by Mark Timlin
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?
Chapter 9
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 die 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 memory 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.'
Grudgingly John took out an envelope containing about a hundred doobies and a wad of ten shilling and one pound notes and handed them over.
'Nice,' said Maurice. 'Very nice. Now, like I said, piss off out of here and don't come back.'
'See you later, Morry,' said John, apparently not scared at all of the gun stuck in his ribs.
'Not if I see you first.'
The two boys came out of the stall, through the club and into the warm air of Wardour Street that was still twenty degrees cooler than inside the packed club.
'Fucking terrific,'- said Billy.
'Not to worry,' said John. 'Plenty more where they came from.'
'I nearly shit myself.'
'Me too, but it'll be his turn next,' said John.
'We ain't coming back here,' said Billy, who, although no coward, had not been happy to see a gun involved in their little business.
'Ain't we?' said John. 'Don't you believe it.'
'What do you mean?' asked Billy.
'You'll find out,' replied John. Billy didn't like the expression on his friend's face. In the orange light of the street lamps it looked like that of the Devil himself.
'Tell us.'
'Saturday. Dave Clark Five at the Tottenham Royal.'
'So?'
'So we go.'
'But Maurice'll be there.'
'Yeah.'
'With his mates.'
'Yeah.'
'And he's got a fucking gun.'
'So?'
Billy stopped and grabbed John's arm. 'So he's warned us off…'
'Fuck his luck. Are you with me?'
'Course I am. No question.'
'Then don't worry, son,' said John, pulling his friend close and looking him in the eyes. 'We're fucking minted.'
'Yeah, you're right,' said Billy. 'Bleedin' magical, that's us. Fuck Maurice's luck, he doesn't know who he's dealing with here.' And the pair lost themselves in the bright lights, almost dancing along the pavement as they went.
John bought his first gun that weekend. He got it from an old soldier who ran a pawnbroker's shop in Lewisham. He told John he had liberated it during the First World War from an officer he'd killed after he kept trying to send him and his mates over the top at Ypres. John knew it was that old but didn't believe the story. The man sat behind the counter of the dingy emporium dressed in a filthy, food-stained sweater and trousers that smelled of piss. He had half a dozen cats and they slunk around John's legs as the two men, one just a boy really, the same age as the pawnbroker would have been at the time of the story he told, talked. The rumours locally were that, if the women of the parish need to claim their belongings but didn't have the wherewithal, then they could take the old man's cock out of his trousers and suck him off. Then they got the goods and the cash too. John couldn't believe that any woman could be that hard up. But the story persisted until the shop burnt down one night in 1969, and the old man and several of his cats perished.
The revolver was a Webley Scott.455 calibre Mark III Government Model with a seven and half inch barrel and hinged frame. It needed special ammunition made only by Webley themselves. The bullets looked as ancient as the seller, but he assured John they still worked. John didn't think to ask how he'd know. There were six in the gun and he had six spare. The whole deal was available for a bargain price of fifty quid, a fortune. John did the deal on the Saturday morning of the Dave Clark Five concert. He shuddered as the old man's hands touched his, and the cats rubbed up against his trousers. But a gun was a gun, and as soon as the transaction was done he fled back home.
He showed Billy the pistol in his bedroom when he arrived. It was massive, and fully loaded weighed almost three pounds. 'Fucking hell,' said Billy. 'Are you sure? If we get nicked with that we'll go down.'
'Then we won't get nicked then,' said John. 'This is groovy. It'll show that fucker Maurice.'
'Not 'alf. Are you going to use it, John?'
'Not much point not to,' replied John.
'But you ain't going to kill him?'
'No, you silly sod. Just hurt him bad.'
'Christ, mate, this is serious.'
'So's being scared to go up west,' said John.
'Yeah,' said Billy. 'That won't do at all.'
'We need a motor,' said John. 'How about Wally?'
'If he's about.'
'Go and give him a call, will ya mate?' The Jenner household, like so many at the time, not only had an outside lavatory, but it also did not have a private telephone. Wally's dad, being something in the city, did.
Billy went out to the nearest callbox and John unloaded the gun. Being something of an aficionado of crime books and films, he cleaned the gun as well as he could with what was available in the house. Just as well, he thought, as he pushed a lump of cotton wool on the end of one of his mother's knitting needles through the barrel and dug out what looked like an ounce of muck. The last thing I need is for this bloody thing to blow up in my hand.
Billy came back with good news. For a fiver, pl
us ten bob for petrol, Wally would chauffeur them to to Tottenham, wait and return.
'Terrific,' said John, tucking the Webley inside the waistband of his jeans and trying a fast draw which snagged the front sight of the gun in his belt. 'Billy. Tonight you and me are going to make history.'
And make it they did.
The shoot out in the Tottenham Royal made the front pages of Monday's papers, and John and Billy's reputation for ever.
Wally drove them up to north London in his Minivan. All three boys were flying on purple hearts and John had bought a bottle of vodka and some Cokes and doctored the soft drinks with the liquor, which was passed around the van until all three were drunk.
'Want me to come in?' asked Wally when they'd parked the vehicle at the back of the dance hall.
'No,' said John. 'This is our job. You just wait here.'
'How long?'
'As long as it takes.'
'Got any fags?'
John passed over a half empty packet of Bristol, today's cigarette, if the television adverts were to be believed.
'A light?'
'Don't you ever buy your own?'
'Not if I can help it.'
John felt around in his pockets and found a book of matches and tossed them into Wally's lap. 'Want me to smoke it for you too?' he asked.
'That's all right, mate,' replied Wally with a big grin as he lit up. 'I can manage.'
'Fine,' said John. 'Just be here.'
'I will. You owe me five quid, remember.'