To Die For Page 11

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I won’t get shot. You won’t have to see any more scars.’

  Well, part of that was true. She wouldn’t ever have to see a new scar.

  ‘Tell me a story, Joe,’ she’d say.

  12

  The bullet slammed into my shoulder, spinning me around, throwing me backwards. The walls disappeared and the floor raced up and smashed into my face. I hit it like a sledgehammer pounding into stone. I didn’t know what was happening. The floor was where the room should have been and someone was driving a red-hot poker into my flesh, and it was endless, unbearable. The pain pulsed through me, into my marrow. I didn’t know where I was, I just felt the pain and the floor pushing into my face. I was in a house, I was in the Falklands, I was in a hospital, I was on the canvas, I stood above a dead man with eyes open and lips pulled back. Everything clouded around me, darkened, and became blurred. An age-old instinct screamed at me to get up. I tried to use my arms to push myself but my left arm collapsed me into a heap. Hot fluid touched my cheek. My left arm felt cold and split by electric pain that ran from my fingers to my neck and down my spine. I tried again to stand, bringing my knees up and using my right arm. It was funny, I felt so useless. I almost laughed. I felt stupid. I was a kid again in the ring. I could see myself from up high, flailing about. Blackness and sickness and a spinning dizziness welled and faded and welled again, and the floor moved from side to side. Something red and shining moved slowly in front of my eyes. I knew it was my own blood. There was a lot of it. I saw a gun on the floor. It was my gun. Someone was dead. I had to get out of here. There’d been an explosion. A gunshot. Someone had been shot. People had been shot. I’d been shot.

  With my good arm, I pushed myself up on to my knees. I stayed like that for a moment while I let the sickness and confusion sink. I remembered where I was, what I was doing there. I remembered a girl’s face. I felt a cold sweat break out over me. I was losing blood quickly and it was making me feel faint and weak. I had to get out of here. People would’ve heard the gunshot. Police would be coming. They responded quickly to reports of gunshots. They came in heavy. I had to get out of here.

  I managed to stand. I swayed. I saw my gun on the floor. I saw my blood. I turned.

  I saw her then. She was curled up in a ball. She was still in the wardrobe. The gun she’d used was on the floor in front of her. It was a .32 automatic and I’d taken it from less than three feet away. If it had been a 9-mil, I wouldn’t have got up.

  I picked up my gun and stumbled out. It was hard going; I’d never done anything so hard. Tabbing miles with 140-pound loads over ankle-breaking terrain in bitter cold; fighting the last eight rounds of a twelve-round fight with a broken hand – that shit was easy. This was hard. The blood didn’t seep, it poured. The pain pulsed through me, but my left arm was getting cold. It was hanging like meat, swaying at my side. I needed to fix it, but I couldn’t stop. I wanted to rest, to lie down and let the swirling fog overtake me. I had to get out.

  I should’ve questioned the girl. She might have seen who killed Beckett. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was on the stairs now and they fell away before my eyes. I leaned against the wall and slid along it, stumbling down, trying not to fall. I should’ve killed the girl. She’d tie me to the killings. It was too late. I couldn’t go back. I could hardly go forwards.

  I was fighting hard not to faint, pulling on every flicker of strength I had, trying to hate, trying to push the adrenalin through me. That was my only chance. At the bottom of the stairs, my legs gave out and I hit the floor. I wanted to stay there. I wanted to close my eyes and go to sleep, but something in my mind took over. I went on to auto. I got back up and pushed myself away from the wall. The front door was only yards away. It was miles away. I put one foot before the other. I was learning to walk all over again.

  I made it through the door. The fresh air helped; I sucked it in. I gathered all my strength, gritted my teeth. I said, ‘Move, you bastard.’

  I moved.

  My car was across the road. All I had to do was get there. All I had to do was put one foot in front of the other. No fucking problem. I put one foot down. And again. And again.

  I opened the car door and threw my gun inside. I held on to the door and fell in.

  My heart was thumping now and pumping out blood quickly. It was pouring right out of me. I pulled my belt off and tried to make a tourniquet, but I couldn’t get the belt tied off, not with one arm.

  I put the key in the ignition and started the engine, but I couldn’t change gear. I couldn’t move my fucking left arm. With my right hand, I let off the handbrake and put the car into first and let off the clutch. The car lurched forward and smashed into the car in front and stalled. I tried to put it in reverse.

  I opened my eyes. It was dark. I didn’t know where I was. Then the pain hit and I remembered. I’d fainted, I knew that. There were no police, so I must’ve been out for a minute only. Something was there, though. Next to me. And then I saw her.

  She stood next to the car. She was a foot away, looking at me. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open like she was looking at a magic trick or a dangerous animal in the zoo. I grabbed her and said, ‘Who killed Beckett?’ She just looked at me. ‘Who was it? Did they say anything? Did you see them?’

  I shook her. She was so thin. She was skin and bone. She rattled.

  Each time I tried to focus, the pain would surge and splinter my body.

  It had to be Cole, of course, who’d killed Beckett. He’d found Beckett and sent some men to get his money back. So, if Cole had the money, he must also know that I hadn’t taken it, that Beckett had fucked me over. So I was probably clear with Cole. But the police...

  But it couldn’t have been Cole. The door was unbolted, hadn’t been smashed.

  The police would arrive soon, and in force. And they’d be looking for me.

  My mind was clouding over again.

  Beckett had let them in. He wouldn’t have let Cole in. He knew who he was letting in. He’d trusted them.

  I didn’t have time to think. I couldn’t fuck about with the girl.

  I let her go. I thought she’d run away. She didn’t. She stood and watched me.

  ‘Go,’ I said.

  I was supposed to kill her, wasn’t I? She’d identify me to the law. Big man, blood leaking out of his arm. Christ, there were probably a hundred things that tied me in to the house. Besides, maybe she could clear me with the law, tell them who’d done the killings.

  The police. How long had I been there? My mind was rambling. How long would they take to respond? Not long.

  I opened my eyes. I’d passed out again. I saw the girl staring at me. She didn’t move.

  I opened my eyes again. She was gone. I thought I was hallucinating. I thought I was nearing the end. I didn’t seem to mind. You lived. You died. That was how it went.

  I got the car started again and crunched the gears, tried to get reverse. The car stalled and jumped and lurched back, smashing into the car behind. I’d had it. I knew it. I was finished. All over.

  I fell back in the seat.

  I must’ve passed out again because the next thing I knew she was standing beside the car, shoving my arm. I looked at her for a moment, trying to place her. She was holding something towards me. It was a key. A car key. She pointed along the road to a black Saab. I looked at the car like an idiot. It took me an age to notice the ‘Auto’ label on the back. I pulled all my strength together in one final effort. I grabbed my bag and coat from the passenger seat, snatched the key from the girl and staggered to the Saab. I flipped the button on the key ring; the alarm blipped off. I opened the door and fell into the driver’s seat. I turned the ignition. As the car hummed with life, I heard the passenger door slam shut.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  The engine thrummed, filling the silence between us with a kind of tension, a question unasked, unanswered. She looked at me and in her eyes was a look that I couldn’t read. It wasn’t fear or
defiance or suspicion, though it seemed to carry all those things, like they were gathered together inside her, and held there by some kind of need.

  But the blood was still seeping from my wound and I could feel the dizzying emptiness getting near again.

  ‘Can’t drive,’ I said.

  ‘I can drive,’ she said.

  ‘Then drive.’

  13

  Browne was drunk when he answered the door. He took one look at me and sobered up.

  ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘In there.’

  He pointed to the back of the house. I made it through the hallway and slumped into the seat at the kitchen table. I tried to peel off my jacket. I had no strength. The girl tried to help me, carefully pulling away the blood-soaked cloth. Browne opened a cupboard, grabbed some kind of surgical scissors and sliced through the jacket. Then he cut away my shirt.

  ‘Jesus, man,’ he said. ‘What have you done?’

  I grabbed him, pulled him near.

  ‘Fix me,’ I said. ‘No medicine. I need to keep – fix me...’

  When I came to, I was still in the kitchen, still in the seat. Browne, his hands and shirt bloody, was standing back looking at me. He was holding a scalpel. The table was covered in blood-soaked cotton wool, gauze.

  ‘I’ve done what I can for now,’ Browne said, his Scots accent less harsh now that he was more sober. ‘I’ve cleaned it and stitched it. You’re suffering from hypovolaemic shock and I suspect the bullet broke your scapula. It went through you, you know. I’ve given you a penicillin-based antibiotic. I remembered that you weren’t allergic to penicillin. That’s right, isn’t it? I managed to transfuse some blood. In short, you need to get to a hospital.’

  ‘No...’ I managed to say, ‘hospital.’

  ‘I thought not. Well, it’s your choice.’

  ‘My blood type – ’

  ‘Christ, I know what type you are: O. Same as me.’

  I tried to move my arm but the pain cut through me. I was faint still, and weak. I was alive inside a carcass.

  ‘Your arm’s going to be useless for a while,’ Browne said, wiping his hands on a wet cloth. ‘I’ll bind it up tightly. Hopefully, you won’t die of shock or loss of blood or brain damage. Hopefully, your shoulder isn’t splintered too much to heal and there aren’t fragments of bullet still inside you. Hopefully.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He flung the cloth into the sink and reached behind him for a glass which he filled with Scotch. He took a couple of swigs. He looked at me for a moment. I was too weak to do anything except sit there. I thought if I tried to move I’d realize I was dead.

  ‘So, you going to tell me what all this is about?’ he said.

  ‘Trouble.’

  ‘So I gathered. Who’s the girl?’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In the other room. Who is she, Joe?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Who shot you?’

  ‘She did.’

  Browne sighed and puffed his cheeks. ‘Okay, Joe. Better I don’t know. What’s her name?’

  I blacked out again. When I managed to open my eyes, I was lying on my back on a mattress. My arm was bandaged and bound to my side. The room was dark, but there was thin daylight behind the curtains, which meant I’d been out for a few hours at least. I could hear a voice speaking quietly in another room. Browne was talking to someone, but I couldn’t hear a reply. Was he on the phone? Was he selling me out? I tried to sit up. I didn’t make it.

  I came to as Browne had just about finished rebandaging my arm. Watery morning light crept around the curtains and paled the living room. Browne fell into the chair opposite my mattress and looked at me through narrowed, red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘Awake, are you? You’ll have to stay here for a while. Until you’re strong enough to walk. We tried to get you upstairs into bed, but you’re too bloody big.’

  ‘What – ?’ I said.

  My mouth was dry. Browne nodded, held a hand up to silence me, and left the room. He came back with a glass of water, helped me sit up, and lifted the glass to my lips. I drank some of it and fell back again.

  ‘Still getting the headaches?’ Browne said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Have you seen anyone about them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I told you a million bloody times, Joe, you’ve probably got scarring on your brain. You need to see someone.’

  ‘Can they do anything?’

  ‘I’m not a neurologist, I don’t know what they can do these days.’

  ‘Can they fix it?’

  ‘You mean can they repair the damage? No.’

  ‘Then what’s the point?’

  ‘They can help alleviate the symptoms. The headaches.’

  ‘I can live with headaches. I don’t want questions about gunshot wounds.’

  He watched me for a moment, then, sitting back in his chair, reached down to the half-bottle of Scotch on the floor beside him and poured a couple of glasses. He offered one to me. I shook my head.

  ‘Take it.’

  I reached out with my good arm and took the drink.

  ‘Alcohol is probably the worst thing to give you right now,’ he said. ‘But I hate drinking alone.’

  He poured his drink down his throat. When he saw that I was going to spill mine, he reached over and took it.

  ‘This is the finest cheap Scotch money can buy,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t waste it.’

  I passed out again, thinking that there was something I was going to say.

  Images drifted through my mind, nightmarish and clammy and cold, all of them clogging together. It was something I couldn’t escape, something I couldn’t even see how to escape. I was back in the ring and my brain had been bashed to pulp and I was trying to stand and being choked by confusion, caught in a web.

  I’d open my eyes and see Brenda sitting next to me, her hand on mine. I think I touched her face and it felt real. And then I’d remember. My eyes would close, my eyelids weighted down, and I’d go back into the darkness and fear, and I’d be on Mount Longdon, the wet cold making me shake uncontrollably, the boy lying on the ground, grinning at me. And then I’d look up and see the girl sitting high up on a stool, holding my hand, looking into me. And then I’d go again. It went on like that, for hours – or years, it seemed. And I wouldn’t know the difference between waking and sleeping but always I’d see her there, beside me, and I kept wondering if she was real.

  14

  A bright light woke me. I blinked.

  ‘It’s alive,’ Browne said.

  He swayed as he came into the room, balancing a tray of food. He looked like a circus act. On the tray was a plate of something that looked a bit like fried eggs, beans and bacon. There was a small plate of doughy slices of bread and a mug of tea. I tried to sit up. My head felt light, my thoughts were dull and tied up with themselves. My arm throbbed, but there was little pain, and it was a long way off. I fell back.

  ‘That’ll be the morphine,’ Browne said. ‘It should be wearing off a bit by now.’

  ‘I told you not to give me anything,’ I tried to say.

  ‘Yeah. You told me. Now sit up and eat.’

  He put the tray aside while he helped me up, padding my back with cushions. He put the tray down on my lap.

  ‘Not hungry.’

  ‘Eat anyway.’

  ‘Where’s the girl?’

  ‘Upstairs. Asleep. It’s eight-thirty p.m. You came here last night. You’d lost a lot of blood. I thought you might have severed the subclavian artery, but it’s all right. I don’t think I could’ve fixed you up if that had been the case. It was the exit wound, mostly. You must’ve had a high heart rate, pumped out a lot of the red stuff.’

  ‘The girl.’

  ‘I told you, she’s asleep. She stayed awake, right here by your side, until I gave her a tablet and put her to bed. You’ve had a blow to the head recently.’

  Had I? I remembered the men in my flat, but that was weeks ago, wasn’t
it? It was years ago.

  ‘Baseball bat,’ I said.

  ‘There’s swelling there, hell of a lump. I think you were suffering delayed concussion, probably exacerbated by the blood loss. You should’ve told me.’

  There was something I had to say. I was trying to remember what it was. Why was I asking about the girl? I didn’t care about the girl. I remembered what it was I needed to say.

  ‘Heard you talking,’ I said.

  ‘Imagine that. Me talking. Whatever will I think of next.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘Don’t trust me, Joe? Suppose I was talking to the police? What’re you going to do about it? Now eat.’

  I didn’t feel like eating. I looked at the food instead.

  ‘Don’t tell me what this is about,’ Browne said. ‘I don’t want to know.’

  He was right about that. It was better he didn’t know. Hadn’t we agreed that already?

  ‘She wouldn’t tell me anything,’ Browne was saying. ‘About what happened, I mean.’

  He was going the long way around not wanting to know.

  ‘I heard something interesting on the radio, though. Something about a suspected drug deal gone wrong, in Dalston. Three men dead and police searching for a man seen leaving the premises in the early morning. Man was described as big and ugly and very bloody stupid. You, I take it.’

  My throat was suddenly dry. I drank some of the tea. It was strong and sweet. It was the best drink I’d ever had. I drank it all and dropped the mug on the floor.

  Browne was quiet for a while, biting on his thumbnail, which, I knew, meant he was getting ready to say something significant. He’d done it every time he’d told me that it was time to quit boxing, that I was too old, that I risked permanent brain damage, or whatever.

  I waited for him to speak. It was easier to let him take his time, otherwise he’d get crotchety and lose track of what he was trying to say, and then I’d have to wait for him to start all over again. I tried to eat the food, using a fork in my right hand. Browne had given me a knife too. He’d forgotten that I couldn’t use both hands.