by Timlin, Mark
‘John,’ said Hazel.
‘He’s got to please himself,’ said Jenner.
‘We can’t leave him here,’ said Hazel.
‘If that’s what the boy wants.’
Before they left, Jenner went outside again and Mark saw him kneel beside Thomas and talk to him, his mouth close to Thomas’s ear. He spoke for a long time. When Thomas nodded, Jenner rose and collected Hazel and Chas and they left. ‘The offer’s open,’ he said before he closed the front door. ‘Anytime. Nothing’s going to happen to you now.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mark to their retreating backs before going upstairs to tend to his mother.
The atmosphere in the house was never the same again. Mark realised for the first time in his life that some things, once done, can never be undone.
The beatings ceased for a while, but as the bruises and the memory of that night faded from Thomas’s body and mind, slowly and inevitably they started again. But he never touched Mark again.
One Sunday night a year later, Mark faced his mother and told her that he couldn’t go on the way they were. ‘He’ll end up killing you, Mum,’ he said. ‘You know he will. Why do you let him do it?’
‘No,’ she replied, unsteady on her feet from two days of drinking, her once pretty face now ugly from the alcohol. ‘He doesn’t mean it. He loves me.’
Mark also learned that year that people saw and heard what they wanted to, and with the best intentions in the world, some people refused to be helped.
That night he did pack a bag, leaving most of his possessions behind. As midnight struck, he left the house for the last time and walked to all the way to John Jenner’s, through a light rain that helped disguise the tears that were running down his face, the card he’d been given clutched tightly in his fist.
That night was one of the last times he ever saw his mother alive.
EIGHT
Not too far away from where Mark had eaten the breakfast that Chas had prepared for him, another man was also considering his past and future. But he hadn’t enjoyed scrambled egg, bacon and mushrooms on a cheerful checked tablecloth in a warm kitchen. Instead he’d eaten porridge and toast courtesy of Her Majesty in a miserable dining room inside Brixton prison. The same grim set of buildings that John Jenner had checked from the Range Rover the previous day as Mark had driven him down Brixton Hill on their way to lunch. After breakfast, Jimmy Hunter sat in his chilly cell, looking out over a courtyard where the clean snow was already a filthy grey. Everything around the prison soon took on that colour whatever the weather, and Hunter had seen almost twenty years of the seasons changing from one cell or another the length and breadth of the country.
At first they’d moved him often, the authorities taking a grim pleasure in shifting him from prison to prison. The Isle of Wight, Birmingham, Manchester, Carlisle, Newcastle. The list was as long as the number of penal institutions in the United Kingdom. Always at short notice. Sometimes in the dead of night he’d be woken up by the screws, told to gather his few possessions, slung into the back of a barred van and driven to his new home. But eventually the moves had become less and less frequent. Times changed. Staff changed. And there were other, more recent villains to be sorted.
Not that Jimmy had been totally forgotten. He was a cop killer after all. A mad dog shooter who had nearly died himself after being shot three times just down the road from where he now sat.
He recognised a certain irony in that. The policemen who’d fired without challenging him that morning in 1982 had wanted him dead. He knew that. It stood to reason. He’d killed one of their own. One of his own if the truth be known. At least he had been one of his own when Jimmy had run with John Jenner and his mob. They’d never been nicked. That was how Billy Farrow could change horses in midstream. There was no record of his crimes and misdemeanours. Jimmy had thought that Jenner would use his knowledge of Billy against him, but Jenner stayed loyal to his old mate. Mug. But when it was just between the two of them that morning in Brixton market, Jimmy couldn’t resist putting him away. He could still see Farrow’s hand raised as if to ward off the shot, but you didn’t ward off the contents of a shotgun cartridge loaded with double ought at point blank range. The force of the shot had chopped off Farrow’s hand at the wrist before blowing a hole in his chest big enough for a cat to walk through. He hadn’t stood a chance.
The copper who’d shot Jimmy had knelt over him as he lay, bleeding in the gutter next to the body of DC Billy Farrow and told him to die. He remembered the face looming over him saying. ‘Jimmy, you bastard. We’ve called an ambulance, but it’ll be too late. You’re done for, you fucker.’ Then he’d kicked him.
But that copper had been wrong. Even with three holes in him, Jimmy Hunter had refused to roll over and let his life slip away. One bullet had gone straight through his left thigh, exiting out of his leg without touching bone. Another had gone through his shoulder, smashing his collar bone as it went. That shoulder still ached on cold mornings like this. The third was the worst. The one that should have ended his life. A gutshot by a bullet that had run around inside him and had to be dug out by a stream of surgeons at King’s College Hospital. He still had the scar. A second belly button about three inches to the right of the original.
Twenty years, he thought. Twenty years, and now his release date was in sight. By the spring he’d be out. Full sentence served. Jimmy had been up in front of several parole boards over the years, but his attitude and his behaviour inside had always resulted in a knock back. But now there was nothing they could do to prevent his freedom as long as he kept his nose clean. But then, a few months inside was still a long sentence. Prison time wasn’t like time outside. An hour could seem like a day behind bars. A day like a year, as the second hand on his battered alarm clock slowed in front of his eyes and he could hardly see movement of it at all. Outside time could fly by unnoticed. Like those early days with Marje, when her dad had forbidden her to see her bad boy boyfriend. Those minutes they’d managed to snatch together when their love was new had flown by.
He still thought of Marje a lot, although she was two years dead. He’d been in Belmarsh then, down Woolwich way, and the funeral had been in Norwood cemetery. Jimmy Hunter wasn’t a sentimental man. Never had been much, and what sentiment he’d held on to had been leeched by his time in jail. But Marje had been a good wife. It was him that had let her down. What woman could be expected to wait the twenty years the judge at the Bailey had given to Jimmy Hunter? She’d loved Jimmy and she’d loved the son and daughter he’d given her. In the early years of his sentence she’d followed his wagon from prison to prison, spending what little money he’d left her on train fares to see him. She brought their children with her. Dragging the bewildered boy and girl from town to town, from visiting room to soulless visiting room.
Then one day she’d come alone. She’d told him they wouldn’t be coming any more. Told him she’d met someone else. A quiet man. An honest man who was prepared to give all three a new life. He received the divorce papers in prison and signed them in his own blood. At first he’d sworn vengeance, but as the years passed it had seemed less important, although he often wondered how the children had grown. He’d never even known the name that Marje had taken, and whether the children had taken it too, although nothing was ever mentioned about formal adoption. He imagined it was because, then, he’d have to know the identity of the man who’d stolen his family. But as his sentence shortened he became determined to find them upon his release. He didn’t really know why. It had been a surprise when the governor at Belmarsh had summoned him for an interview and told him that his son had phoned with the information that his former wife was dead. There was no other message, and his request to attend the funeral was denied.
It was almost ten as he lay on his bunk thinking. Time for his coffee. Where was that fucking Terry the Poof? He’d been getting slack lately. Spent too much time on the landing whispering to his ‘ginger’ mates and comparing tattoos. If he was giving it
out to anyone else there’d be trouble. Or if he was back on the smack.
That was the trouble with sex inside. Too many of these young kids who gave it up in exchange for being looked after by just one con were hooked on class A. And there weren’t enough needles to go round. Or condoms, for that matter. Billy had long ago given up penetrative sex with his ladyboys. He’d seen too many hard cons gone skeletal with AIDS to risk that. And besides, he was no shirtlifter. But a man had needs, and twenty years without a woman was a hard thing to bear. He laughed to himself at his little joke. It had taken him a long time before he’d started using boys. Years. The first one had been a cellmate at Strangeways. Not that the boy should’ve been there anyway. It was a hard man’s jail. That joke again. Jimmy had been in the fifth year of his sentence when he’d been moved there from Swansea. The kid had been pissing himself at the thought of sharing a cell with a lifer. Jimmy ignored him at first, even when the kid offered to slop out for him, make sure his clothes were cleaned and ironed at the prison laundry where he worked and even change his library books for him. But it was the night the boy everyone called Lucy let his long hair down and put on full make up and a pair of white cotton ladies knickers that changed Jimmy’s life.
At first he laughed, then he got angry when he felt his penis harden at the sight of Lucy on the cell floor doing calisthenics until his white body shone with sweat. He grabbed the kid by the throat fully intending to beat the living daylights out of him, but instead allowed him to rub at the hardness in Jimmy’s trousers, then release his cock and suck him off, all the time looking up at him with his soulful brown eyes until he came. Jimmy was furious with himself for allowing Lucy to smear his penis with lipstick and did give the boy a good hiding. The same sort of hiding he gave him every time their tryst was repeated, which was often.
But Lucy was long gone, as was Alphonse, a black boy from the Leeward Islands doing time for mugging old ladies, Poppy, a scouser, and so many others. Jimmy had all but forgotten their names. Terry the Poof was the latest, a car thief from Reading who was going to be in big trouble if he didn’t show up soon with Jimmy’s coffee in a china cup, not a thick mug. If he’s out scoring, thought Jimmy, I’ll do for the little bastard.
Not that he hadn’t tried drugs himself. On the out he’d just had a bit of smoke and the occasional spot of speed. Who hadn’t given that a go in the 60s and 70s? But inside, over the years, it had been just about everything. Acid, smack, coke and, recently, ecstasy. There were other more powerful drugs going the rounds too – names like Ketamine, angel dust and horse trancs. Everything under the sun and some that rarely saw the light of day. But Jimmy had packed it all in a few years back. Too many casualties.
And soon he’d be free. Not a young man admittedly. The next biggun was 6–0. But he was still fit. Still got some lead in his pencil, and when he got out, there were some scores to settle.
He smiled at the thought, then his smile dropped.
Where the hell was that bloody coffee?
NINE
Under the muddy sky of that January day, there were a lot of people thinking about the past and the present. Maybe it was the time of year, or maybe it was a premonition of things to come. Up the road from Brixton prison, inside an office in Streatham Police Station, Detective Sergeant Sean Pierce was at it too. His computer was down, and he was kicking his heels waiting for it to reboot, passing the time doodling the stick figure of a hanged man on his pad and letting his mind wander. Twenty years, he thought. And now the bastard’s going to come out. And what will we all do then? Everything’s a lie, he thought. Even my sodding name. But he and his mother and sister had happily taken it when Tom Pierce had asked Marjorie Hunter to marry him. Not everyone would’ve done that. Not married a cop killer’s wife and taken on his two brats. And brats they’d certainly been, him and Linda. But then, who could blame them? Years of being teased by their schoolmates for being the children of a murderer had made them what they were.
So when Tom Pierce had come along and courted Sean and Linda’s mother, they’d almost bitten his hand off. Tom was steady, you see. Working for the gas board at their offices in Croydon. A decent house and a decent car. Regular money and even a Christmas bonus. A job for life he’d told them. He’d believed that and so had they. But that had been the old days. After Tom had been pensioned off at fifty-five as too old for the new technology, he’d barely lasted another couple of years before dropping off his perch.
And then Marjorie had died. As much from a broken heart as cancer, Sean believed. He hadn’t thought she’d really loved Tom when they’d married, but sometimes love can grow on the stoniest of ground.
The brother and sister had survived. Sean had joined the police under the name of Pierce. Why not? It was his name. And he was honest, was Sean. Sometimes too honest for his own good. It wasn’t his fault his father had been a thief and a murderer. This was his way of making up for James Hunter’s bad deeds. And then Linda had married Andy Spiers, another good man with a regular job, a decent house and a decent wage. He’d worked for a multinational company on the sales and marketing side. Then, on his way to a big meeting up north, the driver of a highsided truck owned by another multinational had fallen asleep at the wheel of his vehicle, swerved over to the overtaking lane and swatted the car, in which Andy Spiers had been a passenger, then travelled through the central reservation and head on into a Rover 75 saloon speeding towards them. Only the driver of the truck survived the multi-vehicle pileup that followed. Sixteen dead all told. It had been headlines for a day, page five for two more, then more or less forgotten after that. Linda had a pension from Andy’s firm, his life insurance, and mortgage protection had paid off the house. The truck driver’s firm had paid big compensation out of court, not wanting their company name smeared all over the papers again. Financially she was secure. But emotionally? Sean didn’t know.
After the accident, he’d temporarily moved out of the police section house and lodged with her and her kids, Luke and Daisy. A flat over the garage in the house in Purley. But what had started out on a day to day basis seemed to have become permanent. Sean didn’t mind in the least. Lodged. Blimey, he thought. We’ve been lodged together as long as I can remember.
But what will happen when Jimmy Hunter gets out? wondered Sean. Will he just vanish into the world of social services and cheap bedsits, or will he come looking for us? And what will we do if he does?
Being a copper, Sean was well aware of his father’s movements over the last few years. But, as no one on the force knew of his history, he’d had to be discreet. Even when his mother had died and he’d telephoned Belmarsh to let the governor know, he’d not given his new name. Christ, he went hot and cold at the thought of anyone finding out who he really was. It wouldn’t look too good in his police personnel file. Not that he’d have one if the news did get out. Just a big RESIGNED written in thick black letters.
In truth he didn’t know why he’d bothered to let his father know at all. Just a kind of closure, he supposed. And at the funeral he’d half expected Jimmy to turn up dressed all in black. Not that he could remember much about Jimmy Hunter, having been just a boy when he’d gone inside for the last time. His mother had often told him there was a close resemblance between them, and sometimes, when he shaved in the morning, he would wonder just how close. All he could recall was a big, rough man who smelled of tobacco who would lift him up in his muscular arms and swing him round the room whilst his mother begged him not to drop the boy. And Linda could remember even less when they spoke about him, which wasn’t often.
Sean continued to doodle on his pad. The hanged man motif over and over again, until he noticed what he was doing and ripped the sheet off the pad and threw it in the wastepaper bin.
And finally there was John Jenner. Up in his bedroom in the house in Tulse Hill, stroking the sleeping cat beside him. He too thought back over forty years.
He wondered about the story he’d told Mark the night before, and laughed at the m
emory until he began to cough and he cursed the disease that was slowly but surely stealing his body away from him. But he wouldn’t fight it. He’d learnt to live with it instead. Like he’d said to Mark, it was a part of him. Even though it was killing him, and itself with him. Ironic. He hated reading in the papers about people who had ‘lost their battle with cancer’ as the obits put it. Fuck ’em. Most of them wouldn’t know a battle if it jumped up and bit their leg. Never fought a battle in their lives. Not like him and his crew. Jesus, but we were the lads, he said to himself, as he laid down the unfinished crossword and his pen. He’d only just started the story of the little firm he’d built up from scratch with Billy Farrow, before Billy made his life changing career move from one side of the law to the other.
It started in the old Marquee in Wardour Street. He and Billy were still punting the pills they’d stolen when someone decided to rip them off. John and Billy and an older man, still trying to be seriously mod but lacking both the hair and the style to get away with it, were crammed into the last stall in the malodorous toilets of the club and the older man, a geezer from Hackney called Maurice Wright, had a small handgun stuck into John’s side. ‘Fuck me,’ said Billy. ‘Is that real?’
‘As real as can be,’ said Maurice. ‘Now, this is my turf, and if you come in here flogging cut-price pills again I’ll kill both of you.’
John felt his stomach lurch and hoped that he didn’t disgrace himself by soiling the seat of his brand new beige cotton flares from Lord John.
‘Fuck off, Maurice,’ he said. ‘You ain’t got the bottle.’
Maurice cocked the hammer of his pistol and asked. ‘You want to find out? Now I want what you’ve got on you, then the pair of you will fuck off out of Soho for good.’
‘No chance,’ said John.
‘Listen, cunty,’ said Maurice. ‘I’ll use this if I have to. So why don’t you just give them up, and the cash you’ve nicked off me, and we can all part friends.’