So, yes, I’d felt fear a hundred times, a thousand. And I’d learned how to live with it, how to take it out of its hollow and look at it and throw it away. After that, I’d been able to go on, face even heavy calibre Argentinean fire zipping around me, mortars thwumping away, because, when it came down to it, I don’t think I’d ever really cared that much about myself.
But, for those few heavy minutes, there in that cafe, I’d been afraid, terrified that she’d up and leave. You don’t know how lonely you are until you find someone, anyone. I didn’t want to lose her.
I did lose her, of course. And for that Marriot was dead. And for that, I was going to murder Paget.
CHAPTER FOUR
Eddie came round on the Monday. I was sitting watching some old film on TV, and Browne came back from answering the door and said, ‘Eddie’s here. He’s got some other men with him.’
Right then I knew we were all back to business as normal. The mourning was over.
I’d known Eddie for a long time. He’d been a boxer once, sponsored by Vic Dunham, a big name in London, to those in the know. They were close, Eddie and Dunham. I’d heard that Dunham had known Eddie’s mum. I’d heard that he’d known her pretty well. I don’t know if that was true, but there was something between the two men.
Eddie didn’t stay with the fights. He switched trades, went to work for Dunham as his right hand. He had the right stuff for it. He was tough, ruthless. Perhaps not as tough and ruthless as Dunham, but much smarter.
‘I told him he couldn’t bring them in,’ Browne was saying.
He was thinking the same thing as me. What did Eddie want? If he was here, it would be something bad.
Browne was fussing again, probably thinking I couldn’t handle them. He was probably right. I was still weak.
Eddie came in and smiled. He sat down on the sofa next to me. Browne waited and watched us for a moment, unsure now where we all stood. That was how quickly it all changed.
‘How about a cuppa?’ Eddie said to him.
Browne glanced at me.
‘Fine,’ I said.
Browne trotted off to the kitchen. Me and Eddie watched the film for a while. It was an old war film. The Nazis were the bad guys now. Browne came back with a couple of mugs of tea. He lingered for a moment then shuffled off.
I had trouble focusing on the film, and my mind kept wandering, going back to Brenda, to Kid, to anything that wasn’t here and now.
I didn’t want Eddie to know that. I didn’t want him to think I was weak. I kept my face pointed towards the area of the TV and tried hard to bring myself back.
It was early afternoon, and getting dark. Sunlight hit the thin sky over London and spread out and carried on weakly through Browne’s net curtains and after all that, died a few inches from our feet. Eddie and I watched John Mills kill some more Nazis and we sipped our tea and it was all very cosy and I wondered what Eddie’s game was.
‘How you feeling?’ he said, watching the film.
‘Fine.’
‘You look half dead.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Any ideas what you’re going to do?’
‘No.’
It was hard going, all this chatter. It took all I had. I could feel things swirling around behind my eyes, but every now and then I’d manage to get a hold.
Eddie tapped his fingers on the mug, watched the film. I don’t think he’d noticed how fucked up I was.
‘Cole’s having trouble finding Paget,’ he said finally.
‘Uh-huh.’
We were both so fucking casual.
‘Vic wants Cole to help sort out the Albanians. Thing is, Cole’s got an itch about Paget, won’t do anything until he’s got that sorted.’
He waited for me to say something to that. When he got tired of waiting, he said, ‘You got any ideas?’
‘No.’
We sat there for a bit longer, watching the film, watching the day get darker. Finally he gave up with the tea and crumpet act and slid the mug onto the coffee table.
‘Alright, Joe, I know you want Paget. I know you’re going to try for him.’
I wondered why he cared so much.
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Vengeance.’
‘That’s a mug’s game.’
He looked at me and smiled.
‘Right. So you’re not going to try and find him?’
‘I’ll leave it to Cole.’
‘Bollocks.’
I shrugged. What was he going to do? If I’d known where Paget was, I’d have been out killing him. Eddie knew that.
‘Well, if you happen to suddenly get any ideas where he is, let me know, alright?’
‘Yeah.’
After he’d gone, Browne reappeared and sat down. He had a glass of Scotch.
‘Is he going to be trouble?’ he said.
‘Maybe.’
Browne was right to fuss. I wasn’t right. I didn’t want him to know that. I didn’t need him on my case, lecturing me, prodding me.
‘Whyn’t you let it go, man?’ Browne said.
I didn’t answer that. I don’t think he expected me to.
We sat together, Browne and me, watching the day die, watching the dim light dim more. The TV blathered away. Neither of us watched it, but neither of us turned it off. It was just something to fill the silence.
Browne mumbled something.
‘Huh?’
‘I said she was a sweet lass. Too small to…’
Too small? Who was too small? Brenda?
No. Not Brenda.
I heard a sniffling and saw that Browne was wiping his nose. I think he was crying. He tried to hide it from me. He took a gulp of his Scotch.
‘I don’t understand it,’ he said to the air. ‘I don’t understand any of it.’
I understood it, but I couldn’t explain it. How can you tell someone that life is shit? How can you tell someone like Browne, who believed in hope, that believing means nothing?
‘She was used,’ I said. ‘And she died.’
And who was I thinking of when I said that? Brenda? Kid?
I found myself trying to remember that time at the market, me and Brenda walking along, her picking things up, showing them to me.
But when I tried, I stopped seeing Brenda and started seeing the girl, Kid.
She was used. And she died.
And that had been my fault. Hadn’t it?
‘Joe?’ Browne said. ‘Are you with me, Joe? Can you open your eyes?’
Somehow, Browne was now standing above me, peering into my face. I pushed him away.
‘I’m okay,’ I said, knowing it was a lie, knowing, too, that Browne would know it.
There was this time when me and Browne took Kid to a market in West London. I forget where it was, but it must’ve been somewhere around Notting Hill. We’d gone to pick up some African food so that Browne could cook it up for the girl. He’d wanted to give her something she’d like. This had been only, what, a week or so before?
We walked along, the three of us, like someone’s idea of a carnival. Browne on one side, old and thin, his greying wispy hair all over the place; me on the other, a lump, a monster, battered into ugliness. And, between us, the girl, one hand in Browne’s, the other in my paw, peering around, afraid to leave us, afraid of everything, but keen to see it all.
‘There,’ she’d say, pointing to something.
We’d stop and look at it and Browne would hand it to her. It was never anything much, always some trinket or toy – a wooden box, maybe, or a colourful woollen hat or a cheap piece of jewellery. She liked that, the jewellery.
‘That is nice,’ she would say, handing it back to Browne who, in taking it from her, would gaze at her face for a moment with some expression I couldn’t read.
He would’ve bought it for her. He would’ve done anything, I think, to please her. How could I ever tell him that I might have killed her? Even if it had been an accident, I think it would’ve been the end of hi
m.
‘Here,’ the girl said, pointing to a food stall.
Me and Browne looked and all we could see was a load of roots and vegetables that we didn’t know the names of. The girl picked something up and handed it to Browne. It looked more like a tree branch than food.
‘Yam,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ Browne said.
I don’t think Browne knew what a yam was, but he wanted to buy her something and she wanted to please him and at least she knew what to do with a yam.
‘In Nigeria I ate yams,’ she told us.
‘Then you’ll eat them here too,’ Browne said.
‘She’s dead,’ a voice said.
I looked up at Browne. How long had he been there?
‘Who’s dead?’
He shook his head slowly.
‘You’re in bad shape,’ he said.
‘Fix me,’ I said, trying to remember who was dead.
‘Why? So you can go and get yourself broken again?’
‘Yeah.’
He looked at me a long time, a kind of pain came into his face, as if he was looking at the body of an old friend, laid out in the coffin.
Then he wiped a hand over his parched mouth.
‘You’re an idiot,’ he said.
‘You’re drunk.’
‘And what of it? How else can I cope with you? With this?’
It was a good question. He went back to his seat, and his Scotch and his silent scolding and disappointment. I understood all that. I would’ve been the same if I hadn’t had so much fury inside me.
I stood slowly and waited for the world to stop turning. I swallowed the bile. Browne watched me, but made no move to help.
‘Christ, man, you can’t do it.’
‘I have to.’
‘Have to what? Have to destroy the world? Yourself?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Wait,’ he said, sighing.
He heaved himself up and slumped out of the room. When he came back he had a glass of water. He handed it to me with a couple of pills.
‘That’ll help your head, for a while. Do you know where you’re going? What you’re going to do?’
‘I’m going to find a man,’ I said.
Some funny little man, Brenda had called him. Funny. Yeah.
CHAPTER FIVE
The first thing I did the next day was go see a bloke I knew in Romford. Then I went looking for him, for the funny little man. I knew who he was. His name was Bowker.
He wasn’t at the snooker club, and he wasn’t at the pub they suggested. I went to his flat. After I’d banged on the door for a few minutes, a small fat lady opened up and stood unsteadily on swollen legs, her breathing raspy. It must’ve been an effort to get off her sofa and walk five yards to the door. She was all lumps and sags, and she smelled of stale cigarette smoke. When she saw me, she closed her dressing gown, as if she thought I might be tempted to rape her.
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m looking for Jim Bowker.’
‘Yeah? What for?’
‘I want him. That’s all.’
‘I don’t know where he is.’
She started to close the door. I put my hand on it and pushed it back.
‘Where is he?’
‘I told you, I don’t know. I never do.’
‘Guess.’
She looked at me for a few seconds, pretending to herself that she had a choice.
I found him at a bookies’ in Hackney. I waited further up the street in the car that Cole had let me have. I didn’t want to go inside the bookies’ because these days they all had CCTVs. After half an hour, Bowker came out, lit up a cigarette and started walking slowly in my direction. I got out of the car and crossed the road.
When he saw me, he didn’t try to run or call for help. He must’ve heard what had happened to Marriot. He must’ve known I’d come for him. Maybe he thought my fight with Marriot was only to do with the Cole thing. But Bowker had set Paget onto me and Paget had tried to kill me and he damned well knew I knew that.
Maybe he just knew that running was pointless. He dropped the cigarette and crushed it out and stared at it. Then he looked up and watched as I neared.
In the daylight, his yellow skin looked paler, his eyes darker, more sunken. He still had his thirty-year-old quiff, but it was too thin to be that black. He was wearing that shabby three-piece suit. He must’ve had it for twenty years. He was clinging on to some idea of past success, some memory of a decent score when he’d got himself down to Saville Row and blown a load on clobber. The suit was too big for him these days. It looked like his body was shrivelling up beneath it.
I took him by the arm and steered him along the road, between people who moved aside to avoid us. When we got to a pub, I pushed him through to the car park at the back. I had a look around. There was a brick wall along two parts of the car park, but the upper stories of a few buildings overlooked it. At the side, it had access to a residential street, but little traffic went past. It was okay, I wasn’t going to do anything serious. All this time, Bowker hadn’t said anything, hadn’t struggled.
I let him go and crowded him a bit and he pulled away from me and flattened himself against the pub wall. He tried to smile and said, ‘I lost.’
I didn’t know if he was talking about his betting. I didn’t think so.
‘You know why I’m here?’
‘Paget.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Had no choice, Joe. You know that. Paget was after you and if he knew I’d seen you and not told him, he would’ve sliced me up. I had to call him.’
So, there it was. He thought I wanted him because he’d told Paget where to find me. Paget almost got me that time. Bowker thought he could sob his way out of that. He didn’t know I knew about Brenda. If he’d known that, he would’ve run like a bastard.
‘I want him,’ I said.
‘Can’t help you. I don’t know where he’s gone, do I?’
‘You can contact him.’
‘How?’
‘You called him up when you set him onto me.’
‘I called him at Marriot’s place.’
‘You must have had another number.’
He took too long to answer me, and he knew it.
‘I got a mobile number.’
‘Call it. Tell him I want to meet you tonight, 2 a.m., in the car park, back of the cinema, Lee Valley leisure centre.’
‘What?’
‘Do it. Tell him I’m looking for him. Tell him I’m meeting you because I think you might know where he is.’
‘But…’
‘Do it.’
‘He’ll come for you.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Fuck.’
He was in a spot. If he set up Paget, he was dead. If he set up me, he was dead.
‘Fuck,’ he said again. ‘I can’t do that. Cross Paget? Fuck that.’
‘You crossed me.’
‘I had to.’
‘Right. And now you have to cross him.’
‘Christ, Joe. He’ll skin me.’
‘He won’t live long enough.’
‘You think he’ll come alone? He’ll come with a fucking army.’
‘Do it.’
‘I ain’t got a phone.’
I took a mobile from my jacket pocket and gave it to him. He looked at the phone like he’d never seen one before. Then he looked left and right, trying to find a way out of the jam he was in. He pulled another cigarette from his pack and lit it with shaking hands. He puffed on the fag for a moment, trying to think his way out. He had no chance of that. After he’d done his thinking, he fished a small black book from his jacket pocket and flicked through it. He found the number he wanted and dialled. I leaned in close so I could hear what was said. A voice came over the line. A man answered and Bowker asked for Paget. There was a pause and finally I heard Paget’s voice. Bowker told Paget what I’d told him to say. Paget said, ‘Really? That’s very interesting.’
The line we
nt dead. I took the phone from Bowker. Paget’s mobile number was now in the memory. I put a hand on Bowker’s chest.
‘Now,’ I said, ‘tell me about Brenda.’
He stopped breathing for an instant. He said, ‘Who?’
I put a fist in his diaphragm. It was only a poke, really. I wanted him to be able to talk. He doubled up and puked, his vomit splashing by my feet. He crumpled to the ground. I let him stay there until he could breathe again. Then I prodded him with my foot and told him to get up. He climbed back to his feet. His greasy quiff had fallen over his eyes.
A man came out of the pub. He looked us over.
‘What’s going on?’
A few people were peering at us through the window. I told the man to fuck off.
‘This is my fucking pub, mate.’
I told him to fuck off again. He went back inside.
Bowker was shaking, rubbing his gut. Yellow spittle hung down from his lip and he wiped it off with a trembling hand. He couldn’t look at me.
‘You remember Brenda,’ I said. ‘Tall lady, black, worked for Marriot. She smiled a lot. They found her in an alley, carved up.’
‘Please,’ he said to the ground.
‘Tell me.’
‘I didn’t know what he was going to do, Joe. Honest.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I owed a lot to Jimmy Richardson. I mean, Christ, I owed a lot, twelve grand. Richardson wanted my bollocks in a sling. Paget told me he’d straighten it out if I did a small job. I had to do it. What could I do? And Paget said he just wanted a word with her.’
‘You believed him?’
‘No. No, I didn’t. But I thought he was just going to put the frighteners on her. Maybe rough her up a bit. That’s all.’
‘You knew I was seeing her?’
‘Course. Everyone knew. But I never thought you were a grass.’
‘So you knew she was grassing Marriot up to the law, and you thought Paget was just going to rough her up?’
He looked up at me, then, and I could see that he knew he was edging closer to his own murder. He held my jacket loosely in his hands. I knocked them off.
‘I don’t believe you, Bowker. I think you knew what was going to happen to her.’
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