The Fighter

by Robert White

  My opponent spat on the floor at my feet.

  “Now you die, Fuller,” he hissed, and came again.

  I couldn’t move my left arm. It simply lay across my stomach, hoping to protect my wound from any further punishment. Blood had pooled into my boot and was dripping onto the concrete. I hadn’t much left, and Al-Mufti knew it.

  He went to kick my feet from under me, to get me on the floor. I staggered but didn’t fall. As he came for me, I dropped my head again and led with my elbow into his throat. I got more of his chin than I’d bargained for, but he was hurt, struggling. He was flat footed, and I went in behind, kicked his knee joint and went for the choke.

  I dragged him backwards until he lay on top of me. I had my back on the deck and my right forearm firmly on his throat. That should have been game over, but with only one good arm, I quickly realised that I was never going to choke him out. He just felt too strong and I felt so tired. I couldn’t hold him.

  He twisted his body one last time, and again he was free.

  I rolled away, but I was too slow, I’d lost too much blood. Al-Mufti was back on his feet and he penalty kicked me in the guts.

  I must have screamed, but I couldn’t say for certain. My world was once again turning black, the way it once had on the moors in Manchester.

  Al-Mufti sat on my chest and slapped my face to bring me back to consciousness. Slowly, I opened my eyes and locked onto his gaze.

  “Get it over with,” I said.

  He sneered. “I’ve dreamed of this moment, Fuller.”

  “Dream on,” said a Scottish voice off to my left.

  Al-Mufti didn’t get the chance to turn. Des fired a single round, penetrating the Egyptian’s skull at the temple. It was a marksman’s shot from any distance.

  I pushed Al-Mufti’s corpse off me and looked over to my only friend.

  “I knew there was a reason I’d saved that round,” he said. “Now, are you going to lie there all day, or can we fuck off?”

  * * *

  Des drove me back to the lock up in the beamer, and just after midnight, the whole crew were back together, safe, sound and happy. The round I’d taken had passed straight through me without any internal damage. Des and Lauren cleaned me up and got an IV into my arm. Once they were happy with me, they put on some music and cracked some cans. I desperately wanted to celebrate with them, but within minutes, I must have fallen asleep.

  I awoke to find Lauren by my side. She was snuggled up against me. She looked and smelled wonderful. That lunchtime, Forrest went out for more supplies, the girls cooked up a storm and by that evening, I felt well enough to join in the fun.

  By day two, Cartwright had given us the all clear to travel and we all made our separate ways home, to prepare for a lengthy break from terror and danger.

  The final battle with Al-Mufti had been one of the hardest of my life and that evening, I stood in my shower inspecting my cuts and bruises. Luckily, other than my nose, nothing else appeared broken, but I knew from experience, and now, my age, that it would be a few weeks before I stopped wincing when I moved this way or that.

  As the shower pounded my aching limbs, I considered that despite my injuries, I was the lucky one for a change. We had all emerged from the fight alive and our enemies were defeated. Des’ decision to let Jimmy McCreery live was his own business. I hadn’t really had the opportunity to ask his reason, but I knew the Scot well enough to know it must have been a good one.

  The cops would be swarming all over the city for the next days and weeks. Due to the nature and location of the fighting, our vehicles and faces would eventually be picked up on cameras around the city and those images would be passed to forensics to identify.

  Our only hope, was that Cartwright and any of his successors, were as effective as the old spy at keeping our identities a secret, and soon we would be able to walk the streets of Manchester again. It was a place with all the usual issues of any sprawling cosmopolitan city, and although I may have made out to you that it had more than its fair share of criminals and gangsters, it was the place that had become my home. With luck, Lauren and I hoped to make it so again, once the dust settled and we returned from our adventure to the Far East.

  Sellers and Forrest were already en route to Dubai, yet I would wager that it wouldn’t be long before they ended up in one of the war torn Middle Eastern regions, Iraq, or Syria maybe. Mercenaries get big money out there and they were both young enough to enjoy the ride. Sellers was a scrapper. She loved the fight, the danger, and the contest. And Forrest? Well, he had showed himself to be a more than capable soldier and as neither of them had anything to tie them to the UK, I didn’t expect them to be back any time soon.

  Des, of course was packing his gear and taking the train to Scotland. I knew he had great misgivings about beginning any form of relationship with Grace other than a platonic one. It was an unwritten rule that you didn’t take up with a mate’s missus, be he alive or dead, but what I’d learned this last few years, and certainly since losing Cathy, was that life is too short for rules like that. Des made JJ the promise that he would look after his boy and he’d already done over and above what most men would have. But to truly take care of a kid, a man has to be around. Now to me, that didn’t mean every couple of days, or the odd weekend.

  My old man went to war and never came back, killed in action. I was a little older than Kaya, but I remember this, once my old mum topped herself, I never once felt loved until I met Cathy. JJ’s boy deserved love, as did Grace, and I couldn’t think of another man on this planet who was more worthy of happiness than Desmond Cogan.

  So, all in all, it was a good day… until my phone rang.

  I pulled a towel around me, lifted the phone from my bedside cabinet and looked at the screen. ‘Private Number,’ it said. You know, at first, I almost nipped it. I mean, those numbers are usually a call centre, someone trying to sell you a kitchen, maybe life insurance or something. But then a more disturbing thought clicked in my head. In all the time I’d held this number, I’d never had a call like that. My phone, like my life, was restricted to the people that mattered.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Fuller,” said the caller. “I was hoping you’d answer.”

  My brain was putting a face to the voice, leafing through page after page of my chequered history. “Simpson,” I replied, the penny dropping. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “Now that isn’t polite now, is it?” he hissed. “I always did think you had a foul mouth, Fuller. Common as coal, as my mother used to say.”

  “Look, Detective, I don’t give a toss about what you or your mother used to say and I’m a very busy man right now, so unless you have something of importance to tell me, I suggest you hang up.”

  “Busy, you say?”

  “Busy yes, so why..?”

  “Packing I take it?”

  I stayed silent.

  Simpson did not.

  “I can see you now, Fuller, just out of the shower, all those designer numbers laid out on your bed in a particular order, so as not to mess with your OCD. All nicely laundered and pressed. Do you still use the same lady? What’s her name now? Lucy Meehan, isn’t it? LM Laundry services? Too lazy to do your own washing, eh?”

  Even though I knew it would be impossible for it to be the case, I took a quick look around my bedroom for a camera or two. Of course, he was playing with my head, the way he’d tried with Lauren.

  “I think you need to be careful, Simpson,” I said. “I mean, a man could get himself into all kinds of trouble for setting up surveillance routines on innocent people. Maybe even get themselves suspended again. Come to think of it, how did you get this number?”

  “Never mind all that, Fuller,” he croaked. “I suppose your tickets are all laid out, too, eh? PMT, that’s what they say isn’t it? Passport, money, tickets. Off to Amsterdam first
, then Bangkok. What next then? Oh yes, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Nice place this time of year, I believe.”

  I dropped him onto speakerphone and hurriedly began dressing. I had a bad feeling, a really bad feeling.

  “I’ll ask you again, Simpson, how did you get this number, and how do you know..?”

  “The darling Lauren, of course. Are you stupid, Fuller?” His voice was close to a whisper, leering. “She always did give me everything I wanted. Such a generous girl… in every way, if you know what I mean? So loving. A shame really.”

  “Where are you, Simpson?” I spat.

  He let out a small laugh. A weird sounding giggle, the kind of noise a child would make to his peer when doing something naughty.

  “I’m here, with Lauren, of course. She invited me over, ages ago. I even have my own key.”

  “Let me speak to her,” I barked, an ever growing feeling of panic flooding my senses.

  This time, Simpson’s laugh was anything but childlike. It was guttural, it came from a dark place.

  “She’s busy,” he said. “Too tired to talk right now. She’s all worn out. We’ve been at it, see. At it for hours, all positions. She’s a vixen, a pure animal between the sheets. That’s what a man needs in a wife, Fuller, an angel in the daytime and a whore after dark.”

  “You’re lying, Simpson. Where are you? Tell me the truth.”

  He lowered his voice again. Confident, cocky. “You can’t have her, Fuller. No one can have her. No one but me. I told her so, and you know something? In the beginning, she wouldn’t listen. She was a naughty girl at first, but all pretty girls can be temperamental, can’t they? But now, we understand each other and …. She’s all mine.”

  I’d heard enough, closed the call and dialled Lauren.

  It was switched off.

  I opened my wall safe, pulled my spare SLP from inside and pushed it in the waistband of my jeans. As I sprinted to my Aston, I called Des.

  Des Cogan’s Story:

  Three holdalls. That was the sum total of my life since leaving Scotland. Not too much to show, eh? Well, apart from a bulging bank account. That said, money can’t buy you happiness, or love. True words those, so they are.

  Despite the elation of our victory, some parts of the job had left a sour taste, particularly the situation with Jimmy. That said, it was too late to change things and as I shoved my train tickets into my jacket pocket, I pushed all thoughts of drugs, gangsters and murder to the back of my mind.

  I trod to the kitchen, opened the patio doors and stepped onto my wee balcony. The summer was showing signs of losing its grip on the year and dark storm clouds were gathering ominously over the city.

  I pulled out my pipe, and just for a moment took stock of the things that mattered to me.

  Ever since Ann had left, I’d always had a feeling of disappointment in folks. Ye know, just like when ye open the fridge after a few scoops, hoping to find some tasty morsel to eat, a pack of sausage or a slice or two of bacon, maybe some leftover curry even, but no, all that’s there, winking at ye, is a tub of low fat cottage cheese.

  That had been my life… until now.

  I knew I had some really hard decisions to make. All my days I’d tried to do right by folk. It’s my nature. I mean, I know I can be a wee bit tetchy if people piss me off, but I treat as I find, eh?

  Now, Grace was a real problem, because doing the right thing by JJ must surely mean, that we could never take things any further than friendship. There are rules about that kind of thing. They might not be written down, or made to law, but they are there, nonetheless.

  I tapped out my pipe and began to refill it. Before I could light my makings, my phone rang. It was the big fella and he sounded terrible, panicked, unstable even. I could hear the roar of the engine of his car and he screamed down the line.

  “Lauren’s gaff, now. I need you there.”

  “Okay, pal,” I said. I’m on my way. What the fuck is up?”

  “Just get there,” he shouted, and ended the call.

  The only car I could get my hands on, was the old Discovery that we’d used on the last job. If Rick hadn’t sounded so desperate, I would have left it alone, as the cops would have had a field day with it, but it was needs must. I fired the engine, floored the accelerator and headed for Lauren’s flat.

  It was just after four in the afternoon and traffic was against me all the way. What would have been a thirty minute drive took me just shy of an hour and as I swung the Discovery in behind Rick’s Aston on the driveway of Lauren’s building, I was sweating and frustrated.

  I ran along the gravel drive to the communal door. It had been wedged open by a stone from a nearby rockery. As I climbed the stairs, I pulled my Browning and felt the skin on my back begin to twitch. On reaching the landing, I looked at the carpet beneath my feet and saw it had been sprinkled with pink rose petals.

  What the fuck?

  Once again, the entrance door to the flat was ajar with no sign of a forced entry. Indeed, had I not known better; this had all the trappings of a romantic encounter where the beau had been lying in wait to surprise his lover.

  Once inside the flat, however, it was a whole new picture. An overturned chair sat ominously in one corner; broken glass now mixed with the same rose petals on the floor. The contents of two suitcases were strewn across the lounge. This was a room where a violent struggle had taken place.

  I set myself, Browning up in the aim, and trod slowly towards the bedrooms.

  I knew Lauren slept in the second and larger room, but I cleared the first to be certain. It appeared untouched by whatever ill had caused the carnage in the lounge. The second bedroom door was open, and I edged myself ever closer to the jamb.

  I took my first look inside, and instantly wished I had not.

  Rick sat on the edge of the bed cradling Lauren in his arms. He was talking to her, whispering things I couldn’t bear to hear. He turned and saw me. I went to step closer, but he held up a hand and shook his head.

  There was nothing for me to do.

  She was gone.

  I said a few Hail Mary’s to myself and sat on a nearby chair. Suddenly exhausted I became so overcome with grief I could hardly think. Tears welled in my eyes and with my elbows on my knees I let them drip onto the wooden floor. The room was so still and quiet, I could hear them fall. They matched the rhythm of my breaking heart.

  Rick spoke, his voice quiet. “Her neck is broken,” he said. “He broke her neck.”

  I lifted my head, wiped my eyes and looked at my best friend, his face as wet with tears as mine.

  “Who did this?” I asked.

  Rick took a deep breath in through his nose and held it for what seemed like an age, then he slowly exhaled and closed his eyes. Opening them, he shifted his body, and gently lay Lauren on the bed. He stroked her face and adjusted her hair, so it lay either side of her neck. I knew he’d never been a religious man, but he muttered something that again, I couldn’t hear, but would have liked to believe was prayer.

  Finally, he turned to me and his face darkened. He wiped his tears and bared his teeth.

  “Simpson,” he said with about as much venom as was possible from a human being.

  “Larry, fucking Simpson.”

  I was wide eyed.

  “Can ye be sure, pal? I mean, that’s one hell of an accusation.”

  Rick pulled his gun from his waistband and checked it over. I knew exactly what was on his mind.

  “The fucker called me. Goaded me, told me he was here with her. This is what he wanted, to punish me. To hurt me because I had her love. He wanted me to find her, find her… like this. He wanted me to see what he’d done to her.”

  I saw him fighting back more tears. He swallowed hard. “I… I had to fucking dress her mate. I think, well, I can’t be sure but… I think… maybe.”

 
He put his palm over his eyes, and I saw his shoulders heave. I stepped to him, took him in my arms and held him close.

  “Come on mate, we need to call the cops.”

  He pushed me away, so hard I nearly fell on my backside.

  “Fuck that,” he said, “What? So the bastards can cover for him?”

  “It won’t be like that, pal, come on, this is murder we’re talking. They’ll put him away for good.”

  Rick’s rage was building with every word. “Will they now? Oh, I can see it all. Can see the headlines, ‘Top Cop has Breakdown.’ Oh yeah, he’ll be in a nice comfy side ward, tucked away from the mass population for his own protection, then before you know it, he’ll be deemed fit to be released and be home free. And what about me, eh? Will I be free? Will I ever be able to close my eyes and not see this shit?”

  Moving forwards again I grabbed him by the shoulders and looked into his eyes.

  “Listen pal, if you do this. You do what you’re thinking, you’ll be hunted for the rest of your days. You’ll be a cop killer and they won’t care a toss about your reason. They will lock you away for the rest of your life and not bat an eye. So, I, for one, am no prepared to watch ye do that, ye understand me, pal? I cannea let ye do this. Ye wouldn’t last the year out in the nick and I’d be attending yer funeral because ye topped yersel with yer bed sheets.”

  I stepped away and pulled my Browning. “If I have to, I’ll put one in yer leg, pal. I mean it, ye know I do.”

  He glared at me, his mounting anger about to boil over into total rage. “Get out of my way, Des. You don’t want to do this.”

  I clicked off the safety. “I dinnea, but I will.”

  It was the standoff to end all standoffs. Two men overcome with grief. Two lifelong friends full of hatred, anger and determination, but with one hoping to keep the other alive.

  Thankfully, I didn’t need to pull the trigger. There was a noise from downstairs, and the unmistakable chatter of a shortwave radio.

  “Police,” a female voice shouted. “Is everything okay? Can I come up?”

  I held out my hand. “Give me the gun, Rick… Please.”