for either of us?'

  Sean knew it was the truth but wouldn't admit it. 'Hospital now,' he said, 'or I'll kill you, I bloody will.'

  'They call this a "Mexican standoff' - did you know that, Sean?' asked Mark. 'I saw it in an old cowboy film one afternoon on TV. Black and white. Funny the things you remember.'

  'You should do something better with your time. Apart from robbing and killing innocent people, if you know what I mean.'

  'Hark at Mr Perfect. Talking of robbing and killing, how about your dad? How about yourself? You killed one of your own back there, son. It's all up for you now, whatever happens. They don't like coppers in prison, so I've heard. It's all shit in the chocolate pudding or ground-up light bulbs in your tea. Or maybe it's the other way round.' He laughed again.

  Sean was silent.

  'Got no answer, have you?'

  Sean wouldn't meet his gaze.

  'Ever heard of a place called London Necropolis?' asked Mark after a moment.

  Sean shook his head. 'What the fuck are you talking about?'

  'It was a station at Waterloo.' Mark saw the look in Sean's eyes. 'Honest. No time for lies now, mate. A railway station for trains full of dead bodies, run by the London Necropolis Company. On their way to Woking. A place called Brookwood Cemetery. Biggest in the world, it was supposed to be. Enough room for every stiff in London. That was the plan. If it was still going, we'd all end up there. All of us. Your dad, my dad. You, me and Uncle Tom Cobley and all. But it never happened. The company went skint. Then it got bombed in the last war. The station did. But you can still see the entrance if you know where to look: 121 Westminster Bridge Road. Bloody yuppies' bar now. I'd like to see some of them yuppies on the way to the cemetery.' He laughed and started a fit of coughing. 'Funny, isn't it, mate? What you find out from books.'

  'From the prison library?' said Sean.

  'Never done time, son,' said Mark. 'I was always off the radar. Real gangsters never go inside. Only fucking stupid losers who come out, write a book and make more than they ever did from blagging. Not fair, is it? Funny really. Know what else is funny?' He didn't wait for an answer. 'I'll tell you. All the people who've died in the history of the world since time began and nobody knows what it's like to die. Not really. Seeing the white light, out of body experiences, I reckon that's all cobblers. What do you think?'

  Sean didn't answer, but Mark wasn't really expecting a reply.

  'Bloody strange,' he went on. 'But not to worry, you and me are going to find out soon.'

  'Not if I can help it. Not me anyway.'

  'Save it, Sean,' said Mark. 'You're a dead man walking. Or at least sitting down.'

  Sean said nothing, but deep down he knew that Mark was right.

  'Mind if I smoke?' asked Mark. 'I know you don't approve. But one

  thing's sure, neither of us is going to kick off from lung cancer. At least there's that.'

  Sean didn't reply, so, with an effort, Mark pulled the pack from his pocket. The cigarette he extracted had bloody fingerprints on it, and he lit it with his Zippo, and the simple effort caused him so much pain he almost cried. Smoke drifted through the empty window frame and vanished.

  'So what now, then?' said Sean.

  'We sit here,' said Mark. 'Have a chat.'

  'I've nothing to say to you.'

  'Nothing? I don't believe you. There must be something, for Christ's sake. I mean, we have a past. I thought for sure you'd recognise me that day in the Beehive. Steve. I ask you.'

  'I should've,' said Sean. 'But it's been a long time, and you looked so different. The beard and the glasses. And your eyes.'

  'Good job you didn't,' said Mark. 'Or I'd've never got a result.'

  'Call this a result?' said Sean.

  'Could've been worse. Could've been a lot worse… Or maybe not.'

  'You're bloody crazy,' said Sean.

  'All the things we've got in common,' Mark continued, as if Sean hadn't spoken. 'Never a talk. But if we're ever going to do it, now's the time, before it's too late.'

  From far away they both heard the scream of a police siren, but it faded away on the hot afternoon air.

  'No help there, then,' said Mark. 'Too fast for that lot.'

  'They'll be here.'

  'Not until we're beyond help,' said Mark. 'But then we've always been that, haven't we, Sean, my boy?'

  'Says you.'

  'Says me.'

  'So you've been seeing Linda,' said Sean after a moment.

  'Yeah. Never could leave her alone. I came back before. Last winter. Uncle John wanted my help.'

  'John Jenner.'

  'Yeah,' said Mark, pausing to take a breath. 'I'm glad I got to see him before he died. I was there the day you and your sidekick called at his house about that thing in Basingstoke.' 'That was you.'

  'Yeah. Your grass was right. It was funny, John and Chas both knew who you were. What your dad did.' 'They never said.'

  'They wouldn't, would they? Then I found Linda again, and we… Well. You know. But then I had to go away. I hurt her again.' 'I wondered what was up with her.' 'I was never very good for her.' 'You can say that again.' 'We had some good times, though.' 'Did you?' 'Sure.'

  'I wish you'd never met her,' said Sean.

  'Would've been for the best, probably. But I wanted to see you both, after what Jimmy did.'

  'So everything was all about my father.' 'Yeah. In the first place. Then circumstances sort of took over.' 'Why didn't you just leave me?' asked Sean. 'Just now. Why bother with all this?'

  'Like your dad left mine? No mate. No such luck. All our lives we've been heading for this, and I didn't want to spoil it.' 'You are mad.' 'No. Just a bit annoyed.' 'Is that why?' 'Why what?' 'You know.'

  'What?' said Mark. 'Come on, say it, mate.' 'Why you went after Linda?'

  'No. Don't you bloody understand? I loved her the minute I saw her.' 'But you never treated her right,' said Sean.

  'We didn't have much of a chance, if you think about it.'

  'You can say that again.'

  'Still, it's over now. Or it soon will be.' t

  'It'll never be over,' said Sean, 'Until you and me are both dead.'

  'That's exactly what I mean,' said Mark. 'Exactly.' He leaned back in his seat and groaned at the pain in his back. 'Exactly,' he said again as the hot sun beat down on the car.

  Sean was the first to pass out. His wound was still pumping blood. 'Please, Mark,' he begged. 'For pity's sake, get us out of here.'

  'Pity,' said Mark. 'I've noticed there's not much pity around these days. Anyway, we'll be gone soon enough. To a better place perhaps. What do you think?'

  There was no reply.

  'Sean,' said Mark. 'Sean. Can you hear me?' But all was quiet from the back of the car.

  Mark pulled himself out of his seat and into the back of the car to join Sean. He felt for a pulse but it was so faint as to be almost nothing. 'Brothers,' he said. 'Like fucking brothers we were. Sorry mate, you deserved better. We

  all did.' He gathered him in his arms as their life's blood mixed.

  A small boy on a bike saw the two men in the car with its window blown out, and pedalled home fast. His mother, who had stopped believing his wild tales years before, was eventually dragged from her terraced house in the modern close not far from the wasteland, uttering dire threats about what would happen if he was lying. When she saw the two bodies on the back seat, glued together with their own blood, flies already feasting on them, she ran home and called the police.

  Within minutes, armed units had surrounded the Mondeo. After no response to several shouted warnings, the ranking inspector authorised the troops to move in. Six blue-clad coppers gingerly made their way across the waste ground to the car where they found the two m
en huddled together in the back.

  'You'd better get some medical help here, fast,' said the first policeman on the scene. 'They're alive, but it doesn't look good.'

  The inspector called for the air ambulance from the London Hospital. 'Get here now,' he ordered, 'I want them alive.'

  Fifteen minutes later, woken by the relentless whirring of the helicopter's blades, Mark's eyes fluttered open. As he slowly focused on the shape beside him, he finally recognised Sean. He was perfectly still. Mark opened his mouth and tried to speak, but was unable to make a sound. He felt as cold and heavy as a stone. The weight of his eyelids

  was too much and, as they slowly closed, the darkness enveloped him.

  Linda was at the rendezvous half an hour early. Her old school was deserted because of the holiday. The back of her truck was packed with suitcases. Mark had said he would be travelling light, so she'd only left a little room for his bits. She couldn't believe what she'd had to pack for Luke and Daisy. There wasn't much of her own stuff, she figured she could shop when they'd arrived at their new home. Inside her handbag were their passports and five thousand pounds in cash, her credit cards and cheque book. She'd left a note on Sean's flat door telling him she would be away for a while and that they'd be in touch soon. There was no mention of Mark.

  Daisy was strapped into the child seat, fast asleep with a little white sun hat down low over her eyes. Luke was playing with some handheld video game and bouncing about under the constraint of his seat belt. She parked in the shade of the trees at the edge of the park where, all those years ago, Mark had waited for her in the pouring rain, and wound down her window to let in some air. The stereo played something from the 80s and she got out to smoke a cigarette away from the children. Neither of them seemed to notice. The afternoon was still and close and, away from the truck's climate control, she had to pull her blouse away from her back to allow some air to reach her skin. Nothing was moving in the suburban street, except for a big black crow that froze when it saw Linda, then flapped its wings and took off, leaving her alone with her Silk Cut. She walked up to the school gates and gazed up the drive, remembering… remembering everything. The good and the bad times both.