A Good Year for the Roses (1988)

by Timlin, Mark

  Juke-boxes, arcade video games and pin tables lined the walls. Pool tables filled the middle of the windowless storage area looking like great coffins under their cloudy plastic wrappings. The mezzanine gallery that ran close under the roof was in darkness. The only light in that place came from weak flourescent fitments that hung down at the end of rusty chains and tied into the power system by thin, snakelike cables. I prowled between the equipment, looking from left to right. Everything was quiet until I heard the squeak of a rubber sole on the metal walkway above me, and to my right.

  I saw a muzzle flash in the gloom of the mezzanine and heard the explosion of gun-shots. The first two bullets smashed into the slate top of a pool table in front of me. The third hit me in the meat of my upper left arm. I felt as if I'd been smacked by a length of 2×4 timber. The bullet spun me round and dropped me into the aisle formed by the rows of pool tables. As a reflex, when I fell I pulled one of the triggers of the shot gun. The pellets bounced harmlessly against the concrete walls of the warehouse.

  Whether or not I actually passed out, I don't know, but I found myself lying on cold stone clutching the sawn-off. The Ingram was lying by my side. I heard footsteps descending the metal stairs from the gallery. Through slitted eyes I watched the blonde man, Lynch, peering through the bannisters in my direction. I fired the other barrel of the shot gun. He ducked back out of sight, firing the pistol in his hand as he went. The bullet raised sparks from the stone floor on which I lay, and splinters cut into the skin of my face. I reached for the machine pistol with my right hand as I lay face down on the cold floor. Time dragged by and my arm began to throb from the bullet wound. I could feel blood collecting in the sleeve of my jacket. It felt warm against my chilled skin. I guessed that five minutes had passed, but it might as well have been five hours, when I heard soft footsteps coming towards me. I kept my head down and prayed that Lynch wouldn't just put a bullet into my skull to confirm I was out of the picture. With my eyes still half closed I saw his feet in their white sneakers moving closer. Apart from an echo of the gun-shots in my ears, everything was quiet.

  He walked slowly up to me. The combination of the splashes of blood from the Heavyweight's fatal wound, plus that from my injured arm, together with the trickles of blood I could feel running down my face as a result of being hit by the concrete splinters must have convinced him I was dead, or at least badly wounded. I tried not to breathe as he came even closer. He allowed his gun-hand to rest down by his side. The empty shot gun was in clear sight but the Ingram was in shadow. He stopped and kicked the sawn-off away from me. Whilst he was momentarily distracted, I lifted the M10 and pointed it up in his direction. He tried in vain to bring his revolver round to bear on me.

  ‘Bad idea motherfucker,’ I said as I squeezed the trigger and watched the bullets cut him down. My gun emptied in less than a second. At point blank range the slugs tore into his body and tumbled him back down the aisle, screaming wordless screams. His pistol flew from his grasp and landed somewhere in the darkness. He lay, kicking his legs spasmodically until he was still. I climbed to my feet, feeling like a whipped dog and wiped the blood of my eyes with my sleeve. Still carrying the empty machine gun I went to look for George Bright in his inner sanctum.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  I walked down the short flight of stairs to the basement carrying the Ingram like a talisman. I'd given up any idea of being quiet, as the noise from the gunfight would have awakened Sleeping Beauty in the close confines of the concrete building.

  I could feel the sticky ooze of blood running down my left arm and I left a trail of crimson spots on the uncarpeted steps as I descended into the bowels of the warehouse. Lights burned, but there was no sound. I pushed open the door to George's office. He was sitting behind his desk. His expression could have been carved from wood. The surface of the desk was stacked with long, transparent packets of what might have been icing sugar, but I knew weren't. Behind him the safe was standing with its steel door slightly ajar. My arm was beginning to stiffen up and I felt a little dizzy. George didn't acknowledge my presence. I looked around the office. There was a tea towel draped over the handle of the electric kettle standing on the filing cabinet. I tossed the Ingram carelessly onto the desk and went over to fetch the cloth. There was a single edged razor blade in an ashtray beside the kettle. All the better to cut the lines out with, I thought. I picked up the blade and sliced the edge of the cloth. Using my right hand and my teeth I ripped off a length of rag. I tied the thin material awkwardly around my arm just above the bullet wound. I knotted it into a rough tourniquet as tightly as I could using my teeth again. It reminded me of the preparation for shooting up, but I put the thought out of my mind. My little piece of first-aid had been conducted in perfect silence. I felt just a little freaked out at being so studiously ignored.

  ‘Well, George,’ I said to break the silence. ‘Is this how it ends?’

  ‘She's dead,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘I know, I was there,’ I replied. I sat down on the chair on my side of the desk and let my left arm hang limply at my side.

  ‘Wasn't that what you wanted?’ I asked.

  ‘Me?’ He looked at me for the first time. ‘Me, you bastard? Of course it wasn't. I loved her.’

  ‘Enough to turn her out as a whore?’

  From somewhere above I heard a faint noise. Perhaps it was a mouse, or a rat, or any one of the noises that can be heard in an old building as it settles on its foundations, or perhaps it wasn't.

  I ignored the sound.

  ‘Why me George?’ I continued. ‘Why pick on me for your bloody scheme?’

  ‘I wanted her found,’ he replied.

  ‘You succeeded, but why me?’ I asked again.

  ‘You'll never understand,’ he said. I was the first to agree.

  ‘I loved her,’ he said again. I was getting more and more pissed off with him.

  ‘Love!’ I spat out the word. ‘For Christ's sake don't bring love into it.’

  ‘Why don't you just go?’ he said after a moment.

  ‘Just like that George, just go. You must know I can't do that.’

  ‘Take one of these.’ He gestured at the packets that littered the desk top. ‘You know what they are, don't you? And you like it, he said that you did.’ I didn't bother to ask who ‘he’ was. George picked up a scalpel blade from the clutter in front of him and split a packet from end to end. ‘Try it,’ he invited. I dipped my finger into the powder that spilt from the cut in the plastic. I tasted the bitter dust on the end of my tongue and immediately felt the freeze turn my mouth numb.

  ‘Top grade, George, supreme even,’ I said. ‘Connoisseur's coke, no-one's walked on this batch yet.’

  ‘Take one, and go,’ he said. ‘Any one of these bags is worth close to eighty grand.’ He turned in his chair and looked at the open safe. ‘Or cash,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘I've got plenty of cash.’ He got up from his chair and went to the safe. He pulled the door all the way open. The interior was stacked with neatly bundled bank notes.

  ‘I heard you were small time, George, but I heard wrong,’ I said. ‘Keep your drugs, I don't dip into that bag any more. As for your money, it wouldn't get me far. Too many people are looking for me. No, my friend. It's you I want. I need you to tell everyone how I was set up.’

  ‘No,’ he said, turning from the safe. He walked calmly back to the desk and picked up the Ingram that I had dropped onto it.

  ‘Put it down George, I'm not impressed,’ I said gently.

  He swung the machine gun round and pointed it at my chest.

  ‘I'll kill you,’ he said.

  ‘No George,’ I said tiredly. ‘You look about as happy holding that thing as a nun caught changing the batteries in her vibrator. You're used to other people doing your killing for you. Besides it's not loaded.’

  ‘Don't try that one on me,’ he sneered.

  ‘You are a prat, George,’ I told him as I got up from the chair on which I was sitting. />
  I was wrong about the killing part. He was prepared to pull the trigger and did. There was a metallic click from the firing action of the M 10 and nothing else. George looked down at the weapon in pure frustration. I snatched the gun from him with my good hand and busted him on the side of the head with the butt end. He fell to the floor, knocking his chair over as he went. I flung the Ingram into the corner of the room, knelt beside him and felt for the pulse in his throat. It was weak, but regular. The last thing I wanted to do was top him. I righted his seat and slumped into it on his side of the desk. I heard another noise, this time from directly outside the office, and the door began to open slowly inwards. ‘Come in John,’ I said. ‘I was beginning to wonder where you were hiding yourself.’

  Chapter Thirty Three

  John Reid slid into the room like a dangerous little snake. He was wearing his cream Burberry mackintosh again. It was hanging open over a pink Lacoste shirt and baggy blue jeans. The outfit was perfect, regulation, off-duty copper's casual wear. He could have been going for an afternoon's shopping down the Arndale with his old woman, if it hadn't been for the automatic pistol clenched in his right hand. He looked so neat and tidy, so respectable, so ordinary, standing there, that it pissed me right off. I sat and fixed him with what I hoped was a killing look. We surveyed each other. Him all tarted up, me covered in blood, filth and dried sweat, smelling of cordite and death, and trembling because of what I'd done. Him, still official with a warrant card in his pocket and me, facing God knows what charges. If ever I hated anyone in my life it was then, but I had to talk to him. Had to communicate. Had to dig the last vestige of truth from someone who treated truth like an old cigarette end to be discarded, as and when he pleased.

  ‘Surprise, surprise,’ I said, ‘of all the drug dens, in all the towns, in all the world, you have to walk into mine.’

  John regarded me, and sneered.

  ‘Still the jokes, Nick, you silly cunt. You're lucky to be alive, do you know that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied irritably, ‘your little firm has done its best to see me off again today.’

  ‘And it looks as though they nearly succeeded. I should've let them do it when they wanted to, days ago. It would've saved me a lot of trouble.’

  ‘You mean at the house in Brixton,’ I said, ‘or when they chased me around Waterloo, taking pot shots at my car?’

  ‘Either time would have done,’ he retorted.

  ‘So you were the fourth man at the squat?’

  ‘Very good, Nick,’ he replied sarcastically, ‘how long did it take you to work that out?’

  ‘A lot longer than it should have, and even then I didn't want to believe it. Why didn't you let them finish me off? I don't get it.’

  ‘Because I felt sorry for you. You looked so fucking pathetic lying there, that I thought I'd leave you for the force to take care of.’

  ‘I suppose it never occurred to you that I might do some hard time in the Scrubs?’

  ‘It did as a matter of fact,’ he said with a humourless smile, ‘and you know how they treat ex-old bill inside, don't you?’

  I knew and it wasn't pleasant knowledge.

  ‘I think you're lying,’ I said, ‘I think you couldn't resist facing me down. I think you wanted to tell me everything before you topped me. You wanted to let me know how clever you were. How you didn't give a fuck about the law. Well it was a big mistake, John, leaving me alive to carry on.’

  By the look on his face, it seemed he was well aware of that.

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘that's why I let them have a second go. I forgot what kind of driver you are, but even when you got away from them on Thursday, I never thought you'd take it this far.’

  ‘It was forced on me.’

  ‘Why didn't you just quit when I told you to?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I always quit, and I'm getting sick and tired of it,’ I replied.

  ‘The funny thing is,’ he said, ‘that even when you don't quit, you're still fucking useless.’

  ‘But it's funny how everyone that's said that is either dead or out of the game.’ I looked over towards George Bright lying unconscious on the floor.

  ‘Except me,’ said John.

  ‘Precisely, except you,’ I said, ‘and me,’ I added.

  He looked at me in a way that hinted that the arrangement might only be temporary. ‘Well, what now?’ he asked.

  ‘Now John,’ I replied. ‘We all take a trip down to the local nick and tell your mates in blue exactly what has been happening under their noses for the last couple of years.’

  ‘Just like that,’ said John. ‘Just like in a story book. Remember I'm the one with the gun. You expect me to go quietly and confess everything. Well, bollocks to that. I'm not giving up everything I worked for because of you.’

  I sat and looked at him, and he stood and looked at me. The automatic was pointed at my chest, he had the winning hand and he knew it. With his left hand he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. He threw them down onto the desk top in front of me.

  ‘Get one out and light it for me,’ he ordered.

  ‘I've given up,’ I said.

  ‘Just do it', he snarled.

  I did as I was told, rather awkwardly, using only my right hand. The smoke bit into the back of my throat. It was the first cigarette I'd tasted in over a year. It felt good. I put it down on the edge of the desk. John motioned for me to sit back and I slumped down into the chair. He picked up the cigarette and took a deep drag.

  ‘You are a bastard, John,’ I said. ‘After all we've been through together. I never thought it would turn out like this, I thought we were friends'.

  ‘Friends, you've got to be kidding,’ he said through a cloud of smoke. ‘I never even liked you. You had all the breaks. All the advantages, and you couldn't hack it. Just look at the state of you. And then,’ he continued bitterly, ‘you lost me the chance of promotion away from all this shit, you selfish bastard. You stole evidence that was down on me, you didn't care if I suffered. You never gave a toss for anyone but yourself. I would've been Inspector at least, by now. You cost me, you slag, and you talk about friendship. Well fuck your friendship.’

  There was contempt in his eyes, but I didn't flinch. It was true I had failed him, and a list of others that it would take me a week to remember, but that was past. I'd paid for that shit in hospitals, and during long sleepless nights, and the final payment had been made with the MAC M10. Or maybe the total bill hadn't been settled yet. But it wasn't going to be paid with apologies to a renegade copper.

  ‘What happened to you John?’ I asked.

  ‘I've been getting rich.’

  ‘Congratulations. You used to be happy just being a good copper.’

  ‘Don't give me that sanctimonious shit,’ he spat. ‘What do you know about being a good copper? You were never any good at the job from the start.’ All the compliments were getting tiresome.

  ‘Maybe, John, but at least I never pretended to be anything I wasn't. You sat and listened to my story the other night as though you gave a damn. I told you about my wife and kid and you took it all in. You phoney son of a bitch.’

  Then something terrible struck me.

  ‘Where are Judith and Laura?’ I asked, with a terrible dread grabbing at the pit of my stomach. ‘You left that bloody note, didn't you? Just so I'd tell you where they were.’

  I half rose from my seat. He must have been able to see the murder in my eyes.

  ‘Relax, will you,’ he said, gesturing with the pistol in his hand. ‘Don't worry about them. It was just a wind-up. I wanted to make you squirm. I wanted you to concentrate on something else apart from the Bright case. Your pal Louis took them both off to Scotland. They'll be back in a day or so. I don't make war on women and children. They're safe and sound. Which is more than I can say for you.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ I interrupted. ‘You don't make war on women? Yesterday I saw Patsy Bright with half her hea
d blown off. What was than then? A game?’

  He was silent for a long time.

  ‘She had to die,’ he said, ‘otherwise, that lunatic,’ he gestured towards George, ‘would never rest. He was obsessed with her. That's what all the cash was for. He was going to get you to find her, then do a runner to South America.’

  George could have saved the effort, I thought. Half of South America was on the desk in front of me already.

  ‘But why involve me? That's what I don't understand. Of all the people in the world, why me? I came back to town to earn a few bob and live the quiet life.’

  ‘I saw your stupid advertisement in the paper,’ John replied. ‘I mentioned you to George. I laughed when I told him about you. How was I supposed to know he'd get a hard on for you and hire you?’

  ‘But I still don't understand,’ I said.

  ‘You don't understand much, do you? Still, I suppose you never did. I was in charge of the investigation into her disappearance. I just didn't do anything about it. George couldn't go to a big firm of investigators. Anyone half way decent would have sussed him out in no time. That only left losers like you. When I told him you were bent and into drugs, he obviously thought there was no-one better to find his precious little fuck.’

  ‘You must've made me sound good,’ I said.

  ‘I only told the truth.’

  ‘Only it wasn't the truth, was it John? I'd been through changes. I'm straight, you're the bent one now, aren't you?’

  He didn't answer.

  ‘But why wouldn't you look for Patsy?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I knew where she was all the time. I knew she'd been sucked in by that bloody Arab poof she was killed with yesterday. I wasn't about to tell Bright and have him start a war to get her back.’

  ‘But you got one.’

  ‘That wasn't war. That was assassination. They had to be got rid of. Especially when the Arab latched onto you and spilled the beans about everything. He did, didn't he?’